Song of Songs 3
v.2
I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares; I will search for the one my heart loves. So I looked for him but did not find him.
In coming to Christ, no merit of your own can recommend you—so in longing for Him to appear to you again, no strivings of your own can avail you. Let His rich grace be your poor plea. Your best way of suing is to say— “Oh! for this no strength have I, My strength is at Thy feet to lie.” So, brethren, you may traverse every street in the city, you may even come to that street paved with gold—the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper—or you may go down Water Street, where in the ordinance of baptism, the Lord often reveals His death and burial unto His people, but after having traversed both these streets you shall be compelled to say, “Though I love the means, they are a weariness to me when Jesus is not revealed to me in them.”
If you once ascribe what is done in any degree whatever to the creature, or to any power that he has, you will excite the jealousy of his Lord. Remember the lessons that the spouse was taught. Means and ordinances are just what God likes to make them. Even divine institutions are beggarly elements when He forsakes them. They can be nothing better than matters of duty and they may be very far from being matters of privilege. When He wills it, He can make His ministers do exploits. The least of all His servants shall be mighty as David was, when He slew the giant, Goliath with only the sling and stone. We are nothing of ourselves. The hand that moves the instrument is everything. If you would come to Christ, or seek after Christ, looking too much to the means, you will have to return again with the mournful cry, “I sought Him, but I found Him not.” Such, then, are the unsuccessful efforts to regain communion with Christ.
v.3
The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. “Have you seen the one my heart loves?”
In seeking our Lord we must use all ministries. The spouse inquired of the watchmen. We are not to despise God’s servants, for He is usually pleased to bless us through them, and it would be ungrateful both to Him and to them to pass them by as useless. But while we use the ministries, we must go beyond them. The spouse did not find her Lord through the watchmen, but she says, “It was but a little that I passed from them, that I found him whom my soul loveth.” I charge you, my dear hearers, never rest content with listening to me. Do not imagine that hearing the truth preached simply and earnestly will of itself be a blessing to your souls. Far, far beyond the servant, pass to the Master. Be this the longing of each heart, each Sabbath day, “Lord, give me fellowship with Thyself.”
v.4
Scarcely had I passed them when I found the one my heart loves. I held him and would not let him go till I had brought him to my mother’s house, to the room of the one who conceived me.
Be also much in prayer. Prayer casts a chain about Him. He never leaves the heart that prays. There is a sweet perfume about prayer that always attracts the Lord. Wherever He perceives it rising up to heaven, there will He be.
You do especially remember that You did die for us, and as a mother gazes upon the babe for whom she has endured so much, or as a shepherd looks upon the sheep that he has brought back from its long wanderings, so are You now looking upon each one of Your loved ones. If, dear friends, you can get that thought fully into your minds, that Christ is really here in our midst, you can then each one begin to say, “I have found him.” But you want more than that, namely, to feel that He loves you, loves you as if there were nobody else for Him to love, loves you even as the Father loves Him. That is a daring thing to say, and I should never have said it if He had not first uttered it, but He says, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.”