On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.
I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon, but let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
For other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
God's foundation is built of giant, great, big, huge stones. He said before you are going to build a house to me, before you are going to build the temple, you need to start out with a deep foundation.
Now if you think about it, these 15 foot stones that were very expensive, the Bible says, they were costly, they were hewn out of one solid piece of stone, they were not seen, they were not above the ground.
So what they had to do is they actually had to dig down into the earth, 15 feet deep, and lay these stones in the earth as a foundation for the house. They were not even seen.
Here we see God's house being built on a great foundation. What kind of a foundation does God intend for the house of God to have?
Well I'll tell you one thing, the house of God should be built on the greatest stone that there is, the word of God. The unchangeable, unchanging word of God.
You see, we don't fit the church, we don't fit the word of God to fit our church like you fit concrete. But no, we take the rock of ages, the King James Bible, and we're going to build everything around that to fit that.
See, this is our foundation. This is not made by a man. This was created by God even before those stones were created, all the way back in eternity past. The Bible says, concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou has founded them forever.
The Bible says, forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. All the way eternity past, all the way eternity forth, before the world ever was, and after the world will be destroyed, the word of God will stand forever as the rock that never changes.
You see, that's the kind of a foundation that the house of God needs to have. That kind of an unmovable, unchanging foundation such as the Bible.
You see, if your life is going to be built correctly, and if this church is going to be built correctly, it's going to be built on a large foundation like a lot of Bible reading.
Not some little pebble of your little Bible time in the morning where you spent five minutes or ten minutes reading the Bible. That's like a little piece of gravel. That's like a little pebble. You ought to sit down and dig into the Bible.
As a church, we need to really dig into the Bible so we can have a great, big, giant foundation of the word of God. You say, our church is founded on the word of God. Not if you don't read it. Not if you don't read it a lot.
You may have a little piece of the word of God, you know, the little part that you choose to read mixed in somewhere into your foundation, but a church can get up and say, we're founded on the word of God, and they can put in their statement of faith, our church's foundation is the Bible, the word of God.
But, you know, when the pastor of that church and when the people of that church are barely reading it, reading it some tiny little piece of it, some little devotional, some little our daily bread, then I'm going to tell you something, that church is probably not really built on the word of God as its whole foundation.
I mean, it might have little pieces here and there. I mean, you read a chapter here and there. I mean, I sit down and give 15 minutes of my time to God, but no, that's not the foundation we need. We need a great, big, giant stone that says, I know what the Bible says, and that's what this church is built on.
A lot of the doctrine I know, my dad taught me, my mom taught me. That's where I learned a lot of the great Bible doctrine that I've learned. See, I didn't just start from scratch and reinvent the wheel. No, my mom and dad taught me some great doctrine. I've learned doctrine from pastors that I've had in the past.
But you see, that cost somebody something. It probably cost somebody hours and hours of studying the Bible to learn those great truths that they can pass on to me. It probably cost somebody to learn and work at soul winning and teach me the soul winning methods and techniques.
It cost somebody to give me the Bible that I have. It cost people, it cost Christians of the past to get me saved. It cost people so we could have religious freedom in the United States of America.
These foundations that we hold so dear, these foundations without which our whole church and our whole life would crumble were paid for by somebody, and it cost a great price of many people's lives and their blood and sweat and tears to get us where we are today.
People who died to give us the Bible, people who died to keep the gospel perpetuated. This church is founded on King James only. This church is founded on salvation by faith, belief, period.
This church is founded upon soul winning, door to door, door knocking, house to house, daily in the temple and in every house they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. That's a big foundation.
Don't go to some church and boy it looks, it feels, it sounds like church and the hymns and everybody's dressed. So what if you're dressed right if you're not a soul winner?
I'd rather have somebody come to this church and dress wrong and go out and win somebody to Christ. Get your priorities straight. And you know I believe in the clothing standards and I preach on what you dress and everything like that, but I'm going to tell you something.
Dress wrong and win somebody to Christ. Rather than sit there and dress right and have the outside right, your foundation's wrong, your Bible's wrong, your soul winning's wrong, your prayer's wrong. Get the inside right first and then build up the right kind of an outside.
And so we see here people choosing a church built on the wrong foundation. If I had to choose a church, I'd go where the foundation's right even if it was the meanest church I've ever seen.
If I went to a church and everybody was mean as the devil, but if they believe right, if they win the souls, they preach the gospel, that's where I'd go to church. I'll tell you that right now.
See, purity of heart, cleanliness of hands, cleanliness of life, great deal of Bible reading, great amounts of prayer, great amounts of memorizing the Bible, many hours out soul winning, time on your knees in prayer, a pure heart, right spirit.
These are the foundation of your life that God sees and no one else sees. But they will determine what you do for God.
When Jesus is your foundation, that's the biggest foundation you could have. The sky is the limit. There is no limit to what can be accomplished for God.
I mean, when Jesus said, upon this rock, speaking of himself, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail again. Hey, with that kind of a foundation, there's no limit to what Faithful Word Baptist Church could do.
Hey, Faithful Word Baptist Church, it's founded on the Bible, on Jesus. There's no limit to what this church can do.
Hey, I believe that this church could make a huge impact on Phoenix, on the state of Arizona. I don't believe that we'll just put a little dent. I want to make a great impact on this city. I want to shape this city with the gospel.
I want it to be like it said in the book of Acts, where people around them were saying, they accused them of it. Their enemy said, these people have turned the world upside down with their doctrine.
That's what they said of the apostles. They turned the world upside down. And I'm going to tell you something. I believe with all my heart that one man can shape the world and that one church can take the world and take it for the kingdom of God.
That one man, one church, one group of people, one woman can take and shape the world, shape the foundations of the state of Arizona, of Phoenix, Arizona, and shape the world and see great things happen.
Multitudes saved. A great church built for the kingdom of God. Hey, I believe that. Now if you understand that I believe that, and if you believe that too, then you'll understand why this church needs to have a strong foundation and a solid foundation, a costly foundation.
The only question is, are you willing to be that person? I mean, I'm going to tell you something. If a person really just was fully dedicated to God, totally filled with the Spirit of God, a person like an apostle Paul or the apostle John, think about what God could do.
I don't think there's any limit to what God could do. But the question is, will you be that person? Will you be that person?
And the other question is, will this be that church that God uses? Will you be the person that God uses in the greatest way possible?
Will Faithful Word Baptist Church be the church that God uses to shake America and shake the world and shake Phoenix with the gospel of Christ?
Well, you decide. You decide how deep you want to build your foundation. You decide how deep into the Bible reading you want to go.
You decide how many hours you want to spend out there knocking the doors. You decide how deep your relationship with God is going to be, your walk with God, your fellowship with God.
You decide, it's up to you, how deep you want to drive the spikes of your foundation and how deep you want to dig down and how great of a stone you want to place for that foundation.
That's going to decide whether this church and whether you personally and whether I personally can be used of God to build something great for God.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for this great example in the Bible of these two foundations, the two temples, dear God, three phases of building that we see
as we watch these great building projects unfold in Exodus and 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles and Ezra and Nehemiah, dear God, in Ezekiel.
We see these great buildings being constructed.
And God, help us to take note that our foundation is going to have to be big. It's going to have to be costly.
We're going to have to pay a price to have the foundation that we need.
God, please help us to put in the time in prayer, the time in Bible reading, the time out knocking the doors, doing the sayings of Jesus, which involves also preaching the gospel to every creature.
God, that's the only way we're going to be built upon a rock and not built on the shifting sands of this world.
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