We are continuing our study of the Song of Solomon this morning, and I hope you are finding this study useful. We are spending a lot of time on it, but I pray that our study is creating within you a more acute understanding of the Love that Christ has for us. We know that “16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” but has this melted our hearts with an overwhelming feeling of how great this love must be?
We can imagine how great this love must be and we can try to understand it by saying we would give our own lives for our children, but this doesn’t even scratch the surface on a love so deep and pure that He gave His Son’s life to save sinners. To save sinners while we were still in our sin.
Have we been overwhelmed to the point where we long for Him even as He longs for us? And if we have then what does this cause us to do in our lives when we feel that we don’t find Him?
In our reading for this morning we see our beloved lying in her bed, longing for her love. She isn’t sleeping, I can imagine she is tossing and turning, not able to rest, searching for the one her heart loves. She looks for Him, but does not find Him. She is feeling alone and scared and uneasy. Longing for her love. She is longing for Him throughout the song, but here, in the middle of the night, alone in the dark, her longing in magnified. She becomes even more aware of her need for Him. More aware of her agonizing need for Him. She becomes even more aware of her lack of self-sufficiency. It wasn’t a bad thing to need her beloved, but it was agonizing not to find Him.
There is no pain greater than unrequited love. This is love that is not openly reciprocated and in many cases the beloved may not even be aware of the deep and strong affection that exists in the other. It might even be consciously rejected, but in either case the unfulfilled longing creates a pain that can be so deep it can’t be described.
I imagine this is the feeling our beloved has as she lies in her bed all night long, looking for the one she loves, looking for Him but not finding Him. Her longing becomes more than she can bear and she gets up and goes out into the city in search for the one her heart loves.
She goes into the streets, not a safe place for a young women, I’m sure, but she goes out into the streets and into the squares. She searched for her love but still does not find Him. She’s found by the watchmen as they make their rounds.
She didn’t stop her search when they found her. Her loneliness wasn’t cured. They were not the object of her longing. She didn’t feel secure with their presence, she asks them if they’ve seen the one her heart loves, but they offer little help.
Her search is not in vain. Despite the lack of help from the watchmen, she finds the one she sought. She was saved from her loneliness and dread. She was saved from her agony and doubt. She held him and would not let him go. She wouldn’t let him go until he was safely at home in her mother’s house. They were married, that is what this passage is saying to us.
This was an ancient Israelitish custom we read of back in Genesis. 24:67 - “67 Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her;” This is what this verse is telling us about the Shulammite woman, when she finds her beloved, she grabs ahold of Him and will not let Him go until she becomes His wife. Until He became her husband.
Are you grabbing hold of Christ? Are you being that BOLD in your love for Him? This is what the song is leading us toward. If we look at what the maiden does was can see the following progression: she LOVED HIM, SHE SOUGHT HIM, SHE FOUND HIM NOT, SHE FOUND HIM, SHE HELD HIM, SHE BROUGHT HIM. The song makes it very clear that she held Him and WOULD NOT LET HIM GO. And I think this is an important part of this scripture. She WOULD NOT LET HIM GO, which indicates He would have had she not held Him tight.
We can see in this, according to the text, that there is a very real chance that Christ will go away from us if he is not held. Now I am not talking about losing our salvation, but she says I held him and I would not let him god. Clearly she had a concern that if not held, he would go.
We see this elsewhere in scripture, this idea that Christ will go, unless held.
In Genesis 32:24-26 - “24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. 26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.”
The angel said, “Let me go” but He wouldn’t go without Jacob letting him. Jacob replied, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.” You see this is one of Christ’s ways, this is one of the peculiarities of His Character. On the road to Emmaus He made as if he would have gone further, and He would have had the disciples not held Him with the words “Abide with us for the day is far spent.”
Christ is not intrusive. He is many things, but not intrusive. Although he wants no one to be lost, but all to receive eternal life, He will not force us to accept His sacrifice. If we are willing to let Him loose, he will go and wait until we long for Him and call for Him, wait for us to see His value and begin to search for Him. He will go unless we hold Him.
See in this that Jesus MUST be held, but praise the Lord He is WILLING to be held. He is not trying to escape us, He came for us and died for us and He is WILLING to be held by us and He CAN be held by us. We grasp Him by our faith. For whosever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. And it MUST be Christ Jesus we hold for there is no other name by which man must be saved.
You know this gives new light to a verse in Chapter 1. 1:6 - “They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.” When we first looked at this verse we said that it was the reason the maiden felt unworthy to be looked upon by her beloved. And this is true, but there is a higher and more important message in this when we look at it in the light of chapter 3.
Its true that we are not worthy of His love, in and of ourselves. We are not worthy of His love. There is nothing within us that deserved salvation, nothing that we’ve done that warrants His death for our sake. When we understand that there is nothing good within us, we have no choice but to respond, look not upon me, O Lord, but have we also neglected our own vineyard?
Not only will the Lord go away from us should we not desire to hold Him close, but He goes away for other reasons as well. Reasons that are beneficial for us. In some cases, He must go. THIS IS WHERE FAITH comes in. Faith is hope in things unseen. DO YOU HAVE FAITH IN HIM? Do you keep watch for Him? Do you long for Him to return? Do you lie awake in the night, searching and looking for Him?
Jesus said this in John 14: 2 - “2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” He says in John 8:21 - “21 Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.” and to follow up in 8:24 - “24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”
He was going and when he went he said to his disciples, if they did not believe that He is the Messiah, they will die in their sins.
I go … for you. To prepare a place for you…
We see this in the story of Moses as told by Stephen in Acts 7. We just studied this on Wednesday night. Stephen is accused of speaking against the holy place and against the law, which was given to Moses. Moses had led the Children of Israel from bondage in Egypt and when he had left them for a time to speak to God, they grew weary and began to think he wouldn’t return, and so they made for themselves a God, a golden calf.
Exodus 32:1 - “1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.”
You see when the women says in Songs, “They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.” She is talking about neglecting her own work for the demands of others. She is talking about not keeping the faith. She is talking about not knowing the reason for the hope we have. We should examine ourselves to see if we would have to make the same confession.
There is no question how much Jesus loves us. He loves us enough to die for us. He loves us so much that he became sin, even though he had to sin, so that we might be saved from the its costly wage. He loves us so much that He left the fellowship of the Godhead to suffer the pain and agony of crucifixion, the pain and agony of being forsaken by the Father, the pain and agony of the bitter cup of death so that we might have everlasting life. There is no question how much Jesus loves us.
The question is how much we love Him. Do you search for Him when there is little evidence of Him in the world around us? Do you serve Him when everyone else is demanding your attention? Do you long for Him when you feel alone and afraid? Or do you run to the arms of the watchmen?
Jesus came and demonstrated His love for us in this, that when we were still sinners He died for us. On the third day He rose again and then He ascended into heaven to prepare a place for us and knowing this, we have a choice to make. Do we labor in the vineyards of another, or do we keep our own vineyard? Do we call for a golden calf, or do we wait for the return of God’s word? Do we die in our sins, or do we believe that Jesus is the Christ and that He will return again in time for the wedding feast?
Tending our vineyard is laboring for the sake of Christ. Having faith that compels us. Having hope… a hope of a future life, a life that is without end. When we accepted Christ as our savior, we died to the world. 2 Corinthians 5:14 tells us this, “14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
If we believe that Jesus is the Christ, His love should compel us because we are convinced that one died for all. If one died for all then all died. We died with Christ and therefore should no longer live for ourselves but for Christ.
If we are not serving Christ, we are laboring in the vineyards of others. If we are not serving Christ we are not keeping our vineyard. If we are not convinced that one died for all, then we will die in our sins. Christ has gone to prepare a place for us so that where He is, there we may be also.
But He lives now within us, if we search for him until we find Him. if we have put our faith in Him, and if we don’t see Him we should long for Him. We should toss and turn all night long restless under the loneliness of being apart from Him. We should get up now, if we haven’t found Him and go about the city, through the streets and squares searching for the one our heart loves. We should not look for comfort or security in the arms of the watchmen, in golden calfs or legalistic ritual or false doctrine, but should continue searching for Him, and when we find Him, we should hold Him and never let Him go.
There is no greater pain then unrequited love. Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Our love for Christ will never be one-sided or unrequited.
Will His love for you be?
“Daughters of Jerusalem, 11 come out,
and look, you daughters of Zion.
Look on the King wearing a crown,
the crown with which his mother crowned him
on the day of his wedding,
the day his heart rejoiced.”
