Matthew 7:21-29

Matthew 7:21

The Wise and Foolish Builders.

I. The Lord describes the false disciples as men who cry, "Lord, Lord," to Him, but who bear no fruit. The language clearly implies that there are some who profess to be Christians, who acknowledge Jesus to be the Lord, and pray to Him as Lord, and praise Him as the Lord, who nevertheless have no part in Him. This confession, "Lord, Lord," is symbolic of a sound creed, as well as a religious profession. It is as much as to say that there are many who have an unhesitating belief in the doctrine of grace and of God, who, nevertheless, are not true disciples of Jesus. Our Lord gives us to understand that the true disciple is one who not only cries, "Lord, Lord," but also doeth the will of his Father which is in heaven.

II. Having thus described the false and true disciples, the Lord goes on to remind us that there is a day coming when their characters shall be discovered and their judgment settled.

III. The Lord concludes the whole sermon with one of those exquisite parables whose pictorial beauty and spiritual insight, always remarkable, are in this case elevated into a strain of solemn grandeur and awful impressiveness. Of course that parable rises most naturally from the immediately preceding warning in reference to the day of judgment. But equally, of course, it stands in close relation also to the whole discourse which it so fitly concludes. You may say the foolish builder is the man who heareth the words of the Lord and doeth them not, and who persuades himself that all is well because he crieth, "Lord, Lord," or because he prophesieth and doeth many wonderful works in the name of Christ, whom, nevertheless, Christ will one day utterly disown, so that his house shall fall about him in a great and sorrowful ruin. Or, on the other hand, you may gather up the whole teaching of the sermon its introductory beatitudes, its profound laws of love, truth, faith, and sympathy and say that the foolish builder is the man who has not entered in at the strait gate, thus clearly described and asserted to be the only way of life, the only sure foundation on which our hopes can rest.

W. C. Smith, The Sermon on the Mount,p. 338.

References: Matthew 7:21. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xx., No. 1158; R. W. Dale, The Evangelical Revival,p. 104; C. Girdlestone, A Course of Sermons,vol. ii., p. 203.Matthew 7:21. J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King,p. 615; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts,p. 15.Matthew 7:22; Matthew 7:23. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 2,317. Matthew 7:23. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., p. 248.