“My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over [and] gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing [of birds] is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines [with] the tender grape give a [good] smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, [that art] in the clefts of the rock, in the secret [places] of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet [is] thy voice, and thy countenance [is] comely.” (So 2:10-14 AV)
These are the words spoken by the king to his future bride. The time of separation has ended. The winter has broken into spring. The bad weather had passed. Now was the time for a summer wedding! It is oft said the Song of Solomon is a picture of Christ and the church. One cannot ignore the similarity. The comparison to the church’s identity as the bride of Christ is hard to pass by. If that is the case, it is easy to see to what the Holy Spirit is referring. One can easily see the rapture of the church and the consummation of Christ and His bride! Especially encouraging is the repeated phrase, “Rise up, my love…and come away…”. The context magnifies a thought here when considered. The context is the dreariness of winter and the messiness of spring. The bride who plans her summer wedding must endure the gray days of snow and cold. She must wait out the rains of spring that turn the ground into mud. She has to wait out the bad before she can fully enjoy the good. But the good is coming!
Where I live, summer has just about arrived. It is almost the middle of June and we have been in this pattern of rain and cold for a few months now. Where I moved from, we had only two seasons. We had summer and winter. Winter was from November to early March. Fall lasted only about a month. I used to deer hunt in shorts and a t-shirt until about mid October. When March came around, you were cutting the grass, trimming bushes, and prepping your garden. The heat came and stayed until late September. Not so up north. Winter is from October until late March. April to mid-June is rainy and gray. We only use air conditioning for about six to eight weeks out of the year. I remember as a kid hating the spring. In the winter, the weather may stick to your boots long enough to drop them inside the back door onto a mat. The mat would catch the mess. But when Spring stuck to your clothes, you tended to drag it around the house. In the winter, Mama had no problem with you going outside to play in the yard. In the spring, Mama is yelling at you to stay out of the grass and mud. Spring is horrible. Not cold enough to play in the snow and not warm enough to play on dry ground. We had to wait for the semi-tepid days to pass into nice, warm ones.
The church desires to be with her Savior and LORD. There is nothing I want more. The wicked and cruel world seems to be inventing more evil than ever before. Deviancy is a recreation and it matter not who they victimize. The saints are seen as the irrational and warped ones. We are seen as the enemy of sanity. One could certainly view the days we live in as either winter or spring. The point is, as much as we desire the rapture every day, we cannot ignore the reality that we will have to live through some dark days first. This does not mean I lean toward mid-trib or post-trib positions. Not so. God will not judge the righteous with the wicked. He never has. He never will. But Paul does warn us that prior to the Antichrist’s arrival, there will be a great falling away. Wickedness will rise. Persecution will come. This is the way of the world. From the time of Abel to now, the workers of iniquity have always pursued torment toward the people of God. No matter how gray the days are, it will not stay that way. Summer is coming. We will arise! We will meet Jesus in the air! The bride will be carried away! Nothing will stop it.
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