Song of Solomon 1:4

Song of Solomon 1:4

This passage is most appropriate in the mouth of the Church, considered as of Gentile origin, eager to be drawn after Christ; afraid of contempt from the people of Jerusalem, as being of another race, and anxiously inquiring of the Bridegroom where He keepeth His flock ignorant, up to that moment, of God's manner of dealing with His chosen.

I. The text brings us across the great mystery of God's predestination. The cry of man to God is, "Draw me, and I will follow Thee." In the New Testament we have our blessed Lord declaring, "No man cometh unto Me, except the Father draw him." In some sense or other, predestination is the eternal truth of God. Wherever predestination is spoken of, it is a predestination which concerns, not our final salvation or condemnation, but simply our call to the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Thousands of years ago it was predestined that we should be blessed with the knowledge of Christ, but it was not predestined whether we should be saved thereby. What the Bible teaches is, that God has predestined some to a knowledge of the truth of Christ, and shut it up from others; not that He has predestined some to heaven and some to hell.

II. Consider these words as the utterance of the bride after her union with Christ. (1) The entire life of man is a period during which there is perpetually being exerted upon the soul a gentle violence, alluring, tempting it to follow the footsteps of Christ. The details of our existence are so planned as to lead us unto heaven. If we would surrender ourselves into God's hands unreservedly, He would bring us safe to the eternal city. (2) The text implies that the course of the servant of God is one of constant progress and active advance. Christ is ever, as it were, moving onward; He leads us from one height of moral excellence to another.

Bishop Woodford, Occasional Sermons,vol. i., p. 178.

I. The spiritual life has three states through which all who attain to the love of Christ seem to pass; and these states are so marked that we may take them one by one. (1) I suppose that most can remember a time when we were drawn so strongly to the world that the drawing of Christ's love and spirit was overbalanced by a more powerful attraction. Sin is sweet, and it draws steadily and smoothly, as the shoal water of a whirlpool, with an imperceptible and resistless attraction. One sin will overbear the meek and gentle drawing of Christ. It is not only the greater sin, or the worship of the world, which holds us back against the drawing of Christ, but the soft, pure happiness of home, the easy round of kindly offices, the calm and blameless toil of a literary life, the gentler and more peaceful influences of earthly cheerfulness; all these, too, with the lights and shades, the anxieties and joys, which fall across an even path, steal away the heart, and wind all its affections about a thousand moorings. (2) Let us take the next state. It may be that by sorrow or chastisement, or by some other of His manifold strokes of love, it has pleased God to break or to relax these bonds, and to dispel the vain show in which they walked. The world draws them less, and the presence of Christ attracts them more. Such persons are in a balanced state, between two attractions, of which, if the one be weaker, it is the nearer and the more sensibly perceived. This condition is at times dreary and overcast, and cannot last long. It must incline one way or the other. (3) And this leads on into the third and last state, in which the balance is so turned against this world, that it can allure no longer; and the hope of God and His kingdom attracts alone. In some special way God is often pleased to break the bonds of this world, and to draw His servants once for all under the abiding attractions of the world to come. Perhaps nothing does this so surely as a realisation of death.

II. Let us suppose that God has, in love, broken your bonds asunder and drawn you unto Himself. How will you answer to this mercy? (1) It would be the plain will of God that you should strive with all your soul and strength to follow whither He is drawing you: that is, to prepare yourselves to dwell with Him for ever. (2) Give your whole heart and strength to perpetuate and perfect what you have learned to the very end of life.

H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. iii., p. 388.

There is one point on the very face of the text which it is important to notice. We may come to God collectively, but we are drawn to God each one individually. Draw me: wewill run after Thee. Notice how this effectual drawing will begin to show itself in those who have been, indeed, the subjects of it.

I. Obedience to an impulse of God will be instant. A "drawing" never takes effect tomorrow. Real religion is always in the present tense. It is Abraham's "Here am I!" It is Isaiah's "Send me!" It is Christ's "Lo, I come!"

II. A person who is under the drawing of God will be sure to begin to make conscience of little things. Things which were to him as nothing he will consider all-important, because they give him the opportunity of pleasing or displeasing God.

III. Another step a very early step in the road is a desire for the salvation of somebody else. Be very suspicious about your religion if you are not anxious about anybody's soul.

IV. The man who is really drawn so loves the drawing that he always wants to be drawn more and more. He finds that it is so pleasant. He is always trying to get nearer. Therefore he is a man of much prayer because he is nearer at such times. He wants oneness, closeness, and identity with Christ.

J. Vaughan, Sermons,8th series, p. 141.

References: Song of Solomon 1:4. Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 220; Ibid., Evening by Evening,Philippians 1:23; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. v., p. 196; J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday,p. 34; J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs,p. 19.