Two Journeys

We are coming this morning to a new book of the Bible and, as I frequently like to do, we are going to look in an overview fashion. My desire as we look at the Book of Hebrews, not just this morning but also in the weeks to come, is that we would have a better vision, a clearer vision of "our great salvation," as the writer calls it in Hebrews 2. On the morning of September 17th, 490 BC, some 10,000 Greeks stood assembled on a narrow plain 26 miles east of Athens ready to fight to the death even to the last man. Behind them, physically behind them, lay everything of value in this world to them: their homes, their families, their lifestyle, their beautiful city of Athens. In front of them lay a seemingly invincible army, a Persian army, 48,000 men who had landed the assembled forces of Darius I, the king of the Persian Empire. This vast invading force had landed from an awesome armada whose ships could still be seen there as they were preparing to fight the battle. They were there to wipe out the Greeks to the last man and plunder their homes. The narrow plain hemmed in on each side by boggy marshlands was chosen specifically by the Persians because it would help them in their use of chariots. And its name would become one of the most famous named battlefields of antiquity of the ancient world. Somehow, against all odds, the Greeks defeated the Persians that day, winning the Battle of Marathon, saving Greek civilization. After the battle, however, the danger was not completely over. The Persian fleet was still intact and still was able to sail down and get right near Athens and threaten that beloved city. And so in an amazing feat of strength, the Greek army marched at double time from that battlefield and somehow reached Athens ahead of the Persian ships. But ahead of them, they dispatched their best runner, Pheidippides, to cover the 26 miles with the message that they had won the battle but that danger was still coming. And so that man ran the 26 miles and thus invented a new race that we call the marathon.  We think about it without knowing the battle, the history behind it; now you know and you can impress your friends with your knowledge, if you can rehearse the facts I just gave you.

But that's what it was and this man Pheidippides covered the 26 miles and legend has it that he gave the message and then died after having run the distance. Now, myself in high school, I was a distance runner. The farthest I ever ran was 25 kilometers, which is a little less than 16 miles. I thought I was going to die that day. I'll never forget that day. Way too long, and the idea of running another 10 miles beyond that, I don't have any idea of how people do that, and if I'm in the presence right now of someone who's completed a marathon, my hat's off to you. I don't know how you did it. But I believe that the Book of Hebrews, while not using the language or the term "marathon," presents the Christian life in that way. It's a marathon, friends. It requires tremendous endurance, painful suffering, and determination when things get very, very difficult not to give up and grow faint.

Hebrews 12:1-2 says, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance or endurance the race marked out before us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of faith who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." I think that's something we should do every single day of our lives. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, amen. Let's think about Jesus and think about the race that He has set out in front of us to run. The Book of Hebrews speaks with a very serious tone about the need to persevere in the Christian life. Hebrews 10:36 says, "You need to persevere, so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised." We have such a great salvation, as I already mentioned. It is a great salvation and the Book of Hebrews stands alone, I think, in the Bible in revealing to us the greatness of Jesus Christ as the mediator of the new covenant that saves our souls. It is a new and better covenant and by that covenant we are forgiven of our sins and we will be welcomed in the heaven. And Jesus is that superior mediator, the one who brings the covenant to us from God.

Exhortations (paraklésis) and warning in Hebrews

He is a superior mediator. He's bringing that superior covenant and it results in a superior life, that's the theme of the Book of Hebrews. The Book of Hebrews, I think, also stands alone in giving us some of the most serious and severe warnings in the Christian life and many Christians go astray when they see the warnings in the Book of Hebrews. They do not understand the role that these warnings play in our salvation. Many Christians think they do not apply to them because we cannot lose our salvation, which we definitely cannot. But they do not realize how much we who are running this race of salvation need these warnings to keep us going in that race. And so I'm going to be preaching the Book of Hebrews as written to the church, written to us. We who claim to be Christians, we who have made a profession of faith in Christ, we need to heed these warnings.

Frankly, I think only the elect, only the true believers, heed these warnings. I think those who are only sham Christians do not heed the warnings and so they fall away. And so this fall, we are going to be looking carefully at a unique book of the Bible, and as we do, I think we are going to get a greater, a clearer sense of what Jesus has done for us on the cross. What is this covenant that saves us? What was the old covenant? What was its role?  We are going to get a sense, ultimately, of the greatness of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

Now, I am going to begin at the end. We are going to be all over the place so do not despair of following me. I do not know, friends.  Do the best you can but we are going to go across the scope of this great book. And I am going to begin at the end, when the author tells us what the book is. In Hebrews 13:22, he says, "I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation for I've written you only a brief letter.” By the way, this is what stood for a brief letter back in the antiquities, all right? They didn't have Twitter back then, I guess; now that's a brief letter. Okay? But this is what he said it was a brief letter, 300 verses. Bob read the section that I asked him to read. We were toying with him reading the whole book but we would still be at it right now. We would probably be around chapter four or five right now, so... But it would have been worth doing. It is a brief letter but it is a word of exhortation. That is what he calls it. The Greek word is paraklésis.

The basic concept, then, is that Christian salvation is a process.  It is what I would call a marathon race, a journey that will only be completed when all the elect, all the children of God, are eternally perfect and have glorious resurrection bodies. While we are in this world we are in enemy territory, friends. We are in danger while we are in this world, grave danger. And we must keep making progress on our journey. We must continue to fight the good fight of faith. We have to keep running the race with endurance until we are done in this world and thus we must have exhortation along the way. The Greek word, as I said, is paraklésis in Hebrews 13:22. It is an interesting word; an interesting word of comfort, consolation and encouragement spoken to someone in difficulty, suffering, and distress to bring them consolation, giving them internal courage, and comfort to continue in the midst of their trial and their suffering.

But, it is also a word of exhortation, warning and admonition. Paraklésis is urging people to get moving, fight the good fight, keep running the race. So, therefore, you have a softer side of paraklésis and a harder side. One side knows, it seems, when to put an arm around you and weep with you. And one aspect of paraklésis knows when to be a drill instructor or a tough coach who is yelling at you while you are running up a hill for the tenth time to get you ready for the physically grueling trial you are about to have on the battlefield or in a football game. Both sides are part of that word, paraklésis. That is what this letter is.

The Holy Spirit is called "Our Paraklete." That is the noun form and we get it in the Gospel of John 14:26. It says, "But the counselor." NIV gives us, "The counselor, the Holy Spirit and the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." So paraklete, related to paraklésis, is translated in NIV "counselor" like a lawyer, someone called alongside to help you in a court trial. KJV, however, uses the "comforter." ESV uses the "helper." The basic idea, then, is the Holy Spirit lives with you, he'll be in you, he gives you moment by moment all the wise counsel, and the gentle comfort, and consolation, plus the stern rebukes, the hard warnings, the discipline that you need to finish the Christian life.

Now, the Book of Hebrews uses this word "encourage" a lot, this paraklésis idea a lot. In 3:13 it says, "Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called the day so that none of you be hardened by sin's deceitfulness." So you want that encouragement around you while you're dealing with sin's deceitfulness. Or again, Hebrews 10:25, which you heard Bob read, "Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching." I really think that Christians need to learn what this word means so that we can have really good fellowship with each other. It is great to have a Labor Day picnic or some people over but let us, as Christians, let us really encourage each other. The Book of Hebrews, I think, helps us to do that so we can know what to do for each other.

Audience of the Book of Hebrews

Who is this book written to? The Book of Hebrews, who is the audience here? Well, throughout the book you are going to find an overwhelming appeal to Old Testament scripture, to Old Testament imagery; clearly, the author considers his audience very familiar with Jewish imagery, with the sacrificial system and with the Scriptures. He assumes a lot: the authority of the prophets, and of the Word of God, these kinds of things. The audience is very familiar with the history of the Old Testament and with the imagery, and the sacrificial system. And the opening statement in Hebrews 1:1, here we are at the beginning of the book now, way at the beginning. In Hebrews 1:1 it says, "In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets." Well, that I think identifies the audience as Jewish. And so as he is speaking about our forefathers he is saying the prophets, God sent the prophets to them. Well, God sent the prophets to the Jews. And furthermore, as you continue to read in chapter 2:1-4, these are people who had heard the gospel. They had seen miracles. They had heard the gospel from the messengers sent out by the apostles.

“And they...”, in chapter 6, it says, "Once been enlightened, have tasted the heavenly gift, have shared in the Holy Spirit, have tasted the goodness of the word of God, powers of the coming age." They have been involved in gospel ministry, they have been coming to church, they have been hearing the preaching, the explanation of New Testament doctrine, they have had all this. And they had made some kind of profession of faith in Christ, they were professors of faith in Christ. In Hebrews 3:1 it says, "Therefore, holy brothers who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess." Or again, 4:14, "Therefore since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess." Hebrews 10:23, "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promises is faithful." So there's actually a number of times when the author refers to the fact they'd made a profession of faith in Christ.

So these are Jewish people who had heard the gospel, had been involved in church life, had made an outward confession or profession of faith in Christ, but there is a problem. They were going through severe persecution it seems. Some people had lost their property, some had been imprisoned, there was pressure being put on them by Satan through the world, and I think probably through Jewish friends and relatives and neighbors to give up their profession of faith in Christ. They were being squeezed by the world; they were being squeezed economically. They were living in a Jewish community, perhaps, and no one was buying their things or they could not get work or whatever.

And so they are facing poverty, they're going through a very, very hard time and there is pressure on these Jewish professors of faith in Christ to give up their confession of Jesus and just go back to the old covenant life. Turn their back on Jesus, just give up Jesus, just go back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, go back to Moses, go back to the law, go back to what you have always known, just give up on Jesus. So they were drifting away from Christ, developing hardened hearts, they were losing their courage, they were choosing not to come to church, staying away from church and they were going back to the old ways of Judaism. And the author clearly looks on this as a dire emergency for them. Dire emergency. So he is writing to them.

Author of the Book of Hebrews?

Now, who is the author?  Now, I thought you were going to tell me who is... I said, who is the author? Now, some will call out Paul, and he is probably the most common choice in church history. However, the author never identifies himself. But because Paul always in other places identifies himself, doesn't mean he didn't write it. Those that are really experts at Greek style, which I am not, say that the style is very different than Paul's letters, a much higher, more polished style. I know this from personal experience: it's the hardest Greek to translate in the New Testament; just very, very high level, the vocabulary is at a high level. Paul could have done that -- it is possible. However, I do not think it’s a matter, an article of faith. No one should be offended if I do what I am planning on doing, saying Paul is not the author of Hebrews. It's safer, a little less risky, and if I get to heaven and it turned out to have been Paul, I think by the time I am in heaven, I’ll not need to apologize, but we’ll deal with that on judgment day and I’ll apologize to him for missing out that he wrote this. But we'll go with what Eusebius said that Origen said, "Who wrote the epistle in truth only God knows." And he lived just a few centuries after it was written, so I don't know. So I'm going to be saying "the author to Hebrews."

The superiority of Christ

Now, let's get to the real issue. What is the significance of this book? Why did he write it? What was he saying? What is the message? And that's really what's going to take our time the rest of this morning. But, what is the message of Hebrews? A.W. Pink said the central theme of Hebrews is the superiority of Christianity over Judaism; the superiority of Christianity over Judaism. Hebrews 7:22, "Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant." There's lots of comparison in the book, something that's better, something that's superior, at a higher level.

Again, Hebrews 8:6, "The ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which He is mediator is superior to the old one, and it's founded on better promises." So superior, superior, better. So, two things are being compared and what A.W. Pink says is Christianity is being compared to Judaism. New covenant is being compared to old covenant. Jesus is being compared to no Jesus. Fine. I think, more precisely, I would say it's a superiority of Christ over all other mediators that God has ever used or ever will use, including the prophets, Moses himself, and the angels, and, therefore, the superiority of the new covenant that Christ came to bring over the old covenant that He had fulfilled and superseded. And the kind of life that should come from that life, from that covenant, a life filled with faith, filled with courage, filled with good fruit, willing to face persecution, a life in which you would have your name in the hall of faith if we're extended.

So, that you face courageously the trials of your life and you don't shrink back away from them, but you boldly fulfill that new covenant spirit-filled life that God has given to you. That's what the book is about, a superior mediator bringing a superior covenant resulting in a superior life, that's what the Book of Hebrews is about. And so, we have beautifully the doctrine of Christ. What specifically were these Jewish professors of faith in Christ doing when they were going back to Judaism? They were specifically turning their backs on Jesus. That's what's going on, they were specifically looking Jesus in the face and turning their back on Jesus and walking away back to Moses, back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, back to the God of Moses and other patriarchs, turning their backs on Jesus. And so, therefore, right away in Hebrews 1, the author is going to give the superiority of Christ in every way; the glory of Christ, glorious descriptions of the person and work of Christ, they exalt the person of Christ the Son of God.

I'll quote those later in the message when I go over that section, but the perfected work of Christ, the mediator and high priest from God. John Calvin said this, "There is indeed no book in the holy scripture which speaks so clearly of the priesthood of Christ, which so highly exalts the virtue and dignity of that only true sacrifice which He offered by His death, which so abundantly deals with the use of ceremonies as well as their termination and in a word so fully explains that Christ is the end of the law." So, the glorious doctrine of Jesus Christ and, as we've mentioned, the fact that the old covenant is now obsolete. I remember when I was doing scripture memorization in the Book of Hebrews and came across in Hebrews 8 where it called the old covenant obsolete. And I thought, "I wouldn't have the courage to speak over the old covenant, this word obsolete," except that this book gives us the permission to do it.

It's obsolete, friends. Its time has passed. It's been fulfilled in Jesus and superseded by the new covenant, so it says in Hebrews 8, "If there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another." But God found fault with the people and said, "The time is coming," declares the Lord, "When I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah." And by calling that covenant new, He's made the first one obsolete and what is obsolete and aging will soon pass away. Hebrews 8:13. It is by this book, then, especially we know that we are not to be offering animal sacrifices. So stop doing that. We are not to be offering animal sacrifices though they are clearly commanded all over the place in the Old Testament. But, we know that time is finished. That old covenant religion, which was so prominent, has been fulfilled in Christ and become obsolete. It is by this book that we do not establish in some new way Levitical priests to offer bulls and goats. We do not erect a new temple to replace the old one. We do not make three annual pilgrimages to that temple, to Jerusalem. Without the teachings of this book, we might rightly wonder if God still expected these things of us, perhaps as a memorial of Jesus. Now we are told to stop, the time is finished. It is by the Book of Hebrews that we see the completeness and perfection of the new covenant directly contrasted with the incompleteness and the imperfection of the old covenant. Here we will learn what is included in the new covenant, which the old covenant could never produce. I'm going to talk more about that in a few moments.

Old Covenant Explained

Fourthly, we also see the old covenant explained. Old covenant is explained. It is by the Book of Hebrews, more than any other book in the Bible, that you understand all of that stuff that was going on. The tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, the blood sacrifices, what it was all for?  Why did God do it? Why was animal sacrifice so significant? A.W. Pink said, "Perhaps its chief distinctive value lies in its exposition of the Old Testament types." Here we are taught that the tabernacle and its furniture, the priesthood, and their service, the various sacrifices and offerings all pointed ahead to the person, offices and glories of the Lord Jesus. Of Israel's priests, it is said they serve a copy and a shadow of what is in heaven. The first tabernacle was merely a symbol for the present age. The ceremonial law was a shadow of good things to come. Melchizedek was a type of Christ, Isaac was a figure of Christ, and so on. The Book of Hebrews, then, we can see how perfectly the Old Testament's sacrificial system, animal sacrificial system, was getting ready for a very powerful presentation of the gospel in Jesus Christ.

It's really by Hebrews that I understood what to do with the animal sacrificial system and now it's become probably one of my favorite ways to share the gospel. And we'll talk about it, I think, probably multiple times as we study Hebrews. But, I learned from the book of Hebrews, concerning the animal sacrificial system, three lessons of that animal sacrificial system. All sin deserves a death penalty, the death penalty can be paid by a substitute, but the substitute cannot be an animal. And that just is like a cliffhanger where you're waiting for the final chapter, that's what the old covenant was meant to do. Okay, what's coming now? Jesus is coming. And so I saw with clarity from the Book of Hebrews, it was through the portal of the Book of Hebrews, when I was preaching in Genesis, when the little boy Isaac said to his father, "Here's wood and here's fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?" And Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb." What a great answer that was. And how I saw that his question, that little boy's question on Mount Moriah, was really the summation question of the old covenant, "Where is the lamb?" "Can't be these animals, the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin." Oh, I just quoted Hebrews. They cannot take away sin. All right, where is the lamb? John the Baptist answered, remember, pointing at Jesus said, "Behold, the lamb of God takes away the sins of the world."

Those two verses just summed up old covenant, new covenant for me. "Where's the lamb, behold the lamb." There it is. And it was Hebrews that gave me that kind of clarity and now it is probably my favorite way to share the gospel with somebody who's familiar with Christian terminology, with perhaps a nominal Catholic or somebody who's aware of these things and understood that animal sacrifice was there but didn't know what it was about. I love doing this, because it brings us straight to the cross, dear friends, and it explains why Jesus died. All sin deserves a death penalty. The death penalty can be paid by a substitute, the substitute cannot be an animal, and, therefore, the substitute is Jesus. If you trust in Jesus, if you put your trust in Him, your death penalty for your sins will be paid in full, dear friends.

Warnings in the Book of Hebrews and God’s sovereignty

And I prayed this morning that God would bring someone here who needed to hear that. And you just heard the gospel, Jesus stood in your place, He shed His blood for you that your sins might be forgiven if you repent and believe, your death penalty has been paid in full, and you're going to heaven when you die, that is the gospel. It was Hebrews that gave me that kind of clarity. But along with that came an understanding of the dynamic of the Christian life. It is a dynamic thing. We are not done being saved, friends, we're on a journey. We call it in this church the internal journey, sanctification. We are not there yet, and we have got to have some warnings to keep us going. We've got to have that drill instructor that comes along at key moments and yells at us.

Now, let me tell you a story from my cross country days. I remember the summer between my sophomore and junior year, we were supposed to be running on an average between eight to 12 miles a day. I considered that somewhat in June, thought about it a little bit more in July and started to do it in August. Okay, if you know anything about distance running, it's too late. The season's probably gone at this point. I didn't realize that, but it became clear at our first formal practice when the captain of the team, who was one of the best runners in the state, took the team on a 14-mile hilly run. I will never forget that as long as I live. And I was laboring up this hill and the other good runners were already at the top of the hill. This guy turned around and came back down the hill to join me in my run up the hill. I will never forget that run as long as I live. I didn't think he was very nice that day. He wasn't being nice, he was yelling at me, you know. I don't know where he got off doing that, he was only a year ahead of me in school, but at any rate, there it was. But I've thought about that and I think there are times that we need to get yelled at in the Christian life and there are scriptures that'll do it. And Hebrews has a lot of those scriptures. And we need it. And what I've come to realize, I believe in God's sovereignty and salvation, I believe in predestination, I believe you can't lose, I believe once saved, always saved, I believe all those things. We'll talk about it plenty.

But I think the warnings help bring it about, and you need to listen to them, and take them seriously, not blow them off for any reason, theological or practical, don't say, "I don't need to hear that." Take it seriously. So in Hebrews 2:1, it says we must therefore pay more careful attention to what we've heard, so that we do not drift away, so don't drift away. Hebrews 3:12 says, "See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God," so don't turn away. And then the worst of all, Hebrews 6: 4-6, "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away to be brought back again to repentance," because to their own loss, they're crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace. Don't drift away, don't turn away, don't fall away.

To say, "Well, if I believe in the sovereignty of God I don't think any of those things can happen to me." Don't think like that, friends. Don't think like that. The warnings were given to us. It goes beyond that and says, "Don't shrink away." We are not, Hebrews 10, "Of those who shrink back like the Jews did who refused to enter the promise land through unbelief." We're not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but we are of those who believe and are saved, we cross the Jordan, we go on and fight the battles. So don't shrink away, don't stay away. Hebrews 10:25 says, "Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together," it is not a small thing to skip church, friends. We'll get to that in due time, but it's not a minor deal. It has an impact on the body of Christ and on you. And I understand, I'm not being legalistic here about it. I'm just saying it plays a role in your salvation. You do it once, you'll do it twice; do it twice, you'll do it four times. After a while it becomes a habit. It says, "As some are in the habit of doing." It's talking there about the habit of staying away from church, but how do you know it's not going to be a habit in you a year from now? Don't stay away and don't throw away your confidence. Hebrews 10:35, “don't throw away your confidence, it will be richly rewarded.” Sometimes you, through just willful sin, we just throw away our peace and are filling with the spirit, the fruit is spirit, throw it away like it's little or nothing. Don't throw away your confidence. It's good to have a healthy, strong assurance of salvation. Don't throw it away like it's cheap or nothing. And don't be carried away by false teachings. In Hebrews 13:9, "Don't be carried away by all kinds of strange teaching." Those are warnings to all of us. We've got to hear those. Don't drift away, don't turn away, don't fall away, don't shrink away, don't stay away, don't throw away anything of value. Warnings. And there are therefore exhortations to the church. Let's draw near to God, let's stand firm in our faith. Hebrews 4:16, "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need," in the passage that Bob read. Hebrews 10:22, "Let us draw near to God." You realize what a privilege that is? What a sweet privilege you're given in the new covenant.

 The Glorious Superiority of Jesus Christ (1:1-3:6)

The essence of the old covenant is thus far and no farther. You are the people of God, but you may not come in. There is a barrier, there's a wall, there's a curtain, you're not allowed in, you'll be struck dead if you go up in the holy mountain, that's old covenant. New covenant, there is a new and living way for us named Jesus and you are not just encouraged, you are actually commanded to draw near to God and come right close to Him and sit on His lap and pour out your heart to Him and be intimate with Almighty God through Jesus. Isn't that powerful? That's why the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And so we have these exhortations. Those are just some major themes in the Book of Hebrews. Let's look at some of the major sections and then we'll be done. We can't go into great detail, but the first major section is the glorious superiority of Jesus Christ. If you're there, just look at Hebrews 1:3, we'll preach about this next week, God willing, but Hebrews 1:3 says, "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. And after He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven." Oh, what a sweet verse that is. The Son is the radiance of God's glory. We'll talk about it in detail next week, but we're just going to talk about the greatness and the majesty of Jesus. The application to these Jewish professors of faith in Christ is that they're just leaving Jesus out. They're not just leaving Jesus out, He is the radiance of God's glory. He's the exact representation of His being. How can you turn your back on Him? He sustains all things by His powerful word, including your body. How can you turn your back on Jesus? Impossible. So the greatness of Christ, He is the final word, God's final word to the human race. In the past, He spoke through the prophets. Now, He's speaking to us by Jesus. He is God's final word and is thus as the Son of God, He's superior to angels and to all creation, which He is upholding by His powerful word. At the right time, He'll roll it up and throw it away like an old garment and make a new one in its place. That's Jesus. How powerful is that? And so because of that, then, don't drift away from Jesus.

We see in chapter 2 the glorious superiority of Christ in this humanity, because the children, that's us, have flesh and blood. "He too," it says, "Shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death," that is the devil, "And free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." Man, I would just like to go on Hebrews the rest of the day. Wouldn't that be awesome? I mean, that's incredible. Jesus by His death has freed you from being afraid of dying. Don't fear death. Don't fear death. And know that Satan's been destroyed. Satan's been... He just doesn't fully know it yet, how destroyed he is, but he has been destroyed by Jesus' death. Hallelujah. And Jesus took on a human body to do it, and therefore He is superior as a mediator. He's superior to Moses. The Jews revered Moses. They're gonna turn their backs, they're gonna go back to Moses, the leader of the people. The one who led the exodus. The author of Hebrews has to be careful here, and he is, Moses is a good man. Moses was a faithful servant of God. He did what he was told to do. He was given living words to pass on to us and he passed them on. Moses was faithful as a servant in God's house, but Christ is faithful as a son over God's house.

Warnings against Falling Away from God (3:7-6:20)

The superiority of Jesus to Moses is clearly established. The supremacy of Christ, and secondly, then, serious warnings about falling away from Him. Don't turn away from God, Hebrews 3:7 and 8. I'll tell you this, I probably don’t want to overstate now, but I think Hebrew 3:7 and 8 are probably the most important practical verses I've ever learned on the daily Christian Life. And it goes like this, quoting Psalm 95, "So as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." Unbelievably important. "As the Holy Spirit says," quote, and then comes Psalm 95. You know what that means? You can have an encounter with the Spirit of God every time you open the Bible. As a matter of fact, that's what it is. The Spirit is speaking to you when you read this book, and He's saying something to you now. He's talking to you and if you hear Him talk to you, don't harden your heart, but do what He tells you to do. Do you not see how powerfully important that is? Read the Bible, by the power of the Spirit, glean what He's saying to you and go do it, and don't harden your heart. Vital verses. It's a warning. How the author of the Hebrews looks back to Psalm 95, 1000 years before him, David writing Psalm 95 and then David looking back even further, four-and-a-half centuries back to the Exodus. They refused to enter the Promised Land. They hardened their hearts. They didn't do what God wanted them to do and they were destroyed. You see in Hebrews 3 and 4 an ongoing rumination over Psalm 95, the author is a meticulous worker over scripture. He works over passages. You're going to see that. He teaches us that meticulous study of the Bible is a good thing, but he's just saying, "Today, today, today. If you hear his voice today, if you hear him speaking don't harden your heart. All you ever have is today." And then he just steps aside and said, "You realize what I've been doing? I've just been thinking about Psalm 95."

Wow, is the word of God powerful. Wow, is the word of God living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It's able to penetrate even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. Oh, my goodness, you read that and it's like the word of God is an encounter with the living God. A sharp sword, it's bringing you to conviction, getting you ready for judgment day and, then as you're trembling, as you're thinking about that, then you are escorted by the ministry of Jesus, our new high priest, into the very presence of God. Since we have such a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to that faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who's been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. Let us therefore draw near to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Oh, how sweet are those verses. And so as you're trembling with the word of God and thinking about day, you have a mediator, you have a high priest. He is sinless and pure. His righteousness is yours. He's praying for you. He's interceding for you. His blood was shed for you, let's draw near to God. And so Jesus, then, as high priest is introduced to us. The supremacy of Christ as the high priest and then because of that then the author just takes a break, he wants to talk about Melchizedek. I always find this interesting, he says, "I have a lot to tell you about Melchizedek, but it's hard to explain because you're slow to learn." He just gives them a spanking right there in the middle. It's like, what is that?  By now you should be teachers, you guys should be spreading the word everywhere and look at you, you're like babies. You need milk, not solid food. I'd like to give you some solid food, that whole Melchizedek thing, we'll get to it in chapter 7, but I can't, because you're slow to learn and I'm worried about you. And that's when he gives the devastating chapter 6 that causes so many people so much struggle. If you fall away, you can't come back. It's impossible to renew you to repentance. You drink deeply from this fountain, you swim in these waters for a while, you walk away, you're not coming back, friends. You're not coming back. You've heard it all, there's nothing new to say to you. That should make you afraid. Stay here. You know, 1 John said, "They went out from us because they weren't really of us." And so that's why the author gives that warning. But he says, "Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we're confident of better things in your case, things that accompany salvation." That's what he's saying. So he gives them a comforting word, but he's given them that warning.

The Glorious Superiority of the New Covenant over the Old Covenant (7:1-10:39)

And so we have this glorious supremacy, the superiority of the new covenant to the old covenant in chapters 7 through 10. We have this man Melchizedek. He is an interesting figure, who pops up in the middle of the Genesis account after the defeat of the kings. And Abraham gives him a tenth of all of his plunder and then he disappears again. Who is this man, this Melchizedek? But he doesn't disappear forever. He reappears when the psalmist, David, writes in Psalm 10, "The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek." Who is Melchizedek? Well, he's a combination priest and king. A priest king, a king priest. And that's the very thing that was precluded in the old covenant. Any king, who tried to offer sacrifices, generally lost their life or their kingdom. Couldn't do it, but now in Jesus there is someone from the tribe of Judah, king, descended from David, but he is also a priest and so in order to do that you have to change the rules of the game. The old covenant would not have permitted Jesus to be a priest. So we have to have a new covenant to have the better priesthood, and we do. We have a new covenant; we have a new order of priesthood, an order of Melchizedek, where out of that he ministers. The Son of God, living forever, not in one of these dying sons of Aaron, that die and then the next one comes along, and then he dies and then the next one comes along. One who is weak and sinful, and has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as for the sins of the people. We don't have anyone like that. We have a pure, spotless, holy Son of God who lives forever as our high priest. And He's up there in the heavens and He's ministering His blood at the right hand of God, and He is interceding for you, and He's praying for you so that you may receive your salvation to the uttermost, right to the end. He is interceding for you. And He'll go on praying for you and the Father hears the prayers of the Son. And so therefore, that's the superior ministry that Jesus gives. And His sacrifice, His own blood, offered Himself, is better than any of those animals and we already touched on this. The animals could not bring you forgiveness. The animal blood could not save you, so Jesus had to come. And He offered his blood, not over and over, many, many, many, many times, but once for all. Once for all. And in the midst of this comes glorious chapter 8. Just look there for a minute, 8:10-12, which is the essence of the new covenant, how it's better than the old covenant. Oh, I just love this, it's actually in the Book of Hebrews twice, it's also in chapter 10. This quote from Jeremiah 31:33-34, "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more."

You have three glorious elements of the new covenant that the old covenant didn't have. Let's take them in reverse order. Complete forgiveness of sins. All of your sins, past, present, and future, can be, will be, completely forgiven by the blood of Jesus. Old covenant couldn't do it. All it could ever do is show you what your sins were, but it could not forgive them. Not a single person is in heaven right now because of the ministrations of the old covenant. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, all of those, they're in heaven because of what Jesus did. Amen. The old covenant doesn't save anybody, never has. And so I will forgive their wickedness, and I will remember their sins no more, first. Secondly, I will put my laws in their minds and I'll write them on their hearts. It's a transformed nature. He's changing your heart, He's taking out that heart of stone and giving the heart of flesh. He is putting God's word inside you, so that you yearn to obey the law. As it says, even in that sad Romans 7, the author Paul there says, "In my heart, in my mind, I delight in God's law." How did that happen? God did that. Even though we still struggle with sin, we delight in God's law. We have a new nature. And then thirdly, "I will be their God and they will be my people." Based on the forgiveness of sins, based on that transformed nature, He has adopted us and we are His guard and we don't need anyone to tell us, "Know the lord," we will all know Him, from the least to the greatest, all the way up to face to face fellowship at the throne of God in heaven. That's what the new covenant can do for you, friends, old covenant can't do those three things. And so old covenant was just a type, it was a shadow, it was a symbol, the tabernacle, the blood, all that just pointing ahead to the real ministry, the ministry of Jesus.

And therefore we are exhorted, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place, to get right into the holy of holies with God, we have confidence to enter the most holy place. Let us then draw near to God. Do you feel distant from God today? Did you come in here today feeling distant? Do you feel guilty for sins? Do you feel like you're trapped in some pattern you can't get out of? Friend, if you're a Christian you are not a slave to sin, you're not trapped, you're forgiven. You've been given a new nature, you've been set free from sin and death. So draw near to God, it's the devil telling you you don't have a right to come in the into the fellowship, you're commanded to come close and to draw near into the very holy of holies. But if you choose not to, Hebrews 10 also has not only some of the sweetest enticements, but the most severe warnings. "How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished, who has trampled the Son of God underfoot," that's what he says. Our God is a consuming fire. So there's the sweet enticement and then there's the severe warning, both in the same chapter.

The Life of Faith….so-called “Hall of Faith” (11:1-40)

And then you have Chapter 11, the hall of faith. Faith is to find the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, the importance of faith has told us that without faith it's impossible to please God. Because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. And then you have whole examples of the life of faith, from Abel offering up his sacrifice, Enoch who walked with God, Noah who built an ark, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, these patriarchs who were living in tents but looking ahead to a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God, right through Moses, Moses' parents, then Moses who lived by faith, and all of these heroes of faith; even the judges, some of the judges, Samson is mentioned, what a surprise, but there he is. Samson mentioned, right? In the hall of faith, a man of faith, who trusted God, who conquered kingdoms. It says, "These heroes of faith, who women received back their dead raised to life again." People, men and women of faith, and so clearly the author is saying, "Okay, you've got this cloud of witnesses around you, then let's run the race like they did." Let's run the race with endurance, filled with faith.

God Working in Us a Life Pleasing to Him (12:1-13:25)

And if you should falter, just know that your heavenly Father will just give you a spanking, that's all. He'll just discipline you, because He punishes every child that he receives and scourges them, but He's never going to let you go. He's got hold of you now, you're a child, the son and daughter of the living God. And if you need a spanking, He'll give you one. He may just warn you, He may convict you, He may do other things, but He's not going to let you go, and so therefore live for His glory, because we're not coming to that old covenant mountain and shaking in blood and thunder and lightning, but we're coming to the New Jerusalem, Mt Zion, the heavenly kingdom where we get to see God. We're surrounded by spirits of righteous men made perfect and angels and heavenly array, that's where we're going, and so, therefore, let's live a life of faith to the glory of God.

Friends, that's the best I can do in 45 minutes summarizing the whole book. Thankfully, we're going to have time to go back over it. The central lesson is this. Jesus, the Son of God, the superior mediator, has brought to us a covenant that saves our souls, and if you allow by faith Jesus to minister that to you, it's going to pour out in a whole new kind of living, and part of that is going to be running a race with endurance, it's going to be hard to run, and we are here in this body of Christ to help you run it and you help each other, we help each other as we run this race and why? So that God can be glorified in our full salvation. Close with me in prayer.

This is the last sermon in Matthew. Matthew is a powerful testimony of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and we come, one last time, for the third time now, to Jesus' incredible words in Matthew 25, commonly known as "the sheep and the goats". We've already had a kind of an expository overview of these words, Matthew 25:31-46, in a previous sermon. Last week, we zeroed in specifically on the doctrine of hell, and what these dreadful, these terrifying words mean, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”  But this week, I want to talk about “mercy ministry” from as a starting point from the sheep and the goats. By "mercy ministry" I mean caring for the needy around us, for those that are hurting, those that are hungry, thirsty, those that are broken down by life, that we would minister to them.

All my Christian life, I must be honest, I have struggled with the obligation that scripture lays on the people of God to care for the poor and needy of the world. I would say it wasn't until I went overseas on a series of mission trips that I really saw scenarios of poverty that just hit me at a deeper level and made me realize how far I had to grow in this area. I'm not saying there's not poverty in America, but you really do have to go overseas to see the way that some people are living in this world and have it just reach down into your heart and convict you and transform you, and that's, at least in my case, that's what had to happen.

In the summer of 1986, I went on a short-term mission trip to Kenya. There were different phases to the summer 10-week mission trip. We did a variety of ministries, and then we had one final week, where we all gathered, the 40-50 of us who had been scattered all over the country. We reassembled one last time for one week of final teaching and prayer and decompression and all that, in Mombasa, which is a port city on the Indian Ocean in Kenya.  A strong Muslim presence is in this sprawling city. Part of that time, I guess a day or so into our time there, some of us took a trip in a rented van to drive through the city, a kind of a tour of this historic city of Mombasa. It was a comfortable van, it was air-conditioned, it was pleasant, and we rode through one of the poorest areas of town, and I felt like I was in some kind of an air-conditioned bubble riding through a sea of poverty.  It became somewhat of a metaphor of my American Christian way of living, that I actually could live the rest of my life that way.  I just could just move right through life in an air-conditioned bubble and see but not really interact with the desperately poor and needy people around me.

The next summer I went to Pakistan, 1987, and there were beggars everywhere. I had never really seen beggars like we saw in Pakistan. We would go to the bank and cash our traveler's checks to get local currencies, so we could do various things, and as soon as we come out of the bank, there would be at least five people coming and just relationally assaulting us, not physically, but just there with their needs and wanting money. Since we didn't speak a common language, they would point to their mouths and to their stomachs saying that they were hungry.  So, I asked a missionary, "What should we do?"  He told us that you need to understand that a lot of these beggars are really just working for a beggar syndicate, and they take the money and give it to... Somewhat like a prostitution ring, give it to an overlord who then cares for them out of that.  I said, "Okay, but they're still coming to us." He said, "Well, one thing you might want to do is go and buy some fresh bread and just have it with you."  So, I did, and that was delicious bread. Beggars would come up, they would point to their stomachs, and I would pull out the bag with the bread.  I'd let them smell the bread, and I'd offer them some bread, and one man as I handed him bread, took it and threw it on the ground and walked away. I must tell you that there was a sinful relief inside me when he did it, because it confirmed this little sense, I had that there weren't genuinely needy people, but there was just a show of need. That was until about three minutes later, when a woman came up with a young child, pointing to her stomach, I gave her the bread, she divided it in a half, immediately ate it, and so did her child. Those are the tough ones, aren't they? They're real, and they really live out there, and they're really hungry and we can feed them. There's the problem. What do we do with them? 

I've come to the conclusion that the Lord Jesus Christ does not want us to come to a safe, neat, easy evangelical formula answer to the problem of poverty in the world.  This sermon is not going to be that. I'm going to give you a series of biblical priorities, but you know what's going to happen. It will be easy for you to look at each of these five priorities as an escape valve so that you don't need to sacrifice for the poor and needy. It's not what I'm doing, because in each case, I'm going to give you the Biblical priority and then say, "But it doesn't mean such and such."

Jesus' example compels action. It's a call to a life of mercy ministry. 2 Corinthians 8:9, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich." Jesus means, I think, to bring us to a point of desperation concerning the overwhelming physical needs of people all around us. I don't mean ultimate desperation, but that we would despair in our usual system of self-reliance. The problem is bigger than we can solve, it swallows up any individual, it swallows up any local church, it swallows up even a nation. I don't know how many billion dollars of American aid have gone down to Haiti, but it's somewhat like a sink hole down there, and you could multiply it by 10 and the problems would still be there. I'm not saying that there's not legitimate things that can be done with money, I'm just saying the problems are bigger than any of us, and the Lord means to stand in front of us and confront us with the problem.

I think about the account of the feeding of the 5000 as one of the few things in the everyday life and ministry of Jesus that makes it to all four Gospels. Very few of his events before his arrest and trial and his last week make it in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but the feeding of the 5000 does. After Jesus administered to these people, it says in Matthew chapter 14, "When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, this is a desolate place, and the day is now over. Send the crowds away in the villages so they can go buy themselves some food. But Jesus said to his disciples, ‘They don't need to go away, you give them something to eat.’”  In John's account, Jesus initiates the whole question. “Where are we going to buy bread so that all these people may eat?" He initiates the question and John tells us very poignantly, Jesus did this only to test them, Philip in particular, because He already knew what He was going to do. That is incredibly revealing for me, Jesus actually intends to test us in this matter of poor and needy ministry. He stands in front of you, and He brings you to a fork in the road and He tests you. He says, "What are you going to do?"  He watches to see what we'll do, and I think He means to strip us of self-reliance because the problem's too big for us.  He means for us to do what Jesus did when the little boy gave his five loaves and two fish. He took them and he looked up to heaven and He thanked God for what had been provided, and then He miraculously fed the 5000 plus the women and children. This is the test. Will we face the huge overwhelming needs, and will we look upward to God and then act or will we not? That’s the test.

The issue of ministry to poverty-stricken people stands over us, it probes our hearts to prove how much sin is still in us. Christ does not mean for us to escape by means of a clever sermon or a formula or something that says, "You don't need to really do this for these reasons." He's going to be probing you the rest of your life about this. He does not mean for us American evangelicals to take an air-conditioned van ride through our time here in the world while other people are suffering. He means for us to tell the driver to stop, get out and go minister.  There are two compelling passages in the scripture that keep this issue in front of me. There are a number of them that allude to it, but these two are the most powerful. One of them is the passage on the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, and the other is the sheep and the goats teaching that we're focusing on this morning.

Let's look briefly at the Good Samaritan. What happens is a teacher of the law comes up to Jesus and asked, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus then, in a very surprising way, gives him the law, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." But it says the lawyer wanted to justify himself, so he asked, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus then tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, a man on the road from Jericho who is beaten by some robbers and left stripped and bleeding by the side of the road. A priest and a Levite, both of them see the man. Jesus makes it plain that they see him, but they pass by on the other side and do nothing for the man lying there in the gutter. But a Samaritan man sees him, takes care of him even at the point of great cost and inconvenience. Tim Keller, who's a pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian New York City, wrote a book on mercy ministry, says, "We all live on the Jericho Road. You're on the Jericho Road every day of your lives. We're surrounded by opportunities to minister to people who are suffering, beaten by life and lying bleeding by the side of the road. We all have a tendency to want to justify ourselves and thus excuse ourselves from sacrificial ministry to the poor and needy, and to be like the priest and Levite who see the need and pass by on the other side, go about our business.  If we are honest, then we can all see our own sinful omissions in the priest and Levite who pass by on the other side, and we are convicted by the Good Samaritan who allows himself to be interrupted, whatever his business was, gets diverted out of his life course and goes and takes care of this man.”

Now remember some key issues of the parable. The question at hand is, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Is that a topic of interest to you? Let me ask another question, is Jesus' opinion on that topic of interest to you? How is it then that Jesus talking about the Good Samaritan and taking care of poor and needy is an answer to that question? Clearly, Jesus felt the parable of the Good Samaritan was relevant to this line of inquiry.  Jesus teaches in some mysterious way that full obedience to the law of Moses is required to inherit eternal life. Once we are more fully instructed by the rest of the New Testament, indeed the whole Bible, we recognize that none of us can be or ever has been fully obedient to the law of Moses, except one man, Jesus Christ, who fully obeyed those two commandments, and who saves us by His righteousness, who saves us by His obedience to the law and by His death on the cross for our disobedience. 

Turn the whole thing around, and guess what, you know where you are in the parable of the Good Samaritan? You're the guy who got beaten and is laying by the side of the road, and Jesus is the Good Samaritan who comes and saves you. But that's not enough, is it? Clearly, Jesus is saying, "What does it mean to love your neighbor?" At some point, you're no longer the man beaten by the side of the road, you are one of those individuals walking by who sees the need. Then you must become like Jesus, you must imitate Him, because the love of Christ constrains you, compels you, it's in you now, and you're thinking like Jesus. That's what I get out of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Notice that the expert in the law also is seeking to justify himself asking, "Now who is my neighbor?" That just shows the tendency we have to get out of the situation, to evict and not do anything in that situation. Jesus said at the end, "Go and do likewise." Are we to take that at His word? 

The second instance is the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25. These are some of the most powerful words I've ever heard in my life. My sister at her wedding asked me to read scripture at her wedding, and she chose this passage of scripture.  I was amazed. At the rehearsal I was surrounded by a lot of her non-Christian friends, and they were reading also. Then I got up and read this passage.  You could have heard a pin drop. It was like the wedding rehearsal just came to a stop.  I wanted to say, "I want you to know I didn't choose this passage for a wedding."  My sister did, but my sister has a heart for the poor and needy, she wanted it read in her wedding, and I did read it at her wedding. "When the son of man comes in His glory and all His angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He'll put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.  Then He will say to those on His right, ‘Come you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes, and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison, and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you, a stranger invite you in or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick in prison and go to visit you? The king will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.’  Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger, and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison, and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger needing clothes or sick or in prison and not help you? ‘And he will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

This passage places mercy ministry in the context of the end of the world. I said before, this is not a parable. This is what will happen. You see what I'm saying? It is what will happen. He's going to separate the people like a shepherd separating sheep from the goats, but it's not a parable, this is going to happen. And the issues couldn't be more intense, heaven and hell, eternity in heaven, eternity in hell, is the outcome, and the basis for the separation here seems to be what you did and didn't do in life.  We've already covered that there's a difference between being saved by works and being assessed by works. But Jesus here assesses by works, and the key issue here was what we call "ministry to felt needs or mercy ministry", simple things, somebody's hungry and you feed them.  Central to that is Jesus' clear identification with poor and needy people. "I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me." Some have said this proves what the social gospel folks say is the universal fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man, that we are all in the family together. We're all in one family and Jesus sees it that way. I actually don't think so, and I'm going to talk more about that later.

Jesus earlier in Matthew's Gospel has already identified his family. He was told that his mother and his brothers were waiting outside for him. He said, "Who is my mother? And who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, He said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." I don't think Jesus had forgotten that by the time He got to chapter 25, but we need to understand at this point it's all over. The sheep are the sheep, and the goats are the goats, and we know who the family of God is.  Jesus identifies Himself with His church. He identifies himself with the sheep, He identifies Himself with his people. Remember Saul of Tarsus breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples.  Jesus intervenes with these words, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It's my body. I am the head. You're hurting me." Conversely, then anyone who helps brothers and sisters in Christ, they're helping Jesus.   This does not mean that we should only minister to Christians, I'm going to talk more about that, but Jesus is identifying in this way. So, this is the "sheep and the goats" teaching. These are the two great passages that are in front of me that keep “mercy ministry” constantly on my mind. There are others but these are the two big ones.

What is our context here? We've looked at the context in Matthew, what is our context in history?  Let me say, before I talk about historical context, throughout 20 century of church history, the church has on and off again, struggled to keep two things together. Ministry of word and ministry of deed, or the true Gospel and truly Christian outreach to the poor and needy. The church has struggled to keep the two together. Sometimes it's been all one and not the other, sometimes all the other and not the one. Frequently, neither one. But the church has struggled to keep the true Gospel producing true genuine ministry to the poor and needy.  The early church didn't seem to struggle with it. I'm talking about Acts chapter 2. Peter preaches the Pentecost sermon, 3000 are baptized, added to the number that day. Right away, they devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, so they come in through the preaching of the gospel, and they right away are busy with doctrine, they're getting the apostles' teaching. They devote themselves to that and to the fellowship, that's the sharing together, the breaking of bread and the prayer. Everyone's filled with awe and many wonders and miraculous signs are done by the apostles, almost always mercy ministry, just done supernaturally, caring for sick people, dying people, that kind of thing, the apostles doing miracles. All the believers were together and had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need. There you have apostolic teaching and a solid mercy ministry going on both inside and outside the walls of the church. 

So also, the early Christians during the time of the persecution of the Roman Empire. It's told that the Roman Christians would go along the Tiber River in Rome and pick up babies that had been abandoned there, infanticide. They were seeking to kill unwanted babies, and the Christians would go and scoop them up and raise them.  Julian, the apostate, the evil pagan emperor who wanted to go back to paganism after Christianity had taken root in the Roman Empire, commented ruefully on what he called "the Galileans", that's what he called the Christians. "Not only do they care for their own poor and needy, but ours as well. We are having trouble competing with these people." That was the nature of the early church.

But over the centuries, through the medieval Roman Catholic church era the gospel was lost. People lost the gospel. They didn't understand how a sinner is made right with God. Frequently, when they would sin, they would go and confess their sins to a priest and the priest would give them good works to do to reduce time in purgatory. Friends, there is no purgatory, there's heaven and hell, but the priest would say, "You know, you can reduce your time in purgatory if you just do some good deeds." The good works were either religious works like the saying of prayers, or the caring for the poor and needy, and this way, you could reduce your time in purgatory. The Reformation, through Martin Luther and Calvin and others, reclaimed the gospel, and the 16th century and on saw a growth again of a beautiful relationship between the true Gospel and a healthy mercy ministry of the poor and needy. Right on through the time of George Whitfield and John Wesley, who cared for orphans in Georgia, and others who just cared for the poor and needy in England, all kinds of combination of good preaching and good mercy ministry.  The Moravians sold themselves into slavery in the West Indies so that they could share the gospel with slaves. There was William Wilberforce who understood the gospel well, and for 26 years fought to get rid of slavery and the slave trade in the British Empire. 

But then in the 19th and 20th century we had the social gospel. People came in and they did not understand, through Darwinism and liberal theology and all that, they lost the gospel in a different way. They became universalistic. They basically said, "Anybody and everybody is going to heaven, that's not the issue. The issue is the world's a really bad place because we don't understand how much God loves us, we don't understand how good God is and how we should be loving each other [social gospel]. We need to stamp out societal ills and evils and try to make the world a better place." Charles Sheldon wrote his book, In His Steps, in which he asked the famous question, "What would Jesus do?" But he was an advocate of what we call Christian socialism, and definitely a part of that social gospel movement. The central problem with the social Gospel is they didn't understand how a sinner is made right with God. They didn't understand the need sinners have to be saved. As a result of that, fundamentalists over-reacted, they said that the liberals have lost the gospel, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the miracle workings of Jesus and all that. We've got to protect these fundamentals of the gospel and not do anything that these social gospelers are doing. So, they pulled in and worked on the doctrine, but they were in a different kind of bubble, not interacting with the outside world, trying to protect the gospel, so they didn't do those kinds of mercy ministries.

Recently in the evangelical world, we've seen a change, people have gotten back. First it was moral issues like prayer in the schools, 10 Commandments, abortion and other things.  Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship got into the prisons and started ministering to people at that level, and you started to see more and more evangelicals getting involved in mercy ministry, and I think in a healthy way. There are role models, especially in urban churches, like I've already mentioned, Redeemer Presbyterian, Tim Keller's church there in Manhattan, and 10th Presbyterian of Philadelphia, and John Piper's efforts at racial reconciliation in Minneapolis. So where does that leave us now? We live in a technologically advanced world, in which images of an earthquake in Haiti or floods in Pakistan can be right on your iPhone immediately as soon as they happen. We see more than ever before, the crushing burdens of this sin cursed world and the trouble we're in.  Also, in the US and in other places in the Western world there's economic uncertainty, more and more unemployed people, a different kind of homeless people, some with college degrees, but are underemployed or unemployed. More and more troubles in churches just like ours, where people are really financially needy.  The present administration, the Obama administration, I think sees increasingly a role of government in solving those problems, and that's really a fork in the road, the question, "Are we going to see bigger and bigger and bigger government answering these problems, or is there a different solution?" I think there's a different solution, I think the church is at the centerpiece of what God wants to do to solve these problems in the world.

Among Christians, especially younger Christians, we're seeing more and more of a zeal to do a kind of physical ministry of the poor and needy, disconnected from the gospel and the exclusivity of Christ. Lots of college students who have no commitment to Christ at all want to do things to give something back, or they just feel good building homes for the homeless. CNN has a little spot every week called CNN's Heroes of the Week. I went on their website and found out who it was this week, it was a guy who builds bridges in Kenya. So, I'm back to Kenya again. There he is building bridges.  He's built 46 bridges to help with local flooding and other things, but no mention of Christ. He may be a Christian. I don't know, I tried to find out whether he was. There's no mention, it doesn't seem relevant. That's where we live right now. People who are energetic and excited to do good works, but like back in the Kennedy days with the Peace Corps and all that, wanting to do exciting things with the United Nations or whatever, but no connection directly to the gospel. Christians can get involved, but the gospel's not at the center. We may be kind of oozing slowly back into a social gospel again.

That's just laying the land. What priorities do I want to give you quickly to try to sort these things through? As I look through scripture, I'm going to give you five, and instead of giving the applications at the end of the sermon, I'm going to do it as I make these points.  The first priority concerning ministry to the poor and needy is justification before ministry. You must be born again before you can do anything God sees as good. That's the priority. You don't have any good works until you come to faith in Christ. There are really only two religions in the world: The religion of salvation by grace through faith in Christ and the religion of good works, and at the center of that religion of good works is usually some kind of ministry of the poor and needy. Ministry to the poor and needy will not save you on judgement day. Now you can read the sheep and the goats and say, "I don't see faith in Jesus anywhere here." That's where scripture has to interpret scripture, the gospel is clear that we must believe in Jesus, to trust in Him for the salvation of our souls. “By grace we have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.”

Jesus comes to His apostles the night before His crucifixion, and He's there washing their feet. He comes to Peter and Peter has no interest in having Jesus wash his feet. He asked one of those obvious questions, "Are you about to wash my feet?" I think he was probably the seventh or eighth apostle, I don't know. "Yes Peter, I'm going to wash your feet." Actually, he said, "What I'm doing now you do not understand but later you will."  The deeper answer. "Later you will understand the significance of the foot washing." "Never Lord, you shall never wash my feet." Jesus said, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." So first, Jesus has to wash you, then you can wash each other's feet. The Son of Man came not to be served. He doesn't need you; you need Him. “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.” The first priority then is you must be born again, you must be justified through faith in Christ, therefore come to Christ. Look to Christ, look to His blood shed on the cross. Don't try to earn your salvation by getting involved in the community or Habitat for Humanity, or any of these other good things, don't do that first. First come to the cross. But this doesn't mean that faith which is apart from works stays apart from works. The faith that justified is never apart from works. It always produces good works.

Because when you are born again, you are spiritually united with Jesus and through the Spirit, his intentions and personality and his love start to pulsate through your soul, and you can't help but love the poor and needy if you're really a Christian. There's just going to be good works flowing through a faith that genuinely justifies, but first, you must be born again.

The second gospel priority is ministry to the soul above ministry to the body. It is a higher priority for Christians to minister to the soul which will endure forever, than to the body which is destined for the grave. If you're already going to the "But that doesn't mean" part, hang on, okay, let me make my point and then I'll say, "But that doesn't mean... " There are three passages that teach me this priority. First, Matthew 16:26, "What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?" Or what could a man give in exchange for his soul?” Here, Jesus plainly puts the value of the soul as higher than any physical thing. If you took a homeless man from the streets of Chicago, gave him a new set of clothes, fed him for a year, gave him a job's training program, enabled him to get a good solid job, and he kept that job and became middle class, healthy, strong, and didn't love Jesus and died and went to hell, what would it profit him? What good is it? The second passage that teaches me this is after the feeding of the 5000. The next day the people were looking for another meal.  Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, you're looking for me, not because you saw a miraculous sign, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not labor for the food that spoils but for the food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you." Stop thinking about your stomach. Stop thinking about your body. It is temporary. That's what Jesus is saying. Ecclesiastes 6:7 says, "All man's efforts are for his mouth yet his appetite is never satisfied." I don't think Ecclesiastes 6:7 is saying all man's efforts should be for his mouth, it's just saying that's what they tend to be. Or in Philippians 3, Paul says, "For as I have often told you before and now say again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things." Jesus is urging everyone, both the lost, the needy, and Christian workers and evangelists, seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well. That's not one of the three key passages, I just slipped that one in there, but put your mind first on the spiritual things and let the other things come.

What is that third and final passage? Some men brought to Jesus in Matthew 9:2, a paralyzed man, a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralyzed man, "Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven." What was Jesus' priority there? Ministry to the felt need. What was the felt need? Freedom from paralysis. Jesus goes to the heart of the matter. "Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven." Let me ask you a question, if that's all Jesus had done, I don't mean just any person, now this is Jesus, the Judge of all the Earth, declaring that man's sin is forgiven, would that have been enough for the paralyzed man that day? Is that a valid ministry, if he had sent him home paralyzed, but forgiven of all of his sins? I tell you it is a valid ministry, because within the promise that his sins will be forgiven is the promise of resurrection to a glorified life, in which not just paralysis, but every disease and pain and suffering will be healed. Jesus in effect said, "I'll get to your paralysis by and by." He actually did it right away because they're saying, "This fellow is blaspheming. Who has the right to forgive sins?" Jesus said, "So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on Earth to forgive sins,” he said to the man, "Rise and walk." Therefore, we must put a priority on gospel ministry, a ministry of the Gospel above ministry to the body. The gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. Our good example will not save anyone's souls.

I think a lot of you have a wonderful example, you have a sweet countenance, your face looks delightful, you are pleasant, you are patient, you are tender-hearted, you have a sweet tone of voice. I can just tell you there are non-Christians that can do better at all that stuff than you. The difference between you and them is you have the gospel, and they don't. So, in the midst of all of our ministry to the body must be a commitment to share the gospel as often as we can. There's a supposed quote and I've quoted it before, from St. Francis of Assisi, I actually don't think he said it, but some people say he did, "Preach the gospel, use words if necessary."  Have you heard that before? Oh, my goodness. Where do they come up with this stuff? "Preach the gospel, use words if necessary." And I lampooned it probably a year or two ago, saying it's like saying, "Feed the hungry, use food if necessary." I think food is necessary to feed the hungry, don't you?  I think the words of the gospel are necessary to preaching the gospel, and that's the only thing that's going to save souls. However, this does not mean that we don't minister to the body. Frankly, if we're not ministering to the body, how can we say the love of God is in us? Jesus ministered to the body.  He just put a priority over the soul, that's all. 1 John 3, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?"  James says, "Suppose one of you has food and clothing and all kinds of the world's goods, and you see a brother without food or clothing, and you say, ‘Go, I wish you well, keep warm and well-fed’, but does nothing for his physical needs, what good is that?" Both James and John are saying the same thing. Faith without deeds is dead. There must be deeds. I'm just saying in the middle of the deed doing let's preach the gospel.

The third gospel priority is ministry to believers above ministry to unbelievers. Galatians 6:10 is the key verse, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the household of faith." We see in the sheep and the goats, Jesus identifies with His people, "These are my brothers, these are my sisters, you cared for me by caring for them."  What's interesting is Christians see Jesus in everything anyway, all the time, that's what we do. The law of Moses isn't just the law of Moses, or some letters engraved in a stone, Jesus is the law, and therefore we see Him in all of these encounters. He's at the center of it all. But the commands and examples of benevolence in the New Testament always focus primarily on church members helping other church members. It's true. Look it up. Over and over, its church caring for church. The gospel was moving so rapidly and advancing so much that someone went from non-Christian to Christian quickly, they went from non-Christian with tremendous needs to Christian with tremendous needs quickly. That's the best way to do it, friends. Let's lead them to Christ and then take care of their tremendous needs. Oh, how sweet would that be.

This does not mean we should not minister to outsiders; it says in Galatians 6:10, "Let us do good to all people, just especially those who belong to the household of faith." If a Good Samaritan was going by, let's say he were a Christian, and this guy's lying by the side of the road, is he going to kneel down and say, "I need to see some spiritual credentials, please? Are you a Christian? Have you come to faith in Christ? Let me share the gospel with you, okay?" When Jesus was engaging frequently with the people, first it was preaching, then feeding the 5,000.  What I'm saying is put a mental doctrinal priority on the preaching of the gospel, while you minister to the needs of the body.

The fourth gospel priority, a little arcane, I'm not going to spend much time on it, but there are a lot of people talking about doing good to the city, a lot of urban ministry. They tend to be what I call "post-millennial", in other words, as you get better and better and better, as we preach the gospel, more and more, the city is going to get brighter and shinier and better and better, if we can just plant more trees and have more gardens and just cover over more graffiti and all that will solve the problems. Well, you know what's going to happen, have you seen those pretty little parks five years later?  A Christian knows what's going to happen five years later. Actually, a Christian knows what's going to happen at the end of the world. It's all going to burn. Every little gospel island that we set up is just an oasis of hope pointing to a future city that will not be destroyed.  Hebrews 11 says, "We are aliens and strangers here, and we're looking forward to a better city with foundations that are never going to go away." The people who say that we should do good to the city are saying, "Well, Jeremiah said the exiles, they should pray for the shalom or the peace of the city, the well-being of the city and settle in there. You're going to be there for seven years, do good to the city." Yes, but what they forget to notice is that the same prophet, Jeremiah said, "I want you to know what's going to happen to Babylon, it's going to be destroyed. So, while you do good to the city, keep in mind that someday it's going to be a burning heap of rubble where even the jackals will not live." We should realize that if we set up an urban ministry center, it might get vandalized. The computers might get stolen. The stuff we do feels temporary because the physical stuff really is temporary. That's why we're going to put our hope on the eschatological city that we're building, the new Jerusalem by the ministry of the gospel. Be hope-filled people, don't get discouraged easily. 

Finally, ministry to the poor above ministry to the rich. This is convicting for us. Luke 14:12-14, "Then Jesus said, 'When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors. If you do, they may invite you back, and so you'll be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the cripple, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’” Reach out to those who can't pay you back, that's what Jesus is saying. That doesn't mean you can't have friends over for lunch. I'm just saying, where is the sacrificial ministry to people who are difficult to love and who seem to be a bottomless pit? You've got to do it with a hope that Jesus at the resurrection of the righteous will repay you. Let's focus on those.

Find a ministry that causes you to get out of an air-conditioned bubble If you've been doing that, get out of that and go out in the streets and minister to people who are hurting. Counseling ministry will be another one. It's not just financial, sometimes people's lives are just falling apart, they may be wealthy materially, but they're hurting, hurting, hurting in their marriages. Let's get out of the air-conditioned bubble, let's minister as Jesus did.

Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of going out in the neighborhood here, sharing the gospel, as we were preparing for Summer Sizzle. We were talking to a group of young men in their teen years, 14, 15, 16 years old, just sitting there, hard to get them to focus on what we were saying. Quite honestly, it was hard to get them to take us seriously. They were shooting looks at each other, making little smiles, talking on their cellphones or checking for text messages or whatever while we were talking to them. All of that until I said, "You know, I really would just like 20 minutes of your time. I'd like 10 minutes to go with you to hell, and then 10 minutes up in heaven, then I'd like to come back here and share the gospel with you. I think you'd give me full attention then." That got their attention, I think. We talked a little bit longer after that. This morning, I feel the weight of the gospel ministry, the weight of preaching. I have for the last handful of days. It seems to me that one of the responsibilities of a pastor, of a preacher of the gospel, of an evangelist, is to make these eternal issues, the future issues of heaven and hell vivid and real through words and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I need to make it come alive, make it real so that people can be wise and do what they need to do now while there's still time to prepare for death.

That's what I want to do today, but it eludes me. It's beyond what I can do. I also have been asking the last couple of days, what demeanor should I have as a man standing here in front of you preaching about hell? What should my face look like? What should my tone of voice be like? My yearning was that it would be genuine, it wouldn't be an act, I wouldn't have to be acting in front of you, but that I would be genuinely caught up with these things and be able to tell you the truth.  I'd like to ask that you pray for me while I preach because these things, I think are important. It's important that when you hear about hell, when you hear about an issue like this, and I think you have to be honest, you don't hear about very often, not to this level, that you hear it properly. I want it preached to you properly for the glory of God, and that's my desire. We're coming to The Sheep and the Goats now for a second week, we're going to have one more week next week, in which I talk about mercy ministry based on The Sheep and the Goats.

As we come for a second week to The Sheep and the Goats, we're coming to a concentrated look on the doctrine of hell. We've already had several sermons in which we have unfolded in detail some aspects of the doctrine of heaven. It would be well worth doing in parallel with this, but I'm not doing that today, but just focusing on hell. Christ did not stop at talking about the glorious and joys and rewards of heaven but warned many times about the doctrine of hell. In Matthew 24 and 25, we've come against it again and again, but I haven't really stopped and focused on it like I'm going to do this morning. I'm going to concentrate on this one verse, verse 41, in the message this morning. "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." At the end of Matthew 25, also this statement, "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." This issue of hell has been hanging over us for some time in the Gospel of Matthew in Chapters 24 and 25 as Christ got the apostles there on the Mount of Olives and through them, the church and the world, ready for His Second Coming and for Judgment Day.

If you go back to Matthew 24:30, talking about the Second Coming of Christ, "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn." Why are they going to mourn? Because Jesus is bringing judgment back with Him. It's a time of judgment. He likens it to the days of Noah, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage right up to the day Noah entered the ark, and they had no idea what would happen until the flood came in and swept them all away." That's how it's going to be at the coming of the Son of Man.  Christ likens the Second Coming to the circumstances of the flood at the time of Noah. The flood was a devastating act of judgment around the world. So also, in the parable at the end of Matthew 24 of the faithful and unfaithful steward that the master put in charge of the house where Jesus focuses on the case of the wicked steward who says, "My Master's staying away a long time," and then he begins to beat his fellow servants and eat and drink with drunkards. "His master's going to come at a time he's not aware of, an hour he's not expecting. And he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Then in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, we get just a touch of it, but in the larger New Testament context, we know exactly what Jesus means when the five foolish virgins come late and are pounding on the door and they want to enter in, they want to be led in, and he won't let them in. And he says, "I never knew you. I don't know you." He doesn't open the door for them. Then in the parable of the talents, in verse 30, concerning that one that hid the talent in the ground, the judgment on him is this, "Throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." We've seen this again and again in Matthew 24 and 25. To be fully faithful then to Jesus is to embrace everything He teaches, not just some of what He teaches. To be fully faithful to Jesus is to emphasize what He emphasizes, to the degree to which He emphasizes it, and therefore, we can't pick and choose. We have to understand this doctrine of hell.

Two years ago, some members of our staff and I went to Ridgecrest for a conference, and we were just stunned, convicted, moved by a sermon by Don Whitney, entitled, “Hell is Real.” He began with these words, "Those who are not church-goers believe that men who preach from the Bible are always preaching about hell. Those who are church goers but who are not Southern Baptists typically believe that Southern Baptist preach frequently about hell. However, regardless of your denominational background, can you remember the last time you heard an entire sermon about hell? More and more evangelicals are now moving toward an inclusive position on how people get to heaven. That is, that the gates of heaven are opening wider to people of other faiths and that hell is less of a threat than previously preached for Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and others. For professing Christians who are not evangelicals, the consensus is fast becoming that in the end no one or almost no one will go to hell." Recently, R.C. Sproul said, talking about the doctrine of justification by faith that was uncovered and emphasized by Luther at the Reformation, "Justification is God's righteous declaration that sinners are not guilty in His sight and will not go to hell." That's what justification is.  But R.C. Sproul was saying, "The prevailing doctrine of justification today is not justification by faith alone." It's not even justification by good works or a combination of faith and works. The prevailing notion of justification in Western churches today is justification by death. It is assumed that all one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die. There is no hell, or if there is, God would never send anyone but the worst people to hell, and therefore, as long as you're not a Hitler or a serial killer or a terrorist or something, you're definitely not going to go to hell. In January of 1996, the Church of England and its American counterpart, the Episcopal church, officially rejected the traditional view of hell and embraced what is known as annihilationism:  The view that those who aren't allowed into heaven will be annihilated, they will cease to exist after death. They said that the orthodox view of hell implies that God is, "A sadistic monster who consigned millions to eternal torment." In October of 2007, on the front of USA Today, the question was, "Is there a Hell? and 48%, or almost half of American adults said “No, there is no hell.”

So, this morning, we have to focus on what Jesus taught about this and understand the prevailing currents and eddies of our evangelical culture, of the wider Christian culture, and of American culture. Now, what do we mean by hell? What does the Bible teach about this doctrine? Wayne Grudem put it this way, "Hell is a place of eternal conscious torment or punishment for the wicked by God." Eternal conscious torment as a punishment by God. Jonathan Edwards, in probably the single most famous sermon in history, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” warned his hearers at the end with these words. "O sinner, consider the fearful danger that you are in. It is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned who are already in hell. You hang by a slender thread with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and that thread every minute is ready to be singed and burned apart. And you have no interest in any mediator, you have nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you for one moment more."

I said that that was one of the most famous sermons in history, because it seems that a lot of English literature classes ask, "Have you read that sermon?" It's fascinating to me that they'd want you to read those kinds of things. In that message, Edwards was struggling, it seems, with language to describe Revelation 19:15, “Christ treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." Edwards said this, "The words are exceeding terrible. If it had only been the wrath of God, the words would have implied that which is infinitely dreadful, but it is the fierceness and wrath of God. The fierceness of Jehovah. O how dreadful must that be. Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them?" John Piper, a pastor in Minneapolis, was commenting on the fact that so many high school students read “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, and in some way minimize its language and some way critique it or despise its message as echoes from a puritanical era that thankfully, we are now out of it last. You never need to go there again. But John Piper asked a deeper question, "Why did Edwards wrestle with that kind of language?"

Piper says, "What high school student is ever asked to come to grips with what really is an issue here?" If the Bible is true, and if it says that someday Christ will tread his enemies like a winepress with an anger that is fierce and almighty, and if you are a pastor charged with applying Biblical truth to your people so that they will flee the wrath to come, then what would your language be? What would you say to make people feel the reality of texts like these? Edwards labored over language and over images and metaphors because he was so stunned and awed at the realities that he saw in the Bible. Did you hear that one line in the quote I have just read, "Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them?" Edwards believed that it was impossible to exaggerate the horror of the reality of hell. High school teachers then would do well to ask their students the really probing question, "Why is it that Jonathan Edwards struggled to find images for wrath and hell that shock and frighten, while contemporary preachers try to find abstractions and circumlocutions that move away from concrete, touchable Biblical pictures of unquenchable fire and undying worms and wailing, and gnashing of teeth?" If our students were posed with that simple, historical question, my guess is that some of the brighter ones would answer, "Because Jonathan Edwards really believed in hell, and most preachers today don't."

I understand that there is a natural human repugnance to this topic. Mark Twain said this really strange thing, at least he read the New Testament, we'll give him that. But he said, "It is believed by everyone that when God was in heaven in the Old Testament era, he was stern, hard, resentful, jealous and cruel, but that when he came down to earth as Jesus, he became the opposite, sweet, gentle merciful, forgiving. But Jesus was a thousand billion times crueler than ever he was in the Old Testament.” Meek and gentle? By and by, we will examine that popular sarcasm by the light of the hell that he invented." Twain went on to say, "The invention of hell is the prodigious crime of the Bible." Charles Darwin, in his autobiography wrote of his spiritual slide from acceptance of general Christian doctrine to complete unbelief. "The key step," he said, “was his rejection of the doctrine of hell." He said, "I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true. For if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother, and almost all my best friends will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."

So, searching around for some other way to think of the universe, I think led him toward natural selection, toward evolution. Clark Pinnock, a Canadian theologian who is drifted far from his evangelical roots, said, "I was led to question the traditional belief in everlasting conscious torment because of moral revulsion and broader theological considerations, not first of all on scriptural grounds." Did you hear that? "It wasn't the Bible that led me away from the doctrine of hell, it was just that I was personally morally revulsed from it and didn't like the doctrine." Back to Pinnock, "It just does not make any sense to say that a God of love will torture people forever for sins done in the context of a finite life. It's time for evangelicals to come out and say that the biblical and morally appropriate doctrine of hell is annihilation, not everlasting torment."

John Stott shocked many of his evangelical friends by supporting this view, annihilationism. He said, "Emotionally, I find the concept of eternal conscious torment intolerable, and I do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth." Thank God he said that. “Emotions must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determining it. My question must be and is not what does my heart tell me, but what does God's word say?" And then he went on a, I think, empty quest to try to redefine some words so that hell wasn't eternal. But at least he was trying to do it biblically. Now, Matthew 24 and 25, and some more evidence I'm going to give you in just a minute, shows very plainly and clearly that Christ warned us about hell again and again.

Dorothy Sayers said, "There seems to be a kind of conspiracy, especially among middle-aged writers of vaguely liberal tendency to forget, or to conceal, where the doctrine of hell comes from. One finds frequent references to the, ‘Cruel and abominable medieval doctrine of hell,’ or ‘The childish and grotesque medieval imagery of physical fire and worms.’ But the case is quite otherwise. Let us face the facts. The doctrine of hell is not medieval, it is Christ's. It is not a device of medieval priestcraft for frightening people into giving money to the church, it is Christ's deliberate judgment on sin. The imagery of the undying worm and the unquenchable fire derives, not from medieval superstition, but originally from the Prophet Isaiah, and it was Christ who emphatically used it. One cannot get rid of it without tearing the New Testament to tatters. We cannot repudiate hell without altogether repudiating Christ.”

 It is a biblical fact that Jesus Christ taught far more about hell than any other figure in the Bible ever did. Most of the clear imagery we have about hell comes from Jesus. I want to give you a partial listing of some of the verses in which Jesus refers to hell and you get a sense of it. This is just a partial listing, this is not just something He mentioned once in a while, He mentioned it again and again and again. In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew Chapter 5:22, "Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool' will be in danger of the fire of hell." Matthew 8:11-12, "But I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Matthew 10:28, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell." In the parable of the wheat and the tares, Matthew 13, "The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom everything that causes sin and all those who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." In that same chapter, at the end of the parable of the good fish and the bad fish and the dragnet, Jesus said, "This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." The parable of the wedding banquet. The king comes in and finds a man there who's not wearing the proper wedding clothes. He said, "Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?" The man is speechless. The king told the attendants, "Tie him hand and foot and throw him outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen."

Jesus in His sevenfold woe to the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23 said, "You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?" In Mark Chapter 9:43-49, He said, "If your hand causes you to sin, then cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot cause you to sin, then cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, then pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. Everyone will be salted with fire." Luke 13:23-28, "Someone asked him, 'Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?'" He said to them, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to, and once the owner of the house gets up and closes that door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.' Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, you taught in our streets.' But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers! There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.’” Then very pointedly, in the rich man and Lazarus account in Luke 16, the rich man is thrown into hell, and it says, "In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side so he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire.'" That's just some of Jesus's teachings on hell.  It is very plain and clear that Dorothy Sayers is right, Jesus taught this doctrine.  Friends, He came into the world, He took on a human body to deliver us from hell. Isn't it appropriate that God, the Father would assign to Him the job of teaching us about it? I don't think a Sunday goes by without me looking at that wood cross up there in that latticework and thinking about it. This morning, more pointedly than usual. When we're singing, "Jesus, Thank You," that's what was in my mind. 

Jesus taught us about hell. It's not some scheme originated by hellfire and brimstone preachers to get more money or to manipulate people, it is something Jesus taught, because it's real. What I want to do is draw out aspects of the doctrine of hell from one verse in the text. Look at Verse 41, and I'm going to go phrase by phrase, and leaning on these other verses, teach you what Jesus teaches us about hell based on this one verse.  "Then He will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.'" That's the verse I want to focus on. First of all, let's understand who's speaking, it's Jesus, who has returned in heavenly glory, He's seated on the throne of judgment, He's judging the whole human race, everybody's gathered in front of Him. They're all there. He has already divided the entire human race into two categories, not seven, not 12, whatever many categories there are now, there's going to be two on that day, sheep, goats. Those on his right, the sheep are already blessed with the blessings of heaven. We talked about that in the last message. But then the King, the one seated on the throne, the one of authority to judge because He is the Son of Man, Jesus is going to say to those on his left, these words. Look at the first phrase, "Depart from me." Depart from me. The goats, the lost people, the wicked, the sinners, they will be driven from Jesus's presence. He doesn't want to spend eternity with them. He doesn't want to be with them. They are His Creation, He created them, but He doesn't know them, and they don't know Him. So, He says, "Depart from me." They're going to be driven from His presence. It is a command given to them. They don't have an option in this matter. He wants them away. "Depart from me. Go away from me, I never knew you." This, I believe, is the worst punishment of all, being away from God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, being out of the presence of God. It's spoken of as outer or black as darkness because I think God is light. I think there'll literally be no light there, but God is light, and so you're away from the presence of God. It's commanded by the King, "Depart from Me. Go away from me." But no one is going to be able to obey that command. The goats will not move. They can't because they will not willingly throw themselves into hell. They will not willingly walk or gladly walk as some lost people think, like Mark Twain said, "Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company." Nobody is going to make the choice to go to hell when hell is clearly revealed with your own eyes of what it's like. The King will dispatch his angels with these kinds of commands, "Bind him hand and foot and throw him outside." The verb is consistently “thrown out” or “cast out”, this kind of thing. There's no choice in the matter. The goats will not be able to argue back or run or hide, or any of that. Angels are sent and they will bind them hand and foot and throw them outside into the darkness. One thing we have to understand when he says, "Depart from me," we should not imagine that the power of God is not in hell. Hell is powered by the Word of God. You need to understand that there's no place in the universe that isn't God's. Hell is God's hell. It bothers me when evangelicals make stupid statements such as “God doesn't send anyone to hell. People go there of their own free choice, and God merely ratifies the decision they've made their whole lives.” That's complete bunk. This seems to me like God is sending people to hell.  I tell you, not a single one of the goats would willingly choose to go there on that day. It's a terrifying place. They're cast there, and the power of God is there, sustaining their existence and their torments. It's biblical doctrine. 

But God is not there to bless, and so He says, "Depart from me, you who are cursed." What is that phrase or that word “cursed” mean? Understand it with its biblical tandem, bless, blessings and curses. Someone who is blessed is first and foremost in a right relationship with God and God with them. They're in a reconciled relationship. God loves them, they love God, they're in a right relationship with God. Out of that right relationship, God wants to give them good things, and his power is motivated toward those blessed people to bless them and give them good things. That's what it means to be blessed. To be cursed is the exact opposite. There is no good relationship. He doesn't know them, they don't know him, they're not in any good, reconciled relationship, and then God's power is unleashed toward their destruction, not to do them good, but to do them harm. That's what a curse is, and Jesus says, "Depart from me, you who are cursed." Hell, then is the ultimate curse from Almighty God. 

Then He says, "Into the eternal fire." First of all, look at the word “into.” This is going to be a judgment that will surround or in which someone is immersed, therefore in the Book of Revelation, we have this language of the lake of fire. It's like plunging down into the wrath of God, into eternal fire. It's not near you, it's not by you, it's not around you, you're in it.  It's full immersion, a lake of fire.  It's never-ending. Look at Verse 46, the annihilationists don't have any good explanation for Verse 46. Stott does what he can with it, but he can't change the language there. It's very plain. There's a parallelism. "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." How can it be that we're counting on when we've been there 10,000 years bright, shining as a sun, there's no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun. Timeless, eternal, it never ends. That's heaven, right? Well, so also must be hell, friends. It's eternal, it never ends, and it's an eternal fire. I thought a lot about that word, even this morning as I was praying and thinking about this. Again, and again, the image of fire is used. Jesus speaks of Gehenna, which was a fire pit right outside of Jerusalem where the garbage was burned that had a sordid, wicked history. Isaiah 30:33 says, "The wrath of God sets it ablaze." It's a place where wicked kings like Ahab and Manasseh burned their children to Molech and it became a symbol of hell.  Jesus uses it in that passage I quoted earlier in Matthew 5:22, “It's better for you to lose one part of your body than to go into Gehenna, which is this burning place.” It's always fire, friends. Fire. 

It's not multiple metaphors or images, it's the same thing over and over. It's always fire, a blazing fiery furnace. That kind of thing. Recently, we were doing some American history, and we were talking about September 11th when those planes crashed into the Twin Towers. I hadn't thought a lot about it in the days and weeks that preceded that, but when I put on the YouTube video and watched the plane crash in there, I started to cry, I couldn't help myself, it was just very poignant to me. I have three very powerful images in my mind from that day. One of them is when the second plane crashed into the other tower, because we were watching the news at the time and it happened, and I remember the CNN people or whatever, didn't notice, and they kept on talking about whatever topic they were discussing, and it's like we knew before they did what was going on. Then you could hear the change, and something had happened with the second tower. That's one image. The second image I have is when the towers actually collapsed, how they just seemed to get sucked to the ground, how they seemed to melt and fall like a house of cards and fall so quickly.  But those two actually are small compared to the third memory, that of people who threw themselves off the high floors to escape the fire. It's estimated that 200 people did that that day. 200 people threw themselves from a thousand feet off the ground. Most of them were in the North Tower because the plane hit a little bit lower, and it was mostly the smoke that made them go, it wasn't the fire, or they would have been burned immediately. But the fire was coming their way and they knew it, there was no escape, and they were up there, and they had to make what they thought was a better choice, and they chose rather to die by falling and, I mean, there's no chance, they reached 150 miles an hour and they were just immediately killed upon impact, they knew they would be.  But imagine it's about 1,000 degrees centigrade, smoke billowing up, and they have a choice, you see. You see the choice, and what was the choice? Stay there with the fire or throw themselves out the window. And they chose to throw themselves. With hell, there's no choice, there's no escape. There's no death, it’s an eternal death.  This is the image that Jesus has given us.

I was thinking, "Do I even share that?" It's too painful. But then I thought about the words at the beginning of my sermon, isn't that my job? This isn't a pleasant topic, it’s a painful one. Flee the wrath to come, friends. Flee it now.  This isn't mythical. This is real. Jesus said again and again and again, it’s an eternal fire. You may ask about this word “eternal.” "Where is the justice of God?" you may say. Clark Pinnock said, "How can it be that we get an eternal punishment for things done in finite space and time?" The punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime. Even God gave us eye for eye and tooth for tooth so that there wouldn't be an escalation of punishments. “You took out my eye, I'm going to kill you.” No, we're going to go even; if there's a tooth then a tooth. So, we, with our developed sense of justice, we sit in judgment on God on this issue of hell and say it is unjust for God to do that. 

Let's just stop and talk about our capacity for justice compared to God's. As I've said before, it's like a flickering candle compared to the raging inferno of the sun. God is far more committed to justice than you are. Do you understand that? He killed his Son out of justice. That's how committed God is to justice. Secondly, does that punishment fit the crime? What is the crime?   There is lust and there is anger and pride and selfishness and stealing and all kinds of things, and all kinds of horizontal things we do to each other, but David in Psalm 51 said, "Against You and You only have I sinned." All sin is coming short of the infinite value of the glory of God, and that is an infinite sin, and it deserves an infinite punishment. It's the only thing my mind can do with it. That's why hell is eternal, because God's glory is of infinite value. 

The final phrase is, "Prepared for the devil and his angels." Do not believe the mythology that the devil thrives in hell or loves it, or is comfortable there, or that's his home address. He's not there yet. It's prepared for the devil and his angels. They're not there yet. The devil's angels are demons. They dread the wrath to come, they dread the justice of God that's going to come on them. Why would we human beings share in the punishment made for the devil and his angels? Because we shared in their rebellion against God. We joined Satan in his rebellion against God, in Genesis Chapter 3, when Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we joined Satan at that point. We are born sinners, we joined Satan, we became children of the devil, as Jesus called someone of his enemies, "You are a child of your father, the devil,” and we deserve his punishment. Do you know that there is no gospel release for Satan? 

There's no message of salvation for him or for the demons. They have no possibility of escape, but we human beings do because God became a man in Jesus.  Isn't that the good news that that we actually have a way out, we have an escape, Satan doesn't. But if we don't take that way out, we will share the devil's judgment. That's what it means, “prepared for the devil and his angels.” What will that torment be like? There will be a physical side to it, and there will be a psychological or mental side to it. The wailing and gnashing of teeth or weeping and gnashing of teeth, the gnashing of teeth, I think of in terms of physical pain. The wicked are going to be raised out of their graves, they will receive some kind of body and that body will be sustained forever in hell, so there's a physical torment aspect, but there's also a mental and psychological aspect, and I think a lot of it has to do with memories. Remember in Luke 16, when Abraham was speaking down to the rich man who's in torment and he said, "Son, remember, remember, remember that when you were in your life, you had all your good things and Lazarus, he had nothing. He's a poor man at your gate, you wouldn't give him anything. Remember that. Remember." We're going to remember. They will remember. We remember in heaven, but lost people remember in hell. What are they going to remember? They'll remember the sins that brought them there.

I think more than anything, they're going to remember times just like this one, where they hear the gospel plainly, and they didn't repent and believe. What would they give to be delivered out of hell for just one more hour with another chance to hear the Gospel again at that point, what would they give? All the rich man wanted was somebody to wet his tongue with a little water. What brings us there, sins of commission — actual acts of adultery and murder and theft and selfishness, but also sins of omission. "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat." It's all omission and in Matthew 25, it's all omission, what you didn't do. 

What applications can we take from this doctrine. First, I said at the beginning, it's just my dread. I've tried to visualize what it's like that I am likely speaking to people who are going to end up in hell right now. I don't know how many, I don't know who you are, I don't know your names, I don't know your faces, I don't know for a fact that what I said is even necessarily true.  But Jesus gave us a sense of the percentages, didn't he? Many enter through that broad road to hell, but only a few find that narrow gate. I know this is a concentrated assembly of the people of God here. You've come together for worship, and so the percentages are different here, but is it impossible that there is some nominal Christian listening to me, somebody who just thinks they're saved, but they're really not? Somebody who's on the road to destruction, they're self-deceived. I'm just asking you to consider the seriousness of this doctrine and flee to Christ. He shed his blood on the cross for sinners like you and me. This is the good news of the gospel. This is the good news that Jesus will receive you even now. Forget your pride, forget your reputation, forget what's happened up till now, just say, "Am I saved or not? Have I trusted in Christ or not? Am I ready to face judgment or not?" And flee to Christ. 

Second, if you've already done that, you're saved, you've been saved for years. You know you're saved. You see the fruit of God in your life. You are by the power of the Holy Spirit, putting to death the misdeeds of the body. There's good fruit in your life, you have the testimony, the indwelling spirit that you are a child of God. Romans 8:1 says, “therefore for you, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." You're not going to go to hell. The more we meditate on this incredible doctrine, the more grateful we're going to be to God for our precious salvation. Thank you, God for saving me. The paradox here is that this doctrine actually has tremendous power to make you happy for the rest of your life, it really does. We deserve hell, we're getting heaven. So, let me say this tenderly, stop complaining about your bodily aches and pains. God has delivered you from eternal hell, eternal torment and hell. I'm not saying don't tell the doctor what hurts, definitely tell your spouse as much as you want, and they'll tell you right back but stop complaining about your bodily aches and pains. Stop complaining about your temporary financial setbacks, God has delivered you from eternal loss. Thank him in the midst of your struggle financially, thank him for your salvation.

Stop complaining about your feelings of loneliness or isolation or desolation. God has delivered you from ultimate expression of that, the darkness where they're weeping and gnashing of teeth. You're free from that, you're going to be welcomed into eternal habitations with blessed people. You'll be there forever.  I don't minimize feelings of loneliness that widows, or widowers or other people may be feeling, the church is the answer to that, find them and dissolve that loneliness with good fellowship, but until that happens, praise God anyway, because you're delivered from loneliness. Let this make you happy. Remember Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. Remember Scrooge after the visit of the third ghost, the ghost of Christmas yet to come, who consigns him to hell. Then he wakes up in his bed there.  What is he feeling at that moment? Incredible relief and unbelievable joy. He just starts jumping around in his night shirt, he goes crazy with joy, and then he just starts spending money hand over fist. He can't spend it fast enough on the poor and needy, and all of that, dear friends without a single mention of Jesus. We should do better than Dickens, don't you think? We have been delivered from hell by Jesus, and we should be giving him thanks. We should be thankful people, and we should worship Christ for his incalculable courage. Stott said, "We can't bear this doctrine day after day after day, unless we become callous or start to deny it."  I think God hides the full weight of this from us so we can live our lives. I think to some degree, he did that to Jesus. Jesus knew he was going to die on the cross, he knew he was going to stand in the wrath of God, but what would that really be like while Jesus was flesh and blood. God didn't fully press that on to him until Gethsemane. In Mark's Gospel, it says that Jesus was amazed and fell to the ground, and then, "Great droplets of blood were coming as sweat from his face." Like the capillaries inside, were just bursting. You can't live like that.  Then God the father asked Jesus a very important question, "Will you do it anyway, even though this is what it's going to be like?" There the second Adam, reversed the bad decision of the first Adam, and said, "I'll do it. Not my will but yours will be done." The single greatest act of courage in history, praise him for it. Worship Jesus for that. For drinking your cup to the bottom. There's no wrath left for you, no wrath because Jesus stood under your wrath for you. It's a motive also to personal holiness. Hell is God's response to sin. He hates sin that much, so you ought to hate it that much.  If your right eye causes you to sin, then gouge it out and throw it away. If your right hand cause you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It's better for you to lose a part of your body than for your whole body to be destroyed in hell. When does Jesus say that? Jesus said, “You've heard that it was said, ‘You shall not lust or to commit adultery’, but anyone who lusts at a woman has committed adultery within his heart. If anything is causing you to sin, get rid of it out of your life." The meditation on hell is a strong inducement to personal holiness for Christians. 

Finally sorrow for the lost resulting in zeal in evangelism and prayer follows. Both Jesus and Paul wept over this doctrine. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Paul said, "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart for the Jews who are lost.” We should grieve over lost people, and we should pray for them. Paul said in Romans, "My prayer for the Israelites is that they may be saved."  Understanding the incredible immensity of this doctrine of hell and that most people around us are on the road to destruction should motivate us to greater faithfulness in evangelism and missions. Hudson Taylor was speaking at a missionary convention, I believe it was in Canada, maybe in England. He had been on the mission field in China for a while, came back, and he was rather shocked by the low level of intensity of missionary zeal among the people that were attending this missionary conference. He told a true story from his own experience there in China. While traveling by boat, one day Taylor entered into conversation with a Chinese man who had once visited England, and while he lived there, he went by the name of Peter. Hudson Taylor shared the Gospel thoroughly with this man, the man was moved, he was interested, but he didn't make a commitment to Christ, he couldn't do that at that point. Later on, that same boat trip, in a mood of great depression, this Chinese man jumped overboard and sank. In agonize suspense Hudson Taylor looked around for assistance and saw really close by some Chinese fishermen with a dragnet furnace with some hooks, "Come." He shouted to those fishermen. "Drag over this spot, a man just sunk here, he's drowning right now." Chinese fishermen answer with no emotion at all, "It's not convenient." "Don't talk of convenience, a man is drowning." "We're busy fishing, we cannot come,” they responded. Taylor begged them and offered to pay them for their time. They asked, "How much?" He offered them an equivalent amount of about $5. They said it wasn't enough and kept fishing. He cried out one more time. He said, "I'll give you everything I have." "How much is that?" "About $14." They agreed to come. Within a minute or so, they were able to get the individual up out of the water, but he was already dead. To Hudson Taylor, the incident was profoundly sad and pathetic, almost as a parable. He said those fishermen were in some way guilty of the death of that man because they had the means to save him but didn't do anything about it. But he said to this missionary convention, “Before you start judging those Chinese fishermen, let's pause, let someone greater than Nathan stand in front of us and point the finger at us and say, 'You are the man, you've had the resources to save people and you haven't done it because it wasn't convenient.'" I don't know if it's ever going to be convenient to witness.  The Lord is glorified when we are courageous, the Lord is glorified when we love, but this doctrine of hell is part of God's motivation to missionaries and evangelists, to teach us to be faithful to share the gospel. Let's be bold. Let's see things from an eternal perspective. It's not going to be long, friends. We'll be standing before Jesus, and He will welcome us into his presence. Meanwhile, there are around us people who are enroute to hell who can be rescued by the gospel if we share with them.

I believe one of the most serious responsibilities a pastor has in life, and one of the most serious responsibilities I have in this church is to keep Judgement Day in front of you constantly, to get you ready for what's really coming. The Day of the Lord is coming, and the Bible makes it plain that there is a day coming in which He will judge all humanity. When the Apostle Paul stood before the Greek philosophers in the Areopagus at Mars Hill, he finished his message with these words, Acts 17:31, "God has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man that He has appointed." Later, when Paul stood before the Roman governor, Felix, on trial for his life, Paul turned the tables and gave Felix a sense of the time when he would stand on trial for his soul. In Acts 24:25, as Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became afraid and said, "That's enough for now. You may leave. When I find it convenient, I'll send for you." Felix dismissed Paul because he could not handle the thought of Judgement Day, it made him feel uncomfortable. But I tell you that concept cannot be easily dismissed by sending the messenger away. You can dismiss the messenger but Judgement Day stands, Judgement Day looms, it is coming. I think it's one of my responsibilities to get you ready for that day. As the Lord Jesus Christ finished his discourse on the Mount of Olives, He's getting his disciples ready for his Second Coming. They had asked him, "When will these things be, the destruction of Jerusalem? What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"

In Matthew 24 and 25, He's been answering those questions and He ends with this teaching, what's commonly called the sheep and the goats, sometimes wrongly called the parable of the sheep and the goats. This isn't a parable, actually. It's a simple description from our Lord Jesus Christ of elements of Judgement Day. It's a simile. A simile is a comparison of two things using the word like or as.  Jesus said, "All the nations will be gathered before him, and He will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." He's going to put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. What is being compared? Separation. Righteous from the unrighteous, the believers in Jesus Christ, from those who did not believe in Jesus Christ, the saved from the lost, the redeemed from the unredeemed. They're going to be separated.

Recently, I saw yet again, and you've seen it too, I'm sure, the bumper sticker that uses various religious symbols to spell out the word “co-exist.”  The crescent moon forms the sea representing Islam, the peace sign forms the O, representing an end to all war. The X was made out of the star of David, representing Judaism. The I is dotted with the Wiccan symbol representing earth religions or pagan religions. The S is made out of the yin and yang circle representing Confucianism and the T of course is the cross of Christ, and we need to co-exist. It's printed by the Co-exist Foundation which seeks to promote peace between the world religions, especially through dialogue.

Jesus told the parable of the wheat and the weeds, also saying that we need to co-exist. In that, and probably in little else, Jesus and those folks agree. We have to live together, but Jesus says, the time is coming when He will separate the wheat from the weeds, and that day is Judgement Day, and we will not co-exist with them anymore. We will be separated from them, and that separation will be eternal. The harvest is the end of the age, and that's Judgement Day. Matthew 25:31-46 is, in my opinion, the plainest description of Judgement Day you will find in the Bible from the lips of Jesus. It's the plainest and clearest He ever gets, and we would do well to heed it because the Scripture reveals, He is the judge, He is the man whom God has appointed.

He begins, I think, by talking about his own glory at that time, the glory of the judge on Judgement Day.  Verse 31, "When the son of man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory." The judge of all the Earth is the Son of Man, that's Jesus Christ. It is the unique privilege and glory of God the Son, of the Son of man, of Jesus, to judge every human being that's ever lived. It says in John 5:22-23, "Moreover, the father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." Jesus Christ will be judge of all the earth, and every single human being will stand before Him on that dreadful day. What of the time of judgment? When will it happen? He says right here, when the Son of man comes in his glory, that's when the Judgement Day happens, the Second Coming of Christ, it's clear that Judgement Day will follow the return of Christ to the earth in glory.

What is the nature of the glory of Christ, a judgment? We know that Christ in his first advent, his first coming to earth, laid aside, all of His glory. "Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die," as it says in Hark the Herald Angels Sing. He lays his heavenly glorious aside.  He was born of a human mother, Mary, in very rude and poverty-stricken circumstances. He was laid in a manger where animals feed, and from that point on, as He grew up, He looked like any ordinary man. That feeling of the ordinary-ness of Jesus reached its climax at the cross, when Jesus was shedding his blood, dying like two other guys who were being crucified with him. Isaiah 53 says, "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him. Nothing in his appearance that we should desire Him.”

However, at the Second Coming of Christ, that will all be different, won't it? He's going to come back in a radiant heavenly glory. Christ's glory at the judgment will be even more ominous, even more awe-inspiring. In many cultures, judges at the time of a trial wear certain robes, even ornate robes to set them apart from anyone else in the courtroom. In the United Kingdom, especially, they wear ermine robes and purple and scarlet, silk, and when the judge appears in the courtroom, everyone's commanded to rise out of honor and respect for him and for the law that he represents. If these are the trappings of earthly judges, then how much more glory will attend the judge of all the earth when He sits on His throne? It will be an awesome display of glory and the throne itself that He's going to sit on will exude His attributes and his nature. Hebrews 1 says, "Your throne, oh God will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, and therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy." There Jesus is perhaps on a raised throne high and lifted up, glory surrounding him, and there's going to be angels there.

It's not just that there's going to be angels there, all the angels will be there. Frequently, He dispatches small contingents of angels or just maybe even a single angel, but not this time. All the angels are going to be there when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him. He will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. Daniel 7:10 describes the scene of Judgment Day I believe very well. "A river of fire was flowing coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended Him, and 10000 times 10000 stood before him." Amazing, 100 million radiant powerful beings. These are angelic warriors, not fat little babies with tiny little wings that could not lift them with little arrows shooting, these are mighty beings.  Often when angels appear, the first thing that they have to say is, "Fear not,” because there's just this radiant glory, this power that surrounds them. The Roman soldiers guarding Jesus' tomb shook with fear and became like dead men, at one angel, who moves the stone and sits on it. The Book of Daniel depicts one angel so awesome and powerful and overwhelming that Daniel said he fell at His feet as one dead, he couldn't get his breath. The Book of Revelation in Revelation 10:1-3 describes another mighty angel coming down from heaven. "He was robed in a cloud with a rainbow above his head and his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars, and he planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion." That's one angel. A big one too, I get the sense. These are awesome beings and these warrior servants; these angelic servants move people. I don't mean they move them emotionally, they might do that, but I mean they physically move people like bulldozers. They are the ones that the Lord sends out at the time of the Rapture to gather all of the Elect. But they're also going to be dispatched to gather all of the goats. All nations are going to be gathered to stand before Christ and they, the angels, will be the powerful agents of his wrath to bind the lost, the condemned hand and foot and throw them into the lake of fire. 

So that's setting the scene. What of the judgment itself? It’s going to be a comprehensive judgment, all nations, all deeds, all motives laid bare. There's nothing concealed that will not be disclosed. There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. Look at Verse 32, "All nations will be gathered before him." The word ‘nation”, we've learned to understand as an identifiable people group, an ethnic or linguistic people identified by history, geography, world view. This is a nation, and in the Gospel of Matthew it says that He has its eye on the nations all the time. In Matthew 12:18-21, it says there that, "Jesus will proclaim justice to the nations. And in his name, the nations will put their hope." Matthew 24:14 says, "This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." In that same section of Scripture, in Matthew 24:9, it says that "The messages of the gospel will be hated by all peoples on account of Christ." Then, of course, the gospel itself ends with a great commission, “‘All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me’, said Jesus, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I've commanded.’”

Jesus is a worldwide creator, Jesus is a worldwide King, he is a worldwide Savior, and He will most certainly be a worldwide judge. All nations will be gathered before him. Every single solitary person who's ever lived in every nation on Earth will be gathered before Christ's Judgment Seat. Plato, the fourth century Greek philosopher, will stand before Jesus to give an account for his life. Julius Caesar, the 1st century conqueror of Gaul, the beginning warrior of the Roman Empire really, will stand before Christ's Judgment Seat.  Shakespeare, the British poet and playwright, will be there. So will Voltaire. Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin, two communist dictators are going to stand before Jesus. Osama bin Laden will be there, so will George Bush. Barack Obama's going to stand before Jesus. So will the most common street beggar in Budapest, or in Calcutta. It doesn't matter the station, everybody's going to be standing before Jesus. The word “gathered” implies something happening to you, doesn't it? All the nations will be gathered before him. It implies in some cases, as if by force. There is no choice but to heed this summons. No Muslim, for example, will be able to say, "I will not stand, I refuse to stand before a Christian judgment, I am a Muslim, and I will only stand before Allah." No, dear friend, you'll stand before Jesus Christ.  The Son of Man will send out his angels and they will weed out of His kingdom everything that causes sin.

It is a comprehensive judgment, not just as to who is there, but as to what is open to view. It says in Hebrews Chapter 4, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from His sight, everything's uncovered and laid there before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account." Everything will be exposed, all of the deeds and all of the motives. Jesus is able to weigh the motive of every deed. Why did you do it? What were you intending when you did it? Proverbs 16:2 says, "All of man's ways seem innocent to him, but the Lord weighs the motives.” see that? He's going to be weighing the reason, He's tracing it back, and it's going to be a divisive judgment.  Jesus said, "Do not suppose that I came to bring peace. I came to bring a sword to divide father against son, daughter against mother and daughter-in-law... " He divides people, and this is the ultimate division here. It's a judgment. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people. One from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He's going to put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. We are mixed now; we will be divided then. 

We must co-exist now, and it's not easy for us, is it? Surviving in an impure and mixed world. It is because of unbelievers that we have the police forces and courts and jails in the numbers that they are. It's because of unbelievers that so many laws and restrictions need to be written. It's because of unbelievers in Hollywood and New York that we are assaulted daily with images and other temptations that wage war against our souls. It is unbelievers in foreign lands that are waging war against Christians simply because they're Christians. It's unbelievers that make this alluring sinful enticing system known as, in Pilgrim's Progress, as Vanity Fair. Just what it is. However, at the end of the world, this mixed experience in which we must tolerate each other because you can't tell the difference between the weeds and the wheat right now.

I'll tell you this, Saul of Tarsus sure looked like weeds that morning that he got converted, didn't he? Praise be to God that those who look like goats to us now can actually be revealed in the end to have been a sheep, that they're going to be sheep through faith in Jesus Christ. Praise be to God; this is the day of salvation. This is the time when people can be converted. But now I'm talking about Judgement Day when there will be no conversion, the division will be perfect, there'll be no mistakes. The sheep are the sheep, and the goats are the goats. Essential to this is the perfect knowledge that the Good Shepherd has of His own sheep. He says, "I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep, and my sheep know me." No mistakes will be made. He knows the goats, but differently. He knows them, but he just knows them differently. Psalm 138:6, "Though the Lord is on high, he looks upon the lowly, but the proud, he knows from afar."  He knows them from a distance, just not intimately and relationally.

Those angels will make no mistakes. All the sheep will be gathered on one side and all the goats gathered on the other, and there'll be no mix ups, it will be a perfect division. And the division is eternal. Oh, the terror of those words. If you're identified as a goat, you'll be a goat for all eternity, there'll be no change. Same thing with the sheep, it's an eternal division, they will never meet again, the sheep and the goats, they will never be mixed again. They will never look on each other's faces again, after that day. I've seen some wrenching scenes in movies in which loved ones were torn apart from each other. In movies about World War II, the Nazis were especially vicious in separating families. The train would pull into Auschwitz and the doors of the cattle cars would clank open, and the SS would pull people violently down out and start separating families, and some of those people never saw each other again, men over here, women over here, those that could work over here, those that couldn't over there. This separation is far more significant than that. But if I can tell you a mystery, the sheep won't miss the goats. How could we enjoy heaven if we're forever missing the goats? A hint of this, in 1 Corinthians 16, "Anyone who will not love the Lord Jesus Christ, a curse be on him." I don't want to spend eternity with people who don't love Jesus. I want to be with people who love Jesus.  We're not going to miss them, therefore. Now again, we're in a different era now. We should weep for the lost, pray for them, yearn for them, be pulling on them. Yes, now is the day of salvation. But on Judgement Day, now it's over, it's finished. We will begin for the first time to see things the way Jesus does in every respect, and love him and embrace every decision He makes, but this separation will be eternal.  

This is the key to the whole message. Now, please listen, what is the basis of the separation? I'm going to go beyond what's written here, but not beyond the doctrine of the New Testament, but I'm going to find roots of that full doctrine right here in the text. I'm going to give it to you in redemptive historical order. The first basis of the separation is in the mind of God, it is eternal predestination. Before the foundation of the world, this separation had been made. Look at verse 34, "Then the King will say to those on His right, come you who are blessed by my Father." I say this is a blessing from the Father from eternity past. "Take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." Now, the clear teaching of Scripture, this division of sheep and goats existed in the mind of God, before God even said, "Let there be light." The Elect, the Bible calls them, another word for the sheep, the Elect are chosen by God for Heaven and rescued from hell. The first blessing that the Elect receive, and they don't even, they're not even in existence when they receive it, is eternal predestination, the choice of God, unconditional election, not based on merit or anything that they would do [Romans 9 through 11].

It says in Romans 11, "There is at this present time, a remnant chosen by grace, and if it is by grace then it is no longer by works. If it were by works, then grace would not be grace."   So, the first blessing that the sheep received, and they don't even exist yet when they receive it, is the choice of God that they should be sheep. He says, "Come you who are blessed by my Father. Take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you, since the creation of the world." It is prepared for Christ's sheep; He knows his sheep. In God's infinite knowledge and wisdom, it's impossible to think He doesn't know by name each of those sheep, He openly says He does, He knows his sheep by name. That inheritance, that kingdom has been prepared for a specific group of people with their own stories and their own glories, their own agonies, their own struggles and conquests. What a lavish, rich tapestry of history and grace that is. I am looking forward to looking at every strand.

I want to hear all about the martyrs, don't you? I want to learn about those missionaries. I want to get in and find out how people ministered in the poorest and the most difficult places on earth. I want to know my brothers and sisters in Christ.  I want to study their stories. We'll have eternity to do it and it's going to be delightful. We'll be delivered from our selfishness and we'll have plenty of time. We will just be able to find out what God did in and through them. This kingdom is presently being prepared. What's going on is we are the living stones, we are the building materials, and He is preparing us for Heaven as much as he's preparing heaven for us. That's the preparation that's going on. Isn't that glorious? So, Jesus says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so I would have told you. For I'm going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will return and take you to be with me so that you also may be where I am." The glory of Heaven is growing brighter and brighter and brighter with every generation of Christians and their stories and their achievements and what God does in and through them.

The second basis of separation is God blessing of those sheep in life. Something that happens to them in life, something happened to them while they live. Now they're born, they live for a number of years, they're drawing breath, they have a bunch of experience, then God blesses them. What does He bless them with?  He blesses them with salvation. He blesses them with Christ, He blesses them with revelation. You remember when Jesus was gathered with His disciples in Caesarea Philippi, He said, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They gave a bunch of answers. He said, "What about you? Who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter, speaking for all of us as believers said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Do you remember what Jesus said to him? "Blessed are you. Blessed are you, Simon, son of John, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven, revealed into your heart who I am." God blesses the sheep with a revelation of Christ. God speaks the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, right into their souls, and they are born again.

The same thing happens at the end of John's gospel. Thomas said to Jesus, that great confession, "My Lord and my God.” Jesus said, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed." What's the next word? "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Has that blessing come to you? Have you received that blessing? Have you received the blessing of conversion of the image of God and your soul of Christ? And this blessing too, Romans 4:7-8, "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him." The blessing that you receive in this life, the blessing of hearing of the gospel, but God doesn't just do that, He gives you the twin graces of repentance and faith. He gives that to you as a gift. Then He takes out your heart of stone, and He gives you a heart of flesh, and you respond.  You might have heard it many times before, but now you're moved. You see it, and He blesses you with the new birth, and with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. He's just lavishing blessing on you. The sheep are no different than the goats. Do you understand that? We're no different. We're no better than they are. We're the same people. But it's the blessing of God that makes the difference.

Now what happens? The third basis of separation is that those sheep at a certain point repented and believed in Jesus. Actively, they believed, they trusted, they turned away from their sins. This is not so evident in the sheep and the goats, but this is what it says, "The King will say to those on His right, 'Come you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom.'" The key concept here is an inheritance, a kingdom, something that's promised.  Jesus began His preaching, saying, "The time has come. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news." If you repent and believe, you get a promise, you get an inheritance. You get a kingdom. They believed the gospel, they trusted, and this inheritance was given to them, they became heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ of heaven, and they get this beautiful inheritance, this kingdom given them as a gift. Notice in verse 37, the Lord calls them righteous. “Then the righteous will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?” Etcetera. How did they get this label “righteous”? Let me tell you something, if there's a good time and a good place to be called righteous, Judgment Day is it, don't you think? And even better, if it's Jesus, the judge, calling you righteous, how sweet is that? Jesus calls them righteous. It says in Romans 3:10, "There is no one righteous, not even one." How did they become righteous? They believed in Jesus, they trusted in Him, and the righteousness of God was given as a gift. Then on Judgement Day, they're vindicated in that righteousness. That's the third basis: [Romans 3:22], this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

The fourth basis and the one most obvious from the text is a lifestyle of good works, that flows from the first three. True faith always results in a lifestyle of Christ-focused good works. "For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them." [Ephesians 2:10]. Notice that these good works are Christ-focused. Everything the sheep do they're doing for Christ's pleasure, for Christ's glory, to minister to Christ's people. Look at verse 35, and following, "I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick, and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. And then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink. When did we see you a stranger, invite you in and needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and help you?’ And then the King will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.’” Clearly, the righteous sheep wanted to please Christ with their actions. Christ Himself was the focus of their desires, and then they acted. It was simple and practical, they fed hungry people, they gave drink to thirsty people, they invited strangers in, they were inviting hospitality kind of people, they clothed the naked, they provided clothes for people, they looked after sick people in their time of struggle and distress, visited prisoners as well.

In every case, these sheep were truly ministering to Christ. Notice that the sheep are not falsely humble here, they're just stunned by the fact that anything they would do would look good in that context, the holiness of Christ, and those eyes of blazing fire. "Lord when did we do anything for you?"  Don't you feel that now? I don't feel like I do anything really perfectly for Jesus, everything is marred and flawed in some way, because I've touched it. When did I do anything? And He said, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did." Oh, what a sweet word, “whatever” is. I mean, that's... Gives you freedom, right? Whatever you want to do for the body of Christ, just do it. Do something for a brother or sister, do something for Jesus. "Whatever you did, you did it for me."

We're going to talk about the sheep and the goats and mercy ministry in the next message, but we'll just leave it there. I want you to notice therefore the four-fold basis of separation, it starts before the foundation of the world, in the mind of God, it's an eternal plan. It starts there, eternal predestination, resulting in the temporal blessings of the Gospel that come in in space and time into the sheep's life at the right time, resulting in the sheep repenting and actually believing in Jesus, resulting in good works, which are described here. It's the exact opposite for the goats all the way across. Rejected by God before the foundation of the world, under the curse of Adam, under the curse of the law, they stand fully accountable for their own sins, they have no Savior. They reject Christ and the Gospel; they turn their back on Christ and the Gospel and they have no Christ-centered good works.

Now, I find it interesting on their rejection of Christ, notice that they call him Lord here. Have you noticed that? I find that interesting. Look at Verse 44, then the goats are going to answer, "Lord," just stop there. I find that an interesting word, especially when spoken by Voltaire, don't you think? Or Thomas Jefferson who said, "The doctrine of the trinity will someday be seen to be a myth like Minerva bringing fully formed out of the brain of Jupiter." We know that's a myth, and so the Trinity is a myth. Or this quote from Benjamin Franklin.  "As to Jesus of Nazareth, I have some doubts as to His divinity. Though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon having never studied it and think it needless to busy myself with it now when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with much less trouble." If that doesn't bring a chill to you, you need to read it and think again, what he's saying. He says, I'll find out whether Jesus is God or not. Oh, he'll find out. He has found out.

You need to find out now, by faith that Jesus is Lord, because you're going to say it then either way. "Before me, every knee will bow. By me, every tongue will swear that Jesus Christ is Lord," it says. Richard Dawkins, who doesn't even think that Jesus really existed, will, find that he not only existed, but is his judge. All of these men are going to say, "Lord."

I want to say just a brief word about the good works. Did they really do no good works at all, the goats, nothing? They didn't feed any hungry people; they didn't put any clothes on the naked? Well, I think the goats break into two categories on this one. First, there are some that literally didn't. They didn't care at all about anybody. They lived selfish self-feeding lives, and they walked by the guy on the Jericho Road, and they don't give a rip, they just walk right on by and they don't care. There are goats like that.

But there are other kind of goats too aren't there? There's some that actually spend a lot of their time doing these kinds of good things, these good works. There are secular aid agencies, like for example, the International Red Cross, helping 97 million people worldwide. I would think many, if not most of their volunteers do nothing in the name of Jesus Christ, they just do good works to help people in disaster areas. But here's the key. They don't do anything in Jesus’ name. United Nations aid agencies, they're all over the world, alleviating human suffering. How about the federal government itself? Does it feed anybody? Does it clothe anybody? Are there programs for the poor and needy? Oh yes. Can you do those and never think about Jesus at all? Oh yes. As a matter of fact, that almost seems to be a goal, the secularization of these kinds of good works. That will not work on Judgement Day, friends.

Other charities which were begun by Christians and begun in Christ's name, now have drifted. They are still done by many Christians, but open to non-Christians to take part. Like the YMCA, for example, or Habitat for Humanity. You don't have to be a Christian to go build a house for somebody. There are non-Christian religions that have aid agencies, there's something called the Red Crescent, which is the Islamic version of the Red Cross operating in Muslim countries. There are many famous rock stars and movie personalities that get involved in things like tennis matches for Haiti and things like that, you know what I'm talking about. Or “We are the World” kind of concerts. You know what I'm talking about. I mean, they have a certain number of pet issues that they definitely get involved, but it's not a surprise to see them involved. Are you shocked when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and Elton John and others do concerts for AIDS victims? I'm not shocked by that. Doesn't surprise me at all. I know Christians do those kinds of things too. But the key issue here is that none of those non-Christians, none of the goats, did anything for Jesus.

They're not trying to minister to Jesus, they're not trying to minister to Christ's people, they're not trying to find who are Jesus' brothers and sisters and care for them, they don't care about Jesus at all. They're not thinking about Jesus, Jesus is irrelevant to their lives. But can I tell you He will not be irrelevant on Judgement Day; He will be the relevance on Judgement Day. What did you do for me through caring for these? The King is going to tell them, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." 

Anything not done in obedience to Christ's commands by faith in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, for the body of Christ and for the up building thereof is no good work on Judgement Day. That's all I'm saying, and the outcome will be eternal -an eternal separation, eternal punishment and eternal life. 

What applications can we take from this? First, I urge you to come to Christ if you're here in a lost state. You can't get across that barrier, once the separation's made, it's stone. Now is the time to cross over from death to life. John 5:24, "Whoever hears my Word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, he has crossed over from death to life." Let now be the day for you to do that. Look to Christ crucified, He shed His blood for sinners like you and me. It will be enough for you on Judgement Day, it will be infinitely enough for you on Judgement Day, trust in Him. But if you're a Christian, I urge you to make Judgement Day come alive in your mind every day, make it part of your quiet time. Say, “I know I'm going to stand before you, I want to be rich in good works." If I can give you a hint on that, please focus on the body of Christ, even in evangelism, what are you doing? Paul says, "I suffer everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." That's our mission.  We want others to come and join the body of Christ, the brothers and sisters in Christ. If I can urge you, please first of all, have a ministry to build up the body of Christ. Get involved in women's ministry, if that's your calling as a woman. Get involved in international student ministry or urban ministry, look at the ministry teams and say, "I want to be rich on Judgement Day" and minister to the body of Christ. "Whatever you do for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you do it for me." I just want there to be lots of whatevers for us. By the power of the Spirit, we can be rich in good works.

On July 15th, 1815, the defeated former Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, boarded the British warship, the HMS Bellerophon, and was being sent to his final earthly destination. He was being exiled to the tiny volcanic island of St. Helena, which is in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, 700 miles from the nearest landfall, several thousand miles from coastlines of Africa or South America, just in the middle of the ocean. This is a man that had thrown the world into turmoil for 20 years. He had led armies of over 600,000 men, he had won battles in Egypt and throughout Europe, and at one point controlled most of continental Europe. The Napoleonic Wars resulted in the deaths of perhaps as many as six million human beings. His soldiers were fanatically loyal to him, were willing to trudge across the bitter snows of Russia to win him an empire. As Napoleon was talking with the captain of the Bellerophon, the ship that would carry him to his exile, he was in a pensive and somewhat ironic mood. He reflected back over his amazing military career and the immense sacrifices that soldiers had made to win him an empire, and he uttered some famous words, "A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." Medals of honor, medals of valor, medals of glory, medals of achievement, medals of bravery, medals of service. Napoleon said these motivate men more than just about anything he knew. Why is that? I think it's because inside each one of us is a yearning for glory and recognition, for honor and praise.

It is essentially idolatrous in the non-Christian because it's not connected in any way with the glory of God and faith in Jesus Christ and His kingdom. So, we might immediately try to distance ourselves from that drive to be praised, that drive for glory. But not so fast, dear friends. What are you going to do with the fact that most knowledgeable Christians if you ask them and say, "What is the one thing you'd want on Judgment Day?" It would be this, "To hear these words from Christ, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'" Is it wrong to yearn for that? Is it wrong to yearn for praise from Jesus? Actually, amazingly, the Scripture says, not only is it not wrong, but we must also yearn for it. It's of the essence of the life that God has implanted in our hearts, in our souls. It's actually sinful not to yearn for it and long for it. Why do I say this? Can I back it up? 

Yes. Romans Chapter 2:7-8 says, "To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking, who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger." Paul then describes the kind of life that leads to eternal life. It's a life that's characterized by, as he puts it, "Persistence in doing good, seeking glory, honor, and immortality." Clearly, since immortality is not something we seek for God, these are self-referential things. We want to be immortal, that is, we want to live forever. We also want glory and honor. According to Paul in Romans 2, "This and this alone is the only way to live your whole life. It is a life that God will richly reward by grace on Judgment Day." Today, we're going to zero in on the concept of eternal rewards, heavenly rewards for being good stewards of the grace that God has entrusted to us. In the context of this statement, this one verse, verse 21, also verse 23, same verse, is the parable of the talents that we looked at in detail last week.

Now by way of review, you've known the reading of the parable of the talents is rich and full. I said last week that in Matthew 25:14-15, the greatest single-focused verse or two verses on the essentials of stewardship, all of the basic ingredients of stewardship are there. You have a master who has authority and is the owner of all things. It says in verse 14, “it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his property to them.” So, you have this master and he's the owner. You have servants who are owned by the master and are accountable to him. He's going on a journey, the master is going to be away for a key period of time, so the servants are going to be able to function without him visibly right there. His property, everything in the parable is his, it all belongs to him. The property is entrusted to the servant, is given over to the servant to be managed in the absence of the master. Then finally, there is accountability. The servants must give an account back to the master what they did with the things entrusted. These are the basic ingredients of stewardship.

Friends, we are all stewards, aren't we? Of so many things, so many rich blessings. I'm not going back through the parable, but you saw what happened. We have good stewardship on display with the one who had received the five talents; he goes at once, no procrastination, focuses on the talents and he gains five more. The one with the two talents, he gains the two more. But the one with the one talent, he goes off and he hides his master's money in the ground.  The master comes back and settles accounts with these servants. The one with the five talents comes and he says, "Master, I put your five talents to work and look, I've gained five more,” And he hears these beautiful words, "Well done, you good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I'm going to put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master." The one with the two talents reports that he gained two more, and gets the exact same commendation, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things, I'm going to put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master." Then that one with the one talent comes in and insults the master, not a good way to begin your Judgment Day encounter.  "I know that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed, so I was afraid, and I went out and hid in the ground the talent you entrusted me. See, here is what belongs to you." The master replies, "You wicked, lazy servant. You know that I'm a hard man harvesting where I have not sown and gathering where I have not scattered seed. You should have put my money on deposit with the bankers. Then when I came back, I would have received it back with interest. Take that one talent away from him and give it to the one who has the five talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him."  By the way, whoever does not have what? Whoever does not have increase. Whoever didn't put it to work and gain. In the kingdom of Christ, grow it, build it for the glory of God. If you don't have any increase, what you were entrusted is taken away. All of it taken away. "Throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." So that's the parable.

Today we're going to focus in on verse 21, verse 23, this statement you've heard already a number of times this morning, "Well done, good and faithful servant." I want to talk about the doctrine of Christian rewards. First, I just want to lay the groundwork, doctrinally, so we understand biblically how to think about rewards. The first thing we must know, and we can't say it too often, we must know that we can never be justified by our good works. We can't say it too often, why? Because this is the number one competing religion in the world. It's all over the world, salvation by works. So, we have to be told over and over again, we are never going to be justified or vindicated or forgiven for our sins by any good thing we can do. We are not justified by works. We are justified by simple faith in Jesus Christ.  Quite frankly, lost people, people who are dead in their transgressions and sins, they have no good works. Even if there were a system whereby, we could pay for our good works through our sins, through our good works, you would empty out your pockets on Judgment Day and find you didn't have a single one. Our works, good works apart from faith in Christ are actually corrupt because they're not done for the glory of God, but rather for the glory of man. It says in Romans 14:23, "Everything that does not come from faith is sin." Our good works are generally motivated by pride and self-focus, I feel good about myself, and I look good to others when I do good works, like the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee stands up and prays about himself. Isn't that funny? Jesus said that he stands up and prays about his favorite topic, himself. "Here I am God to talk to you about me. I thank you, God, that I'm not like other men, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector over here. I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all I get." That's what it looks like when somebody does good works to be justified by them.

Therefore, the famous assessment in Isaiah of good works done by an unbeliever. is absolutely true. All their work for the United Way and for UNICEF and Habitat for Humanity and Walk for Hunger and cerebral palsy and all of that, all our righteous acts are like filthy rags in the sight of God. All of them, and these works cannot justify us. Therefore, we have no good works apart from Christ. "There is no one who does good, not even one," [Romans 3:12]. An unregenerate person cannot improve his or her status in God's sight one fraction of an inch by his good works. If you're here today and you're lost, if you don't know Jesus, and the rest of the sermon is going to be about rewards, just know this, if you stand before God on Judgment Day without Christ as your Savior, you will have no rewards, there will be none, nothing but wrath and anger for sin. So, I urge you to flee to Christ. Jesus shed His blood on the cross that you might have eternal life, and as we're going to find out in this message so much more than that. He is a richly generous master, but you must come to Him for forgiveness. Look to Christ, not to your own works. Look to His bloodshed on the cross. However, though we may not be justified by good works, the Bible teaches, and this is hard for Christian to understand, but the Bible teaches it, we will be assessed by our works. We're going to be judged by our works, assessed by them.

To know what kind of tree we are, there is a simple principle taught in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 7:16-20, "By their fruit, you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. And every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit, you will recognize them." As Jesus said in Matthew 12:33, "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruit." By the way, only God can make a bad tree good. Thanks be to God, if He couldn't do that, this sermon would be a waste of everyone's time. There would be no rewards, but thanks be to God by his sovereign grace, He can make bad trees like you and me good and get some good fruit out of us.  Isn't that good news? 

The clear statements make it obvious. Our works will identify us, dear friends, not save us. They will tag us as believers in Jesus Christ. John 5, "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good will rise to live, those who have done evil will rise to be condemned." Revelation 20, "I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, the death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done." Or as we already heard in Romans chapter 2, "God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking, who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile, but glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile, for God does not show favoritism."

We see this principle also in the parable of The Sheep and the Goats. He identifies them based on their works. He says to the sheep, to the righteous, to the redeemed, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick, and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." And then to the goats, He will say, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger, you did not invite me, and I needed clothes, you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me." Again, works identified. James tells us how the mechanism works. James 2:18, "Someone will say, 'You have faith; I have deeds.'" James says, "Show me your faith without deeds, I'll show you my faith by what I do." He says later, "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead." Our righteous judge is going to look at the fruit of our lives, and He'll know whether we believed in Jesus or not. Good works cannot pay for our sinfulness, only faith in the blood of Jesus Christ can. But genuine saving faith always results in good works. 

The Bible goes way beyond this though, on the issue of good works, not just identifying whether you're going to heaven or hell. This is the focus of the rest of our time. God is actually intending to reward you for good works. If you know anything about God and His holy perfection and about yourself and the nature of your works, that should stagger you back on your heels, that He would reward anything you ever did. It does to me, but it is true. Again, and again, this is taught in the Bible. The first time it's mentioned is in that incredible chapter, Genesis 15:1, “After this the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, 'Fear not, Abram, I am your shield, and I am your very great reward.'" Did you know that the New Testament mentions rewards 28 different times? Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven, in the same way, they persecuted the prophets who were before you." As a matter of fact, much of Matthew 6, Jesus devotes that section of the Sermon on the Mount to protecting your heavenly stash of rewards. "Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven." He is very zealous that you learn to not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret and your Father sees what is done in secret and will reward you.

When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites out in the streets, but go into your room and close your door and pray to your Father who's unseen, and your Father who sees what is done in secret, he's going to reward you. And concerning fasting, be sure that no one knows that you're fasting. Put oil on your head and wash your face. So, it will not be obvious to men that you're fasting, but only to your Father who's in heaven, and your Father sees what is done in secret and will reward you.”  Then He says, generally, about all of this, "Do not store up treasure on Earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal but store up treasure in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also." What is it then you're storing up in heaven? That's the topic of our sermon here. You're storing up rewards. As a matter of fact, the rewards can go down to a small deed as in Matthew 10:42, "Giving a cup of cold water to a servant in Lord who's out on mission, and you just help him on his way." He says, "I tell you the truth, if you do that, you will never into eternity, lose your reward." The cup of cold-water reward. How did you like that one? I want the cup of cold-water reward.  I'd like 100 cups of cold-water rewards. 

It says that you will never lose your reward. Actually, God makes three very strong statements about rewards, all of them found in the Book of Hebrews. He says in Hebrews 11:6 that we must believe in rewards. “Without faith, he says, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” You've got to believe in rewards to be pleasing to God. Secondly, He says, we must desire the rewards that God has in store for us. In Hebrews 11:26, Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as a greater value than all the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward. He's anticipating it. Just salivating for it, couldn't wait for it. It affects the way you live. Thirdly, He says it would actually be unjust for him not to reward us. That's staggering when you think about it, unjust. But it says in Hebrews 6:10, God is not unjust, He will not forget your works and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and as you continue to help.

The Bible also tells us that rewards are given to us by grace, dear friends, we cannot demand them, and we know we don't deserve them.  To nail that in place, Jesus told a troublesome little parable. In Luke 17:7-10, “Suppose one of you had a servant plowing looking after the sheep. What do you say to the servant when he comes in from the field? Come along now. Sit down and eat. Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me. And after that, and then you may have your dinner.”? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? Here comes the punchline, “So you also, after you have done everything you were commanded to do should say, we are unworthy servants, we have only done our duty.” You have to earn the right to say that. That's after you've done everything you were commanded to do. I don’t know if I can say "I did everything God wanted me to do today". But even if I could, I would say, “I’m only an unworthy servant, I've only done my duty.” These rewards are given to us by grace, we should just be staggered by all this. Christ shed His blood to cover our sins, but that's not all, He also gives us a fruitful life of service that's going to count for eternity. It's worthwhile, and He prepares good works in advance for us to walk in, and He prepares us to do those good works so that we are ready for them when they come. He moves in us by faith through the Holy Spirit when the time comes to actually do those good works, overcoming our own native selfishness and weakness.  Then He rewards us for doing it. Isn't that incredible? How good is Jesus, how good is Jesus Christ for giving us these things? That's a doctrine of rewards. 

Now, let's look at verse 21, and what I'm going to do with verse 21 is tell you what rewards you'll get. I'm going to break it into three types based on this one statement. Look at verse 21 again, his master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Master". What three rewards can you find in here.  First is praise from God. Do you see it? The second is greater responsibility from God, and the third is joy in God. Is that enough for you friends? I think it is. But just in case it might not be, let's elaborate a bit. 

Let's look at the first one: praise from God. “Well done, you good and faithful servant.” That's praise of the servant's character, he's good and faithful. His master notes the character and praises him for what kind of a servant he is. “Well done, you good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over little.” That is his praise for the deeds done, for the actual work done, so the character of the servant and the work are both focus of praise. Notice the master's assessment, it was just a little.  What Jesus did was great, it was infinite. What we do is a little, but God uses our little, doesn't he? He uses it for all eternity, so there it is, that's praise. Now, isn't it incredible that God, Almighty God, the one whose eyes are like blazing fire, will actually look at you and praise you? I mean, that's incredible to me, it's just amazing.  God praising me? All of my biblical training is saying I should be praising Him. I should be giving Him praise and glory and honor. Friends, if you hear me saying, we don't need to be doing that, you have missed it. We are going to be praising him and giving him glory and honor. The essence of heavenly life is praise and worship focused on Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and all of the direction of the heavenly beings up there, all of those mysterious heavenly beings, all the angels and the living creatures and all that, it's totally God — God's centered, God-focused, God glorified, that's heaven. 

Part of that is an instinct, rightly, to make little of the creature, we are just created beings. What is man that you're mindful of him? The essence of our time on Earth here, our sin on earth has been idolatry, and that's worshipping and serving created things, more than the Creator who's forever praised.  That is idolatry, to give worship to a created being. However, God is not an idolater, is he? He's not making a mistake here, He's not forgetting himself and worshipping created beings, not at all. He can celebrate the attributes and the actions of a created being without worshipping that created being. Many times, actually in Scripture, God with unbridled joy, just celebrates something he's made, he talks about its attributes and its nature. There are great chapters on this at the end of Job. Remember when God's just celebrating all the stuff He's made, the stars, and the animals and all that sort of stuff, and basically putting Job in his place. Can you do this like I did?  Can you do that? But in the middle of it all is you get a sense of God's joy in what He's made. Right from the beginning, God said in Genesis 1:31, “God saw all that He had made and behold it was very good. You have a sense, though it doesn't ascribe that statement to God, that God is saying it. “Look at what I've made. Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it good?” 

At the end of Job 39, He talks about the horse, and He says, “Did you give the horse its strength? The way it loves to run into battle, the way it snorts, the way it's strong? What it does, can you do all that?” It's like God got carried away, like He's on a horse riding it, says “Isn't this awesome? The horse, what I made. Or what about the hawk or the eagle? Do you see where they live way up high, where the Eries are, way up high up in the rocky crag and how it sees its food from afar.” What is God doing? He's celebrating his creative beings. He does it even more clearly at the beginning of the entire book of Job, when He says to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God, he lives a righteous life.” He's celebrating Job, a human being. Praise can be given to a created being without it being worship. We know this because God says He will do it for his servants who's serving by faith, He says it multiple times. As a matter of fact, Jesus criticizes His Jewish enemies, his adversaries, for not seeking praise from God, but rather praise from one another.

“How can you believe,” Jesus said, “If you accept praise from one another and yet you make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?” Back at the beginning of the sermon, I said that Napoleon said people are motivated by a yearning for praise and honor, God made that. He made it for Himself. You should be yearning to please Him so that He praises what you've done.  Jesus says, when you're not focusing on God, you're going to focus in on another human being and you're going to live to please men and not God. Paul says if you do that, you're not really a Jew. A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly. No, a man's a Jew if he's one inwardly. Such a man's praise does not come from men, but from God. You've been weaned off praise from men, and you are focused on one thing, "I want God to praise me". The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:5, “Judge nothing before the appointed time. Wait until the Lord comes —the Second Coming of Christ, He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts, and at that time, each will receive his praise from God.” 

In 1 Corinthians 4:5, what we get is praise from God. This statement is a staggering one. John 12:26, says, “Whoever serves Me must follow Me, and where I am, there, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves Me.” Isn't that incredible? Praise from God is an immensely valuable reward. God is not an idolater, He's no flatterer, He only gives his praise wisely and perfectly. He will make no mistakes, his praise will not puff you up, it will not go to your head, it will not corrupt you. His praise means He is pleased with you and with your service. It is the consummation of the very thing that we should have been seeking all along. It says in Ephesians that we should find out what pleases the Lord. It says in Colossians 1, “We pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord, may please Him in every good work, bearing fruit in all good works.” When God says, "Well done, good and faithful servant", He's saying, “I am pleased with you. I'm pleased with your offering.” Our whole lives should go into gaining that honor and glory that God will give to faithful servants. It's like the honor and glory given to an Olympic athlete who wins the gold medal. That gold medal is a symbol of a lot of self-sacrifice of some extraordinary skill, and at the key moments when the time came to perform, winning that race or that contest and winning that gold medal. The medal itself means little other than the gold in it.  Imagine if the factory that made the gold medals for the Beijing games happened to make a few extra and you could buy one at cost, 500 or 600, and then you could probably wear it to work, show all your friends. “This is an Olympic gold medal.” “Where did you get it?” “I Bought it.” “How did you buy it?” “Medalsforsale.com, you know?” “Oh, my goodness -worthless- and you're wearing it, that's even worse.” The thing is, it's symbolic of the relationship or the commitment or the scheme of the world community, that's the value of the Olympic gold medal, not the thing itself. What's amazing is that praise from God is going to last forever. I don't know how that works, but it's an eternal praise from God. They do it, says Paul, to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. I think it's going to be detailed praise from God for each good work done, every good work you do, every time you give to the needy, and don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Every time you go into your room and close the door and pray for a missionary, a brother and sister in Christ, somebody sick, somebody struggling, a marriage is struggling. You don't tell anybody, you weep for somebody that's lost, God sees it, He knows, and He will reward you. Praise from God.

Secondly, greater responsibility entrusted by God. “Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful to a few things, now I'm going to put you in charge of many things.” The implication of this is just staggering, friends. Our lives here on Earth are an extended interview for our heavenly position. You are presently, right now, auditioning for the role you're going to play in that eternal play. If you want a bigger part, then live like it, friends. I think what happens is the more faithful we are, the greater our capacity for heavenly joy and love. There are actually going to be responsibilities in the new heaven, the new Earth.  God is measuring our accountability with what we're doing with what He's given us now. Luke 16: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will be dishonest with much.” If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, then who would hand you true riches? If you've not been trustworthy with someone else's property now, who would give you property of your own? Do you want to know what true ownership is? It's what you get after Judgment Day. That's genuine ownership. Do you know how long you'll have that? Forever. He's going to entrust things to you, but He's testing you now to see if you're faithful with somebody else's property, namely God's. What are you doing with your money? Are you living for yourself when you get money?  Do you think of what you can do with this to enhance your earthly situation, or are you thinking like a steward saying, “Lord, what do you want me to do with this money?”

There's also going to be responsibilities in the new Heaven, the new Earth, there's going to be jobs up there. This concept of authority structure is taught openly in the Parable of the 10 minas[money] which is a parallel parable here. In Luke 19 says, “The king sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, each person getting the same one mina, to find out what they had gained with it.  The first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned 10 more.’ ‘Well done, good servant’ his master replied, ‘because you have been trustworthy in a small matter, take charge of 10 cities’. Wow. Be in charge of 10 cities because of what you did. The one who had taken the one mina and got five, he's entrusted with five cities to rule and to be in charge of. The idea is powerful, the more faithful we were in this world, the more responsibility we're going to have in the next. 

What kind of world is it we're heading toward? What's it going to be like in the new heaven, the new Earth? Randy Alcorn's book Heaven argues for hundreds of pages against the concept that we're going to be floating on some cloud strumming a harp. You're going to be busy. There's going to be things to do in Heaven, responsibilities. The new heaven, the new earth will be bustling, it will be a busy, productive, fascinating place in which there's growth and increase and development and authority structures and responsibility. Think about these words in Revelation 21, “the city, the New Jerusalem, does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light. The kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and the honor of the nations will be brought into it.” This sounds like the kings of the earth are bringing glory into the New Jerusalem, to say more than this is to indulge freely in speculation.  You’re auditioning right now for your heavenly position. 

Thirdly, enter into the joy of your Master, the joy of God. The third reward is an experience of joy. Joy is a powerful word in the happiness family, it is the most powerful happiness word, I think. It's profound happiness, a delight that's very difficult to capture in words, and notice the invitation: “Enter into the joy of your Master. Come on in, you who are on the outside, you lived on the outside of my joy, I want you to come inside to my joy now.” This is going to be full immersion joy, like diving into an endless sea of joy to have joy underneath you and all around you buoying you up.

 and went to the most spectacularly beautiful place I've ever seen in my life, the Karakoram mountains, 20,000 feet high, plus the incredibly beautiful Hunza Valley, less than a day's ride from there. We came to this strange mountain lake that was incredibly salty. We swam in it and you couldn't go under the surface of the water. I felt like I had a big cork tied to my chest, you just couldn't sink, and I just picture a buoyant swim in a sea of joy, friends. There's going to be no depression, no discouragement, just happiness. This isn't just any joy; this is the happiness that comes from God. I think it comes in three senses. First of all, God's happy with what you did, just in the context that He gives the five talents and says, "I want you to know how happy I am with the talents, what you did. I want to celebrate my joy over your good work together, let's do it together. Let's go over it, let's sit down and watch a little video of what you did. We're going to share it together, and I'm going to tell you how I felt when you prayed or gave that money, etcetera." This is the joy of a father for you, his son or his daughter. Many sons have expressed that the central desire in their life is to make their father proud of them.  To most sons, if it's not the central desire, it's important. Have your father put your arm around you after the game and say, "Win or lose, I was proud of what you did today. I saw what you did. Good job". I was watching an interview recently with Pete Sampras. He was talking about his different triumphs and different things that happened, and he said the most memorable championship he ever won was his last championship at Wimbledon, seventh championship. He won it seven times, but this one was different because his father was there to see it for the first time. His father had never gone to any of his major tennis matches. As soon as he won, he turned and looked right to his father, and he climbs up over and around and through people to get up there and embrace him.  He wanted his parents' approval, and especially mentioned his father's approval. Perhaps you remember in 1980, after the men's hockey Olympic hockey team had defeated the Russians and went on to win the gold medal. Remember that picture of Jim Craig with the American flag around his shoulders, scanning the crowds, and you could see, you could read his lips. “Where's my father? Where's my father?” His mother was dead. He only wanted one thing, he didn't even care about Gold Medal at that point, “Where is my father?” He wanted to hug him and be with his father to share that moment together. What is heaven going to be like when your Father embraces you and says, I'm pleased with what you did there.” I think it would behoove you to have as many moments as possible like that with Him stored up. As many money giving opportunities and prayers up in secret and actions done and gospel shared, and fear overcome and everything you need to do to store up your Father's praise for you. 

The second aspect of joy is God's joy in general. God is an incredibly joyous being. Did you know that? He's just happy. Scripture says, “You've made known to me the path of life, you'll fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” How about spending eternity sitting at the feet of the Joy Master?  God says, "I'm going to teach you joy that you haven’t known before. I’m going to teach you how to be happy about everything.” Forever, you're going to learn joy of the increase of His kingdom, there will be no end. You're going to learn more joy after 1000 years than you knew in the first 1000 years.  He's going to keep teaching you joy more and more because our God is in heaven. What does he do? Whatever pleases Him. He is a joyful being. 1 Timothy 1:15 speaks of the Gospel, the good news of the blessed God, which is the good news that God is happy. Aren't you glad? Would you want to spend eternity with a grumpy God?  I want to go where there's happiness.  I want to learn from God how to do general happiness for the rest of my life, I want to have eternal pleasures at His right hand. 

The third aspect of joy is he's going to teach you to rejoice in everything he rejoices in, in detail. He's going to say, “Look at the New Jerusalem I made. Isn't it beautiful? I want you to look at this new Earth. Isn't it fantastic?” He's going to walk with you and he's going to teach you how to feel joy, and not only that, but he's going to teach you joy in his other children.  He might say, "Do you realize what this individual did, this Martyr, this missionary, this evangelist, this Pastor, this servant? I love what happened with that, and I want you to enter into my joy in their achievements." Goodbye pride. Goodbye arrogance. Goodbye jealousy. Goodbye competition. It's all gone, He's going to teach you to delight in the widow who gave her two little coins and out-gave you.  She’s already outgiven you, so she's already the number one giver, so you're going to take number two, maybe your number 20, but what's going to happen is you're going to rejoice in the widow's achievement as much as if it had been you. And why? Because the father's happy with it, that's going to band us together. We're going to celebrate.  Some of you may be thinking, "Well, then what difference does it make if I’m going to be just as happy with other people's achievements... " Don't think like that.

It is to the glory of God for you to be a spiritual athlete and go after joy. I'm going to close now with Jonathan Edwards' resolution, by way of application. Jonathan Edwards, in his 22nd resolution said, “Resolved to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor and vehemence, yea, even violence, I am capable of or can bring myself to exert in any way that can be thought of.” Okay, and if that's not plain, I just rephrase it a bit. In other words, I'm willing to fight and claw and struggle and suffer and strive and study and sacrifice and hurt and wear myself out, turn my back on any earthly pleasure to embrace any earthly hardship. I will do whatever I can to maximize my heavenly happiness. This is the essence of, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

We come this morning to an awesome parable, the parable of the talents. We come to this parable, and then the sheep and the goats account at the end of Matthew 25. Matthew 24 and 25 are two chapters given by the Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Olives to get His church ready for the Second Coming of Jesus and to get the church ready for Judgment Day. We've seen so many things, but as we look at the parable of the talents, and then after that at the sheep and the goats parable, something struck me this morning, and that is the seriousness of sins of omission, of leaving undone what God wants us to do. This wicked lazy servant did nothing, that's all. He actually did a little something, but he didn't do what he was supposed to do. He left it undone. In the sheep and the goats parable, the goats are characterized by inactivity, "I was hungry, you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty, you gave me nothing to drink," and so on.

Anybody who knows me knows that one of my favorite movies is, "It's a Wonderful Life." I've seen it 15-20 times.  I quote it in everyday life because there are just so many things that can be covered by a line from that movie. In the movie, there's a man who's suicidal, he's desperate, he hates his life, he doesn't like the everyday humdrum regular existence he's had, and then he runs into a tremendous financial trial. He wants to kill himself by throwing himself off a bridge, and along comes his guardian angel, Clarence. I am not vouching for the theology of the movie at all. But Clarence gives him a great gift. He says at one point, "George, you've been given a great gift, a chance to see what the world would have been like without you."  Bedford Falls, this tidy little community, this beautiful little place, is turned into a mini Las Vegas with all kinds of open sin going on. It's a wild and wicked kind of place. The end result is that George is ennobled, he realizes that the life he's lived has been well worth living. His life has made a tremendous impact on his wife, his children, his extended family, and the community through his acts of service. It was indeed a wonderful life; it was worth living. 

I've wondered what the opposite would look like on Judgment Day. The Lord is omniscient, He knows not only what was, what is, and what will be, but He also knows what might have been. What would it be like for you to sit with Jesus and have Him show you your life if you had been fully faithful to Him, to show you what your family would have looked like, what your church would have looked like, what your community would have looked like, the people you met along the way, the people you traveled with, to be able to track down maybe one of their lives, if you had actually opened your mouth and shared the gospel with them, and what would have happened if at that point, they had heard the gospel from you and came to faith in Christ. You would see what things might have been avoided. I can't imagine the pain of actually sitting through that.  I actually wrestled inside myself back and forth, “Should I begin the sermon this way. I don't want to begin with a downer. I mean, frankly, two of the servants are very faithful, aren't they? Well done, good and faithful servant.” As a matter of fact, that statement is so profound and so powerful, I'm going to devote a whole sermon next week to Matthew 25: 21, 23.  So in fairness to me, you're getting the whole sermon on two verses, not just on one, but it's the same verse, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful with a few things. I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your Master." We're going to talk about that next week, the rewards that wait us, but still, there's a seriousness here to this parable, isn't there? Jesus is not telling a light-hearted, frothy story here. It ends up with the wicked lazy servant being cast into Hell, and so there is a seriousness to the issue of stewardship.

 As I think about stewardship, there are two questions that are in front of me, there's a kind of a detailed everything comprehensive nature stewardship question, and then there's a focus stewardship question.   So, in one sense, I want to ask, what am I not a steward of? What do I have that I didn't receive? If I did receive it, am I not a steward of it? Hasn't the Lord entrusted every blessing in my life so that I can do something with it for His glory? Every minute of time, every physical ability and skill, every relationship, every possession, every dollar, every providential so-called chance encounter, all of these things are matters of stewardship. I want to be faithful to everything. I don't want to feel overwhelmed. I don't want to anticipate like the wicked and lazy servant that we're going to a hard master who's unjust and evil. Not at all, He's gracious, Jesus is the kind of master that's going to reward even a cup of cold water given to one of His servants. Those people will never lose their reward, that's how generous and gracious Jesus is. But on the other side, I don't want to miss anything, do you? I don't want to waste my life, I want to live for Jesus, and so I want to look at everything in a stewardship light, and we're going to talk about that today.

Isn't there also a sense that some things are more important than others, and maybe one thing more important than anything? In the end, I ask, “What is this church a steward of that's more valuable than anything else.” I have to think it's the ministry of reconciliation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, isn't it? That we are entrusted with the gospel, we are entrusted with the only power of God there is for the salvation of lost people around us. That responsibility has been given to us, and we are to be out and about with it. It's the greatest stewardship that we have as a church, and I want to be faithful, don't you? I want to lead people to Christ. I want to be able to say, “Here am I and the children you have given me,” to God like it says in the scriptures. I want to be able to point to sons and daughters, and grandsons and granddaughters. I want my sons and daughters to be faithful spiritual sons and daughters and they lead people to Christ. I want to be part of a vast spiritual family.

But you know wanting and doing, they're just two different things. I don't want to live a life of sins of omission, and therefore, I want this parable to have its full impact on me and on you. I want us to feel its weight, and I want a response to this, if we need to, to repent if we've not been fully faithful. D.L. Moody was driven by a statement he heard early in his Christian life, "The world has yet to see what God can do through a man fully devoted to Him." The issue is fullness of devotion. Can I give everything to Jesus? Romans 7 holds me back, I never give everything to Jesus, but I want to.  I want to fight the good fight of faith, and I want to see what God can do through me more fully devoted than I've ever been before. If that's the outcome of this sermon, then it'll be a successful sermon.

We're looking at stewardship this morning, so let's dig in and look at the details of the parable. I propose today to just go through it line by line and talk about it briefly, and then apply it. Next week, I'm going to just zero in on the rewards. We're not going to talk about it much at all today, but I think the reward, the three-fold reward that the Lord offers in that one verse is so staggering and so overwhelming that I would find it greatly motivational to have as much of that as possible. Let's look at verse 14 and 15, as the stewardship is initiated. Verse 14 says, "Again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his property to them."  So, what will be like a man going on a journey? It's the context, His second coming and the circumstances around that will be like this parable. That's what He's saying. He is leaving. He's going to come back, "It's going to be like this when I come back." That's what he's saying, the Second Coming of Christ.  I believe that verse 14 is probably the most comprehensive single verse on the essentials of stewardship in the Bible. All the basic ingredients are here and in verse 15.  First of all, you have a master, somebody in authority, an owner, and then you have servants who are owned by the master and accountable to Him. You have a journey, this is a key issue in these stewardship parables, is that the master isn't standing over your shoulder. He's not right there, he's away, he's apart from you, in some sense, you’ve got to do it on your own, although we know from the vine and the branches, we never do anything apart from Jesus, but you've got to have faith. So, the master's away, and the steward's on his own, and he's got to be faithful. The property is entrusted to him throughout the account. It's understood that everything belongs to the master, not to the servants, and it is committed to the servants to be managed in the master's absence.

Finally, there is accountability. There's a time in which the master returns and says, "Now, what did you do?" Those are all the basic ingredients of stewardship, and this concept of stewardship is vital in our relationship with Christ, it shows up again and again in His parables. For example, you have the parable of the vineyard. The owner of the vineyard entrusts his vineyard to some tenant farmers, and he goes away. Then he sends his servants to the tenant farmers to get his share of the crop at harvest time. It’s the same concept there, stewardship.

Then you have the parable of the 10,000 talents in Matthew 18, which is essentially about forgiveness, but again, it begins this way, “The king wants to settle accounts with his servants and a man comes in who owes him 10,000 talents.” Again, the basic concept. In Luke 16, the parable of the unrighteous steward in which the man is found to be a bad steward, and he's going to get fired. The key to the parable is he doesn't get fired right away, so he's got a window of opportunity in which he's managing his master's stuff, and what does he do? He very shrewdly calls in people who owe his master a bunch of money and cuts their debt in half or knock 25% off.  The master comes in and praises his shrewdness. Why is he doing it? So, he can curry favor with these individuals so that when he loses his job, he'll have a place to eat and stay.  We'll come back to it later in the sermon, but it's a parable of stewardship.

Then there's the parable of the ten minas. It’s similar to the parable of the talents here, but a little different. In Luke 19, a king gives to each of his servants the same amount, in that case each one gets a mina, which is a little more than a pound of gold. Then the king returns and calls them to account for what they did with the investment. Here Christ is preparing His disciples for their time of accountability before Him. The unique element of this parable is there's a variety of what's entrusted. To one, he gave five talents of money, to another, two talents, and to another, one talent, each according to his ability, then he goes on his journey. The master knows his servants well, he knows what they're capable of. He's assessed their abilities, probably based on past performance and they don't all get the same thing entrusted to them. This is a key issue with stewardship. God doesn't measure you on where you begin, and He doesn't measure you on where you end, He measures you in your faithfulness as you travel from beginning to end. Some people start with tremendous disadvantages, and they make incredible progress to achieve levels that we would be tempted to sniff at. But God knows very well the struggles they went through to get to that level, and so not everybody gets the same thing. In one sense, dear founders of our country, all men are not created equal. We don't all have the same capabilities, we don't all have the same opportunities to influence for Christ, but different abilities.

What is a talent? It's 75 pounds. I think in this case, it's silver.  One commentator put it as much as 17 years of wages for a daily wage earner. So, the one with the five talents had, if that's true, upwards of 85 years of wages, basically a lifetime of money. Two talents would be about 34 years of wages. If that calculation is true, even one talent is a significant amount of money.  In verses 16 and 17, we see the elements of good stewardship put on display. Verse 16 says, "The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his master's money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more." First of all, you see no procrastination at all. Again, procrastination comes up here, that devastating sin of putting off to tomorrow what you ought to be doing today.  Jesus tells us these two servants, the good servants, immediately go out and they work. Jesus says, “Don't put off to tomorrow.” Just like the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins, there's going to come a time where you won't be able to get what you need for Judgment Day, it's over. So, do it today. Be ready today. These servants seized the day immediately. 

The second element of the stewardship is labor, hard work. They worked hard. They are contrasted with the other servant who's called lazy, so they're good servants because they're hard workers. Thirdly, notice there's total focus. It doesn't come across as much in the translation, but the Greek expression is literally the one who had received the five talents “worked in them.” What that means is the talents were the focus of his efforts. Every day, he said, "What can I do with these talents? What can I do with this money that the master has entrusted?" He's thinking about it. It's a focus. We are not big enough to be in charge of the universe. We are entrusted with a narrow-defined field that we are to work. There's a focus here, and so also the one with the two talents, he works in the two talents. Good stewardship involves a focus on what God has entrusted to you and not getting distracted with other things. 

Fourthly, we see skill and foresight. To put the talents to work involves tremendous financial skill, foresight, knowledge of wise investments, there's a money analogy here. The servant with the five talents had a huge responsibility, and he manages it well, skillfully, he does well. He's courageous, he's not afraid of failures. He's out trading with his master's money, he's choosing wisely where to invest the money, and the one with the two talents does the same, though not with the same scope. We see fruitfulness here as a result. Investment experts speak of the ROI, which is return on investment. Well, these guys did great, 100% return on investment, they doubled their master's investment.

The fact of the matter is that growth is what Jesus is getting at, He wants the thing improved, He wants it developed, He wants a harvest, He wants fruit, He wants something back as a result of what you mingled into it. From the very beginning, friends, it's been this way. God blessed Adam and Eve and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it. Here's this world I give you. Here's all these different kinds of seeds with the crops, corn and tomatoes and cucumbers and all these different things, just make it happen.” He wanted fruit back, so He's not looking for a static situation, but dynamic growth of what He's entrusted. The Lord doesn't need any of this from us.  The Lord is not short in power, He's not looking for hired help here. He's being gracious to us. He is including us so that our lives are worth living. The years that we spend from the time we come to faith in Christ on are not wasted, but they're beneficial, they're fruitful, they're good. God is so good to us, and He wants us to get involved in His work. So, we see beautifully, I think, good stewardship. 

We also see bad stewardship in verse 18, “But the man who had received the one talent went off. He dug a hole in the ground, and he hid his master's money." No one can tell for sure what this man's motives were, he clearly has a very dark and negative view of his master, doesn't he?  I think this is a key issue. The more you know your master, Jesus, the more fruitful you're going to be, the more you just know His love for you, and how gracious He's going to be on Judgment Day to reward any faithful service, the more optimistic you are about that whole exchange. The more you sense his love, the more you know his love and feel it, the more you're going to do for Jesus. Conversely, if you're living in craven fear, the dark negative view of God and think, "Nothing I do is ever going to be good enough for Him. Why even bother?" God's not saying that to you. That's the language of the devil. This man clearly has a very negative view of his master, he doesn't want to be ashamed and have to tell his master when he gets back that he lost the talent, so he does a little amount of work, not a lot, but a little. He goes off and he digs a hole in the ground and hides his master's money, safe and sound.  But nothing happens with it. It's just there, it's unproductive. When the master returns, he's going to get it back, but nothing happened with it.

The things that Jesus has entrusted to us have tremendous growth potential, they’re just bursting with vitality. They're just bursting with energy and just waiting to be released, just put them in the soil and add water and watch what happens. It's powerful. God wants something back for those things. He wants return on investment. In verse 19, "After a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them." Again, this is the essence of stewardship, this accountability. The Greek implies a kind of an accurate logbook, a record book, and what you did as recorded in the book, is gone over by the master. “What did you do? This is what I entrusted. What did you do with it? How did it go? Why did you do it that way?” It's Judgment Day, friends.

Again, notice that verse 19 implies a long time between the first and second coming of Jesus. This is the third time now we've had that sense. In Matthew 24:48, "Suppose that servant is wicked, and he says to himself, 'My master's staying away a long time,' and then he begins to beat his fellow servants and eat and drink with drunkards." In the parable of the virgins, it says, "The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep." It's the third time that Jesus is giving us a very strong hint that it's going to be a long time between His first and second coming. A long time as it seems to us. You know with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day, but it's been 2000 years now since Jesus left.

During that long delay between the first and second comings of Christ, the whole issue for the church will be faithful stewardship of the gospel and of spiritual gifts and time and money, and children, and everything else the Lord entrusted to you. After the time is up, Christ comes and settles accounts. Look at the rewards for faithful service. We will not touch on this much because we're devoting a whole sermon to it next week, God willing. It says, "The man who had entrusted the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.' His master replied, 'Well done, you good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.' So also, the man with the two talents came, 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents, see, I have gained two more.' His master applied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.'"

These servants come and give very succinct reports of their activities. I think one of the essences of stewardship is to know what He gave you. Wouldn't that be something to sit down and just make a catalog of everything God has given you? God has given us so much material possessions, money, opportunities, gifts, talents, education, just... We have been lavishly supplied. This man comes back, and he knows exactly what the master gave him. "You gave me five talents." Then comes one of the most famous lines in the Gospel of Matthew, "Well done, good and faithful servant." I heard so many times how somebody says their ambition is that God would say this to them on Judgment Day. It's a good ambition. 

 We also see punishments for a faithless servant, verses 24 through 30, "And the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I know that you're a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So, I was afraid, and I went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant, so you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. Well, then you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned, I would have received it back with interest. Take that talent away from him and give it to the man who has the 10 talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'" 

This is a very strong, devastating exposure of a man who lived his life in selfishness, cowardice, faithlessness and fruitlessness. Notice as I already mentioned, his hard assessment of his master, "You're a hard man." The word is used of harsh circumstances like a hard, bitter wind, like a nor'easter that blows and brings a cold storm. "That's the kind of master you are. It's the kind of man you are. You hard master. You're also unjust, you gather where you have not scattered seed, you harvest what you didn't work for, so you're harsh and you're unjust. Here's my excuse anyway, I was afraid. Fear took me over. I just was afraid to be out there doing what I needed to do, I guess, and so I hid what was yours in the ground." Here is a very strong and fascinating statement, “Behold, here is what belongs to you." He gives it back, right? 

Do you know all of your talents and abilities, that's just the clothing you're wearing, it isn't you. It's on loan from Jesus, and you're going to give it back some day. It's not yours. He entrusted it to you. One of the key verses on this in the Bible is Romans 11:36, "For from Him and through Him... " and back to him is the way I think of it... "are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." That means everything you have came from Him. He's sustaining it now, and someday it's going back to Him and you're going to give Him an account. It all goes back to God. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, "The dust returns to the ground it came from, the spirit returns to God who gave it." Everything you have in your life, all your money, talents and skills, your advantages, your education, your possessions, everything you pride yourself on, your exquisite athletic ability, your marvelous, good looks, your hair, all of it came from God. Those providential occurrences throughout your life, they're just entrusted to you, everything. It all goes back to God.

Now then comes his master's judgment, words of disgrace, not praise, "You wicked, lazy servant." The exact opposite of “good and faithful servant”, I think. Then he restates the servant's insulting assessment, "So you knew that I was a hard man, harvesting where I have not sown and gathering where I have not scattered seed. That's what you knew about me? Well, let me give you some advice that's now too late for you. What you should have done is you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers so that when I returned, I would have gotten something back for it.” Then the sovereign action of the master, "Take away from him that talent and give it to the one with the 10 talents." He's the king, he can do anything he wants, it's his money. And why? "Because everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance.” More on that next week.  The most faithful servants in this world will be given the most responsibility in the next world. I'm going to talk about that next more next week, but that's what's going on here. He will have an abundance. "And whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him," and then these words of condemnation, "throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Some of the clearest descriptions of hell are in Matthew 24 and 25, and they're worth the study.

How can we apply this parable to ourselves? First of all, let's just have a sense of how great our stewardship is. Remember that we have a master, we have someone in authority over us, an owner. Our master is Jesus Christ, He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and He's the ruler of all. We are servants, we are not our own. We are bought at a price. 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, "He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them." He went on a journey, He ascended up to Heaven, so like I said, He's not standing over your shoulder. We need faith, strong faith to be good stewards.  Let's not forget any of our gifts. Let's say, "Lord, what have You entrusted to me? What do I have?" I have a spouse, I have some children, I have a house, I have some other possessions, I have some spiritual blessings. I'm accountable for these things, and at the end, I'm going to stand in front of Jesus, and I'm going to give Him an account for the things done in the body, whether good or bad. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight, everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account [Hebrews 4:13]. We've got to be faithful with our time. “This is the day the Lord has made…” That means it's His, “We will rejoice and be glad in it.” How about we also be faithful in it too. Let's rejoice and be glad, and let's be faithful. Let's redeem the time for the days are evil, as it says in Ephesians 5.

Redeeming the time. I look on it like I'm an action hero. Wake up in the morning. The day has been kidnapped. I have to go rescue the day. If I don't rescue it, it's lost. I've got to go redeem the day. You know what I'm talking about. If you kick back, you relax, whatever, the day is gone, and then the next day is gone, and then the years are gone, and then all those good things you wanted to do, you never did them. So, let's redeem the time because the days are evil [Ephesians 5]. Let's go get it. We are stewards of our bodies, let's be faithful, let's be faithful to take care of our bodies. Don't overeat, get exercise, be in it for the long haul, so you can be maximally energetic and fruitful in this life. I don't believe you're going to extend your life one day, all the days ordained are written, but I want a quality of life. I want to be able to be energetic. Let's take care of our bodies. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you which you received from God? You're not your own, you are bought at a price. 

You're also a steward of your family relationships. What about your marriage? It's entrusted to you from God. I get to perform a marriage later today, a wedding at Duke Chapel. The couple is going to make pledges and promises to each other. Meeting with them in counseling, I wanted to give them what I know they already have, a sense of the great gift that God has given them in each other. I need to be a wise steward of that marriage relationship with my wife and my children too. You don't know how long you have or how long we have our children, but we need to pour the gospel into our children and get them ready for Judgment Day.

We need to be stewards of our money and our possessions.  I've got a bigger vision of stewardship here today than just money, but money's part of it, isn't it? The fact is you have your money in your possession for just a short time, that's why I like that parable, that quirky parable of the unrighteous steward. He's not saying, "Hey look, be a slimy operator so you can get fired." That's not the point of the parable. The point is, you have what you have for a short time, a window of opportunity, make the most of it. You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead, so be good stewards of your money and use it for the kingdom.   One of the biggest lies Satan tells you about your money is that if you give it away for Jesus, you'll never see it again. That is a lie. It's if you try to hold on to it, you'll never see it again, it's if you give it away, you'll see it for all eternity. 

You're a steward of your spiritual gifts. If you've been given a gift of teaching, then teach, the gift of administration, then lead and minister. Do what the Lord has called you to do according to the patterns of scripture. Each one of us has a role to play in the body of Christ. Let's play it. Don't waste your spiritual gifts. If your gift is hospitality, have more people over than you've been having over. If your gift is evangelism, then share more faithfully than you've ever done before. If your gift is intercessory prayer, then spend more time with more fervency than you've ever done before. That's what the parable of the talents is about. 

Finally, we are entrusted with the gospel, it's the greatest stewardship we have. Proclaim it.  I'm mindful of my stewardship of this pulpit and the fact that there could be people listening to me right now who aren't saved. If you're not ready to stand before God and give Him a minute account of your stewardship, because you're not one of His servants, you're in danger of judgment. I just tenderly warn you to flee to Christ, because Judgment Day is coming for all of us. If you're lost, if you don't have Christ as your Savior, hell stands in front of you, it's your danger, and you underestimate it. So, I urge you, flee to Christ, flee to the cross, his bloodshed on the cross is enough for all of your sins and for mine too. If you just repent and trust in Him, you will be forgiven. Dear friends, we as believers, we have been entrusted with the gospel.  It is the power of God for salvation. Let's proclaim it faithfully.

We're coming now to a time of celebration of the Lord's supper, so it's a solemn ordinance, a joyful one, a chance that we have to think ahead to the second coming of Jesus Christ, when we will give Him an account and when He will welcome us. After Judgment Day and after He wipes every tear from our eyes, we will get to sit down at table with Jesus.  I'd like to ask that you take this time and begin reflecting on yourself. If you're not a Christian, if you have not come to faith in Christ and testified to that by water baptism as a believer, please don't come to the table. The Bible says you'd be eating and drinking judgment on yourself.  If you're a Christian and you need to do business with God, repent, but come to the table. It's for sinners, not for perfect people.

One of the most poignant, powerful, and memorable expressions in the prophets is in Amos 4:12, "And now, O Israel, prepare to meet your God." Something about that just bring goosebumps. “Prepare to meet your God.” Just the word “prepare.” Get ready to meet God. Later in Matthew 25, we're going to find out that Jesus is going to invite the sheep into a kingdom He's prepared for them since the creation of the world. But we're told in this parable, the parable of the virgins, to prepare to meet our God. Jesus is going to return some day. He's going to come back in his Father's glory, He's going to come at the head of a fearsome angelic army. If there's something you need to do to get ready for that, can I urge you to do it today? I said, today, do it today because God has ordained something called “today” and a sedative part, by which we can get ready for the return of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 47, "Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: 'Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.'" Today, dear friends. Today, it's all we ever have to obey God and get ready for eternity. Today. Simply put, we can't obey God yesterday. I've said this before, but it's still true, we cannot obey God yesterday, but we can learn from yesterday, so that we can obey God today.

We can learn its lessons and not just our own yesterday's, but the yesterday's of others recorded in the Bible; we can learn from the past. Yesterday is gone forever. Logged in the record books of God. We can look back and gain a heart of wisdom, I think, but all of it is for today. Similarly, we cannot obey God tomorrow. We can't ever get there. It's like that rabbit in front of the greyhounds and they chase it around the track and it never comes, because by the time it comes, it's changed its name and it's called today. We can anticipate tomorrow; we should make plans like the ant in summer lay up stores with a heart of wisdom for the future, but we can't ever get there. We can certainly make tomorrow easier by how we obey today when it finally becomes today, but our lives are made up of a series of todays. Shakespeare's Macbeth, lamenting his wife's death, speaking about the dreariness of life, passing this way, said in this famous expression, "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing."

He sounds depressed, doesn't he? But it's not about tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow. It's about today, and today and today. So today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your heart. It all comes down to what you do with today. If you have something you need to do to get ready for the second coming of Christ, can I urge you to do it today? For getting ready for eternity, when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back, the time of preparation will be over. What you have, then you will have, and nothing more. What you don't have, you will never have. The time for acquiring it is over. The opportunity will have ended. 

Now in our parable, we have ten virgins who hope to participate in a spectacular wedding procession. They want to be part of it when the bride comes. Perhaps they've all dressed up for the occasion. Perhaps they've done their hair, procured their lamps for the torchlight procession. But five of these virgins, they're foolish, and five of them are wise. The foolish ones have not fully prepared. They're only partially prepared for the wedding procession. As a result, because of that partial preparation, they are excluded from the wedding procession and from the wedding banquet. What do you need to do today to be fully prepared for the second coming of Christ for eternity? Are you ready to face the Lord Jesus today? Are you ready to face him right now? What is the best way today for you to prepare for that glorious return? The parable of the ten virgins is given to help us to think ahead by faith for what we will need in that day. We always want to be looking at the main lesson of a parable. The main lesson of this parable is the need for constant vigilance through preparation. We get ready. We get ready and we're vigilant. We're watching. Look at Verse 13, "Therefore keep watch, be alert, because you do not know the day or the hour." Christ has repeatedly made plain, we don't know the exact time, the day or the hour of his return and of the end of the age. My sermon title, I think, says it all. Partially prepared will be eternally excluded. If you're only partially ready, then you will be shut out. As we come to this parable, I can tell you right now, it has a long history of allegorical interpretation, so we're going to have some fun with that today.

I probably may be accused of allegory at the end when I try to apply it. When I actually try to make a difference in your life by connecting elements of it to your life, you may accuse me of allegory. I'll give you a sample of some allegory later on, you'll be able to judge whether I'm doing that too. But if I do it, so be it, I just want you to be ready for the second coming of Christ. I want you to get ready. What is an allegorical interpretation? It's basically works like this: every element in the parable has its own symbolic spiritual interpretation. It's like The Emperor's New Clothes kind of thing, that's the way allegory tends to work. We're going to do something different with that, and I'll get into more of those details later. The key with this parable is to get the main point, and I think that's always the most important thing with a parable. 

The parable is about ten virgins, five of them are wise, five of them foolish. The focus is on what makes the wise ones wise, and what makes those foolish virgins foolish, and what is the final outcome of all of it.   The wise virgins were wise because they were ready when the bridegroom came, and because they were ready, they were able to enter into the banquet. They didn't miss it. The foolish ones were foolish because they weren't ready when the bridegroom came, and therefore they were not able to enter into the wedding banquet. The lesson is plain. We need to be ready now for the second coming of Christ.  The bridegroom is Christ, his coming is the second coming of Christ. Jesus is urging us to get ready now and do whatever we need now to be ready for that second coming. The best thing I can do right now is to make a simple and immediate application to any that are here that have not trusted in Christ. You're not ready to face Jesus, you're not ready to meet your Maker, you're not ready to meet your God, because if you stand before him without Christ, He will show you the record book of your life, and everything in it will be sin because apart from faith, it's impossible to please God. There are no good works.  I'm urging you to get ready for the second coming of Christ, to prepare by trusting in Christ, looking to Christ crucified, who shed his blood on the cross for sinners like you and me. That if we just simply trust in him, we will be completely ready for the second coming of Christ.

That's the best thing you can do with this message, and I'm going to return to it again without apology at the end of the sermon. Let's set this parable in its context, first of all, just its biblical context, and then I'm going to give you a cultural context, so we can understand the wedding images. First, the biblical context. Matthew 24 and 25 really go together as a match set. These two chapters are all about the second coming of Christ and events surrounding it. Going back at the beginning of Matthew 24, the disciples have been distressed by Jesus' prediction of the destruction of the temple, and by implication, of all of Jerusalem. They went to Jesus privately on the Mount of Olives and said, "Tell us, when will this happen? And what would be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"  Jesus in effect spends two chapters answering that question. It's called the Olivet Discourse because it's a conversation Jesus has with his apostles on the Mount of Olives. In Matthew 24:4-14, Jesus describes in general terms, the events on Earth between the first and second coming of Christ. As things progress there, he speaks of wars and rumors of wars, of famines and earthquakes in various places, of the convulsions of a sin-sick world. He speaks of the special and vicious persecution of the church. Those that are standing up for Christ, they're going to have an especially difficult time. He speaks therefore, in connection with that, of the consistent and escalating apostasy of those who only claim to be Christians, but really aren't. When trouble or persecution comes because of the Word, they quickly fall away, and that's going to get worse and worse as time goes on. Therefore He gives an exhortation, I think very relevant even to the parable we're looking at today: “He who stands firm to the end will be saved." If God has lit a fire in you, it needs to keep burning right to the end. Dear friends, if I can just give you assurance, if he lit that fire, it will keep burning right to the end. I want to give you a word of encouragement while I also give you a word of exhortation, both sides are needful. He who stands firm to the end will be saved. This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Then He described the general flow of church history, of world history between the first and second comings of Christ.  

Jesus gets very specific, I think both about the events that surround the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the Second Coming events that are specific to the Second Coming in the days and years right before the Second Coming. He speaks of the abomination of desolation referred to in the Prophet Daniel and I think as I made the case that that relates both to the destruction of Jerusalem and the reign of antichrist right before the second coming of Christ. And then he goes and describes in great detail the actual second coming in Verses 26 through 31 of Matthew 24. In Verse 29, he says, "Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be dark, and the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. And at that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming." That's the Second Coming right there. "They will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of the sky with power and great glory." Then the Rapture is described at that point, He sends out his angels and they gather the elect from one end of the heavens to the other. Jesus then highlights the suddenness and unexpectedness of his Coming, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father," He says, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it's going to be at the coming of the Son of Man."

Life is going to go on, the life that people are aware of. They're going to say, "Where is this Coming He promised? Everything's going on as it always has." But that's the way it was in the days of the flood. People didn't know what was coming. They should have known, they should have listened to Noah's preaching, but they didn't. They weren't ready. When the flood came and swept them all away, that's the first they knew of it, and they were not ready. So we are not certain, and so we, therefore, must be prepared. He ends Matthew 24 with two parables that we looked at last week. — the parable of the thief in the night and the house owner, who, if he had known when the thief was coming, he would have gotten ready and not let his house be broken into. So you also need to be ready, you need to be prepared for the Second Coming because you don't know when it's going to come. Then he gives the parable of the chief steward in a household, a servant who's over the other servants, whose job it is to give them their food at the proper time.  He says, "It's going to be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. He's going to put him in charge of all his possessions but if that servant is faithless, if he's wicked," and  says, "You know, my master's staying away a long time, and  he begins to beat his fellow servants and eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant," he says, “He's going to come at a time when he's not expecting him, a day he's not aware of, and he's going to  cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Both of those parables tell us, be ready, be faithful.  Be watchful, be faithful. Frankly, I think that's exactly what's going on in the parable of the ten virgins as well. Be watchful, be faithful. Do what you need to do now to get ready, and then be watchful. Be watchful all the time. That's the Biblical context. 

What's the cultural context of this parable of the ten virgins? A Jewish marriage consisted generally of three parts, the first stage was the engagement, generally between the parents of the bride and the bridegroom. They would draw up a contract of an arranged marriage where, generally, the couple had no little or no direct involvement.  The second stage was a betrothal ceremony. The bride and groom and exchange vows in the presence of family and friends. At that point, they were considered legally married. The relationship could only be broken by formal divorce proceedings. If the husband happened to die after the betrothal ceremony, but before the wedding feast, the woman would be considered a widow, even though their marriage had never been consummated. During this time which could be several months up to a year, the soon-to-be bridegroom would get his house ready, get his trade in order so that he could support his wife and family.  That was the second stage. The third stage was the wedding feast or the wedding banquet. During the feast, the entire community would become involved, the festivity could last as long as a week.  It started with the groom coming with his groomsmen to the bride's house. She would be waiting with her bridesmaids, and there would be a procession through the streets of the city, usually at night, so they would need these torches that are mentioned here. Most everybody would be invited, and so people were coming, and it would be a big festive procession. They would go to the place where the feast was and they would have that feast time, and at a certain point, when the time of feasting had reached its conclusion, a close friend of the groom would take the bride's hand and the groom's hand and put it together, and then they would go off and be alone really for the first time. The marriage would be consummated, and from then on, they would live together as husband and wife in the house that the bridegroom had prepared. You can see then in the context  of this parable, the third stage, the beginning of that third stage, coming to the wedding banquet is the context for the parable that Jesus tells.

Let's look at the details of this parable without any overt allegory. We’ll go through and just look at the details. I do want to apply, but I don't want to allegorize, so let's do what we can with it. First you have the virgins. Throughout medieval Roman Catholic history, they were always big on virginity,  abstaining from marriage. It's very much an ideal, after Augustine especially, to avoid marriage, so priests and nuns and  bishops and all that were celibate.  They would use this and speak a lot about virginity, but I don't think that's what this parable is talking about. These were just young women who would have been the bridesmaids for the bride, and I think that we want to  focus on that rather than specifically on the virginity aspect. The girls fall into two categories,  five in each group, five of them wise and five foolish. Augustine said that the number five signifies the five senses. You're ready for some allegory? This is what it sounds like. Augustine says, "Every soul in the body is therefore denoted by the number five because it makes use of the five senses. For there is nothing of which we have perception by the body, but by the five folded gates, either by the sight, or the hearing, or the smelling, or the tasting, or the touching. Whoso then abstains from unlawful seeing, from unlawful hearing, unlawful smelling, unlawful tasting, and unlawful touching, by reason of his incorruption has gotten the name of virgin." That's a sample of  allegory. I actually enjoy reading allegories, they're really imaginative and fun. But at any rate, why don't we just say it's just five of each so that we have a sense that the numbers are divided generally, and what's more significant, in my opinion,  than the number five, is the descriptions of each of these groups, five of them are wise and five of them are foolish. That's really what's more important.

Frankly, Matthew is very interested with the issues of wisdom and foolishness. Matthew as a gospel writer uses more than half of the Greek expressions for wisdom in the New Testament. He is the number one wisdom writer in the New Testament. He loves to talk about wise. Jesus says, "Who then is the faithful and wise servant,” etcetera, and Matthew records these samples of wisdom. He uses more than half of the terms for foolishness in the Greek in the New Testament. A prime example of this we find at the end of the Sermon on the Mountain, when Jesus says, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Then you've got the foolish builder who builds his house on the sand. I I had time, I'd go into the remarkable parallels between the wise and foolish builders and the wise and foolish virgins in this story, it has to do with foresight.

But we've got these two categories, wise and foolish. Five in each group. They're both young women, they're both waiting for the bridegroom to appear. They each have torches for the procession. The torches  would have had wicks with some oil in them so that they could burn, but also oil reservoirs or receptacles that could draw or suck the oil in, somewhat like a hurricane lamp. They'd be mounted up on wooden poles so they could be carried high in the procession and light  the darkened streets of the city. The wicks would have some oil in them and could burn for a little while, but couldn't continue any length of time.  The whole system, of course, worked only if you had that reservoir of oil filled, and then it could burn for a good long while for the time of the procession. The essence of the foolishness seems to have been, clearly in Jesus' parable, lack of foresight. Look at Verse 3, "The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them." They had the torches, but they didn't take oil. They didn't think through what they would actually need when the bridegroom came. They had the external accoutrements. They looked like they were ready to go in the procession, but they really weren't. Hendrickson said they were careless, they were not forward-looking, they were guilty of inexcusable and senseless neglect.

Conversely, the essence of wisdom here is foresight. What will we need to take part in the procession and get into the wedding banquet?  Verse 5, "The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps." We're going to need not just our lamps, but we need a jar of oil, so they thought it through. Next in the parable comes the delay and the slumber. "The bridegroom was a long time in coming," it says, "And they all became drowsy and fell asleep." Once again, I think we have here pretty clear evidence Jesus is giving not only the apostles, but through them the whole church, that he's going to be a long time in coming. He's preparing the church for a long delay between the First and Second Coming of Christ. Do you see the wisdom of God in setting up the New Testament, and all of the conversations and verses about the Second Coming in which every generation of Christian has thought that the Lord would return in their lifetime? Perhaps even now.

Do you see the wisdom of God in that, without him in any sense being a liar? He is, I think, hinting in the parable, "It's going to be a long time between the First and Second Comings,” and so it has been. They all become drowsy and fall asleep. What does this signify? I don't really know, I actually think we shouldn't make much of it. Clearly, both the wise and the foolish are asleep, so it really is immaterial, it's not important to the story. Some commentators say it refers to death, everybody is going to die. Maybe, maybe not. I know in the New Testament frequently death is like slumber. It could be. Then we have the coming of the bridegroom. At midnight, the cry rings out, "Here's the bridegroom, come out to meet him." The key moment that they were all focused on and looking ahead to, at least the five wise ones,  has come at last. The bridegroom is coming. Can there be any doubt, as I've already said, the bridegroom and the coming of the bridegroom is Jesus Christ and the Second Coming? The midnight cry is likened to the cry of the archangel, and the trumpet call of God. "Here he comes, he's here." They all wake up and get busy, and they trim their lamps. Verse 7, "All the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps." Verse 8, "The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil. Our lamps are going out.'" The tragic lack of foresight is exposed by the coming of the bridegroom. They hadn't thought about it until then, but at that moment, they're going to see clearly what they needed, and their foolishness is exposed. They say to the wise in Verse 8, "Give us some of your oil. Our lamps are going out." Their wicks are beginning to sputter and fizzle, and they immediately realize why: They don't have a supply of oil. They turn to the others and say, "Give us some of yours." 

One of the keys of the parable, is that they can't share the oil. My oil is mine and your oil needs to be yours. There's some things I just can't do for you. I don't think the wise virgins were being unkind or sassy, saying, "Go find somebody who may be awake at midnight who can sell you some oil." In effect, they're saying, "Look, I care, but there's nothing I can do to help you. If I give you my oil, then I will be transferred into the foolish category, and you'll be one of the wise virgins. I can't do it. I've got enough oil for the procession, you've got to get your own." Now, what is this oil? It seems to be quite the point, isn't it? Is it time for allegory?  Tell us what the oil is. Somebody told me with absolute definitiveness, "It's good works. No doubt about it." Maybe so. Note the endless diversity of opinion as to the emblematic significance of the oil, every interpreter has his own conjecture.  A.B. Bruce put it this way.  The oil is faith, the oil is love, the oil is giving to the poor and needy. The oil is desire for the praise of God rather than for the praise of men. Good works in general. The Holy Spirit.” We'll come back to that one. Diligence in the culture of grace. Religious joy.

In short, it's anything you please. Each conjecture is purely arbitrary, one is as legitimate as the other, and the multiplicity of opinions justifies the inference that they are all alike illegitimate.  I don't know that I totally agree with him, but he does bring up a valid point. How do you know which it is? In my opinion, I don't think it really much matters. Why don't we study the whole of Scripture and find out what we need to have in place when the Lord returns? Whatever it is you think you'll need, get it now. I would urge you to think that way. A.B. Bruce thinks the big problem wasn't the lack of oil, it was that the foolish virgins left and didn't enter when it was time. Interesting theory, I don't know that I agree. But at any rate, that's what they do next, isn't it? Look at Verse 10, "While they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived, the virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet and the door was shut."  So they go out to find the oil. Were they successful? I have no idea. They  drop out of the story for a little while. They come back in at a key moment, but I have no idea whether they came back. "Look, we've got a bunch of oil now." Apparently it's irrelevant whether they're actually able to find somebody to sell them some oil. In any case, the time for that wasn't then. Do you get that sense? That was not the time to be going and buying the oil. They should have had it when the bridegroom came. That was the time for greeting the bridegroom.

So when they return, they are excluded from the feast. Verse 11 and 12, "Later the others also came, 'Sir, sir,' they said, 'Open the door for us.'" "Sir, sir" is the NIV translation for "Lord, Lord." I think it's appropriate to sticking within the parable, but isn't that striking, "Lord, Lord"?  "Not everyone who says to me, Lord Lord, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my father who's in Heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers." In this parable, he replies, "I tell you the truth, I don't know you, and you're not getting in." That door shutting, doesn't it have a ring of finality to it? Don't you just hear it ringing down over time? It's like the shutting of the door into the ark. If you're on the outside, you're dead, you're a dead man, a dead woman, the time for entering is over. Notice also in the story in Genesis who it is that shut that door. It was God who shut it, not Noah. God knows when the time is over, when the day of salvation will have ended. He knows. While the door is open, we can come in, but after the door is shut, it's done, it's finished.

That's the parable in detail. What lessons can we draw from this parable? First of all, nominal Christianity will not save you. Nominal Christianity will be worthless on the Day of Judgment. All around the world, there is a plague on the Church called nominal Christianity or nominal Christians. These are people that have an outward form of Christianity, but there's no reality, there's no power behind it. They can talk the language of the Church, they can act like Christians, they are moral, they appear quite pious on the outside, but they are lost on the inside. Let's take Europe, for example, after Constantine's conversion. I hope it was genuine. In 312, after that, church and state were wedded together in a very dangerous and unhealthy way. Soon after that, kings started to think about advancing the kingdom by conquest, just like they'd always done. You have Clovis, the King of the Franks, being baptized and immediately the next day, 3000 of his soldiers were baptized. What a great revival, equal to the days of Pentecost. Amazing. Then he goes and he wins military victory after military victory, and just spreads the Gospel everywhere, and lots and lots of people are being baptized. Look, if you're given the choice of convert or die, what are you going to do? He's spreading nominal Christianity.

Charlemagne, who I think by other accounts was a godly king and sought to advance genuine Christian instruction, fell into the same trap. When he's fighting some of these Germanic tribes, he'd go and conquer them and give them an option, "Be baptized or perish."  So nominal Christianity was spreading throughout so-called Christendom everywhere. Infant baptism came in at a certain point, I think, and kind of settled that into these churches, and state-run churches just guaranteed a bunch of nominalism. After the Reformation, every prince who was in charge of his own region got to say what everyone in his region was, if the prince was Catholic, everybody was Catholic, and if the prince was Lutheran and everybody was Lutheran. So you have in Italy, nominal Roman Catholics, you have in England, nominal Anglicans, in Scandinavia and Germany, you have nominal Lutherans, in eastern countries, you have nominal orthodox people, nominalism everywhere.

But it's not just out there, is it, dear friends? No, it's here in America, too. There are nominal Baptists that go through the name and the outward appearance of what it takes to be a Baptist. It takes a little bit more than an infant baptizing kind of nation-state, but if you can go through that route, you can profess Christ, convince a pastor, get water baptized, you can be a nominal Christian. The Baptist churches are filled with them. And not just Baptists, but Presbyterians, it's everywhere. Paul, I think, comments on this whole issue in 2 Timothy 3:5, when he speaks of those who have a form of godliness but deny its power. Oh, dear friends, what is the power of godliness?  You need to have a burning desire for godliness inside. You need to have the fire of true Christianity burning inside you, and not just a form or an outward show. It will do you no good. Like the foolish virgins, they meet the outward profile of a virgin about to take part in the procession. They've got the dress, they've got the torch, they've got maybe their hair done, they look like all the others, they're just there, they're all in the same place, they're all mingled together, but they don't have what's really needed to take part in the procession. They have the outward show, but not the inward reality. They're going through the motions. The wise virgins represent those who have the outward forms of the Christian life, but there's a genuine life in them: Bible reading, prayer, Christian conversation, church attendance, spiritual gift ministry, care for the poor and needy, involvement in missions. For the wise virgins, this is a true principle of grace acting out through their physical bodies and their physical lives. Christ is in all of it. He's alive in their actions, he's alive in their Bible reading, he's alive in their prayer lives. When they reach out to the poor and needy, it as though Jesus Christ himself were reaching out. There's just a living principle in the wise virgins. 

But there's just a deadness to the foolishness here. There's no life in the external show, it's not genuine. So therefore, get the real thing. How's that? The real life of God in your soul. Be alive to God through Jesus Christ. Be alive to God through faith in Christ. Today is the day of salvation. It says in 2 Corinthians 6:2, "In the time of my favor, I heard you. In the day of salvation, I helped you. I tell you, now is the time of God's favor." This, today is the day of salvation. Jesus Christ shed his blood for sinners like you and me. He died on the cross, not for his own sins, for he had none, he was the sinless lamb of God, but he died in our place. If you look to him in faith, you'll be forgiven of all of your sins. If you look to him in faith, he will give you the indwelling Holy Spirit, and that indwelling Holy Spirit will come as an operative power and force in your life and change everything. You will become a new creation in Christ, and you'll live a different life, You'll live the internal journey of holiness. You're going to grow more and more like Christ. You're going to be on that external journey of caring whether other people come to Christ too, and seeing the advance of the Gospel. Today is the day of salvation, and friends, today is also the day of preparation.

It's not just for justification that He's given us today. If you're genuinely Christian, maybe you've been so for decades, you were justified decades ago, but you've had a lot of todays since then. What were they for? Were they not for doing the good works that God had prepared in advance for you to do? Isn't that what they're for, that you would be active in doing what God wants you to do every day? Faith by itself, if it's not accompanied by works is dead [James 2:17]. Why is that word spoken to us? So that we would have a living faith that produces the good works God has ordained for us to do. Today is the day to do the ministries God's prepared for you to do today. Today is the day for you to use your spiritual gifts in the church. Today is the day for you to lead people to Christ as the Lord gives you opportunity.

In Mack Stiles’  ministry, he takes people like me and maybe like you who don't really enjoy evangelism and struggle with it and all of that, and teach us what kind of people we ought to be, not so much a technique we ought to acquire. Isn't that wonderful? If you get a chance to come listen to him  tonight, please do it. But what a blessing that is. But today's the day, today is the day for you to disciple your children, speak the words of heaven to them. This is against procrastination. Do you get that sense? For the second straight week, we've got a strong message here against procrastination. Don't put off going and buying the oil. If you need something, go get it today. 

Allegory alert, allegory alert. The oil of the Holy Spirit. Look, the whole problem with allegories is for the allegorist to tell you, "This is what it is, and if you don't see it, you're not as holy as I am." I'm not saying that. Let's somewhat step aside from the parable a bit and talk about the oil of the Holy Spirit because it is the Holy Spirit, the indwelling Spirit, that gives the fire to the Christian life and sustains it day after day after day.  I think about the image in Zechariah 4 of a seven-fold lantern that's burning, a golden lamp stand with oil flowing through pipes to keep the lamps burning. The lesson of that image of the burning oil lamp was given in Zechariah 4:6. "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: 'Not by power, nor by might, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.'" What that's saying is, "Don't try to drum up your own strength and your own power. You can't do it. But by the Spirit, your fire will keep on burning." What does this says to me? It's a lesson of perseverance. He who stands firm to the end will be saved. Didn't the foolish virgins say, "Our lamps are going out"? They were lit, but then they went out. I don't believe anyone can lose their salvation, I'm not pressing that detail. I'm just saying those that continue to burn are truly saved, because there's a reservoir of grace, a reservoir flowing to you. If you're genuinely a Christian, if you're a child, a son or daughter of the living God, he who lit the fire in you will keep it burning until the day of Christ Jesus.  He's going to feed you what you need. Do you feel like you're flickering sometimes? I do. Like the fire is about to go out. Think of this in Matthew 12, "A bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out until he leads justice to victory. In his name, the nations will put their hope." Put your trust in Jesus. If you feel like you're drifting from Jesus, come back and say, "Lord, give me that Holy Spirit again. Empower me. Fill me. Forgive me for my sins. I'm sorry for the way I've been living. I want to be close to you, Jesus. Fill me again." And He will, as it says in Psalm 23, restore your soul. Do you need your soul restored? I need a reservoir and I need it flowing. 

Let me close with this illustration I've used before, but it fits so perfectly. It's from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. He's at the interpreter's house.The interpreter or a pastor, I think, is showing Christian, a standard Christian on the journey from the City of Destruction to heaven, the Celestial City, the things he'll need for his journey. There are different vignettes, different allegories or parables really, and one of them is of a fire burning against a wall. There's this hearth that’s burning, and there are men on two sides of the wall. The man on the left side is pouring water into the fire to try to put it out, but the man behind the wall is feeding oil in the bottom, keeping the fire burning. So Christian says to Interpreter, "What means this?" He said the fire is the work of grace in the Christian's heart. The man trying to pour water on the fire to put it out is the devil. The one behind the wall feeding oil into the bottom is Christ feeding grace to keep the work of grace alive in the Christian soul. No matter what the man with the water can do, he can't put that fire out because the oil is flowing in that Jesus is putting in. Why is he behind the wall? Because it is not always obvious to the Christian how Jesus is sustaining your faith and your grace, but if you're truly a child of God, He's feeding the oil in. He's the endless reservoir. You get connected to Christ through genuine repentance and faith, He'll keep you alive until he returns.

It was the midst of the darkness of one of the darkest times in history, World War II, at 9:15 in the evening, June 5th, 1944, the BBC radio news was interrupted by the following report: "Eileen is married to Joe. It is hot in Suez. The compass points north, the dice are on the table." Now to thousands of listeners, including many Germans that were listening over an occupied France, that message was utter nonsense. But to the French resistance, the underground, it was a signal that D-Day was imminent within 24 hours, and over 5000 French resistance workers, each carrying two packages of TNT went out into the night risking their lives and blasted important railway targets and other targets to make way for the impending invasion, the greatest invasion of history. Seventy-four telephone exchanges were destroyed and roads that German reinforcements would need to throw back the invasion into the sea were destroyed. For four years, the Nazis had been occupying France and their resistance numbers were growing. There were an estimated 100,000 plus resistance workers right before D-Day. They were risking their lives because if they were arrested in the act, they would be immediately executed. Many of them immediately were executed by the Gestapo, horribly tortured and executed, but these people didn't mind, they realized that the Nazi rule of France and of the world was wicked and they wanted to risk their lives to throw it off.

How much more should we be active in advancing the kingdom of Jesus Christ? We're like resistance workers in occupied territory. Did you realize that? It says in 1 John 5, in verse 19, "We know that we are children of God," and listen to this, "the whole world is under the control of the evil one." Well, what does that make us who are seeking to advance the kingdom of a coming king but traitors and rebels and resistance workers to the occupying force.  “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.” Satan's time is short, and we are called on to resist the devil, to be resistance workers. Why? Because the greatest invasion of all history is yet to come. The greatest invasion is described very plainly in Revelation 19. Jesus Christ is coming back at the head of a heavenly angelic army. He's going to be riding on a horse whose name is called Faithful and True. His eyes are like blazing fire, out of his mouth comes a sword of righteousness with which to slay the wicked. He will destroy the anti-Christ with the breath of his mouth and with the splendor of his coming, and he will gather up all that have fought for him in this occupied world. Oh, that that would be you and me, that we would be faithful to get ready for that coming invasion.

The resistance workers knew what those codes meant. There are no such codes in the Bible. I already covered that in my sermon on the Rapture, we're not looking for a special calculation concerning the exact day and hour of the Lord's return. Instead, what we get at the end of Matthew 24 are two simple parables that tell us that we, as the resistance workers here in occupied world, are to be constantly ready and consistently faithful for the Second Coming of Christ. That's what this sermon is all about.  How do you be constantly ready and consistently faithful in your service to Christ? We are told in Matthew 24 and 25 that the timing is uncertain, but the Second Coming is not uncertain, and Christ's expectations on us are not uncertain. The exact timing of Christ's return is unknown.  Look at verses 36 - 39, Matthew 24. “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage right up to the day Noah entered the ark, and they had no idea about what would happen until the flood came and swept them all away. And that is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”

In the text we're looking at today, verse 42, "Therefore keep watch because you do not know on what day your Lord will come." And then again in verse 44 of this same chapter, "So you also must be ready because the son of man will come in an hour when you do not expect him." Again, and again, the parables of Jesus in chapter 24 and again in chapter 25, imply a long delay between the first and second comings of Christ. He's getting them ready for a long time. In our parable, the second parable today, at the end of Matthew 24, the wise and the wicked stewards, both are dealing with a long delay.  The master, it seems, is away a long time. At least one of the servants thinks he's going to stay away a long time. In the parable of the five wise and the five foolish virgins it says, "The bridegroom was a long time in coming and they all became drowsy and fell asleep." In the Parable of the Talents, after a long time, the master of those servants returned to settle accounts with them. There's an implied long time between the first and second comings of Christ. The overall message to every generation of Christians is, be constantly ready, be consistently faithful because you don't know when the Lord will come.

The key issue then for us is how do we do that? How shall we live in light of this? He tells us this first simple parable, one of his simpler parables, of the need of constant watchfulness, constant readiness, that nothing be lost. You don't want to lose anything when the Lord returns. He takes up this image of a thief in the night. Look at verses 43-44, "But understand this, if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into, so you also must be ready because the son of man will come in an hour when you do not expect him."  Some of Jesus' parables are complex, some are simple. This is a simple one. Two characters, the owner of a house and a thief in the night, these are the two that we're looking at in this parable. A simple question is in front of us, will the thief be able to plunder the house by stealth?  Jesus uses a rather humorous, actually, a preposterous concept, that the thief would send notice to the homeowner of the exact time when he's coming to plunder his house.  “I’m going to be in your neighborhood tonight, I plan on making your home the third one I'll hit. In the evening after the Smith and the Jones' place you'll be third on the list. I shouldn't be there before 2:00, probably not later than 2:30, if all goes well. Somewhere between 2:00 and 3:00 AM. I will come in the back door with a flashlight, I'll try to come with as little, as much stealth and as little noise as possible, so as not to disturb you.” Obviously, if the thief were completely truthful and the owner of the house believed it, all he would need to do is just set his alarm for 1:55 AM, right? Get up five minutes before the guy comes and be waiting at the back door. Jesus is playing with us, isn't he? No thief would ever do that. Never. 

The issue here is the loss of something valuable. A burglar comes to take valuables from your house. A burglar is not looking for Tupperware, that stuff that's been in there for four months, he's not taking that.  Nor is he going to clean out your closets for you and take much of it to the dump. He's looking for your valuables, he's looking to steal you blind, taking something valuable. The owner has valuable possessions, gold and silver coins maybe, family heirlooms, carpets, dishes, tableware, other precious possessions. These possessions are vulnerable they are valuable, and so also each human being on the face of the earth is vulnerable in the face of the Second Coming of Christ. We're vulnerable to loss. If you're not a Christian, you stand to lose your soul, your eternal soul. Jesus said in Matthew 16: 26-27, "What would it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his soul?" What could a man give in exchange for his soul, for the Son of Man is going to come in His Father's glory with all of his angels, and then He will reward each person according to what he has done. There, if you're not a Christian, you stand to lose your soul, your eternal soul, and you will spend eternity losing it. It's not an instantaneous thing. We don't believe in annihilation scripturally, and so for an eternity of suffering, you'll lose your soul.

For Christians, we also stand to lose the loss of rewards. Stewardship issues, things that were entrusted to us. We should have been faithful with them, we did not make the most of those opportunities, and we will stand to lose when judgment day comes. This is recorded very plainly in 1 Corinthians 3:12 -15, "If any man builds on the foundation, the existing work of the church builds on the foundation using gold and silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, his work will be shown for what it is because the day will bring it to light, it will be revealed with fire, the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer a loss. He himself will be saved yet only as one escaping through the flames." That's a believer saved, going to heaven who suffers loss on judgment day.

Why is it so hard for the church to understand that Judgment Day will be a difficult day for us all? I teach this and I'm looked at like I'm a heretic. It's like a Monopoly game where you go past “Go” and I guess there you go straight to jail. The idea is prevalent that you get to skip anything unpleasant and go right on into a heavenly bliss. No, you have to give an account for your lives, all the stewardship stuff, you got to give an account. You don't want to suffer loss, so Jesus picks up the image here of a thief in the night.

The very famous expression “a thief in the night”, Peter and Paul and John all pick up on it and use it later in the New Testament. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-2, "Now brothers, about times and dates, we do not need to write to you for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." Peter in 2 Peter 3:10, "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief." Jesus says in Revelation 3:3, quoted by John as he wrote that book for us, "Remember therefore what you have received and heard, obey it and repent but if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you." There's Jesus saying it again, but John recording it for us in the book of Revelation.

You know very well Jesus is not comparing himself morally to a thief, a thief comes and takes what doesn't belong to him. What is there in this universe that doesn't belong to Jesus? Nothing. He's not coming to take from you what is not his, he's just comparing his approach and the stealth and the suddenness of it to a thief in the night, he himself is no thief. The simple idea is, you do not know the day or the hour, just like Jesus' parable of the unjust judge, who's a wicked man and cares nothing for man or God. Do you remember that parable? Jesus is not comparing God to the wicked judge; He's just saying that how much more should we go to God who loves us and who will answer our prayers.

The thief in the night is also a famous expression historically in evangelicalism. In 1972, there was a film entitled “A Thief In The Night,"  about the secret rapture. It was the first in a series of films on the End Times done at that point. The problem I have with the secret rapture is not that Jesus comes like a thief in the night, He does, is that he also leaves like a thief in the night, and that I think is unscriptural. He comes and then after the coming and explosion of sound and light, friends, like lightning that flashes at one side visible to the other side, everybody will see it, an explosion of sound and light, but the coming is quiet like a thief in the night. Listen to 2 Peter 3:10, "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, the heavens will disappear with a roar. The elements will be destroyed by fire and the Earth and everything in it will be laid bare." He's not leaving like a thief in the night; at that point, everything changes. [2 Peter 3:10], “The day of the Lord is coming.”

Note also that Paul's use of the expression refers not to the secret rapture when Christ's true bride is carried away in the night, but to the open devastating judgment of God on sinners. 1 Thessalonians 5, “Now brothers, about times and dates, we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night while people are saying peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly as labor pains on a pregnant woman and they will not escape." What's so amazing is how Paul continues in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 with a thief in the night, “But you brothers, you're not in the darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You're all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness, so then let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled for those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk, get drunk at night but since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate and the hope of salvation as a helmet for God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that whether we are awake or sleep [that means alive or dead] "we may live together with him."  We are not in the darkness, we're not going to be surprised, and why not? Because you heard this sermon or others like it, because you read these texts and others like it, you have been instructed about the day of the Lord. Therefore, it's not going to surprise you like a thief in the night, you're going to be ready.  Please be ready. That's the whole point of so many sermons in Matthew 24 and Matthew 25, be ready. This day should not surprise you like a thief.

I think to some degree, it's not so much that we're getting ready, but we're keeping ready. How's that? Ray Steadman had an illustration that I loved. He said this in a small country store, a faithful church-going lady came to do her shopping. Two or three of the kinda shiftless troublemakers in the town were standing around passing the time of day. They knew she was a Christian and churchgoer. They began to taunt her. "We hear that you're expecting Jesus to come back,” they said. "I sure am,” she replied brightly. "Do you really believe he's coming?" they asked. "Sure, as you're born," she answered. "Well, you better hurry home and get ready, he might be on his way." She turned and fixed her tormentors with a look, "I don't have to get ready. I keep ready." You get ready the moment you come to Christ in faith, that's how you get ready for the Second Coming of Christ. Trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, he who shed his blood, who died on the cross for you. You keep ready through faithful spirit-filled living, involving holiness of your own life and service through the power of the Holy Spirit. That's how you get ready for the day of the Lord. You're not going to be constantly gazing up in the sky, getting a crick in your neck, looking for the clouds to come, like the apostles, out on the Mount of Olives waiting for Jesus to come back. 

I think that should be the disposition of your heart, I think the eyes of your heart should be upward and future-oriented, but you need to be busy. We're not going to be like the Millerites in 1843 who sold all their possessions and literally waited on the roofs of their houses in white robes. We're not doing that. We've got a busy life; we need to be faithfully occupied in the labor of the Lord and service to the Lord. That's the point of the next parable, the blessedness of consistent faithfulness. Look at verses 45-51, "Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time. It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself my master's staying away a long time, and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, and in an hour, he is not aware of, he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Jesus begins this parable with a rhetorical question about the nature of the faithful and wise servant. Who is the faithful and wise servant? What does it mean to be faithful and wise? He's going to answer the question in the parable, both positively and negatively. He is like this; he is not like that. Who is this faithful and wise servant, this one put in a position of responsibility? First and foremost, he is a servant, and he knows that he is a servant. The essence of being a servant is that you are under the master. In the previous parable, you have a homeowner and a thief, but here it's not a homeowner, this is a servant or a steward. He knows that he's not in charge, he knows he's accountable to his master. He owns nothing here.   Secondly, he's a steward who has been put in a position of vast responsibility; the master has put him in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time. This will be like Joseph who ran Potiphar's house for him.  Potiphar had entrusted everything to Joseph to look after, but it was still Potiphar's house. This servant is put in charge of the other servants, he's a man under authority, but he has got servants under him. KJV calls him a ruler in the household, he has authority, he also has the job to feed the household their daily food. He's entrusted with the responsibility of giving them their food at the proper time, it says, and without that being done, the whole estate is going to be shut down.

Remember Jesus is giving this teaching to the twelve apostles whom Jesus had chosen to be the leaders of his church in his absence once He ascended to heaven. Let's start in redemptive history with these words to the apostles. The apostles were listening, and after Jesus ascended in the clouds, it would be their job to rule God's household under his leadership and to give the people of God their food at the proper time through right doctrine, through good, faithful Bible instruction.  They would instruct the people of God and feed them the word. You remember how Peter denied Jesus three times the night he was arrested, and after his resurrection, Jesus so beautifully reinstates Peter, I think to his apostolic office. In John 21, they're eating that breakfast of broiled fish, and after they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you truly love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs. Feed them." Again, Jesus said, "Simon, son of John, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." And Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep." The third time He said to him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time do you love me. He said, "Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you." Then Jesus said, "Feed my sheep." That's the apostolic calling, isn't it? Give the servants of God their food at the proper time. What did that entail? Peter went out, the day of Pentecost, to the huge assembly of people there, and preached this incredible Pentecost sermon about the resurrection of Jesus.  Those who accepted his message were baptized, about 3000 were added to their number that day.

Acts 2:42, “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.” Do you hear that? They fed on the word of the apostles, they fed on that doctrine. Every day they used to meet together in Solomon's colonnade and the apostles would be faithfully teaching the church. Jesus wanted to be sure that the apostles were going to be faithful and wise stewards in his household to give the people of God their food at the proper time. But let's not leave it right there, the apostles are dead, they're gone, they're up in heaven. Does this still have a word to speak to us? Yes, it does. It has a word to speak to us. What is your ministry? What has God entrusted to you? Are you being faithful and wise with what God has entrusted to you? You're going to have to give him an account when he comes. Are you being a faithful and wise servant to do what he told you to do? Faithful means you keep your promise, you do what you said you would do. Wise means you're sensible, you understand the time, you know what's going on, you're not distracted by laziness or love of pleasure, you're wise in the way you use your time. I am a pastor teacher, that's what I am. This parable speaks directly to my ministry, I need to be a faithful and wise steward in the house of God to give you the food of the word at the proper time, that's my calling, and not just me, but the elders and all that are called to teach. Their responsibility is to feed you the word of God to be sure it's true and faithful and enriching and helpful. That's our job, but it's not just us pastor teachers and elders, anybody entrusted with anything from Jesus, you need to be faithful and wise as a servant in his house to do what he has entrusted you to do.

What will you get if you do? “Blessed is that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.”  The word means happy, not just kind of happy, like the kind of happiness you get when something good happens to you in this world, but I mean an eternal happiness. Blessed because God is happy with you, and you're going to be eternally happy when the master returns and you were faithful. The master will return when you're not expecting him, but when you look up and see him, you're not going to be shocked and ashamed. You'll be delighted to see him, delighted to report what the Lord did through you. You're going to come right into the light to make it plain that everything you did has been done through God. [John chapter 3], You're not going to be ashamed. The other servants in the house were well-led and well-fed.  You did it right, you were faithful, and you were wise, and the Lord will say, "Blessed are you." It's going to be good for you when the master finds you doing so. What are the rewards? Verse 47, "I tell you the truth, he'll put him in charge of all his possessions." This is very provocative, and I'm not going to deal with it fully today. Let's deal with it when we get to the parable of the talents. “Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful with a few things, I'm going to put you in charge of many things.” Heaven and earth, the new heaven and the new earth, is going to be a very busy place with things to do, and you are presently auditioning for your job there if you're a Christian.

It's going on right now. If you're faithful in little, you'll be faithful in much.  I already blurted it out, you already know what I'm going to say when I get to the Parable of the Talents. You're auditioning now for your job then. You'll be happy no matter what you have. Bigger and bigger responsibilities for those who are more and more faithful in this life, so be faithful. What then of the curse of treacherous laziness? Look at verses 48-51 again. Suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, “my master is staying away a long time”, and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and in an hour, he is not aware of, and he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Here we see the character and the behavior of this servant. He is wicked, the word means rebellious, defiant, treacherous, he is presumptuous. Notice that he's presumptuous. He says my master is staying away a long time. He is tyrannical, he uses his position of authority as a tyrant to beat his fellow servants, though they are essentially equal to him, since they are his fellow servants. He's just in a temporary position of authority over them, for which he will give an account to the master, but he's still behaving like a tyrant. He is self-serving, immoral, lazy and self-indulgent, eating and drinking with drunkards, a life of fleshly, sensual indulgence.

James 5:5, "You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence, you have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter." Wow, is that convicting? We Americans should read that and tremble. Let us not fatten ourselves in the day of slaughter. Let's not live self-indulgent lives but look at this wicked servant. He is self-indulgent and look at the shock of this wicked servant. In verse 50, the master of that servant will come on a day he does not expect him, in an hour he is not aware of. He is shocked, he is terrorized now by the coming of the master. He's not delighted to see Jesus, he’s terrified of it, and look at the judgment of this wicked servant. Verse 51, "He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." This is exceptionally harsh language. It's always reserved for those sent to hell.  Jesus is saying that people who do not live faithfully and expectantly in light of the Second Coming of Christ are not really Christians.

Look at your life, which of these two describes you? Are you the faithful and wise servant about the business of the master, or are you the wicked lazy, self-indulgent servant who says my master's staying away a long time, I can eat, drink and be merry today because he's not coming today? What application can we draw from this? All scripture has the same ultimate application: come to the cross, come to Jesus, trust in Christ. Are you an unbeliever who never made a commitment to Christ, and don't know for certain that you're ready to stand before this Holy God? Come to Jesus. His blood is sufficient for you. The cross is enough for you. Come to Jesus.

If I can just urge the rest of us as we look at this, I believe these two parables and the general teaching here is designed to drive away false wicked understandings of the Second Coming that we tend to have.  For example, it drives away careless unpreparedness, these parables teach a constant vigilance for the Second Coming is needed. We tend to be thoughtless; we tend to not think about what it's going to be like when Jesus comes back. We'll get to that more next week with the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins. They just didn't think it through. What will I really need when the bridegroom comes? There's this careless unpreparedness, it's a form of rank unbelief, I really don't think He's coming. Therefore, you're really not ready, you didn't give it much thought, or if He comes, He'll be gracious, and it'll be no big deal. If anything ever has been a big deal, how about the Second Coming of Christ? This will be the big deal. You need to be ready. Careless unpreparedness or biding time and pacing yourselves, is this you? 

Biding time, pacing yourselves, the wicked steward in the second parable didn't want to exert himself for any length of time.  He thinks he knows when he’s coming, and he’ll get ready right at the end. Hurry to get ready right at the end, do you know what I'm saying? Patch it up, clean it up, hurry, get ready. We are on the business, if you're a Christian, you're on the business of two infinite journeys, an internal journey of perfection, growing in holiness to be like Jesus, and an external journey of worldwide evangelization. Those are incredibly difficult journeys, and you may be like, "I don't want to be about that all the time, that's hard work." It's tough, the task of faithfulness in a sin cursed world seem so overwhelming.  It's so difficult to be about the master's business 24/7, to be on it, to be at it all the time, to be witnessing, to be sharing, to be growing, to be reading and praying and serving, it's like, "How about we just tread water and just get ready at the end?" We can't do it. Find your strength in God, find your strength in the indwelling Holy Spirit and be more and more faithful all the time. That's what the Scripture is calling on us to do.

Thirdly, address laziness.  We tend to be lazy, with an allergy to hard work. Yes, it's work. The Lord is calling on us to labor for him. We've got this sluggish tendency, and we all have it, like the sluggard in the book of Proverbs, that would rather just roll over like a door on its hinge side to side, have somebody feed us like mommy used to do. We've all got that laziness inside us. This drives that laziness out of us. How about procrastination? Any of you struggle with that at all? There'll be time, we'll get to it. I know I should make that phone call today, but we'll get around to it eventually. Do you realize how presumptuous that is, to assume that you’re going to have another time to do this when the Holy Spirit is prompting you to get busy to do something, make that call, to get in the car and go do such and such, and like I'll put it off. There'll be plenty of time, won't there, when Jesus comes back, to get everything ready? I mean, throw it together at the end. Procrastination is a prideful sin, it's presumptuous. How about self-indulgence? It's addressed here, feed my flesh, feed that desire, that stomach inside me. The servant thinks there's plenty of time to eat and drink with drunkards and have a good time, and then he'll get it patched up when the Lord returns, self-indulgence. Prideful abuse of power, angry tyranny.  Have you ever heard it said the ground is equal at the foot of the cross? Have you heard that? Guess what, the ground is also equal at the foot of the judgement seat of God. It is. You are in positions of power and authority, you have them temporarily. The ones you are in power over are equal to you at the cross and will be again on judgment day, do you understand that? They are your fellow servants.

Let me speak to parents.  Please remember that this child you're training up is your equal before God. Though you may need to chastise as the Bible instructs, though you may need to train, you have authority, you have the right to command, though you have these things, you have them temporarily. They are created in the image of God, and some day you will stand side by side with them and give an account for yourself, just as he or she, your son or daughter will give an account for him or herself. Your job is to get them ready for that; not to be a tyrant.   You masters, employers, authority figures, government officials, you elders, senior pastors, whatever is entrusted to you, it is temporary, and you are ministering to fellow servants. Do so with humility. Don't be a tyrant beating your fellow servants. 

What about unbelief? Second coming, “out of sight, out of mind”, right? The purpose of all these sermons in Matthew 24 is to make it in the mind. Yes, it's out of sight. Therefore, you need faith to believe in the Second Coming and think about it all the time.  Do you want to get rid of your unbelief in the Second Coming of Christ, read Matthew 24 a lot? Read these parables a lot, feed on the Word and say, "He is coming back."  It might be today. Absentee landowners and absentee masters and absentee kings that are coming back, you've got to have faith, believe in those guys. You have to have faith to believe in Jesus who's coming back and He's going to ask you to give an account.

What about a misunderstanding of judgment day? You know the wicked servant; you know what he thought? It's just how it looks at the end, right? Does he think that the master isn't going to ask the servants how it was the whole time? Suppose he says, I'm going to be gone exactly ten years and one day. Okay, and at nine years, 11 months and two weeks, he puts it together, throws it together, gets it nice. The master comes back, and the servants aren't so emaciated as they were six months ago. They're looking a little bit better, starting to recover. The house is immaculate, everything's looking sharp. Do they think that the master's an idiot? Do they think he's not going to say, “How was it when I was gone? How was it the first day after I left?” Everything is written in God's book.  Everything, not just the stuff at the end. Every day we're going to give Him an account.

How about weariness or discouragement over this long delay? Let's banish that, dear friends. Go again and again to Christ for the energy and the strength. Don't get weary in doing good, the Lord's coming back. If you're weary, take a nap, get up and pray, and get up and serve some more. And finally, hypocrisy, acting like we really believe in the Second Coming of Christ when we really don’t.  He says He will cut them to pieces and assign them a place with the hypocrites. You don't want to be a hypocrite, who claims something they really aren't. Do we believe in the Second Coming? Do you believe it could happen today? Do you believe that you could die today and give this master an account for your life, do you believe this? Then act like it, be constantly vigilant and be constantly faithful in what the Lord has entrusted to you.

Great glorious news, Jesus Christ is coming back. Amen. He is going to return. We're going to see Him; every eye will see Him. We who have trusted in Him in this life are going to be with him forever. We're going to enjoy a glorious existence with him forever, but immediately as soon as you hear those things, a question comes to your mind, and that is "When?"   It was the question in the disciples' mind that they asked Him on the Mount of Olives, "When will these things happen? What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" What's in front of us as we look at the text today is this question of the exact day and hour of Jesus's return and what will be the condition of the world when he does return. 

In 1942, British Christian thinker and writer and apologist, author C.S. Lewis wrote a fascinating book about temptation called The Screwtape Letters. It took an entirely new approach to holiness and struggling with sin than anyone had ever seen before. He presented the struggle with temptation from the perspective of the demons who are tempting us. It was a series of letters written by an older, more seasoned demon named Screwtape, giving advice to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, on how to entice a British man, simply called "The Patient" in the book, and how to lead him to his damnation.

In his introduction to the book, Lewis writes these words, and they were in my mind this morning.  Lewis writes, "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence, and the other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves [the devils] are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist, an atheist, or a magician, with equal delight." That's a fascinating quote. What does it have to do with our text? As I was thinking about our text this morning it occurred to me that a similar kind of statement could be made about an interest in the exact date and hour of Jesus's return. It would run something like this. There are two unequal, but opposite errors into which our race can fall about the exact date of the second coming of Christ. One is to doubt the very existence of such a day, and to deny that Christ will ever return and show no interest in the topic whatsoever. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and un-Biblical desire to calculate through cleverness and nuanced Bible study the exact day and hour of Jesus's return.  I would not go so far as to say that Satan hails each error with equal delight. I don't think they're equal in this case. Someone who denies the second coming of Christ is not a believer and has everything to fear from the Second Coming of Christ. The wrath of God is coming, and they're not concerned about it at all. We're going to talk about those kinds of people in this text today.

Then there are others who are fascinated with setting dates. It's been a Christian hobby, really, from the beginning of the church. This excessive interest in the exact day and hour of Jesus's return and our text address both sides. Verse 36 says, "No one knows about that day or hour. Not even the angels in heaven nor the son, but only the Father." There have been centuries of speculation directly in the face of that text as to the exact day and hour of Jesus's return. The basic approach has been, "If only everyone else could be as clever as me and see what I'm seeing, then you would know exactly when the Lord would return." I think it follows the pattern of the whole number 666, "If anyone has wisdom, let him calculate the number of the beast." They're wanting to set themselves apart from the rest of the rabble of Christians and say, "Look, I know exactly what Jesus is returning, and so just follow my mathematics and my exegesis and you'll get it too." Some have just really desired to know the date, but didn't stop short of setting a date, but maybe a parameter, you know, "Within this time, I fully expect the Lord to return."

Even Martin Luther somewhat fell into this trap. In 1530, Luther, who was translating the Old Testament into German for the people, jumped out of order and went ahead to the Book of Daniel. He quickly got Daniel into the German language so that they would be ready for what he considered to be the impending end of the world. What had happened is that in 1526 Suleiman The Magnificent, the leader of a mighty Turkish Empire, had defeated a Christian King in Hungary at the Battle of Mohacs. It seemed the back door was open into Europe and that the Turks were soon going to ride right across the continent.  Luther, among others, expected that imminently, and he wrote this in a letter to a friend, "The world runs and hastens so excellently toward its end that I often feel very strongly as if the last day would come sooner than we can complete translating the Holy Scriptures into German." Just for your information, he finished translating the holy scriptures into German four years later. That's how impending he thought the Second Coming of Christ was.  Interestingly though, Luther did set a date for the second coming of Christ; it was 500 years after his time. He did that based on a pattern that the church fathers had taken of the six days of creation, and what with a day being like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. There's would be 6000 years of history, and then the 7000 year would be the millennial reign of Christ on earth. that's how they took it. They set a date based on that approach.

In the 19th century, some theologians in England were looking at current events and again saw the awesome power of the Muslims, the Turks, and again, the power of the Pope.  There was always a focus among the Protestants on the Pope, who they considered the Antichrist. They began publishing works predicting the downfall of both the Turks and the Pope at the Second Coming of Christ. One of these men was named George Stanley Faber. In 1806 he published one work on the end of the Turkish power and the Roman Catholic Pope, who, he claimed to be the Anti-Christ. He published the same things again in 1853, using the number 1260 discerned from the Book of Revelation, Chapter 11 and also Daniel 12. Faber sought to determine the time of the end.  He figured out an important date, since both the Islamic side and the Roman Catholic side was huge, he zeroed in on the year 606, AD because that's when apparently the Bishop of Rome was established as chief among all the other bishops of any other metropolitan areas the leader of the Christian church. It happens to be also, according to his calculations, when Muhammad went into the cave and received the revelations that became the Quran, and so 606. You add 1260 to that, and you end up with the year 1864. I would have thought 1866, but that's fine. Maybe they had different math in England at that point, but at any rate, 1864 is the year he zeroed in on. Well, 1864 came and went, the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish empire, was every bit as powerful in 1865 as it had been in '64, and so it went. It continues on in the 20th Century. Hal Lindsey published The Late Great Planet Earth, and as I mentioned, with the budding of the fig tree, he said that he believed this was the reestablishment of Israel in the promised land and taking then that within one generation... Verse that follows, a few verses later, said within one generation of Israel's re-establishment in the promised land, you can expect to see the end. He expected it, at any rate. He said a biblical generation was 40 years, and so he arrived at the year 1988.

Well, he's not the only one that liked that year. I've mentioned before, “88 Reasons the Rapture Will Be in 1988”. This is a guy named Edgar Whisenant, who is a NASA engineer. He calculated it was gonna be on Rosh Hashanah, the new year, September 11th through the 13th, somewhere in there, 1988. He published a book, and said, "Only if the Bible is in error, and I am wrong, I would gamble my life, if I were king, that I'm not wrong, that the Rapture will occur around Rosh Hashanah 1988." Trinity Broadcast Network picked up on this, started airing programming that would prepare everyone for the rapture and for the second coming.  Finally, the great day arrived, September 13, 1988, it came, and it went as other days had done. When nothing happened by the end of September 13th Whisenant revised his prediction, suggesting the Rapture would come this time at10:55 AM on September 15. I assume that was eastern daylight time. When that failed, he revised it to October 3rd. Even when that date passed, Whisenant remained undaunted. He said, "The evidence is all over the place. It's going to be in a few weeks anyway." When it didn't happen in a few weeks, he said, "You know, I noticed an error in the Gregorian calendar," so he published something saying it was going to happen in 1990. And then in '91, and then '92. He published again in '93 and '94. Finally, he stopped publishing. So much for the date setter. 

Then people swing to the other side and say, "Therefore, there will not be a specific date of Jesus's return." It's the “opposite errors.” "There will not be a final generation, everything will go on as it always has." And that is not true, friends.  The text leads us in a different direction, it leads to say there's absolutely a date. The Apostle Paul said that God has set a date when He will judge the world with justice. The date is set. Jesus doesn't deny a date, He actually affirms a date here, he just says that only the Father knew it.

Now, interest in dates and the timing of Christ's return, as I said, goes back to the beginning of the church. Acts Chapter 1, after Jesus's resurrection, there are 40 days of training. Jesus is there with the disciples and they have a question. They say, "Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" Jesus said in Acts 1:7, "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority." So, there are times and dates the Father has set, but it's not for you to know. Instead, "You'll be my witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses to the end of the earth, to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the earth." That's what he said, be about the business.  Standing over all of these date-setting efforts are the repeated statements of Jesus in Matthew 24 and 25. This one, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but only the father." Verse 42, "Therefore keep watch because you do not know on what day your Lord will come." Verse 44, "So you also must be ready, because the son of man will come in an hour when you do not expect him." And then in chapter 25 and verse 13, "Therefore keep watch because you do not know the day or the hour."

So today we're going to dig into the secrecy around the exact time and date of Jesus's return, what Jesus meant by that, and then just the general prevailing attitude that there will be of most of the people on earth concerning the exact time of Jesus's return. It is an attitude of complete ambivalence, atheism, unconcern. Both of these things are addressed in this text. First, the timetable, hidden even from Jesus in those days. God hides himself; we worship a God who hides himself, who doesn't put all his cards on the table, he doesn't show us everything about himself. Isaiah 45:15 says, "Truly, you are a God who hides himself, oh God and Savior of Israel." Psalm 97 and verse 2, "Clouds and thick darkness surround him." But God doesn't just hide himself, he also reveals himself as he sees fit. When he was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, in Genesis 18, he said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do?" and then He revealed what he was intending to do with Sodom and Gomorrah, and as you remember Abraham began to pray and intercede and really dicker with God over Sodom and Gomorrah. Or even more poignantly, Moses up on the holy mountain, wanted to see God. He went right to the heart of the matter, "Now show me your glory", he said.  And God responded, "I will cause all of my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion, but you cannot see My face and live. For no one can see me and live." And the Lord said, "There's a place near Me where you may stand on a rock. And when My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with My hand until I pass by. And then I'll remove my hand and you will see My back, but no one can see my face." God is a God who reveals himself as he sees fit, to whom He has mercy, the ones He has compassion on, he opens himself up to them, but not fully, until the time comes when he will fully reveal Himself to us.

That's our inheritance by the way, a full revelation of God to us. His servants will serve Him, and they will see His face in heaven, God opening himself fully to us. But in the meantime, he is playing out his purposes, playing out His sovereign plan as he sees fit, to the ones he chooses. In Ephesians Chapter 3:4-6, Paul writes, "In reading this then, you'll be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men and other generations as it has now been revealed to God's holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and shares together in the promise that's in Christ Jesus." He's saying, "Now there's a mystery that previous generations didn't have, but now through God's holy apostles and prophets, God has shown it to us and now we're telling it to you." God decides what to hide and for how long, when to reveal, and to whom. That's all-God’s sovereign purpose. He can do what He wants with that. Deuteronomy 29:29, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God. But the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law." Let's be very clear about today's text, there is definitely a time and date for Jesus's second coming, it's going to happen. That time and date has not been revealed. Both of those things are true. Jesus celebrates God's sovereignty in this matter. In Matthew 11: 25-26, Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." Jesus celebrates the concealing, and He celebrates the revealing, and all of it by God's sovereign purpose.

So, we just stand like humble servants before God with our hands out and we say, "Give us today our daily bread. Give us what you want us to know." He will choose what that is, and He will choose to reveal Himself, and the exact timing of the second coming of Christ is set and it is knowable. God could tell us; he could have told us. But I think if you use a little common sense you can see why He didn't.  Imagine if it had been revealed and set, and you lived in the 13th century. There is no point in finishing Matthew 24 or on into the virgins or the talents or any of that, all of that gets removed because we just don't have the same stance toward the Second Coming. We definitely know it's not coming in our generation, because God's revealed when it was. But He's not doing that. "You don't know, so be ready any time. It could happen any time, so be ready. Your death could happen any time, the Second Coming could happen any time, you be faithful. Believe when you can, go get the oil for your lamp while there's time to go get the oil, because when he comes there won't be any time for it."  That's why I think He hasn't shown it to us. No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels. Isn't that fascinating?

The angels are actually more inquisitive than you might think. It's really fascinating how many times, especially in the Old Testament prophets, angels are there kind of revealing some things to the prophets but then they're discussing among themselves and they don't know what's going on fully. You see this in the Book of Daniel, you see it in Zechariah and other places, where the angels are having conversations and they're interested. Daniel Chapter 12: 5-6 is one such example. "Then I, Daniel, looked and there before me stood two other angels, one on this bank of the river and one on the opposite bank. One of them said to the man clothed in linen, an angel, who was above the waters of the river, asking this angel who apparently knew more than they did, “’How long will it be before these astonishing things are fulfilled?’” What's the question? Basically, When? It’s the same thing the disciples want to know, the timing. They're inquisitive. 1 Peter 1:12 talks about this, "Even angels long to look into these things [the time and circumstances about Christ].”

God has hidden this particular issue from the angels and their inquiries. Amazingly, the text says even Jesus didn't know.  How in the world can I stand here and tell you that Jesus is both incarnate God, and yet didn't know something? But that's precisely what I'm going to tell you. Jesus says, "No one knows that day or hour," and so it's somewhat implied, but He goes ahead and makes it plain.  Here we come to infinite mystery, the mystery of the incarnation is a far greater mystery than the time and date of Christ returned. It's a deep mystery.  At Christmas time, we sing the Wesley hymn “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing,” and it says there, "Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die." In some way, He lays his glory aside. He who being in very nature, God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but He made himself nothing, or literally emptied himself. Some theologians came up wrongly with what they call the theory of kenosis, that Jesus laid his deity aside. Friends, Jesus can't lay his deity aside any more than God can lie or cease to exist. Jesus is God, He always has been God, and He always will be God, and He can't lay his deity aside. The universe, your physical and spiritual existence, depends on Jesus' deity. It's not something He lays aside.

But what He does is He chooses not to display its fullness when He comes to Earth. He is glorious, infinitely glorious. The Bible says that God dwells in unapproachable light, but He laid that aside. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him. Nothing in his appearance that we should desire Him. So, He laid that by. He looked like an ordinary guy, an ordinary Jewish man. He is omnipresent, and He clearly laid that aside, He can only be one place at one time. That's why He said, "It's to your benefit that I go away, so I can send the Holy Spirit." He is omnipotent, but He chose not to use his power, certainly not to save himself, not to turn the rocks into bread out in the desert. He restrained his power and didn't do everything He could do. He didn't come down off the cross, though He was the Son of God.  He was omniscient and chose not to know things. Okay, now, you may have trouble with that. How can you be omniscient and not know something? This is where the atheists have us, they think. This is ridiculous. You can't be both omniscient and not know something. Well, Jesus was. The fact that He was omniscient is shown again and again in the Gospels.   Matthew 12:25, "Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them," etcetera. How many times does that happen? Remember, one guy hosting him thinks, "If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman it is that's touching him." And Luke tells us in the account, Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." That's a bit eerie, if you think about it, Jesus just knowing what you're thinking. Or this one, as He's making preparations for the Passover. He sends Peter and John and says, "Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover." "Where do you want us to eat it?" That's a very practical question, when wanting an address or someone to rent from or something like that. And Jesus says, "As you enter the city, there's going to be a man there carrying a jar of water. Go up and follow him, he'll lead you to the room."

I don't have that kind of stuff happen to me. I'm not able to say, as you drive into Durham, there's going to be a red pick-up truck, and I want you to follow it. It'll take you right to the store where you need to go. That kind of stuff doesn't happen, but Jesus, Jesus knew all things. They came and told him that Lazarus was sick. Two days later, He told his disciples, Lazarus is dead. What was his source of information? His omniscience. Nobody came and told him that he was dead, he just knew. Or in John 18:4, Jesus went out to be arrested, and it says Jesus knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and said, "Who is it you seek?" Then up on the cross, Jesus knowing that all was now complete, and so that the Scripture was fulfilled, said, "I thirst." John is always showing us the deity of Christ, and that includes omniscience. However, there is also biblical evidence of the limitations of his knowledge. For example, this one. When he was a little boy, in Luke 2:52, it says Jesus grew in wisdom. That means he had more wisdom at one point than he had earlier. He's learning stuff. He's learning things. Or this one, as He's making his way to raise Jairus' daughter, a woman subject to bleeding for 12 months pushes her way through a crowd, touches the hem of his garment, the Father seems to have healed her directly through the Son without the Son knowing about it. Jesus stops and says, "Okay, who touched me?" The disciples at that moment thought that was crazy, “Everyone's touching you.” They thought that it was a silly question, but it wasn't. But Jesus, I don't think, is playing at that point. He didn't know who touched him, and He wanted an encounter with the person, whoever it was. The Father healed the woman directly through Jesus, and then Jesus learned who she was. The Bible says that Jesus learned obedience from what He suffered in the Book of Hebrews — He learned obedience.

Friends, that is not consistent with omniscience. Just because we can't put that together in our brains doesn't mean that He's not omniscient, and it doesn't mean that He's not God, and it doesn't mean that He didn't learn something. I'm telling you right now, Almighty God has never learned anything, and He never will. All of God's knowledge is immediately accessible to Him right now. Yesterday is as bright as today, as bright as tomorrow. He knows it all immediately. He doesn't work things through, there's not a train of thought with God. If I told you your circuit breakers are going to start tripping here, that's omniscience. God knows everything and He doesn't learn anything, and that's essential to deity. But Jesus, although He was a son, learned obedience from what He suffered [Hebrews 5:8.]  This verse is the clearest of all, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." There is infinite mystery here, I can't solve it for you, I'm just laying out what the Scripture says. So be challenged, be troubled, be provoked to deeper study, realize there's milk and meat in the Bible, and go for it, friends.  I think you run into trouble to deny either side, so let's not deny either side, let's just humble ourselves before the Scripture.   I believe He knows all things now. He knows the exact day and hour now; He's just not telling us.  I might put your prayer time into something else. How about this? "Lord, prepare me for your Second Coming. Lord, help me to be active and ready doing the things you want me to do between now."

Why? Because in the days that Jesus comes, there's going to be a whole generation of people who mostly don't even think about it. Why? Because that's the way all men have always lived in every generation. Back in the days of Noah, and so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Look at Verse 37, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” Since the day is a mystery, people must be ready. For the next 58 verses in Matthew's Gospel, there's basically just one theme. "You don't know the day or hour, so be ready and be faithful now." That's basically where we're heading.  You need to be reminded in many different ways, four different parables, to get you ready and your mind around this. You don't know when the Son of Man is coming, so be faithful, be vigilant, be ready all the time, be about your master's business. That's the lesson.

The Second Coming is going to be like it was in the days before the flood. The people of that generation were exceedingly wicked. Genesis 6:5, "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. And so, in the days before the flood, he told Noah that he was bringing wrath and judgment." Genesis 6:17, "I'm going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens. Every living creature that has the breath of life in it, everything on earth will perish." God raised Noah up not only to build the ark, but I believe to warn his generation of the impending judgment of God, and I think he did warm them. 2 Peter 2:5, it says, "If God did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people but protected Noah,” who was a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, then He knows how to protect us from the coming judgment." That's the point that Peter makes. Peter calls Noah a preacher of righteousness.  You can imagine that he's working on the ark, we don't know for sure how long it took the ark to be built. Some say 120 years because of a statement, and that may have been, but that's not definite, but it did take a while. In the days when the ark was being built, the spirit of Christ, I believe, was in Noah preaching to that generation that they should repent and turn, lest they be swept away. What was the fruit of his ministry? His family, and that's it. If you should ever feel like, "You know, I'm just not much of an evangelist. I mean, I share the Gospel, I talk about Christ crucified, I do what I can, but nobody ever comes to Christ." That's not your responsibility, friends. Let's be faithful to share the Gospel and let God move, but Noah was faithful in his generation to warn them of the coming wrath, and so must we be. We must be faithful to warn our generation because they're not ready. The Lord is going to come back, He's going to be riding on a white horse, his eyes are going to be like blazing fire. He's coming before the armies of Heaven and He's going to sweep away the wicked, He's going to judge them eternally.

Friends, without faith, it is impossible to get ready for that day. Let me say that again. Without faith, they won't be ready. Our neighbors, our co-workers, our unsaved relatives, they're not going to be ready without faith. Hebrews 11:7, "By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family." Faith makes you fear the coming day and causes you to flee to Christ. Part of unbelief is to make no preparations for the coming wrath, and many will think that life goes on as it always has. Look at Verse 38 and 39, "For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all the way."  That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Life goes on. Don't we say that? Life goes on. Part of the wisdom of God in concealing the Second Coming is to ensure that in some way life will go on as it always has, right up until that final day.

That's the essence of the day of faith that we're in now, so that we can see ahead by faith in something that isn't around us. When it's not happening to us, we are able to look ahead and say, "The Word of God says judgment's coming, I need to get ready." Only faith can give you seriousness about the Word of God. There's this great delusion going on. People think that because God hasn't interfered up to this point, He never will. They think that because God hasn't interfered up to this point, He never will. There's a plain Jane kind of sameness to what Jesus talks about here, not people whoring and stealing and murdering right up until the day that Jesus returns, but people will be eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. They'll just be living their lives.  You've got to eat and drink to survive, the human race has to have marriage, giving in marriage, procreation in order... These are just things that... They're good things, they're gifts of God. Jesus isn't finding fault with them. He does that in other places, but not here. He's saying just, "Life is going to go on." There will be life and somewhat within that structure, the pursuit of happiness. People will assume, and they always assume, that things will be the way they always have been. In 2 Peter 3, "You must understand," says Peter, "that in the last days scoffers will come scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, where is this coming, He promised?" Who is that coming? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation. But they deliberately forget, says Peter, that long ago, by God's Word, the Heavens existed, and the Earth was formed out of water and by water. By those same waters, the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. God has interfered before, and they forget it.

By the same word, the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. They're saying, "When is this coming? I don't see any evidence. I don't see any proof that there ever be. Everything's just going on as it always has." They're going to be eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.  The last wedding on earth. I did the best I could to just fantasize about what that would look like. So here it is, this is the last wedding on earth. The bride is excited about her special day. She gets up on her big day and has a professional hairdresser to look after her hair. He works on it for 90 minutes, she looks in the mirror and hates it, but what can she do? I mean, she's out of time. There are wispies flying everywhere. She gets in a little argument with him, but there it is. She argues with the hairdresser. Jesus is going to return in 4 hours and 53 minutes, but she doesn't know anything about that.   She has breakfast with her mother, talks about the wedding, it's dominated her mind for weeks now, the big day has finally arrived. She eats lightly, a bowl of fruit and some low-fat yogurt. She wants to be sure the bodice isn't too tight. She fusses with her mother over the dress that the mother is planning to wear. The mother remembers what it was like when she was a bride. She doesn't argue with her daughter, just gets her through that time, remembers the emotion and nervousness of the bride's wedding day, she doesn't want to ruin it. Jesus is coming back in three hours and 10 minutes. The perspective bride returns home, begins to pack a little bag she'll use to take to the church. She's got her magnificent wedding gown, it's already there, packs the jewelry, cosmetics, shoes. The maid of honor comes, they look at each other and squeal with girlish excitement. They settle on the bed and talk excitedly for a while about the future, about their years of happiness together, all the things they're going to enjoy together, she and her groom.

When they get up from the bed and begin to resume their preparations, the Second Coming of Christ is just 2 hours and 16 minutes away. She drives to the building with her mother and maid of honor, dressed in her magnificent wedding gown.  She admires herself in the mirror, her mind is dominated by her own beauty and by the wedding. She's nervous, worried about a bunch of details. Will the groom show up? Will he do okay? Will the justice of the peace do a good job? Will anything strange happen? She can hardly imagine the Second Coming of Christ is now a mere 47 minutes away. The big moment has finally arrived, the music swells, she begins her processional down the aisle, all eyes are on her for a moment. Pretty soon, they're not going to be on her. And why? Because at that precise moment, the heavens are ripped apart, and Jesus returns in front of a heavenly army. He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him. He's going to interrupt that day, he's going to step into history and interrupt, and whatever plans people had made are finished at that point. He has the right to do it. He's going to send out his Elect at that moment or send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his Elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. Jesus will end life as we know it.

Bankers in Germany, in Stuttgart, planning for another day of money making, profits and investment, their day is done. Wheat farmers in the Ukraine planning for a harvest, their day is finished. Biochemical researchers in England having a staff meeting to talk about the next generation of blood pressure medicine and all the profits they're going to make, they'll make no profits from that medicine. Actually, it's never even going to get made. History is over. All over the world, life on that final day will begin as it always has. Merchants will be selling, buyers will be buying, architects will be designing buildings, coal miners going down into the ground to get coal, and Jesus will step into it and end it all. He's going to send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and will gather his elect from the four winds, one end of the heavens to the other. We've already talked about this; this is the Rapture.  Verses 40 and 41, "Two men will be out in the field, one will be taken and the other left. Two women grinding with a hand mill, one will be taken and the other left."

Do you realize what that is? That's the beginning of an eternal separation that's talked about multiple times in the Bible.  Those taken and those left behind. Those taken are the Elect who have by then come to faith in Christ, all of them. None are missing. Those left behind are the non-elect who rejected the Gospel. Matthew 25:46, "They will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." There's your separation — the final separation. Many passages teach it. John the Baptist in 3:12 says of Jesus, "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor. He'll gather up the wheat into his barn but burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." There's your separation. Several parables speak of it. The wheat and the weeds, both of them sown together in the same field they grow up together, can't really tell the difference. The workers want to root them up, but he says, "No, but you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest."  As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, said Jesus, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels and they will weed out of His kingdom everything that causes sin and all those who do evil. They'll be gone forever, and they will trouble us no more, and they will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." There's the separation. 

Again, in the same chapter, there is the parable of the dragnet. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. And when it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore and then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets but threw the bad away. And that's how it'll be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Then in the next chapter, in Matthew 25, "When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, all the nations will be gathered before him and He will separate the people one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He'll put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left." There is a precision to the separation, there'll be no mistakes made. All the Elect will be on one side, the non-elect on the other, all the believers on one side, the non-believers on the other. They're the same, Elect and the believers, it's the same thing. Not-elect, non-believers, same thing. Separation, perfect, no mistakes made. Angels aren't going to leave anybody behind that should have been gotten, and they're not going to grab anybody that shouldn't have been grabbed. They know exactly what they're doing. What is the basis of that separation?  In eternity past, it's God's sovereign choice. In time and space, it's your response and mine to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's really that simple. The believers in the Gospel will be with Him forever. 

What applications can we take from that? Come to Christ now, while there's time. We haven't heard the trumpet call of God this morning, have we? Not yet. We haven't heard the voice of the archangel, the angels haven't been dispatched yet, there is still time now. You're hearing the Gospel, here it is: God sent his Son into the world, who took on a human body and lived a sinless life under the law of God, a perfect sinless life. He wove for us a garment of righteousness that He now offers you freely, if you will just simply believe in Jesus, repent of your sins and trust in Him. He died on the cross for your transgressions, your sins. He paid the death penalty so that you don't have to go to Hell. Believe in Him, trust in Him, and you'll have eternal life.  God will send an angel and rescue you out at that time, at the right time. Trust in Christ.

Secondly, if I can just speak to all of you, don't be deceived by the humdrum of ordinary life. This is not all there is. The real story is spiritual here. It has to do with the advance of the Gospel, the Great Commission. It has to do with brothers and sisters in Christ, growing in grace in the knowledge of Christ. It has to do with answered prayers. That's what's going on, not the business of life. We need to do the business of life, we must, but that's not the ultimate story. 

Thirdly, obviously, do not seek to set dates or pursue a knowledge that God will not give. He's not going to answer that prayer, so instead you should pursue a heart of wisdom to do the things that God's laid before you to do. Therefore, fourthly, labor in the Kingdom until He comes. Let's be about the Master's business. What is your ministry? What's your spiritual gift? Are you using it? You have your five talents or your two talents or your one talent. Are you using it? Are you investing it for the glory of God? Are you out and about doing the things of the Kingdom, or are you living like a non-Christian as though this world is all there is? 

Fifth, be ready constantly, both for the day of your death and the Second Coming. I can't say it too much, you don't know when either one is. Be ready now, today. Six, be faithful stewards of what God has entrusted to you. God has given you a ministry, He's given you a family, a spouse perhaps, He's given you money, He's given you days. “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Be good stewards of the grace of God. Seventh, do not be deceived by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. God ordains trials for us to shape us and prepare us for that final day. We're not going to be wealthy and prosperous in this life with a wealth that we can take with us to the next. Therefore, don't be deceived by the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth. Finally, say with me, "Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord." We ought to seek Him and pray that He would come and say, "I want you to come. Come today if it's your will, Lord. But if not, make me ready and come, Lord Jesus."

I am so excited to preach on this passage today. All morning long, I've just been excited for this time and just captivated by Jesus' statement concerning his own word, and I don't wanna get ahead of myself, but just the beauty and the power of the words of Christ just has captivated my heart, and I have a sense of the tremendous and immense privilege I have week by week to minister and open up the word. I love that song we just sang, it just moves me. One word in particular. Food, the word “food.” I want to feed you with the word of God today, that's what I want. I want the food of the word of God to just be in your systems when you walk away today. And that's my prayer as we look at Matthew 24:32-35.

As I come to this passage, I think about this one question: what is permanent and what is temporary? While flowers are temporary, I think we all know that, their beauty lasts just a few days and they wither. Morning mist is temporary, the sun rises and its heat scorches the mist and it's gone. So also at a different season, the morning frost, temporary again, sun melts it and it's gone. Movement of the wind as it goes north or south, east or west is temporary, soon it's blowing a different direction, the gust blows leaves flutter, then it's gone the moment has passed.

All of these things are temporary. Then the real question for us is, what is permanent? What is eternal? Is the ground beneath our feet permanent? Is the Atlantic Ocean permanent? Are the Rocky Mountains? Are they permanent? How about the sun and the moon and the stars? Are they forever?

Recently here in America, the striking events of history have been brought home with painful reality, the impermanence of the world around us in one stunning moment, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center melted before eyes and were gone. Completely gone, disappeared forever from the face of the Earth. In five shocking minutes, an earthquake shook the city of Port-au-Prince in Haiti and reduced much of it to rubble, snuffing out many lives in the process, causing everyone who lived there to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that even the ground beneath their feet is not permanent, and neither is life in this world.

Could it be that the most permanent thing in this universe is something invisible: a word, or actually words, spoken 2,000 years ago by Jesus”? Look at verse 35, “Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” What is a word? Is it an invisible thing, the sound of a whisper in the wind that floats to the air and causes your eardrums to vibrate for a second and then it disappears like a faint echo in a cavern? Is that what a word is? Is a word anything more than a fleeting shadow of reality, something like a nothing?

For many of us, I think words would be the very picture of impermanence, something that lasts only as long as we hear it and then it's gone. But Jesus here said his words will last forever. But that Heaven and Earth won't. He makes an assertion here, “Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Now, the context of that statement, I think couldn't be more powerful, remember that Jesus has predicted the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem. As they're coming out of the city, the disciples are in awe of the temple building and all of its massive stones, and by extension, Jerusalem. What massive stones, they're so impressed. And Jesus says in Matthew 24:2, “Do you see all these things? I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another, every one will be thrown down.” Do you realize that in verse 35 of this chapter, Jesus is saying the same thing about these stones too, they're all gonna get thrown down, all of them, not just in Jerusalem, but all over the world. Everything that man has erected will be, as it says in Daniel 2, blown away like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer and not a trace will be left. It's all gonna be gone.

Well, the disciples obviously are fascinated by this statement that Jesus makes, and they come to him privately on the Mount of Olives and they say, “Tell us, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” And for this whole chapter, Jesus has been answering that three-part question, in verses 4-14, I think as I've described before, Jesus describes in very general terms, what life will be like on this Earth, this sin-cursed world, from the first to the second comings of Christ. There'll be wars and rumors of wars, there'll be famines and earthquakes in various places. He describes the special and vicious persecution of the church and the apostasy in the church, many will betray the faith and will turn against each other.

He talks about the need to stand firm to the end, those that stand firm to the end will be saved. Very difficult time to come, and He gives us this beautiful prediction or predictive indicator of the progress of the kingdom. “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” So as the gospel makes its progress throughout the world, then we're getting closer to the end of the world, verses 4-14.

Then verses 15-25, he describes the special circumstances surrounding first, I believe the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, under the Romans. And then as I preached in great detail, a re-establishment of the temple, an establishment of the abomination of desolation spoken of the prophet Daniel, I believe the coming of the antichrist and some special and vicious and terrible tribulations and persecutions that will come connected with that as well. We see the re-enactment as it was, so it will be. It's going to happen again, and the fleeing those in Judea up to the mountains no one having time to go down in the house to get anything out of their house, no one having time to go back to get anything out of that, even the cloak, they've got to just run for their lives because of the terrors of that time. As it was in the days of the Romans, and so it will be at the end of the world, I believe.

And then in verses 26-31, the description of the actual events right toward the end, the second coming of Christ described. It will be no secret coming, it will be visible from one end of the sky to the other, like lightning that flashes from the east visible even in the west. You don't have to go out in the desert to see it, nobody's gonna need special training, you don't need any faith. You don't need anything, you just need to look up and you will. If you're alive at that time, look up and so will everyone. And every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. and all the peoples of the Earth will mourn because of him. “And immediately after the distress of those days,” says Jesus, “The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. ... And they will see the sign of the Son of Man appearing in the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.”

Jesus will return. And all the nations of the Earth will mourn. And he will send out his angels. Last week, we talked about this, and they will gather the elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. So we come to this section of scripture that we're looking at today and what a shock it must have been to these Jewish disciples of Jesus. They thought that the temple city of Jerusalem would last forever. Jesus revealed that they're actually going to be destroyed, and so this question of then, what's permanent, must be in their minds. When will this happen? They still wanna know, and if this is impermanent than what is permanent? What can I build my life on? What is going to last here?

Now, concerning the first of those two questions: When will this happen? The answer he gives for the rest of the chapter is really two-fold. First of all, he's going to say, look for the signs, add up the signs. I've been telling you some specific details. When you see these things happening, look for these signs, you'll see a progress toward the end of the world. We'll be able to lay it out. We'll be able to connect the dots. Look at those signs, add up the signs. And secondly, he says that he's coming like a thief in the night, and no one's gonna know exactly when. So we have to be ready at any time.

Concerning what is permanent, what can I build my life upon? As I look at these four verses that we're studying today, I think the unifying theme of today's sermon is not so much the timing of Christ coming, but rather the trustworthiness of Christ's words. We're going to look at the words of Christ today. The word of Christ in its power, the word of Christ, in its clarity, in its immediacy, in its difficulty, and in its eternity, its permanence. And in the end, all we have as we look ahead to the second coming of Christ are the words of Christ, Amen, that's what we have. Spoken, either by him or by his apostles. We know nothing about the second coming of Christ apart from the words, and so we've got to cling to these words so we can know how to be ready and be filled with joy at his coming and not be ashamed. And so we must cling to the words of Christ.

So let's look first at this issue of the clarity of Christ's words, and we have immediately this parable of the fig tree. Look at verse 32 and 33, it says, “Now, learn this lesson from the fig tree, as soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.”

So we have this parable, he doesn't call it that, but this parable of the fig tree. Jesus frequently used just homely, everyday physical things in life to teach spiritual principles, parables. Parables are really fascinating teaching tools. They're really kind of amazing, actually. Some people think parables were given to make things clear. Well, that's not entirely true, they're given to make things clear for the church to the insiders, to the believers, they actually make things more difficult for the outsiders. They led people in Jesus' day to think he was nuts. He would say these things and it would be like, these are the sayings of a demon-possessed man, he's crazy. And if you think that's a strange reaction, then just try it sometimes I've told you this before, just take one of the parables of Jesus and go to an average person in the street, talk to somebody until you find somebody who never goes to church, just an unbeliever, never went to church, whatever, just an average American pagan.

You just go up to them and just tell them the words of a parable. The kingdom of heaven is like a seed that a man sowed in his garden, and it grew up and it got bigger and bigger like this tree until the birds came and nested in its branches. “You are nuts. Is that all you wanted to say to me?” “No, that's it. Well, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Does that help you?” “I guess I don't have ears.” “Oh, may God give you ears to hear.” Because what happens is the disciples didn't get it either, what did they do? Like humble spiritual beggars, they went back to Jesus and said, “What does this mean? I don't get it.” And then he explained everything in detail, he said, “The outsiders get it in parables, the insiders have the good sense to come and ask me, and I just open up my hand and I satisfy the desire of every living thing. You ask, and I'll tell. If any man lack wisdom, let him come to Jesus and he will make it very clear."

And then the parables become the clearest of all Jesus' teaching tools, extremely memorable, very efficient. Kingdom of heaven, like yeast that a woman makes into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough. A very efficient way of talking about how the gospel is gonna spread to the ends of the Earth in a very hidden, and secret way that people will not be able to see. And how it spreads to your own individual life from inside until it conquers everything you are. That's a very efficient teaching tool. That's the way the parables work. 

What about this parable of the fig tree? Well, the whole thing about agricultural parables is that there are some things that God has ordained that take time to develop. They don't come overnight. They don't come instantly. God says, “Let there be light,” and there's light. But in Genesis 2, he creates a certain species of herbs and plants that require human cultivation, and so while he creates the genetic pattern for those, they're not all there immediately and they need some time to develop.

And so it is with these agricultural parables. The fig tree has to develop, we're in a history here, developing movement. We have to look at the movement, the development. As soon as you see its twigs get tender and its leaves come out you know that summer is near. So when you see some simple things happening in the spring. Here in North Carolina, the leaves come up very quickly, don't they? And when you see just the explosion of green, you basically know that winter's over. Summer is coming very soon. You just know that. You just know these things, and Jesus is saying the same thing. You know this, don't you? And so when you see all these things, you know that the end is imminent, it's near. That's what he's saying very simply.

And so what does he mean by “all these things”? Well, that's quite a question and we'll get into that, but basically the signs that the Christ has already given: Wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes in various places, apostasy, persecution of the church, standing firm to the end, gospel preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, abomination of desolation, people running for their lives, and then the celestial signs that we talked about. When you see all of that then Jesus is coming back. So when you see all of these things, you know that it is near, it's imminent. All those signs point to the imminent return of Christ and makes it clear.

Now, the fig tree, what is the budding of the fig tree? Some would simply say, “Look, you've got it, you don't have to say anything more, Pastor Davis, you've already explained the agricultural thing, just when you see all this.” But now I go a little deeper, I say, “In the Bible, fig tree represents Israel.” And it may actually, there are numbers of indicators that from time to time, God actually does assign that kind of a thing. Sometimes Israel's like a vineyard surrounded by a rocky wall, but a lot of times there's this agricultural idea.

They point to Jeremiah 24, in which Jeremiah is shown, two baskets of figs, one of them really, really good, ripe succulent figs and the other one, other basket just wretched so bad they could not be eaten, and the good figs represent the Jews that are gonna be restored to the promised land. And the bad figs are those that are going to be destroyed, and so they say, “Okay, then the figs represent... The budding of the fig tree represents the coming back of the Jews to the Promised Land.”

Or they'll say, Jesus' parable of the fig tree in Luke 13, when there's this fig tree as you remember that doesn't bear any fruit and he's about to cut it down, he's had it with this fig tree, and the gardener says, “No, wait a minute, just give me a little more time, let me dig around it, let me put some fertilizer down and give it a year, and if it bears fruit, fine, if not, then cut it down.” So they say that represents Israel and its fruitlessness.

Or, even more poignantly, in Matthew's gospel, after the triumphal entry, Jesus goes into the temple and looks around and goes back to, I think, Gethsemane and spends the night and then comes back the next morning and on route sees a fig tree and he's hungry and he goes up and finds nothing but leaves. And he curses the fig tree and he says, “May you never bear fruit again,” and immediately the fig tree withers. And again, the timing, it just seems to be that the tree seems to represent the Jewish nation.

And so from this, some Christians conclude that the budding of the fig tree, should be in some way connected to Israel or the re-establishment of the Jewish state in Israel in 1948. On May 14th, 1948, they said, “This is the budding of the fig tree.” And then that set somewhat of a time table for the return of Christ, they link it then with verse 34, when he says, “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” And so they say, “Within one generation of 1948, Jesus will return.”

So some Dispensational Premillennialists and Christian Zionists and others take this approach and really set the clock at that moment. It may well be. My final word on that is maybe. Maybe. It maybe that there will be some people who will be alive on earth at both of those events, both the re-establishment of Zionist Israel in Palestine, 1948 and a second coming of Christ. That is possible, but if that whole generation should die out, I don't necessarily think that Matthew 24 isn't true. In other words, it's not a sure and certain interpretation of this.

Furthermore, it has been 62 years since that and counting, continuing to go on. Some people thought, what is a generation? They give you numbers like 25, they give you numbers like 40. Remember 88 Reasons that the Rapture Would Happen in 1988? I'll talk about that a little bit next week, but date setters love this budding of the fig tree thing, and they say, within that 40 years, Israel wandered for 40 years in the desert, said that pamphlet. And it's 40 years from the crucifixion of Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem, said the pamphlet. So one more 40-year period, it's 1948 to 1988. Well, friends, we're still here. Alright, the Lord is definitely gonna come back at some point, but I know one thing for certain. He's not coming back in 1988.

Alright, I definitely can make that - Is that a prediction? I don't think that's even a prediction at this point, a post-diction. Okay? He didn't return. Does that mean the budding of fig tree is not Israel? I'm not saying that. Does that mean that the re-establishment of the Jews and the promised land is not significant? I am definitely not saying that friends, everything's significant, especially when it comes to the Jews. But I cannot go any further. Shall we move on? Okay, let's move on.

The clarity then is, look at the whole chapter. Look at what Jesus has said. Especially friends, look at verse 14, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations.” Measure it that way, by the spread of the gospel around the world. Unreached people groups, missions, do it that way. Clarity.

Secondly, immediacy. What does Jesus mean when he says, “When you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.” I wanna zero in on this phrase, “Right at the door.” The immediacy of the second coming of Christ. There is a sense of immediacy, Jesus' return would be imminent after all these things occurred. But he's also gonna say at the end of this chapter, we should always carry around in our hearts a sense of the imminence of the return of Christ, a sense of the immediacy of it.

And don't be disillusioned, then, to study church history and find out that seventh century christians had a sense of the immediacy of the return of Christ and that they were convinced it could be in their lifetime, they should be ready at any moment. Like, “Boy, they were a bunch of fools.” No, they were being obedient. The Lord wanted the seventh century christians to be ready for the imminent return of Christ. How do we do that? How do we put all this together? A sense of the immediacy of Christ. A sense of this phrase, “right at the door” is used in James 5:9, where it says, “Don't grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The judge is standing at the door.” He's right there at the door. He's ready to just open the door and come in. So don't have conflicts with each other, dear friends, because Jesus is right there. In him, we live and move and have our being. We need a sense of the imminence of Christ and of his return.

And so we need, in some sense, every day, an immediate encounter with Jesus Christ. You need a sense that he is right at the door, he's right there, and why? Because you will live differently if you do. How do we get that? Well, I'm telling you, the word of Christ is the only thing that can do that for you. It's only by consistently being in the word, that your faith is strengthened. I love that hymn we sing. “Cause our faith to rise.” Keith Getty and Stewart Townend wrote it, “Cause our faith to rise.”

How does that happen? By the word, by the ministry of the word, be in the word and your faith's gonna rise and you'll have a sense Jesus could come back today. He could come back today, I could die today. I could be in the presence of Jesus before the sun goes down tonight. I want that sense of immediacy today. How do I get that? Be in the word, be in the word. Meditate on it, memorize it. Say it to yourself. Say it to each other. Pray it. Come, don't miss church. Don't miss church. I know it's summer, dear friends, but don't miss church. You need the food of the word to keep Jesus imminent in your heart. 

Now, there's a problem here, okay? How do we add up the signs and still say Jesus could come back tonight? For example, how do I preach on the abomination of desolation and say that I think that the temple is gonna be rebuilt and there'll be an antichrist and all that. And you say, “Well, that hasn't happened yet.” So we know one thing, until they do some incredibly fast building this afternoon. But even that doesn't - It kind of blows the Daniel timetable thing, about three and a half years and all that, so it just doesn't add up. So we can conclude one thing, Jesus is not coming back tonight. Don't do that. At the end of Matthew 24 and into Mathew 25 says specifically, don't do that.

William Cowper wrote a hymn, “God Moves in Mysterious Ways” and he says this powerful thing in that hymn. He says, “God is his own interpreter.” The final, sovereign, accurate interpretation of Matthew 24 will be done by Jesus, okay? When he returns, and if you come and say, “Yeah, but my pastor said…” Hey look, dust in the wind, dear friends, bad teaching will go away. False interpretations will disappear, Jesus will come back when he chooses. He defines what an unreached people group is, he defines what's going on with Daniel. He's gonna decide all that, and when he comes like a king, he's coming, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. We need to be ready today, because he told us to be ready today. But still, look at the signs. Hold those two in tension and if you're struggling with that, then struggle away. We'll get to that in a moment.

But Paul says In 2 Thessalonians, talking to the Thessalonian Christians there who are expecting, actually, they thought they'd missed the bus. Some false teachers had come and said “The day of the Lord has already come.” And Paul says, “Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the man of lawlessness appears,” and the apostasy and all of these things. And he says the antichrist has to come. So you read 2 Thessalonians 2, and you say, “What am I to do with that? Paul, an apostle of Christ, said that. And so if the apostasy hasn't occurred and the man of lawlessness hasn't set himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God, then Jesus can't return.”

So how do we hold these things in tension? I don't know exactly. Let me give you some suggestions. First of all, we are not like the apostles after the ascension of Jesus, to be standing, ready for the second coming of Christ by gawking up at the clouds. The apostles get special things we don't get. They get angels sent saying, “Stop that. Go back and pray and wait for the gift the Father has promised. The Holy Spirit is coming. You have work to do.” And so we are to be kind of looking upward in our hearts, but busy with our hands and with our mouths and our minds, doing our spiritual gift ministries, active building the kingdom until Jesus comes back. Like it says in one translation, “Occupy until I come."

Be busy doing stuff, but in your hearts know, he is his own interpreter. He could come tonight. He can come tonight. So we need to be ready, we need to keep watch. I'll get to that at the end of this chapter in Matthew 24. But don't say, “Hey, my master is a long time in coming and I can live however I want.” That's the specific attitude Jesus is driving away at the end of Matthew 24. And verse 13 of chapter 25, “Keep watch because you do not know the day or the hour.” You're told what to do.

So there is a mysterious balance here. Add up the signs of the times, the budding of the fig tree and all that. But at the same time, say, “Jesus could come back any time.” I actually think you need to be ready for two mysterious things. You need to be ready at any time for the second coming of Christ, and ready any time for your own death. Because you don't know the day or the hour of either one, and it really amounts to the same thing, you live the same way. You don't do anything you're ashamed of, you're just ready all the time, because the Lord could come back or you could go to the Lord in death, and he's sovereign over both of those things.

So that brings us immediately to the third issue, and that is the difficulty of Christ's words. Christ's words are not easy. They're not easy to understand. It just takes labor. 2 Timothy 2:15, for people like myself, pastors who are called to the ministry of the word, that's a key verse for us. “Study to show yourselves approved unto God, workmen who don't need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Don't be lazy in the word, Oh pastors, dig deep, try to understand, compare one passage to the next, cut it straight. Do a good job. Don't be slap dash in your interpretation. Why? Because the word is difficult, and we have an example of it right here.

Look at verse 34, “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Oh boy, what are we gonna do with that statement? Frankly, many of Christ's words are said to be difficult in the gospels. Mark 9:32, it says, “But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.” Don't you love that? “I have no idea what that is, and I don't wanna ask him. Do you?” “No, I don't wanna ask him. Let's just be blissfully ignorant because I have no idea what he's talking about.”

Luke 18:34, “The disciples did not understand any of this, it's meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.” There are many such statements. How about this one? After Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” Jesus loses 90-plus percent of his followers that day. And they all said the same thing. “This is a difficult saying, who can understand it?” Very difficult.

Now, this one in Matthew 24:34 is one of the more debated statements of Christ. What does Jesus mean when he says that “this generation” would not pass away until “all these things” have happened? They work on both of those. What is this generation? And what are all these things that he's talking about? They go back and forth.

He begins it with a solemn declaration, “I tell you the truth.” Or “Truly I say to you.” Everything Jesus says is true, but when he uses, “Truly, truly, I say to you,” or in this case, “Truly, I say to you,” I don't think he's saying “This is more true than the other things I say.” Everything he says is true. But in a way, he's saying, “Sit up and pay attention. Notice this, I wanna tell you something. This is important.” That's what he's doing.

But, what does he mean? Well, let's reject some interpretations we know it can't mean. “The generation,” I don't think he's referring to the human race as a whole. It could, grammatically, the Greek word, it could mean “the human race,” and in effect then, he would be saying the human race will not be extinct before the end of the world. Well, that's a relief to all those that watch end-of-the-world type movies where you're wondering if we're gonna become extinct, but that's not even what Jesus is talking about here.

Neither is he saying, I think that the church will not die out before he returns. That's a relief to everyone, but what would the point be, and he already said that unless those days have been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened. There will be some elect when Jesus returns. That’s who the angels are gonna go gather anyway. I think it's impossible for Jesus to mean this.

Before every single solitary person that's alive today dies, I will come back in glory to judge the world. How do you know that's not true? Well, it didn't happen, friends. And it's amazing how people play with the idea that Jesus may have been wrong, “I mean, even Jesus made mistakes when it came to the second coming.” Jesus never made a single mistake. Next week, we'll talk about his statement when he says that he didn't know when the exact time would be.

But the fact of the matter is it cannot mean that all of these things, including the second coming would happen in the first century AD, because then Jesus would be wrong, and if Jesus is wrong about anything, I don't wanna hear him about anything, he's a false prophet. But he's not a false prophet. Everything he says is true. So we dispense with that.

Well, then, what could it mean? Well, various options that we consider. Could be that he's just talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, saying that that will happen within the lifetime of those standing there, and some, many reputable commentators, take that approach. Some who are alive today will be alive when the temple is destroyed. And that did happen. And so in support of that is just a simple use of the word “this generation.” Within this generation, the temple will be destroyed, and that's literally what did happen.

But there are some problems with that approach. Jesus has just gotten done describing the events of the second coming, coming in the clouds and everyone's gonna see him, and the angels sent out and gathering the elect, and then all of these things comes right after that, and all these things this generation won't pass away until all those things have happened. So that's difficult, still some hold to it, say he's going back to talking about the temple at that point.

Option number two, I think, is that he's referring - The word “generation” can refer to “race.” And I think here, this is the best of many difficult interpretations, but the best is he is referring to the Jewish race as a whole. The Jewish race will not become extinct, will not be eradicated from the face of the earth, despite all of the assaults there will be on it. Now think about that, “pray that your flight will not take place in the winter on the Sabbath,” it's a specifically Jewish attack when the temple is destroyed and when the Romans come in in 70 AD, they are wanting to kill Jews and not just a few, they're wanting to kill them all, I think. Josephus estimates between one and two million Jews killed by the sword. What a blood bath.

And we should not think, it's just a no-brainer that the Jews will be around when Jesus returns. They have been attacked and persecuted in just about every generation, they have been a special focus of Satanic attack all along, and I've got historical dates, I don't wanna give it to you, but just - even Christians - so-called Christians and the crusades went after the Jews during the Black Plague. They blamed the Jews and went after them. Muslims in different generations have wiped out whole communities of Jews. Czarist Russia had their pilgrims and their attacks. And of all of them, of course, the worst under the Nazis in Germany, six million of them exterminated in a clear desire on the part of the Germans, the final solution of getting rid of the Jewish race as a whole. Eradicating it completely.

So therefore, I think it's no small assertion that Jesus makes, that there will be a recognizable, identifiable Jewish people when he returns. That's actually a miracle, quite frankly, given all the persecution, the attack on them. And why will they be there? Because his sovereign power will guarantee it. And why? Because God's gifts and his calling are irrevocable. He still has purposes for the Jewish nation. And so he's going to uphold them and he's going to take godlessness away from Jacob and they will turn to Christ at the end, that's why. And so he's saying, despite all of the assaults and the attacks, they'll still be a recognizable Jewish nation at the end. 

The difficulty, however of Christ words you may say, “You know what, pastor, I don't agree with that interpretation.” Fine, I am not as certain about that as I am about this, Jesus is coming back some day, and so there is in my mind a hierarchy of certainty of truth, some things are clearer than others. I'm just telling you the Bible is a hard book to interpret. It's not all easy, friends, there is milk and there is meat, more on that in a moment. But the fact is, difficulty.

So we've seen clarity. We've seen immediacy. We've seen difficulty now finally, the eternity of Christ's words. Look at verse 35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” This temporary universe, friends, this temporary universe, that's our home, for a little while. Heaven and earth will pass away. He's testified to this many times. Look back at verse 29, he says, “Immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened. Moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” That's the future, friends, it's all going away.

Or this one, Hebrews 1:10-12. “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the Earth and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment, they will be changed. But you remain the same and your years will never end.” And again, in that same book, Hebrews 12:26-27, looking back to Sinai, when God came down to Sinai and shook the Earth, it says, “At that time his voice shook the Earth, but now he has promised once more I will shake not only the Earth, but also the heavens.” Now, the words once more indicate the removing of what can be shaken. So that those things that cannot be shaken will remain. And what is it that cannot be shaken? The kingdom of Christ cannot be shaken. We're receiving a kingdom that can never be shaken through the word of God.

Or this one, 2 Peter 3:10, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, the heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the Earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” So there is nothing physical, there is nothing that our five senses can take in in the physical world that God created of which is speaking here, that is eternal. And the bent of our hearts is always to make it so, isn't it? “This is really my life, this is what I love, this is what I cling to.” Don't. Let it go, let it go. Because the world and its desires is passing away, but the man who does the will of God stands forever.

An amazing statement that Jesus is making here, he's saying, my words that I'm speaking to you are more permanent than the universe. Do you realize only God could make a statement like that? Not even the prophets would talk like that. Prophets don't talk like that. They say, “Thus says the Lord,” and then they go. Jesus doesn't say, “Thus says the Lord.” He says, “My words, my words are more permanent than the universe.”

He is God in the flesh, dear friends, he was God in a body, and he was standing there talking and he said, “My words will still be around.” Similar to the assertion he made earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5, he said, “Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away,” or disappear, “not the smallest letter or the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.” He's equating his own words to the law, the psalms and prophets. He says, “My words are scripture.”

Now, God has the highest esteem for his own word. Genesis 1:3, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.” It says in Psalm 138 that God has exalted above all things his name and his word. And so “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

Dear friends, Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. All men are like grass.” Friends, we are temporary. We are impermanent. We're not gonna be here much longer. God's word's gonna still be here. And notice he says, “My words,” I find that fascinating. Not just kind of “my word,” like a theological principle, but my words, my nouns, my adjectives, my connectors, my sentences, my paragraphs will still be around. People will still be reading them.

A movie recently, I read about it in World Magazine, called Book of Eli, where they were down to one Bible. Friends, there are billions of Bibles in the world. Billions of them. Satan has tried to attack this book, it's still here, friends. It's still here. Voltaire said within 100 years, no one in France would be a Christian. Christianity would be gone. Nobody would be reading the Bible. Friends we're still here, the Bible is still here. Voltaire is gone. But the scripture is still here. And it will be forever.

Now, what application can we take from this? Well, why does he just make this assertion? He wants us to put our faith and our confidence in his word. Trust in that. He wants churches based on the word, not based on glitzy showmanship and entertainment and titillating people's senses so that they can feel good for just a little short time like eating a candy bar, and then you return to the warfare and the trenches, he wants you to base your life on the word. Base your churches on the word and base your churchgoing on feeding on the word. That's what he's saying here.

So I want you to begin by just marveling at the living word of God, marvel at it, marvel at its clarity, marvel at its immediacy, marvel at its difficulty and its eternity. 

And when it comes to the clarity, if I can just urge you, come to Christ for him to make everything clear. The clearest thing in the Bible is how sinners are made right with God, it's the clearest thing is that there is a God, he is holy, he has laid down laws, they are to be fully obeyed. We have sinned, all of us have broken the laws of God, we are going to die and stand before this mighty God and give an account for every careless word we have spoken. We, apart from Christ, are lost. We are damned. We are going to spend eternity in hell. But God sent his son who shed his blood on the cross, he died in our place that we might have eternal life. If you repent and trust in him, all your sins will be forgiven. And then Jesus will speak those beautiful words over, you “Take heart, son, take heart, daughter. Your sins are forgiven you, and you're righteous in my sight.” If you hear nothing else about this sermon, hear this. If you're lost, don't be lost anymore, come to Christ and let him make everything clear.

And if you're a Christian and have been a Christian for years, then come to Christ every day over the scripture, just say, “Jesus, make this clear to me. Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. Teach me your word.” And bring him some difficult things, say, “I don't know what I think about Matthew 24 and all this stuff, pastor has his opinion, he's a very opinionated guy, it's alright, I guess it's his job to be opinionated. But I wanna know the truth, Jesus.” Like the Bereans, “Jesus. Teach me Matthew 24.” Search the scriptures.

Clarity, immediacy. God wants you to live moment by moment with a sense of the immediate presence of God in your life. So that whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, you're doing it to the glory of God. You can only have that immediacy through the word, God is mediating it to you through the word. Look, Hindus have spiritual experiences, even astral projection, out-of-body experiences, Muslim Sufis have those kinds of things. There are even some that call themselves Christians don't read the word much, but they're looking for an experience of the spirit. That's dangerous, dear friends, get your experience through the word, but let it be a rich, full experience with Christ. Don't be distant from him, let him mediate his love to you in a sense of presence, and you will live a more holy life, and you will live a more fruitful life, immediacy.

And be ready constantly for the second coming of Christ, be ready at any hour. Jonathan Edwards, when he was 19 years old, made some resolutions. Resolution 19, “Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be ashamed to do if I expected it would not be above an hour before I should hear the last trumpet.” That was in the early 18th centuries. He never heard the last trumpet, but he was ready at any moment to not do anything he'd be ashamed for Christ to find him doing that when he returned. So also we have to be ready at any time for our own death, as I've said. Resolution number seven, “Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.” It's really in the end, the same thing.

And what about the difficulty of the word? There is milk in the word, drink it, it's sweet, but there's meat too. Don't despise the process it takes for a pastor when preaching or for you when studying to find out difficult things in the word. As John Piper said, “If you use a rake, all you get is leaves, but if you use the shovel, you might get gold.” So dig down, or as one of my Bible professors said, “The best cookies are in the highest shelf,” so work for it, go after it, because there's some difficult passages.

And finally, eternity. Meditate much on this statement, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” Jesus finished the Sermon on the Mount saying, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rains came down, and streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house, but it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock.”

And so it is, if you're having financial troubles, maybe out of a job or struggling financially, build your life on the word of God. Go to Hebrews 13, it says, “Keep your lives free from the love of money, be content with what you have because God has told you, ‘I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.’” Go to that, feed on that. In your marriage, learn again, what marriage is about. Matthew 19, “Haven't you read that at the beginning, the Creator made them male and female and said ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so they're no longer two but one’? What God has joined together, let man not separate.” Come to the word for your marriage. Same thing with parents, and I could go topic by topic. Base your whole life on the word of God. Heaven and earth will pass away, but Jesus' words are still gonna be here when we see him face-to-face. Close with me in prayer.