From the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster we present Let the Bible Speak. It's good to have you join us today as we spend time around the Word of God, preaching Christ in all His fullness to men and women in all their need. Oh. Let me, Lord, rejoice, my gladness divine, my graceful salvation, to thee I submine. Thou name shall not burden me, I only My thoughts, dear one, say no, I want to be kind. Bless the Word of Jesus, and in glory call it. I will not, I will not, I will not I saw it first, I saw it first. I welcome you in the Savior's name to our meeting. What tremendous singing that was of that great hymn. We're going to open our meeting in a time of prayer. Let's all seek the Lord. Our heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for the firm foundation which our Savior has laid. Lord, we bless thee for the one who is the rock. Thank you, Lord, that he can be depended upon. Father, we thank that we can cast ourselves upon him, and not just for reliance upon life, but Lord, for all eternity. And Lord, we pray for our gathering this evening. We pray that you will come and that you will present yourself with us. We pray that we will know the power of God in this place, that heaven will touch earth. May we know help as we sing, as we worship thee. May there be a focusing of our attention. May there be a removal of all distractions. We pray that Jesus Christ will have preeminence. And then, Lord, as we open the book, we pray that you will speak to our hearts. We thank you for this revelation of yourself that you have given to us. And help us, Lord, take away the dullness of our minds. And we pray that we will be attentive to the truth. Give us that soft heart to hear and to obey, hearing ears and obedient hands and feet. And we pray, Lord, that you will bless the Reverend Greer as he opens the book to us. Give him power in this place. May he know the help of God, and we pray that business will be done for time and for eternity, in the Savior's precious name. Amen. We'll turn in our Bibles to the Gospel of Luke and the chapter 6, and we'll take a short reading from verse 46 onwards down to the conclusion of the chapter. Luke chapter 6 and verse 46. And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like. He is like a man which built a house and digged deep and laid the foundation on a rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house and could not shake it, for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth, against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great." Amen. This is the Word of the Lord, and we know the Lord will bless the public reading of His Word. We're going to turn in our hymn books to 280, Rock of Ages Cleft for Me. How long may death's care for me? When will I find myself in Thee? Where the water and the blood From Thy radiant side may flow? God save the Dumbledore, let me from his guilt and horror. The holy works of my hands, All-forsaking, good God, I told, Thine was the Saviour, now I know. Then come, all the world, and sing The story saved by grace, from the ages' memory, let me ever be worthy. We'll turn together to Luke's Gospel chapter 6, and we will focus our minds on those verses that were read earlier. These verses bring before us a very solemn truth, and that is that disobedience to the gospel jeopardizes the well-being of the soul. That is the emphasis that the Lord Jesus Christ makes in this parable that closes out this sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke. He refers to two responses to the preaching of the gospel, hearing the Word of God and obeying it, and hearing the Word of God and disobeying it. That emphasis is to stress to our minds and to our hearts that the hearers of the gospel should obey it and do so immediately upon hearing it. That is every sinner's solemn duty before God. when placed unto the sound of the word of God, the sinner shall give true, sincere, and immediate obedience to what is heard. It is your responsibility to press into the kingdom of God and to come at once to a hearty acceptance of Jesus Christ and all the saving benefits and blessings that are found in Him and in Him alone. That responsibility to obey the gospel is illustrated very plainly in what the Lord reveals concerning the person who does obey it and who does embrace Christ. In verse 47, The Lord says there that the obedient hearer is a person who is like a man, as it goes on into verse 48, which built a house and digged deep and laid the foundation on a rock. In those words, the Lord sets before those who are disobedient a graphic picture of the need and the responsibility to give obedience to the gospel. The Lord's method of stressing that responsibility is by focusing on a certain issue that is raised in this parable, namely the foundation of the house that the man built. In verse 48, as we read it carefully, you will see for yourself that the focus is entirely upon the foundation. And that point is further stressed then by the contrary picture in verse number 49 of a man who built without a foundation. And therefore, the heart of the Lord's teaching is that the person who hears and obeys the gospel is laying a foundation on which the soul may rest forever. That is a vital issue, that is a serious matter. I wonder tonight, do you really understand the great responsibility that you have to make sure that your soul has a foundation upon which to rest for all eternity? Think about the identity of this foundation to begin with. Again, those words, he is like a man which built a house and dig deep and laid the foundation on a rock. That language is very graphic. It pictures, it portrays the builder as someone who digs deep. Actually the original text here reads this way, who dug and deepened. And the thought is of the man digging down and he digs deeper and deeper. Because he's a man who is in a search for something that is not to be found on the surface. He must go right down to the shelf of rock on which he will place the fabric of the building or the house that he seeks to erect. And so in nature, the foundation was actually the rock itself, not the material that was placed upon that rock. And in that manner, the Lord Jesus Christ presents a certain fact that those who truly hear the gospel and embrace the gospel come to understand. That is, sinners must not be satisfied with anything less than finding that foundation that is the resting place for the soul. Now those words in verse 48 can be read this way, where it refers to the foundation and the rock. And they read this way in the original text, laid the foundation on the rock. And that's very emphatic. And the emphasis here is clear to our minds. There is a certain rock that the builder found and on that rock he laid his entire building. The foundation and the whole fabric and all of the superstructure, it's all placed on the rock. Now there's no difficulty understanding what the significance of the words actually is because the rock here is of course Jesus Christ himself. The Word of God makes it absolutely clear. When the Lord spoke to the disciples in Matthew 16 about the church being built, he said this, that on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." And he was referring to himself. Peter makes it absolutely clear, the man who was there with the Lord that day along with the other disciples, but the spokesman for them all, because in Peter's own writings, in 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse number 6, he quotes those wonderful words from Isaiah 28 and verse 16 where we have this reading, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. And so the rock is Christ, prophesied by Isaiah, pointed to by the apostle Peter. And that concept of the Lord as the rock is found throughout all of the Bible. We think, for example, of the book of Psalms. And there you will find that the idea or the truth of the Lord being our rock, it is used over 20 times in the Psalms alone. The very word is applied to the Lord. The thought is attributed to him that there's no other rock, there's no other foundation, there's no other basis. upon which we are to build our souls and see to their eternal well-being. And the reason why the Lord is the rock, and the only rock, is because He alone is qualified to save men from their sins. That's at the very heart of this truth. This man digging down, coming to the rock, And therefore we are reminded that there's only one who can provide the secure foundation, namely the Lord Jesus, because he is qualified, as I say, to be our Savior. Why is he qualified to be the Savior of men? Because of who he is and because of what he has done. That's the message of the gospel. It's the great message of the person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul refers to this in 1 Corinthians 3. He actually refers to himself as a wise master builder. And in those verses, 1 Corinthians 3 verses 10 and 11, he says this, according to the grace of God as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And then in that same epistle, 1 Corinthians, in chapter 15, he takes us into the very heart of what he had taught the Corinthians, of what he had revealed to them about the Savior. And he goes through those great truths in the first part of that chapter, and he says to them, I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached unto you, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and was buried and rose again according to the Scriptures. And there the apostle gives us a synopsis of the gospel. And he shows to us that Jesus Christ, because of who he is and because of what he has done, is the only one who is able to provide the foundation that our souls need. As we think about our sin, think about death and eternity and standing before God, He alone is that rock that will provide for you what you need to save you from your sins. And therefore the identity of the foundation is absolutely clear. It is Christ and Christ alone. But there's also here the necessity of this foundation, because you will find in verse 48 and in verse 49 that the necessity of the foundation is spelled out in these words, taking verse 48 at this moment, and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house. And those words are vitally important because they reveal why a foundation for the soul is needed so desperately. It is necessary because a time of testing is coming. Notice that. A time of testing is coming. Notice the words, when the flood arose. And the Lord there is underlining this matter of the testing of the house by natural elements as we take the little parable and how it is constructed and the details that are there. And in that manner, he reveals that what men are, morally and spiritually speaking, is going to be put to the test. There's a day of testing coming, and that is why it is so essential. That is why it is necessary to make sure that we have the foundation firmly in place, that we are resting on Christ and on Him alone. You see, the test is inevitable. It says here, and when the flood arose, it doesn't say if. Or maybe, it says when. And there's no doubt, therefore, about the certainty of the test and the scrutiny of the spiritual condition of men. You are a moral and a spiritual being. Man was made in the image of God. Man has a soul. Man is accountable for all that he is and all that he has done. And therefore, he must be tested. He must be tried, or in other words, he must be judged. And there is, without any shadow of doubt, a day of judgment coming. And that's what this parable conveys to us in all of its imagery. And those words about the stream beating vehemently upon the house, the thought there is of the testing program that comes the way of every man, of every sinner. The apostle Paul, as he stood on Mars Hill, He reminded those who were present that day of that day of judgment. And he said there so clearly that God was going to judge the world by that man whom he had ordained And he had given assurance unto all men that the judgment was coming because he had raised Christ from the dead. Christ brought from the grave, Christ exalted to heaven, Christ the God-man at the Father's right hand, and the next great event that will take place as far as the world is concerned is the coming of the Lord to bring the last judgment. Therefore, the test is inevitable. Let me say to you, my friend, you cannot live as you please. You cannot live in sin and in wickedness and in disobedience to God and hope to escape the consequences. There is a test that is coming. It is inevitable. God is holy. God is righteous. God must deal with sin. Therefore, God must bring against men that day of judgment. It is not only inevitable, it is irresistible. Those words where it says that the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and you find the same language in verse number 49, those words beat vehemently mean to burst upon an accumulation of raging water, rising higher and then bursting its banks and engulfing the house. And that language does portray the imagery of a test, a judgment that cannot be resisted, that cannot be evaded. Throughout life, there are many tests, and they come one after the other. I wonder how you deal with them, ill health or disappointments and bereavements and losses. And you know, those tests can be very, very revealing, because very often they disclose what men actually are as far as their attitude to God is concerned, because men will respond in bitterness and in anger and in resentment against the Lord, and therefore they display what their hearts are really like. God does test people throughout life. My friend, the day of the great test. is inevitable and irresistible. There's a future judgment. You cannot escape it. And furthermore, your reaction that day will be one of full and complete acceptance as to the future that you're going to face and the eternity that you will enter into when that judgment day comes. What a solemn day. when your soul will be called before God, and you will stand before God, and you'll give an answer for your sin, and you'll give an account of your life. Therefore, it is necessary that you have a foundation before you come to that awful judgment day. That brings me to my last thought here. There is also the security. of this foundation. In verse 48, it tells us in these words that the foundation was firm. It says there that the stream beat vehemently upon that house and could not shake it, for it was founded upon the rock. Notice this, the stability of the house as the parable unfolds lay in its union with the rock. The house is built on the rock. The entire fabric of that house is placed on that rock. It's joined to the rock. It's in union with the rock. And because of that, when the stream beat vehemently against it, when the waters raged against it, it was not shaken. It could not be overthrown. Oh, that imagery is wonderful. It shows you, my dear friend, that when you have Christ, you have security. We've seen his identity. He's the rock. We've seen the necessity of having Christ, of having a foundation. Otherwise we will be swept away. But the whole point of the parable is, as far as those who believe the gospel are concerned, when the great days come of testing and proving, the house will stand. The life will remain intact. The soul will be safe. and all will be well. But what a contrast with the one who has no foundation, because it says in verse 49, of the man who without a foundation built on house upon the earth, not on the rock, on the earth, the place of the curse. He built on the earth. And the storm came, the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great. There's the end of a life of sin. There's the end of impenitence and rejection of Christ and not knowing the Savior is to come to the end. It's come to judgment day and everything collapses. And all that men live for and hope for will be swept away. And great will be the ruin, the eternal ruin of that soul. Therefore, my friend, as we sang that hymn, think about it. rock of ages, cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from thy riven side which flowed be of sin the double cure. Cleanse me from its guilt and power. Seek Christ, come to the rock, rest on him, and be safe for eternity. Let us bow together Father in heaven, we pray that Thy blessed Spirit will take the Word of God, that He will use it to bring conviction into the hearts and lives and minds of men and women. May He draw them to the Savior, to the rock, to the rock that is higher than them, where they can find shelter and safety for their souls. And may Christ's name be glorified. We pray this for His sake. and for His eternal praise. Amen. Thank you for spending some time with us today around the Word of God. For further information visit our website at ltbs.tv. We look forward to joining with you next time as we seek to let the Bible speak once again.