Matthew 7:24

(Verse 24) Depart from me, you who practice iniquity. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. He did not say, 'you who have practiced iniquity,' so as not to seem to take away repentance, but rather 'you who practice,' that is, those who, up until the present hour, when the time of judgment comes, though they do not have the power to sin, still have the inclination.

(Serm. in Mont. in fin.) Otherwise; Rain, when it is put to denote any evil, is understood as the darkness of superstition; rumours of men are compared to winds; the flood signifies the lust of the flesh, as it were flowing over the land, and because what is brought on by prosperity is broken off by adversity. None of these things does he fear who has his house founded upon a rock, that is, who not only hears the command of the Lord, but who also does it. And in all these he submits himself to danger, who hears and does not. For no man confirms in himself what the Lord commands, or himself hears, but by doing it. But it should be noted, that when he said, He that heareth these words of mine, He shows plainly enough that this sermon is made complete by all those precepts by which the Christian life is formed, so that with good reason they that desire to live according to them, may be compared to one that builds on a rock.

The storm does not make a building stand firm upon the sand, but, if you wish to build, upon "the rock"; and when the storm has arisen, that which is founded "upon the rock" it will not overthrow, but that which sways "upon the sand" it proves at once to have been not well founded. Wherefore, before the storm arises, before the blasts of the winds rise up, before the rivers swell, while all things are still silent, let us turn all our zeal to the foundations of our buildings, let us build our house with the varied and firm stones of the precepts of God, so that, when persecution rages and a dreadful whirlwind rises up against Christians, we may show that we have a building "upon the rock", Christ Jesus. But if anyone — far be it from us — should deny him, let that one know that he did not deny Christ at that time when he seemed to have denied, but that he had the seeds and the roots of denying already long before, and that then was recognized what he had, and it was brought out into the open. Let us therefore pray to the Lord that we may be a firm building, which no storm may overturn, "founded upon the rock", our Lord Jesus Christ: to whom is glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.