Many Christian people entertain the notion that apostasy from the truth begins with a denial of one or more of the fundamentals of the faith, such as the infallibility of the Bible, the deity of Christ, or the efficacy of His redemptive work. The moral aspect of apostasy, they suppose, comes about in much the same way.
This view is not wholly correct, for apostasy generally begins, not with holding, but with condoning spiritual or moral error.
Eve fell into sin, not by denying what God had said but by listening to Satan.
In the Song of Solomon, the Shulamite damsel, doubtless quoting the words of Solomon, her beloved bridegroom, notes that the vineyards are in full blossom. Soon the grapes will be ripe for the marriage feast. But a danger threatens the harvest: βthe foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines.β These must without fail be βtaken,β or caught (Song of SolomonΒ 2:15).
What a striking lesson we have here! How often Godβs people have stood at the threshold of great blessing and an abundant spiritual harvest when, alas, all has been lost β not through a frontal attack by the adversary, but by those wily little foxes that had been permitted to spoil the vines. Some doctrine or practice clearly unscriptural and subversive of spiritual blessing, had been condoned when, like the little foxes of Solomonβs song, they should have been caught and disposed of. source
