Song 3:1-2 | KingComments | STEP | We have seen that this book is primarily about the relationship between a man and a woman and that we can learn lessons from this for our own relationship in marriage and also about the relationship between a believer and the Lord Jesus. In both relationships it is about a connection that is characterized by love. The meaning is that we learn to know a love that is not bought or enforced, but the love of Someone, Who Himself is love. For God is love. We are only able to love if we have received this love ( ). If there is no relationship with God and with the Lord Jesus, it is impossible to love. In this love story we find clues to our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus and the disturbing elements that prevent us from enjoying His love. In the history of love we have ended up in a situation that in the relationship between the bride and the groom has come a distance. It is not the groom’s fault, but the bride’s fault. Her love is no longer so fervent. Maybe gives a clue why. The bride has withdrawn and sought her rest. She lies on her bed, on her own bed, “my bed”, which speaks of complacency. The life of a believer can sometimes produce disappointments. There may be problems for which a solution has been sought but has not been found. Disappointed in the Lord, then one withdraws, just as the bride has also withdrawn. Although there may even be a certain indifference, it does not leave the Lord Jesus indifferent. He wants to fill our lives with His presence and give rest. The groom’s attempts to reawaken the bride’s love do not seem to have been in vain, although she sent him away in the previous verse ( ). In the night she feels the lack of him. She starts looking for him. To get back into someone’s life, the Lord Jesus uses situations in which someone is alone. I once spoke to a group of young people about the gospel. Their reactions are different than when you speak to someone alone. They acknowledge that when they lie alone on their bed in the evening, they no longer have such a big mouth. You think about your life. It can be the beginning of a search for the meaning of life. God can speak to people “while they slumber in their beds” ( ). Then the bride comes to the decision to get up ( ). That is where every true conversion begins. We see this with the youngest son in the parable that the Lord Jesus tells us. When he is with the swine, he comes to himself and says: “I will get up and go to my father.” Then he gets up and comes to his father ( ). In the same way, as believers, we sometimes have to make a decision to deal vigorously with something in our lives that has distanced us from the Lord. So here the bride stands up and moves around in the city, through the streets and over the squares, in search of the one she loves dearly. But she doesn’t find him in the city either. She has searched and not found him. It is said here twice: at the end of , when she searched for him on her bed, and at the end of , after she searched for him in the city. Did not the Lord Jesus say: “Seek, and you will find” and “he who seeks find” ( )? Indeed, but He adds that there must be knocking and then it will be opened. In doing so, he points out that we have to seek with perseverance. We should not give up if we do not find Him directly. It is good that we seek a restoration of the relationship with the Lord Jesus when we miss the relationship with Him. However, our search will be in vain if we search in the wrong places. We won’t find Him if we take our ease. Nor do we find Him in the world, of which the city is a picture. The city speaks of a society of people. Cities are formed to establish a society without God. Cain is the first city builder ( ). When there has come a distance between us and the Lord Jesus, when there is dissatisfaction, we no longer have a good view of His whereabouts. There is a certain Demas in the Bible. At first he is a dedicated believer. Paul mentions him as one of his fellow workers ( ; ). Then there seems to have come a moment when a separation has arisen between Demas and the Lord Jesus. His love for the Lord is cooled. Demas leaves Paul’s company and leaves for the city. Paul must write with sorrow about him: “Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica” ( ). It does not say that Demas is no longer a Christian and that he has openly said goodbye to the Lord. Perhaps he has chosen an honorable profession, but it has seized him completely. He travelled to Thessalonika. There is a sound church. However, that is not his interest. There he seeks the world and not the brothers and sisters. The world is particularly attractive to young believers. John warns them especially when he says: “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” ( ). The world does not only consist of all sorts of forms of debauchery, of lusts and desires. It is the world as it has become by the fall into sin of Adam, where people that live without taking God into account tell us what to do. This also includes the hardworking people who make careers or discoveries that improve the quality of life. They are highly regarded. But if God has no place in it, it is ‘the world’.

‏ Song of Solomon 3:1-2

Sought but Not Found

We have seen that this book is primarily about the relationship between a man and a woman and that we can learn lessons from this for our own relationship in marriage and also about the relationship between a believer and the Lord Jesus. In both relationships it is about a connection that is characterized by love. The meaning is that we learn to know a love that is not bought or enforced, but the love of Someone, Who Himself is love. For God is love.

We are only able to love if we have received this love (1Jn 4:19). If there is no relationship with God and with the Lord Jesus, it is impossible to love. In this love story we find clues to our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus and the disturbing elements that prevent us from enjoying His love.

In the history of love we have ended up in a situation that in the relationship between the bride and the groom has come a distance. It is not the groom’s fault, but the bride’s fault. Her love is no longer so fervent. Maybe Song 3:1 gives a clue why. The bride has withdrawn and sought her rest. She lies on her bed, on her own bed, “my bed”, which speaks of complacency.

The life of a believer can sometimes produce disappointments. There may be problems for which a solution has been sought but has not been found. Disappointed in the Lord, then one withdraws, just as the bride has also withdrawn. Although there may even be a certain indifference, it does not leave the Lord Jesus indifferent. He wants to fill our lives with His presence and give rest.

The groom’s attempts to reawaken the bride’s love do not seem to have been in vain, although she sent him away in the previous verse (Song 2:17). In the night she feels the lack of him. She starts looking for him. To get back into someone’s life, the Lord Jesus uses situations in which someone is alone.

I once spoke to a group of young people about the gospel. Their reactions are different than when you speak to someone alone. They acknowledge that when they lie alone on their bed in the evening, they no longer have such a big mouth. You think about your life. It can be the beginning of a search for the meaning of life. God can speak to people “while they slumber in their beds” (Job 33:14-15).

Then the bride comes to the decision to get up (Song 3:2). That is where every true conversion begins. We see this with the youngest son in the parable that the Lord Jesus tells us. When he is with the swine, he comes to himself and says: “I will get up and go to my father.” Then he gets up and comes to his father (Lk 15:18 ; 20).

In the same way, as believers, we sometimes have to make a decision to deal vigorously with something in our lives that has distanced us from the Lord. So here the bride stands up and moves around in the city, through the streets and over the squares, in search of the one she loves dearly. But she doesn’t find him in the city either.

She has searched and not found him. It is said here twice: at the end of Song 3:1, when she searched for him on her bed, and at the end of Song 3:2, after she searched for him in the city. Did not the Lord Jesus say: “Seek, and you will find” and “he who seeks find” (Mt 7:7-8)? Indeed, but He adds that there must be knocking and then it will be opened. In doing so, he points out that we have to seek with perseverance. We should not give up if we do not find Him directly.

It is good that we seek a restoration of the relationship with the Lord Jesus when we miss the relationship with Him. However, our search will be in vain if we search in the wrong places. We won’t find Him if we take our ease. Nor do we find Him in the world, of which the city is a picture. The city speaks of a society of people. Cities are formed to establish a society without God. Cain is the first city builder (Gen 4:17b). When there has come a distance between us and the Lord Jesus, when there is dissatisfaction, we no longer have a good view of His whereabouts.

There is a certain Demas in the Bible. At first he is a dedicated believer. Paul mentions him as one of his fellow workers (Col 4:14; Phlm 1:24). Then there seems to have come a moment when a separation has arisen between Demas and the Lord Jesus. His love for the Lord is cooled. Demas leaves Paul’s company and leaves for the city. Paul must write with sorrow about him: “Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica” (2Tim 4:10a).

It does not say that Demas is no longer a Christian and that he has openly said goodbye to the Lord. Perhaps he has chosen an honorable profession, but it has seized him completely. He travelled to Thessalonika. There is a sound church. However, that is not his interest. There he seeks the world and not the brothers and sisters.

The world is particularly attractive to young believers. John warns them especially when he says: “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1Jn 2:15). The world does not only consist of all sorts of forms of debauchery, of lusts and desires. It is the world as it has become by the fall into sin of Adam, where people that live without taking God into account tell us what to do. This also includes the hardworking people who make careers or discoveries that improve the quality of life. They are highly regarded. But if God has no place in it, it is ‘the world’.