When The Nations Gather Before The Throne
According to a World Bank Report, Of the world’s 736 million extremely poor in 2015, 368
million lived in 5 countries. The five countries with the highest number of
extremely poor are (in descending order) India, Nigeria, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. They are the most populous
countries of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which account for 85 percent
(629 million) of the world’s poor.[1]
Those of us
living in the US, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, may not understand
the world’s poverty and hunger. Having lived in India, I have seen abject poverty and people
suffering from hunger. In their recent trip to the Dominican Republic, our
young people have observed first-hand how many people live in poverty and go to
bed hungry each night.
The
ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has turned the Gaza Strip into a wasteland
of poverty and hunger. A news report notes, “A mother of seven finds herself
begging for food on the mud-caked streets of Rafah in Southern Gaza. She tries to feed her kids at
least once a day, she says, while tending to her husband, a cancer and
diabetes patient. Parents go hungry so that they can feed their children. Many
Palestinians in northern Gaza have resorted to grinding animal feed into flour
to stave off hunger.”
What should Christians respond to when we watch or hear such
heart-breaking news? Some might quickly jump to social action. Others might say
we should care more about the soul’s salvation, so we must preach the gospel.
Should we believers only preach the gospel? Or can we also render physical and
material help to those in need? Or should we do both? Today’s parable of The
Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46 will help us find the balance.
In
our series of the Parables of Christ, this parable has eternal consequences for
the listener at the end of time. Jesus shared this parable in anticipation of
his second coming and the subsequent establishment of His Kingdom on the earth.
The setting of this parable is Heaven.
I. The Heavenly Court
Matthew
25:31, “When the Son of Man comes in his
glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.” The
parable opens up with, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the
angels with him.” The Son of Man is a title Jesus used for himself, Jesus.
“When He comes in, his glory with his angles,” suggests his second glorious
return.
Imagine yourself at the end of
your journey on this earth; you were taken into the heavenly court, standing before
the righteous judge Christ himself. You were speechless seeing Him seated on
His glorious throne. As you observe, all the nations of the earth are also
being gathered around the throne. What Happened when the nations gathered
around the throne?
Jesus separated people one from the other as a shepherd would
separate the sheep from the goats. He keeps the sheep on his right and the
goats on his left. Before we go further, we must address a potential
misinterpretation of this parable. Given our country’s current enthusiasm for
politics, when we read “the right and the left,” we might quickly conclude Republicans
and Democrats. This parable has nothing to do with our two political parties.
Jesus used the sheep and goats analogy not to show one is better
than the other but to highlight the vast differences between these two animals,
which parallels the differences between the righteous and the wicked—Christ’s
followers and non-believers. For a non-shepherd, the sheep and goats may look
the same outwardly; a true shepherd has a keen eye to observe the innate
differences based on their nature and personality. In the heavenly court, the
prosecutor, the defense, the jury, and the judge are Jesus Christ, and the
person being tried is you and me.
II The Random Acts Of Love and
Compassion (Vs. 34-40)
In verse
34, we read that the King begins the case by pronouncing the final Judgment on
those on the right. He said, Come, you who my Father blesses; take your
inheritance, the Kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. Then
he goes on to explain why.
“I was hungry, and you fed me. I
was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was homeless, and you gave me a room. I
was shivering, and you gave me clothes. I was sick, and you stopped to visit. I
was in prison, and you came to me.”(The Message).
The righteous must have been
unexpectedly joyful by this royal welcome to inherit the Kingdom. Perhaps, to
clear their doubt, they asked, “Lord, when did we see you going through all
that and help you? Then the King replied, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did
for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
What is going on in these verses?
Who were the least of these
brothers and sisters that Jesus referred to? They could be the literal poor and
people in need in the world or his disciples, those who were poor and
struggling. Jesus wants us to be kind to the poor, the broken, the hurting, and
the incarcerated.
Prov 19:17, “Whoever is kind to
the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.”
Matthew 6:3-4, “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know
what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your
Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
Hebrews 13:3, “Continue to
remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison and those
who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” Jesus treats whatever
we do to the poor and the needy as we have done unto Him and rewards us with
His Kingdom on the final day of Judgment. The righteous have cultivated a
lifestyle of random acts of love and compassion. Ultimately, that kind of right
living earned them rich rewards.
III. The Disguised Jesus (41-46)
After
hearing the rousing welcome and royal treatment of those on the right, those on
the left may have expected a similar treatment. Instead, the King delivered
this harsh Judgment, “Depart from me,
you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his
angles.” Then he gave reasons why. “I was
hungry, and you gave me no meal. I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. I was
homeless, and you gave me no bed. I was shivering, and you gave me no clothes.
I was sick and in prison, and you never visited.”(The Message).
Those on the left must have been
shocked, but they, too, asked the same way those on the right did. They got a
similar answer from the King, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for
one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” Those on the left are the
unrighteous, or at times, the Bible refers to them as wicked. They are only
concerned about themselves.
They ignore the cries for help
from the poor. This is how God deals with them. Proverbs 21:13,“Whoever shuts
their ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out and not be answered.”
Proverbs 14:31: Whoever oppresses
the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy
honors God.” The unrighteous failed to see that Jesus could come in disguise in
the form of the poor, widows, orphans, homeless, strangers, and incarcerated.
They missed the opportunities to
help them in their time of need. Ultimately, that banished them away from God
in Hell. How could a loving God send some to Heaven and others to hell, you may
wonder?
God is a loving God. He does not
want anyone, including the wicked, to perish in hell, so he warns them to turn
from their evil ways. (Eze 33:11) But He is also righteous judge, so in his
final Judgment He sends the righteous to Heaven and the Wicked to hell, which
is prepared for the Devil and his angels. When you face the great white throne,
which side will you be on? On the right or the left? That depends on what you
do or don’t do for the Lord here on the earth.
[1] https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/half-world-s-poor-live-just-5-countries#:~:text=The%205%20countries%20with%20the%20highest%20number,that%20together%20account%20for%2085%20percent%20(629
