“By night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul loveth: I sought Him, but I found Him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loveth: I sought Him, but I found Him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found Him whom my soul loveth” (ch. 3:14).
Laying on a bed of listlessness is no place to find her Beloved. He dropped in her thoughts to one “whom my soul loveth,” instead of “my Beloved.” How quickly we drop out of communion! She lost her spiritual understanding. Would she find Him in the streets of the city? Surely not. He was never there that we know of. What did He have to do with the watchmen? How would they know who He was?
Until she passes through discipline, she will not find her Bridegroom. She will not find Him by lying on the bed thinking of other things, but by meditating on His Word and by rising up to act on those things that affect His glory.
“It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found Him whom my soul loveth: I held Him, and would not let Him go, until I had brought Him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.” The bride has lost much by allowing her mind and heart to wander. She must judge the listlessness upon her bed. She still loved her Bridegroom, but not as her Beloved. Distance of heart has come between them. Now she must go back until she can say again, “My Beloved.” She has to go all the way back to her mother’s chamber, where she was conceived. I once spoke to a young man who had gotten into sin, and he said, “It is a long way back.”
This is no time for the daughters of Jerusalem to come and disturb either the Bridegroom or the bride. She needs to be alone in His presence. What caused the condition of solitude, where she again felt alone, not enjoying His presence? Was it not that she had allowed other things to take the place of her Bridegroom in her heart? It makes little difference to Satan what we allow in our lives, just so we get our eye off Christ. Even by preoccupation with preaching or teaching communion can be lost.
Only the Bridegroom Himself, not something about Him, can satisfy the heart of the bride. Christ should be the one object before the mind and heart, or the believer will miss both solid peace and rest as well as joy and affection.
(Verses 6 through 11 have special application to Israel in a coming day.)