Welcome to Episode #212 of the Way of the Bible podcast. This is our fourth of eight episodes in our Twenty-Seventh mini-series entitled Response to Sermon on the Mount. In our last episode, we discussed the Rain, Streams, and Wind, Jesus mentioned in Matthew 7:25; which beat against the house built on the Rock. We ended the episode, hanging, as we observed the consequences of Peter doubting. We’ll pick up where we left off and keep going deeper.
As a sidebar before we do that, let me encourage all believers to dig deep into any text in the Bible, and you will discover its inexhaustibility. We are admittedly picking at the surface here, but even at the surface, a myriad of encouragements pop up to give us confidence and renewed hope in the faith we hold in the return of Jesus Christ. What is that? Is the return of Jesus Christ not what you are hoping for? We’ve still got work to do, and this is just the place to do it.
Let’s hear the full text under consideration for this mini-series: Matthew 7:24-27 – “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.”
I made the case on our last episode that Jesus was possibly harkening back to the flood of Noah as the reference when contemplating the severity of rain, streams rising, and winds that would come against one’s house. I made the case two episodes ago that the house Jesus was referring to was not a physical man-made structure, but the house God created in our mother’s womb (our bodies), into which God put an individual spirit he’s known since before the creation of the world. Paul says that within us is a temple of God, and Peter calls it a spiritual house, where the Holy Spirit is the resident. What that temple or house is, soul, heart, etc. is a topic for another episode. Let’s just agree that the Holy Spirit is resident in us and is our source of eternal life given to us by our Father through Jesus Christ our Lord.
On our last episode, I presented God’s grievous state for making man. As a result of the wickedness of mankind, God sent a flood to destroy all living creatures on the face of the earth. Genesis 6:8-9 – But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.
There was an earlier prophet, Enoch, who also walked with God, Gen. 5:24 – Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. God didn’t translate Noah, as he did Enoch, to be with him, as God had other plans.
It had never rained on the earth or flooded from the upwelling artesian waters that provided ample water for humans, animals, trees and crops alike. So what exactly happened? For that we go to the Scriptures.
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