Are you ultimately and eternally wise according to Jesus? Find out!
Hi welcome to today’s little lesson. Yet another special Lake Erie edition here in Ohio. So glad that you’ve joined me. If you’re a regular viewer you know that we’re working our way through the sermon on the mount and we’re getting close to the end.
Jesus is giving us some summarizing statements one of which is a very clear warning against false prophets and teachers. He said you’ll know them by their fruits even if they’re working miracles. If they’re lawless, you don’t wanna follow them. They’re going to be like the bad tree that doesn’t have any good fruit and is cut down and thrown into the fire. Jesus has said that actually twice now because he said I’m going to say to many on that day depart from me you who practice lawlessness.
Holiness in spite of what so many people say is a part of the salvation equation. It’s not a means to salvation. It’s a result of true salvation. We’re not talking about salvation by works. We’re talking about salvation that works. Because James said faith without works is dead. Okay.
Jesus is going to reiterate that message one more time because it’s so important as he winds this sermon down and he makes another comparison between the ultimate wise person and the ultimate fool. And you can be wise, worldly wise and it can benefit you. But you can be worldly wise and spiritually stupid. Spiritually foolish if you’re of course not focused on eternity.
Because we’re all heading that direction. Right? Take a look in the mirror. God loves you and that’s why he’s helping you to slowly realize that you’re gonna die one day every time you look in the mirror you’re getting a little bit older. That’s a message from the Lord. And as the Psalm has said, Lord teach me or teach us to number our days that we might present to you a heart of wisdom.
So Jesus says now in verse number 24, Matthew chapter 7, therefore everyone who hears these words of mine. What words? Well the sermon of the mount to start and of course everything that Jesus says. If they hear the words of Jesus and not just hear them but act on them or one translation says does them. Obeys them. Maybe compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house and yet it did not fall for it had been founded on the rock.
You know, this little passage description about the wise man building on the rock and so forth I’ve heard sermon’s where this passage it utilized as an administration to apply biblical principals so that when the winds and the storms and the trials of life come that you can still stand. And usually the biblical wisdom that they’re talking about is one of their prosperity principles or something like that. And that’s not what Jesus is saying here. That’s not what Jesus is saying here at all.
He’s not talking about the storms of life and the little trials, the winds and the storms that come our way in life. He’s talking about ultimate salvation or damnation. The house that stands is the house that keeps standing eternally and the house that falls is the house that doesn’t go off into eternity that is destroyed. Cause he had just warned about life verses destruction in the verses ahead of this.
So the contrast of that is everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act upon them or does not do them he’ll be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell the floods came the winds blew and slammed against that house and it fell and great was it’s fall.
So Jesus is not just giving little practical tips on leading a successful life here during the storms and trials of life. He’s talking about salvation. Will you live forever or will you face destruction?
Will your house keep standing when the wrath of God falls? Or will it stand? Will you have enteral life or eternal death and destruction?
I think it’s pretty clear which of those two people we outta be striving to be like. And it’s very simple. How you build your house on the rock by hearing and obeying the words of Jesus.
Kind of a neat illustration cause I’m sitting right here on the beach. And in fact this beach right behind me I used to come up to this beach when I was a kid. And I’m telling you what, this beach was much wider than what it is now. You can see all these little concrete blocks that the residents along here have paid to put in to try to preserve their beach from being washed away. And it hasn’t really worked all that well. And this beach used to come all the way out there. It’s not because it’s high tide. This is Lake Erie. Tides don’t effect lakes but just a couple of centimeters right? Okay.
So anyone who built their house back there would have been sorry at this point in time because it would’ve been washed away and destroyed. Good illustration Jesus. Way to go. Okay.
And people living in Jesus day who had any association with the floods and the rains. He’s not even talking about the ocean or a lake even. Just flooding in general can wash away anything when it’s built on the sand.
Alright so let me encourage you build your house on the rock by obeying what Jesus said to do. When Jesus had finished these words, Matthew writes the crowds were amazed at his teaching. Now why were they amazed? Matthew tells us for, because, in verse number 29, he was teaching them as one having authority. And not as their scribes.
Now, I’m gonna close with this one little observation as we finish this sermon on the mount in today’s episode. I don’t think that what Matthew is saying there is that the scribes were not teaching as one’s having authority. No they were claiming to have authority. They were the teachers. They were the leaders. They were saying listen to us. Do what we say. They were the instruction givers. So they were pretending.
But they were the wolves in sheep’s clothing that Jesus was warning his followers about. They were the ones building their house on the sand. They were the ones who maybe even had some casting out of demons and some prophecy going on. But their lies were characterized by lawlessness.
But still they were claiming to be sitting in the seat of Moses and disseminating the truth to the people of Israel. So I think what Jesus is saying is, Jesus was first of all he was teaching as one having authority in contradicting what the scribes and Pharisees were saying and not as their scribes. That is contradicting. Authoritatively contradicting what the scribes and Pharisees were teaching.
And I think if you missed that in this sermon, if you don’t see that that’s really what this sermon is all about, a correction, a contradiction, an authoritative contradiction of the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees you’re missing out a lot. You’re liable to wind up believing a false premise for example that Jesus was radically changing morality and this was a radical, something that people had never heard before.
Yet as I’ve pointed out over and over again, everything Jesus talked about, every moral principle, you can find it in the Law of Moses. And you can find it in your own conscious if you just listen. Okay.
So that’s what was going on in the Sermon on the Mount.
Hey thank you so much for joining me on this little lesson on Lake Erie. Hope to see you next time. God bless.
