’Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.... 25.  And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand.’—­Matt. vii. 24, 25.

Our Lord closes the so-called Sermon on the Mount, which is really the King’s proclamation of the law of His Kingdom, with three pairs of contrasts, all meant to sway us to obedience.  The first is that of the two ways:  one broad, and leading down to abysses of destruction; the other narrow, and leading up to shining heights of life.  The second is that of the two trees, one good and one bad, each bearing fruit according to its nature; by which our Lord would teach us that conduct is the outcome and revelation of character, and the test of being a follower of His.  The third is that of our text, the two houses on the two foundations, and their fate before the one storm; by which our Lord would teach us that the only foundation on which can be built a life that will stand the blast of final judgment is His sayings and Himself.

Now, there are many very important and profound links of connection and relation between these three contrasted pictures, but I only point to one thing here, and that is that in all of them Jesus Christ most decisively divides all His hearers—­for it is about them that He is speaking—­into two classes:  either on the broad road or on the narrow, not a foot in each; either the good tree or the bad; either the house on the sand or the house on the rock.  Such a sharp division is said nowadays to be narrow, and to be contradicted by the facts of life, in which the great mass of men are neither very white nor very black, but a kind of neutral grey.  Yes, they are—­on the surface.  But if you go down to the bottom, and grasp the life in its inmost principles and essential nature, I fancy that Jesus Christ’s narrowness is true to fact.  At all events, there it is.

Now, following out the imagery of our text, I wish to bring before you the two foundations, the two houses, the one storm, the two endings.

I. The two foundations:  Rock, Sand.

Now, to build on the Rock, Jesus Christ Himself explains to us as being the same thing as to hear and do His sayings.  The one representation is plain fact, the other is metaphor which points precisely in the same direction.  It is scarcely a digression if I pause for a moment, and point you to the singular and unique attitude which this Carpenter’s Son of Nazareth takes up here, fronting the whole race with that ‘whosoever,’ and alleging that His sayings are an infallible law for conduct, and that He has the right absolutely to command every man, woman, and child of the sons and daughters of Adam.  And the strange thing is that the best men have admitted His claim, have recognised that He had the right, and have seen that His precepts are