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. 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. 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. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell--and great was its fall.
This is the conclusion to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew 7:24-27). The "words of mine" to which he refers were the entire sermon. The immediate context is his warning that not everyone who calls him Lord will enter the kingdom. It does not suffice merely to hear the words of Jesus or even to acknowledge that what he says is true. One must act upon what he has said. He assures us that the man who hears and acts has built his life upon a solid foundation, a rock that will provide insurmountable support against the assaults that inevitably come. Note that Scripture repeatedly instructs us that the fear (respect, obedience, harkening, heeding) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Such a wise man builds on the words of Christ.
In contrast, the foolish man (and in Scripture foolishness has a moral dimension) may hear the words of Christ but ignores them. He may acknowledge their wisdom but he does nothing with them. He builds his life on another foundation, one that proves incapable of withstanding life's assaults. And everything he has done comes to nothing but ruin.
Why do I insert this commentary here? We have just finished discussing several ways of handling the confrontation between biblical Christianity and the philosophical materialistic naturalism that underpins Darwinism. A man must consider carefully the foundation upon which he builds his life. Not all foundations are structurally sound. Not every form of knowledge is wisdom.
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