Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
I live in Tennessee and I learned after moving here how important it is that a house is built on bedrock. We get a ton of rain and there's a lot of clay soil, so when you build the foundation of a home, you've got to get to bedrock. In fact, in the very neighborhood I live in, I learned that at one house they had to drill down 200 feet and put in a post so that they could have the house rooted on bedrock, so that the house doesn't get affected by all the rain or potential flood waters. It's so important to build your house, here, on bedrock.
That is the parable that Jesus is giving here. A parable is just a story that has a deeper spiritual meaning. He's just taught an entire sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, and He brings it to a head and to a close right here in Matthew chapter 7, by talking about a wise man that builds his house on rock.
The Parable of Two Builders
Let me read the context verses 24 through 27:
Everyone, then, who hears these words of Mine and does them, will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.
Here's the point Jesus is making: we must build our house, our life, on this foundation. This foundation is hearing and understanding the Word of God.
When Life's Storms Come
Some of you sang the song when you were a kid, And the wise man built his house upon the rock and the foolish man built his house upon the sand, and the rains came tumbling down.
Rain is going to come in your life. Storms are going to come in your life. The flood waters are going to rise in your life. What does that mean? It means that life is not going to go the way you planned. Life is not going to go the way that you always want it to go. It means that circumstances are going to be difficult.
It is so important, Jesus says, that your life is built on the foundation of understanding and following the Word of God, specifically the message of Christ.
Charles Spurgeon wrote, "The rock is Christ, and the building on the rock is the hearing of His words and the doing of them. He is not a wise man who builds his hope on anything short of the personal Redeemer, and the practical carrying out of that Redeemer's commands. A profession that is not built upon the doing of Christ's word is a mere sand castle, which the next tide will sweep away."
A Life Founded on God’s Word
Are you going to build a sand castle with your life? Build it on something other than the Word of God? Or, will you build a house on solid rock? Will you build a life that is founded on God's Word? Because Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7 verse 24, Anyone who listens to My teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.