This evening we pray God will
bless us as we continue and come to almost the end of the Sermon
on the Mount. And this evening we'll take the
verses 24 and 25 in the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. And these read, so 7th of Matthew,
verse 24. Therefore, whosoever heareth
these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a
wise man which built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended,
and the floods came, And the winds blew and beat upon that
house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. Well, we come now to really the
last few words and the last example that the Lord Jesus Christ gives. And he speaks, he says, therefore,
meaning the people should remember all the things that he'd just
spoken to them about and tell them, therefore, whosoever heareth
these sayings of mine. And you may remember that the
last things that he'd been speaking about were those who asked in
a not a right way, or at least they didn't come with a right
heart. Because the Lord had told them,
not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father
which is in heaven. And how very, very significant
that simple statement is. that the necessity is that all
of us are found doing the will of my Father which is in heaven. And so the Lord therefore comes
and tells us now, therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine
and doeth them. That means doing the will of
the things that he set before the people and sets before us
today. And we should not therefore ignore
and forget all the things that we thought upon in the 5th and
6th and 7th chapter of Matthew. They've been very comprehensive.
They've been very searching. They've been very full. And they're
not to forget, but they are to remember. And it's good to often
read this wonderful sermon the Lord spoke to his disciples and
to the multitude. And to be concerned that in our
lives, day by day, that we are followers of that which the Lord
speaks of. And therefore, whosoever Heareth
these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, doeth them, I will
liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. And we have examples and words
in the word of God to direct us in those things which we should
do. We shouldn't be just hearers
and then do not carry these things out. And the apostle James, in
his short epistle, he speaks about this. And in the first
chapter and in the 22nd verse, he tells us, But be doers of
the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For
if any man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like
unto a man, beholding his natural face in a glass, For he beholdeth
himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner
of man he was. Well, James is very direct and
very straightforward and very simple, and yet very important
that we see how these words really echo, mirror the words of the
Lord Jesus Christ. But be doers of the word, and
not hearers only. And he says, deceiving your own
selves. That's a very striking word,
isn't it? To not be deceiving ourselves. We can deceive ourselves. We
can think we're doing the right things. We think we can hear,
and we think, well, that was a good word, and I can acknowledge
it and recognize it. But is it worked out in our lives? That's really what the Lord is
speaking of here. Directly. Therefore, whosoever Every person, whosoever, heareth
these sayings of mine. And it's a very great blessing
to hear the sayings of God, to read the sayings of God. There
are many in the world who do not hear the sayings of the Lord,
who do not read the sayings of the Lord. And what a wonderful,
wonderful blessing it is, and how we underestimate the tremendous
privilege it is to read the word of God. And as those words we
read and we understand what they mean and then we forget about
them or we don't want to listen to them or we want to turn away
from them. So what's the result? Well, we
aren't amongst those then that we find spoken of here. I would
liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. I'm sure we can understand that
when a house is built, it needs to have a good foundation. If
it has a bad foundation, it's likely to eventually fall down. And so it is in religion. We need to have a good foundation. We don't want to be relying upon
our own views of the way. We don't want to think that what
we consider to be the right way is the way to go. We need to
be very careful that we follow the word of the Lord because
that is founded upon a rock. Because he built his house upon
a rock. Now, we might ask ourselves,
of course, the question, well, what is the rock? Well, what
is the foundation? What's the foundation in the
Word of God? There's only one foundation.
Do you know what that is? The Lord Jesus Christ. There's no other foundation. No other foundation can any man
lay than that is laid, and that is the great and glorious Saviour. And so if we are to build And
of course there is a building, our spiritual building. It does
grow. We don't want to just find that
there's just one course as it were laid on the bottom and then
it stops. A building naturally continues
until it's finished, until the roof's on. So it is in our spiritual
life. There is a building and that
building continues. until the building is finished,
and then we are taken from this earth into glory. We should therefore
be concerned in our little lives to observe that our spiritual
house is being built and it is being built upon this good foundation,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we're not therefore left doubting,
really, that we're doing those things which are wrong. The Lord
Jesus spoke to us clearly in the words that we read together,
but also further on in the same gospel, the gospel of Matthew
in chapter 13, and we're told this where the Lord says, but
blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear. For verily I say unto you, that
many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things
which ye see and have not seen them, and to hear those things
which ye hear and have not heard them. So what a blessing it is
if, as we spoke last time, the Lord has given us spiritual ears
to hear and spiritual eyes to see the great and glorious truths
in the gospel and therefore to rejoice in them and to realize
the necessity that our faith is based upon the Rock, the Lord
Jesus Christ, which is such a firm foundation. It will never move. And so the Lord explains it in
this way, again, referring to the natural picture. And the
rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and
beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded
upon a rock. The Lord is really telling us
here so clearly that if we are founded upon a rock, We will
be those who do His bidding, do His will, hear His word, and
don't turn a deaf ear to it, but follow it. I suppose it is
really the most important thing, because we have no excuse. No excuse to say, well, of course,
I didn't think that was necessary. I just thought I could just carry
on my own life. Let's look at it this way. The
love of Christ constraineth us. That's really the moving influence. If we have the evidence that
Lord Jesus Christ has made himself known to us as our saviour and
therefore it is because of his love toward us Do we not therefore
have the evidence that our faith, our salvation, is not in ourselves,
it's in what Christ has done, who has given us the blessing
of his grace. Not that we've produced, it's
what God has done. And how amazing it is to think
that almighty God, and let's never think of him any less than
this almighty God, has so wonderfully and so graciously and so gloriously
looked down and touched our hearts and directed
us to observe, to understand the cost of our salvation was
His death. And so, what love there was from
the Saviour towards such unworthy sinners. it'll be a great blessing
if there is a response from our heart. And that response is love
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you see we possess that
response, what will the effect be? It'll make us willing in
the day of his power to do his will, and not to be found doing
our own will. Again, the Lord Jesus speaks
to us, therefore, about himself, about being this great and glorious
rock, and how wonderful it is to know that he is the rock which
does not move. And when the Lord Jesus was addressing
the apostle Peter, He said, and unto him, blessed art thou, Simon
Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,
but my Father which is in heaven. What a mercy that is, you see.
It's been revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. And Jesus answered,
and I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock
That means the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't mean the Pope. It
means the Lord Jesus Christ. And upon this rock, I will build
my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
So what a wonderful thing today. If you and I have the evidence
that our building is being raised from the bottom, From the bottom,
it has that good foundation on the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
church of God, they rejoice in this great and glorious truth.
It's not something that they get fed up with, it's something
they rejoice in because how true it is, it comes and it touches
our hearts and it moves our spirits so that we bow down before the
Lord. And when the apostle Paul, He
wrote to the Corinthians, he spoke to them and he said, moreover
brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant and how relevant
that is. We don't want to be ignorant
of the things of God. how that all our fathers were
under the cloud, and all passed through the Red Sea, and were
all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did
all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual
drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed
them, and that rock was Christ. Now, bless God this evening,
if we drink into that rock, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it does,
it quenches our thirst. It's good indeed if we're thirsty
for the things of God. If we long to know that we are
on the rock, we are on Christ. He is our foundation. There's
no other foundation which would be satisfactory, but if we're
founded on that, to drink of the Savior. What a mercy then,
as we come together tonight, to think of the relevance of
such a word as this. It directs us without any doubt
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we are therefore moved
By love to Him, our concern will be to do His will, as He sets
it before us so clearly in this chapter. We cannot avoid it,
can we? We cannot think it's irrelevant.
We must recognize this is the blessed Word of God, and may
it be found amongst those who have this foundation, who do
the will of God, therefore, whosoever Heareth these things. We've all
heard them. We've all heard them. No doubt
about it. We've all heard them. And a little
word. It links it together. It's vital. And doeth them. I would liken him unto a wise
man, not a foolish man, a wise man. Oh, what a mercy if we're
wise men and women. Wise men and women, by the grace
of God, which built His house, His spiritual house, upon a rock. And then when all the temptations
come, which they will, the storms of life, which they will, the
oppositions, yes, they will, but we won't be moved. Because we're on that rock. Christ does not move. Christ
does not change. I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. And we can rely upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. We can rely upon his words. We can rely upon the whole word
of God. Oh, tonight may our confidence
and our hope and our trust be found in none other than this
rock, the Lord Jesus Christ. And blessedly prove when these
times come upon us And it fell not, for it was founded upon
a rock. Amen. Our last hymn tonight is 141.
141.