Bill was unafraid of heights. As a boy, he liked to climb trees. In total disregard of the danger, Bill would find the tallest trees in his neighborhood and would climb right to their top. He also decided it would be fun to build tree houses. Soon he was constructing elaborate structures complete with walls, railings and roofs. But the ladders he built to reach them left a lot to be desired, for they were nothing more than short pieces of wood, nailed with two or three nails to the tree trunk.
These steps quickly worked loose. The great danger of stepping on them was painfully realized when a neighborhood friend tried climbing on them to reach the tree house. The cross piece he was holding suddenly came loose from the tree trunk, and he fell to the ground, breaking both his wrists.
Bill felt so miserable about his friend’s accident that he stopped building tree houses and ladders. That incident seemed to leave a strong warning about being careful of the danger from heights.
But the years passed, and Bill eventually forgot all about the incident and the warning. He began to build houses after he was married, and, still unafraid of heights, he scampered up and down roofs and stepped across open ceiling rafters (a very dangerous practice) without once thinking of danger.
A number of years later, Bill was working one day, helping his son build a house. Perched on a ladder twelve feet in the air, nailing loose rafters to the main cross beam of the roof, Bill thoughtlessly removed his foot from the safety of his ladder and placed it on the beam while he reached for a loose rafter. An instant later Bill was falling.
Poor Bill! He landed on his back, right on the edge of the brick fireplace opening. Dazed, in great pain from a broken back and unable to breathe well, Bill too late remembered the warning of the loose tree house step he had received long before.
The Bible speaks solemnly to those who continually reject God’s gracious warning regarding their responsibility to Him. “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Prov. 29:11He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. (Proverbs 29:1)).
God is very patient and long-suffering with rebellious man. He sends many warnings in a “soft gentle voice” (1 Kings 19:11And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. (1 Kings 19:1)2 JnD), not delighting in judgment, for it is His strange work. Rather, we hear the beseeching words, “Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Heb. 3:1515While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. (Hebrews 3:15)).
But too often, like young King Zedekiah in 2 Chronicles 36:1515And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: (2 Chronicles 36:15), the spirit of self-will or indifference refuses to hear the gentle warnings. Rather than submitting to them, the natural heart is all too prone to mock the messengers of God and despise His words. How solemn to refuse to hear the Word of God delivered by the messengers of God!
L. Macy (excerpted)