If you have your Bibles this morning, I invite you to turn to the Gospel according to Matthew chapter 7. And as you're turning to Matthew chapter 7, this is our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, and he is bringing this sermon that he preached on the Mount to a conclusion. And as he's drawing to a conclusion, I want you to notice in verse 24, he starts by saying, therefore. Therefore, you always look at what's before to see what therefore is therefore. And as we look before what went on before, our Lord is repeating a principle that he has been teaching throughout the Sermon on the Mount. And he's putting the application in a different form at the close of this sermon. Just about everyone is familiar with This passage of scripture, like the young people sang, the wise man and the foolish man, one built his house upon the rock, the other one built his house upon the sand. This all correlates with what our Lord has been teaching all along. You notice what it says in verse 13, our Lord said, enter ye in at the straight gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leads unto life, and few there be that find it. Our Lord then taught, believers ought to be cautious. because there are false prophets. There are wolves in sheep's clothing, as it says in verse 15. Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Our Lord taught how we are to know them. It is by their fruits. He gives the illustration of a good tree and a bad tree. A good tree brings forth good fruit, The bad tree brings forth evil fruit. You'll know them by their fruits. And then what we find in verse 21, he speaks about those who make a false profession of faith. Verse 21, he says, not everyone that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? And in your name have we not cast out devils or demons? And in your name have we not done many wonderful works? Then our Lord has this saying, which is very ominous in that judgment day. He says, I'm gonna profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. What we see is in this passage of scripture as we continue in verse 24 through 27, is the danger of hearing the word of God and not doing the word of God. Verse 24 says, therefore, whosoever hears these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that hears these sayings of mine and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. Here's the danger of self-deception. People will come and hear the word of God. People may even read the word of God. but they do not put into practice the word of God. Many people might delight in certain portions of scripture of the word of God, but they don't want to hear all the counsel of God. They do not want to apply the word of God in their life. What our Lord is teaching us here is the difference between a true Christian, a genuine child of God, and one who makes a false profession, one who is not a child of God. The word of God has much to say concerning wisdom and the wise person and foolishness and the fool. Just to give you a contrast of these two, just to give you just a portion of scripture, over in Psalm 107, I want you to notice down in verse 43. Psalm 107 in verse 43 says, whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord. That's the wise man. Notice back in verse 17. Fools, because of their transgression and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Notice over in Proverbs 1 and verse 7. In Proverbs 1 and verse 7, the Word of God says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Then it says, fools despise wisdom and instruction. In chapter 3 of the book of Proverbs, down in verse 35, the Word of God says that the wise will inherit honor But fools get disgrace. You see here the contrast between the two and it's throughout scripture. There is the wise man, there is the fool. And our Lord picks up these sayings and these teachings and he puts his own definition to a wise man and to a fool. What we have seen is a broad picture of our Lord's teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. But I'd like for us to look at this a little bit more in detail. And notice in particular that there are two men. There are two houses. There are similarities between the two men. And I want to point that out right now. Notice in verse 24. The Lord says, I'm gonna liken him unto a wise man, the one who hears these sayings of mine and puts into practice or does these sayings of mine. He's like a wise man who built a house upon a rock. And the word of God says in verse 26, and everyone that hears these sayings of mine and doesn't do them shall be likened unto the foolish man which built his house upon the sand. These two men, they both had the same desire to build a house. They want a home, a place where they can have comfort, a place where they can have shelter. They both had the same desire with building a house. They both, if you look at this very carefully, you can see they're both in the same area. Now how do you find that? looking carefully in this passage scripture. Notice the weather pattern. The same weather pattern that hit one house hit the other house. They're in the same general area. These houses, there's only one difference brought out about them. So we would assume that these houses are pretty much identical by design. They have the same windows. They have the same door. They have the same chimney. They have the same design as far as in the architect of the outside of the house. There's no difference mentioned. But there are some differences mentioned, though it's not mentioned concerning the design. Outwardly, they look the same. but they're not. It's the same principle that our Lord just taught concerning the sheep and the wolf. The wolf puts on sheep's clothing. He's trying to look like a sheep. Outwardly, they may look the same, but there's a deeper problem. They are not the same. There is differences there. Notice in verse 25 once again, this wise man, he built his house upon the rock. Now look over in Luke chapter 6 if you would, a parallel passage of scripture concerning this Sermon on the Mount. Our Lord states in verse 48, he says, he is like a man which built a house. And notice Luke adds a little different perspective. He says, and he digged deep He dug into the ground and laid the foundation on a rock. So when the flood rose, the string beat vehemently upon that house and could not shake it, for it was founded upon a rock. The wise man put much more effort. He dug deep and he built his house upon a rock. The foolish man, the Word of God tells us, it just says, he built his house upon the sand. There was no effort put forth as far as a foundation. In Luke chapter 6 and verse 49, the Word of God says, but he that hears and does not is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth. Here he just built the house. There is no foundation. Have you ever seen a house or a building built with not a stable foundation. What generally happens is the house starts cracking and eventually falling apart over time because of no foundation. The foundation that Matthew says that the foolish man had was he built on sand. Well, that's no foundation at all. Sand is constantly shifting. Luke says there was no foundation. Here are some differences. There is one who is wise. There is one who is foolish. But I want you to notice the characteristics of a foolish person. As you look through Scripture, as you look at this passage of Scripture in particular, one of the things that stand out about this foolish man is that he does these things in haste. In other words, he wants to build his house and he wants that house built as quick as he can. It doesn't matter about code, doesn't matter about code enforcement, doesn't matter about certain principles or anything, let's build the house, I just want the house to build, so I can be comfortable, so I can have a roof over my head, let's get her done. That's basically his attitude. That's characteristic of the foolish. Listen to what the Word of God says over in the book of Proverbs. Over in Proverbs 28, Proverbs 28 and down in verse 20. The Word of God says this, a faithful man will abound with blessings but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished. Notice it's the quickness to get something done, to hurry up and do in Isaiah 28. Isaiah 28 And down in verse 16, the word of God says, therefore thus saith the Lord God, behold, I am the one who has laid a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. Whoever believes will not be in haste. Now that means to be in a hurry. Here's a sign of a foolish man. A foolish man is always in a hurry. Have you ever played the fool? I must confess, there's times I get in a hurry. I got to remind myself I'm on the Lord's timetable. Same with you. A foolish person is always in a hurry. They're not patient. They like to cut corners. Brother Steve, you used to be in the real estate business. Have you ever seen a builder that cut corners? Oh, man. They want to get it done. Get the job done as quick as they can. It doesn't matter about all these little things that you can't see. It's what's seen that will get us through this job and get us out of here on to the next job. Well, the problem here with the foolish person is they want it done so fast that they have no foundation at all. The foolish man has no time to listen to instruction. He's impetuous. You know what impetuous means? It means to act without thinking. In other words, you just gotta do, you gotta do, you gotta do. You men, you know what I'm talking about, especially. When you get one of them things, one of them kits with all the instructions that's got 15 pages of instructions, and half of them's in Japanese, and half of them's in Spanish, and half of them's in English, and you know how that long, big, here's how to put it together. Forget that. And you start putting it together, and you know what you end up usually doing? Going back to the instructions. Men like to be able to do it. But here it is wise to seek instruction. You need to think before you act. Instead of acting without thinking. The wise man seeks instruction, therefore he wants a solid foundation is what we find in this passage of Scripture. He's building a house but he wants something substantial and he wants it to be durable. He wants a solid foundation, therefore his house can stand. The foolish man who is a false Christian He is self-centered, self-focused. He's gonna do what he wants to do and he don't want nobody telling him what to do. His own self guides his own thoughts and his actions to whatever pleases him. That's a self-centered person. It's a foolish person who does not listen to instructions. When it comes to spiritual matters, the foolish man is one who will ask, if they come to church, well, what's in it for me? How's that gonna help me? What am I gonna get out of this? They do not take heed to the Word of God. And if they listen to the Word of God, they pick and choose what the Word of God they wanna listen to. You ever run into that type of person? There are people who literally pick passages of scripture that they like, but they discard other passages of scripture. In other words, they don't wanna hear certain things. If it's about the love of God, I wanna hear about the love of God. But if it's about sin, I don't wanna hear about sin. There are actually preachers who actually say that's what they do. They will not, cover certain portions of Scripture because it might offend somebody. And we want people to leave our church feeling good. Well, let me tell you something, that ain't this preacher here. We need to preach the whole counsel of God. But there are some people that just want their ears tickled. They'll pick the love portion of Scripture, but they'll leave off the judgment portion of Scripture. They like the good verses that talk about being happy and feeling comfortable and making me feel good. But they don't want to talk about sin and the holiness of God. God's Word is constantly under attack. People trying to undermine it, pick and choose it, and this type thing and the other. As Lydia and I went to the Creation Museum, or actually we went to the Creation Museum a few months ago and the Ark just about a month ago, what we saw is that they emphasized how people are trying to undermine the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis. Why is that? Because there you have a foundation. The foundation of the word of God. It talks about sin and how sin entered into this world. And how death came by sin. and all have sinned, and therefore, you know what, it's appointed unto man once to die. That principle is laid out in the very first chapters of the Word of God. And we must come face to face with that. The foolish man does not want anything to do with that. They don't want to hear about holiness. The false professor, the one who makes a profession of faith, hears the Word of God, but they do not apply it to their life. They hear how they're a sinner and they bristle at that and they don't want to listen to that. They hear how they must live a holy life and how they must pursue holiness and peace without which no man can see the Lord is what the word of God says. That's what God says. We must pursue holiness. Holiness is something that ought to be highlighted in a child of God's life. But the foolish man has no desire to know the Lord. He just wants to be happy. He just wants to be comfortable. In chapter 7 and verse 21, which we read a minute ago, here's why this passage is spoken Our Lord says, not everyone that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Just because you say Lord does not make you a child of God. Our Lord puts a condition upon that and explains it further in verse 24. When he says, therefore, whosoever hears these sayings of mine and doeth them, he does what the Lord says, he is the wise man. Here is the child of God. Now, this is not teaching a worked salvation. This is not saying that if you do what the Bible says, then you're saved. You cannot save yourself. If you're dead in your trespasses and sins, spiritually dead, you need to be quickened or made alive. That's only a work of the Spirit of God. And He works taking the Word of God, convicting a person of their sinfulness and how they're separated from God and the wrath of God abides upon them and they feel the conviction of that sin and they turn by faith and trust in Christ. That turning is a repentance. A turning from the ways of sin and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then what happens is there's a desire to live a life of obedience. You see, here is the fruit that's produced from a right profession. You shall know them by their fruits. The Word of God says it's not of works, lest any man should boast. It's not by doing, doing, doing that you're going to get to heaven. There's no one that can do, do, do enough to get to heaven. Genuine faith produces works. The Word of God says in Psalm 11 verse 3, If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do? If there is no foundation and the foundation is torn down, what can the righteous do? What is our foundation? I want you to look over in 1 Corinthians 3. 1 Corinthians 3, look down in verse 10. There in verse 10, the Apostle Paul is writing and he's saying, according to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation. Now remember Paul is talking particularly to the church at Corinth. First and second Corinthians is written to the church at Corinth. And what is Paul saying? He's saying to this church at Corinth, I have laid the foundation, and another builds their own. But let every man take heed how he builds thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Jesus Christ is the foundation we're built upon. The church at Corinth, New Life Baptist Church. It's built upon the foundation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation of gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare. There's coming a day of judgment, a day of testing. There has to be the right foundation. And if the foundation is not there, what's going to happen? I believe in the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ in chapter 7 of Matthew. He tells us what will happen when there is no foundation there. Here is the biggest difference between the two houses and the two men. The wise man built his house upon a rock. With all the devastation that has happened in North Carolina, North Carolina has been as far as in recovery, because it was so widely devastated by the Hurricane Helene, they weren't expecting such a devastation, literally wiped out towns. You've seen pictures, the news don't report it that much, but there are people suffering, thankful for people like Samaritan's Purse that are reaching out, that are helping. One of the pictures that I saw on Facebook had the river just overflowing. And as it's rushing through because of this great storm, things are devastated, but on this rock that's right above the river, that this river's rushing around, is a house that's standing firm. I thought, man, what a picture of what our Lord is saying. There are some houses, I read one, Franklin Graham was visiting the area yesterday in a helicopter the day before, and he talked about how one house was literally flooded all the way to the ceiling. Can you imagine? That means total loss. But what our Lord is talking about here is you must have the right foundation. And if you don't have the right foundation, When trials come, and there will be trials in life, when storms come, you'll be like the man on the sand whose house fell flat. Great was the fall of it. In other words, that house is like your life. It represents the foundation. And when trials come, if you're not on the right foundation, there's destruction. I knew of a man quite a few years back. He had a good family, three kids. The man was raising his family in church. He told me when I went out to play tennis with him one day, he said, I'm gonna die young. I said, oh, how do you know that? He says, I've got heart problems, and I was told it was from birth. I think he died at the age of 33. Left three young children. Those kids, were kind of tossed about in life. One fell completely away from the church. Nothing to do with the Lord. He's an unbeliever, atheistic in his thinking. I'm telling you, it is important that you have a strong foundation. Are you building? on a solid foundation? Is your life built upon the rock? How can you know? What we have is Jesus telling us that he is the word, he's the living word. What we have And the Bible is the written word. Hear that song as we sang it just a minute ago, how firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid up for your faith. It's in his word. Here's why Satan hates the word of God. Here's why he undermines the word of God. Here's why he likes to twist truth just a little bit, because if he can get you twisted a little bit in truth, You started down a slippery slope. And pretty soon you have no foundation. How can you know? You're building upon the rock. Let me ask you a question or two. Are you open to the Word of God? I mean, I'm talking about the whole Word of God. Even when the Word of God cuts you a little bit, it hurts. Are you open to it to the point where you are willing to simply say yes, Lord, to his will, what he's demanding of your life? You remember what Jesus said back at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in chapter five, around verse 20, 21? Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of God. What's Jesus saying? You gotta pursue holiness in your life. Do you desire to live out the Sermon on the Mount? We've gone through this portion by portion. Does your heart desire to put that into practice? Let me get detail with that. It's not enough to refrain from adultery. The one who's pursuing righteousness doesn't even want to look with lust upon another. Is that your heart's desire? We live in a very technologically advanced society. where images flash before the screen before you can click off. I ask you, do you desire to live a holy life in this sinful world? Do you desire to pursue after holiness? I'm not saying you're gonna be perfect. You're gonna have failures, but if you're a child of God, you acknowledge your failures. You'll acknowledge your sin and you'll mourn over sin, but you desire to live for Christ. Do you desire to know Him more? Do you desire to know Christ? Do you desire to live a life in whereby His name is gonna be glorified in my life and through my life and that the glory of God might spread because I desire to live for Him? That's building upon the rock. He is the living word, He is my foundation. And his written word affirms that foundation. Because of that, I will tell you in my life, Christ is my hope. He's my help. He's my Lord and my Savior. He is my friend. He is my comforter. He is a help, a very present help in time of need. He's my foundation. I wanna close with a passage of scripture, actually a couple, one we'll go back to our text in a minute, but over in 1 John, 1 John chapter two and down in verse three. I'm asking are you built upon the firm foundation? Verse three in 1 John chapter two says, and hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. You can know that you know Him. How? If we keep His commandments. He that says, I know Him, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in Him. But whoso keeps His word, in him barely is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in Him. You can know that you know that you know is what the word of God is saying. He that says he abides in him or dwells with him ought himself also to walk even as he walked. We are to walk as Christ walked. We are to walk with the Lord. That is what God has called us to. The wise man built his house upon a rock. He dug deep. He put forth effort. The rains came. Trying times came. The floods came. The winds blew. It seems like his feet are kicked out from under him and beat upon that house or upon that life. But it fell not. For it was founded upon a rock. But if you hear the sayings of our Lord and you do not do what he says, you're likened unto the foolish man that built his house upon the sand. The rains came, troubling times. Everybody's gonna have troubling times. You're gonna have troubling times in this life. You're gonna have aches and pains, you're gonna have bad news. You're not guaranteed a bed of roses. The floods come, devastation, winds blew, beat upon the house and that house fell. That life destroyed and great was the fall of it. What our Lord is teaching us in this passage of scripture, we sing that song and we kind of sing it with joy because it's a child song, yet it's a passage of scripture But I want you to notice it's a warning from God's Word. Let's not be frivolous with the Word of God. Make sure your house is built upon Christ. Only then can you withstand the storms of life and ultimately the judgment that is coming someday. Do you know Christ as your Lord? Christ Jesus came into this world, lived that perfect life. God the Father sent the Son because He loved this world so much, so much that He gave. His Son gave His life, was buried, but there ain't no grave that can hold Him. came back to life after three days, victorious over sin, over death, over the grave, and he says, as long as I live, you shall live also. That's the life we have in Christ. Let me tell you, he lives forever, and he's coming back again someday. Do you have that hope in your life? If you've never put your faith in Jesus Christ, I pray that you see your sinfulness how you're separated from God because of that sin, and how you deserve God's wrath, and how Christ took that wrath upon himself for our sins, that we can have life, the abundant life, full life, and everlasting life because of him. Let's stand and go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, as we see your word, as your son proclaimed it in that Sermon on the Mount, we see it as a great caution of how many have a false hope. They think they're doing things in your name. Lord, we pray you help us to be wise with the wisdom that comes from you. We pray for those that are foolish, that are trusting in their own ways, their own wisdom, their own thoughts, their own desires. We pray that you'd help them to see the destruction of their life as it's coming because of their sinfulness. Lord, we pray that you would light up their heart with the gospel showing forth our Lord Jesus Christ in faith in him, how he gives life eternal to all that come unto him. We ask in this invitation that you would be glorified for Christ's sake. Amen. We're gonna sing in times like these, and in this invitation time, if any have needs, concerns about your life, would you please come forward, seek help. We are here to help in whatever way we can.