This is Sunday evening, September 1, 1974, in Richmond, Virginia. The ministry is given through Brother Stephen Kong.
How thankful we are to our Lord, that we who were once so far away from Him—not only sinners, but rebels—and yet His love is so great as to redeem us, to bring us together to appreciate Him, and to have the privilege of remembering Him in this way.
It really should overwhelm us when we think of what the Lord has done for us.
I think probably it will be appropriate for tonight that we read something from the Song of Songs, the Song of Solomon. Will you please turn to the Song of Songs?
We will read Chapter 1, the first eight verses.
The Song of songs, which is Solomon’s.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth;
For thy love is better than wine.
Thine ointments have a goodly fragrance;
Thy name is as ointment poured forth;
Therefore do the virgins love thee.
Draw me; we will run after thee:
The king hath brought me into his chambers:
We will be glad and rejoice in thee;
We will make mention of thy love more than of wine:
Rightly do they love thee.
I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
As the tents of Kedar,
As the curtains of Solomon.
Look not upon me, because I am black,
Because the sun hath scorched me.
My mother’s sons were incensed against me;
They made me keeper of the vineyards;
But mine own vineyard have I not kept.
Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth,
Where thou feedest thy flock,
Where thou makest it to rest at noon:
For why should I be as one that is veiled
Beside the flocks of thy companions?
If thou know not, O thou fairest among women,
Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock,
And feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.
And just one verse in Chapter 2, Verse 16:
My beloved is mine, and I am his;
He feedeth his flock among the lilies.
Solomon wrote a thousand and five songs. He wrote about everything under the heavens. He wrote of the cattle of the field; he wrote of the trees. But of all the songs that he wrote, this one is called the Song of Songs.
The subject matter of this song is different from all the other songs, because this is a love song—a song of love. To the spiritually minded, this shows us the love story between a believer and his Lord.
As a matter of fact, our whole life with the Lord is a life of love. Not because we know how to love Him, but because He has loved us first. And, being loved, we cannot help but love Him. As we love Him, we grow in love increasingly. We are in union with Him, and that is the whole story of our Christian life.
How do we know that we are growing in the Lord? Is it because we know more of the interpretations of the Word? It is good if we can understand His Word, but that does not really measure our growth.
Our growth in the Lord is measured only by one thing, and that is love: how much we know His love, and how much His love has constrained us to love Him. Our whole relationship with the Lord is a relationship of love.
This Song of Songs is not a song of those who do not know the God of love. We find that, in the very beginning, it does not begin with what we usually call initial salvation—that is to say, one who does not know God, and God seeks after him and brings him back to Himself.
In the beginning of this song, this is taken for granted. In other words, here is a soul; here is a virgin. The Bible never calls anyone who is not redeemed by the precious blood a virgin.
Why? So far as our spiritual condition before God is concerned, God looks upon the world as a world of adulterers and adulteresses—defiled, unfaithful. Only those who are washed by the precious blood of the Lamb are as chaste virgins, as Paul says, betrothed to one husband, even to Christ.
So here you find it is the story of a virgin—her pursuit of love, her pursuit of the Beloved—until you find these two come into a deeper and deeper union. It is not only a union of life, but you find it comes to be a union of purpose. This is the whole story of our Christian life.
This song begins with a cry from the heart: “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth; for Thy love is better than wine.”
Once upon a time, this virgin had tasted wine. Wine in the Scripture always represents, in one sense, the pleasure of this world—the pleasure of sin. This world does have something to offer. If you seek after this world, you will get some pleasure out of it.
But the Bible calls it the pleasure of sin, the pleasure of this world. It may taste sweet in the beginning, but at the end it turns bitter. In the beginning, it may help you forget your sorrows; it may dull your senses. But it has a sting in it, and eventually it will bring disaster to your soul.
But evidently this virgin, this woman, had tasted the bitterness of the wine of this world. By the grace of God, she came to taste the love of God in Christ Jesus. She discovered that the love of God in Christ Jesus is much better than the wine of this world.
It is not only sweet, but it is sweeter and sweeter as the days go by. There is no bitterness afterwards. Because she has tasted the love of Christ, it increases her appetite. She desires more.
Brothers and sisters, how true it is. For people who have never tasted the love of God in Christ Jesus, they do not know how sweet it is. But once you have tasted His love, no doubt you will be longing for more.
On the one hand, His love satisfies you. There is nothing that satisfies us more than the love of Christ. Yet, on the other hand, it whets our appetite for more. This is how the whole story begins. This is how the pursuit of this virgin after her Beloved starts: “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.”
When the prodigal son came home, he had been away from home. He had wasted all that his father had given him. He was reduced not only to poverty, but almost to death.
By the mercy of God, he awakened. He said, “I will go back to my home. I have sinned against Heaven. I have sinned against my father. I will ask for forgiveness; and if only my father will take me in as one of his slaves, I would be much happier than I am here.”
So he started to go back. Maybe he travelled a long distance, but when he saw the door of his father’s house, that little distance was the hardest to travel. He had come all the way to his father’s country, and yet, when he saw the gate of his father’s house, it seemed to me that he just stopped there. He hesitated.
But instead of waiting for the prodigal son to gather up his courage and make his last rush towards home, the father ran after him. The father knew it was difficult for him.
In the whole Bible, there is only one place where it says God runs. Our God is never in a hurry. We always are, but He never is. Yet only in this particular instance, we find the father could not stand it. He ran after him.
He wrapped him in his arms, and the Bible says he kissed his neck. Is that not a wonderful picture? Who are we? We are a stiff-necked people. In rebellion, our neck stiffens. This is our attitude towards God.
But here you find the heavenly Father kisses our neck. In other words, His forgiving love softens our rebellion. Dear brothers and sisters, all who have tasted the forgiving love of God know how it melts our hearts.
We cannot stand against Him anymore. He has forgiven all our sins. He will not even allow us to finish our confession, because He has already forgiven. This love softens the neck of the prodigal son. It melts our hearts.
Being constrained by the love of Christ, how can we help but ask for more? Not that we are grieving, but we want more. “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.”
The virgin does not even mention who He is: “Let Him kiss me.” Because, to the forgiven one, there is only one person. There can be no mistake.
Brothers and sisters, when we are in our first love towards Christ, is there anything else? Anyone else? He is the only One who occupies our hearts. He is the only One who fills our affection. Day and night we think of Him. It is just Him; that is all. No mistake.
“Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.” Not just a kiss upon my neck, but a kiss mouth to mouth. In other words, it is a longing for a more intimate life with the Lord, a longing for a deeper relationship with the Lord.
“Thine ointments have a goodly fragrance.” As she longs for the Lord, she begins to smell the fragrance of the Lord.
The ointment here speaks of all the virtues, the qualities, the character of our Lord Jesus: His righteousness, His love, His faithfulness, His mercy, His wisdom—all that He is. These begin to occupy the heart of that virgin.
Especially His name, because His name is like ointment poured forth. When ointment is poured forth, the fragrance spreads all over the house. How precious is the name of our Lord Jesus. The very mention of His name touches our hearts.
Therefore, it is supernaturally natural for the virgins to love Him. To this world, they think that we are crazy. We love One whom we have never seen, and yet we love Him. One day we know we shall see Him.
But to us, it is natural—supernaturally natural. Therefore do the virgins love Him.
On the one hand, you find there is the first love. There is a longing for more love, a longing to know Him in a more intimate way, a longing for a deeper relationship with Him.
Yet, on the other hand, the virgin knows very well in her heart that unless the Lord draws, there is no way. “Draw me, and we will run.”
You remember our Lord Jesus said in the Gospel according to John, “Unless the Father draws, no one can come to the Son.” We come to the Son because the Father has drawn us to the Son. And no one can run after the Son unless he is drawn by the Son.
Brothers and sisters, when we desire Him, we realize that in us there is no strength. We need His drawing. So here is a prayer: a prayer that Christ would draw with His love.
As His love begins to draw, we have the strength now to run. Love is very contagious. If one is drawn by Christ, by the love of Christ, and starts to run, other virgins run with her. It is contagious.
The King answers her prayer. Dear brothers and sisters, if we are in our first love with the Lord, if we cry out to the Lord, if we ask the Lord to draw us, He will answer.
Oftentimes people ask this question: “I want to love Him, but I just cannot. How can I love Him more? I cannot manufacture it. I cannot make it grow by myself.”
But, brothers and sisters, there is one thing you can do: you can ask Him to draw you. If you ask Him to draw you, He will. Immediately you find, “The King hath brought me into His chambers.”
The answer comes very quickly. The King has brought her into His chambers—not just one chamber, not merely the sitting room or the parlor, but into His chambers. No doubt He brings her there to reveal more of Himself to this virgin.
The result is that this virgin begins to know Christ a little more than the rest of the daughters of Jerusalem. Now, who are the daughters of Jerusalem?
Evidently, the daughters of Jerusalem are also believers, saved by grace, because they are her mother’s children. They are children of grace. They belong to Jerusalem. They belong to God. They are believers.
Yet, somehow, you find there are many believers, unfortunately, who are not in the pursuit of love. They are believers who are truly saved, and yet they think that to be saved is simply to get to heaven. That is it, and nothing more.
They do not desire anything more than just getting to heaven. How many believers are in this category? They are daughters of Jerusalem. They know the forgiving love of Christ, but that is all.
They are different from this one virgin. Brothers and sisters, the more you know the Lord, the less you are known by the world—and not only by the world, but you are less known even by your brothers and sisters.
As the virgin pursues love and the Lord brings her into His chambers, giving her hidden things—actually, they are open secrets, but hidden in a sense in the chambers—she learns more of the Lord, a little more probably than the rest of the daughters of Jerusalem.
Because of this, the daughters of Jerusalem could not understand her. They wondered why this virgin had to go that way. They could not understand why getting to heaven was not all. They could not understand why she should pursue after the Lord.
Instead, they saw her blackness and criticized her. Dear brothers and sisters, if anyone is brought into the chambers of the Lord, it is true that in the chambers He will reveal Himself in a very special way.
The secret of the Lord is with those who are near to Him. Yet you cannot receive the revelation of the Lord without receiving, at the same time, a revelation of yourself. These two always go together.
If you say, “God has given me such a revelation. Oh, it is a revelation of the third heaven. He has shown me so much,” and yet there is absolutely no revelation of yourself, it is a mirage, not a vision.
When Isaiah saw the Lord in the temple, high and lifted up, immediately he saw himself in the light of that revelation:
Woe is me! for I am undone;
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
Brothers and sisters, do you desire to have a revelation of God, a revelation of Christ? You may think, “If only God could reveal Himself to me, if only Christ would reveal more of Himself to me, how good that would be. I would live in the third heaven. I would be so spiritual.”
If that is all you get, you have not got anything. Because there in the chambers of the King, the virgin is given a revelation of the beauty of the Lord. In connection with that, she begins to see her ugliness.
Not only does she see it, but she begins to be dealt with by the Lord. Do not think the revelation of God is all glorious. In the revelation of God, you will experience the deepest humiliation.
People who profess to know the revelation of God and yet are not humiliated by the glory of the Lord have not seen the Lord. You will be burned if you are in that light.
If you expose yourself just to the sunlight, you will be sunburned. If you continue to stay there, you will be scorched. How much more if we abide in that eternal light of God? How much more if we abide in His light?
We shall see light, yes. But what do we see? Thank God, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all our sins.
People are sometimes puzzled by this verse: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” We say, “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, then everything is all right.”
It is all right. We have fellowship with one another, but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. As we are in fellowship with Him, we begin to see how black we are. We begin to see all our ugliness. We begin to see ourselves in His light.
As the light begins to shine upon us, we are burned. We are all burned, and all the daughters of Jerusalem can see is your blackness. That is all they can see.
Dear brothers and sisters, when you really pursue the Lord, and love begins to deal with you and brings out all your darkness, the world can only see your darkness. Even the daughters of Jerusalem can see nothing but that darkness. They think you have fallen.
Oh, how this virgin wants her companions to understand her: “O daughters of Jerusalem, do not say I am not black. Yes, I am black, but I am comely.”
So far as I am concerned, I am black. I acknowledge that. I am exposed now. This is what I am. I am humiliated. But do not forget, I am comely too, because the Lord has done something in me.
It is true, He has brought out all that I am, but He has also incorporated something of Himself in me, like the curtains of Solomon. The tents of Kedar are seen by everybody. The curtains of Solomon are only seen by those who draw very close to God. They cannot see it.
On the one hand, the daughters of Jerusalem cannot understand her. They even criticize her as if she had fallen, as if she had gone back.
But, on the other hand, there is a paradox. They say, “Look how black you are. You are even worse than we are.” Yet they know she has something they do not have. So they say, “All right, since you have something, we will put you to work. Here are all the vineyards. Now take care of these vineyards.”
Dear brothers and sisters, whenever there is a person who begins to love the Lord, and the Lord begins to teach him or her a little lesson, you will find inevitably that people will pile work upon work upon you and say, “Now you do this, and you do that. You are the person to do all these things.”
They keep you busy from morning till night. Maybe that is the way they think to cure you of your spirituality.
But you find how true it is. Whenever a person begins to be zealous for the Lord, immediately you find people will pile work upon you. “Keep this vineyard; keep that vineyard.” You are busy all the time. You are engaged in all kinds of activities.
As you try to keep all these vineyards, gradually you find you have neglected your own vineyard. In other words, you are so occupied with activities that you have not even time to wait upon the Lord. Your own spiritual life begins to suffer.
Instead of entering deeper into that love life with the Lord, you are being drawn out into work—and good work, work of the Lord, Christian work.
I know what I am talking about. In my first love for the Lord, I was just so busy. I can tell you, brothers and sisters, I was so busy with Christian activities that I had no time to grow in the Lord.
Not that these activities are bad. Not that we should not serve the Lord. Of course we should. But is it something given to us by man, or is it something appointed by God?
If it is something appointed by God, the more you work, the closer you are to Him. If it is appointed by men, the more you are occupied, the further you drift from the Lord.
Here you find this virgin, after she had tried to keep these vineyards for a time, began to realize how her own spiritual life with the Lord suffered. She cries out:
Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth,
Where thou feedest thy flock,
Where thou makest it to rest at noon:
For why should I be as one that is veiled
Beside the flocks of thy companions?
As this virgin goes on in her spiritual life and is occupied with all these activities, she thinks she must do these things for God’s sake. Yet she begins to realize three things.
First, she begins to realize that she is hungry. She is starved. She tries to feed others, but she herself has nothing. She is giving out all the time, and there is nothing left. She is not refreshed at all. She begins to feel starvation.
Second, she finds that she begins to be restless. There is no rest in her soul.
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;
For I am meek and lowly in heart:
And ye shall find rest unto your souls.
She had that promise, but instead of taking the yoke of the Lord and learning of Him, she takes upon herself all these loads given to her by men. She cannot find rest in her soul. She needs to be fed, and she needs to have rest.
More than that, she finds herself like one who is veiled beside the flocks of the companions of the Lord. I do not know, brothers and sisters, if you have ever had that kind of feeling in you. I do.
I can remember at one time my prayer before the Lord was always this verse: “Why should I be as one that is veiled beside the flocks of Thy companions?” There is something between you and the Lord. You cannot see. You are veiled beside the flocks of His companions.
Who are these companions of the Lord? They may be the servants of the Lord, perhaps great servants of God. As God entrusts to them His sheep, here you find a flock of His companions; there you find another flock of His companions.
There are many companions, and there are many flocks. You find yourself beside the flocks of His companions, and everything is indirect. There is not a direct relationship with the Lord. There is some veil there. There is some distance there.
Brothers and sisters, that can never satisfy one whose heart is set upon the Lord. We should not be discontented all the time, and yet we shall always be unsatisfied for Him.
Here you find the first stage of her pursuit of the Lord. She longs to be fed beside the Lord, and not just beside the flocks of His companions.
She cries out in love. Again, her Beloved answers:
If thou know not, O thou fairest among women,
Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock,
And feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.
“If thou knowest not”—if you really want to know where I am—follow the footsteps of the flock. Is that not strange?
In the preceding verse, she cries out, “Why should I be as one that is veiled beside the flocks of Thy companions?” She is with the flocks of His companions, and even there she is veiled. But the answer of the Lord is, “If you really want to know where I am, follow the footsteps of the flock.”
The Lord has only one flock: one Shepherd, one flock.
Fear not, little flock;
For it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
In Luke 12, the little flock refers to the church, the believers. In comparison with the world, those who are the Lord’s are but a little flock.
In John 10, we find one Shepherd. There may be different folds—the Jewish fold, the fold of Judaism, the Gentile fold—but the Lord said He would lead His sheep out of the fold of Judaism and out of the fold of the Gentiles, and make them one flock under Him. That is the church of God.
Brothers and sisters, throughout the centuries, you find there are the footsteps of the flock. When you read church history, official church history gives you the flocks of the companions of the Lord, the footsteps of the flocks of the companions of the Lord.
But if you are really seeking after the Lord, you will find throughout the centuries God has never left the footsteps of the flock out of history.
Throughout the ages, there are those who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes, even if it means persecution, misunderstanding, and death. The footsteps of the flock are always there. If you want to find the Lord, follow the footsteps of the flock, and you will find Him.
“And feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.” You still have to feed your kids. It does not mean that now you are simply seeking your own spiritual growth and do not care about other people.
No. Whom the Lord has entrusted to you, you still carry on—but with the Lord, with the Lord.
Without going into details, here you find that because she has such a desire for the Lord, the Lord compares her to Pharaoh’s horses. In other words, because she runs after the Lord, the Lord again brings her into the banqueting house.
In the following verses, you find she finds rest, she finds food, she finds the Lord.
Her experience in this stage is expressed by one statement: “My beloved is mine, and I am His.”
Of course, the Lord belongs to all believers. The Lord is not exclusively yours. You remember Paul said to the church in Corinth, “Some say, ‘I am of Paul’; some say, ‘I am of Apollos’; some say, ‘I am of Cephas’; and some say, ‘I am of Christ.’” And he said, “Is Christ divided?”
Christ is not exclusively yours. He belongs to all of God’s people. That is true. Yet, brothers and sisters, to those who really seek after the Lord in love, in your feeling you cannot help but say, “My beloved is mine.”
It is just like when a person is saved. He always thinks that the Lord came into this world just to save him—nobody else. And that is true. If it were only you, He would come. He would go to the cross for you. It is for you.
In the same way, the one who really seeks after the Lord in love desires to know Him more. Paul said, “To know Him.” Of course, Paul knew the Lord. He met Him on the road to Damascus. Yet when he wrote the letter to the Philippians, he said, “Oh, to know Him, that I may know Him.”
Is that the desire of your heart? You know Him, and yet you want to know Him. If this is your desire, you will know Him. He will give Himself to you in a very special way, so that you can say, “My beloved is mine. Oh, He is mine. I have got Him.”
Of course, not to be unspiritual, she says, “And I am His.” But do you know who is the center? Even in this spiritual pursuit, you find in the early stage it is still herself at the center, and the Lord is for her.
How the Lord condescends Himself to us. In a way, we are all selfish. Even in the pursuit of spiritual growth, we are selfish. We want Him for us, for me. “My beloved is mine.” I am begging for Him personally. He has to satisfy my spiritual longing.
Yet He who knows our very being does not despise us. He comes to us. He satisfies us.
“My beloved is mine, and I am His.” That is the first stage.
Lord, how we praise and thank Thee. We can truly say, “My beloved is mine, and I am His.”
But, Lord, lead us on until Thou dost become all in all—nothing of self, but all of Christ.
In Thy precious name. Amen.