Two Men, Two Houses, Two Destinies Text: Proverbs 10:25
Introduction: The Inescapable Antithesis
The book of Proverbs is not a collection of quaint, disconnected fortune-cookie sayings for a quiet, respectable life. It is a book of spiritual warfare. It operates on the fundamental, non-negotiable antithesis that governs all of reality. There are two paths, two kinds of people, two wisdoms, and two eternities. There is the way of the wise and the way of the fool. There is the righteous man and the wicked man. There is no third way. You cannot straddle the fence, because God has not built one. Every man is either building on the rock or he is building on the sand. Every man is either planted by the river of God or he is chaff waiting for a stiff breeze.
Our text today puts this antithesis in the starkest possible terms. It is a proverb about foundations and finality. It tells us that the universe is not neutral. History is not a random series of events. It is a story, written by God, and it is heading toward a climax. A storm is coming. The Bible calls it by many names, the day of the Lord, the day of wrath, the great tribulation, but the principle is the same. God will bring a testing whirlwind upon all that has been built. And when that whirlwind passes, only one kind of structure will be left standing.
Our secular, relativistic age despises this kind of talk. It is absolutist. It is judgmental. It is exclusive. They want a God who is an infinitely tolerant grandfather, a God who would never, ever send a whirlwind. They want to believe that all paths lead up the same mountain. But the book of Proverbs, and indeed the whole counsel of God, tells us that one path leads to the peak, and the other leads right off a cliff. This proverb is a bucket of cold, doctrinal water in the face of a sleepy, compromised church and a rebellious world. It forces us to ask the most important question a man can ask: On what am I building my life?
The Text
When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more,
But the righteous has an everlasting foundation.
(Proverbs 10:25 LSB)
The Ephemeral Wicked (v. 25a)
The first clause shows us the shocking fragility of evil.
"When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more..." (Proverbs 10:25a)
The "wicked" here is not just the cartoon villain, the man in the black hat. In the biblical dictionary, the wicked man is the one who lives his life as though God does not matter. He is his own ultimate standard. He may be a debauched atheist or he may be a respectable, church-going Pharisee. The common denominator is a practical atheism, a life built on the shifting sands of human autonomy. He builds his house, his career, his reputation, his family, all on the foundation of self.
And for a time, it can look quite impressive. The wicked often prosper. They have their towers of Babel, their financial empires, their political dynasties. They can appear to be the very definition of stable and secure. They are loud, boisterous, and seem to be carrying all before them. They are, in their own way, a whirlwind of activity, noise, and destruction. But the text tells us that their success is an illusion. It is temporary scaffolding.
Because another whirlwind is coming. This is the whirlwind of God's judgment. It can be a personal crisis, a financial collapse, a national disaster, or the final judgment at the end of history. The point is that God will not allow rebellion to stand forever. He will test every man's work. And the life built on the sand of self-will, when struck by the tempest of divine justice, is simply gone. "The wicked is no more."
The language is absolute. He is not just diminished; he is gone. His influence, his name, his legacy, all of it is swept away. He is like the chaff that the wind drives away, as Psalm 1 puts it. He was a big shot for a moment, and then he is nothing. His foundation was his own fleeting strength and worldly wisdom, and when the storm came, it was revealed to be no foundation at all. He built his house on the sand, and the collapse was total.
The Permanent Righteous (v. 25b)
In glorious contrast, the second clause reveals the unshakable security of the righteous.
"...But the righteous has an everlasting foundation." (Proverbs 10:25b LSB)
The righteous man is not righteous because he is inherently better than the wicked man. He is not righteous because he has never sinned. The righteous man, in the biblical sense, is the one who has been declared righteous by God through faith. His life is not oriented around himself, but around God and God's revealed will. He has abandoned the project of building his own kingdom and has enlisted in the project of building God's kingdom. He builds his life on the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.
Notice the contrast. The wicked is no more. His very being, his identity, is wiped out. But the righteous has an everlasting foundation. His security is not located in himself, but in something outside of himself that he possesses. He is connected to something permanent, something eternal.
What is this foundation? The Lord Jesus Christ Himself gave us the definitive commentary on this proverb in the Sermon on the Mount. He spoke of two men. One heard His sayings and did them, and was like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The other heard His sayings and did not do them, and was like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The same storm, the same whirlwind of rain and floods and winds, beat on both houses. The difference was not the storm; the difference was the foundation.
The everlasting foundation is the Word of God, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. To be righteous is to be founded on Him. He is the rock. When we build our lives, our marriages, our businesses, our churches, on the truth of His Word and in submission to His lordship, we are building on that which cannot be shaken. The storms of life will still come. The whirlwind will still blow. Being a Christian does not grant you immunity from trials. But it does grant you immunity from collapse. The house will be battered, but it will stand, because its foundation is eternal.
Conclusion: Build on the Rock
This proverb, then, is a call to radical self-examination. It is a diagnostic question for the soul. When the storms of this life hit, and they will, what happens to you? Do you find yourself collapsing in fear, anger, and despair? Or do you find, underneath all the turmoil, a solid footing? When the cultural whirlwinds blow, when ideologies that deny God's created order sweep through our land, do you find yourself being carried away, or do you find yourself standing firm?
The wicked man is a tumbleweed, rooted in nothing, blown about by every gust of passion or cultural pressure, and destined for the fire. The righteous man is an oak, rooted deep in the soil of God's covenant faithfulness. The winds may break a few branches, but they cannot uproot the tree.
This is not a call to try harder to be a good person. That is just another form of building on the sand of your own efforts. This is a call to abandon your own building project entirely. It is a call to repentance and faith. It is a call to recognize that you have been building on sand, and to flee to the only Rock that can save. That Rock is Christ.
Confess your sin, abandon your self-righteousness, and build your life on Him. Hear His words and do them. When you do, you are not just building a life that will survive the storms of this age. You are building a life that is part of an everlasting kingdom, a structure that will stand glorious and unshaken when the final whirlwind passes and God makes all things new.