As the Lord closed the Sermon on the Mount at Matthew chapter seven, He commented at verses twenty-four through twenty-nine that it was a wise person who would both hear His sayings and do them. Such a person was to be likened to a wise man who built a house on a rock foundation. It was able to withstand any extreme of the weather. However, it was a foolish person who would hear the Lord’s instructions and perform them not. Such a one is likened unto a foolish person house, built upon the sand, collapsed in the extremes of weather. As a matter of fact, Jesus said the fall of that house was great; it’s loss was of great consequence. After hearing not only the climax but the whole of the Lord’s sermon, we’re told that His audience was astonished at His doctrine, because, unlike the scribes, He taught them with authority.
The necessary conclusion of this is to note that the scribes must not have taught with authority. Certainly, anything but this should have been true, for the occupation of the scribes was to hand copy the ordinances of God. Therefore, after having so completely scoured God’s revealed will, they should have been more familiar with it than anyone. Yet, they failed to communicate God’s truth with God’s authority. When the people were exposed to the truth as Jesus revealed it, they were able to readily tell the difference. Now, it would e left up to them whether they would proceed with compliance of those things they had been taught, or simply to let the memory of the astonishing, authoritative truth they heard simply fade away into the oblivion of forgetfulness or rebellion. Now would be the time of trial in which they would prove whether their spiritual house would be built upon the rock of Jesus Christ or the sand of falsehood and disobedience. At Ephesians the second chapter, Paul said to those who had been strangers and foreigners to God had become fellow-citizens with His saints as they were built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. To be sure, all else is shifting sand.
Written and Recorded By: David Hayes Prophater