COMMUNION BROKEN--RESTORATION

Cant. ii. 8-iii. 5

_"Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed
to the things that were heard, lest haply we drift
away from them."_--Heb. ii. 1 (R.V.).

AT the close of the first section we left the bride satisfied and at
rest in the arms of her Beloved, who had charged the daughters of
Jerusalem not to stir up nor awaken His love until she please. We might
well suppose that a union so complete, a satisfaction so full, would
never be interrupted by failure on the part of the happy bride. But,
alas, the experience of most of us shows how easily communion with
CHRIST may be broken, and how needful are the exhortations of our LORD
to those who are indeed branches of the true Vine, and cleansed by the
Word which He has spoken, to abide in Him. The failure is never on His
side. "Lo, I am with you alway." But, alas, the bride often forgets the
exhortation addressed to her in Ps. xlv.:--

Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear;
Forget also thine own people, and thy father's house;
So shall the KING greatly desire thy beauty:
For He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him.

In this section the bride has drifted back from her position of
blessing into a state of worldliness. Perhaps the very restfulness of
her new-found joy made her feel too secure: perhaps she thought that, so
far as she was concerned, there was no need for the exhortation, "Little
children, keep yourselves from idols." Or she may have thought that the
love of the world was so thoroughly taken away that she might safely go
back, and, by a little compromise on her part, she might win her friends
to follow her LORD too. Perhaps she scarcely thought at all: glad that
she was saved and free, she forgot that the current--the course of this
world--was against her; and insensibly glided, drifted back to that
position out of which she was called, unaware all the time of
backsliding. It is not necessary, when the current is against us, to
turn the boat's head down the stream in order to drift: or for a runner
in a race to turn back in order to miss the prize.

Ah, how often the enemy succeeds, by one device or another, in tempting
the believer away from that position of entire consecration to CHRIST in
which alone the fulness of His power and of His love can be experienced.
We say the fulness of His power and of His love; for he may not ha