Part 2 from our Church Retreat

I mentioned in the last post that our theme for the weekend was rocks in the Bible. Here’s my talk from Saturday morning:

Remember the parable about the house that was built upon a rock? “And the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock?”

One’s spiritual house is the state of mind. Your beliefs and the way you live your life according to those beliefs. The storms that come are the trials or the false thoughts and ideas. A living conviction of the eternal truths of God’s Word, of God Himself and of His Kingdom, gives us a foundation, which cannot be shaken and actually can become stronger in times of trial when we keep on trusting God and doing what He commands. It’s in doing God’s will: being obedient to what He tells us, that we come into a relationship with Him.

The rock is the unchanging truth of God’s Word. I mentioned last night that Jesus quoted often from the Old Testament. There are some people who don’t enjoy the Old Testament. They think it’s ancient history, no longer important since Jesus came. But, you can’t really understand the New Testament without knowing the Old Testament.

Many of the images Jesus used to define Himself: Lamb of God, Shepherd, Sign of Jonah, the stone which the builders rejected, came straight from the pages of the Old Testament. In fact the entire Old Testament points to Jesus. It’s a foundation for the New Testament.

Proverbs 22:28 says, “Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your forefathers.”

God’s ancient boundary stones are the 10 Commandments. There was a survey done which showed that while 80% of Americans say they believe in the 10 commandments, very few could name more than 4.

We’ve all heard the funny stories where kids get the people in the Bible mixed up; like Joan of Arc is Noah’s wife. And they are funny, but also sad. We have to ask ourselves why our kids don’t know the Bible better. To me this says we shouldn’t depend on a weekly Sunday school class. Our home’s environment should be one where we do as we are told to in Deuteronomy 6:7-9: Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.