Then, secondly, we should notice the claim which our Lord here makes for Himself. Without preface, without emphasis, as a matter of course, He implies that He is the final judge of all men, not only as to the outward results they achieve, but also as regards the secret inner motives of their hearts and the character of their lives. “Many shall come to me in that day,” i.e. in “the Day of Jehovah,” the day of final assessment――“They will come to _Me_; they will profess loyalty to _Me_, saying, ‘Lord, Lord’; they will plead their good works: but I shall discern the true inner character of their lives.” Many Jews of our Lord’s day in Palestine believed that the Son of Man, the Messiah, would act as the vicegerent of God in “the day of judgement,” at “the end of the world.” In implying that He would so act our Lord is, in other words, professing that He is the Messiah: but, more than this, He gives to the Messianic claim a depth and fullness of meaning which makes it identical with a properly _divine_ claim. Can one conceive men living, as the Apostles lived, with one who they were led to believe was the ultimate judge of their outward conduct and of their secret thoughts, the ultimate arbiter of their destinies, the final Justice, without passing into an attitude towards Him of awe, trust, and worship, which would be idolatrous and disastrous if He to whom it was directed was not truly divine? Again, is it even conceivable that any man could claim to be in this inner introspective sense the final judge of all men without being either (with reverence be it spoken) a tremendous blasphemer or the very Son of God, of the Father’s own nature? ENDURANCE THE TEST And lastly, our Lord gives the warning that each spiritual fabric must be judged by its power of lasting. “Every one therefore which heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, which built his house upon the rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house: and it fell not; for it was founded upon the rock. And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof.” Here, again, is the tremendous claim: the only solid foundation for life is Jesus and His words.