One of my professors in Bible College used to always say, “It’s the little foxes that spoil the vine.” Given the context, I always knew she meant that it was the little sneaky things in life that can ruin the things of great worth. The verse comes from the beautiful love poem called “Song of Solomon.” It’s essentially a dialogue between two people in love.
Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom. — Song of Solomon 2:15
Like any poem, the imagery is usually not meant to be taken literally. Even though foxes have become iconic in this generation—thanks to Wes Anderson and hipsters—to a vineyard owner, a fox was a nuisance. The little foxes did their dirty work at night. They didn’t come just to steal dinner—they came like vandals! They chewed the vine and dug up roots. One menacing little fox the size of a kitten could destroy the entire vine.
The placement of this verse makes me think it’s not really about actual foxes and vineyards. The writer says, “Our vineyards are in blossom.” This may have been a way of saying “our love is blooming.” And the foxes represent those little things that can creep in and quietly destroy our blooming love.
The Song of Solomon is clearly about the love between a man and woman. Some say that it’s a metaphor for the relationship between God and His people. Other people don’t like when people say that. They say that’s “reading into” the text too much. I’m not sure who’s right. We’ll find out one day. But what I do know is that our relationship with God is like a blooming love and little things can, like little foxes, eat away our closeness with the Lord.
Ravi
As I’m writing this, the Christian world globally has been shocked by the awful discovery of sexual abuse in the famous author and speaker, Ravi Zacharias. Even reading about it was hard to stomach. What was perhaps most alarming to me was the way Ravi did ministry and even counseled and prayed with women before engaging them sexually. How is this possible?
Even in psychology, it is taught that prayer is good for mental and physical health. Lots of people pray and meditate. It’s a thing. People do it to “center” themselves. They do it with others to feel connected to people. They do it to feel peaceful. All kinds of religions practice praying, chanting, singing, contemplating. But here’s the truth. Most people who pray are not really communing with God. It’s nothing more than a religious exercise that makes them feel good.
Ravi Zacharias certainly had us all convinced that he was a great man of God, who knew God and knew the Word of God. But did he? Only the Lord knows. I have a hard time believing anyone engaged in that level of depravity—and all the lying and deception to cover it!—could have a close relationship with God. I think he thought he had a close relationship with God, but he did not.
Why am I saying all this? Because I’ve seen so many Christians read the Bible, pray, maybe even fast, and yet it comes out that they were living in some kind of secret sin. I’ve even seen people who appeared to be mighty in prayer but, in time, all kinds of sin manifested. Prayer can be a learned skill that is disconnected from real communion with God. Sometimes we teach babies to pray. But—sorry to disappoint you Mom—they aren’t really communing with God. It’s just cute :)
Saul
I think of the story of King Saul. He’s famous for throwing a spear to kill David and for hunting David down like an animal to end him. He was a very evil person. Now, he believed in the Lord, experienced the Holy Spirit, built altars, made sacrifices to the Lord and even prophesied all day and all night when he got around the school of prophets. He was an example of religiosity devoid of God. Listen to Paul’s description of such men:
To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. — Titus 1:15-16
In some cases, people never had a genuine relationship with God in the first place, but sometimes there seems to be a genuine working of God that fades. The Bible even says that the Spirit came upon Saul. But later it says the Spirit departed from Saul. Theologians argue about whether you can have the Spirit and lose it, but I’m not here to stir that bees nest. My point is that it’s possible for us to have our vineyard chewed up by a little fox. Here’s how it happens.
Opening the door
Every Christian is tempted in various ways. It’s usually not some huge thing, right? It begins in the mind when a person entertains the thought of stealing, using drugs, looking at porn, cheating on their spouse, or any number of other things. They open the door to sin just a crack. They begin nursing a grudge or stew with jealousy toward someone. They practice what we call “white lies” that the Bible just calls “lying,” by the way. Or maybe they mishandle money in a small way in their business. Or they take advantage of their workers. One small glass of wine evolves into two and three, until drunkenness marks them.
Many other examples could be given but you get the idea. A small door is opened for sin to come in. And when that happens, guess what? Sin grows. It always grows. Just like the little fox destroys the vine, a little sin can destroy our blooming relationship with God. That’s why the Bible says,
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. — Proverbs 4:23
Samson
Let me try to break this down more clearly. Do you remember how the Spirit left Samson but he didn’t know it? It was because of the little fox he allowed into his life named Delilah. The terrifying part of that story is that the Spirit left him but he didn’t realize it.
Here’s what I think is happening with many people in churches who pray and read their Bibles. They do these things—and even glean some enjoyment from doing them—but, they aren’t really communing with the Lord. Because they’ve allowed sin to slip into their minds and they perhaps have a secret sin or two that they tell no one about—their relationship to God is dead. They pray and don’t even realize that it’s an empty ritual.
Oh my dear friends, may we have nothing to do with this empty form of religion. It’s not enough to just pray and read the Bible. Prayer and reading the Word are means to an end. The goal is to know God intimately.
Let me just say it
Let me go out on the ledge for a moment and say, some of you reading this are trying to practice prayer but you have not separated yourself from sin. We cannot hold onto sin and have a deep life prayer. It’s a spiritual impossibility.
Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. — Psalm 24:3-4
There is a clear principle in Scripture that if we open the door to any kind of sin in our lives, it will slowly erode our relationship with God. It could be lust or lying, stealing or bitterness, ingratitude or adultery—any sin!
Some of you live in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction with your relationship with God simply because you have not thoroughly flushed the sin out of your life. You got rid of some things, maybe even most things, but you left one little fox. You can’t do that. Even a small amount of sin is like cancer that spreads.
You’ll never understand what I’m talking about in these letters regarding the experience of God’s nearness, the rushing waters of His mighty love, the sweetness of His voice, the illumination of eternal things and the peace of God that passes understanding … unless you thoroughly utterly cut the cord from all sin in your life.
Sin that remains, clouds our vision and stinks up the whole heart. Sin that remains, makes prayer flat and lifeless. Sin that remains, makes your relationship with God dull. You’ll never hear His voice. And never know what it’s like to be melted by the embrace of the Father. Oh my dear friends, let go of everything! Nothing is worth forfeiting a close relationship with the Creator.
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. — Philippians 3:8
And to those who lost it
There are others reading this who have known the joys of real intimacy with Christ. You’ve experienced His love countless times. You have felt the power and presence of God come upon you. But the closeness you had with God has faded. It’s just not there and you know it. 99 out of 100 times the reason can be traced down to a small door opened to sin. Search your heart and catch those little foxes. Round 'em up and kick them out!
One of the greatest spiritual problems in our age is a lax attitude toward sin. We definitely see this in society, as a whole range of sins, from sexual sin to lying, cheating on your taxes to pilfering from your employer, abusing alcohol and drugs, are all looked upon casually. Not only are sins committed brazenly but sins are celebrated (I’ll spare you the examples).
This permissive attitude toward sin has now taken root in many Christians. Sin just isn’t viewed as that sinful anymore. Nowadays, people who are Christians often sin just as much—or in even more extreme ways—than non-Christians!
Listen!
Listen!
Listen!
My dear friends, don’t let this wicked spirit of the age taint you. Shun evil. Hate sin. Don’t entertain it. Don’t consider it or flirt with it. It’s never okay. Don’t open the door even a crack. Treat it like a cockroach in the kitchen. Kill it! Jesus showed us the way to joy—
You (Christ) have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions." — Hebrews 1:9
The mind
Sin starts in the mind. I’m not going to get into it now but that’s why we absolutely need to carefully curate what content we expose ourselves to. The average Christian man, for example, views hundreds—if not thousands—of provocative images of women every week just in his tv watching, magazine flipping and social media scrolling.
But even if we are careful what we expose our minds to we still need to stand guard. That’s why Scripture says to be alert, be watchful! When a sinful thought appears—and don’t fuss about where it came from—just grab it by the throat and send it out the window. It’s okay to get a little rough with sinful thoughts. Take them captive. When they knock on our door we shouldn’t open the door and listen to their sales speech for ten minutes. No! Don’t even open the door. Shout through the mail slot, “Go away!”
That’s why you can’t be asleep spiritually, ever. You can’t let your mind drift or let your guard down for a moment. The battlefield is in your mind. Every stupid sinful thought that appears is a perfect time to pray. Take the thought and bring it immediately to God and tell him, “I don’t want this. I don’t want this to be me. I don’t want sin.”
Serious Scott
You might think my tone is too serious with all this. On the contrary, I’m not nearly serious enough. The things I shared above are true, and I know they are true. It’s not only the Scripture that bears witness to this truth but I’ve witnessed it. I’m exhausted and heartbroken watching people I love open the door to sin and ruin their relationship with God. I’ve seen the devastation that comes when Christians play with fire. I’m pleading with you today—don’t do it. If there’s anything in your life that is questionable—get it out. Literally, throw it out if possible. Flush it down the toilet, tear it up, break it, throw it in the trash. Crucify it.
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.— Romans 8:13
Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, "Be gone!" — Isaiah 30:22