“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. (Matthew 7:6)
Not everybody will receive instruction. We need godly wisdom to discern who is receptive and who is not.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7)
Asking and receiving must be seen in the light of the following scriptures:
We must ask in faith (Matthew 21:22 and Mark 11:24)
We must ask without wavering (James 1:5-7)
We must ask according to God's will (1John 5:14-15)
We must ask not to consume it upon our own lusts (James 4:2-3).
Seeking and finding must also be in the light of Matthew 6:33. If we are seeking something more than we are seeking God, we are hindering our own supply.
whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them (Matthew 7:12)
You can wrap the Ten Commandments up in one law
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)
A verbal profession of faith is not enough. We have to actually live what we believe. Today we see hundreds coming to church services, prayer meetings and retreats – that’s good but then their lives are not reflecting what they believe. This really puts off some people. This hinders the gospel. Mahatma Gandhi said, “I love Christ and His teachings but I don’t like Christians.” Why did Mahatma Gandhi say this?
In Luke 6:46, Jesus said "But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do the things which I say?
(for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified (Romans 2:13)
“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell. And great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:24-27)
The only reason why one man was called wise and the other foolish is because one heard the teachings of Christ and did them whereas the other only heard, kept on hearing but never did those things. That’s the difference between being wise and being foolish
One day a man with decayed teeth came to our meeting so I prayed and also gave him a brush and toothpaste. Next meeting, he came and he was worse than before. I asked him what happened and he said, I faithfully kept the brush and the paste under my pillow. How many of you know that is not a very wise thing to do. Now, this is just an illustration but I am sure you got the point.
Change will come in your life only when you do the Word of God. Don’t blame the preacher, the church or the prayer service.
The world highly esteems experienced people because they are people who have heard, learned, and practiced things. So also people who do the Word are highly esteemed in the Kingdom of God.
1.Each of them built a house, but they built it in different ways.
2.The same things that came against the wise man also came against the foolish man – the wind, floods and the rain. Each house was subjected to the same test. Neither house was free from being tested. The same storm that hit one house hit the other. The Christian life is not a storm-free life. We will go through storms. God never said in His Word that there will never be storms. Any message that says there will never be storms in your life is deception.
In fact, Paul and Barnabas said to the early church, “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
There is one important detail added in Luke which is not in Matthew.
It says the man who wanted to reach the bedrock had to dig deep. He had to get a lot of things out of the way before he could build on the bedrock. That is also true with many of us. For most of us who grew up in a nominal Christian culture, there are a lot of hindrances and influences we must get out of the way before we reach the bedrock. Others, too, who have grown up in a completely non-Christian culture will have to eliminate things, too, but they will be different.
1.Tradition
2.Offence
There will always be some things in the word that offend you
There will always be people even in the church that will offend you
The Foundation
The only reason why one house stood and the other fell was the difference in the foundation. One foundation was sand and the other foundation was on the rock. Sand is always shifting moving whereas rock is firm – stable. Sand is the philosophy of the world. Whereas rock is the word of God.
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