Two Builders
(Bible Study - December 1999) I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.
(Matt. 7:24-27, Luke 6:46-49) There is an old cliche about buying real estate that says: "There are only three things you have to worry about in buying a house -- location, location, and location."
Like all cliches, this one is based on a fundamental truth that cannot be denied. One can do almost anything to fix up an old house, including the extreme possibility of tearing it down and starting all over again. Yet there is very little one can generally do about the location.
Age-old principle
While the real estate axiom includes social elements, which we need not discuss here,
the more relevant physical context of location was certainly known far back in human
history. In particular in the Middle East, where sand cover is extensive, and there is
little vegetation to hold precipitation, sudden rains can produce wicked torrents of water
that will undermine and sweep away anything in their path that is not firmly anchored.
The people who heard Jesus speak of the "two builders," one who built on sand and the other on a firm rock foundation, were probably all aware, directly or indirectly, of incidents where houses built on unstable ground had tumbled into a wadi during some fierce storm.
Ignoring the obvious
The fact that locating real estate on firm ground should be completely obvious somehow
doesn’t seem to stop people from building in incredibly unsuitable places. Time and
again, we read of floods that wipe out thousands of homes built in exactly the same places
that had experienced home-wrecking floods before. We also hear of beachfront real estate
devastated by a hurricane, which had struck along the same coast that a terrible tropic
storm had inundated only a few years earlier.
A few years back I was stunned to find new homes going up exactly on the same cliffs where scores of homes had collapsed into ravines along the southern California coast where an El Nino storm had struck only the previous winter. Even more startling to me is to glance out the window of an aircraft as it approaches San Francisco International Airport and see the numerous subdivisions straddling the unstable land on either side of the San Andreas earthquake fault. Only thirty years ago, there was virtually empty wilderness in the same locale. What makes people do such things?
Why did the man build on sand in the first place? Surely the instability of the location could have been determined with a little careful inquiry and analysis. Jesus gives the answer -- some of us are just plain foolish! (See Matthew 7:26, where Jesus calls such a person "a foolish man.")
Foolish thinking
There is something about the human psyche that believes "it will not happen
to me!" No matter what the prior evidence, people will reject the obvious if
other factors are more important to their immediate goals.
Many of these dangerous locations are beautiful. There are people who would wish to own a home overlooking a beach, or along a river, or in the hills towering over the natural beauty below regardless of any possible difficulties. The thought of any danger recedes into the far recesses of the mind the further one is away from the last event that caused a problem. In that regard men have very short memories.
Building our spiritual life is very much the same. When we are young, the thought of death is far removed; we think, "sure it happens, but not to me or anyone I really care about." Reality painfully sets in when we experience for the very first time the loss of someone very close to us, or even more of a wake-up call occurs if we find ourselves in an extreme medical situation involving our own well-being.
Unfortunately, it is painfully evident that most people build their lives on foundations of sand, practicing denial, assuming that the ultimate calamity will occur to someone else but never themselves.
Jesus was a carpenter, and in the first century one of the chief tasks for such a craftsman, as today, was home construction. Our Lord no doubt was familiar with choosing a sound home site. It was also known that removing topsoil (mostly sand in Israel) down to bedrock level would give a home a firm foundation that could withstand wind, rain and flood. No doubt the scribes and Pharisees already thought their lives were built on a firm spiritual foundation that had been excavated down to bedrock. They had the law and the prophets and they would say: "The Lord is my Rock" (Psa 18:2) as indeed He should have been.
The great rock available to Israel
The nation of Israel was founded on a "rock" when the Law was
engraved in stone on Mount Sinai. "And he gave unto Moses, when he had
made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of
stone, written with the finger of God" (Exo. 31:18). No other people upon the
whole face of the earth had been founded on such a sure foundation. Moses spoke of this
when he said: "He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are
judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he" (Deut.
32:4).
The Lord God of Israel was indeed regarded as "the" Rock upon which the nation was built; so solid was this foundation that the fortress constructed upon it could withstand the wind, rain and flood of all their enemies. "Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name's sake lead me, and guide me" (Psa. 31:2-3).
The very center of their national worship on Mount Zion was a temple built on the bedrock of a plateau, and on this same spot today stands the famous Moslem Mosque of Omar known as the "Dome of the Rock." At the time of our Lord Jesus Christ the temple that Herod had built stood on this very spot. It was considered a magnificent structure and the bedrock foundation on which it was built was a symbol to the nation of the firmness of its faith.
When Jesus spoke of the temple being destroyed he spoke of the temple of his body, yet the people, confusing this for the physical temple, were incredulous. How could such a building be destroyed; its foundations were sure and its construction of solid stone? Yet within a relatively short span of time, 40 years hence, not one stone was left upon another and the building swept away in a flood of Roman destruction.
Hence, both physically and spiritually, the Jewish elders believed their nation was built on a "Rock." The Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was their God and they had purified themselves with endless works of tradition to "earn" His merit. As the God of their fathers was their spiritual "Rock," they had no need of this man Jesus Christ. In their spiritual blindness they could not see that the houses they were now building had foundations of sand.
A new order of things had begun and they needed a new location to build; the old ways were to be swept away and the "Rock" that was their temple was to be destroyed. Where was this new foundation and how could they find it?
A new foundation
The new foundation was "Christ," as the Apostle Peter realized when
he made his remarkable confession of faith. "He (Jesus) saith unto them, But whom
say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God" (Matt. 16:15-16). In answer to this confession our Lord says: "And
I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church" (Matt. 16:18).
A truly wise man will set the foundation of his house upon this same "rock" -- "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone" (Eph. 2:20). A house built on this groundwork comes with something better than a mere lifetime warranty; it is guaranteed forever. "Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life" (I Tim. 6:19) and "the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord..." (II Tim. 2:19).
The ecclesia as a rock
There is one other instance where the notion of a firm, immovable foundation is used
to signify spiritual soundness. The Apostle Paul provides us with insight into this
concept when he writes to Timothy saying -- "the church of the living God, the
pillar and ground (foundation NIV) of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15). The
ecclesia is the foundation on which the truth is built. The Lord is using this framework
to construct a spiritual temple composed of "living stones" which include all of
us metaphorically as building material.
The ecclesia is a God-given organization built on a "rock" for developing our character and supporting our weaknesses. When we stray from it, our lives drift inexorably into the quagmire of worldly quicksand. The Apostle makes clear the role that it should play in our lives, i.e., the pillar and foundation of the truth. Wise is the leadership that sees to it that the ecclesia fulfills this role. Nothing is more detrimental to the spiritual development of brothers, sisters, and young people than to be in a situation where an ecclesia has become bogged down with strife and confusion. Such ought not to be in the household of God.
The ecclesia must be a place where the fruit of the Spirit -- love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance is always evident (Gal. 5:22). These are the qualities that need to be assembled, as it were, brick by brick upon the foundation laid by the prophets, apostles and, most of all, by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Where the wise build
While the "foolish man" builds on an unstable foundation of sand,
in contrast, the wise man builds upon faith in Christ Jesus (Matt. 16:18). The wise man
has the law before him not written in earthly stone, but engraved "in fleshy
tables of the heart" (II Cor. 3:3). Such a person builds his house using as
bricks the fruit of the spirit wherein "is in all goodness and
righteousness and truth" (Eph. 5:9). For mortar he uses the living Word of God
so that "the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the
Lord" (Eph. 2:21).
There may be three things one needs to know to buy real estate in this world and, as we have said, they all boil down to one word "location." In seeking to build a spiritual house, the situation is just as straightforward and the answer is "Christ." This is the "rock" on which we should build our lives, and he has given us the foundation through his teachings and the example of his life.
He has given us the ecclesia as a pillar and foundation of our faith so that in a real, practical sense we are not alone, but have others to strengthen and help us in our construction project. Most of all we have our Lord Jesus Christ as the master builder, who is still with us to help us through the pitfalls we encounter in the building of our lives. "Therefore, to you who believe, he is precious; but to those who are disobedient, The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone" (I Pet. 2:7, NKJ). Even so we pray that we can measure up to this standard and build a life that is patterned after his example.
John C. Bilello
This concludes the current series.