2022-5丨General Subject：Loving the Lord and Loving One Another for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ

General Subject：Loving the Lord and Loving One Another for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ

Message Two Song of Songs—the Progressive Experience of an Individual Believer's Loving Fellowship with Christ for the Preparation of the Bride of Christ

F. In the sixth stage of Song of Songs, the lover of Christ is hoping to be raptured (8:1-14); she is coming up from the wilderness (the earthly realm) by “leaning on her beloved” (v. 5):

S.S. 8:1 O that you were like a brother to me, / Who nursed at my mother's breasts! / If I found you outside, I would kiss you, / And none would despise me.

S.S. 8:2 I would lead you and bring you / Into my mother's house, / Who has instructed me; / I would make you drink spiced wine / From the juice of my pomegranate.

S.S. 8:3 His left hand would be under my head, / And his right hand would embrace me.

S.S. 8:4 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, / Do not rouse up or awaken my love / Until she pleases.

S.S. 8:5 Who is this who comes up from the wilderness, / Leaning on her beloved? / I awakened you under the apple tree: / There your mother was in labor with you; / There she was in labor and brought you forth.

S.S. 8:6 Set me as a seal on your heart, / As a seal on your arm; / For love is as strong as death, / Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol; / Its flashes are the flashes of fire, / A flame of Jehovah.

S.S. 8:7 Many waters cannot quench love, / Nor do floods drown it. / If a man gave all the substance of his house for love, / It would be utterly despised.

S.S. 8:8 We have a little sister, / And she has no breasts: / What shall we do for our sister / On the day when she is spoken for?

S.S. 8:9 If she is a wall, / We will build on her a battlement of silver; / And if she is a door, / We will enclose her with boards of cedar.

S.S. 8:10 I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers; / Then I was in his eyes like one who has found peace.

S.S. 8:11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon: / He let out the vineyard to keepers; / Each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit.

S.S. 8:12 My vineyard, which is mine, is before me. / You will have the thousand, O Solomon; / And those who keep its fruit, two hundred.

S.S. 8:13 O you who dwell in the gardens, / My companions listen for your voice; / Let me hear it.

S.S. 8:14 Make haste, my beloved, / And be like a gazelle or a young hart / Upon the mountains of spices.

1. Leaning on her beloved implies that, like Jacob, the socket of her hip has been touched, and her natural strength has been dealt with by the Lord—Gen. 32:24-25.

Gen. 32:24 And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.

Gen. 32:25 And when the man saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob's hip was dislocated as he wrestled with Him.

2. Leaning on her beloved also implies that she finds herself pressed beyond measure, and this seems to last until the wilderness journey is over—2 Cor. 1:8-9; 12:9-10; 13:3-4.

2 Cor. 1:8 For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of our affliction which befell us in Asia, that we were excessively burdened, beyond our power, so that we despaired even of living.

2 Cor. 1:9 Indeed we ourselves had the response of death in ourselves, that we should not base our confidence on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead;

2 Cor. 12:9 And He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly therefore I will rather boast in my weaknesses that the power of Christ might tabernacle over me.

2 Cor. 12:10 Therefore I am well pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions and distresses, on behalf of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am powerful.

2 Cor. 13:3 Since you seek a proof of the Christ who is speaking in me, who is not weak unto you but is powerful in you.

2 Cor. 13:4 For indeed He was crucified out of weakness, but He lives by the power of God. For indeed we are weak in Him, but we will live together with Him by the power of God directed toward you.

3. She asks her Beloved to set her as a seal on His heart of love and as a seal on His arm of strength; at this point she is conscious of her powerlessness and helplessness, and she realizes that everything depends on God's love and preserving power—S. S. 8:6-7.

S.S. 8:6 Set me as a seal on your heart, / As a seal on your arm; / For love is as strong as death, / Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol; / Its flashes are the flashes of fire, / A flame of Jehovah.

S.S. 8:7 Many waters cannot quench love, / Nor do floods drown it. / If a man gave all the substance of his house for love, / It would be utterly despised.

4. The lover of Christ asks Him who dwells in the believers as His gardens to let her hear His voice—v. 13; cf. 4:13--5:1; 6:2:

S.S. 8:13 O you who dwell in the gardens, / My companions listen for your voice; / Let me hear it.

S.S. 4:13 Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates / With choicest fruit; / Henna with spikenard,

S.S. 4:14 Spikenard and saffron; / Calamus and cinnamon, / With all the trees of frankincense; / Myrrh and aloes, / With all the chief spices.

S.S. 4:15 A fountain in gardens, / A well of living water, / And streams from Lebanon.

S.S. 4:16 Awake, O north wind; / And come, O south wind! / Blow upon my garden: / Let its spices flow forth; / Let my beloved come into his garden / And eat his choicest fruit.

S.S. 5:1 I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; / I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; / I have drunk my wine with my milk. / Eat, O friends; / Drink, and drink deeply, O beloved ones!

S.S. 6:2 My beloved has gone down to his garden, / To the beds of spices, / To feed in the gardens / And gather lilies.

a. This indicates that in the work that we do for the Lord as our Beloved, we need to maintain our fellowship with Him, always listening to Him—Luke 10:38-42.

Luke 10:38 Now as they went, He entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received Him into her home.

Luke 10:39 And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at the Lord's feet and was listening to His word.

Luke 10:40 But Martha was being drawn about with much serving, and she came up to Him and said, Lord, does it not matter to You that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to do her part with me.

Luke 10:41 But the Lord answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things;

Luke 10:42 But there is need of one thing, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

b. Our lives depend on the Lord's words, and our work depends on the Lord's commands; the central point of our prayers should be our longing for the Lord's speaking—Rev. 2:7; 1 Sam. 3:9-10; cf. Isa. 50:4-5; Exo. 21:6.

Rev. 2:7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.

1 Sam. 3:9 And Eli said to Samuel, Go and lie down, and if He calls you, you shall say, Speak, O Jehovah; for Your servant is listening. And Samuel went and lay down in his place.

1 Sam. 3:10 Then Jehovah came and stood by and called as at the other times, Samuel! Samuel! And Samuel said, Speak, for Your servant is listening.

Isa. 50:4 The Lord Jehovah has given me / The tongue of the instructed, / That I should know how to sustain the weary with a word. / He awakens me morning by morning; / He awakens my ear / To hear as an instructed one.

Isa. 50:5 The Lord Jehovah has opened my ear; / And I was not rebellious, / Nor did I turn back.

Exo. 21:6 Then his master shall bring him to God and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.

c. Without the Lord's words, we will not have any revelation, light, or subjective knowledge of Christ as the mystery of God and of the church as the mystery of Christ (Col. 2:2; Eph. 3:4-5; 5:32); the life of the believers hinges totally upon the Lord's speaking (vv. 26-27).

Col. 2:2 That their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love and unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, unto the full knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ,

Eph. 3:4 By which, in reading it, you can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ,

Eph. 3:5 Which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit,

Eph. 5:32 This mystery is great, but I speak with regard to Christ and the church.

Eph. 5:26 That He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word,

Eph. 5:27 That He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she would be holy and without blemish.

II. As the concluding word of this poetic book, the lover of Christ prays that her Beloved would make haste to come back in the power of His resurrection (gazelle and young hart) to set up His sweet and beautiful kingdom (mountains of spices), which will fill the whole earth—S. S. 8:14; Rev. 11:15; Dan. 2:35:

S.S. 8:14 Make haste, my beloved, / And be like a gazelle or a young hart / Upon the mountains of spices.

Rev. 11:15 And the seventh angel trumpeted; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever.

Dan. 2:35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed all at once, and they became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

A. Such a prayer portrays the union and communion between Christ as the Bridegroom and His lovers as the bride in their bridal love, in the way that the prayer of John, a lover of Christ, as the concluding word of the Holy Scriptures, reveals God's eternal economy concerning Christ and the church in His divine love—Rev. 22:20.

B. “Come, Lord Jesus!” is the last prayer in the Bible (v. 20); the entire Bible concludes with the desire for the Lord's coming expressed as a prayer.

C. “When He comes, faith will be turned to facts, and praise will replace prayer. Love will consummate in a shadowless perfection, and we will serve Him in the sinless domain. What a day that will be! Lord Jesus, come quickly!” (Watchman Nee, The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 23, “The Song of Songs,” p. 126).

Morning Nourishment

S. S. 8:5-6 Who is this who comes up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?... Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm...

13-14 O you who dwell in the gardens, my companions listen for your voice; let me hear it. Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young hart upon the mountains of spices.

By leaning upon our Beloved [cf. S. S. 8:5], we constantly leave the world behind and come up again and again until the Lord comes to take us away. “Leaning on her beloved.” [The lover] seems to be powerless and unable to walk. “Leaning on her beloved.” She makes herself a burden for her beloved to carry. “Leaning on her beloved.” It is as if the hollow of her thigh has been touched. “Leaning on her beloved.” She seems to find herself pressed beyond measure, and this seems to last until the wilderness journey is over. Only the Lord can prepare us for the rapture. A trusting life is indispensable. We should trust in Him helplessly until the Holy Spirit exclaims, “Who is this that comes...leaning on her beloved?” (CWWN, vol. 23, “The Song of Songs,” p. 118)

[The lover] realizes that whether she can endure to the end does not depend on her own endurance, but on the Lord’s preservation. No spiritual perfection can sustain a person until the Lord’s return. Everything depends on God and His preserving power. When she realizes this, she cannot help but exclaim, “Set me as a seal on your heart, / As a seal on your arm” [S. S. 8:6]. The heart is the place of love, while the arm is the place of strength. “Set me as permanently as a seal upon Your heart, and as indelibly as a seal upon Your arm. Just as the priests bore the Israelites upon their breasts and their shoulders, remember me constantly in Your heart and sustain me with Your arm. I know that I am weak and empty, and I am conscious of my powerlessness. Lord, I am a helpless person. If I try to preserve myself until Your coming, it will only bring shame to Your name and loss to myself. All my hopes are in Your love and power... From this point on, everything depends on Your strength and Your love.”

[In verse 13] “the gardens” are plural in number. He is not only dwelling in the garden of the maiden (6:2) but dwelling in many other gardens as well... All those who are seeking the Lord together with her adopt the same attitude [of listening to the Lord’s voice (8:13)]...They know that they have to be slow to speak in order to be quick to hear. Both she and they are no longer as talkative as they once were...They no longer insist on speaking like others do, and they no longer speak for the sake of speaking. Those who cannot stop talking about trivial things still have the earthly life reigning within them. But these are listening; they adopt the attitude of a hearer. They know that their lives depend on the Lord’s words and their work depends on the Lord’s commands. They will only listen, because they cannot and will not move by themselves any longer. Without the Lord’s words, they will not have any revelation, light, or knowledge. The life of the believers hinges totally upon the Lord’s speaking.

[Verse 14 speaks] of the mountains of spices. It describes the condition of the Lord’s coming and His kingdom. Then the maiden’s experience will be like a drop of water that has disappeared into the ocean; there will be no more room for advancement, though the tide can always go deeper. All that is left in the world is just her body...Therefore, she cannot help but cry, “Make haste, my beloved.” “Come as quickly as the roe or a young hart. Just as a roe or a young hart appears on the mountains of spices, may You come in Your kingdom.” Although the love is perfect, something is still lacking. When He comes, faith will be turned to facts, and praise will replace prayer. Love will consummate in a shadowless perfection, and we will serve Him in the sinless domain. What a day that will be! Lord Jesus, come quickly! (CWWN, vol. 23, “The Song of Songs,” pp. 119, 124-126)