Shulamite lost fellowship with the Lord while hesitating at the Lord’s voice

2-13-2022 Weekly Message Meditation of the Week: Psalm 91:1-16 Text: Song of Solomon 2:16-3:5 Sermon Title:  Shulamite lost fellowship with the Lord while hesitating at the Lord’s voice        As soon as Shulamite woman disobeyed the word of the Lord to make her own claims, she suffered her loss of communion with the Lord. When  born-again Christian hears the voice of the Lord in the midst of fellowship with the Lord in the Holy Ghost to hesitate not obeying the Lord, the Lord does not speak any more and he will leave from the fellowship.         In his words to the corrupt Laodicea church in the last days, he speaks of how sensitive the Lord is: ” As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. “(Rev 3:19-20)      The Lord is saying this about the church in Laodicea, which had lost fellowship with the Lord, and became carnal: ”  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:‘ ” (Revelation 3:17).         When there is a case of disobeying the voice of the Lord and throwing the Lord out the door, Satan the devil deceives the saints with sweet fleshly words so that they cannot hear the word of God that is the Spirit, so that they live carnal life and wander in the darkness. The Apostle Paul testified of this to the Saints in Rome: ” For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:6-8).         We are able to see that the reason why the Shulamite woman ended her relationship with Solomon is happening when Christians put themselves before the Lord and become self-centered. It is revealed in the words of the Shulamite woman: “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.” (Sol 2:16).          The Apostle Paul delivered a message of rebuke to the saints who only pursue their own work rather than the work of the church of God: “But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state. 20 For I have no man likeminded, who will naturally care for your state. 21 For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” (Philippians 2:19-21).          When Shulamite woman heard Solomon’s voice saying, ” Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. ”  She hesitated, not leaving with him, because she thought only of her own affairs first saying: “Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.” (Sol 2:17).          When she hesitated to obey him , King Solomon disappeared from her sight. Likewise, Christians lose the presence of the Lord when they do not obey the Lord’s words spoken in prayer, but only consider their own position and make excuses that it is not yet time: “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.” (Sol 3:1).          She mobilized her own thoughts, she says, looking for him on the wide road, but she did not find him. The Lord  said that He is not at the wide gates or the wide way that people often go to: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. ….. Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. “(Matthew 7:13-14; Luke 13:24).         The meaning of the strait gate, as the Apostle Paul testified, is that it is the gate and way through which those who deny themselves and follow Christ Jesus, carrying the cross, no matter what weakness, reproaches, needy, persecution, distresses, or any other difficultie.           Sulamite woman met a watchman patrolling the city, and she asked if he had seen the one she loved, but she could not hear an answer. A watchman is a person who is in the position of shepherd in the church today. However, the watchman also may not be in the fellowship with the Lord  not experiencing the presence of the Lord like the shepherds of ancient Israel and most of today’s shepherds. God testified of how carnal the shepherds of Israel were at the time of the prophet Isaiah: “All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest. 10 His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. 11 Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. 12 Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant. ” (Isaiah 56:9-12)         Finally, the Sulamite woman meets her lover at the end of extreme suffering. Once we lose fellowship with the Lord, we will also have to go through great sufferings such as repentance and fasting. When she meets her beloved, she confessed:   “It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.” (Sol 3:4).         The Bible speaks of who is the mother of Christians: “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.” (Galatians 4:26).          After her communion with the Lord has been cut off, Shulamite woman who has finally found her beloved  in her tremendous suffering is determined that she will not let go the hand of the Lord until the day she arrives with him in the New Jerusalem.  A Christian who loved the Lord wrote a hymn to the Lord like Shulamite woman, praying to the Lord:  “Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn; Thru the storm, thru the night, lead me on, to the light, take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.”         Finally, Shulamite woman asks the daughters in Jerusalem once again to keep her lover from interfering with her relationship with herself and her beloved. This is because they not understand the Christians who have deep fellowship with the Lord . They gossip against them with jealousy.  “I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.” (Sol 3:5).         Shulamite woman suffered in her great affliction by putting her own work ahead of the Lord’s, and confessed: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.…. I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. ” (Sol 6:3; 7:10).         Christians waiting for the Lord, like  Shulamite woman, whenever they hear the voice of a trumpet opening the door of heaven and saying, “Come up hither!”, they should be prepared to respond, “Amen, come Lord Jesus.” Amen! Hallelujah!