THAT SINKING FEELING

It was a crisp, cool morning on the highveld. The town of Carltonville, a major gold mining centre west of Johannesburg, was not a particularly news making place. As a miner drew back the curtains of his home to greet the new day, he could not believe what he saw. The solid house next door was gone. Completely gone! Where had it gone? Not even the wily thieves of South Africa could remove a whole house brick-by-brick under the cover of darkness in the hours of just one night! Then, too, why was nothing heard? The truth is that a massive sink-hole had developed under the house. The weight of the structure slipped silently and virtually unnoticed into the bowels of the earth. The horror of the event was that the house was not even visible in the soil that had closed over it in that huge, gaping fissure. The hapless occupants were never extricated because a rescue operation was both too precarious and futile.  As the hardy miner and his wife observed the catastrophe, they were suddenly gripped with fear. “What about our house? Is it next?”  As it turned out, the area was declared unsafe for human habitation and the whole suburb was evacuated. The previous evening in that fateful house, the lights were burning but the very next day even the light of life had been eliminated from that doomed domain.

A few days ago in Daisetta, TX, near Houston, a huge sink hole the size of a couple of football fields developed near a residential area and a high school. Whereas, the Carltonville sink-hole was a housing development sited on a dolomite (limestone) substructure, the Daisetta one is believed to be land located over a salt dome. When the South African gold mines pumped the water out of the shafts, the water collected under these houses. As the dolomite dissolved, nature mercilessly filled the gap without fear or favour. On the other hand, in the salt domes of the Gulf Coast area where oil wells have been, groundwater is sometimes known to dissolve the crystalline salt. Bingo! An unstable ground situation develops and nature equalises the disparity with a sink-hole.  Whatever the cause, unstable ground makes us break out in a cold sweat. It gives us that sinking feeling!

Can you see why Jesus told us to build on the rock and not on the sand, Matthew 7:24-29? Sand has a way of sinking away in unfavourable conditions. The destruction is then incalculable. Our spiritual lives must be founded upon the rock who is Christ, 1 Corinthians 10:4. To trifle with God's will or to make a puny attempt to mock Him is to put oneself in extreme danger, Galatians 6:7-8. That is definitely sitting on a potential sink-hole. 

Korah, Dathan and Abiram learned this lesson the hard way, Numbers 16:23-34. They challenged God's appointed leadership in Moses and Aaron, saying, "You have gone too far. . .Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?" Numbers 16:3. Their just dessert for their mutiny was to be swallowed up when the "ground under them split asunder and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them with their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions. They went alive down into the ground and everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and they were gone from the community. At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, The earth is going to swallow us too!" Don't let Korah, Dathan or Abiram be your role model for a relationship with God. 

If we think that seeing a policeman ticketing our car gives one a sinking feeling. . .if we think that having our car repossessed gives us a sinking feeling. . .if we think that a terminal diagnosis from the doctor gives us a sinking feeling. . .if we think that a letter of goodbye from our sweetheart gives us a sinking feeling. . .we haven't seen anything yet. When God calls men to account, unrepentant sinners will have such an unparalleled sinking feeling that they will call on the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on  the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the day of wrath has come, and who can stand?" Revelation 6:16-17. Who indeed?

The only ones who can stand then will be those who have been to Jesus for the cleansing power. Let us be in that number when the saints go marching in. That is the only way to avoid that final, dreadful sinking feeling. Make sure your elevator goes UP not DOWN. It's your choice.

Love you all,

Al--The Horne of Africa. 

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