Monday Morning, September 2, 1974 · Richmond, Virginia
Ministry given through Brother Stephen Kong
Song of Songs 2:8-15
The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh,
Leaping upon the mountains,
Skipping upon the hills.
My beloved is like a roe or a young hart:
Behold, he standeth behind our wall;
He looketh in at the windows;
He glanceth through the lattice.
My beloved spake, and said unto me,
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past;
The rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of singing is come,
And the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land;
The fig tree ripeneth her green figs,
And the vines are in blossom;
They give forth their fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock,
In the covert of the steep place,
Let me see thy countenance,
Let me hear thy voice;
For sweet is thy voice,
And thy countenance is comely.
Take us the foxes,
The little foxes, that spoil the vineyards;
For our vineyards are in blossom.
Song of Songs 4:1-5
Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair;
Thine eyes are as doves behind thy veil:
Thy hair is as a flock of goats,
That lie along the side of mount Gilead.
Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes that are newly shorn,
Which are come up from the washing,
Whereof every one hath twins,
And none is bereaved among them.
Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet,
And thy mouth is comely:
Thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate
Behind thy veil.
Thy neck is like the tower of David
Builded for an armory,
Whereon there hang a thousand bucklers,
All the shields of the mighty men.
Thy two breasts are like two fawns
That are twins of a roe,
Which feed among the lilies.
Song of Songs 2:16
My beloved is mine, and I am his;
He feedeth his flock among the lilies.
Last night, we mentioned that the Song of Songs is a song of love. It is the story of the virgin and her Beloved. It is a pursuit after Him, and the result is a full union with her Beloved.
In a very real sense, this is our spiritual experience with the Lord. Of course, in the Song of Songs, it is more the experience that is in view.
So far as objective truth is concerned, the moment we believe in the Lord Jesus, we are in union with Him in life. All that He has accomplished on the cross is ours. There is nothing you can add to it. It is all there.
But when we come to subjective experience, you find that there is much more that we need to enter into in our experience of the Lord. Just like the children of Israel, so far as God’s promise is concerned, the land flowing with milk and honey is there. God has given the land to them, and it is there.
But so far as experience goes, they have to enter in and step on every inch of the land, to claim it and appropriate it as their possession.
So, brothers and sisters, this Song of Songs is mainly telling us of our subjective experience with the Lord. Of course, the subjective is always based on the objective. Without the objective—that is, without what Christ has done for us—we can never experience Him in the Spirit.
But with what Christ has done for us, we need to appropriate, by the Holy Spirit, all that He has done for us. This is basically what you find in the Song of Songs.
As we go on, I hope that brothers and sisters will not misunderstand, thinking that we do not have Him, that we do not have all of Him, until we gradually come to know Him. In one sense, we do have Him; but in another sense, we do not. We do need to enter into the experience of our Christ.
Last night we mentioned that, so far as the experience of the virgin with her Beloved is concerned, the first stage, after she has known the forgiving love of God in Christ, is a pursuit after Him for a more advanced knowledge.
“Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.” To know Him—that is a passion within the heart of this virgin. There is nothing that she desires more than to know Him.
She cries out that He would draw her, and then she will run after Him. Because of that, her prayer is answered. She is taken into the chambers of the King, and there you find the Lord begins to reveal Himself to her in a way that she has never known before.
In the past, she only knew the Lord as her Saviour. She only knew the forgiving love of God in Christ. She only knew salvation. But here, you find she is brought into the King’s chambers, and there the Lord begins to reveal Himself to her—not merely as Saviour, but as much more.
As the Lord begins to reveal Himself to her in that light, she begins to see her own self, and she begins to be dealt with by the Lord. Now, brothers and sisters, this is something that people who do not seek after the Lord do not understand.
Even among believers, you find there are daughters of Jerusalem. They are believers; they have really believed in the Lord, and they are really saved. Yet they do not see that there is anything beyond just getting saved.
Those who do not pursue after Christ and love Him after they are saved do not understand that there are more dealings of God with us after we are saved. They think that after a person is saved, that is it. Everything is done. There is nothing more to be done, and we are just waiting here to go to heaven.
But people who really seek after the Lord know that there is much more of the Lord that they need to know, and there is much more dealing that the Lord has to do with us in our lives.
The cross has to work in our lives. On the one hand, we see the cross at Calvary. There we find a work done two thousand years ago. Nothing can be added to that. It is finished.
But, on the other hand, we need to experience the working of all that within us. As we begin to experience the operation of the cross within us, we discover how black we are.
But this is only one side: “I am black, but comely.” As the cross begins to work in us, putting us to death, you find that, on the other side, Christ is beginning to be formed in us. He is in us, but He needs to be formed in us, and His beauty needs to be incorporated into us.
Christ our righteousness needs to become the righteousness of the saints. This is the process of transformation. But, of course, this is only the beginning.
Because she seeks after the Lord, the Lord begins to take her into a deeper experience with Him. To sum it up in one word, it is to be united with the Lord in His death. That is the experience she has during the first stage.
After a person is saved, the first stage of our Christian experience is to learn the lessons of the cross in the sense of union with Christ in His death.
Now, what does the cross mean to you aside from salvation? First of all, you remember Paul says in Galatians that he is crucified with Christ. So far as the world is concerned, I am crucified; and so far as I am concerned, the world is crucified. Why? Because I am a new creation.
In other words, you find the working of the cross in our lives, so far as this matter of His death is concerned, deals with us in the matter of the world.
As you look back into your experience, you find that after you are saved, if you really pursue after the Lord in first love, invariably the finger of the Lord begins to point to certain things in your life that are worldly, that belong to the world.
The things of the world—the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life—will take away from you the love of the Father. So, in the beginning stage, you find that the working of the cross in your life is in relation to the world.
God begins to deal with you in certain things in your life. Maybe it is a certain place you go, certain things you love, certain habits you have. Invariably, the Lord begins to deal with you in the matter of the world, or perhaps some relationship with the world.
Something may not be sinful, strictly speaking. Something may be quite legitimate, yet you find it has become the world to you. The cross begins to work in that area, and in that area you experience union with Christ in His death.
Not only in the matter of the world, you find the Lord begins to deal with you by the cross in the matter of your flesh.
After you are saved, you think that now everything is fine. You think that now you are perfect. In one sense, you are a new creation; that is true. So far as truth is concerned, you are a new creation.
Yet, so far as your experience goes, you discover, as you begin to follow the Lord in a closer walk, that you have not changed at all. There is your flesh, and how your flesh flares from time to time.
You begin almost to despair of yourself. You begin to wonder whether you are saved at all. “If I am saved, how can I be that way?” But thank God, that proves you are saved.
That proves that you have a new life in you. That proves that the Holy Spirit is beginning to bring out your blackness and expose you under His light. You begin to see your blackness; you begin to see your flesh; and how you cry out to the Lord.
Until one day, the Lord shows you that you are crucified with Him. It is no longer you; it is Christ who lives in you. One day, you give up. You give up trying. You give up struggling.
When you give up, you think you are finished—and you are. But Christ begins in you. This is the working of the cross in your life in relation to His death. You begin to see the meaning of the cross: it means death to you.
And you rest. You rest in His death. Because you begin to know a little more of the meaning of the cross, you are more in union with Christ in His death. Therefore, you come to know Him a little more.
The expression of your life with the Lord during that period is expressed by this statement: “My beloved is mine, and I am His.” Now I know for sure that He is mine, and I am His too.
But, dear brothers and sisters, as we mentioned at the end last night, even though this virgin has become united with the Lord in His death, has learned something of the meaning of the cross, and has come to feel that the Lord is her special possession, yet you find that in all her spiritual pursuit, there is still herself.
The emphasis is, “The Lord is mine. I want the Lord. I want Him more. He is mine, and I am His.”
You know, dear brothers and sisters, this is always true. A person who comes to know something of the meaning of the cross in its death aspect—strange to say—it is always self.
He thinks he knows the Lord now. He thinks he has got Him now. He thinks he is now spiritual. He thinks that now he has come to some place with the Lord. It is strange.
People who know something of the cross can become very introspective, very self-centered. It can become a kind of deception. He will become inactive, looking within himself all the time, measuring himself by what he knows of the Lord and finding some comfort for himself.
It is true that he is much more advanced than the other daughters of Jerusalem. That is true. But he has not yet come out of himself.
It is true that the Lord has given Himself to her in a way that He has not given Himself to others, because she seeks after the Lord. Yet that does not mean that she is now fully in union with the Lord in experience.
Our spiritual experience is such that, as you pursue after the Lord, He gives Himself to you, and you experience Him in certain aspects. Now, this is spiritual experience. Do not take spiritual experience as a thing in itself.
Actually, spiritual experience is experiencing Christ. But Christ is so great that you cannot experience Him all at once. When you experience Christ, you experience certain aspects of Christ.
To some people, that becomes a thing in itself. Actually, it is not a thing; it is just Christ, but Christ in a certain aspect. In the case of this virgin, it is experiencing Christ in His death—in union with Christ in His death. It is experiencing the death aspect of the cross.
But how easy it is for us to take one aspect of Christ and make it an experience isolated from Christ, making it something in itself. The result is that it becomes our idol. That is the danger of spiritual experience.
Oh, brothers and sisters, you find how God in His graciousness may give certain people Himself, and allow them to experience Him in certain ways, yet they lose sight of Christ. They get hold of the experience and will not let that thing go. The result is spiritual idolatry.
The Lord has to deliver us from such an attitude. But, anyway, you find the virgin has experienced the Lord in a deeper way, in the way of the cross, in the death aspect of the cross. As she experiences this, she enters into rest—rest to her soul.
The Lord allows her to rest. In spiritual pursuit, you find that it is always marching on, then a station; then another marching on, and another station.
You need to experience Him. As you seek after Him, you begin to experience Him. Then you find there will be a period of rest to consolidate what you have experienced of Him.
Just like the children of Israel, when they left Egypt on their way to Canaan, you find there were stations. If you read the book of Numbers, you find all these stations. They marched and they stayed; they marched and they stayed. Every station speaks of some experience of the Lord.
So it is like that. It is a going forward and a staying, a going forward and a resting. This is how we go forward with the Lord.
On the one hand, in view of our frailty, this is necessary. But, on the other hand, after we have experienced Christ in a certain way and found how satisfying He is to us in that particular area, there is always the danger of being content with that and refusing to move on.
It is so good that you do not want to leave. Just like the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration: they had such a vision, and Peter said, “It is good for us to be here.”
This is always so, brothers and sisters. When the Lord gives you a spiritual experience, you find it so good. The Lord allows you to rest there for a while, but it soon becomes a nest, and you do not want it to be disturbed.
A spiritual lethargy creeps in. But thank God, He does not allow it. You know how He often stirs up our nest, how He often breaks up our nest, how He often throws us out into the air in order to lead us on.
Here you find the second stage in the life of this virgin with her Beloved. In the second stage, you find it again begins with the call of the Lord.
“The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.”
In all our spiritual experience, the Lord always takes the initiative. Even when we consider how we came to know the Lord and how we were saved, we think that we sought after Him; but actually, we know that He sought us first.
In the first stage of spiritual pursuit, you may think that it is the virgin who started the whole thing, because she cried out, “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.” Did the virgin really take the initiative?
It is the love of Christ within her that constrains her to cry out in that way. In all our spiritual experiences, the Lord always takes the initiative. Here, you find the voice of the Beloved. Again, the Lord begins to come and stir the whole thing.
“Behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.” What is the picture there? The picture is a picture of resurrection.
You have the mountains there; you have the hills there. God does not take away the mountains. God does not take away the hills. Yet you find He is leaping and skipping upon the mountains and hills.
In other words, it is resurrection life. The problems are still there. The difficulties are still there. But there you are, skipping and leaping upon them. It is life out of death.
The whole description of the calling of the Lord to the virgin is: “Rise up. Rise up. The winter is past. The rain is over; it is gone.” Everything speaks of resurrection. The spring has come.
“Come out. Come out. Come over to the resurrection side of the cross.”
Brothers and sisters, the cross has two sides: there is the death side, and there is the resurrection side. You cannot come into the resurrection-life side without first going through the death side of the cross. That is true.
But it is also possible for people to dwell on the death side of the cross and refuse to come over to the resurrection side. You may say, “How can it be?” But so far as our experience is concerned, it is very possible.
When the Lord gives you some experience of union with Him in His death, at first you may not like to die. But after a while, you just love it. There is nothing better than that.
You go into the cleft of the rock, into the covert of the precipice. You just hide yourself in the cross, and you find it so cozy. You do not want to come out. It becomes a bed.
Have you met Christians who really know the Lord and have really experienced the cross in that aspect, yet you find that they are so negative, so inactive, almost paralyzed, always introspective, always fearful?
All that is written upon their face and upon their life is death, death, death, death. Have you met such Christians? They think they are very deeply spiritual, but that is not too attractive.
Oh, brothers and sisters, how we desire to choose our spiritual atmosphere. How we want to choose our spiritual place. We do not allow the Lord to choose for us, even in the whole spiritual pursuit.
Are we open to the Lord and letting Him choose where we should be? Letting Him choose the level that we should be on? Letting Him choose the experience into which we shall enter? Or do we hold on and say, “No, this is it. I just want this and nothing else”?
How many of God’s people choose their own spiritual place? Well, the Lord cannot move them—cannot move them at all.
On the one hand, what they have had is from the Lord. Yet, on the other hand, as you try to hold on to what the Lord has given you in the past and refuse to move on with Him, you find that between you and the Lord there is a wall.
At the end of the first stage of her experience, you find that she was resting in the arms of the Lord. There was such closeness and togetherness between her and the Lord.
But suddenly, when the Lord calls for a new level of spiritual experience and she refuses to go on, immediately you find that there is a wall between her and the Lord.
Again, I say that this is the experience side, not the truth side. So far as the side of truth is concerned, there is no wall between us and the Lord.
But so far as our experience goes, whenever the Lord is calling you up and you want to remain in the place where you were before, immediately there will be a wall between you and the Lord—a separation.
But thank God, there is a window there. If there were no window, then you would be in prison. Thank God, you find there is a window: “He looketh in at the windows; He glanceth through the lattice.”
If you really love the Lord, even though you may sometimes love an experience more than the Lord, yet there is always a window there. You can still hear Him. You can even see Him looking in.
The Lord is calling, “Come out. Do not just imprison yourself in your so-called spiritual self. Come out of yourself.”
The dealing of the Lord is for the purpose of entering into His resurrection life. You are not to dwell on the death side. You ought not to condemn yourself all the time: “Everything is wrong. There is nothing right.”
You are to go over to the resurrection life and see the life of the Lord that accepts, the life of the Lord that overcomes everything—the resurrection.
Oh, brothers and sisters, how beautiful is the resurrection life of the Lord. It is life out of death. Everything is brought into death, and what is not of God will be buried in the tomb. But what is of God will come out of the tomb, and that is life.
We have to be brought to the end of ourselves. But thank God, we know that He who is in us is our life. We begin to experience the beauty and strength of His life. We have to move on to the resurrection side.
Paul, in his own experience, knew the resurrection life of the Lord. He tells us in 2 Corinthians that we had the sentence of death upon us. There was no more hope. Yet the God who raises the dead raises us up.
How often he found a thorn in the flesh. Oh, how he would have liked the thorn to be removed, the mountains to be removed, that he might walk through a plain. But the Lord says, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Let the mountain remain, but leap over it. That is resurrection life.
But she is not ready for it. She loves her bed too much, and her bed is a spiritual bed, so-called—the bed of union with Christ in His death.
She says, “Lord, You may go, but come back quickly. I will not go with You. I feel very comfortable here. But You come back quickly, because there are ravines in the mountains. There are all kinds of dangers there, and it is very safe and secure in the cleft of the rock. I would rather stay here and not move out.”
She thinks that the Lord will come back. For many nights she spends in her bed, hoping all the time that the Lord will come back. But the Lord does not come back.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord does not come back. He wants you to go out with Him. Sometimes we develop a love for the night. We need to be delivered from that.
Finally, she cannot stand it anymore. She gets up and goes out into the streets, into the broadways. She inquires of the watchmen whether they have seen her Beloved. As she comes out and tries to find Him, He is there.
In other words, here you find the Lord does get her out. Sometimes the Lord has to leave us for a little while in order to get us out of ourselves. But as soon as we get out of ourselves, we find Him. He is there all the time—all the time.
Here you find this virgin begins to enter into a new realm with the Lord. It is in the realm of resurrection, in the realm of experiencing Christ as her life.
We will not be able really to experience Christ as our life until we know the death of the cross. If we are too much alive, Christ has no chance to live.
How accustomed we are to live by our own life, even after we are saved. Christ is in us, and He is our life, and He is here to live for us, that we may live by His life. This is the only way to live.
Yet we are too much alive in ourselves. We have to be brought into death. “I am crucified with Christ.” “There is no good in my flesh.” “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
We have to be brought into death before we can really experience Christ as our life. To live by the life of Christ, you are on resurrection ground.
It is only when you are living on resurrection ground—that is, by His life—that the beauty of the new creation begins to be manifested.
Therefore, in Song of Songs 4, you find a description of the beauty of the new creation. Because she has moved on into resurrection ground, in union with Christ in His resurrection, what is the result? The beauty of Christ begins to be manifested.
“Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thine eyes are as doves behind thy veil.”
There is one thing about a dove: we are told that doves’ eyes are very single. In other words, they can see one thing only at a time. They do not have double vision.
Here you find the Lord saying, “Thine eyes are as doves.” Why? Because here you find how single-minded, how single-hearted, how single-eyed she is toward the Lord. She sees the Lord and nothing else. She sees the Lord as her life.
But it is behind the veil. In other words, it is covered. It is hidden from the eyes of the world. Some people love the Lord, yet their love for the Lord can be seen by everybody because they are always advertising it.
But when you really come to know the Lord, you find there is a singleness to the Lord, but it is somewhat hidden behind the veil. You do not make a thing out of it. It is between you and the Lord.
“Thy hair is as a flock of goats, that lie along the side of mount Gilead.” In other words, there is an abundance of hair. Hair in Scripture always speaks of obedience.
How she is now covered before the Lord. How she is now taking the Lord as her authority. There is a great abundance of obedience to the Lord, and because of her obedience to the Lord, there is strength.
Just like Samson: when his hair was long, he had strength. Dedication to the Lord, submission to the authority of Christ, and being under the covering of the headship of Christ mean spiritual strength.
“Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes that are newly shorn, which are come up from the washing, whereof every one hath twins, and none is bereaved among them.”
This means that her spiritual capacity for the Lord is great. Teeth are used to chew food. If you have perfect teeth, and they are all in pairs—upper and lower fitting together—you can chew things very well.
If one part is missing, or if they are not clean, when you chew food it is a little difficult. Here you find she has not only a spiritual appetite for the Lord, but she has the spiritual capacity for the Lord.
Not like babes, who can only digest milk; now she has the capacity to chew solid food.
“Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy mouth is comely.” Because of her knowledge of the Lord in such a living way, she has a testimony, a word to give for the Lord to His people.
“Thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind thy veil.”
When I first came to this country, I was surprised that people did not know what a pomegranate was. I was told that some people had never seen a pomegranate.
In the East, a pomegranate is a very common fruit. It has a hard and very thick shell, but when you break it open, you find that it is full of seeds. Every seed is covered with red, juicy flesh.
When you cut open a pomegranate, you find that it is full of beauty, full of juice, full of seed—very fruitful and very beautiful. It is beautiful to look at.
The temple in Scripture always speaks of that which reveals the inward life. Like a pomegranate that is cut open, there is such abundant life within. But it is behind the veil.
Again, when a person is really filled with the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit is abundant, he never makes a show of himself. It is always, as it were, hidden behind the veil.
“Thy neck is like the tower of David, builded for an armory, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all the shields of the mighty men.”
The neck speaks of our will. A will fully surrendered to the Lord becomes a tower of David. Here you find the power of a yielded will to God.
“Thy two breasts are like two fawns, that are twins of a roe, which feed among the lilies.” In other words, there is such abundance of life that she is able to share with other people, to feed the young.
Here you find a description of the beauty of the new creation. What is new creation? New creation is nothing but the life of Christ.
Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. It is only Christ in you that is the new creation. When you come into union with Christ in His resurrection, then you find that the beauty of the new creation begins to be manifested.
Oh, brothers and sisters, that Christ may be seen! The only way Christ can be seen in our lives is when we live on resurrection ground with Christ. That is the only way.
But this is not the end of this stage of experience. You find that during this stage, after she has gone over to the resurrection side of the cross, the Lord begins to call her to ascension. The Lord begins to call her into the heavenlies.
To ascend is to look down. As our brother mentioned during the conference, not to look up, but to look down. It depends on where you are.
Here you find she is called into union with Christ in His ascension. Now she has taken her position with Christ in the heavenlies. As Paul said, we have been raised with Him, and we are now seated together with Him in the heavenlies.
From that heavenly position, she enters into victory over the enemy. So, brothers and sisters, you find that by the grace of God we come into the experience of His death, the experience of His resurrection, and also the experience of His ascension.
In His death, we die to the world, we die to the flesh, and we die to ourselves. In His resurrection, we enter into His life—His abundant life. In ascension, we come into His heavenly power to overcome all our enemies.
When a virgin has come into such union, she begins to bear fruit—not only spices, but also fruits. You find her life begins to be solidified and built up, gradually built up in Christ.
During this stage, the expression that covers this stage is, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”
In other words, now she is beginning to come out of herself. She is beginning to come out on the side of the Lord. “I am my beloved’s.” She is now the Lord’s.
Of course, He is also mine, but I am His first and foremost. I am His.
Of course, when she declares this, actually it is at the time when she fails. Just as when she declares, “My beloved is mine, and I am his,” it is at the time when she really fails the Lord.
But when we fail the Lord, that is the time when we can really look back and see where we stand. That is why you find all these expressions are given, not in the time of spiritual normality, but when she is at a low point. That is the time you look back and begin to realize where you are standing.
I think probably we will just stay here, dear friends.
Our heavenly Father, how we praise and thank Thee because Thou art always going on, and Thou art calling us to go on with Thee.
O Lord, we praise and thank Thee because Thou dost desire that we should be united with Thee in Thy death, in Thy resurrection, and in Thy ascension.
Oh, we do praise and thank Thee that Thy death, Thy resurrection, and Thy ascension are not just some objective truths for us to contemplate, but Thy death, Thy resurrection, and Thy ascension afford us the basis of our experience of Thee.
O Lord, we pray that we may enter into all that Thou art and into all that Thou hast done for us in a very real and living way.
Lead us up, O Lord, until Thy purpose is fulfilled. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.