NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 43
NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 43
Song of Songs 5; Song of Songs 6: 1 - 3
The thought before me is that unless you have known the Lord’s presence you do not know when you lose it. Many have never enjoyed His presence, hence they do not feel their loss. When you have known it in the most elementary way as it is here, you realise your loss. It is only in the Lord’s presence that we become divinely sensitive, so that we know we have lost that which we had enjoyed. He had come into His garden, and it was after having had a happy time with Him that the bride declined. “I sleep, but my heart waketh”. When you decline, the brightest joy is clouded, the top shoot is the first to fail. Hence we read, “Whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing”. (Philippians 3: 16) When you decline, the best part goes first, and there is no advance until you are restored. The great thing is to know His presence; if you do not know it in a day of difficulty, you do not know your resource. You must purge yourself first, before you can follow with them who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. If you are not right yourself you cannot discover that which is right.
The more you are in Christ’s company the better you will know that which suits Him. Jacob has an altar at Shalem, El-elohe-Israel, but there every kind of worldliness could be tolerated. God tells him to go up to Bethel, and now he says to his household, “Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments”. (Genesis 35: 2) He remembered the character of the place, and what suited God; and it is thus we are taught, even as to our dress, to turn away from that which is unsuitable to the Lord. We may not be able to give a text for every change we adopt, but the more we know of the Lord in the assembly, in His garden, the more we are according to His taste. We shrink from the influence of the world; we not only purge ourselves from mere professors, but we fear even more those who are nearest to us if they are not with the Lord. To babes it is said, “Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things”. (1 John 2: 20) They have an inward consciousness of what is right. Now after decline, you may go into extremes like the bride here before you are restored; you may offend against constituted authority, you may suffer from the watchmen, your veil taken away. The only way to recovery is occupation with the Lord personally. It does not help you to be occupied with your failure; occupy yourself with the Lord, get His portrait morally before your heart; then you will be like the two disciples at Emmaus, who followed Him to Jerusalem, where His people were. You trace Him to His garden, and thus restored you will be nearer to Him than you were before, and then your joy will be, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine”.