The parable that concludes Jesus’ great sermon is a classic illustration from nature. Whoever hears the words of life and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house (his life) upon a rock. And how do we define “rock” in this case? It is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Rock of our salvation, the Stone of Israel. The image of rock or stone is commonly used in scripture to denote something firm, solid, and immovable. The Savior is our Rock, a sure foundation whereon if we build, we cannot fall.
“And now … remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall” (Helaman 5:12; see also 2 Nephi 28:28).
That is wonderful wording: if we found our lives on the Rock, they cannot collapse. If our lives are founded solidly on the Redeemer, when the mighty winds, whirlwind, hail, and storms—the temptations of life—beat down upon us, our lives cannot fall apart.
The rains come down from above, the floods come up from below, the winds blow from the sides; that is the way temptations come (D&C 90:5). They come at us from above, from below, and from all sides, trying to weaken and destroy our houses (our lives), but again, the promise is sure: if our lives are centered in, or founded on, the Savior Jesus Christ, they cannot fall apart.
President Howard W. Hunter explained this teaching: “The words of the Master regarding the house without a foundation say to me that a man cannot have a shallow and reckless notion that he is sufficient to himself and can build his own life on any basis that happens to be easy and agreeable. As long as the weather is fair, his foolishness may not be evident; but one day there will come the floods, the muddy waters of some sudden passion, the rushing current of unforeseen temptation. If his character has no sure foundation in more than just lip service, his whole moral structure may collapse.”56
It seems significant that Nephi’s report of this sermon does not end in the same way as Matthew’s does. In Matthew’s version we read, “And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Matthew 7:28–29). The Nephites had no real encounter with the scribal or rabbinic method of teaching, which was based on citing previous rabbinic authorities. Therefore, Jesus does not mention that rabbinic tradition here.