Transcript
In our series together we have studied the four parables which conclude the Olivet Discourse.
It might be worth pointing out that in my judgment the four parables divided into units of two each. The first two parables, it seems to me, are a pair of parables, and the second two parables are likewise a pair of parables. It seems to me that the two pairs are somewhat parallel in this way. The first parable in the first pair refers to servants who live in this day and age prior to the rapture of the church. The first parable in the second pair likewise, in my view, refers to servants of God who live in this day and age prior to the rapture of the church. The second parable in each pair refers to believers who will live through the Great Tribulation Period.
And with that in mind we turn to the final parable of the four, beginning our reading in Matthew chapter 25 and verse 31.
Matthew 25:31 When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.
And before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth His sheep from the goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an hungred, and ye gave Me meat. I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink. I was a stranger, and ye took Me in. Naked, and ye clothed Me. I was sick, and ye visited Me. I was in prison, and ye came unto Me.
Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, and fed Thee? Or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? When saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? Or naked, and clothed Thee? Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.
Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was an hungred, and ye gave Me no meat. I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink. I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in. Naked, and ye clothed Me not. Sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me not.
Then shall they also answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee?
Then shall He answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.
Every once in a while in days gone by I have been known to drive into a filling station with my gas gauge sitting on empty and my pocketbook sitting on empty. And I have ordered the huge amount of twenty-six or twenty-seven cents worth of gas.
I once had a filling station attendant who was a friend of mine, and he gave me to understand in no uncertain terms that filling station attendants look down their wrong noses at people who drive in and buy fifteen amounts of gas like that. I have to confess to you, however, that there have been quite a few times before the energy crisis arose when I have driven into a filling station and ordered no more than fifty cents a gallon. And my philosophy has always been this. So what if I am the last of the big-time spenders? A sneering look from the man who is filling my gas tank will not do me as much damage as running out of gas before I get home.
Unfortunately the energy crisis has changed all that, and one could scarcely get very far on twenty-six or twenty-seven cents worth of gas. If I were in the Land of Israel tonight and I were to drive into a filling station, do you know that fifty cents worth of gas would buy me less than a third of a gallon of regular gas and less than a fifth of high-octane gas?
Maybe you noticed toward the end of last year in the part of 1974 it was reported that gasoline had gone up in Israel tremendously. So that a gallon of gas, the regular gas, cost one dollar and seventy-six cents, and a gallon of high-octane cost two dollars and sixty-six cents. And it was believed at the time that that was the highest price being paid for gasoline anywhere in the world. Probably the prices have gone up even more since then.
And I could wish that the only crisis in which the nation of Israel will be compelled to pay a higher price than the Gentile nations round about them would be the energy crisis. When I read my Bible, and particularly when I attend to the prophetic scriptures, I discover that that is not so. There is coming another crisis upon the world, the final crisis of human history. And during this particular crisis the nation of Israel will pay a higher price in blood and suffering and anguish and death. As a matter of fact the Word of God describes this period as the time of Jacob’s trouble. We more frequently refer to it as the Great Tribulation.
Now I realize that the audience tonight is largely made up of Gentiles. And I do hope that you brought your imagination caps with you tonight, because I am going to ask you to use your imagination for just a little bit. I want you to imagine that you are living in Oklahoma City during the Great Tribulation. And I want you to try to sense, if possible, the situation that has come to pass.
For the last few years the world has been in considerable turmoil. Nations have been fighting against nations. There have been famines and pestilences and earthquakes all over the world. And out of this tremendous turmoil there has arisen a new super government which is trying to bring order out of chaos. At the head of this super government is a dynamic and highly popular world leader to whom everyone is looking for the solution to the world’s problems. And this world leader has the wisdom and the skill to bring everything under control.
One of the very first things he does is to institute an economic reform. The world economy has gone from bad to worse, and it needs to be brought under control. And so he decrees that no one shall be allowed all over the world to buy or sell unless they are duly registered with the government. And when a person is registered with the government it is necessary for him to receive as an indication that he is duly registered a mark which he wears either tattooed on his forehead or on his right hand. And this mark is either the name of the world ruler or a number associated with his name. And apart from the registration that is involved no one will be allowed to engage in commerce. And if they do it will be equivalent to taking part in the black market.
In addition the new world ruler has instituted a very dramatic and far-reaching reform. It has been recognized now at last as one of the problems that has plagued humanity down through the centuries: religious difference. That is why, for example, the Hindus and the Muslims are at each other’s throat in India and Pakistan. That is why the Maronite Christians of Lebanon shoot at the Moslems of Lebanon. That is why the Jews fight the Arabs. That is why the Catholics kill the Protestants and the Protestants the Catholics in Ireland. This is the history of mankind.
And in order to bring mankind to a new unity and to a new experience of peace this new world ruler has decreed the end to all previous world religions. And he instituted a new faith which is to be the central and exclusive faith of all mankind and unite all men into a single religion. He himself is the center of this new faith. And as his religious agent he has a very highly charismatic religious leader. This man claims to be a prophet and apparently has supernatural powers to support his claim. He is able to call down fire from heaven in the sight of men. And those who still remember the Christian Scriptures in that day will recall that this was something that Elijah was able to do but the prophets of Baal were not able to do.
In addition this charismatic leader constructs a statue of the world ruler. And to show that even ancient Judaism has been displaced he puts this statue into the newly reconstructed temple in Jerusalem. And he has power to give life to the statue so that it is able to speak. And if anyone stands before the statue and refuses to bow down to it he will be struck dead. And almost all of the previous religions of the world have collapsed. They are now illegal. And this religion and this alone is the legal religion of all men.
But there is only one fly in the religious ointment. There is a little band of Jewish missionaries who are traveling all over the world. And they are claiming that they are the worshippers of the God of Israel and the God of the Bible. They also claim that they have come to realize and believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of Israel. And they are proclaiming that very, very shortly Jesus Christ will have fulfilled the long-standing promise that He made to come back and set up His kingdom. And they are traveling all over the world claiming this message which is contrary to the new religious faith around which all mankind is united. And they are, as you will understand, virtually in the category of outlaw.
Now that is the situation that I want you to imagine. You are here in Oklahoma City during that period. Well, right away a little group of these Jewish missionaries come to Oklahoma City. And quite frankly they cannot go into the stores to buy any food. They cannot go into a Safeway or a Tom Thumb to buy anything. They cannot go into a restaurant to buy. For they have not been duly registered with the government and are not wearing the appropriate mark. Therefore they will be totally dependent upon anyone in Oklahoma City who would be willing to give them food.
They are obviously strangers in town, but they cannot check into any of your hotels or into any of your motels or even into any of the boarding houses in Oklahoma City. Because once again they are not registered with the government. And therefore they will be dependent for their lodging upon anyone who would be willing to take them in. Their clothes are wretched, almost in shreds. But they cannot go into your department stores to get clothing. They cannot even go to the Salvation Army, which is also outlawed, and they cannot get clothing there. And therefore they are dependent upon the generosity of anyone in Oklahoma City who might give them clothing.
They are obviously leading a hard life, and some of them are in poor health. But no hospital will take them in and no doctor will treat them and no pharmacist will even sell them a bottle of aspirin. Consequently they are dependent upon the care that anyone in Oklahoma City might minister to them. One or two of them get jailed, and they are put in prison. But who would want to go to see them in prison? Who in Oklahoma City would be willing to touch this with a ten-foot pole?
In days such as I have been describing, may I make a suggestion? It is a guess. It is the sort of gloomy guess. Well, I fully suspect that if Oklahoma City and America survive into the Tribulation Period then America will be almost totally a pagan nation. When the new world ruler institutes his economic reforms it is likely that in the highly industrialized nations of the world, particularly in America, these reforms will very rapidly spread. And none of us can get along very long without buying or selling something. And with our highly organized society probably everybody will be very shortly registered and will be wearing the tattooed mark either on their forehead or their right hand.
But that will be a fatal step, because the book of Revelation tells us that if any man or body receives this mark of the beast that he is spiritually doomed. That his destiny is to fall under the wrath of God in this life and to be cast forever into the lake of fire. Which is another way of saying that anyone who accepts the mark of the man of sin will never have his heart opened, will never have his heart touched by the message of the gospel.
And because America is a nation that has had so much exposure to the Word of God, because it is a nation that has had so much opportunity to receive the gospel, that it is very unlikely that this nation will fall rapidly and swiftly under the delusion of the man of sin. You may recall that there is a passage in the second chapter of the book of Second Thessalonians which tells us that God will send men a strong delusion in this day that they might all believe a lie. But they might all be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
And this is simply telling us that if a man has had opportunity to be saved, if he has been exposed to the gospel before this dreadful period begins, that after the period begins he will be subject to the satanic delusion that is forming upon mankind. And there will be no hope that he will be saved.
Many years ago when I was a little boy I remember coming home to the house where we lived in Catonsville, Maryland. And there was nobody home. That was very unusual in my house, because my mother, if she knew I was out and was expected home to him, was almost always there. But on this particular day neither my mother nor my father was home. And there was no note lying around the house explaining where anybody had gone. And before crossed my mind as I went into that empty house: I wonder if the Lord has come and taken my mother and father to be with Him because they are saved and has left me behind because I knew I was not saved. And that was a somewhat discomforting thought.
And even though as I was just a young boy at the time I had had considerable exposure to the Word of God, and I knew that the Word of God taught that once the tribulation started anybody who was left behind who had an opportunity to be saved before the Lord came and raptured His church would fall under the delusion of the man of sin and would not be able to be saved. And you know what went through my mind at that time? I thought to myself: If the Lord has come and the tribulation is going to begin I am not going to be fooled by the man of sin. I am going to go ahead and believe and get saved. But deep down in my heart I knew that it would not work. That somehow or other I would not be able to do that, because you just simply cannot beat the Bible. And I was one relieved little boy when my mother and dad returned home. I discovered that the rapture of the Christian Church had not yet taken place.
But you know even today as a grown man if I were not a Christian I would be very fearful about trying to go through very many days of my life without being absolutely sure that I was prepared to meet the Lord. But I had trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as my own personal Savior. I am assuming once again that most of you in this audience are born-again believers. But maybe there is somebody here who is not a Christian and there is somebody who never really has placed all of his personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for your eternal destiny. I would certainly urge you to do that immediately. Because you see the Lord Jesus Christ could come back at any time. He could come back before this meeting is over. And then it would be too late for you if you have been confronted by the gospel and have not yet received it.
And then I think is the dreadful fate that is probably waiting for America: to fall deeply and desperately under the delusion of the man of sin to become virtually a pagan nation. And I personally would suggest therefore that if Oklahoma City is still around in the tribulation period that the Jewish missionaries may be able to find virtually no one in this city who would be able or willing to give them any assistance at all.
Or you say, Where in the world will they get any kind of help or any kind of assistance in that there are at red-red full day? Well I would like to throw out the suggestion that it will possibly be in the underdeveloped nations that we sometimes refer to as the third world. It does seem to me very likely that the massive economic reforms that the man of sin must institute will be reforms that will take place much less rapidly among the teeming millions of the Far East.
Think of the problem of registry. Never anybody who is in China or India or Southeast Asia or some other place like that. And I suspect that for a long time there will be people in the countryside, in the villages, back in the mountains, back in the out-of-the-way places that have not been reached as yet with the reforms that the man of sin has instituted. And I suspect very strongly that one of the most fruitful fields for the missionary work of the Jewish missionaries of the Tribulation Period will be among these nations of the third world.
I remember a year or so ago being approached after I had spoken at a Young Life meeting by a little Chinese girl. And she said to me, You know what I think? She said that I believe that the next great fruitful field for the Word of God will be the Far East. And then she pointed out something to me that I had never really thought of before. She said, Do you realize that the gospel has begun in the land of Palestine and has been moving west ever since? So that from Palestine it spread out to North Africa and to Europe. And for many centuries as you know Europe was more or less the center of the Christian faith. But then somehow or other Europe seemed to lose its grasp on Christianity. But by that time the center of gravity had moved further westward. And the United States of America was the center of the Christian faith and the source of so very much missionary activity to all parts of the world.
But we are living in a period where I think it is obvious to us that America is losing its grip on the gospel. And it will not be very long before the gospel will have faded away in America very much as it has in Europe, I am afraid. And the suggestion of this little girl was making to me was that the next place where the gospel will be centered is in places like her own land of China or in Japan or in India. We already know, for example, that there has been a most remarkable revival in Indonesia, quite a striking revival brought about by the gospel.
And I would suggest to you these crone possibilities in the Tribulation Period. The missionaries who once again spread the gospel all over the world will find their greatest receptiveness among the teeming millions of the third world. And there they will find Gentiles willing to assist them. And I believe that what will happen is that as they come to these Gentiles that the Gentiles will hear the message which they have never heard before. And they will be reached with the message of the gospel. And they will believe in the King who is being proclaimed by these Jewish servants of His. And they will be willing therefore to extend to the missionaries themselves the nets of necessities: food and clothing and shelter and protection.
And how very wise that decision will be. How extremely wise it will be. For in just a few short years the King in whom they have believed will suddenly be revealed in heaven and followed by the armies of angelic hosts. People put down the final world rebellion that takes place in the Battle of Armageddon.
May I throw out a passing suggestion about the Battle of Armageddon? This is something that you can look into on your own. But as I understand it from the book of Revelation the Battle of Armageddon is not a battle between the various nations of earth. It is a battle between earth and heaven. The man of sin is a man who has universal power in the world. And in Revelation chapter 19 we are told that John called the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against Him that sat upon the white horse. That is upon the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
And what the man of sin apparently does as the coming of the Lord Jesus draws nigh is to collect the armies of the world and to lead them into battle against the King who is about to come. And of course the outcome of this battle is decided even before it begins. And that vast army is destroyed. And the beast and the false prophet are captured alive and are cast into the lake of fire.
You will read the second Psalm sometime, I think you will find as the second Psalm describes exactly the same event. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. They say, Let us cast their cords from us. But He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. And He shall say, Yet have I set My king upon My holy hill of Zion.
We are heading for another world war. But it is a war in which the whole world is on one side and opposed to the new King who is coming back again. But the battle will never be in any doubt. And the new King will be able to establish His authority and to overthrow the super government that has taken over the world.
And it is said that the incident that we have read tonight about in Matthew chapter 25 will take place. We notice the opening words of the parable again. When the Son of Man shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory. And before Him shall be gathered all nations, or all Gentiles. And He shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand and He sets the goats on His left.
I suggest in passing what probably has already been called to your attention. That this passage is a good supporting passage to draw the conclusion from that the rapture of the church does not take place at the end of the Tribulation Period. The event which is described by the Apostle Paul in First Thessalonians chapter 4, in which all Christians are caught up to meet the Lord in the air and so to ever be with the Lord, can scarcely be placed here. Because if the rapture has just occurred there can be no way in which there will be a whole bunch of believers among the nations who will be gathered before the throne of the new King and can be separated out so that the goats are on one side and the sheep are on the other.
Obviously the rapture has not immediately preceded this particular event. The rapture has taken place considerably before this. And what we now meet are the Gentile nations gathered in judgment before the new King. And instantly the new King knows which among these Gentiles belong to Him and which of them do not. And He sets the sheep on His right hand and He sets the goats on His left.
And then He says to the sheep, These were called Me blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Will you notice that He does not say inherit the kingdom prepared for you but something much more than this. He says inherit. In the clearest the kingdom is not merely a matter of going into the kingdom by the possessing the kingdom, of possessing His riches, possessing its privileges, possessing its special blessing. Why? Well the reason is because He says that I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat. I was thirsty, you gave Me something to drink. I was a stranger and you took Me in. I was naked and you gave Me clothing. I was sick, you came to see Me. I was in prison and you visited Me.
The sheep were shocked by this. And they say, Lord, when did we see You hungry and give You something to eat? Or thirsty and gave You something to drink? When did we see You in any of these conditions and ministered to You? Now please remember that the individuals who are present here before the King are individuals who have not been saved very long. Probably the longest that any of these sheep have been saved is a maximum of three and a half years. And they are not really very well acquainted with the principles and truths of Scripture as we might be after many years of knowing the Word. And they have never, as far as they are concerned, ever seen this King before. How can He say that they have done something for Him?
And then the Lord Jesus Christ will point to the Jewish missionaries, the men who carried the gospel all over the world and won countless Gentiles to faith in Christ. And He will say, Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me. His brethren? Yes. First of all because the King is a Jew and these men are Jews. But secondly because our Lord acknowledges in a special way as His brethren those who hear the Word of God and keep it. These were His obedient servants through the tribulation period carrying the message of His gospel. And therefore they are His brethren both on a physical and racial level. And they are His brethren on a spiritual level. And He is saying to the sheep, Whatever you did for these men you did for Me.
Now probably most of us would recognize the fact that although the passage of Scripture here refers directly to the tribulation situation that there is a principle involved which is applicable to us. I also strongly suspect that when you and I stand in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ at the judgment seat of Christ that we will make some interesting discovery. I suspect that one thing that we will discover is that some of the things that we did that we thought were tremendously significant and in the plan and purpose of God were not as big and significant as we thought they were. And I suspect also that we will discover that some things that we did not give a second thought to when we did them were among the most important things that we ever did.
I would be willing to conjecture that there are people in this audience tonight who at some time or another almost instinctively have spoken a word of comfort or encouragement to some brother or sister in Christ. Perhaps you passed a few dollars to someone that you knew was having a hard time financially. That is a call on someone in the hospital because you felt it was the right thing for you as a Christian to do. Perhaps you visited somebody who had gotten into trouble. You tried to talk to them and to encourage them and to help them. Maybe you forgot all about it. Maybe you did not think very much about it at the time. But you will be surprised to discover that the King remembers that He is the kind of King who never forgets a favor. And then whatever you did for someone who is related to Him spiritually you did for Him.
He will discover that some very wonderful rewards are waiting for you for very seemingly insignificant acts. For even a cup of cold water does not lose its reward. And I suspect that some of the surprise that the sheep experience in the presence of the King you and I will experience in that coming day of reward. So they say, When did we see You? And the Lord says, You saw Me when you saw My brother.
And then He turns to the goats and He says something quite different. He says, I was hungry, you did not feed Me. I was thirsty, you did not give Me anything to drink. Never ministered to Me. The goats are surprised too. And they say, When did we see You in any of these conditions? When the Lord said that inasmuch as you did it not to the least of these you did it not to Me.
Now the words that the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to the goats in which He says, Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels, because if you did not minister to Me, raise an interesting question of theology that I want you to allow me, if I may, to talk about for just a moment or two.
I think that we all understand that it is the teaching of the Word of God that no one gets to heaven by his works. This is solely by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope that we also understand that it is entirely possible for a genuine Christian, truly born again, truly a child of God, to be basically a failure in his Christian experience and still to be saved. Thank this is one of the things that we have been trying to say in connection with the preceding parable. It is possible for a real servant of Christ to become an unfaithful servant of Christ, as the first parable suggests. It is possible for a person whose life and testimony have burned like a blazing torch to lose the testimony that he has had for God because he does not have the spiritual resources to keep it ablaze.
It is possible for a true servant of Christ to whom real opportunities and real privileges of service have been committed take these opportunities and privileges to bury them in the ground like you were burying a silver bar in the ground and not to use them. This is a truth and the reality that I think has come before us in the preceding parable. Let me once again stress this. These parables are not talking about the dedicated Christian who is conscious that his life has many failures in it. There is not a person in this room who does not recognize, including the speaker, and however much we may desire to live for God and what were devoted we may feel ourselves to be that nevertheless we are far from perfect. And there are many respects in which the Lord could easily find fault with us. We are not talking about that kind of person.
We are talking about the person who is not trying to serve Christ and who seeks to serve his own interest. We are not talking about a person whose torch flickers just a little bit here and there. We are talking about a person whose torch goes out. We are not talking about a person who makes rather imperfect use of his opportunities. We are talking about the person who takes his opportunities and buries them entirely. That is the kind of failure that the preceding parables are discussing. That is a fundamental basic kind of failure and does not relate to the failures that are part of all of our lives and experiences.
But what I want to emphasize is that that kind of failure does occur in Christians who are genuinely born again. This is a reality of life. But having said that I want to specify something that we are not saying. We are almost certainly not saying that we believe that there are Christians truly born again who have never in all of their experiences as a born-again Christian done anything or said anything that God could approve of. I do not believe there is any such thing as a Christian like that.
It is true that when the living seed of the Word of God comes into the human heart sometimes the Christian heart in which this living seed finds its home is stony ground, as the parable suggests. And sometimes all that the seed is able to do is to shoot up a few sprouts. And possibly in time of testing these sprouts wither and die. But at least there were some sprouts. There were at least there were some manifestations of the life that had been imparted by the seed.
And even when we talk about the basic and fundamental failures of the Christians who come before us in the preceding parable we do not intend to suggest that these individuals are individuals of whom it can be said that they never did one single thing or spoke one single word that God could approve of. These are people who by and large were failures. But the Scriptures must be allowed to balance the truth of the parables and to reveal to us the possibility, and I think truly the certainty, that every true Christian somewhere along the line will do something that God can commend.
I am thinking of the thief on the cross. He has come to the end of his life and the whole life that he has lived is an unsaved life. And there he hangs in the last hours of his life on the cross. He comes to realize that it is a mistake to mock the man who is hanging on the center cross. And changing his attitude he turns to his fellow thief. His ears too are afraid of the judgment of God. He says, This man has done nothing amiss. And then he turns to the Lord Jesus Christ in words that are very familiar to all of us. And he says, Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.
Anyone who has ever stopped to think about it, but in all of the life of that thief that is probably the only thing he ever did or said that God could commend. The entire life up to that point was a waste outside of God. The rest of the life was extremely brief. And yet is it not true that the words of the thief on the cross have been tremendous inspiration, a tremendous thrill, a tremendous joy to Christians down through the centuries? I suggest to you therefore that there is no such thing as a truly born-again Christian who has never said a word that expresses the new life and has never done a deed that expresses the reality of his regeneration.
But the goats are individuals in whom the King can find nothing at all to commend. You never did this or this or this or this or anything which I recognize. And that is presumptive evidence that the goats have no life in them. Until we read in verse 46, And these shall go away into everlasting punishment.
Now even here it is necessary for us to be very clear what we are talking about. We understand, do we not, that when these goats stand before the King on this occasion that this is not their final judgment. This is what may be described as a preliminary hearing. And their final judgment comes one thousand years later.
Let us imagine that when I get on the plane and go back to Dallas, Texas, that for some strange reason after I get off I decide to rob a convenience store that is staying open all night in Dallas. Certainly not planning to do that. My general impression is that most of the stores I go into are robbing me and you think the same way about it. But just for the sake of the illustration suppose when I do that and suppose quite naturally and inevitably since I am not a skilled robber I am caught and arrested and thrown into jail. Very shortly as soon as possible I will be arraigned before a judge and I will be formally charged. And if I am not able to meet bail they will put me back in prison until my trial comes up. I am beginning my prison experience.
But sometime afterwards I am brought out and I stand trial and I am found guilty. And then I am formally sentenced to serve my term in prison. I go back into prison and continue the prison experience that I had been going to experience when I was arraigned. Something like this I think will help us to understand what is going on here. This is a preliminary hearing, so to speak. There is presumptive evidence that the goats are unregenerate people. Of course the King is omniscient and He knows that they are unregenerate people. There are no mistakes with this King. But this is not the moment of their final judgment. They go and begin their experience of everlasting punishment. But one thousand years later they are brought out to stand before the same King who now fills the role of their judge. And now they stand before the great white throne. And at the great white throne their case is thoroughly explored. All of the books which record their life and all of its entirety are open. And they are judged every one out of the things that are written in those books according to their works.
But it is noteworthy that in Revelation chapter 20 they are not condemned on the basis of what is written in those books. We understand, do we not, that most unsaved people believe that if they have any hope of getting to heaven that it will be because there is some merit in their life. And if official review on every man’s life is going to be held it must take into account the claims that a man may think that he has on God. And therefore the necessity that the entire scroll of a man’s life be unrolled before him with all of his deeds and words be examined. And it be decisively and conclusively concluded that he has no claim whatsoever upon God by means of his works.
And then the final and crucial book is opened according to the book of Revelation which is the book of life. And we are told that whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. The final decision on the destiny of any man will always remain based on whether his name is inscribed among those who possess eternal life or whether his name is not there. There is presumptive evidence that the goats at the beginning of the millennial reign of Christ are not people whose names are in the book of life. Our Lord of course knows that they are not there. They begin their experience of everlasting judgment. But they are brought out and the books are open and their claims searched out. Then they are sent back into that same experience which will go on forever and forever. Tragic end for tragic souls.
But for these sheep what another destiny is in store. And notice the last phrase of our passage: but the righteous into life eternal. Or if we might read it, the righteous go into life eternal. Now even here it is necessary for us to be careful to understand what we are reading. Why are the sheep called righteous? Well we might have answered the question on the basis of the passage as a whole because they have cared for the Jewish missionaries and have treated them well. That cannot be the correct answer. Because in the light of the Word of God that no one enters into eternal life on the basis of anything that they have done. There is only one kind of righteousness recognized by the New Testament Scriptures that is adequate to equip a man for acceptance before God. And that is a righteousness that is bestowed altogether on the basis of faith. The righteousness of God that is imputed to those who have faith in Christ.
I feel we must draw the inevitable conclusion from this passage that if the righteous go into life eternal the fundamental fact about their righteousness is that they are righteous by faith. But they are also righteous on another level as well. Not only have they received the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ which gains them a basic acceptance before God. But it is obvious that out of this experience with God there has grown practical righteousness so that they have done the righteous deeds for which they are commended by the King.
But I want you to observe this important distinction. In regard to their basic righteousness it is said that they go into life eternal. In regard to the practical deeds of righteousness which are accredited to them it is said that they inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.
I would like to suggest to you that there is a very important and significant difference in this. Supposing that a very wealthy man in the city of Dallas were to invite me to come and live in his mansion. I would consider that a great honor. Maybe these theoretically would be a great honor. And I could go and live in this wealthy man’s house. I could live there presumably for the rest of my life and own nothing in that house. It was all his. I was simply living there.
Well on the other hand suppose that the same wealthy man said to me, Zane, I not only want you to live in my house. I like your attitude toward me. I like the way you conduct yourself. I am going to make you my heir. And in time all of the possessions that you see around you in this house will be yours. That would be an entirely different way of living in that house. I would still be living there. But now all of the expensive furniture, all of the lovely paintings, all of the clothing, everything that was in that house was something that I could say this is mine too. There is a great difference in living in a place and owning little or nothing which that place contains and living there and being an heir of the rich property that it contains.
And in a very simple way I think that this illustrates the difference between entering into the kingdom of God and inheriting that kingdom. Those who enter into the kingdom of God do so on the basis of the grace of God. They do so because they have put their trust and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other grounds for entering into that kingdom. And a man who enters the kingdom is righteous by faith. But if out of the practical righteousness that God has imputed to the man who believes there also grows an experiential righteousness, righteous deeds, then it is possible for a man to enter the kingdom and not only live there but inherit it.
And this once again simply draws our attention to the doctrine of rewards of which the Scriptures have so very much to say. I live in the presence of God forever if I trusted Christ. I enjoy the riches of His presence forever if I have served Christ. If I know Christ I will be there. If I have loved Christ I will be there richly.
I was talking to a seminary student just the other day and he asked me this meeting question. He said, Will some Christians be happier than other Christians in heaven? So that it seems to me there is only one answer: yes, some of them will be. Jesus said, Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and where thieves do not break in and steal. Christians who lay up treasures in heaven will have treasures in the bank of heaven when they get there. And Christians who do not will not. I think.