Now if you notice straight after this He follows it on and applies it. He said now I'm going to tell you a story so you can get it. Anyone who hears these words of mine and does them, be like the man who built on a rock. He doesn't fall over at the end of the day. The man who listens to them, doesn't do anything, He said well that man, he's going to find His whole life everything he's built will fall over at the end of it when it's evaluated and the storm comes along. It's very, very clear. It's about hearing God and flowing with what He has for your life, therefore the responsibility of every believer is a personal intimacy with the Lord, listening, hearing and saying yes Lord, what you want, that's what I'll do. Lord, what you've got for me, that's better than my plan for me. I'm happy to go along with your plan. Get the idea?
The second thing is, He says those who work inequity. You who worked inequity - so hard to think believers would be working inequity but apparently it's so. The word inequity means to be without law or to be lawless or independent, or literally, to have no one speaking into your life. In other words, you do your own thing. Hello? Church is full of that? Kingdom of God's full of people doing their own thing and they think God's going to bless them for it. Well He will bless the work they do to a point because He's a God who blesses, but will they give account? Oh my yes. I want to be found that day, so the word there means literally to be without law.
Now I want to show you one other place I found someone who was caught out and actually confronted over this very issue, then we'll finish with this. Are you ready? Just come with me to Acts, Chapter 8. When you see this story this'll help you understand what it means and then you'll get a better idea of what we're talking about. You'll see it very, very clearly. Okay, in Acts, Chapter 8. So the first is personal intimacy, second is purity of motivation, pure love for people, pure love for the Lord, pure love for people, loving God passionately, listening to him, responding to him, loving people out of a pure heart - not trying to use them to get them to do something you want them to do. It'll come down to something simple like love the Lord with all your heart, love your neighbour as yourself.
Here it is in Acts, Chapter 8. Now just bearing in mind the working of inequity, in Acts, Chapter 8, Verse 9; There was a certain man called Simon who previously practised sorcery in the city, astounding the people of Samaria, giving out that He was some important one to whom everyone gave heed from the least to the greatest, saying this man is the great power of God. They gave heed to him because he'd astonished them with His sorceries, but then they believed in Jesus when He preached things about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus and men and women were baptised and Simon himself also believed and was baptised and continued with Phillip and was amazed seeing the miracles and signs. Notice the statement, He also believed and was baptised.
Okay, now we'll go on. The apostles heard that and so on and so forth. Now Verse 17, they laid hands on them and they received the Holy spirit, but when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles hands the Holy spirit was given, He offered them money, saying give me this power that I might - anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy spirit. He said your money perished with you because you thought the gift of God could be purchased with money. You have neither part or portion in this matter for your heart is not right with God. Repent of this wickedness and perhaps God will forgive the thought of your heart, for I see you are poisoned with bitterness and in the bond of inequity.
Now I want you to just get this because when we look at that, we just read Simon the sorcerer and we switch off and it's nothing to do with us. I want you to just re-engage and have a look at it. The first thing is he was a person with huge influence and leadership in the community. Actually everyone was listening to him. Now how did He get it? Guess how he got it? He got influence with people by using supernatural power. He tapped into the occult and he could get people astonished with what he did and so, what they did then was - notice it says he gave out that he was important. So what's going on here? Very simply this; he's a man who's rejected, a man with injustice and disappointments in his life and in order to try and find a sense of purpose and significance and identity and value, he begins to access the occult realm to try and put out to people he's important. So his whole motivation is to use the power that's available to build his own influence, reputation and standing with people.