Introduction:
At first glance at this verse I think of the oddest image in my mind. I think of a cartoon. The verse at first glance seems comical, very much like the sly coyote. The roadrunner and coyote cartoons are great and so funny. One that is scheming and designing and laying out a trap for the roadrunner. Much effort was placed in to the digging of that pit. Much toil went into the labor of rolling stone. With every shovel of dirt, the coyote thinks, “I’ve got him this time!” With every sweat filled inch the stone is turned, he thinks, “I can almost taste him. He’s mine!” But in the end, the result is the same. The coyote is distracted, drawn away, or duped, and it is not long before he finds himself looking up from the bottom of his own pit or squished in to a funny paper thin shape. But just as soon as the disaster takes place, we find him in the next scene, doing the same thing all over, lighting a fuse that will explode in his own face or painting a wall that he himself will run straight into. But as I read the verse again, I am shaken to the core that this is a serious thought from the Word of God
WBTU:
This is the picture in this proverb. One may have dug a Indian tiger trap to catch some wild animal or make a prisoner or victim of his enemy. He covers it with a tarp, dirt and leaves. Later on, he forgets where the trap is, he falls into it himself to his doom.
Another picture here is of rolling a stone against the enemy, the stone falls back and crushes the author of the mischief.
Thesis: Let’s talk about some cases where this might happen, and then the principle that underlies it.
For instances:
II. Cases where it might happen
The deceiver.
Those who deceive others are likely to be caught in their deception.
Sir Walter Scott- Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive
a web is what is woven by a spider, and its function is to trap flies with its stickiness; the more they wriggle to get away, the more they entangle themselves in it. Scott is warning us that the liar spins and weaves his own trap for himself, not realizing he has done so until he's caught
Plato- The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.
They get used to falsehood until they now longer can distinguish truth from error.
They become like Pilate who asked, “What is truth?” when truth was staring him right in the face. No absolute truth, no such thing as truth.
Luke: "You lied to me. You said that Darth Vader killed my father." Obi-Wan: "When Anakin Skywalker turned to the Dark Side of the Force, the good man that was your father ceased to exist. So, what I told you was the truth -- from a certain point of view." -- Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - 1983
There are benefits to relativism. It means that we can never be wrong. As long as it is right for me, I’m right even when I’m wrong!
Exodus 20:16 says that we shall not bear false witness against our neighbor. This implies that the truth or falseness of a statement can be tested by whether it checks out with the facts.
When Satan said, “You shall not surely die,” it is called a lie because it does not correspond to what God actually said.
John 8:44- You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
The swindler- to cheat (a person or business) out of money or other assets. to obtain something by fraud or deceit. To use unscrupulous trickery to defraud others; cheat.
Get rich quick schemes. Proverbs 28:19-20: He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty. A faithful man will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished.
Proverbs 22:16: He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich—both come to poverty.
In 2010 from the news- Murders and violent crimes are down nationwide, but one kind of crime is rising steadily: scams against the elderly. Senior citizens are low-key victims who avoid telling family members for fear of going to nursing homes, or don't even report swindles for fear of having to testify in court. Senior citizens lose at least $2.6 billion a year to thieves, many of whom are in their own families, according to a study last year by the MetLife Mature Market Institute. And that estimate is conservative, MetLife says, given the schemes left unreported.
If not here then, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Those who swindle us our of our inheritance. Much like Jacob with Esau we get duped by the next group.
The tempter
Mark 9:42: And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.
1 Peter 4:4-5: They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
The opponent of Christ
The Jews rejected their Lord and tried to catch him. In the end they accomplished his death. But they were punished in the overthrow of their city. Matthew 23:37-38: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. In chapter 24:2 Jesus says- I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.
Herod was there and the last Herod is talked about in Acts.
The Romans were also there. The great historian, Gibbons, who wrote The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, gave five reasons for the fall of the great dynasty.
Rapid increase of divorce, with the undermining of the sanctity of the home.
Higher and higher taxes; the spending of money for bread and celebrations.
The mad craze for pleasure, sports becoming every year more exciting and more brutal.
The building of armaments, when the real enemy was within; decadence of the people.
The decay of religion; faith fading into mere form, losing touch with life, and becoming impotent to guide it.
A review of these principal factors in the decline of the Roman Empire can easily be related to our own time, and may illustrate our own decline from the status of a prominent world power.
But really it all goes back to their denial of Christ.
The world’s rejection of Christ mean’s the world’s ruin.
The underlying principle
Sin brings its own judgment. Many times there is no need for God to step in. Sin and evil will ruin itself. If give into sin, then sin will be our executioner.
Galatians 6:7-8: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Two illustrations:
1. The Emperor Charlemagne wanted to have a magnificent bell cast for the church he had built. An artist named Tancho was employed by the church to make it. He was furnished, at his own request, with a great quantity of copper, and a hundred pounds of silver for the purpose. He kept the silver for his own personal use, however, and substituted in its place a quantity of tin. He made the bell of tin. When the work was completed, he presented the bell to the Emperor, who had it suspended in the church tower. The people, however, were unable to ring it. So Tancho was commanded to help them. Tancho pulled so hard on the chain that the bell’s tongue fell down because of bad workmanship, and it killed Tancho.
Joe Almanza grew up in a family of organized crime called the Mexican Mafia. We were supplying most of the heroin for the Southern and Midwestern US. I became addicted to heroin. I went to many drug addiction agencies. I sold some heroin to an undercover agent and I went to prison. When I got down to the prison I got the red carpet treatment because my name carried weight. I didn’t want to be a religious person because in my culture that’s not cool. They say that if you become a believer that’s for sissies. I was in prison where they keep you in the cell for 23 hours a day and you get out for 1 hour. One night in 1982 I felt really down. One of the ways to deal with this is to commit suicide. Some rays of light came through my prison window. All of the windows there were painted black but every once in a while some paint would come off and a ray of light would shine through. On that night in 1982 a little ray of light came through. God seemed to be saying that He was that one ray of light. I began to belief and then he started to put people into my life. One day I was looking for something to read and I found a magazine by someone in the Churches of Christ. Now he is a minister at an inner city church. He says, “Sometimes your mess becomes your message.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nTGYFUsDo0)
