The Mount No.26 Rock or Sand

Now, perhaps unlike anybody else, I do remember the first address I preached here. I talked about profit and loss, and I was thinking of Paul's argument in Philippians, where he was talking about the credits that were his since he trusted the Lord Jesus. Those things that he'd gladly given up and counted as being but dung, well, as the years go by, we're more and more grateful for what God has done for us in Christ.

We thank Him for His faithfulness. Matthew and chapter 7, as we get to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, not as I quit before, a sermon that Jesus preached on horseback, I think it was John Wesley who made that pun, I thought it was funny, sorry 200 years on, you don't think it is funny, but this was a sermon that Jesus preached, not on horseback, although Wesley often used horses, we remember to get him around, but our Lord preached this on some little hillock overlooking the Sea of Galilee. And from the 24th verse of Matthew 7, He's bringing this address, which must have been a fairly lengthy one, to a conclusion.

Therefore He says, Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundations on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, because He taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law. He speaks the truth.

And let's open our Bibles at the Word of God to the chapter that we've now looked at once already, Matthew's Gospel. If you look at these verses, you'll see that one of the first things that hits you is the fact of repetition. Verse 24, Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice.

Verse 26, Everyone who hears these words of mine. Our Lord was talking to a large audience of people. They'd been with Him for a long time.

Those days, and I say this quite sincerely, concentration was easier, because they had not got the modern means of communication, which sometimes can be an advantage and sometimes a curse. They didn't have television and radio and newspapers or the like, and so they used to hang on to the words of the Rabbi. And the minds of the Oriental were trained minds, trained in retention, so they could stay the course with our Lord Jesus, and at length He had been addressing them.

Thousands of people in His native Galilee, just across from where He was in the distance He could see the calm of the Sea of Galilee. In front of Him are hundreds of people. It's not an audience that are still like this one.

There must be many children playing around. But Jesus in His way, which I alas don't have, was able to concentrate despite all the movement and bring this wonderful teaching to this mammoth audience. But one thing Jesus wasn't concerned with was just the listening ability of those who were in earshot of Him.

Did you hear that? He didn't just want them to listen. He did want them to listen, but He didn't just want them to listen. That's why He says in these verses, everyone who hears these words of Mine and puts them into practice, and in the 26th verse outlines it afresh, but then puts in a negative.

Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not put them into practice. He's concerned that you hear, but He's concerned that coupled to your hearing is a desire to perform. What was it that strikes you about Mary, that probably teenage Hebrew lass, when she received the momentous news from Gabriel that she of all the maidens of Israel was to become the mother of the Messiah.

First she was incredulous, she couldn't believe it. And then she said, be it unto me, I quote the AV, it's the only version I can remember, be it unto me according to your will. I'm not just a hearer, I'm a doer.

Remember, when Paul was stopped from his horse on the Damascus road as he was heading towards the Syrian capital, you remember he's given instructions at the moment of conversion what he is to do. One of the great problems of a church like this, coming to a ministry that's often represented from this pulpit, is that you feel your entire responsibility is just to listen. John Stott's a very sophisticated man and a very wonderful teacher and theologian, but occasionally in his books he says something that shocks you, it shocks you because it's not his normal language.

And he talks about that reprehensible person who's always moving from one congregation to another congregation to hear the so-called most eloquent preacher. Dr. Stott says that that's equivalent to pub crawling at the evangelical level. We're not just to listen to teaching of an individual and be blessed by that, but the thing our Lord is bringing out for these thousands of people who are listening to Him on that occasion and therefore underlining this as a constant principle down the centuries is not just listening but doing.

In fact, if you never do and you only listen, then staggering though it be, Jesus is saying you're not part of the kingdom. Because He spent all these hours trying to set up kingdom principles to this mixed audience, they were not all believers, and He was saying that in any congregation there are two classes of people, those who hear and those who do. Have you ever played a game true and false, true or false? Henry VIII had six wives, true or false? Yorkshire Cricket Club are the best cricket club in the county, true or false? I'm not asking for responses.

Give them an inch and they take a yard. Our Lord in one sense has been engaging in that, hasn't He, only in a very serious fashion in these verses from which Brother Tim preached earlier in this series. He's been talking in verse 15 about the false prophet and the true prophet.

He's been talking about good fruit, verse 17, and bad fruit. He's been talking about those who are genuine miracle workers and those who actually come under the cloak of the spiritual underworld, the quacks and the charlatans. Jesus is very concerned that those who listen can differentiate between false prophets and true prophets and so forth.

Well, here He's very concerned that His audience now makes a test personally, each one of them. Are they true hearers of the Word? Are they true members of the kingdom or are they pseudo-Christians? And so He sets up in the genius that was always His in His ministry a perfectly understandable parable in which there are two men and two buildings and one testing, or if you like, two testings. The testings are identical.

The buildings, I argue, are identical, but the men are distinct. The men are distinct. So, let's have a look at the men, then we'll look at the buildings, then we'll look at the testings.

The two men, they've got certain things in common. He first introduces them in the 24th verse. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man.

And then verse 26, everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man. Well, both these men, I say, have things in common. They both shared the same desire, didn't they? They both wanted to get a building up.

People who gather in churches like this, who have certain things in common and yet later on, as I'll show you, there is a distinctiveness, they split into two separate categories. Nothing is more important than that you understand and relate to what Jesus is here in a very challenging fashion saying. These men, they have this in common, they want to get a building up.

They also have this in common, they're concerned a bit about the future, because you don't just put a building up for a day, do you? I mean, the fact that you want some house to be built indicates that you've got some ideas that the months and the years are yet to follow, therefore you're making preparation in the present for the future. So they have that in common too, not so? What else? Well, both these men have in common the same fund of information, therefore everyone who hears these words of mine, verse 24, repeated again in verse 26, only on both occasions relating to the different characteristics of these men, the different types. But they have this in common, the foolish man and the wise man, they have both heard.

Now you see my nailing the point, this is pure logic, you can't miss it, it's simple. You can all be present, you can all hear, you can all be concerned about a building project in terms of salvation and your eternal future, and yet you could be in different categories. There could be the wise and the foolish person in our audience this morning, as there was obviously in the time of our Lord, or else he wouldn't have finished up with this particular parable.

Dr. Lloyd-Jones preached me in here, some of you will remember, a dear man who made a great impression on my life and gave me a theology that made sense, I always thank Lloyd-Jones for that and for George Verver for giving me a kick in the pants, one getting me theologically reasonably accurate and the other stimulating me as far as evangelism is concerned in the world. Do you know, at Westminster Chapel they used to have two deacons, no not deacons, two stewards, and these two stewards were the bane of the life of the young people, because they'd sort of patrol up and down and ensure that they were listening to the doctor. One of them was called Gilbert, the other was called Sullivan, and one of the youngsters had the audacity on one occasion to go into Lloyd-Jones's vestry and say, you know what's the matter with Westminster Chapel, there's too much Gilbert and Sullivan in this place.

It could well be that in the audience that attends the ministry of our Lord Jesus as He speaks it out prophetically down the generations, as well as that which He verbally, personally gave, that there's too much tomfoolery in the congregation. The Bible has no truck for the fool. A man who builds a house on the sand is a foolish man, says our Lord Jesus.

The psalmist says the fool has said in his heart there is no God. In the New Testament reference is made to a man who spends all his life building up his empire, death comes, and he's made no preparation whatsoever, and the comment is thou fool this day, your soul's required of you. What's the characteristic of a fool? Well, a fool doesn't think, at least he doesn't think deeply enough.

A fool is impetuous. A fool thinks about the immediate and the short-term future. He doesn't think about the ultimate and that which will never pass away.

And so here is our Lord Jesus as He puts up this example of two people building. He says that one is a fool and the other is wise because one uses thought and the other doesn't use sufficient thought. The wise man, he stops and he considers.

Wisdom is not the same as brilliance, you know. Jesus is not just indicating His love of brilliance. In fact, I don't think He ever does because you can be intellectually bright but spiritually so dull.

The wise man is the man who carefully considers. He's been to Sunday school perhaps in his youth. He's regularly attended or maybe spasmodically attended church, but somehow he's built up a deposit of information and then at some point in his life he thinks it all through.

The essence of wisdom is to be thinking these things throughout your life, but if at least there is a point when you stop and you ask. Ten years ago John Godfrey came to my vestry. I didn't know him then.

He came completely out of the blue. So many people in these years have passed through my vestry. I can't recall them all, but I do remember this man.

And I remember though not fully getting back from my mind all the reasons why he came to see me. I do remember urging him in the matter of his personal salvation. And just a few months ago, at the age of 48, he moved from the category of the fool to that of the wise.

As he started to live his life by what the Lord Jesus had been teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, he began to think it through. That's what the wise man does as opposed to the foolish man who never considers the immediate. That's the reason why in Scotland, and I'll balance this by giving you an illustration in Worthing just in case the Scots feel that I've got it in for them.

If you go to Oban, I believe I'm right in saying there's a place there called the Folly, the Folly of Oban. A sort of semi-circle building, an amphitheater that started off as an enthusiastic scheme from some Scots businessman and then he ran out of money. It's known as Oban's Folly.

Do you know I'm told by older friends that that building, the white building at the southern tip of Grand Avenue, which has now been turned into flats, and there are modern flats at the back, but the front is obviously an older building, was going to be the best hotel on the south coast in the 20s or 30s, whenever they constructed, but whoever was behind it ran out of money. They didn't think it through. There's a foolishness in the whole procedure.

Well, says our Lord Jesus, here are two men, two types in my congregation, two types projected down the centuries. One's a fool, one's wise, but both have a common denominator. They have heard what I have had to say.

Well not just the two men, let's look at the two buildings. Now there's no reason to believe actually that these buildings were different. There's no reason to believe that one building was superior to the other building.

The wise man builds his house, the foolish man builds his house. We might say they were as like as two peas in a pod. I can't prove it, but there's nothing here in Scripture to indicate that I'm wrong, so I'll stay by my conclusion.

The houses are identical. What's more, they're in the same locality. I can imagine the property paper that comes out in Worthing, Wednesday by Wednesday.

Can you imagine one of the estate agents doing a real bundle in describing it, can't you? Sea view. Have you noticed the euphemisms of estate agents? Particularly when they say slight decoration required. You know the whole thing needs to be demolished and start again, but this isn't the same, this is ideal.

State agent fodder, good solid buildings, these identical, sea view. Maybe all the mod cons, wimpies couldn't have designed anything better. In one sense it would have been better if, as far as the Lord's teaching is concerned, at least at the first hearing, if one had been a shack and the other had been a mansion.

Then everyone would have understood that obviously the mansion had more going for it than the shack, but Jesus does not. Each man built a house and the indications are, as I say, that they used the same plan. Like as houses as peas in pods.

But don't you know that in building it's not just what you build, nor even is it a matter of what you use. You could use your best building material. There is one other factor where you build, or put it another way, you may employ the best architect.

You really do want a very, very lavish building. It wants all the mod cons, all the benefits of modern planning. And so you skimp on a surveyor's fee and you pour it all into the architect.

So the building is good, but the site was never surveyed. Now, this is what Jesus is saying in terms of those who, having heard his teaching, don't put it all into practice. Later on the Apostle is going to talk, the Apostle Paul is going to talk about having preached the whole counsel of God.

You see, when Jesus was setting up the plans on the Sermon on the Mount, the type of people that you and I ought to be, he gives us a full description, doesn't he? He talks about our attitude, our attitude to money. He talks about our thought life. He talks about our morality.

He speaks about so many practical areas, as well as telling us about the good heavenly Father and leading us into that lovely Lord's Prayer. But you can't just speak about the lovely, loving Heavenly Father without realizing that in the teaching of Jesus, reference is also made to judgment. Reference is also made to introspection.

Reference is made to the way that you control your life, publicly and privately. You see, you can pick and choose at the Sermon on the Mount. This is what is often done, especially if you check the history of some of the political parties in our country, when yesteryear there would be a sermon always preached at the beginning of a convention of the party in question.

And often the person, especially if it was a socialist, would go to the Sermon on the Mount, and they would pick out certain pieces of the sermon which harmonized with socialist doctrine, and we were exhorted to go for it. You know, this is good stuff, it comes from Jesus. Well, in one sense they were right, but the distortion is this, they picked and they chose.

It's not just a part of the Sermon on the Mount, it's the whole Sermon on the Mount. Otherwise, you finish up with, well, good in part, but shaky in fundamentals. A good house, but not a good foundation.

And our Lord is concerned about putting both into place. You see, the teaching in Luke's Gospel, the parallel recounting of this parable, gives the impression that the wise man dug deep. Do you remember that when we were reading it together earlier on? The wise man dug deep.

He dug down to rock. Why does he dig down to rock? Well, he knows that should there be some disaster, should there be some earth tremor, should there be some overflowing of the river or the sea along which the buildings were fronted, then unless there was a good foundation, the possibility is that a seizure, a crack would occur and there along the whole thing may topple over. You know we have the word jerry-building, don't we? It refers to the speed with which buildings were put up during the war in Germany and also here to some degree after the war.

If you build quickly, if you build without surveying your site, then you build only for the immediate future, but it's not long-term. Our Lord is saying to the people who are listening to Him and He's saying through my words to us today, are you building your life on the whole of the sermon on the mount? Are you concerned to examine yourself in terms of the sin question as well as in terms of recognizing that God the Heavenly Father has a loving attitude towards those who call upon Him? Two men, two buildings, two testings. The testings are the same, the buildings are the same, but the men are different.

The testings the same? Yes. Well, look at verse 25, will you? The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house. You can never forget what happened because of Davison Jr. belting out, it went crash, you heard him.

A little lad who was right in the front of the sweet group of kids who were with us. I mean he was really living it, you could see it. You've got no reason to leave the tab this morning and to say you didn't understand what Jesus was saying because a little lad of five or six years of age put all the intonation in it when he was singing with others this parable and the calamity that one builder ran into.

Verse 27, the rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house. Two buildings, two testings, two hearings. The hearings were the same, they heard what Jesus had said.

The buildings were the same, the testings were the same, but the consequences are diametrically opposed. One building remains true despite the tempestuous conditions. The other building collapses.

The testings were fair, the testings were frequent, and one day the testings will be final. The testings were fair, yes, identical pressures these two houses were subjected to. Don't you understand what Jesus is here saying? He's not really talking about little buildings, is he? He's talking about you, your spirit, your lifestyle, he's talking about your faith.

You see, faith for Jesus is not an anemic, easy believism. Faith is something that will grow strong as it's tested. And so, what our Lord here is speaking of is not directly, though I think he is indirectly the final test in the end of the world.

He's talking about, well, look, he's talking about some of you, just hear me as this sharpens up in my mind. He's talking about some of you right now. Now, you became Christians, you heard the Word of Jesus, now what has happened is the rain has come down.

The rain has come. Maybe for you it's bereavement. Maybe for you in the passing of the years it's old age.

I can remember with full-blooded enthusiasm twenty years ago, preaching in terms of the elderly folk, but now I'm twenty years nearer that rank and can begin to understand something of the pressures that advancing years can bring. Twenty years ago, in the full flush of youthful enthusiasm, with a strong marriage, now having been a pastor to so many people, I begin to appreciate some of the pressures that can come on marriages. The rain, you see, it comes.

He never promised Christians immunity from this. In fact, our Lord almost delighted in suggesting that the difficulties would come because, well, that would prove just the value of the foundation. So if you're going through the rains at this moment, and even though your house starts to shake, even though there is that tremor, thank God it is still standing.

The rains come. Test your faith now. Not just the rains, but the winds.

Or rather, let's go to the floods, shall we, because that comes next in the story. The floods. The floods, well, that speaks of what seeps in, what has been seeping into your life during the years that you've been a Christian.

Oh, for the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord. You know, one of the things that I loved about Brother John was the fact that he'd become a Christian so recently, he hadn't learned the lingo. He just had not learned the so-called language of Zion.

And to me, to some that may have been shocking, to me it was a pleasure that he said what he felt, and he retained an enthusiasm in those early months that ministered and spoke to me. But you see, the enthusiasm tends to die as the floods come and the worldly spirit seeps in. Don't you wish sometimes that you were back in those early years when your commitment to the Lord Jesus was so real, but the years do go by and compromise does come in, as I'll be spelling out this morning, this evening.

The floods come, now thank God, I'm not suggesting for a moment that your house isn't standing, but it is made that little more weak as the floods come and you compromise with worldliness. Jesus is suggesting that when the floods come you've got to do greater battle to ensure that your windows really are firmly shut, that the front door is firmly shut, that you're keeping out these floods, that if they had their full consequence would wreak havoc. The rain came, the streams rose, the floods rose, and the winds blew.

The devil comes and he whispers in your ear, he puts those insidious little thoughts in your mind. There you were, you were feeling quite holy, and then suddenly out of the blue came something that was unholy. Where did it come from? Well, I say, the only explanation for this is the devil.

He insinuates, he sits on your shoulder, so to speak, he threatens you, he accuses you, he brings things into your mind that normally you would not have dreamed of. Well that's all part of what our Lord expects in the experience of people who are following Him, these true not pseudo disciples. Yes, he says, these bad elements, so to speak, these malevolent elements, they will come along, the rain, the floods, the winds, and even though they make some impression, cause a little quiver, a little tremor, the important thing is that your house stands firm.

What house will not fall? Well, that house which has its foundation on the rock, that person who is built on the Lord Jesus and His teaching. No other foundation can any man lay, says the Apostle Paul as he's writing to the Corinthians, than that which is laid. He speaks about himself in terms of a master builder, as he tells others of the gospel of the Lord Jesus, and as they come along and they commit their lives to the Lord, and so they become part of this housing complex that's built on Him.

Are you there? I hope so. The testings were fair, the testings were frequent. One day the testings will be final.

One day the testings will be final. Our Lord Jesus makes it very plain, doesn't He? When He refers, not everyone, verse 21 and 2, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me, on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? That day? What day? Well, the ultimate day, the most important day in the whole story of mankind.

The Apostle Paul refers to our Lord Jesus as that man before whom all will stand on that day. We will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. On that day, we will be tested as to how we lived our lives, how we responded to the gospel.

Those who love darkness rather than light will have their choice made absolute eternally. And the Lord Jesus says that on that day, as far as the person is concerned who is just a pseudo-believer, as the rains come and the streams rise and the winds blow and beat upon the house, it falls with a great crash. When the Lord uses that sort of language, you know full well that He is referring to something that is so terrible it needs to be shunned.

He wants you to be right on that day as He wants you to be right today, so that when you stand in the presence of the Lord, you will have, having confessed your sins, receive absolution, receive His pardon, receive His enter into the kingdom. So our Lord Jesus concludes this mighty address with the parable of the two men and the two buildings and the two testings. The testings were the same, the buildings were the same, but the men were different.

One was a fool, one was wise. Into those two categories all congregations are divided. The reaction of the people when they listen to the concluding words of Jesus is that they are amazed, because He teaches as one who has authority, indeed He does, and not as the teachers of the law.

The implication is that those people accept the teachings of the Lord Jesus, many of them, if not immediately, ultimately. Are you doing the same? By the grace of God, building your life, not on sand, but on rock, not on part of who Jesus is, but on the totality of His person and His teaching. God's solid foundation stands firm.

Are you cooperating with Him as He builds that into your life? Father, we thank you for the possibility of hearing, that you tell us so plainly that hearing is not enough, blessed is the man who not only hears, but does. Help us to do, to put into practice what we know to be common sense, to trust the Lord Jesus as Saviour, and to live a life that is compatible with His instruction. Help us to be wise builders, we ask of you.

When the day comes of the final test, when we're brought before your throne, may it be that on that glad day we discover we do not have to answer for our sins, for our sins have been dealt with through His shed blood. And when we're tested for the way that we live, may it have been so pleasing to you that from the lips of the Saviour we hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant. Father, help us to build on rock, not sand, for His sake, Amen.

Of the Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ, our Lord.