Built on the Rock
Matthew 7:24-27
Sermon Summary
The flood of God's judgment is inevitably coming upon the foolish who ignore Jesus' words. But the wise ones who hear His words and do them will escape because Christ is their firm Rock.
Matthew 7:24-27
“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.”
Throughout our series on the Sermon on the Mount, we’ve seen that the theme that Jesus has been working with is that of righteousness. Specifically speaking, he has been dealing with the righteousness of God’s kingdom.
Thus, he’s shown that a kingdom man is a righteous man. That was laid out at the very beginning in the Beatitudes. Then we saw that he stated his theme. He said that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees, and we fleshed that out in several way by looking at specific commands of Old Testament Scripture such as anger, oath keeping, the sanctity of marriage, proper attitudes in giving, etc.
In the last couple of sermons, we’ve noted that the kingdom of God will require a righteous judgment. We said that there were two roads with two very different destinations, one of which was hell and the other heaven.
Then we looked at the next passage and entered the very courtroom of Christ and observed some of the proceedings. We heard the deafening words: “Depart from me, I never knew you.” And finally, we understood that whoever does the will of the Father will enter the kingdom and escape judgment.
Today we have one last image. There is one last hurrah that Jesus gives regarding his righteousness. It’s one last proclamation of the righteous judgment of God, and it is presented as a storm.
So today, we are preparing for a storm. We are preparing for the storm of God’s judgment. And to rightly prepare, we need to note the four things Jesus says about this storm.
I. It is unexpected
The idea of a storm in the Bible is typically indicative of something that is unpredictable. It comes on suddenly and does not come with a lot of prior warning.
The most common illustration of this is that of Noah’s flood. One day the rain just started coming down and the ground broke open and started spewing out water. Everyone was caught completely off-guard. Nobody had expected anything like it.
We today are used to having our weather app or weather channel tell us where and when some storm will hit. But that’s not the way things have usually worked out in history, especially in ancient Israel.
For instance, on the Sea of Galilee, a violent storm could rise up out of nowhere almost instantaneously. We have an instance of this occurring as recorded in the Gospels. Jesus was called upon to calm the storm while he and the disciples were out fishing.
The winds coming down off the mountain ranges could create just the right conditions for a storm to pop up and tear your boat apart. If you were out fishing, you may not have time to get back to shore. You would likely be in grave danger.
There are also things called wadis that are quite common in Israel. Wadis are little dried-up riverbeds that fill up with water incredibly fast when the rain comes down. Many of these wadis can fill up so quickly and the waters can become so furious that they end up sweeping people away. The water starts in the high altitudes and then rushes down from the mountain into these riverbeds. They can amass so much water that, if you are down in the wadi, you likely will not have enough time to get out. You can get caught in a little tsunami of water. As a matter of fact, today they have installed sirens in a lot of these wadis to warn people of the danger. If it starts to rain up in the mountain area, a siren will blare down in the wadi below in order to signal that a flood is imminent.
Obviously, you don’t build a house in a wadi. But I’m merely passing on the idea of a storm and how there’s not much you can do to anticipate it. It usually hits without a lot of warning.
And I simply want to offer this reminder regarding the coming of Christ. When he comes, it will likely be when you least expect it. One moment you will be going along happily, the next moment you will see the sky crack open and reveal the Lord of Heaven. The flashes of lightning and peals of divine thunder will come without warning and strike you as a great surprise.
This is why the Scripture sets for so many warnings. It repeatedly tells us to prepare now and get lives in order. We must be sure that we get right with God and seek to align ourselves with his Word. For Christ will come, but it will be sudden. It will be like a storm that rises out of nowhere, and you will not have time to do anything about it when it does come upon you. Time will be up and all will be decided.
That’s why Jesus ends this sermon the way he does. He wants you to take this moment and ensure that you are not lost when this world meets its end.
You can meet that day with great awe, or you can meet it with the shivering terror that comes with an awful suprise.
This brings us to the next point. While we can talk about the judgment as being unexpected, we should see that it is also overwhelming, at least for some people.
II. It is overwhelming
Look at verses 26-27. They say, “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. 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.”
What you have here is an increasing amount of tension and power. The rain fell. The flood came. The winds beat on the house. The amount of pressure builds all through this sentence. It’s almost as if you see the boards of the house starting to bend and creak as the force mounts. Then, all of a sudden, the supports give way. The house forfeits because it cannot stand the incessant berating any longer.
You notice that the house didn’t just collapse. It didn’t just fall in. Jesus accentuates it and makes it sound downright catastrophic. “Great was the fall of it.”
His language is kind of like an instant replay. First you see it fall, but then you play the video again, this time in slow-motion. As it advances slide by slide, you see with even greater perception how wildly devastating it was. It’s as if you can see the windows shattering. You are able to witness the beams splinter and columns buckle. You see how the roof lets loose, crushing the furniture and walls within, all the while being pushed downstream.
With just a few choice words, Jesus speaks of how severe His judgment will be. For those who are not giving proper obedience to his Word, the Day of Judgment is far beyond what they can bear.
This parallels what we’ve witnessed in the last several passages we’ve looked at. A few weeks ago, we saw that there was a broad road and a narrow road. The broad road led to destruction. That was something of a cataclysmic ending. Then we talked about the courtroom scene, and we heard Jesus say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” There was something horrid in that statement. Those were words that would be devastating because they were completely unexpected.
And here you find that those who are not practicing the principles which have been laid out meet a similar fate. It’s a picture of them being overwhelmed by God. There’s no possibility that they are able to stand and endure because the power of his wrath is just so intense. They are swept away and they find themselves being thrashed, battered, and bruised.
So once again we find the reality of hell reiterated. It’s interesting that so many people will either deny the reality of hell or try to fudge the real severity of it. But Jesus, in his Magnum Opus, lays down with repeated clarity the fundamental realities concerning it.
And we should, by this point, not think that this judgment is anything to take lightly or push aside. It demands our attention. We must live in light of it. We must take it seriously and recognize the immensity of it.
To be sure, there will come a day when Jesus judges the world, and there will be people who find themselves overwhelmed by it.
We may now consider the third point regarding to this judgment. It may be unexpected and overwhelming, but we can also say that it is justified.
III. It is justified
That is to say, there are people who justly deserve this judgment.
In our passage, you’ll notice that Jesus sets up a contrast. He does this in order to illustrate one more time just how fitting this judgment is. Even though it may come as a shock to the people who are judged, we recognize by virtue of this contrast that it isn’t out of line.
So Jesus draws a distinction between the man who is wise and the man who is a fool. The two men are similar in some respects. Both men hear the Word of God, and they hear it well. The Greek word in both cases is the word akouo, which means to listen to and to consider. In other words, they willingly listen to Jesus and understand what he says. They both agree to sit in and be part of the audience. What’s more, they are by no means ignorant of what he is trying to communicate.
They differ, however, in how they react to the Word. The wise man doesn’t just like to listen; he listens to the word and then, as verse 24 says, he seeks to do it. He tries to translate that Word into some sort of life application. In other words, he bases his life and his life decisions upon what he has heard Jesus say.
The foolish man, by contrast, doesn’t go that far. In verse 26, we are told that he listens, but he does not do it. This is why he comes into judgment. As I mentioned, it is not because he doesn’t understand it. He is not judged because he didn’t have some sort of comprehension. It is not as if he failed a test that a teacher gave to him. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fill in the right bubble on the multiple-choice.
His failure was, in some respects, in his sloth. It was in his negligence. He did not live out the Word. It was not enough for him to listen. He also needed to obey. And since he did not obey that Word, he was in violation of it. His lack of conformity to the will of God means that he is guilty of transgressing that Word.
You will recognize that there was something good about his life. He listened to the Word. That’s certainly more than many other people would do. He may even be considered a connoisseur of sermons. When the church bells ring, he’s right there in attendance.
But you must recognize that this was not enough. Even though he advanced farther than many people and had a regular pew that he could call his own, he falls woefully short of what is demanded of him. He may be all ears, but that is his fault. He’s all ears, but no heart, no feet.
And this is why he meets the fate that he does. The storm comes and he meets his doom because he does not have the makings of a real disciple.
The foolish man represents the hypocrite. He is someone who the Puritans would call a false professor. He professes to be a Christian, but in reality, he is not. A true Christian is someone who doesn’t just profess to be a Christian; he seeks to act like it. And since his pattern of living does not consist of any kind of devotion to Christ and his Word, the floods come down upon him in all their raging fury. He is justly judged.
This leads us to our last and final point regarding this judgment. We have seen that it is a judgment that is unexpected and overwhelming. We have seen that it is justified because of his folly. But let us also recognize that this judgment is avoidable.
IV. It is avoidable
The wise man is set forth as the model that we should emulate. What we find is that the storms come and the rains batter his house, but it does not fall.
And so, the wise man is presented as one who will not be condemned in the Day of Judgment. And we are to learn that if we act like him by living out the Word of God and putting into practice the things that Christ has taught, then we too will not be judged. We will avoid the pain and agony that will inevitably fall upon the foolish man.
As a matter of fact, that is what the rest of Scriptures says. When the Day of Judgment comes, the man whose life has been transformed by the truth of God is openly acquitted of all charges. It isn’t because he is without sin, but because Christ has obviously been his Savior. He has evidence of his belief in Christ. There are all the telltale signs that he has been saved from sin. His life has been changed and he has sought to devote himself to Christ.
It may even be that this passage shows that he has been tested. The storms here may be more than merely God’s judgment. It may be that these were trials God had put him through. They were difficulties and challenges that he faced during his life. When he lost his job, he did not curse God. Rather he sought to obey the Word of God and, as a result, trusted that God would provide.
When he was offended by his fellow brother in the Lord, he didn’t let loose in regard to his anger. He sought to work things out, forgive, and maintain an agreeable spirit.
You might say that in the “storms of life,” he sought to devote himself to a godly pattern of living. This evidences the fact that his faith was genuine, and therefore, when he came to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, he did not meet with the same fate.
Because of this, the wise man is set forth as the one whom we are to follow. He is the ideal that we are to pattern our own lives after. And we are given the assurance that, if we do seek to practice what is preached, there will not be anything to fear on the day when Christ comes again.
“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.”
Throughout our series on the Sermon on the Mount, we’ve seen that the theme that Jesus has been working with is that of righteousness. Specifically speaking, he has been dealing with the righteousness of God’s kingdom.
Thus, he’s shown that a kingdom man is a righteous man. That was laid out at the very beginning in the Beatitudes. Then we saw that he stated his theme. He said that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees, and we fleshed that out in several way by looking at specific commands of Old Testament Scripture such as anger, oath keeping, the sanctity of marriage, proper attitudes in giving, etc.
In the last couple of sermons, we’ve noted that the kingdom of God will require a righteous judgment. We said that there were two roads with two very different destinations, one of which was hell and the other heaven.
Then we looked at the next passage and entered the very courtroom of Christ and observed some of the proceedings. We heard the deafening words: “Depart from me, I never knew you.” And finally, we understood that whoever does the will of the Father will enter the kingdom and escape judgment.
Today we have one last image. There is one last hurrah that Jesus gives regarding his righteousness. It’s one last proclamation of the righteous judgment of God, and it is presented as a storm.
So today, we are preparing for a storm. We are preparing for the storm of God’s judgment. And to rightly prepare, we need to note the four things Jesus says about this storm.
I. It is unexpected
The idea of a storm in the Bible is typically indicative of something that is unpredictable. It comes on suddenly and does not come with a lot of prior warning.
The most common illustration of this is that of Noah’s flood. One day the rain just started coming down and the ground broke open and started spewing out water. Everyone was caught completely off-guard. Nobody had expected anything like it.
We today are used to having our weather app or weather channel tell us where and when some storm will hit. But that’s not the way things have usually worked out in history, especially in ancient Israel.
For instance, on the Sea of Galilee, a violent storm could rise up out of nowhere almost instantaneously. We have an instance of this occurring as recorded in the Gospels. Jesus was called upon to calm the storm while he and the disciples were out fishing.
The winds coming down off the mountain ranges could create just the right conditions for a storm to pop up and tear your boat apart. If you were out fishing, you may not have time to get back to shore. You would likely be in grave danger.
There are also things called wadis that are quite common in Israel. Wadis are little dried-up riverbeds that fill up with water incredibly fast when the rain comes down. Many of these wadis can fill up so quickly and the waters can become so furious that they end up sweeping people away. The water starts in the high altitudes and then rushes down from the mountain into these riverbeds. They can amass so much water that, if you are down in the wadi, you likely will not have enough time to get out. You can get caught in a little tsunami of water. As a matter of fact, today they have installed sirens in a lot of these wadis to warn people of the danger. If it starts to rain up in the mountain area, a siren will blare down in the wadi below in order to signal that a flood is imminent.
Obviously, you don’t build a house in a wadi. But I’m merely passing on the idea of a storm and how there’s not much you can do to anticipate it. It usually hits without a lot of warning.
And I simply want to offer this reminder regarding the coming of Christ. When he comes, it will likely be when you least expect it. One moment you will be going along happily, the next moment you will see the sky crack open and reveal the Lord of Heaven. The flashes of lightning and peals of divine thunder will come without warning and strike you as a great surprise.
This is why the Scripture sets for so many warnings. It repeatedly tells us to prepare now and get lives in order. We must be sure that we get right with God and seek to align ourselves with his Word. For Christ will come, but it will be sudden. It will be like a storm that rises out of nowhere, and you will not have time to do anything about it when it does come upon you. Time will be up and all will be decided.
That’s why Jesus ends this sermon the way he does. He wants you to take this moment and ensure that you are not lost when this world meets its end.
You can meet that day with great awe, or you can meet it with the shivering terror that comes with an awful suprise.
This brings us to the next point. While we can talk about the judgment as being unexpected, we should see that it is also overwhelming, at least for some people.
II. It is overwhelming
Look at verses 26-27. They say, “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. 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.”
What you have here is an increasing amount of tension and power. The rain fell. The flood came. The winds beat on the house. The amount of pressure builds all through this sentence. It’s almost as if you see the boards of the house starting to bend and creak as the force mounts. Then, all of a sudden, the supports give way. The house forfeits because it cannot stand the incessant berating any longer.
You notice that the house didn’t just collapse. It didn’t just fall in. Jesus accentuates it and makes it sound downright catastrophic. “Great was the fall of it.”
His language is kind of like an instant replay. First you see it fall, but then you play the video again, this time in slow-motion. As it advances slide by slide, you see with even greater perception how wildly devastating it was. It’s as if you can see the windows shattering. You are able to witness the beams splinter and columns buckle. You see how the roof lets loose, crushing the furniture and walls within, all the while being pushed downstream.
With just a few choice words, Jesus speaks of how severe His judgment will be. For those who are not giving proper obedience to his Word, the Day of Judgment is far beyond what they can bear.
This parallels what we’ve witnessed in the last several passages we’ve looked at. A few weeks ago, we saw that there was a broad road and a narrow road. The broad road led to destruction. That was something of a cataclysmic ending. Then we talked about the courtroom scene, and we heard Jesus say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” There was something horrid in that statement. Those were words that would be devastating because they were completely unexpected.
And here you find that those who are not practicing the principles which have been laid out meet a similar fate. It’s a picture of them being overwhelmed by God. There’s no possibility that they are able to stand and endure because the power of his wrath is just so intense. They are swept away and they find themselves being thrashed, battered, and bruised.
So once again we find the reality of hell reiterated. It’s interesting that so many people will either deny the reality of hell or try to fudge the real severity of it. But Jesus, in his Magnum Opus, lays down with repeated clarity the fundamental realities concerning it.
And we should, by this point, not think that this judgment is anything to take lightly or push aside. It demands our attention. We must live in light of it. We must take it seriously and recognize the immensity of it.
To be sure, there will come a day when Jesus judges the world, and there will be people who find themselves overwhelmed by it.
We may now consider the third point regarding to this judgment. It may be unexpected and overwhelming, but we can also say that it is justified.
III. It is justified
That is to say, there are people who justly deserve this judgment.
In our passage, you’ll notice that Jesus sets up a contrast. He does this in order to illustrate one more time just how fitting this judgment is. Even though it may come as a shock to the people who are judged, we recognize by virtue of this contrast that it isn’t out of line.
So Jesus draws a distinction between the man who is wise and the man who is a fool. The two men are similar in some respects. Both men hear the Word of God, and they hear it well. The Greek word in both cases is the word akouo, which means to listen to and to consider. In other words, they willingly listen to Jesus and understand what he says. They both agree to sit in and be part of the audience. What’s more, they are by no means ignorant of what he is trying to communicate.
They differ, however, in how they react to the Word. The wise man doesn’t just like to listen; he listens to the word and then, as verse 24 says, he seeks to do it. He tries to translate that Word into some sort of life application. In other words, he bases his life and his life decisions upon what he has heard Jesus say.
The foolish man, by contrast, doesn’t go that far. In verse 26, we are told that he listens, but he does not do it. This is why he comes into judgment. As I mentioned, it is not because he doesn’t understand it. He is not judged because he didn’t have some sort of comprehension. It is not as if he failed a test that a teacher gave to him. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fill in the right bubble on the multiple-choice.
His failure was, in some respects, in his sloth. It was in his negligence. He did not live out the Word. It was not enough for him to listen. He also needed to obey. And since he did not obey that Word, he was in violation of it. His lack of conformity to the will of God means that he is guilty of transgressing that Word.
You will recognize that there was something good about his life. He listened to the Word. That’s certainly more than many other people would do. He may even be considered a connoisseur of sermons. When the church bells ring, he’s right there in attendance.
But you must recognize that this was not enough. Even though he advanced farther than many people and had a regular pew that he could call his own, he falls woefully short of what is demanded of him. He may be all ears, but that is his fault. He’s all ears, but no heart, no feet.
And this is why he meets the fate that he does. The storm comes and he meets his doom because he does not have the makings of a real disciple.
The foolish man represents the hypocrite. He is someone who the Puritans would call a false professor. He professes to be a Christian, but in reality, he is not. A true Christian is someone who doesn’t just profess to be a Christian; he seeks to act like it. And since his pattern of living does not consist of any kind of devotion to Christ and his Word, the floods come down upon him in all their raging fury. He is justly judged.
This leads us to our last and final point regarding this judgment. We have seen that it is a judgment that is unexpected and overwhelming. We have seen that it is justified because of his folly. But let us also recognize that this judgment is avoidable.
IV. It is avoidable
The wise man is set forth as the model that we should emulate. What we find is that the storms come and the rains batter his house, but it does not fall.
And so, the wise man is presented as one who will not be condemned in the Day of Judgment. And we are to learn that if we act like him by living out the Word of God and putting into practice the things that Christ has taught, then we too will not be judged. We will avoid the pain and agony that will inevitably fall upon the foolish man.
As a matter of fact, that is what the rest of Scriptures says. When the Day of Judgment comes, the man whose life has been transformed by the truth of God is openly acquitted of all charges. It isn’t because he is without sin, but because Christ has obviously been his Savior. He has evidence of his belief in Christ. There are all the telltale signs that he has been saved from sin. His life has been changed and he has sought to devote himself to Christ.
It may even be that this passage shows that he has been tested. The storms here may be more than merely God’s judgment. It may be that these were trials God had put him through. They were difficulties and challenges that he faced during his life. When he lost his job, he did not curse God. Rather he sought to obey the Word of God and, as a result, trusted that God would provide.
When he was offended by his fellow brother in the Lord, he didn’t let loose in regard to his anger. He sought to work things out, forgive, and maintain an agreeable spirit.
You might say that in the “storms of life,” he sought to devote himself to a godly pattern of living. This evidences the fact that his faith was genuine, and therefore, when he came to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, he did not meet with the same fate.
Because of this, the wise man is set forth as the one whom we are to follow. He is the ideal that we are to pattern our own lives after. And we are given the assurance that, if we do seek to practice what is preached, there will not be anything to fear on the day when Christ comes again.