IN a day of lip-profession like the present, it is very important to take heed to our Lord’s words in Luke 6:46-49, “Every tree is known by his fruit.” “Why call ye me Lord, and do not the things which I say?”
An outward profession, when the heart has never submitted to God, and a calling of Christ, “Lord,” when His word has no place in the heart, is idle mockery. “Who hath required this at your hand?”... “It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting” ... “I am weary to bear them.” “When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from your yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear” (Isa. 1:12-18).
God will have reality, the conscience and heart must be affected. Conviction of sin, conversion, repentance, confession of sin, faith in Christ, all tell of the great moral change in a man that really possesses God salvation.
“O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance,” said John the Baptist to the respectable religionists of his day.
“And now, also, the ax is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Matt. 3:7-10). And what fruit is that? Repentance toward God. The Son of God said, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:1-5).
Yes, the man who builds his house so that the storm of the future will not affect it, must “dig deep.” The word must take hold of the heart and conscience; there must be the submitting to God and His righteousness; there must be the confession of one’s sins and vileness; there must be the standing in the presence of God stripped of every shred of self-righteousness; there must be the turning by faith to the Crucified One for salvation; there must be the open confession of the Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of a God-hating, Christ-despising world. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:8-10).
Ah, friend, there must be reality! Has there been reality with you? Have you been with God about your sins and the judgment-day?
In Matthew 7:24, the man that “digs deep,” and builds his house upon “a rock,” is called “a wise man.” The man who builds his salvation on his morality and outward respectability is not digging deep; that is only sand.
The man that builds upon mere religiousness is not digging deep. He is building his house upon the sand, and when the flood arises, and the stream beats vehemently upon that house, immediately it will fall (Luke 6:49).
The man who is relying for salvation on sacramentalism is the opposite of being a wise man; he is a fool, for he is building on sand, and not upon a rock.
The man who is relying upon his promises to turn over a new leaf is building on sand; for where in the first Adam book can you find a new leaf? Though there be ten thousand leaves, they are all stained and defiled with sin. There is not a new leaf in the whole book to turn over. “Ye must be born again.”
Yes, you must dig deep. You must dig through the stratum of mere morality, the stratum of mere outward religiousness, the stratum of the figment of “sacramental grace,” the stratum of being better than your neighbor, the stratum of supposed good works, the stratum of turning over a new leaf, the stratum of noble ancestry, the stratum of law-keeping, the stratum of self-righteousness; and when you are stripped of all in which you are placing confidence, and see yourself vile, sinful, ruined and helpless, you will come to the solid rock―CHRIST.
Ah, yes; Christ, and Christ alone, is the Rock of our salvation.
This is the Rock―the strong and imperishable Rock of Ages, upon which a poor, vile sinner can build his house for eternity. “For other foundations can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11).
And mark you what the Saviour says about such a man. “Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock; and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded on a rock” (Luke 6:47-49).
My reader, are you that man? Are you building on Christ, “who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification?” that Christ of God “who suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (Rom. 4:25; 1 Peter 3:18).
Have you come to Him? Have you heard His sayings? And are you doing them?
E. A.