Building on the Sand

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain came down and the rivers came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it did not collapse, because its foundation was laid on the rock.
Matthew 7:24–25 (LEB)

How many people are building on sand? We understand what that means in the material world, and most people understand the value of a good foundation. What was our Messiah telling us when he said whoever did not listen to His words was similar to a person building a house on sand?

Matthew 7:24–27 (LEB)

²⁴“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵And the rain came down and the rivers came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it did not collapse, because its foundation was laid on the rock. ²⁶And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷And the rain came down and the rivers came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it collapsed, and its fall was great.”

When we see the word “therefore” we must understand that it is the conclusion of the sum of what has been stated previously. Whoever does the words of Yeshua is the one who built on a firm foundation, which is the rock. False prophets will surely cause one to build on sand, such as false hope and actions contrary to the Word of God.

Matthew 7:15–20 (LEB)

¹⁵“Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inside are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶You will recognize them by their fruits: they do not gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do they? ¹⁷In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. ¹⁸A good tree is not able to produce bad fruit, nor a bad tree to produce good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰As a result, you will recognize them by their fruits.

This is not new information, but just a restatement from Moses, who was relaying the words of Yahuah. Yeshua, or Yahusha, came in the name of His Father Yahuah, only doing what He saw the Father do and only saying what He heard the Father say.

Deuteronomy 13:1–5 (LEB)

“If a prophet stands up in your midst or a dreamer of dreams and he gives to you a sign or wonder, ²and the sign or the wonder comes about that he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (those whom you have not known), and let us serve them,’ ³you must not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self. ⁴You shall go after Yahweh your God, and him you shall revere, and his commandment you shall keep, and to his voice you shall listen, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast. ⁵But that prophet or the dreamer of that dream shall be executed, for he spoke falsely about Yahweh your God, the one bringing you out from the land of Egypt and the one redeeming you from the house of slavery, in order to seduce you from the way that Yahweh your God commanded you to go in it; so in this way you shall purge the evil from your midst.

“Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” is very similar to “so in this way you shall purge the evil from your midst“. These prophets will lead us astray if we do not study the narrow path and rebuke those who tell us things contrary to scripture.

Deuteronomy 10:12–20 (LEB)

¹²And now, Israel, what is Yahweh your God asking from you, except to revere Yahweh your God, to go in all his ways and to love him and to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³to keep the commandments of Yahweh and his statutes that I am commanding you today for your own good. ¹⁴Look! For to Yahweh your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it. ¹⁵Yet to your ancestors Yahweh was very attached, so as to love them, and so he chose their offspring after them, namely you, from all the peoples, as it is today. ¹⁶So you shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn. ¹⁷For Yahweh your God, he is God of the gods and Lord of the lords, the great and mighty God, the awesome one who is not partial, and he does not take bribes. ¹⁸And he executes justice for the orphan and widow, and he is one who loves the alien, to give to them food and clothing. ¹⁹And you shall love the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. ²⁰Yahweh your God, you shall revere him, you shall serve him, and to him you shall cling, and by his name you shall swear.

In the latter days, the priests, pastors and prophets will lead many astray with fables and false gods. People are longing to hear the truth, but instead they receive lies.

Jeremiah 23:16–22 (LEB)

¹⁶Thus says Yahweh of hosts: “You must not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are deluding you with visions of their mind, They do not speak from the mouth of Yahweh. ¹⁷They are continually saying to those who disregard the word of Yahweh, ‘Peace it will be to you,’ and to each one who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they say, ‘Calamity will not come upon you.’ ¹⁸For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he has seen and heard his word? Who has listened attentively to his word and heard it? ¹⁹Look, the storm of Yahweh has gone forth in wrath, even a whirling tempest. It will whirl upon the head of the wicked. ²⁰The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until his doing and until his keeping the plans of his mind. In latter days you will look closely at it with understanding. ²¹I have not sent the prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. ²²But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have caused them to turn from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.

I think of these words of Jeremiah when I read about people dreaming of a pre-tribulation rapture. This whole idea of a seven year tribulation with a group of people, being whisked away before anything bad happens sounds a lot like “‘Peace it will be to you,’ and to each one who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they say, ‘Calamity will not come upon you.’ “. Remember, “In latter days you will look closely at it with understanding“. People ignore scripture and will argue the rapture doctrine for hours if one engages them, yet most of the scripture they use is referring to the resurrection after the seventh trumpet. The Old Testament prophets say nothing about any event where a group of people called the church, who mostly disregard the commandments of God, are going to be delivered from the bad times that are coming to the Earth. Dispensational theology, the father of the pre-tribulation rapture, actually maintains that the the prophets of Yahuah did not see the rejection of the Messiah and the formation of the church. This was a parenthesis God had to insert into His plan gone wrong. “They are deluding you with visions of their mind“. This is ridiculous when one reads scripture, yet I had someone tell me I needed the Holy Spirit to show it to me because it cannot be found just by reading scripture.

Amos 3:7 (LEB)

⁷Surely my Lord does not do anything unless he has revealed his secret to his servants the prophets.

Building on the sand of false doctrine will cause a person to be delusional and not see the plainly written words of scripture.

Matthew 7:21–23 (LEB)

²¹“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²²On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many miracles in your name?’ ²³And then I will say to them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Yeshua will not know people who think they are doing all the good stuff while waiting for the rapture. How can this be? It is prophecy that says they will listen to prophets who Yahuah did not send and they will break His everlasting covenant. This is essentially the ten commandments, but one must learn “the will of my Father who is in heaven“. So, Yeshua tells us to listen to Him, then He says the ones He will know are the ones who does His Father’s will. The Father’s will is, “to keep the commandments of Yahweh and his statutes that I am commanding you today for your own good“. It is not hard to figure out if one doesn’t listen to the false prophets. What is really going to happen on Earth is prophesied by Isaiah.

Isaiah 24:1–6 (LEB)

24 Look! Yahweh is about to lay the earth waste and is about to devastate it, and he will twist her surface, and he will scatter her inhabitants. ²And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the female slave, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the one to whom he lends. ³The earth shall be utterly laid waste, and it shall be utterly plundered, for Yahweh has spoken this word. ⁴The earth dries up, it withers; the world languishes, it withers. The elevated of the people of the earth languish, ⁵and the earth is defiled beneath its inhabitants. For they have transgressed laws; they have passed by statutes; they have broken the everlasting covenant. ⁶Therefore a curse devours the earth, and the inhabitants in it suffer for their guilt. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth burn, and few men are left.

We shouldn’t be longing for the day of the Lord by wanting “Jesus to come back”. This is wishing for the “rapture”.

Amos 5:18–20 (LEB)

¹⁸Alas, those who desire the day of Yahweh, why is this for you the day of Yahweh? It will be darkness and not light! ¹⁹It will be as if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him; or he went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall and a snake bit him. ²⁰Is not the day of Yahweh darkness and not light, and pitch dark with no brightness in it?

Peter gives us a similar scenario. This is where the sea washes away the rapture sandcastle.

2 Peter 3:10–13 (LEB)

¹⁰But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will disappear with a rushing noise, and the celestial bodies will be destroyed by being burned up, and the earth and the deeds done on it will be disclosed. ¹¹Because all these things are being destroyed in this way, what sort of people must you be in holy behavior and godliness, ¹²while waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by being burned up and the celestial bodies will melt as they are consumed by heat! ¹³But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness resides.

Even in the book of Enoch we see more of what happens when “Jesus comes back”. He doesn’t return with raptured church people to execute His judgement.

Enoch 1:3-9

Concerning the elect I said, and took up my parable concerning them:
The Holy Great One will come forth from His dwelling,
And the eternal God will tread upon the earth, (even) on Mount Sinai,
⌈And appear from His camp⌉
And appear in the strength of His might from the heaven of heavens.
And all shall be smitten with fear
And the Watchers shall quake,
And great fear and trembling shall seize them unto the ends of the earth.
And the high mountains shall be shaken,
And the high hills shall be made low,
And shall melt like wax before the flame
And the earth shall be ⌈wholly⌉ rent in sunder,
And all that is upon the earth shall perish,
And there shall be a judgement upon all (men).
But with the righteous He will make peace. And will protect the elect,
And mercy shall be upon them. And they shall all belong to God, And
they shall be prospered, And they shall ⌈all⌉ be blessed. ⌈And He will help
them all⌉, And light shall appear unto them, ⌈And He will make peace
with them⌉.
21
And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of ⌈His⌉ holy ones To
execute judgement upon all, And to destroy ⌈all⌉ the ungodly: And to
convict all flesh Of all the works ⌈of their ungodliness⌉ which they have
ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly
sinners ⌈have spoken⌉ against Him.

Building on sand is the same as not listening to our Messiah, and not doing the will of the Father. The will of the Father, Yahuah, is revealed to us through scripture. Keep His commandments and statutes, do justice and mercy, feed the hungry, take care of the foreigner, the widow and the orphan, sit down on the Sabbaths.

Deuteronomy 32:1–5 (LEB)

“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. ²May my teaching trickle like the dew, my words like rain showers on tender grass, and like spring showers on new growth. ³For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh; ascribe greatness to our God! ⁴The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are just; he is a faithful God, and without injustice; righteous and upright is he. ⁵They have behaved corruptly toward him; they are not his children; this is their flaw, a generation crooked and perverse.

Be sure to build on the Rock Moses told us about and not the sands of the false prophets, pastors and priests. Repent and believe the gospel!

Photo by Diana Parkhouse on Unsplash

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