He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.
He who digs a pit for another will fall into it himself, and he who sets a trap will be caught by it, so that efforts to restrict others by oppressive laws risk turning back upon their makers and turning them into persecutors. That retribution was fulfilled when those who framed oppressive laws against the Biblicists afterward fell into the same kind of persecution themselves once the Catholics gained power.
Breaking through a hedge brings harm in its wake, for the hedge is the conscience and knowledge of right and wrong that God has placed around men, and the serpent that bites is sin striking those who cross that boundary. This warning holds in every age, as seen in Eve, Cain, Balaam, Saul, Judas, Ananias, Sapphira and others who broke through that moral boundary.
Parental counsel and home restraint are such a hedge of protection, and a youth who impatiently rejects a mother's pleading to stay home from hatred of restraint and desire to do as he pleases breaks it by going out into worldly liberty. That breach exposes him to the serpent's bite through beer drinking, cigarette smoking and evil associations, bringing certain moral harm and ruin even when the final end is not yet seen. In the same way a young woman named Mary refused her mother's restraint to go skating with a young man, which led through reckless excitement to shame and despair in a maternity home two years later, showing that the serpent's bite is the painful consequence of crossing that safeguard. So also a cashier's repeated gambling and misuse of bank money, beginning with a concealed breach and ending in arrest, shows that violating what is right leads to exposure to sin and its consequences.
He who digs a pit for another will fall into it himself, and he who sets a trap will be caught by it, so that efforts to restrict others by oppressive laws risk turning back upon their makers and turning them into persecutors. That retribution was fulfilled when those who framed oppressive laws against the Biblicists afterward fell into the same kind of persecution themselves once the Catholics gained power.
Breaking through a hedge brings harm in its wake, for the hedge is the conscience and knowledge of right and wrong that God has placed around men, and the serpent that bites is sin striking those who cross that boundary. This warning holds in every age, as seen in Eve, Cain, Balaam, Saul, Judas, Ananias, Sapphira and others who broke through that moral boundary.
Parental counsel and home restraint are such a hedge of protection, and a youth who impatiently rejects a mother's pleading to stay home from hatred of restraint and desire to do as he pleases breaks it by going out into worldly liberty. That breach exposes him to the serpent's bite through beer drinking, cigarette smoking and evil associations, bringing certain moral harm and ruin even when the final end is not yet seen. In the same way a young woman named Mary refused her mother's restraint to go skating with a young man, which led through reckless excitement to shame and despair in a maternity home two years later, showing that the serpent's bite is the painful consequence of crossing that safeguard. So also a cashier's repeated gambling and misuse of bank money, beginning with a concealed breach and ending in arrest, shows that violating what is right leads to exposure to sin and its consequences.