[Her]
[13] The mandrakes give forth fragrance,
and beside our doors are all choice fruits,
new as well as old,
which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.
(Song of Solomon 7:13 ESV)
Single people, today's post is for you. I want to charge you to view love and sex differently than culture. This concept is very simple, but profound.
In the verse above, Solomon's wife is entreating him to go out to the countryside together, where she will give him the choice fruits of her love, new as well as old, that she has laid up for him.
This is the idea that I want us to focus on: laying up your choice fruits for your beloved.
Solomon's wife is being metaphorical; clearly she isn't giving Solomon actual pieces of fruit. She's using "fruit" to refer poetically to the different aspects of love that she delights to give to her husband, the man who has won her heart over and over again.
Because she loves him, she lays stores up her fruits for him, and gives them to him in mutual delight. This is what I charge every single person to do.
This isn't to say that married people shouldn't do this; of course they should. The application is comparatively simple for those who are married; it's a relatively easy thing to love your lover when you are married to them. It's a bit different for single people, which is why I want to spend our time focusing there.
Single people, our American culture tells you to indulge in whatever feels good. We focus on experiences. If you want an experience, chase it. Don't wait. Get everything you want as fast as you want. Indulge every appetite.
This is felt most strongly in the area of sexual experience. Sex is intended by God to be sacred, to be something experienced only between a husband and wife behind closed doors. Instead, our culture uses it to market anything from cars to video games. It only takes a few clicks to see any kind of sexual act you can imagine on the internet. It's become so prevalent that it's hard to use the internet or watch TV and not have some kind of sexual figure foisted upon you.
In other words, temptations abound. Many of these temptations are particularly dangerous for single people.
Consider the temptation of physical intimacy. For any single person, the loneliness of not having a significant other can create a big enough void that you welcome in temptation to try to feel what you want to feel.
Culture says it's fine. If you're lonely, hook up with a stranger; download porn; date a loser just so that you don't feel alone; do whatever makes you happy. Generally, people give in to these temptations because, for a short time, sin provides something similar to what you're seeking.
Culture says these are innocent pleasures. No one is being harmed. If two people are willing, there's nothing wrong going on.
Contrary to this, Solomon's wife would tell you that you are robbing yourselves of pleasure. Every time you indulge in marital pleasures outside of marriage, no matter how small it is, you are taking a fruit that you could have stored up for your beloved, and instead given it to someone else.
This applies to sexual pleasures of any kind, whether it's as small as a picture you glanced at, a thought you had in your head, or a full-blown affair.
So my charge to you, single people, is to focus on storing up fruit for your beloved. Whenever temptation strikes, instead of indulging in a momentary emotional burst, take that fruit and store it up.
After all, your desires for sex aren't bad. God built those into you, for the purpose of uniting you with your future spouse. Those feelings aren't evil.
But it is evil to use them to unite yourself to anyone other than the one you are married to, even if only in your mind.
So when you feel the temptation to dip into marital pleasures without being married, instead of dipping into sin, thank God for giving you those feelings. Then ask God for the strength to store them up for your beloved.
Consider two scenarios.
In the first scenario, a man and a woman wed. They get to their wedding night, and the man confesses that he has already slept with multiple women, that he has done pretty much all there is to do, so nothing she can do will be new, to him. Is his wife going to feel special? No; she's going to feel like the fruits of love that she wanted to taste were stolen out of her hand.
In the second scenario, a man and a woman also wed. This time, when they get to their wedding night, the man takes his bride's hands and joyfully informs her that he has saved up all of the fruits of his love for her. He has fought through temptation by the grace of God, and instead of throwing away his fruits to others, he has laid them all up for her. And now, in the intimacy of their marriage bed, he gives them to her alone. Is this woman going to feel special? Absolutely!
I urge you single people to aspire to the second scenario!
Temptation is never an innocent pleasure. Remember James 1: "desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."
Sin always produces death. Whenever you sin, something dies. At the very least, a fruit of love that you could have given to your spouse instead is thrown away and rots.
The enemy will tell you that you can sin and get away with it, that no one will know, that you have a right to feel good for a short time. Do not listen. Hold fast to hope, and store up your fruits for your beloved.
Additionally, the enemy may tell you that you have already sinned so much that you can never enjoy something like scenario two, above. Don't listen to this lie, either.
Remember, our God redeems. Jesus doesn't just save you from hell, He also saves you from yourself.
Jesus cleanses you from sin for many reasons. One is that He loves you, and He always will love you, no matter what. Another is to give you a fresh start.
Trust in Jesus and repent from your sins. Live as if your past was wiped clean and you can start anew, because you can. Your sins no longer exist; Jesus destroyed them on the Cross. So go now and live a new life, and store up your fruits for your beloved.
You will eventually have to tell your beloved about your past. Tell them this before marriage, but after the point where dating has gone on long enough that marriage seems evident. It is possible that they may not be as forgiving as Jesus, that they may not be able to forgive your past. If this is the case, then praise God, because He just saved you from a person you would not want to live with. If your partner refuses to forgive you, life with them would never be as rosy as you imagine that it might be.
Remember the words of Jesus. We forgive others as God first has forgiven us. If someone refuses to forgive you, even after you've changed your life and lived for years in sincere repentance, then they have a very small conception of how much God has forgiven them. In other words, they may not even be truly saved, no matter what they say. Regardless, you do not want to live with someone who is incapable of forgiveness, no matter how cute their face may be.
But if they can forgive you, if they extend to you the same forgiveness that God has given to them, then rejoice! Not only will you be able to have a good wedding night with this spouse, but being wed to a person who forgives as Jesus forgives will be a taste of heaven on earth!
Side note: single people, we need to realize that there is darkness is all of us, of some kind. No matter who you marry, there will be darkness in their past in some form or another. When you encounter this, instead of complaining that you didn't get a "perfect" person, realize that you did get far more than you could ever have deserved. We each deserve hell, a thousand times over. God not only forgave us completely, but He also gives us amazing lives that we can never earn. So instead of complaining that your spouse isn't flawless, praise God for giving you someone so much better than you could ever have deserved, and forgive them for their flaws as God has forgiven you. That means that you forgive completely, regardless of the circumstance, because God has forgiven you entirely.
This post was much longer than I had intended, but I think you get my point.
As single people, we have the unique opportunity to store up our fruits for our beloved, or to give them away in moments of weakness and temptation. By the grace of God, I urge you to store these fruits up for your beloved. Once you give them away, you can't get them back.
This is one gift that is guaranteed to delight your spouse. Give them the fruits of your love that you have stored up over the years, and your marriage nights will be mind-boggling!
