You're listening to KFI on demand, I bet you've heard the phrase there ain't
no such thing as a free lunch. This famous phrase, you probably hear
it all the time, popped up and became popular in American literature from around
the late eighteen hundreds on into the early nineteen hundreds, and it derived its
meaning from the special free lunch that was offered with your drink at many saloons
in the US. So, if you can imagine, these so called free
lunches would sometimes be they could be kind of rudimentary in style, or they
could be very elaborate, and sometimes they were quite elaborate, and we're typically
much more expensive than the cost of just one drink. So the saloon keeper
was kind of banking on the customer not only buying a second or maybe even
a third drink and balancing things out a little bit, but also building return.
Customers, give a little up front and you can get a little later.
It builds this kind of goodwill. At least it appeared that way,
but ultimately with more drinks and more frequency to the saloon, that really a
saloon keeper was making much of the money back. These types of so called
free offers still exist today in one form or another. But make no mistake,
there's nothing in life that is truly free. Everything, everything worthwhile comes
at a price. You may not always be the one paying, but I
assure you someone one is always making the payment. I'll explain how this all
ties in fourth July coming up, but I want you to think about maybe
that time in your life where where you were growing up and all of a
sudden you became of age to where your parents started expecting you to pay for
things. I'll give you a moment to remember such a horrific concept, But
there is there's a time where maybe you get to an age where your parents
think, well, you can we go out somewhere or something like that,
you can pay for your meal, and maybe it's later, or maybe you're
even out of the house at that point. My producer Neil and I were
talking about this very, very concept, and he says he remembers quite distinctly
that moment when his father looked up at him and said or put his money
out for his meal when they were out and expected producer Neil to pay his
part of the tab, And how wonderfully shocking that is in life. But
also reminds you that nothing is free, that there's a time and a point
where everyone makes a payment on things, or somebody's making payments for things.
And unfortunately, and some may say that today it's particularly bad these days,
but the importance is to appreciate it and to know that nothing comes without any
price. And the fourth of July, which of course commemorates the Declaration of
Independence, the creation, the signing, this moment, this opportunity to be
free or to focus on a new ideas, and to enjoy the freedoms therein.
It's important to remember that all you have today, everything is because someone
was willing to sacrifice or to make a payment for it. It didn't come
cheaply. It certainly did not come free. Over two hundred and thirty years
ago, a group of people made huge sacrifices and fought so that the thirteen
Colonies could give birth to the United States. That is something that you should
never forget. You should always have that in the front of your mind,
that the things that you enjoy today came at a price. Like everything,
that idea of no free lunch points back to that points back more to like
marketing schemes or the idea of somebody trying to lure you in, but really
it's if done properly, it's a balance of things. We want to show
you that we are a place to enjoy, or that you can come and
eat and drink or do what have you play games. Often you you'll hear
about Las Vegas or casinos offering you know, cheaper rooms, free rooms,
things like that. It's not just a marketing ploy. I want to get
you in knowing that you'll experience more. But in life it's much when when
you say free lunch, it's much more than just those types of marketing ploys.
It's about it's about understanding that the way the system works, the entire
system, the entire planet works, is that good things come from hard work,
from dedication, perseverance, righteousness, and honesty, and that those are
the tools of payment. It's not always just money, but the tools of
payment that make everything run. And I'm sure you're doing things in life that
helps others as well. So the things that you're focused on, you may
think, well, I'm just doing X, Y and z, and how
is this helping? But someone else is benefiting from your work, from your
efforts, from all that you do. If you forget the fact that someone
made a payment, the payment many payments in your life, you'll forget it's
importance and its value. As you celebrate the fourth of July holiday, and
you celebrate this day commemorating the Declaration of Independence, if you just get lost
in all of the fanfare or the fun of it all, or the time
off, you'll lose sight of its value. The blood that was shed for
you in battles, the time spent to even construct the Declaration of Independence,
the risk that people put their life on the line could be they could be
killed for treason, for their beliefs, and for what they were doing at
the time. And if you forget all of those things, all those parts
of the very freedom that you enjoy today, it stops having preciousness, it
stops having value. Now it's just well, it's the way it is.
This is you know, like the child who if the child thinks, well,
food on the tables free, my clothes are free. All these things
that I have in my life, the cable bill, the lights and electricity,
the phone bill, the cell phones, the gadgetry, all these things
in life are free. You just put stuff out in the front yard and
it gets picked up by the garbage man for free. If all these ideas
and things that you experience in life, if you have the mind of a
child and think they're all free, then you'll grow up to a very very
stark reality one day. So as an adult, now you two should be
looking at all the things that you enjoy, everything you experience, knowing that,
regardless of what it is in your life or the things that you're experiencing,
or the freedoms you have, that everything everything you see, touch,
or come in contact with has been paid for. And if not by you,
trust me, it's been paid for by someone. Jeff, Welcome to
the Jesus Christ Show. What a blessing to have you in my life.
How interesting you're talking about imitating you. And I'm part of a men's group
that we're looking at how men can imitate you. And well, one of
the books we're looking at a Song of Solomon, and a lot like old
school kind of commentators talk about it as a relationship between you and mankind,
and then others talk about it as being between actually men and women. And
maybe you could help help help me out with that, Sure, I would
say, off the bat Jeff that that it doesn't have to be a dilemma.
It doesn't have to be either, or it can be both hand,
meaning that it can help you understand how you should be with a woman and
help you understand how you should be with God. The entirety of Scripture,
I would say, lends itself to that as well. There are truths that
can be learned that can be applied to any relationship because the basic tenets of
a relationship, whether it's male and female or whether it's person and God,
they do go hand in hand. I will say that the controversy in quotes
that that you might see with scholars throughout the years is whether this is fictional,
whether it's some sort of allegory or those types of things, Because in
Scripture there are times where you'll come across an allegorical use of marriage or relationships,
right, dealing with the church and the church being the bride and so
on. Right, But those are specifically pointed out, are they not?
They are pointed to and and kind of highlighted as, hey, this isn't
This is an illustration that we're using to help you understand based on things that
you experience on earth, things that you will future in the future experience in
heaven. Well, that doesn't happen here. As you go through song Solomon,
there's nothing that says this is an allegory or this is an illustration.
So the easiest way to understand it is that it's exactly what it is,
a poem from Solomon to a beloved, and that in that you can find
the truths of any relationship or the importance of treating one another with respect and
understanding one another, just like you know, just like Solomon did here.
So I think it could be used for both. I think the first premise
is probably a good way to understand the Son of Solomon. First to let
it be a guide to how you are to treat your beloved. It's really
quite beautiful and very intense the relationship that's going on here. And then also
to understand the the principles that are used in everyday relationships are also principles that
can be used in your bonding or growing with God and how you interact with
God. So, although there's you know, scholastic or kind of in the
house academic debates going back and forth whether it's you know, historical, whether
it's allegorical, or whether it's fictional, the factory, that the truth that
are taught in there can be applied to both your intimate relationship with your spouse
or the intimate relationship with your God. We only had a couple of minutes
to talk with Jeff about the Song of Solomon, or what is referred to
as the Song of Songs as well. But the beauty of this if you
haven't read it in some time, and the intensity of it is so impassioned
and powerful that it's my hope that couples that are married take the time to
read this every now and then together, or if they read it apart,
if you choose to do so, that you use it to remind you of
the importance of passion and the pursuit of your beloved. There's there's something in
culture that makes that kind of tells you that you pursue someone and then you
get married, and that marriage is kind of the finality of that pursuit.
And that's a shame because it's not the truth. Courting is not just that
which takes place prior to marriage, but it's a lifetime and that the words
in the Song Solomon that talk about that passion and that that yearning for someone.
Chapter one, verse four, it says, draw me after you and
let us run together. How beautiful is that? It's a this, this
adult game, and not like the game that you hear about being played in
clubs of America where people are trying to manipulate or twist each other into being
with them. But the playfulness, the childlikeness of I like you, you
like me, and let's run together, make me want to chase you is
such a beautiful thought. And I'm saddened sometimes by the reality that often that
marriage marker seems to be the finish line and not the starting line that it's
designed to be. That it's as if you use all of your energy to
run towards that. And this pertains to you if you're not in a relationship,
and it pertains to you if you are in a relationship, and it
pertains to you if you're married. But marriage is not the finish line.
It's not that point where you see the immediate drop in desire and propulsion like
you do with a racer. Maybe you're watching the Olympics and the marathon and
the track stars running well, sometimes when they hit that finish line, you
see them immediately drop their speed, their arms fall to their side. That
look, that desire, that passionate intensity that propels them to the finish line
gone because they're done with that race. When it comes to your relationship with
your spouse, I don't want you to get to that place where you tire.
It's almost as if a couple that gets married looks at one another and
says, Okay, we did it. You caught me, I caught you.
We're all done, and I'll be in the dead. Well, okay,
I'll be by the TV. And when you read the Song of Solomon
and the passion of intensity and the sheer desire to pursue, it's a great
reminder. It's a great reminder that that is to be a part of your
everyday interaction, to pursue one another, to be reminded of how wonderful it
is to be somebody and that they are your beloved, and that you're you're
tied to them emotionally, physically, intellectually, spiritually. And as you read
through the Song of Solomon and you hear the words of that passion and intensity,
that nothing, nothing on the planet could quench that fire. I want
it to remind you of the first steps in your relationship, the dating,
the sweaty palms, the nervousness, the excitement of being wanted and wanting somebody,
those are amazing things. Passion is wonderful. You see, for everything
that is good, for everything that is God breathed, God given, there
is a version, a perversion of it that the world uses. The world
lands on lust. But I'm not talking about lust. I'm talking about deep,
intense and pure passion. And that doesn't have to leave that that doesn't
have to be absent from any marriage, young or old. Things will change,
sure, and as you build a family or you bring children into the
equation and you know, multiple jobs and everything else. I realize that things
do change, But the love shouldn't. You should still look upon your bride
men as the most wonderful creature that you have the pleasure to be in the
company of, and women, you should look towards your man the same way,
and in that, in that balance, in that bond, you will
only be strengthened. It's too often that that gattitude of finality or doneness at
the point of marriage or any level of commitment becomes kind of like oh boy,
wow, I guess we're done. Men are hunters and continue to to
fight after you until you're considered I suppose. But really that's just the beginning.
Me say, I do the adventure should begin. What saddens me sometimes
is, and this is something that falls definitely upon the man. The man
tends to make the woman the adventure. Women aren't the adventure. Women should
be your partners in the adventure, not the adventure itself. Sometimes when you
set your eyes on that and the woman becomes the adventure, then the man
stops at the point of marriage because now the adventures over. But that's not
the case. It begins with the coupling and the partnership, and now you
have someone to share those things with. The Song of Solomon has often been
joked about as being just a very intense book because it does deal with sex
and the intensity of passion and love and that yearning in a way that unfortunately
the Church doesn't doesn't talk about too much. You don't get a whole lot
taught from the Song of Solomon. I think the church prefers to be,
you know, focusing on the things that seem much more academic. But I'm
telling you, the entirety of Scripture is about relationships, how you are to
treat one another, and how you are to treat your God. And the
Song of Solomon. I'm so glad that Jeff brought it up today because the
importance of it is vast. It is about relationships. It is about learning
to love one another in the most intense way, and also to understand your
God. Your God loves you so much that he created passion, that he
created love, that he created opportunities for you to share with one another of
those things. And I bring it to you this morning to look at to
look at it just a little differently, the relationship you have, and if
you're not in one, the blessing that is as you prepare, as you
are readied for a good one, a healthy one, and if you live
inside those walls of marriage. Today, I want you to think about the
ways that you can reignite those passions, and that to spend time reading the
Song of Solomon. It's a quick read and a good one to remotivate and
help you see the importance of that relationship, the importance of coming together,
the importance of having intimacy. Brenda, Welcome to the Jesus Christ saw good
morning. Hither my question is does God speak through to his people only through
his word or does he still speak to people through visions and dreams and prophecy.
Well, all those things can take place. There's nothing that says that
they've stopped taking place. And in scripture you'll read that, yes, people
received information from God in prayer, during times of prayer, during times of
sleep, being seeing in a dream or being awoken, that prophets can speak,
a mouth breathed the words of God. So it's not just scripture.
However, scripture will be the standard from which you judge those things because most
of those things are very subjective, so you have to test them against scripture
to know if it is of God or if it's just that you ate too
late before you went to bed or whatever. So you have to the subject
of an objective truth. It's important to know the difference that it's never about
a feeling or an experience, because experiences can be all kinds of different things.
It's about putting those experiences against the backdrop of scripture to see if they
hold water or they withstand the scrutiny of scripture. They can't contradict or change
scripture. In any way. They can't tell you to do something that scripture
has already told you not to do those types of things. That makes sense,
Okay, is there Did you have a personal experience or are you just
curious academically? Well, um, personal experience uh, and curious academically.
Um. I UM was at church and when there was a discussion about that,
and it was an intense discussion because UM, some of the people during
the Bible study had a real problem as myself. I had a problem with
accepting that God didn't speak to people through dreams and visions anymore. And UM
we were told that, Um, God did that in the Old Testament only
because there was no Bible available to those people. And I could understand that.
But um, after after Jesus came UM. In the Book of Acts,
Uh, Antonius had a dream, Paul had absolutely and UM in the
Book of Revelations, John has several, um, you know, visions and
dreams. Well, the entirety of the book is just that visions. Yea.
And it just kind of made me feel bad because I mean, in
the past, I've had some personal experiences and they describe people like myself as
probably kind of mixed up in the mind. And it just made me not
doubt myself, because you can't doubt certain things. Certain things there's just no
one, you know. But there's health in questioning them. Scripture says,
test all things, hold fast to that which is true, not hold fast
to everything. So it's a matter of testing these things. Your teachers is
partially right. There are differences in the way things were taught in what is
referred to as the Old Testament because of the difference in necessity that there wasn't
written word, but I accepted. But that doesn't mean that there's never a
use for it, or that it didn't take place. And obviously we cited
some this morning that are in the New Testament. And I thought about the
scripture in the Book of Joel. I think it's Joe where it says your
old men will dream dreams, and you know I can't. I'm not I
know I'm not quoting it correctly. Your young men will see visions. And
you know, it's just that so much in the church is taught from the
Old Testament, like tiding and things like that, and when someone says,
well it doesn't count anymore, it's just brought some confusion. Yeah, that's
not fair. Ever, there are some things that are different. Um,
after my death on the cross and my resurrection, there are some things that
definitely change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Definitely. But as
I said in scripture, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to
fulfill it. So anybody who says, oh, yeah, that's the Old
Testament, that's that's a cop out. Um, there isn't absolute importance,
and it shows you from where you came and the importance of what took place
prior. There are some different and there are some things that have changed in
the way, you know, just the structure of the church and everything else,
because you're dealing with Judaism versus Christianity in the New Testament. But it's
uh. And I say that as far as the growth of Christianity from Judaism,
but they need to be understood in light of one another. And everything
that experientially that you come in contact with has to be interpreted via scripture.
So is it used the same way and all over the place. No,
it's not. The necessity is different. He's right, but it doesn't mean
that it doesn't exist. That doesn't make sense at all. Kfi Ami on demand