Favorite Sermons from LFBC
Beware of the Little Foxes in Life
I read a story recently about a man who had a neighbor who owned a lovely picket fence. The fence had an expansive ivy vine growing down its entire length. Although the vine grew from one main stalk, it had, at every other fence post, been trained back to the ground by the owner.
One day, the other man’s dog tunneled under the fence and damaged the vine by his digging. A few days later he was shocked to discover an entire section of the vine withered on the fence. He apologized to the vine’s owner, who was gracious and kind to forgive him, but the dog’s owner still felt terrible because it took his neighbor such a long time before he could reclaim and retrain the vine.
There is a similar illustration in Song of Solomon 2:15. (Explain briefly). The Shulamite woman is in love with a wealthy Shepherd/King. But her brothers don’t approve of this relationship, so they intervene to prevent the two from furthering their relationship. They send her to their distant vineyards with the particular responsibility of trapping the little foxes that are working havoc on the grapevines. She is to trap them to prevent them from destroying the fruit.
The lesson for us is that little, seemingly insignificant things can cause grossly disproportionate damage to us spiritually. Thus, Scripture repeatedly warns us to guard ourselves against the little foxes that do great harm to our lives. They can cause us to be fruitless spiritually as well.
Let’s look at several of the “little foxes” mentioned in God’s Word that we would do well to be aware of...
- Beware of a little laziness--Prov. 6:9-11
- rush--being in want of life’s necessities.
- dal--being impoverished because of adverse circumstances.
- heser--being in want.
- ani--being wretched because of poverty.
- ebyon--being utterly destitute; absolutely helpless, deprived of wealth, will.
- yarash--being dispossessed.
- Beware of a little laxness--Eccles. 10:1
- Beware of a little love--Luke 7:41-47
- Beware of a little leaven--I Cor. 5:1-7
- Beware of a little lawlessness--James 3:5, 6
Read Prov. 6:10, 11. All of us are susceptible to this weakness, aren’t we? We all enjoy being able to sleep in once in a while and just being lazy. But Solomon warns us here that laziness can spoil the vine of industriousness, success. The person who is habitually lazy, slothful will eventually come to poverty.
The lazy man’s rationale is stated in v. 10. This is how he reasons. He yawns, stretches, finds a comfy place to lie down. I’ll just take a little nap. And before he knows it, the day is shot. Just a little nap. That’s a lazy man’s excuse for idling his time away.
Now, there is nothing wrong with a healthy nap. I take one several times a week. And a 45 minute siesta rejuvenates me for the rest of the day. The lazy man is a great believer in naps too, but his idea of a nap is to avoid work.
One of the problems with laziness is that it has a tendency to grow on us and become bigger and bigger. The lazy person becomes even lazier. I had this tendency as an unsaved teenager. On Sundays, after being out late on Saturday night, I would sleep in until noon or later. When I got saved, and went to Bible college, it was very difficult to break the cycle of laziness, because I was forced to get up early to attend classes.
After I got married, I was used to going to bed late and sleeping in when I could, while Annetta was used to going to bed early and getting up early. It caused some problems in our early marital life, and I finally had to ask the Lord for the grace to readjust my thinking and habits.
There are six words in the Hebrew in Proverbs that are translated poverty.
(Our word, found in v. 11 is the first one).
Young people are particularly prone to wanting to spend inordinate amounts of time is the sack. But loving parents will not allow that to become a habit, and thought the children may not like being aroused out of bed early (8 AM) for breakfast, we parents are doing it to teach them self-discipline...to help them avoid this little fox. Chase this fox out of your vineyard as fast as you can, or you’ll have no vines or grapes or profit.
This somewhat obscure verse teaches us a very important spiritual principle. Read 10:1.
Dying flies struggle, then fall into and float on the surface of bottles containing a mixture of oil, perfume. Their decaying bodies cause the substance to bubble, ferment. What was supposed to be a fragrant odor now becomes a foul one.
One dying fly can ruin the most expensive perfume. Even so, a little laxness corrupts the godliest life. Think of Esau--one reckless, lax moment, and some lentil stew became his undoing, form which he never recovered. As a result, he is held up to us as an example of a bitter man, and how that bitterness can destroy us.
Ecc. 10:1 is a vivid illustration proving the truth of 9:18. A little folly can loom larger, mightier than the genuine wisdom of a wise man who delivers his city from the enemy. A little bit of folly may seem as insignificant as a dead, decaying fly...but it can do great damage. Any of you ladies want to use poof juice that’s got dead flies floating in it?
Suppose you are a person of great integrity, wisdom, godliness. You have a reputation for being a Christian who loves the Lord. Did you know that you and I can destroy that reputation in an instant, by just one inappropriate joke, one foolish deed, one ungodly attitude, one indiscreet act?
A moment’s mischief by this little fox of foolish laxness can undo years of hard work, and take many years to repair. You and I can destroy our reputations, and tarnish God’s reputation virtually overnight.
Guard that vine tenaciously. Do whatever it takes to keep the little foxes from the precious vine of your reputation. Many a Christian could testify that it is easier to maintain a good and godly reputation that it is to try to restore a sullied one. Many a Christian wishes that they could undo the destruction that they brought upon themselves because of this little fox!!
(Read this passage and make brief comments).
Little love, leaving our first love are insults and affronts to our wonderful Lord!
I find it almost inconceivable that within each of our breasts lies the capacity to sin against the great love of God, after all that He has done for us. The words of the hymn are true: My heart is thrilled, my heart is filled to think He died for me. And yet, sometimes our hearts are chilled instead, and become cold to God’s love.
In the Olivet Discourse, the Lord Jesus warned that this very thing would happen to those living prior to His second coming. cf Matt. 24:9-12. Note that the primary cause of this is iniquity...having our own way instead of God’s way.
Is there room for growth in this area of your life? If it were possible to measure your love for the Lord, where would you be on the scale?
This is a sobering passage. Read 5:1-7.
Whenever leaven is used in the Bible, it always has an evil connotation.
Would you be content to have just a little cancer in your body? After all, just a little isn’t as bad as a lot, is it? Yet we tolerate a little sin in our lives and don’t give it much thought.
Sin is a cancer of the inner man that can destroy our lives. And of all its characteristics, perhaps the most insidious is sin’s ability to spread to other areas of our life and to infect other people. That’s the chief purpose of leaven in baking. cf I Cor. 15:33. [See marginal notes in my interlinear].
As they say down in the south: If you lie down with dogs--you’re gonna’ get up with their fleas.
The tongue is small in proportion to the damage it can inflict. Of course, a dagger is small too, compared to a sword, but it can kill just as effectively.
Did you know that there are more sins associated with the tongue (speech) than any other part of the body? Such sins as lying, blasphemy, gossiping, cursing, backbiting, anger, etc. Perhaps for most of us, the most regrettable sins that we have committed have been because of something we have said.
Note that James refers to the tongue as a world of iniquity. The tongue can cause us to act lawlessly.
Words hurt, don’t they? The little rhyme that says, Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me, is not Biblical, nor is it true. Some here have been deeply wounded by the words of others. Many of us have wounded others because we spoke in an ungodly manner. There have been times when I would rather have been beaten by a stick or stoned rather than to have had some things said about me. You too.
So, James tells us that a little match can burn down a huge forest. Even so, a little tongue can do irreparable damage to a life. Bite your tongue before it bites you.