Transcript for Morning Devotion 4: A Parable About Love - Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) by Merlin
in Wonder Love and praise okay if you have your Bibles please turn with me to Matthew Matthew chapter 25 and let us read verse 31 all the way to verse 46 as we are studying through The Parables of our Lord Jesus so we have come to this last devotion it will be the parable of the sheep and goats so let us turn to Matthew 25:31 Brothers will begin and sisters will respond all the way until verse 46 so Brothers if you are there let us begin with verse 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 another as div sheep and he shall set the sheep on his right hand but the goats on the left right come blessed father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world for I was and hunged and he gave me meat I was thirsty and he gave me drink I was a stranger and he took me in verse 37 then shall the righteous answer him saying Lord when we saw ye and hunged and fed thee or thirst thee and gave thee drink oh when saw we thee sick or in prison and came unto thee and I then shall he say also unto them on the left hand depart from me ye cursed into Everlasting fire be prayed for the devil and his angels I was thirsty and he gave verse 43 I was a stranger and ye took me not in naked and he clothed me not sick and in prison and he visited me not strangered or sick or Inon and not Minister okay the last two verses together then shall he answer them saying verily I say unto you in as much as he did it not to one of the least of this did it not unto me and this shall go away into Everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal the Lord bless the reading of his holy and sacred word so we have learned in our previous devotion sermons about lesson on preoccupation like the parable of the rich fool a lesson about stewardship and we learned that from the parable of the unjust manager the unjust Steward and then we also learned lesson about preparedness so we have to be prepared and we learned that from the parable of the 10 virgins now today we are going to learn lesson about love because since we have been studying through the book of First Corinthians chapter 13 and that is about love so we want to learn something about love and so we want to learn this from the parable of the sheep and goats now I've said in the previous devotion sermon that there are three parables in Matthew chapter 25 and they are all about the second coming of our Lord Jesus Jesus will come and his second coming will occur after the tribulation so after the seven years of tribulation our lord Jesus will come and when he comes he will rule the Earth for 1,000 years known as the millennial Kingdom so these three Parables will occur at that period where our lord Jesus would come and as some people would think that well if we are True Believers we will be already caught up in the Rapture before the tribulation or we would have already died and our bodies are buried and our souls are with the Lord so what has that got to do with us these three Parables well there are spiritual lessons we can learn although we if we are True Believers we will not be there during that period as in the sheep and the goats okay but they are applicable to us in many different ways okay so we learn to draw spiritual lessons Okay as the parable of the 10 virgins remember I shared with you about the similarities they are very similar all of them look the same hourly speaking they look there's no difference but then there is the difference and the difference is some are wise some are foolish so in other words some are believers some are unbelievers or just professing believers inwardly do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and how can we tell or what is the thing that sets them apart that is the preparedness because they do not believe so they were not prepared but those who believe you know they their lives with this preparedness with this anticipation so we learn about that and we also learn about the separation the separation would be permanent the separation will come suddenly so even in the tribulation there are many who will profess they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and then all of a sudden when Jesus come they will not be prepared because why they do not really believe so it will come suddenly and the interesting thing is that they will be caught by surprise so now we can see these three points also in the parable of the sheep and goats but we want to focus on love right so but you can tell that they are all similar because they are all pointing to the second coming of Our Lord so there are similarities there are differences there's also the separation at the end where there will be this judgment that will come okay so that will be the similarities between all these three Parables now before we talk about the lesson on love we want to also focus on the second coming of Our Lord so some people may be thinking how do we know that these three parables are about the second coming of Our Lord could it be about some other things so how can we know well as I've said the preceding chapter chapter 24 talks about the signs of our Lord's coming because the disciples asked him what are the signs of your coming what about the end of the world then Jesus went on to talk about there will be great deception there will be persecution there will be great calamities there will be also this defections there will be all sorts of troubles in this world even the universe the heavens will change you will see that the sun will be darkened and all these things will change and then the son of man will come so then the next chapter chapter 25 Jesus gave three Parables so he was talking about his second coming so if any people still have doubts that these three parables are about his second coming well look at verse 31 so we begin with verse 31 okay when the sun of men shall come in his glory and all the Holy Angels with him then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory so that verse is very clear that it is about our lord Jesus coming in his glory in his second coming so he will come with all the Holy Angels by the way not just the Holy Angels all the Believers including you and me if we truly believe in the Lord we will come with him and then we will rule the world for 1,000 years together with our lord Jesus it will be a physical rain on this Earth so we will come with him and together with all the Holy Angels that will be the second coming of Our Lord because by then we will all be glorified Saints living together with our Lord waiting for the time of his second coming we will come together with him so that is an amazing future we have all of us will come with him in his second coming so just Ponder upon this particular thought all of us will re with him amazing right and the Bible tells us that when the son of man shall come in his glory so here the Bible speaks about the humanity of Christ as in he who is eternally God he came in the form of a man and he live on the face of this Earth he is the Son of God but he is also the son of men and this same Jesus who is the son of men who was risen from the dead on the third day he will come this same Jesus will come in his glory now you must understand that Jesus must come again in his second coming do you know that if Jesus did not come or would not come in his second coming you know what would happen he will he will not be the Messiah so he will not be the promised Messiah he must come how do we know turn with me to the Gospel of Luke chapter 1 turn to the Gospel of Luke chapter 1 verse 31 okay maybe all of us read this three verses Gospel of Luke 1 verse 31 to 33 okay let's read and behold thou shal conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus he shall be great and shall be called the son of the highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the Throne of his Father David and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end so you see the first part talks about his first coming right he must come he must be born of the Virgin and his name Shall be Called Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins so Jesus must first come he must die on the cross he must shed his Precious Blood he must be buried but on the third day he must Rise Again from the dead now that first coming has already been fulfilled so that first coming points to us that our lord Jesus is the promised Messiah but there's a second coming and this second coming he will re on this Earth he will re over the House of Jacob forever and his kingdom shall be no end so it will be a an everlasting Kingdom so that second coming is very important because if Jesus would not come then he would not be the promised Messiah so Jesus must come all of us believe that our lord Jesus will come again and that is his second coming I hope you all believe that do you believe that he will come again okay so he has come again he has come already in the first coming he will come again a second time look at verse 32 and before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepher divideth his sheep from the goats so when Jesus comes again then that will be after the seven years tribulation and there would be this multitude okay they would be from different nations and they will come to believe in the Lord obviously there will be the remnant of the Jews who will come to believe in the Lord Jesus but there will be others as well now they would all profess to believe in the Lord Jesus but not all are believers so some are sheep some are goats now sheep is a reference to the Believers goats they are reference to the unbelievers there will be this separation at that point because they have to enter into the Millennia Kingdom so only the Believers will enter into the Millennia Kingdom so our lord Jesus who is the judge he would judge and separate them so the Sheep will enter the goats will not enter now bear in mind that these goats are not people who outrightly reject our lord Jesus they are not like the atheist or those people who blaspheme the name of God now these are goats that looks very similar to the Sheep just like the 10 virgins look very similar so there would be people who profess to believe in Jesus Christ they'll be in the church they'll be worshiping they'll be singing hymns uh they will be doing all those things that the Believers would do hourly they appear to be like Believers but in reality they do not really believe in him so Jesus will have to judge he will have to separate now this concept of separating the sheep and the goats was very common in those days in those days the Shepherd would bring his flock now his flock would be made up of sheep and goats they look quite the same especially when they are young they are quite similar and then both will Grace the fuse so they'll go and eat the grass and then they will drink from the same pool of water so they will do the same thing but then when come at night the shepherd would gather the sheep and then put them on one side and then gather the goats and put them on the other side why because they are not of the same type some theologians actually made this very interesting observation that sheep are very humble and then goats are very unruly and they often would irritate the Sheep so that was the reason why the shepherd would always separate them so sheep would go one side goats will go the other side there will be this separation at night so this has been practiced for many many years so the disciples then during Jesus time they were very familiar with this separation they have seen it with their own eyes how the shepherd would gather the Sheep to go one side GA the goats to go the other side so they understand this Earthly illustration remember a parable is an Earthly story with a Heavenly or spiritual meaning so our lord Jesus wants to teach this spiritual lesson using this Earthly illustration they are all very familiar so they know now there would be this in heritance awaiting the Sheep now look at verse 34 Verse 34 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 now before that sheep will go to the right side right who goes to the left left side goats goats go to the left side so what is the significance of the right and left see the right hand always speaks about the place of blessing the left hand speaks of the place of less blessing or sometimes even no blessing so those people who reject the almighty God they would have no blessing at all they would only have judgment so there's a difference between right and left one classic example in the Bible is found in Genesis 48 you all remember Jacob had these two grandsons and their names were Ephraim and manasse now manasse was the Elder grandson so Ephraim was younger who would receive the greater blessing or the right hand of blessing the older one right Manas so Manas is supposed to receive Joseph knew that so what Joseph did was that when Jacob was very old he was about to pronounce his judge uh His blessings so he quickly took the older grandson which is which was his son Manas Place him on on Jacob's right hand and then Ephraim on his left hand so that when the father pronounced his judgment oh sorry not judgment blessings he would put his right hand on manasse his left hand on Ephraim you know what Jacob did instead of just putting his hands like that he crossed his hands so the the right hand goes to Ephraim and the left hand goes to manasse so Ephraim became very strong because he has the place of blessing man was blessed to but less blessing here in this regard the right hand and the left hand talks about great blessing as well as no blessing rejection there will be a judgment and all those on the right hand the Sheep will be having this great inheritance they will enter into the millenia Kingdom they will live with God forever and ever even beyond the millenia Kingdom the new heavens and the new Earth they will still be with the almighty God so that is a great inheritance now some people use the parable of the sheep and goats to talk about good works because later on we are going to see that you know Jesus said when I was hungry you gave me food when I was thirsty you gave me drink so they said that well all those are about good works so they use this Parable to talk about good works now good works cannot save you you are saved by faith we all know that this passage this Parable was not about Good Works the basis of Salvation was not discussed here it was about the evidence of Salvation if you truly believe God then there will be evidences then you will do all these things right we all know that true saving faith will lead to produce spiritual fruits will lead to good works so it is not the good works that will save you but it is true saving faith will lead to these good works so this is what this passage is all about if you are not convinced yet well look at what Jesus said Jesus said verse 34 inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world that means even before you were born when God created this world the heavens and the Earth even before the foundation of that God has already chosen you prepared for you this inheritance so it was not about good works it was about God's election those sheep were already elected by God for all eternity they were elected by God so if we are all believers we we are all elected by God chosen by him even before the foundation of the world so to all those people who use this Parable to say that salvation is about Good Works no Jesus says even before the foundation of the world God has already Chosen and elected you now come come and inherit your amazing inheritance now come so all the Sheep will inherit this amazing inheritance the kingdom prepared for them and what are the characteristics of this shap they have believed the almighty God so what have they done what are the things that came out from their true saving Faith look at verse 35 Jesus said for I was and hunged and ye gave me meat I was thirsty and ye gave me drink I was a stranger he took me in naked and he clothed me I was sick and he visited me I was in prison and he came unto me now bear in mind that Jesus was speaking about this Parable in regards to his second coming which will happen or occur after the tribulation right during the tribulation there will be great persecutions there would be great calamities there will be great pestilences there will be great troubles so all those believers who profess to know God who says that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ they will be persecuted not just from the people around them including their own families they will be persecuted they will lose their jobs they would be in great need so they will be very hungry they will be thirsty they will be lonely they will be sick some of them will be imprison and so the Believers during the tribulation because they truly believe God they will reach out to these people who were afflicted but if they reach out to these believers who were Afflicted they themselves might be arrested put into prison and face the same persecutions but nothing can stop them because they have true saving Faith so they loved the Believers and they went all out to reach out to them that was the reason why Jesus said you know when I was and hunger you gave me food I was thirsty you gave me drink I was naked you clothed me I was sick you visited me and then I was in prison you came onto me so it was about the tribulation the Believers then did what the Believers would do now the interesting thing is that these believers who were known as the righteous righteous because they were clothed with the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ read with me verse 37 and and verse 8 38 and 39 let's read together verse 37 then shall the righteous answer him saying Lord when saw we thee and hungered and fed thee or thirst thee 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 so they were surprised can you imagine they were surprised when Jesus said that you know you did all these things to me but of course Jesus was referring to doing all these things to the Believers because the next verse he says if you have done it unto one of the least of the Brethren you have done it unto me think for a moment why would these Believers be surprised let me give you some examples okay why they will be surprised because they did it in a spirit of humility and selflessness they did not think of themselves they only thought about others they did it as a way of life they did it spontaneously they did it through the power of the spirit it is the spirit of God that led them to do all these things they did it as what the Sheep would behave in other words they are just doing what the Believers would do and they were surprised because they did not even realize that there would be a reward now these are very common things not spectacular things by that I mean that you know some people always think that well I have done good works what are the good works I preach to thousands I preach to hundreds now there's a great thing right or I have performed uh great Miracles or I've organized an important event maybe like this ypg Camp you know you are instrumental in doing this organizing work so you have participated and then you thought well I've done this great thing it's an important event but you will not remember those small things right like things like you give a cup of water to someone in the name of our Lord Jesus or someone who is hungry and then you give him some food or someone who needs you know a shirt and then you give a shirt these are things that commonly people would think that they are little things but even little things would go would not go unnoticed because the almighty God knows everything we do everything so how these Believers reach out to those who are afflicted the people the almighty God remembers he knows and he acknowledge you know sometimes people do things and then they want those things to be Rec recorded what do I mean by that they will do some Works let's say they worship God regularly come to church they attend the fellowship meetings on a weekly basis they give to the church they serve in this ministry that Ministry and then they keep a men record they write all these things I have done this I have done that I have served in this area and that area you know these Believers did not do all these things that was why they forgotten about it they just did it as a way of life as what the Believers would behave and then they just move on onto other good works they did not keep a record unlike those people in Matthew 7:21 remember they said Lord Lord have we not prophesied in your name have we not in your name cast out Devils have we not done wonderful Works they kept a record but these people are not these are true believers who did what they did through the Wonder working of the spirit and with a genuine love for the Believers so Jesus recognized that and said well when you do this to one of the list of the Brethren you have done it unto me now there's another group now that group the left side the unbelievers or just professing Believers but in reality do not know God do not believe in God what did Jesus says verse 41 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 then Jesus went on to say for I was in hungered and he gave me no meat I was thirsty and he gave me no drink I was a stranger and he took me not in naked and he clothed me not sick and in prison and he visited me not now these people who were unbelievers or just professing believers they kept a record of what they had done and so they were surprised I have not when you said I have not but when was that so they question Jesus then shall they also answer him saying Lord when saw we thee and hungered or a thirst or a stranger or naked or sick or imprisoned and did not Minister unto thee so these people who were not genuine who were not true believers they were all doing things for the Applause of men for men to pet them on their backs they were all doing things for the honor and praise of men not in regards to God they were doing things to be noticed not things that were little and would go unnoticed their hearts are not in tune with God they never knew him so they were surprised when because we kept a record of what we have done we did not see you in such a situation and not reach out to you the same thing Jesus said to them if you have done it onto one of this list you have done it onto me but the said reality you did not you did not and so there was this final separation permanent separation a judgment that cannot be reverse look at verse 46 and this shall go away into Everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal so dear friends the lesson we learned from here is about love we have learned messages about love right now this love that we have is because first we have re receive love from God the agape love of God and this love constrained our hearts that we will shed forth this love agape love to our Brothers and Sisters in Christ yesterday night I think you learned this amazing verse from 1 Thessalonians 4:9 if you still remember this was what the Apostle Paul said to the Thessalonians he said this as touching Brotherly Love ye need not that I write to you for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another in other words as concerning brotherly love fileo we learned that Agape is a love that is pattern after God it is the highest form of love God's love fileo is a love for brothers and sisters as touching concerning brotherly love I don't have to write you an epistle I don't have to write you a letter to teach you how to have this Brotherly Love why because you are a Believer you have been taught by God himself you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who enables you to understand this brotherly love and to exercise this brother Brotherly Love spontaneously naturally you will love one another that is what it means you know Believers loving other believers it is a spontaneous natural thing okay it is not something that you'll be surprised why I can have this kind of love it is like for example Abigail who is your brother okay that is your biological brother will you be saying this well I did not know that I can love my brother you will not say that right it is a natural thing for you to love your brother although sometimes you know he may trouble you but it is a natural love for brothers and sisters now this word originally was used in the family context that means the physical family like um Shelly and sanjana like um Joshua and Caleb within the family fileo but then in the New Testament you know there's another kind of family what kind of family the spiritual family so when you are born again and into the spiritual family now now you have spiritual Brothers and Sisters in Christ so Paul says concerning this I don't have to teach you because you have been supernaturally born again it is a natural love it is a love you have been taught by God you will love now having said that it does not mean that the moment we believe God then we will love with such a high standard you know we would have reached there with such spiritual maturity no but that is the beginning you will understand that these are my brothers and sisters in Christ I will love them and I have this love and then this love needs to grow just as all the other aspects of our spiritual life we need to grow we need to grow in our understanding of God's word we need to grow in our faith we need to grow in our love so we need to learn to love many years ago when I was in the Far Eastern Bible College there was once we had a meeting and there was this lecturer who was also the matron of the Bible College everyone was very afraid of her because she was very strict she would rebuke people if they had done anything wrong and people would often shy away from her and then one day someone went up to give a testimony and then he said this I am beginning to love my matron then a brother who was sitting beside me he said to me how can you learn to love someone you either love or you don't but that is what the world thinks right you either love someone or you don't but no you can grow in your love you can because you have the spirit of God indwelling in you so it starts off with you understanding that now I'm in a spiritual family I have brothers and sisters in Christ I must love and I must grow in my love Mak sense so all of us we have learned about the greatest of this is love we must apply and then we must also grow in our love just like the Sheep during the time of Jesus Second Coming they went to do all these things giving food giving drink visiting clothing those who are naked those who are persecuted in prison they did all this out of love so they have grown in their love so much so that even at the expense of their lives they may be caught and then persecuted put into prison but they will still do those things and they did it so much so that they themselves have forgotten about it now that is amazing amazing think about this you did something out of this genuine love you will not keep a record but God keeps a record and that is all that matters okay so maybe my parting words to you is that you may exercise love you may reach out to others within the church and then you do not receive you know the appreci you do not receive the acknowledgement people may even misunderstand you never mind God remembers like our lord Jesus you did it onto one of these list you have done it unto me okay so this is the lesson on love may we apply this into our lives let us pray Father in heaven we thank thee for this time time that we can consider the parable of the sheep Ang gos although we are believers we truly believe in thee and we know that by then we will be in heaven with our glorified bodies whether it is by way of death or by the Rapture because we will not be in the tribulation we would rather come with Jesus in his glory in his second coming and rule the world together with him for 10,000 years but nonetheless this Parable still applies to us as we can draw spiritual lessons from it help us oh Lord that we will learn that to love our Brothers and Sisters in Christ is a natural spontaneous thing it is the way of life it is the way that sheep or Believers should behave and we pray that we will grow in such a love because we want to hear our lord Jesus say to us Come All Ye sheep and enter into the kingdom and have the inheritance that I have prepared for you even before the foundation of the world well done thou good and faithful servant so as we serve thee help us oh Lord to remember we belong to the spiritual family the body of Believers all of us are Brothers and Sisters in Christ we ought to love one another and grow in our love for thee and for others as well so do thy Mighty work in each and every one of our Lives we pray all this Ines Jesus name amen thank you