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There is one thing which, as a stone or rock, Christ is willing and waiting to be to us; there is that also which, in spite of his own desire concerning us, we may compel him to be to us.

I. THE ROCK ON WHICH WE MAY BUILD.

1. Christ desires to be as the Corner-stone or Foundation-stone on which the whole structure of our character and of our destiny is resting.

2. If we exercise a living faith in him, we shall find him to be all this to us.

(1) Building on him, our confidence in the forgiving love of God will be well grounded and our peace of mind will be secure;

(2) building on him, our character will be strong and saintly, our life will be useful and noble;

(3) resting on him, our souls will be sustained in hours of trial;

(4) abiding in him, we shall have peace at the last.

II. THE ROCK AGAINST WHICH WE ARE BRUISED OR EVEN BROKEN, We cannot come, in any sense or degree, into conflict with Christ without being injured by the act.

1. To turn from him is to deprive ourselves of the best; it is to rob ourselves of the highest motives to rectitude and spiritual worth, of the deepest springs of goodness and of beauty, of the heavenliest influences that can breathe upon the soul, of the purest and most elevating joys that can fill the heart, of the noblest activities that can occupy and crown our life.

2. To reject him, whether by deliberate and determined refusal or by a foolish and guilty procrastination, is to do conscious wrong to ourselves; it is to injure our conscience, to weaken our will, to suffer constant spiritual deterioration, to be moving along that downward slope which ends in darkness of mind and in self-despair,

3. To disobey the commandments of Christ is to come into collision with those laws of God which are also laws of our spiritual nature, any and every infraction of which is attended with inward and serious injury; e.g. to hate our brother without a cause, to look with lustful eye, to love our own life rather than the cause of God and righteousness, - this is to suffer harm and damage to the spirit.

4. To work against Christ and his gospel is to be constructing that which will be destroyed, is to be delving and building on the sand with the tide coming in which will wash everything away. In no way can we take up an attitude of resistance to Jesus Christ without "wronging our own soul;" it may be by a cruel renunciation of all that is best, or it may be by incurring the judgment which must fall and does tan upon folly and sin.

III. THE ROCK WHICH MAY CRUSH US IN ITS FALL. "On whomsoever it shall fall," etc. The snow-drift and the glacier are magnificent objects on which to gaze; but how terrible is the descending, destructive avalanche! It is simply inevitable that the brightest light should cast the deepest shade; that fullest privilege and most abounding opportunity should, in the case of the guilty, end in deepest condemnation and severest penalty (John 3:19; Hebrews 6:4-8; Philippians 3:18, 19). "When God arises to judgment," when the rock of Divine dissatisfaction falls, when the "wrath of the Lamb" is revealed, then must there be made known what God intends by "everlasting destruction from his presence." All that is meant by that we do not know: we may well resolve that, by timely penitence and loving faith, we will never learn by the teaching of our own experience. - C.

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KJV: Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

WEB: Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but it will crush whomever it falls on to dust."