A Love That Does Not Change

1By night on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. 2I will get up now, and go about the city; in the streets and in the squares I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. 3The watchmen who go about the city found me; “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” 4I had scarcely passed from them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, into the room of her who conceived me. 5I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, or by the hinds of the field, that you not stir up, nor awaken love, until it so desires.

The thanks believers give to God are like a mountain stream. When much rain falls it becomes a waterfall and runs with a roar; but let a strong sun beat down and it shows its bare bed.

When people meet a situation they cannot handle by their own strength, they cling to God and ask for help. They promise to live in earnest if only he will settle this one problem, and they show a faith that looks ready to give a whole life in faithful service. God knows they will turn away once that fullness cools, and he answers anyway, because the believer praying now is precious to him. What is more dangerous for believers than a time of suffering is a long stretch of peace. Once the time of suffering has passed and the problem is gone, or health has come back and they can walk about the world as they please, the thanks grow less and less, and in the end they settle down into that comfort. When life is full of sharp turns people pray and stay alert, not knowing when something will happen; but when the peaceful time goes on, they feel no need to pray to God.

Yet trouble always comes just when we feel at ease. If peace came as the answer to prayers offered to God during suffering, then this time, because prayer was set aside during the peace, there is no full faith and the suffering cannot be overcome. If you always have the wisdom to grasp the word that says to pray without ceasing, you will live a life at peace in body and in soul.

Once Solomon caught the little foxes for her, the Shulammite’s worries were gone. The people who had despised her as a vineyard keeper and obstructed her love for Solomon disappeared at his decision; she let go of the tension in her heart and grew comfortable. With the world’s obstacles gone, the Shulammite did not give that time to making herself ready for Solomon and growing on the inside; she used the freedom to look at the world instead. She met her worldly friends and boasted about how comfortable her life was now, and she threw herself into the things she had not been able to do while she was working to win Solomon’s heart. She enjoyed the world to the full, thinking that when she went home Solomon would be waiting for her on the bed. She grew careless, thinking that he loved her more. As I keep telling you, there is no such thing as a one-sided love. She played all day out in the world, and when night came she went back to the bed — and Solomon, who ought to have been waiting for her, was not there. She had assumed he would always wait whatever she did, and when he was not on the bed the Shulammite was thrown.

Like the God who answers the prayers of believers, Solomon granted whatever the Shulammite asked. Catching the little foxes she had asked about was not easy, but because the request came from the woman he loved he drove the foxes off with everything he had. He came back thinking how glad she would be when he told her he had caught the little foxes ruining the vineyard, just as she had asked; but she was sunk in her own pleasures and had not the slightest interest in the matter of the foxes. Catching the little foxes had become Solomon’s work, of course, but until the foxes that had been tormenting her were caught the Shulammite should have kept her interest and helped him. It is the same as this: when we hand the world’s problems to God, God will settle them, but the believer must keep praying until the problem is settled. Solomon was so disappointed that he had no reason to keep an empty bed alone without her, and he went back to the flock that was waiting for him.

Jesus had pity on souls floundering in the swamp of death, and he drove death away. And he thought that believers, at least, who know this, would be so thankful for eternal life that they would be faithful to the death. But believers who are only glad about being saved and going to heaven — never mind devoting themselves to Jesus Christ — are sunk in the pleasures of the world. Jesus grew tired of waiting for people who had forgotten to be thankful, and went to the other sheep who are faithful to the death.

Revelation 2:4

4But I have this against you, that you left your first love.

The Lord rebuked the church at Ephesus, saying, you have left your first love for me. He is telling them to consider where that pure first love fell from — the love that was so thankful for salvation and so glad — and to repent. Abandoning the first love is an evil of the heart that has to be repented of.

You can see that people, rather than respecting and treasuring the one who is always beside them giving love without change, treat that person carelessly. But what a person ought to treasure in life is this: the brothers and sisters in faith who pray beside you and walk with you, and the God who gave you life. God walks with us always, protects us and cares for us, so we assume he will always be at our side and we are not thankful. We are too busy with our own affairs in the world to devote ourselves to God, and still we believe that God will be on our bed looking only at us and waiting. But God is not a sunflower. Just as Solomon went back because many sheep were waiting for him, God does not wait for a believer who will not share love with him; there is no need to wait for someone who has abandoned faith, and so he left in order to help the believers who are being faithful.

Song of Solomon 3:2

2I will get up now, and go about the city; in the streets and in the squares I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him.

The Shulammite is going about the streets and the broad ways calling out for Solomon. She looks now in the streets for the Solomon she always used to meet on her own bed, and night has already fallen. If she had kept her place on the bed she could have met him easily at any time; instead she has ended up wandering in search of him. Believers are the same: those who keep the place of faith can meet God easily, but once they start looking at the world they end up having to wander in search of him.

People are always sorry only after they have lost what mattered. That is because it never occurs to them that their own complacent thinking, poor judgment and wrong conduct could cost them something precious. But when you have lost the God and the Solomon who loved you and protected you, you have to know that the world will never protect you or the Shulammite. Solomon is not someone you can meet by walking the broad ways and the streets at night calling out loudly. God is in our hearts, so he is not someone whose grace can be added to you by shouting “I have faith” out on the roads of the world.

Matthew 6:5

5“When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward.

Jesus said not to pray as the hypocrites do. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets so that people will see them; but he said that since it was never a prayer offered to God in the first place, they have already received their reward in full.

The Shulammite calling for Solomon in the broad ways and the streets may look as though she loves him deeply, but it was her own sin that wounded him and drove him away. When believers who treated God’s love carelessly and turned their hearts toward the world come to God late and weep and wail, they may look as though they are praying with great zeal; but the deeper wound is God’s, who gave his own life and was abandoned.

We too pray prayers like this, hoping people will notice. There is prayer made in meditation and silence, and there is prayer made aloud. These prayers differ only in method; all of them are needed. But the way we pray ought to change with the place. Shout on the bed, where you should be whispering with the one you love, and there can be no deep love shared; whisper instead of crying out for help when you are badly wounded or in danger, and there can be no prayer of desperation. Prayer is a conversation between God and me alone. That is why putting your true heart into what you say in prayer matters so much. A conversation without a true heart is as meaningless as a conversation without a soul.

God is spirit. Prayer ought to be a spiritual exchange with God; but if you are conscious of people and compose your words for them to hear, that is not prayer, because the God who is spirit looks at the heart. Only when you call on the Lord with your whole heart will God, having heard that prayer, work through his angels and hold out his hand telling you not to be afraid. When you pray a prayer that offers the heart rather than a prayer to be seen by someone, the Holy Spirit will work and lead you to a safer refuge.

Song of Solomon 3:3

3The watchmen who go about the city found me; “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”

The Shulammite went about the city and asked the watchmen, the men who keep the night, whether they had seen the one she loved; and even they answered that they did not know. All the watchmen could say to her was that going about at night could be dangerous, so she should look by day. A pastor, too, cannot know where a believer lost their first love with God. What pastors can teach is this: do not set your heart on a world that is pitch dark; look only at the Lord, who is bright as the day.

A short spell of indifference toward Solomon had grown into a very large matter. She had worked a long time to win his love, and her great mistake was the proud assumption that his love would never change. Solomon could do anything for her. He had loved a poor and unimpressive Shulammite in the face of everyone’s opposition, and it grieved him that she took that love as a matter of course.

God, too, bore every hardship and every pain in order to love one soul, and he made us his children. He sent his only Son into the world and endured the pain of that Son dying on a cross, and the love he gave in doing so must never be abandoned. If a believer’s love changes, God will leave, because he has no further reason to remain in that heart. Turning the heart of a God who has left takes a great deal of work, so while you are enjoying the grace of God now, love him more.

Psalm 42:1

1As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God.

The Shulammite searched for Solomon as thirstily as a deer pants for streams of water. About the time she was growing worn out with searching for the one she loved, she found him among the flock. So glad to see him, she took hold of him, confessed what she had done wrong and begged him to come with her — and Solomon’s heart melted. When you too meet a God who is angry, you must repent and ask forgiveness with everything you have, as the Shulammite did. Then, though your sins are as scarlet, you will be blessed with God’s forgiveness and made white as snow and as wool.

Song of Solomon 3:4

4I had scarcely passed from them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, into the room of her who conceived me.

Once she was forgiven, the Shulammite brought Solomon to her mother’s house. That was the precious place where she had been given life through her mother and been born, and that is why she brought the one she loved there. There is one place to go in order to recover your first love: the cross, where he paid for my sin and died to give me life. Only by coming back to the place where faith was conceived and eternal new life received through the precious blood of Christ can you share a deep spiritual love with him.

Only after losing Solomon did the Shulammite understand what a poor woman she had been, and from now on she will do everything she can never to lose him again. I hope you will let go of the idea that God will wait forever. If you hold on to the world and look for God only when you need him, God will pay you no attention until you repent and come back. God does not love you because you are faithful and devoted or because you stand out in the world. He looks at the faith that thanks him despite its poverty and wants to walk with him always, and that is what he protects; so you ought to be all the more humble.

Just as the Shulammite brought Solomon into her mother’s room, where no one would disturb them, I hope you too will rely on the Holy Spirit inside God’s grace and receive the Lord’s love to the full. If you are with Christ, no one will be able to disturb you. Solomon and the Shulammite became one in body and heart and fell into a deep sleep, the two of them alone, where the world could not disturb them. As Proverbs says that God gives sleep to his beloved, the two of them now forgot the world and slept deeply. Jesus is in you and you are in the Lord and the two are one, so Satan will not be able to disturb you now. No one will be able to tempt you out into the world while you are inside grace.

Not everyone receives Solomon’s love, and in the same way, though there are a great many people on this earth, only you who were chosen receive the particular love of God. I hope you will not lose this love now. Remember that you were born again through the agonizing death of the cross, and be faithful.

May your faith be full always, and may you be the most beautiful child of God in the world. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.