The Song of Solomon paints a beautiful picture of divine love, the love of Christ for His Bride, the church, and of that Bride for Him.  Making it more personal, we need to place ourselves as individual believers, each part of that Bride, yet uniquely and personally redeemed, in the place of the bride viewing her beloved one.  Can you picture yourself, a young bride, waiting for the marriage ceremony?  You have gone into the bride’s room to prepare yourself for the wedding.  Your gown is hanging in readiness.  You have already bathed and now you are making certain that you will be ready in time.  The excitement within your heart is rising.  You gaze into the mirror to check your reflection.  Several strands of your hair are not curling the way you would like, so you rearrange them.  You correct a smudge in your make-up.  Everything must be perfect, there can be no spot or blemish, nothing out of place for this ceremony.  You glance at the clock, the minutes seem to be ticking ever so slowly, the sound of the clock is resounding in your ears.  The anticipation mounts.  Then through the open window, you catch a glimpse of a figure coming down the mountain, skipping through the foothills, and as he comes he is calling forth with a clear voice!  He is calling for all to hear, "I am on my way, beloved Bride, the time is near!"  Within your heart all the excitement reaches its highest point.  Your heart beats so strongly that you are certain others will see its movements!  Every fiber of your being is called to readiness.  The time has come.  The ceremony is about to begin.  The promise will be realized.  You carefully step into your gown, fasten the buttons, and arrange all the folds.  Joy fills your heart to overflowing.  Transfer the earthly picture to the image of yourself as you wait for your Bridegroom from Heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Is your heart filled with excitement at the thought of His coming?  Have you been given the garment of salvation to wear for the ceremony?  As you waited, did you allow the Word of God to wash you clean?  Did you check in the mirror of His Word and allow that reflection to reveal your imperfections and then correct them?  Have you adorned yourself with the royal jewels and is everything in readiness?  Are you looking through the windows of time in your life, watching for signs of His coming?  He is coming, you know.  He is leaping, skipping and calling with joy.  Perhaps He is too high up the summit still, but His descent is sure.  "He [sheweth] himself" to us everyday through the lattices of our spirit (verse 9).  He reassures us, "I am coming, my love, my beloved bride."  Are you ready?  Is your heart filled with excitement and joy?  Have you examined your life to make certain that all is as it should be to please the Love of your life?  Do you hear God’s time clock ticking away?  Can all around you see your heart beat for Christ?  Is it so evident that they see its every action in your life?  Do you feel Christ’s excitement?  He is coming! leaping and skipping with joy!

Can you hear His voice today?  The voice of the Beloved Christ is speaking to each of our hearts.  One glorious day He will call to us to arise from this earthly life and come away to Heaven with Him.  Perhaps that day will be the one of our earthly death, our Heavenly commencement, or it will be in that great day of the Rapture when all of the redeemed will hear His voice call to them, Rise up.  Perhaps these are even the very words we will hear in that shout from Heaven!  It is also true that every day, Christ calls to us from His Word to rise up from the ordinary, to rise up from the earthly and come away to a place of higher service, a place of deeper commitment.  He speaks and waits for us to follow Him in the excellence of the higher road of spirituality that He desires for us.  No matter where we are, what we are doing, His title for us is the same, my love, my fair one.  How very humbling to consider that in our mere earthly trappings, Christ views us as creatures of fair beauty.  How very lovely our Savior is!  John the Baptist, in his testimony about Christ as the Bridegroom, said the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. John 3:29  This man John, whose life was so given to service and devotion to the Lord, whose courage and character were beyond question, who pleased God above all ordinary men, found ultimate fulfillment in hearing the voice of Christ.  He was filled with joy and rejoiced greatly to hear the living Word of God.  We need to examine our hearts and see if we, likewise, so greatly rejoice at the Word of our Lord contained in the Bible.  Are we filled with joy when that voice speaks to us of our sin and the need to change?  Does our deepest contentment come from a meditation on His Word?  Do we stand in the presence of our gracious Lord each day and listen as He speaks to us?  Are we true friends of the Bridegroom?  John 10:4 says that a mark of a true believer is that they not only hear God’s Word, but that they personally distinguish the voice of our Lord.  The Lord’s sheep hear and know HIS voice.  They cannot be fooled by the multitude of other voices.  No other shepherd can call them away to another fold, no "thief" can lead them astray.  The True Shepherd’s sheep KNOW His voice.  Not only do they know the voice of their Shepherd, but they act on His commands: And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.  Hearing and knowing the voice of the Lord results in obedience.  Listen, do you hear the Bridegroom calling to you today?  Is He saying to you to rise up from some problem and come away?  Is He saying, rise up from sorrow or gloom, rise up from depression and despair...come away into the great heights of His love.  For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.  Arise from sin, arise from the chains that are holding you back, arise from the ordinary, from the winter of your soul.  The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come...(verse 12)  After a long, cold and silent winter, what a joy it is to notice the flowers starting to bloom and the birds once again coming to sing their lovely songs in our yards.  It is the signal of Spring that all is well, that a time of renewal is come.  Each day Christ can work that renewal in our hearts.  He can turn any cause of winter in our souls to a time of rejoicing and hope.  Whatever your need today, Christ the Bridegroom is calling to you to Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.  Come away into the richness of the sunlight of His love.

Since we usually study the verses in the Song of Solomon in relationship to the Rapture, it is interesting to note the very first word of our verse for today.  The first word is "Until."  This verse speaks to us as a compassionate command for the time that we wait for the Lord.  "Until" the day breaks, until the break in the sky and the coming of the Day Star of our salvation, we are to do two things: turn and be like a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.  This is a verse of practical living for our life each day, a verse loaded with imagery, yet compelling in its directness.  God tells us to not be weary in well doing, to not despair, to continue in our faith, no matter how long it is until the Lord comes.  In this world there will be trials and temptations, persecutions and sin, but we must keep our spiritual sights set on the God-given responsibility for us to live for Him.  For two thousand years the church has looked for His return, for that day breaking.  He has not come yet.  It is not God’s designed time or purpose for Christ to return one moment too soon.  All around us, believers may falter, the unsaved may attack, but Christ’s command is still, "Occupy until I come."  In that day, when we stand face to face with our Savior, all shadows will flee.  There will be a total reality, a full realization of the substance of all things.  All through our life there will those circumstances that stand just hidden in the shadows.  We cannot understand the reason for their happening.  We cannot even discern every detail of the problem or situation.  Often we tend to question "why" and wonder what God’s eternal purpose could be.  We cannot let those questions or the lack of total understanding affect our relationship and response to our precious, unchangeable Savior.  He is the one who is the Bright and Morning Star, who shines in clarity for us to see.  The brightness of His image only reveals more and more detail as we gaze more fully into the mirror of His Word.  Until the time we stand before Him and know as we are known, the shadows will always exist.  Until then, God says, Turn, my beloved.  The Hebrew word for turn here carries with it the concept of turning one’s self around, changing direction.  If the world and its devices are overshadowing your day, and the temptation is to give in to despair; forcibly, with a clear mind set, turn yourself away from the shadows into the glorious light of His love.  Turn from sin and the possibility of backsliding, into confession and restoration of fellowship with the Lord.  Turn from disappointment and questioning, to victory in Christ.  Turn from idleness to service, from carnality to spirituality, from prayerlessness to prayer.  Whatever areas in our lives lay within the shadow, we can turn to the full sunshine of God.  We do not have to wait until we are raptured or removed from this world to experience victory.  We are also admonished to be like a young deer upon the mountains of Bether.  The word Bether comes from a place name that meant the cleaving, or dividing of the parts of an animal for sacrifice.  Perhaps it was the place where the priests had originally prepared the sacrifices for the altar.  The word cleft comes from the same root word.  Verse 14 of chapter 2, uses that same word root: O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs...  God has that place for us in times of shadowy turmoil and confusion.  It is in the cleft of the Rock, the Lord Jesus, in the secret places known only to His followers.  Run swiftly to that place, like a young deer, when trouble arises.  Be willing to prepare yourself for the sacrifice of prayer, praise and commitment.  Turn and flee to Bether when the shadows come.

The first word of the verse for today signals the fact that this is another practical life instruction for believers.  While we are apt to think of the Bridegroom physically coming, and only of that day when we shall meet Him in the air, "Until" that time, there is a life to be lived in sweet communion with Him.  It is as if instructions had been written for the young bride during the Jewish time of waiting for her bridegroom to claim her as his wife.  The traditional betrothal period was a time of preparation and waiting for the bride.  She would know the excitement of getting everything into readiness and anticipating the time when she would leave the home of her childhood and enter into the home the bridegroom had prepared for their marriage.  The bridegroom tenderly prepared her for the time of waiting by giving her instructions to help her endure the time until that happy day when they would be united in the marriage ceremony.  In Song of Solomon 2:17, our Heavenly Bridegroom instructs us that until that day breaks, we are to turn and go to the mountain of the cleft, our security in Christ, the place of the cleaving of the sacrifice, where we can place ourselves as a living sacrifice upon His altar of love.  In chapter 4 verse 6, we find the same illusion.  Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, until Christ comes and all the shadows of this earthly life are burned away with the brightness of His coming, we have a place to go for sweet comfort and peace.  While the shadows still surround us, before we can walk in the full light of the Day, there is "a place of sweet release, near to the heart of God."  It is the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense.  These spices speak of devotion and prayer.  When the wise men came to Jesus, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. Matthew 2:11  In their act of falling down before the Christ Child and worshiping Him, they presented these three treasures.  Our verse for today contains the two spices, but where is the gold?  It is found in the description of our prayers in Revelation 5:8, when the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them golden harps, and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints.  Our spiritual myrrh and frankincense, our devotion and prayers to our Savior, are contained in vials of gold in Heaven!  When the shadows start to fill your soul, flee to the mount of prayer.  Until He comes and takes you out of this life with all its cares, fall worshiping at the feet of Jesus.  Mary of Bethany did her better part and sat at the feet of Jesus in a picture of devotion and prayer.  She lingered there even in the midst of pressing needs, shutting out all else and hearing only His voice.  That is where we need to be in times of our need.  Even the beautiful picture of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with sweet smelling ointment of spices, speaks of our golden vials that we should break and pour at His feet.  Don’t keep your grieves and burdens, your doubts and fears within, pour them out to your Beloved.  As the ointment flows, so should our confession and worship, our praise and gratitude.  Our Lord is ascended into the Heavens where we find myrrh again: thy God, hath anointed thee [Christ] with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.  All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad. Psalm 45:7-8  In the very presence of Jesus, sitting on the mountain tops of prayer, we will find the sweet smell of myrrh and frankincense.  The Jews anointed their dead with these spices as a symbol of prayer and commitment to God.  Let us take the old man within us and wrap it with spiritual cloth spread with myrrh and frankincense and lay it before our God.  In prayerful devotion, let us commit ourselves to live holy lives until He comes.  There is a resolve in our verse, when the bride responds and says, I will get me to the mountain.  We need that resolve in our lives.  Take the instruction of our Heavenly Bridegroom and Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices. Song of Solomon 8:14

Often in the Song of Solomon, it is difficult to tell whether the Bride or the Bridegroom is being addressed in a verse.  Each commentator chooses his own divisions in the conversation between these two betrothed lovers.  As I read chapter four over several times, I realized that this verse could have been spoken by either party.  Remembering that the application of the Bridegroom is to Christ and the Bride is to the Church, let us explore this verse as it relates to both.  The declaration of beauty and purity to the Lord Jesus Christ is glorious.  He truly is all fair and contains no spot!  It is this very purity that qualified Him to be the Savior of mankind: for we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. I Peter 1:19  As the Bride of Christ, we need to cry out to the Lord in love, devotion and awe, Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.  When was the last time that we sat in wonder at the thought of the holy, undefiled Son of God who gave Himself for us?  How long has it been since we considered the beautiful Lily of the Valley, our precious Lord Jesus?  Oh, what a Savior we have!  For such an high priest became us, who is holy...harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. Hebrews 7:26  This concept is glorious to contemplate, exalting in all its dimensions and easily applied to the Bridegroom.  Now let us consider the possibility that the comment is directed toward the Bride, and uniquely toward each one of us as believers.  Are we all fair?  Are we without spot before our Lord?  Ephesians 5:25-24 explains that the purity of the Bride church was a primary motivation for Christ’s death: ...Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water of the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.  It is humbling to consider that the perfect Lamb of God gave Himself for sinners, that He might present us glorious, holy and pure in Heaven.  Our heavenly perfection is assured in Christ.  For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot... Job 11:15  Our verse calls out to us of the need to have present purity, daily holiness, cleansing and confession.  God desires for His Bride to be fair and pure in this present world.  For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure... that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world. Philippians 2:13-15  God challenges our hearts with the need to realize the necessity to be pure, realizing what a great price was paid for our eternal salvation.  We will live forever in the glories of Heaven, how then should we now live in preparation?  Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.  Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. II Peter 3:13-14  Oh, how it should shame us to think of our petty sins when the Savior calls to us in tones of compassion, Thou art all fair (oh, but Lord, I know there is so much unloveliness in me), my love (Lord, Your name for me humbles me to a place on my knees, how can I deserve such a title?), there is no spot in thee (Lord, You know my heart, You know the darkness of sin I have hidden there, You know my life and my failures each day).  "Lord, help me to be so convicted by Your view of me as Your love, that I will put away selfish sin, confess that which I have harbored, and live in the light of Your glorious love.  Help me to be all fair in Thy sight, not only in the assured future, but today, for Thou art altogether lovely to me."

This verse is part of the answer of the bride in Song of Solomon, when she is asked by the daughters of Jerusalem, What is thy beloved more than another beloved?  O thou fairest among women?  The other maidens seem to be taunting her.  The question implies the hidden challenge: "Why do you think your beloved is any better than any other?  You are fair, even the fairest of us all, couldn’t you desire or even have another?"  The temptation is placed, but her heart is fixed.  There is none other that can compare to her beloved bridegroom.  She lists each of his attributes as being beyond perfection, that which fills her every longing and sets desire aflame in her heart.  She has wandered the streets looking for him.  She has endured wounding by the world because she sought him, yet still her desire and her heart is set.  There can be none other for her.  In the beginning of the chapter, the Bridegroom called to her, but she was asleep.  At first she hesitated, and he was gone from her.  Now her all consuming desire is to be with him.  As a Christian, often we hesitate when Christ calls to us to open an area of our life to Him.  Perhaps we are preoccupied with our own activities, our own plans, our own desires, and we fail to open to Him.  When we realize our error, we must come to Him with full desire.  None else, not any person, plan, pursuit or pleasure, can compare to Christ.  Jesus is ALTOGETHER lovely.  Everything He is and everything He does is altogether lovely!  We need to recognize this and accept all things from Him.  His Words are sweet.  He would never ask of us anything that does not issue out of His love for us.  In all ways in our life, He is to be the "chiefest among 10,000."  We need to ask ourselves, how in love are we with Christ?  Is He our altogether lovely Beloved and Friend?  Is He just our Savior, a still far away God we turn to only in need, or has He also become our constant Companion and Friend?  Can we say with the bride, He IS my beloved and my friend?  In a practical sense, we need to apply this deep lesson to our husbands, our own spouses.  Do we declare that our husband is altogether lovely to us?  Or do we criticize him, even if secretly in our own hearts.  We need to have true commitment and total love to our husbands...perhaps we may even need to fall in love again (or more deeply in love) with the one God provided uniquely and specifically for us.  We should say to our mate, "You are my beloved, my friend, you are altogether wonderful to me."  Our husband should be our closest friend.  How many women fail to give their husbands that special place of kinship bond found only in a true friend.  There is a bond and a closeness that only a friend holds in our heart’s affections.  This week, strive to cherish, desire and uphold the special relationship of lover-friend with your own husbands, even as you cherish your love and bond of closeness with your Friend and Companion, Christ.

Nothing can quench real love.  In our marriage, no one can bring division between us and our spouse if our love is real.  True love is worth more than anything money can buy and more than any other activity or possession.  Think of how hearts become cold and hardened because the priorities of life are not right.  In our modern society, too often we see how striving for success, power or wealth can overwhelm neglected love, love that is not deep.  In times of floods, things on the surface are many times destroyed, loose items are swept downstream, but the deeply embedded boulders, the strong mountainsides, are secure.  Our love for Christ and our husbands should be like those boulders, anchored and secure so nothing can overwhelm it.  The security of Christ’s perfect love for us can never be questioned, it can never be quenched.  No flood, no controversy, no sin can ever wash that love away.  We cannot buy it with money, it is a matter of the heart!  Who can separate us from the love of Christ?  shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39  Christ’s love for us is secure, founded on His unchangeable promises and character.  Is our love for Him as strong?  Is it founded on the Rock, Jesus Christ Himself?  Does our own love find its flow from our experience at Calvary in salvation?  Has the flow of that stream remained unpolluted by the things of the world, or have we let sin or wrong priorities cause the pure flow of Calvary’s love be diverted or contaminated in our life?  Perhaps we need to dredge the waters, clean up the pollution, let the stream flow unhindered again.  Don’t let your love for Christ become a neglected thing, don’t be a surface Christian.  Dig your heart’s roots deep into the flowing stream of His love.  When the storms of life come, be anchored in that Love.  "Surface" Christians may drift with the tide, tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.  They are easily misled and swept away into the arms of another pleasure, another priority, another love.  With the heavy rains of spring, a fallen tree can be swept down river.  As the raging waters subside, the tree will often become stranded in the rocks.  It never reaches a safe haven, serves any useful purpose or grows to its full stature.  There on the rocks, the sun, wind and waters will gradually eat away at the tree until one year, in decay, it will split and finally wash downstream.  Let us not be like that fallen tree, overwhelmed by the floods of life, but, instead, be as one rooted and grounded in the deep love for our Savior.  Our love should be an "eternal flame" that no trial, temptation or circumstance can quench.  Don’t let anything quench or even dampen your love for your spouse or for Christ.  They are your beloveds, burn brightly for them.  Let your spiritual light so shine, nothing wavering, no flicker, just a pure strong flame.

As we end our verses from the Song of Solomon, I thought you would enjoy some portions of a famous old book based on this portion of Scripture.  May the Lord be as precious and lovely to you as He was to the Bride in the Song of Solomon.  May we ever sing His praises from hearts full of love for our wonderful Savior.

Excerpts From Hind’s Feet On High Places, by Hannah Hurnard

    "The song of Songs," the loveliest song,

    The song of Love the King,

    No joy on earth compares with his,

    But seems a broken thing.

    His Name as ointment is poured forth,

    And all his lovers sing.

    Draw me - I will run after thee,

    Thou art my heart’s one choice,

    Oh, bring me to thy royal house,

    To dwell there and rejoice.

    There in thy presence, O my King,

    To feast and hear thy voice.

    Look not upon me with contempt,

    Though soiled and marred I be,

    The King found me - an outcast thing -

    And set his love on me.

    I shall be perfected by Love,

    Made fair as day to see.

        (Canticles 1:1-6)

    I am my Love’s and he is mine,

    And this is his desire,

    That with his beauty I may shine

    In radiant attire.

    And this will be - when all of me

    Is pruned and purged with fire.

    Come, my Beloved, let us go

    Forth to the waiting field;

    And where thy choicest fruit trees grow,

    Thy pruning knife now wield

    That at thy will and through thy skill

    Their richest store may yield.

    And spices give a sweet perfume,

    And vines show tender shoots,

    And all my trees burst forth in bloom,

    Fair buds from bitter roots.

    There will not I my love deny,

    But yield thee pleasant fruits.

        (Canticles 7:10-13)

    Set me as a seal upon thine heart

    Thou Love more strong than death

    That I may feel through every part

    Thy burning, fiery breath.

    And then like wax held in the flame,

    May take the imprint of thy Name.

    Set me a seal upon thine arm,

    Thou love that bursts the grave,

    Thy coals of fire can never harm,

    But only purge and save.

    Thou jealous Love, thou burning Flame,

    Oh, burn out all unlike thy Name.

    The floods can never drown thy Love,

    Nor weaken thy desire,

    The rains may deluge from above

    But never quench thy fire.

    Make soft my heart in thy strong flame,

    To take the imprint of thy Name.

        (Canticles 8:6)