Early + Separation + Matthew 25:31-46 + Tuesday + 2023

A Rabbi teaches. A Disciple is taught. There’s your profound truth for the day!

Over the course of three years, the disciples, eager to learn more, got more comfortable asking their rabbi questions. So there on the Mount of Olives, a stone's throw away from Jerusalem, the students ask their teacher a question, “What will be the sign of your coming at the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3).

Good question. But first, two observations, 1) Jesus hasn’t even left and they are already asking about when he will return, brilliant! 2) The disciples do not ask, “when will we be raptured up to heaven and all the sinners be left behind?” I couldn’t help myself, just ponder that one for a moment.

Jesus, the teacher, responds to his students' question, with a rather lengthy discourse, so that from Matthew 24:5-25:46, it’s all words in red, a constant teaching from the teacher.

The teaching eventually leads to Matthew 24:31. There, Jesus informs his students that when He returns there will be a gathering where there will be a separation. Simply put, Jesus will gather to separate, not to sing “Kumbaya.”

He will place the goats on the left and the sheep on the right.

The goats will depart in the curse with satan for eternal punishment.

The sheep will inherit the Kingdom with Jesus for eternal life.

Whoa, that escalated quickly! To ensure we are on the same page here, this isn’t literal, the goats and sheep are metaphors for people; he is talking about us!

So there it is, in between the shouts of “hosanna” on Sunday and “crucify him” on Friday, Jesus offers a blunt and to the point teaching on what it will be like when he returns.

So how do we know whether we are a sheep or a goat? According to Jesus, it’s based on how we live. The goats are the ones who lived for “my will” and did nothing for the least of these. The sheep are those who fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, visited the prisoner, clothed the naked, and took care of the sick.

“As you treated the least among you,” says Jesus, “so you treated me.” (vs. 45)

Your life bears witness to your Lord. To say Jesus is Lord is to confess it with our voice and live it out with our life. One without the other is incomplete. Better said in James, “faith without works is dead.” (James 2:26).

To say the sinner’s prayer is only the beginning, it’s the new birth, because the sinner’s prayer should lead us to the abiding, Spirit-filled, following Jesus teaching life.

If you recall back in Luke 5:8, Peter tells Jesus to depart from him because he is sinful. Jesus counters him in Matthew 5 and says, “follow me.” This same counter, however, is not offered at the separation Jesus speaks of at the end of this present age. For at that time, our lives will bear witness to who has been our Lord, our lives will bear witness as to whether we’ve said “thy will” or “my will”, at that point we will be either “in Christ” or “in sin.”

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it.” - CS Lewis, The Great Divorce.

Fellow Image-Bearer, the time to get right with the Lord is not when the gathering for separation occurs, but now, right now. For Jesus is always returning at a time only the Father knows.

May we always be ready, always be prepared, not like doomsday preppers or fanatical fictional authors, but may we make ourselves ready for the return of our King by loving our neighbor as if our neighbor were our soon coming King.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Luke is Pastor of Discipleship to the saints, in Christ, at Nashville Methodist.