Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 200th episode. In this episode we are going to continue our study of Matthew’s gospel. We are in chapter 7. So far we’ve covered Christ’s teachings on judging others, on action-oriented prayers, and on the golden rule. Today we’re going to finish chapter 7 by studying His prescription given for testing the authenticity of a Christian. We’ll also discuss the fate of deceitful people who claim the mantle of godliness while not actually following Christ. I also want to unpack what it means to build your life on the secure foundation of Christ’s commandments. And then at the end of this episode we’ll talk briefly about the authority of Jesus as our divine Teacher. Let’s begin by reading verses 15-20:
Mat 7:15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
Mat 7:16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
Mat 7:17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
Mat 7:18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
Mat 7:19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Mat 7:20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits.
Here we read Christ’s warning against false prophets and false teachers. This warning includes false teachers because an integral part of the prophet’s role was teaching the listener how to act in response to a given prophecy. Depending on your theological tradition in regards to the apostolic gift of prophecy, a cessationist like myself would say all modern-day prophets are false prophets because there are no more prophets after the fashion of the biblical prophets. So I constrain our interpretation of this passage to false teachers and false Christians. If we had lived during the apostolic age then this test would be relevant for identifying false prophets as well.
I’ve learned to include false Christians in this passage because of scripture found in John 15 as well as Galatians 5 supporting the idea that a Christian cannot bear good fruit apart from his or her abiding in Jesus. I do not believe a person can develop the fruit of the Spirit without being submitted to Jesus — regardless of what they say they think they believe about the world. So if a person’s character demonstrates the fruit of the Spirit, they must be submitted to Christ even if they’re intellectually or verbally confused about such submission. The reason Jesus points to the fruit as a metric for testing authenticity is precisely because totally depraved humanity cannot source these qualities in themselves.
A good teacher is one who teaches biblically sound doctrine given by the word of God. Such doctrine has the power to heal souls. The teacher himself isn’t healing the soul, but the Holy Spirit through the scriptures is healing the soul. Reading and understanding the Bible makes you wise and restores your soul. In contradistinction to a good teacher, a false teacher preaches deceptions which poison the soul and make you spiritually sick. These are the ideologues you see proselytizing low-resolution understandings of global issues in order to inspire activism.
These parasitic ideologies have a way of latching on to the untrained mind and controlling it. The narrative gets inside the mind and supplants a person’s desire to use reason. It’s why you see so many young people inspired to protest about something like climate change even though they don’t know anything about climate change nor have they developed any solutions for climate change. They’re merely possessed by the idea of climate change and the idea of protesting. They do it because it feels meaningful and purposeful.
A false teacher is also someone who teaches his or her own ideas and imbues them with divine authority. This is what it means to take the Lord’s name in vain. Imagine a preacher who has a bias against the consumption of alcohol because of negative personal experience with alcoholics. Driven by his bias, he teaches people that not only is drunkenness sinful, but consuming any alcohol at all is sinful. He twists the scriptures in an effort to support this doctrine. This would be an example of a false teacher who is taking the Lord’s name in vain.
Many times we think of false teachers as cultural influencers who are seeking to lead people away from Jesus. These are indeed false teachers, but sometimes the most dangerous false teachers reside inside the Church itself. When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he used the scriptures to do so. It’s often easier to dismiss new-age spiritual types whose influence never extends beyond a flavor-of-the-month New York Times bestseller than it is to dismiss someone who purports to teach the word of God. This is because many Christians accept the word of God as true by faith. Their ready acceptance of the scripture can weaken their discernment in filtering out a false teacher who seems like he or she is well-versed.
If that’s not dangerous enough, there are also epistemological presuppositions which are very destructive to a person’s discernment. One example is the false idea that all truth is subjective. If it’s true for me then it doesn’t matter if it’s objectively false, and wielding objective reality to invalidate my experience makes you an oppressive bigot. Accepting this single presupposition alone is enough to ruin your ability to discern truth from falsehood. This is why when debating a false teacher it’s incredibly important that you’re careful not to accept any of their false premises before the debate begins. You can’t argue for truth if you’re starting from the grounds of falsehood.
There have always been false teachers and until Christ returns there will always be false teachers. Having said that, there are certain times during which false teachers are more prevalent. Times of theological reformation are one such example. Throughout history humanity has corrupted the Church and when this happens the Church eventually reforms in order to regain stable theological footing. These kinds of inflection points attract false teachers because there is a lot of uncertainty about what to believe. Uncertainty often includes weak institutions for sense-making and therefore vulnerability to false teachers.
Once you spot a false teacher you should avoid them and have nothing to do with them. This is because unlike lost sinners, these teachers are more aware of what they’re doing and consequently are more wicked. Deception is one of the most dangerous phenomena when it comes to your relationship with God, and false teachers deal in deception. Jesus calls them wolves in sheep’s clothing.
The serpent is the canonical archetype of the deceiver, and that’s because he sold a narrative to Adam and Eve which sounded more appealing than it was. Eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil meant death for humanity — but not only did the serpent lie and tell them they wouldn’t die — he also told them if they ate it they would be like God. Being like God is eminently desirable and it’s actually the project we’re called to engage in as we become like Christ. The distinction which makes up the Satanic deception is the difference between following Jesus and becoming gods ourselves. Satan sold the lie to Adam and Eve that they could be gods, and this lie ushered in the fall of man.
As a rule you should consider deceptions as tempting. No one would be deceived if there was no incentive to be deceived. A deceiver being a wolf in sheep’s clothing means they may appear innocent, harmless, meek, useful, and even compassionate. The chief reason why so many in our own generation become trapped in the Leftist Neo-Marxist deception is because it disguises itself in compassion. If you resist the narrative you’re labeled insensitive or racist. Those who push the narrative wear masks of compassion when what they’re really after is power redistribution in an effort to gain more for themselves. It really is the same quote “compassionate” ideology which put innocent people in gulags in the early 20th century.
In 2 Corinthians 11 Paul points out how false teachers are disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. He goes on to say it’s no surprise since Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. Jesus said we can know them by their fruits, and Paul concurs by saying these false teachers will be found out by their deeds. False teachers are often seductive in language, using smooth words and pleasant ideas to hide their transgressions. Black Lives Matter is a good example of this. No morally well-adjusted person would want to resist the actual idea that black people’s lives matter. So an organization promoting deception and wickedness gives itself this name in an effort to indict anyone who disagrees with the substance of their doctrines.
I think you can make the case that all false teachers serve the purpose of killing, stealing, and destroying that which is good. It is the opposite mission of the Christian who is called by Jesus to be salt and light. Salt to preserve that which is good and light to guide the world. The Christian aims bend the world toward heaven and advance the kingdom of God. The false teacher aims to oppose this and they’re often motivated by their own appetites or their own self-gain. I think all of this is true even if the false teacher doesn’t realize it.
To be a deceiver means to conduct yourself after the manner of Satan who scripture calls the father of lies. Satan’s purpose is to kill, steal, and destroy — so if you’re modeling your work after his work then it’s likely to import the same purpose. A deceiver seeks to drive people away from God and away from each other. This is why cults will work to sever your outside relationships. This is why authoritarians utilize propaganda and censorship to silo their populations into bubbles of bad information. A person is much more vulnerable to swallowing lies if they’re cutoff from godly community and if they’re obscured from the light of truth.
Fortunately we have powerful tools we can use to resist falling into deception, and our tools are more potent than any lies which may confront us. Scripture encourages us to test everything and hold fast to what is good. We are admonished to use discernment in trying to understand whether a spirit is from God. I want to illustrate an example to explain the testing of spirits because I don’t want this principle to become unnecessarily ethereal.
Imagine you land a job interview for a position you’re not exactly qualified to fill. At the interview you distort the truth and make yourself look more experienced than you are. You get hired and everything works out. You learn what you needed to know on-the-job and the lies you told at the interview are never discovered. From this success you may be tempted to infer that lying is both acceptable and beneficial under circumstances which you deem appropriate. Allowing the specific success of lying at your job interview to introduce you to the concept of lying under appropriate circumstances is what it means to adopt a spirit of lying. Testing the spirits means consulting the scriptures to understand a spirit of lying does not come from God. Once you know it doesn’t come from God, you can wholesale reject it even if it seems opportunistically beneficial.
Part of testing everything and holding fast to what is good is going to involve using the fruit of a person’s life to discern in which direction they’re aiming. Using the fruit of a person’s life to determine their aim is not the same thing as a works-based salvation. A works-based salvation would be one in which your good deeds could justify your entry into Heaven on your own righteousness. In this passage Jesus is saying a bad tree — or a person who is not following Him — cannot bear good fruit. He’s also saying that good fruit is a reliable indicator of a good tree — or that a person is following Him. So it’s not that a person’s good deeds save them, rather it’s that their good deeds are signals that they are submitted to Jesus (and this submission to Jesus is what saves them).
The fruit of a person’s life reveals their allegiance to God as reliably as the fruit of a tree reveals what kind of tree is bearing it. A person devoid of the Holy Ghost is a person who sins in word, thought, and deed. This is a person who is given over to evil. They work destruction because destruction is inside of them. Out of an evil treasure will be brought forth evil things. A good tree bearing good fruit is a person who works good deeds plentifully. Their conversations are seasoned with truth and godliness. The bent of their actions work towards a Christlike life. When good fruit comes from within a person this is evidence that the Holy Ghost resides within them.
John the Baptist said every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is chopped down and thrown in to the fire. Jesus used this same language. It’s important to note how Christ wasn’t afraid of repeating words first used by John. I think one of the temptations which ministers face is the pressure to say new or novel things. They might feel like they’re just copying those who came before them if they aren’t ambitious to coin new expressions or discover new ideas. A good rule for a minister or for any Christian is to refrain from undermining a tradition until you first understand the tradition and why it’s in place. There is theological safety in standing on the shoulders of faithful men and women who came before you.
When Jesus says you can tell them by their fruit, He’s indicating it’s possible for a person to say all the right things while having a wicked heart. The scribes and Pharisees occupied the position of Moses insofar as they taught the law. It didn’t matter that they were teachers of the law because the fruit of their lives was bad. They were proud, covetous, deceptive, and oppressive. This bad fruit revealed them as false teachers and therefore Christ warned His disciples to beware the leaven of the Pharisees. Pharisees were false teachers because the wickedness within them crept in to their teaching and corrupted what they taught.
A common cause of false teaching or of false Christians in our generation is hedonism. Hedonism means you are guided by the lusts of your flesh. Your highest motive in life is your own personal satisfaction — whatever you need to do to get it. It’s not possible to follow Jesus if you count your own satisfaction as more important than following Jesus. I want to be careful here. As your own sanctification progresses there will begin to be some overlap between your satisfaction and God’s will. A mature Christian feels a tremendous sense of satisfaction when a sinner repents and turns to Christ. These pleasures are not hedonic pleasures, they are godly pleasures.
Hedonic pleasures are those which cause you to discount the desires of God in pursuit of some other worldly good. Money and sex are chief offenders here. But I think what subsumes even money and sex is power. The lust for power is the most satanic of all desires and the pride which follows it is a terrible sin. None of this is to say a genuine Christian or a good teachers becomes sinless. As a follower of Christ you must always remember that your spiritual leaders are merely human beings just like you. God puts His treasure in earthen vessels which means imperfect and fragile vessels. But He does not put His treasure in corrupt vessels prepared for destruction.
Another valuable testing strategy is to examine the fruit of a person’s doctrine — including your own doctrine. If a teacher’s interpretation of scripture prevents him from adopting Christlike traits like humility, piety, charity, holiness, and love then you can reasonably suspect his doctrine is false. This test is very useful when plotting your own progress as a Christian. If the way you understand the Bible is foreclosing on your desire to reach the lost or love your neighbor, then it’s probable your understanding of the Bible is wrong. If your doctrine about God causes you to feel betrayed by Him when tragedy strikes, then it’s probable your doctrine about God is wrong. If you love Jesus but dislike or discount the scriptures, then it’s probable your doctrine about Jesus is wrong.
Antinomianism is an example of a consequence of bad doctrine concerning the sovereignty of God. Antinomianism is the sentiment that since God is in control of everything therefore we don’t need to do anything. This is bad doctrine because it doesn’t take the sovereignty of God seriously enough. We work to advance the kingdom of God because He commanded us to do so. If your position is that you can just float through life because God is in control then you’re ignoring the parts where He commanded you to present yourself as a living sacrifice for the kingdom of God.
The prosperity gospel is another example of the manifestation of bad doctrine. Televangelists were the worst offenders when it came to preaching a prosperity gospel. The basic idea is that if you send the preacher money, God will bless you in return and multiply your own money. This false gospel is a function of twisting the scriptures which teach about the tithe. The Bible teaches that we are to present our first-fruits in the form of a tithe to God, and that we can test God in this practice and see that He will bless us. But it was never about multiplying your own money in some kind of divine transaction. The tithe is about setting your heart right before God and resisting the temptation to serve money as your master. Maybe the blessing returns to you in the form of material providence or maybe it comes in the form of spiritual restoration.
You might also be tempted to set up your own Christian kingdom here on earth. This would be the consequence of bad doctrine. God’s kingdom is within you, and it will not be finally established on earth until Christ returns. This could happen in the form of building a megachurch for the sake of promoting your own vision for how people should live. If I care more about my church attendance and the expansion of my brand than I do about glorifying God and moving forward with the Great Commission, then it’s likely I’m trying to build my own Christian kingdom.
You see this happen with theocracies as well. Trying to force Christian values onto your neighbor through the state is an example of establishing your own kingdom. Christians do not convert by the sword and living in a Christian nation (while this may be an emergent benefit of good teaching) should always be subordinate to the project of advancing the kingdom of God through the hearts of those who hear the gospel.
Good doctrine can be thought of as wisdom from God. This is the kind of wisdom that leads you to conduct yourself well and take care of your family. Then if you work really hard you might be able to provide benefits for your community as well. When faith is held together with a clear conscience, this is the fruit which suggests you are following good doctrine. Good doctrine will lead you to glorify God, praise His name, and love Jesus with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Let’s continue our study by reading verses 21-29:
Mat 7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
Mat 7:22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
Mat 7:23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’
Mat 7:24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Mat 7:25 “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.
Mat 7:26 “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
Mat 7:27 “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”
Mat 7:28 When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching;
Mat 7:29 for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
These verses make up the conclusion of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. Remember the Sermon on the Mount is sometimes called the Constitution of Christianity. It reveals and explains the indispensable necessity of obedience to the commands of Christ. These concluding verses function to place a final fastener of certainty onto the value of the sermon. Jesus is leaving no room for ambiguity here, and He’s telling His disciples exactly what will happen to those who hear Him and those who don’t.
One of the dangers of pastoral ministry is how strongly it attracts those who seek affirmation from men. What easier way to feel praised than to preach to disciples who follow you wherever you go? But unlike human spiritual leaders, Jesus Christ did not come to preach for the affirmation of men. The kingdom of God consists not only of words, but of power. Any power outside of God is an illusion. Submission to the power of God is the application of the Sermon on the Mount. It is this submission that makes all of the professions of faith effectual.
Since Jesus is the source of the only true power, Jesus has the authority to prescribe the terms for life and death. He also has the authority to judge us according to these terms. Verses 21-23 of Matthew 7 are some of the most feared in all of scripture. Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
The target audience of these verses are false Christians who claim Jesus but who live according to their own desires — no matter how wicked those desires are. There have been many people who attend church regularly, say all the right things, and then in secret commit the most heinous of sins. These duplicitous people are correct in the things they say but not in the things they do. Jesus is Lord of all whether we choose to obey Him or not. Jesus knows and requires the heart of man, and so there is no amount of pretense which can stand in for substance.
Jesus is not diminishing the importance of calling on Him as Lord, but He’s highlighting the necessity to our spiritual health that we actually do the will of God. I don’t believe you can do the will of God without the power of the Spirit of God within you, so it’s not that these actions are originating in you. It’s just that if you’re not seeing an obedience to the will of God in your life, then you need to ask the question whether the Spirit of God is actually sanctifying you. And if He’s not, you need to pray that He does.
The will of God the Father is that we believe in Jesus, that we repent of our sins, that we live a holy life, and that we love one another. It is that simple although being simple doesn’t mean it isn’t challenging. In the narrative of Christ’s passion we see a moment where the Roman soldiers dress Him in scarlet robes, twist a crown of thorns upon His head, and give Him a scepter made from a reed. Then they mockingly bow to Him saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” while they beat Him and spit on Him. When we call Jesus Lord but reject His authority over our lives — we become like these soldiers. And I would just say that if you’re haunted by this prospect or if you’re afraid of becoming like these soldiers then that’s a good sign you are not like them and you are on the right track.
It’s interesting to note how the false Christian offers Jesus other things besides faith. In this passage they make a defense by saying they prophesied in His name, cast out demons in His name, and performed many miracles. A modern day analogue would be the person who rejects Jesus but attempts to earn their salvation through church attendance or charity. This passage is likely referring to the great day of judgment when all people will have the secrets of their hearts laid bare. Whatever hidden pretenses unrepentant sinners were depending on to assuage their guilt will be exposed.
These hidden pretenses are like rationalizations for sin. It’s okay that I commit adultery because my spouse doesn’t treat me well. Or maybe something like, I know I’m a violent drunk, but my life has been unfair and if God wouldn’t have hurt me then I wouldn’t be this way. Sometimes worst of all rationalizations is this one: I’m living in unrepentant sin and I know I’m about to do something evil, but it’s okay because I’m a Christian. People who have rejected Jesus will stand before Him in the day of judgment and make all manner of cases like these — but their efforts to prove self-righteousness will be in vain.
It’s probable the self-righteous are not approaching Jesus from a place of desperation in this moment. It’s not that they are begging to be saved and He’s rejecting them, it’s that they are attempting to overrule His judgment with their own. They would be approaching Jesus with a supreme hubris and making a claim that God is wrong and they are right. It’s the same spirit which possessed Cain when he rejected God. They’ll claim to be prophets without realizing Balaam, Caiaphas, and Saul did the same — all of whom were unrighteous. They prophesied in God’s name even though God did not send them. They did it for their own advantage.
Preachers in particular should heed the warning here. It’s possible to be a wicked man who is successful in ministry. You may even lead others to Christ without knowing Him yourself. A good principle to remember to protect yourself against this trap is that every sermon you preach is both for the congregation as well as for yourself. Both of you need to hear it and both of you can benefit from the Spirit of God moving through His word.
The wicked will claim they cast out devils in the name of Jesus and use these acts as a defense of their own righteousness. We can presume Judas Iscariot cast out demons in the name of Jesus as well, and yet he was a son of perdition and would go on to betray Jesus. One thing we have to keep in mind is that the world was quite different when Jesus walked the earth. Human nature was the same but the world was experiencing an entirely different age. This was an age when miraculous occurrence was more prevalent and was followed by the apostolic age where the apostles themselves could perform miracles. Jesus performed many miracles openly, and yet these displays of grandeur were not enough to prevent many people from turning away from Him regardless.
The wonderful works or miracles claimed by the false Christians were not a consequence of justifying faith. It was possible to do these things without loving God or obeying him. I don’t believe human beings can do miraculous things in the present age, I believe these gifts have ceased. But a proper illustration of wonderful works done by false Christians in today’s context might look like a talented worship leader. A leader who is exceptionally gifted in the art of music is able to lead many believers into the act of worship. This person can perform all of these efforts without ever being in submission to God. That is in part because God has given them their talent as a gift. A gift means the individual maintains possession of it. This is what the scripture means when it says the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet. The musical gift and the desire to practice are given by God, but the worship leader is able to abuse these if he or she chooses as a false Christian.
When it comes to being a Christian, grace and love will always be superior to miraculous gifts. This was true of the apostolic gifts and it’s true of human exceptionalism today. It’s better to be a loving, gracious Christian with no talents than it is to be a talented sinner void of grace and love. Miraculous works should always be done with the aim of glorifying God. We must guard ourselves to resist the temptation of becoming enamored with the miraculous works themselves. In my experience, no matter how mature you think you are, the temptation to overlook authenticity for talent never really goes away. But when we indulge this temptation the outcome is never what we think it will be and devastation is often the final result.
Notice how the false Christians in this passage boast not of one single act of piety or charity. The works which made up their defense were all meant to be impressive and not meant to show the love of God. One humble act of faithful obedience would have superseded all of the miraculous work in which they boasted. You’ll observe the underlying problem is the location of their confidence. If you trust God to save you, you will be saved. If you trust in anything else to save you, you will not be saved. This is because where you locate your trust and love actually determines everything else about you. A person whose deepest trust is in his own ability to teach and preach the word of God is a person who will be dominated by pride, worldliness, and sensuality. The wickedness of the human heart cannot be driven out except by the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God will not indwell you if you do not trust in Jesus.
This has been a cyclical problem for humanity since the dawn of time. Whether it’s the Tower of Babel, the immortal city of Rome, the Thousand Year Reich, or the U.S. Constitution, human beings have been investing supreme confidence in objects of their own creation all across the landscape of history. Generally what happens is a population will follow the biblical precepts of truth into prosperity and they will build a system predicated on these precepts. The system will work so well that they forget the precepts it was based on and instead begin to believe the power is in the system itself. Once they lose the precepts, they no longer know how to use the system, and then the system implodes.
Jesus Christ is both the Law-Giver and the Judge according to that law. In the day of judgment the defense of the false Christian will be overruled by the Judge. Jesus will solemnly declare that He does not know them, then He will command that these workers of iniquity depart from Him. Not only is it possible for a person to be well-educated in the things of God yet remain wicked, but the wickedness of this person will be accounted as more damnable than that of someone uninformed.
Also notice how Jesus tells the false Christians that He never knew them. This is an important line in upholding the theological doctrine of perseverance of the saints. The idea is once a person expresses saving faith and the Spirit of God indwells them, Jesus will not lose this person to the very end. You cannot lose your salvation. If you’re counted in the number of false Christians on the day of judgment then you never knew Jesus at all and you never had salvation. If you’re worried about this happening to you then almost certainly it won’t. Remember the false Christian is not characterized by fear of God and concern over salvation — they are characterized by arrogant self-righteousness and confidence.
One of the most common tropes you’ll hear from unrepentant sinners is that Jesus dined with sinners and He loves the lost. Both of these sentiments are true, but it’s the way in which they are used that makes them tropes. They are used to justify unrepentant sin as if Jesus doesn’t care whether or not you are sanctified. As if wickedness means nothing to God. That part is not true and its falsehood is demonstrated by Christ’s attitude toward sinners at his glorious return. Jesus first came to earth to call sinners toward Him, and Jesus will return to earth to drive sinners from Him.
Being made to depart from Christ is the very meaning of Hell. Being cut off from the source of life and love Himself is what makes up the foundation of the misery of the damned. There is no person of any profession who is self-righteous enough to escape this damnation. It is by Christ alone that we are saved. This should be an awakening consideration for all who call themselves Christians. If silver-tongued preachers who secretly embrace sin are not righteous enough to escape damnation then neither are we. An indispensable feature of calling on the name of Jesus for His salvation is inviting the Holy Ghost into our hearts to make us holy unto God.
After scaring us straight in verses 21-23, in typical Jesus-fashion He turns to offer us hope in verses 24-27. He says that those who hear His words and act on them are like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. Going to church every Sunday and hearing the word of God preached is not enough to live a blessed life. You also need to put the teachings into action. So He’s standing in front of a mixed multitude of people at this moment and His preaching is sorting those who hear and act from those who hear and fail to act.
Jesus is in the business of separating the righteous and the unrighteous, and He will do so one final time on the day of judgment. Our perverse culture is allergic to anything “divisive” and our influencers are always prattling on about “inclusion” — but the truth itself is divisive. By definition the truth is divisive because the truth is exclusionary. If something is not in alignment with the truth then it is excluded as false. Christ is still speaking today through His scripture and His word cuts to the quick, sorting truth from falsehood.
It’s a great blessing that we live in a world where there are any individuals at all who listen to and obey the word of God. Without these people it’s difficult to say how horrific life would become. I want to be careful because I don’t want to discount the value of hearing the word of God either. There’s nothing wrong with reading your Bible for 2 hours in the morning and then going on to have a difficult day where you don’t stick to it as much as you’d like to. None of us are perfect. We simply want to avoid becoming what Nietzsche referred to as “bloodless scholars” who are people interested in nothing but abstractions and never put the lessons into practice. They love the precepts for the sake of the precepts, rather than for what the precepts can accomplish in advancing the kingdom of God. I will admit I’ve been this person before, and I have to guard my heart to prevent becoming this person again.
Basic obedience to Jesus means abstaining from the sins He forbids and performing the duties He commands. An authentic Christian is one whose thoughts, affections, temperament, intellect, and rhythms of life are attuned to the will of God. The word of God is a lamp unto your feet which means it is useful as a guiding light as you actually walk forward in life. The scripture renews the mind, restores the heart, makes wise the simple, and informs our judgments. The person who believes in Jesus will hear the word of God and remember it, talk about it, repeat it, seek to understand it, and most importantly do it. Jesus is the word made flesh, and He says that whoever does the will of His Father who is in Heaven is His kindred.
When it comes to the word of God there are two different kinds of knowing. They are something like intellectual comprehension and holistic understanding. Holistic understanding can be thought of as having known the scriptures and then applied them, using the repeated experience of application to become practiced at the principle. Let me simplify it. The biblical precept that we should love our enemies is easy to comprehend, but it’s much, much harder to apply. Only once you’ve applied this precept repeatedly do you develop the patience and compassion necessary to have a holistic understanding of how to love your enemy. You can see how applying the word of God, allowing the word to become flesh in you, adds an entire different dimension to who you are as a Christian.
Hearing the word of God and refusing to do it does not leave you at status quo — it actually causes you to slide backwards. The person who disobeys Christ because they don’t know any better is counted less guilty than the person who listens to the scripture and then rejects it. It’s not enough to have a member of the clergy as your priest if you do not have the Lord as your God.
Jesus delineates between these two kinds of listeners by saying one is wise who built his house upon a rock and the other unwise who built his house upon the sand. He goes on to say that when the storms came, the wise man’s house remained standing because it was founded on the rock. The unwise man’s house faced a storm as well, but his house fell because it was founded on the sand. Jesus says great was its fall. An often overlooked part of being a Christian is the idea that how you act now will determine what kind of foundation you have into the future. So much of a person’s suffering can be traced back to a lack of preparation — or worse — poor decisions which undermined the security of their future.
As Christians we are in the business of eternity. Your sanctification, while resulting in benefits here in this life, is fundamentally oriented towards eternity. The Spirit of God is shaping you into who you will be in eternity. To understand and act on the scriptures is to make sure investment in your soul for the times to come. Life is confusing and many times it can be hard to discern which is the proper direction for your development.
How do you become the best version of yourself? How do you life your best life? When you become a Christian, part of the peace which goes beyond comprehension is resting in the knowledge that Jesus has already mapped this out for you. To become like Christ is to be the best version of yourself. Whatever path lays itself open to you as you embark on this journey is the path toward living your best life. This is what Mary understood when she sat at the feet of Jesus listening to His word while Martha busied herself with the chores of the day.
Each of us has a house to build and this construction makes up the story of our lives. This story does not end on earth with our deaths but it extends on into eternity. That’s why it’s so crucial to keep eternity in your consideration when building your house. The Sermon on the Mount is a great place to start in this consideration. In Christ it is possible to have a well-grounded hope of your everlasting future in Heaven. With faith, prayer, and meditation on the scripture this peace of mind is on offer to you. And I think you’ll find that viewing the present moment, with all its troubles, in light of eternity will cause you to view it radically different. You’ll solve problems differently, make decisions differently, and bear suffering differently. That’s because you’ll be doing all of it with the mind of Christ which is how it was meant to be done to begin with.
Jesus Christ is the rock upon which to build your house. He is the cornerstone of the foundation of our salvation. It is safe to rest your hopes and your trust in His righteousness, in His merit as being sufficient to atone for our sins. The power of the Spirit of God is sufficient for whatever trials you might face in life and in death. We can rest in the knowledge that Christ is working intercession for us right now. He’s standing in the gap between sinful humanity and holy God. The common grace of Jesus is all around us — the rain falling on the earth facilitating the crops of tomorrow. The great tasting cup of coffee you have each morning. Your friend who is there for you when you need him or her most. Despite the many moments of your life where you deserve wrath, God has given you mercy and grace.
The gospel is sufficient to redress all our grievances. We need nothing more than what is provided in scripture to give us the wisdom of God. These many different areas where the providence of God is comprehensive all point to the singular reality that Jesus Christ is our Savior to the uttermost. This is the truth upon which the entire church is built. This truth is strong and immovable as a rock and despite humanity’s best efforts across the epochs of time this truth has never moved. Jesus is the only one upon whom we can invest all of our faith and all of our hope — and in the end we will not be ashamed for doing so.
Even when the global stage is turbulent and the world seems filled with evil, we can rest assured there is a remnant of faithful people who have built their houses upon the rock. This remnant are those who call out to God as their Father because of their faithful obedience to Jesus Christ. Scripture says the faithful count everything in the temporal world as loss and dung compared to the value of being in Christ.
Some people, because of the wonders of salvation, become overjoyed if any person shows even a cursory interest in the gospel. While I would never discourage anyone from receiving the gospel, I would suggest no person treat the gospel flippantly. What I mean is you must count the cost of presenting yourself as a living sacrifice each day. Building your house upon the rock requires patience, diligence, wisdom, and sacrifice. Such a decision pushes against the nature of your unsanctified flesh. A person should be maximally aware of what they’re doing before they set out to build. This is a lifetime decision, and understanding it as such will ensure you approach the building project with the means to carry it to finish.
Occasionally you’ll hear christians criticize Billy Graham’s ministry because they think it suffered this problem. They think his crusades just stopped for a few nights and recorded the tens of thousands who gave their lives to Jesus, and then moved on to the next city without any interest as to whether those salvations were authentic. I think this criticism makes a straw man of Billy Graham’s work — I count him as one of the greatest ministers of the 20th century. But this fear is legitimate even if it wasn’t true of Graham’s ministry. It’s not a good idea to encourage others to make a one-and-done proclamation of faith without any assurance that they even know what they’re assenting to — or without any followup to see whether they are in effective discipleship.
Discipleship is so crucially important to christian development because building your house on the rock takes time and intention. In spiritual concerns it is often easier to build your house on sand. Material prosperity is sand, and yet so many people reference their material prosperity as evidence they are on the right track in life. Outward expressions of religiosity without inward transformation is just sand. So you may go to church, be baptized, take communion, say all the right things about Jesus — but if you never made Him Lord of your life then all of your efforts are founded on sand.
The trouble with sand is that you don’t notice it until the storm comes. And there is a storm coming. Many people discover the weakness in the structure of their faith when they are in the midst of their first real storm. The number of people who have felt betrayed by God because of a tragedy is enormous. It’s one thing to walk through suffering in faith, but it’s so terrifyingly worse to lose your faith in the midst of suffering.
Almost always this loss of faith happens because the person’s view of God was distorted and incorrect to begin with. Their god was predicated on their own presuppositions about the world rather than on biblical truth. A real storm brings enough devastation to collide with your presuppositions. If your presuppositions are biblically groundless, then they will be knocked out from under you and your worldview will die.
There are few things in life more excruciating than a worldview death and many people never recover from it. They just live in repeated, seemingly inescapable misery for the rest of their days. But none of this has to happen to you — regardless of how strong the storm is. This won’t happen if you’re careful in the building process. You must be careful to read and understand the Bible, careful to piece together your vision of God in accordance with sound theology.
What’s interesting about discipline is that it still works when your life is falling apart. The more godly disciplines you establish now, the better prepared you’ll be to withstand the worst moments of your life. Taking the teachings of Jesus and turning them into disciplines is something like building yourself an ark for when the flood comes. You don’t want to be caught without an ark or you might drown in chaos. Disciplines are valuable because they can be executed even when you aren’t feeling motivated. You should take as many godly habits as you can and turn them into disciplines so your routines will maintain their life-giving integrity even when tragedy strikes. Do this until you die and you will be crowned with righteousness in Heaven.
If you forsake your duty to enact the word of God then you’ll seek shelter in your house when the storm comes but your house will fall. To reject the power of godliness given by the scriptures means to find no true comfort or satisfaction in the hour of death. When the day of judgment comes you’ll be found wanting. When temptations to wickedness slither into your life you’ll have no fence to protect you from them. More than likely your faith won’t even survive the slightest persecution and you’ll simply fall away into apostasy.
The final two verses of chapter 7 show us the impression Christ’s Sermon on the Mount made on the people who heard it, as well as the authority from which Jesus taught. If you’ve been a Christian for a long time you’ve heard a lot of sermons. Maybe thousands or tens of thousands. It’s quite difficult to fathom what it would be like to hear a sermon preached by Jesus Christ Himself. Truly these people lived in a special generation. Most likely the vast majority of the crowd were astonished at His teachings. But what’s crazy about the Sermon on the Mount is that only a few listeners actually ended up following Jesus because of it. It’s common in the church for congregations to admire good preaching and vocalize their agreement in the form of amens, and yet fail to follow through on application of what they heard.
You should be aware there were people who listened to Jesus Christ Himself preach the most famous sermon in history and then they just went about their days as if nothing had made it through to them. That’s how resistant our human nature can be to biblical truth. As a Christian it’s good practice pay careful respect to each sermon you hear because it should be the word of God taught and preached. Obviously there are bad sermons which should be discarded, but I think we can get in the habit of dismissing a sermon before it is preached based on what we think about the preacher.
One of the reasons the preaching of Jesus astonished so many in the crowds was because He taught with authority. He taught as one who had already mastered and understood the principles He was teaching. This comes as no surprise considering He is the author of the scripture. This ownership made the teaching of Jesus different than the teaching of the scribes because all they had was intellectual comprehension. The scribes themselves had not implemented the holy ordinances in their own lives — they just taught what they knew about them. For the scribes it was mere information delivery, whereas for Jesus it was declaration of the truth.
The scribes taught as professors explaining theories, Jesus gave authoritative edicts as the Judge of all life Himself. This authority which astonished the crowds of listeners at the Sermon on the Mount is the same authority with which the scripture is imbued today. In your hands is a book written by the Creator of the universe. It has the power to restore your soul, renew your mind, and grant wisdom not afforded by mere experience. The words Jesus preached 2,000 years ago were law. He spoke them and they became commands structured into the cosmos.
Jesus is the only one who ever successfully preached on His own authority. Every other sermon worthy of the name has rested all of its authority in the name of Jesus. That’s because Jesus has words that give life. Jesus has words that break the chains of suffering and change the course of history itself. Jesus has words that are still sung in congregational worship to this day. Jesus has words that save souls. From the very beginning we know this to be true. Jesus said let there be light, and there was light.
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