To Encourage You

Matthew 25:31-41 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.  Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ . . .  Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’”

One of the most terrifying passages in the entire Bible is the passage above from Matthew 25. It speaks of the second coming of Jesus Christ.  Whereas at His first coming Jesus came as a baby in a manger with the announcement of “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14), the second coming will be one of judgment as the glorious King of kings comes to settle all accounts and establish His eternal kingdom forevermore.  We are told that it will be a great time of separation, likened to separation by a shepherd of sheep from goats.  The sheep are likened to those who are the true servants of the King and who will be ushered into His kingdom with eternal blessings. The goats are likened to the rebels, who will be eternally removed from the kingdom and consigned to a place with the first and greatest rebel of the kingdom, Satan himself.  

But do you know what?  Each and every one of us starts out life as one of the goats in this metaphor.  We are not submissive subjects to the King. We are rebels against Him. The evidence is unmistakable as the sin that dwells in our hearts works itself out in our thoughts, words, and deeds. And try as we might to change all that, it is impossible for a goat to be anything else but a goat. 

Using another biblical metaphor, the Bible asks and answers the following rhetorical question: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil” (Jeremiah 29:13).  An Ethiopian will die an Ethiopian, a leopard will die a leopard, a goat will die a goat, and a sinner will die a sinner.  In other words, there’s no hope – or is there?  

Again, the Bible gives us an answer, but like all the other of life’s biggest questions, the answer is a supernatural one. The only hope for a goat is that it must die and then be born again.  It’s a reincarnation, if you will, of a godly sort.  And how is this done?  If is by faith in the death of God’s Son.  Romans 6:3-11 explains it like this: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”  

It is by this way and this way only that a goat will ever be made a sheep. It’s the new birth. The new creation.  It’s the only way that all things, including the very blackness of sin in the human heart, can be cleansed. Listen as the Lord speaks through the prophet Isaiah about this truth: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). Do you hear that? Like wool. That’s something that goats don’t have.  

One other place that speaks of the change that only God can bring about is in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, where he says this: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.  AND SUCH WERE SOME OF YOU. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). 

So what about you?  How would you define yourself? Are you a sheep, or a goat? Which metaphor describes you?  If a sheep, a glorious future awaits you. If a goat, you can read for yourself what Jesus said. But there’s a remedy. You can be born again. You can be made brand new. But there’s only one way that this is possible. It’s the way of the One Who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one ever has or ever will come to the Father except through Him (John 14:6).