Our message today picks up where we left off, where Jesus warned us about false prophets who are ravenous wolves in sheep’s clothing (cf. Matthew 7:15-20). When I preached from that passage, I began with the fairy tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” and the wolf as our opening illustration. This morning, I am going to start us off with another fairy tale that involves a wolf; which is the tale of “The Three Little Pigs.”
Once upon a time, three little pigs set out to build a house. The first little pig was lazy, and so he built his house out of straw. The second little pig was somewhat lazy, but he worked a little harder and built his house out of sticks. The third little pig was wise and industrious, and he built his house out of bricks. Well, one day a big bad wolf came along and thought the pigs smelled like a tasty snack, and so he huffed and puffed and blew down the first two houses. But, when he came to the third house made out of bricks, it could not be blown down. And, I will stop there to keep the story short.
In our passage today, Jesus warns again about the false prophets, telling us that those who heed their message are unwise, building their life and eternal hope on an unstable foundation; and like the two little pigs who built out of straw and sticks, those who listen to the false prophets will be devoured by those lying, ravenous wolves. Not to mention, the false prophets will be destroyed as well. If you have ever read “The Three Little Pigs,” then you know that the wolf dies in the end. So, with no further ado, let us get into this passage!
They Thought They Knew the Lord (vv. 21-23)
21 Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” 23 And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”
I find these verses to be some of the hardest in the Bible; the thought that we could serve Jesus our entire life, calling Him Lord, and still wind up going to hell. And can you imagine the pain of Jesus saying, “I never knew you!”
Years ago, I wrote a letter to my favorite Bible commentator Warren Wiersbe, asking him if he would read a book that I had written and write a review. My response card was returned in the mail with a short hand-written note. It began with the words, “I don’t know you.” He then went on to explain that he could not write a review for someone with whom he was not acquainted, and knew nothing about their character. I understood, but those words cut deep – the words “I don’t know you.” That hurt! And so, I can imagine how tragic it would be for Jesus to say those exact same words! And, by the way, I kept that response card, as it was signed by Wiersbe himself!
The false prophets and their followers professed to know Jesus. Some of them probably thought they really did, and that He knew them in return. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” They had the “confession” part figured out. But what about “believing” in Jesus as Lord; truly believing in Him with their heart? And we often say that true belief will overflow in kingdom service. Well, these people claimed to serve Him as well! They prophesied, cast out demons, and did miracles – all in His name!
In verse 24, which we will see in a moment, Jesus made a contrast between “hearing” His words and “doing” them; which you could make the same contrast between “professing” Jesus and “serving” Him. In James 2:20, we read that “faith without works is dead,” and so we might conclude that perhaps their profession of faith was not accompanied by service, and therefore, their faith was not genuine. However, “those [who would be] rejected in the judgement were both sayers and doers! They said, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and they did many religious works.”(1) We know that faith and works should accompany each other, so what seems to be the problem?
In verse 23, Jesus said to them, “Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” The word lawlessness in Greek is anomia, which means, “The condition of one without law – either because ignorant of it, or because violating it.”(2) This word can also be translated as “iniquity” and “wickedness.” There are two possible explanations as to why Jesus declared them as practicing lawlessness. First, maybe they claimed to know Jesus and did religious works, but behaved poorly in private; living lives of hypocrisy. This was a problem with the false prophets to be sure, and perhaps their followers learned this lawless behavior from them.
However, the best explanation is found in verse 21: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Commentator Frank Stagg says, “The doing [that Jesus] required is doing ‘the will’ of God and not merely religious deeds, however impressive” they may be. (3) The works they performed were lawless; not sanctioned by the Lord, and possibly done through a power other than God’s – such as the devil’s power.
I mentioned Warren Wiersbe earlier. He comments that “preaching, casting out demons, and performing miracles can be divinely inspired, but they give no assurance of salvation. It is likely that even Judas participated in some, or all, of these activities, and yet he was not a true believer,” and “in the last days, Satan will use ‘lying wonders’ to deceive people (2 Thessalonians 2:7–12).”(4) You see, the devil can perform counterfeit miracles through false prophets and their followers.
The question is asked, “How can we prepare for [the coming] judgment? [The answer is] ‘by doing God’s will.’ Obedience to His will is the test of true faith in Christ. The test is not [just] words, [such as] saying, “Lord, Lord” . . . How easy it is to learn a religious vocabulary, and even memorize Bible verses and [Christian] songs, and yet not obey God’s will. When a person is truly born again, he has the Spirit of God living within (Romans 8:9), and the Spirit enables him to know and do the Father’s will. God’s love in his heart (Romans 5:5) motivates him to obey God and serve others. Words are not a substitute for obedience, and neither are religious works.”(5)
The Saved Hear and Obey His Commands (vv. 24-25)
24 Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
“In Judea . . . the rain [will] sometimes fall in great torrents, producing rivers, which sweep away the soil from the rocky hills; and the houses, which are built of brick only, dried in the sun, of which there are whole villages in the east, literally melt away before those rains, and the [flash] floods occasioned by them.”(6) In Palestine the builder must think ahead. There are many gulleys, called a wadis, which during the summer can be pleasant sandy hollows, but in winter can become raging torrents of rushing water. A man might find a sheltered sandy hollow, and he might think this was a suitable place to build a house. But it might just be a dried-up river bed, and when winter comes, his house will disintegrate.(7)
Jesus said that the wise man built his house on the rock. Perhaps, this could have been an elevated rock plateau; but Luke clears up this question. In Luke 6:48, we read, “He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.” Here in America, unless you are on the beach or out in the desert, you are not going to dig down to the bedrock before you lay a foundation, as the soil is more stable. But in Judea, even on an ordinary site – one that was not down in some wash – you would need to dig down to the bedrock, past the sandy soil, as the foundation needed to be lain on the bedrock for the house to stand.(8)
Now, when Jesus mentioned building on the rock, He had something uniquely specific in mind. In verses 24 and 25, the word for “rock” in the Greek is petran, which is feminine. In Greek, nouns have gender, like the English words actor and actress. The male form is petros, used in reference to Peter in Matthew 16:18. References to Christ, in the New Testament, use the feminine forms petra, petras and petran (cf. Matthew 16:18; 1 Peter 2:8). Perhaps, the feminine form somehow denotes the nurture and loving-caring that Jesus has for individual followers and the church.
Listen closely, as I read 1 Corinthians 10:4: “All drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock (petras) that followed them, and that Rock (petra) was Christ.” When Jesus mentioned the “rock” in these verses, He was referring to Himself. There is a well-known hymn, in which we sing, “On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand; all other ground is sinking sand.”(9) Commentator Matthew Henry says that “our hope of heaven” is the house we must build, and “there is a Rock provided for us to build this house upon, and that Rock is Christ. He is our hope . . . He is strong and immovable as a rock.” He continues to say, “We may risk our all with Him, and shall not be ashamed of our hope.”(10)
Back in verse 21, Jesus said that the one who will enter the kingdom is the person who does the will of the heavenly Father. In verse 24, He tells us what kind of person that is. The one who does the will of the Father both “hears these sayings of Mine, and does them.” Many were doing works in Jesus’ name, but they were not commissioned works. The works that we must do should be based on His “sayings” (v. 24). Maybe what He says is for us to behave in a certain way; or perhaps, what He says is for us to do specific works. When we “hear” what Jesus says, we are expected to respond in obedience and “do” what He says. Wiersbe tells us “this is what it means to build on the rock foundation,”(11) to do what we hear Him say.
So, how do we hear Jesus’ “sayings” today? Well, we hear them by reading the Bible. When we read the Bible, and practice what we read, it shows that we love the Lord and belong to Him. Allow me to share an illustration. When we were young, maybe we would say to our mother, “I love you.” And perhaps she would sometimes smile and say, “I wish you would show it a little more in the way you behave.”(12) Commentator William Barclay says, “Fine words can never be a substitute for fine deeds. There is only one proof of love, and that proof is obedience. There is no point in saying that we love a person, and then doing things which break that person’s heart.”(13) “So often, we confess God with our lips and deny Him with our lives . . . Faith without practice is a contradiction in terms, and love without obedience is an impossibility.”(14)
The Lost Hear and Forsake His Commands (vv. 26-27)
26 But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.
Hopefully, when you were young, you had the privilege of travelling to the ocean. If you had that opportunity, and played out on the beach, then you probably recall making a sand castle or some kind of sculpture. You probably also experienced the sadness of watching it all melt away as the tide came in and infiltrated your beautiful work of art. If so, then, you can already envision this word-picture. You can see the scene in your mind, and watch it unfold; as the sand washes out from beneath the foundation, toppling the walls, and sending all the parts and pieces of the house downstream.
Commentator Adam Clarke says, “A fine illustration of this may be seen in the case of the fishermen in Bengal [or modern-day Bangladesh], who, in the dry season, build their huts on the beds of sand from which the rivers had retired: but when the rain sets in suddenly, as it often does, accompanied with violent northwest winds, and the waters pour down in torrents from the mountains; in one night, multitudes of these buildings are swept away, and the place where they stood is, on the next morning, undiscoverable.”(15)
Here, Jesus speaks of the one who hears and does not do. This is someone who professes faith in Christ and knows what Jesus teaches, but is like the one who received God’s Word into a shallow heart, as we read about in the “Parable of the Sower” (Matthew 13:3-9). A false profession will only last until judgment comes. Sometimes this judgment presents itself in the trials of life. “Many people have professed faith in Christ, only to deny their faith when life becomes spiritually costly and difficult. But the judgment illustrated here [probably] refers to the final judgment before God.”(16) So, why do some people hear and know what Jesus teaches, but refuse to do His will? It is likely because they are more focused on what society says, and more concerned with what their peers think, than about what Jesus teaches.
Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand” (v. 26). The word “sand” that Jesus used is ammon. This Greek word can be found in a few other places in the New Testament (cf. Hebrews 11:12; Revelation 20:8). For example, Paul said in Romans 9:27 that “the number of the children of Israel [are] as the ‘sand’ of the sea.” That word “sand” that Paul used is ammos, which refers to “a great multitude.” In some cases, the word ammon or ammos can even be translated as “a great multitude.” Jesus was referring to those who are trying to build their hope of heaven on the crowd; who look to other people for approval and spiritual guidance, and who build their house on the unstable foundation of public opinion.
Everyone may be doing it, but that does not make it right. The works of the foolish man are seen as lawlessness (anomia, v. 23), as they are approved only by men, or by the multitude, and not by the Lord. In that well-known hymn “The Solid Rock,” we sing, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”(17) We cannot always put our trust in “the sweetest frame,” or the most handsome and popular individual, in finding guidance on how to follow the Lord. If we want to do God’s will, then we must look to Jesus for the answers.
I already said we need to read the Bible, and I will say it again. In John 1:14, we read that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. But since Jesus has ascended into heaven and is presently with the Father, we must look to the Bible. The Bible is called the Word of God, and it contains all the answers we need to do God’s will. When someone refuses to do what Jesus says, and fails to live according to the teachings of the Bible, that individual winds up going the way of the multitude. And the number of people refusing to obey the Lord are as numerous as the sand of the sea; and one day, when they stand on the shore of eternity, they will be washed away as a grain of sand. All their works done in the name of the Lord, but not sanctioned by the Lord, will come crashing down in a great fall.
Time of Reflection
To summarize this passage, the Lord was illustrating one main point: Our profession of faith will ultimately be tested before God. Those who have trusted in Christ, and have proved their faith by their obedience to His teachings, will have nothing to fear. Their house, which is their hope of heaven, is founded on the Rock, Jesus Christ. As a result, their hope and salvation will stand. But those who have professed to trust in Him, and have not obeyed God’s commands, they will be condemned.(18)
Our eternal hope begins with our profession of faith in Jesus Christ; but that profession must be accompanied by genuine belief. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved,” and John 3:16 declares, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” And so, I want to invite you to walk the aisle, and pray to receive Jesus into your heart and life as Savior and Lord, and profess your faith in Him today.
NOTES
(1) Frank Stagg, “Matthew,” The Broadman Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1969), p. 122.
(2) “Anomia,” Blue Letter Bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g458/kjv/tr/0-1/ (Accessed March 3, 2024).
(3) Stagg, p. 122.
(4) Warren Wiersbe, “The Complete New Testament in One Volume,” The Wiersbe Bible Commentary (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2007), p. 26.
(5) Ibid., p. 26.
(6) Adam Clarke, “Matthew to the Acts,” Clarke’s Commentary, vol. 1 (New York: Abingdon Press), p. 98.
(7) William Barclay, “The Gospel of Matthew,” The Daily Study Bible, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1958), p. 295-296.
(8) Ibid., p. 296.
(9) Edward Mote, “The Solid Rock,” The Baptist Hymnal (Nashville: Convention Press, 1991), Hymn 406.
(10) Matthew Henry, “New Testament,” The NIV Matthew Henry Commentary in One Volume (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), p. 37.
(11) Wiersbe, p. 27.
(12) Barclay, p. 294.
(13) Ibid., p. 294.
(14) Ibid., p. 294.
(15) Clarke, p. 98.
(16) Wiersbe, p. 27.
(17) Mote, “The Solid Rock,” The Baptist Hymnal, Hymn 406.
(18) Wiersbe, p. 27.
