Song of Solomon 1:6

Song of Solomon 1:6

I. What is this complaint? "Mine own vineyard have I not kept." The spiritual nature of a godly man is here supposed to be likened to a vineyard. (1) It is a soil in which things are planted and sown. (2). It is a sphere affording full scope for exertion, vigilance and zeal. (3) Judicious labour secures profit and reward. (4) Neglect makes evil fertile and brings miserable barrenness of good.

II. Look at the cause and the occasion of the evil complained of. (1) The cause of self-neglect is not in the vineyard-keeping for others; it must be in the character of the individual concerned. We are all of us apt to charge our faults and failings upon God's providence, or upon God's arrangements. The cause may be: (a) False views of a state of salvation, and of our personal obligations; (b) Excess of zeal for the welfare of others; (c) False amiability and accessibility to others; (d) A strong taste for the excitement of caring for others, and the vanity which prefers the position of keeper of the vineyard to the quiet condition of attending to one's own vineyard. (2) The occasion "They made me." A great deal of religious and benevolent work is done evidently as unto man, and not as unto God. We neglect our own vineyards because others call us away, and we obey. We become engrossed. We become too ardent. We are keeping the vineyards of others, just, perhaps, that it may be said that we are keeping their vineyards, and that we may have the praise of the fruit of the vineyard, or that we may please those who are connected with the vineyard. The occasion of self-neglect is suggested in these words: "They made me keeper of the vineyards."

S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit,4th series, No. 14.

Not merely made keeper; you may be put into an office, yet fail to do its duties faithfully and well. But the suggestion here plainly is, that the vineyards of others were diligently kept, while by a fatality which might be thought unparalleled, if it were not one of the commonest of things, the vineyard at home was neglected.

I. Probably there are few who have reached middle age, and have incurred the responsibilities of domestic life, who can think of the text without some inward self-reproach. The matter is one of wide concern when we remember that every Sunday-school teacher, every visitor of the sick or the poor, every human being who is called to say a word of warning to an erring creature, or a word of encouragement to a weary one; every father and mother whose example and conversation and entire life, to its least detail, may affect the impressionable nature of their child; is called to keep the vineyard at home, if they would not have it scatter the slight seeds of mighty evil wide and far. We are all of us watched by far more eyes than we think of; and spiritual characteristics in us may reappear in those who have no intention of imitating us, but who insensibly fall into ways which they continually see.

II. The great lesson of the text is, care for your own soul; care for the souls of your children; care for the souls of your friends; care for the souls of all you know and do not know. Every vineyard under the wide skies, where you can pull up a weed or cast one good seed, the smallest of that vineyard God has made you keeper.

So much the more diligently see that you keep your own; so much the more earnestly, as you would successfully mind the things of others, look to yourself. If we would do anything in this world, we with our little strength, we must begin with what lies to our hand; we must begin with the nearest. When things are right at home, we shall be abler to meddle with good result in things far away.

A. K. H. B., Towards the Sunset,p. 25.

References: Song of Solomon 1:6. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xvii., No. 990; A. K. H. B., Sunday Magazine,1881, p. 28; J. Vaughan, Children's Sermons,3rd series, p. 111.Song of Solomon 1:7. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs,p. 40; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. vi., No. 338, and vol. xi., No. 636; Ibid., Evening by Evening,p. 34.Song of Solomon 1:7; Song of Solomon 1:8. Ibid.,vol. xix., No. 1115; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 247; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 324.