WWUTT 1978 The Wise Man Built His House on the Rock (Matthew 7:24-29)

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives a parable of a wise man and a foolish man.

The wise man is the one who hears the word of Christ and does it. The foolish man goes to destruction, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ. For he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wtt .com. Once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone. Well, here we are. We have finally come to the end of our study in the

Sermon on the Mount. We have just this closing illustration that Jesus gives about the wise man and the foolish man.

In Matthew 7, verses 24 -29, I'll be reading from the Legacy Standard Bible.

Hear the word of the Lord. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.

And the rain descended, and the rivers came, and the winds blew and fell against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.

And everyone hearing these words of mine and not doing them, may be compared to a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.

Now it happened that when Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes.

And so we come back again to this final illustration, a closing parable of sorts. Now it's often said that the parables of Jesus don't begin until Matthew 13, and that's certainly true.

That's where the parables are, like you have a large grouping of parables in one chapter.

But really this is a parable that closes out the Sermon on the Mount regarding the wise man and the foolish man.

We start with Jesus making the statement of everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be compared to a wise man.

So we have the wise man in verses 24 and 25, and then you have the foolish man in verses 26 and 27, and then we finish with the crowd's reaction to Jesus' words in verses 28 and 29.

So starting here with this word about the wise man. And notice that the man who is wise is the one who hears the word of God and does it.

He doesn't just hear, but it changes his life. He hears these words and he does them.

And this really goes right back to the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. If you'll remember, at the very start, before we even get to the first quotation from Jesus, we have in verses 1 and 2, now when

Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying, this is not

Jesus speaking directly to the crowds. The crowds are certainly there, and they definitely hear

Jesus' words, but who Jesus is talking to is his disciples. That is a word that literally means learner.

They are there to learn. The rest of the crowds are not there to learn. They are there because they've seen the miracles, and so they're following after this guy because they want to see more miracles.

The disciples learn from the word. The crowds are simply astonished by the word.

That's what we get in verses 28 and 29. Those are going to be the bookends to the Sermon on the Mount, the two verses at the very beginning saying that Jesus addresses his disciples, and then the words at the very end saying what the reaction of the crowds are, those who are not his disciples.

But his disciples are going to be those who hear the word of God and will do them. They've learned from what it is that Jesus has said.

And remember what we had considered at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount about what we're reading here.

What is this sermon? It is the very message of the kingdom that has been said to us. Jesus' followers, his servants in his kingdom, will live like this.

That's what we've had in the Sermon on the Mount. It is the address to the king's people.

As Martin Lloyd -Jones has said about the Sermon on the Mount, you cannot expect that you can say the

Sermon on the Mount to a person who is not a believer and that they will live by it. They can't.

Their hearts have not been transformed to live by this. And so Lloyd -Jones says to say this to a person and expect them to abide by it is even a kind of heresy because the only person who can live according to these words is the person who actually belongs to Christ, who is actually a citizen of his kingdom.

So this is how Jesus' citizens in his kingdom will be.

And so he says of exactly them, those disciples, those who have learned, those who have heard the word of God, they are the ones who listen and do the word.

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.

And the rain descended and the rivers came and the winds blew and fell against that house, and yet it did not fall.

All of this weather fell against the house, but the house did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.

Now that's an example that's not just going back to Bible times. That's a real -world example that we can see demonstrated even in the world around us.

The strongest houses are those that are built on strong foundations. You know this. It's why a good constructed house is going to be built on a rock of some kind.

Now it may be that the house is literally built on rock or they may have had to artificially create the rock through concrete, right?

A concrete slab that this house has been constructed upon, and those that are built firmly upon a strong foundation are the houses that will stand against all the stuff that can be thrown at it.

Surely there is the kind of weather that will topple a house, but for the most part, a house that is built on a rock will not topple in the storm.

The rain descended. The rivers came. The winds blew and fell against that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.

And what is our rock, my friends? The rock is Christ. Now this is a very important thing to remember.

I'm going to go ahead and kind of give you a spoiler. Hold on to this, this description of the rock, because where else do we have the reference to a rock in the

Gospel of Matthew? Matthew chapter 16, where Jesus says,

On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

I'm just telling you to hold on to that. Won't talk about it now. We'll get to it later at another time, but here you already have an illustration concerning a foundation that is the rock in the

Gospel of Matthew. It comes up again later on. It's relevant. So hearing the word of God and doing the word of God is like the wise man who built his house on the rock, and we know that our rock is

Christ. And when we say that our rock is Christ, it is not just Christ, but even his word.

So what Christ has said is our foundation. It is what we live by.

It is our salvation. We have heard the word of Christ, and we believe it. And by believing in him, we are saved.

And so Christ is our rock. There are some 30 psalms that make a reference to God being a rock, or rather 30 places in the psalms.

There might be a couple of times where it's in the same psalm. But Psalm 18, too, for example, The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my

God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Later on in Psalm 18, The Lord lives and blessed be my rock and exalted be the

God of my salvation. You might know a song that uses those particular words. Psalm 1914,

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight,

O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 27, 5,

For in the day of trouble he will conceal me in his tabernacle. In the secret place of his tent he will hide me.

He will lift me up on a rock. At the start of Psalm 28,

You, O Lord, to you I call my rock. Do not be deaf to me, for if you are silent to me,

I will become like those who go down to the pit. Psalm 31, 2,

Be to me a rock of strength. Verse 3, For you are my rock and my fortress.

Psalm 42, Which is known for as a deer pants for flowing streams.

It's also in that same Psalm where it says, I will say to God, my rock. Why have you forgotten me?

Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? In Psalm 62,

There are several references to God being my rock and my salvation, my stronghold.

I shall not be greatly shaken. And it was that very reference that Martin Luther had read when he wrote a mighty fortress is our

God, A bulwark never failing. This is the rock upon which we are to build our lives.

The rock of Christ. And no matter what happens in this life, no matter what comes to beat against us, we will not fall for as Jesus says in John 10, they will not be snatched out of my hands.

And as we also read in Romans chapter eight, verse 37, and all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. He is our rock and nothing in the world seen or unseen will separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

So that's the wise man who has built his life upon Christ. But then next

Jesus says, there's the foolish man. Everyone who hears these words of mine and not doing them, that's going to be the majority of the people who were there because the disciples come to Jesus and learn from him.

The crowds are just there because they want to see the miracles. They're hearing the words that Jesus is saying, but they're not going to do them.

They're not going to live by them. Everyone hearing these words of mine and not doing them may be compared to a foolish man who built his house on the sand and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house and it fell and great was its fall.

Not just that a person's life fell apart, but their soul would perish in hell.

As we read in John 3 36, he who has the sun has life. He who does not obey the sun shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

The wrath of God, that person comes under who hears the word of God, but does not do it.

He is like the foolish man who built his house on sand. He built his life on a foundation that is shifting and ever changing and is not solid.

And my friends, that's going to be every single person who puts their dependence and faith and trust in themselves or the things of this world.

People's opinions change constantly. Whatever a person's moral standpoint is today, they're going to change their mind about tomorrow.

And we certainly see that in the culture. Whatever the culture says, love is today is going to have a different definition tomorrow.

Whatever the world says, success is today is going to be something else tomorrow. And we can see right now in our unstable economy, how the dollar is constantly changing.

Dollar doesn't go as far as it used to. Buying a house, gracious, you could be spending three times more on a house now than if you had bought a house 20 years ago.

And the prices of cars, my goodness gracious, Becky and I had just said on the podcast this past Friday that we need a new van.

And how much I wish I had bought one two or three years ago when the prices on these vans was thousands of dollars lower, several thousand dollars lower, who is setting the prices on these cars.

But the point I'm making here is that even the dollar, you can't even trust the dollar. You can't trust the stock market.

You can't trust the economy. Those things are shifting and changing. It's going to be something totally different tomorrow.

Who knows the entire us economy could collapse tomorrow or whatever your, whatever country you live in, that economy could collapse.

We cannot depend on the things of this world. It's shifting sand. Philosophies change.

Religions change. Morality changes. Definitions of words change.

We have to be dependent on Christ. He is unchanging. As said in the book of Hebrews, he is the same.

Yesterday, today, and forever. As we sing in the old hymn, on Christ the solid rock

I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. And it is the fool who builds his life on anything else but Christ.

Everything else is constantly changing. And everything that is of this world, whether it be an ideology, a religion, or something material, all of this stuff is ultimately coming to an end.

It doesn't last. It's all perishing. You can feel it in your body right now. You know your body is not holding up.

And so everything else in this world is transient. It's temporal.

Meaning it's temporary. It is here today. And it's going to be gone tomorrow. We cannot depend on anything that is in this world.

The Bible even tells us that the world is coming to destruction. That the fires of God are being stored up in the heavens.

For that day when Christ comes back to judge the world in righteousness, and the world will be consumed.

All that is in the world will be burned up. It is only in Christ that we will be saved.

That we are forgiven. That we are saved. That we have the promise of everlasting life and glory.

The foolish man doesn't look to Christ. He looks to himself. He looks to the world. He looks to drugs and alcohol.

He looks to sexual fantasies and the appetites of his flesh. He looks to success, fame, fortune.

Whatever it might happen to be. Whatever he, whatever is the measure of his success in this world. He tries to run to those things.

And he will fall. And great will be his fall. For as Jesus says in Luke 9.

What does it profit a man? If he gains the whole world and loses his soul. Not even the man who gains the whole world can save himself.

So how much less you and me. The person who tries to build his life on anything other than Christ will fall.

And great will be his fall. And this goes right back to what we read yesterday.

In verses 21 to 23. The one who says, Lord, Lord. And Jesus says to him, depart from me.

I never knew you. You who practice lawlessness. There's something else regarding that that I wanted to read yesterday.

And I just, I forgot to mention it at the end of the broadcast. So let me do that here in just a moment.

But first, let's conclude with this final pair of verses 28 and 29.

Now, it happened that when Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching.

For he was teaching them as one having authority and not as their scribes.

They were astonished at his teaching. But once again, as I said earlier, they're not driven to obey what it is that God has said.

The majority of the people there were not going to follow. Going back to what Jesus said about the narrow gate.

Few will find the way that leads to life. Many will find the broad way that leads to their destruction.

Jesus speaks with authority. And how, why is it that Jesus speaks with authority? Because what he speaks is

God's word. This is the word of God. That has come from the

God man. Who spoke to his people once again. From a mountain.

As I said to you at the start of our study in the Sermon on the Mount. Okay, I said there was something that I wanted to finish with.

I wanted to read to you here. This kind of brings in both what we read yesterday.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. And what we finish with here. This parable about the wise man and the foolish man.

All things considered, the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount is kind of a downer. We end with the fool whose house has fallen.

And great will be its fall. Not really a high note to end on. It's kind of a, there's a dissonance.

You almost think like it's an incomplete chord. Is that the way we're going to finish this? But it's a warning that Jesus is giving to those who are hearing what he is saying.

But not doing what he is saying. And not just to those crowds that are there. But even to this day.

The people who hear these words and do them will be like the wise man. But whoever hears these words and does not do them is like the foolish man.

And the way Jesus ends this sermon reminds me of the way that John Bunyan ends

Pilgrim's Progress. He doesn't end his story on a high note either. Now, indeed, the way that it finishes with Christian and hopeful going through the river.

And then coming out on the other side. And entering into the celestial kingdom. Of course, that's the end of Christian's journey.

But it's not the end of the book, Pilgrim's Progress. Right after Christian enters into heaven.

What is essentially heaven. At the end of Pilgrim's Progress, we read this. Now, while I was gazing upon all these things,

I turned my head to look back. And I saw ignorance come up to the riverside. But he soon got over.

And that without half the difficulty which the other two men met with.

For it happened that there was then in the place one vain hope, a ferryman.

That with his boat helped him over so that he, as the others I saw, did ascend the hill to come up to the gate.

Only he came alone. Neither did any man meet him with the least encouragement. When he was come up to the gate, he looked up to the writing that was above.

And then began to knock, supposing that entrance should be quickly given to him. But he was asked by the men that looked over the top of the gate.

Whence came you? And what would you have? He answered, I have eaten and drunk in the presence of the king.

And he has taught in our streets. Then they asked him for his certificate.

That they might go in and show it to the king. So he fumbled in his bosom for one and found none.

Then said they, have you none? But the man answered never a word.

So they told the king, but he would not come down to see him. But commanded the two shining ones that conducted

Christian and hopeful to the city to go out and take ignorance and bind him hand and foot and have him away.

Then they took him up and carried him through the air to the door that I saw in the side of the hill.

And put him in there. Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven, as well as from the city of destruction.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here in the Sermon on the Mount. And I pray that the words that we have read will penetrate our hearts as the words of the kingdom of God.

How should we live as citizens of God's kingdom? And that's what we've heard here in this sermon.

May we hear these words and we do what they say. For those who have heard these words and they don't know what to do with them.

I pray that hearts would be convicted. That those who do not know

Christ would turn from their sin and their fleshly ways and the ways of this world. They would turn to the

Lord Jesus Christ and live. Draw them to you, Lord.

That they would not go to destruction. They would not go to hell. But they would enter into eternal life.

By the narrow gate. By the rock who is Christ. It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday we look at an

Old Testament book. On Friday we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow we'll pick up on an