Is your house built on the Rock?

Most do not know what that means!!  Do you?  Sure?  Keep reading.

We’ve all read the parable, and if we were raised in the church, we had multiple Sunday School or VBS lessons from the parable.  But have we ever understood what Yeshua, the Messiah, was saying?  Let’s consider for a few moments:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.  Matthew 7:24-27

It is critically important that we slow down and really focus before reading a passage we practically know by heart.  It is so easy to rush through it and not see what we have never seen before.

In this passage, the first thing we should note is that the difference in the house that stands and the house that falls is the foundations.  Many would automatically assume that the foundation then, must be ‘Jesus,’ or so I was taught.  But that is not what the metaphor points to.

Yeshua says, “…may be compared to…will be like…”

The foundation in the two illustrations is the difference.  Rock.  Sand.

A metaphor is a comparison, often using the words ‘like’ or ‘as.’   Yeshua tells us what the definition of the metaphor is.   He says, ‘..everyone who hears and does… = rock…’  and ‘…everyone who hears and does NOT do…= sand…’

The Pete Rambo condensed version:

• DOING = Rock!
• NOT doing = Sand!

Doing what?

Most miss it right here.  They have the faulty understanding that somehow Yeshua’s ‘words’ are different than the Father’s commandments.  Such is not the case as the context bears out, but let’s first support the understanding that Yeshua taught the commandments of God.

John was very cognizant of Yeshua’s commands being the Word of the Father.  Consider these three verses,

So Jesus answered them and said, “My teaching (‘doctrine’ in KJV) is not Mine, but His who sent Me.  John 7:16

…I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.  John 8:28

For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. ⁵⁰ I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.  John 12:49-50

Yeshua taught the Father’s commandments.  Yeshua taught Torah.

Some might balk at that statement, but let’s go back to the context of our original passage.

Yeshua, fairly early in His The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), tells us, ‘I did NOT come to abolish the Law or the Prophets…’  In the sermon He expands and deepens the instructions of the Torah, but also shows how to live them in love.  Just before our parable on foundations, He tells us that those who enter the kingdom of heaven are ‘those who DO the will of the Father.’  He also tells us that some who call Him ‘Lord. Lord,’ will be told to ‘depart from Me’ because they practice ‘lawlessness.’

Lawlessness is ‘torah’lessness.

The word ‘torah’ is also defined as ‘teaching,’ and immediately after this parable, the Scriptures say, ‘the crowds were amazed at His teaching (torah).‘

So, why would He say, ‘hear and do’ in the telling of this parable?

Shema!

Shema, the first word in the daily prayer of every practicing Jew, means ‘hear and do!‘

 שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה ׀ אֶחָֽד׃

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord

Yeshua was identifying Himself as teaching the Torah, the foundation we are to build upon if we ‘hear and DO!’  He was identifying Himself as the prophet like unto Moses who would say all that the Father put in His mouth.

The Torah is the rock, the foundation!

By comparison, church doctrines are shifting sand…  changing from century to century, denomination too denomination.  They add/take away from the commands of the Rock.

Take hold of the unchanging, eternal rock of torah through the blood of Messiah Yeshua!  (And you’ll meet the requirements for those who persevere in the Tribulation!!  Rev. 12:17; 14:12)

Got Torah?