How to Be Wise and Not a Fool

a whirling storm.

It will whirl about the heads of the wicked.

The ’s anger will not turn away

until he has completely fulfilled the purposes of his heart.

In time to come you will understand it clearly.

Jeremiah 25:32 adds,

This is what the of Armies says:

Pay attention! Disaster spreads

from nation to nation.

A huge storm is stirred up

from the ends of the earth.

Texts like Isaiah 28:16-22; Ezekiel 13:10-16; and Matthew 24:37-39 seal the deal that final judgment is in view in this passage (Quarles, Sermon, 345–46).

Jesus warns his listeners by saying, you deceived yourself into thinking you will be ready, and you are not. You thought listening was enough. You thought superficial allegiance, casual and comfortable Christianity, would suffice. But on that day you will discover you were wrong. Charles Spurgeon says of the fool,

Yet though he was industrious, he was foolish. . . . The crash was terrible; the sound was heard afar. . . . The overflow was final and irretrievable. Many heard the fall, and many more saw the ruins as they remained a perpetual memorial of the results of that folly which is satisfied with hearing, and neglects doing. (Exposition, 46)

I read this and am haunted by the words of Revelation 14:11 and its picture of hell: “And the smoke of their torment will go up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night.” It is essential to build our lives on the strong foundation of God’s Word, hearing it and obeying it. Proverbs 12:7 reminds us, “The wicked are overthrown and perish, but the house of the righteous will stand.” And Proverbs 14:11 provides a fitting complement: “The house of the wicked will be destroyed, but the tent of the upright will flourish.”

Matthew 7:28-29

Sinclair Ferguson is spot-on when he writes, “Jesus did not preach [the Sermon on the Mount] in order to be admired for his homiletical skills. He preached it to produce obedience” (Sermon, 171). Verses 28-29 summarize the crowd’s response to the sermon. The conclusion itself looks back to the beginning of the sermon in 5:1-2. Together they provide natural bookends to the sermon. There is no word or indication of the listeners being wise obeyers to the teachings of Jesus. The response of the crowds—I fear like many others—is more superficial than substantive. It is only skin deep. The heart, at least for many, is unchanged. There is no greater tragedy than for someone to meet Jesus, hear his words, and walk away astonished and amazed but still unchanged.

Jesus has concluded the sermon. Matthew has provided a condensed and accurate summation of what was certainly a much longer address. Verse 28 simply says, “The crowds were astonished at his teaching.” Eugene Peterson colorfully paraphrases in The Message: “When Jesus concluded his address, the crowd burst into applause. They had never heard teaching like this.” The word “astonished” could be translated “amazed,” and it is a recurring theme in Matthew (cf. 13:54; 19:25; 22:33). It is an imperfect verb, which Osborne says “depicts an ongoing feeling of wonder as they went home” (Matthew, 276). Their amazement continued for a while.

The source of their amazement was his teachings (Gk didache). The focus here is on content, whereas the emphasis in verse 29 is the manner in which Jesus taught. His words stunned them, blew their minds. John 7:46 cannot be improved upon: “No man ever spoke like this!”

The teachings of Jesus stood in stark contrast to those of the religious scholars of the day, “the scribes.” These spiritual guides taught by a derivative authority. To validate their doctrine, they would appeal to the authority of their esteemed and respected rabbinic predecessors. Jesus’s authority, however, resided in himself! Even the liberal New Testament scholar Georg Strecker gets it right when he writes, “Because the [authority] of Jesus is named as the reason for the astonishment . . . a specifically christological assertion is involved here” (Sermon, 172). This teacher, the Lord Jesus, is unlike any other teacher who has gone before him and any other teacher who will come after him. His authority resides in himself.

Quarles draws attention to the importance of the word “authority.” He notes that “it introduces a prominent theme in the next major section of the Gospel (8:9; 9:6, 8; 10:1)” and that “it also anticipates the conclusion of the Gospel as a whole (28:16-20) in which Jesus insists, ‘All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth’” (Sermon, 358). The authority of this teacher is none other than the authority of his own deity. Spurgeon says it so well:

He spoke royally: the truth itself was its own argument and demonstration. He taught prophetically, as one inspired from above; men felt that he [spoke] after the manner of one sent of God. It was no fault on their part to be astonished; but it was a grave crime to be astonished and nothing more. (Exposition, 46)