“I never knew you; depart from me.” (Matthew 7:23)
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all go off on a long cruise with magnificent scenery, endless food, and comfortable deck chairs? Unless the name of the cruise ship happens to be the Titanic!
We are going to follow the stories of some Bible characters who, like passengers on the Titanic, were sailing along and everything seemed to be going well. But their problems were hidden, and all of a sudden they went down. One was a prophet, one was a priest, and one was a king. One even knew Jesus Christ personally, but all of them plunged to disaster.
God has many ways of teaching us. Sometimes we learn from the wise by learning from their example. But it is also possible to learn from fools, as we see their mistakes, and learn to avoid them. We will discover from these stories how to avoid a surprise plunge to disaster.
It’s hard to imagine anything more tragic than a person who thinks that everything is right, when actually they are heading for disaster. Jesus spoke about this in the Sermon on the Mount: He said on the last day there would be people who’d prophesied, made great sacrifices, and done works in his name, but he would say to them “I never knew you; depart from me” (Mat. 7:23).
This is one of the most disturbing verses in the Bible. There are some people to whom that will happen, and it is our business to make sure that we are not among them.
Have you ever heard about (or seen) a person who took a plunge to disaster?
