I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my Beloved that knocketh.
Asleep and yet awake-A Riddle
We are glad to perceive in this Song the varied experience of the bride. She was the well-beloved of the heavenly Bridegroom, but she was not without her faults. Let us bless God that in the Book of revealed truth He has not merely given us the ideal standard after which we are to seek, but He has also preserved for us the humbler patterns of those who have striven to reach to the utmost height, and who have climbed a good way towards it, but who, nevertheless, have proved that, though they were the best of men, they were men at the best. Thus our Lord has saved us from despair by making us to know that we may be sincere, and true, and accepted, though we, too, fall short as yet of the holiness which we pant after with our whole hearts.
I. First, then, here is slumber confessed. The spouse laments her state, and sighs out, “I sleep.” It strikes us at once that her sleep is a state recognized. We are astonished that she should say, “I sleep,” and we conclude that it is not so profound a sleep as it might be; for when a man can say, “I sleep,” he is not altogether steeped in slumber. I would not give you encouragement, if you are asleep at all to continue it; but yet I would say this, that if you mourn, over your sluggishness you are not altogether a sluggard, if you feel uneasy in your dulness you are not altogether given over to spiritual stupidity, if you are anxious to be aroused out of your slumber it is certain that you are not given over to sleep yourself into the sepulchre of insensibility. Cultivate a quick perception, and when you are aware of the slightest defalcation or decline, confess at once to God that you begin to sleep. Further, as this sleep is a matter recognized, so it is a matter complained of The spouse is not pleased with her condition. It is well for saints, when they perceive that they are in the least degree backsliding, that they should mourn before God, and accuse themselves before Him. Act tenderly to others, but severely towards yourselves. So all prudent men will do if God keep them prudent. This sleepiness is not a thing to be indulged in, but to be abhorred. To say the least of it, it is a low state of enjoyment. Sleep is peaceful and quiet, but it cannot enjoy the sweets of the senses, and the delights which the mind can receive thereby. If we fail to enjoy the banquets of our Bridegroom’s love it must be because a deadness is stealing over us, and we are not so thoroughly alive and awake as we were in days gone by; and this is a condition to be deplored as soon as it is perceived. We ought to complain of ourselves if we sleep, because it is a state of danger. While men slept the enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. It is bad, then, to have a drowsy minister and drowsy church officers, for these will not watch the fields for God. Sleep is a state of inaction. A man cannot do his daily business while his eyes are closed in slumber. Yet again; this slumber should be not only a matter of complaint as an ill to be dreaded, but it should be regarded as a fault to be ashamed of. Make excuses for others, and let your Lord make excuses for you, but do not frame apologies on your own account. Furthermore, it is an evil to be fought against. When a man is obliged to say, “I sleep,” let him not content himself with sleeping on. Now is the time for much prayer: let him wrestle with this deadly foe till he is fully aroused. Falling into indifference on the road to heaven is something like sleeping on the vast plains of snow, where, if a man give way to the natural inclination to slumber which comes on through the intense cold, he may lie down and never rise again.
II. We reach the point of the paradox; here is watchfulness claimed by one who confessed to sleep. “My heart waketh,” says the bride, “I sleep, but my heart waketh.” Somewhat of heaven is about the man of God when the earth encompasses him most: “Sin shall not have dominion over you”: God has the throne still, even when Satan rages most. This inward life shows itself usually in the uneasiness of the declining heart. When a believer feels that he is not what he ought to be, nor what he wants to be, he cannot be happy. He cannot rest and be content. He sleeps, but his heart beats, sighs, and palpitates with dire unrest. The inner life shows itself, too, in desire, for the heart is the seat of desire, and it leads the man to say “I am not what I would be. I live at a poor dying rate: Christ’s love is so great to me, and mine to Him so chill. Lord, lift me out of this frozen state. I cannot bear this grave of lethargy. Lord, bring my soul out of prison! Give me more grace; give me to love Jesus better, and to be more like Him. Poor as I am, I long to be enriched by Thy love and mercy; O visit me with Thy salvation!” Such a pleading heart is still awake, though the mind may be dull. The spouse gave another proof of her wakefulness by her discernment. She says, “It is the voice of my Beloved that knocketh.” Even when half asleep she knew her Lord’s voice. You may catch a true believer at his worst, but he still knows the Gospel from anything else, and can detect another gospel in a moment. This wakefulness of heart shows itself often in the soul chiding itself. “I sleep,” saith she. She would not have blamed herself as I have tried to describe her doing if she had not been in some measure awake. This blessed living wakefulness within the heart will by and by display itself in action. The heart will wake up all that is within us, and we shall hasten to our Beloved.
III. Mystery solved. “I sleep, but my heart waketh.” How doth her heart wake? It is because the voice and knock of her Beloved are heard. Every child of God has a wondrous union with Christ. “Because I live,” saith Christ, “Ye shall live also.” Ask you why you are alive in such a body of death and grave of sin as your poor nature is? You live because Christ lives; and you cannot die till He does. This is why you cannot sleep as do others, because He does not so sleep. What a blessing is this vital union with the ever-blessed Head, immortal and unslumbering!
IV. Now for the lesson learned. It is this, be very careful when you possess great joys, for in this instance the spouse had been with the Beloved in choice fellowship, and yet was soon drowsy. High joys may produce slumber; the chosen three upon the mount Tabor were soon overcome with heaviness. Mind what you do when on the mount; be careful to carry a full cup with a steady hand. Next, when you are blaming yourselves for your own work, do not forget the work of the Spirit in you. “I sleep:” smite your heart for that, but do not forget to add if it be true, “My heart waketh.” Bless God for any grace you have, even if it be but little. Lastly, make sure above all things that you have that true faith which knows the voice of Jesus. He saith, “Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give unto them eternal life.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Nearer and dearer
Spiritual sickness is very common in the Church of God, and the root of the mischief lies in distance from Jesus, following Christ afar off, and yielding to a drowsy temperament. Away from Jesus, away from joy. Without the sun the flowers pine; without Jesus our hearts faint.
I. The spouse confesses a very common sin: she cries, “I sleep.” She had no right to be asleep, for her Beloved knew no rest. He was standing without in the cold street, with His head wet with dew, and His locks with the drops of the night, why should she be at ease? He was anxiously seeking her, how was it that she could be so cruel as to yield to slumber! Do you not find, that almost unconsciously to yourselves, a spirit of indifference stems over you? You do not give up private prayer, but, alas! it becomes a mere mechanical operation. Shall such a King be served by lie-a-bed soldiers? Shall His midnight pleadings be repaid by our daylight sleepiness? Shall an agony of bloody sweat be recompensed by heavy eyelids and yawning mouths?
II. The song before us reminds us of a hopeful sign. “My heart waketh.” What a riddle the believer is! He is asleep, and yet he is awake. His true self, the I, the veritable Ego of the man is asleep; but yet his heart, his truest self, his affections, are awake. It is a hopeful sign when a man can conscientiously say as much as the spouse in this case, but remember it is not much to say. Do not pride yourself upon it. Be ashamed that you should be asleep at all. Do not congratulate yourself that your heart is awake. Be thankful that infinite love affords you grace enough to keep your heart alive, but be ashamed that you have no more when more may be had and should be had.
III. The third thing is a loving call. Asleep as the spouse was, she knew her Husband’s voice, for this is an abiding mark of God’s people. “My sheep hear My voice. A half-sleeping saint still has spiritual discernment enough to know when Jesus speaks. At first the Beloved One simply knocked. His object was to enter into fellowship with His Church, to reveal Himself to her, to unveil His beauties, to solace her with His presence. Such is the object of our blessed Lord, this morning, in bringing us to this house. Then the Bridegroom tried His voice. If knocking would not do, he would speak in plain and plaintive words, “Open to Me, My sister, My love, My dove, My undefiled.” The Lord Jesus Christ has a sweet way of making the word come home to the conscience; I mean, not now, that effectual and irresistible power of which we shall speak by and by, but that lesser force which the heart may resist, but which renders it very guilty for so doing. Now, observe the appeals which the Beloved here makes. He says, “Open to Me,” and His plea is the love the spouse has to Him, or professed to have, the love He has to her, and the relationship which exists between them. Did you notice that powerful argument with which the heavenly Lover closed His cry? He said, “My head is filled with dew, and My locks with the drops of the night.” Ah, sorrowful remembrances, for those drops were not the ordinary dew that fall upon the houseless traveller’s unprotected head, His head was wet with scarlet dew, and His locks with crimson drops of a tenfold night of God’s desertion, when He “sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” My heart, how vile art thou, for thou shuttest out the Crucified. Behold the Man thorn-crowned and scourged, with traces of the spittle of the soldiery, canst thou close the door on Him? Wilt thou despise the “despised and rejected of men”? Writ thou grieve the “Man of sorrows,” and acquainted with grief
IV. Yet the spouse hastened not to open the door, and I am afraid the like delay may be charged upon some of us. Our shame deepens as we pursue our theme, and think how well our own character is photographed here by the wise man; for notice, that after the knocking and the pleading, the spouse made a most ungenerous excuse. She sat like a queen, and knew no sorrow. She had put off her garments and washed her feet as travellers do in the East before they go to rest. Shall I English the excuse she made? It is this: “O Lord, I know that if I am to enter into much fellowship with Thee, I must pray very differently from what I have done of late, but it is too much trouble; I cannot stir myself to energy so great. My time is so taken up with my business, I am so constantly engaged that I could not afford even a quarter of an hour for retirement. I have to cut my prayers so short.” Is this the miserable excuse in part? Shall I tell out more of this dishonourable apology? It is this: I do not want to begin an examination of myself: it may reveal so many unpleasant truths. I sleep, and it is very comfortable to sleep; I do not want to be driven out of my comforts. Perhaps if I were to live nearer to Christ, I should have to give up some of the things which I so much enjoy. I have become conformed to the world of late; I am very fond of having Mr. So-and-so to spend aa hour with me in the evening, and his talk is anything but that which my Master would approve of, but I cannot give him up. I have taken to read religious novels. I could not expect to have the Lord Jesus Christ’s company when I am poring over such trash as that, but still I prefer it to my Bible; I would sooner read a fool’s tale than I would read of Jesus’ love.
V. Still, as a wonder of wonders, although shamefully and cruelly treated, the beloved Husband did not go away. We are told that He “put in His hand by the hole of the door,” and then the bowels of His spouse were moved for Him. Does not this picture the work of effectual grace, when the truth does not appeal to the ear alone, but comes to the heart, when it is no longer a thing thought on, and discussed and forgotten, but an arrow which has penetrated into the reins, and sticks fast in the loins to our wounding, and ultimately to our spiritual healing? No hand is like Christ’s hand. When He puts his hand to the work it is well done. He “put in His hand”: not His hand on me to smite me, but His hand in me to comfort me; to sanctify me. He put in His hand, and straightway His beloved began to pity Him, and to lament her unkindness.
VI. But now, observe the deserved chastisement which the Bridegroom inflicted. When her Spouse was willing to commune, she was not; and now that she is willing, and even anxious, what happens? “I opened to my Beloved, but,” says the Hebrew, “He had gone, He had gone.” The voice of lamentation the reduplicated cry of one that is in bitter distress. There must have been a sad relief about it to her sinful heart, for she must have felt afraid to look her dear One in the face after such heartless conduct; but sad as it would have been to face Him, it was infinitely sadder to say, “He is gone, He is gone.” Now she begins to use the means of grace in order to find Him. “I sought Him,” said she, “and I found Him not. I went up to the house of God; the sermon was sweet, but it was not sweet to me, for He was not there. I went to the communion table, and the ordinance was a feast of fat things to others, but not were many; she kept them up by day and by night. “I called Him, but He gave me no answer.” She was not a lost soul, do not mistake that. Christ loved her just as much then as before, nay, loved her a great deal more. If there can be any change in Christ’s love, He must have much more approved of her when she was seeking Him in sorrow, than when she was reclining upon the couch and neglecting Him. But He was gone, and all her calling could not bring Him back. What did she then? Why, she went to His ministers, she went to those who were the watch-men of the night, and what said they to her? Did they cheer her? Perhaps they had never passed through her experience; perhaps they were mere hirelings. However it might be, they smote her.
VII. As the poor spouse did not then find Christ, but was repulsed in all ways, she adopted a last expedient. She knew that there were some who had daily fellowship with the King, daughters of Jerusalem who often saw Him, and therefore she sent a message by them, “If ye see my Beloved, tell Him that I am sick of love.” Enlist your brother saints to pray for you. Go with them to their gatherings for prayer. Their company will not satisfy you without Jesus, but their company may help you to find Jesus. Follow the footsteps of the flock, and you may by and by discover the Shepherd. (C. H. Spurgeon.)