Scott Brown delivers a sermon on the biblical passage describing the final judgment where Jesus separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep, representing the righteous, are distinguished by their acts of love and kindness, done out of love for Christ, while the goats, representing the unrighteous, fail to show such love. The sermon emphasizes the importance of love as a defining characteristic of true believers and highlights the need for self-examination and readiness for the second coming of Christ. Brown discusses the role of good works as evidence of faith and warns of the eternal consequences of failing to demonstrate love towards others, particularly the church. The sermon also addresses the inevitability of the final judgment, the role of angels, and the importance of preparing for Christ's return.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit down on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food.

I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me." Then the righteous will answer him, saying, �Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?

When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or naked and clothe you? Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? And the king will answer and say to them, Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me. Then he will say to those on his left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me no food.

I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and you did not take me in, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. And then they will also answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you, then He will answer them saying, Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into eternal life. Lord we thank you for your word.

Lord I pray that you would teach us today from your word what you would have us to learn. I pray that you would show us areas where we don't please you. Lord, I pray for Scott, if he comes and preaches, that you would speak boldly through him. Lord, I pray for the lost among us, that you would save them. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, this last section on the sheep and the goats marks the end of what is called the upper room discourse. And what we have in the upper room discourse is that the Lord Jesus Christ is standing, sitting on the Mount of Olives looking back toward the temple. And he delivers what is called the Olivet Discourse. And this is a hotly debated passage of Scripture that looks back toward the temple, being destroyed, and then ahead to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's important just to remember the whole thrust of all of that discourse.

You know, the Lord teaches His people in different kinds of ways. He shepherds his people by instructing them, giving them data, information. He leads his people by comforting them. Sometimes he disciplines his people. He leads in so many different ways.

And this is His kindness. It's not just one way that He comes to us, but He surrounds us with all kinds of helpful ways in His shepherding of us. But in the Olivet Discourse we find a very different kind of shepherding. And He's shepherding in the Olivet Discourse by warning, by issuing a warning. I was really struck by the passage that Dana read in 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

He said that, as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God. This is the constant drumbeat, particularly in the last part of the Upper Room Discourse. The Lord is warning, warning, warning, warning of the coming judgment, and that you ought to watch, that you ought to be aware of what is coming and prepare yourself. And so in the first section of the All of the Discourse, he's warning the disciples very personally about what will come upon their own times in the destruction of Jerusalem, how deceivers will arise, how there will be cataclysmic tumults in the world, how there will be persecution in the church, flight to the mountains, you know, signs in the heavens and a great end gathering. And he's prophesying the coming destruction of Jerusalem.

And then we have the second part of it, where the conditions surrounding the final judgment are communicated. And he says, it's like the days of Noah. People are eating and drinking and giving in marriage and marrying. And be ready. Be ready when you're taking a drink.

Be ready when you're sitting down to eat. Be ready all the time. It's like the master of a house who is either prepared or not prepared for the thief to come. Be prepared in the night, because the thief may come in the night. And then, you know, be prepared like a wise servant who, when he's been given authority, he executes his duties properly.

Be ready just in the midst of your, the normal executing of your duties in the world. And then it's like ten virgins. It's like a young girl. There are five who are ready and five who are not ready. You know, five were ready even while they were sleeping and the others were not.

Be ready even while you're sleeping. And then we come to the parable of the talents. The men who were given enormous amounts of money, They were given something and one of them made nothing of it. And the other two did make something of what God had given them. Now we turn to the sheep and the goats, which is not a parable at all.

The Lord Jesus breaks the pattern of parable and he moves into prophecy. It's a didactic text that explains what will happen in that last day. And there are these critical matters that emerge in the coming judgment. And the first is that He will judge every person who ever has been born. This is a picture of everyone who has ever been alive from Adam on will be gathered before God in the final judgment.

And that it's really an explanation of what you see in Romans chapter 2, verse 6, that God will render to each one according to his deeds. And then you also see just an example of just how revolutionary real salvation it is. That it causes you to love. It's the distinguishing mark of Christianity, love for the brethren. And so as we turn to this final illustration of readiness for judgment, we recognize that readiness for judgment is exemplified, demonstrated by something that is so important, it's the thing that's most important to every person here, and that is love.

Who is there in this room that does not desire to see greater displays of his love through you and probably to you as well. But this is the critical matter here, and that Watching in readiness means loving the brethren. And what we find here again is that the betrayal always leads back to the same source, love. The whole law is fulfilled. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart. That one single word is the word that summarizes everything that Christianity is all about. And here what we find in the final judgment is that men and women are judged upon this one word, love. Isn't that amazing? You know, as we're a church here gathered together, we have to recognize what really are first things.

Together in our life together. I mean, our feelings toward one another, our ways about our lives together. And I think, you know, we recognize how short we fall in our love, but this is the standard, this is the direction that we ought to always be taking in everything that we do. As I've been reading this, you know, over and over again this week, I've just been struck with this whole matter of love and the importance of it. How short I fall, how short my family falls, how short love is in the world.

But yet God has given us a vision of hope, really, for the church, for our own families, and for our own lives to keep striving to persistently move toward love in every way that we can. Okay, so the second coming of Christ is in view. If you see your outlines here, I divided my discussion with you about this into three sections. First of all, the second coming of Christ. Second, the sheep and an explanation of what happens to them.

And then finally, the goats. And then I'm going to spend some time working through various ways of applying this to us. So the second coming of Christ is first. And the answer to the question of when is given, it starts with when. When the Son of Man comes in His glory." There's no asking if, it's when.

He governs all things, He will come. There is an event marked on the calendar. It might not be on your calendar because you don't know the day or the hour, but it's on his calendar and it will happen. So it's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when.

Here, you know, all people live between these two great points of history, the resurrection and the second coming of Christ. We live sometime nearer the second coming of Christ than we did yesterday. And this is the era in which we live. It's so important to know your era and understand what's going on and what your responsibilities are in an era of history. You live in an era of history that in front of you is the second coming.

And here the Lord has been over and over teaching His disciples to watch in every moment of their lives when they're eating and drinking and governing their house and going about their business and sending their resources. Be ready, even while you're sleeping. Be ready for that moment. What a blessing it is to have a sense of the impending coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, or perhaps a terror if you've not bowed your knee to Him. Now, again, this is not a parable.

It's a description of a real event. It's a simile, not a parable. You see the terminology. It is like, like and as. And so there's this explanation of something that is really going to happen in contrast to the parables that we've seen in the past.

Now here I want to just make a number of observations about this. Number one, he comes when he desires. All of the parables focus on the second coming and the long wait and the division of humanity into categories. But he comes when he desires because he is the ruler of all things. Secondly, He takes action.

There's action, there's development of history. History is going somewhere. And we just can take comfort in that. Now, the world's not spinning out of control at all. It is in perfect control.

God is governing it. And I don't know what you think about your world today, whether something is spinning out of control. Let me tell you something, it's not. Whatever is happening to you is happening for the glory of God, whatever it is. And it's not spinning out of control.

God is good, and He is taking action to take the history in a direction. Also, He's coming to judge, I think we have to recognize that. He's coming to judge the world. It is the Lord Jesus Christ that is coming to judge. He is the judge.

In John chapter 5 verse 24, he said, Most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life." In verse 22 of John chapter 5, it says that the Son will judge. So the Son of God is coming to judge, and His call in His coming judgment is, believe in Him so that you might have everlasting life. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That you would recognize that a judge will come, But let him judge you now and wash you white as snow, to justify you, to purify you, to put your sins as far as the east is from the west." This is the definition of coming judgment so that you will repent today to escape that judgment. And that's what we've seen all through the Gospel of Matthew.

The Lord Jesus is appealing, repent, repent, repent. Why? To escape that final judgment. He's coming to judge, and the Son of God will judge. In the confession that our church embraces, the Baptist Confession of 1689, there's a very distinctive and precise statement on this final judgment.

Let me just read some of it for you in paragraph one. God has appointed a day wherein He will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the Father, in which day not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived on the earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds, and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil." So this is this impending day of judgment Jesus Christ provides or presides over that day. We also notice that he comes in glory. I love these words, when the Son of Man comes in his glory. I've been saying those words over and over in my mind.

They're just wonderful words. You know, he humbled himself and now he comes in his heavenly glory. He engaged in life as an ordinary man, and now he comes not as an ordinary man, He comes in beauty, in majesty, in vanquishing power. He takes on a completely different personage in this sense. That he's coming in his glory.

He's come in humility, to plead with mankind. He's made so many pleadings, honest, you know, earnest pleadings with men to repent. But now he comes in his glory, and he shows his might and his power. He has shown the edges of his power as he healed the sick and he raised the dead, as he cast out demons, as he calmed the storms, as he controlled the spiritual powers of darkness around him. Now, Now he comes with a fuller display of his power.

So he comes in glory. He also comes with his holy angels. All the angels in the Bible. Now so far in Scripture, you know, you've been reading Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, angels show up from time to time. But this time, it's different.

All the angels are there, and they all come to judge. And this is very different. There are thousands of thousands, millions of millions. You know, we think of angels often so wrongly. We think of angels as little fat babies with, you know, pearly white or pink cheeks.

Not so. Angels are terrifying. You know, when angels appear in scripture, guess what people do? They fall down on their faces in terror. You don't do that with a little fat baby with pink cheeks.

So, forget all those images. Angels are not like that at all. They cause them to fall on their faces. But He's coming now with all the angels with Him. What will that look like?

You will see it, Whether you are a sheep or a goat, you will get to see this someday. And it will either be the most wonderful source of enlightenment and emboldening, emboldenment and love and thankfulness, or it will be absolute terror because you know who you are. In 1st Thessalonians 416 we read, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord, therefore comfort one another with these words." The thought of the coming of the Lord should be a thing that we comfort one another with.

Luke 12, 8, Also I say to you, whoever confesses me before men, the Son of man will also confess before the angels of God, but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God." So there's this angelic host that exists that the Lord Jesus Christ is relating with. He's having conversations with the angels. And Here he's coming with the entire army of angels and he's confessing. He's actually going to bless, he's going to eulogize the saints before the angels of heaven. In Revelation 14, 10-12 we read, He himself shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out in full strength into the cup of his indignation.

He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. The holy angels are also presiding and even visible to those who are in hell. The Lord Jesus Christ actually is in hell or at least can be seen from hell or something like that. He and the angels are presiding and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is doing the tormenting of those in hell. So He comes with His holy angels.

What a remarkable picture that is. It says that also He will sit on the throne of his glory. Now are my shift to the whole picture of his throne. What is that going to be like? Well, it is a throne.

In Hebrews 1, the writer says, Your throne, O God, will last forever. In Daniel 7, it says, I watched till thrones were put in place, and the Ancient of Days was seated. His garment was as white as snow and the hair of his head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, its wheels a burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him a thousand thousands ministered to him ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him the court was seated and the books were opened.

That's the theme that's here. You find he's fifth on the throne of his glory. You know, The Lord actually calls His people to come before His throne, to come before the throne of grace, to come boldly before His throne. And in the days of old, the people of God came before God and the glory of God filled the temple. God has always desired to meet with his people seated on his throne.

And as we gather here for worship, This is a precursor to what will happen in the future. So as we gather, we should be preparing ourselves to meet before the throne of God, to be before Him in holiness, in gratitude, in humility, recognizing the greatness of His power. Even as we're gathering now, we really are a people who meet in order that the glory of the Lord would fill the temple. We know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And as we gather, we don't want to underestimate what God intends for our time, to be before Him in His glory, that the glory of the Lord would be like the smoke in the temple.

That would be so overwhelming, that it would be so unmistakable, that it would both stop our mouths and open our mouths in praise toward Him. And then we read that all the nations are gathered as well. Not only is He sitting on the throne of His glory and all the holy angels are with Him, the nations are all there. All the nations will be gathered before Him. And everyone will be there.

Open up the newspaper. Look at People magazine. All the people with those famous personalities will be there. Everyone will be there. Every president, every business leader, the great multi-billionaires of the world will all be there.

And nothing is hidden from His sight. And This will happen to them. This will happen to them outside their own will. This does not happen by the will of man. But God exerts His mighty power over all mankind.

And by His force, They will be gathered. You get the language there? They will be gathered. They're not gathering. They're not showing up.

They are being drawn against their will by the forcefulness of the power of Almighty God to stand before God. And people who thought that they've been so free will recognize there never ever really was any freedom like that. And before their eyes, all of their freedoms will evaporate because they will be gathered and no one will be able to resist. So that's the scene. And then, in the second division, the sheep are placed on his right hand.

And this section spans from verses 33 to verse 40. And what we find here is that there's this great separation that takes place first. He will separate them one from another as a sheep divides, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Now, here the Lord does again what He's done so many times.

He divides the world only into two categories, the sheep and the goats. And he's doing this in the animal world, using animal imagery. He uses animals to explain things about himself and about the way the world is. He uses ants and fish and snakes and worms and locusts and rock badgers and dogs and wolves and foxes And now he uses sheep and goats. He's done this in the botanical world by speaking of the wheat and the tares, the productive seed and the unproductive seed, the good soil and the bad soil.

Jeremiah talks about good figs and bad figs. Really bad figs is what he says. John talks about good branches and worthless branches. And so here the Lord uses the same kind of imagery, but with sheep and with goats. And you know, the nature of sheep generally, while they are often foolish, they are also dependent versus goats.

They like to rebel. They want to get out of fences. And if you've ever owned goats, you understand what we're talking about. And, you know, one of the most interesting things about this for me, for all of the beard lovers in the world, is that only the goats have beards, but the sheep have manes. I don't understand what that means yet.

Maybe you can figure that out. But the sheep and the goats are divided. And it's a divisive judgment. In verse 32, it's this separation. Jesus has already talked about this.

One woman will be grinding and be taken, and two men will be working in the field and one will be taken. God is going to judge. He came, He did not come to bring peace, but a sword. And He surprises, He surprises in his division of mankind. And this has been prophesied.

He'll divide his sheep from the goats. Like in Malachi chapter 3 verse 18, "'Then shall you return and discern between the righteous and the wicked. You cannot separate yourselves perfectly from one another in the world. Only the Lord knows how to separate them rightly. Rightly.

It's probably true that the way that we separate people is not exactly accurate. But the Lord is exactly accurate. He knows the thoughts and the intents of the heart. In Psalm 1, we read, therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. So it has to do with godliness and ungodliness.

Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous." That's Psalm 1 verse 6. The Lord knows the way of the righteous. But the way of the ungodly shall perish." Not only is it a divisive judgment, but it's an eternal judgment. The Division is eternal.

They will never meet again. They will never be mixed again. There will never be another opportunity. Not another opportunity to preach the Gospel. Not another opportunity to appeal.

Not another opportunity to demonstrate love and mercy, to speak the truth. That opportunity will be gone. It is an eternal division. And there's a blessing and a curse that's pronounced at this division. Verse 34, Then the king will say to those on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

And so this is a blessing that is pronounced here. He, again, he speaks kindly, he speaks tenderly to his children, much like the parable of the Talents where he said, enter into the joy of your Master. And he pronounces a blessing. Now, the term blessing is here, but we have to be careful because it's not the same kind of blessing that we've been familiar with in the Gospel of Matthew. Particularly his use of the word blessing in the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit.

That's a different kind of blessing. In Matthew 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is explaining what a blessing it is to have Him in your life, how good it is to your soul, how life-giving, how happiness-producing it is. It's like happiness to your soul. That's the word makarios. Here, he uses the word eulageo, which means it's like a eulogy.

Rather than the blessing that you feel in your soul, this is a blessing you hear with your ears from your master. This is like your husband saying to you, honey, I just love the way you keep your hair, or I just love the way that you take care of our children. It's that kind of a blessing. When you say something to someone of endearing quality. It's like a eulogy, like you'd say something about your friend.

That's the kind of blessing that it is here. So he's already told them about this path of blessing in the Beatitudes. Here, he actually blesses with his lips toward those who love him and are called according to His purpose. And so He gives a eulogy for them. You know, I think one of the commentators I read just noted that here the people of God are reproached by the world, but they're blessed by their Father." What a wonderful thing that is.

And so he says, come, you blessed of my Father. So the Father is the one who's giving the blessing. Your Father in heaven. You know, the one that you've prayed to, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. He is the one who will bless you at His coming.

And then it says here that He gives them a kingdom. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. You know, the Lord Jesus in another place, the little flock, don't you know that it's your Father's desire to give you the kingdom? And here, this is a kingdom that really was based on the whole doctrine of election. I mean, it's the kingdom that was prepared from the foundation of the world.

I mean, here, the whole idea of election and heaven are married together. If you don't like the idea of election, then you shouldn't like the idea of heaven that much. Heaven was prepared from the foundation of the world, and He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. That exact same language is used to explain these things. They are connected.

Heaven was prepared for the elect. And so the whole doctrine of election is bound up in the doctrine of heaven. We should like the doctrine of election because heaven is such a thing to be liked. And here it's before the foundation of the world. This is electing love.

The Bible says that Christ was actually slain before the foundation of the world. Heaven was prepared before the foundation of the world and you were called according to his purpose before the foundation of the world. And so it is a prepared kingdom. You know the Lord Jesus in John 14 says, Behold, I go and prepare a place for you. And then there are various kinds of good works that are mentioned here.

It's not an exhaustive list of good works. But the idea here is that true faith always results in good works. And what you find is that these who have done their good works, they have done it for Him. They've done it for His glory. They've done it for His love.

That was what motivated them to do the good works. They weren't earning their salvation. They did it because they loved Christ. That's the difference between the sheep and the goat. The goat does a lot of good works, but not for Christ.

They do it because maybe it works to do good works. Maybe it's good for business. Maybe it's good for marriage. Maybe it's just good for friendship, you know, if you do good things. Some people do things because it's good for them, others do it because it glorifies Jesus Christ.

That's the difference between the sheep and the goats. But notice there are various categories here. There's food in verse 35. I was hungry and you gave me food and drink. I was thirsty and you gave me drink.

There are always two ways to give food and water. For the love of Christ or for the love of yourself, and only you know. And then there's lodging. I was a stranger and you took me in. In other words, your home was available for people to come and have rest and help.

It's an open home. I was a stranger and you took me in. And then there's clothing and the implications of clothing on your pocketbook, because usually you have to go buy clothes for someone. I was naked and you clothed me. And then there's the whole matter of travel and transportation.

I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. This is someone who interrupts his normal focus of life to go and be with somebody else, to suspend their agenda, to go and help someone. The tug of war, the tug of war of success and obligations and things like that often wages war against our love. And we're not willing to get up and go and travel and go help someone who's called for help.

And then there is, you know, I think this is under the same category of entertaining strangers. You bring them into your house, you go to them, you help them. You know, the Apostle Paul said in Galatians 6-10, he said, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. Now that's the balance for us. Good to all, especially those who are of the household of faith.

The Lord Jesus is very clearly speaking about His brothers. He's speaking about how you treat the church. That's explicitly what Jesus is speaking about, but He's not excluding others. But let's be very clear, Jesus is speaking about how you love your brothers or not in this passage of Scripture. And then you notice the unselfish, the unself-righteous question of the righteous.

The unself-righteous question of the righteous. They ask a question in verse 37, then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord, When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink, or when did we see you a stranger and take you in, or naked and clothe you, or when did we see you sick or imprisoned and come to you? The righteous do not have a very high view of their righteousness. They feel that they're undeserving. Now, we cannot conclude that any of these works have saved any of these people.

No amount of feeding of the poor, no amount of taking care of people or being nice and gracious can buy you a ticket to heaven. We already know that's ridiculous and not true. But here you find a humility about the sheep. They don't think that highly of their righteousness. J.C.

Ryle in his book Holiness explains it really in a fantastic way. Here's what he says, A truly sanctified person may be so clothed with humility that he can see in himself nothing but infirmity and defects. Like Moses when he came down from the mount, he may not be conscious that his face shines. Like the righteous in the mighty parable of the sheep and the goats, he may not see that he has done anything worthy of his master's notice and commendation." They say, "'When did we see you hungry and feed you? Ryle continues, but whether he sees it himself or not, others will always see in him a tone and taste and character, a habit of life, unlike that of other men.

The very idea of being sanctified while no holiness can be seen in his life is flat nonsense and a misuse of the words." So they don't see their righteousness And they say, Lord, when did we ever express any love in this world to anyone? When did we do that? They just don't see themselves like that. But what is the distinguishing mark that separates the believers from the unbelievers? It's in verse 40.

Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." The outward distinguishing mark that separates the sheep from the goats is love for the people who love Jesus. That's it. People will be judged on the way that they treat the church. We know who Jesus' brothers are. The disciples asked the question, who then is my brother and sister?

And Jesus said, They who do the will of my Father. In Matthew chapter 10, He said, He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me. So Jesus sets himself as a brother here. In Romans 8, he's the firstborn among many brethren. The Lord Jesus so identifies with his church That it's offensive to him when people hate his church and hate it and don't express love to his people.

That's why when the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road and appeared to him and blinded him. He said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Saul was persecuting the church and Jesus was saying, it's like you're persecuting me. Jesus so identifies with His church that He's willing to cast into outer darkness those who treat the church poorly and hate the church. I mean It might just cause us to ask, how is America treating the church today?

Really? Does it matter how a nation treats the church? I got an email late last night from a brother who had a friend in another country who was chained to a prison and left all night outside in the rain because he was preaching the gospel. They released him this morning. But They hated the church.

Those policemen hated the church in that African country. God judges nations for the way that they treat the church of Jesus Christ. If you're a Christian, how do your relatives treat you? How do people treat you when they find out you're a Christian? My experience is things change when people find out you're a Christian.

This distinguishing mark is really critical for us to understand on a lot of different levels. For one thing, it should just set us free from having to ever please men, but just please God. But secondly, and here's what I want us to really recognize here as a church. You play a very powerful role in the world, And you are a worker with God to distinguish who are the brethren and who are not. And when you go out into the world and you're hated because of the cause of Christ, recognize God is using you as a tool to preach that there is a separation, that to preach, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, there's a separation for a reason.

It's a good separation, and it's a warning, it's a pre-warning, so that people don't face the final judgment. He sends his children out in the world to be hated, to make sure that there's a division known. And it's a good thing to make that division known. It's not bad. It's something that could work for the salvation of someone who's lost.

But Christians perform a very important function in the world when they are hated, because they prophesy that God is coming with all His holy angels to judge the living and the dead. It's a very important function in the world. It's the most important function in the world. World. And the works that we are judged by are the works of love.

I'd like to encourage you to just reconsider the section in our confession on good works, because there it really explains the role of good works in the life of a believer, and it's really excellent. I'll just give you some summary thoughts of it. In the first paragraph, it states that good works are only the things that God has commanded in His word. In the second paragraph, it says that good works done in obedience are fruits. They're evidences of faith.

In the third paragraph, it says that your ability to do good works is not of yourself but only by the Spirit of Christ. In the fourth paragraph, it says the greatest work you'll ever do falls short of the glory of God. In the fifth paragraph, it says that we can't, by even our best works, receive any pardon from sin. In the sixth paragraph, it says that our good works are accepted by Him, even though they are filled with weaknesses. In the seventh paragraph it says that works done by unregenerate men are not good works at all because they weren't done for Christ in the same way that the goats might do good works but they don't do it because they love their Savior.

The good works done by the sheep are done because of Christ. You did it unto me. That's the key. The works were done for him. And so that concludes the whole section on the sheep.

Now we move to the goats. The king speaks to the goats on his left hand in verses 41 to 46. And I want to give you a number of observations here. They are on his left hand. They are separated.

And this separation is a deep separation on many fronts. Front Number one, eternal predestination and eternal rejection and damnation. Those are the two dividing points. Being known and being not known, on the other hand. That's the second dividing point.

Thirdly, there are temporal blessings of the gospel and the blessing of God, and then there are curses that divide. There's earthly humility on the one hand with the sheep, there's earthly pride with the goats. The sheep next are doing good works for Christ. The goats are doing good works for their own glory. Next the sheep escaping the curse of the law.

The goats under the curse of the law. This is this division that takes place. They are on his left hand. They're on the wrong side of the equation. And then they are ordered to depart.

Depart from me. The worst words to ever hear with the ear. Depart from me. They did not want God in the details of their lives, and now they cannot have Him at all. And they'll be separated from His love, from His counsel, from His comfort, from His mercy, from His correction, separated from His patience, separated from His perseverance, separated from His sweet words that help so much forever.

That help so much forever. And then they are denounced and cursed, you cursed. And then they ask why, And the Lord explains. But notice what they call Him. They call Him, what do they call Him?

They call Him Lord. Again, the Lord Jesus repeats the same pattern. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say? But even in the presence of all of His holy angels, they call Him Lord. And even though they use that word, the truth is, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

This is that time." And then we see that they're self-righteous and they say, "'When did we see you hungry or thirsty?' And the Lord Jesus tells them that they did not do it for Him. Their works were done for themselves, not out of love for Christ. Anything done not by faith to obey is no good work on Judgment Day. Doesn't that just show us how important it is just to be watchful so that our works are done as much as we can self-consciously out of the love of Christ. And then the Lord explains the reason for His wrath in verse 45.

Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Let me just mark a few words here. The word into, into, notice the word into, into the everlasting fire. It surrounds you.

It's like a lake that surrounds you. You're completely immersed in it. There's no relief from it at all. It's all consuming. Notice the word everlasting.

Jesus uses the word ionos. It's an increment of time that cannot be measured. It's eternal. It cannot be measured. There's no endpoint to it.

And notice the word fire. And notice the Word prepared. There is the doctrine of hell right there, right before your eyes, in just a few words. It's explained there in such summary form. Okay, I'd like to move to some applications.

Now the first one is this. I believe that when a congregation is before the Word of God, they are actually before God and himself. When the Word of God is opened and read and preached, we are actually before God. And the question that we really ought to consider is this, why has the Lord so ordered our lives together that we would be in a gospel where the Lord Jesus Christ is constantly appealing to us to examine ourselves? Remember, that's the purpose of what Jesus is saying to his disciples.

He's been saying, be watchful, be watchful, be watchful, be watchful, while you're eating and drinking because that day is coming when you will stand before him and his holy angels. So we've been in this passage where, And when I say passage, I mean the whole gospel of Matthew, where in almost every chapter there's an appeal to examine yourself. And I know we've been asked to examine ourselves so many times, And for some reason the Lord Jesus desires us to do this as a church, to be examining ourselves and not to stop somehow. Now Jesus was speaking to a religious audience. He was speaking to his disciples here, and there were probably others around, but throughout the Olivet Discourse and before, and he was in the temple area and he was making the same appeal over and over again.

But he was making an appeal not to a secularized people, not to a paganized people at all, but to a religious people, sort of a church-going crowd. I mean, people who had a very elaborate religion, where there was structure and order, and you were giving of alms, and you were praying, and you were going to the... I mean, It was a very elaborate and generous religion in the sense that it had much to be involved in. That's the kind of person the Lord Jesus is speaking to. He's speaking to an audience like the people in America, where people claim to be born again.

And this is the context in which we live today. And it is such an unpopular question to ask for self-examination. But it's right for us to say to ourselves and to our friends, make your calling and election sure. It's too important. So here we are saying it again.

Make your calling and election sure. Do you love Jesus Christ from your heart? Do you believe in him with all your heart? Are you turning away from your idols? Has he changed your heart from his heart of stone to a heart of flesh?

Have you repented and believed in the gospel? Have you been born again? That's the question. And so it's right to ask that question again. Turn to Jesus Christ if you haven't.

He is such a good shepherd. Secondly, second application, let's sort of do a love check up here. Let's consider our love toward one another. Have we prioritized this in our hearts? There isn't a person in this room that could not love more in this church.

But love is so important. And here, love is placed before us as something so necessary and wonderful to the Lord. He desires His children to love one another. And, you know, the problem with that is love is always tested in a church. There's so many opportunities to destroy love in a church.

There are offenses, there are words unfitly spoken, There are distractions that people have and hurriedness and things like that in life that can cause people to hate one another in the church. There are weaknesses that people have. There are unwise things that people say. There are sins that people have in the church. And the prioritization of love should be before us here.

That we should just cry out to God that He would help us to love each other more. More than we do. It wouldn't hurt. And so let's do a love check up here in our church. You know, there's also love for the lost.

This passage is about love for the Church, but there's also love for the lost, for those who are on the other side of the equation at this time. And last night, our family is together, and we were reminded many, many years ago, Deborah and I were in the Long Beach Sports Arena. And we were listening to Keith Green, who was an evangelist slash songwriter. He really was an evangelist first. And, you know, there during a time of revival in Southern California.

And he died in 1982, but a few years before He died, Deborah and I were hearing him. And he sang a song that night. Do you see, do you see all the people sinking down? Don't you care, Don't you care? Are you going to let them drown?

How can you be so numb not to care if they come? You close your eyes and pretend the job's done. Oh, bless me more. Bless me, Lord. You know, that's all I ever hear.

No one aches, no one hurts, no one even sheds one tear. But He cries, He weeps, He bleeds, and He cares for your needs. But you just lay back and keep soaking it in. Oh, can't you see it's such sin? And he continues, how can you be so numb not to care if they come?

You close your eyes and pretend the job's done. You close your eyes and pretend the job's done. Let's not be like that. Let's not be like that. Now, this is a sin of omission, isn't it?

There are sins of commission, actively, and then there are sins of things that you don't do. And here the Lord Jesus in the sheep and the goats is speaking about sins of omission, things that you did not do. Listen, you have to be so clear about that. They are judged on what they did and didn't do. It's so plain in the text.

And again, it's not that you're saved by what you do, but judgment is needed out on the evidences of that faith and whether you did or did not do anything. On the surface it appears that you're judged by what you did. And we can't let that go by us and just say, it doesn't really matter how I live, all is grace. That's a false gospel. Jesus is so plain here.

Third application. Have you recognized how often Jesus speaks about hell and considered the implications for us in a world that hates to admit hell? Now, Hell is mentioned in Matthew 24 and 25 five times, just in those two chapters. In Matthew 8, in Matthew 10, in Matthew 13, in the parable of the wedding feast, the woes in Matthew chapter 23, Mark chapter 9 verse 43. I mean there's so much about hell in the Bible.

Now we need to recognize who is Jesus Christ. He is going to punish in hell. We often have such a wrong view of Jesus. He's so meek and He's so mild. You know, Mark Twain understood this.

Mark Twain got this. He understood the wrath of Jesus. In his letters from the earth, he says Jesus was a thousand billion times more cruel than the God of the Old Testament. Here's how he said it. Now here's a curious thing.

It's believed by everybody that while Jesus was in heaven, he was stern, hard, resentful, jealous, and cruel. But that when he came down to earth, he assumed the name Jesus Christ and he became the opposite of what he was before. That is to say he became sweet and gentle, merciful, forgiving, and all harshness disappeared from his nature, and a deep and yearning love for his poor human children took place. Whereas it was as Jesus Christ that He devised hell and proclaimed it. Which is to say that as the meek and gentle Savior, He was a thousand billion times crueler than ever he was in the Old Testament.

Oh, incomparably more atrocious than ever he was when he was at the very worst in those old days. Meek and gentle. Mark Twain understood the wrath of God, but the reason that he had no sense of Jesus Christ, merciful, long-suffering, helping the weak, loving perfectly. He could not understand that Jesus because He was unregenerate. But He understood that He was going to face Jesus Christ a thousand billion times more wrathful than even the God of the Old Testament.

So We have to recognize what hell is. And there are ministers who minimize the doctrine of hell in their congregations. There are Christians out in the world who want to minimize a discussion of hell. There are ministers who tried to frighten their congregations with the knowledge of hell. Jonathan Edwards is one of those.

You should read him. He desired to frighten with hell, and so should you. Jesus Christ is doing that here in this passage in the sheep and the goats. He is frightening in order to drive people to repentance. And then the next application.

How Jesus changes the lives of His children, how the righteousness of Christ is so transforming. It changes our behavior. It's revolutionary. It's real. It makes you love people.

It gives you love in your heart. You know, when someone is saved, that's the first thing that you see. The tenderness of their heart. Yes, mixed with some of the old sins and things like that for sure. But something changes.

But Jesus is so effectual in his salvation. He does a good work. And then finally I want to close with an illustration that is very relevant to us. A sorrow to us, a burden in many ways, and it has to do with church discipline and the import particularly the importance of church discipline to save people from weeping and gnashing of teeth And I'd like you to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Please, everyone turn in their Bibles.

1 Corinthians chapter 5. Now the most serious thing a church ever does is to exercise church discipline. But this discipline has a purpose. It actually is an act of love. And 1 Corinthians 5 verses 4 and 5 make it clear how loving it is and how persistent and prayerful and diligent we must be because someone's life hangs in the balance.

The wrath of God is on the table here. And so in 1st Corinthians 5 verses 4 and 5 we read, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together along with my Spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Why? Why? That His Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

That's our hope in any discipline, is that the Spirit would be saved in the day of Jesus. So that on that great day, when the Lord Jesus Christ and all of His holy angels gather all the nations before Him, that there would be salvation for that person. And there are so many ways that God uses to rescue the perishing. And right now you're in a church that is part of a process to reconcile and rescue the perishing. And it's a call for that person, for those people to turn away from the works of the devil and their family, to turn to Christ.

And what we see here is such a persistent love of God. The great lengths that he goes through to rescue his bride, he sends prophets like the prophets did, rising early and coming frequently. And then he sent his son, God did, to proclaim. And then he sent his apostles and prophets. And then he sent his church out into the world to cry out to be reconciled to God, that we would be ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us.

We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Why? For he who made him, who knew no sin, to be a sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. And what I want to just close with today is that this whole matter of discipline is given to display the persistence of God, the patience of God, to rescue a bride. And that's why it's so important for us here in this place to make our calling and election sure.

And to recognize what a good shepherd he is. To ask you in so many different ways, What is the state of your soul when you take a drink, when you eat your food, when you get married, when you take care of your house, when you execute your responsibilities as a worker, when you've been using what God has given you. Make your calling and election sure. Have your face lifted up before your Savior, looking unto Him for everything, to be watchful and ready, to be so aware of His love, of His truth, in all of our interactions together. Would you pray with me?

Oh Lord, we are shocked and amazed at your Word and the power of it, how it penetrates so deeply and it tells the story of our lives and the story of all eternity. Amen.