“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” (Song of Solomon 8:7) My dear brothers and sisters, we fear affliction. We are so self-protective. We fear affliction and when affliction comes, we get downcast and moody and turn against God. We get offended with Him and get offended with people, not realizing that His love is greater than that, His love is stronger than that, His love is more powerful than that. If we would just turn away from all of that self-protection and just go deep in His love, we would never even be mindful of the fact that we are in affliction. Affliction offends us because our eyes are not set upon Him. But it is just like a fellow minister of mine says, “When you are not in His presence and you are looking at Him face to face, you are unaware of all things that go on around you.” Your thoughts are not your thoughts, they are His. That is how He wants us to live every day, not mindful of the comforts of our flesh, but mindful only of Him.

Verse 7: “If a man were to offer all of the goods of His house for love, he would be utterly scorned and despised.” You cannot buy His love. No obedience without sacrifice, responding to the call. You cannot buy it, you cannot give Him guilt offerings. He is not interested in it, all He wants is you. Your money is not yours anyway, it is His; and if it is not, then you need to repent. You cannot buy His love, only yield to it. Obey and chase hard after it.

Gathered with her family and the wedding guests in her mother’s cottage, the bride said to her step-brothers, “When I was a little girl, you said, We have a little sister and she has no breasts.” (Verse 8)
The breasts stand for the virtues of grace and truth. When you are not mature in God, you are not mature in the virtues of grace and you are not mature in truth. The truth you hold in your bosom is tainted. It does not reflect, nor deflect the true glory of God.

Verses 8-9: What shall we do for our sister in the day that she is spoken for in marriage? If she is a wall, discreet and lovely, we will build on her a turret, a dowry of silver. To be a wall you must turn from all things in the world, you see, because the true Bride is not a harlot. Her discretion is revealed in her solitary love for Christ. She is not a harlot. When you chase after the approval of the world, or the things of the world, my dear brothers and sisters, you are playing the role of a harlot. You are like Hosea’s wife Gomer, sleeping with your old lovers and your groom is left at home, weeping for His loss. But when you have become a wall, your vision is single.

The Lord said, “You cannot serve God and mammon, for you will love one and hate the other." And it is true—if you love the world, you hate God. For the love of the world is enmity toward God. But when you become a wall and your eye is single and you serve Him alone. Then He builds turrets upon your wall— battlements, and you are strong to the rejection of your enemy. Might I remind you that Jesus said this to His disciples and only to His disciples? He did not say this to the multitudes—only to His disciples, those who were taught of Him. “Let us arise, for the evil one cometh, but he has nothing in Me” Jesus said. The bride, who is owned by Him alone, whose eye is single says, “The evil one cometh, but he has nothing in me.”

Verse 10: “I am a wall with battlements and my breasts are like the towers of it.” She is strong in the virtues of grace and truth. Truth is so damaging without grace and grace without the fullness of truth is just as crippling. But when they are balanced, when they are full and rich, you are made into His image.
She continues, “Then was I in the King’s eyes, as one to be respected and to be allowed to find peace.” You know, when you have a child, 3, 4, or 5 years old, you love that child. You protect, guard, teach and train, and you feed and nurture the child. You cherish the child, do you not? But you do not simply respect the child; you cherish the child. But when your son has grown into a man and you see it is a man of stature, a man of quality, not giving to selfish ambition and a man of character, your feelings of cherishing him when he was a little boy have changed and now you respect him. You respect him as an equal though he would be your son.

In the same way, God cherishes His young ones in the Church. Your heart may love the world as much as it loves God so He sees you like a little baby, a toddler, running around the household with God, getting into trouble and having your little backside spanked, but He cherishes you and He will bring you home to heaven. However, when you have chosen to come out of that stage, to grow up in God and mature in Him, those feelings of cherishing you then change to respect. When you stand before His throne in intercession, His attentions to you are totally different than when you were a child.

The Bible says that when our ways please the Lord, He makes even our enemies be at peace with us. Furthermore, the Bible says to strive to enter into the rest. The Church strives for a lot of things, but she does not strive to enter into the rest. But for one who has paid the price to leave all things in Egypt and go deep in God, the Bible says that she is allowed to find peace, peace with God and peace with her fellow man. The time of strict discipline and training, the tears of repentance and remorse are gone and you begin to walk with Him as Adam walked. The innocence that existed before the fall and your walk with Him is one of intense peace—everything is changed.

When people associate with you, they feel the sense of the peace that rules your soul and do they find rest under your branches? Do you understand the things that I am saying? God wants to bring you to the place of rest, in peace, where instead of being always needy, you are the provider. Instead of always wrestling, you are at rest.

Joyfully, the radiant Bride turns to Him, the One altogether lovely, the chief among 10,000 to her soul, and with unconcealed eagerness she is to begin her life of sweet companionship with Him. She says in verse 10, “Make haste my beloved and come quickly, like a gazelle or a young heart and take me to our wedding hall upon the mountain of spices.” The hour is coming and it is close at hand, when many, many, many will experience transfiguration, just like Jesus did. And there will be those who will have gone so deep in God that they will be translated—all hindrances removed. But even if those things do not happen to you, please listen to me very carefully. There is a place in God where your spirit, although you walk here, is taken to heaven and it dwells there until your body is brought home to need it. Jesus is coming to dwell and take the place of your spirit and this place is a place of constant revelation. This place is a place of such deep and great communion, there are no words to describe it.

The Father spoke to me three times and three times each time, and He said this to me, “Would you like to know and love me as my Son did, when He was here on this earth?” Would you like to know and love Him as His Son did when He was here on this earth? Do you know what that means? Do you know the intimacy that He shared with the Father as He lived here on this earth? The knowledge that He had of the Father? That knowledge is opened to anyone who will. Anyone who is willing to pay the price to have it, can have it. He told me that face to face, but you are not going to bring the world into that sacred place. The bride is saying, “Like a gazelle, come and take me away to the mountain of spices.” She says that because she knows she has been purified of the world and she is ready and able to go.

I want to close by saying this: When you have learned all that you want to learn, teachings released into the Body of Christ are saying, “When it is all over, if you do not know Him, you have missed the whole point and you have wasted your whole life here.” You have wasted your life here! You can be a powerful preacher—America has a lot of powerful preachers—speak to thousands upon hundreds of thousands, but if you do not know Him, your life is a waste. You can be the richest man on the face of the earth but if you do not know Him, your life has been wasted. You may have spent your entire life struggling and suffering, but if in the end of it all, you have not been made into His image, your life here has been wasted. You may have 10 sons and they are all doctors and lawyers and judges, but if in the end, you do not know Him, your life has been a waste.

Turn away from the things that distract and encumber. The Bible says that deep calls unto deep. God is calling tonight; He is calling you. He is calling you, He is wooing, He is calling. Come, come to Him.

Do you love the Lord tonight? At the end of this message, where is your heart? Just take a moment, bow your head and begin to speak to Him. Tell Him you are sorry that you have wasted your life, that you have wasted precious moments that could have been spent with Him. Tell Him how much you love Him and that you want to change. Please, bow your head and talk to the Lord.

In Him,
Nita Johnson