The Serpent in the Wall

“Whoso breaketh through a fence, a serpent shall bite him.” — EccLESiASTES X, 8 (Revised Edition),

Old Testament scholars are agreed that the reference in this verse is not to a hedge, or a frail fence of wood, but to a stone wall. It was the custom in Palestine to surround vineyards with a wall of loose stones, and these were a favorite haunt of snakes. In the book of Amos we read of a man’s “leaning his hand on a wall, and a serjpent bit him.” Isaiah also speaks of the arrow-snake making her nest among piles of stones. The text is one of a series which show the terrible risks which people run when they attempt to do certain things. The idea of this pungent passage is that if anyone undertook to break through the inclosure of his neighbor’s vineyard he might encounter a sly policeman in the shape of a snake; and the bite of the snake would be deadly poison! This is only a picturesque way of putting it that the way of transgressors is hard, and the wages of sin is death.

Human life is not an open prairie, over which (?verybody may roam at will and do as he likes. Our heavenly Father loves ns too well to allow us to follow the devices and desires of our own depraved hearts. He has therefore fenced us round with His inspired and infallible Word; and some of the most vital portions of that word are in the form of commandments. “Thou shalt” and “thou shalt not “are planted all along our pathway, to define the boundaries between right and wrong — between what we may do, and what we must never do. As long as we keep within the boundaries that God has fixed, we dwell in safety; we enjoy that true liberty which consists in the possibility of duty. To our great satisfaction, we find that the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; and the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

God never takes down his fences, nor does he ever lower them by a hand-breadth. Churches may revise their Confession of Faith as often as they choose, but the Almighty never allows His laws to be revised — or repealed. Some people seem to imagine that Sinai is extinct. Certain pulpits appear to be pitched at such a distance from that sublime mountain that its flaming peak is no longer visible, and its righteous thunders against sin

Tim SERPENT IN THE WALL. 95

are no longer audible. By these rose-water prophets of smooth things, the theology of law is voted obsolete and barbarous; the world is to be tamed and sanctified entirely by a theology of love. They preach a one-sided God — all mercy and no justice — with one-half of His glorious attributes under total eclii3se. Even sinners are not to be warned and entreated with tears to llee from the wrath to come. They are rather to be coaxed into holiness by a magical process which makes nothing of repentance, and simply requires a “faith “Avliich costs no more labor or self-denial than the lift of a finger. This shallow system may produce long rolls of “converts,” but it does not produce solid, subsoil ed Christians. Sinai is not an extinct mountain in Bible theology. Not one jot of its holy law has been lowered or repealed. In one very vital sense no Christian is “free from the law.” It would not be a “happy condition “for him if he were so, any more than it would be a happy condition for New York or Brooklyn to disband their police and to let loose their criminals into the streets. So far from being a kindness, it would be eventual cruelty to any man, or to any community to place them beyond the reach and the just penalties of divine law. This is especially an unfortunate time in which to preach a limberbacked theology which has no stiffening of the word” ought in its fiber, and which seeks to conceal the fact that there is a serpent of retribution lurking behind GocVs walls. Society will never be regenerated with cologne water. We need more of the sacred authority of law in our homes, more enforcement of law in the commonwealth, more reverence for God’s law in our hearts, more law-preaching in our pulpits, and more “law- work” in the conversion of souls who can represent and serve Jesus Christ by keeping His commandments. The very essence of sin is — breaking down, or breaking through God’s fences. Whoso attempts it will soon find that there is a serpent there that will sting him.

Let me bring this pungent text from a general statement to some special ai)plication. It is full of wholesome suggestions to the young, and I would advise every young man to copy it into his memorandum book. “Why preach so often to the young?” Are counsels and discourses to them especially needed because they are worse than those who are of older growth? Nay, verily; for in the biographies of Holy Scripture many of the most flagrant offenses, such as the drunkenness of Noah, the lecherous deeds of Lot and David, the criminal parental conduct of Eli, and the sins of Solomon were all committed by men advanced in life. No indictments recorded against youth could be worse than these. But the primal object of all preaching and teaching is lorevention of sin.

A faithful warning wisely heeded by the young may save them from the bitter experiences of corrupted character, or a life hoi)elessly wrecked. A buoy well placed in the channel, a signal lamp well lighted, are worth more than all the life-boats that may be launched when it is too late. Youth, also, is the period of ardent impulses and venturous risks. Commonly, it is stronger at the engine than it is at the air-brakes. It is immensely important, therefore, to prevent the young from attempting to break through God’s fences, or even to loosen a stone in His wisely ordained walls.

Let us take, for example, the most frequent and the most familiar case — the temptation to tamper with intoxicants. An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of attempted cure. The Creator has built up His solid barricades against alcoholic drinks, that antedate all statutes of “Prohibition”; with the Almighty’s statutes no human legislature can recklessly intermeddle with impunity; just as soon attempt to repeal the law of gravitation. In the solid wall of Total Abstinence are certain immutable principles founded on the constitution of the human body and on the inherent qualities of all intoxicants. Our bodies were created to be temples of the Holy Spirit, and never to be degraded into dens of debauchery. We are commanded to glorify God in the body, and every Christian is exhorted to preserve it, as well as the soul and spirit, ‘’blameless unto the coming of our, Lord Jesus Christ.” What are the laws which God has written on the human frame in regard to alcoholic stimulants Every stone in the solid wall of restriction against such stimulants bears some incontrovertible truth inscribed thereon, and each truth is confirmed by experience. Let us jDick up a few of these, and read on them the sufficient reasons why every young person should rigidly resolve never to touch any intoxicating drinks except on those rare occasions when a wise physician may prescribe them as a medicine. Even then they often cover up more than they cure.

I. The first reason is that no healthy human body requires alcohol, and the best work of the brain and of the limb is done without it. Alcohol stimulates, but it neither feeds nor strengthens. So far from being a true food, it interferes with alimentation. It absolutely lessens the muscular power. The young athletes in collegiate boat clubs, when under training for regatta races, are not allowed to use alcoholics. A famous pugilist once said: “When I have business on hand, there is nothing like cold water and the dumb-bells.” I once asked a celebrated pedestrian what beverage he drank during a walk of a thousand miles for a wager. He replied that he drank nothing but water or cold tea, and that if he had even drank a glass of wine, lie would have lost his race. He found that alcoholic liquors disturbed and wasted his vital forces. Whatever is gained by the first spur given by the alcohol is more than lost by the reaction that follows it.

II. Every glass of wine that contains a considerable amount of alcohol, and every glass of brandy, is an irritant. Our system recognizes the presence of an enemy, and tries to throw off and expel the diink as an intruder. Thousands of jieople call for liquors in the restaurants, or provide them on their tables with the mistaken idea that they i:)roniote digestion. Some persons cling to this delusion long after the alcohol has burned out the coats of their stomachs. Instead of helping digestion, the liquor hinders it; instead of warming, it increases the tendency to freeze, as has been proven by Arctic explorers over and over again. Dr. Livingstone, the heroic African missionary, was a physician himself, and he testified that he “could stand any and every hardship best by using water, and water only.” Sailors and soldiers can endure hard fights in tempests or on battlefields better with hot coffee than with any amount of grog. I have naturally a rather frail system, but I have stood nearly fifty years of hard work, with plenty of sound sleep, and not a drop of alcoholic stimulant.

III. A third reason for avoiding intoxicants is

41)0774 that they have a most dangerous affinity for the brain. Some poisonous drugs have an affinity for the heart, and others for the spine. A ghiss of strong wine or brandy makes for the brain as a hound makes for the deer in the forest. When the alcohol reaches the brain it overturns the throne of the reason, and transforms the man into the fool or the maniac. Like the shot in a naval battle which hits ‘’ between wind and water,” the alcoholic death-shot strikes where the mind and the body — the mortal and the immortal — meet together; and in innumerable instances it has the power to ‘’cast both soul and body into hell.” No human brain is proof against alcohol. The intellectual giant and the i)oor idiot are alil?:e struck down by its stealthy stiletto bite. Kemember, also, that every saloon is a den of rattlesnakes.

ly. No one is absolutely safe who tampers with an intoxicant. “Wine is a mocker, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” Not only the sting of the serxDent, but the subtlety of the serpent is in it. The deception lies in the fact that the habit of drinking will become confirmed before you suspect that it is enslaving you. Every glass of liquor increases the desii’e for another glass. A loaf of bread, a dish of beef, a draught of milk, satisfy hunger; they do not breed a ravening appetite. This fact makes it so difficult to use wine or brandy without running into excess. A habit of drinking is formed and confirmed before the drinker is aware. A famous Presbyterian minister, long years ago, used port wine to make him preach more effectively, and the stealthy ally overmastered him at length in the pulpit, and he was led home drunk and disgraced! He reformed, but it was only by the most rigid j)ledge and practice of teetotalism. Men often say that alcoholic beverages are “good creatures of God”; so far from that, God’s laio against alcohol is written on every human body in this fact, that alcohol arouses a depraved appetite that demands more and more of the poison.

You may say: “Everyone who drinks liquors does not become a sot.” Very true, but every sot drinks liquors; and not one in a million ever expected to become a sot when he began with his champagne or his sherry. Will you run the risk? I would not. The two reasons why I am a teetotaler are that I dare not trust myself, and I dare not tempt others by my example. The most deplorable wrecks are those of men or women who at the outset considered themselves perfectly strong and invulnerable. JSTothingi from the pen of Dickens can surpass a heartrending letter which I received from a cultured gentleman (then in an almshouse), who declared that he traced all the misery of his life directly to the” first glass he ever drank at the N House, in the capital

of Ohio.” First glasses have peopled hell! With whatever odds in your favor, will you run the fearful hazard? Then stop before you begin.

All these divine laws against intoxicants inscribed ux)on the human system are re-enforced by that inspired warning from God’s Word which blazes, as in letters of fire, on the forefront of this wall of Abstinence. “Look thou not ux)on the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it goeth down smoothly; at the last it hiteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.” At the last! But who can tell when that “last” shall ever end? When will the victim’s last cry of remorse be heard, or the last horror seize upon his soul?

In spite of all these warnings from God’s Word, and from bitter human experience, millions of young men venture to break through this fence, with the reckless hope that they will dodge the deadly adder. Let but the poison of that serpent enter into the blood and the globules of the brain, and it becomes a desperate battle for life; and where the grace of God gives one Gough the victory, a multitude of the fence-breakers die of the serpent’s venomous bite. I entreat you, never loosen a pebble from that Avail of total abstinence!

What is true of intoxicating beverages is equally true in regard to indulgence of all the sensual appetites. The Creator has built a solid barrier of chastity; everything beyond that wall, whether it be the lustful look or the wanton wish, is sin. It is vastly easier to keep clean than it is to wash oU the impurities from a mind once polluted. No man or woman, young or old, can venture to dislodge a single stone from the wall of purity, but out darts the serpent! Upon that inclosure the divine hand has written the solemn admonition,” Can a man take tire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned ‘^ can he walk ux)on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?”

God’s Holy Word reaches to every domain of human life, and its i)recepts are the best manual for the merchant or the tradesman in every department of business. The Golden Rule is the basis on which is reared the solid wall of commercial integrity; it is built by the plumb line that allows no deviation, by a single inch, from the absolute right. Provide things honest in the sight of all men; he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much; these are the rules that are written with a pen of iron, and graven with the point of a diamond. The divine law never recognizes honesty as a ‘’policy,” but evermore as a principle. As human life is a constant commentary on the Bible, we discover every day a most melancholy uniformity in the public disclosures of dishonesty. The newspaper announcements of defalcations and bank-plnnderings and embezzlements of trust funds all read alike. They all had the same beginning. The cashier, the clerk, the trustee, commenced his criminal career by picking out the mortar between the stones in God’s wall of honesty. He promised himself that he would reilace the stone which he was moving; and he deluded himself with the hope that, after he got through the wall, he could slip back again without being detected. But the serpent was too quick for him. Before he knew it, the viper’s fang had fastened itself upon his treacherous hand. As the first glass makes the drunkard, so the first dishonest dime makes the knave. In every counting room and bank, in every mart of exchange and place of traffic, ought to be written up the Eighth Commandment and the Golden Rule; and, underneath them, the pithy proverb, “Whoso breaketh through this fence, a serpent shall sting him.”

There are two sorts of fences that I must briefly allude to before closing. One is the inclosure that every wise parent should build around his own household. There is no such school of Bible religion in the land as a wellguarded. God-fearing home. There stands the domestic altar. There is exercised the influence that molds character from the cradle to the judgment seat. Such a home on earth is commonly the surest preparation for the Home eternal in the heavens. Of this “church in the house” the parents are the ordained pastors. To train up a family wisely for the Lord requires more “gamx)tion” than to write a book, and more grace than to i)reach a sermon. The ruling well of a household, requires, however, something more than that it be inclosed within certain sharj) j)ickets of prohibition. Example is more potent than precept. The daily examj)le of father and mother, and the whole pervading atmosphere of the house, ought to be a beneficent barrier strong enough to shut m, and also to shut out. We instruct our children more by what we are than by what we say to them; we restrain them the most when we restrain ourselves from evil courses. It has been wittily said that the “true time for a mother to begin the instruction of her child is twenty years before the child is born.” Home is neither to be a high-walled penitentiary nor an unfenced pleasure-ground. Bible precepts may wall our domestic inclosures around to make them safe, but love must keep the atmosphere inside warm and winsome. When a son or daughter does break through such fences of loving parental authority, they are sure, sooner or later, to feel the viper’s sting. The parable of the Prodigal Son is the sad story of a fencebreaker. It is rei)eated constantly in these days; but not eveiy transgressor sets his face again homeward, nor lias everyone such a forgiving father to extract the poison of the serpent’s bite.

What the home is to the child, the Church of Christ is, or ought to be, to its every member. Its Divine Founder intended it to be a fold — a fold for both the old and the young. Nor ought the lambs to be shut out in the cold until they are hardy enough to stand the sharp weather. Whoever comes into the fold must also come out from the world and be separate.

“Be ye not conformed to this world, but be ye transfigured by the renewing of your mind,” is the inscription which gleams clearly over the portal. The walls of every Christian church are intended to mark a distinct separation from the customs and the spirit of the outlying world. Christ’s pure and holy commandments are inscribed on every stone. Within that fold are safety, peace, and growth in godliness; outside of it prowls the wolf. To every Christian who has ever entered the inclosure of Christ’s redeeming love, and has vowed fidelity to his Master, comes this tenderly solemn warning: “Whoso breaketh through this wall, the serpent shall sting him.”