"Like the Beautiful Curtains of Solomon."- Week 5, Song of Songs 1:5

Have you ever felt an emptiness inside yourself? A filth that is so plan to you, but apparently hidden from everyone else?  Perhaps you felt this way before you were saved by Jesus Christ?  Perhaps you still feel it, despite Christ redemptive power in your life?

Picking up where we left off....

This week the girl describes how she feels unworthy of her shepherds love and how her words show us how unworthy we are of God's love.

Photo from Pixabay.com

Song of songs 1: 5

          “I am so black; but [you are] lovely and pleasant [the ladies assured her].  Oh daughters of Jerusalem, [I am as dark] as the tents of the Bedouin tribe Kedar, like the beautiful curtains of Solomon.” AMP

Face reality, our sin is wretched; completely and utterly horrible.  Sin completely corrupts us, making us intolerable to Gods holiness and perfection.  Because God is so holy and perfect that He cannot ignore a single speck of sin.  If He did, He would cease to be God; He would cease to be perfect.

“I am so black;..."

  Picture this:  Your child has just come in from a long day of playing outside.  Despite the fact that you have told them a dozen times not to play in the mud, the child still went ahead and played until he was covered completely in that nasty, black mud.  This is the picture that the girl is drawing when she uses the word black.  But this blackness reached deeper than just externally.  

Sin stains us. 

  As Paul says we were children of darkness, but when Jesus died and we excepted that payment in our hearts, His redemptive blood washed us and made us new again; virgins once more in Gods sight.

“But you are lovely and pleasant.”

  Do you remember back in the Intro the characters called the Chorus?  This is the first appearance of these unique individuals.  Notice they speak a contradicting statement to the girls statement?

 There are two ways of looking at this part:

           1.  We are all black, but Satan has convinced the world that we are just fine. 

           
 When people come to realize that they are black and sin-filled the world instantly comes back with the reply “no you're not.”  The world refuse's to admit that it has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  As Jesus says, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." John 15:18NIV

  The NIV puts it in a very cool way: “Dark am I, yet lovely”.  The girl listens to the lies the world says and it creates a torn feeling inside her heart.  She feels black and yet she appears beautiful.

But there is a second way of thinking about this part:

         2.  We were black, but redeemed by Christ, therefore the chorus is reminding her that she has been redeemed and has been made beautiful in Christ.

  We are sinful, that is a fact, and because of that we have a tendency to dwell on that fact even after we have been redeemed by Christ. Remembering our sinfulness too much prevents us from enjoying the new life that Christ has given us.  Yes, we were once sin-filled, wretched and drenched in the muck of our sins, but we have been cleansed of being sin-filled.  We are still sinful, meaning we still act sinfully, but the ultimate stains of that sin-filledness has been removed completely by Jesus!

“Oh daughters of Jerusalem, [I am as dark] as the tents of the Bedouin tribe Kedar…”

  I always think that this is such a great illustration of our sin-filled state.  A Bedouin tribe are a group of people who wander around in the desert.  They have no lands, no permanent buildings, nothing to call their own except for the things on their backs.    

They have nothing! 

  What does that remind you of?...us maybe?  When we were sin-filled, we had nothing.  As Ecclesiastes says, “Vapor of vapors and futility of futilities… all is vanity”- Ecc 1:2.  Or as Paul says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."- Rom 6:23NIV  We wandered around like the Israelite's did in the desert, dwelling in our own wretchedness.

  Through this illustration, the girl is referring to the way she was before the shepherd washed her clean.
 
   Notice that she specifically mentions the tents in which they dwell?  She is comparing herself to inanimate objects; the actual tents in which they dwell.  Because, by referring to the tents and not just the people, it shows clearly that sin had penetrated us, even to the very place where we lived everyday of our lives.

  Sin is not a once and a while mistake, but has been burned into the core of everything we do.  It is something we lived in and continually went back to, time and time again.

“Like the beautiful curtains of Solomon.”   

  Look at the contrasting illustrations she is laying out. Moving from a nomad's tent to a kings palace. We are all, sin-filled no matter how rich or how poor.  No matter how good we look on the outside or how richly we adorn ourselves, if we don’t have Jesus we are black and wretched.
 

  Think about what curtains really are.  They are beautiful, usually big, hung around windows, beds, or in front of doors.  They are used to hide things so people don’t see in.

  Now think of what I just said, only imagine that the object being hid by the curtain is sin.  It makes sense doesn’t it?

  By referring to the curtains, she is referring to more than just sin, but how we often want to hide our sin.  That the very act of us hiding our sin is black and wretched, making what we use to hide it from view equally horrible.

So lets face it, our sin is black!

  I know that this topic has probably been a little uncomfortable to think about.  Thanks for making it to the end!  Sadly, we are sinful and we need to experience the depth of our wretchedness before we can understand the depth of Gods love.

Sin lies in everything we do and with out Jesus we are lost.

 

Remember: 

God is the one who has to reach to us first because of our sinfulness.

  He has to reach for us before we can start reaching to him, simply because imperfection cannot try to reach towards perfection.  Once one is imperfect, it is impossible for imperfect to become perfect without complete redemption.  Only perfection can transform us from imperfection to perfection once more.  That's why Jesus had to be perfect, in order for us to be redeemed from our imperfection.

 We were sin-filled and are sinful… The girl is no different than what we were before.

 Why have I written sin-filled instead of sinful in places?  I have nothing against the word sinful, its just that we have rubbed away some of it’s meaning.  When we were sinful, we were sin-filled; every inch of our beings was covered in sin making us worthless.  But when Jesus chose to save us and love us, He cleansed us and made us God-filled.  We still have sinful behaviors or tendencies at times, but we are not sin-filled anymore, but God-filled.

  Sin is something we try to avoid talking about because it is uncomfortable.  However, as much as it is uncomfortable, it is important!  I say again, without understanding the depth of our wretchedness, we cannot understand the depth of Christs love.

  But we also should not dwell on our sinfulness so much that it removes the joy of Christ's salvation (Ps 51:12).  Don't fall into the trap of self pity, but live in the abundant life that Christ has given us through His redemption and love today!

How about you? Do you remember when you felt just as black as the girl feels?  Do you remember how you felt before you received Christ?  Take a few minutes to recall who you truly are without Christ.

But, don't dwell in it!  Once you have remembered your sin-filledness, take some time to remember the joy of Christs redeeming love.  You are no longer died in sin, but alive in Christ.

Then go out and live that way.  Show the world that we all are sinful and in  need of Christ's redeeming blood that washes us whiter than snow!

 

Also, be sure to write below any questions or comments.  I would love to hear from you and hear how this post is helping you in your walk with Jesus.

Thanks for reading and God bless!