Build a Strong Foundation in Christ with Pastor Thomas McDaniels
About this episode
Pastor Thomas McDaniels joins Philip Cameron for a timely, prophetic conversation about what it truly means to build your life on a solid biblical foundation. Drawing from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the wise and foolish builders in Matthew 7, Thomas delivers a message that is, as he puts it, "simple, but prophetic and powerful" — a call to return to the uncompromised Word of God in a season of national and cultural chaos. Thomas unpacks the striking difference between rock and sand, pointing out that sand is nothing more than "unconsolidated, granular materials consisting of rock fragments" — a picture of what happens when we take the Word of God, pulverize it, and make it say what we want it to say. He references Isaiah 55 and 2 Peter to show that God's ways are higher than our reasoning, and that forgetful hearing leads to wrong identity and wrong decisions. He also reflects on how COVID-19 accelerated the church's drift from its foundation through compromise and compliance. The episode closes with a bold prophetic declaration: "The Word of God is a storm-proof commodity." If you're ready to stop running to comfort and start running to the prayer closet, this episode is for you. Thomas McDaniels hosts the Day Maker Podcast; learn more at thomasmcdaniels.com.
Part of our Faith collection of conversations.
Quotes worth sharing
“If you're not standing on the rock, every wave, every little ripple, every thought, every negative piece of news, what it does is it takes away another sweep of sand underneath you.”
“You have made unclear what I have made totally clear.”
“I never lost one battle that I gave to the word. I've never lost one battle that I gave over to the word. The word wins every battle. The word of God is a storm-proof commodity for you.”
What's Discussed
Pastor Thomas McDaniels delivers a focused, prophetic teaching on returning to a solid biblical foundation, drawing from Matthew 7's parable of the wise and foolish builders, 2 Peter 3, and Isaiah 55. He argues that sand — geologically defined as ground-up rock fragments — is a picture of a pulverized, compromised Word of God, and that the church's COVID-era compliance accelerated a dangerous drift from Scripture. Thomas issues two prophetic declarations: 'Some of us are running to comfort instead of running to the prayer closet,' and 'The Word of God is a storm-proof commodity.' He hosts the Day Maker Podcast and can be reached at thomasmcdaniels.com.
- Sermon on the Mount as Foundation
- Peter's Call Back to Remembrance
- God's Ways Higher Than Human Reasoning
- Church Compromise During COVID
- Sand vs. Rock — A Biblical Definition
- Running to Comfort vs. the Prayer Closet
- Word of God as Storm-Proof Weapon
Scripture in this episode
Episode Transcript
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Intro
Philip:Hey, welcome to Daily Faith. My name is Philip Cameron, and the other day I was in a shop and I was speaking to someone and they said, they stopped me, and they said, where are you from? I says, where do you think I'm from? And they said, Ireland. Well, after I picked him off the floor — I shouldn't have done that, but I picked him off the floor — and I said, what do you mean? She says, I did take your accent. I said, oh, I'm Scottish. She said, oh, I knew it. I just love — and we live in Tennessee — she says, I just love y'all's accent. I nearly fell off. I said, oh my goodness gracious. I says, I don't have an accent. You've got an accent. And your speech, how you talk, betrays you.
Philip:I only have to say a few words and folk know I'm from Scotland, or Ireland, like sometimes they think Ireland. So what I'm saying is, the words that come out of your mouth betray who you are, where you are. How you talk determines if you're in a negative land. If you are living in the land of negativity, that's what comes out your mouth. If you're living in the land of hate and resentment and jealousy, whatever land you are living in, your tongue betrays the land you're living in. And I just pray for you today that the Lord's gonna use this program to cleanse your palate, to get all the junk out. Listen, you don't need to carry junk. If I carried all the grievances against folk that I could carry, I'd never get out of bed in the morning. But I've learned one thing: to give what you don't understand to Jesus, pass it.
Philip:Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. And when you've done that, it clears your view, it clears your eyes, and you stop talking with a funny accent. You start talking the way God wants you to talk. And I'm just so excited that you could join us today on Daily Faith. We have a mission — one of our main parts of our ministry. We got several parts, but one of them is we do mission work in Eastern Europe. 35 years ago, my dad made me go with him to Romania. I didn't want to go. And he called me and literally he says, if you don't go — he was sick, he'd recovered from cancer surgery, was in the process of — and he says, if I die on the way, it's your fault. And I says, I'll go with you.
Philip:And little did I know that I was being taken, kicking and screaming, into my destiny. And I found a wee boy in an orphanage called Andrew and picked him up. And I says, I don't care what it takes, but I'm not gonna stop until I can adopt you. And it took me a year and we adopted him. In fact, he's within six feet from me right now. He sits over there and tells me — I have screens around me that tell me what to do — and basically whatever I'm saying, it's Andrew telling me what to say. So he's taken over my brain, but I'm still an Apple person. I refuse to go Android. That's my last holdout of rebellion against my two sons, one above me in the control studio and one over here.
Philip:But I had no idea when I was going through this year of waiting that the Lord was using that year. The pause — sometimes God uses the pause to change your life. And they had no toilets. They sat on coffee cans that were open, with the rough edge of the tin of the coffee, and all the bottoms were raw, cut with those coffee cans. And I looked and I says, oh my. So I sent to Scotland and got little baby toilets and had them shipped over. And when we got all the toilets in, I realized there was no drainage — there's no, they call it canalization. And we had to dig in drainage systems. And God used that year to hook me in missions. And we've been there for the last 35 years.
Philip:Most recently, in the last 20 years or so, we've been helping kids that when they're 16, they're put on the streets from the orphanage and traffickers get them. Moldova is one of the main source countries for young girls that are trafficked. And we have an amazing place called Vatra Village, a whole village of homes where these kids come to. Instead of going to the trafficker, we say, come and stay with us. And we give them their own room, in their own bed. The most beautiful homes you've ever seen in your life. It's right on Moldova's largest lake. And these kids come and stay with us and go to school and go to university. And we are watching miraculous things happen.
Philip:That is Vatra Village with a lake in the background. It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen in your life. And they go there, stay there. Every morning they get up and they get buses all over the city to different universities and schools. Our bus bill, just to pay bus tickets and nothing else, has gone from about $2,000 a month to about $4,000 a month in one month, because inflation has hit Moldova so hard. It's unbelievable. And these kids have gone from being abused. In fact, this week we have 30 brand new kids that have come to us.
Philip:30. And you should hear some of the responses they've given to us when they've seen where their new life would begin and the new place they'll be staying. It's just miraculous. And so these kids come to us and they come to us as orphans or broken by poverty, and then they become family and they understand God's love and they get saved and their lives are transformed. And then the first thing we do is get them out carrying and loving people. And all through the summertime, our kids go to camps and have amazing effects in villages that have no gospel witness.
Philip:And our kids go and have camps. And Kathleen is one of our leaders. She came five or six years ago to Vatra Village, and she's now working full time in the ministry and she directs a lot, if not most, of our outreach. Tremendous, Holy Ghost-filled girl. And she called me a few weeks ago and she says, dad, we've had the opportunity to help a handicap camp with over a hundred handicap kids. And she just sent me this video a couple of days ago. I just want to share with you, 'cause it'll bless your heart. Watch this.
Hello, from Orphan's Hands. My name is Catalina. Once somebody told me about God, about hope, and about his amazing love. Some of them are from orphanages, and nobody told them about God. Nobody showed them love. Nobody cared for them. Today we are here telling these amazing people about how much God loves everybody. No matter how you look, no matter who you are, no matter what your abilities are, God loves you very, very much. Today we are serving these amazing people in this camp. We are telling them about God. We are teaching them to pray and to read his word. Thank you for everything you do. God bless you.
Philip:She FaceTimed me the other day, and it was amazing. One of the kids that she was with remembered me from one of my visits to their orphanage. And, oh, Philip, Philip, Philip. And we had a great time just reminiscing of God's goodness in his life. And he — his legs — he just drags himself along the ground with his hands, and yet he's full of love and joy at the same time. This is going on. My son Andrew went over and led a team up to Kherson up in Ukraine. You may remember the Russians bombed a dam, and hundreds of thousands of folk lost their homes and many lost their lives. So Andrew went up there with a team. He first went to Kherson, Ukraine, and then went down to Turkey, both in the same trip. And this is a video of them giving out the supplies right in the middle of a war zone. Watch this.
Philip:And that's our team up in Ukraine. And they give out their supplies several times over. They go to this place called Metro, and they fill it up and give out and go back and fill it up. And when they were there, the Ukrainian army led them to a place in Kherson where there's great need. And while they were giving out the supplies and folk were gathered to get the food that we had brought for them, one of the Ukrainian army men came and said, Andrew, we've just seen a Russian drone. They're two kilometers away and it's up looking for us.
Philip:And so they had to give the rest of the stuff away rather quickly. And literally had to follow this troop convoy through mine fields. And then they grabbed up onto a railway track and ran for their lives. And we do that all the time, regularly. We're helping feed these refugees. And as you're watching every night on your screen and on your television, this war is not going away. It is gonna get way worse than it is right now. And God has allowed us — I don't know why God has allowed us to be in that place, right in the middle of it.
Philip:We have a home right now. We're taking in 10 new girls in Ukraine. We need your help. We just can't do this unless we increase our support. And if you'd like to help us by giving a dollar a day — a dollar a day will not change your life. But every face you saw on those videos, a dollar a day has changed theirs. It turns them from orphans to sons and daughters, and then missionaries. And if you could help us, make a check out to Orphan's Hands, PO Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee 37716.
Philip:Your gift, whether it's a one-time gift to help us through the summer — ironically, our summer income slows down because folk are busy and they forget. And that's the very time when we've gotta take new kids in, because July and August is the intake season for our homes. That's when our camps take place. That's when this food giveaway is in full speed. And so when our income is going down, we take giant steps of faith to keep everything going as if everything were normal. And you can make it normal by giving a gift today. So please pray.
Philip:If you wanna go to DailyFaith.tv, there's a giving page right there. Or you can call our 800 number, very simple: 833-DAILY-FAITH. Just dial, spell Daily Faith out on your phone. And someone will pick up the phone. A real live person will talk to you, and you can help us today. Please, please pray about making this miracle happen. We so appreciate that. Thomas McDaniels is a friend of our ministry. He has become dear to us. And every time he's on, I feel like I've found a new friend again. And when I saw he was on the program this week, I said, Andrew, now this is a guest you can book as much as you want, because he always has a rhema and a fresh word from the Lord.
Philip:Now his name is McDaniels, not Mac Daniels. If he were a Mac Daniel, he would be Scottish, but because he's a McDaniels, he's Irish, but we won't hold that against him. We love him. Anyway, Thomas, we are delighted to have you with us on Daily Faith today. How are you doing, my friend?
Thomas McDaniels:Hey, I'm honored to be here and listen, I wanna thank you and let you know how much I appreciate the work that you do. It means so much. And we give and we're gonna give again. Thank you. And your work is just so vital and, you know, like you said, God's put you in the middle of this war and you're making such a difference. And I wanna say thank you from me, and several of your viewers and my friends wanna say thank you for all that you're doing.
Sermon on the Mount as Foundation
Thomas McDaniels:Amazing. And I encourage everyone watching to give to this vital ministry and what they're doing over there is amazing. And I know the effort — we feed, we have a dream center here in our city. In Longview — I call it the LA Dream Center, that's Longview Area Dream Center. So here in Longview, Texas, we have a dream center. We feed a thousand people a month. And I know what effort it takes to do that. And so I just want you to know, I know the work is hard, but it's vital and you're making a difference. And sometimes just a meal is a dream. And you make people's dreams come true, Philip. And we appreciate that.
Philip:In Odessa, we feed 1,500 people every week. And that is with bombs falling around us. And Andrew called me from Odessa. He was there just a few weeks ago, and he was up in the middle of the night and he put his phone out the window of the house we have there, and here were the sounds of the sirens warning of a missile attack. And I says, go back to bed. You're fine. God will keep you safe. And he says, easy for you to say that when you're calling me from Tennessee. But we're doing it. My dad did the same to me, so I'm just doing exactly what my father did. I'll just throw him in the deep end and see if he can swim or not.
Philip:But yeah, I know the Lord has given you something to share today with our viewers. And I think it's important. We're living in crazy times, Thomas. I mean, I've never seen America in the mess it is right this minute. It seems like the masks have come off evil and they're no longer hiding it. And they're not living in the shadows. They are in your face demanding that we get out of the way and let them take over. And we need a strong foundation. We've got to have a foundation. And I know that the Lord's been giving you thoughts on that.
Peter's Call Back to Remembrance
Thomas McDaniels:Well, you know, I feel this is simple, but it's prophetic and powerful, particularly because I feel like it's for me and you and for specific people that are watching today, or they're gonna see this by video. I went, I was thinking about the Sermon on the Mount. In fact, as I wrote, I had three messages. And last night, the Lord, just as I was studying — I was gonna preach a thing on God uses the wasted years — and as I kept studying, God kept leaning me over this way, so I just gotta obey the Lord. I just wanna be obedient to him, even though it may be as simple as this.
Thomas McDaniels:But you know, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was saying things like, I know you've heard this. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you for my sake. But rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. Going down to verse 21, he said, you've heard it said that those of old, you shall not murder, but whoever murders shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And I'm sure we're thinking, Jesus, this is crazy. This is not the way I think, and this is not the way. But this is the way that Jesus thinks.
Thomas McDaniels:And I think that we need to get back to the simplicity. And like you're saying, Philip, in the chaos and in the confusion and in the struggle, we get off of our foundation. And that's where I'm going here. You know, I feel like Peter this morning when he said, dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words I have spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In other words, Peter's saying, I wanna call you back to remembrance. I wanna call you back to remember what God said, remember what God says.
Thomas McDaniels:And if we are forgetful hearers of what God says, then we forget what kind of person we are. And then when we forget who we are, we end up acting out in the wrong way or making the wrong decision. I think Jesus was just saying the word, consider. Will you consider this? I know you think it's this, but consider this. I also wanna recall to us that some of us are off, we're in the wrong space because we've listened to the wrong voice. And we've made decisions based upon compliance or compromise versus what the Lord said.
God's Ways Higher Than Human Reasoning
Thomas McDaniels:So Isaiah 55 says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord, for the heavens are higher than the earth. My ways are higher than your ways. We know that. And he says, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. And that's what Jesus showed us in the Sermon on the Mount. Let me take you higher. Yes, it's gonna look lower, but I'm actually taking you higher. If you'll do this, if you'll forgive, if you bless those who persecute you, if you will forgive, if you will do what I've told you to do, if you'll pray for those who despitefully use you, I'm gonna take you higher in life than I would if you fought for yourself or if you did it your own way.
Thomas McDaniels:And it sounds counterintuitive. When you listen to Jesus, you almost think that he's thinking backwards. But he is, because the higher you try to climb in the kingdom, the lower you really are and the more humble you become. And the more you make yourself a servant, the more he exalts you up. And I do think, as I'm watching this mess that America has got itself into in a matter of months, it's shown me how quickly a nation can fall. And it seems — I think COVID knocked us off our axis, and we started wobbling. It made us wobble because we compromised.
Thomas McDaniels:The church compromised. You can't go to Walmart, but you couldn't go to the church. You could go to a bar, but you couldn't go to the church. And we sat down and allowed them to bully us into compliance as being good citizens. And the truth of the matter is, the church should have been leading the way out of this thing instead of fumbling our way around out of this thing. And I think that is where a lot of this trouble started. I think it started before that, but I think the COVID disaster accelerated the mess that we are now in.
Thomas McDaniels:You know, Phil, I just think it's vital for us to hear the word of the Lord and to remember what he said. I think that chaos and confusion causes us to muddy our thinking. And I think Watchman Nee said it best. He said, when we reason, what happens is God will speak, and then man begins to reason. And when man begins to reason, he captures the thought, but his reasoning takes over the outcome. And that's true for all of us. So I wanna say this distinctly: what is God saying about your situation, about your life, and about your circumstance? And what has God already said? Not your friends, not Dr. Phil, not your comforters, but the Comforter. God says things.
Church Compromise During COVID
Thomas McDaniels:Jesus says crazy things like, Paul, the ship's going down, but stay on the ship. You're like, the ship's going down, but stay on the ship? If you stay on the ship, you're gonna be saved. And you're just like, God, that makes no sense if the ship's going down. But these are the kind of things that God puts in our lives. So here's a prophetic sentence the Lord told me to say. Some of us are running to comfort instead of running to the prayer closet. And God is saying, let me remind you, let me recall to you some things that God's already said to you. And here's another word God has said: you have made unclear what I have made totally clear. You have made unclear what I have made totally clear.
Thomas McDaniels:And it's easy for us to do, particularly like you said, with what we've gone through, or when it comes to reasoning, or when it comes to us thinking that we have wisdom, when actually fear has disguised itself as wisdom because we're afraid to do what God said for us to do. And so some of us, again, we're running to the wrong place. So when Jesus said, I know you've heard this, but consider this — I think we need to consider our foundation. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. You know this verse. I know this is simple. I've been preaching 40 years. I realize the cost of me being this simple on this show, but I feel like I have to obey the Lord. This is what we need to hear.
Thomas McDaniels:And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them would be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. Now let me say something about sand. Sand is ground. Ground is dirt. That's what we are made of. And ground-up rock — sand is actually the definition of sand: unconsolidated granular materials consisting of rock fragments.
Sand vs. Rock — A Biblical Definition
Thomas McDaniels:In other words, when we're founded on the rock and we're on the solid rock, the word, then we're founded. When we grind up the word, when we pulverize it, when we separate it, we make it say something it shouldn't say. Our lives go from the rock down to the sand. Our foundation crumbles. Now, Philip already said something about foundation. Here's one thing about foundation. And you can say it's simple, but here's the truth. This roof over my head in this house right now — if this foundation is built properly, this whole thing around me can crater and fall.
Thomas McDaniels:But you know where it falls? To the foundation. Why? Because the foundation will always hold. Everything around me can be shattered and torn and fall, but the foundation is strong. You'll stand. So God says that to us. But I wanna remind you again, sand is mainly silicate minerals and particles of silicate rock, granular particles. What does that mean? It means we take part of the word, we particle it, we grind the word up and make it say what we want it to say or what we need it to say. And then we go from being strong in the Lord's word, and we end up with our house being built on sand.
Thomas McDaniels:And it's so important. Sand is at the mercy of tides. When I was a boy, I come from a fishing town in Scotland. We had a beach called the Lido. And we would go down and stand in the sand in the water. And when the wave would come in, it would wash the sand away from underneath our feet. And as boys, little kids, we would try and keep balanced as what we were standing on was being washed away by each subsequent wave. And what happens is, if you're not standing on the rock, every wave, every little ripple, every thought, every negative piece of news, what it does is it takes away another sweep of sand underneath you.
Philip:And what you are saying to us today is that we have got to get onto the rock. Make sure we're grounded on him. And then when the storm comes, it is going to pass. We have a minute and a half left. I want to tell folk — I want you to get in contact with Thomas. You've got a podcast called Day Maker. Day Maker — write this down — Day Maker podcast, and you can hear from this wise man of God on a regular basis. And you can find him at www.thomasmcdaniels.com. And I've taken 30 seconds out of the last minute and a half to let folk know how to get in contact with you. We've got exactly one minute. Give us a closing thought, Thomas.
Running to Comfort vs. the Prayer Closet
Thomas McDaniels:Okay. This is where I wanna close. Here's what I wanna say to you. Listen prophetically, I wanna say this to you, and I want you to hear this important thing. I want you to clearly hear this message. Get back to the word, and get back to the word that God said to you. Foundation. Make clear what God made clear. The other thing I wanna tell you is this: I never lost one battle that I gave to the word. I've never lost one battle that I gave over to the word. The word wins every battle. Submit those battles. Submit those war zones. Listen, the word of God is a storm-proof commodity. The word of God is a storm-proof commodity for you. Get on the word, get back to the word. Get back to using the word as a weapon against your enemy and against every circumstance in your life.
Word of God as Storm-Proof Weapon
Philip:Amen. Thank you, Phil. Thank you for watching Daily Faith today. Our time is gone. We love you. Bye-bye.
For over 25 years, the Cameron family has been changing the lives of orphans in Romania and Moldova, from providing running water, flushing toilets, and clean wells, to coal for heat, new windows, as well as food and clothing. They champion the physical needs of the orphans in these broken and desolate countries. Many of Moldova's orphans are saved from the horrors of trafficking through homes founded by the Camerons. And in the process, orphans become daughters and sons. They come to know their heavenly Father and are forever changed by the love of Jesus. God help the Camerons lift these amazing young men and women out of darkness. Now no longer orphans, they want to return and invade that very same darkness with the light of Jesus Christ.
The Orphan's Hands equips these daughters and sons to become missionaries. Your monthly gift of $31 will allow us to rescue and take in more girls and boys, saving them from the hell of human trafficking. Your monthly partnership will allow us to care for those in the Orphan's Hands homes in Moldova and Ukraine. If you want to join Philip and Chrissy in taking care of these precious young people, please contact us today by calling 833-DAILY-FAITH. You can also give by going online to www.dailyfaith.tv, or by writing to PO Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee 37716. So many lives depend on what we do. Thank you for loving the lost.
Common questions
What does Thomas McDaniels mean when he says our foundation can crumble from 'rock' to 'sand'?
McDaniels explains that sand is literally ground-up rock — fragmented, unconsolidated particles. When we take the Word of God, pulverize it, and make it say what we want it to say, we shift from standing on the solid rock of God's Word to standing on sand. Every wave of bad news or negative thought then sweeps a little more of that sand out from under us, just like standing on a beach as the tide comes in.
Why does Thomas McDaniels think the COVID pandemic made things worse for the church in America?
McDaniels believes COVID knocked the church off its axis by pressuring it into compliance — people could go to Walmart or a bar but not to church, and the church sat down and allowed that to happen. He argues the church should have been leading the way through the crisis instead of fumbling through it, and that this compromise accelerated the broader cultural and moral mess America now finds itself in.
What does Thomas McDaniels say about fear disguising itself as wisdom?
McDaniels warns that fear can dress itself up as wisdom, making us think we're being prudent when we're actually just too afraid to do what God has clearly told us to do. The result is that we make unclear what God made totally clear — we rationalize away plain instructions from the Lord rather than obeying them.
What is Thomas McDaniels' main practical takeaway for people feeling overwhelmed or off-course?
His core call is to get back to the Word — specifically, to recall what God has already said to you personally, not what friends, culture, or fear are saying. He says he has never lost a single battle that he gave over to the Word, and describes the Word of God as a 'storm-proof commodity' that wins every time it is used as a weapon against your circumstances and your enemy.
How does Thomas McDaniels interpret Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount about blessing enemies and forgiving persecutors?
McDaniels acknowledges it sounds counterintuitive — almost backwards — but says Jesus is actually taking us higher by asking us to forgive, bless those who persecute us, and pray for those who misuse us. In the kingdom, the more you humble yourself and serve, the more God exalts you; fighting for yourself or doing things your own way actually keeps you lower, not higher.
Topics
thomas mcdanielsbiblical foundationsermon on the mountword of godchristian livingprophetic messageday maker podcast