Can love survive life's deepest wounds and greatest trials? In this episode, Sam and Debbie explore a love so powerful that nothing can extinguish it—and why its source makes all the difference. (Song 8:6b-7)

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Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.

It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.

Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.

And now here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.

She continues, and I think this is one of the most beautiful descriptions of love in the Bible.

And just look at it with me.

We'll look at it briefly.

She says, for love is as strong as death.

Jealousy is cruel as a grave.

The coals, there are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Now she compares love and she says, as strong as death.

It's a common practice in ancient world to compare intense feelings.

Death.

Just as death does not give up, death does not let go.

She says true love does not quit.

It doesn't let go.

Or we might say, love does not fail.

Okay?

And certainly it doesn't.

This true love doesn't fail.

And then she uses the word jealousy.

She says, jealousy is cruel as a grave.

Now it's important to understand there's a difference between jealousy and envy.

Envy is wanting something that belongs to another person.

Jealousy is wanting something that's rightfully yours.

Now when you're married, your husband, your wife is rightfully yours.

You're in a one flesh relationship.

And she says, jealousy is cruel as a grave.

Now jealousy includes a strong desire from keeping others from taking away what has been given to you by God.

That is your husband, your wife is a gift to you from God.

And so this jealousy is saying, I don't want somebody else to take away what God has rightfully given to me.

And the Bible describes God as a jealous God.

He has a strong desire to keep our affections toward Him.

God continually woos us.

He continually romances us.

And he talks about, he is a jealous God.

He wants our affections to be towards Him.

We're to love him with all our heart, with all her soul, with all her mind, with all her strength.

He is a jealous God.

Jealousy implies there's intense love and concern.

So she uses this word jealous.

She uses the word death to describe the power of love, these different metaphors.

And the fire of God's love for his people is often described here as an unquenchable fire.

And she's saying, for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave.

And the coals, there are coals of fire.

And so she's talking about this unquenchable fire that burns intently, so intently that really nothing can put it out.

And this strong, intense, burning love.

I think about when I first moved to Jamestown, Tennessee, we had this ugly little eyesore down below our house.

It was an old general store that was falling down and everything else, and we all wanted to get rid of it.

So I remember we finally got the fire department to come over and burn it down.

And I really had never seen a house burned down this close up before.

And they lit this house and it just went up in flames.

And these flames were going up in the air.

It seemed like to me, about 50 foot up in the air, there were lines, telephone lines going down the poles across the road and you could hear them sizzling.

It was so hot.

And I got an idea of this intense heat that she's talking about.

This is what she's talking about.

This intense heat of love that it burns so intently that nothing really can put it out.

So.

So the Shulamite bride describes the power of love using the analogy of hot coals that have a most vehement flame, a raging flame that burns within her soul for her lover.

And so she's got this burning love for King Solomon in this relationship.

Now, it's very important here, too, to notice these words at the end of this verse.

A most vehement flame.

It literally means the fire flame of Jehovah, the fire flame of Jehovah.

And that's very significant because nowhere else in the Song of Solomon do we find a reference to the name of God, except for right here.

God's love is like a burning fire that consumes all the dross.

It consumes all the chaff.

It leaves a much purer specimen as we see the word of God describe it.

And the result of God's love within her is death to self.

That allows you the freedom to completely love somebody else unconditionally.

So love that is stronger than death has its source in God.

And this is what a great curtain call this is to the end of this song.

We talk about all this going through the song, all this beautiful love relationship.

But where does it all root from?

What is the source of all of it?

The source of all of it is God.

The source of all of it is a relationship with God.

This love consumes all that is ugly and replaces it with the beauty of God's holiness.

Wow.

This love is so powerful that it does not let up until everything in its path is destroyed by it.

It's devoured by it.

It licks up and cleanses the relationship.

This type of committed love is the greatest force known to man.

And when manifested in marriage, creates a pure relationship untainted by distractions that blemish its beauty.

And certainly it does.

If we have that fire of God's love burning within our heart, it burns and it makes a pure marriage relationship and cleanses it.

Verse 7, he goes on to describe, many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it out.

So she uses and defends the power of love with another really gripping metaphor.

And she contrasts this vehement flames produced by these hot coals.

And she talks about the inability of great flowing waters to put it out.

You know, when I read that, I went back and I thought, what's some of the greatest flowing waters in the United States?

And I thought about the Niagara Falls and I thought, you know, what she's saying is the Niagara Falls one of the greatest natural wonders in the world.

As powerful as it is, as breathtaking as it is, it could not put out the fire flame of God.

And you know, and giving you some interesting, it says, each second over 600,000 gallons of water flow over the nearly 1/2 mile wide crestline at approximately 20 miles per hour.

The force generated by the water would demolish a house into splinters.

The noise produced by the falling waters is so incredible that it drowns out all other sounds.

Observers are forced to direct their attention to its magnificence.

Surrounding nature pales in comparison to the splashing display of the Niagara Falls.

As a result of harnessing this mighty force, no other natural phenomenon in the world produces more electric power.

Yet even the Niagara Falls can't put out the love of God.

It's so powerful.

Wow.

It can't, you know, the power of the Niagara Falls can't displace the sounds.

All the sounds of Niagara Falls can't displace the power of God's love.

It can't drown the coals of God's love.

The fire of this love cannot be quenched by many powerful waters.

This love is so powerful that it alone echoes within the eardrums of her heart.

And she's talking these words and continually resounds in the deep recesses of her being.

And she's thinking about this deep burning love that she has, whose source is God himself.

It becomes a fire that's kindled by God, the master stoker, we might say.

And it cannot be quenched.

This love cannot be extinguished by any persecutions, trials, tribulations that might flood the lover's life.

Just as nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

Nothing should separate the love if it's God's love, it can't separate.

It shouldn't separate it.

The love that a husband and wife can enjoy with each other, troubles, floods, circumstances, trials, tribulations, should bind a husband and wife closer together, not separate them.

And I think of this couple that we've been counseling with, the wife has contacted me through email.

She's called me, she's texted me.

And there was something that tried to quench their love.

I mean, she found out that her husband had betrayed her.

He'd gotten involved with another woman.

She was young, early 30s, and she was just totally torn to pieces about this.

And she calls.

I mean, there was nothing she could reason out in her mind why she should stay with him.

She was so angry, so betrayed.

But that wasn't all, because once he had confessed this or he was confronted, he confessed.

He confessed a lot of other things, which was good, he should have.

But she finds out that not only had he betrayed her with another woman, but over the last.

Over the time they'd been married, probably about seven or eight years, he was in business for himself.

He was in real estate.

He had never fully paid their taxes, never told her.

And she went into his truck and she found all these letters from the IRS that were threatening them because it had been that many years since he paid all this.

They were over $300,000 in debt.

I mean, she was just so.

It wasn't just this other woman.

It was all the lies and the deception and the hiding and this overwhelming debt that they had.

And she just.

There was nothing within her to put this marriage back to together except what I had to keep pointing out to her.

What I kept directing her to was the love of God himself.

Exactly what Sam's talking about.

And I said, angie, you've got to worship your way through this.

You have got to so embrace who Christ is and understand his love for you.

And how amazing it is that that is absolutely the only thing that will put it back together.

You can't even think about what he's got, what he's done at this point.

You've got to think only of Christ.

Worship your way through this.

And that's why that book, how to Worship Jesus Christ, is so powerful.

And it just teaches you to let who Jesus is consume your being.

That's the only thing that would put their marriage back together.

And it has been a real struggle.

You know, she goes three steps forward and two steps backwards, but she is so excited about what God's doing.

And without it, they were hopeless.

We've got something the World can't even imagine.

And I love just standing here listening to Sam describe this.

The power of God, the love of God, it can conquer anything and nothing can stop it.

You know, no matter how bad this girl's struggles are, no matter how difficult what she's facing is, the love of God is greater still.

And I just couldn't help but think of all that as he was.

Just what a blessed people we are that we've been allowed to know this.

Look at verse seven.

It continues.

And again, it's beautiful.

If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly contemned.

Or that word, contemned means despised.

You know what she's saying?

You can't merit or buy this kind of love.

It cannot be purchased because it's a free gift of God.

It's the grace of God.

It's a mercy of God.

The only way you'll experience this love is to intimately know God.

You know, the source of all this, the source of all this beauty in this relationship is a relationship with Jesus Christ.

If you don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ, the first need in your life is a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Because that's the fire flame of Jehovah that rages and burns within your heart.

It's the agape love, the supernatural love of God that allows you to have the grace to do these things.

And she says, you can't buy this kind of love.

And a lot of people today would like to buy this love.

They would like to be able to purchase this kind of love.

But you know, it was purchased by God on the cross.

That is, he took our place on the cross and died in our place as an atonement for our sin, as a substitute for our sin for us.

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