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Scripture Reading: S. S. 1:2-3; 3:1-4; 5:2
Of the sixty-six books of the Bible, only Song of Songs describes the path for pursuing the Lord. No other book in the Bible shows the stages of pursuing the Lord as clearly as Song of Songs. In this chapter we will consider our pursuit of the Lord based on Song of Songs.
Song of Songs presents at least four characteristics concerning our pursuing the Lord.
According to Song of Songs, a seeker does not have only one beginning, one course, and one ending in his pursuit of the Lord. On the contrary, our pursuit of the Lord has many beginnings, many courses, and many endings. There is an initial beginning, followed by a course and an ending. Then there is a pause, which lasts for a period of time. After the pause there is another beginning in our pursuit, another course, and another ending, after which there is another pause. This book has at least six beginnings with six courses and six endings (1:2—2:7; v. 8—3:5; v. 6—5:1; v. 2—6:13; 7:1-13; 8:1-14). Each section with its beginning, course, and ending is a song. Hence, this book has six songs, and each song has a beginning, a course, and an ending.
This is the reason that verses are repeated two or three times in Song of Songs. For example, verse 4 of chapter 8 says, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, / Do not rouse up or awaken my love / Until she pleases.” This verse, which is spoken after the seeker has gone through one course and reached an ending, is also in verse 7 of chapter 2 and verse 5 of chapter 3. This shows that in our experience of pursuing the Lord, there are many beginnings, many courses, and many endings.
On the one hand, a seeking Christian who stumbles in the midst of a course will be able to rise up. On the other hand, even if a seeking Christian does not stumble, his pursuit of the Lord in a particular course will come to an end. We must be clear that according to what is portrayed in Song of Songs, our pursuit of the Lord does not have only one beginning that involves one course and one ending. We must also be clear that it is erroneous to think that stumbling or coming to a pause means that we have fallen. Stumbling or coming to a pause does not mean that we have fallen.
There are many brothers and sisters, however, whose spiritual condition is not normal. They begin to pursue the Lord, but after a period of time they stumble because they have a problem with the Lord; that is, their pursuit is interrupted in the midst of a course. It is only after a period of time that these believers are revived and begin to pursue the Lord again. We must not confuse such experiences with that of a normal Christian, who needs new beginnings even though he does not have any problems with the Lord. The Shulammite in Song of Songs has many beginnings and many pauses while she seeks her beloved. Hence, our spiritual experience is in stages, consisting of a beginning, a course, an ending, and then a pause. This is a special characteristic in Song of Songs.
According to Song of Songs, the beginning of one stage of our pursuit can differ from the beginning of another stage. Some stages begin because the Lord draws us, but other stages begin because we are hungry for the Lord. For example, in the first stage it is hard to determine whether the seeker pursues her beloved because he draws her or because of her desire. Her pursuit in the first stage is probably the result of both. In the beginning of this stage she says, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!” (1:2a). It seems that she is taking the initiative to pursue her beloved. However, immediately following this she says, “For your love is better than wine. / Your anointing oils have a pleasant fragrance; / Your name is like ointment poured forth; / Therefore the virgins love you” (vv. 2b-3). This shows that she is drawn by her beloved. Therefore, in the initial stage of our pursuit it is hard to determine whether we are pursuing the Lord, or He is drawing us.
In some of the later stages the seeker pursues her beloved without his drawing her. For example, in verses 1 and 2 of chapter 3 the seeker is not being drawn, but she still pursues her beloved. She says, “On my bed night after night / I sought him whom my soul loves; / I sought him, but found him not. / I will rise now and go about in the city; / In the streets and in the squares / I will seek him whom my soul loves.” These verses begin with her seeking, not with her being drawn. In verse 2 of chapter 5 she says, “I sleep, but my heart is awake. / A sound! My beloved is knocking. / Open to me, my sister, my love, / My dove, my perfect one; / For my head is drenched with dew, / My locks with the drops of night.” This is the beloved drawing the Shulammite. This is not her initiating the seeking. Thus, there are two aspects to the beginning of our seeking of the Lord. One aspect is that the Lord comes and draws us. The emphasis of this aspect is His appearing. When the Lord appears to us and draws us, we rise up to seek Him. The other aspect is that we take the initiative to pursue the Lord. Although we taste the Lord’s sweetness in our fellowship with Him, after a period of time we feel unsatisfied and therefore have a desire to pursue Him again.
In terms of the Lord’s presence, we can reach a state of fullness in every stage of our spiritual pursuit. For example, in the first stage the seeker feasted with her beloved at his table (1:12). Poetic expressions, such as “Our couch is green,” and “The beams of our house are cedars” (vv. 16-17), show that she fully enjoys her beloved’s presence. After seeking and eventually finding her beloved in chapter 3, the Shulammite brings him into the chamber of the one who conceived her (v. 4). This portrays our being brought into the grace of God to fully enjoy the Lord’s presence. This shows our reaching the fullness of the Lord’s presence yet again. Hence, the course in each stage of our spiritual pursuit issues in a fullness of the Lord’s presence.
Song of Songs reveals that at the end of every stage a seeker of the Lord will always feel unsatisfied. Hence, there is an end to the sense of satisfaction reached in the fullness. This end enables us to begin a new pursuit.
These four characteristics enable us to understand our experience of pursuing the Lord. We will now apply these characteristics to our experience.
We are mistaken if we hope that our spiritual seeking will have only one beginning with one course and one ending. Such an expectation will never be fulfilled. There will always be several stages in our experience of the Lord, and each stage will have a beginning, a course, and an ending. This is clearly seen in the biographies of normal believers throughout church history. For example, according to her autobiography, Madame Guyon did not stumble, but she experienced several new beginnings. She said that she renewed her bridal covenant with the Lord. Every renewal of her bridal covenant was a new beginning. Before she could experience a new beginning, she must have experienced an end, a conclusion, to the previous stage. Hence, even if we do not stumble, there should be many new beginnings in our spiritual pursuit. This means that we must come to an end so that we can have another beginning.
After obtaining a sense of satisfaction in the process of pursuing and following the Lord, it is normal to feel empty and dissatisfied and to feel that we have lost the Lord’s presence. This feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction is a sign, telling us that it is time for a new beginning. This feeling of dissatisfaction can be likened to the green traffic signal that tells us to advance. A red light tells us to stop, but when the light turns green, we can continue on our journey. The inner feeling of dissatisfaction is the green light in our spiritual journey. Dissatisfaction includes feelings of darkness, emptiness, oldness, weakness, and losing heart. It also includes the sense of being unable to touch the Lord’s presence, of losing our taste for prayer, of not receiving light from the Bible, of being dry when giving messages, and of losing the anointing. These feelings are not accidental. They are a sign, telling us that it is time for a new pursuit.
The more we fellowship, the more we will sense our need for a new beginning. The church has reached the ending of one stage and therefore needs a new beginning. If we do not have a new beginning, we will inevitably fall into formal service and religious worship.
Formal service and religious worship involve observing rules and following regulations. Our service may have been living and fresh seven or eight years ago, but it will be dead and old if we are still serving in the same way. For example, the Old Testament service was living at Moses’ time, but after many years it lost its vitality and became dead. In order to be delivered from formal service and religious worship, the church must have a new beginning. This does not mean that we need a new method or a new way. Our ground is right. The way that we carry out the service is also right, but it lacks vitality. I hope that the serving ones can sense the oldness. The serving ones must have a new beginning so that they can influence the saints and thus cause the churches to have a new beginning.
In order to have a new beginning, we must have a new consecration. Someone may say, “I have consecrated myself many times; I do not have anything else to consecrate.” However, we must consecrate ourselves afresh every time we have a new beginning.
With every new pursuit we also must have a new dealing. After our consecration there must be a new dealing. On the surface Song of Songs does not concern dealings; however, if we study this book in depth, we will see that there are dealings hidden in it. After the seeker reached the fullness in the first stage, she lingered in her experience and cared for that experience instead of for her beloved. As a result, when she rose up to seek her beloved, he did not let her find him (2:16—3:3). This was a discipline. Such discipline educates and trains us to know that we are not in the position to decide anything related to our communion with the Lord. We must let the Lord decide everything. If the Lord wants to come, we must let Him come; if the Lord wants to stay, we must let Him stay; and if the Lord wants to go, we must let Him go. We do not have a say in these matters. This is clearly portrayed in the second stage in Song of Songs.
In 3:1-4 the seeker says, “On my bed night after night / I sought him whom my soul loves; / I sought him, but found him not. / I will rise now and go about in the city; / In the streets and in the squares / I will seek him whom my soul loves. / I sought him, but found him not. / The watchmen who go about in the city found me — / Have you seen him whom my soul loves? / Scarcely had I passed them / When I found him whom my soul loves; / I held him and would not let go / Until I had brought him into my mother’s house / And into the chamber of her who conceived me.” In these verses the seeker rises up to seek her beloved, but she cannot find him. She goes out to look for him but cannot find him. She then inquires of others about him but to no avail. When she is disappointed and helpless, her beloved comes, and she finds him. When she wants her beloved, he stays away from her, but when she is fully disappointed, he comes to her. The Lord uses such experiences to train us. When we cannot find the Lord, we may be full of remorse, thinking, “I hold on to my opinion when I fellowship with the Lord. This is my sin.” In the depth of our being we might sense that we need to deal with a sin, but it is not something outward or superficial. Those who genuinely seek the Lord do not necessarily deal with outward or superficial sins. Other believers might not see the sins that we have committed, because our problems with the Lord issue from the depth of our being. Hence, we need to deal with the sins that are within us. This requires a fresh consecration related to the dealing that causes us to rise up to pursue the Lord.
Our consecration and dealings with the Lord are continuous and should get deeper. Our initial consecration is somewhat shallow. Prior to our salvation we may have indulged in the pleasures of the world and in sinful things, but after our salvation we are willing to consecrate our time, money, and energy to the Lord for His use. This consecration is good, but it is not deep. We must have more consecrations. Perhaps the Lord will cause us to sense that a part of our being is still not open to Him or that there is something that we are not willing to drop. In the past the Lord would not touch such matters, but now He will not let these go. This is when we need to renew our consecration. We might be loose in outward matters, such as our time and our money, so the Lord will touch these matters because we have consecrated them to Him. But He is also concerned with the problem within us. There was a reservation within us when we first consecrated ourselves, but the Lord was tolerant. Now, however, He wants us to hand over to Him the things we have reserved. If we are not willing to let them go, we can lose His presence, and we will not be enlivened. This is the time when we must have a deeper consecration.
The Lord may deal with a brother concerning individualism. Although this brother does not argue with others, he does not like to be with other brothers. This is individualism. The Lord wants us to see that we are individualistic and that we must deal with it, but we insist on keeping our individualistic habits. This insistence makes us old and causes us to lose our freshness and vitality. Although we were individualistic when we received the Lord, He did not touch it; hence, we were fresh. Now, however, the Lord is touching our individualism and wants us to drop it, but if we are unwilling to renew our consecration in this matter, He will not let us go. As a result, we will lose our freshness and become old, and those with whom we fellowship will touch oldness and staleness instead of freshness and life. Furthermore, it will be difficult for us to advance in the Lord.
In order to have a new beginning, there must be consecration and dealings. This is a principle. However, our consecration and dealings in the different stages differ in depth. Initially, the dealings are outward and superficial, but with time they become deeper and finer, and even our spiritual experiences are dealt with. Abraham went through many dealings, and eventually even Isaac, whom Abraham obtained through God’s grace, had to be offered (Gen. 22:1-19). Not only did he have to cast out Ishmael, who was born according to his flesh (21:9-14); Abraham had to offer up Isaac also, whom he gained through God’s promise of grace, on the altar. This was a deep and genuine consecration.
The same principle is portrayed in Song of Songs. In the fourth stage of the seeker’s experience, her previous spiritual attainments are condemned and must be consecrated. Hence, if we desire to have a new beginning, to be renewed and vitalized, we must have a new consecration and a new dealing.
Although there are six stages of spiritual experience in Song of Songs, a seeker does not experience one thing in the first stage, another thing in the second stage, and yet another thing in the third stage, and so forth. Rather, the seeker has every spiritual experience in the first stage, but she does not experience them in their full measure. In principle, her experiences in the second stage are the same as her experiences in the first stage; however, the degree of the fullness of her experience has increased. In the third stage she experiences the same things that she did in the previous stages, but the measure of these experiences has increased. This continues through the fourth, fifth, and the sixth stages. In principle, in each stage she has the same experiences that she had in the first stage. Although the seeker does not experience anything new in the different stages, the experiences are new, and the measure of the experience is increased.
In our spiritual pursuit we do not experience different things in different stages. In the past we clearly demarcated the four stages of our spiritual life (see The Experience of Life). However, in our experience the stages are not clearly defined, because our experiences in the first stage include most of what we will experience later. Our future experiences do not differ from our initial experiences; our experiences will only become deeper, higher, stronger, and richer. This can be compared to dyeing a piece of cloth. In the beginning of the dyeing process, the color of the cloth is light, but the color deepens with each application until it reaches its deepest hue. Our spiritual experience is similar to this.
In terms of revelation, in every stage we experience Christ. In terms of application, we experience His death and resurrection. Hence, all our spiritual experiences are of Christ and His death and resurrection. Even a new believer experiences Christ and His death and resurrection. A person believes and is baptized because he knows Christ and has experienced His death, burial, and resurrection. This is our experience in the beginning of our Christian life, and we continue in this experience for the rest of our lives as we advance from stage to stage. According to Song of Songs, the Christ we know in the first stage is the same person we continue to know in the later stages, and the death and resurrection we experience in the first stage are the death and resurrection we will experience in the later stages. The only difference is that our experiences will gradually become deeper and richer.
Our work and service should be according to the experience in Song of Songs. We should not do a habitual work that merely maintains the status quo. This is the condition in Christianity where a pastor is hired to give a sermon every Lord’s Day. The sermons might be delivered in a good way, and the congregation might understand and remember what is spoken, but this understanding and remembering do not have any effect on the hearers. The sermons produce an increase in Bible knowledge but do not cause the hearers to rise up to pursue and experience the Lord. This is a habitual work that maintains the status quo. There is no light or experience in this work. We should not maintain such a religious situation in the churches. We should not do a work that seemingly touches people but does not change them. Rather, our work should always help people either in the beginning, during the course, or in the ending of a stage of their spiritual pursuit. We must always lead people to experience and pursue the Lord. Those who have not consecrated themselves should be brought to consecration. Those who have not experienced dealings should be brought into receiving the dealings. Those who have consecrated in the past but are presently in a low situation should be helped to renew their consecration. Those who have had dealings in the past but have lost their freshness should be helped to have fresh dealings with the Lord. Those who had spiritual experiences in the past but have become dull and dry and lack light and strength should be helped to rise up to seek the Lord again. If we are continually renewed, the old things will become new, and our service will be genuine, not habitual.
As those who serve the Lord, we continually contact people whether by giving messages or by visiting them. Hence, we need to do a work of renewing, and we need to be renewed. We should not think that we are doing well because we are not sinful or fleshly, have proper conduct, read the Bible, are touched by the Lord, and pray. These maintain our spiritual condition, but because they will not cause us to progress, the work and the church will become old. Even if we do not have other problems, oldness is a problem. Only by having a new beginning with a new consecration and new dealings will our work be fresh, and the church will experience another stage of the Lord’s fresh presence.
The seeker in Song of Songs rises up to seek her beloved even at night. She says, “On my bed night after night / I sought him whom my soul loves; / I sought him, but found him not. / I will rise now and go about in the city; / In the streets and in the squares / I will seek him whom my soul loves” (3:1-2). We need to seek the Lord; we should not be indifferent. The sense of being low and of losing the Lord’s presence should serve as a green light that urges us to rise up and move forward. We must seek the Lord, have dealings with Him, and have a new consecration according to our inner feeling.
When we rise up to seek the Lord, we will spontaneously cause others to seek the Lord together with us. The beginning of our seeking the Lord has two aspects. Either the Lord draws us, or our sense of thirst and hunger causes us to pursue Him. When we experience the Lord’s abundance, we will rise up, just as the seeker in Song of Songs did, and say, “I feast with the Lord at His table and enjoy His abundance. I delight and sit down in His shade, and His fruit is sweet to my taste” (cf. 1:12; 2:3). Such a testimony will produce a hunger and longing in those who hear us, and they will be willing to seek the Lord in order to gain the same experience. Perhaps our experience is not full, and we have a sense of dissatisfaction in our heart. As this sense of dissatisfaction grows stronger, we will desperately long for the Lord. When we speak with others concerning our dissatisfaction, there will be an echo within them, and they will sense a hunger and thirst for the Lord. Hence, as long as we seek the Lord, whether we are feasting with Him or are hungry and thirsty for Him, we will affect others and cause them to hunger. As a result, they will also rise up to seek the Lord.
We all need to bring this word before the Lord in prayer. We do not need to look at others; rather, we need to see our condition. Do we need to be renewed and revived to have a new consecration and new dealings with the Lord? If the Lord has mercy on us, He will appear to us and draw us to rise up and seek Him, or He will cause us to feel hungry and dissatisfied, which will force us to rise up and seek Him. Then we will be revived, and everything related to us will become new. The Bible we read will be new, the hymns we sing will be new, and even the spiritual books we read will be new. By the Lord’s mercy, may we all have such a new revival.
