Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of living as the 'bride' in this age, encouraging believers to embody a bridal attitude and love towards God and others. He explains that even in times of spiritual dryness, God remains deeply invested in our hearts, and it is essential to understand His thoughts during our struggles. Bickle urges believers to serve the immature in the body of Christ, highlighting that true service stems from knowing our identity in God and recognizing the value of others. He warns against the distractions and criticisms that arise when one pursues a deeper relationship with God and serves others selflessly. Ultimately, he calls for a commitment to pour into the lives of others, reflecting the heart of Jesus found in serving.

Picture of eternity, the watchman, the daughters of Jerusalem and the fervent believers in this age were all the bride in terms of eternity, but the storyline of the book is idealized, the bride is, and so that she is distinguished even though she's among the body of Christ so that we read the story and we say, I want to be like that, I want to live like the bride in this age, I want to live in a bridal attitude, I want to live in bridal love, and that doesn't make us the bride in the rest of the body of Christ, not the bride, so you don't want to bring it to that illogical conclusion, but we see the storyline because it is a song and it's a song giving a storyline so that we can relate to it, so we can respond in the way that the bride in the ideal way is responding and not like the daughters of Jerusalem and not like the watchmen who are angry and who stand against the bride, at least in chapter 5 they do, in chapter 3 they're helpful, but they turn against her in chapter 5, and so that's just to kind of give you a little bit of overview so you're not trying to figure out, well are the daughters the bride, am I the bride, are they the bride, and again the whole body of Christ in eternity is the bride, all the redeemed in history are the bride, but I want to live like it in this age, and only a small percent are living like at this age, living in that bridal identity, living in that bridal responsiveness to the Holy Spirit, that wholehearted responsive love. Roman numeral 1, just a review of the last session of session 20, from Psalm of Solomon chapter 6 verse 4 to 10, after the two-fold testing that took place in Psalm of Solomon 5 here in chapter 6, Jesus breaks the silence and He speaks to the bride's heart and He lets her know what He was thinking while she was going through difficulty. I don't know of too many truths that are more relevant and practical to our heart in our journey in this age than to know what He's thinking when we are being troubled and we are having to endure difficulty, because one of the big burdens that you and I feel, one of the biggest problems we have is the idea we don't know what He's thinking and we can't feel His presence, and when we can't feel His presence, that doesn't mean that He doesn't feel deeply for us and He doesn't have deep feelings for what's going on in our heart, because a lot of times we come up with the conclusion of I can't feel then I guess it goes to show He doesn't feel anything about me and that logic is not true, because often when you don't feel Him, He still feels deeply about you and it's that knowledge that causes us to be steady in the times of difficulty. Well one of the most expressive and extravagant statements of how God feels when we feel nothing, this is how God feels in Song of Solomon chapter 6 verse 5, 4 and 5. He breaks the silence of our time of trouble and He says, oh my love, He says I've never been, I was not angry with you, I was not drawing back from you because you were doing something wrong. I was allowing the deep hunger in your heart for me to come to maturity and to come to the surface and to get a hold of you in a new way. Because when you and I don't feel His presence, we do one of two things, either we give up and give in, just kind of give in to the to carnality and darkness or we make a more determined resolve than ever to search it out and to go deep in that very resolve itself causes our love to mature to go deep in the Lord and the Lord knows that. So sometimes He'll withhold some of His sensible feelings of His presence and the purpose in His heart, it's not, I mean sometimes the devil's oppressing us, we need to rebuke the devil and tell him to go and use the name of Jesus, but I'm not talking about a demonic oppression, sometimes the Lord withdraws the manifest sense of His presence while we're obedient in order for us to be more resolved and to go after Him with a greater tenacity and it creates a tremendous humility in us when the breakthrough comes and a tremendous gratitude and a resolve. I mean we get so desperate for breakthrough that nothing in life seems what it ought to be. We're just so desperate, we're lovesick in the negative sense of pain and I tell you there's tremendous fruit if we will persevere through those seasons instead of just giving up to darkness and just going the way, the common way in the body of Christ. And so He breaks the silence and He says, oh my love, you are as beautiful to me as Tirzah. You are as lovely to me as the city of Jerusalem and of course Tirzah was a city, a very beautiful city in ancient Israel. You are as awesome to me as an army with banners. You are a victorious army as we looked at it in the last session. You are awesome to me, you came, you were victorious, you came out of this victorious over your biggest enemy and that is darkness in your own heart. And then He says, verse 5, turn your eyes of devotion away from me. He's speaking in the poetic language of love. For your eyes have overcome my heart, your eyes have conquered my heart, speaking in the language of love. Now of course He's not saying really turn away. He's saying you move me more than you have any comprehension. What a powerful statement from the heart of the eternal God. And then He goes on and He describes not only His, her place in His heart, that's verse 4 and 5, but her place in verse 8 and 9 in His eternal plan. His place in terms of His purposes. And then He goes on in paragraph 10 and describes the fourfold glory, the place that she has in His eternal kingdom or His eternal purposes. Now having been established in this revelation, the bride is, she believes these things and she feels the truth of them. She goes on to the to the next stage of her development. But before we go on, I want to say this that we went over this so quickly and so many are so unfamiliar with this language and that's understandable and that's reasonable. That it's likely that the majority of you can't feel the weight of it or it doesn't register to you at all. But I want to encourage you in this regard that because truths are new to you and therefore they don't touch you, stay with it. Chapter 6 verse 4 to 10 has a dynamic insight as to your destiny and who you are before His eyes and in His eternal plan. And so what you want to do is to go deep in chapter 6 verse 4 to 10. You don't want to look at it and then conclude because it's new and because you're unfamiliar and because it doesn't, you can't feel it therefore you're done with it. No, no. Go exactly the opposite direction. Say this is a very, very important part of who I am and the place I hold in His heart and the place I hold in His plan. If there's, if it's the last thing that happens I'm going to get revelation. I am not going to stop till I have a breakthrough of these truths in my heart. And I think that you will be dynamically rewarded in terms of just the the faith and and the zeal and the strength you will find rewarded in that sense. Your spirit will be strengthened by going deep in chapter 6 verse 4 to 10. And the same will be true in this passage that these concepts are so unfamiliar to so many that 99% of all believers have never even read it for more than just a casual thing. I mean maybe just the most casual reading of chapter 5, 6, 7 and 8. And so then when they, when we point to some of the the subjects, I want to encourage you to say note to self, I don't fully get it but I'm gonna get it. And that's really what a class is all about. Really in this class I'm really advertising the passage to you. You can't really go very deep in a passage like this at a first run. When I first began to read the Song of Solomon, I mean I was horrified. No horrified. The reason I was horrified was in that 1988. It was in June of 1988 when the Lord spoke to me about the Song of Solomon. Spoke by the audible voice of the Lord and said this is my life calling to teach this book. I'd never read the Song of Solomon in a serious way. I was so excited as I've told the story many times. I mean the audible voice of the Lord direction that Song of Solomon, I mean my goodness. And I remember calling my wife and telling her that morning the audible voice of the Lord. I have a clear direction. It's the most glorious day of my life and I come home late that night and she says oh this is such a great day and I remember it vividly. I said no this is more bitter than death. She goes why? I thought God spoke audibly and gave you the Song of Solomon's life direction and I go yeah he did but I'd never read the Song of Solomon before. And now that I've read it. I mean like for my whole ministry like for years and years. She goes oh I think you're gonna really like it. It's a great book. I went oh it's horrible. I mean the whole book was. I had one or two verses that had a little bit of life on it but that left me with eight full chapters of nothing. I mean chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. Those are the chapters most of us are a little familiar with. So we can begin to feel it a little bit. Chapter four and five we begin you know the numbers get small. The people who really go after four and five and chapter six, seven and eight is almost non-existent. I mean I would say not exaggerate probably less than one percent of the body of Christ has ever endeavored to go there. Beloved this is the great love song of all the ages. And this is the height of the love song is chapter six, seven and eight. And I don't know of any part of the scripture more unfamiliar to the body of Christ possibly with the exception of Leviticus. That those would be the two actually being actually honest. And so when you look at this just I'm gonna I should have kind of got you ready for this on the on the last one because just as I was sitting there in between the the classes waiting in the break I was thinking I it's so unfamiliar I need to tell my story a little bit of how when I begin to get a hold of this it was totally confusing mentally and zero response emotionally. None except for boredom. So I guess that is a response. But there was a positive response it was like oh and then I begin to understand it intellectually a little bit. Then I begin to get it into my prayer life with God. Because until these these phrases get into the language of your heart with God until they get into your dialogue with God they will never ever get a hold of your emotions ever. And these phrases these truths more than the phrases themselves it's really the truths that we talk to God in phrases according to these truths the more that we say them and we journal them and we write them and we reference our our love our growth in love according to this song we find ourself in it it becomes far more dynamic and relevant and you feel it more and more and more. So chapter one two and three I think there's you know maybe five or ten percent of the body of Christ kind of goes there. Chapter four and five maybe we're under the five percent. 95 percent don't know anything about it and really don't think much about it but I tell you chapter five six seven eight it goes down to under one percent. But even here in in the IHOP world of which we are we celebrate the concept of the song of Solomon but I'm not sure we really go deep on the song itself it's not enough to to wave the banner of the title song of Solomon. We really need to go deep and we want to go deeper than just the first two or three chapters when the bride is immature. We want to actually wrestle with and and get a hold of the truths that describe her interaction with the Lord when she begins to go deep with the Lord in chapters six seven and eight. And so again mostly I will leave the the the notes to the private explanation so you can work through it but I'm giving you this kind of exhortation. Press in don't just read it you know emotionally it's like I mean mentally I don't get it and emotionally it's completely boring. Go to the next step and the next step is mentally I'm starting to get it now it's not exciting yet but at least it's not horrible emotionally then the next step is I'm really understanding it I feel it a little bit and stay with it till this thing gets a hold of you. And what I'm saying here in Roman numeral two what triggered my thought is this awesome sentence it's an awesome sentence that I have written here of course it's my own notes I shouldn't get too carried away no it's not the sentence it's the concept it's this phrase in in a as the bride walks in Song of Solomon 6 verse 4 to 10 revelation what an eye as she walks in this revelation I've never met a believer ever who walks in this revelation not one person myself included I've never met a believer who walks in the revelation of the identity and the destiny of who we are in God's heart and God's purpose as described in the poetic language or even just the New Testament language the counterpart you don't even have to go to the chapter six poetic language and make it fit just the language of this even as it's through the words of Paul the apostle and through his truth beloved when we get the revelation of this it radically changes us I have it a little bit very uh unsatisfied with the level of which I have it but as I was just looking at that sentence as she walks in the chapter 6 verse 4 to 10 revelation and I said Lord this must be me I must be a I must go forward in this revelation in the next season of my life at a whole nother level and so I just want to I want to challenge you I want to kind of stir you up and kind of you know uh make you think huh I guess it is the song of Solomon it really might be an awesome book it might really be worth learning it really might be worth it and of course we think it is but then again I've been teaching this at IHOP for the whole eight years of IHOP but I would say the vast majority of IHOP have zero understanding of any of these chapters because you're not going to get it in a classroom you're going to get it in the hours of long and loving meditation now I can give you the the notes and point you in the right direction but the end of the day you won't get it because a person stands in front of you and explains it to you you'll get it I think the teaching dimension of the notes is important to have somebody help you put a few of the uh symbol some of the symbolism together so I believe in that uh teaching type aid but that isn't at the end of the day what makes it alive in your heart what makes it alive in your heart is you and the Lord talk to each other according to these truths well what happens after she sees this revelation of who she is she commits herself to serve at a whole nother level but it's not she's just serving in the body of Christ she's serving with gratitude the immature ones in the body of Christ now that sounds pretty normal but I want to tell you that's really rare I've been a pastor for 30 years and very few people in 30 years have I watched them consistently serve immature people for the sake of the immature person I have in 30 years of ministry most people are working hard for a place of service so they feel good about their life it has almost nothing to do in a major way with the person that's getting the benefit it's mostly about I feel good and responded it feels right to me I got some new friends it's a new opportunity and all of those are good things in themselves but they're not the deepest motives of why we serve and that's why so many people get burned out and serving they're serving only because they want to fit and they want to feel good about what they do and they want their time to be meaningful they want a door to open this is not what she's doing she has a revelation of the needy ones and I don't mean just the down and outers in the inner city so she goes down on Monday afternoon and gives them food that's not what I'm talking about though I think that's a good thing to do I'm talking about she looks at people and she takes upon her heart the genuine responsibility to care for the spiritual needs physical as well I'll throw that in there but as a pastor I've seen very few a very small percent of people who will look at two or three people and say this I'll take those two or three on I will meet with them regularly I will teach them the word I will strengthen their heart I will pray for them I will labor with them now if the person that if the two or three people they're doing it for kind of get it then they then the one discipling them kind of gets all excited but beloved what is what is really intense is when we pour into people and the people we're pouring into are slow to respond now as a leader I find that hard to do myself and I really find it rare as I look around the body of Christ again most people are looking for a function in the body to make them feel good about their function and about their life they're not really thinking about the person they're serving they're thinking about how the function helps them and this the bride is at a whole nother level right here but you'll we cannot get into that other paradigm until we know who we are until we know chapter 6 verse 4 to 10 and again you don't have to know it from song of solomon 6 verse 4 to 10 but at least those truths we are just we are just stuck on our own welfare and our own good I mean most people are in ministry for their own good not even for the lord's good of the good of the people not really really because when push comes to shove they just it's really difficult to follow through and to really pour ourselves out and and and this in the way of helping people the only way that we can do it is we have a higher revelation of our value in god's heart we can't at the end of the day do it because it's an opportunity to get forward in the in the ministry organizational flow chart and so she sees who she is to god and therefore she sees the value of the immature ones and i tell you the immature ones are easy to despise because they they don't respond right they don't get it they they're stop and start uh and their faithfulness and it's like well forget it then if you're going to be that way forget it and the lord says i'm not giving up on them i didn't give up on you well i gave him a chance lord says i gave you lots of chances i didn't give up on you and i'm not giving up on them even though you're giving up on them and the reason i'm saying this to you i didn't read that in a book i have quit on on people over the 30 years just said lord it's just too much time too much energy too much this and that and lord says i don't feel i don't agree i went oh you know sometimes i'll get away with it and other times the holy spirit will come back and say let's read let's talk that one through again the lord's just too much energy well anyway she pours herself out she sees the body of christ from the perspective of already feeling successful in god's presence we will view others in need very different when we already feel successful we view others in need as a stepping stone for our ministry to be enhanced if we don't see ourselves successful in god in his presence but when we know who we are to him then we don't need people to enhance our sense of success so we don't have to endure them to get ahead we can actually without any regard of how it's going to come back and help us we can serve them for real because we're already successful because we know how god views us it's a whole different place of liberty it's a whole different way to carry our heart again easy to say for i'm just saying this is a confession it's easy to say but it's not so easy to live well after she serves for a while and and again i have plenty of notes just to give you some chances to work through those passages as she begins to see the immature in the body of christ and decide to give herself to it but what happens is after a season of service she's persecuted one group in the body of christ they don't like her and they're sarcastic and they resist her and then the bride vindicates her one part of uh i mean the bride is vindicated by the daughters and then the bride is later vindicated by jesus and seeing what jesus says and what he promises to us when he vindicates us i find is very is more than fascinating it's very helpful in terms of our own spiritual life i mean this is a love song that will carry us for decades and decades and decades every phrase of it is filled with meaning if we'll go deep with it okay roman numeral two roman numeral three now obviously going on this 15 minute cheerleading session cheerleading to be students of the song of solomon we're not going to get very far in this class but we do have the notes here and again the the it's it takes a while to get familiar with these concepts to even go uh uh deep on them okay she here's what she says okay she knows who she is in god she knows how dear she is to him she knows her eternal glory in his purposes now she wants to serve like never before but she wants to serve for all the right reasons not just to get ahead to hope her ministry grows and there's nothing wrong with your ministry going she's serving for god's sake because of his inheritance in them not because it will open the door for her future ministry opportunity she goes now i went down to the garden of nuts this is a walnut grove so this does not give you the liberty to call the body of christ a garden of nuts you can't say well it's in the bible it's a walnut grove it's the garden it's the lord's garden because it the garden she now sees it as his garden so she sees these people as the lord's inheritance she doesn't view them as an opportunity for her ministry if she just kind of you know she can do well with them then she can get ahead in ministry no she sees them for who they are to the lord that is a huge revelation that one truth would change the body of christ radically if we could begin to see people as the inheritance of the lord and not just an opportunity that if we work hard we get ahead in our ministry opportunity i went down to go see the lord's garden i want to see it i want to i want to see what the lord sees i want to feel what he feels when i go in the midst of his garden and she went down to see the uh virdu of the valley the the plushness the growth the uh the flourishing greenery that's coming forth and what she goes down to see specifically she she she wants to see the state of the garden but that's in a journal but specifically she wants to see if whether the vines are growing or not because the vines have not borne fruit and of course all through the bible the vines and vineyards are symbols of god's people and god's work so the vine doesn't have fruit on it yet but she's gonna go down and see it and she's gonna give her and she's gonna work in the midst of it now she understands that the garden is now the lord's garden paragraph b and for those of you that are just new with us in this class you might not follow this fully but what had happened earlier in chapter 6 the question was asked where's the lord at by the daughters of jerusalem and she gives the answer in chapter 6 verse 2 to 3 she goes i'll tell you where the lord is he's in the midst of his garden serving it and so now that the lord has blessed her and said how much he loves her she goes i want to go down to the garden i want to be where he is i want to be doing what he's doing and beloved i'll tell you what he's doing i'll tell you what the lord's doing and this is a hard thing to communicate i mean to to make it to where it really uh grabs the heart the lord is in the midst of the church serving people i mean it sounds so simple that is a huge statement that the vast majority of the body of christ do not grasp i struggle with this just in my own fleshliness the lord says you want to find me you can find me in the individual encounter me and you and the word but you can also find me in serving people who don't really necessarily even fully appreciate all that you're doing you will find me in the serving of the people because you see how valuable they are to me and something will happen in your heart when you serve them that will make you connect with me and the spirit of grace will touch you you will find me there in a surprising way what i mean by that you know it's it's it would be typical in a group of a thousand people i'll just kind of give you i'll break it down a little bit and a group of a thousand people if i got them all stand up and again my my point isn't like making people feel bad night that's not what this is but it's to grasp the the weightiness of what this passage is about this is a huge statement as a pastor just typically if i'd have a thousand people stand up and i would say now how many of you are regularly investing your life not just in hanging out with a friend you know and then sharing a little bit with the lord as you hang out come and go and have some meals together and chat about stuff and just you know have some sort of recreation that's not what i'm talking about how many of you out of if i had a thousand people just in a normal church setting have two or three people at least it doesn't have to be 10 or 20 but two or three where you are actively regularly pouring into their life without any regard for what it's going to bring back to you i'm not talking about even a small group or a home group everybody goes and shares a little bit i'm talking about a person in need a believer who's younger than they are in the things of the spirit and they're and they're meeting with them investing time money energy and heart into them how many are doing it if there were a thousand people i would guess to say much less than a hundred out of a thousand would raise their hand probably nine hundred out of a thousand would say i know i don't really ever do that i go to a home group where we all talk to each other i'm not talking about a home group i'm talking about where you're actually you can name the three the five the ten the fifteen whatever people you have a responsibility in god that doesn't have to even be formalized where you pursue them you pray for them you fast for them you help them you were you work through their problems with them you're constantly concerned about their spiritual welfare and i would say most people in the 30 years i've been in ministry not just even in my own context just over the years very few people ever grow in the lord to where they take on another person in a real way i mean really take on another person for more than a month or two to where they're really going to serve that young person and typically it's they're they're they're younger in age not always didn't have to be that way and when we begin to do that something happens in our spirit with god i mean it's a burden it's real servanthood because it's not that fun it's not so it's not that glorious it's like a lot of work a lot of pouring herself out but there's a place in the spirit where god begins to communicate in our hearts because that's where he is he's in the garden raising up the young vines that don't have fruit that's what his mind is on so i say lord here's what i want to do i want to be in your presence me and you talking one-on-one just whether it's in the prayer room or just you know in my in a private time i want to talk to you my heart in your heart and then i want to take a lot of my life and i want to pour it into people and work with them and help them make sense of life one-on-one one-on-ten whatever the number and i find that that is the hard part of life but there's an anointing on that and that is where jesus told the bride he says i am in the garden amongst the young vines and that's where you will find me and yet so many of god's people don't go there to look yes they're looking for a ministry but they're not looking to really invest in a in a in a regular in-depth way to two to three to four people they're just looking for that ministry one day that somehow this ministry would open but the lord is in the garden serving the people so i ask you you don't raise your hand don't do that how many times uh in the last three to five years have you taken on a person to where you were consistently meeting with them not just a person hanging out socially to where you shared a little bit of the bible with them or shared the things of god where somebody that was younger than the lord where you regularly met with them for the sole purpose of benefiting them spiritually with nothing to do with you i mean you might have enjoyed it i don't i mean i don't mean that's bad but i mean that's and you're you know uh you're invested in that maybe you say well i'm 20 years old but if you're 20 years old do it to someone that's 14 and well nobody told me who go find a 14 year old and do it it's not just they're all over everywhere just go and well i don't know how to find them to ask the holy spirit lord who can i go start serving and pouring myself into so when's the last time do you have someone like that in your life have you ever had someone like that in your life and when's the last time if you have when's the last time you've had someone that like that in your life my point being in song of solomon 6 11 that's what the bride is doing in the overflow of her revelation that of who she is in god she's pouring herself out to the young vines that have no fruit that are just budding that's what's going on now let let's go uh to page three just a few more minutes here she said in roman numeral four as she's going down to the vineyard and she's saying hey i'm gonna see with god's eyes i'm gonna take these unanointed unfruitful immature young vines i'm gonna pour myself maybe one on one one on five one on ten doesn't matter what the number is just pick one don't be overly spiritual you know wait for a vision just start finding someone so well i don't know the bible that well i bet you know the bible a whole lot better than a lot of people who just met the lord recently do you don't have to even finish four years of bible school just start caring about them and pour yourself meeting with them on a regular basis what happens she has the surprise a surprise hits her in chapter 6 verse 12 she goes before i was even aware my soul started moving like a swift chariot what she's saying my heart begin begin to get a burden and my soul moved and i was consumed with a burden for this vineyard she goes i went down there without a burden and now the burden has touched me and she talks about uh uh she's talking about her soul moving like a chariot a chariot was one of the most efficient fastest uh uh most uh practical ways to go forward in the ancient world she goes i'm moving fast my soul something has got a hold of me and i'm moving the burden has got a hold of me paragraph d she is surprised by the sudden movement of her heart this surprises her that she has a heart for this in a way that at first she was just doing it you know back in verse 11 this is verse 12 she was going down to the garden because she knew from chapter 6 verse 2 and 3 that when she didn't know where the lord was the answer was the lord is found in serving the young ones the one-on-one that's where he is found and not just doing hard tasks though i certainly appreciate that and the lord certainly found in serving doing hard tasks but pouring yourself into people and meeting their spiritual needs just helping them spiritually is a better way to say it none none of us can really meet another person's spiritual needs in any any kind of a major way but we can help them on their way and so uh she did it in verse 11 mostly because she knew that's where the lord was and that's the point i've been making the last five or ten minutes you might be surprised because if you've never done it in a consistent way you may be shocked that that's really where the lord's presence is it really is pouring yourself out to somebody and again when's the last time are you doing it now and if you're not when's the last time you've done it and do you have any plans to do it is it even on your vision list of the vision of what you want to do in this year to go invest yourself in a few people who are just in need spiritually they just need somebody to help them know the bible know god a little bit you don't even have to know the bible very well just talk to them on a regular basis is it even on your is it even on your your screen at all because my point being that is where the lord is and that's what she found in chapter 6 verse 11 but then in chapter 6 verse 12 the surprise of her life is that she got a burden for them in a way she didn't expect to happen it just came kind of suddenly the holy spirit began to knit her heart she goes you know what this is hard but i feel his presence and i actually care about these people and they're not even maturing very well but i care about them then in roman numeral five what happens is now as she's going down to the valley of to the garden of the walnut grove to and the walnuts are there's there's something very uh significant about a walnut grove i got a few notes on that i will i'll skip as as it speaks about spiritual truths and in really uh remarkable ways then what happens is that a controversy raises up while she's serving down in the in the garden well one group of the body of christ they wanted to return which are the daughters of jerusalem they're saying come back and help us don't help them come back and help us they say it four time return return return return we want you to minister to us don't help them help us we love you we want to seek the lord with you we need your help and then the other group speaks up with sarcasm why what do you even see in her and then the dance of the of the two camps begins which is the which is a poetic way to talk about the conflict the two camps the people who like her and the people who don't like her the collision begins well let's look at the bride from a point of views well she's finally got a burden for these people in need now the daughters of jerusalem they go what about us and then then the watchman say yeah we've already censored you why are you even ministering you don't even have anything to give them anyway so she has all this resistance and all this extra traffic that's kind of coming her way and emotional traffic is what i'm talking about paragraph d the response of the sarcasm of the jealous watchman they're saying to the daughters of jerusalem what do you even see in her beloved when you start serving somebody and you start pouring yourself in the and you begin to experience the lord's presence in it you can be sure somewhere the voice will come to you what do you have to do anyway that's worth anything the conflict will begin when you begin to pour yourself out in god's vineyard paragraph e the dance of the two camps speaks of the conflict between the daughters of jerusalem and the watchman over the ministry in the life of the bride now some of you are in are in among the three players here you're the bride in some situations and you're going hard after god in the last months or years there's just this whole stir up around you you know is she right is she wrong is he right is he wrong is it true is she deceived and what's going on you're thinking all i'm doing is going hard after god why is all this commotion beloved it's part of the divine pattern because you're disrupting the kingdom of darkness and and there will be conflict there will be a dance of the two camps if you break out and launch out and go for this thing paragraph h there's always two extreme positions in the church there's those who pursue jesus with great fervency and those who don't and wholeheartedness is at the very center not of every controversy of every conflict but wholeheartedness is at the center of many conflicts we have to just we you know if you're not wholehearted you want to prove why the wholehearted people are wrong and if you are whole wholehearted then you've got to ward off the people proving why you're wrong for being wholehearted you've got to prove something one way or the other when wholeheartedness gets in the equation paragraph i jesus brought division but he didn't bring division between the mature and the immature spiritually mature and immature he brought division between the sincere and the insincere there will always be division until the very end when the lord's church is going to break in and i believe there'll be unity in the church worldwide even before the lord returns in the midst of all the fires of of the final pressures of the end times but it unity will will come out of those fires but the the division that jesus brings isn't between the sincere i mean it's between the sincere and the insincere and that is okay when you take a stand division will happen if you take a stand to be wholehearted roman numeral six we'll just finish the last minute here uh what happens now you can read the 10 different uh characteristics that the discerning believers the the sincere believers uh the uh uh daughters of jerusalem they speak up for her and they just they describe 10 different aspects of her character and these 10 aspects of her character are aspects that god cares about and so we want to study them even though they're in poetic language and you know agricultural language of but in the language of poetry it's not that hard to figure it out because the the bible uh the bible interprets the bible the the symbolism in the bible is is made clear by the bible itself and so the the daughters of jerusalem the sincere believers they speak up on her behalf then what happens in uh roman numeral seven is that now jesus stands up and speaks on the behalf and gives some promises and these promises are quite dynamic but again they're promises that if you read them once they won't grab you but if you get used to the language and you talk to the lord about i mean you get these truths and even this some of this language into your prayer language language with the lord all of a sudden these promises begin to be get a hold of your heart in a very powerful and real way but i just want to point that out to you and you can uh begin to uh go after song of solomon chapter six and chapter seven in a more definitive intentional way but in the midst of it i'll just end with this point here and then we'll just uh uh stand and pray for a moment we'll just and then i'll just dismiss you at that time but the thing i want to leave you with is this jesus is found in serving the immature in his garden and it's more than hanging out with friends it's actually taking a real heart responsibility for those they might not even be overly uh that grateful for what we do but we serve others and so i want to leave you with that revelation that the presence of jesus is found there far more than many people are seeking him in that place so when we put our prayer life together with pouring into individuals in a spiritual way we're really practically wanting to help them that's the combination that song of solomon chapter six makes clear is where the presence of god is released in our life amen let's go ahead and stand