We Pray for our Beloved to Come and Set up His Kingdom on the Earth: Come, Lord Jesus!

As lovers of Christ, we are advancing with Him in the divine romance until we pray for our Beloved to come and set up His sweet and beautiful kingdom to fill the whole earth, for when He comes faith will be turned to facts, we will love Him in shadowless perfection, and we will serve Him the sinless domain! Amen!

This week it has been so encouraging and inspiring to take a deeper look at the Song of Songs as it portrays the progressive experience of our loving fellowship with Christ for the preparation of His bride.

Song of Songs is a mysterious, deep, and wonderful book, for it poetically describes not only the love between Solomon and his lover in an excellent marriage but even more, it is a type of our Christian experience as individual Christians today.

In the first stage, we as loving seekers of Christ are drawn by Him to pursue Him for satisfaction, and He draws us to have a personal, affectionate, private, and spiritual relationship with Him.

We lovingly tell the Lord to kiss us, for we love the kisses of His mouth, and His love is more precious than wine.

In the second stage, we are called to be delivered from the self through being one with the cross of Christ.

Because we tend to be introspective and are therefore locked in ourselves while Christ is leaping and skipping upon any hills and mountains, the Lord calls us to be delivered from the self by being one with His cross by the power of His resurrection.

In the third stage, we as lovers of Christ are called to live in ascension as the new creation in resurrection.

We can live in ascension by living continually in our spirit. As we live in ascension and are inwardly transformed and reconstituted with what God is, we become a palanquin for Christ, a “car” for His move on earth.

In the fourth stage, we as lovers of Christ are called more strongly to live within the veil through the cross after resurrection.

When we live within the veil, having our flesh dealt with and the self denied through the application of the cross, we become the same as Christ, even His counterpart, even as Shulammite was Solomon’s duplication to be his counterpart.

In the fifth stage, we as lovers of Christ share in the work of the Lord by taking the initiative to go with Him in the vineyards, serve Him in the local churches, and there give Him our love by working together with Him.

And our work with Him is not just in the local church but in all the local churches, even in the Body and for the Body!

Finally, in the sixth stage, we as lovers of Christ are hoping to be raptured; we lean on our Beloved as we come out of anything earthly, depending on Him and asking Him to take us all the way, even to take us to Himself. Hallelujah!

Today we want to focus on the concluding word of Song of Songs, which is also the concluding word of the entire Bible, Come, Lord Jesus!

As Lovers of Christ, we Pray for our Beloved to Come and Set up His Kingdom on the Earth

After passing through the six stages of her progressive experience of loving her Beloved, the loving seeker in Song of Songs exclaims in Song of Songs 8:14, Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young hart upon the mountain of spices.

As lovers of Christ, we are in the divine romance advancing with the Lord little by little, day by day, and we go through stage after stage until we pray for our Beloved to come and set up His kingdom on the earth.

We will reach the point where we pray that He would make haste to come back in the power of His resurrection (typified by the gazelle and young hart upon the mountains) to set up His sweet and beautiful kingdom which will fill the whole earth (Rev. 11:15; Dan. 2:35).

The Lord Jesus desires to return, but He needs to first gain His bride, the overcoming ones who love Him, are transformed into His image, and pray for His return so that He may come and marry them as His bride.

In the concluding work of this poetic book of Song of Songs, the loving seeker has the same prayer as the apostle John had in Rev. 22:17, 20, Come, Lord Jesus!

As we enjoy the union and communion with our Bridegroom, Christ, and love Him with a bridal love, we will reach the point where nothing else matters but the Lord Jesus, and we will pray for our Beloved to come and set up His kingdom on earth.

The concluding word of Song of Songs matches the concluding word of the entire Bible, which is according to the desire of God’s heart and which reveals God’s eternal economy concerning Christ and the church in His divine love.

God doesn’t just want man to worship Him and serve Him; He wants to court man, woo man, and draw man to Himself so that man would love God, pursue after God, enjoy God, be transformed in the image of Christ, and eventually become the counterpart of God to be the bride of Christ for eternity.

The entire Bible is a divine romance, and the book of Song of Songs, placed right in the middle of the Bible in its position among the books of the Bible, is a synopsis of the entire Bible.

In this poetic book, we see the story of the love between a king (Christ) and a country girl (us, men, sinners becoming sons of God).

This love story is a marvellous and vivid portrait as the fulfilment of the bridal love between Christ as the Bridegroom and we as His lovers to be His bride in our mutual enjoyment in the mingling of His divine attributes with our human virtues.

In the Gospels, we see that God Himself went through a process to become the most lovely One, the immense magnet that draws all men to Himself. He then became a life-giving Spirit and came into our spirit to regenerate us.

Now as believers in Christ who have His life and nature, we’re in a process of being transformed and conformed to the image of Christ so that we may match Him in every possible way.

Day by day we tell Him that we love Him, and in love toward Him we open to Him every part of our being, we allow Him to work in us, and we let Him operate in our being so that the cross may be applied, the self may be denied, the natural man may be kept on the cross, and the flesh may be repudiated.

He draws us with His love and the loveliness of His being, and we run after Him, we love Him, and we pursue Him.

He pursues us and we pursue Him, He loves us and we love Him.

Eventually, we will simply pray that the Lord will return soon; we will pray for our Beloved to come and set up His sweet and wonderful kingdom on the earth.

In Song of Songs 2:17, we have the same prayer regarding asking the Lord to come, referring to our longing to have an absolute fellowship with the Lord and for Him to have an absolute fellowship with us.

At that time, however, the shadows had not fled and the day had not yet broken; that is, the Lord didn’t come yet, so we yearn for more fellowship with Him.

But in 8:14 the shadows are gone, the day is here, and we simply yearn for the Lord’s coming.

We pray for our Beloved to come on the mountains of spices and set up His sweet and wonderful kingdom on the earth.

May we advance with the Lord in the divine romance until we have the condition that is ready for the Lord’s coming and is fully for the Lord’s return to bring in His kingdom.

Lord Jesus, we love You. We want to go on with You in the divine romance. Keep us in the progressive experience of loving You, opening to You, and being inwardly transformed to be conformed to Your image. Amen, Lord, may we be brought deeper into the union and communion with You, our lovely Bridegroom. We love You, Lord Jesus, with a bridal love. We yearn for You to return, for there’s nothing and no one here on earth that we desire but You. Amen, Lord, hasten Your return! Come quickly, Lord Jesus! Make haste, our Beloved, and come! Come and bring in Your kingdom. Come and set up Your sweet and beautiful kingdom which will fill the whole earth! How we yearn for the time when the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever! Amen, come, Lord Jesus! We want to be ready for Your return, welcoming You and matching You in every possible way as Your bride! Amen, the Spirit and the bride say, Come!

When the Lord Comes, our Faith will be Turned into Facts and Love will Consummate in a Shadowless Perfection!

We now see in part, know in part, and experience in part, but when the Lord comes, we will see Him, and we will be like Him, for we will see Him even as He is (1 John 3:2).

The Bible is a wonderful book promising us great and amazing things if we today remain in the divine romance, enjoying God and partaking of His riches, and allowing Him to work Himself into us so that we may become the same as He is. Amen!

We are like the loving seeker in Song of Songs; the Lord has courted us, He has kissed us, and He is constantly drawing us with His pleasant being.

We are in love with Him.

Even though the world is so enticing and the self is so introspecting and limiting, when we see the Lord, we are drawn to Him to pursue after Him.

We follow Him and experience Him stage after stage until we are fully one with Him.

We love Him to such an extent that everything else fades away, and we just want Him to return.

We simply pray for our Beloved to come, even to make haste and come back in the power of His resurrection to set up His sweet and beautiful kingdom, which will fill the whole earth.

We yearn for His coming and we want to cooperate with Him as much as we can, as much as it depends on us, for us to be prepared to be His bride that will hasten His return.

On one hand, we do not know what will happen when He returns, but on the other hand, we know that, when He comes back with His kingdom, we will be like Him, even we will be one with Him!

Our experience will be like a drop of water that has disappeared into the ocean; there will be no more room for advancement, though the tide can always go deeper.

When the Lord comes, our faith will be turned into facts! What we believe into today, what we enjoy as a foretaste today, we will experience in full at the time of the Lord’s return, if we are His overcomers.

We aspire to be the Lord’s overcomers, those who live in this world, for we have our human body here and we need to do this and that here, but our heart is with the Lord.

We are not of the world; we are in the world, but only our body is here; our spirit is one with the Lord and our soul is being transformed to the extent that it will be conformed to the image of Christ.

And we will simply cry,

Make haste, our Beloved Lord Jesus, and come! Come quickly like a gazelle or a young hart! Come with Your kingdom! Turn our faith into sight and make us fully one with You in Your kingdom! Fill the whole earth with Your sweet and wonderful kingdom!

Oh, when the Lord returns, though we may not know how it will happen outwardly and what time in history it will take place, our faith will be turned into facts, and instead of prayer, will praise.

We will no longer just pray, asking the Lord for this or that; we will praise the Lord, for everything has been done. Amen!

When the Lord comes, love will consummate in a shadowless perfection, and we will serve Him in the sinless domain.

We all yearn for that time, we all want to prepare ourselves for such a portion, and we all want to be qualified to be raptured by Him when He returns with His kingdom!

What a day that will be, when the Lord Jesus returns!

He returns on the mountain of spices; there will be so many spices emanating from us and from all His loving seekers that there will be mountains of spices, and the Lord will return on such mountains.

When He comes and meets us there, He will bring in the kingdom, and in the kingdom, we will be fully one with Him as His bride! Amen!

No matter what stage in our progressive experience of our loving relationship with the Lord we are today, we need to go on with Him until we exclaim one with the Shulammite and one with the apostle John, Come, Lord Jesus!

Then, we are in Christ, fully one with Him, even we are in the New Jerusalem – we are the New Jerusalem in the kingdom!

This should be our repeated utterance today, Come, Lord Jesus! We are here to prepare the bride of Christ so that we may bring our bridegroom back.

He wants to return, He is working with us and on us, and we are drawn by Him and in Him; now we simply need to advance with Him in the divine romance until we pray for our Beloved to come and set up His kingdom on earth!

Amen, come Lord Jesus! Come, our Beloved Lord Jesus! Make haste and come quickly! We yearn to be with You, even where You are! We live here on earth but are not here for what is on the earth. We have our body here on the earth but our spirit is one with You and our soul is being transformed to be conformed to Your image. Oh Lord Jesus, just as a gazelle or a young hart appears on the mountains of spices, may You come in Your kingdom! May our faith be turned into facts and may our prayer be changed into praise! Amen, praise the Lord Jesus, He is coming soon! Praise the Lord, when He returns all our prayers will be changed into praise, for everything has been done! Hallelujah, love will consummate in a shadowless perfection! Praise the Lord, we will serve the Lord in the sinless domain! Oh, what a day that will be! Lord Jesus, come quickly! We want to be prepared as Your bride for Your return! Come, Lord Jesus!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1972, vol. 1, “Life and Building as Portrayed in the Song of Songs,” ch. 14, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Fighting the Good Fight, Finishing the Course, Keeping the Faith, and Loving the Lord’s Appearing in Order to Receive the Reward of Christ as the Crown of Righteousness (2024 ICSC), week 4, Loving the Lord’s Appearing by Maintaining Our Love for Him according to the Intrinsic Significance of Song of Songs.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Faith – “The life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith in the Son of God”, a portion from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, The (Set 2) Vol. 24: The Overcoming Life, Chapter 6, by Watchman Nee.
  – Rejoice, the Marriage of the Lamb has Come, and His Wife [New Jerusalem] is Ready, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – The Betrothing Ministry, From chapter four of The Ministers in the Lord’s Recovery – Genuine Ministers of the New Covenant via, Shepherding Words.
  – Preparing Christ’s Bride – The Living of His Overcomers, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – The coming of the Lord Jesus to marry the prepared bride in Revelation 19, article by David Yoon in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – Feeling follows faith, a portion from, The Normal Christian Faith, Chapter 12, by Watchman Nee.
  – Testimony of Dean Lee, via, Living to Him.
  – The New Jerusalem is the Real and Consummate Shulammite, a Corporate Shulammite, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – Loving the Lord and letting Him make His home in you, a portion from, Living Christ, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Fair as the moon, conformed to Him I’d be, / Clear as the sun, unto His stature grown; / For my Beloved, all to please His heart, / For my Beloved, that His life be shown. / Thou art my life, and I Thine image real; / Love in such union is as death most strong, / Ne’er can it be destroyed or e’er replaced / Till Thou on spices mountains come ere long. (Hymns #556 stanzas 7-8)
  – Oh, how long before my Lord comes back, / My heart desires to see Thy face, / That the song of triumph I may sing / And behold my Beloved, full of grace. / Come quickly, Lord, and tarry not! / Oh, when wilt Thou return to comfort me; / Come quickly, Lord, and tarry not! / My heart desires to be with Thee. (Hymns #962)
  – Oh, let us take the foxes / That spoil the blooming vine; / Our vineyards are in blossom, / And all, Beloved, is Thine. / The day is quickly dawning, / The shadows flee away; / Upon the mount of spices / Our Lord may come today. (Hymns #1323 stanza 5)