We are getting to the end of the Sermon on the Mount. We have moved pretty slowly through this just because it’s such a powerful set of texts. Next week we are going to continue on in Matthew, of course, but this is the last bit of the Sermon on the Mount and it says this (starting with verse 24):

“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.”

When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.