In Matthew 7:24-27, after giving what it commonly called the “sermon on the mount”, Jesus said, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”
Some people seem to think, “Well I haven’t really given everything to God yet, and nothing has happened to me so far so it’s not really important.” Or they think, “God doesn’t really care if we don’t completely obey His Word. I know people who have been living wrong all their life, and everything is fine with them!”.
However, we have to remember that God’s time-table is NOT ours. God works in His own time and way. And you can rest assured that if God promises something in His Word, like He WILL punish sin and disobedience – HE WILL DO IT. We MUST make sure we don’t look at God’s mercy as God’s acceptance of our sin. Jeremiah preached to the nation of Isreal for years before God finally brought punishment. However, when it came – it came down hard. Like Jesus said in the above passage, “…great was its fall.”
On May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam, 14 miles upstream from Johnstown, Pennsylvania failed. When it failed, 20 million tons of water from Lake Conemaugh swept into the town killing 2209 people. Stories from that time period tell that the people of Johnstown had been warned many times before then that the dam was not safe, and so when a telegraph was sent on that day warning people the dam was about to break, some of them just laughed and went about their daily business. They ignored the warnings and paid with their lives.
In the passage above, Jesus said a WISE man will build his house on the rock, just as we should build our lives on JESUS CHRIST and NOTHING else. A foolish man is he who builds his house on the sand and ignores the warnings of God’s Word.
Psalm 33:4 – “For the word of the LORD is upright, And all His work is done in faithfulness.”