IT HAPPENS BEFORE OUR VERY EYES

IT HAPPENS BEFORE OUR VERY EYES
(This is very important)

This verse conveys a great truth (for parents and pastors).
Song of Solomon 2:15
(15) Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.

The Holy Spirit was pointing out that seemingly inoffensive influences, can be the cause of great damage and loss.

Of course we, as parents (and as pastors) are concerned when we see one of the children open their mind, their life, to brazen wickedness. But often times it is the seemingly innocuous and unseen attitudes, actions, and alliances that take a major toll on them. Let me give a quick explanation.

When a child, either in the family or in the faith, allows open rebellion in his life, we are immediately (and rightfully) alarmed. Turning from light to darkness, from love to license or legalism, from the spiritual to the carnal is not just a present danger in that person's life, it is a hard taskmaster that can take him captive, ruin his life and cost him his soul. But these are things that can be addressed, and these are things that the individual may readily recognize from the outset to be dangerous. God has many avenues through which to reach that person.

However, when the LITTLE FOXES, the seemingly minor, insignificant, picayune, negative attitudes, actions and alliances begin to influence a person, it may not appear to be a danger, it may not even be apparent. The negative behavior may be quiet and hidden from those with spiritual authority. The person may not allow open rebellion in his life, but he quietly hides a mischievous facet of his life from his mentors. This becomes a game of living openly at one level of spirituality, while secretly and tenaciously clinging to private, and secret rebellion and disrespect. It may be a a small infraction of decorum, submission, dignity, but it embeds itself deeply within the person. Over a period of time the secret sin spreads its negative control throughout the entire life, like a creeping, noxious gas. What may have been unobserved, or viewed as as a silly but unobjectionable personality quirk was actually a venomous bite of the serpent.

As time passes, the person becomes more comfortable with "innocent" rebellion or obstinacy. This eventuates in openly showing self-will and opens the door to other, more obvious negativity. The person becomes accustomed to shrugging off the nudging of the Holy Spirit and the words of correction, which are given by spiritual leaders. The person may never become the overt sinner, but he has allowed himself to be taken captive by Satan. At the worst he stands a great chance of missing eternity with God, at the least he will fail to become what God wants him to become and he will actually become a stumbling block to those who follow him, rather than a stepping stone to Christ.

It is the little foxes that spoil the vine.