Loving the Lord and Loving One Another
for the Organic Building Up of the Church
as the Body of Christ
Message Two
Song of Songs—the Progressive Experience of an
Individual Believer’s Loving Fellowship with Christ
for the Preparation of the Bride of Christ
OPENING WORD OF THE PROPHESYING MEETING
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
S. S. 1:2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine.
4 Draw me; we will run after you-The king has brought me into his chambers…
8:13-14 O you who dwell in the gardens, My companions listen for your voice; Let me hear it. Make haste, my beloved, And be like a gazelle or a young hart Upon the mountains of spices.
Word of Appetizer
The Song of Songs reveals the progressive experience of an individual believer’s loving fellowship with Christ. What are the six major stages for the preparation of His bride?
- the lover of Christ is drawn to pursue Him for satisfaction.
- the lover of Christ is called to be delivered from the self through her oneness with the cross of Christ.
- the lover of Christ is called to live in ascension as the new creation in resurrection.
- the lover of Christ is called more strongly to live within the veil through the cross after resurrection.
- the lover of Christ shares in the work of the Lord.
- the lover of Christ is hoping to be raptured.
Spiritual Burden
In the first stage of Song of Songs, the lover of Christ is drawn to pursue Him for satisfaction; the Lord wants His seeker to have a personal, affectionate, private, and spiritual relationship with Him. All the spiritual principles are contained in this first stage of the seeker’s overcoming life in Song of Songs; the lessons that follow are not new, but they are old lessons repeated in a deeper way; regeneration brings the gene of God into us, and all the experiences of our whole Christian life are in this gene.
Our lives depend on the Lord’s words, and our work depends on the Lord’s commands; the central point of our prayers should be our longing for the Lord’s speaking; the life of the believers hinges totally upon the Lord’s speaking.
Concluding Word of the Prophesying Meeting
The Revelation of the Truth
The subject of Song of Songs, a poem, is the history of love in an excellent marriage, revealing the progressive experience of an individual believer’s loving fellowship with Christ for the preparation of His bride in six major stages.
As the concluding word of this poetic book, the lover of Christ prays that her Beloved would make haste to come back in the power of His resurrection (gazelle and young hart) to set up His sweet and beautiful kingdom (mountains of spices), which will fill the whole earth.
The Experience of Life
It is by the power of resurrection, not by our natural life, that we, the lovers of Christ, are enabled to be conformed to His death by being one with His cross; the reality of resurrection is the pneumatic Christ as the consummated Spirit, who indwells and is mingled with our regenerated spirit; it is in such a mingled spirit that we participate in and experience the resurrection of Christ, which enables us to be one with the cross to be delivered from the self and to be transformed into a new man in God’s new creation for the fulfillment of God’s economy in the building up of the organic Body of Christ.
Practice and Application
Christ’s lover wants to carry out with her Beloved the work that is for the entire world (fields) by sojourning from one place to another (lodging in the villages); to share in the work of the Lord is to work together with Him; to work with Him, we need the maturity in life, we need to be one with the Lord, and our work must be for His Body. we must have a work that is for the entire world; this is what Paul did by establishing local churches and then working to bring them into the full realization of the Body of Christ.
In the work that we do for the Lord as our Beloved, we need to maintain our fellowship with Him, always listening to Him; our work depends on the Lord’s commands; the central point of our prayers should be our longing for the Lord’s speaking.
PROPHESYING TOPICS—TWELVE TOPICS PER WEEK
Day 1
T1 After we have received Christ as your life, we must have a very personal seeking after Christ (S. S. 1:2, 4)
(Please illustrate with experiences that every believer’s relationship with Christ must be personal and affectionate.)
T2 To pursue Christ for satisfaction is the first “crystal” in Song of Songs (John 13:23; Rev. 3:20)
(Please illustrate that the apostle John could recline on the Lord’s bosom. How personal and affectionate that was!)
Day 2
T1 In the Bible, both the mountains and the hills refer to difficulties and barriers (S. S. 2:8-10)
(Please illustrate that nothing is too high or too great to stop the resurrected Christ.)
T2 Introspection always directs us to look into ourselves and separate us from the presence of Christ (S. S. 2:8-9)
(When [the Lord’s seeker] looks into herself, it is the wintertime of dormancy. But when she looks away to the resurrected Christ, she enters into the stage of spring, signifying the stage of resurrection. )
Day 3
T1 To learn the lesson of discerning the spirit from the soul (Heb. 4:12)
(Please illustrate that if we do not realize that the spirit is different from the soul, we cannot reach the stage of being called to live in ascension as the new creation in resurrection.)
T2 [The lover] is not only the bed for Solomon to rest in at night; she is also the palanquin (S. S. 3:9-10)
(Please illustrate the inner meaning of the palanquin of Christ.)
Day 4
T1 Through her experiencing the cross of Christ, the lover of Christ is transformed into the heavenly bodies (S. S. 6:10; Matt. 13:43)
(Please illustrate that the overcoming believers will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom age.)
T2 Those who are counted as overcomers will be the weaker ones (S. S. 6:13)
(Please illustrate the spiritual significance of the two armies of God.)
Day 5
T1 The country girl, who has become his Shulammite, must become Solomon’s co-worker (S. S. 7:11-12)
(Please illustrate that eventually Christ’s lovers need to share in the work of the Lord.)
T2 [The lover’s] beauty is in her submissive will wrought by the Spirit’s transformation through sufferings (S. S. 7:4)
(Please illustrate that what does it indicate that [the lover] wants to sojourn from one place to another. )
Day 6
T1 Who is this who comes up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved (S. S. 8:5-6; 2 Cor. 1:8-9)
(Please illustrate with experiences that what is a trusting life?)
T2 [The lover] realizes that whether she can endure to the end does not depend on her own endurance, but on the Lord’s preservation (S. S. 8:6)
(Please illustrate the no spiritual perfection can sustain a person until the Lord’s return; everything depends on God and His preserving power.)
