Matthew 7,13 29, Dr. John Carpenter

Matthew 7:13-29 and the Four Warnings at the End of the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 7, verse 13, to the end of the chapter, hear the word of the Lord. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many.

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits.

Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes? Are figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock 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 will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it.

And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word.

Christmas Starts at the Beginning, but the Sermon Ends at the Judgment

If you want to know about the start, know about the end. Often beginnings and endings are very different. Christmastime is about the start, it's about the birth of Jesus, the start of his life on earth.

Now our culture has embraced Christmas in a way as the pinnacle of the holiday season. Even many secular people who during most of the year seem to care very little about Christ, during Christmas will suddenly show some interest in Christ, at least in this birth.

They might put up a nativity scene, they might sing Christmas carols. They might even attend church. They'll focus then on this season on the baby Jesus, but they don't really know what he's about unless they know where that baby ends up.

In this passage, we see where he ends up. Now I think modern people, particularly Americans, have a hard time appreciating and really even comprehending this passage, just feeling what it's about, its power, what it gets to because we tend not to take threats or punishment very seriously.

Now we can hear great threats and great threats of punishment that we might get, but we tend not to take it very seriously. Last month, Maurice Clemens walked into a coffee shop in Washington State near Seattle and gunned down four police officers, killing all of them.

The reason Clemens was free to do such a thing was because just the week before, he had been released on a particularly low bail for assaulting a police officer in the rape of a child. The reason he was free to assault a police officer and rape a child was because he had his earlier sentence in Arkansas, which there he had been sentenced to 108 years in prison for aggravated robbery, he had it reduced to 47 years, which still sounds like a long time until we realize that in many states, including Arkansas, a 47-year sentence really means that one is eligible for parole in about 11 years, which happened to be the exact time when he got his sentence reduced to.

So what was a 108-year sentence, essentially life in prison, this great threat of what he was supposed to get, became just 11 years. And that's not really unusual in America in our time. We have a system in which the courts throw out these enormous threats of the punishment you're supposed to get, 108 years, but it's easily turned into 47, which really means 11.

We like to think we have these grand threats of what will happen, but in reality, most of them are just fluff. So we huff, and we puff, and we throw out idle threats, and we think that's supposed to change people, but what it really does is create the impression on people's minds not to take any threats seriously anymore.

We make idle threats of how horrible it will be if you commit a crime, or if you fail out of school, or you misbehave in class, or whatever. But most often, these punishments are never really as bad as threatened.

And we do that on a more personal level, too. Some parents threatening their kids if they misbehave, you know, I'll skin you alive! But that's all just talk. They don't really skin them alive, and sometimes they don't really do end up doing anything as a consequence for their actions.

In our culture, many people's approach to discipline is to so inflate what will happen, thinking that will scare the little punks into finally behaving, but what it really does is teach the little punks that nothing you say has any consequences, that it's all just talk.

And so we begin to think that's the way it always is, everywhere, with all threats. That 108 years is really 47, which is really 11. That judgment is never really as bad as some authority says it is, it is huffing and puffing that it will be.

So there's no reason to take any threats seriously anymore. What about that? But it's not always like that. I learned that when I went to Singapore, you know, the first thing that impressed me about Singapore is going into the country like a slap on the face, before I even took my first step onto Singapore, you're flying in the plane, descending, and they hand you these immigration cards, which you're supposed to fill out, tell them why you're entering the country, where you'll be staying, put your passport number, and on it is stamped in these friendly looking Asian fonts, probably, you know, come up by the tourist board to attract tourists.

It says, welcome to Singapore, nice, friendly, warm, welcome, they love tourists. Directly under that, probably written by somebody else, in all capital letters with red ink, it says death for drug traffickers.

Singapore has a mandatory death penalty for anyone who is caught bringing in more illicit drugs than one would use for themselves. There's no alternative sentence, okay? There are, or were, no plea bargains, there's no deals, there's no way out.

If you have dogs, drug sniffing dogs, they catch it in your luggage on your way in, well, that's the end of you. The same is true for first degree murder. It's not just a huff and puff threat either. I followed several cases in the newspaper there, when I lived there, and in one instance, a Dutch man caught trying to bring in heroin, either into or through Singapore.

He was caught, arrested, and put on trial, sentenced to death, and the Dutch government appealed for mercy for him, but it was no use. He was hanged. Another Dutch man, and I don't know what it is about the Dutch in Singapore, okay?

They don't seem to mesh very well. Another Dutch man was caught having murdered a South African man in Singapore. Again, the Dutch government appealed for mercy after he was caught and convicted, but within about a year, within about a year of his arrest, mind you, he was hanged.

If you bring drugs into the country, or you murder someone there, you will be, you will be, at the end of a rope in about a year's time. The threats are not idle. They are to be taken very seriously, so in that system, you take them seriously.

Here, the Lord Jesus' threats are not idle. He makes four of them, and you think of that, this beautiful Sermon on the Mount, which many people celebrate for its wonder, its great words on the meek inheriting the earth, about loving your enemy, about forgiving and not judging, about doing unto others.

You know, this beautiful sermon, how does it end? With a warm, friendly invitation, you know, welcome to Singapore. No, it ends with four threats, and they're not huffed and puffed. It's not just, you know, some fiery rhetoric, but in the end, come on, we all know, it's not, surely we think, it's not going to be that way.

Yeah, he might warm us over the fire a little bit, but he's not really going to throw us in. He won't really tell us to get lost, will he? He won't really let the house of our lives be destroyed, but in the end, he'll say, just like nearly everyone around us has done, we think, ah, you know, come on, aw shucks, I'll let you in.

You know, what was going to be eternity, let's make it purgatory and serve a few thousand years, you'll get off. But in the end, we see here, friends, he will do exactly what he said he will do. This isn't even just a threat.

It's just the way it's going to be. Now there are four descriptions of judgment here that conclude the Sermon on the Mount, four, and they all begin with R. Isn't that convenient? Roads in verses 13 to 14, then rotten fruit in verses 15 to 20, then the relationship in verses 21 to 23, and then the rock in verses 24 to 27.

Roads, the rotten fruit, the relationship, and the rock. First the roads, and there are two of them, and only two. One goes to life, and the other goes to destruction. The Lord Jesus here says in verse 13, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

The way to destruction has no demands. It requires no discipline. You don't have to take up any cross to go down that way. You don't have to deny yourself anything. You can get to destruction by any way you choose.

In fact, if it is just you choosing your own way, following your whims and your will, you can be sure you are going to destruction. But remember, beginnings and endings are often very different. What ends in destruction may begin very comfortably.

A smooth, level, easy path, no curbs, no restrictions, no lane lines, no speed bumps, no traffic laws, no whatever, sheriff's deputies hiding behind a billboard waiting to catch you. There's lots of people going that way, enjoying the trip, and if you want to kind of go a little bit a different way at your own style, the way is so broad you can do that.

It is broad enough to encompass all the different ways we might want to go. Now we might think destruction is only for a few. You know, it's like being expelled from school or getting the death penalty.

I've never actually met anyone who was expelled from school. I guess it happens somewhere, but it is very rare to get expelled. Suspended for a few days, but who cares. You know, it's like that. It's a threat that we hear about, but very rarely does anyone really get it.

But here Jesus says destruction is not rare. In fact, it's very common, and it begins, or to end so horribly, begins so easily. The gate into the final destination will let anyone take anything along with them they want.

They can come in trusting in Buddha or Mohammed or Joseph Smith or their own morality or their own goodness or just the fact that they're really not so bad. After all, they never gunned down four policemen in a coffee shop.

The beginning is easy, but at the end it's hard. It is destruction. Everything we wanted and everything we enjoyed, all that we sought for ourselves, all that we gave ourselves to will be obliterated, gone.

Nothing good is left. That's destruction. That's where the wide, easy path that begins so comfortably ends up. But there is another path, he said. The path to life. It doesn't go the way we might always want to go.

We have to follow to go that way. It takes some strain. It is arduous, and there won't be nearly as many companions on that road as there were on the broad one. Sometimes we might look over and see in that broad road what appear to be roving parties over there, you know, laughing and carefree, relishing their stroll down this easy life, this easy way.

Sometimes we might even envy them for having such a comfortable path when we forget their dreadful end. We might try to warn them, but they'll think we're just huffing and puffing, that it's just an empty threat.

When we come to the gate of the celestial city, we'll find it's very, very narrow, that we can't bring in any of the baggage we've been hauling around, the sins or the proud religious accomplishments that we've been carrying.

We have to lay them down. We can only get in through Jesus. He is the door. No one enters except through him. We have to lay down our own sense of self-righteousness and to trust in the perfect life and sacrifice of Christ, saying that he's the one who earned the way in for us.

Well, there's only two roads, and it isn't just an idle threat when he says that broad is the road to destruction, and many go that way. You can get destruction by any way you choose, and you can get there sincerely.

Your sincerity will not keep you out of hell one second if you sincerely went your own way, not following the Lord Jesus down the narrow path. You can find yourself in destruction if you bear rotten fruit.

False Prophets, Rotten Fruit, and the Need for the New Birth

Now here, the Lord Jesus tells us to beware of false prophets. Now this doesn't just apply to people who claim to be prophets. We might read this and think, well, this has nothing to do with me. I never come across any prophets, right?

No one's claiming to be a prophet. Very few people claim that in our day. You do in some places, but watch out for the false ones. It doesn't just apply to people standing up and saying, thus saith the Lord, okay?

But it applies to anyone who claims to be teaching the truth, to have a revelation or a reality that you should accept and organize your life around. False prophets are certainly the missionaries who knock at your door, perhaps with a clean-cut look, you know, these teenage boys with nicely ironed shirts, white shirts, a sharp-looking tie, and a name tag that says they are an elder.

How are you going to be an elder and be 19 is beyond me, but that's what it says. Or our false prophets are certainly those who may knock on your door and invite you to a Bible study with them, insisting that you use their New World Translation and leaving you with a Watchtower magazine to read in the interim.

The fruit of their lives are deceived people who end up thinking, if they accept their doctrine, that they have to do the same kind of false prophesying in order to be saved. Or even closer to home, a false prophet could be the emotional could be an emotional revival preacher pulling at you to come forward at an invitation.

Even the little kids, if you can manage to stagger up. And you'll be eternally secure if you do, no matter what your life is like after this. No need to ever question your salvation again, especially if he can count you as a convert and get a lot of them, and so get invited to preach more revivals.

Or it could be the secular professor at college who says that as long as we're sincere, every truth is relative, it's all true if it's true for you, that the only false statement is the statement that there are false statements.

The only false doctrine is the doctrine that there are false doctrines. Or a false prophet could be the sweet old lady who says that any behavior is fine by her, except pointing out that some behavior is not fine.

She doesn't like to hear that, troubles her. Or a false prophet could be the TV preacher using the Bible to tell you that you can use God to get rich, get everything you always wanted, if, of course, you remember to send in your checks to him.

Or it could be the amiable friend who tells you he just wants to have a good time, that's all. Why be so hung up? Why stick to that narrow path you're on? It's so much more fun over here, come give it a try.

Join your friends and don't worry, don't worry about where all this is going, live for tonight. Or it could even be the respectable church member who the last thing he wants to hear is that he is a sinner who cannot please God by all his religious accomplishments, but has earned the eternal wrath of God.

He has earned the real punishment of being thrown into the fire of eternal destruction if he does not trust that Jesus did for him on the cross what he cannot do for himself. False prophets look like good people.

They will come to you in the guise that you are most likely to accept in a way that appeals to you. Do you like the clean cut, conservative look? Well, they'll come right to your door. Perhaps you like the party life.

They're probably waking up right now from a wild Saturday night, logging onto Facebook and inviting you to join them and wondering why you aren't responding on a Sunday morning. They look like what appears to you as good, but here, that's why Jesus describes them as wolves in sheep's clothing.

In other words, they look from the outside like harmless people. They look like one of us, but they will destroy you. In the natural world, think of this comparison. In the natural world, we know sheep, we know what they look like, and we know wolves.

Wolves like to feed on sheep. They prey on sheep, but in the natural world, wolves aren't able to disguise themselves to look like sheep. They're not clever enough to get sheep's clothing on. In the supernatural world, our predators are able to do that.

They are able to make themselves look like one of us, like anything that would appeal to you. You'll know they are false prophets trying to woo you from that narrow path to the broad one going to destruction by their fruit, by the result of their lives.

But here, the Lord Jesus switches metaphors from sheep and wolves to trees and vines. To use another analogy from the natural world, a good and bad fruit tree, you know, good and bad fruit trees look the same.

At the beginning of their inception, these trees, as they're growing, look the same, but beginnings and endings are often very different. They begin by looking the same. We can tell them apart, though, by what they produce.

Jesus says in verse 16 and 20, he says it twice, you will recognize them by their fruit. He repeats it for emphasis. When the fruit appears, you'll be able to tell if they are good or bad trees, whether they are true or false prophets.

In verse 16, he asks the question, are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Of course, no. You don't go to a thorn bush and expect something good. By its nature, it produces only thorns.

By the same principle in verse 17, every healthy tree bears good fruit, Jesus says. That's just what it does. It's in its nature. It's not that it becomes a healthy tree by bearing good fruit. It makes up its mind, New Year's resolution, I'm going to bear good fruit this year, and it makes itself do it, and so it becomes a good tree.

It's by bearing good fruit that it demonstrates that it is, by its nature, a healthy tree. Some people think that they can make themselves good by doing enough good works, but the truth is that they cannot do good works unless first they are good people.

So what they need is to have their natures changed. If they want to bear good fruit, they need to be born again. They must have it in their nature for goodness to issue out of them. Then in verse 18, the Lord Jesus states it emphatically.

A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. This is a statement of fact. He stresses that it is contrary to nature. It is naturally impossible for a good tree to bear bad fruit and vice versa.

Sure, some people will pretend to be and appear to be and try to be something they really are not. They'll try to put good fruit on their naturally bad branches, but for some that's what their religion is all about.

It's trying to put up wool over their wolf nature. It's trying to stick good fruit onto a rotten tree, but eventually you'll be able to tell by what comes out of them. Their fruit is the impact of their lives on themselves and on other people.

Do they tend to make themselves and other people live for the Lord? To trust in Him alone for their salvation? To get on and continue on that narrow path to life? Is that what their lives do? Or do they tend to draw people off of it?

Now here, doctrine does matter. All he says is not good enough to say, but still, it is things that we believe does matter. Someone who does not believe in the Jesus described here, and the Jesus described for that matter in Colossians 1 we saw in Sunday school, someone who does not believe in that, not some other Jesus made up by religion or someone of their own imagination, but someone who does not believe in this Jesus cannot be a good tree or a true prophet.

And someone who may believe the truth, may have his doctrine in order, says Lord, Lord to the Lord, but is so obnoxious and judgmental about it that he or she drives people away from the Lord while he's bearing bad fruit.

Remember a couple of weeks ago, Sarah Ruth beating Parker's back? We hear the Lord Jesus repeats it twice in verses 16 and 20, we know them by their fruit, not just by what they say. We have so much confusion today because we've ignored this very truth that Jesus repeated for emphasis.

Okay, he repeated it for emphasis, said it as clear as he possibly could, and we still just pretend like he never said it. We have been dispensing, Christians have, evangelical Christians over the past century have been dispensing assurance of salvation, like the way the kids were dispensing candy off their float on the Christmas parade, just throw it, throw out assurance to everyone who just says they believe in Jesus.

Maybe they don't know much about him because they've never been interested enough to find out about him, that's why they don't know much. But they will say, probably not without, probably without any enthusiasm, but they will say they believe in him.

Yeah, okay, I believe in him. And so there, and so someone will come along to them and assure them, well, you say you believe so you can be confident. You are saved based on that, what you said. But Jesus says right here, we know true prophets, and we can assume truly saved people by their fruit, by the impact of their lives, not just by what they say.

They can talk sweetly about how much they love Jesus, but if they have no hungering and thirsting for righteousness, they have no work in their life, I mean practically in their living, not just in their speaking, no work to extend the kingdom of God, to bring other people to try to know the rule of Christ to every part of their lives, and their own lives practically, their dating, their marriage, their entertainment habits, their use of money.

If all of that, they're not seeking to come under the rule of God, if they don't have that, then don't give them an assurance of salvation. Jesus doesn't do it here. Remember this is the Sermon on the Mount, this is the gospel of the kingdom, this is the good news that God's rule has come on earth, and those who truly accept that as good news are living more and more under that rule, God's way.

Now that is the good fruit, what we believe and we teach, how it influences others, and the fruit of a life over which God is ruling more and more of. If we don't have that fruit, friends, don't take these threats idly.

Don't think that they're just empty words. He doesn't say here, notice about the trees, he doesn't say, you know, just a few of those trees that bear bad fruit, they'll be cut down and thrown into the fire, a few of them.

A few of them are really, really bad fruit trees, just horrible fruit trees. If they have really bad lawyers who can't get them off from the lumberjack, and they have a particularly mean jury that come before and the judge is feeling in a bad mood that day and the appeals courts are all stacked against them, and for some reason the, whatever, the people won't intervene on their behalf.

No, he says every tree, every single one, that's what he says, isn't it? Look at the text, every tree that doesn't bear good fruit is thrown into the fire in verse 19. Every single person who doesn't make the good confession, whose life draws people away from the narrow path, who isn't living under the rule of God, no matter how good looking and cute and well mannered and how well ironed their white shirt is.

Every single one is ending, he says, in hell. And that's not huffing and puffing, that's just the way it's going to be. Well, the road is narrow, the fruit must be good, not rotten. And then there must be, he says, a relationship.

The Necessity of a True Relationship with the Lord

Now, there's no replacement for a true relationship with the Lord. We saw that throughout this sermon, from the beginning. It's about how our heart relates to him. If it does, we know that we need him.

And so in the first beatitude, we are poor in spirit. We know he sees our secret giving and that he hears our secret praying. He is the treasure that we seek above all. If we don't have that relationship, then really nothing else matters.

People who don't have it and pray and give and fast, Jesus says, they have their reward already. We can rightly call him Lord, as they do here in this passage, starting in verse 21. But that's not enough.

We've had in our day the doctrine that all one must do to be saved is acknowledge certain facts about Jesus. Just say you believe he is Lord. But here the Lord Jesus says as clear as it could possibly be said that that is a lie.

You can call him Lord and still go to hell. In verse 21 he says, not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Amen.

You can say all you want that Jesus is Lord, but if he is not really ruling your life, then you will not get into life. You are still on the road to destruction. Here the Lord Jesus says we must do the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Those who don't do, he says, who think they can just say and then maybe continue some sinful relationship, that they can continue just treasuring other things above God's kingdom, who have no hunger, who have no thirst for righteousness, who stay on that broad road perhaps with their respectable friends, perhaps with their partying friends, those are deceived.

And they are so deceived by, you know in the previous section about the wolf in sheep's clothing, those people there are deceived by them, by others, by false prophets. Here they are deceived by themselves.

They have an assurance of salvation. They're so sure of their salvation that on the judgment day itself they walk so boldly right up to the judge, to Jesus, boasting of what they've done. Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

And notice that they actually did do all those things. Now surely they're not going to lie to the judge on the judgment day. And Jesus did not say back to them, no you didn't. You made up those prophecies yourself.

You had a radio receiver in your ear with your wife transmitting behind the curtain, giving you information so that you could look like you were getting supernatural revelations about people. The people you looked like you were healing were your own plants that you put in the audience to put on the big show.

No, Jesus doesn't say any of that in response. He doesn't refute what they claim. The frauds who did that kind of thing are probably on the judgment day going to run and try to run and hide when they see that Jesus is real and is the judge getting ready to pass a sentence on them.

But these people apparently really did all these things. Jesus never refuted it. They prophesied, they cast out demons, they did many mighty works. Perhaps they taught Sunday school or were preachers or missionaries, but they had no real relationship with Jesus.

They didn't know him. Oh, they knew about him. They had a head knowledge of who he was. They saw him. They called him by the right name, Lord, Lord. They could prophesy. They could preach. They could teach.

They could write books. They could sing songs and tell others about him, but they didn't know him in their heart. He wasn't real to them. And so they will hear him say, much to their surprise, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Well, here we see the clearest picture of false assurance. At the conclusion to one of the most famous passages in the Bible, the Sermon on the Mount, we see the grave danger of false assurance.

It's not as though this is a hidden, obscure passage that's difficult to interpret. It is as clear as crystal. At the last judgment, some people will be so sure they are saved, and they'll get a very rude shock.

And despite that, despite the prominent place of this passage, despite its clarity, evangelicals have been handing out an assurance of salvation over the past century to anyone who can say, I believe in Jesus.

To little children manipulated into saying a repeat-after-me prayer, to people who suddenly feel an emotional rush to come forward. And what is the fruit of that? Well, the fruit of that is now multitudes of people, many all around us, particularly in this environment, who are now harder to reach with the gospel than they would be if not for that.

We've taught some of them that at the last judgment, they can come before the judge and say, Lord, Lord, did I not pray that prayer and get baptized? But they'll hear the same response. First, I never knew you.

This is the Lord Jesus speaking to deceive people, people deceived by false assurance. We've just said that they didn't in their hearts know Jesus, and that's true. But to be precise here, to interpret this passage precisely, here he says that Jesus didn't know them, you understand?

Jesus says, I never knew you. Now certainly He knew about them. He is God. He's the second person of the Trinity. This passage right here puts Him on the judgment seat, on the judgment day, where only God Himself could sit.

That He's doing the judging on the judgment day is because He is God. That's who that baby in the manger grew up to be. So He knows, He knows factually all about these people, but He never had a relationship with them.

He never effectively revealed Himself to them. He never made them children of the Father. And the initiative in the relationship then is with Him. He never knew them. These people, as impressive as they were in their supernatural power, in their religious works, and perhaps in their dedication, are people Jesus did not relate to.

So here it is no idle threat to say that unless Jesus decides to know us, we won't know Him. Well then they'll be told to depart. Those who had no relationship with Him, even with their powerful spiritual gifts, they will be told to go.

Get out. Now why? Why? Because they, even with their many mighty works, are really workers, He says, of lawlessness. That is, they lived their lives day by day as if there was nothing they had to submit to.

They were without restraint on what they wanted and what they did. They were lawless, without law, going their own way as they felt best, unrestricted, unguided down that broad road to destruction. So what if the lane they chose on that road to destruction was very religious?

They thought they had so much to be proud of that they hadn't chosen to be drunk, they hadn't chosen to be promiscuous, but the reality is that they were still doing their own thing. No Lord or law in their life.

It's not an idle threat that everyone that lives that way with no relationship with Jesus is expelled by Jesus. Finally, is the rock. The previous people had accomplishments but no relationship. Their problem was between their saying and their doing.

They called Him Lord but they never knew Him as Lord. Here in verses 24 -27 we see people have a problem between their hearing and their doing. All the people here in the last warning have heard the word.

Some do it and some don't. Those who do it, who put the teachings of the Lord Jesus into practice, are building their life, he says, on the rock. It doesn't change. Their life doesn't change. The core of it is with the fashions or with their moods.

It is solid and immovable. Here the comparison is to houses in a desert. We usually think of sand as the beach, he's probably referring to a desert like near some dry creek bed. When a storm came, it would be very dry most of the year, but storms can come in the desert sometimes a flash flood will arise and the house founded on a rock would stand.

Most of the year everything is fine. Why worry about what might happen when a flood comes when there's no water around? That's the way some people are now. They live their lives. Why wonder about judgment when there is no judgment around?

But those who built on the sands could see the floods coming, would see the floods come when the storm finally did come. It would undermine their house and then bring the whole thing crashing down. Again, those are the ones, Jesus said, who heard the word and didn't do it.

They did their own thing. They built where they thought best, maybe where the view was the best, how it was most comfortable to them, what was most fashionable to them, with the idea that there will never be any judgment.

Skies are clear now, they're clear almost all the time, there's no judgment coming. And there were plenty of people around them that told them, as long as they built sincerely, as long as you mean well by the way you build your house, you mean it, you like it, well you'll be fine.

They had assurance. And all those warnings, a few people come by, oh there's danger coming, oh that's just so much alarmism. You know, it's a siren wailing, but there's no real danger. Here the Lord Jesus uses the comparison to building on a rock or on sand to show the certainty of destruction if we don't follow his word.

Not just say we believe it, but really practice it. The certainty of destruction. You know, we have so many people today who think that the warnings of danger are just so much alarmism. You know, it's Chicken Little running around saying the sky is falling, but it's never going to happen.

So many people assume that when judgment comes, they can just sweet talk their way into heaven. You know, that's how they've gotten by their whole life. You don't have to study for a test, you can sweet talk your way into a passing grade.