Where Is Your House Built?

By Reverend Paul N. Papas II
September 29, 2015

The power of a storm can be devastating to life and property. Lives can be altered in a few brief moments often without warning. The question for each reader is; are you prepared?

As our plane load of volunteers made its final approach to land in Mississippi almost ten years ago after Katrina hit I thought we were being inserted into a war zone. I wondered which of my skills and training would be most needed here. It turned out the combination of my combat medic, public service (11-5 on the ballot), and Pastoral experiences were a good fit.

We went to lend our hands, our ears, and our hearts to those who had not much more than their lives spared by the powerful wind, rain and ocean. The painted lines on standing building showed the forty foot water levels. The picture which was published Dec 19, 2005 (1) shows the aftermath of the ocean as it plowed into and shredded through the first floor of a home leaving the second floor pretty much in tact.

These Americans gratefully accepted the food, water, clothing, tools, building materials, and other assistance the Salvation Army and their Southern Baptists partners provided at no charge. I was happy to part of that team. This is how the Americans spirit acts in times of trouble.

As I helped serve the Thanksgiving Dinner I was struck by the concern those being served had for us volunteers. They willingly shared with each other and us. We of course wanted to make sure they were cared for. We had homes to go back to, most of them did not. For me this was the best re-enactment of the First Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

This might sound like a Thanksgiving message; it is if you understand that these Americans were thankful for what they had. They were not focusing on what they lost.

It was surprising to me that I did not witness any major signs of what is generally termed Mental Illness. Sometimes stress would show up and was easily handled. Stress can arrive at any address without an invitation.

Right now our country is experiencing a great amount of stress as a result of minority of very noisy and pushy people who deny the very foundation of our country, God. The noisy and pushy minority try to shout down anyone who disagrees with them. The Silent Majority needs to make its voice heard at each possible legitimate opportunity.

How do you think the scientific oriented nosy pushy minority would feel after they discovered The Beauty Of Laminin in this video.

Most people have seen pictures of sinkholes or homes sliding down a hillside because of a mudslide. Some would saw our country is sliding down a mudslide at this moment. Perhaps they are paying too much attention to the noisy and pushy minority.

Let’s go back to the published picture. This particular home was apparently built on a good foundation and solid construction principles. Even though the first floor was ripped open some of the first floor wall and TV can be seen in the companion unpublished picture. Again, the second floor was pretty much intact. You can call that amazing in an area where the high water marks reached forty feet high.

One reason for this particular home having so much in tact and not been reduced to ruble is where it was built. It was built on good solid ground.

Our country is built on good solid ground and can withstand the storms raging against it. The Silent Majority needs to lend their hands, their ears, and their hearts to our country and reject all those who mean to destroy her.

*In their book I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH FAITH TO BE AN ATHEIST, Norm Geisler and Frank Turek point to the tensions of incoherence inherent in the atheistic worldview. They write, “The very fact that Darwinists think they have reasons to be atheists presupposes that God actually exists. How so? Because REASONS require that this universe be a REASONABLE one that presupposes there is order, logic, design, and truth. But order, logic, design, and truth can only exist and be known if there is an unchangeable objective source and standard of such things… Like all non-theistic worldviews, Darwinism borrows from the theistic worldview in order to make its own view intelligible.”(2) The foundation of atheistic faith allows for an unstable structure of interpretation.

In dire contrast, Christ calls us to consider the foundation of a worldview starting with him. “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. 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. 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” (Matthew 7:24-26). I am often awed by the glimpses of biblical truths in culture, which often go unrecognized or disregarded as biblical. To hear a psychologist speak of sin and moral accountability as a necessary qualifier in understanding human behavior, or a cultural analyst proclaim the effectiveness of setting aside one day out of the workweek for rest is to hear the stirrings of an efficient and knowing Creator, whose design and purpose surrounds us.(3)

At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. there is a large wooden altar from a synagogue that was vandalized by Nazi soldiers who had come to remove the Jewish citizens of the city. Across the altar is a single phrase of Hebrew carved deeply into the wood. Though it bears the hack marks of axes that attempted to delete the words, the phrase is still decipherable. It simply reads: “Know before Whom you stand.”

We can attempt to eradicate the name of God; we can begin without Christ at the foundation of our belief system. But it will never negate His presence.

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1. Dec 19, 2005 Page one of the MetroWest Daily News “Minister Recalls Post Karina ‘War Zone’.
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2. Norman Geisler and Frank Turek, I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH FAITH TO BE AN ATHEIST (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004), 130, authors’ emphasis.

3. Referencing Hobart Mowrer, “Sin, the Lesser of Two Evils,” American Psychologist, 15 (1960): 301-304.) and Douglas Rushkoff, “Remember the Sabbath: An Argument in Favor of a Day Off,” December 1999.

*Copyright 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. “A Slice of Infinity” is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

The photos were taken by me and are my own.
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Reverend Paul N. Papas II is a Pastoral Counselor with Narrow Path Ministries (MA and AZ) and Founder of the Family Renewal Center (AZ) http://www.narrowpathministries.org and http://www.familyrenewalcenteraz.org