to face that prospect, and I beseech you to
face it wisely. A sensible builder calculates the strain to which his
work will be exposed before he begins to put it up. Or if he does not
there will befall it the same fate that years ago befell that
unfortunate Tay Bridge, where, by reason of girders too feeble, and
piers not solid enough, and rivets left out where they should have been
put in, one December night the whole thing went over into the water
below. You have to stand the hurtling black storm. Take into account the
strain which your building will have to resist, and build accordingly.

IV. And now, lastly, one word about the two endings.

'It stood'; 'it fell'; that is all. A life of obedience to Christ is
stable, a life not based on Christ vanishes; and these two statements
are true because whatsoever a man does for himself, apart from God in
Christ, he is sowing to corruption, and he will reap corruption. As I
said, nothing lasts but God, and what is done according to the will of
God. And when the storm conies, whether the builder was a Christian man
or not, all which was not thus built on Christ will be swept away, as
the flimsy habitation of Eastern people, made of bamboos and oiled
paper, are whirled away before the typhoon. All that was not built upon
Christ--and much of you Christian people's lives is not built on
Christ--will have to go.

And what about the builders? 'If any man's work abide he will receive a
reward.' 'Their works do follow them.' 'If any man's work is burned, he
himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.' And if any man has reared a
structure of a life ignoring Jesus Christ, and with no connection with
Him, then house and builder will perish together.

Jesus Christ does not speak in my text about the righteousness or the
unrighteousness of these two courses of conduct. He does not say, 'a
_good_ man does so-and-so, or a _bad_ man does the other thing,' but he
says: A _wise_ man builds his house on the Rock, and a _foolish_ man
builds his on the sand. To live by faith and obedience is supreme
wisdom. Every life which is not built upon Christ is the perfection of
folly.

THE CHRIST OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

'And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the
people were astonished at His doctrine: 29. For He taught them as
one having authority, and not as the scribes.'--MATT. vii. 28-29.

It appears, then, from these words, that the first impression made