"The Pit and the Ditch"

      Sometimes it seems that the wicked get away with their wickedness.  They don't.

     "He made a pit and dug it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.  His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate" (Psalm 7:15-16).

     "The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Romans 1:18).

    Built into creation are inviolable laws of reaping and sowing that ensure the consequences of sin, particularly regarding those who dig pits and ditches to harm others.  Moreover, God executes His wrath against the pit and the ditch diggers.  The judgment begins immediately, but its consequences often do not outwardly manifest themselves in a manner we can see.  The Psalmist cried out, "O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show Thyself!… How long shall the wicked triumph?" (Psalm 94:1; 3).  We may wonder the same as dealers of violence seem to happily and blithefully execute their cruelty.  

    The truth of the matter first involves the inner sorrow and turmoil that always results from sin.  Even pathological murderers suffer this immediate fate as they "kick against the pricks" of God's laws (Acts 9:5).  The Holy Spirit also moves against sin in the deepest environs of the violent heart, ensuring an unrest and misery beneath the surface of awareness that inevitably finds its way into the conscious experience of the offender.  Open judgment will follow, perhaps after what may seem to us a long season, and as in the case of Haman and Mordecai in the book of Esther, the wicked ends up hanging on the gallows he built for the just (Esther 7:10).

   Sometimes grace interrupts the sad process, as in the case of the Apostle Paul.  A man of violence, as executed upon Christians, became a man of love, as expressed to Christians.  We do well to pray for the same in others who seek our harm.  In those who will not turn from their wickedness, we need not fear that God overlooks their cruelty, nor that they somehow escape the reaping of their sowing.  They don't, either in the immediate or the longterm.  The pit and the ditch await all who dig them to the hurt of others as their "violent dealing" inevitably crashes down upon their own pate.

"The LORD is known by the judgment which He executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands."

(Psalm 9:16)

Weekly Memory Verse

     Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

(Ephesians 5:11)