7. What contrasting group does the Saviour next describe? Matthew 7:26, first part.
NOTE: ‘In this parable two classes are brought to view, those who hear the words of Christ, and do them; and those who hear, and do not. Christ tells us that those who hear and do, build upon the rock, and that those who hear, and fail to perform, choose the shifting sand for their foundation.’ Signs of the Times, September 24, 1896.
8. How does James speak of those who hear but don’t put what they hear into practice? James 1:22-25.
NOTE: ‘“Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” That is, it makes no difference how much a man knows; his knowledge will not justify him. People who have had great advantages are very prone to look with contempt upon those who have been less favoured, and to feel pride because of their own superior knowledge, forgetting that their superior knowledge only makes their own shortcomings the more marked. The man who knows much and does wrong is obviously more blameworthy than the one who knows only little. “Take heed how ye hear.” Luke 8:18. “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his own way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth their end, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, that men shall be blessed in his deed.” James 1:22-25.’ E. J. Waggoner: Present Truth, July 26, 1894.