Transcript
Matthew 7:24:
Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. And it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. And it fell. And great was its fall.
If there were an annual award for deadbeat parents of the year my leading candidates for 1995 would be Wolfgang and Lisa Von Nester. Wolfgang is a young husband and father twenty-three years of age and Lisa is his twenty-four-year-old wife. They had a three-year-old little boy named Wolfgang Junior whom they call Wolfie. As recently as last month the family was living in Hagerstown, Maryland, which happens to be a town that I have visited many times.
But toward the end of the month they decided to skip town and to go all the way out to California. Now the reason for this was that a man who had threatened the family was being released from prison. And so they decided to go to California. And that’s exactly what they did. And on June the 2nd they were sitting in a coffee shop in California. And through the window of the coffee shop they observed the police inspecting the stolen license tags that they had on their car.
They did not go back to their car. They walked out of the coffee shop. They went to the house of a friend and then to the house of a relative. They went to various churches seeking assistance. And finally they went to the California Department of Social Services which happened to be closed. Now my friends it is just at this point that Wolfgang and Lisa did something which qualifies them for my nomination as the deadbeat parents of 1995.
You see they went to a mall. They sat little Wolfie down in the middle. I would presume on a bench or something. And then they left him there. They abandoned their car. They hopped a bus that would take them to a Grateful Dead concert in San Francisco where they hoped that somebody would carry them back to Maryland. People gave them food and clothes and a backpack. And they started out for Maryland on their own.
But in Nevada a driver of a strawberry truck picked them up and took them all the way back to Hagerstown. And after they got back to Hagerstown they went to a party with some of their friends. And would you believe this? They actually bragged. They actually bragged about leaving their little boy behind. And they talked about their plans to hike the Appalachian Trail. And that’s exactly what they were doing when the authorities caught up with them after looking for them for three weeks.
And at last report this deadbeat couple of parents were locked up in the Washington County Detention Center in Maryland awaiting extradition to California. Because there they are faced with one charge of child abandonment and one charge of child endangerment. And you know why they did it? Well according to Wolfgang this is the reason. He said, “Without any money, without any food, without any diapers to put on him, what else could I do? I just went into the mall and I saw a spot where if anybody would walk somebody would have seen him. And I left him there.” And then he added, “I walked away in tears.”
My response to that is, “Yeah, right. Pass the Kleenex.” If you ask me the reason they left little Wolfie behind was very simple. Little Wolfie did not fit into their own personal plans. Now I think you will agree with me that that’s not a very attractive story. And that it does reveal however an ugly side of human nature from which none of us are entirely free.
Oh I know that none of you parents would ever leave your child in a mall deliberately. But isn’t it true that we have a tendency to kind of turn our back on people who don’t fit into our plans? And sometimes there are people, all people, who deserve our time and attention. And we kind of abandon them. We kind of walk away from them.
And this morning I’d like you to take out your mental checklist. And I would like you to review in your mind the people that deserve your time and attention. And I would like you to examine very closely to see if the name that stands at the top of that list is the name of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Are you checking? Well while you’re doing that I would like to give you the title of my message to you this morning. My title is this: Don’t Leave Him in the Mall. Did you get that? Let me repeat that one more time. It’s the title of my message today: Don’t Leave Him in the Mall.
Now we have quite a few visitors here this morning. And naturally we’re delighted to see all of you. But I need to tell you something about Victor Street Bible Chapel that all the old-timers know very, very well. I’m going to tell you that in all the children’s songs that we have sung over the years the children’s song that we have probably sung the most is the one that we know by the title “The Wise Man and the Foolish Man.”
In fact I can remember little Martino’s grandmother, Rosemary. We used to call her Cha-Cha when she was a little girl. I can remember her standing up in front of the group and leading us in this song. And of course at Victor Street all of the grown-ups do the motions along with the kids. And I suspect that all of the people who’ve been at Victor Street for a while could wake up in the middle of the night, sit up in their beds, and sing this song perfectly.
You know how it goes. The rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up. And the house on the rock stood firm. And the house on the sand went boom. And guess what? Guess what? After all these years of singing that song here at Victor Street Bible Chapel on May the 5th 1995 the rain really did come down and the floods really did come up. And to use the words of the Bible the wind blew and the storm struck Victor Street Bible Chapel. And we had the very first flood in our history.
Now I can almost hear somebody out there saying, “Hey, you folks at Victor Street Bible Chapel must be doing something wrong. If you weren’t doing something wrong God would surely not have allowed you to have a flood, would He?” But if we’re tempted to think that way folks we need to think again. In fact the very song that we have sung all these years teaches us that is not the right answer. That is not the right answer.
You see this song is based on the words of the Lord Jesus Christ which we read just a few minutes ago in our passage of Scripture. And in this passage of Scripture Jesus talks about two men who build a house. One of these men was a wise man. He built his house on the solid foundation of the rock. And the other man was a foolish man. And he built his house on the sand.
Now we don’t have too much trouble understanding what this is all about because the last verse of our song gives us the interpretation that we need. You all know the last verse of the song. So build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ. So build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ. And did you ever stop to think that every person who lives in this world is a builder? Whenever one of us is building a life. And we are building that life with all of the things that we do, with all of the things that we say. And a house represents that very nicely because we live in houses.
But I want you to notice one thing very carefully. Did the storm that Jesus talks about only hit the house of the foolish man? Did it? No it didn’t. Jesus tells us that the same kind of storm hit both the wise man’s house and the foolish man’s house. You know I’m reminded of words that were spoken long ago by King Solomon the wisest of men. He wrote them in the book of Ecclesiastes. And this is what he said. He said, “As it happens to the fool, so also it happens to me. And why was I then more wise? And how does the wise man die? As the fool.”
Do you understand that after you have built your life then every one of us is facing a storm called death? And that storm comes to everybody whether you are rich or whether you are poor, whether you are a man or whether you are a woman, whether you are wise or whether you are foolish. No one escapes the storm. Death comes to all men and will continue to come until the Lord returns.
And that leads to a very important question doesn’t it? And the question is, “Are you ready for death?” Now I hope there is nobody in this audience this morning who would say to me, “You know I’m trying to live a good life. I’m trying to do good things. And I try to read my Bible and say my prayers. And I hope to get to heaven because of the things that I do.” If you’re thinking that way my friends you are thinking wrong.
The Bible says, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.” The Bible says, “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.” And no matter how hard you work to go to heaven you can never get there that way. Because nobody can be good enough to go to heaven. And that’s why the Lord Jesus Christ had to come into this world and die on the cross for our sins.
And when He died for our sins He died for all the sins that we’ve already committed and all the sins we would ever commit. You might say that by His death on the cross Jesus bought our ticket to heaven. And all that God is asking us to do to be sure that we go to heaven is to believe on His Son for the free gift of everlasting life.
The Bible says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” And Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.” And in Acts 16:31 we read these words, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
Let me ask you, “Have you ever done that before?” I’m not talking about whether you believe in God. I’m not even talking about whether you believe that Christ died on the cross. I’m asking you, “Have you believed in Him for the gift of eternal life? Have you believed in Him for your eternal salvation?” And if you have you are ready for the storm called death. At least you’re partly ready.
So the storm we call death reaches everybody right? But you know what? There are people who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and they know that they are headed for heaven. They are sure that they are saved. And they drive right into the storm as if there was no storm coming.
Now folks this morning I am embarrassed to have to admit to you that is exactly what your preacher did on May the 5th 1995. You see I came home to watch the news. And I was lying on my couch as I usually do. And I dozed off during the weather segment. And I didn’t hear anything about a severe weather alert. Now when I woke up I heard a little thunder in the distance but I didn’t think too much about it. I’ve heard thunder before.
And I got out and into my car. And I drove to Oak Cliff to buy some vitamins at a store out in Oak Cliff. And after I got my vitamins I drove all the way out to Red Bird Mall. And when I was finished at Red Bird Mall I started driving back. And as I was driving back guess what happened? The rain started to come down and the flood started to come up and the wind started to blow against my little Toyota Tercel.
And I thought to myself it would be a smart idea for me to get off the road. And so at the intersection of Hatcher and Scyene Road I drove into the parking lot of a Church’s Fried Chicken. Now this parking lot was ideal because it sloped down from the building to the road. And I parked my car. And I sat there and I watched the rain come down. And I saw the way the wind was whipping it. And I saw how much water was accumulating. And I said to myself this is no ordinary storm.
And finally after the storm seemed to slacken a bit I drove back onto Hatcher Street which would carry me up to Dolphin Street and then to the expressway and back to my apartment in Mesquite. And just a few yards ahead of me Hatcher Street was flooded and there was some cars stalled in the water. So I backed out of the water and turned around and went another direction.
Next thing I knew I was on a street leading past Fair Park. And I noticed that all the cars ahead of me got to a certain point and then they turned left. And many of them just went back in the direction from which they were coming. So when I got to that point I said I’m not sure what’s up there but I think I’d better follow these cars. And that’s what I did.
Now if you asked me if I was beginning to get worried the answer is yes. I didn’t know whether I was going to get back to my apartment without getting my car stalled. And even though I went through some deep patches of water and saw a bunch of cars on the side of the road and stalled in the water I managed to get back to the apartment.
And no sooner had I walked into the apartment folks then the phone rang. And it was Luis on the other end of the line. And he says, “Where have you been? Have you been out in that storm?” And I sheepishly had to admit that I had been totally ignorant of any weather warning at all and I had driven straight into the storm.
And my good friends this morning there are Christians who know they are saved and going to heaven and they still drive straight into the storm. They drive straight into the storm. And the reason they do it is because they’re like the foolish man who built his house on the sand.
Now remember when Jesus spoke these words He and His audience were on a mountainside, very likely a mountainside in Galilee. And if they were in Galilee they could probably look down at the waters of the Sea of Galilee. And if there was one lake in all the land of Israel that had more storms on it than that then I don’t know what lake it would have been. And they could probably see the sand beside the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
And then Jesus began to talk about a man who built his house on the sand. I bet you some of those people looked down the shores of the Sea of Galilee and they said anybody who had built their house down there has got to be a nutcase. I mean they have got to be dumb, dumb, dumb! You build your house on the shore of that lake you are sending an engraved invitation to the storm to come swooping down to the lake, to come battering against your house, and to leave your house a pile of wood.
But hold it. Wait just a minute. That’s exactly what some Christians do. And you know why they do it? Well one of the reasons is they get trapped in the great big shopping mall of life. Have you ever thought of life as being a great big shopping mall? When they get trapped in the great big shopping mall of life and there’s so many wonderful stores with attractive things in the shopping mall that they just get caught up in it entirely.
I mean here’s a store that sells beautiful new homes. And here’s another store that sells wonderful cars everything from Toyota Tercels to Mercedes-Benz. And here’s another store that sells the finest in clothing. And here’s another store that sells fun, pleasure, and all the good things and good times you could want. And here’s another store that sells the secret of making your first million dollars.
And they get entirely caught up in all the other things of life that you can pursue. And guess who gets left out? Guess who gets abandoned in the mall? You got it. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And my dear Christian friends this morning a life that is built on the sand of human pleasure and possession is a life that will never survive the storm of death.
That is why Jesus said, “Whoever hears these sayings of Mine and does not do them he is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house. And it fell. It fell. And great was the fall thereof.”
Don’t get me wrong. If a Christian loses his life on a sandy foundation he is still saved. God has promised that the one who believes in Christ shall never perish. But the point is this. If you build your life in this world on the sand death will wipe it out. When death comes that life will be over with. It will be gone. It will be worthless. And it will be a pile of ruins.
But some Christians, some Christians are really wise. Oh they know that all of the good things that they want to do don’t help them to get to heaven. They are saved by grace through faith. But they don’t want to waste their life that they are living down here. And so they become like the wise man that Jesus describes.
“Whoever hears these sayings of Mine and does them I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.” And every wise Christian builds their life on the obedience to the Word of God. And then a remarkable thing happens. This storm of death strikes the house that they have built for Him. And when the storm of death has come and gone the life they have built is still standing. It is still worthwhile. It is still rewardable in the sight of God. God will honor it. And He will richly reward the person who built that life.
Not even death can wipe out the life of the obedient Christian. Now listen closely. Guess what? On May the 5th the rain came down and the floods came up and the wind blew and it beat on Victor Street Bible Chapel. And Victor Street Bible Chapel did not collapse. And here we are in Victor Street Bible Chapel again. It looks a little nicer now don’t you agree?
But now we are doing the same thing in Victor Street Bible Chapel today that we have done in days past. We are proclaiming the Word of God. We are worshipping and praising the Lord. And don’t you see that Victor Street Bible Chapel has become a wonderful illustration and picture of the very truth that we sing about so often? That the house of the wise man when it is struck by death remains.
The Bible says the world passes away and its desire but the one who does the will of God abides forever. Wouldn’t it be thrilling? I mean wouldn’t you find it exciting when death has come and gone and you stand on the shores of the kingdom of God to stand there realizing that your life that you lived on earth is still standing? But now with God’s rewards in your hands you can do the same things you were doing on earth. You can serve God and love God. And now you have special privileges in His kingdom.
Don’t you think that would be a tremendous thrill for you? I know it would be for me. You know it has been a long time since I saw this particular motto on anybody’s wall. You used to be able to buy it in Christian bookstores. Maybe you still can. But this motto says it all. Listen closely. Only one life ’twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.
In 1912 the great ocean liner called the Titanic was considered a marvel of naval engineering. In fact it was frequently called the unsinkable ship. A deckhand on the Titanic actually said this. He said, “God Himself could not sink this ship.” But amazingly on its very first voyage across the ocean loaded with people who were probably thrilled at the chance to sail on the unsinkable ship. On its very first voyage across the ocean it struck an iceberg. The iceberg opened a huge hole in the hull of the ship and the ship sank. And more than fifteen hundred men, women and children lost their lives in the sinking of the Titanic.
And only a few people survived and were rescued. And four years after the Titanic was sunk a man stood up in a meeting in a city in Canada and he told this story. He said, “I am a survivor of the Titanic. On that awful night when I was floating alone in the water holding on to a spar from the ship the tide brought close to me Mr. John Harper of Glasgow. He was also clinging to a piece of wreckage. And Mr. Harper said to me, ‘Man, are you saved?’ And I said to him, ‘No I’m not.’ And Mr. Harper said to me, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’”
“And then the tide took him away from me. But strangely enough shortly thereafter the tide brought him back to me. And Mr. Harper said to me, ‘Are you saved now?’ And I said, ‘No I can’t honestly say that I am.’ And Mr. Harper said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.’ And shortly thereafter the waters took him down. He was gone. And out there alone in the night with two miles of water beneath me I believed. I am John Harper’s last convert.”
Now that’s a great story. And not just because it reminds us of the way of salvation. But it is also a great story because we see a man caught in the final storm of life. And as death approaches him he puts one more brick in the building that he had built throughout his life. He bore witness to his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Think of it folks. Trapped in the ocean and he was still building on this solid Rock. How about you this morning my Christian friend? If you’re saved are you a wise or a foolish Christian? Are you living for God or are you caught in the selfish and materialistic lifestyle of our society? Are you trapped in the great big shopping mall of life?
Well if you are here’s my advice. Change your building plans. Start building your life on the solid Rock of the Word of God. Stay close to Jesus Christ and make Him always a part of your plans. And by all means, “Don’t leave Him in the mall”!
Shall we pray? Father for anyone who is here who has not yet been saved may they believe on Your Son for eternal life. And for those of us who are Christians may we redouble our determination to build our lives on the solid rock of obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask these things in Christ’s name. Amen.