Today we have the ‘simple’ lessons Jesus taught – they are lessons of life – or death – of eternal existence – or oblivion, in an eternal sense – these are the only 2 alternatives before each of us.   Our ch. 7 in Mathew’s gospel opens out to us the simple but profound teaching of Jesus on the pathways of life that lay before each one of us.  Are we building our ways of life on the rock of Truth – or on the shifting sands of human opinion and resultant behaviour?

Jesus said, “everyone who hears these words of mine” (or reads them, hears them read) “and does not do them …”   Well, his life is built on sand – and when God acts, says Jesus in this parable “the rain (of his judgements will come)  and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”[v.26,27]

How awesome will be the “wind” and the floods” that the Creator will bring – soon – on our increasingly godless world!   Let us remember – clearly – the words we read in Hebrews last month. What a grim and blunt warning it was! “If we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire …” [10 v. 26,27]

Let us live more and more in ways which show our faith – and our expectation of divine deliverance – and then what spiritual strength we will develop. Then, as a result  the words of Jesus we will read in Matt. Ch, 24 will apply to us – as we sense the climax is near. In v. 13 we read, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” and in v. 22, “for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.”  

May our faith become so strong that we will be counted as being among “the elect” as, the fearsome winds of God’s judgments blow and we see “the floods” of his anger starting to spread over the world more and more.