Fire On Your Head

“O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.“ Song of Solomon 2:14-15 (ESV)

I originally wrote an article on this a number of years ago specifically about the insights I had at that time about the effects of praying in tongues, but with the revelation and insight into this Bridal paradigm God’s giving me lately–and to flow with the articles I’ve been posting in the last few months–I couldn’t help but feel that a re-working and revisit to this subject were necessary.  Especially in light of our spending significant time lately reflecting on truths of Christ based in the Song of Solomon and talking about “love being more excellent than wine”.  I have always had a profound revelation from this passage about the way speaking and praying in tongues builds up the believer and helps them overcome in their life and ward off the foxes and demons trying to ruin the work of the Spirit in our lives.

The whole book, whether you read it allegorically or just as a song, is about the love between the Bridegroom and His Bride.  We can glean from it in more specific and personal ways for our individual journeys with the Lord, and not just the collective Body of Christ.  When I read these simple yet profound verses in the Song, I’m compelled to think of passages like the following in the Gospel of John:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. (John 15:1-8 emphasis mine)

We go to the “hiding place”, signifying a place of privacy, but more specifically that of intimacy with Christ in our relationship with Him.   It speaks of letting Him hear our voice, hence re-enforcing that you can’t only think your prayers, but He desires to hear it out of our mouths as well.  Click here for more articles on the importance of confession and just what it is exactly.  Hearing our voice is also applied to our worship of Him.

The Hebrew for the word “ruin” in S.O.S. 2:15, is Châbal: A primitive root; meaning to wind tightly as a rope, or to bind, specifically by a pledge. It also means figuratively to pervert, or destroy; also to writhe in pain, especially of parturition.  The English Standard Version I quote from uses the word spoil, which shows the same concept.

The foxes represent the devil or demons, and could also be applied to our flesh and our carnal leanings & tendencies.  I believe it represents both: in our own neglect of our relationship with Christ, the opportunity is created for outside spiritual and demonic schemes to come in when we’ve let our guard down through neglect or lack of personal devotion.  In either case, if the foxes are not dealt with at this time, they will cause more damage and be more difficult to overcome.  When we’re growing and the vineyard is in bloom and ripe, THAT is the time they are the most vulnerable and sensitive.  Little foxes can destroy the vine that yields fruit. They do this by gnawing and breaking the little branches and leaves, and the bark, by digging holes in the vineyards, and so spoiling the roots by eating the grapes, and any other way to hinder the growth of the vine.

Our First Fruits

What are vineyards for? Grapes.  And what are grapes used for?  To produce wine.  Chapter 5:22-23 of Galatians lists the fruit of the Spirit, and these are some of the evidences there will be in our lives if we’re intimately connected to the vine, we’ll produce fruit and become more like Him whom we’re beholding and Whose image we’re being transformed into. Though many times different symbols are used in different ways in Scripture, the vineyard is often a type or a symbol of the Church in the New Testament, Israel in the Old Testament, and just the people of God in general. And of course, if you’ve been reading my series on “Love, the More Excellent Way” you’d already be familiar with examples of how wine is correlated with the work of the Holy Spirit, and used in chapter 1:2, and 4:10 in the song as representative of GOOD things and finer pleasures of this world.  The devil is always seeking to destroy us in any way he can.  He desires to ruin the work of the Spirit, in our lives individually and collectively as the Body of Christ, and there’s no better way to do it than at the foundational root level, like the foxes seek to do to the vineyard.

More specifically, we know one symbol for the Holy Spirit is new wine–which is made from fresh just-picked grapes, and the passage here in Song of Solomon talks about how the foxes ruin the vineyards that are in bloom–when they’re young, tender or sensitive.  Most plants and trees require that you remove the first fruits as soon as they appear, and then after that the fruit appears in larger size and more quantity.  But if it’s not obtained properly in that first fruit stage, the tree will never grow properly and yield very much fruit–in other words, will never realize its full potential.  I’m sure there’s a sermon in that on giving God our first fruits with all things in our lives, but that’s another post.  Suffice it to say, it’s the first fruits the foxes are trying to spoil, so the vine never comes to its full potential.  Therefore it’s at this crucial moment the foxes must be stopped from doing any damage or else it will be irreparable and the young one in Christ may not fully recover from the damage caused.

Intimacy with God

God calls us through this passage to the hiding place in the rock (the Rock Christ Jesus) and wants to see our face and hear our voice.  This is indicative of prayer, and definitely indicating intimacy.   Viewing these verses in that lens, we see that going and being alone with God and praying, we’ll wind up “catching those foxes” that ruin the Spirit’s work in our lives because we’re bound to them instead of walking in freedom.  When the vineyard is getting watered with the Word of God (Eph 5:26), then the things of the Spirit, such as the gifts and the fruit, and new wine revelation will flow, and it’s THIS the foxes try to destroy, stop or pervert and prevent from happening.

If you are struggling with fleshly tendencies, or overcoming habitual sin, experience and my understanding of this passage encourages me to encourage you to go be alone with Christ and ‘behold Him’ in this manner. Doing so will help you catch the foxes in your life that spoil the work of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit in turn will help you grow strong in your inner man to overcome these areas.

Notice how it states in verse 14 that He loves the sound of her voice, so what better thing to be offering up with our voices than tongues since according to Romans 8:26 we don’t know what we ought to be praying?  Jude 20 mentions praying in the Holy Spirit to build ourselves up in the the most holy faith.  Another way of saying it, is that praying in tongues builds up the inner man and helps keep those foxes from spoiling the vine.  Jude was writing to the early Church–which was young and still in formation like ‘tender grapes’–to contend for the faith because false doctrine (foxes) had gotten into the Church and was rendering it powerless at this crucial moment in its history.  Early on, while the Body of Christ was still young and getting established, much like the vineyard with grapes in bloom in spring time–was the most sensitive and important time for false doctrine to be weeded out from spoiling things.  So the remedy to that is verse 20, praying in the Holy Ghost. Praying in the Spirit is our inoculation against false doctrine (the foxes) because it is how the Holy Spirit teaches us.

The Apostle John stated in his epistle: “I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing [of the Holy Spirit] that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.” (1 John 2:26-27, emphasis mine, and parenthesis mine).  The Holy Spirit, and abiding in Him IS the way you’ll avoid and be protected from deception.

So the application of this teaching?  Be intimate with Christ, and pray a whole lot in tongues as well. Not only will it help with your understanding and revelation of the Word of God, but it will help crucify your flesh and overcome the foxes that are holding us back.  As you dwell in the pure Word of God and allow it to ‘water your vineyard’, it will result in wine being produced.

The Holy Spirit is more easily able to flow through those who are intimate with Christ.

Related posts:

What Are You Feeding Your Tree?

How’s Your Connection To The Vine?

“Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.  Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” (John 2:6-10, ESV)

After initially posting my first article on the verses 1-5 of the second chapter of John’s Gospel, where this account is found, I’ve since been reflecting on it and had some things pointed out to me by the same friend who inspired me to write that first post, showing me just how deeply prophetic this action of Christ’s at the wedding truly was.  We simply must reflect some more on it.

When the wine ran out people didn’t go on with the emotional hype as usual.  There was a lack.  There was a need, and Mary was honest about the spiritually poor condition (so to speak) of the fact that the gathering lacked wine.  She doesn’t continue on with the celebration as if nothing is wrong, nor does she make excuses concerning why the wine ran out or why enough may not have been prepared.  She realized the need and goes straight to the source–Jesus Christ, her earthly son.  This took a tremendous amount of confidence and humility of her to ask–because as we learned in the last post on this–providing the wine and any other thing was the groom’s responsibility and not that of any of the guests–of which Jesus was one.

When you come to Jesus with your need not hiding or covering anything up, be ready for Him to speak and do exactly what he says.  Follow His instructions.  He said to get the vessels and fill them with water.  HERE is where the lesson is…

What kind of vessels were they?  They were the ceremonial vessels used in the Jewish synagogue for ritual or ceremonial cleansing, and they were dry, and empty.  The vessels that were designed and used to wash iniquity and impurity lacked water, and thus were not fulfilling their purpose.  The Church and our pulpits today lack a true fresh right now Word from God, and because the pulpit is anorexic the Church is sick because there is no washing with the water of the Word.  The vessels designed to WASH or bring purification themselves lacked the pure water.

Fill your life with the word of God.  Devour the Bible in your personal life, not just for study, blogging or preaching, but just fill up on it.  Then out of that, you will fill your ministry with the Word and fresh revelation.

The wedding lacked wine, but the vessels designed to cleanse from sin lacked water.

When you get filled with the Word, there will be cleansing from sin, and revival can then break out.  But we often times want to go straight to the wine, but first you must ALWAYS be filled with the word, and cleansed.  How can there be joy if there is no cleansing or forgiveness?  How can there be washing or cleansing if there is no water in the very ministries designed to bring cleansing from impurity?  In this account, the vessels, the instruments–representing the ministry or the ministers designed for cleansing–were dry and empty.

Jesus instructed to fill them with water (or fill em with the Word) and draw out of that which it is filled with, and it had now turned into the fresh new thing.  This is what happens when we fill up on the Word of God–joy and anointing of the Holy Spirit will flow from our lives and be manifested.  This is Jesus’ “little secret” for bringing new wine or revival.  I use the term ‘little secret’ kinda loosely when I really mean to say ‘forgotten or neglected truth’ because it’s plain, but many still don’t seem to know it.

Jesus’ solution is that the vessels He desires to use–they can be people, or ministries, etc…be filled with the fresh revelation of the Word.  And only when you draw from that fresh filling–not with a pseudo-superficial emotional filling–but a real genuine soaking in the WORD, then what you draw out will be an aged matured product that produces fruit–fruit matured and pressed, that produces joy, the wine of the Holy Spirit.

Isn’t it interesting that there was no wine, but there was also no water where there should have been water–in the Church, in the pulpit.  Jesus’ first instructions were not immediately wine, it was filling [the Church] with water, or filling those vessels first.

Saving the Best Wine For Last

The master of the feast in this account remarked that the best wine had been saved for last.  I believe personally that this is a picture of the Church, that in the early form as documented in Acts chapter 2, there was an outpouring of the Spirit that birthed and sustained the Church, but that right before The Wedding of the Lamb, the best wine will have been poured out and the Church will have made herself ready.  Revelation 19:6-8 states how the great multitude is gathered and clothed in white linen representing the righteous acts of the saints.  There will be no possible way to be so clothed except for the power of the wine of the Holy Spirit poured out on a people cleansed and washed by the power of the Word of God.  Joel 2:28-32 gives us a glimpse of that:

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.”And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.  The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.” For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.”

This account details what those ‘last days’ will look like, however, Peter referenced that in Acts 2:17-21, but refers to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as being evidence of the last days already being up on us.  It’s been the last days already for almost 2000 years (see Are We Living in The Last Days?).  It’s probably little to no secret to any historian or student of Church history the Church started with an explosion, and then went into a significant spiritual dark age, and for the last few hundred years has been gradually having forgotten truths restored to it ever since the great Reformation.  We are getting nearer and nearer to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, subsequent to the return of Christ the Bridegroom.  He is and has been saving the best wine for last.

If Jesus is going to purify us to present us to Himself ready for that day, then that means in these last days the Lord is going to also confront us more and more because He loves us and longs to be with us.  The purpose of tribulation on the earth will not be specifically to yank His Bride from it to avoid that hour, but to prepare and further purify Her for the Wedding.  This is also how I read the book of Revelation–through the Apostle John’s perspective–the friend of the Bridegroom whom Jesus’ loved.  I read it through a Bridal Paradigm, and see the Bridegroom coming back in full force ready to finally obtain His Bride He longs for.

If we don’t get a good grasp of the dealings of the Lord now we will become offended at Him and His work when He comes with the water of His Word and begins to put us under the microscope and also allow us to go through intense persecution we’ve not previously known because He just wants to be with us, and have us prepared for it.

Are you ready for the fresh outpouring that’s breaking out and coming?

“How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!” Song of Solomon 4:10b

“And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Ephesians 5:2

We began in our previous article with this verse from the Song of Solomon to establish our premise for these series of articles on the love of God flowing through the believer.  The context surrounding that verse establishes that the Bridegroom, Christ, is speaking to His Bride, the Church stating we have ‘captivated His heart’ (verse 9).  Our worship and adoration–and just simply our obedience to come follow Him and be in awe and reverent fear of Him–does something in his heart.  He gets some type of satisfaction from our worshipful, fasted lifestyles that He doesn’t get in another way.

We also began in the last post to elaborate on the fact the wine speaks of the best this life has to offer and not sinful or guilty pleasures.   Since most oftentimes wine is associated with the Holy Spirit, we’re then assuming that the Spirit being poured out is a good thing, BUT a foundational starting point for this love walk we’re going on.  So allow me to show you another part of this journey, of just what happens when the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

^“Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,  giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:17-21, emphasis mine)

As we established in our previous article by looking at 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 to show that the gifts of the Spirit are foundational–but love is the more excellent, and the greater way–then it makes sense also that one of the evidences of a born again believer truly being filled with the Holy Spirit, is going to be love.  If we are operating in all manner of gifts of the Spirit, but have not love, then it is pointless and we are nothing (see 1 Cor 13:1-2).  If we are constantly, and regularly being filled with the Holy Spirit on an ongoing basis, then it won’t just be evidenced by speaking in tongues, prophecies, psalms, hymns and so on, but we will also be submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Dare I say it: the REAL evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit, is love for one another–not at the expense of the gifts such as tongues, but on top of it, including the gifts.  How do I know this?  Well, I could post too large a list of Scriptures dealing with commandments to love, but let me focus on a few things that tie into our Bridal paradigm specifically, and the direction I’m going in with this series of articles:

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:19-20, emphasis mine)

We must remember a few things about the Apostle John: he had a revelation of the love of God which obviously would affect his perspective.  He referred to himself in his gospel account as the one Jesus loved.  In the end of that Gospel, he said that if all the works Jesus did were recorded, the world would not be able to contain the books (John 21:25).  Therefore, what we have written in our Scripture canon does not contain any wasted pages.  All of it is divinely arranged to be there for a reason.  John lived to be a ripe old age and it’s commonly held by many that he wrote this and his other two epistles towards the very end of his life, even after he wrote The Revelation he received while exiled on the island of Patmos.  It is for this reason then, we can reasonably interpret the book of Revelation through the lens of the LOVE of God he had, and when one does, we see the matter of the coming of the Lord in a whole different light than just stuff that belongs in Left Behind fiction books–but one of a marriage finally coming to realization. The book is a revelation of the Bridegroom–lovesick for His Bride–coming back to finally marry her.  John had that revelation, but I digress a little from where I’m going with this.

If John took the time to write these 5 chapters, then this stuff MUST be some of the most important things he felt worth sharing with the recipient of this letter, and the Church.   Therefore, if at the ripe old age of 90 or maybe even 100 this was what he had to say after decades of intimate relationship with The Bridegroom–after decades of public ministry– then it’s wise of us to take seriously, and meditate and ponder things from his perspective.   We need the perspective of the one who knew his identity in the Bride of Christ, and knew himself as the one Jesus loved.

How do I know this whole “wine of the Spirit and being filled, speaking to one another, and submitting to one another” thing ties into this whole Bridal paradigm?  Because the rest of the chapter goes on to say so:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Eph 5:22-24)

Sometimes I really hate the chapter breaks and title headers the publishers of our Bible translations put in there, because the original manuscripts were not broken down into chapters and verses, and certainly didn’t have subject headings like most of our Bibles say.  I’m only mentioning that because even though they’re helpful for finding specific passages and parables, when reading they sometimes inadvertently give the reader the impression new topics are starting.  However, this is a part of the same flow of thought the author had.  Jesus taught in complete subjects, even if the English Standard Version I’m reading this from breaks things down into seemingly different topics, when the apostles and epistle writers wrote in entire concepts.  Let’s keep reading:

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” (Eph. 5:25-33, emphasis mine)

Remember, we love God because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), and Christ has sought out His Bride since before the foundation of the world.  He is talking here of presenting His Bride to Himself at the marriage of the Lamb.  Christ cherishes the Church.  She’s His own Body.  He nourishes her.  Christ ‘left’ His Father, in the eternal heavenly realm, to come down to our earth that He may gather His Bride to bring her where He Himself is.  He cried out on the cross “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46) as he bore the sin of His Bride so as to make her pure and spotless before God.  As Jesus was feeling that weight of sin, He was experiencing separation from God for the only time in all of eternity. It was at this time that 2 Corinthians 5:21 occurred, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Now, if we have truly been born from above, and filled with the Holy Spirit, we’re going to respect Christ the way the wife is to respect her husband.  So if we respect Christ, out of the response we have towards Him as he loves us, then we will not do anything to hurt His Bride that we’re apart of.  We will lay our life down for one another.  We will speak encouragement, not gossip.  We will submit to one another, preferring the other as better than ourselves.

Let’s submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, for He finds that to be better than wine.

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

“On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her,  “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” (John 2:1-5)

I’d like to take you on a bit of a journey to see something totally fascinating in Scripture that I had never seen before until recently when a missionary-friend laboring in Mexico posted some comments on a status update of mine on Facebook.  I think this ties in perfectly with my series lately on “Love, The More Excellent Way” but is more like a footnote, as opposed to an actual entry in that series, and I will post the second part in the next week or two.

This revelation pertains to both the love of God, and the ‘wine’ we’ve been talking about, and we have already been meditating on and studying how “love is better than wine.” (SoS 1:2, 4:10).

If we read from Genesis to Revelation, Scripture begins with a wedding, ends with a wedding, and all through out The Bible the Kingdom of heaven is likened to a wedding; God’s desired relationship and covenant with His people Israel in the Old Testament, and The Church included in the New Testament–it’s always likened to a marriage covenant.  We see books like Hosea, Ruth, and Song of Solomon really exemplifying this in the OT.   In the New Testament, we read Jesus and Paul talking about the mystery of marriage being about Christ and us His Bride–the Church. Parables of Jesus’ point to this as well (check out Matthew 22:1-14 – the wedding feast, and Matthew 25:1-13 the ten virgins, for further mediation on this). Revelation, the final book shows a multitudinous crowd rejoicing because it’s time for the marriage supper, and the Bride has made herself ready–grown in maturity through this process of love, devotion, and obedience (see Rev 19:6-8).

I’m convinced that the Song of Solomon is one of the most fascinating, profound, and beautiful books of the entire Scripture canon, and this short book of eight chapters is relevant to all Christians, everywhere and in every generation.  Whether you read it allegorically or not, it’s a key that helps unlock much of the rest of the Word of God and the ‘mysteries’ contained therein only make sense through the lens of the Love of God.

When Jesus was at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-12) and they ran out of wine, His mother came to Him and addresses the issue. And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” (v. 4) For years, we have been taught and thought that it refers to it not having been Jesus’ time for public ministry.  Others have taught this refers to Jesus’ work on the Cross that He is referring to in some kind of abstract kind of way.  Both views and others like it are impossible.

Jesus stated that He only did what He saw his Father doing and whatever the Father does, the Son does (John 5:19).   If it was not time for Jesus to have performed a miracle and He did it anyways, He would have been doing something outside the time and will of God.  In that very moment, He would have sinned, but we know this was not so of the sinless lamb of God.  No, Jesus knew no iniquity.  Therefore, He could not have been referring to it not being the time for His public ministry.

What did He really mean?

It was the Jewish custom for the groom’s father to have worked out with the family of the bride the details concerning the wedding arrangement, including the date of the actual ceremony.  The Bridegroom would go to his father’s house and build a place for himself and his bride to live, usually attached to his father’s house.  Remember, Jesus told His disciples–probably when their understanding hadn’t yet been opened to the fact He was viewing them as His collective Bride: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:3)  The Bridegroom would not know when the day was, but sometime after building the house, the father would then tell him “go, it’s time.”  Jesus also told us regarding His return, “concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” (Matt 24:36, Mark 13:32)

At that appointed time, the groom and his friends would leave his home and proceed to the home of the bride, where the marriage ceremony was conducted, often at night. Usually a servant was sent first some time ahead of the bridegroom, to ‘pave the way’ and awaken the bride and the virgins.  Since the servant would not know which one was the bride, she would sleep in her wedding dress since the wedding ceremony would customarily be at night, and she more than likely would be awakened from sleep for it. After this the entire wedding party returned to the groom’s home for a celebratory feast.  This engagement process could last any number of months, possibly a year or more if the bridegroom was preparing their place in a far distance away to travel to, and return from.  As mentioned, many of Jesus’ parables or teachings regarding His return to the earth used wedding and marriage imagery they would be familiar with.

Why does this really matter?

It was also the Bridegroom’s responsibility to prepare enough wine for the reception and celebration of His own wedding. When Jesus was stating that His time had not come and what did that have to do with Him, he was saying: “It is not time for me to prepare the wine of my own wedding yet.” Jesus went ahead and did the miracle because it was the Father’s timing for him at that moment to perform that miracle.  Why? Because Jesus had to give just one more little glimpse that he is a lovesick Lover looking to prepare and present to Himself a pure and spotless Bride one in whom HE makes pure by washing her with His Word!

Remember Jesus’ disciples for a moment:  these guys ran with Jesus, and at one point in Luke’s Gospel after Christ’s resurrection, it says He opened the Scriptures to them and open their eyes to understand, and they ‘recognized Him’. (Ch. 24:31-32)  Of course you are gonna have a group of single guys, or gals, adults or married folks who in hearing they actually don’t unless understanding has been opened to who they are as His beloved.  Of course they are going to be dull in hearing and totally misinterpret Scripture!  We should not be surprised in any way at the reactions of the disciples had to some of the things Jesus told them and the crowds prior to this moment in their lives. Hence the reason we need to be washed with the Word, and have our mind renewed (Rom 12:1-2).

The reason this matters, is because it was and is all a part of The Plan.  The Gospel is the ultimate love story.  God loved you before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4).  He didn’t wait to see how you’d turn out before He decided to love you.  He, in the form of a man on the cross, died to make a way for you to be included in His Bride, while you were yet dead in your sins (Col 2:13).  Not only that, He made Himself vulnerable to your rejecting of His gift of eternal life, and relationship with Him, before you even entered the earth. “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Eph 2:4-5)  Before you even had a chance to make a commitment to Him or to reject Him, and spend eternity separated from Him, He loved you and desired you.  Before you even committed any sin that led to His sacrifice even being necessary.  Ultimately,  He died before His Bride even knew about it and that that was the plan.

There’s coming a time, a consummation of the ages, where The Wedding Feast will finally take place–and for the joy set before Him who endured the cross, despising its shame (Heb 12:2), Christ who died that you may be able to know Him and spend eternity with him–will finally get to.  It’s up to you to decide if you want to be a part of that, since He’s done His part and is waiting…

“How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!” (Song of Solomon 4:10b)

“And I will show you a still more excellent way.” (1 Corinthians 12:31b)

In the opening of the Song of Solomon—my favorite book in the Old Testament—the Shulammite shepherdess states of her lover that his love is better than wine (SoS 1:2).  Then, midway through the song when he speaks of what fascinates him about her, we’re told the same thing.  This writer believes the Song of Solomon is to be interpreted as a representation of the Bridegroom’s love towards the Church, His Bride.  We know that Jesus is better than anything in this world, and the obvious interpretation of that phrase would lead the believer to say “of course it is!” and agree.

Therefore, if He is saying of her that her love is better than wine, then we can automatically rule out that He’d be saying her love is better than any sin since he lived a sinless life and died to save us from our sins, and would not have engaged in any carnal pleasure that he’d compare her love with.

No, she finds His love to even be better than the good pleasures of this life, even things that aren’t inherently sinful or wrong and He finds her affection and devotion to Him better than wine–He finds our love towards Him to be more intoxicating than wine, for Scripture says God desires obedience, and loyalty more than sacrifice (Hos 6:6).  If the believer in Christ would get a revelation that they are the apple of God’s eye, and that your love back to Him blows Him away–I’m convinced it would change and sustain us in deeper ways in life and ministry.  So what is the significance of this?

The Love of God as a Motivation for Service and Operation of the Spiritual Gifts

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit…To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” 1 Corinthians 12:4,7

In this first entry in our study, we’re going to start by looking at the work of the Holy Spirit involved in our motivation, but in the next study, hopefully we’re going to focus on the role of the Holy Spirit getting us there to maturity in the Love walk.

Oftentimes in the Old Testament, wine is used symbolically to represent the Holy Spirit.  The oft-quoted Ephesians 5:17-21 is not saying the Holy Spirit IS wine or that being filled with Him is like being drunk, but instead when we’re filled we won’t act drunk, but we’ll do the things listed such as “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.“  We’re going to spend more time on this passage in a later part of this study.

In chapter 12 of First Corinthians, Paul goes into significant detail about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and their operation.  There’s been much debate within the Body of Christ about their use, their importance, which ones are significant, and so on and that’s not the direction I’m going in with this post because there’s other articles on this site that deal with that more effectively.  We’re beginning today with the premise that functioning in the gifts of the Spirit is the norm for the contemporary Church, and that they are exactly what a gift is–something GIVEN to us freely without earning it.  Paul states at the end of this chapter, I will show you a still more excellent way. (v.31)

A more excellent way than what?

The answer is in verse 11: All these [gifts] are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” Most in the Church emphasize chapters 12 and 14 but skip chapter 13–the “love chapter.”  Then others, fearing misuse of the spiritual enablements, over-emphasize chapter 13 to the exclusion of the other two chapters surrounding it.  Both are necessary, for Paul said “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.“ (v.1-2)

The lesser is included by the greater, but not diminished by it.  The lesser in this case is that the gifts are distributed as the Spirit wills, and the greater work is love.  But, I repeat: the greater doesn’t nullify or do away with the lesser. For example, it is out of love that you will most effectively minister in the spiritual gifts. Maturing into love doesn’t mean you no longer need the gifts.  On the contrary!  Paul didn’t say “instead I will show you a more excellent way“, but he says AND.  The two go together, and the fact he goes into talking about love, is building on the foundation [of the basic use of the gifts], not replacing it.

^“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (v. 11-12)

When we are children in the Lord, it is necessary for the Holy Spirit to distribute the gifts in our lives and in the members of the Body of Christ as He sees fit.  When children are little, there is more supervision needed in their lives, even of some good and ’safe’ gifts they’ve been given.  Maybe, as an example, they are given a computer and hooked up to the internet, but the parents will still put limitations on it such as time allowed, and filter what sites they visit.  But as time goes on and the child matures and is more disciplined and knows how to manage his time well, he proves to be faithful with what he’s been entrusted with, and gradually needs less and less supervision.

But not only that, now the child becomes a fully mature adult, and knows how to use the internet for profitable purposes and no longer uses it just to play video games.  He starts an online business, and donates a large portion of his profits to those in need in other places in the world.  He hears of problems people are going through, and writes e-mails to encourage them.  Now motivated by maturity and love, he knows how to do things without being instructed or given suggestion.  His relationship with his parents has not changed in the fact he’s still their son and they his parents–but he has changed his childish ways and no longer needs the same type of involvement of monitoring his activity online.  Now, he’s grown and is in a relationship with his parents of a more mature nature.  He can be depended on to make right decisions because he is no longer a five year old child.

I realize this example is far from perfect, but I wish to draw the point that the gifts of the Spirit are basic at the fundamental and foundational level–not the “be all and end all” or the telltale sign of spiritual maturity–but the opposite: they’re just a beginning and we’re to move on in maturity from there.  The entire book of Corinthians shows that flawed, imperfect and even selfish people DO still operate in the things the Spirit has enabled them to, but does not signify that they are mature or walking in love toward one another.

So back to the Song of Solomon for a moment: the shepherdess is saying His [Christ's] love is more excellent than the wine–good and noble things, even though they may be Holy Spirit inspired.  If you are being filled with the Holy Spirit–as our familiar passage in Ephesians 5 says–you won’t just be speaking and making melody in your heart, but you will also be “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (v.21).  What is submission more than merely preferring the other person more than yourself, out of the agape love poured out in your heart the more you continually receive infilling of the wine of the Holy Spirit?

Now “your love is better than wine” and “I will show you a more excellent way” both have more significant and impacting meaning to me than they did before the Lord showed me this stuff I’m sharing with you now.

For more on this until I post the next part of our study, it would probably be of benefit to the reader to check a previous post of mine birthed out of meditating on the Song of Solomon, titled Behold, I Stand At The Door and Knock.  I was merely beginning to unpack in that post some of the stuff God has since been impacting me with.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

John 15:1-8

Someone was telling me recently about some observations they’ve made concerning a vine his parents have in their front yard. He was telling me that when the useless branches are cut off, they really don’t do anything but die and need to be thrown away or used in a fire. He went on to explain to me, that if you don’t prune the branches that are bearing fruit, then the vine grows very large, and has leaves and branches everywhere, but only very tiny grapes. The reason you prune the branches is so that the ingredients that travel from the roots in the ground and through the stem will make it all the way to the grapes on the ends of the branches, and thereby produce more in quality and size. The less spread-out their pathways are, the more ‘focus’ and concentration–if you will—the juice will have, so that the fruit that is coming forth will be larger and more plentiful.

So in other words, the energy is channeled into specific branches, instead of spread too thin all over the whole vine.

Time and again, the Bible uses the imagery of wine to describe the Holy Spirit and His work in our lives. We obviously get wine from grapes, and so the implications of this passage and the work of the Holy Spirit are made clear, especially given that in the previous chapter and the one following, Jesus went into detailed explanation of the role He’d play in the believer’s life.

The clearest I have ever been able to hear God clearly, has been when I cut out of my life the junk that kept me just bearing leaves and tiny grapes. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a leaf-bearing tree. There’s nothing wrong in and of itself when a tree has a lot of leaves—that’s just the point. It may look nice from a distance, but in your hunger when you approach that tree looking for food, you are sadly disappointed and go elsewhere to satisfy that hunger. Jesus cursed a fig tree that only had leaves, but nothing to feed his hunger. What does He think when He comes to your life expecting fruit? Does He find any?

Jude also called such people ‘clouds without water’ (Jude 12), when talking specifically of false teachers. There’s many trees in our midst but since the tree looks good, we think nothing of it. But is your hunger and thirst for spiritual matters satisfied by such? Is there healing in those branches? There’s many false teachers out there, making rules like ‘tongues are not for today‘ and ‘it’s ok to ordain practicing homosexuals to the ministry.’ But the culture around us disintegrates because we the church are mostly clouds without water, trees without fruit substituting power and truth with proper theology.

Jesus Himself told the scribes and pharisees “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40).  What kind of vessel does the Holy Spirit use–one who has their theological ducks in a row and is not too “imbalanced”, or one who is YIELDED to Him fully, in whatever HE may desire of the vessel? The Holy Spirit and His work is just as resisted, rejected and taught against and ignored as something demonic and not heavenly, as Jesus’ was when He walked the earth in His day.

Now, of course I’m not saying that Jesus ‘curses’ us, His children for not bearing fruit. But we do have texts like the one quoted at the beginning of this entry that we have to contend with. What do eternal securists who believe once you’re saved you’re always saved do with passages of Scripture that say things like ‘if you the branch don’t bear fruit you’re cut off and thrown into the fire?!’ But that’s another topic for another time, sorry to digress.

But everything in God’s kingdom gets the knife. The second verse of John 15 states that the branches that don’t bear fruit, get cut off, and the branches that bear fruit get pruned, so they can produce more fruit. Either way, we can decide if we’ll give certain things up in our lives so that we can be more fruit-bearing, or we can let God cut them off Himself. When we wait for Him to do it for us, it’s always more painful than if we just willingly lay things down on the altar of His grace.

Everything in the kingdom of God gets the knife one way or another. Does God have to prune you, or does He have to cut things off? When He prunes, it’s so that we bear more fruit, and can yield “larger grapes”. So that the Holy Spirit wine can flow through the veins of our branches all the more easier. But in order to discuss the Holy Spirit as wine flowing through our lives, it’s necessary to make a little detour for a moment.

Fruit vs. Gifts
The Holy Spirit’s work within the believer produces the following fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). When Jesus comes to you looking to quench His thirst, does he find fruit like this in your life? The fruit of the Holy Spirit is not to be confused with the gifts (or more appropriately, enablements of power) of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told his disciples the Holy Spirit would be with them and in them (John 14:17), but then he also told them to not leave Jerusalem until they received power from on high. This obviously is a different experience altogether than when they received the Holy Spirit within, or else Jesus would have been mistaken or foolish to tell them not to leave Jerusalem until they received something they already had!

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is not a synonym for receiving the Holy Spirit upon salvation. For one thing, Jesus told them to tarry in Jerusalem until they received power, and did not tell them to wait until they “got saved”, “reborn”, or “regenerated” or any other synonym used to describe the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives upon salvation. They were bearing evidence of salvation already when they met to pray in the upper room every day until that famous day of Pentecost. And lest you think otherwise, let me remind you how rare it is to find unbelievers gathering in groups to pray every day to God! The burden of proof is on those who say we’re baptized in the Holy Spirit AND indwelt by Him both at the point of salvation, to explain away Scripture; for example how come it happened as separate experiences in the Bible, and to explain how the disciples could not possibly be saved already until Acts 2. The explanations I’ve been given or heard take hermeneutical and logical acrobats in order to hold water, and aren’t persuasive enough for me to list and refute all here.

When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he was writing to a group of believers who already had both experiences—this is where many people make their exegetical (fancy Bible interpretation word) mistakes and start making assumptions about all that’s promised in the empowerment from on high is included in the role the Holy Spirit plays when he dwells in us upon getting saved. The two experiences, in my opinion were never meant to be separate but all believers should have and want this baptism for power in their witness for Christ, and the earlier they get it the better. When I witness to people and pray alongside them giving their lies to Jesus, I also take them through the steps of how the Holy Spirit will come on them also for power to witness for Christ, as well as in them for lifestyle–and it’s SO much easier to lead someone in this prayer as a baby Christian because they don’t have all the bad theology to unlearn and years of living without the power of the Holy Spirit to resist. But it sure would be nice if this experience DID happen at the point of salvation with every individual believer!

Interesting to note also, is that we have two groups of nine connected with the work of the Holy Spirit; nine fruit in Galatians 5, and nine gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11.  The fruit might be referred to the character traits resulting from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit: fruit grows on the branch because of the life within the tree. The fruit of the Spirit is demonstrative of the indwelling and fruit-bearing of the Holy Spirit in our lives as individual believers. The gifts of the Spirit are for service to the Body and the lost, and not ourselves, as a community where each individual constituting the whole, does its part.

We need to stay connected to the vine, and abide in Him or we’re not going to produce any character traits of the Spirit, or flow more fluidly in the gifts of the Spirit.

If you enjoyed this post or were blessed by it, then you may enjoy mp3s we have for free download on our podcast dealing with these same subjects:

Fire On Your Head Episode 21: Spiritual Disciplines
Download mp3 (right click and save)

Transformed into the Image of Christ – message by Bob Gladstone
Download mp3 (right click and save)

Hindrances to the Baptism in The Holy Spirit
Download mp3 (right click and save)

More Hindrances To a Spiritual Life
Download mp3 (right click and save)

What do I mean by that term?

I realize there’s certain things that if I say them, they will automatically conjure up caricatures of charismatics and their lingo, when I’m probably not using the terms in the traditional manner of which they’re usually used. In fact, I wrote about 80% of this entry in one sitting.  Then I paused, and after randomly looking up something on the history of the Brownsville Revival–Dr. Michael Brown’s firing and the subsequent birthing of FIRE school and church ministries–I found plenty of fundamental Baptist sites totally trashing this aspect of the charismatic lifestyle, in my opinion based on tremendous misunderstandings. But those type of people will always be there to trash things they don’t even try to understand.  As a side note it’s amusing to me how many “heresy hunters” out there totally trashed Brownsville based on rumors and false reports, always admitting to have never visited for themselves!

So here I go, I speak from experience and Scripture with no concern for what other people think. When one has an experience that someone or others have not had, the person with the experience is not arrogant for sharing it and wanting others to experience something amazing that they have. That’s simple and a part of life.

There’s one real verse in the New Testament I think that really deals with this, and one that I know of off of the top of my head in the Old Testament that I glean this idea from. The skeptic of charismatic renewal and revival movements rightly points to verses in the New Testament about calls to soberness to ‘debunk being drunk in the spirit.’ Such verses include 1 Thess. 5:6,8; 1 Tim. 3:2,11; Titus 1:8; 2:2,4,6; 1 Pet. 1:13; 4:7; 5:8.  But they are really beside the point I’m getting to.

In 1 Sammuel 1, when Elkanah and his barren wife Hannah went to offer sacrifices, and she was praying for a son, and committing him to the Lord:

“As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli observed her mouth.
Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman.
And Eli said to her, “How long will you go on being drunk? Put away your wine from you.”
But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD.
Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.“

1 Samuel 1: 12-16

And the other I will touch on–the more known and oft-quoted reference–in Ephesians 5:18, but I will post a few verses surrounding it for context:

Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,
addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Ephesians 5:17-21

The Message says of being filled with the Spirit “Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him.” And the International Standard version says “keep on being filled with the Spirit.”

The point I want to bring out using these couple of passages is how Hannah was mistaken for being drunk in her desperation, and in this passage in Ephesians, how there’s a correlation and similarity implied in the contrast between being drunk on wine, versus being filled with the Spirit. Looking at various translations bring that distinction out.

But the phrase “drunk in the Spirit” doesn’t actually occur in most or any texts. I still think it’s harmless to use the catchphrase anyway, since there are plenty of other Christian catchphrases we use just as much–or more!–anyway, that don’t have a specific foundation in the Bible either, but I digress.

Like alcohol in a drunk person’s system, being filled with the Spirit has an empowering to the believer that “numbs” us to the cares of this world. I don’t like it when–and I even cringe when–I listen to people throw the term “drunk in the Spirit” around to indicate wild spiritual behavior in public meetings or things like that. Which, I guess I don’t oppose completely, I just think it fuels the fires for outsiders to think charismatics are flakes and when that becomes the focus, we miss it.

What I mean by ‘drunk in the Spirit’ when I use that term, is that I’m so built up in my spirit in God, that nothing in this life or in the “real world” hurts me or affects me–I’m grounded and feeding on Him and His Word and His Spirit, His presence, etc… and those things alone–not the dope of this world. Kinda like how a drunk person can be so inebriated, that they don’t notice it if you beat them or throw things at them or if they trip and fall and stumble, it doesn’t hurt them because of the numbing effect of the alcohol on their senses.

The mistake we traditionally make in this sacred cow, is believing and acting like the correlation Paul is making between being drunk on wine and filled with the Spirit lies in behavior alone. Really, I think–and this is my opinion from experience and reading the verse in context–it’s how we “relate” to our lives and each other.

Another similarity to keep in mind: We are in control of how much of both we allow into our lives. The carnal man chooses how many drinks he will have and how drunk he will allow himself to get, or at least, maybe if he’s got a problem and is “not in control”, but still–he chooses to get drunk or not to. The spiritual man is always in charge of how much he will get filled with the Spirit. At least in the sense that he can seek, and ask for, and find. We choose to go on in God or to remain apathetic in our walks with Him. In neither situation does man get overpowered by an outside force pushing itself on him to get drunk on wine or forcing him to be filled or “drunk” with the Spirit of God.

When we look at Hannah praying, we see that in the same way, despite circumstances, and in her barreness, she still cried out to God and connected with Him in such a way, that she got her miracle answer, but in the process was mistaken by onlookers for being drunk.  Sounds to me like the same thing that happened to the early Church at Pentecost!

Let’s go deeper in God, and see the cares of this life not affecting us, no matter how we look to those around us.

The following is a revelation I received around New Years. I was going through my e-mail folder today, and found this e-mail dated Dec 30th/03. The following changed my life, and I had shared it with a professor at FIRE School who taught on praying in tongues and divine healing. He had made a suggestion to take a book of the Bible and study it every day for a month, and just go over it over and over again and meditate on it, as well as studying with commentaries, concordances, dictionaries, etc…

Well, I had been reading it over and over again, listening to audio Bible mp3s of it on my laptop over and over again on the Song of Solomon. The point of this is that while you’re doing that, your prayer life—specifically the praying in tongues part—will work together with your reading and go deeper into an understanding of what the Word says. I had been reading Song of Solomon for over 25 days, every day, sometimes more than once a day, and marking my Bible up, taking notes in a journal, and so on. And what I’m about to share came suddenly while I was in a conversation with a backslidden friend on MSN. I edited and changed it so it would flow better as a blog/journal entry type of reading, rather than an e-mail (for example, all “me” and “you” references removed so it’s easier for other readers of this teaching to benefit from it)

First, I need to qualify what happened.
I was on the internet that night trying to encourage a backslidden friend to come back to God his Lover and Savior, using the stuff I’d been getting revelation from the Song of Solomon about. Check out the following passage.

“My dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your VOICE; for your VOICE IS SWEET, and your face is lovely. Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.” Song of Solomon 2:14-15 (NIV)

Man, you have no idea how deep that passage is just from reading it at a first glance. After reading it like twenty times, God was showing me things, like going to the hiding place (place of privacy, intimacy with Him) and letting him hear our voice, hence re-enforcing that you can’t only think your prayer, but He wants/needs to hear it out of our mouths. Well, I looked up the Hebrew for the word “ruin” for where it says that the little foxes ruin the vineyard, and you know what the real word is? Châbal: A primitive root; to wind tightly (as a rope), that is, to bind; specifically by a pledge; figuratively to pervert, destroy; also to writhe in pain (especially of parturition).
To bind. The King James says spoil, which shows the same concept. So did you catch that? Key words in that definition include to bind, pervert and destroy, withhold. Wow.

The foxes represent or are symbolic of the devil or demons. Anyway, I knew other passages of Scripture that talked about vineyards, but I didn’t REALIZE I knew what other passages of Scripture said regarding vineyards.
Like, duh, what are vineyards for? Grapes–WINE!!!!
Here are some other passages talking about the vineyard God plants.

Luke 13:6-9 – Where Jesus talks of a man planting a vineyard, and expecting fruit to grow, and how after three years of not seeing any fruit he cuts it down because the owner is fed up with it not bearing any fruit. We can tell this is referring to the believer or the church of believers, because the vine dresser acts as a type of intercessor, like Jesus or a shepherd of sheep, pleading with the owner not to cut it down. This passage is rich on its own for tons of other topics. See as well, Isa 3:14 where God enters into judgement with the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem for not tending his vineyard (his people), and two chapters later, in 5:1-7 the song of the vineyard where God prophetically sings about what He expected of his vineyard.

Matthew 20 – the parable of the vineyard workers and some working only the last hour and being paid as ones that worked all day. Psalm 80:15. Deut 24:21 are other good references.
Anyway, the vineyard is a type or a symbol of the Church in the NT, Israel in the OT and just in general the people of God. The devil is always seeking to destroy us in anyway he can.

Ephesians 5:18, be not drunk on wine but be filled with the Spirit, and we know one symbol for the Holy Spirit is NEW WINE (fresh just picked grapes), and the passage here in SoS talks about how the foxes ruin the vineyards that are in bloom (young, tender or sensitive)!!!! Man!

So I didn’t put two and two together until the very moment I was trying to woo this friend with the heart of God towards him, that God was calling him through this passage to the hiding place in the rock (Jesus) and wanted to see his face and hear his voice, indicating prayer and definitely indicating intimacy. So put these two verses together, and you see that going and being alone with God and praying, you’ll wind up “catching those foxes” that ruin the Spirit’s work in your life because you’re bound to them instead of walking in freedom. And he says in v. 14 that he loves the sound of our voice, so what better thing to be offering up with our voices than tongues since according to Romans 8:26 we don’t know what we ought to be praying? When I told my friend Matt that I never ever noticed what it was saying about the vineyard and wine, and as a Holy Spirit symbol, he told me “I’m sure the praying in tongues a lot helps. ” Then it dawned on me just what it is to walk in that revelation knowledge from praying in tongues that causes the Holy Spirit to just enlighten us to things in God’s word that we never noticed before. So praying in tongues to build yourselves up in the inner man helps keep those foxes from spoiling the vine (the Holy Spirit’s producing wine in our lives). Ain’t that wild?

This goes along with Jude 20 also. Jude was writing to the early–which was young and still in formation like ‘tender grapes’–to contend for the faith because FALSE DOCTRINE (foxes) had gotten into the church and rendered it powerless. So the remedy to that is verse 20, praying in the Holy Ghost. Praying in the Spirit is our inoculation against false doctrine (the foxes) because it is how the Holy Spirit teaches us. That goes right along with what I saw in the Song of Solomon.

So the application of this teaching?

Pray a whole lot in tongues. Not only will it help with your understanding and revelation of the Word of God, but it will help crucify your flesh and overcome the foxes that are holding us back. So pray in tongues a lot.  If you don’t and have never received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and would like to, then just let me know because it’s one of my favorite things to talk about.

Be blessed!
Click here to buy the best book I ever read on this subject, The Walk of The Spirit, The Walk of Power: The Vital Role of Praying in Tongues by Dave Roberson