Storm Season - The Storm of Judgement

Proverbs 10:25 NIV 

[25] When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/pro.10.25.NIV)

Matthew 7:24-27 NIV 

[24]  “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. [25] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. [26] But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. [27] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.7.24-27.NIV)

There are countries and places in the  world that live so close to genuine and real risks that their people have to be prepared. I don’t mean doomsday preppers. Most of them like thousands of miles from real danger and are, to be frank, a little unhinged. 

No, I mean those who live in places where severe weather or earthquakes or wildfires are a real and present danger, or those who live in or near war zones. These are people who have evacuation bags packed, who know where to find shelter and run drills every year, not to tick off some compliance box, but to stay alive. 

There is a realistic fact every one of us must face, and it isn’t pleasant: 

Storms in life will come. They are sometimes even seasonal. 

Are we ready for them? 

People prepare for struggle in all sorts of ways. Some have an extra freezer with all manner food packed into it. Some stock legal firearms. Some make sure they are physically ready for a ‘survival of the fittest’. 

But Jesus had other ideas. He told us the single thing we need to do more than anything else to survive any apocalypse or hard time. And I can tell you that this is something those who prep for disaster don’t even want to think about it. 

Because the thing we must do is obey Jesus Christ. That above all else. That should drive and shape all else. 

So before we prepare ourselves for a fight to the death, or pore over our insurance policies, or check if we are eligible for a gun licence for a military grade rifle, I want to first of all study this short passage in detail and see what it says. 

Now, you might be slightly surprised at my application of a Sunday School parable to real world fears of a Great Tribulation. However, if you read this passage carefully, you will see that it doesn’t refer to heaven or hell.  

No, it refers to two people who face a storm: one survives unscathed, the others loses everything. 

So let’s examine what exactly is happening here, without being distracted by the simply story we learned in Sunday School. 

Firstly, we should note that these two men built on The Same Ground. 

The Same Ground 

Matthew 7:24, 26 NIV 

[24]  “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  

 [26] But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.7.24-26.NIV)

Now, perhaps you don’t immediately see this. After all, Jesus stated that one built on rock and another built on sand. However (and it wasn’t until decades after I first read these verses that a Bible commentator pointed this out), the ground in Israel is quite interesting. Instead of topsoil, there is sand, and beneath that, there is bedrock. So what Jesus is referring to here isn’t someone who built their house on a cliff while the other built their house on a beach. No, He is talking about two people building their houses in places that, on the surface, looked very similar. However, one didn’t build his foundations deep into the bedrock, and the other did. 

What could He mean by this? 

Well, this is one of the easiest parables to interpret as Jesus gives us the answer right away: 

Matthew 7:24 NIV 

[24]  “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice... 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.7.24.NIV)

Matthew 7:26 NIV 

[26] But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice... 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.7.26.NIV)

What He is saying is that if you hear His Word and do it, you are like this wise man, and if you don’t, then you are like the foolish man. 

So who are these people? 

This parable is close to the end of what we call the Sermon on the Mount. At the start of that Sermon, we read these words: 

Matthew 5:1-2 NIV 

[1] Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, [2] and he began to teach them.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.5.1-2.NIV)

So, and this is very important to our correct understanding of this parable, it was not targeted at random passers-by, but at His disciples: at those who, regardless of their motivation, had made the choice to physically follow Him. They were prepared to identify themselves as His followers. 

This means that among those who identify themselves as Jesus’ followers, there were those who actually obeyed His teaching and those who did not. 

And that is the point. Jesus doesn’t say that He will gift His first one hundred – or even His first hundred and forty-four thousand – followers with resiliency and immortality. Those who are there hearing those words are not more privileged than those who do not. Those who grew up listening to these words are not more privileged than those who not. 

It’s those who obey who are wise and those who disobey who are not. 

Look at what Jesus said earlier on in this sermon: 

Matthew 7:21 NIV 

[21]  “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.7.21.NIV)

These two men had precisely the same opportunity to hear, respond to and obey Jesus’ teaching. 

Only one of them did. Only one of them was wise. 

But apart from the same ground, we see that they faced The Same Storm. 

The Same Storm 

Matthew 7:25, 27 NIV 

[25] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  

[27] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.7.25-27.NIV)

As I write these words, Storm Amy is battering against the walls of our house. We are Christians. Our neighbours are not. They are facing the same storm as us. Our houses are bearing up to the same horrible weather. We are not in some form of theological bubble that absolves us of the risk of property damage as our neighbours are facing.  

No, we are facing the same storm. 

Yet somehow in life we expect that God will differentiate between Christians and non-Christians: that we will be borne through life on a fluffy cloud to the sound of angelic harps, while the rest of the world will face a stream of deadly threats to the soundtrack of death metal beneath us. 

It isn’t true. 

The reality is that we live in a fallen world. Because we live in a fallen world, bad things sometimes happen to good people. 

As Jesus said: 

Matthew 5:45 NIV 

[45] He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.5.45.NIV)

We have already seen in Job that even being righteous is no guarantee of a trouble-free life  and that often the reasons for this are beyond our understanding. 

So it is completely possible, realistically, theologically and logically, for both a wise and an unwise man to experience the same storm in life. 

That might be troubling to those with a shallow, unrealistic, temporal-based theology who believe that God exists to make them wealthy and comfortable. This is, of course, complete and utter nonsense. However, the reality is that God often permits the righteous to suffer the same storm as the unrighteous in this life.

Even Jesus Christ, who had committed no sin, experienced crucifixion with two guilty criminals (Luke 23:32-43). 

What made the difference in this parable is not that the wise man lived in tropical sunshine while the foolish man lost everything in a hurricane. It was not what they faced that was different, but how they faced it. 

What Jesus is saying is that trusting in Him and obeying Him makes us strong in times of disaster, whereas not listening to Him and not obeying Him makes us weak. This is a profound principle writ large in Scripture: 

Isaiah 26:3 NIV 

[3] You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/isa.26.3.NIV)

Isaiah 30:15 NIV 

[15] This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111isa.30.15.NIV)

Psalms 1:1-6 NIV 

[1] Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, [2] but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. [3] That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers. [4] Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. [5] Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. [6] For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.1.1-6.NIV)

However, we might not see that now. After all, it’s often those who are fraudulent, who steal and misappropriate, who misuse and abuse, who often seem to rise to the top, while those who are honest and upright don’t seem to reap the rewards – at least not in this life. 

But King David gives us this message: 

Psalms 37:1-4 NIV 

[1] Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; [2] for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. [3] Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. [4] Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.37.1-4.NIV)

And his son Solomon this word: 

Proverbs 24:19-20 NIV 

[19] Do not fret because of evildoers or be envious of the wicked, [20] for the evildoer has no future hope, and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/pro.24.19-20.NIV)

And Asaph, after he envied the wicked, reached a similar conclusion (Psalm 73). 

It seems that yes, those whose faith is shallow, or even non-existent, may face the same storm as us, and yes, it may be that their riches seem to shelter them from it. But they are not immune from life’s storms. We can trust in God that He is just, and that one day, if they don’t repent, they will face a storm so great that they will never recover from it. 

The difference is not in how well we survive storms physically. We may well come through the storms of life visibility bruised and battered and exhausted. Some people may wonder how we made it at all. 

The difference is spiritual. The difference trusting and obeying in God makes is not something that we always see on the outside: in our clothes or our shoes or our car or our bank balance. It’s in our heart. It’s in our soul. It’s in our spirit. It’s in our hope, our faith, our resilience, our inner strength. That is where the difference lies. It’s where we live every day.

It’s our inner life. 

Jesus said that if we trust in Him and obey Him, this is what will remain strong. God will provide for our needs. We will be patient and optimistic and faithful and trust Him for it, while so many others collapse into pessimism and despair. 

So we have seen then that these two men built on the same ground  and faced the same storm. However, what’s clear from this short parable is that there were Two Different Outcomes. 

Two Different Outcomes 

Matthew 7:25, 27 NIV 

[25] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  

[27] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.7.25-27.NIV)

There are times in life when two sets of people have the same experience, but one struggles while the other soars, or at least escapes. I remember being in one school exam hall  I was working hard on accumulating marks to pass the exam when I noticed someone walking out after barely fifteen minutes had passed. He hadn’t completed the exam. He couldn’t answer any of the questions and had given up. He got a zero. I passed. 

I remember the Covid pandemic. I remember hearing, to my surprise, how apparently better off people were queueing up at food banks alongside those who had nothing. The reason why was astonishing. These ‘richer’ people had gained their ‘wealth’ through debt. They owed on their house. They owed on their car. They owed on their holidays, on Christmas and birthdays, on credit cards. Their whole lifestyle was a sham. It was all on credit. They had zero disposable income and zero savings because everything had to go on paying their debt. So when companies had to reduce salaries to stay afloat, they were in deep trouble. They could not afford to eat. And so these once proud, boastful people found themselves receiving charity, while those who had no debt or low debt could afford to take the hit. 

More than once, I’ve been in companies where people have been the victims of the corporate drive to raise money for shareholders. Once time I was made redundant. Yes, it was painful. But I noticed there were people in that company who were far worse off than me, and many of them had bigger pay checks and fancier job titles. 

We might think that we have to weather a storm. We might think that some people are better equipped than us. But we don’t always see what happens behind the front door of their homes. We should never judge. For all they know, while we’re rolling with the punches, they are on the canvas being counted out. 

That’s what happened here. The wise man and the foolish man built on the same ground: they listened to the same teaching from Jesus. They also faced the same storm: they endured the same suffering. But the wise nan’s house stood firm and the foolish man’s house fell flat. 

Now, my brother-in-law is an architect, but you don’t need to be an architect to figure out what happened here. Rock is a great support for the foundations of a house. Yes, it will take much longer to build. Yes, it will take a lot more hard work. But attaching your house to a rock means it’s highly unlikely to move. 

Sand, however, is not good. It shifts around. It falls through your fingers. Yes, you can quickly build a foundation. But no, it will not last. 

What Jesus is saying here I hope is very clear. Building your life on the foundation of believing and obeying the Word of God places it on a firm foundation from which it cannot be moved. If you build it on anything else – literally anything else – you are building your life on sand.  

As the well-known hymn says: 

‘On Christ the solid rock I stand 

All other ground is sinking sand’ 

But just like that foundation on the rock, it takes hard work, discipline, effort. You don’t just go to a prayer meeting and all of a sudden your house has good foundations. You don’t just come home from church to discover that someone built a good foundation for you while you were drinking tea and eating biscuits. 

No – and this has to be said – you have to do something: something that isn’t always easy. 

You need to trust and you need to obey. 

So building your life on faith in and obedience of God is the right thing to do, right? 

Our culture doesn’t agree. But look around you. Look at those whose personal lives are a mess, who appear to live them as if they are on set of a TV soap opera. You look at them and you think, ‘Wow! Maybe that TV drama is not as unrealistic as I thought.’ Look at the divas with main character syndrome, the drama queens and those who spend all their lives gassing about how their life is a mess. 

What do they have in common? 

They are living their lives in disobedience to God. 

Their lives are a mess because they made them a mess because they chose to live their lives without God. 

That is precisely why they have such a thin skin and low pain threshold and low margin for error and no resistance to trouble. That is why they are weak and unresilient and why the slightest thing is exaggerated out of proportion.

They built their lives on sand. And that sand is quicksand. 

Let me tell you something: and again, this has to be said: just because your friend built their life on sand and it’s collapsing around them doesn’t mean that you should do it too. Just because some influencer or famous person is playing dice with their own well-being doesn’t make it right. If you follow people who engage in seriously destructive behaviour just to get sympathy or online hits or to be ‘cool’ then you are being mis-led! 

1 Corinthians 15:33 NIV 

[33] Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/1co.15.33.NIV)

Jesus Christ gave this parable as a warning. Living a life of disobedience to God isn’t fun or cool or hip or trendy. It is destructive. It destroys us. It harms those around us. It is a completely negative way to live.  

What we build our lives upon really matters, because it determines the outcome when things turn bad. 

So we have seen that these two men built on the same ground, faced the same storm and experienced two very different outcomes. Let’s zoom in to take a closer look at The Root Cause. 

The Root Cause 

Matthew 7:24, 26 NIV 

[24]  “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  

[26] But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.7.24-26.NIV)

The Ig Nobel prizes are a satirical award that mocks research which the panel believes should not be copied because it’s quite ridiculous. For example, in 2025, the psychology prize was given to Marcin Zajenkowski and Gilles Gignac, for investigating what happens when you tell narcissists — or anyone else — that they are intelligent. The Aviation prize was one by Francisco Sánchez, Mariana Melcón, Carmi Korine, and Berry Pinshow, for studying whether ingesting alcohol can impair bats’ ability to fly and also their ability to echolocate. 

Studying the root cause of the catastrophic collapse of the foolish man’s house might sound as if, like these awards, we are wasting time studying the absolutely obvious, because Jesus told us plainly why it happened. 

But there is something that we need to understand here. 

What does Jesus mean when He talks about ‘these words of mine’? What is it that we should obey? 

Of course, it means His teaching as a whole. That goes without saying. 

But we cannot ignore the fact that Jesus used this parable to conclude the Sermon on the Mount: one of the most challenging and demanding sets of teaching in the New Testament. 

We can summarise that Sermon like this: 

• Matthew 5:1-20 is Jesus’ introduction 

• Matthew 5:21-48 is Jesus’ teaching on how the way we relate to other people has to change – it's about loving our neighbours as ourselves 

• Matthew 6:1-24 is Jesus’ teaching on how we should relate to God with intimacy, integrity and exclusivity – it’s about loving God with our heart, soul, mind and strength 

• Matthew 6:25-34 is about the effect this love should have on our worries and cares – it’s about loving ourselves 

• Matthew 7:1-27 is about how this teaching should be applied and obeyed. 

  
  

So the Sermon on the Mount is an application of these key verses: 

Matthew 22:35-40 NIV 

[35] One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: [36] “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” [37] Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ [38] This is the first and greatest commandment. [39] And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ [40] All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.22.35-40.NIV)

So what was Jesus saying? 

When we love the Lord our God with our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbours as ourselves (with the implication that we love ourselves) then we become strong in the face of adversity; we can withstand life’s storms. 

But when we fail to love? That’s when we become weak. 

He is saying that disobedience undercuts our foundations, undermines our life and is an act of self-harm. 

I challenge you now to read the Sermon on the Mount now you know this. Do you see it?  

Obeying Jesus’ teachings make us stronger by strengthening our relationships with God and other people, and thus reducing the anxiety we feel in tough times. Disobeying God dismantles that safety net and leaves us feeling alone and exposed. 

I understood this parable incorrectly for years. I thought what Jesus was talking about here was how those who didn’t base their lives on trusting and obeying Him would be sent to Hell. He mentions that earlier in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:21-23). 

But not here. 

Here He is teaching something different: how trusting and obeying Him makes us able to confront the storms of life. 

This is a message to which we all need to pay attention. 

Conclusion 

Matthew 7:24-27 NIV 

[24]  “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. [25] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. [26] But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. [27] The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.7.24-27.NIV)

I once worked for an organisation whose disaster preparedness (what business people call ‘Business Continuity’) was poor. One winter, a sudden snowfall made travel into the office impossible. Everyone tried to log in remotely. However, their infrastructure could not cope. Access was so slow that no-one could work. 

I also used to work for another organisation who seemed to go the opposite way. They seemed almost paranoid about the way they went about their business. They were super-strict about fire and evacuation drills, about holding handrails, about taking your laptop home. It also seemed a little extreme. 

Then one day they had to put all their procedures into action. A huge fire in a building around a mile away sent noxious fumes across the city. These fumes were then sucked into our building by the air conditioning system. The place smelled like a barbecue, but without the food. In minutes, we were evacuated. Not long later, we were all sent home to continue our working day. 

Their procedures and precautions had worked. 

These verses are long neglected and seriously under-valued. They are often viewed as a cute story for children. Yet here we see, not an amusing anecdote, but the secret to survival when the storms of life hit. 

I have been on seminars about personal resiliency. I have sat in on counselling sessions. I have participated in training sessions. Let me tell you: not one of those sessions has provided me with the same wisdom as these verses, which is one hundred percent guaranteed to get you through any suffering and trial. Many of those seminars and training and counselling sessions cost money. People’s livelihood depended on handing out their advice. 

Jesus gave it for free. 

Look at the same ground on which they built their houses. Look at the same storm they faced. But there were two different outcomes, and the root cause of that was whether or not they had decided to hear Jesus’ teaching and put it into practice. 

So what is the secret to resilience? What will get you through any storm of life? 

Trust God. Obey Him. Always. 

It really is that simple. 

Prayer 

Lord Jesus, I am sorry for the times when I have doubted You, or have thought that I knew better. I know now that this has made my situation worse, not better. I repent of my mistakes. From now on, I will trust and obey You. Amen. 

Questions for Contemplation 

• Why did Jesus use this parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount? What is He saying? 

• What is so significant about these men building on the same ground and facing the same storms? 

• What was the root cause of one man's house being destroyed and the other standing firm? What can we learn from this? What is the secret to making it through life’s storms?