More Delightful Than Wine
The Song of Solomon not only reinforces the goodness of sex, it celebrates it poetically. It’s steamy. One of the things we learn, quickly, is that sensuality — in the right context — is of God. Chapter 1, verses 2 and 3:
2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
for your love is more delightful than wine.
3 Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
your name is like perfume poured out.
No wonder the maidens love you!
Taste. Smell. Sight. Even Sound; the sound of his name. All of the senses are engaged. You remember what that was like, right? Those days when the mere mention of your spouse’s name made your pulse quicken. Let’s recapture that.
Reading this passage makes you want to kiss. The woman savors this kiss from her lover. She compares it to wine. Warm. Smooth. Intoxicating.
We should not be surprised by such sensual language. God uses language like this elsewhere in scripture to describe our relationship with Him. In Psalm 19, David says that God’s teaching is sweeter than honey from the honeycomb. In Psalm 34 we are told to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”
However, because we all know how easy it is to twist sensuality and pleasure, the greatest teacher of all time — Jesus — gave us parameters. Matthew 5:27-28:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
And when it comes to marriage, Hebrews 13:4 gives us this:
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Even woman wants to be the only woman. And when we got married, we husbands took a vow to “forsake all others,” for the sake of taking our wives to have and to hold.
This is one of the ways we man up as married men: we forsake all others and take our wives.
And in that taking, we celebrate the sensuality that is available to us from a God who endorses the pleasure of sex when expressed in the context of a mutually monogamous marriage relationship.
Intentional Warriors 
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