The Basis Of Our Love Life With The Lord

Song of Solomon 1:1-17

Introduction…

Appetite is what really defines and drives a person. It is quite difficult for a person to overcome their appetite.

This may be a good thing and then again, it may be a bad thing. If you can find a person’s appetite, you can control that person to make them do whatever you want them to do.

Bernie Madoff understood that many people’s appetite is money salted with greed. Therefore, he was able to control many people to the tune of $65 billion.

A great illustration of this is found in the Old Testament concerning Noah and the ark.

Genesis 8:6-9 - “6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: 7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. 8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; 9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.”

There was a difference between the Raven and the Dove’s appetite. When the Raven was released there was rotting corpses, both human and animal, all over the place. This was a delightful environment for the Raven. This was his appetite.

The Dove, on the other hand, had a different appetite altogether. The Scripture says, “the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot…”

She had no appetite for that environment around her, whereas, the Raven was in his heaven, so to speak, and was feasting on the decaying filth all around him. He had an appetite for that kind of thing.

Our appetite really defines us, drives us and is the explanation for the quality of our life right now.

Unless we have an inner transformation, the carnal and depraved appetites of humanity will drive our life.

Even the world realizes what a mess this world really is in. People are not being ruled by right and wrong, but by their appetites, and the more depraved the better it is.

The only successful movie from Hollywood has to have a lower level of depravity than the movies before it. Each one is trying to outdo the other in despicable depravity and moral decay.

When I come to Song of Solomon, I need to understand this whole aspect of appetite. The thing that keeps me from experiencing what God has for me is that carnal appetite that is ruling my life.

Solomon, in this book, outlines for us the kind of love affair that God created us for. As I delve into the different levels of love and relationship in this book, I begin to see myself in a very different way.

When a young lady finds the “love of her life” she changes, or, so she thinks. He is only bringing out what was really inside her

A new appetite is now dramatically replacing those old appetites that defined me and led me away from God and the things of God.

“That I might know him,” the apostle Paul prayed.

As we get into this book, we need to understand that there is a three-tier process that gets us to the place where we can experience God the way he created us to experience him.

To understand this is to truly kick evolution into the garbage heap where it belongs. Something is significantly different about mankind from all the other aspects of God’s creation.

Let’s look at them this morning.

I. A Dysfunctional Relationship

The word, dysfunctional, means…

1. Not performing normally, as an organ or structure of the body;

2. Having a malfunctioning part or element:

We sometimes hear it in the context of the family. That is a very dysfunctional family, we sometimes say. And what we mean is that they are out of sync with each other. They are not acting normally.

Each generation redefines “normal.” What was normal 50 years ago is not normal today.

At the very basis of our life is an extreme dysfunctional relationship with God. We search for God but can’t find them in anything around us and only experience and emptiness.

Let me show you three Scriptures that explains to us God’s purpose in creating mankind.

Genesis 1:26-27 - “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”