How to Build It

Toward the end of His soul-stirring Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus told an intriguing yet practical parable about two men, each of whom set out to construct a house. According to the specific details provided by the Lord, one man-whom He referred to as "foolish-decided to build his house upon a foundation of shifting sand; the other-whom Christ called "wise"-decided to build his house upon a foundation of solid rock.

Eventually, the vicissitudes of life challenged each of the two men. When the winds blew, the rains descended, and the floods came, the man who foolishly had built upon shifting sand saw his house utterly destroyed, and inspiration records simply that "great was the fall thereof" (Matthew 7:27). But when those same forces of nature struck the wise man's house, the Scriptures attest that "it fell not, for it was founded upon the rock" (Matthew 7:25).

Jesus' explanation of the parable was unmistakably clear. The foolish man who built upon shifting sand represented those who "heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not," while the man who built upon solid rock represented those who "heareth these words of mine, and doeth them." Christ's intent in relating this particular parable was to impress upon people both the importance and the urgency of placing their faith in God's Word and obeying its precepts. It was no accident that the Son of God inextricably linked "hearing" to "doing."

The intent of this book is to impress upon people both the importance and the urgency of building a deep, personal faith in God, His Son, and His Word that is rock solid-exactly like that of the wise man in Christ's parable. But the book does not stop there. It also explains how to build a faith based on the kind of evidence that is every bit as rock-solid as the faith it is intended to help create and sustain.