In the final section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told 2 parables that would be called “warning” parables. The label “warning” is attached because the ending of each parable contains some type of significant punishment: “tree thrown into the fire”, “house fell, and great was the fall of it.”
The first one was all about trees, diseased and healthy. Matthew’s version warns against false teachers and their dangerous influence; Luke’s is more about people in general, those who are evil and those who are good. (Mt 7:15-23; Lk 6:43-46)
Matthew emphasizes his warning against the false teachers by calling them “ravenous wolves” who are dressed in “sheep’s clothing”, obviously having only one objective: kill and eat the sheep. Then he brings the false teachers into the parable with the words, “You will recognize them by their fruits.” Diseased fruit = “throw it in the fire.”
Luke raises the issue of “the heart” and how the fruit of any tree was simply a product of what was “stored up in their heart.” Evil stored up? Evil fruit. Good stored up? Good fruit.
Mt 7:15-27 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
Lk 6:43-46 43“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. 45Good people bring good things out of the good stored up in their heart, and evil people bring evil things out of the evil stored up in their heart. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks
The last parable in the Sermon on the Mount inspired one of the most famous children’s church songs: The Wise Man & The Foolish Man. Everyone knows how the parable goes. There is a wise obedient man & a foolish disobedient man; rock & sand; rain, flood, wind.
There was only one way to tell the difference between the houses: wind, rain, floods. The lesson was that what was true about the houses was equally true about people. And what identified the “wise man” was: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them.”
Protection from difficulties in life can be found in obedience to Jesus Christ’s words. Notice that the good house still had wind, rain, floods. The difference was that the house didn’t collapse. The protection was for the house and the house was the life of the wise man in Christ.
Mt 7:24-27 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
