I. Note, then, first, the foundation, which is Christ.

There are many aspects of the great thought on which I cannot touch even
for a moment. For instance, let me remind you how, in a very deep sense,
Jesus Christ is the foundation of the whole of the divine dealings with
us; and how, in another aspect, historically, since the day on which He
appeared on earth, He has more and more manifestly and completely been
the foundation of the whole history of the world. But passing these
aspects, let us rather fix upon those which are more immediately in the
prophet's mind.

Jesus Christ is the foundation laid for all men's security against every
tempest or assault. The context has portrayed the coming of a tremendous
storm and inundation, in view of which this foundation is laid. The
building reared on it then is, therefore, to be a refuge and an asylum.
Have not we all of us, like these scornful men in Jerusalem, built our
refuges on vain hopes, on creatural affections, on earthly possessions,
on this, that, and the other false thing, all of which are to be swept
away when the storm comes? And does there not come upon us all the blast
of the ordinary calamities to which flesh is heir, and have we not all
more or less consciousness of our own evil and sinfulness; and does
there not lie before every one of us at the end of life that solemn last
struggle, and beyond that, as we most of us believe, a judgment for all
that we have done in the body? 'I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone.'
Build upon that, and neither the tempest of earthly calamities, changes,
disappointments, sorrows, losses, nor the scourge that is wielded
because of our sins, nor the last wild tempest that sweeps a man on the
wings of its strong blast from out of life into the dark region, nor the
solemn final retribution and judgment, shall ever touch us. And when the
hail sweeps away the refuge of lies, and the waters overflow the