Building upon the Rock.
I. True religion is here likened to a man's own house. For, after all, every one's real life is his home. We move, indeed, amidst many an outdoor scene, and we meet there with all the varieties which give to our world its chequered lights and shadows. But, in comparison, these external things are very little to a man who can retire into the bosom of his family, and command for himself the repose, and the refreshment, and the welcome, and the smiles, and the affections of that sanctuary of the heart. So it is with religion. We go out to other things, we come home to that.
II. Now, of this home of the mind, the Great Teacher tells us that it must be "built upon a rock." And a home, whatever it may be besides, is a poor home if it be foundationless. A few err in looking at foundations too much; many more commit the far more dangerous and vital mistake of not searching into them enough; they are busy, these men, in filling their houses with pretty fancies, and putting on many ornaments, and rearing pinnacles of sparkling hope while the whole, from end to end, is hollow, and the entire fabric, at any moment, totters to its fall. And so it happens to them, in some awful hour when they most need the refuge, lo, the building, the baseless building, is gone, and they are left, shelterless and naked, to the fury of the storm.
III. How are we to get upon the Rock? I answer, By dealing with God's Word, whenever it meets you, as a reality. Handle the Word of God as a fact. Follow it implicitly where it leads you. God's promises are all to effort. Obedience is faith. Therefore for every hearing let there be a doing. Let every received truth have a reflection in behaviour. For he that "heareth and doeth" is the wise man who builds his house upon a rock, and it stands for ever and ever.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,8th series, p. 259.