In this book of Songs Christ speaks to His Church and she speaks to Him. In our text it is the Church that speaks, and she expresses her hope of His coming to her, and prays for His coming. We have two things here —
I. The hope of the Church.
II. Her prayer.
I. The hope of the Church. What did she hope for? She hoped for the coming of the day. Comparatively speaking, it was night with the Church in Old Testament times, although she had some light. It was a dark dispensation. Christ was set forth in types and shadows, and although the Church saw Christ in these types and shadows, she longed for His coming, and hoped for His coming. The warrant of her hope was God’s promise which was given to our first parents in the garden of Eden. We cannot hope for anything that God did not promise, but we may hope for all that He promised to sinful men. Although the Church had some light before the coming of Christ, it was not day till He came who is the Light of the world and the Sun of Righteousness. Abraham desired to see the coming of Christ. He by faith saw it afar off and rejoiced. Believers after the time of Abraham looked forward to the coming of Christ, and it was revealed to Simeon by the Holy Ghost that he would not die till he saw the Lord’s Anointed. He saw Him in the temple soon after He had been born in human nature. “then took he Him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel” (Luke ii. 26-32). He saw the day break, though he did not live to see noon-day, which time did not come till the Resurrection of Christ, when the Sun of Righteousness came to his meridian height and when the night of the Old Testament Church came to an end, and the day of the New Testament Church began. The shadows of the ceremonial law fled away, never to return. The ceremonial law has no place in the New Testament Church, although some try to keep it up still, but this is like lighting a candle in daylight. The Jews were very foolish in trying to keep hold of the shadow, while they rejected the glorious person whose shadow was set forth in the ceremonial law. They were like a wife whose husband was away in a foreign land, and when he came home the wife said, “I did not desire your coming at all. I was quite satisfied with your picture which I have in my room.” “He came to His own, and His own received Him not”, but believers received Him.
It is night within the believer when Christ is absent, but though in a state of desertion, he hopes for the day by the coming of Christ, like Jonah when he was in darkness in the fish’s belly, he said, “I will look again toward thy holy temple” (Jonah ii, 4). It is not pleasant to be in darkness; you are afraid of walking outside on a dark night lest you slip and fall into a ditch, but when Christ comes to you it is day and the shadows of unbelief and forebodings flee away, as in the case of Thomas. He was for eight days in the darkness of unbelief, but when Christ revealed Himself to him and spoke to him a word in season, the shadows fled away, and he exclaimed with joy, “My Lord and my God”. If we had Christ with us the darkest night would be turned into bright day, winter would be turned into summer, and our doubts and fears would flee away, and instead of gloominess and sorrow, we would rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, but as long as the Lord’s people are in the world they have their night as well as their day, and it is not a good sign on professors of religion who have no experience of these changes. It is a sign of spiritual blindness. Blind people are not able to make any distinction between day and night; day and night are the same to them. They may have a kind of light, “sparks of their own kindling”, which is but darkness. As Christ said to others — “If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness” (Matt. vi, 23). It is a light that leads astray.
In times of spiritual declension it is night with the Church. This has often been the case in the past, both in Old Testament times and New Testament times. In the Old the Church was brought by false teachers and wicked kings into the darkness of idolatry. For instance, we may refer you to the prophets of Baal and Jeroboam, the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin by leading them to idolatry. In speaking of New Testament times, there was a long and dark night in the Church before the Reformation in the 16th century. There was a period of gross darkness of upwards of a thousand years, commonly called the Dark Ages. Why were they called the Dark Ages? Because Christ, the Light of the world, was not in the Church as a Church, and the light of the Word of God was hid from the people. But the Lord’s people who worshipped Him in dens and caves of the earth, hoped for the day, and their hope was founded upon God’s promise of a reviving of His Church and causing His Kingdom to come, their hope was not disappointed for the day came at last: God raised up witnesses for Himself out of the great darkness. The Bible, which was for a long time a sealed book, was opened and its doctrines preached to the people, with the result that most of the kingdoms of Europe were brought under the benign influence of the Gospel, and the dark shadows of idolatry and superstition fled away. There are many in our day who hold that the Reformation was a mistake and a breaking up of the Christian Church, and they miscall the Reformers for doing such an evil work. Luther, in particular, is vilified for his Reformation in Germany. The Reformation from Popery extended to our own land, which had the effect of savingly converting many, and also of reforming the morals of the people, and when this light of the Gospel came, the shadows of ignorance, idolatry and superstition fled away.
We have a dark time in our own day, the darkest since the Reformation in the 16th century. Christ is not preached as He used to be, the light of the Bible is put under a bushel. The idolatry of Popery is introduced into so-called Protestant Churches, and our rulers in the state do their utmost to advance the darkness, but when it comes to its height we may expect the dawning of the day. We hope for the day, and God’s promise is the warrant of our hope, for He promised a bright and a long day of a thousand years, and although we may not live to see the dawn of it, we, like Abraham, rejoice that this day is coming, when the shadows flee away.
There is another day coming: the day of glory in heaven — the brightest day of all — when all shadows shall flee away, never to return again. The Church hopes for that day, and the warrant of her hope is the promise — “He will give grace and glory” (Psalm lxxxiv). The day of glory shall be brighter than the millennial day, for bright as the millennial day is, there shall be shadows of darkness in it, but the light of glory has not the least mixture of darkness, and it shall also be longer, for it shall be an everlasting day. The sun shall never go down, and if it is pleasant to see the light for a short time, how much more pleasant it is to behold it always.
II. The prayer of the Church. “Turn my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of Bether.” It is to be observed that the person to whom the Church prays is a person she loves — “My beloved”. Christ loves His Church and she loves Him. The first petition in the prayer is “Turn”, which implies that He was present with her before. It is those that enjoyed Christ’s fellowship before that pray that He would come to them again. In the interval, before they are brought to be with Him where He is in heaven, they pray that He would visit them now and again. They cannot be happy without Him.
The second thing in the prayer is that He would make haste in coming, and come swiftly like the roe or the young hart that runs quicker than any other quadruped and travels a long distance in a short time; but swift as the roe is, Christ comes to His people more quickly when they cry to Him in the time of need. Though they should cry to Him like the Psalmist “from the ends of the earth”, He comes to them in a moment of time (Is. lxi, 2). Others who are not in earnest may ask Christ to come to them, but not now, and that He shall be in good time if He comes to them before they die; but His own people pray that He should come speedily: “Make haste, O God, to deliver me. Make haste to help me O God.” (Psalm lxx, 1). There are mountains in the way, and as the roe or young hart comes swiftly over mountains, so does Christ. The mountains are called the mountains of Bether or mountains of Separation. There are several mountains standing between Christ and His people, so that they cannot see Him or enjoy His presence as they would wish till He comes over these mountains. Unbelief is one of these mountains, the carnal mind is another, and provocations innumerable are other mountains. The temptations of Satan are another fearful mountain, but none of these shall hinder Christ from coming to them. He comes to them in the word of the Gospel, and in fulfilment of His promise — “I will not leave you comfortless (or orphans); I will come to you.” (John xiv, 18).
So long as man stood in the state in which God created him he had a bright and happy day, but when he sinned he brought a dark night upon himself and upon his natural posterity, but when the promise of a Saviour was given, the light of day and of a brighter day began to shine on a sinful world, and there was thus a door of hope set before lost men which kept those who believed the promise from falling into the darkness of despair. It was the promise of Christ that turned that night into day. O! how thankful we ought to be that we were not left like the fallen angels, for whom no Saviour was provided.
It is night with all who are still in a state of nature, but those “who have been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son” (Col. i, 13), have seen the light of a day that shall never come to an end, and whatever darkness still remains in them, and a darkness by which they are surrounded in a sinful world; they shall never fall again into the darkness of a state of nature. They may be brought into darkness by the temptations of Satan, not because of any sin lying upon their conscience, but for the trial of their faith — “That the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter i, 7).
As the Church of the Old Testament prayed for the coming of the day as well as hoped for it, the Lord’s people now should pray for the day when the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the deep, and when all the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ, and that glorious event shall take place by the preaching of the Gospel. Let them pray that His Kingdom may come, and that the kingdom of Satan may be destroyed. Then the shadows shall flee away. With regard to the day of glory, the means of grace as they are now used shall flee away, and a new dispensation shall be ushered in which shall never come to an end, when all the redeemed are gathered up to heaven, Christ shall be the only preacher and ministers of the Gospel shall be among His hearers. He as “the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall feed them and lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Rev. vii, 17). In that city of perfect light and happiness there is no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof (Rev. xxi, 23).