We studied in Matthew chapter 7, verses 21 to 27, and I asked our brother to read it for us please in Chinese. The parallel passage to this, the Lord's teaching, is in Luke chapter 6, verses 46 to 49.
Now these two passages are similar but not exactly the same. In the teaching of the Lord Jesus in the Gospel, you often see passages which are similar but they are not the same. What's the reason for this? One of the reasons for this is that the Lord Jesus did not only say these things once in His ministry. Many times He would speak the same parable or teach the same truth in another place. If a lesson is important, and since the Lord Jesus was not preaching in one place, it is to be expected that He would preach the same message in a different place to different people. But when He preached it in another place, there would be some difference in wording and some difference of presentation. Sometimes the difference is very small. But in other places you will find the difference is very great.
For example, when you study the parable of the talents and the parable of the pounds, you will immediately notice that there's a lot that is similar and a lot that is different. But we thank God for these differences, because both sides enable us to see the richness within. And for a faithful expositor of the Gospel, this is a particular advantage, because you can use both passages to illuminate each other, so that the message He wants to convey becomes even richer.
Last week we learned some very important things. We discovered that there are two different kinds of faith. One kind of faith is the non-saving faith. And the other kind of faith is the genuine faith — that is, the kind that saves, as the word faith is normally used. I hope we have all carefully considered what the Lord Jesus' teaching means here. And we should ask ourselves whether the faith we have is the saving kind of faith.
We saw that in actual fact we can speak in tongues, we can do mighty works, but that faith is not the saving faith. What we saw today is so important — that the whole church should understand this truth. I fear that there are many in the church who possess the same kind of faith as we spoke about yesterday. A faith, but a faith that is not a saving faith. And we saw the Lord Jesus saying, "Depart from me, for I never knew you, you evildoers." These people's fault was not that they had no faith. The fact is that their faith did not include obedience. We saw that the only faith that saves is the faith that includes our obedience to God.
In other words, you may genuinely believe in Jesus. You can believe that Jesus' power is so great that you can do miracles. Yet the life you are living is a life of self-will. You go where you want to go, you do what you like to do, and you never ask God whether you should be doing this. The only time you turn to God is when you are already in trouble. And you turn to God in the same way that an unbeliever would turn to a fortune teller. He just doesn't know which is the right thing to do, so he wants to make use of God to find out what's the right way to go.
There are so many people whose Christianity is like this: even when they are looking for God's will, it's not because they want to obey God. It is just in the same way that when you listen to a fortune teller, it's not because you want to obey the fortune teller. You want to know what's the right thing to do, which is the way that I can avoid getting into trouble. So these are the kind of Christians who have faith, but their faith does not function on the basis of obedience.
Now what kind of faith have you got? You say, "Well, I believe that Jesus is Christ." That is, He is the Messiah, the Savior of God. "I believe that He rose from the dead, having died for my sins. I believe the Bible is the Word of God." You can believe all of this without once having to obey Christ in your daily life. Because you simply accept these things as true. Obedience to Christ in a living way is not involved in this kind of faith. Therefore, how can that faith save you?
The orthodoxy of faith alone, brothers and sisters, under scriptural teaching, does not save just by that intellectual or very sincere belief. There were many people in the history of the Christian church who have perpetrated the most disgraceful crimes in the name of Christ, who believed all these doctrines. Do you think that those people, who carried out the terrible business of the Spanish Inquisition and killed a lot of people in the name of Christ — do you think they didn't believe the Bible was the Word of God? You think they didn't believe in God? You think they didn't believe that Jesus is the Son of God? You think they didn't believe that Jesus died on the cross? They believed all these things. In fact, with the cross hanging around their neck, they put other people to death.
Now these things are true. These things are the black spots of the history of the church. That you can wear a cross around your neck and put people to death, and think that you are doing that for God. Nor should you think that only Roman Catholics are guilty of such crimes. The Protestants did some such things too in their time. What about the Thirty Years' War? All these fightings were being done in the name of Christ. All these kinds of things. Why is that so? It is not that they lack faith. But they lack obedience. And the Lord Jesus is saying therefore that you must have the kind of faith that operates on obedience if you are going to be saved.
Or let us take the people in the church — never mind going back to the history of the church. There are people who do the same things in the church in the name of Christ. Instead of using the sword to kill people, they use their tongue to do just the same job. There are people who criticize others in the church to the point of trying to destroy them. Nobody has been in the church for very long who will not have experienced that kind of thing. Some people have left the church simply because there are others who have just kept criticizing them. These people's tongues are like a sword. And they say, "I criticize you because I am doing God's service." "So I will call you a liar, a hypocrite, and whatever you are, and I say I am doing this for the service of Christ." I am not saying that the church cannot point out anyone's area of weakness. But it is not allowed to us as Christians to go about criticizing and judging people in this hostile spirit, and then saying "I am doing it for Christ."
Let us take another point. The Lord Jesus says that we are to love one another, to encourage one another. Do you obey the teaching of the Lord Jesus? Do I obey that teaching? What's the use if I say I believe in Jesus, but I don't do what He tells me to do? If I do not love my neighbor, if I don't even care about them, how can I still be saying that I have faith in the saving sense? The doctrines are correct. But where is the practice? Where is the obedience?
I will never forget the meeting of Christian leaders. I was in a meeting in Cambridge in England once. And there were many Christian leaders there. The names of these people you will find in many books. And so when I heard that these Christian leaders were having this meeting, and I was in Cambridge at the time, I asked if I could be an observer. And I must say that was for me an experience that really made me feel so bad, it shook me. There were these Christian leaders, as I say, well-known writers, well-known Christian leaders, whose names I knew from books. And when it came to a point of discussion, the attitude of arguments with one another — I tell you, my heart just sank within me. I don't say that all of them behaved like this. But a considerable proportion of them behaved like this. I think you will not be surprised that I never want to read their books. Because I feel the most important thing is what kind of life a person lives. What kind of person they are. I have no interest in how many degrees they have. But when there is a man of God who has something to say, I want to listen very carefully.
That is why, for example, Brother Watchman Nee's books are so precious to me. In terms of academic degrees, Brother Nee was, shall we say, not particularly distinguished. We could say he was quite outstanding in science. That was his particular field of study. But when it comes to the academics of the Word of God, his writings are really not worth reading from the point of view of academic scholarship. But spiritually speaking, his insights are very precious. He could see things that scholars could not see. And that's exactly what makes his writing precious.
And so it all comes back to this matter of a faith that obeys, or a faith that does not obey. That is most essential for us to know. Your salvation depends upon this.
Now how come then that there are people who have faith and don't obey? The Lord Jesus in Luke chapter 6 verse 46 says this: "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and don't do the things that I say?" What is the answer to that question? What do you think is the answer? Why do people call Jesus "Lord, Lord," and they don't do what He says? Ask yourself in your own experience, how many times you have said "Lord, Lord" to Jesus, and you didn't do what He said?
In Isaiah chapter 29 and verse 13, Isaiah says this in the name of the Lord. He says, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." Why bother to honor Him with your lips if your heart is going to be far from Him? Why bother? Here you see the foolishness of people. You can deal with people like this, but you cannot deal with God like this. But we think that God is much like anybody else. You see, maybe I don't want to offend you, and so I say, "How are you? You are my friend, you know, we're always friends." But in my heart, I say, "The sooner this guy disappears, the better." We behave like this because it is in our nature to behave like this.
I think this is the situation that is very much in the church today. In our attitude to one another, that's the way we behave towards one another. Let's be honest about it. After the meeting, you'll be smiling at some people: "Hi, how are you? Okay?" You don't bother to hear the answer. It always reminds me, as I said in another place, the Chinese greeting: "Have you eaten?" But if you say no, they don't say, "Oh, come on, have a meal with me." Now if you do that, then you really meant what you said. But you might say, "Oh, you haven't eaten? Can I give you something?" "No, no, that's alright, forget it." And if they say they don't need it, you're happy. Do you understand?
So we find that in many places, we ask the question but we are not too concerned about the answer. We honor with our lips, but our hearts are far away. This means an important spiritual principle emerges. That principle is: your relationship with God is the same as your relationship with people. In other words, if your heart is far from God, your heart is also far from people. And the principle operates in the opposite direction as well. If your heart is far from other people, your heart toward God is also at a distance. This principle holds true in spiritual life. If you want to learn how to draw closer to God, you need to learn how to draw closer to one another.
This principle is mentioned in 1 John, where it says: if you do not love your brother whom you can see, how can you love God whom you cannot see? Think about it. Perhaps we prefer to love people we cannot see. Because we don't need to deal with their shortcomings. We don't need to come into contact with their failings. It's like some boys and some girls. Sometimes a movie star — this wonderful person, this beautiful, handsome movie star. You dream about this person all the time. Just watch the teenagers when the Rolling Stones, or whatever they call them, perform — they all go wild. But wait till you know that movie star. You see, you love that person so much because that person is only in your imagination. That person is so wonderful because in your imagination, you have made that person wonderful. If you had the chance of knowing that person, I wonder how many days after that you will still be excited about that person. I think you would be so disillusioned at the end of one week that you wouldn't want to think about that person again. Because then you will see the person as he or she really is.
You see, that is the problem of marriage among young people. Especially if they marry too young, who lack experience in life and the realities of human nature. You see, when they fall in love, they think that boy or that girl is just so wonderful, like an angel. They cannot eat, they cannot sleep, they can only think about this person. And one month after they got married, they are already fighting. Because they have been living in their imagination. And the reality did not match their imagination.
And so we see that the principle here is this: is your love towards God a genuine love, or is that something you have built in your imagination? In other words, you have painted some kind of idea of God in your own mind. Now, truly, it is true to say that no matter how wonderful you can imagine God, God will be more wonderful than that. But the point is not that. The point here is that in spiritual life, your faith must not be a faith towards an imaginary object, but towards God as He really is.
Now the question is: how do you know whether your faith is real or imaginary? There is an imaginary faith and there is a real faith. How do we know that one is real, one is imaginary? When it is put to the test of everyday life. That is why you see some Christians in the church — oh, they are full of love for Christ, they are full of fire. And how is it today they have fallen away from Christ altogether? I'm sure you know people like this. How to understand it? Because their faith was an imaginary faith. I know many cases like this. I know people who are full of devotion to Christ. They live only for Christ. They study only for Christ. And where are they today? They are not in the church anymore. They are not walking with Christ anymore. Funny — how can a person have this kind of devotion and is now completely in the other extreme? When you see these things, don't be surprised. It will happen all the time.
And it is no more strange or no more different from the married couple, the young couple that got married and they were so deeply in love. And then a few months later, they got divorced. You ask yourself, did they not genuinely love each other before they got married? You saw them in love with one another. Sure it was genuine. You saw them holding hands and all stars in their eyes, like drunk with new wine staggering down the street. How can it be now that after a few months they are already fighting each other?
This is the point. There is the difference between genuine love — genuine love towards a genuine object — and a love that might have been genuine but towards an imaginary object. The difference between these two kinds of love, these two kinds of faith in each other, is vast.
If you fall in love, I hope that you fall in love this time with your eyes open. It is not that kind of love where it says "love is blind." That kind of love — forget it. Because one of those days when your eyes open, you say, "What am I loving? Up to now, I've been loving with my eyes closed." Blind love. So start now with your eyes open. When you become a Christian and you love God, then don't go there with your eyes closed. God doesn't want this kind of blind love. God wants you to love Him with your eyes open.
So how do we know the difference between these two? It is this: where there is the true love, the love with eyes open, the more problems, the more difficulties, the love gets deeper and stronger all the time. It is not a love that weakens with problems. It gets stronger with the problems. Then you know you've got the right kind of love, the right kind of faith in the other person. When you can see one year later, they are just as close as when they first got married — then you know, hmm, they are on the right track. When five years later, they are even closer to each other than when they first got married, you say, "Praise God, they really know what love is about." And in the same way, the Christian who first came to the Lord, he had love. And you see one Christian five years later is even stronger than five years before. And the other five years later is nowhere to be seen. There you know the difference of two different kinds of love, two different kinds of faith in the other person.
Now how do you grow in this right kind of faith, this right kind of love? It is the love and the faith that is prepared to give oneself to the other and not just to take the other. The difference between give and take is the difference between these two kinds of love. That is why I am so afraid of those preachers who say, "Accept Christ today as your Savior. Take Him." I think those of you who know my preaching don't hear me talking like this. I always speak about giving yourself to Him. I don't speak about accepting Christ. Now you will know the reason. It is the fundamental difference between two kinds of love. To take is to get something for nothing. To take or to give — this is the fundamental difference between two kinds of love. And most preachers like to play on this basic aspect of human selfishness.
# Two Types of Foundation — Matthew 7:21-27 and Luke 6:46-49 (Part 2)
You believe in Jesus, you've got nothing to lose. You get Jesus on top of everything else, so you've got one bonus, a big bonus on top of everything else. Nothing to lose. And there is my preaching exactly the opposite: that when you come to Christ, you give everything to Him. And so the preacher who says, "Come and accept Christ, and you've got everything to gain, nothing to lose" — they've got lots of people raising their hands. One year later, you see where these people who raised their hands — where are they? The fallout rates, according to one survey, of the average evangelist, in one year is 80%. But those who come to the Lord through my preaching, the fallout rate is almost nil. I have proved this in Liverpool over the years. All those who came to Christ, they still stand.
Is it because I'm more clever than these preachers? Not at all. I'm sure many of them are more clever than me. They are better preachers than I am. But the difference is that I am determined to preach as the Lord Jesus taught. And where in the teaching of the Lord Jesus do you see anything about "accepting me"? Can you find me the passage that says so? On the contrary, He says, "He who comes to me — not I come to him — he comes to me, I will not cast out." If you give yourself to me, I will accept you if you come with an open heart. When does the subject expect the king to come to him? Do we go to the king? It is not a question then of accepting Christ, though that is not entirely untrue. Of course, in a sense, we do accept Christ. But more important than that is the teaching of the Lord Jesus in which He accepts us. The whole teaching of the Lord Jesus is that except a man deny himself for the sake of Christ, he cannot be Jesus' disciple.
Now when you became a Christian, on what kind of preaching did you become a Christian? Did you become a Christian in order to get Christ, or to give yourself to Christ? There is a world of difference between these two. Right now as a Christian, are you the Christian who accepts Christ, or are you the Christian who has given yourself to Christ? If you are only the Christian who takes Christ, who takes Him to yourself in order to have Him, to possess Him, and to make use of Him — you are not going to be a Christian who will survive for very long in the realities of everyday life.
And when these two kinds of people become Christians, even their reaction is different at the beginning. You see many people when they accepted Christ, they say they're full of joy. Why not? If I get a big present, I'm also full of joy. But when I lead people to Christ, I tell you many times the tears run down their faces. They enter into the kingdom with their eyes open. They see the problems, the hardship of the narrow way. They have seen the glory of the kingdom of God. Their eyes are open spiritually. But they can see the narrow, the hard road leading there. And they say to me, "I will take up the cross and go, to follow my Lord from this day forward." Even though the tears run down their faces, forward they go. There is nothing superficial about this kind of Christian. They are a different type of Christian altogether in the church. That is why when I tell you that their fallout rate is almost nil, you wouldn't be surprised by now.
So today I would like you to examine yourselves. What is the nature of your faith? What kind of a Christian life do you have today? Is it being a Christian in order to get all the things for yourself? Or rather to see: I know now that Jesus is Lord. He is King of the universe. He shall reign where'er the sun does its successive journeys run. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. This kind of a person is not like a present you can take to yourself and put in a package with a nice red ribbon on it. We can talk about some presents that God gives to you that you can sort of take home. Indeed God gives us His presents, His gift. But the most important thing is that having received it, we give ourselves. Then you know what it is to be a true Christian.
Which shows the other point: the difference between these two kinds of faith, these two kinds of love, is the difference of the concept of who Jesus is. The kind of Christian who only talks about accepting Christ usually has no concept of the glory, the majesty, the greatness of Christ. He has no concept of that. That's little wonder that when the problems come, he cannot stand. It is the difference between choosing the road that is easy — that is, to get a present is easy — and the road that is hard, costly, to give yourself. Costly.
This is the point of the building of the houses that the Lord Jesus speaks about. The one kind, when the flood comes and the wind blows, it collapses. But the other kind stands, no matter what kind of storm beats against it. Now outwardly, the two houses may look the same. You cannot see the foundations that are hidden. Just like so many Christians, they outwardly look the same. When you look at them in the church, how do you tell the difference? They are both very polite. They both have nice smiling faces. They look the same outwardly.
Now, this is the meaning of the Lord's teaching here. The life that you are living now is like building a house. If you are building just for a short time, why waste the energy and the strength and the cost to build it on a foundation? The man who builds for the long term, he builds on the rock because he is thinking of a long time ahead. Which shows again the difference between these two kinds of faith and the two kinds of love. The one kind of Christian only thinks about the present. Another Christian looks into the future, right through to eternity. You just have a conversation with them and you know which one they are thinking about.
Now, one kind of Christian is only worried about his business, his exams. His whole thinking is only about today and tomorrow and the day after that. He has no vision, no future. The problem of today is the big thing. But the other Christian has his eye away in the distance. He is not short-sighted. Have you ever noticed that the person with the long view is the person who doesn't get too worried about problems in the immediate future? But the Christian who thinks only about today — every small thing is a major disaster for him. Every single day.
What kind of Christian are you? The Christian that lives for today? The kind which says, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Today is all we've got. Let's enjoy it while we've got it." But the other kind is the person who looks into the distance. He says, "It may be hard work today, but it's worth it for the objective I'm laboring for." Now I would have thought that our Chinese people are people with the long-term view. I'm told that there are some people in the world who, if they got some money in their pocket, they never bother to work until they have no more money. And then they work for another day and then they can relax again. But I have always understood that Chinese people are willing to work hard today so as to have a better future. They don't mind today's hardship in order to have a good future. But if you can apply that into spiritual thinking, then you're really getting somewhere.
So think of the beauty of the Lord's teaching here. You try building a house on the rock and then you know what He's talking about. Here is a great rock. How are you going to build a house on it? How are you going to put a foundation into that? That is hard work — chiseling and driving into the stone in order to establish the house on the rock. In Luke chapter 6 verse 48, the Lord Jesus says this: "He, that is the wise man, is like a man building a house who dug deep into the rock" — not into the mud. That would be an easy job to dig into the mud, but into the rock — to dig deep. You try that. That really is hard work. You think how many hours he has to chisel into the rock with the sweat running down him.
While the other guy building his house on the sand is having an easy time. He just puts his wood together, hammers it together, and there's the house. And here is this poor fellow still chiseling away. And there you can see the other fellow sitting under the tree, smiling, while the other fellow is chiseling into the rock. He's already long time finished his house, while this fellow in the rock is still chiseling, only made a small hole there and still driving away. And there the Lord Jesus says he dug deep. Oh, this man is not going to just chisel a small hole in the rock. Why bother? He was digging down deep into the rock. This fellow said this fellow is really wasting his energy. Look, he's nice and cool under the tree. And this fellow is trying to make life hard for himself. But in English there is a saying which says: he who laughs last, laughs best. So this fellow is laughing first, sitting under the tree, looking at that poor fellow in the rock still chiseling away.
But then summer is passed and the winter comes. And to understand the picture here, you have to understand a bit about the life in Israel. During the warm months, the summer months, it is dry. But in winter, the rains come down. In summer, even the rivers become dry. But in winter, suddenly, where there was no river, suddenly there is a river. That's why anyone who knows the Middle East will know the word "the wadi." Wadi is a river which actually you don't see. It only becomes a river in winter. And suddenly in winter, the rivers begin to come down.
And who do you think was laughing last? When the rains came down and the storm blew and the rivers came, this guy on the sand — his house was going down there. And he was yelling, "Help! Save me!" By that time, he is either smashed on the rocks or washed into the sea. But the man built on the solid rock — he is safe, nothing happens to him. Because he built with the long-term view.
What is this rock? In 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 10 onwards, you find Paul's exposition of this very passage. And there he points out that this rock, this foundation, is Christ. If you build on Christ, you will be secure. If you put your life solidly based on Him, then you will be safe. What does it mean to build on Christ? It means that your life is dependent wholly on Him. That house rests completely upon that foundation, upon that rock. You live a life of total dependence on Christ. Just as the house rests on the foundation, your life rests on Christ.
Ask yourself right now: am I living a life that is totally depending on Jesus? In every problem and every difficulty, I rest wholly on Him. I have total confidence in Him. I have built a solid relationship with Him. The house doesn't just sit on the rock. It is dug into the rock. It is rooted in Christ, to use Paul's expression in Colossians. What does that mean? It shows the direction of your life. You go towards Christ, into Christ. Not satisfied just to have a superficial relationship with Him. But ever going deeper into the life of Christ. That means every day you are working towards Christ. And it is effort. Notice the effort. I mean, you don't build a house with no effort. So it shows the direction of your energy and your effort that you put in every day.
How much effort did you spend in the last week in going deeper into Christ? Ask yourself honestly, how much energy did I spend digging deeper into Christ in the last week? How much time did you spend meditating deeply into the words of Jesus? How many hours did you sit back and meditate on His words, going deeper into His words? How much time did you spend communing with Him, drawing into a closer relation with Him? How many people can spend hours with their girlfriend or boyfriend and it feels like only five minutes? But in the presence of Jesus Christ, five minutes feels like hours. How can you say you want to go deeper into Christ, if you have no interest in His word, or you don't enjoy His word, or you have no fellowship with Him? That kind of Christian — when the wind comes, you will be blown away. When persecution comes, you will leave. Like many Chinese Christians in China — when Communism came, their faith left. Those floodwaters came, and they were swept away.
But other Christians, when Communism came, they became even stronger than before. Suddenly they had such great power, a new power that opened up, which we had never seen before. Almost as though the floodwaters were the ones that really fertilized their roots, enabling them to grow even stronger than before. Notice that the flood, on the one hand, destroyed those who did not believe, but on the other hand, it built up those who believed. The same flood that destroyed the faithless is the same flood that lifted Noah's family up. The same water that divided in order to let the Israelites, the people of God, go through, was the same water that wiped out the enemy. So the same floods that wiped away all these nominal Christians with that kind of superficial faith, is the same water that has made the church in China today the mighty spiritual force that it is.
So I ask you to consider carefully, and I beg of you to consider for your eternal welfare, what kind of faith you have. Whether you are built upon the rock which is Christ. Or whether your faith is built on nothing more than the shifting sands of this world.
Now there is more riches that I wanted to share with you, but there is no time. And so I shall continue again, God willing, after two weeks' time. But we have dealt with things which are of eternal importance. I pray that when that day comes, when the floods come — and they will come — that every one of you will be able to stand.
But maybe somebody will say, "Well, maybe the floods will never come." If you are thinking like this, you are thinking exactly like the foolish man, because that's why he built his house on the sand. Because he was sure the floods would never come — not this way, maybe it goes down that way, but not here. Believe me, the floods will come. Make sure that your life is built on Christ. You must trust Him completely, just as that house is built upon the rock.
Now in 1 Corinthians 3:10 onwards, the apostle Paul develops the point: having got the foundation, you need to build upon it. And with what material you build on it determines whether the superstructure will survive — not only whether the foundation survives, but whether what is built on top will also survive. And what will or will not survive depends on the cost of what you put into it. If you build with costly things like gold and silver and precious stones, it will stand any degree of testing. But if you build with cheap things, like so many Christians do, who put next to no cost into it — it will not stand. And when the judgment comes, you will be empty-handed.
Today, I'm sure that you have found it very costly to sit here in this heat. But this kind of cost is very much worth it. I hope also that those who can survive the floods may not have to survive only by the skin of their teeth, that is, with nothing much left after the flood has passed. That they don't have to go to God empty-handed.
Some Christians will be saved. But my, are they going to be sorry that they did not build for the future. Think of it — that one day, even if you survive the flood, and you come before Jesus, you have to come empty-handed to Him. Think of that day when you stand before the Lord Jesus. And every one of us is going to stand before the Lord Jesus. And you are going to be empty-handed.
My principle is this: live your life so that you have nothing to regret. And with nothing to regret. I hope that you really take this to heart. A man who had his house washed away — he had plenty to regret. Live a life where there is no need to regret. I underline that again. In other words, don't say in that day when you stand before the Lord Jesus, "Oh, I wish I had lived my life differently."
There were those people who were deciding: shall I serve the Lord, shall I not serve the Lord? And then if they decided they were not going to serve the Lord, they were going to make a better living for themselves today. Think, if you want guidance on the principle: on that day when I stand before the Lord Jesus, what would I really have rather chosen to do? I think you'll immediately see what would be the right thing to do.
Let us close in prayer.