Sweet Notes from

The Song of Songs         (Part 9)

Chapter 3 verses 1 to 5.

The first five verses of this chapter three of the Song of Solomon might well be called, The Song of the Returning Backslider; for, such a song it is when we look at it in a spiritual light.

The young Bride of the Song had been separated from her Beloved at one point in her life, but she set about seeking him until she had found him again. And in these verses that we have before us, she allows us to set our feet in the prints of her own as she has made her way back into full communion with her Beloved again. "By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth," she begins in verse 1, "I sought him, but I found him not."

And the reason she didn't find her Beloved at this first attempt, as it were, was on account of the fact that she was seeking him – in the wrong way. "By night on my bed," she says, "I sought him whom my soul loveth …" In other words, she dreamed of how desirable a thing it would be to be reconciled to her Beloved again. And many backslidden believers are just like that. They dream about what it would be like to know the joy of his salvation again." Their theme song is all about the "peaceful hours" they "once enjoyed". But that hymn, you remember, has a tremendous call to action on the part of the cold Believer who is urged, under the Lord, to "tear" his "dearest idol" from the Lord's rightful throne.

In like manner, we see how the young Bride in the second verse seeks her Beloved, but again, "finds him not", as she sought for him, it says, "in the broad ways". This time, surely, she was seeking him – in the wrong place. Her Beloved dwelt in the King's Palace, or abided with his "flock" according to chapter one, and was not to be found in "the broad ways" of the city. Likewise, the returning backslider will have to be prepared to abandon the "broad ways" of this world if he ever wants full communion with Christ again.

This is a true saying; and every true minister of Christ should point the true way back to Jesus for those who have become separated from Him. The "watchmen" in verse 3 do this very thing for the young Bride of the Song, and she finds her beloved again: "It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth …" Believer! He is always in that place where we parted from Him.