Dr. Victor Heiser, author of the one time best seller An American Doctor's Odyssey, was 16 years
old when the tragic Johnstown flood struck in 1889. He was out in the barn getting a horse when he
heard a dreadful roar. When he ran to the door he saw his father up at the house frantically
motioning for him to get to the top of the barn. In a few seconds he was up on the roof, and in a few
more seconds he saw a mass of houses, freight cars, trees and animals strike his house. It collapsed
like an eggshell, but the barn was torn from its foundation and began to roll. By scrambling and
crawling he was able to keep on top. The barn struck a neighbor's house. He leaped into the air and
landed on the house just as it collapsed. Fortunately another house rose up beside him and he was
able to cling to it.
He lived this experience over and over many times in his dreams, and he vividly recalled his
fingernails digging deep into the shingles. He was sweep into a jam of wreckage and had to
constantly dodge the deathblows of trees and beams that came roaring pass. A freight car came
crashing into the wreckage and he was thrown like a bullet into open waters. He was sweep into
another jam of wreckage against a brick building that was still on its foundation. He managed to get
to the roof of this solid structure, and with others there he was able to rescue people being sweep by
until there were 19 gathered on that still standing building.
It was raining hard, and so they opened the skylight and got down into the attic where they
spent a night of terror listening to the roar of the water and the crashing of buildings all around them.
Their building held, but most did not. Two thousand and nine were recovered, and many were never
found. Those in buildings with deep and solid foundations lived to tell of this fearful flood. Many
gathered with the Rev. Beale in the First Presbyterian Church in the heart of the city. The waters
filled the basement, but it with stood the flood and everyone there was spared. Life or death
depended on the foundation of the building you were in. A solid foundation meant life, and a
shallow foundation meant death.
This is so obvious a truth when we consider a physical flood, but men do not always realize that
this is equally valid in the spiritual realm. Jesus concluded His most extended sermon on record, the
Sermon on the Mount, with an illustration concerning the need for depth. Jesus was vitally
concerned about the matter of foundations, and He wanted to impress all with its importance.
Whether you are wise of foolish depends on what you do with this issue. If you dig deep to lay your
foundation, you are wise. If you are satisfied to be shallow, you are foolish, and what you build will
never hold up in the flood, which the storms of life bring at some point. Jesus implies that all will be
tested by the flood.
Jesus was a carpenter, and there is no way to know how many homes He built, or help build,
before He began His ministry of building the kingdom of God. One thing we can be sure of,
however, and that is that none of them fell in the rainy season because of a shallow and shabby
foundation. Jesus was a builder of quality in both the secular task of building a home, and in the
sacred task of building a life. He expected all who followed Him to do likewise, and to avoid being
superficial, but to dig deep.
The interesting thing to observe here is, that which makes the great difference between the wise
and the foolish builder is not conspicuous. The two houses may look identical, and, in fact, the one
with no foundation may even look superior as far as looks go. The shallow life may be as appealing
as the deep one. Appearances are deceiving. It is when the flood comes to test them that the hidden
foundation proves its value, and leaves the man who dug deep standing justified.
No life can escape testing, and that is why Jesus was so insistent upon depth. You recall in His
parable of the sower how some seed fell on ground where it had little soil. It sprang up quickly, but
it had no depth, and so when the sun arose it was scorched and withered away. Depth is not a
luxury. It is a necessity for survival. When God plants He knows the value of depth. In Psa. 80:8-9
Israel is compared to a vine which God planted. "You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out
the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land." In the
New Testament Jesus takes over this image and applied to Himself and the church. He says, "I am
the vine and you are the branches." Jesus is the vine with roots of infinite depth. There are adequate
resources in Him for the branches to grow into all the world and bare fruit.
Christianity could not have survived without being rooted in Christ, for He alone has the depth
to keep the church standing through the floods of persecution. God the Father plants deep; God the
Son grows deep, and God the Holy Spirit reveals the depths. Paul says in I Cor. 2:10, "For the Spirit
searches everything, even the depths of God." The subject of depth is one of the most important for
a Christian to grasp. The disciples had fished all night and caught nothing, but when they listened to
Jesus and launched out into the deep their nets were breaking because of the great catch. Digging
deep, growing deep, and fishing deep are common themes in Scripture, and they challenge us to give
more attention to the dimensions of depth. I wrote these questions for all to consider:
Is there nothing in your net?
Then you haven't gone out yet
To the depths where fish abundant can be caught.
Will you empty handed be
In the shallows of the sea,
Or will you launch out deeper as you ought?
To help you answer these questions we want to answer another question, which we must
understand. The question is, what did Jesus mean by depth? What does digging deep and laying a
solid foundation for life mean? In building a house it is easy to understand digging deep, but in
building a life there is no literal digging to be done, and so we can easily miss the point of Jesus.
Therefore, let us consider the question, what is depth in building a life?
Verse 46 makes it crystal clear that depth is not in mere speech. The Lordship of Christ in our
lives is not made real by merely saying Lord, Lord, if we do not then do what He commands. A
verbal Christian is not a vital Christian. The Christian who thinks he is growing and sending roots
deep because he is increasing his religious vocabulary is deceived. Nothing is more shallow than
mere verbal growth. Jesus knew that the greatest temptation His followers would have would be to
accept creeds for deeds.
Most Christians take talk far more seriously than Jesus did. We all tend to accept or reject
people on the basis of their speech. If they say the right things in the right way they are in, but Jesus
says, and all of history proves, we are building on the sand when we do this. Right words are
meaningless without right actions. Spurgeon said, "The common temptation, is, instead of really
repenting, to talk about repentance; instead of heartily believing, to say, 'I believe,' without
believing, instead of truly loving, to talk of love, without loving...."
Christians easily develop the dangerous habit of taking their talk too seriously. They tend to
think that if they memorize a Bible passage that the experience of that passage is theirs. They think
if they quote Paul, who said, "I am crucified with Christ," that they are, therefore, deeply
consecrated and surrendered, when in reality they may be nothing of the kind. Jesus was not
warning unbelievers, but He was warning those who loved and followed Him to beware of
verbalization without obedience. Do not build on your words, but on your deeds. Satan will lead
you, if you allow it, to build a high tower of which you will be proud, but if it is built on words
alone it will fall in the flood.
Do not build on the shifting sand of sentiment, but on the solid rock of sound doctrine and
reason. Many Christians are moved by emotion to start building, and they begin to build up a
Christian life without bothering to dig deep, and they are even proud of the fact that they do not
waste time with digging as others do. They feel it is a sign of greater faith to leave the foundation to
God. Their attitude is that the Lord will protect. They forget that emotion is the lighting and
heating system of the home of life, and it makes the home enjoyable and pleasant when it is built.
They allow it to become the basis for building, and the result is they are seldom prepared for the
flood. They lose their faith and feel God has forsaken them. They are cared away by the flood of
changing times, and they are tossed about by every wind of doctrine. Why? It is because they did
not dig deep, but had a superficial faith that could not stand under pressure.
Jesus never built a house on the sand and then said, "I will not have to worry because my Father
in heaven will protect it." If you don't dig deep, it makes no difference who you are, your house will
not stand. Jesus was warning His followers not to make the same mistake that brought Israel to a
fall. They honored God with their lips, but their heart was far from Him, and they did not obey His
Word. Depth is in deeds is what Jesus was saying. Depth is not in feelings or speech. The intellect
and emotion are important, but they are not the foundation. The will is the foundation of the
Christian life. The Christian who does not dig deep and sink his will into the solid rock of
obedience, will be a shallow Christian however gloriously he speaks of Christ, and however warmly
he feels toward Christ. Some poet wrote-
Not words of winning note,
Not thoughts from life remote,
Not fine religious airs,
Not sweetly languid prayers,
Not love of scent and creeds,
Wanted: deeds.
It is not what Jesus said that saves us, but it is what He did at Calvary. The Word did not
merely speak, but He became incarnate in flesh, and He lived and died for our benefit. It is what He
did that robbed Satan of his victory, and gave us the victory instead. Many others have said great
things, but nobody ever did what He did. Deeds make the difference, for depth is in deeds. Jesus
makes it clear that the only difference between the man who went deep and the man who was
shallow was in their deeds. Both heard His words, but one did them and the other did not. The only
distinction among hearers of the Word that really matters is that between those who are hearers only,
and those who are hearers plus doers.
Depth is found primarily in what you do. Action is the measure of one's foundation. Any other
test of Christian maturity leads to deception. James says in 1:22, "Be doers of the Word, and not
hearers only, deceiving yourselves." In the day of judgment the Scripture says repeatedly that we
will be judged according to our deeds. It will be according to what we have done in the body, and
not according to our profession, but according to our practice. "Let you light so shine that men may
see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." This was the message of Jesus. It is not
just your words but your works that are a witness.
The question is not, what do you say to your non-Christian friends and neighbors, but what do
you do? There is no argument against good deeds. The issue is not your speaking of the love of
God, but of your demonstration of it in action. The Good Samaritan helped a beaten man by taking
him to an inn and paying for his care. Jesus could have said that He spoke to him of the love of God
also, but He did not. Jesus pictured the value of this man by action only. We are not to assume that
words are not important, but only that they are not sufficient alone. Words without deeds are
superficial, but deeds with or without words are a deep expression of values.
One of the strangest paradoxes of life is that we tend to call a man who is active in all kinds of
projects for people a do-gooder. By this we mean that he has a shallow philosophy for the cure of
the world's ills. Then we come to Scripture and discover that it teaches clearly that the only
Christians who are really deep and solidly Christ-like are those who are do-gooders. Jesus went
about doing good, and Paul in Gal. 6:9-10 says, "Let us not grow weary in well-doing....let us do
good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith." There is no escaping the
fact that depth in doing. A Christian who is not a do-gooder is shallow however much theology he
knows. Our problem is not Christian education, for you can hear and know the Word of God, and
still build on the sand. Our problem is Christian action. We are not digging deed because we are
not doing. The purpose for hearing is that we might be motivated to be doing.
Massilon, the famed French preacher and orator, use to say, "I don't want people leaving my
church saying, what a wonderful sermon, what a wonderful preacher. I want them to go out saying,
I will do something." That is precisely how Jesus felt, and that is why He ended the Sermon on the
Mount with this challenge to be doers and not hearers only, for in doing one is digging deep. Only
these will be fruitful and wise, and only these will stand firm in the flood. None of us will escape,
and so none of us can afford to avoid examining our lives to determine if we are digging deep.
Someone wrote,
God will not ask thy race,
Nor will He ask thy birth.
Alone He will demand of thee,
What hast thou done on earth?
Lowell wrote, "Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world
weigh less than a single lovely action." It does not do a great deal of good in your life to read the
Bible if you do not obey it. The prayer that Jesus taught is not, thy will be talked about, thy will be
sung, thy will be voted on, thy will be praised, thy will be taught, but, thy will be done. Merrill wrote,
Thy will be done on earth,
On bended knee we pray,
Then leave our prayer before the throne
And rise and go our way.
And earth is filled with woe,
And war, and evil, still,
For lack of men whose prayer is, Lo
I come to do thy will.
Thy will be done on earth,
Lord, grant me grace to see
That if thy will is to be done,
It must be done by me.
