Built on The Rock

Matthew Chapter 7 completes Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Jesus finished His teaching with this advice; a promise and a warning:

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.27 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.”

Preparing for this entry I noticed something I must have glossed over in the past. From verse 24 the word ‘the’ really changes things; ‘like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”

The Bible makes it clear that rocks or stones are very important things. Many believe they represent things that are made in God’s image, that is things that are unique, whereas bricks represent things that are man made. Bricks have been known to represent oppression from tyrants who treat their subjects as replaceable cogs rather than individuals with unique capacity. Themes of these sorts make their appearance in Genesis 11 when bricks were used as the building blocks of Nimrod’s Tower of Babel and then again in Exodus 5 amidst the oppression and slavery of God’s people by Pharaoh’s kingdom.

Some think this contrast and truth is why God makes it clear that altars are to be built of stone and never bricks (Isaiah 65). That we are to bring the first fruits of our individually unique and God given talents to worship him.

I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. 2 I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; 3 A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick; – Isaiah 65:1-3

We know that Jesus is The Rock, The Cornerstone (1Corinthians 10:4, Isaiah 8:14, Isaiah 28:16, 1Peter 2:8, Matthew 21:44, Daniel 2:34-35). We know that the word of God became flesh in Jesus (John 1:14). Considering these things brought me back to a fundamental place where the question of trust rushes to the forfront. Will we trust in Jesus? He promises us a foundation built on truth, designed to last, created to withstand all. His promises are unique. His way single, narrow and strait.