Mike Bickle discusses God's loving discipline as depicted in Song of Solomon 3:1-5, emphasizing the relationship between the Shulamite maiden and King Solomon as a metaphor for the Bride of Christ and Jesus. He explains that the maiden's struggle to follow the Lord's call to a deeper intimacy reflects spiritual immaturity rather than rebellion, highlighting the importance of obedience and faith in our relationship with God. Bickle illustrates how God's discipline is a sign of His love, meant to awaken a deeper hunger for Him and to challenge us to let go of the things that hinder our spiritual growth. He encourages believers to seek God even in times of confusion and to recognize that their love for Him remains genuine despite struggles. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a commitment to pursue God wholeheartedly, even when faced with the discomfort of His discipline.

Song of Solomon chapter 3 verse 14, I mean session 14. Song of Solomon chapter 3 verse 1 to 5. We're in our session 14 in a 24 classes in this course on the studies of the Song of Solomon. And any of you that would like the notes, they're available on the website now and you can get the past notes as well. Well Song of Solomon chapter 3 verse 1 to 5, you can't understand that passage unless you go back to the last class or the passage just before, which is chapter 2 verse 8 to 17. I'll give a very brief snapshot of what happened in the passage just before this one in Song of Solomon 3. What had happened is the bride or the maiden, the Shulamite maiden, which is a picture of the Bride of Christ, as she is in love with King Solomon who is a picture of King Jesus. And so it's a love song that depicts the glory and the beauty of married love. It's a natural love song and it's meant to be understood that way, but it's not meant to only be understood that way. It is also a picture of the love song between the Bride of Christ and the Bridegroom King Jesus himself. And so the parallels are quite obvious and they're very helpful and meaningful in terms of our spiritual journey with the Lord. Well in Song of Solomon chapter 2 verse 8 to 17, which is the session, the passage we covered in our last session, the maiden received a new revelation of Jesus. She saw Jesus leaping and skipping on mountains and hills and mountains and hills speak in the Bible, they speak of obstacles, they speak of governments. And Jesus is effortlessly leaping and bounding over all obstacles. He's presenting himself as the Lord of everything, as the sovereign king of the nations. There's nothing that can stand before him as he effortlessly bounds upon mountains which speaks of human governments or demonic governments or God's government as well. Mountains speak of government. He is over all authority, all power, has all dominion. And he comes leaping and skipping on mountains like a gazelle in chapter 2 verse 8 and 9. This is an entirely new insight. The only king that she knew was the one that sat under the apple tree at the table feeding her singing love songs. And now he comes bounding from mountaintop to mountaintop and she's thinking this is a new insight. Well in chapter 2 verse 10 he calls her to arise from the table under the apple tree resting on the bed. He says come with me to the mountains. She's thinking well I don't like heights, I don't like mountains, I don't want this. He's disturbing her and her place even before him because he's going to require in this season a new measure of faith and a new measure of obedience because he's bringing her to a new place of intimacy with himself, a new depth of partnership. But in order to bring her to this new depth of partnership, this new faith, this new obedience, this new relationship with him on the mountaintops, it's requiring, I mean he requires that she rises up so he challenges her sense of security and her comfort zone. And the Lord does this at key seasons of our life. We're just, everything is right, it's all settled and suddenly the Lord comes as the God with power over all obstacles, over all dominions, all authority. He says come with me. In other words come to a new place of obedience, come to a new place of faith and he challenges the way that things have been and we go oh no I'm not ready for that. And what happens as we looked at in the last class in chapter 2 verse 17, she tells the Lord to turn and go go to the mountains without her. He says, she says in essence no I'm not going to go with you. Go to the mountains without me. Now she's not refusing him in defiance. This isn't rebellion, this is spiritual immaturity. This is fear. She's saying I can't and the Lord even urged her to cry out for help. Catch, she cried out Lord catch these little foxes, these little areas of compromise. And yet her heart is is unable to go or her heart does not respond. Let's say it that way. Fear is is in her relationship with the Lord and that fear is going to be conquered. Now every one of us understand what it means for the Lord to call us to a new depth of obedience or a new challenge of faith and to say I'm not quite ready for that new depth and the Lord's saying if you don't go with me you're going to lose out in your relationship with me because we can't stay the same in our relationship with the Lord. We're either gaining ground in our obedience and faith or we're losing ground. There's no such thing as a static place. You're either going forward or you're going backwards in both your faith and your obedience. You know sometimes it would be nice to think that we we gain a certain plateau in the Lord and we can put a flag on the mountain or that hill that we just conquered and forever we will be there. It doesn't work that way. A year later we maybe have lost ground in the Lord or we maybe will gain ground but one thing's for sure certain we don't stay exactly the same place that we are today. Tomorrow we're actually a little bit different one way or the other. We're a little further or we've lost a little ground. Roman numeral two let's get a quick overview of what's happening in chapter three verse one to five. The Lord's response to her we see it he disciplines her now he disciplines her in love but he lifts his presence off of her heart in order to pry her fingers away from she from the things that are hindering her relationship with the Lord. I mean in our in our relationship our relationship with the Lord often we hold on to the very things that keep us in bondage and the Lord has to pry our fingers just finger by finger. He goes trust me if you let go it will be better for you and we say no I'm in the comfort zone I'm where I finally have things the way that I want them and he disciplined her not because he was angry at her he disciplined her because he knew that he had a better place for her in the spirit under the spirit's leadership but she could not go there without willingly obeying him and this is what the Lord does in our life this is such a graphic picture of what takes place in our life he is not angry with her he is jealous to bring her forward and that's how he relates to us in our life as well the father loves us too much to let us stay where we are short of the maturity of the glory that he's called us to walk in as the bride of Christ you've often heard about the cost of obedience obedience is costly but let me submit to you disobedience is more costly than obedience is discipleship cost a lot but non-discipleship cost more it really does the time it takes the money it takes the relational dynamics involved in sinning and getting a demon then keeping the demon and then getting tired of the demon then paying to get rid of the demon is really expensive time money and relationally I mean people pay a lot of money to get their demons and they pay a lot of money to feed them and all their addictions and they pay a lot more money to get rid of them when they get tired of them and it's the same in loss of time relationship opportunity it's very costly to disobey the holy spirit now god knows that in a way that that we don't really know that so it's in his zeal that he disciplines us he lifts his presence from our hearts for several reasons one reason i'm in paragraph c for those of you that are following along on the notes and if you don't have the notes you can uh get them they're available right now on the website first one reason that he he lifts his presence from our heart to discipline us to alert us to the seriousness of compromise when we refuse the holy spirit's leadership it really hurts our life it injures our relationship with the lord the second reason why he lifts his presence from our heart is to humble us he does that sometimes unrelated even to uh sin and compromise to show us that he is the source and that we cannot make it without him he shows us our need of him and another reason his heart his spirit lifts from our heart it's an entirely different reason to awaken a new tenacious hold and a pursuit of him to awaken a new hunger in our heart sometimes we experience his presence and then we'll go for a time when we don't experience it the same way and we really become resolved to to press in at a deeper way and so it actually awakens hunger in us roman numeral three top of page two god's discipline of us and we're going to look at the passage in a minute verse by verse song of solomon chapter three verse one to five we're going to look at it line by line in a moment but just a couple foundational principles god's discipline of us is not the same as his rejection of us now the message of the song of solomon for those of you that are just new with us in joining this course the message of the song of solomon one of the messages is that god enjoys us even in our weakness because god sees the makes a distinction between rebellion and immaturity now god is angry at persistent rebellion but immaturity god is not angry with he actually enjoys us while we're growing in the lord he doesn't only enjoy us one once we reach full maturity as a father and a mother would joy enjoy their children while they're growing the lord actually enjoys us along the journey of growing up not just after we grow up however the fact that he enjoys us does not mean he approves of every issue in our life the lord can enjoy us but still disapprove of a specific area that he's going to discipline us in in order to free us because he sees the benefit in our life of us being free as he has other reasons as well paragraph b the lord's discipline in our life is not the same thing as god writing us off he doesn't despise us he doesn't uh look at us in disdain because he disagrees with an area of our life he still enjoys us he still loves us while he deals with those areas says in proverbs chapter 3 verse 12 that god loves the people he corrects in the way that a father loves the son in whom he delights and god delights in us while he's correcting us he doesn't delight in the correction but he actually delights in the people that love him they need correction so therefore there's immaturity in their life but he still delights in them and he only corrects us because he loves us paragraph d to be disciplined by the lord actually means he cares for us it means he's not given up on us the most terrible thing that can happen is if god for uh no longer disciplines you that means he's given up on you he's given you over to your sin so the the fact of divine discipline doesn't mean god's angry and it's over it's exactly opposite it means he's committed and he's focused on you and he's and he wants to bring you forth from one degree of faith and glory to the next it says in first corinthians 11 verse 32 when we're judged we're chastened by the lord and the reason we're chastened by the lord so we don't end up condemned along with the world so the fact we're being chastened or disciplined that's the same idea is so that we don't enter in up end up under greater judgment it means god has not given us over he's not given up on us so the discipline of the lord is as painful as it is is actually a statement of god's zeal and commitment to us paragraph g even when we're in seasons where we're not repenting in the way that we should at the depth that we should he still has patience he says this about jezebel he's talking about the church at thiatira he says i gave her jezebel this isn't the jezebel that was married to ahab in the days of elijah that that was about a thousand years before this jezebel now this poor gal her mom dad named her jezebel i mean she had a tough beginning but here's what the lord says about her she's functioning in the church as a prophet a prophetess and a teacher the lord says i gave her time to repent and i'm gonna cast into a sick bed those who commit adultery with her i'm gonna cast them into great tribulation if they don't repent they're living in immorality he goes i will give you time to repent and then i'm gonna create an increased severity so that you will avoid judgment a greater judgment in the days to come but i think it's an amazing reality that god gives us time to repent but the time that he gives us is not to be misinterpreted as god's approval with our life when we're in a season of god's divine patience i've seen people they're living in compromise knowingly and the blessing of god's on their life and they mistake it they mistake the patience of the lord for the approval of the lord i go no it's his patience it's his great patience look at the next next passage in romans 2 verse 4 some of the believers in paul's day he had to exhort them not to despise the riches of god's forbearance or his patience the riches of god's long suffering do you know what long suffering means it means suffering long sometimes we despise or we think little of the fact that god suffers long with us it wounds god's heart when we resist him but he doesn't give up on us it pains him he says i'm going to suffer along with you i'm going to give you i'm going to give you time because i i really want it to be easier on you but i'm so committed to you i will break in and get your attention to save you from greater trouble in the days to come and so that you could enter into your full inheritance which requires that we walk under the holy the leadership of the holy spirit so he tells him here in romans chapter 2 verse 4 he goes don't despise in essence paul saying don't despise the the long suffering of the lord the patience of the lord knowing that when you understand he's being patient it's supposed to motivate you to repent but if you misinterpret his patience as approval then we despise that we think little of it and we continue in our compromise when i understand god's giving me time it motivates me to repent if my if i'm thinking right i i don't always do it that way over the years but when it dawns on me i go wait this is your patience thank you thank you thank you i love you wait you're you're still giving me a yet another uh period of time before you turn the heat up and you're only turning the heat up because you're committed to me roman number four top of page three now we began in the verse by verse section of song of solomon chapter three what happens is the maiden which is is the bride the shulamite the bride i call her the maiden as she's maturing the young shulamite maiden that king solomon is in love with that's a picture of the bride of christ in this love song she says by night on my bed i sought the one i love in song of solomon chapter 3 verse 1 and 2 i sought the one i love i sought him but i did not find him i will rise now i said she said to in her own heart i will go about the city i will go in the streets i will go in the squares and i will seek the one i love i sought him but i did not find him she is in a point of confusion here because in chapter 1 and chapter 2 whenever she sought him she found him and she found uh the sweetness of the word and the sweetness of his presence particularly in chapter 2 but also in chapter 1 as well so she is not accustomed to this new reality of seeking him but his nearness does not touch her heart she's confused she goes i sought him and i know i love him i realize i i refused him a few minutes ago in the previous verse in chapter 2 verse 17 she told him to go turn and go jump on the mountains by himself without her because he invited her to come with him on the mountaintops she goes i still love him and it was true her love was true she says it four times she refers to jesus as the one whom she loves and it was real beloved our love for jesus is not false because our obedience is immature because we have fear in our heart because this is not rebellion in this case some people it's rebellion but here she really wants to have the fullness of god but she's still immature in her faith and in her revelation and her obedience she says in verse one by night on my bed i saw the one i love i have in paragraph b four different nights in which we must seek the one we love there's the nighttime hours here in kansas city we have the night watch they seek the lord through the night in this song the night hours met the inconvenient place they went above and beyond like our night watch does in their desperation for god the only thing the night watch does differently than the bride here is that the bride was on her bed in the night and hopefully our night watch is sitting in the chairs or pacing or studying or in classes but there are time there's the nighttime hours when the lord awakens us in the night and sometimes when the lord awakens people they don't have enough discernment to know what to do or they're have a little insomnia they just channel surf for six hours it's the lord it's the lord wanting to draw you to himself i mean even with natural reasons take advantage of that time don't just channel surf for six hours in your desperation seek the the one whom you love well there's the night time of pain i'm i'm using this obviously symbolically and i i highlight david and joseph who had tremendous difficulty beloved in the night time of trials we must seek him many people give up in the night time when the trials come they just give up but she says in the night time i seek you because i love you we can't stop seeking the lord and conclude that his word and his promises are false because of the night time of pain well there's the night time of temptation when we actually stumble and fail what happens we have condemnation we have guilt we just want to quit and we feel like a hopeless hypocrite the lord says no even in the night time of your struggle even in the night time of your struggle you must believe the word of god receive his forgiveness and run to him not from him and then the final one which is a little different than most or think much about it's what they called in the middle ages the dark night of the soul of course it was a man known as saint john of the cross who originated this term and made it popular and the dark night of the soul was a a sense of the lord's presence he could not discern not because of disobedience but in obedience and the lord was withholding his presence from him in order to bring him forth in ways we will look at later because this is what happens to her in chapter five or six where she's obedient yet the lord's presence is lifted from her for a short season to see if the lord is a means to an end or if the lord is the goal of her life to some people jesus is just a stepping stone he's the one we use to get blessing but to others jesus is the goal of our life and he happens to bless us and so in the dark night of the soul that's an we'll look at that in a few class uh times from now it's when we're gonna be obedient to god because he is enough the very fact he is ours is enough but we'll look at that at another time paragraph d her heart is set on loving jesus even in her struggle she's under divine discipline right now but she doesn't give up under divine discipline it says in hebrews chapter 12 i don't have it written in the notes verse 3 it says don't despise the discipline of the lord in other words don't just disregard it as nothing but it also says don't give up under the discipline of the lord don't lose heart and and some people when they're under divine discipline they lose heart in hebrews 12 verse 3 and we're not to lose heart we're not to give up and give in we are to continue to seek the one we because i tell you that the discipline is temporary and the lord only releases discipline in order to reverse it to establish us in a new depth of obedience to the holy spirit's leadership in our life i love this way that she refers to jesus she says i sought the one i love sometimes when we're in a struggle the devil comes and tells us we're a hopeless hypocrite and our love for jesus is not real well she's clearly in a struggle she's clearly under divine discipline but she calls him the one that she loves beloved your love isn't false because it's weak weak love for jesus is not false it's still real you can still say i love you i love you i love you to jesus even when you're in the midst of the struggle when we're in the valley you know the valley is there's two mountaintops when we're not on a mountaintop you know the the goal is to is to go with the lord on those mountains those places of risk those places of challenge it's a place of obedience but sometimes we're in between the mountains and the mountains have challenged us and we're in the valley in the valley which means in this case in this analogy it's in her time of where she's still struggling to get to a place of full obedience for the light that she has in that season of her life because we only can walk in obedience to the degree that we have life in any given season i mean we get to a place of obedience we think we've arrived the lord doubles the amount of light you know the the microscope goes from 10 power to 100 power and then we get obedient and all of our light then he turns it up to a thousand power the um the uh the uh microscope uh slide that's underneath you know we think we get it all cleaned up and then the lord turns it to 10,000 power we think lord he says i only ask you to obey to the light that i give you but i will keep increasing the light well when we're not fully obeying the light and we're in the valleys and in this analogy we're we're uh struggling to obey we we are still lovers of god and i'm talking to people that sincerely care about the lord there's of course there's plenty of people that name the name of jesus they don't really care about obeying him i'm not talking to them because they're careless in their relationship with the lord i'm talking about sincere believers because the love song when we understand it it empowers us with confidence to go hard after jesus while we're maturing with confidence that he loves us and our love for him is real even though it's still weak it's been a great blessing in my life to have the confidence that god sees me as a genuine lover of god while i'm maturing it makes it makes the journey seem it makes it powerful in our hearts because we're not always on probation or are about to be yelled at by the lord and rejected we feel loved and adored by the lord and enjoyed while we're growing and i tell you when you feel that way your spirit is wide open and you just feel a far more confident to pursue the lord in a diligent way well she says i sought the one i love i didn't find him and the reason is that she's seeking him according to the familiar ways that she did in chapter one and chapter two and what she hasn't figured out is that things have changed the lord really does require a new level of obedience and she's doing the same schedule the same patterns she's in the word she has her fast day you know she's uh in her prayer times she's doing her normal routine in that is important to have and it was working she felt the sweetness of the lord in chapter two verse three she said i sat at his table with great delight but now she's doing the same approach of seeking him but it's not working quote unquote and she doesn't understand why well the reason why because god is jealous for us because yesterday's obedience though it was very important and meaningful the lord has just raised the standard of obedience he's increased the light the microscope has gone from 10 power to 100 power there's we see more and he requires us to obey the holy spirit's leadership at the new level but beloved when we obey at the new level we have a new partnership with him we have a new intimacy it's not just we obey and that's it we enjoy him more we experience more of him i mean it's a glorious reality that he keeps wooing us to greater faith and greater obedience prayer and fasting is no substitute for obedience there's some folks that undoubtedly i don't have any examples in my mind but there's undoubtedly they join the ihop staff and they're apart and they're they got their prayer times set for the week and and then the lord intervenes he comes as one skipping and leaping on mountains meaning he calls them to another level of obedience another level of trusting him a new challenge a new assignment at the heart level or at the hands level he challenges us to a new depth of servanthood a new depth of humility and we don't go with him and the same prayer meetings that were causing us to experience the presence of god a month ago we don't experience this presence we say what happened he says something changed i'm calling you to a new height i'm calling you to a new challenge at the heart level and with your hands whether it's an act of service or an assignment or a new relationship he says i'm i'm requiring more of you for you to feel the same in your relationship with me and i'm going to starve you out of your fear he starves us out the lord knows he's going to win he takes his presence the sense of his presence off of her heart in a very short-term way and she's going i can't live without this he goes i know i'll arise oh that's the very thing she does oh get up i will get up i will arise and come after you he goes i knew you would that's the reason i took my presence off of you because i knew that you loved me and you it would awaken you it says in james 4 paragraph f draw near to god he'll draw near to you but cleanse your hands you sinners purify your hearts james is saying you can draw near to god but you don't just draw near to god by going to more worship times turning on more worship music we do have to confront the sin that's in our heart our attitudes the lack of servanthood the presence of pride our unbridled tongue our unbridled eyes our unbridled our wasted time that's not under the holy spirit's leadership he thought well i'm not doing any scandalous sins the lord says but i've turned the light up i've called you to a new mountaintop i now require a new way with me and you have to walk with me in a new way there's a new measure there's a new level that i'm asking of you but there will be a new release of my presence on your heart when you walk in that level so he says draw near to the lord but cleanse your hands that that means activities purify your heart that's attitudes and the predominant attitude that we need to purify our heart in is mostly the lack of servanthood because our time is not our own it belongs to the lord our life is not our own well lord i wanted salvation and power but i still wanted my time and my heart to be my own mostly i won't do the big stuff but i want to control the little stuff the lord says no i'm the lord of your life oh come on quit being so pushy about this i'm not doing the scandalous stuff he says that's i know but i want to own your heart i want you to be a servant i want you to walk in humility i want you to be free of complaining and when you complain call it sin and grieving the spirit and come into a new level of leadership of the holy spirit in your life i just so you know i'm just talking myself miserable right now i'm just getting sick saying all this stuff so you might you know maybe your mind drifted but the lord knows that i heard what i just said because so i'm totally accountable but he says draw near to god and god will draw near to you here's the promise if you will draw near to god and cleanse the hands the outward actions that that he's uh shedding light on and you cleanse the heart that's the inward attitudes particularly speech and pride i mean wrong words and wrong and and pride it's really what it comes to which is the uh same thing as is a greater servanthood he says if you will draw near to me with new light that i gave you i promise you says the lord i will draw near to your heart by my manifest presence but he says you really do have to cleanse your hands and you really do have to purify your heart a lot of folks think the verse means turn on more worship music while they're just doing going about their business i think turning on worship music is really awesome that's not the same thing as drawing near to god some people think it goes to just go to more prayer meetings not exactly we go to more prayer meetings while we deal with the new light that the holy spirit has given us related to our hands doing things different with our lifestyle and doing things different with our heart it says in isaiah 64 verse 7 he says isaiah the prophet said there's no one who calls upon your name and he was looking around the nation of israel and he was troubled he says no and i'm sure there were a few exceptions he said there's no one who stirs himself up to take hold of god for god you've hidden your face from him beloved when god has hidden his face from us as believers because he's trying to get our attention not because he's angry at us there are there are times when god is angry but i'm talking about a sincere believer that's going on with the lord we're trying to serve the lord hard and the lord intervenes in our life raises the standard he raises the bar of what he requires of us we don't immediately adapt to it and the sense of his presence wanes in our life because he jealously is calling us forward is what we're talking about it's all because of his passion for us isaiah said there's no one that i know of when god hides his face they don't stir themselves up to take hold of god beloved there is a place when we're in this time where the lord's hiding his face it's not going right he's called us to a new standard we have to cleanse our hands at whatever those activities are those those behavior patterns we cleanse our heart from the attitudes in the words we press in we stir ourself up to press in and the lord says i will meet you if you will do that i promise you i will meet you if you will do that i like uh jeremiah 20 i call it the jeremiah principle and jeremiah was just a young man and what he says in chapter 20 verse 7 to 9 i won't read it but jeremiah complains to the lord he's in prison in jeremiah 20 he's a young man he's in prison he says i don't i don't like this you deceived me the new king james says you induced me but the other translations say deceived me he goes and i was deceived in other words you tricked me you persuaded me to believe you he's complaining to the lord he goes you tricked me he goes here and he goes on to describe it he goes you're stronger than i am and you prevailed and what he means is he goes i was a young man you called me as a prophet you showed me your beauty i fell in love with you i could not live without you then you gave me the message you said prophesy these things and they were things against the leaders of the land and the leaders of the land were very hostile they threw him in prison in a pit in a muddy pit actually it was terrible he was down in in a mud pit by himself and it went on for an extended period of time and he's down there and he says okay i'm gonna quit prophesying i'm just gonna stop and i said to myself in verse 9 i'm not gonna speak anymore in your name i'm gonna get out of prison i'm still a young man i don't i didn't want this he goes okay i'm not talking no more and he says when i quit talking your word was like a fire in my bones and the word of god began to move in me and he began to say i love you god i can't live like this you caused me to love you and now that i love you i can't live without your presence you tricked me i don't i didn't know this was going to happen so then he spoke out again in obedience well beloved that's what's happening to this to the to the maiden she sits at in chapter 2 verse 3 she's at the table enjoying the word of god with great delight she says in chapter 2 verse 5 sustain me refresh me with your presence the power of god's touching your high verse 5 of chapter 2 she says i'm lovesick i love you i love to feel loved by you and the lord says i have you all hooked now on my presence now he comes and says i want more obedience out of you she goes no i'm not ready for that he says okay and then his presence lifts he goes i can't take it lord i need your presence i love you and we could say like jeremiah said you tricked me lord i love your presence i love who you are i'm addicted to who you are i can't live in disobedience i hate not filling your presence he goes i know that's why it's working and then what happens she arises look at the next paragraph i mean uh the next roman numeral five i will arise now i will seek the one that i love it worked and she's going to go about the city she's going to go in the streets she's going to go in the square paragraph b the pain of losing his presence motivates her to rise up out of the comfort zone and take a in her relationship to go for a new level of faith and obedience in her walk with god jesus knew that she could not live without his presence she knew she could not make it now many believers i know they just acclimate to living with a dull spirit beloved don't ever grow accustomed to living with a dull spirit we feel a little bit of his presence he goes oh i want to give you a lot more of that and then we get used to just living with a dull spirit what we do with our eyes what we do with our lack of servanthood what we do with our pride what we do with our words and our complaining our spirit is dulled the spirits quenched our spirits quenched and many people just just say i'm going to get accustomed to it don't ever don't ever settle for living with a dull spirit because god has much more for you he's only withholding his presence to get you to wake up to the to the areas in your life that the holy spirit is jealous about bringing his leadership over and it's not because the holy spirit just wants to push you around he wants to bring you into life and light sometimes we get the idea well he just wants to push us around no he wants to bring us into light but we got to wrestle through this season jacob did that paragraph c or d he wrestled through the night in genesis 32 and again you can get the uh notes on the website if you want them you could follow along and and read and study this later jacob's wrestling with god through the night and finally he breaks through beloved we need to wrestle through the dark night of our own uh struggles and pain because god wants to give us a breakthrough a friend of mine a good friend of mine named michael sullivan he had a dream one night years ago and in this dream his he was wrestling with his son and his young son just three four years old pinned him in the dream and of course he let his son pin him and the son was on top of him saying i win daddy i pinned you i win and michael said in the dream i had so much pleasure laying on the ground with my son holding my hands to the ground i had so much joy in the fact that he prevailed and the lord spoke to him in the dream he says i let you pin me to the ground in the same way and i have great pleasure i want you to wrestle because i will let you break through i will let you prevail but you have to wrestle with me you have to press in because i want you to prevail i have pleasure in you prevailing well we're going to end here in just a moment you can read the rest of the notes on your own in verse chapter three song of solomon chapter three verse four she says scarcely had i passed by the watchman i found the one i love and here it is i held on to him and i would not let him go beloved when we go through a season where the lord's presence lifts because he's trying to get our attention and we get that sense of his presence back she said i held on i resolved in my heart i would never let a season of compromise touch me again i am never going to let go of full present tense obedience with the lord and again our obedience in the present tense at our faith is only to the light that he gives us i mean we may think we're way up there and you know time passes he doubles and triples the light you know he puts from a tenfold power light he makes it a hundred power so we never arrive in that sense at this age we're always going from glory to glory but she said i when i found him i determined i was never going to let him go i was never going to let defilement and unbelief and compromise get in between me and my intimacy with god and beloved when you we go through i've gone through a few seasons of having it losing it having it losing it you go through a few seasons i've been a slow learner but eventually i said i'm not going to do that again i am not going to just spend six months at a certain way even praying and fasting and seeking god but not obeying in those more specific ways i'm not going to do that again i'm going to hold on to him in this new place that i have in the spirit well let's just bring it to a close with that and again you could read the notes on your own and familiarize yourself with this because there's too much in the book to cover in any given session let's go ahead and stand and wait in the