Mike Bickle emphasizes the transformative journey of the bride in the Song of Solomon, illustrating her prayers for both adversity and blessing as she seeks deeper intimacy with Jesus. He highlights her unwavering love for Christ during trials, showcasing her maturity and the beauty of her devotion even when faced with rejection and silence from the body of Christ. Jesus responds to her faithfulness with profound praise, affirming her worth and place in His eternal purpose, revealing that true beauty lies in loving Him for who He is, not just for His blessings. The sermon encourages believers to remain steadfast in love, understanding that their devotion moves the heart of God, especially in times of testing.

...the rest for you to study on your own, but what has happened here in the notes is in Song of Solomon chapter 4 verse 6, which is really one of the key passages of the entire Song of Solomon. It's the turning point in the book. It's right in the middle of the book. In the 8th chapter book, it's almost the dead center verse of the entire book. What happens is the bride is praying for the north winds, and those are the winds of adversity, and she's also praying for the south winds, which are the winds of blessing and the winds of refreshment. And of course, we all pray for the south winds a lot more than we pray for the north winds. But what's happening here in this part of her life journey with the Lord is that she's not afraid of difficulty. She doesn't want difficulty, but she's saying, Lord, whatever it is that's getting in the way of my love growing and maturing, move it out of the way. And she's not afraid of the Lord challenging her comfort zone like she was in chapter 2, because she wants the spice of God, the presence of God, in the garden of her heart to be released. She says, Awake, O north winds. Song of Solomon chapter 4 verse 16. Blow, O south winds, upon the garden of my heart. Why? That the spice of the presence of God would flow out of my life. And then she makes a very significant prayer. She says, Let my beloved come. She's inviting Jesus to come into a place of fellowship that's nearer to her heart than any time before. She says, And let him come to his garden that he would enjoy its pleasant fruits. This is the part of the song where the garden of her heart, which was her garden, now becomes his. She's in it for him from this point forward. Paragraph C. What happens is the Lord listens to her prayer and says, Yes. And he comes to her as the Jesus of Gethsemane. And he knocks on the door of her heart and he says, Will you open up to me? And will you trust me in the difficulty that is yet around the corner? Because you will experience something in me that you've never known before. Paul the Apostle called it the fellowship of suffering. Of course, when he talked about that, he was talking about the place of persecution for obeying the gospel. And that's what's going to happen. She's going to obey the Lord and she's going to have difficulty related to her obedience. Then paragraph D in chapter 5 verse 3 to 5. Again, we're just giving a quick review to give us a context for chapter 6. She invites the Lord. She says, Come, O Jesus of Gethsemane, come and visit me. And of course, then she experienced what I call the ultimate two-fold test. In verse 6 of chapter 5, the presence of God that she's enjoyed, it lifts in a temporary way. Not because she was disobedient. The Lord is testing her. Are you in this relationship for me? Or are you in this relationship with me only to enjoy my presence? Is there something bigger than feeling my presence? And the answer is yes. Living for your pleasure. Doing the will of God regardless what it costs us or whatever, regardless what else is involved. It's a very temporary short-term test. And we're going to see in a minute that the Lord breaks in and lavishes such praise upon her and such affection for her. Then the second part of the test is the authorities in the body of Christ mistreat her. They strike her. The watchmen, they wound her and they take her spiritual covering away and she loses her place of function in the body. Then the daughters of Jerusalem, which speak of sincere yet immature members of the body of Christ, they're always asking her questions throughout this 8-chapter love song. So the daughters of Jerusalem, they love Jesus but they've not gone on with the Lord to walk with Him in a deep way. Sincere but shallow, which describes much of the body of Christ today. It costs a lot to go deep with the Lord but it moves the Lord's heart when we go deep with Him. And of course that's the message of this whole of chapter 6. Well the daughters ask her two questions. When everything is going difficult, she says, I'm lovesick. She goes, I'm lovesick. She responds with such love and they go in chapter 5 verse 9, why is it that you love Him so much? That's the essence of the question. He's allowed these negative things to happen to you. Why is it that you love Him so much? I mean, you're being rejected in the body of Christ. You don't sense His presence in the way that you did in times past. And her answer is one of the greatest statements of worship in the whole of the Old Testament. She says in Psalm 5 verse 10. I'll just give the briefest overview of this seven verses. She says, why do I love Him? I'll tell you why. Because my beloved is dazzling. He's radiant. He's chief among ten thousand. Verse 16, His mouth is most sweet to me, which speaks of intimacy with God. He is altogether lovely. This is my beloved. This is my friend. She gives the strongest statement of worship in the entire Song of Solomon. She's unmoved by the difficulty. She proves herself to be in this relationship with Jesus, truly for His pleasure and not only for her pleasure. Remember the prayer she prayed, blow upon my garden, the north and the south winds. I don't care if the difficulty and the blessing. Send them. Do whatever needs to be done in order that the garden of my heart becomes your garden and your inheritance is realized in me. Because the Lord has an inheritance in us. It's not only that we have an inheritance in Him. Roman numeral two of the notes. An overview of the passage we'll be looking at in this class, in this 20th session. Jesus breaks the silence suddenly. He's been silent because He couldn't. She couldn't find His presence. She couldn't sense His presence. But it wasn't because of her disobedience. It was a very short-term test. The Lord drew back and He says, I'm watching to see your heart. Are you in it for me? Or are you only in this relationship with me for yourself? And when things went bad and she said, I'm lovesick. He's altogether lovely. He's dazzling. He's radiant. This is my beloved. This is the one I love. Jesus's heart was pounding. He felt this. She felt nothing. But He felt so much even when she was going through the time of testing. Beloved, do we know the way that we move His heart? When we are true to Him in times of testing, when we can't feel anything but He feels so much, can we by the Word of God believe that He is who He says He is and that He feels for us in the way that He declares in His Word? Well then in the next part of the Song of Solomon 6 verse 4 to 10, He affirms her maturity in verse 5 to 7 and then He describes her place of preeminence in His court. And then on in verse 10, He gives a fourfold description of her glory in His divine purpose. So that's kind of an overview of what's going to happen. The essence of what's happening in this session is that Jesus breaks the silence and He tells her how He feels about her and His plans for her and how highly He regards her and what He has on her heart for her. Roman numeral chapter 3 or Roman numeral 3. It's not a chapter. Chapters are in the Bible. Top of page 2. And again, if you need these notes, you can get them. Jesus describes the bride's beauty during the time of testing. This is how the Lord viewed her when she was going through this, what I call, ultimate two-fold test. He breaks the silence. It's one of the most powerful verses in the Bible. He breaks the silence and He says, Oh my love, you are as beautiful as Tirzah. You are as lovely as the city of Jerusalem. You are as awesome as an army with banners. Now the first thing He describes to her is how He loves her and how beautiful she is. Now remember, she's just finished a season where she hasn't felt His presence and the body of Christ, the leaders have censored her and rejected her and wounded her and took her function away from her. So she feels really unloved and unlovely. But there's nothing further from the truth. Now the first thing that I want to point out is that our beauty is found in the way we love the Lord. Our beauty is not found in how dynamic and big our ministries are. The essential beauty of your life before God and even before discerning people is found in the quality and the consistency of the way that we love Jesus when things are going good and things are going bad. And He says, you're beautiful as Tirzah. You're lovely. You're awesome to me. Augustine said, St. Augustine said, the only praise to be desired and the only praise that is really true is the praise that comes from God. I'm going to say that again. To a discerning person, the only praise that is really desirable to a person of understanding and the only praise that's really true is the praise that God gives. Not that it's wrong to appreciate somebody affirming you, but the real praise is the praise that comes from God. That's the only one that ultimately matters. That's the only one that's really true. Paragraph C, the bride. Now this is Jesus speaking. He says she's as beautiful as Tirzah. Now Tirzah was one of the most attractive cities in the ancient world. And I have a little bit on this, a couple paragraphs on it. I'm not going to go into the details of it, but it was one of the capital cities of the Canaanites before Joshua and the nation of Israel captured the city. And in the future it became the capital city of the north of Israel after the Civil War in 931 BC. I got a little bit of the details there. But it was the most beautiful city in the north and it was the city that the unbelievers picked as the capital city before the days of David and Solomon. So it's symbolic to the unbelieving nations is that which they called beautiful. Then again there was a civil war in 931 BC just after Solomon died. Now Solomon's writing this song in the nation of Israel's unified, but there's a civil war right after he dies, soon after. Paragraph E, Jesus is speaking. He says not only are you as beautiful as Tirzah, you are as lovely as the city of Jerusalem. Now the city of Jerusalem, as you know, is the capital city of the south of the southern kingdom, but far more important than that, it was the city that God chose to have the Shekinah glory, the manifest presence of God, be established in the temple of Solomon. And not only that, it's the city that God chose that Jesus would rule from forever. And it's the city that will be the worship capital of the entire in the age to come. In the millennial kingdom and then even after that, the Jerusalem is the city God has chosen forever as the city of holiness and the city of worship for the whole world. So Jerusalem speaks of the beauty of holiness. So Tirzah, paragraph F, speaks of natural beauty that affects the unbelievers. The body of Christ has a beauty that even the unbelievers will look at and say, I want to know what you know about God. Then it goes on to the third statement that he gives her. He says, you are awesome as an army with banners. Still in chapter 4, I mean chapter 6, verse 4. Now an army would go to war and when it came back, if it was victorious, it had a military parade where it had a procession where it lifted its banners and marched to the city. Most of us are familiar with that idea. An army with banners is an army that came back in victory that led the great military parade, the banners and the different military divisions of the army that came back victorious. And what Jesus is saying to her is that in her time of testing, he says, you have defeated the greatest enemy you have and that's darkness in your own heart and unbelief. The greatest enemies that you or I will ever battle is the enemy in our own heart that says no to God or draws back from him. And she didn't draw back to God and she didn't compromise. And Jesus said, you're as awesome to me as a victorious army because she didn't give up, she didn't give in, and the heart of Jesus was being moved. She had victory over her own heart. Beloved, we want victory over the devil, we want victory over in other situations, but by far the most important victory is victory over darkness in our own heart because if we get victory there, we'll have victory in every other area. She had victory over her own heart because when she didn't feel anything and everything was going bad, she stayed true in love to Jesus. Beloved, when we feel nothing, he still feels so much when he sees our worship. When we gaze upon him in the eyes of devotion. Song of Solomon chapter 6 verse 5. This again continues one of the great statements in the Word of God concerning the heart of God. Jesus speaks to her and he's speaking in the language of love. He's not speaking literally, turn your eyes away from me, but poetically in the language of love. He says, because your eyes of devotion have overcome my heart. He says, what you have gone through, where you stayed steady in love to me, when the forces of darkness were striking you and you didn't see, you couldn't find anything in it for yourself, you were in this thing to please me and to be my inheritance. Jesus's heart is deeply moved. When you and I are in times of testing, when we stay true to him in love in times of testing, the devil and even other people are saying give up, give in and just quit. It's not worth it anymore, but there's a certain kind of believer that says, I am lovesick, he is altogether lovely, this is my beloved, this is my friend, I want him and only him. And then when the time of testing is over and Jesus speaks what he feels, he says, turn your eyes of devotion away. He's talking again in the language of love. He says, your eyes of devotion have overcome my heart. Paragraph C, the eyes of devotion move the heart of Jesus. Our eyes do. Our greatest glory, the greatest glory, the greatest reality of our life that's positive is the fact that we can move God's heart. Our greatest glory isn't that we move the heart of men and yet so many people, their whole life is fixed on moving the heart of people. There's a particular person they want to move or there's a group they want to move or they want the finance or the honor or the door to open and so much of our attention is on moving the heart of people so things would go our way. Whether in personal relationships or ministry opportunities or economic ones or whatever and it's important that the heart of people are moved. I'm not downplaying that but what I'm saying is the greatest glory in your life is the fact that as a weak and broken person you move God when your heart moves. This is remarkable beyond measure that in our weakness and brokenness through Jesus I can say I love you God, Father, I love you Son and the heart of God is actually moved from the feeble movements of my heart towards Him and the same with you. I love this reality. It makes every day a day of glory and a day of adventure. I mean absolutely nothing exciting can be happening but the fact I can move God's heart by my response makes every day glorious and memorable and written and that memorable to God and that therefore to us and that and it will be recorded in God's book. We will do things noteworthy that will be recorded in God's book like the movements of our heart are faithful to Him. Those things are recorded in His book. What overcomes the heart of God? Think about it. Do the stars and their glory, I mean the billions and billions and billions of stars, they don't move God as glorious as they are. The mighty oceans, the vast mountains, the armies of men, all the armies of the nations will stand before Jesus at the end when He returns. He will vanquish them with one word from His mouth. They are nothing in terms of resisting Him. They don't move Him. The armies of demons, they don't move Him. He's completely confident. He's not moved in any way. The only thing that moves Him in this way, the only thing that conquers Him is when we stay true in love before Him. Beloved, what we can do in this age, what you can do today, tonight, tomorrow, regardless what's happening, we can move His heart by the movements of our heart and true love to Him. This is glorious beyond exaggeration. She felt nothing. He felt so much. I love the song that we sing at IHOP. Do you know the way you move Him? And the answer is no, I don't. I don't know the way that we move Him. Our love for Him is so precious to Him. Our love for Him is remembered by Him and written in His book that we can do the things that move God and the things that God remembers. We will never understand in this age the fullness of how we move the heart of God by staying true to Him, even in the dark places of our life, the hard and lonely places. Beloved, you may not have the kind of friends that you imagined you would have by this season of your life or the kind of ministry or the kind of our economic blessing or the kind of doors open, but beloved, above everything, and those things are good things, I'm not minimizing them, but beloved, you can think and you can speak and the heart of God is moved and He remembers it forever. What a glorious reality. The saints in prison can move God as much in prison as they can move God out of prison. In some ways, you know, it's not like you're trying to get in prison or whatever. Whatever condition that we're in and the will of God is the one that we move the heart of God. Roman numeral 5. Jesus now describes the bride's maturity, her spiritual maturity. He highlights three different aspects of her character. And just for time's sake, we're going to skip that, but I have the notes for that. And again, those of you that want the notes, you can get them on the website. They're available to anybody that wants them, but I want you to understand that's what's happening. Jesus now affirms her dedication. He affirms her godly motion, emotions, and He speaks to her from His heart. Roman numeral 6, top of page 5. Now Jesus is going to describe the place the bride has in His larger purposes. He's spoken to her about how He moves His heart. Now He's going to tell her, this devoted believer who has no reception in the body of Christ by the leaders, He says, but in my courts, do you understand that though the elders have rejected you, in my courts, my bride has the place of preeminence forever. Do you understand who you are and how really in the reality of things, it doesn't really matter if they like you or not. Not really, it doesn't. And though it seems so powerful in the moment, we just take a step back and we get the big picture of truth. And we understand where we fit in God's economy. And beloved, when we understand it, our heart just swells with joy and gladness and faith. And I know who I am. I know who I belong to. I know where I'm going. That's what Jesus knew about Himself. In John chapter 13 verse 3, it says, He knew where He came from and He knew where He was going. Therefore, He picked up the towel and served those far lower than Him. And He could bear the persecution and the rejection and even the failure of His own people, of His own disciples, because He knew where He came from and He knew where He was going. We can bear many difficulties if we know who we are and where we're going. Well, He spoke to her in chapter 6 verse 4 and 5 and He let her know the place that she had in His heart. Now He's revealing the place she has in His purposes. He says that there are 60 queens and 80 concubines and virgins without number. And He goes on and He describes. He says, but my dove, my perfect one, is the only one. She's the favorite one of her mother. And He talks about her place of favor in His economy and even her place of favor in terms of redemptive history. So now what's happening in paragraph A is the bride is preeminent. I'll just read that sentence. The bride Jesus has established the bride is preeminent in His heavenly court. Now what's happening is that Solomon is going to describe His earthly royal court. And the point of what's going on is as the bride, as the Shulamite, was to Solomon's earthly royal court, so the bride of Christ is to Jesus' eternal heavenly court. So you can read the details of that. He gives different ranks of authority. And though in Jesus' heavenly court, it's not about queens and concubines and virgins without number. It's seraphim and cherubim and multitudes of angels without number. But there is none that has the place of the bride in God's court, in God's purposes. And now He's going to talk in chapter 6 verse 9. Jesus is going to show her the place she has even in redemptive history. And He calls, He tells her in chapter 6 verse 9, He calls her My Dove, My perfect one. And the dove speaks of her loyalty but also speaks of the dimension of the Holy Spirit in her life as well. It's more than the fact that she's loyal, it's the fact that there's a Holy Spirit dimension in her loyalty. He calls her My perfect one, the only one of her mother, the favorite one of the one who bore her. Now I'm not going to try to break down every phrase here, but I trust that I have enough to get you started with on the notes here. But in one sentence what this passage is saying is that the Bride of Christ, and the way that I define the Bride of Christ in paragraph E, the Bride of Christ by definition, I mean it's all the saints in eternity forever we are all the Bride of Christ, all the redeemed are. But the Bride of Christ are in the earthly, in the historical perspective now, it's not like one guy is the Bride and the other guy isn't the Bride, it's not that kind of deal. It's the entire Body of Christ from the first person saved, Adam, clear to the last person saved, everybody is part of the Bride of Christ. It's redeemed and will be the Bride forever. My definition of the Bride is living in mature love for God, and of course for the people as well, because if we live in love for God, we'll always love the people if we love God. It's impossible to love God with all of our heart without it overflowing to people. Now the Body of Christ is never on the earth lived out the Bride of Christ reality, meaning it's not important that we use the term the Bride of Christ, but the Body of Christ from the day of Pentecost all the way to the day 2,000 years later has never corporately walked in mature love for God with any kind of consistency. Now of course in the day of Pentecost for a few months, it seems like things were going to go good, but soon afterwards troubles began even in the church in Jerusalem. But before Jesus returns, before He returns, the Bride is going to be spotless. There is going to be a generation, I'm talking about hundreds of millions of believers worldwide, that will be clean and spotless, not in heaven in the resurrection, everybody spotless in the resurrection that's redeemed. There will be a generation, and I don't know what the best name for it, there will be a generation that lives on the earth for a season, I don't know how long, for a period of time, maybe a few years only, that will walk blameless without any compromise, and they will walk in mature love with the Lord, the church across nations. And you might call that the Bridal Generation or the Bridegroom Generation or the End Time Church. It's the church, it's the End Time Church, it's the church that survives the Great Tribulation, and she survives the Great Tribulation physically because the glory of God is on her and in her midst. There is no compromise in the church when the Lord returns. The body of Christ is a Bride, Revelation 19 verse 7, that is truly prepared for Jesus at the Second Coming. And we're not, it's not talking about the saints in heaven being prepared. Everybody in heaven is prepared, automatically. The preparation, there's no issue of preparation, there's no issue of being spotless to the people who are already in the presence of the Lord, that don't have a physical body. But the glory of these passages, Ephesians 5 verse 27 and 26 and 27, and Revelation 19 verse 7, Jesus is coming back for a people that are prepared in the nations. It's the generation, and this is the generation, the Bridegroom Generation, the Bridal Generation. You might call it by a different term. It's the people who understand and walk out mature love for the Lord, and of course the overflow of that love for people. It is a unique honor in history, that one generation that walks it out while on the earth, while with the flesh and blood body. And in Song of Solomon chapter 6 verse 9, when she talks about, you are the favorite one of your mother. The mother is clearly the collective historical redeemed from all history. That from the redeemed of all history, there's one generation that is the favorite of all of history. And that is the generation that walks spotless and blameless. It is the Great Tribulation Generation. You know, so many believers, their big desire is to miss, is to be gone when the trouble comes. Beloved, the glory is poured out in the greatest measure in the hour the trouble comes. We will be here, and it will be our greatest opportunity in God to go forward as the global body of Christ. I'm talking about hundreds of millions across the nation to touch Jesus in a way no other generation has ever touched Him. And there's an eschatological, which is a fancy word for end times, there's an end time dimension to Song of Solomon 6 verse 9, when Jesus says, not only do you have a place in my heart as the favorite one, as the chief among the cherubim, the seraphim, the bride is preeminent to all the created ones. But also there's a generation of overcomers on the earth that will be hundreds of millions of believers. I trust that's the number, more or less, but my point is it's not a little group over in the corner, you know, a little church network. It's our little group. No, no, it's not that kind of thing. And they will actually be the chosen, the people, Psalm 102 says, created yet to praise the Lord in the time of trouble. Roman numeral 8, now he describes, Roman numeral 8 at the top of page 7, he now describes the bride's role in the eternal purpose of God. I mean, here she is, wondering, you know, and back at chapter 5, things are so tough and the daughters of Jerusalem say, is it really worth it? Why do you love him? And of course, in the words of Paul the Apostle, Romans chapter 8 verse 18, Romans 8 verse 18, he said, there's nothing worthy to be compared to the glory that I'm going to receive in the grace of God because I've been faithful to the Lord in suffering. It's not the suffering that produces the glory, it's the response of our heart of faith and obedience and love in the time of suffering. Suffering in itself doesn't produce anything. Most people that go through difficulty, what it produces is bitterness in them. There is nothing inherently redemptive about suffering. What is redemptive is the response we have to the Holy Spirit's wooings and the Holy Spirit's drawing that in a time of difficulty, we believe the Word of God, we press into the heart of Jesus and we work that muscle of faith and that muscle of love and we realign our heart to him 10,000 times 10,000 so that the difficulty gave occasion for our heart to connect with God at a whole nother level and that's the glory is in the connectedness with our heart and God's heart. There's no glory in the difficulty. But Romans 8 verse 18, Paul the Apostle says that there's surpassing greatness of the glory that's coming doesn't compare to what I'm going through at this time when they were beating him and he was suffering. Well that's what the bride is understanding right now. She's going through difficulty. She stayed true in love and the daughters of Jerusalem said, is it worth it? Is it worth it? Why do you love him? She says he's altogether lovely. I'm lovesick. He's dazzling. This is my beloved. This is my friend. And she gives those 10 statements of worship in Song of Solomon chapter 5 verse 10 to 16. And now the Lord shows her the other side. He shows her the place she has in his heart. He says, you're as beautiful as Tirzah, as lovely as Jerusalem. You are awesome to me. And she sees the place that he has in her heart. Then she sees the place he has in his kingdom, in his purposes. The fact that she's the highest of all created order. Now she sees the place that the end-time church has in redemptive history. And now she sees her place here in chapter 6 verse 10 in eternity, in the eternal kingdom. The Holy Spirit is speaking at this time and the Holy Spirit's asked a rhetorical question. Who is she? And of course the she is the Bride of Christ. Who looks forth or the other translations say shines forth as the morning. So there's four dimensions to this question. Who is the one that shines forth like the morning as the morning dawn is breaking forth? Who is the one that is as beautiful as the moon? Who is the one that is as bright and as clear as the Sun? Other translations put the word as bright as the Sun. And then the Holy Spirit asked the fourth question. Who is this one who is as awesome or as majestic as one translation says as an army with banners? And of course it's repeating that same phrase from chapter 6 verse 4 being awesome as an army with banners. Paragraph A. We see here the Bride in her fourfold glory as co-heirs with Jesus of the entire eternal city. Beloved we are co-heirs. It's not just that we're heirs of forgiveness. We're heirs of the entire world forever. Do you understand what it means to be a co-heir with Jesus? Some people have reduced it to well I'm gonna be forgiven and I'm gonna get a harp and sit on a cloud and do something glorious in God's presence. I'm not sure what. Beloved you are heirs of the world forever. It says in Romans chapter 4 verse 13 that Abraham was is heir of the world and the future. He's heir of the whole world forever. And of course it that's only true for Abraham and for the rest of us because of Jesus because he's bringing heaven down to the earth the new Jerusalem the eternal city and we're heirs together of the glory of God on the earth forever and ever. Beloved it's really worth it that we stay true to him in love. You know you hear it all the time and I have and I have sympathy. I do I don't I don't belittle this but I hear it all the time but there's no bigger lie that we could say. When you hear somebody I don't think it's worth it anymore. And again I have great sympathy when I hear it but when you think about it what are the options? There are no good options. The only other option is the devil's kingdom and the wrath of God. There is no third option. It's either God's kingdom as his children and his bride or the devil's kingdom in the wrath of God. There is no third option. A little bit of God but no trouble. That option doesn't exist in this age. What you're really crying for is the age to come. Just hang in there. You got the cry in your spirit for the age to come. So the first issues we're just coming to a close of this session. The Holy Spirit asked the question who is this one who shines forth like the morning? Paragraph C. She shines forth as the morning. After the long night the sun the sunrise begins to break through in the morning and there's hope as the horizon and there's a little bit of light that begins to break. You can't see that clearly in the morning in the morning light. There's not a lot you can do with it compared to the brightness of the noonday. But there's hope and there's light and the night is over. And Jesus spoke to us in Matthew chapter 5 verses 13 to 16 and he said that we are the light of the world. Matthew 5 verse 13, 14, 15, 16. He goes we're salt and light. God has raised up the body of Christ to be salt and light in a dark world. There's great darkness. It's like the dusk at the dawn where it's it's not so light but the light of God is in the church. We're the ones bringing light into a dark world. Well it doesn't end there. We're not just shining forth as the dawning of a new day. And the dawning of the new day has been has been continuing for 2,000 years since the resurrection to the second coming. It's that it's that dusk period where the light of the age to come is shining through us in a dark world. We're light and salt and our light really matters. It's preserving the cultures and the nations of the earth. If the light of the gospel did not exist the earth's with the the nations of the earth by this time in history would be completely in in destruction beyond anything we can imagine right now. Then she goes on the Holy Spirit goes on to the next question. She is as beautiful as the moon. This is the bride's ministry in this age is like the shining of the moon. Now it says in Genesis chapter 1 verse 16 that God made two great lights. He made the greater light the sun and that's to rule the day. He made the lesser light which is the moon and that's to rule the night. And as as the as the the bride of Christ we are the light that shines forth in the darkness. We are the reflection of his light in a dark time. And this speaks of evangelism and the transformation of society. The first one I would put under just the preservation of light and salt. The very fact that the that the nations are not in total chaos is because the body of Christ exists in the nations. But there's more that we can do than just the just the you know the minimal light of the breaking of the dawn that holds the nations with some kind of order and sanity in the earth. And it really is because of the presence of the kingdom of God across the nations of the earth. We are as the moon. We are beautiful to God and the moon has no light of itself. It is a reflected glory from the sun. And we are as the moon before Jesus who is the sun. And we can bring transformation to parts of society. There'll be parts of society that will become profoundly evil but there'll be parts of society and parts of the earth that will be profoundly bright with righteousness as well. We do shine legitimately in evangelism and we can bring transformation in ways that matter to God's purpose. We don't know how many people will lead to the Lord and we don't know the measure of of what we can transform but we know that we're reflected light in a time of darkness. Then the Holy Spirit goes on and talks about the bride's ministry in the age to come. It talks about she is the one that shines forth as bright as the sun. One of the most exciting realities about our future is the fact that in the Eternal City it says in Revelation 21 verse 23 that the the Eternal City the New Jerusalem by the way the New Jerusalem as you know is coming down to the earth. The New Jerusalem the light of it is Jesus Himself. There is no need of sun because in the New Jerusalem Jesus Himself is the light. However in Revelation 21 verse 11 the the Bride of Christ also has a reflected light and in the age to come on the earth it's not only just the New Jerusalem is the light of Jesus but beloved as Jesus said that the church is the light of the world that's true in this age in terms of evangelism etc but in the age to come through our resurrected bodies in our relationship of intimacy to Jesus the body of Christ will literally be the light of the earth in relationship to Jesus in the age to come. We will we will express His reflected glory the glory of His light of His resurrection and it will radiate through us forever and forever. When Jesus said that He was the light of the world He meant it far more than the fact that He was the the vehicle of truth and it's certainly much more for the body of Christ than the fact that we do evangelism though that's as significant as anything I can imagine but in the full eternal sense we are the light of the world. It's a reflected glory it's a reflected light it's the glory of Jesus' light in His resurrection but it it's reflected even through the saints in the age to come and so Jesus is is hinting at that the Holy Spirit is saying who is the one who is as beautiful and as bright as the sun itself and it goes on and talks about her ultimate place as the governmental administration of God's kingdom forever and forever and that is who is this who is awesome as an army with banners paragraph J the Bride of Christ is going to rule and the governmental administration of Jesus' kingdom forever Daniel saw it he said the day is coming when the kingdom and all the dominion and all the greatness of the kingdoms of the whole earth will be given to the saints of the Most High beloved we will be the banner the majestic banner that the Lord under His leadership it's His glory in His government but it's because of the closeness of relationship through His blood that He has brought us to His heart we will work in relationship to Him and we will show forth His government His power forever and forever and forever John said it right I'll end with this verse John says in 1st John chapter 3 verse 2 he said it's not yet been revealed what we shall be but we shall know Him when He is revealed and we know that we'll be like Him for we shall see Him as He is beloved we can't I mean it's revealed in the scripture in part but we cannot even begin to comprehend what it will be when we are in the fullness of all that Jesus has in His heart for us so the question that the daughters of Jerusalem asked why do you love Him and is it worth it and she says I love Him I love Him I love Him in chapter 5 I am lovesick she said he is altogether lovely now Jesus comes on the scene in chapter 6 and in romantic language of love or poetic is a better word to say poetic language of love he speaks to her and poetic language of love about who she really is and how much it really is worth it that she's true to Him in love amen let's stand I'm gonna take a little break