The Ruin of That House Was Very Great – Luke 6:46-49

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It’s become a thing, it’s an internet thing, an Instagram-post-it-and-show-everyone thing. Elementary school students, middle school students, high school students – but especially elementary school students, kindergarten students – they’re holding up a sign that says, “first day of school.” It’s a snap and the photograph is there. They look as fresh-faced and excited as children on the first day of school. Then you know what’s going to happen, and that is that when the school year is over, there’s going to be another photograph, it’s going to be reconstituted and then it’s going to say, “the end of the school year.” And the amazing thing is that if you see the first and the second, there’s an amazing growth that’s taken place. That’s the way it is with kids that age, they go in as kindergartners and come out as first graders, they undergo transformation. You can see that they’ve got teeth, front teeth, in the first picture, and no front teeth in the next picture – it’s glorious, it’s wonderful, it’s digital. Everybody sees it, everybody knows what the picture pattern is. I don’t think we do that here. I don’t know how many students, incoming students, had a picture out front holding a “first day of school” sign – I’m going to guess fewer, fewer than kindergarten and first grade – and I don’t think going to be any pictures on the other end the same way, because you don’t change all that much anymore. At the beginning of a school year and the end of an academic term, you look pretty much like you did when you came in. Now we know there’s more to the story. We know an awful lot of growth has taken place, but it’s invisible growth, it’s spiritual growth, it’s intellectual growth – not so easily measured in photographs on Instagram, but of even greater importance, and in it is a greater glory.

We begin an academic term committed to learning, labor, reflection, reading, thinking, writing, memorizing, analyzing. These are the tasks of learning, and they have been pretty constant ever since the school was invented and the process of formal learning was begun. There’s a grandeur to such things, that’s why we formalize this day, and there’s a grandeur to the beginning of things, which is why we feel like we feel at the beginning of this term, especially to look around this campus where God’s glory is so evident. College students filling the campus, seminary students, many of them pushing strollers – it’s a glorious thing and I am thankful for it. I never lose the wonder of getting to see it year after year with my own eyes. This tradition, this formality, it takes place in some form even in now secular institutions – I’m not sure to what effect. I think there’s probably just a reflection that some kind of formality is necessary, but what was a service of explicit Christian worship is now kind of an empty thing. Without Christ, this event becomes something close to just an exercise in self-congratulation – this is something we need to think about. This is not an exercise in self-congratulation. This is not an exercise in remembering how important we are and how lucky the world is to have us. It’s an exercise in remembering that this task of learning is for disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, ultimately not only for the good of society but for the faithfulness of Christ’s Church, to be translated into faithfulness from others, particularly through the preaching of God’s word and the service of Christ’s people. Our frame of reference thus is not just time. Time is on our mind – this is an academic term, it’s a length of time, it’s a length of days – but what makes this special for us is that our ultimate concern even today is not temporal but eternal.

That is why we turn to God’s word – a short passage from the gospel of Luke, the final verses of chapter six beginning in verse forty-six. We hear Jesus ask,

Why do you call me “Lord, Lord,” and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.

I think we get it immediately. There’s a sense in which the short parable is so self-explaining, it’s so self-evident that you’re already there. A picture of two houses, one built on the rock with the foundation, the other built on the sand. When the water rises, the one lasts, and the other is swept away.

The context is so important. What is happening here? We see a building intensity in Luke chapter six, especially on this day. Look at the beginning of the chapter, let’s begin in verse 12,

In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Wow, can’t even mention him in chapter six without making that clear! Yeah, that Judas. So there’s reference here to the calling of the twelve.

Immediately, in verse seventeen, we go to a great multitude. In verse seventeen we read,

And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

Often referred to as “the sermon on the plane,” in some circles, “the sermon on the plateau,” it’s a level place. Just in a very short sum of verses, we have the twelve, and now a larger context with many of his disciple – so this is far beyond the twelve – similar to the pattern we see in Matthew, and then there’s a great multitude, and this multitude is described as being very great, coming from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon. We’re also told why the crowd came. They came to hear him – this is important for us to understand – they came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases, and they were told that those who came were healed of their diseases as power came out from Christ and healed them all.

And then the language gets a little tricky – you have to read carefully now. Remember the sermon on the plane included the twelve, to whom we’ve just been introduced formally, and then a good many of his disciples, and then a multitude from Judea and Jerusalem and the region of Tyre and Sidon on the coast – so you have three concentric circles here. And then, in verse 20, where we read the Beatitudes, the introductory language says, “He lifted up his eyes on his disciples.” So this is not said to everyone there it is addressed properly to his disciples, and the disciples are those who are taught of Christ and they are those who also follow him, and he issues the Beatitudes, the blessings:

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Alright, he lifted up his eyes on the disciples and he blessed them. But then he pronounces woes, following the blessings: “But woe to you who are rich for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry”–notice the parallelism here, those who are hungry now will be filled, those who are greedily filled now will be hungry–“woe to you who laugh now for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” Thereafter, the command to love your enemies, “But I say to you who hear”–okay, again, you know what’s coming, so you know that’s important. “But I say to you who hear”–so in this case, he’s not really speaking to everyone in the same sense because even at this point we understand in those concentric circles there are those who hear and there are those who hear. The distinction is those who hear respond to Christ in faith and follow him and obey him. So, in the introduction here, verse 27,

But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

That’s a lot. That’s a lot. The standard is set incredibly high, and then he immediately says that we’re not to judge,

Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.

And then the parable of the blind leading the blind, and after that, the passage of the tree and its fruit. It is so important to this point – we have those who are blind leading the blind and there’s also the warning about a bad tree, bad fruit:

For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

And then that question, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” It’s an astounding question. It’s a haunting question. It’s a fairly horrifying question. It’s one of those questions that is asked by Jesus in the Gospels, and I’ll be honest, it makes me thankful I wasn’t standing there at the time. I’m not sure how you bear it. If you hear it in full force, it comes with much force. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”

In Matthew chapter seven, verse twenty-one, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. In the Gospel of Luke chapter eight, verse twenty-one, Jesus answers, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” Luke chapter eleven verse twenty-eight, Jesus says, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” There’s a repetition here. This is a pattern. There’s a consistency.

It’s reflected also in the apostolic teaching, most famously in James chapter one, verses twenty-two and following,

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

So at least a good deal of Luke chapter six is Jesus speaking to those who are the twelve whom he has chosen ,and then a larger group of disciples who say, and perhaps even intend in some sense to follow Christ, and then there’s a vast multitude from Judea and Jerusalem, Tyre and Sidon, the seacoast. There are different patterns of response here, but the rebuke in chapter six comes very clear when Jesus asked that abrasive question, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?” So in other words, those who truly confess Jesus Christ as Lord are distinguished by the fact that we do what he says. It’s a fairly simple formula. Those who do what Christ said, they are doers of the word, to use the language of James.

We’re called to be doers, and not mere hearers. That in itself is a very cogent warning for us, isn’t it, at the beginning of an academic term? Because we’re going to be confronted with so much. We’re going to be learning so much. We’re going to be teaching so much.

But this isn’t about just some kind of mind game, it’s not just some kind of esoteric truth quest, it is disciples, rightly understood, learning faithfully in order to live more faithfully. This isn’t just a Gnosticism. It’s not just an exercise in mind enrichment. The intention and the mission, the stewardship of this school is not merely to produce people who know, but men and women who do. So that’s good for us to know. It reminds us that everything that we’re about in the course of this academic year really comes down to the heart and the disposition of the heart and whether or not we are faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because if we’re faithful disciples, then every truth that we hear becomes a part of what we do in obedience to Christ and in honor to Christ.

And then there is this short parable – two men, two houses. It’s interesting how quickly Jesus says, “You need a picture, so I’m going to give you a picture. I’m going to show you what he is like.” And notice exactly how that sentence comes, “Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like.” So he is going to give us the positive example – that’s the first part of this very short passage is to give us the positive example, and the positive example is the man who builds his house upon the rock. Specifically, he digs deep, he lays the foundation on the rock, and then, “When a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.” Two men, two houses, one raging stream, the result is that one house stands and the other falls.

It’s not like this isn’t a picture fresh in our minds. It’s fresh in our minds from Kerrville, Texas, tragically, horrifyingly enough. It’s fresh in our minds from western North Carolina. It’s very much fresh in our minds. Now we not only read of such things and hear of such things and hear tales of such things, in times past, we have video that comes immediately to mind. When you see the raging waters where the land had been dry, now there’s a cataract of water and it’s a violent cataract of water, and it carries entire buildings and houses and communities away, and people too. The ruin is great.

The difference is also clear. There’s a difference, even house by house, which one’s taken, which ones not taken. Foundations, as it turns out, mean just about everything. It makes me think of Abraham as described in the book of Hebrews chapter eleven, verses eight through ten,

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Brothers and sisters, we’re looking for a city that has foundations whose maker and builder is God. The eternal promises of God are summarized as a city that has foundations. The city is on the foundation. That foundation, the New Testament tells us is Christ, and thus it is unshakeable.

This is made abundantly clear in 1 Corinthians chapter three, verse eleven, “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” That’s why we sing that precious hymn, “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord.”

The house that stands is built upon Christ – faith in Christ, obedience to Christ, submission to Christ, life in Christ, obedience to God’s word, hearing and doing. A simple formula, just so crucial for our understanding as we begin this term, or any term. But, of course there’s not just one house in this parable. There are two men in two houses and the first one stands, and you already can figure it out, you understand narrative dualism, you know exactly what’s going to happen, if the one stands built on a foundation, the second one is going to fall. And so you feel it coming, and it comes.

“But the one who hears and does not do them”–that is his words–“is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” Some of you hear the older translations, “and the ruin of that house was very great.” Easy to understand. Just think of some of the images of what we’ve seen – the house sitting on the ground becomes a boat, and one that sinks. The devastation is horrifying.

I’m sure those who heard Jesus tell this parable could easily just imagine what they were seeing. I can remember the first time seeing the Jordan River. It doesn’t look very threatening, but like other rivers it doesn’t look threatening until it is and arid land that looks so dry can become the most dangerous when water sweeps through. You can think, “There’s no reason we’d have to build a foundation here.” But guess what? The rain comes, the waters rise, the floods move, and they destroy and kill.

“When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell.” So in other words, the parallelism here, the contrast, is absolute. The water’s rage against the house built on the foundation of rock, and the water’s going to rage and rage and rage and rage – the house is going to stand because it is built upon a firm foundation. The second one is not even a matter of eventually falling, it falls immediately, just gone, and the ruin of that house was great.

I just want to quickly consider three ways this fall can easily happen when we hear, and fail to do, the teachings of God.

The first is doctrinal. That’s one of the first things we can think about, and certainly when we begin this term and we can look at the world around us. We can see with our eyes houses carried away, houses that fell immediately and are gone.

When I became president of this institution, I had to go to so many meetings that are required by accreditation and all the rest, and there were many, many, many theological seminaries present, and the evangelical schools were vastly outnumbered by the liberal schools – there were just many of them – and they knew who they were, we knew who we were, in one sense we’re not even about the same thing, but nonetheless, we have to go to meetings. If you go to those meetings today, a lot of those schools are simply gone. They’re just gone. Guess what? Theological liberalism kills education, and in more than one way. The deadliest way is it abandons the gospel, and the next thing you know the institution is teaching some other gospel, and then at some point it’s just an entirely secular, humanistic, therapeutic gospel, there’s nothing left. It’s one of the reasons why we recite together the Nicene creed. It’s one of the reasons why we make very clear that in our covenant with the Southern Baptist Convention and with its churches, we require every faculty member to teach in accordance with and not contrary to the Abstract of Principles and the Baptist Faith and Message. And we’ve added to that, we’ve had to add to that, we also have in addition to that the Danvers Statement, and we have added to that the Nashville Statement.

You know, there’s some conversations I’m glad I’ve never had to have. James Pedigru Boyce, the founder of this institution, I don’t think he could have imagined that the faculty of this institution would ever have to be required to sign a confessional statement that a boy’s a boy and a girl’s a girl and that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. I hope I never have to explain that to him. But that’s the responsibility that falls to us and it is because in an age of rampant, almost automatic, reflexive, theological accommodation, more institutions have been lost than retained. More seminaries have been lost than retained. More Christian colleges have been lost than retained. More denominations have been lost than retained. There used to be people inside, now there’s a rainbow flag outside and no people inside. It is a declension we can easily see, and frankly we can sometimes look at it and say, “Well, that’s not us.” The horrifying thing is at one point they said, “That’s not us,” but now it is.

It’s doctrine, it is the faith once for all delivered to the saints, that we must maintain in obedience to Christ. The teaching that takes place here in this college, the teaching that takes place here in the seminary, has got to be the continuity of the Apostles’ teaching without apology, with all the protections and parameters necessary, principles, to make that happen. That means the great doctrines of the Christian faith, it means the specific doctrines of the Reformation, and in particular, the doctrines of the Baptists. But it also means that included within the doctrine of the church are the moral teachings of Christ. They too are doctrine, and all that is a part of our confessional responsibility.

You look across what is called evangelicalism today, and evidently, to be evangelical is to be one podcast away from heresy. One panel discussion or interview away from apostasy. One bestselling book ,and you trade celebrity for orthodoxy. The fall of that house is very great.

Moral. This is another way that you see the fall. And in considering doctrine, it’s the fact that we believe what we teach, we live what we teach. In this moral collapse, again, horrifying things we never thought we would see, right? Weird things we never thought we would see. Some of them are pretty constant, biblical – the seduction of the flesh, the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches, the seduction of the eyes – but all these old sins come even in new forms – pastors who have been disqualified from ministry because of misbehavior in social media, even with false accounts – and it is weird stuff. Again, I am glad I don’t have to explain that to generations now gone who never even knew there were such avenues of destruction

The old way still horrifyingly leads to the crash of many houses – adultery, sexual immorality – it’s a devastating fall. Not too long ago, major media looked at one city – I’m not going to name the city – looked at one city, major American city – many people would consider it kind of a nexus of American evangelicalism – and just pointed out that there have been like twenty moral failures in major churches just in that community within the last several years. Brothers and sisters, that’s a horrifying betrayal of the gospel. For that to be on the front page of a newspaper is a scandal to the entire Church and a warning to us all.

The third collapse I would mention is spiritual. I have to tell you that the older I get, the larger this one looms. I think it was really early, very early, I came to see the danger of theological collapse and accommodation, and just the force of circumstances, I was forced to see it. In terms of the sins of the flesh, yeah, I don’t think I knew about as many falls in times past as now can be communicated so quickly. That’s a long story throughout Christian history, a long story going back to Genesis three. I think we can understand that, and we understand why the church of the Lord Jesus Christ requires of those who are disciples of Christ that we obey the commands of Christ and the commands that are relayed to us directly by Holy Scripture concerning marriage and sex, intimacy, and all. But I think when I was younger, I did not see so clearly the potential for spiritual fall.

At this point in my life, I am also scandalized, not by people who went out with headline adultery, nor by even bestselling theological liberalism, but they’ve gone out, I think, because of boredom. The house has fallen simply by fatigue, what the French call, “ennui” – boredom, sloth, inattention, distraction. Other things enter into this – envy, anger, resentment, spiritual collapse, loss of heart, discouragement, estrangement. Those don’t make the headlines, but they should break our hearts. The ruin of those houses also very great. Someone who young was filled with vigor to serve Christ and his glory in the pulpit or in the church or as a member of the church in the world, determined to make a difference for Christ, now, just sleeping Sundays off. You say, “How could that happen?” The fall of that house is also very great. It turns out that boredom and sloth and loss of heart can be just as deadly.

I just thought I might think with you about those three different disasters. And at the beginning of this semester, think about doctrinal disaster and moral disaster and spiritual disaster. And just look around this room in order to encourage one another, that we are here to build a house upon a rock. In our individual lives, by God’s grace, by the power of Christ, may we build our house upon a rock. May we never, ever, fail to be fully attentive to what it means to build a house upon a rock.

Brothers and sisters, may we never forget that we are not the rock. May we never forget that Boyce College and Southern Seminary are not the rock. May we never deceive ourselves into thinking our ministry or our work for Christ is the rock. There is only one foundation that is laid, and that is Jesus Christ our Lord. We have no ability to withstand the raging waters of the flood, we are the essence of sink sand, but Christ is able, and Christ is mighty, and Jesus saves.

And it is none other than the Jesus, who is Lord and Savior, who spoke these words, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” Who then tells us that those who come to him not only hear him but do what he says. And he gave us the picture of the two men and the two houses and the two ends.

But here’s the last thing I want us to think about: Jesus himself determines the order of our consideration. He doesn’t say, “I want to tell you about two men and two houses. The first one, the one who built his house on the ground, and it was destroyed, and the second who built his house on the rock, he dug a foundation and built his house on the rock, and the floods came and it stood.” Jesus sovereignly knows how we need to hear this. We need to hear the promise of the first, but perhaps what needs to linger in our hearts is the horror of the second – “And the ruin of that house was very great.”

May it not be brothers and sisters, all praise to God.

Let’s pray together, “Father, we are so thankful for the clarity of your Word. And Father, we are reminded of the deadly danger even in hearing your word – that we will merely hear your word. Father, may we be not merely those who hear, but those who do your word. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

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