When we come towards the end of chapter
2 to one of the verses that probably for me was, until I studied it
more closely, was one that I'd heard used so often. take us
the little foxes, the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the
vines for our vines have tender grapes. Why don't we go back
and read from the beginning of chapter 2. I am the rose of Sharon, says the
Lord, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so
is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees
of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under
his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my
taste. He brought me to the banqueting
house, and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons,
comfort me with apples, for I am sick. with love. His left hand
is under my head and his right hand does embrace me. I charge
you, O you daughters of Jerusalem, by the rows and by the hinds
of the fields, that you not stir up nor awaken my love till he
please. The voice of my beloved, behold,
he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved
is like a roe or a young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our
wall. He looketh forth at the windows,
showing himself through the lattice. My beloved spake and said to
me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away, for lo, the
winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear
on the earth, the time of the singing birds is come, and the
voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts
forth Her green figs and the vines with the tender grape give
a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away. O my dove, thou art in the cliffs
of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs. Let me see thy
countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice,
and thy countenance is comely. Take us the foxes, the little
foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes.
My beloved is mine and I am his. He feedeth among the lilies until
the daybreak and the shadows flee away. Turn, my beloved,
and be thou like a roe or a young heart upon the mountains of Bitha. Song of Solomon, as we have seen,
and I've said so many times, is a glorious picture of the
love relationship between the Lord Jesus and His Bride. Until recent scholarship took
over the churches and the minds of most people in this world,
our forebears universally almost to a man saw this as a story
and a picture, a poem of what it is for God's children to be
lilies, lilies because of the work of the Lord Jesus, and lilies
living among thorns. And in those verses, just prior
to the ones we're looking at this morning, he calls on her
to rise up, my love, my fair one. Rise up, my love, my beautiful
one, and come away. Verse 13, arise, my love, my
fair one, and come away. And where does he want to come
to take her to? He wants to take her As he always
does, he wants to take her to a place of fellowship and communion. Norm spoke so well on Thursday
night about the vital, living, real, energising union of the
Lord Jesus with his bride. They are, we are. children of God, one with Him,
flesh of His flesh and bone of His bones. His love is the real
one. His love is the powerful one.
But all through this song, in so many places, we see the shulamite,
we see the church calling out to Him because she has been led
astray. She's been led to places where
that love union and that love communion is taken away from
her. In verse four she says, draw
me, of chapter one, draw me and we'll run after you. She talks
of her mother's children being angry with her, and they made
me the keeper of the vineyards. I think that's a reference to
legalistic religion that binds people. And then she realises
that my own vineyard, my own vineyard, the place where I have
communion with my saviour, I have not kept. In verse 7, she's turned
away by the flocks of the companions and she asks him again, tell
me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou
makest thy flock to rest at noon. again and again through the Song
of Solomon. We see that she has had and enjoyed
the delights of union and communion and fellowship with her Saviour.
And then it's been taken away from her. And in verse 15, I
believe she makes another appeal. Take us, the foxes. In fact, it can be well read
as, catch the foxes for us. As someone who has a few toques,
foxes are our enemy. They are the big enemy. When
I was about Jennifer's age, I began my first commercial venture.
I've failed in every single one of them throughout my life. But, I did a deal with my mum and
dad. I did a deal. I said, I'll buy the chooks. And I bought 16 white leghorn
chooks. They were really nice white chooks.
And I said, I'll buy the chooks. You pay for the food and you
can have some eggs and I can sell the rest of the eggs. So
there I was as a little bloke and I used to put my dozen, my
cartons of eggs on the back of my bike and I'd take them down
around the village of Tererra. And so I had these chooks, and
I had them in cages, and they got let out every afternoon,
but they had their cages, and I had them trained. And across
the front of the shed was a bar, and I could go along and tap
on the bar, and these chooks in there, you could go back into
their cages, and you'd let them all down, and they were really
wonderful, these white chooks. And around the bottom of the
cages was wire to keep the foxes out. All of us know what foxes
do. Anyway, I came over one morning
and I couldn't work out why my chooks couldn't stand up. And
why two or three of them were dead. And there was a hole in
the wire that night. Made, I think, by the foxes,
not seen by me. And the foxes had come along
and they'd eaten the legs off my chooks through the wire in
the bottom of their cages. And the ones that weren't dead,
I had to destroy. And it took me another 30 years
almost before I could have chooks again. I was so affected by it.
Foxes are typified in the scriptures as evil things. They are typified
as those who persecute the church, Herod. was named as a fox by
the Lord Jesus. The false prophets of Israel,
which we'll look at later in Ezekiel, are called foxes. And it's really good for us to
think about foxes and what they do and how they live their lives. Foxes are known for so many things,
aren't they? They're known for their cunningness
and their craftiness. They are sly. In a sense, almost
secretive animals. They can live in cities and people
don't even know that they're living there. It's remarkable.
They are persistent. They're waiting for an opportunity. They keep patterns of patrol. The foxes, or the fox that got
my chickens all those years ago, went past that chicken yard every
night. Night in and night out. They just keep the same routine
and they are looking for a way to do their damage. They can
seem quite attractive animals from a distance and we see them
trotting across our paddocks with their long fluffy tail. They look very attractive from
a distance and it's only when you see them in their real activities
that you know that they are vicious killers. And they are nocturnal. They hunt at night and most of
their damage is done while we sleep and slumber and rest. and their damage is not seen,
not realised, until the sun rises on them. And they are smelly
things. They leave a distinctive, horrible
smell. And they are able to live both
on vegetables and meat. One of the reasons they are so
successful is because they happily live on a diet of all sorts of
fruits and vegetables. We have difficulty growing sweet
corn in small patches at Terraria now because the foxes take the
sweet corn. They eat nearly all of it. They are, of course, pictures
of Satan. pictures of the evil that's in
this world. Pictures of what we have brought
into this world by our fall in our father Adam. You think of
those things that we've just read about the foxes and you
think of Satan's activities in the garden. He slithered into
that garden. as a snake. And he talked to
Eve, and originally, initially, she wasn't horrified by a talking
snake. But his work was subtle. His
work was destructive. His work was deadly. And his work is an ongoing work. No wonder the Shulamite, having
been called away by him, having experienced his love, no wonder
she calls out to her beloved, take us the foxes. Catch the foxes for us. During the week I was reading
and preparing this and one of the things I used to do in India
was and I still do sometimes now, is that the Bible has been
so arranged that we have a chapter of Proverbs for every day of
the week, and five Psalms for every day of the week. And so
lots of people I knew, know, have known in the past would
read one chapter of Proverbs, and the idea was that the chapter
of Proverbs would give you wisdom in dealing with men, and then
the five chapters of Psalms would help in your relationship with
God, and that's it. It's a helpful way of reading
the scriptures sometimes, but occasionally when I'm wondering
what to look at next sometimes or just needing some time to
read quietly, I actually go back to that old thing and try and
work out where I should be up to. I read Proverbs 7 the other
morning. Let's just read. If you can turn
in your Bibles to it. It's not long. But it's just fascinating, isn't
it? The reality is, of course, that our flesh, having succumbed
to Satan's activities, is now a ripe and happy and fruitful
hunting ground for him. We are held people outside of
Christ, held captive by Satan to do his will. This is what
the wise man says. My son, keep my words and treasure
my commands within you. Keep my commands and live, and
my law is the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers and
write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, you are
my sister, and call understanding your nearest kin, that they may
keep you from the immoral woman. And wherever we come across the
immoral woman in scripture, we're talking about that great harlot,
Babylon. Free will, works, religion. Man-centred religion. And in
verse 5, the second part of verse 5, we see why she's so successful. You bind wisdom, you say wisdom
to your sister and understanding your nearest kin that they may
keep you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters
with her words. For at the window of my house,
I looked through my lattice and saw among the simple I perceived
among the youth, a young man devoid of understanding passing
along the street near her corner. He took the path to her house
in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night.
And there a woman met him with the attire of a harlot and a
crafty heart. Foxy. She was loud and rebellious. Her feet would not stay at home.
At times she was outside, at times in the open square, lurking
at every corner. So she caught him and kissed
him. With an impudent face, she said
to him, I have peace offerings with me. Today I have paid my
vows. So I came out to meet you. diligently
to seek your face, and I have found you. I have spread my bed
with tapestry, colored coverings of Egyptian linen. I have perfumed
my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our
fill of love until morning. Let us delight ourselves with
love. And as it is right, she knew,
for my husband is not at home. He is gone on a long journey. He has taken a bag of money with
him and will come home at an appointed day. With her enticing speech she
caused him to yield, with her flattering lips she seduced him. Immediately he went after her
as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction
of the stocks. Till an arrow struck his liver,
as a bird hastens to the snare, he did not know it would cost
his life. Now therefore, listen to me,
my children, pay attention to the words of my mouth. Do not
let your heart turn aside to her ways. Do not stray into her
paths. For she has cast down many wounded,
and all who were slain by her were strong men. They thought
they were strong. They thought they could stand. They thought they could survive
without God's wisdom and God's understanding. Her house is the
way to hell, descending to the chambers of death. No wonder the Shulamite says,
to the Beloved. Take us the foxes. Catch us the
foxes. You see, the first thing that
this verse shows us is that she, unlike so many others, actually
was aware of the existence of the foxes. She recognised that
there are foxes. We live in an age where the one
thing that seems to be missing from so much Christianity is
a clarity about the fact that Satan masks the roads as an angel
of light. And he does prowl like a fox. And He does seek those who can
devour. It seems in this age where tolerance
and moderation and a thing called love and understanding have been
removed from their gospel foundation. And the warnings of the Lord
Jesus have seen to me to have so largely fallen on deaf ears. Again and again we read in the
Old Testament, God's prophets spoke. They spoke words of warning. They spoke words about who the
Lord Jesus is and how he saves his people. And they spoke words
of seriousness about deviating from the path, building on another
foundation. He talks about being beware. Beware, beware, beware, the Lord
said to his people. Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees. Yeast is so small that you can
hardly see it, and yet give it time, give it time, and its effects
will be felt. She recognises that these that
lead her stray are foxes. Opposition to the gospel is a
constant theme throughout the scriptures. Why did Cain murder
Abel? Abel came to God relying on the
blood sacrifice, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, that blood
shed for him. Cain said, we can worship God
how we like. I can bring my veggies. I don't
need to honour God's way, God's appointed way of sacrifice. Noah preached for all those years
and people ignored him. Moses, a remarkable man. Imagine Moses. He was in his
80s. when he led those people out
of the land of Egypt. What more stupendous miracles,
miracles of judgment, miracles of grace, what amazing displays
of the gospel those people received. And yet they stood, again and
again, as you read the accounts, they stood opposed to Moses and
to Aaron. It's almost mind boggling in
its stupidity. And that's where the problem
is, isn't it? What is the heart of man? What
does God say about the heart of man? desperately wicked and beyond
cure. And we have whole enterprises
now trying to help people to understand it. God says it's
desperately wicked and beyond cure and no one can understand
it. The hearts of men are desperately
wicked. That's why I'll keep coming back
to it. She says to the beloved, you
catch the foxes, you expose the foxes. I don't have the capacity to
do it. And many of us are born witness
to the fact that God in providential love and care for us sitting
here, has exposed people, exposed their hearts, exposed them as
they have been exposed to the gospel. And things have been
revealed by God that could never be revealed by men. Psychiatrists
and psychologists could analyse them all day long and they could
never show the things that God shows us. And the test always, isn't it, is that God has a truth. God has a truth about himself. A truth about His Son. A truth about the way He saves
His people. He has gospel truths. And opposition to the gospel
is opposition to God. May God help us. to take the
gospel and allow God to use the gospel to expose the foxes. Scriptures, it's hard to find
a page in this book. I challenge you, go to this book
and find a page where it doesn't talk in one way or another about
the false teachers and about the foxes and about the dangers
of them. In Ezekiel 13, Ezekiel has a
word from the Lord. It came to him, he said, Son
of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel who prophesy. And say to those who prophesy
out of their own heart, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says
the Lord God, this is God's word to them, woe to the foolish prophets
who follow their own spirit. They prophesy out of their own
heart, they follow their own spirit and have seen nothing. Oh Israel, your prophets are
little foxes in the deserts. And what have they done? They
have not gone up into the gaps to build a wall for the house
of Israel, to stand in battle on the day of the Lord. They
have envisioned futility and false divination, saying, thus
says the Lord, that the Lord has not sent them. Yet they hope
that the word may be confirmed. They say they speak for God,
and yet God has not sent them. They say they have words from
God, and God has not spoken to them. And they will, according
to verse 9 of Ezekiel 13, they will suffer eternal condemnation
for it. And why? Because, indeed, they
have seduced my people. How do the false prophets seduce
people? Always saying peace. Peace. You can go your own way. God is gracious. You can worship
him however you like. God is kind and loving and non-suffering. You can do as you wish. God covers
a multitude of sins. You can sin and it doesn't matter. You can believe what you like
about God and someone will give you peace. God calls it seduction. God calls it evil. Again and again, they will give
people comfort. They'll give them comfort in
doing what they want to do. They'll allow them to think that
their activities and their beliefs are just little problems. Slip-ups are someone called sin. Simon and I, a couple of years
ago, just the occasional slip-up. And preachers will give them
peace. God says that there is a coming
of time, isn't it, in verse 11. They plaster over, they make
a show of a wall with untempered mortar. So from a distance, their
wall looks white and shiny. And there comes a flooding rain
from God and great hailstone shall fall, and a stormy wind
shall tear it down. Surely when the wall has fallen,
will it not be said to you, where is the mortar with which you
plastered it? Therefore, thus says the Lord
God, I will cause a stormy wind to break forth in my fury, and
there shall be flooding rain in my anger, and great hailstones
in fury to consume it. Isaiah talks about the refuge
that people have. It's a refuge of lies. They have made a covenant, says
God, a covenant with death. Everyone goes to heaven. Most
nearly everyone goes to heaven. Hitler might miss out and some
really, really nasty people that I know. Everyone goes to heaven. In fact, I had a discussion with
a guy a few weeks ago who was absolutely convinced that Satan
and the demons and everyone goes to heaven. It's great peace,
isn't it? It's great peace in that message
that everyone goes to heaven. God loves everyone. Everyone
must go to heaven. Jesus died for everyone. Everyone
must go to heaven. The Holy Spirit's trying to save
everyone. Everyone must go to heaven. Behold, says the Lord
God, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, a stone which is
unmoving, a stone which is solid. He says it's a tried stone, a
precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. It has been tested.
for these thousands of years, and it has still stayed exactly
as stable, exactly as precious, exactly as sure as it ever was. He who believes will not act
hastily. He says, I also make justice
the measuring line and righteousness the plummet. A plummet is just
what we have as a plumb bob, isn't it? You hold it here, there's
a weight at the bottom with a little point on it, and it says, this
is righteousness. At that point there is righteousness,
and nowhere else is there righteousness. There is righteousness in God. There is the righteousness of
God, and there is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, and there
is no righteousness outside of Him whatsoever. I will make justice
the measuring line and righteousness the plummet. Hail will sweep
away The Refuge of Lies The reality is that most of the
people in this world and most of the people sitting in the
churches in this world have a refuge. And it's a refuge that cannot
stand against that righteousness. And it's a refuge that calls
into question the very justice of God. For anyone who says that
Jesus died for everyone is saying to God that he is unjust. When he drew that sword and slew
his son with the wrath and vengeance of God, And some of those people
for whom Jesus died end up in hell. They are saying that God
is unjust. I will make justice the measuring
line. For any of us who have done any
building, we want a tape measure that measures accurately. And
a tape measure that measures consistently. that measuring
line and that plummet are true. And there is, because they are
true, everything that denies the justice of God and the righteousness
of God are necessarily false. Hail will sweep away the refuge
of lies, and waters will overflow the hiding place. Your covenant
with death will be annulled. I'll be all right when I die.
Your covenant with death will be annulled. Your agreement with
Sheol will not stand. When the overflowing scourge
passes through, then you'll be trampled down by it. You see, she sees that there
are foxes. She sees that there are little
foxes. And the little foxes, which seem
small, are the ones that often go unnoticed and do great, great
damage. Little foxes that spoil the vines. Most of the commentators I read
will talk about the fact that this is a call upon you to deal
with your personal sins. And your sins are grievous and
God says do not sin. Your sins are hurtful to yourself
and your fellow man. They are wicked and evil and
inexcusable. They spoil the vines. But I think what these verses
are talking about is what the scriptures again and again talk
about. is the reason for the contempt
of God in our land is not the wickedness and the harlotry on
television and in movies and what happens on the streets and
the homes of our societies. She's talking about the foxes,
the things that spoil are the things about false teaching,
where the Lord Jesus' name is held in contempt in our land. The name of God is a common blasphemous
name, and everywhere in Scripture where that happens, God attributes
the problem not to the wicked evil world. We expect no more
of them. The problem is that those who
stand where I'm standing now make Jesus out to be a try-hard
failure rather than a King who sovereignly rules over them.
That man and his will and his worth can stand above God and
even bring God into an obligation to reward them and honour them
for the things that they have done. See for the Shulamite, it's a
different matter altogether isn't it? As we read through this poem,
just look back with me. So the Shulamite is writing,
not As people say, a tender grape
is therefore a young convert. And we must be careful. We must
always try and care and nurture the faith of young people and
little ones. And we must, as faithfully as
God would allow us, present the gospel to them faithfully. And
as faithfully as God would allow us to present to them that we
don't have any righteousness in ourselves, Our righteousness
is from God. But the Shulamite has a bigger
concern, hasn't she? You see, she is someone who has
experienced the love of God, verse two. His love is better
than wine, in chapter one. She has savored his good ointments,
verse three. She has been brought into his
banqueting house. She sees herself as black with
sin, but comely. He's heard his declaration of
grace and love for her. Behold, you are beautiful, he
says of her. He describes her as a lily among
the thorns. And he comes skipping and leaping
over the hill, and he reveals himself. in the gospel and gospel
ordinances and reveals himself through the lattices and he speaks
in verse 10 of chapter 2 and calls her away to be with him. But she knows how easily and how
subtly she is led astray from communion. How easily and subtly
she's led away to doubt His words of grace and His words of promise. Is that not your experience? prone to wander, Lord I feel
it, prone to leave my courts above." We cry out, don't we? Because
we have known. We have known something of communion
and therefore we feel the absence of it. And we feel it enormously. See, for her, her mother's children,
they made me the keeper of the vineyard. I think it's talking
about legalistic, works-based religion. You get out there and
you work and you work and you work. And the result of all this
hard work was a burnt body by the sun and the fact that her
own vineyard she hadn't kept. In verse 7, she'd been led away
separated from his flock, separated from his rest, separated from
his manifest power. He's taken a flock and he's made
them to rest away from the hot sun at the noontime. And she's now a lily, delicate,
soft, and beautiful. a lily who lives among the thorns. You see, she says, take us the
foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines. Our vines have
tender grapes or tender flowers. You see, the grace of God is a powerful, innovating force
that moves everything in this universe. The stars twinkle because
of God's covenant love for His people. The sun shines. It rains
on this earth because of His love and His covenant promises
to His people. He works all good things. He
works all things for their good. They're good because they come
from his hand. But grace, from the Shulamite's
perspective, and I believe from ours if we're prepared to be
honest, is a delicate thing. At times it blooms magnificently
like the lily and seems gorgeous. and other times for us, just
a mere touch of a thorn can take away the joy of the Lord from
us. Is that not the case with you?
Little things, little sins, little words, all of them cause us for a time
to doubt. They come along and they say
to you, look at the righteous things I've done. And they'll
give you just, with great humility, they'll give you just a little
list of their righteous deeds in the last couple of days. And
how do we respond? I don't know about you, but my
immediate response is, dear oh dear, that's the bar of righteousness. And I haven't got there. I'm
surrounded by these people who are the most remarkable witnesses
and they want to tell me about it and do the most remarkable
deeds and they want to tell me about it. And they think by doing
it that they will encourage other people. God's children are deeply
discouraged by those things. We don't find the apostles boasting,
do we? Where does Paul boast? Let him who boasts, boast in
the Lord Jesus. Grace is a tender plant. God's work amongst his people
is tender and produces tenderness. And the foxes spoil the vines. They spoil the vines because
the vines are able to be spoiled. The false teachers come and gnaw
at the vine. One of the things that was fascinating
in one of the commentaries I read about the foxes is that one of
the things that the foxes do with grapevines, I have no experience
with grapes, but anyway, they say that the foxes will come
when the grapevines are young and tender and they will chew
on the vines and sap and drink the sap that flows. It's an amazing
picture of what false man-centred works religion does. See what the foxes take away
is revealed in the next verse, isn't it? The foxes always Whether
you see foxes as sins, and I think they are, they are subtle and
dangerous and they are little. But the end result is loss of
communion with God. And it's just little sins, isn't
it? Think of the times that we have
fallen, it's little things, isn't it? We always have an excuse. We always have a ready-made excuse. David had fought many battles. and he'd been king over Jerusalem. There was so much governmental
administrative stuff to do. There was a temple to build in
Jerusalem and he, even though he wasn't gonna build the temple,
he was responsible for organizing the materials for the temple.
He had lots of reasons for being in Jerusalem when he should have
been with his troops. And he had lots of reasons for
being on the roof of his house. A beautiful evening, he's done
his hard work and he needs to take a rest. And what does he
do? He looks. Not just once, but he looks again. And as tragic and awful as that
scene is, and the consequences shocking to millions of people,
The thing that distressed David the most, and for the next 12
months, was his loss of communion with God. You can read about
it, I think it's Psalm 34 or 36. See, little things are big things. Little doctrinal errors, little
sins, little excuses that we'll make are big things. And let's remember again, as
I've said so often, we don't have in ourselves the capacity
to take the foxes. Jesus Our Lord Jesus is made
of God unto us, our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification,
and our redemption. See, they destroy the vines. They spoil the vines. They rob
God's people of that communion which she delighted in. My beloved is mine, she says,
and I am his. My beloved is mine. The robe
of his righteousness that makes me beautiful is mine. The comfort of his love is mine. The protection of his guidance
is mine. The company and communion of
his own banqueting is mine. The fruit of his faithfulness
is mine. The joy of belonging and being
loved is mine. And we are his. We are his. We belong to him. Flesh of his flesh, bone of his
bone. You see, she'd gone to other
places and she couldn't find him. This is loss of communion. She sought him, verse 1 of chapter
3, on my bed at night. I sought him, I sought him, but
found him not. She went out into the street,
she went out into the broad way, verse 2 of chapter 3. The broad
ways, there are many of them and they are very broad. You
can choose your own. I sought him, but I found him not. You see, the big issue in Christianity,
the big thing, the big thing is a love relationship with a
real saviour who really is God, who really does reign, who really
does reign in the hearts and over the hearts of his people.
He can reveal the foxes. He can take the foxes. He alone
can find the little foxes that we can't find at all. And always the foxes are going
to do the same. They're going to say to us that
Jesus is not quite enough. Jesus is God, but Jesus is a
wonderful saviour, but... Jesus has done all he can, but... Jesus has done these wonderful
things for you, but... But you must, you must, you must... Our God is a bigger saviour than
all of that. and he nurtures this love relationship. He withdraws and he comes back. And when she finds him, if you
turn to verse 4 of chapter 3, When I found him in my soul,
lovers, I held him and I would not let him go. She wants She longs for continued
experience of Him. I'll finish with another poem.
A mind at perfect peace with God. Oh, what a word is this! A sinner reconciled through blood. This, this indeed is peace. By nature and by practice far,
how very far from God. Yet now by grace brought near
to him through faith in Jesus' blood. So near, so very near
to God, nearer I cannot be, for in the person of his dear Son
I am as near as he. So dear, so very dear to God,
more dear I cannot be, The love wherewith he loves the Son, such
is his love to me. Why should I ever anxious be,
since such a God is mine? He watches over me day and night,
and tells me, mine is thine. He who watches over Israel, neither
slumbers nor sleeps. The foxes do their work in a
sly and cunning way, but our God is bigger than the foxes. Let's pray.