Jeff Schreve - The Rock or the Ruins
Summary:
In this powerful conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 7:24–29, Jesus uses the parable of the wise and foolish builders to drive home the critical truth that merely hearing His words isn’t enough—one must put them into practice. The preacher emphasizes that everyone is building their life on either the solid rock of obeying Christ or the shifting sand of ignoring Him, with the majority sadly choosing the sand. The urgent call is to respond in faith by acting on Jesus' teachings, building on Him as the Rock, so that when storms and final judgment come, your life will stand secure.
Introduction: Bad Decisions in the Bible
The Sunday school teacher for her fifth-grade class asked, «Class, can you think of someone in the Bible who made a bad decision?» A little boy raised his hand and said, «Teacher, I can think of someone in the Bible who made a bad decision.» She said, «Who is that?» He said, «Esau.» She asked, «What was his bad decision?» He replied, «He sold his birthright for a bowl of stew.» She said, «That’s very good; that was a bad decision.» A little girl raised her hand and said, «I can think of someone who made a bad decision: Judas. Judas made a bad decision when he betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.»
Another little boy raised his hand and said, «I can think of two people who made a bad decision: Ananias and Sapphira, when they chose to lie about their gift to Peter and lied to the Holy Spirit.» She said, «That’s very good.» Then one little boy raised his hand and said, «I don’t know the person’s name, but I know someone who made a bad decision. It was the foolish man who built his house on the sand.»
The Sermon on the Mount and Its Closing Parable
In the book of Matthew, Jesus shares the Sermon on the Mount. It’s considered his most well-known, most famous, and most powerful sermon. He was on the hillside there by the Sea of Galilee. I’ve been to the place where they say this was probably where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount. The multitudes had gathered to hear him, and it said that, sitting down, he opened his mouth and began to teach them. Matthew records in Matthew chapter 5, chapter 6, and chapter 7 this great sermon. It probably doesn’t record it all because you can read it all in just a very short time, and he probably taught for a long time, but he closed out the Sermon on the Mount with a parable.
Matthew chapter 7 begins reading in verse 24: «Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts upon them may be compared to a wise man who built his house upon the rock. And the rain descended; the floods came, and the winds blew and burst against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act upon them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended; the floods came, and the winds blew and burst against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.» The result was that when Jesus had finished these words, the multitudes were amazed at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes.
Jesus told a parable to sum up all his teaching and to really draw the net, causing people to come face-to-face with the fact that they need to make a decision concerning what they will do with Jesus and with his teaching. Jesus said there are only one of two responses, just as there were two builders: the wise builder and the foolish builder. There were two foundations: the rock and the sand. Everyone in this room, everyone under the sound of my voice, you’re either a wise builder or you’re a foolish builder. You’re either building on the rock or you’re building on the sand. There is no in-between, and the question of all questions is this: Where are you building your life? Because all of us are builders.
Where are you building your life today? I want you to notice with me three insights into this great passage. It’s also recorded in the Book of Luke, and Luke tells us a little bit more detail in how Jesus worded this. He said, «Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord, ' and do not do the things that I say?» Then he goes on to talk about the wise builder and the foolish builder.
Insight One: The Majority Choose Sand
Insight number one: The majority of people choose to build on the sand. Sad but true, that’s the reality—the majority of people choose to build on the sand. Now, when Jesus told parables, you know that a parable is an earthly story that has a heavenly meaning. The earthly story in the parable is very easy for the people to latch on to—they would recognize it very quickly, and they would be able to say, «Yeah, that’s the right thing.» So when Jesus talked about the wise and foolish builder, about building on the rock or building on the sand, he wasn’t speaking of something they weren’t familiar with. They were familiar with building houses, and they were familiar with foundations.
The land of Israel is a land of hills and mountains, and in the lands of hills, mountains, and valleys, you would have dry riverbeds in the dry season called wadis. In that dry wadi, it would be a great place, an easy place, to build a house because it wouldn’t be a hard thing to do. You could get there easily, get your materials there easily, and you could put something up very quickly. It’s a lot harder to build in the rock. Luke tells us that the man who built on the rock dug deep to get down to the rock foundation, and there he built this house. To build on the rock, you’d have to go up to where the rock was, the rock ledge, and you would have to hoist your materials up there, which would be a lot harder to do.
But the people knew that, hey, you don’t want to build in the wadi; you don’t want to build in the riverbed; you don’t want to build on the sand because, although it might be good for the dry season, that’s not going to last. Because we live in a place where, when the rain comes and it comes down from the mountains and starts to overflow the banks of the Jordan River, it will come as a flood and wash away your house. So the people knew from a physical standpoint, from the earthly story, that, oh, you don’t want to build on the sand. That would be dumb; that would be foolish, and so they wouldn’t do that in the physical realm. But the majority of people do that in the spiritual realm.
You say, «Jeff, how do you know that the majority of people do that in the spiritual realm?» Because in Matthew chapter 7, verses 13 and 14, Jesus said this: «Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it; for the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.» You see the difference? There are many on the broad road; there are few on the narrow road. There are many who build on the sand; there are few who build on the rock.
So why is it that in the spiritual realm so many people do something so foolish? When he talks about the foolish man in verse 26, the foolish man who built his house on the sand, the word for «foolish man» is the word «moros,» from which we get our English word. The Greek word means dull, stupid, heedless blockhead. This is kind of just very descriptive: You’re a blockhead if you build on the sand. Everyone in the physical realm would say, «Yeah, you’ve got to be pretty dumb, pretty short-sighted, pretty heedless, to build your house on the sand because that’s not gonna last.» But spiritually, people do it all the time, and they are foolish in doing that.
Now, what does it mean spiritually to build on the sand? Well, first of all, sand builders are those—Jesus didn’t mince words; they are those who hear the word and don’t act upon it. They hear and they don’t act. Look at verse 26 again: «And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act upon them, does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand.» The people would hear, and there were multitudes that heard Jesus. People would come from miles to follow Jesus.
Jesus had many fans; he had very few followers—true followers who denied themselves, took up their cross daily, and followed him. He didn’t have very many people like that, but he had lots of people that would flock to him to see him heal, to see him do miracles, to hear what he had to say. When they went to arrest Jesus, the religious leaders sent the soldiers, and they said, «What happened?» They said, «We’ve never heard anybody speak like this guy speaks! I mean, man, he just amazed the crowds because he spoke as one having authority, and not as their scribes; he spoke as the Son of God and God the Son.»
The people would come and listen, but so many of them would listen and not do. They would listen to what he had to say, but they wouldn’t do it. Now, the Bible makes it clear, «For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, lest any man should boast.» We’re saved by grace through faith. It’s God’s grace that comes to you and me through Jesus Christ and the cross and the empty tomb, and it’s our faith in God’s grace that saves us. It’s not works that saves; it’s faith that saves.
But what is faith? Faith is responding to God. Faith is hearing. Faith comes by hearing; the scripture says in Romans 10:17, and hearing by the word of God. Faith is hearing what God says and doing what God says. What the Lord says for us to do is repent, turn from our sin, turn from ourselves, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. All the people heard, and the foolish man hears but does not heed.
The scripture says in Hebrews chapter 4, speaking of those who came out of Egypt with Moses, but they didn’t go into the Promised Land when the Lord wanted them to go into the Promised Land. Why? Because of unbelief. Because they said, «There are giants in the land; we can’t handle the giants. Let’s go back to Egypt.» It says in Hebrews chapter 4, verse 2: «For indeed we have had good news preached to us just as they also, but the word they heard did not profit them.» Why? Because it was not united by faith in those who heard.
The people that were listening to the Sermon on the Mount were hearing but weren’t doing, and the word they heard didn’t profit them because it was not united by faith in those who heard. That’s the sand builder. Hey, you can come to church Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, and you can hear the word of God, and you say, «Well, that’s a good thing.» It is a good thing if you do it. Because if all you do is hear and not do—to whom much has been given, much will also be required. If you hear and don’t do, you are accountable for everything you hear, and you’re gonna give an account one day to the Lord.
But that’s the sand builder; he doesn’t act upon it. And why doesn’t he act upon it? It’s because sand builders foolishly choose to go their own way. They hear what the Lord has to say, but then they parade what the Lord has to say before the judgment bar of their own mind, and they evaluate what the Lord says based on what they think is right, and they are going to do what they think is right, not necessarily what the Lord says is right.
This is kind of how it works: Proverbs 14:12 and Proverbs 16:25 state the same verse: «There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.» You know, that’s a great verse to memorize because it’s a twofer; you memorize it and it’s in two places in the Bible, so you’ve memorized two verses. Proverbs 14:12, Proverbs 16:25 says the same thing: «There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.»
Now, to a sand builder, he hears what Jesus says, and he says, «Deny myself, take up my cross, follow you? That just doesn’t seem right to me. I think I’m gonna go my own way.» Do you remember the rich young ruler in Mark chapter 10? He came to Jesus and he said, «Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?» Jesus said, «Why do you call me good? No one is good except God.» Do you understand? He was inferring, «Do you understand that I am God?» He said, «You know the commandments,» and he began to rattle off some commandments. The man said, «I have kept the commandments from my youth up.»
Jesus had hit him with some of the Ten Commandments, but he didn’t hit him with the first commandment. See, this man who came to Jesus, this rich young ruler, his God was gold; his God was money. He said that he had kept the Ten Commandments from his youth up, and Jesus hit on the first commandment: «You shall have no other gods before me.» He said, «One thing you lack: sell all that you possess, give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.» The Bible says that the man’s face fell and he was grieved because he was one who owned much property. He went away sad, and Jesus said, «Oh, how hard it will be for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.»
What was the rich young ruler’s problem? Did he not hear? No, he heard. He heard, but he didn’t want to do what the Lord said to do. The Lord doesn’t say to you and to me today that in order to be saved, you have to sell all that you have and give it to the poor, but what he does say is that in order to be saved, you can have no other God before me, and until you’re willing to give up every other God and put your faith and trust in me, you cannot be saved.
Sand builders want to do their own thing; they want to go their own way. They’re gonna evaluate things based on what they think is right, and they don’t act upon the word of the Lord. The interesting thing about a sand builder is that they’re in good shape until the storms come. I mean, in the dry season, everything is going good. The sun’s up, clear skies; I have my house that I built, and the house can look really good. I mean, you can spend a lot of time on this house, building it, making it look so pretty. But the problem is not in what you see; the problem is what you don’t see. You don’t see the foundation, and if the foundation is on the sand, then it’s gonna be going good for a while until the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow, and burst against that house. Then you are in trouble.
Do you remember the story Jesus told in Luke chapter 12 about the rich farmer? His land was so productive, and he had so much grain and so many goods. He said, «What am I gonna do? I have so much and it’s more than my barns can hold. I know what I’ll do: I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger barns so I can store my grain and store my goods, and then I’ll sit back and say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’» But God said, «You fool! This very night your soul is required of you, and now who will own what you have prepared?»
See, the storm came on that guy, and everything was going good until the storm came. I was talking to a friend of mine from high school; I had reconnected with him. I hadn’t talked to him in many, many years, and I had shared Christ with this guy when I was in college. He had told me he prayed to receive Christ, but I never saw follow-up. I never saw fruit. I believe what I was seeing from this guy was really just kind of a tip of the hat to Jesus, but not a real bow of the knee to Jesus.
So I was conversing with this guy through email, and I said, «Tell me what’s going on spiritually.» He didn’t want to go there with me, I could tell. He said, «I have something that I have found that works for me,» and he thought that would just end the conversation. I wrote him back and said, «You know, the real test is not does this work for you; the test is, is it true? Is it true? Is it lasting?»
Because this is the sand builder. During the sunny time, hey, how is it working? Building on the sand? Working great! Everything is going fine! I have no problems at all! Yeah, because it’s fair weather. You just wait until the storms come. Sand builders are in good shape until the storms come.
So the majority of people—the very first insight: The majority of people choose to build on the sand. Tragically but truly, that’s what they do.
Insight Two: You Can Choose the Rock
Second insight, then the good news is, if you’re here and you’re a sand builder, you can choose to build on the rock. You don’t have to stay on the sand. You might have a structure that’s been on the sand for a long time, and things have been going really well for you, but you can today come to your senses, just like the prodigal son did, and say, «Hey, what am I doing here? I don’t want to be here. This is a ticking time bomb where my house is.»
You can build your house on the rock. Now, the rock, as we talked just a few weeks ago, the rock is Jesus. In my Bible, I have a note that says, «Build my life on Jesus so that the storms of life don’t destroy it.» Jesus is the rock. You know, the Bible says in the Old Testament that God is my rock and my fortress, and the word «rock» is used for God over and over and over again in the Old Testament.
We read in the New Testament where Jesus said, «Upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.» He was speaking of himself. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, when it talks about the Old Testament people whom God led out of Egypt, it says they ate the same spiritual food, the manna in the wilderness, and they drank the same spiritual drink, the water that flowed from the rock. It says, «For they were drinking from the rock, and the rock was Christ.» He’s the solid rock; he’s the Petra, the massive slab of rock, and you can build your life on him, and I can build my life on him.
So what’s the contrast between a sand builder and a rock builder? Well, rock builders: They hear his word and they act upon it. They hear his word and they respond to it, and that’s faith. You know, faith is not goosebumps and liver shivers. Faith is not getting some warm feeling in the nether regions somewhere. It’s not, «Oh, just in my stomach I feel this must be right.» That’s not faith. Faith is simply doing what God says. It’s responding to the Lord, and that is faith.
When you hear from God and you do what he says—and the Lord says, «Repent, turn from your sin, turn from yourself, turn from the direction you’re going on the broad road, and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ"—repent and believe. That’s faith, and that’s what changes a person’s life and gets them off the sand and onto the rock.
In Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas are in prison in Philippi. They were arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for preaching the gospel and for casting out a demon out of a servant girl. So they’re there in stocks, and about midnight, the scripture says they were praying and singing hymns of praise, and the prisoners were listening.
They had prisoners who had heard people praying before, but they’d never heard people who had been beaten and put in stocks singing hymns of praise. The scripture says that God responded to those praises and he sent an earthquake, and the prison doors were opened up, and everybody was released from their prison. The jailer was awakened by the earthquake, and he awoke and saw that the prison doors were open and thought everybody had escaped. He went to kill himself because he was going to have to forfeit his life for all the prisoners escaping. Paul said to him, «Do yourself no harm, for we are all still here.»
The man came out with his light, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, and said, «Sirs, what must I do to be saved?» Paul said, «Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, you and your household.» What do you have to do? You have to believe on Jesus. You have to turn from your way of life and put your full weight, your full trust, your full dependence upon Jesus and what he did for you on the cross and through the empty tomb.
That man did that, and he was baptized that very night. He went from being a sand builder to a rock dweller just like that when he put his faith and trust in Jesus. «Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts upon them is a wise man who built his house on the rock.» Rock builders: They hear the word and act upon it. They wisely choose to obey the Lord, as opposed to a sand builder who hears what the Lord has to say and says, «There’s a way that seems right to a man. That doesn’t seem right to me; I’m going to go my own way.»
The rock builder says, «Well, Lord, you’re telling me to do this. This sounds kind of hard,» you know. When you think about it from the physical realm and the parable, what’s easier to do: build on the sand or build on the rock? Well, Luke says to build on the rock, you’ve got to dig deep to get to the rock foundation. You’ve got to get down there, and that takes effort, and that’s hard.
It’s easy to build on the sand; it’s easy to just go out in the riverbed; it’s just right there; boom, you’re here; we’re going to build here. Hard to do what the Lord says to do because it takes deep work in your heart. You have to dig; you have to get real; you have to get serious with the Lord. Not only is it hard, but you ask yourself this question: When the Lord tells me something to do, does that make sense to me? Well, it makes sense to do what he says, but most of the time when he tells you something to do, it’s not going to make sense to you. It’s not going to make sense to me. Why? Because God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts.
When the Lord tells us something to do, to us, that seems crazy. For instance, the first miracle Jesus ever performed, when Jesus’ mother came to him and said, «Jesus, they’re out of wine,» he said, «Woman, why are you telling me this? What does that have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.» She said to the servants, «Whatever he says to you, do it.» So what did Jesus say to those servants? «Fill the water pots with water.»
«Well, why do we want to do that? We’re out of wine. Fill the water pots with water? How does that help anything? That doesn’t help anything; that’s just a waste of our time. It doesn’t make any sense to fill the water pots with water.» We need wine, not water. But the Lord’s way is always to do something that doesn’t make sense to us. He says, «You do it, and you’ll see the miracle.»
If you roll away the stone, he said in John chapter 11 to Mary and Martha, you’ll see the glory of God. «Did I not say to you, if you believe, you’ll see the glory of God? Roll away the stone, and you’ll see me raise Lazarus from the dead, but if you don’t roll away the stone, it’s not gonna happen.»
God will not do what you can do, and you cannot do what he can do. It requires us to take a step of faith, and it requires us to believe God and to say, «Alright, Lord! I’ll obey you.» When Peter went fishing in Luke chapter 5, he had fished all night, caught nothing. Jesus got into his boat; he began to teach and preach, and then he told Peter, after he got done, «Hey, Peter, let out your nets in the deep water for a catch.»
Peter said, «Master, we’ve been fishing all night, caught nothing. There are no fish out here today. They’re all gone. I don’t know what the deal is; there are no fish, and they don’t bite at this time of day. I know about fishing; I’m a fisherman; I don’t tell you how to preach so that you give me a little respect here. It’s not a good idea to put down the nets.» That was no doubt going through his head.
But he said, «At your bidding, Lord, I’ll let down the nets.» When he didn’t let down the nets, he caught so many fish that it almost sunk his boat. Because you don’t have to understand what God is doing and how God is doing it; you just have to obey Him. Seven words will change your life if you will put them to practice today: «Whatever he says to you, do it.» That’s a rock builder; he doesn’t have to understand everything; he just knows, «Hey, he told me to do it, and I’m gonna do it.»
He chooses to obey the Lord. They said to Jesus one day, «Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that nursed you.» Jesus said in Luke 11:28, «On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.» Those are the ones who are blessed. If you know these things, you’re blessed if you do them.
So a rock builder is not a hearer only; he is a doer of the word. Then notice this about rock builders: Rock builders are not immune to the storms. For both houses, the one built on the sand and the one built on the rock, it’s identical in situation. The rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and burst against the house. They both had trouble; they both had difficulty. Sometimes what messes people up in the church is they think, «Well, you know, if I put my faith and trust in Jesus, then that’s gonna be the end of my problems.»
Well, it will be, but it’s the front end. You’re gonna run into problems! A man who is born of a woman is short-lived and full of trouble. Problems don’t go away just because you put your faith and trust in Jesus. Oftentimes, the problems can get greater; they can be more intense because you come to Christ in a Muslim family, you put your faith and trust in Jesus, and then your family disowns you, or your family tries to harm you, or even tries to kill you.
Why? Because you are following Jesus and the storms come. Sometimes people get knocked; they think, «I don’t understand this. I thought everything was gonna be easy now that I came to Christ.» He never said that; he never promised you that. He said, «In the world, you have tribulation, but be of good courage! I have overcome the world!» Hey, problems come to every life, Christian and non-Christian. Just because you’re Christian doesn’t mean that you’re not gonna face sickness and disease; it doesn’t mean that you’re not gonna have loved ones die; it doesn’t mean that you’re not gonna get betrayed by a close friend; it doesn’t mean someone might not lie about you at work to cause you to lose your job; it doesn’t mean that you’re not gonna experience financial reversal or any kind of hardship or any kind of difficulty.
Christians have all those things! You read about the things that happened to the Apostle Paul, who is arguably the greatest Christian who ever lived. Man, it’s just difficulty after difficulty after difficulty! Why? Because he wasn’t right with God? No! He was right with God! But through many tribulations, Paul said, we must enter the kingdom of God. Storms come to those who build on the rock.
Insight Three: Judgment Is Coming
And insight number three: You can be sure that judgment is coming to every builder. Judgment is coming! You know the storms will test you, and the difficulties of life are tests, but then there’s the ultimate test, and the ultimate test is the final storm. It’s the one that really determines what is there; it’s at the end of your life that you’re gonna find out what is there; it’s gonna be revealed. Now, you don’t want to wait that long; you want to know now what is foundational.
Because if you’re on a sand foundation, you’ve got to get off of that and on Christ, the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand; all other ground is sinking sand. The storms come as tests, but the final storm comes as judgment. Just as it was in the Old Testament when God sent, in Noah’s day, a flood upon the earth and wiped everything out, God will send a flood, and your foundation is going to be revealed; it will be revealed in the fact of whether you stand or whether you fall.
The house on the sand, when the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and burst against that house, it fell, and great was its fall, the scripture says. In Luke’s Gospel, it says this: «The ruin of that house was great.» But the house on the rock—the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and burst against that house, and yet it did not fall. Why? Because it had been founded upon the rock.
You’re going to see the Lord knows, but we’re all going to see, and we can’t see today. You know, you can look pretty good; you can come to church and look really good. You can look the part just like Judas Iscariot looked the part. He was part of the twelve. He looked just as good as everybody else; he looked as committed as everybody else. But he was the sand builder; he hadn’t put his faith and trust in Jesus; he wasn’t on the solid rock. They didn’t know until he betrayed the Lord, and the storm came, and his life was washed away.
I heard a story years ago about a father who had a daughter. This father was an atheist; he couldn’t stand the concept of God, and he was teaching his daughter that there is no God and the Bible is a book of myths, and, «Don’t believe any of that stuff. Jesus didn’t exist,» and from the time she was young, he began to brainwash her that way. Well, when she got to be a teenager, a Christian girl befriended her and began to witness to her and began to tell her about Jesus.
The father would hear what she would say: «Well, my friend said this, and my friend said that.» He would say, «Don’t believe your friend; your friend doesn’t know what she’s talking about. There is no God; I believe in a bunch of myths and stories and fables.» Well, as it turned out, this girl, this father’s child, became very, very ill, and the doctors tested her and said, «It doesn’t look good.» They said, «It doesn’t look good. They’re saying there is no treatment for the disease that you have.»
But I don’t want to believe that, and so I just want to tell you, honey, «You just need to hold on; you just need to hold on for daddy’s sake.» She looked up at him and said, «Daddy, you’ve taught me that there is no God, there is no Jesus, and there is no Bible, and now you are asking me to hold on, but there is nothing to hold on to. There’s nothing to hold on to.»
The scripture says in Hebrews chapter 6, «This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both steadfast and sure.» You can hang on to the solid rock when the storms of life hit you, but if you’re on the sand, there’s nothing to hold on to, and when the final storm comes, the loss will be catastrophic and irreversible and eternal. It will be forever; you will be swept away in judgment forever and ever and ever.
See, Jesus said in Matthew 7:21, «Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord, ’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.» Many will say to me on that day—on what day? On Judgment Day, when the storm—the final storm—comes on Judgment Day: «Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, wait a minute, I’m out here! Didn’t we prophesy in your name? Lord, I preached a sermon in your name and in your name cast out demons, and in your name performed many miracles! I did all this stuff in your name! ’»
Jesus said, «And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’ I didn’t know you. You weren’t mine. You were a sand builder; you were a lip-service benchwarmer. You were someone who kept your hat to me and said some nice things, and you were my fan, but you were never my follower, and you never bowed your knee and dug deep and dealt with the issue of sin in your heart and repented and put your faith and trust in me. I don’t care what you did in my name—prophesied in my name, cast out demons in my name, and performed many miracles in my name—I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.»
The rock or the ruins? And the ruin of that house was great. You know, maybe you’re here today; you’re listening today, and you say, «Well, Jeff, you know, I’m just not quite ready for that. My life is going good, and I feel like I have this all—you know, I think you get too worked up about this stuff, and I think I’m fine. I got baptized. I’m a member of the church, and I’m not going crazy; I’m not gonna be a Jesus fanatic. But I’ve got it all kind of figured out, and I’m okay.»
After all, most of the crowd is going in the same direction I’m going. Whoa! Be careful of that! Because the way to destruction is the broad road, and many of those who are on there. If you see the crowd following you or you’re following the crowd, you’re going in the wrong direction.
But you’re saying, «You know, I think I’m doing pretty good, and I look at some Christians, and they have all these difficulties, and they have all these problems, and I just think, 'Well, you know, they created that for themselves—they need to just temper it down just a little bit, tone it down.' You know that friend that I talked to? I said to him, ‘You know, it’s not about is this working for you; it has to do with is it true.' He told me when we were talking on the phone, ‘You know, if you had toned down your message some, I think you’d have a bigger following.’ He said, ‘You just need to—’ and he even mentioned this, ‘You ever listen to Joel Osteen? Because he kind of doesn’t like that.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m not gonna do that. This is the truth, and you give people the truth.'
So maybe you’re like that, and you’re just saying, 'Hey, things are good for me. I don’t know when the Lord’s coming back, and I don’t know how much time you have left or I have left, but I know that it’s not an accident that you’re here today to hear about the rock and the sand. You have a choice to make; the way to know what your foundation is very simple: Are you obeying God? Are you doing what he says? Have you given your life to him? Are you walking with him? ' If not, that can happen today.