SONG OF SOLOMON 2:15 – Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.
THEME OF THE DAY. BE CAREFUL OF “RESPECTABLE” SINS. I don’t take credit for the words “Respectable Sins”. That goes to Jerry Bridges and the title of his book Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. Please don’t be misled by the words “respectable sins” for Bridges is not advocating they are acceptable and certainly not respectable. The key to understanding him is the subtitle – confronting sins we tolerate. In chapter two of his book, The Disappearance of Sin, Bridges writes, “Sin is sin. Even those sins that I call ‘acceptable sins of the saints’ – those that we tolerate in our lives – are serious in God’s eyes. Our religious pride, our critical attitudes, our unkind speech about others, our impatience and anger, even our anxiety; all of these are serious in the sight of God.’ The whole point of the book is that we do easily give ourselves a “pass” when it comes to some sins. Here is an illustration Bridges uses to help us grasp how we may easily look “out there in our world” and cry against sin while ignoring, tolerating, or not attempting to put “lesser sins” to death in our own lives – “A pastor invited the men in his church to join him in a prayer meeting. Rather than praying about the spiritual needs of the church as he expected, all of the men without exception prayed about the sins of the culture, primarily abortion and homosexuality. Finally, the pastor dismayed over the apparent self-righteousness of the men, closed the prayer meeting with the well-known prayer of the tax collector, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner’ (Luke 18:13).”
Friends, we are not likely to “go off the rails” spiritually, shipwreck our testimony for Jesus, and become so worldly that we look and live no differently than our unsaved co-workers and neighbors by murder, adultery, grand theft, or some other public sin. No, we may wreck our walks with the Lord by not “catching the little foxes that spoil the vineyards.”
In today’s scripture, King Solomon gives a wonderful picture of what will do the most damage to a fruitful vineyard. It won’t be “the big critters” that cannot get into the fenced garden, it will be the “little ones” that are able to sneak in through the smallest hole in the fence. And that is how it will be in our spiritual lives. Allow the tolerance of such “little sins” as frustration, irritability, discontent, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, impatience, anger, judgmentalism, envy, jealousy, sins of the tongue, and worldliness to go unchecked and not fought against, and we will destroy our testimony for Christ and never enjoy fellowship with Him. Oh, by the way, that “list” in the last sentence? Those are the chapters in Bridges’ book. It would be great summer reading to add his book on that stack we are building!
PRAYER: “Father, protect me from the ‘little sins’ in my life that will erode my spiritual sensitivity to all sin in my life.”
QUOTE: “Be on guard against all sins for it only takes one that is ignored or tolerated to open the door to backsliding.”