Placed Upon the Rock (02/22/2004)

Well, let's go into Matthew chapter 7 this morning, and we're going to change topics.

We're still talking about the overall topic of the finished work of Christ, and we're talking about everything that that has accomplished both for us and for the

Father in heaven. And last time we talked about the fact that because of His finished work on the cross, we have been delivered and translated.

Delivered from the power of darkness, translated into the kingdom of light. And today we're going to talk about this topic, that because of Jesus' death on the cross, you have been placed upon the rock.

So let's go to the Lord in prayer and we'll begin. Father, we thank you for a time to meet together. We do pray for those who are under the weather today.

We pray for all the ones that Brother Russell mentioned already, and each one who is home and ill and not able to be here.

We pray that you would strengthen them. And Lord, we pray for Sharon, that you would continue to strengthen her body and destroy any cancer cells that might have been left.

We pray that you would take care of that, give her peace of mind about it, give her doctors great wisdom to know exactly what the next step should be.

And Lord, we take comfort in the fact that you're in complete control of our lives, complete control of our salvation.

You have rescued us from the powers of darkness and you have brought us into your kingdom to be with you.

And we pray, Father, that you would help us to sense your presence today and also sense the fact that we're seated in Christ in the heavenlies right now and help us to understand that as well and to see the spiritual things we're supposed to see today.

We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Go to Matthew chapter 7 and verse 24.

And we'll read the main verse and we're going to talk about some words, do a word study in this verse, and then we'll go in and look at the whole section, the whole passage.

Matthew chapter 7, 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.

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.

Verse 25 says, 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.

Now there are some very interesting word studies to be done. Even the grammar in this passage is very interesting.

So let's look at a little bit of that before we get started. First, look up at verse 24, and I want you to see the word heareth and the word doeth.

Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them. That, let me tell you, in the

Greek language is the same as it sounds in the English. It's present tense. We can tell that, whosoever hears my sayings now, it's present tense, and does my sayings now, present tense,

I will liken him to a wise man which built his house upon a rock. The voice is active, and what that means is that this is something you're doing yourself.

Whosoever hears and does. That's a responsibility that you and I have.

So it's the active voice, and the mood is indicative. It means it's just flat a fact.

So, whosoever hears now, in the present tense, and does the things, the sayings of Jesus Christ now, in the present tense,

Jesus would liken you to a wise man which built his house upon a rock.

Now, let's look at the word built, because it's a little different. The word built, the tense is aorist.

The voice is still active, and the mood is still indicative, but let's look at the difference between the aorist tense and the present tense.

We see that hearing and doing is the present tense, but building, the house upon the rock, is in the aorist tense.

Can you remember the difference? Remember what aorist is? Probably not, because it's not one we have in English.

We don't have an aorist tense in English. But the definition is this, and we may have to go back and define the definition, but let me read the definition first.

Punctiliar action, now how many of you have that? Punctiliar action without regard to past, present, or future.

Can someone define punctiliar for me? It sounds like it has to do with something that's, mm -hmm, mm -hmm.

The clue is without regard to past, present, or future. It is not with regard to time.

And we don't have that in English, but in the Greek, it's there.

What a coincidence. So God chose the Greek language to have

His men pin the New Testament in, and it has built into it a very grammatical instrument called the aorist tense that allows a word to sort of gain more of an eternal meaning, rather than an end -time meaning.

And so this idea of the house being built upon the rock is not in the present tense, it's in this outside -of -time tense.

Now let's go on and read a little more, because it gets even more interesting. 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.

Now this word founded is extremely interesting, because its tense is neither present tense nor aorist.

It's called the pluperfect tense. I mean, have you ever heard of that? Now in my reading,

I've discovered that English does have the pluperfect, but I can't remember it. Marianne, have you seen it lately?

Pluperfect, mom? Now I know past perfect, but apparently

English has it, but you have to be at the doctoral level studying English to find it.

That's the deal. So I don't know. I can't remember it in English, but let me tell you what it is in the Greek.

The pluperfect tense occurs rarely, which means you don't find this in the

Bible very often. And here's what it means. It indicates an event viewed as having been once and for all accomplished in the past.

So it's already accomplished by the time we observe it.

Now it's a little bit different than the past perfect tense in English.

And if you were going to try to say this in English, what you would have to do is translate it this way.

Look at that little phrase, for it was founded upon a rock. If you want to try to put that in pluperfect in English, you would read it this way.

It had been founded upon a rock. It had been founded upon a rock.

So you would use the helping verb to be and use that in the past tense, and you would add to it the perfect.

So read it that way. It and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it had been founded upon a rock.

Now that gets sort of exciting as you start to think about that the building is without regard to time, but the foundation upon the rock is something that happened a long time before you were even born.

So if you find yourself being a person who has the rain descending, and the floods coming, and the wind blowing, and beating upon your house, which is a picture of your life, and yet you don't fall, it's because you were founded upon the rock a long time before you were even born and before you knew about it.

Otherwise, you would fall. Now, let's go on with those, with just the grammar in mind.

Let's go on and read verse 26. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine,

Jesus says, now we're going to have a contrast, and doeth them not. Now, doeth them not is in the present active indicative tense.

The responsibility is on the person who is not doing these things right now.

In the now, he is not doing the sayings of Jesus. Everyone that hereth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand.

Now, look at this. The rain, same thing. The rain, it's the same rain, descends.

The floods came, the same floods, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, just like they beat upon the other man's house, but there's a different result.

It falls, and great was the fall of it. And it came to pass when

Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at his doctrine. He told that story, and it astonished the people, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the other teachers of the day, the scribes.

Now, the scribes thought they had the authority, but the people discerned the difference. When Jesus taught, his teaching had power.

When they taught, it was just academic. That's the difference. Now, let's look at these few little verses, and then as we have time, we're gonna look at the context that these verses are found in.

But I want you to notice the phrases here in two places where it says, the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house.

That is nothing more than life after the curse. After man left the

Garden of Eden, this is how it is. Now, I wanna read to you a verse from 1

Peter chapter 4, verse 12. You don't have to turn to it if you don't want to, you'll remember it.

But it's what, I mean, you'll remember having read it. But it's the type verse that we tend to forget every day when we find ourselves in the midst of wind beating against our house.

Now, remember, the house pictures our life. So when we see the rain coming down and the floods coming up around us, it brings fear that the house is gonna be washed away.

And then on top of that, the wind blows and it just beats against your house. And that's life.

The same things are happening to the lost man that are happening to the saved man.

The same rain, the same flood, the same winds beating, and both houses are being beat upon by this weather, which pictures nature as it is after the curse.

We're not in the garden anymore, we all know that. But we tend to forget this verse, 1

Peter 4, 12. Beloved, so that's written only to Christians. It's written only to those who are born again.

Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as though some strange thing had happened unto you.

Now, we forget that verse because when the storms come and the floods rise and the wind beats on our life and there is a fiery trial that happens to us, we ask, how could

God let this happen? This is not fair. And yet Jesus Christ, who was

God manifest in the flesh, who was God with us, who came to this world and walked with us to teach us about God.

Jesus said that the rain comes down, the floods come up, and the wind beats against everybody's house.

That is a truth of being alive. Now, the only thing we have a right to complain about is to say,

Lord, I wish you had never given me life and existence and consciousness. I wish you had just forgotten that I was supposed to exist and never brought me to be, like Job said.

Now, if you want to say that, you're on dangerous ground like Job was, because you may be confronted by God himself who may ask you some questions.

But that is more fair for us to think than to think this. Well, Lord, I know you gave me life and you brought me into this world, but I don't understand why you're letting the wind blow and the rain come up and the floods rise against my life like it does everyone else's and every other

Christian that ever lived, including Paul and including Jesus. But it's not fair for you to let that happen to me.

You see how foolish that is to think that way? And yet it's because we forget this truth. And we forget the truth of the little parable that Jesus was telling this day, that that rain and those floods and that wind that beats against the house, that is universal to every human being, both saved and lost, because we're in the world and we're after the curse.

And we're not in the kingdom, period, yet. So don't think it's strange when bad things happen.

I just got a phone call this weekend. Actually, I made the phone call. Called an old friend named

Doug Neville. You know him, I believe, Russell. And some of the rest of you may have heard me tell stories about Doug, but he was in our youth group when we first started back in 1980 when this church started.

He was one of the first youth, and he and two other young people started our youth group.

And he went on to become a theologian, and he's a brilliant mind. And he's also a businessman slash preacher.

But I called him about a business matter this weekend, and he said, you know, I feel really badly about this.

But I didn't, that I didn't call you and tell you what I was going through. But he said, on November the 3rd,

I was almost killed. And he said, I was walking to work for the last time because I was moved.

We had moved to a house that was right next to where I work. He owns his own business. And I can just walk out my door and walk in the office now.

But he said, it was the last day we were moving our things out of the old house into the new house, and it was a beautiful day, so I decided to walk to work for the last time down this route that I'd done so many times.

And it was early in the morning, and the highway runs east -west, and he pushed the little button that makes the light change for the pedestrian.

And a little flashing, walking, green light looking man came on and said walk. And so he looked both ways and stepped across into the street, and a car was coming into that east sun and couldn't see the light and didn't see

Doug, and hit him going 40 miles an hour. And he died three times, and they had to revive him when they air -flighted him to the hospital.

His left leg was totally crushed from the knee down. His left shoulder was driven into his chest cavity and bruised his heart.

And he gained 40 pounds of fluid weight because of the injuries. And it took him weeks to get through this and survive it.

And the doctors told him, you will hurt for two years, at least, just from your body trying to heal from the damage.

And you know what the first thing Doug told me? He said, but he said, Brother Dave, he said,

I was laying there on the street, and the bystander said when the car hit me,

I flew 40 feet through the air and rolled about 10 or 12 times, just rolled over like a ball, just rolling down the pavement.

And then I laid there looking up, and the lady that hit me came over and just was appalled, saying, I'm so sorry,

I'm so sorry. And he said, I looked up at her, and I didn't know her, didn't know her state, and I didn't want her to,

I didn't want to say the wrong thing. But the first thing I told her was, if I die, don't be angry with yourself, because I'm gonna be with Jesus, and I'll be in the best place

I've ever been. And he said, if I live, I'm not gonna be angry with you, it's not your fault.

And he said, what I was thinking, that I did not tell her, is that God is sovereign, and God intended this for me.

And just as he had angels, and he said, I discerned it as if I could see them, that they held my head in their hands and protected me from brain damage.

And he said, I know it as well as I'm alive. He said, I don't know how to tell you this, because I'm not Pentecostal or charismatic, but I know it happened.

And he said, he was joking when he said that. But he said, and I laid there for a few minutes thinking, well, maybe this is my time, because he said some people came and looked over me and said, we think he's got brain damage.

He could hear everybody whispering and talking. And he had superficial cuts on his head, and you know how that bleeds.

So they thought he had really had some major brain, I mean, head damage. And he thought, well, maybe

I have. He said, because when I wanted to scratch my nose, I reached up with my left arm and tried to scratch my nose and realized my arm wasn't there.

He said, it felt like I had reached up to scratch it, but no hand and no arm was there. And he said, I found out it was bent behind me and all contorted around behind my head.

And he said, people wouldn't even come near me, I looked so bad. They didn't want to help me. He said, I look terrible.

He said, my left leg was bent in a 90 degree angle, and my shoulder and left arm was all contorted around me.

And so I thought, well, maybe they're right. Maybe my brains are coming out the back of my head, because I didn't know my arm was not in the right place.

He said, so maybe I'm about to go home and see the Lord. He was thinking all these things. And he said, there came a time, though, and he said,

I don't know how to explain this, but he said, it's as if the Lord spoke to me and said, I'm not going to take your life, you're going to live.

And he said, from that moment, I didn't have a concern about that at all. But he went through an awful lot of pain.

But the first thing that Doug attributed that to was the sovereign will of God, that God had intended that for his life.

And he said, you know what? He said, my family's closer than it's ever been. And I'll tell you this about Doug, he's a workaholic.

He's one of those kind, he loves his work. He's not home with his wife as much as he should be, not home with the kids, and his family had suffered.

Charlotte and I had observed it, he had observed it. And he was praising God that his body was all contorted and hurting and damaged, because he said, my family's closer than it's ever been.

So we can never complain about the floods and the wind beating against this life.

Jesus said, this is simply the way it's going to be. Now the thing to observe, though, that's probably more important than that lesson, is to look at this pluperfect word.

We have here one person, two people contrasted, one person at some point in the past, having already been completed never to be done again, completed once and for all, this person was founded upon a rock.

This is not something that the person himself did because it is in the pluperfect, which means it's accomplished once and for all in the past, it's already finished.

You see, it's part of the finished work of Christ. And the fact that this man is founded upon the rock before he was even born is the reason that when you come into the present active indicative time, he is hearing and doing

Jesus' words. It is not the hearing and doing of the words that makes him become founded upon the rock, like most people think when they read this, because they don't read it in the

Greek and they don't see the grammar. You just read it in English, it sounds like, okay, if I'll listen to what

Jesus says and I'll do all this stuff, he will found me upon himself and I'll be saved.

That would be salvation by works, by the way, if it worked that way. If you read the scriptures as God wrote them and you do a grammatical study and a word study, you will find that the founding upon the rock occurred before this man was born.

He was already founded upon the rock when he came into this life. Now, I'm not saying he was saved and born again like we think of it in time.

I'm saying from God's viewpoint. In God's mind, this man was a sheep, not a goat.

In God's mind, he had loved this man from eternity past with a deep love as if for a child, and this man was founded upon the rock in that sense before time even began.

And if you're saved this morning, the same is true for you. You were founded upon the rock, which is

Jesus Christ, by the way. The house pictures your life. The foundation is Jesus Christ.

You were founded upon that rock before you were even born. Now, there came a time in your life when you received

Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, and you then knew for the first time that you were his, and you would say,

I am saved at that point. But the founding upon the rock occurred a long time before your life began, and then your life began, and you found yourself born on this side of the

Garden of Eden. Didn't take you long after you came forth from the womb to begin to cry when that doctor spanked you on the rear end, and you realized this is not the garden.

That hurt. And I'm hungry, by the way. And you were born into the world on this side of the

Garden of Eden, where the curse is, and your life began. But you know what? You were already founded, and then there came a point when the

Lord called you to himself, and you looked up and said, Lord, what would you have me to do for the first time, and then you knew you were saved.

And because you were founded upon that rock, you then have ears that can hear the sayings of Jesus.

And therefore, you can do them. Now, we've been studying several verses in Sunday school and in different sermons lately that have the word if in the verse.

And it bothers some people because it's as if the Lord says, well, I'm gonna keep you secure if you hold out until the end, if you endure until the end, and many verses like that are in the

Bible, actually. And the fact is, the verse is absolutely true, like every other verse in the

Bible, that you will be secure in the Lord if you hold out to the end.

But you have to understand, the if has already been determined, and it wasn't determined by you or me.

It was determined by the one who placed you on that rock eons before we even were thought of in this earth.

Even before the angels were created, before the stars were here, you were founded.

So that foundation is something that was not built by you, nor was it built by me.

It was laid by the Father, and your life was placed on that rock. Now, when you look at the other man, the other man has a house.

He has a life in this world. And the same rain comes down that hits you.

The same floods rise up around his house that are rising up around your house. And the same wind beats against his life that beats against yours, but the result is completely different.

His house is swept away into utter annihilation, and it is destroyed.

And that life is destroyed by the same elements that make your life stronger.

Isn't that amazing? It's all happening at the same time. Now, let's go back and look at some of the context of this.

Go back all the way to verse one, chapter seven, verse one. There are several elements, seven to be exact, that are discussed in this passage in the context.

And these are the very things that Jesus said, if you are founded on the rock, you will hear my sayings and you will do them.

These are the sayings, these are the sayings he referred to. Let's look and see what they are.

The first one is, judge not. Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.

And with what measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye, but consider it's not the beam that is in your eye.

The moat in his eye is like a splinter, he has a little splinter in his eye. And you're trying to get that splinter out of his eye, and you don't realize it, but you got a telephone pole in your eye.

That's what Jesus is saying. And it's hilarious when you consider there are

Pharisees sitting around listening to this. And he says, so you're trying to get the little speck out of your brother's eye because it bothers you.

You're not doing it to help him, it bothers you. So you're trying to get it out of his eye, and you don't realize there's a telephone pole sticking out of your head.

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of your eye, and behold, a beam is in your own eye.

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of your brother's eye.

Now, I gotta ask you a question. Starts out, judge not that you be judged. Is this teaching that you should not judge your brothers and sisters?

Be careful before you answer. Don't shake your head, just look at me.

Rick's going like this, like those little things on the dashboard. That's why

Debbie liked him so much, he's cute, he's cute. Well, look at the last phrase in verse five, and it'll give you the answer, or let's just look at the whole verse.

First cast out the beam out of your own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of the brother's eye.

So does Jesus say that there are times when you should be able to see clearly to judge a brother?

Yes. So is it teaching that you don't ever judge anyone? No, it's not, sounds like it, but it's not.

What it is teaching is you don't ever judge someone when you have the same problem they've got. Well, that pretty much makes it hard for us to judge anyone, doesn't it?

Because we have got a myriad of problems, and it all relates to the flesh.

And when we're in the flesh, we can do any evil thing that a lost person can do. And yet, each of us has peculiar weaknesses and strengths in the flesh, even.

Some of our flesh goes towards one sin more than the other. Some goes towards the other.

So we have certain strengths and weaknesses. And two things that Jesus is saying, number one, when you're in the flesh, you should never judge another brother that's in the flesh.

Because you're in the flesh too. Secondly, he's saying, if you're walking in the spirit and you still have a sin habit in your flesh that appears from time to time, you don't have any business judging your brother that has that same weakness.

So it's not saying don't ever judge, but what it is saying is very difficult to live. Because it's saying we have to be so honest with ourselves on the inner man that we recognize where we are not qualified to correct the other brother or to judge him.

You know what, that's almost humanly impossible. It is impossible in the flesh, because in the flesh, we think we're better than everybody, and everybody needs to be like us.

That's just the flesh, because that is a state of selfishness. We think everybody should be more like me, and you think they should be more like you.

The flesh believes that, and so it takes a person who is founded on the rock, who has been founded on the rock, the

Lord Jesus Christ, to be able to obey what Jesus just taught there. This particular saying, he's talking about if you hear it and you do it.

Then it proves you were founded upon the rock. So when you find hypercritical people who are just pointing out everything wrong with everybody, they're not hearing and doing this particular saying of Jesus.

Now, doesn't mean necessarily they're not saved. It may mean that's an area the Lord's working on in their life.

But what Jesus does teach is if you have been founded on the rock, you at least have ears to hear.

And the Lord can speak to you about that matter of being overjudgmental and overcritical, and he can deal with you if you're founded on the rock.

If you're not founded on the rock, do you know what will happen? The same circumstances that come where you have all these opportunities to criticize other people will cause you to be so critical that the wind will eventually blow your house away.

No one will respect you anymore. No one will even care what you do say when you say it. You know what they'll say about you when you say something?

They'll say, well, consider the source. Your house is just destroyed by the wind and the things going on in the world because you weren't founded on the rock.

But if you're founded on the rock, you have the ability to hear and to do the Lord's words. And part of his words are saying, don't be judgmental of people in the areas where you have the same weakness.

So that leaves very few areas where I can judge you and you can judge me, very few.

And we have to be very careful in discerning about those areas in life. So it strikes against the carnal human nature, doesn't it?

And that's what proves that only a person who has been founded on Jesus can even have an opportunity to obey those particular words.

Those are difficult words. You start out, he says, judge not. That's hard in itself.

It is hard not to judge other people. But in Christ, we can be like Christ in that area.

Now let's go to point number two. The second saying, it's found in verse six. And this is surprisingly difficult.

Give not that which is holy to the dogs. Neither cast your pearls before the swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and rend you.

Well, now that's an interesting verse. What do you think the pearls are? Wisdom, good answer, what else?

I heard one back here, what was it? The word of God, the principles of the word of God.

Two good answers, I think we can stop there. You're not supposed to take the principles of the word of God and the wisdom that God has given you and cast that before a swine or a dog.

Who does the swine and the dog picture? A lost person.

And really, it probably pictures a non -elect person. You and I can't always tell who those are, because lost elect people can look pretty bad.

Even saved elect people can look pretty bad. So it's hard to discern these things.

However, the whole point of these sayings, as we study them, is that every one of them are virtually impossible to do.

They are impossible to do in the flesh. And the only hope we have of hearing and doing these particular things in this little passage is if we're founded on Jesus Christ and upon his words.

Remember where he said, his sayings. So we have got to be in the word of God, more than just at sermon time.

We've got to be studying on our own. We've got to be loving the word of God and be reading and studying it as we go.

Are you not going to ever have the kind of discernment that's mentioned in verse 6? And you're just going to go out there one day and just thinking you're doing

God a favor and you're going to witness to this person. And he's going to walk right up and slap you down. He might even kill you.

And so you have to be walking in Christ even to know who to witness to.

This verse proves you don't witness to everybody. Now the legalist would tell you every

Tuesday night and every Saturday morning we're going to go out on a visitation. And we're going to witness to everybody we see just during those two hours.

And you've been there and done that. Everybody you see, you're going to knock on doors, they open the door, you're going to witness to them.

Now those are types of rules that are made to try to force us to do Christian things.

Problem is, it leaves the Holy Spirit totally out because the Holy Spirit may have said, you know what, this particular

Tuesday night I want you to stay home and just be with your family. I don't want you to witness to anybody.

But you did not give him that opportunity if you made a rule to try to accomplish the witnessing, it doesn't work.

You have to be founded on the Lord Jesus Christ and be in Christ and in his words, his saying, so that you can do what he wants you to do.

And the only way you can do that is to be walking in Christ and be studying his word all the time and not be bound by rules.

You have to walk sensitive to the Holy Spirit's little voice.

And when he says I really want you, I want you to have compassion on that person right there, sitting across from me right over there and say a word to him.

And when you get there, I'll even let you know what word to say. Maybe he may say something that'll let you know something else

I want you to say. That's how sensitive we have to be. And so it's impossible unless founded upon the rock.

You go out and you look at the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons and bless their hearts, they do witness.

They will walk down streets for years and witness and knock on doors and carry those heavy satchels of literature.

And yet they are not founded on the rock. And so everything they do is to the wrong person and the wrong thing from their viewpoint, from a human viewpoint.

And why is it they're not founded on the rock? They're not in Christ. They don't have the wisdom to hear his words, so they can't possibly know what they're supposed to do.

And it's sad because they have no discernment. Now let's go to the third saying of Jesus.

It starts with verse seven and goes through verse 11. Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and I will open.

It shall be open unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and he that knocketh, it shall be open.

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask for bread, he will give him a stone, or if he ask for a fish, he will give him a serpent?

If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him, now let me ask you a question.

In the light of that passage, is prayer important?

Can we study the sovereignty of God so much that we say, well, whatever will be, will be.

Que sera, sera. I don't have to pray for anything because God knows my needs before I even ask.

Therefore, I will be lazy and not pray. Can we say that? This verse, now this verse is written in the human viewpoint, but remember

Jesus is teaching it to living people. He says, these good things will be given to them that ask for them.

What does that imply? Somebody be bold enough to tell me, what does that imply?

These good things that the father, just as a human parent wants to give his child what he asked for.

He asked for food and he doesn't give him a scorpion, he gives him food. And that's an evil person, a human being that is so limited, and yet we have the father who has the desire to give you good things.

If you ask, what does that imply? Implies you gotta ask to get it, doesn't it?

Now, does that teach us that by asking we can move God around into positions and get him where we want him and get the stuff we want?

It does imply that to people that don't know the Bible and don't know the Lord very well, but it doesn't mean that.

So what does it mean? It makes it a very hard saying.

All of these sayings, my whole point going through this context is he said, anybody that hears these things and do's them, does them in the present tense.

I was watching his head go around, it made me. If you do them in the present tense, it is only because you were already founded on the rock.

So these are not meant to be easy things to do's. They're difficult. Now, how can it be that if God has foreordained that certain good things are supposed to come into your life, that you won't get them unless you ask for them?

It's a hard saying. Well, does it not mean that as you're in the word, you're founded on the rock, you're hearing

God's sayings, Jesus's sayings in the present tense, in the here and now, I'm not relying on my

Bible study two years ago. I'm hearing his sayings right now, that as I am in the midst of that, that his

Holy Spirit will lay upon my heart and impress upon my mind the things I should pray for.

Will he not? And as he puts that in your heart and mind, that prayer literally did come from heaven, but it also returns to him as the incense goes up to the

Father for a sweet smelling savor. The prayers of the saints, and your prayers go up before God.

And then that need that you had is met. It is met because the

Father had in his will to meet the need before you even asked.

But it was also met because it was part of his will that you ask. And you did ask because you heard his saying and you did the saying which were related to prayer in this sense.

So we have all kinds of sayings that relate to other people. Judge not, relate to witnessing. Don't witness to that one, but witness to this one.

And then things that you have need for in your own life and in your family, then God impresses upon your heart to ask for those things.

And you do, and then he gives them. None of that can be done in the flesh. There is no system that you can devise with a set of rules so on Tuesday night

I'll be sure and pray for bread for my family so that I'll get the bread. There is not a system.

On Thursday night we're gonna go witness to the right people, or all day this, I mean all week this week

I want to be very careful not to judge people, especially in areas where I have problems. You can't devise rules to make this work at all.

It has to involve a living relationship with the

Lord and his ability to be in communion with your spirit and his spirit to be able to speak and move your spirit in the directions of God's will in order for this to happen.

And that only happens to people who are founded upon the rock, who have been already founded upon the rock.

Well, so that one relates to prayer. There's a fourth one found in verse 12. Therefore all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets.

Don't do anything to another person that you wouldn't want done to you. Now you say, okay, that one's easy.

Well, let me tell you why you think that one's easy. You think that's easy because you've heard it in Sunday school from a little child all your life, you've heard that saying.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, so you think it's easy. It is not easy, because if we find ourselves in the flesh, we automatically treat other people in ways we wouldn't want to be treated, even our own spouses, even our own children, our students, our teachers.

We do things and say things to people we would not want done to us in that manner.

So what's the answer to this? The answer is we have to live in the mode where we're hearing his sayings, and that means the same thing as spirit filled.

It means the same thing as walking in unity with the spirit of God. Many different ways the

Bible teaches this relationship, but it's an ongoing praying without ceasing mindset of walking in the spirit.

Founded on the rock, hearing the words of Jesus, and then the ability to do them.

We can do this, but only in the spirit. And the whole challenge in our life is that we're responsible to remain in the spirit more often than in the flesh.

That is our responsibility. God said, be ye filled. He didn't say, I will make you filled all the time.

He said, be ye filled. He said, I will make you be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but it is your responsibility to desire to walk hand in hand with him moment by moment throughout each day.

That's your responsibility to desire that. All you have to do is desire it, and it'll be so. But you're answering for whether you do that or not.

And to the extent that we do that well, then we will treat others as we would want to be treated more and more.

Now, the next one talks about the broad path.

I think we're about out of time here this morning, but you know the story. Few there be that enter in through the straight gate.

Many there be that go through the broad path. The broad path pictures the philosophies of the world.

It is very easy in the flesh to go after the vain philosophies of the world. Whatever the seminary tells you is the right thing to do, not the way the seminaries are run by the god of this world, that's

Satan. Whatever the universities say, whatever the government says, whatever the post office says, all of the different organizations in the world,

Satan is behind many of them, and philosophically, he's behind them. And so the person who is not founded upon the rock, he's built his life on sand.

All of those philosophies toss him back and forth like the wind blowing against his house, eventually they'll blow his house down and destroy his life.

But the Christian is founded upon Jesus Christ, the rock. And those philosophies can beat on you, they can beat on your house like winds of doctrine, but you will hear

Jesus' words and you will do them instead. And that's what that one talks about.

Verses 15 through 20 speaks of discerning false prophets.

Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing. Now listen, what does that tell you? If they're in sheep's clothing, how easy is it to tell they're a false prophet?

It is not easy. None of these sayings can be done in the flesh. None of them are easily done by anyone.

But to the extent that we're founded on Jesus Christ and in his sayings, in his word, and walking with him, we have more discernment than the person who doesn't.

And so we must beware of false prophets who come into the church wearing sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Only way you can do that is to be in the word, be in the word, be in the word, be in the word, and pray for discernment.

Well, the next one's related to that, the last of these sayings in verses 21 through 23, similar to discerning false prophets, but this one is discerning false brothers.

Look what it says, 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. Many will come to me in that day, saying,

Lord, Lord, have I not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works.

And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me. You workers of iniquity.

How easy is it to spot these people who are healing and prophesying in Jesus' name, doing wonderful works for the

Lord's name? Are we to think, well, that's a goat, there's an obvious goat, it's not easy, is it, it requires only the kind of discernment that we can have if we're founded on the rock and walking in his word once again.

So we see all seven of those, those sayings are impossible to do in self.

They can only be done in Christ, and it ends here with verse 24 again, and therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings, which one's the one we just looked at, if you hear these sayings of mine, that's in the present tense.

If you do these sayings, that's now in the present tense, then

I will liken him to a wise man which built his house upon a rock, the house was built upon a rock outside of time, and this was accomplished before the foundation of the world.

Now, we'll stop there for this morning. Next time, we're gonna go into a passage in 1 Corinthians where it talks about being built upon the rock, things that are and things that aren't, and we'll study this at least one more time.

Let's stand and have prayer together. Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you that it is our ability that you gave us to hear the words of Jesus that makes it possible for us to do the words, and it is the doing of the words that makes it evident that we have been already founded upon the rock.

And Lord, we thank you for our rock, the Lord Jesus Christ, the foundation of our lives, the only thing which we can safely build upon in our lives.

And we ask, Lord, as our little children and our younger young people and college -age students as they go out into this world where the rains fall and the floods rise and the winds will beat against their lives, that they will find themselves founded and grounded upon the rock, the

Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for that strong foundation. We ask you to go with us into our time of fellowship and bless the meal we're about to have in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen.