Tony Evans - How to Repair a Broken Culture

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
We are here to hear the teaching and preaching of
Tony Evans. I feel like he's truly a brother, not
only in Christ, but we're both from the same hometown.
He's from Dallas, I'm from Dallas, and he's a delightful
human being, as you all know him. Our mission at

(00:24):
the Bible at the Museum of the Bible is to
invite all people to engage with the transformative power of
the Bible. We'll believe that the Bible is the Word
of God and it's more than a dusty old book
on your grandmother's coffee table. Doctor Tony Evans is the
founder and senior pastor of oak Cliffe Bible Fellowship in Dallas,

(00:45):
founder and president of The Urban Alternative, an author of
over one hundred books, He has a Doctorate of Theology
from Dallas Theological Seminary and has been named one of
the twelve most Effective speakers in the World by Baylor University.
Doctor Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the

(01:07):
first full Bible commentary and study book and Study Bible
by an African American in the United States. His radio broadcast,
The Alternative with Doctor Evans can be heard on over
fourteen hundred radio outlets daily and in more than one
hundred and thirty countries. Your presence here tonight indicates you've

(01:30):
certainly heard of Tony Evans.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
You may be seated.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's great to be here in the Museum of the Bible.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Isn't this a fabulous place?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
It is?

Speaker 2 (01:41):
It is.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
I appreciate Miss Hagrove inviting me. He called me and
asked if I believed in free speech. I said yes,
he can say, come give one. So I'm very gratuitous
for this opportunity. It asked me to come in and

(02:04):
share some things with you that you know. It's the
job of the endcoder, which is the center of the message,
to reach the decoder that is the receiver of the
message without the message getting lost in translation. So we're
gonna spend a few moments doing that tonight. I don't
want the message to get lost because then people get confused,

(02:25):
because I don't want to be like the guy was
in Chicago. It's like freezing in Chicago. He couldn't take
the cold weather anymore, so he decided to leave Chicago
and go to hot, sunny.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Warm Florida.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
His wife was away on a business trip, and he
wanted to email her, tell her don't come back to Chicago,
the weather's too bad, but to meet him in Florida.
So he got on his computer to email her, but
for some reason he forgot her email address, so the
note didn't go to his wife. It went to a
little old lady in Iowa. And she was a pastor's

(02:59):
wife and her husband had just died the day before,
so you know, she's very sad and forlorn, and so
when she read the mistaken email, she screamed and fainted.
She was just laid out on the floor. The loved
once came in and heard this thump and wonder to
know what in the world was going on. Then they

(03:20):
read the mistaken email that had been sent to her,
they understood why she fainted. The first line said, my
dearest darling, just want you to know I've arrived safely.
The second line said, The second line said, looking forward
to you joining me tomorrow, signed your loving husband.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
PS. Sure it's hot down here, so it's very important.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
That that we communicate. So I'm glad to be in
this beautiful museum, this beautiful room, and oh God has
taken the Green family hobby lobby and their friends to
put one of the most magnificent tributes to God and

(04:09):
his word in the world right here in the Capitol, Washington,
d C. Some years ago, I had a problem in
my house. Had a problem in my house that was
a crack in the plaster of the wall. Was a
crack in the plaster of the wall, and it needed
to be repaired. So I called a painter over to

(04:32):
fix the crack in the plaster on the wall in
my house. He came and he took off the old plaster,
put up the new plaster, repainted it. It looked brand new.
I was happy, he was happy. I paid him. He
went home. A month later, the crack reappeared, so somewhat

(04:54):
evangelically ticked off, I called him back and asked him
to fix the crack in the plaster of my wall.
He came and he redid It looks like everything was
going to be okay. But then about a month and
a half later, the crack reappeared, this time with his
niece's nephew's uncle's aunts and cousins. I had a family

(05:18):
of cracks on the side of my wall. So I
figured I needed me a new painter because this was
not working out. So I called another guy over to
fix the crack that keeps on coming back in my wall.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
The new painter came over. And when the new painter came.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Over, he looked at it and looked at it, looked
at it and looked at it and looked at it,
and he said, sir, I'm so sorry. I can't help you.
I said, uh woah, excuse me. He says, I can't
help you. I said, well, why not? He says, because

(05:58):
you don't have a problem with cracks your wall. So
I looked at the wall that I didn't have problems with,
and I said, wait a minute, I see a crack.
You see a crack. All God's children see a crack.
There's a crack on my wall. Oh. He said, yeah,
there's a crack on your wall. I'm just saying, that's

(06:19):
not your problem. Says, your problem is you have a
shifting foundation. The foundation under your house is moving. What
you're looking at are symptoms of a much deeper problem.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
He said.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
If you don't solidify your foundation, you will forever be
doing patchwork on the cracks on your wall. When you
look at our world today, there are cracks everywhere there
is brokenness everywhere, and all manner of efforts are being
put in place to try to fix the cracks on

(06:56):
the walls of our lives, a culture, our relationships. If
I wasn't doing what I'd do, I'd probably be a
non Christian secular psychologist or psychiatrist, because then I could
charge people three hundred dollars an hour to tell them
why they need to come back next week. Because the
patchwork never ends, only to be replaced, he said, the

(07:26):
foundation is not solidified. And because the foundation is not solidified,
you can make things look better for a while. You
can reach into your pocket, the bank, or the treasury
of the United States to fund it. But the patches

(07:49):
will keep on reappearing because your foundation keeps moving. So
the question on the floor tonight that I would simply
like the summarizes, there need to be a radical return
to a solid foundation. Jesus tells the story to conclude

(08:15):
the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher whoever
proclaimed Jesus Christ himself. He comes at the end of
the Sermon on the Mount and he tells a story
about two men, and I simply want to ask you,
when we have completed our moments here together, Which person
are you?

Speaker 2 (08:36):
He says.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts
on them, may be compared to a wise man who
built his house on the rock. And the rain fell,
and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed
against the house, and yet it did not fall, for
it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears
these words of mine and does not act on them

(08:59):
will be like a foolish man who built his house
on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came,
and the winds blew and slammed. The gangst that house,
and it fell, and great was its fall. There are
a couple of observations I want to make about this story.

(09:21):
The first thing is the comparison between the two men.
The first comparison is that both men shared the same dream.
They both wanted to build a house. They both had
the same vision anticipation. They both were looking toward the
same goal. They wanted to build a house. Now, in

(09:43):
the Bible, to build a house can refer to a
number of things, as it is here to build a
house means to build a life. Both people wanted to
build a life. Nobody wants to live a failed life.
Nobody wants to look back over the trajectory of the
life that they lived and to have lived it without
meaning and purpose and emptiness and shambles.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
They both wanted to build a life.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
Because a house in the Bible is used to refer
to an individual's life, but the word house is also
used to be building a family. Nobody goes down the
aisle pre planning a divorce if they're serious about a relationship.
Yet when you look at the shambles of families today,

(10:31):
it becomes clear that the house is not being built well.
And so to build a house can mean to build
a home to build a strong marriage and raise strong
children and have strong intimacy and unity and productivity. It's
called a house. The Bible talks about the house of David,

(10:52):
that's his immediate and extended family, or to build a house.
House in the Bible can refer to building a ministry,
because after all, the church is called the household of God,
so it can refer to building a church building a ministry.
No ministry wants to collapse. No ministry wants to be insignificant.

(11:14):
No ministry wants to not be impactful. It is to
build something that will stand the test of time. We
be impactful, productive, and be transforming in the lives of people.
So it can refer to building your life, your home,
your ministry. Or building a house can refer to building

(11:36):
a nation. Israel was called the house of Israel. Nations
are called the house of that nation in the scripture.
So it refers to building a society that is stable
and wholesome and meaningful and productive. So to build a
house can refer to building a life, or a family,

(11:59):
or a minie or a nation.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
To build it well.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
So both have the same dream, and I suspect that most,
if not everybody here has had one or all.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Four of those dreams.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
That you want your life to matter, that you want
your family to be strong, that you want your ministry
to be impactful, and for God's sake, you want your
nation to come back together. I'm sure all of us
share the same dream. Not only did they share the
same dream, they came to the same event because Jesus said,

(12:40):
both men heard these words of Mine, so they were
both listening at the same time. They were both listening
to perfect proclamation. Because a perfect God can only produce
perfect truth. And since Jesus Christ is the perfect son
of God, he can only proclaim perfect informs. They were

(13:01):
listening to his word. Both men heard these words of mine.
As you come through this facility, you are confronted with
the Word of God in a multiplicity of manners and
mechanisms and historicity and all of the nuances and idiosyncrasies
that come with and understanding of all that this book

(13:23):
and the truth of God has met throughout the ages.
It says, and they heard these words of mine. They
were both exposed to the truth because that was all
they could get from the speaker. So both had the
same dream. Both were listening to the same information. But

(13:43):
there's a third thing. Both were sharing the same struggles,
because it says both of them face the storm. A
storm in the Bible is a negative set of circumstances
that are having deleterious impact and influence in your life.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
When you see storms use that way in scripture.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
It is referring to negative realities that you face.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
You are either in.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
A storm, just come out of a storm, or getting
ready to in a storm. Okay, because it does rain
in life. We have gone through a period in our
own life and family of storms that over the last
two years, losing eight of our family members six months apart,
my father and my wife one month apart. We have

(14:32):
come through a series of agonizing storms, and unfortunately in
this world it rains.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
You don't like it, you don't.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
Want it, but the reality is you can't always control it.
And it says the rain hit both of them. I
would love to come here to Washington tonight and tell
you follow Jesus and it won't rain, but that wouldn't
be the true, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

(15:03):
Most of us have lived long enough to know that
the reality of storms do come, and they do make
you wet, they do hurt, They do cause pain and
headache and heartache and life ache, no matter what level
that storm is on. So both share the same dream.

(15:24):
They wanted to build a house. Both listen to the
same message as you are tonight, and.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Both faced the same trouble.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
But that's where the comparison ends and the contrast begin.
Because one man is called a wise man and the
other man is called a fool. Wait a minute, that
means that a fool can have a dream and a
wise man can have a dream. It means that a

(15:58):
fool can listen to a message and a wise man
can listen to a message. I mean, the food can
be in the storm and a wise man can be
in the storm. So just because stuff is the same
doesn't mean you are the same. He says, one was
a wise man and one was a fool, And the
difference between the wise man and the fool had to

(16:18):
do with their foundation. It says where they built their house.
A foundation is where you start. It is the beginning point.
It is your point of reference. It is the point
where you elevate from. It is where you go first.

(16:42):
You can always know how high a building is planned
to be built by how low they drilled down. You
cannot build a foundation a skyscraper on the foundation of
a chicken coop, because it's not a signed to be
able to hold it. See, a lot of folk want

(17:04):
skyscraper lives on chicken coop foundations, a lot of families
want skyscraper homes on a chicken coop foundation, a lot
of ministries want skyscraper ministries on a chickens coop foundation.
And a lot of folk want a solid nation on
a chicken coop foundation. And you can't build something that

(17:25):
big on something that shallow. He says, that didn't start
in the same place. Now, one building's house on rock,
the other build his house on sand. Rock foundations take time,

(17:49):
Sandy foundations are quick. Rock foundations are expensive. Sandy foundations
are cheap. In other words, if you're going to build
a solid foundation, you have to be seen. You can't
be casual. You can't be just just at the top level.
You have to be willing to go deep with this

(18:10):
thing if you want to go high. One man was
a wise man. He built his house on a rock.
The other built his house on sand. And what made
the difference. It wasn't the information, Because it says both

(18:34):
heard these words of mine. So both were listening, but
they weren't listening the same way. Both were hearing, but
they weren't hearing the same way. It says, the wise
man built his house on a rock because he acted
on what he heard from the word. The fool heard

(18:58):
it but did nothing with it, and therefore he's called
a fool. The Bible has a lot to say about
the difference between a wise person and a fool. Wisdom
and foolishness in the Bible has nothing to do with
degrees academic acumen. It has nothing to do with what

(19:18):
you have accumulated in terms of information or book knowledge.
Wisdom in the Bible is your ability, capacity, and responsibility
to apply God's truth to life's decisions. Foolishness in the
Bible is the refusal to apply God's truth to life's decisions.

(19:41):
You can hear it all day, but if what's in
your head doesn't germinate down to your feet, you are
a fool with information. He says the wise man acted.
If you are to come to me and you were
to save Tony Evans my life in shambles, what should

(20:01):
I do? I would take God's word and I would
give you what God says about whatever your problem happens
to be that's put your life in shambles. Then I
would give you practical steps to apply what the Bible
says about your shambled life. Then I would ask the
Holy Spirit to empower your obedience to the Word to

(20:25):
bring your life back in order. If you brought to
me your family that was in shambles, I would take
the same book that I use with your individual life.
I would show you what God says about marriage and
family or whatever the issues are. I would give you
practical steps to apply what the Scripture says about that situation.

(20:46):
I would then ask the Holy Spirit to empower your
obedience to the word to bring order back into your home.
If you brought the leaders of your church to me
and said, my church is in shambles, I would take
the same book that I use with the individual, the
same book I use with the family, and I would
apply it to the leadership of your church and ministry.

(21:08):
I would give you practical steps to apply the truth
that we learned. I would ask the Holy Spirit to
empower your obedience to the truth to bring order back
into your home. If you brought to me the Congress
of the United States located in Washington, d C. Let
me explain something. I wouldn't change books. I would use

(21:30):
the same book I use with the individual, the family,
and the ministry. Since the Bible says in Romans thirteen
that God is the creator and sustainer of government, I
would use that same book to tell political leaders what
God has said, give them practical steps to implement it,
as the Holy Spirit to bless their obedience to bring

(21:51):
about the change in the nation that the nation needs.
Because it is now returned to a theistic, bibliocentric orientation
to script, because there are two answers to every question,
God's answer and everybody else's, and everybody else is wrong.

(22:15):
God has spoken and he has not stuttered. And it
is because of our refusal to take Heed to his
word that we have foolish people in foolish families, serving
in foolish ministries that are part of a foolish nation.
When there is the abandonment of a divinely ordered foundation,

(22:39):
chaos will rrupt. And no matter what programs you put
in place, what funding you give to it, if it
abandons divine truth that has been established by God based
on his word, then you are in for trouble. Not

(23:00):
what a lot of folk want to do is they
want to have sandy rock. See what they want to
do is they kind of know they need the rock,
but they also want some sand. They want some of

(23:22):
God and some of them. They want God in the
invocation and the benediction as long as he stays out
of the stuff in between.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
So they want a little sand.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
And a little you know, a little rock, and they
want to mix it up. You know, I don't I
don't I'm not in the apples. I'm an orange and
banana guy. I'm not an apple guy. Okay, except at
the Texas State Fair. Now I'm into them apples because
them a candy apples at the Texas State Fair.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Now, I don't normally like apples, but at the Texas
State Fair, I like them apples. But my doctor tells me,
once I eat a candy apple, it is of absolutely
no nutritional value to me because once it gets dipped
any liquid sugar, I've canceled out the benefit because of

(24:16):
the sugar.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
What we want to do is hear God's word.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Then dip it in a human opinion, dip it in
popular thought, dip it in woke ideology. We want to
dip it in secular thinking. And we think the word
doesn't work. And the only reason it's not working is
that you've diluted it with man's form of thinking that

(24:44):
contradicts it. When I first there's a camp in Dallas
called Pine Cove.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
In Pine Cove.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
Is a very famous ast, probably the largest summer camp
in the in the country. It has like thirty five
thousand kids that just come during the summer. So other
big end and the first time I learned to ride
horses was at at Pine Cove.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
Now I had seen enough Westerns to know what to do.
I mean, I had seen enough Westerns I knew, you know,
I'd seen gun Smoke and The Rightful Man and Bonanza.
You know, I had seen enough Westerns to know what
to do. I knew how to go, get y up, hi,
kick it, knew I knew what to do. I'd seen

(25:33):
enough Westerns to know what to do. So they got
brought me my horse. I went get y up high
kicked it. But my horse had issues. My was it
go two steps forward and three steps back, and two
steps forward and three steps back.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
I called the wrangler over.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
I said, hey, hey, I need another horse, cause you're
to put me on a crazy horse. I need another horse.
He said, what's wrong? I said, this horse it's confused.
This horse is confused. It goes up, it comes back.
This horse is confused. The ringer looked at me, and

(26:14):
he says, it's not the horse that's confused. It's not
the horse that's confused. I said, what do you mean
the horse goes I mean I go hai, getting up
kick it, ha, getting up kick it ghosts coming steps,
goes back.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
The ringer look at me and said, you.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
Can't go ha, get y up, kick it while pulling
back on the reins.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
You can't.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
You can't do that. You've confused this animal. You know,
he don't know whether to go forward or whether to
go back. See a lot of people want to use
God's name while they pull back on the reins. He says,
you must act on what he says. The Bible must
get activated. Now it is a lie because it's the

(27:00):
word of God, but it's not alive for you until
you activated. Without activation, I got, I got. I see
a lot of my brothers and sisters in the flesh
here African Americans. Okay, yeah, yeah, So some of you,
some of you non African Americans want to be appreciate this,

(27:22):
But my.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Brothers and sisters in the flesh, right, y'all. Remember Jerry Carroll.
Remember Jerry Carroll.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
Uh, most of us when we had hair wore Jered
Carroll's back in the day. Now, you had to go
through a lot to get your hair to do a
Jerry Carl back in the day. Okay, Now, the Jerry
Carl kind of slicked your hand and curled it up

(27:50):
and you know it did all that. So the problem
is that the hair would get dry. The hair would
get dry when you put these chemicals in it to
get the Jerry curl. So all of us in the
African American community, we had to go to the store
to buy curl activator.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Come on, am I telling the dred?

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Come on?

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Tell me.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Okay, you had to go to the store and you
had to buy curl activator because your hair would get
dry and you needed to spray the activator on to
get the life back in the hair. If you didn't
use the curl activator, your hair was a hot mess
because it hadn't been activated. Well, God's word wants to

(28:37):
be activated. It just doesn't want to be red thought about.
Hove it over. It wants to be activated so it
can shine in your existence. My Anthony. One Christmas, I
brought Anthony a bicycle and I brought Anthony bicycle and

(28:59):
he It was when you had to do it yourself.
You know, this is before Walmart and all that. Well,
you could do it. You know, you had to put
the bicycle together. So Christmas Eve, I'm out there to
put the bicycle together. Now now I'm working on my
doctorate degree. Okay, so I'm a smart brother. I'm working
on my doctorate degree.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
They they gave me.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
They gave me an instructural manual to how to put
the bike together. I know how to read. I'm intelligent.
I've got already a BA I've got a master's working
on a doctorate. I can do this. I can do
this smart. So I take the book and I look

(29:49):
at it, and the book is pretty thick. So I decide,
I don't need this. I don't need this. I don't
need this. I'm an intelligent black man. I don't need this.
So I start using my human reasoning to put the

(30:12):
bike together. Eight hours later, with just the handlebars on,
my late wife Loris came to the door and said,
could it be so? I want to respect you as
my husband, but I do have a question. Could it

(30:34):
be this? Maybe the bicycle maker knows more about bicycle
fixing than you do.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Just could it be that?

Speaker 1 (30:45):
So?

Speaker 3 (30:45):
I want to ask you a question. Could it be
that the life maker knows more about life living than
we do? Could it be that if we tune back
in to what he has to say, based on his
word on every issue in life, that life could take

(31:06):
on the shape the creator intended it because we stopped
canceling the word with human opinion when we decide to
stop mixing diesel and unletted. When we decided to stop
mixing you know, I was for my thirtieth wedding anniversary

(31:27):
loss and I went to to We went to Europe
and we were taking trains around certain places.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
And we came to Pisa.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Now there's only one thing in Pisa, the only one thing,
the leaning Tower of Pisa. That's the only thing. Well,
are two things in Pisa. There's the leaning Tower of Pisa,
and then there are people selling replicas of the leaning
Tower of Pisa right there. If you've ever been over there,
you know, Okay, people come from all around the world

(32:04):
and watch a building do this. They come from all
around the world to watch a building lean. When we
were there, they had ropes around the bottom of the
building because it was leaning one twenty eeth of an
inch every year more and so they had to stabilize it.

(32:27):
So they put ropes around it because it was leaning.
And if they didn't if they didn't solidify the foundation
after a while, after so many years, it could collapse.
So they had ropes around it to stabilize the foundation. Now,
what you need to know about the leaning Tower of
Pisa is it's only a tourist attraction. I mean, you

(32:49):
can't do much with it. It's a tourist attraction. And
that's because it's leaning. Now, a lot of people don't
know why the leaning tower of Piece of leans.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
So let me tell you why. The leaning tower, piece
of leans.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
The leaning Tower of Piasa leans because it's located in Pisa,
because Pisa means marshy. In other words, it wasn't built
on the solid foundation, and it's been leaning ever since.

(33:25):
When you try to build something outside of God's word,
you're going to be leaning. And yeah, you may get
some systems in the culture to put ropes around you
to keep you from falling, but that does not solidify
your existence, and you wind up being a tourist attraction,

(33:48):
he says the wise Man. For most people, the Bible
is like the Queen of England. Queen of Eagland gets
a lot of clout. I mean, whether she's in town
or out of town, the flag is raised, the flag
is lowered. When her caravan comes up the street, people

(34:09):
pull over. She gets a lot of clout. She just
has no power. See, she don't make laws, she don't
determine laws. They pay her homage. The Prime Minister comes
assists with her once a week and lets them know
what's going on. But she doesn't get to make the
final decisions. But they pay homage to her. See, a

(34:32):
lot of people pay homage to this book, but don't
want it to make any decisions. Don't want it to
be the basis for decision making. Where they surrender their
will to this will, their plans to this plan, their
definitions to this definition. We wouldn't be confused about the
race issue. In fact, they technically ain't correct for me

(34:54):
to call myself a black Christian, you to call yourself
a white Christian, because then you make black and white
and adjective you make Christian. And now the job of
the adjective is a modifieder. Now. So if you got
Christian in the non position, you're coloring the age tible position.
You got to keep changing the noun of your humanity,
the noun of your Christianity, to fit the adjective of
your humanity. You must always put your Christianity in the
agetible position, your humanity in the now position, so that

(35:15):
if anything changes, it's now of your humanity and not
the adjective of your faith. See, when you start with
a biblical frame of reference, it doesn't take you one
hundred years to solve a problem. It takes you just
the time it takes to act on what God has said.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
He concludes by saying.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
That the storm came, h interesting storm. It says, the rainfall.
The floods came. The winds blew and slammed against both
of their houses. Now, if you have rain coming down,

(36:05):
flood coming up, and when so strong it can knock
over a house, that's a hurricane.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
That's a hurricane.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
It's not just a rain storm. That's a hurricane. That's
a hurricane season. You know what hurricane season is when
all hell breaks loose on your world. Hurricane season is
where you are overwhelmed with life, or pain or anguish.
I would love to say that if you listen to

(36:37):
this word, it won't rain. But he said it did rain,
and it rained on both of them, the wise man
and the fool.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
The difference was the result.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
One house stood and one house fell. One house made
it and one house didn't. Now, let me explain something
you can't fix the foundation in the storm. You can
set it before the storm, you can repair it after
the storm, but you can't fix it in the storm.

(37:12):
You just gotta ride out the storm if you haven't
already solidified the foundation. See, everybody wants God when their
world crashes. God says, I want to be your foundation
before your world crashes, so that when the storm comes,
your world does not crash and you ride out the storm.
You remember Mark four, when Jesus was crossing, he said,

(37:34):
let us go to the other side. And they got
in the boat and a storm came. The Greek word
was lilac, that's a windstorm. And these fishermen were scared
to death. So it had to be a bad storm
because they were fishermen and they're halfway across the sea.
I got a leap, and a halfway across the sea.
Let the storm comes. And they're panicking. Okay, they're panicking,
and they look and Jesus is asleep in the stern. Okay,

(37:58):
he's asleep in the stern, and I'm in the storm now.
If the truth be told, sometimes it does feel like
Jesus is asleep on you. Okay, because you're in trouble,
and he know where to be found. So sometimes it
does seem like Jesus sleep on you. But he's not
just sleep. He's snoring. We know he's snoring because he's
on my pillow. Okay, that's what it says. It says

(38:23):
that he was asleep on a cushion. Now, if you
on a cushion, that means you meant to go to sleep.
You ain't just you're not just nodding, you intentionally snoring. Okay.
It says he was sleep on a cushion. He got
on my pillow, so he'd ask. And he's sleeping on
a cushion. And so the disciples come and they shake him,

(38:45):
bake him, they wake him up. They shaved it, and
they asked what we always asked when we going through stuff,
Carris than not that we perish. Don't you care? How
can you sleep on us at a time like this.
It says they had to arouse him, which means they
had to shake him up. They couldn't just say Jesus's
time to wake up. He was too sleepy. They shook

(39:07):
him to get him up. They had to rouse him up.
And when he got up, he said to them, why
are you so timid. Okay, now that sounds a little
bit in our humanity, a little bit insensitive.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
They bailing water out because they scared they're gonna drown,
and here come Jesus gonna say, why are you so timid?
I can see Peter now because he'd the one like
to talk, So I can see Peter now saying, oh.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Jesus, maybe we're timid because we're getting ready to die.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Gee, he says, oh, ye of little faith. But wait
a minute, Jesus, women, are you being in practical here?

Speaker 2 (39:55):
I mean, this is our circumstance. Were in a storm.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
The thing is gonna flip the boat, but we don't know
whether we're gonna live or die. How can you be
so insensitive? Oh, your little faith? Why did he say that?
Because before they ever left, he said, let us go
to the other side, not let us go.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Healthway halfway and not make it.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
He said, I can see them now, like a lot
of us in church, Jesus said, let us go to
the other side. We would be saying the other side
of the side of the side Jesus saying.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
We're gonna make it to the other side. Praise God.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
Hallelujah for the other side, the other side of the
side of the side, halleluja the other side, the other side.
I can see us say on the other side. Right now,
it's easy to hear God's word and not paying attention,
because if they were paying attention when they saw him
get his my pillow, they would have gotten them my
pillow because they were to remember he said, we are

(40:51):
all going over to the other side. The prince hear
of this story is simple. Your foundation determines your future.
Your foundation determines your future. Fixing a broken window is

(41:16):
one thing. Having to repair your foundation is a whole
another ballgame. Fixing your roof is one thing. Fixing your
doors all important, but those are insignificant compared to having
to jack up your foundation because everything else is resting
on it. God intended that all of life would rest

(41:41):
on his word in the four categories of his kingdom,
personal life, family life, church life, civic life, all four
of those we call in our ministry the Kingdom of agenda,
the visible manifestation of the comprehensive.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Rule of God over every area of life.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
For the serious Christian, there is no difference between secular
and secred everything becomes sacred because everything comes under the
rule of God. There is nothing that is excluded from
his influence, his rule, his precepts.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
And his principles.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
And that is why this book must be the foundation
of your life. When I was a boy growing up
thirty minutes from here in Baltimore, one Christmas, my father
brought home a punching bag. I remember how excited I

(42:33):
was to get this punching bag. I would hit it. Boom,
it would hit the floor bam, but then it would
bounce back ban boom bam ban.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
One time I kicked.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
It, what hit the wall?

Speaker 4 (42:53):
Boom, hit the floor bam bam bam bam bam bam bing.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
No matter what I did to it, it just kept
coming back. It just kept coming back.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
That's because there was a weight at the bottom of
the bloom that was heavier than the air at the top.
So no matter what I did to it up here,
down there determined where things wound up. So I would
love to tell you today that if you take seriously
this book, that life won't hit you. But that's just

(43:37):
not true. Jesus said, in this world you will have tribulation.
But here's what I can tell you what it does
come at you. If your foundation is right based on
his word, it may hit you boom and you may
go bam, but you're coming back. Boom may get you

(44:00):
boom boom, and you may go bam bam. But if
it's resting on the right foundation, you coming back boom
and it may go crazy and go with the evil one.
Boom boom boom, bom boom boo, boom ba boom ba
boom ba boom ba booma, and you being hit every
which way and you.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
Going bam bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam
bam bam.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
But if you're resting on the right foundation, you're coming back.