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by Charlie Wolcott

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
~Matthew 7:24-27

The last couple months, I’ve been writing about how our worldview deals with issues like “Purpose,” “Destination,” and “Identity.” Our worldview also deals with “Origins.” All of these aspects together form the foundation for how we live our lives. It is like building a house or a building. What you do with that house depends on the foundation it is built upon. And the problems you have with that house also very often depend upon the foundation it is placed upon.

I currently live in a mobile home, and this home has been in two locations. At one location we just had concrete runners with a strong road base around it. In our current location we have a solid concrete slab all the way around. While the house itself was solid and would not move, the foundation at the old place was weak. Why? Because the road base did absolutely nothing to deter squirrels and skunks from making the underside of our house their home. You cannot put a shovel into this stuff, yet these creatures made no work of it. We had solid runners so the house itself would not move, but because we just had runners, and not a solid slab, it created problems. Now, we have been at our current location for 3 years and we have nothing living under the house. Not even spiders because there is nothing for them to eat under there. Before, we’d have to block up critter holes and even that would not faze them.

What are you building your home upon? Do you only have the necessary solid parts to keep your house from moving, but have open areas for critters to sneak in? Or do you have a solid foundation all around so nothing can get in? In Matthew, to wrap up the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his audience that a wise person will listen to his words and would be like a wise builder who uses a solid rock to build his house upon. But those that don’t listen to him are like foolish builders who build upon the sand. They don’t even have the runners. They just put the concrete tiers that the house stands upon straight onto the dirt. What happens when the storms of life come? The wise builder’s house will stand, but the foolish builder’s house will crumble.

It seems to be a no brainer to build your house on a solid foundation. Any engineer and architect would question your sanity if you suggested a solid foundation is not necessary. And God does the same thing. He tells us to build on a solid foundation, and what better foundation to use than his Word? God’s word does not change and it does not move because God does not change. If he were to change, we could not rely on him, depend on him, or trust him to carry through on what he promises. If he changes, then our salvation is no guarantee. Remember, architects want a foundation that does not change nor move on them. That way the house will remain standing.

Yet, so many of us refuse to build on the only possible solid foundation: God’s Word. Why is this? Some do not consider the Bible to be a reliable foundation. But how do people know this? Many believe what the world’s self-proclaimed experts say, particularly those claiming to speak about science. Science is not a foundation, but a tool you use to build your house. When you use science as your foundation, you’ve stepped outside the realm of “observation, testing, and repeating” and of “the scientific method” but into the realm of philosophy. Nikola Tesla had some things to say about how science was being carried out in his time: “Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”

What I believe Tesla is referencing is the taking of science beyond what it was ever intended to be: a methodical process to examine the natural world. The vast majority of founders of our scientific fields were Bible believers. The Bible was their foundation and they built their house with science, but with the Bible as their foundation. The atheists claim science is their foundation but it really isn’t. It’s really naturalism, the philosophy of what I could call Evolutionism. It is a philosophy where the facts associated with them and the understanding of what is going on constantly changes. Evolution’s understanding of things is constantly under review and revision. But so is science as a whole. What we know now is very different from what we knew 50 years ago and is very different from what we will know 50 years from now. That being said, there is nothing wrong with science changing and ‘improving.’ It is great to pursue the most accurate model we can and the discard models that don’t reflect the evidence (waiting for Evolutionists to actually do what they say scientists should do in this regard). But there is something wrong with using something that constantly changes as the foundation for how you live your life.

Evolution is not a stable system. It constantly changes. And the more science we do, the more questionable the system shows to be. We have many people that are fighting desperately to keep it for the same reason people try to salvage a home where a flooding river has eroded away the foundation. And these people will remain in their home under a delusion that their foundation will hold and their house with it.

Many of these people fled the shelter of Christianity when the storms of life came because they did not trust God to sustain them. And the shelter they’ve chosen is the one that will actually fail them. God will shake everyone to where the only thing left is their foundation. I’ve been through such a shaking. It wasn’t pleasant, but it revealed exactly who I really was: someone who depended and leaned upon Jesus Christ. And he came through. What is your foundation? Your worldview will tell you exactly what it is. Next week, I’ll dig deeper into how we build our buildings from our foundation.

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