ON LAYING FOUNDATIONS – Charles Spurgeon
ON LAYING FOUNDATIONS
Introduction
“And why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings, and does them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man who built a house, and dug 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 who hears, and does not, is like a man who 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.” Luke 6:46-49.
These parables describe two classes of hearers, but they say nothing of those who are not hearers. Their position and prospects we must infer from what is said of hearers. Our Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world to tell us of the Father’s love. And never man spoke as He spoke, and yet there are many who refuse to hear Him. I do not mean those who are far away, to whom the name of Jesus is nearly unknown, but I mean persons in this land, and especially in this great and highly favored city, who willfully refuse to hear Him whom God has anointed to bring tidings of salvation. Our Lord Jesus is proclaimed, I was about to say, upon the housetops in this city, for even in their music halls and theaters, Christ is preached to the multitude. And at the corners of our streets, His banner is lifted up, and yet there are tens of thousands to whom the preaching of the gospel is as music in the ears of a corpse. They shut their ears and will not hear, though the testimony is concerning God’s own Son, eternal life, and the way to escape from everlasting wrath. To their own best interests, to their eternal benefit, men are dead. Nothing will secure their attention to their God. To what, then, are these men like? They may fitly be compared to the man who built no house whatever and remained homeless by day and without shelter by night. When worldly trouble comes like a storm, those persons who will not hear the words of Jesus have no consolation to cheer them. When sickness comes, they have no joy of heart to sustain them under its pains. And when death, that most terrible of storms, beats upon them, they feel its full fury, but they cannot find a hiding place. They neglect the housing of their souls and when the hurricane of almighty wrath shall break forth in the world to come, they will have no place of refuge. In vain they will call upon the rocks to fall upon them and the mountains to cover them. They shall be in that day without a shelter from the righteous wrath of the Most High. Alas, that any being who wears the image of man should be found in such a plight! Homeless wanderers in the day of tempest! How my soul grieves for them! Yet, what excuse will those men invent who have refused even to know the way of salvation? What excuse can the tenderest heart make for them? Will they plead that they could not believe? Yet they may not say that they could not hear, and faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Oh, my friend, if the Word of God comes to you and you decline to hear it, and therefore do not believe in Jesus, but die in your sins, what is this but soul-suicide? If a man dies of a disease when infallible medicine is to be had, must not his death lie at his own door? If a man perishes of hunger when bread is all around him and others feed to the full, and he will not have it, will any man pity him? Surely not a drop of pity will be yielded to a lost soul with which he may relieve the torment of his conscience, for all holy intelligences will perceive that the sinner chose his own destruction. This shall ever press upon the condemned conscience, “You knew the gospel, but you did not attend to it. You knew that there was salvation and that Christ was the Savior, and that pardon was proclaimed to guilty men, but you would not afford time from your farm and from your merchandise, from your pleasures and from your sins, to learn how you could be saved. That which cost God so dear, you treated as a trifle.” Ah, my dear friends, may none of you belong to the non-hearing class. It is not to such that I shall this morning address myself, and yet I could not enter upon my discourse without a word of loving expostulation with them. Let me part with them by quoting the warning word of the Holy Spirit, “See that you refuse not Him that speaks. For if they escaped not who refused Him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaks from heaven.”
I. A Common Temptation with Spiritual Builders
Our earnest attention will now be given to those who are hearers of the word and are somewhat affected by it. All hearers are builders of houses for their souls. They are each one doing something to set up a spiritual habitation. Some of these go a considerable distance in this house-building, and even crown the structure by publicly confessing Christ. They say unto Him, “Lord, Lord.” They meet with His followers and join with them in reverence to the Master’s name, but they do not obey the Lord. They hear Him, but they fail to do the things which He says. Therefore they are mistaken builders, who fail in the foundation and make nothing sure except that their house will come down about their ears. Others there are, and we trust they will be found to be many among us, who are building rightly, building for eternity, constructing a dwelling place with a foundation of rock and walls of well-built stone, of which the Lord Christ is both foundation and cornerstone. I am anxious to speak at this time, to those who are just beginning to build for eternity. I am indeed happy to know that there are many such among us. May the Holy Spirit bless this sermon to them.
A common temptation with hearers of the word, according to the two parables before us, is to neglect foundation work, to get hurriedly over the first part of the business, and run up the building quickly. They are tempted to assume that all is done which is said to be done, to take it for granted that all is right which is hoped to be right, and then to go on piling up the walls as rapidly as possible. The great temptation, I say, with young beginners in religious life, is to skimp on the foundation and treat those things lightly which are of the first importance. The same temptation comes to us throughout the whole of life, but to young beginners, it is especially perilous. Satan would have them neglect the fundamental principles upon which their future hope and character are to rest, so that in a future trying hour, from need of a solid foundation, they may yield to evil and lose the whole of their life-building.
This temptation is all the more dangerous, first, because these young beginners have no experience. Even the most experienced child of God is often deceived; how much more the pilgrim who has just entered the wicket gate! The tried saint sometimes mistakes that for a virtue which is only a gilded fault, and he fancies that to be genuine which is mere counterfeit. How, then, without any experience whatever, can the mere babe in grace escape deception unless he is graciously preserved? Newly awakened and rendered serious, earnest hearts get to work in the divine life with much hurry, seizing upon that which first comes to hand, building in heedless haste, without due care and examination. Something must be done, and they do it without asking whether it is according to the teaching of the Lord. They call Jesus, “Lord,” but they do what others say, rather than what Jesus says. Satan is sure to be at hand at such times that he may lead the young convert to lay, in place of gospel repentance, a repentance that needs to be repented of, and instead of the faith of God’s elect, a proud presumption or an idle dream. For that love of God which is the work of the Spirit of God, he brings mere natural affection for a minister, and he says, “There, that will do.” You must have a house for your soul to dwell in. There are the materials, pile them up. Like children at play upon the beach, the anxious heap up their sandcastles and please themselves with them, for they are ignorant of Satan’s devices. I am for this reason, doubly anxious to save my beloved young friends from the deceiver.
The common temptation is, instead of really repenting, to talk about repentance, instead of heartily believing, to say, “I believe,” without believing, instead of truly loving, to talk of love, without loving, instead of coming to Christ, to speak about coming to Christ, and profess to come to Christ, and yet not to come at all. The character of Talkative in Pilgrim’s Progress is ably drawn. I have met the gentleman many times and can bear witness that John Bunyan was a photographer before photography was invented. Christian said of him, “He talks of prayer, of repentance, of faith, and of the new birth, but he knows but only to talk of them. I have been in his family and his house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savor.” We have too many such persons around us who are, as to what they say, everything that is to be desired, and yet they are proven to be mere shams.
II. A Wise Precaution Which Safe Builders Never Forget
A wise precaution for safe builders is to dig deep and never rest until they have a good, substantial foundation. They are glad to get to the bottom of all the loose earth and to build on the rock. Let me commend this wise precaution to all of you. Follow the text and learn to see to your sincerity. The Lord Jesus says, “Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” May the Holy Spirit make you true to the core. Be afraid to say a word more than you feel. Never permit yourself to speak as if you had an experience of which you have only read. Let not your outward worship go a step beyond the inward emotion of your soul. If Christ is truly your Lord, you will obey Him. If He is not your Lord, do not call Him so. It is a great point in all your religious thoughts, beliefs, words, and acts to have the heart moving in all.
It is an awful thing to make a high profession of sanctity, and yet live in the indulgence of secret vice. Such persons will listen to my observation and commend me for my faithfulness and yet continue in their hypocrisy. This is most painful. These men can speak the Jew’s language and yet the tongue of Babylon is more natural to them, they follow Christ, but their hearts are with Belial. Ah, me! My soul is sick at the thought of them. Be true! Be true! If truth will carry you no further than despair, better that you stop in despair than gain a hope by a lie. Do not live on fiction, profession, presumption. Eat that which is good and feed only upon the truth. Remember that when you build with wood, hay, and stubble of mere notion, you are only gathering materials for your own funeral pile in that day when the fire shall devour all lovers and makers of a lie. Be true as steel! Every wise builder for his soul must mind that.
III. The Arguments for Taking Care of the Foundation
We ought to build with a good foundation at the beginning, because otherwise, we shall not build well in any other part of the house. Bad work in the foundation influences all the rest of the courses. In the Revised Version, at the end of the 48th verse, instead of, “For it was founded upon a rock,” we read, “Because it had been well built.” The house was built well at the bottom and that led the workman to put in good work all the way up, so that all through, “it had been well built.” The other man built badly underground and did the same up to the roof.
When you get into the habit of slovenly work in secret, the tendency is to be slovenly in public too. If the underground part of our religion is not firmly laid upon Christ, then in the upper part, there will be rotten work, half-baked bricks, mud instead of mortar, and a general skimping of everything. When a great Grecian artist was fashioning an image for the temple, he was diligently carving the back part of the goddess, and one said to him, “You need not finish that part of the statue, because it is to be built into the wall.” He replied, “The gods can see in the wall.” He had a right idea of what is due to God. That part of my religion which no man can see should be as perfect as if it were to be observed by all. The day shall declare it.
When Christ shall come, everything shall be made known and published before the universe. Therefore, see to it that it is fit to be thus made known.
Conclusion
Beloved builder of a house for your soul, your house is so situated that one of these days there must come great pressure upon it. “How do you know?” Well, I know that the house in which my soul lives is pitched just where winds blow, and waves rise, and storms beat. Where is yours? Do you live in a snug corner? Yes, but one of these times you will find that the snug corner will be no more shielded than the open riverside, for God so orders providence that every man has his test sooner or later. It may be that you think yourself past temptation, but the idea is a delusion, as time will show. Perhaps from the very fact that you seem quite out of the way, a peculiar temptation may befall you. Therefore, I pray you, because of the exposed condition of your life’s building, build upon a good foundation.
God grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen.