Sinking Sand
By Scott Price
"And every one that hears these sayings of mine, and does them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it." Matt 7:26-27
By God's providence, I again was able to visit Myrtle Beach. As I approached the vast Atlantic Ocean, sandals in hand, I walked into the water just above my ankles. As the water came in and washed back out, I felt the grains of sand give way under my feet, being pulled away by the water. There were so many granules of sand coming out from under my feet that it made my whole body drop down an inch or so, even throwing me off balance.
Of course, the text in Matthew 7 came to mind as it had a few other times my feet have been able to experience this truth. I moved over to my left about a foot and tried it again, and another 50 or so times with the same result. I wondered what fool would build their house on such a foundation, which is so unstable? It would have to be someone who was either ignorant or just did not care. To be stable and secure, you have to dig down deep to hit something of more solid consistency to build on.
You do not need to visit the ocean to confirm the truth of Matthew 7:26-27 if you have been awakened by God's Spirit to see the worthlessness of your own righteousness. The righteousness that you worked so hard to try to establish would not meet God's requirements, which would not ease your conscience from the guilt of sin. But God alone be thanked that He revealed Jesus Christ the Lord to you in His gospel. The Christ who is the Rock is shown in the Gospel of grace to be the only One to bring in an everlasting righteousness by His own merit of doing and dying. Anything short of His performance, His merit, or His standard is to fall short of the glory of God and be sinking sand.
Let the warning echo far and wide that any self-righteous efforts to be accepted in that great and terrible day of judgment will result in the fall of your house and it will come crashing down... "and it fell: and great was the fall of it." Repent of your failing, sinking efforts to please a holy God and trust Christ alone for your exclusive source of righteousness. "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go you and learn what that means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Matt 9:12-13
