The Rafts and a related Bible Story

Dear Boys and Girls,

Remember the story I told you in my last letter about the two boys, Sam and Billy, and how they had each built a raft by the seaside where they lived? They had both had a happy morning playing on their rafts, but that afternoon, how sad Sam was as he stood helpless and watched his raft floating away out to sea on its own.

What had happened? Well, when they had gone off for their lunch, they had tied their rafts at the seaside, but whereas Billy had tied his to a rock, Sam had just tied his to a piece of stick that he had pushed into the sand. So when the tide came in, the stick was loosened from the sand, and off went poor Sam's raft.

Now, I told you that there was a story in the Bible very like that; it's not about two boys and their rafts, of course, but it is about rocks and sand. You find it in Matthew chapter 7, verses 24 to 27, and there, the Lord Jesus tells about two men who each built a house. The first man, said Jesus, built his house on a solid rock, and although a storm came, and the winds blew, and sometimes floods swirled around that house, it did not fall.

Why did it not fall? It was because it had a good firm foundation on that rock. Jesus called this man, “A wise man.” However, the other man was called “a foolish man.” Why? Because he took an easy way to build his house, and he built it on sand. When the storm, and winds, and floods came that house fell down flat. The ground that it was built on was not firm, it was loose, and the house had no solid foundation.

Jesus told this story to teach us a good lesson, boys and girls. The lesson is this: those people – men and women, and boys and girls – who hear God's truth in the Bible and obey that truth, and live their lives from day to day looking to Jesus as their Saviour, and the source, and guide, and example for all their actions, will be like that wise man. But those people – men and women, boys and girls – who look for their own way to live, and don't want Jesus to control their lives, are like the foolish man, and their lives will end in disaster, as his house ended.

It is a very serious story, boys and girls; read it over and over, and make sure that you are like the wise man, and follow Jesus.