S.O.T.M. The Rain, The Floods, and The Winds [Matthew 7:24-27]

Stand for the reading of the word of God [Matthew 7:24-27]

Last week we began looking at this last illustration our Lord used to drive home the point and warn us about this tendency to be disillusioned. To think we are Christian just because we have said certain things or have done certain things. Last week we spent our time looking at the similarities and differences in and between the two men and the two houses in the parable.

I want to take a few minutes to revisit the differences between the foolish man [the false Christian] and the wise man [the true Christian] before we go on to see how this parable applies to our lives. First let’s take another look at...

The Foolish man [The False Christian]

We saw last week that the trouble with the foolish man is he builds his house in a hurry and without foundations upon the sand, he does not believe in consulting manuals on architecture and house building, he does not believe in going to an architect, he does not want plans and specifications. Indeed, all such details seem to him an unnecessary fuss, and he has no interest in them. It is exactly the same with the false Christian.

He does not really trouble to study the Word of God; he is not a true student of the Bible. He may indeed have a certain interest in the Scripture, but he is not really concerned to know the message of the Book; he has never really allowed himself to face its full teaching. Paul was able to return to the elders of the church at Ephesus and to say to them that he was very happy about one thing, that he had delivered unto them ‘all the counsel of God’. He did not keep anything back. The message he had been given by the risen Lord he had given to them. There were parts of it that hurt; parts that perhaps he would rather not have given, but it was not his message; it was the whole counsel of God, and he had given it to them as from God. The superficial false Christian is not interested in that.

He picks out what he likes, and concentrates on what appeals to him from God’s word. For instance, he likes the doctrine of the love of God, but not the doctrine of the justice of God. He does not like the idea of God as a holy God, and a righteous God. The idea of the holiness of God is repellent to him, so he does not read about it. He knows that there are certain great passages in the Bible that manifest the love of God, and he can recite them by heart because he reads them so often. He thinks he knows all about John 3:16, but he does not even read that properly. He emphasizes a portion of it, but he does not like the idea of ‘should not perish’. He does not go to the end of that same third chapter where it says, ‘The wrath of God abideth on him’—that he does not believe and does not like. He is interested in the love of God, and in forgiveness. He is interested, in other words, in everything that gives him the feeling of comfort, and happiness, and joy and peace within.

He does not really desire to know God. He wants God’s blessing, but he does not want God. He does not really desire to serve God and to worship Him with the whole of his being, he simply wants certain things that he believes God can give him. To sum it up, his real trouble is that he does not know the meaning of the expression ‘hungering and thirsting after righteousness’. He is not interested in righteousness; he is not interested in holiness. He really does not want to be like Christ; he simply wants to be made comfortable. He is like the man in the picture who wants to build a house in a hurry, so that he can sit in his armchair and enjoy himself. He wishes all to be well with him in this life and in the life to come, but he wants it on his own terms and in his own way. He is impatient, and dislikes all teaching and instruction that warn him against such behavior.

We should examine ourselves constantly in the light of the Word. And if we are not reading it in such a way as to be examined by it, we are not reading it correctly. We must face these things. Ask yourself, Do I take the whole message of the Scriptures? Am I taking the whole counsel of God? Do I accept the teaching concerning the wrath of God as I do that concerning the love of God?

Am I as ready to believe in the righteousness of God as in His mercy; in the justice and holiness of God as well as in His compassion and patience? That is the question. The characteristic of the false believer is that he does not face it all; he just picks out what he wants and likes, and ignores the rest.

He never faces completely and honestly the nature of sin, and the effects of sin, in the light of the holiness of God. The trouble with him is that he never wants to feel unhappy, he never wants to feel a sense of dissatisfaction with himself, or a sense of discomfort. The thing he wants to avoid at all costs is being unhappy or being made to feel uncomfortable. He does not like other Christians who make him feel uncomfortable, nor the passages in the Bible that do the same, so he picks and chooses. He is always out for ease and comfort and happiness; and he never faces properly the biblical doctrine of sin, because it disturbs him.

The wise man [The true Christian]

Is the opposite. He is a student of the word. He is a man who does face this teaching, and he faces the whole of it. He does not pick and choose, he allows every part of the Bible to speak to him. He is not impatient. He takes time to read it, he does not rush to a few favourite Psalms and use them to help him fall asleep at night; he allows the whole Word to examine him and to search him.

Far from resenting this searching, he welcomes it. He knows it is good for him, so he does not object to the pain. He realizes that ‘no chastening for the present is joyous, but grievous’; but he knows that ‘afterward it (invariably) yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby’. In other words the true Christian humbles himself under the Word.

He agrees that what it says of him is true. Indeed, he says, ‘it has not said enough about me’. He does not resent its criticism, nor that of other people, but rather he says to himself, ‘They do not say the half, they do not know me.’ He humbles himself under the Word and all its criticism. He admits and confesses his utter failure and his complete unworthiness.

You see, the man who is right with respect to this Sermon is a man who, having humbled himself, submits himself to it, becomes poor in spirit, becomes a mourner for his sins, becomes meek because he knows how worthless he is. He immediately conforms to the Beatitudes because of the effect of the Word upon him, and then, because of that, he desires to conform to the type and pattern set before him.

Here is a very good test. Would you like to live the Sermon on the Mount? Is that your true desire? Is that your ambition? If it is, it is a very good and healthy sign. Any man who desires to live this type and kind of life is a Christian. He hungers and thirsts after righteousness; that is the big thing in his life. He is not content with what he is. He says, ‘O that I might be like the saints I have read about, like Hudson Taylor, or Brainerd, or Calvin, or Spurgeon.

If only I were like the men who lived in caves and dens and sacrificed and suffered everything for His sake. If only I were like Paul. O that I were more like my blessed Lord Himself.’ The man who can say that honestly is a man who is building on the rock. He is conforming to the Beatitudes. But, Observe the nature of the test. It is not asking whether you are sinless or perfect; it is asking what you would like to be, what you desire to be.

The true Christian desires to know God…to truly know Him and to know Him is to want to be conformed more and more like the image of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The true Christians faith is not a dead faith it shows itself out in his life. Our Lord says here, “who ever hears these sayings of mine and does them.” Ask yourself this, “do my co-workers” or the people I’m around on a daily basis know that I’m a Christian by the way I live my life or just because I claim to be one? I can’t stress this enough. We’ve seen it in this last chapter of the sermon on the mount, this teaching designed to warn us against the terrible danger of self-deception. Of having a title “Christian” but not actually being a Christian at all.

This is not the only place it warns us of this, in the NT much space is given to warnings. The warning against this light superficial belief that we are so prone to take. This recurring emphasis is designed to save us from being deceived. In a sense the message can be put thus: apart from any other consideration, false religion is useless. It is wrong, of course, just as anything that is false is always wrong; but apart from its being wrong, it is in the last analysis of no value at all.

It leads in the end to nothing. It may give temporary satisfaction; but it fails to stand the real tests. That is the thing that is emphasized here. That broad way seems safe enough; that corrupt and evil tree in general looks healthy, and you even imagine its fruit to be good until you examine it and find that it is not. In the same way the house that the foolish man built upon the sand appears to be perfect; it looks sound and durable. But the fact is that in the end none of these things are of any value at all; they fail to stand up to the test.

That is surely something about which there can be no disagreement. The real thing we need to know about any view of life, or any situation in life that we may hold, is whether it will stand the test. Is it going to help us and be of value to us in the hour of our greatest need? There is little value in a house, however luxurious and comfortable it may be, if when the storms come and the floods begin to beat upon it, it suddenly collapses. That is what we call living in ‘a fool’s paradise’. It seemed so wonderful when the sun was shining, and when we had no need of its protection and might have been quite satisfied with a tent. But we need a house that can stand up to the storms and the hurricanes. A house built upon the sand cannot do so and is obviously of no value at all.

Our Lord says that everything we build in this world, everything that we are relying upon, every preparation that we make, our whole view of life, is going to be subjected to tests. He pictures the tests in the form of the rain descending and the floods coming and the winds blowing. It is something universal; it is something that is going to happen to the wise and to the foolish alike. Nowhere does the Bible tell us that immediately you become a Christian all your troubles end, and that the remainder of the story is that ‘all lived happily ever after’. Nothing of the kind. ‘The rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew’ on the one house, just as they did upon the other. The whole of humanity is subjected to these tests. It troubles me when I hear of someone speaking of a Christian who fell away from their faith when a certain test or trial came…I wonder did they fall away or did they simply build upon sand?

The picture our Lord paints for us here applies to life in this world as well as to what will happen to us after death and beyond the grave. Now our Lord didn’t take time to differentiate between

The Rain, the Floods, and the winds

But I believe we can use those pictures from other places in scripture to get a glimpse of what our Lord is trying to convey. Now it’s always a danger to take any picture too far and take liberties that were not intended. But I don’t think I’m out of line to say that obviously our Lord was trying to convey certain different ideas about these elements and tests that we’ll face.

Take for instance, the rain. This rain that He speaks of is something that is going to meet us all. We are all in one of two positions; we are either like the wise man or the foolish one; we are either, as we saw earlier, doing our utmost to put into practice the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, or else we are not; either we are Christians, or we are deluding ourselves into thinking that we are Christians, and picking and choosing the things that please us out of the gospel, and saying, ‘This is quite enough.

You need not take these things too seriously; you don’t want to be labeled a fanatic. All is well as long as you believe things in general.’ But our Lord teaches here that if we are in the wrong position our supposed belief will not help us at all; indeed, it will let us down completely when we need it most. It’ll fail us when tests and trials come.

What does He mean by the rain? I think He means things like illness, loss or disappointment, something going wrong in your life; something on which you were banking suddenly collapsing before your eyes; perhaps being let down by somebody else, or experiencing some grievous disappointment, a sudden change for the worse in your circumstances, or overwhelming grief and the like.

These are the things that, at some time or another, come to all of us. There are certain things in life which are unavoidable; try as we may to evade them, we have to face them in the end. It is very difficult for those who are young and bounding with health and vigour to think of themselves as old people, finding it difficult to move from one room to another, or even from one chair to another. But that is the sort of thing that does happen.

Age advances, health and vigour go, illness comes. These things, as our Lord shows here, are inevitable, and when they come they test us. Any one who has loved ones in nursing homes knows It is no small trial to spend weeks and months in the same room; it tests one to the very foundations. The rain, then, covers things of that kind, and includes these tests that search and try us to the very depths.

But not only did the rain descend; our Lord tells us that the floods came and beat upon the house. I believe that this represents, in general, the world, using that term in its biblical sense, as meaning the worldly outlook, the worldly type of life. Whether we like it or not, and whether we are true believers or false, the world comes beating against this house of ours, hurling itself in its full flood-tide against us.

We all have great trouble with the world—‘the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life’. As surely as we put up our building in this world, as indeed we are all doing, the world itself will come and test it and try it. Worldliness in its subtlety seeps in everywhere. It comes sometimes with mighty power; at other times it will do equal damage by flooding in silently, unobserved and unsuspected. There is literally no end to the forms it may assume.

We all know something of this. Sometimes it comes as an enticement, something that draws us and appeals to us and pleads with us; it paints a glowing picture to attract us. At another time it will come as persecution. The world does not care ultimately what method it uses as long as it attains its object. If it can entice us from Christ and the Church it will do so, but if enticement fails, it will show its teeth and try persecution. Both ways test us, and one is quite as subtle as the other—‘the floods came … and beat upon that house’.

Then there is the wind—‘the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew’. What does He mean by this—‘and the winds blew’? I tend to agree with those who would interpret the wind as being definite Satanic attacks. The devil has many different ways of dealing with us. According to the Word of God, he can transform himself into an angel of light and quote Scripture.

He can tempt us through the world. But sometimes he attacks us directly; he may hurl doubts and denials at us. He will bombard us with foul, evil and blasphemous thoughts. Read the lives of godly men of old, and you will find that they have been subjected to this kind of thing. The devil makes violent attacks, trying to blow the house over, as it were, and the saints throughout the centuries have suffered from the power of this form of attack.

You may have known good men who have been subject to this, fine Christians, who have lived godly lives; then, somewhere before the end, perhaps on their deathbed, they go through a period of darkness, and the devil attacks them violently. John the Baptist doubted when in prison. Indeed, ‘we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, … against spiritual wickedness in high places.’ In Ephesians 6 the apostle Paul says that the only way to stand is to put on the whole armour of God. And here our Lord says in the same way that nothing but the solid foundation He advocates will enable our house to stand.

These things come to us all. But, finally, of course, certain and inevitable, comes death itself. Some have to endure the rain, others the flood, and others the wind and the hurricane; but we all have to meet and to face the fact of death. It will come to each of us in some shape or form, and will test to the very foundation all we have ever built. What a tremendous thing death is!

We have not been through it, so we know nothing about it, although we may sometimes have watched others die. Whether it comes suddenly or gradually, we have to meet it. I say it must be a tremendous thing to pass through that moment when you realize you are going out of this world, and leaving all you have always known, and crossing into that land beyond the veil. There is nothing that so profoundly tests a man as to his foundations as the mighty fact and moment of death. Something we’ve seen in the last year and a half is people are scared to death of death and understandably so.

The real question is,

how do we stand up to these things?

In many ways the prime business of the preaching of the gospel is to prepare men to stand up to these things. It matters not what your view of life may be, nor what your feelings; if you cannot stand up to those tests which we will inevitably face. Whatever a man’s gifts or calling may be, and however noble and good his character, if his view and philosophy of life, he is a fool if they collapse beneath his feet just when he most needs help.

We have already experienced some of these tests. Here are the questions we must ask ourselves. Do we always find God when we need Him most of all? When these tests come and we turn to Him, do we know He is there? Are we agitated and alarmed by tests? Do we dread His presence, or do we turn as a child to his father, and always know He is there, and always find Him?

Are we conscious of His nearness and presence at these critical points, and moments? Have we a deep unshakeable confidence in Him, and an assurance that He will never leave us nor forsake us? Are we able to rejoice in Him at all times, even in tribulation? What is our view of the world at this moment, what is our attitude towards the world?

Are we in any doubt as to which of these lives we want to live? Have we any uncertainty? Have we not found the utter uselessness of that worldly life that does not put God and His Christ in the centre? What is death to us? Are we horrified at the thought of it; are we so afraid of it that we are always doing our best to banish it out of our thoughts?

The Bible shows clearly what we should be like in all these respects if we are truly Christian. Psalm 37:37 says: ‘Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace’. Many a man seems to have a good time in this world, but his end is not very peaceful. Poor creature! he has not prepared for it, he is not aware that he is going, he is clutching at anything, and he does not die peacefully. Or listen to this extract from Psalm 112:7 referring to the believer: ‘He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord’. He is not afraid of pestilences, he is not afraid if wars should arise, he is not afraid of evil tidings. He does not say: ‘What are we going to do tomorrow morning?’ Not a bit—‘his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord’.

This is something that is taught positively in Scripture and is confirmed by Christian experience. Read the accounts of those first Christians who, when they were being persecuted, even being put to death, thanked God that He had counted them worthy to suffer for His name’s sake. We have those great stories of the first martyrs and confessors, who though thrown to the lions in the arena, yet praised God.

Paul, as he writes to the Philippians from prison, gives thanks to God for his imprisonment, because it gives him an opportunity to preach the gospel. He could even endure the treachery of false friends. He was perfectly happy, and quite serene through it all, and could even look into the face of death and say that it was kind, because it meant going ‘to be with Christ; which is far better’. He tells the Corinthians that ‘our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory’.

This teaching is only beneficial to those who have truly placed their faith in Christ Jesus. The false Christian, the foolish man, who has built their house upon the sand, finds that when help is needed most, their false religion offers none. The true Christian knows that when the storms come whether it be rain, floods, or winds their homes will stand, not because we’ve done something right in our construction, but because it is set upon the only solid foundation that will with stand any storm…the foundation of Christ crucified, buried, and raised again.

How can we make certain of these things?

How am I to live my life here on earth with peace and certainty and assurance of salvation?

How can I make certain that I am building my house upon the rock? How do I really put these things into practice? It is the greatest question in this world. Nothing is more vital than that we should daily remind ourselves of these things. I sometimes think that there is nothing more dangerous in the Christian life than a mechanical devotional life.

I hear people talking glibly about ‘having their ‘Quiet Time’, or doing their bible reading as if it’s a drudgery. It means that this person thinks that it is a good thing for a Christian maybe first thing in the morning to read a certain amount of Scripture and then to offer a prayer, before going to his daily work. You observe your ‘quiet time’ and off you go. Of course, it is a good thing to do; but it can be most dangerous to one’s spiritual life if it becomes purely mechanical.

I suggest that what we should do is this. Certainly read your Scripture, and certainly pray; but not in any mechanical sense, not because you have been told to do it, not because it is ‘the thing to do’. Do it because the Bible is God’s Word, and because He is speaking to you through it. God has spoken, and we have what God has said recorded for us in the bible…that’s why you should read it.

But having read and prayed, stop and meditate, and in your meditation remind yourself of the actual teaching of God’s word. Meditating isn’t emptying your mind, it’s filling your mind with God’s word. Ask yourself if you are living the Sermon on the Mount, or really trying to do so. We do not talk to ourselves sufficiently; that is our trouble. We talk too much to other people and not enough to ourselves. We must talk to ourselves, and say ‘Our Lord said, in effect, I preach this Sermon to you, but it will be of no value to you if you do not do what I say.’

Test yourself by the Sermon on the Mount. Remember these pictures at the end of the Sermon. Say to yourself: ‘Yes, I am here now; I am young, I may be in good health. But I have to die sometime, and am I ready for it?’ What would happen to you if you suddenly lost your health, or lost your good looks, or your money or your possessions? What would happen to you if you became disfigured by some disease?

Where are you, what are you going to rest upon? Have you faced the inevitability of judgment beyond death? That is the only safe way. But we can’t stop at reading the Bible and praying; we have to apply what we learn to our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit; we have to face ourselves with it, and hold it before us. Remember what Jesus said here??? “Who ever hears these words of mine and does them.”

Do not rely upon activities alone. Do not say: ‘I am so active in Christian work, I must be all right.’ Our Lord said that you may not be all right, though you think you are doing it for Him. Just face these things one after another, and test your life by them; and then make certain that you are really keeping this teaching in the forefront and at the very center of your life.

Make quite sure that you are able to say honestly that your supreme desire is to know Him better, to keep His commandments, to live for His glory. However enticing the world may be, say, ‘No; I know that I, as a living soul, have to go to meet God, the judge of eternity, face to face. At all costs that must come first; everything else must fall into the background.’

It seems to me that that is the whole purpose of our Lord’s picture at the end of this mighty Sermon, is namely, that we should be warned against and made aware of the subtle danger of self-delusion, and that we should avoid it by examining ourselves daily in His presence, in the light of His teaching. May He grant us grace so to do.