Foundation Rock For Ministry
Walter Beuttler

As far as I know I do not have another meeting scheduled with you.  Of course we’re here Sunday evening, but that’s something else again.  I realize that we’re coming to the parting of the ways now very rapidly.  EBI is changing her complexion.  We are going to be scattered to the four winds before very long, especially with the seniors leaving.  You can be sure once that has taken place some of our ways will never cross again.  That’s right.  It’s surprising how some disappear.  You never see them again.  It seems only a minority you meet now and then.

In regards to all of us, we’re scattering and only God knows what is lying just ahead.  The world situation is extremely ominous.  If I err not, this space ship the Russians threw into orbit weighs 3,000 tons.  That’s the figure in my mind.  If I’m in error, it’s a mistake, but it seems to me, that’s what they said.  Of it’s military capabilities when it’s perfected, nobody is in doubt.  The world situation has never been as critical in all its history as it is today.  Everywhere you look there is upheaval.

The saints seem to have a rougher time to keep saintly than ever before.  I don’t feel like a pessimist, but I would like to be a realist, and as such, we can hoist a flag this morning, the signification of which is stormy weather ahead for most of us, maybe all of us.

I want to read to you from Luke, something I felt the Lord was working on me for you.  When it comes to the end of the year, there are a number of things one would like to say to a group while you have them altogether.  But then, you cannot do that.

“Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like; He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock; and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it; for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.”  Luke 6:47-49

Every year at this time I feel, of course, as any other instructor would, the implications of being scattered.  You wonder what you did and what you didn’t do, what you should have done, etc.  This morning I want to give to you a rather sober line of thought.  I cannot help but have the seniors in mind primarily.  That’s a habit of mine.  I’m just made that way.  I suppose most of us feel the same way.

In a sense now this morning, we are houses.  There are different kinds of houses to be sure.  These houses of ours, or that which has been wrought shall we say, for these one, two or three years, you may be quite confident they will soon be put to a severe test.  I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you already begin to see the first signs of a hurricane.  Things can blow awfully hard.

I’m wondering in my own mind how well we have built, on what kind of a foundation we have built.  You will find in this parable of the Lord, He compares two kinds of houses.  As far as I can see there seems to be no indication of any basic difference in these houses.  The writer does not assume any structural difference, or a difference in design whatsoever.  He simply talks about two houses.

These houses were seemingly built alike.  They were subjected to the very same tests.  Note that what is said of the one that stood is also said of the other house that fell.  One house stood and the other fell.  As you read the description, the storm which beat against those two houses was identical.  The Lord is picturing both houses subjected to the same kind of a test, the winds blew, the waters beat against that house.  If you’ve ever seen a flood!  Whew!  How those waves can beat!

I remember a stormy sea down in Valparaiso, Chile in the South Pacific after a storm.  We went down to the shore to watch the works.  OH!  Those waves came along and banged against those buildings, and they slashed against those buildings.  Some of the water came up in the middle of the road.  Over there was the ocean and the water shot up like a geyser from the road.  Nice buildings built right up to the shore just crumbled like so many matches from a box.  They just went down as these waves came relentlessly, mercilessly.  With a big boom they hit those things, the water splashed in the air.  UH!  What a sight!  Down they came, others didn’t.

I hope I’m not painting things too black, but I feel awful serious this morning.  I’ve got an ache in my heart somehow.  Ahead there are going to be some mighty big waves and strong winds that will bang away at what we said we had.  There nature is so diverse sometimes from our anticipation and things occur so unexpectedly that you wonder where you’re at.

Well, what about these houses?  You know already that the reason one house stood was because it was built on an adequate foundation.  You already know, as well as I do, that the other house fell because it was built upon the sand.  What attracts my attention here is the nature of this foundation.  Here the Lord is giving us, at least that’s what I see, three basic elements or layers (if you prefer), three essential parts of a foundation necessary to make us stand against the storms that blow against our Christian experience.

We know we have EBI graduates who have backslid.  So have other schools.  Something went wrong; something wasn’t right; somewhere the foundation wasn’t solid.  I myself am afraid for a number of our students.  I don’t see how they’re going to make it.  They’ll have to do some digging and some building.  That’s my judgment.

Notice what the Lord is indicating here.  I see in verse 47, three integral parts of a foundation, three absolutely essential parts without which any one of them, we cannot stand.  You will find that the Lord, speaking about the house built on the sand, states categorically that the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it collapsed into great ruin.  As we’re subjected to the strains and stresses that are yet to come, there are three things that I want to enumerate to you.

“1) Whosoever cometh to me, and 2) heareth my sayings, and 3) doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like.”  Luke 6:47 (numbers added)

1)     Whosoever Cometh To Me – Relationship

What you have here is relationship.  One of the essential things, and I would judge the first one in order of sequence is coming to Him, the idea being, having a proper, personal relationship with Him as a person.

You recall that I have said more than once in time past, when the Lord called His disciples, it reads like this: “And he called unto him whom he would (that’s the sovereignty of God), that they should be with him.”  The trouble is, we put the emphasis on the going, forgetting the going comes out of the being with Him.

I’ve said to all of you before that our first calling is to be with Him.  We cannot go unless we are with Him.  We cannot preach unless we are with Him.  First we are with Him, then we are sent by Him.  This being with Him, or having a personal relationship, is not a matter of mere acquaintance.  It is one thing to be acquainted with the Lord.  It’s another thing to have a personal relationship with Him.  Here in Luke 13:23:

“Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved?”  Luke 13:23

Isn’t it something how easily people get interested in statistics?  Here this man was unsaved, yet he wants to know how many are going to be saved.  He forgets all about the primary fact that he needs to be saved, and he ought to be wondering whether he’ll be one of them.  It doesn’t dawn on him to ask the Lord, “Lord, will I be saved?”  No, he asks, “How many will get into the kingdom?”

Strange isn’t it, how our interests are deflected from primary things to secondary issues.  For instance, how people will argue about the time of the rapture.  Argue about the time of the rapture!  What’s the difference?  The main thing is to be ready when it does take place.  When it takes place is of secondary importance, to me anyhow, and I think to God.  People argue.  Those in the victory get mad at each other whether it’s before the Tribulation, in the middle or after.  Well, they better look out.  We get so easily distracted with secondary issues, and so this man, “Lord, are there few that be saved?”

I like the Lord.  The Lord answered him and said, Strive to enter in at the strait gate.  In other words, never mind how many are saved.  You get in.  That was the real issue. 

“When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are; Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.”  Luke 13:25-27

“We have eaten and drunk in thy presence.”  In other words, “Lord, we have a personal acquaintance with you.  Why do you remember we sat down in Hardy’s Restaurant, and I brought You a cup of coffee and a piece of pumpkin pie?  Do you remember I sat right across from You at the table, and we talked about different things?”

The Lord says, “Yes, I remember.”

“Do you remember it was in my house?  By the way Lord, when You healed that woman, You did it right in front of my house at the corner.  You were standing on my sidewalk.  I’ll get in, won’t I?”

The Lord says, “Well, I don’t know you.”

“But Lord, don’t You remember me, I was there?”

He says, “I don’t know you.”  God save us from having a mere acquaintance instead of a personal knowledge of Him.  They thought they’d make it through with a casual acquaintance, but the Lord says, “No.”

When it says in this parable here about coming to Him, He doesn’t mean as a casual acquaintance, but as a relationship, which is a vital reality.

“It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God.  Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.”  John 6:45

Anybody not taught by God is still untaught, and I don’t care how many doctrine books you can memorize.  “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.”  Do you know that the object of Bible teaching is not knowing, but coming?  Do you know the object of teaching you is not knowing?  Shouldn’t we know?  Of course, we should know, but that’s not the goal.  The goal is coming.  The truth we learn is to bring us to Him, and until we commit ourselves to the implication of that truth, we haven’t learned even though we make 100% on the test.  That’s right.

We tend to make knowing the goal, but that’s the intermediate stopping point.  What we know is to bear upon our will to bring us into the implication of that truth.  “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.”  The final test of what we’ve learned is not the grade we make, but whether we come, whether we respond to the truth and to the Person of that truth.  We stop short in our learning process.  The Book says, “Every man that hath heard, and hath learned.”  “Oh, I learned!  I got a hundred.”

“Wait a minute.  Have you learned of the Father?  Have you come to Him?”

“Come?  No.”

“Then you haven’t learned.  You only gathered information.”  Do you know there’s a difference between gathering information and learning?  The gathering of information is necessary to the learning, but it’s not complete in itself.  The proof of the learning is to come to the Person of the truth.  All the truth is to bring us to Him who said, “I am the truth,” so that through the truth there ought to be a constant transformation unto Him.  The final test is coming, not knowing.  The final test is coming, responding.

Somebody says, “I heard that before.  I know that.”

“What have you done with it?”

“Nothing.”

“Then you don’t know it.”  Do you know why God brings the same truth over and over again?  It’s not because the hearers haven’t heard, neither because they do not know, but because they have never responded.  They know, but they have not responded.  Without response, the truth is barren, so He sends truth in an effort to cause somebody who has known to respond.  The end of truth is not knowing, it is coming.  The end of the coming is a Person, and He is the Person.  That belongs into this foundation that will hold you when the waves dash against you with a roar and a bang.  You may tremble, but you stand.  Did you get that?

That goes way down where the foundation is anchored.  This kind of a believer of the house that stood, it says of him that he digged deep.  There was an excavation process.  Are you thinking?  You better think!

Luke 14:25-30: “And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them,” I’m so glad for the Lord’s honesty.  You couldn’t hear him say, “It’s fun to go to church.  It’s fun to be religious.  Oh no!  He told the people the truth.  There’s a difference between fun and joy.  If I want fun, I won’t go to church.  I’ll go to a clown.  The only thing is, a clown isn’t funny.  I see nothing funny in a clown.

More and more as I get around, I find that here’s the situation.  As soon as the young people’s meeting is finished, they make it short so they can go down to the bowling alley.  Say, we’re coming a long way from the foundation that our fathers laid.  When you got what I’m talking about, you’re not interested in bowling alleys.  You won’t even have time for it.  We better do some digging, and dig the alleys out and some other things, and build a foundation where we can stand.  Only God knows what you folks will have to go through before you’re threescore and ten.  Only God knows!  Well, we could say, “Of course.”

Look at the world situation.  As far as I’m concerned, there is no time to fool around.  Here a few weeks ago, we had such a beautiful visitation of God.  I think that the last two weeks, we’ve had more breaking of rules since the 21 years I’ve been in these halls.  You wonder what’s happening to people.  After such an exquisite revival, you’d think people would shun those things.  Some of us better do some digging fast.  There’s stormy weather ahead.  This man dug deep.

“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”  Luke 14:26-30

Do you notice how incongruous our present Pentecostal way of thinking is with the thinking of the Christ?  Hating his own life also!  Of course that doesn’t mean you go and kick yourself.  It simply means that we say NO to the demands of the self-life in order to say YES to the Christ; that we allow no claims to stand between us and His claims upon us.  He cannot be my disciple.

“Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”  It doesn’t say may not be my disciple, it says cannot be my disciple.  It’s impossible to be His disciple.  Now we’re taking the cross and ditching it and taking up golf in its place or something.  Now I’m not talking about wholesome recreation or something.  You know what I mean.

“Which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth down first and counteth the cost.”  In those days they counted the cost first.  Now they just go into debt.  My!  How things have changed!  Don’t worry about paying, just borrow money from the bank, and pay in installments.  If you don’t owe anybody, you have no credit.  That’s the new philosophy.  You only have credit if you owe money and have met your payments.  If you pay-as-you-go basis, you’ve got no credit.  You’ll have trouble getting a loan.

“Have you had any loan before?”

“No, I’ve always paid my way.”

“I’m sorry sir.  You have no credit.”  The man who pays has no credit and the man who owes a lot has credit.  It’s crazy.

The Lord believes in counting the cost.  Well, I’ll trust the Lord.  This man began to build, and was not able to finish.  How many of you have begun to build: One year and you’re not finishing.  Two years and you decide to call it quits.  Now I know there are exceptions.  If a student of two years has a boyfriend and he’s graduating and they want to get married, why should she come back a third year by herself?  It doesn’t make sense, except nonsense to me.  I’m not talking about cases like that.

I’m talking about those who ought to, in God.  This man, this girl, this boy began to build and was not able to finish.  They didn’t have what it took.  “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).  What I’m getting at is this: This kind of a relationship of which the Lord spoke when he said, “Whosoever cometh to me,” necessitates renunciation of ourselves, of our lives.  It involves a complete abandonment unto Him without reservation or qualification, without which an individual cannot stand the onslaught of things without bringing catastrophe to their house.

It’s not mere acquaintance, it’s a personal relationship, so “those who have heard and understood, come.”  Every one who hasn’t learned, doesn’t come.  The coming or the not coming is the proof of what we have learned or not learned, not the test papers.  The coming or the not coming is the final proof.  We need the test papers, but I’m speaking of the ultimate proof.  In the final analysis, that’s the test.  It’s not nice, is it?  But that’s it.

2)     Heareth My Sayings - Doctrine

Again in Luke 6:47, “Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them.”  The word sayings here refers to the things which Christ taught.  In order to build that foundation of truth, it begins with an attitude.  Bless you heart, we sure need to know the truth.  Do you recall in Matthew