Sweet Notes from
Chapter 2 verse 15. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes." The young Bride of the Song of Solomon has now been called out of her "winter house" into the place of security by the side of her Beloved.
The prospect that lies before her, as we see in the final verses of this chapter, is that one day her Beloved will return for her to "the mountains of Bether". Before that day comes, however, the harvest of the vine must be gathered in, and, as she is "the keeper of the vineyard", than she must play her part in the gathering of that harvest. There is one great hindrance, however, to an early harvest, and that is "the little foxes that spoil the vines," and so, the young Bride solicits the help of the strong arm of her beloved in the vintage song that she addresses to him in this verse 15: "Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes."
Once again, the spiritual strains should be sweet to the believer's ear as he remembers that Christ will one day come again for His own Church. Christ died to redeem His church, the apostle Paul reminds us; and one day the whole harvest of that seed that was planted on that day when Christ gave His back to the smiters and when they made "deep furrows" upon His back, is going to be reaped. all the harvest will be safely gathered in - every soul for whom Christ died; "all that the Father giveth me shall come to me." And to the believer is given the command and the privilege to "Go work in my vineyard", so that we are "the keepers of the vineyard", under Christ, to gather in that harvest that will herald His coming again.
How many hindrances, though, in the glorious work? Little foxes that spoil the vines"! Little sins such as Demas must have dabbled in until he "fell in love with the world" and was no longer a "fellowlabourer". How we should know and recognise them. And how we should know the only way of dealing with them; by soliciting the strong arm of our Beloved to "Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines."
