THE ABANDONED VINEYARD.
TEXT: SONG OF SONGS 1:6.
I pray God opens your eyes and give you the understanding you need for the total assimilation of what He has for you through this topic;
Song of Songs 1:6 “.They made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have abandoned”
These words are most challenging to all who are engaged in the service of the Lord.
Let’s see another scripture:
Proverbs 24:30-31
[30] “I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins.”
The warning which comes to us in this study may be summed up in the statement, “Beware of the danger of a busy life!” Too often, public profession and activity are accompanied by inward neglect and spiritual declension. You can be too busy with seemingly God’s activity that you forget or abandon the health of your own very spiritual life. The enemy wouldn’t mind keeping you busy in the office just to make sure that you abandon your prayer altar, Don’t fall a victim of keeping other’s vineyard yet, yours is abandoned. Don’t be too committed in teaching others how to study their bible yet you have stopped studying yours. It could be dangerous
If you look at that scripture closely you will see a level of responsibility…
Song of Songs 1:6 They made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have abandoned”
This person in question was actually doing something, He was active In the business of keeping vineyards. Simply put, he was busy helping lives… But unfortunately for him, his own life was not being helped, what a danger.
What are those vineyards that have kept you so busy that you no longer pay attention to your own vineyard? Now hear this, as much as God wants you to help others, He is more interested in your own life. Let me give you an instance from the scriptural perspective. When Jesus gave His disciples, communion, hear what He said…
Matthew 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
When He gave them the bread, He didn’t ask them to give others immediately, but He first told them you eat… By implication, Jesus was teaching them to first pay attention to their lives before they move on. Please there is a balance here. What am talking about is different from being selfish. Jesus asked them to eat first… God expects you to be spiritually sound as you help others and not to be spiritually kwashiorkored yet you’re helping others. No excuse is acceptable for not keeping your own vineyard.
Very soon as we progress, you will know what your vineyard entails. The one who confesses her neglect in this passage was not neglectful of her duties. She had been made black by the sun as she had laboured among the vines in the heat of the day; she was the keeper of the vineyards- but she had neglected her own vineyard.
From that passage, we observe the following… I have already established it from the scriptural perspective that it is possible to be busy with good works at the detriment of your own spiritual wellbeing. And that is not what the Lord wants from us.
So from that scripture, there are some specific things we shall be considering now
- THE PRIVILEGE WE ENJOY.
What is it? It is that we as Christians, as servants of the Lord, are keepers of the Lord’s vineyards. We have been saved by His wonderful grace and He has set us in a sphere of service where we are to labour for Him. Just like Adam, the Lord brought him to the garden and said to him in Gen 2:15, “dress and keep the garden.” It is a privilege to keep the Lord’s garden. But remember in him (Adam) keeping the garden the Lord will always come to him at the even of the day to fellowship with him.
Your fellowship with the Lord is more important than your work for God. The first call from Jesus to His disciples was a call for them to be with Him. That is fellowship.
Mark 3:13 “And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach,
The “b” part is the work/assignment aspect. Doing the Lord’s work is a great privilege. It’s also very rewarding because, God does not owe any man. Many people have been carried away by what they are doing for God that it is now their prayer life suffering it. You can be consumed in evangelism that you don’t have time for your personal study… You know what you’re doing, you have abandoned/neglected your own vineyard
- I pray God help you to understand the depth of this matter
So it’s a privilege to keep His vineyard no doubt. And am not saying you should stop, am only saying balance it
- You can’t be a man of God that is a blessing to others yet your wife can’t feel you. Your wife is your vineyard so she must not be abandoned. The bible spoke about David, having come back from war, he went home to bless his home
- You are a banker, very busy that your children can’t feel you, watch it, you are missing it. Those children are your vineyard, they must not be neglected..
No work no matter how rewarding or good it may be is worth making you to abandon your vineyard. Worst come to worst, resign… Very hard but am telling you the truth. So it is a privilege to keep others vineyard yes, but pay attention to yourself. Notice the force of the words in that verse, ”They made me…” The speaker had been made, compelled, to keep the vineyards. The same is true of us.
Song of Songs 1:6 They made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have abandoned”
He was made, compelled to keep the vineyards. We did not choose to serve the Lord, He chose us (John 15:16). All we did was to obey His call (Matthew 21:28) and allow His love to constrain us to be His servants (2 Corinthians 5:14). What are the vineyards in which we are serving the Lord? In a word, our vineyard is just where the Lord has placed us.
- If you are a mother, your vineyard is the home.
- if you are in business, your vineyard is in the office.
- if you are a soldier, your vineyard is in the army; and if you are a preacher, your vineyard is amongst the people to whom the Lord has commissioned you to minister His Word.
The manager of a large company once asked his minister to present the claims of Christ to the members of his staff. Why did he do this? He did it because he recognized that his vineyard was his business, where God had placed him. What a privilege it is to be a keeper of one of the Lord’s vineyards!
- As a doctor, your hospital is your vineyard. As you administer drugs to people, administer Christ to them, Not prescribing Christ to them is abandoning your vineyard.
Let me bring up that whole verse because there is something I want to show us
Song of Songs 1:6; “Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.”
What a danger? Those around him were very angry with him. You see, that is how other people will be angry with you as well when you fail your own vineyard. Her mother’s children that were angry with him were those he kept their own vineyard. Now they are angry with him because he failed to keep his own vineyard. What an irony? They should have been happy with him after all he failed his own vineyard because he was busy with theirs. But you see that is not how life is.
The day you failed, the first people that will attack you are those you ministered to.
It is those you trained their children in school that will attack you if you fail to train your own children. O yes such is life. That is more reason why you must not fail your own vineyard no matter the good work you’re doing, It is dangerous.
- THE DANGER WE FACE.
How very easy it is to serve the Lord zealously, to be on the job all the time, and yet to neglect our own inner life, our personal communion with the Lord Himself, our study of His Word and our fellowship in the secret place!
- How easily possible it is for the shoemaker’s boy to be the poorest shod!!!
- And how possible for the tailor’s son to wear the shabbiest clothes!!!
- How sadly possible it is for the preacher to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ, but to fail to adorn the doctrine in his own personal and private life!!!
This is the danger which is faced by every servant of the Lord. It is the possibility of neglecting the cultivation of one’s own inner life of communion with the Lord Himself. We can never lift others above the level of our own spiritual experience; it is therefore a very sad thing, as well as a very solemn thing, to neglect our own spiritual life.
Maybe you have failed the Lord in this respect? You have been so zealous in serving the Lord in your church, in your home, or as you have sought to witness for Him in the office or in the open-air meeting. What about your inner life? Do you need to make the confession: “My own vineyard I have abandonef?”
Could it be that in your private and personal life thorns have come up everywhere and the ground is covered with weeds? How can we avoid the danger of neglecting our own vineyard? One thing is certain; we must take action and apply the remedy, and we must do it immediately and frequently.
PRAY NOW
- My Lord I thank you for preserving my life from the attacks of the enemy
- O Lord I repent from my past negligence to my altar
- O Lord my God I ask that you enable me to avoid negligence to my altar
- Lord Jesus keep me away from whatsoever duty that will hinder my own personal spiritual growth
- My father help me not to abandon my vineyard because of the pursuit of the fading riches of this world
- O Lord help me to treasure my communion with you more than every other thing in this world
- Help me Lord Jesus to maintain a healthy fellowship with my fellow brethren
- O Lord give me a listening ear and a seeing eyes so that I can be vilant at all times
- Deliver me from every company that has been demonically assigned to terminate my spiritual fervency
- Thank you Lord for answered prayer.