Love is Strong as Death

Cinta kuat seperti muat  (song of songs 8,5). I preached on this verse in the first service this morning to about 280 people. Every seat was taken, there was no more aisle and for the first time we had to put chairs outside the door. Those who sat outside actually met with me after service and they said they could hear me loud and clear. With one aircon down we had to bear with heat but most kampung folks know hardship and they did not complain. I spoke about love and falling in love and what true love meant. I shared 3 things about love.
Do not arouse love until it is ready. So I told the young people not to rush into relationships. Even among secondary school students, there are many couples and many have boyfriends and girlfriends.  Some are not so serious but left unattended things can get out of hand. I told them to wait for the right time for the right one to come along. God's time is always perfect. Second, I talked about the power of love. Love is strong as death. The feelings of love can drive one to do great things or bad things. Since love is like fire, even the fire of God we have to be careful not to get burnt. We don't want to find ourselves in compromising situations or the like when temptations could be too hard to resist. Third, I spoke about the beauty of love. Love is pure and love is beautiful. When the right person comes along in God's time we will enjoy the love of our beloved. It is a most beautiful thing called love. Speaking on this subject requires great wisdom, choice of words, humour to lighten up the topic, seriousness when it is called for. I had this moment when I asked several rhetorical questions. Do you girls want to find yourselves pregnant at 15? Do you boys want to be fathers when you are 16? Even buying a bowl of noodles you need your parents' money.  How to raise a child and provide for a wife for one so young? It sounds better in Malay, of course. After preaching also in the 2nd service, I had preached 5 sermons this week plus a whole day seminar on Revelation yesterday.