Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

Dr. Victor Heiser, author of the one time best seller An American Doctor's Odyssey, was 16 years old when the tragic Johnstown flood struck in 1889.

He was out in the barn getting a horse when he heard a dreadful roar.

When he ran to the door he saw his father up at the house frantically motioning for him to get to the top of the barn.

In a few seconds he was up on the roof, and in a few more seconds he saw a mass of houses, freight cars, trees and animals strike his house.

It collapsed like an eggshell, but the barn was torn from its foundation and began to roll.

By scrambling and crawling he was able to keep on top.

The barn struck a neighbor's house.

He leaped into the air and landed on the house just as it collapsed.

Fortunately another house rose up beside him and he was able to cling to it.

He lived this experience over and over many times in his dreams, and he vividly recalled his fingernails digging deep into the shingles.

He was sweep into a jam of wreckage and had to constantly dodge the deathblows of trees and beams that came roaring pass.

A freight car came crashing into the wreckage and he was thrown like a bullet into open waters.

He was swept into another jam of wreckage against a brick building that was still on its foundation.

He managed to get to the roof of this solid structure, and with others there he was able to rescue people being sweep by until there were 19 gathered on that still standing building.

It was raining hard, and so they opened the skylight and got down into the attic where they spent a night of terror listening to the roar of the water and the crashing of buildings all around them.

Their building held, but most did not.

Two thousand and nine were recovered, and many were never found.

Those in buildings with deep and solid foundations lived to tell of this fearful flood.

Many gathered with the Rev. Beale in the First Presbyterian Church in the heart of the city.

The waters filled the basement, but it withstood the flood and everyone there was spared.

Life or death depended on the foundation of the building you were in.

A solid foundation meant life, and a shallow foundation meant death.

This is so obvious a truth when we consider a physical flood, but men do not always realize that this is equally valid in the spiritual realm.

Jesus concluded His most extended sermon on record, the Sermon on the Mount, with an illustration concerning the need for depth.

Jesus was vitally concerned about the matter of foundations, and He wanted to impress all with its importance.

Whether you are wise of foolish depends on what you do with this issue.

If you dig deep to lay your foundation, you are wise.

If you are satisfied to be shallow, you are foolish, and what you build will never hold up in the flood, which the storms of life bring at some point.

Jesus implies that all will be tested by the flood.

Jesus was a carpenter, and there is no way to know how many homes He built, or help build, before He began His ministry of building the kingdom of God.

One thing we can be sure of, however, and that is that none of them fell in the rainy season because of a shallow and shabby foundation.

Jesus was a builder of quality in both the secular task of building a home, and in the sacred task of building a life.

He expected all who followed Him to do likewise, and to avoid being superficial, but to dig deep.

The interesting thing to observe here is, that which makes the great difference between the wise and the foolish builder is not conspicuous.

The two houses may look identical, and, in fact, the one with no foundation may even look superior as far as looks go.

The shallow life may be as appealing as the deep one.

Appearances are deceiving.

It is when the flood comes to test them that the hidden foundation proves its value, and leaves the man who dug deep standing justified.

No life can escape testing, and that is why Jesus was so insistent upon depth.

You recall in His parable of the sower how some seed fell on ground where it had little soil.

It sprang up quickly, but it had no depth, and so when the sun arose it was scorched and withered away.

Depth is not a luxury.

It is a necessity for survival.

When God plants He knows the value of depth.

In Psa.

80:8-9 Israel is compared to a vine which God planted.

"You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.

You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land."

In the New Testament Jesus takes over this image and applied to Himself and the church.

He says, "I am the vine and you are the branches."

Jesus is the vine with roots of infinite depth.

There are adequate resources in Him for the branches to grow into all the world and bare fruit.

Christianity could not have survived without being rooted in Christ, for He alone has the depth to keep the church standing through the floods of persecution.

God the Father plants deep; God the Son grows deep, and God the Holy Spirit reveals the depths.

Paul says in I Cor.

2:10, "For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God."

The subject of depth is one of the most important for a Christian to grasp.

The disciples had fished all night and caught nothing, but when they listened to Jesus and launched out into the deep their nets were breaking because of the great catch.

Digging deep, growing deep, and fishing deep are common themes in Scripture, and they challenge us to give more attention to the dimensions of depth.

I wrote these questions for all to consider:

Is there nothing in your net?

Then you haven't gone out yet

To the depths where fish abundant can be caught.

Will you empty handed be

In the shallows of the sea,

Or will you launch out deeper as you ought?

To help you answer these questions we want to answer another question, which we must understand.

The question is, what did Jesus mean by depth?

What does digging deep and laying a solid foundation for life mean?

In building a house it is easy to understand digging deep, but in building a life there is no literal digging to be done, and so we can easily miss the point of Jesus.

Therefore, let us consider the question, what is depth in building a life?

Verse 46 makes it crystal clear that depth is not in mere speech.

The Lordship of Christ in our lives is not made real by merely saying Lord, Lord, if we do not then do what He commands.

A verbal Christian is not a vital Christian.

The Christian who thinks he is growing and sending roots deep because he is increasing his religious vocabulary is deceived.

Nothing is more shallow than mere verbal growth.

Jesus knew that the greatest temptation His followers would have would be to accept creeds for deeds.

Most Christians take talk far more seriously than Jesus did.

We all tend to accept or reject people on the basis of their speech.

If they say the right things in the right way they are in, but Jesus says, and all of history proves, we are building on the sand when we do this.

Right words are meaningless without right actions.

Spurgeon said, "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...."

Christians easily develop the dangerous habit of taking their talk too seriously.

They tend to think that if they memorize a Bible passage that the experience of that passage is theirs.

They think if they quote Paul, who said, "I am crucified with Christ," that they are, therefore, deeply consecrated and surrendered, when in reality they may be nothing of the kind.

Jesus was not warning unbelievers, but He was warning those who loved and followed Him to beware of verbalization without obedience.

Do not build on your words, but on your deeds.

Satan will lead you, if you allow it, to build a high tower of which you will be proud, but if it is built on words alone it will fall in the flood.

Do not build on the shifting sand of sentiment, but on the solid rock of sound doctrine and reason.

Many Christians are moved by emotion to start building, and they begin to build up a Christian life without bothering to dig deep, and they are even proud of the fact that they do not waste time with digging as others do.

They feel it is a sign of greater faith to leave the foundation to God.

Their attitude is that the Lord will protect.

They forget that emotion is the lighting and heating system of the home of life, and it makes the home enjoyable and pleasant when it is built.

They allow it to become the basis for building, and the result is they are seldom prepared for the flood.

They lose their faith and feel God has forsaken them.

They are cared away by the flood of changing times, and they are tossed about by every wind of doctrine.

Why?

It is because they did not dig deep, but had a superficial faith that could not stand under pressure.

Jesus never built a house on the sand and then said, "I will not have to worry because my Father in heaven will protect it."