Morning Light – January 3rd, 2017 – Song of Solomon 6: He Feeds Among the Lilies

Morning Light – Song of Solomon 6
Today: [Song of Solomon 6] He Feeds Among the Lilies. In this chapter we find the daughters of Jerusalem interrogating the bride as to where the Bridegroom might be found. The Bridegroom is Jesus and you are in your soul the bride of Christ. There will be people, even other believers who will demand of you an accounting for the hope that is within you. Your answer must not be a natural defense but a spiritual declaration that you are who you are in service to God because Jesus the bridegroom is within you heart feeding Himself on the will of God that you are willing and compliant to pursue and to see according to Matt. 6:33.
[Sng 6:1-13 KJV] 1 Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with thee. 2 My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. 3 I [am] my beloved’s, and my beloved [is] mine: he feedeth among the lilies. 4 Thou [art] beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as [an army] with banners. 5 Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me: thy hair [is] as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead. 6 Thy teeth [are] as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, whereof every one beareth twins, and [there is] not one barren among them. 7 As a piece of a pomegranate [are] thy temples within thy locks. 8 There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. 9 My dove, my undefiled is [but] one; she [is] the [only] one of her mother, she [is] the choice [one] of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; [yea], the queens and the concubines, and they praised her. 10 Who [is] she [that] looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, [and] terrible as [an army] with banners? 11 I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, [and] to see whether the vine flourished, [and] the pomegranates budded. 12 Or ever I was aware, my soul made me [like] the chariots of Amminadib. 13 Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies.
In this chapter of the Song of Solomon the dialogue between the Bridegroom and the bride continues. Who is the Bridegroom? None other than Jesus Himself. Who is the bride? The bride eschatologically is the collective body of Christ who will one day become a corporate bride of Christ just prior to the parusia – the catching away of the church. Paul in a discourse on marital relationships in Ephesians 5 digresses momentarily from this very pastoral discourse to reflect on the fact that the husband and wife are a representation in a mystical way of the Bridegroom and the bride that will come forth in the determinate counsel of God at the end of the age:
[Eph 5:25-27 KJV] 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
This is the eschatological bride but that is not all that the bride is or will be. The bride is also who you are in your soul as a believer who has accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. Charles Wesley, the great hymnist and brother of Methodist reformer John Wesley wrote the following words:
Jesus lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly
While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high.
Hide me O my Savior hide, Till the storm of life is past,
Safe into thy harbor guide, oh receive my soul at last.
In verse one the daughters of Jerusalem are inquiring of the bride where the Bridegroom may be found. The bride answers that He might be found feeding among the lilies. There are two questions to answer here: What do the lilies represent and if the Bridegroom might feed Himself what does this sustenance represent? As to the second question we are asking the question then does Jesus feed Himself? In His earth walk surely but in heaven there is no hunger after a natural sort yet is there another repast that even in heaven Jesus feeds upon in metaphor representing His relationship to the bride?
When Jesus was resting at Jacob’s well He had sent His disciples on to get food for He was famished. While they were gone a woman comes to the well and He speaks to her of drink the water whereby she might never thirst again. The disciples return with food and are amazed that He would even speak to a Samaritan woman but more amazed to find that He doesn’t want to eat anymore. Now Jesus hasn’t eaten natural food. What has He eaten? In answering that question we will see what the Bridegroom partakes of in Song of Solomon 6:
[Jhn 4:31-34 KJV] 31 In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. 32 But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. 33 Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him [ought] to eat? 34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
When Jesus was ministering to the woman at the well He was feeding among the lilies. Lilies grow in the valley or low place. The Samaritan woman was of a very low caste so much so the disciples are shocked Jesus would even speak to her. She was a woman whose morals were so questionable that to even be seen with her cast dispersion upon Jesus’ character in the eyes of His closest disciples. Who might fit that description today?
Jesus ate the will of God. Apostle Don Matison taught in John 4:34 a few months before this writing that there is power in the sending. That Jesus fed on the will of God. Who are the lilies? When we look at Jesus among the candlesticks in Rev. 1:12 it is Jesus in the midst of the seven candlesticks or in reality the seven churches. What is He doing? He is feeding among the lilies. Remember in Song of Solomon 2:1 that it is the bride and not the Bridegroom that is described by the Bridegroom Himself as the lily of the valley. The valley is the low place. This is the son of God condescending to men of low estate according to Psalms 136:23:
[Psa 136:23 KJV] 23 Who remembered us in our low estate: for his mercy [endureth] for ever:
If He feeds upon the will of God still – doing the will of the Father as He moves in the midst of the seven candlesticks or churches then we ourselves are to likewise feed on the will of God when we are spiritually famished for as apostle Don Matison taught above there is “power in the sending” of God. Jesus was sent by the Father and in His earth walk and at the right hand of the Father He is feeding on the will of God among the lilies or the local expressions of the bride of Christ throughout the earth. Likewise God has not sent you only into the world but into the collective church or bride to discern and to accomplish His will and thereby find power in that send and performance of the work of God you are called to do among the people of God – doing good as you have opportunity to the household of faith FIRST and also out among unredeemed humanity.
When the Bridegroom commiserates with the bride the daughters of Jerusalem were looking on with criticism in her heart. They saw the bride and someone unacceptable which is why she has declared in chapter one:
[Sng 1:5-6 KJV] 5 I [am] black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. 6 Look not upon me, because I [am] black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; [but] mine own vineyard have I not kept.
This is not talking about the Shulamite’s ethnicity but of a life of exposure to the elements of the world. Likewise the woman at the well has had seven husbands, seven broken relationships and the one she is with now is not her husband AND at the well if you read carefully you realize that in speaking to Jesus the woman herself is propositioning Jesus when she lies to him saying “I have no husband…” This woman has a track record of exposure to the beggardly elements of the world and it comes off of her like a tangible contamination that anyone can see. As for the bride the daughters of Jerusalem readily criticize her because of her past. Every one of us has a past. But that isn’t what the Bridegroom is looking at. When He sees the bride His love for her ignores where she has been and focuses on where she is going:
[Sng 6:4 KJV] 4 Thou [art] beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as [an army] with banners.
What does this mean? The word terrible means formidable. The woman at the well was so transformed that she was the first person to go from the presence of Jesus with the 5-fold anointing of an evangelist and brought an entire city to sit at His feet by saying come see a man who told me all I have ever done. You see the power in the sending of God. He was feeding among the lilies on the sending of God the will of God and when she touched Him or more correctly when He touched her she was instantly transformed from an immoral woman and a pariah among her people to a blazing brand of evangelistic fervor who even as a woman despised in her city yet used of God to change an entire nation even those of Samaria.
God wants you to be this formidable. It is the intent and purpose of Christ dwelling in your heart (or human spirit) by faith that your soul then so affected by being in such proximity to Him is transformed. Did you know you have a well in you? Jesus said it Himself in John 4:14 that every born again person has a well in them. The most important thing is not that you get to drink from that well on the inside of you but that Jesus is sitting at that well having a conversation with your soul saying to your soul “give Me to drink…” What can your soul give to Jesus in your spirit? Yieldedness to His Father’s will.