CHAPTER ELEVEN
Stamp Out Selfishness
“Josey has a cute body and it drives me crazy. But she says she doesn’t want sex. It’s been months since we’ve had intercourse. Finally, I put my foot down and told her something had to change. Is it so wrong to want to be intimate with my wife and have fun with her?”
But Josey has a different perspective: “Franklin does nothing all day to help me around the house or with the kids. On the weekend, he leaves me home to mow the yard while he goes to a football game with the guys. He hardly says two words to me, except when he wants sex. Well, I have two words for him: No way.”
God does not sugarcoat the subject of sex in His Word. He knows that along with the delight of sexual intimacy comes difficulties. Up to this point, the Song has shown us the ideal of marriage, but here we see the reality of married love. This chapter deals with sexual selfishness, and selfishness, as we will soon discover, is one of the greatest enemies of intimacy.
If we want to live as servant lovers and forge a vital marriage despite problems and challenges, we must continue to make sacrificial choices. Here, and in the four chapters that follow, we will see a progression of brushstrokes that contribute to the portrait of a servant lover. With each page we turn, we will discover even more clearly what it looks like to be a servant lover to our mate.
UNDERSTANDING THE SONG
Tirzah: “I was asleep but my heart was awake. A voice! My beloved was knocking.” (5:2)
To say, “I was asleep but my heart was awake,” is an idiomatic way of saying, “I had a dream.” Often when poets want to imply that someone is troubled about something, they will cast the difficulty in the context of a dream rather than describe it directly. The assumption is that we tend to dream about things that we think upon often or, in this case, that deeply trouble us.[1] In this scene, Tirzah dreams about two recurring problems in their relationship: Solomon demanding sex and her sexual rejection.
Tirzah dreams of a time when Solomon knocked on her bedroom door. In Solomon’s time, husbands and wives often had separate bedchambers, particularly if they were royals. Solomon’s knock is not a timid bid for entrance. The root of the Hebrew word means to “drive hard or push”[2] or to “beat” on the door.[3] He has one thing on his mind.
Solomon: “Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my perfect one! For my head is drenched with dew, my locks with the damp of the night.” (verse 2)
Solomon pours on the sweet talk, calling his beloved his four favorite names for her. He wants entrance, not only to her room but also to the warmth of her embrace. He asks Tirzah to open her door, both literally and figuratively. He wants her to open the door to her bedroom and also the door of her “garden.”[4]
The morning dew is already beginning to form, so we know that Solomon has been out late, possibly occupied with affairs of the state. During some months in Palestine, morning dew forms so copiously that it saturates the clothes like rain (see Judges 6:38). Solomon selfishly approaches his wife to make love after midnight. He is insistent, even though he is probably aware that she is asleep. No wonder Tirzah is not interested. She offers him two excuses.
Tirzah: “I have taken off my dress, how can I put it on again? I have washed my feet, how can I dirty them again?” (verse 3)
These may strike you as lame reasons; we see them that way too. Tirzah says she would have to get up, go to the huge effort of putting on her dress, walk to the door, and open it. In effect, she is saying, “Really, Solomon, you are so insensitive coming to make love after midnight. Can’t it wait? Can’t you see I’m asleep?”
Then she gives her second excuse, and this time she gets religious about it! She tells her husband, “If I get up to let you in to make love, I’ll get my feet dirty walking across the floor and have to go to all the trouble of rewashing them!” In Israel, dirty feet symbolized moral contamination from the petty transgressions of everyday life. Often at night, the Jewish people would wash their feet ceremonially to represent their need for daily cleansing from sin, just as Jesus illustrated to His disciples in John 13:10.[5] A similar response from a wife today might be, “Honey, don’t you understand? I just took a shower. If we make love, I’ll have to get back in the shower again.” The message behind both excuses is “Lovemaking is inconvenient and not worth the effort.”
Tirzah: “My beloved extended his hand through the opening, and my feelings were aroused for him.” (verse 4)
Undeterred, Solomon tries to force open the door, which was likely secured with a crossbar or bolt fastened with a little button or pin.[6] The upper part of the door may have had a round hole through which a person could thrust his arm and remove the bar, unless the hole had been sealed.
Tirzah realizes how ardently Solomon desires her. His persistence declares, “I want you and I want you now!” His urgency arouses sexual feelings in her, and she climbs out of bed to open the door.
Tirzah: “I arose to open to my beloved; and my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the bolt.” (verse 5)
Each step Tirzah takes toward her lover increases her sexual longing. By the time she reaches the door, her body has readied itself for lovemaking, as revealed through the image of liquid myrrh. The references to liquid myrrh and fingers on the “bolt” may well be double entendre again, because taken literally, the text makes no sense. Certainly her hands are not “dripping” with myrrh. Myrrh was a common aphrodisiac (see Proverbs 7:17). We believe this is a continuation of the metaphor for her sexual excitement as she thinks of opening the “door” for him.[7] The mention of the sweet-smelling liquid adds to the erotic atmosphere.
Tirzah: “I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and had gone! My heart went out to him as he spoke. I searched for him but I did not find him; I called him but he did not answer me.” (verse 6)
Expectant, Tirzah opens the door. Her heart falls —her lover is not there. The Hebrew can be rendered, “I nearly died when I found he had gone.”[8] Tirzah’s sadness is more than disappointment that Solomon has left; she’s racked with guilt that she had sent him away. Frantic, she searches for him.
Tirzah: “The watchmen who make the rounds in the city found me, they struck me and wounded me; the guardsmen of the walls took away my shawl from me.” (verse 7)
As the dream progresses, Tirzah finds herself in the streets of Jerusalem, searching for her lover so she can make amends. Obviously, the watchmen would not lay a hand on Solomon’s queen, but this is a dream, and it may be another reflection of the guilt she feels over rejecting her husband. In effect, she is beating herself up over her actions.
Tirzah to Chorus: “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, as to what you will tell him: for I am lovesick.” (verse 8)
Unable to find her beloved, Tirzah turns to the daughters of Jerusalem to aid her in her search. If they find him, they must promise to give Solomon the following message: “I am sick with love.” This is the same word used in Song 2:5 and carries the notion of being highly aroused sexually. Tirzah wants her husband to know that she desires him sexually.[9]
APPLYING THE SONG FOR COUPLES
This scene exposes the problem of selfishness in a marriage. Solomon was being selfishly insensitive when he demanded sex: “I don’t care if you are asleep; I want sex now!” But Tirzah’s rejection of her husband’s overtures was also selfish: “I’d have to put my dress on” and “I’d have to rewash my feet.” Both of these responses —sex on demand and sexual rejection —are selfish. We’ll look at both of these problems, beginning with sexual rejection.
Problem 1: Sexual Rejection
If the following letter is true, it seems wives in the twenty-first century are almost as adept as Tirzah when it comes to excuse giving:
To my dear wife,
During the past year I have tried to make love to you 365 times. I have succeeded only 36 times; this is an average of once every 10 days. The following is a list of why I did not succeed more often:
It will wake the children | 17 times |
It’s too late | 45 times |
It’s too early | 23 times |
Pretended to be asleep | 18 times |
Headache | 23 times |
Backache | 9 times |
Toothache | 4 times |
Too full | 12 times |
Giggles | 2 times |
Baby is crying | 15 times |
Company in next room | 8 times |
Windows are open (“neighbors will hear”) | 9 times |
You had to go to the bathroom | 12 times |
Gained weight (“don’t touch my new cellulite”) | 6 times |
Too hot | 15 times |
Too cold | 7 times |
There’s a good movie on | 15 times |
Not in the mood | 89 times |
Total | 329 times |
During the thirty-six times I did succeed, the activity was not entirely satisfactory due to the following:
6 times | |
You watched TV the whole time | 5 times |
You said, “Hurry up and get this over with.” | 17 times |
You fell asleep | 6 times |
You never moved and I thought you were dead | 2 times |
Honey, it’s no wonder I’m so irritable!
Your loving husband[10]
The exaggerated excuses in this letter are supposed to make us laugh, but they may not be so amusing to the one living with a mate who continually rejects offers of intimacy. Listen to one husband’s pain:
Arlene and I have been married for thirty years. I am an elder in the church, and she teaches women’s Bible studies. I love Arlene deeply, but our sexual relationship is terrible. She thinks being intimate once a month is fine. I don’t. I’ve talked to her about this on many occasions. After our talks, things improve for a few days, but then she lapses back into indifference. I will be faithful, but it is hard. I tell her that I don’t want sex —sex is something you buy on the street from a professional. I say I want to make love to her and enjoy her the way a husband ought to enjoy his wife. The strain on our sexual relationship is causing other aspects of our marriage to suffer. I just can’t understand her unwillingness to want to improve this portion of our relationship.
Sometimes we stereotype and suggest that the wife is always the one with the headache and the husband is always raring to go. But as we travel around the country and talk with couples, we find that about 15 to 20 percent of couples have the opposite problem. The wife desires sex, but her husband says he needs Tylenol. For instance, we received this letter from a wife:
If I hear one more woman gripe about her husband nagging her for sex, I think I’ll scream. She should be glad he wants her and finds her desirable. I’ve tried everything to get Mike interested in me —sexy nighties, creative encounters, finding the “G” spot, heaping praise on him —but he just ignores me. It’s a knife in my heart. There’s a guy at work who has been flirting with me. I’m so vulnerable, I fear I might do something terrible. Help!
Sexual rejection deeply wounds our mate and opens him or her up to sexual temptation. But what about the other issue of selfishness raised in this chapter —the situation where one partner selfishly demands sex from his or her mate?
Problem 2: Sex On Demand
Sex on demand is a common problem, one that can create great heartache, as this wife candidly shares:
Cliff demands sex three times a day: in the morning, before bed, and in the middle of the night at 2:00 a.m. The middle-of-the-night version isn’t just a quickie but a marathon that involves lights, mirrors, games, and fun. He goes back to sleep at 3 a.m., but I can’t. I want to respond, but his need for sex has placed me in a permanent state of exhaustion.
Obviously, Cliff’s case is extreme. Demanding sex three times a day indicates he suffers not from a physical need but from a deep emotional need that would be better addressed with counseling. If your mate has a sexual addiction, we recommend you seek help. As we said in the beginning of this book, we are not addressing addictions or abuse. Instead, we want to address the issue of a selfish attitude that insists, “I want sex, and I want it now.”
It’s time for honesty. Where does sexual selfishness show up in you? Do you ever reject your mate, whether directly or indirectly? Do you ever have a demanding spirit toward your mate?
What should your response be when selfishness gains a foothold in your intimate relationship? Is there anything you can do? Yes, you look up, look out, and look in.
Look Up
Whenever we have an issue we aren’t sure how to address, we must first look up —to God. We must seek His wisdom and open His Word to see what He says about the subject. You have seen that God does not shrink back from addressing sexual issues. He speaks of the joys of sexual love and also the problems. He speaks to the issue of sexual rejection with very specific and strong language. There is no gray area, nor does He offer squirm room when it comes to saying no to intimacy:
Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (1 Corinthians 7:5)
We learn several things in this verse:
- We are commanded to stop saying no.
- If we abstain from sex, it is because both agree.
- Prayer is the only reason to abstain.
- We must come together sexually again.
- Sexual rejection opens a door to Satan.
The person looking for a legitimate excuse for not making love won’t find much in God’s Word. God says, “Stop saying no.” Now obviously there are times when sexual intercourse may not be possible due to health issues or a recent surgery, but the intent of the passage is clear: Think about your mate’s needs and respond accordingly. Tirzah did not do this.
We can think up scores of reasons for not having sex. God gives only one: prayer. This is not a quick prayer thrown to the heavens: “God, make my wife make love with me now.” Instead, it is referring to devoting yourselves to prayer in a concentrated way (several days of prayer and fasting).
Perhaps the question for many of us is not, do we abstain from sex because of deep intensive prayer, but do we ever pray about our sexual intimacy? Couples have said to us, “It just feels plain weird to pray about sex! God is spiritual, and sex is so, well, earthy.” God is for “earthiness,” and you can bring anything about your sexual intimacy to Him. In fact, it pleases Him when you do.
Ask yourself two questions:
- When was the last time I talked to God about how to delight my mate sexually?
- When was the last time I asked God to help me be less selfish toward my mate?
If it has been a while, why don’t you put this book down and talk honestly to Him right now?
We’ve seen what God’s Word says about Tirzah’s selfishness of rejecting her husband’s sexual advances. Now let’s look at Solomon, the infamous midnight Romeo. Was this husband right to insist upon sex even though he likely knew his wife was already asleep? What does God’s Word say to the one who selfishly wants sex on demand? Our answer is found in Philippians 2:3, the theme verse of the servant lover. Here is our paraphrase as it applies to sexual intimacy:
In your sexual relationship, don’t let selfishness rule. God asks you to be humble and think of your mate as more important than yourself. So think about what your mate desires and how you can please him or her.
The heart of this passage is clear: Think about your mate’s needs and respond accordingly. Solomon did not do this.
The solution to the problem of selfishness isn’t identifying who is right or wrong. The solution is found in your willingness to consider your mate’s needs as more important than your own. Servant loving always involves placing your mate’s needs first and continually looking for ways to be sensitive and look at life through his or her eyes.
We need God’s truth from His Word. We also need His power to wage war against our selfishness and declare war against our enemy, Satan.
Look Out!
Recently while eating dinner in a restaurant in Denver, a woman saw a group of people at another table praying. As she was leaving the restaurant, she stopped by the table and said, “I noticed earlier that you were praying. You must be Christians.” The man at the head of the table replied, “No, we are Satanists. And we are committed to praying for the destruction of Christian marriages.”[11]
This is frightening! Someone is praying against us! We must be praying for our marriages. We need God’s power flowing through our lives and marriages to defeat the Evil One. First Peter 5:8 warns,
Be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour. (AMP)
Perhaps you know this verse, but have you ever personalized it? Do you see Satan as your enemy? Are you keenly aware that he wants to devour you and to destroy your marriage?
When there’s tension in your sexual relationship, have you ever thought, Why are we fighting? It feels like something a whole lot bigger is going on, like there’s a powerful force intent on tearing us apart.
Do you see yourself in any of these scenarios?
- Last night you made love in the same bed. This morning you can’t stand to be in the same room together. What happened? A force is at work.
- You talk but say nothing. You touch, but it feels rote. Lately you feel like strangers. A force is at work.
- You knew she wanted to make love, but you didn’t care. You got into a huge fight. You know you hurt her, but it didn’t even matter. A force is at work.
This force has a name: Satan. Satan’s key strategy is to get you to see your mate —rather than him —as your enemy. If Satan can keep you fighting with each other, you won’t have energy to fight against him. Has your enemy been effective? Do you see your mate as your enemy? Let us repeat. Your spouse is not your enemy; Satan is your enemy. God wants you to stop your quarreling and to turn and fight together against the Devil.
Satan is preoccupied with sex. (You’ll see why in the epilogue.) One of his most destructive tools is to take the beauty of sex as God intended and twist it so that it becomes something God never intended:
- God made sex pure; Satan uses it for perversion.
- God created sex for oneness; Satan uses it to bring division.
- God designed sex to produce life; Satan uses it to bring death.
If there is selfishness, division, and death in your sexual relationship, consider the source. Refuse to see your spouse as the enemy, and instead pray together against your true enemy, Satan.
When Satan comes at you and tries to use your selfishness to create discord in your sexual relationship, do what Jesus did in the wilderness when Satan came at Him (see Matthew 4:1-10). Wield the sword of the Word by quoting Scripture directly to your enemy.
How do you use the Word of God as your sword? When Satan says, “Say no to sex —he’s been a jerk all day,” you take the servant lover verses (Philippians 2:3-4) and throw them in his face: “Get behind me, Satan! I will think more highly of my husband and his needs rather than my own.” When Satan says, “Your wife owes you sex —it’s your right to have it whenever you want,” throw the love passage (1 Corinthians 13) at him: “Get behind me, Satan! Love does not demand its own way.”
Defeat your enemy. Pray. Wield the sword of the Word; and see your mate as your ally, not your enemy.
Let’s review. In issues related to sex, we need to look up to God and His Word. We also need to look out because our enemy wants to destroy our sexual oneness. In addition, we need to look in, to examine honestly our attitude as it relates to sex with our mate.
Look In
Each of us is acutely aware of selfishness —our mate’s selfishness, that is. We have a much harder time seeing it in ourselves, but when we invite God’s light to look within us, we can see our crummy, stinking, “I, me, my, mine” attitude.
Look carefully at the following four words and the monument they build:
I
Me
Mine
Myself
These words build an altar, with “I” on the top as an idol. Are you a selfish lover?
Gary Thomas, in his excellent book Sacred Marriage, suggests that you ask yourself these important questions:[13]
- Is sex something I’m giving to my spouse, or withholding?
- Is sex something I am demanding, or offering?
- Is sex something I am using as a tool of manipulation, or as an expression of generous love?
- If God looked at nothing other than my sexuality, would I be known as a mature Christian, or as a near pagan?
That last question is a doozy. Put another way, we might ask ourselves, If my mate looked at my role as a lover and nothing else, would he or she think I was a servant or a selfish slob?
In what areas of your relationship are you prone to selfishness? Are you prone to any of the following?
- Sexual rejection
- Demanding spirit
- Insensitivity
- An unloving attitude
- A discouraging attitude
- A critical attitude
More marriages die from selfishness than from any other reason. James 4:1-2 says: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have” (NIV).
Selfishness is the internal enemy of intimacy; Satan is the external enemy of intimacy. He laughs when he sees selfishness in your intimate encounters. He thinks he’s won. Fight Satan. Fight selfishness. How? By becoming a servant lover. Servant lovers are givers —those who regard their spouses as more important than themselves; selfish lovers are takers —those who demand their own way.
If a wife is beyond exhaustion, what is the loving thing for her husband to do? If a husband is under great stress and needs space, what is the loving thing for a wife to do? Our selfishness needs to be replaced by sacrifice and selflessness. “Whether sexuality becomes a celebration of service or a point of contention depends largely on one or both partners’ selflessness.”[14]
We love the rendition of 1 Corinthians 7:4 in The Message: “Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out.” God’s Word says, “Serve, serve, serve,” but we think, Self, self, self. We must fight our inner demands to have our own way. We must battle our selfish nature that insists, “My way or the highway.” Solomon and Tirzah had slipped into selfishness. But as you continue to turn the pages of the Song of Solomon, you will discover that they moved from selfishness to sacrifice. The solution involved assuming personal responsibility for their error rather than focusing on their partner’s error.
In the next four scenes from the Song, you will find much wisdom and practical truth about how to assume personal responsibility for becoming a servant lover. You will see specifically what you can do to counteract your selfishness. We pray that God will speak to your heart as you read.
SERVANT LOVERS: Admit their selfishness and learn from it.
SELFISH LOVERS: Do not admit error or learn from mistakes.
“What kind of beloved is your beloved,
O most beautiful among women?
What kind of beloved is your beloved,
That thus you adjure us?”
TIRZAH TO THE CHORUS:
“My beloved is dazzling and ruddy,
Outstanding among ten thousand.
His head is like gold, pure gold;
His locks are like clusters of dates
And black as a raven.
His eyes are like doves
Beside streams of water,
Bathed in milk,
And reposed in their setting.
His cheeks are like a bed of balsam,
Banks of sweet-scented herbs;
His lips are lilies
Dripping with liquid myrrh.
His hands are rods of gold
Set with beryl;
His abdomen is carved ivory
Inlaid with sapphires.
TIRZAH TO THE CHORUS (CONTINUED):
His legs are pillars of alabaster
Set on pedestals of pure gold;
His appearance is like Lebanon
Choice as the cedars.
His mouth is full of sweetness.
And he is wholly desirable.
This is my beloved and this is my friend,
O daughters of Jerusalem.”
THE CHORUS:
“Where has your beloved gone,
O most beautiful among women?
Where has your beloved turned,
That we may seek him with you?”
TIRZAH:
“My beloved has gone down to his garden,
To the beds of balsam,
To pasture his flock in the gardens
And gather lilies.
I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine,
He who pastures his flock among the lilies.”
SONG OF SOLOMON 5:9–6:3
