Well, good morning. If you care to turn in your Bibles
with me to Matthew chapter 25, Lord willing, we'll finish our
study in Matthew 25 this morning. Before we begin, let's go to
our Lord in prayer. Our Father which art in heaven,
holy and reverent is your matchless name. Lord, we enter into your
presence this morning reverently and carefully, daring only come
into your presence, pleading the person and the merits and
the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we come before you a
thankful people. How thankful we are for your mercy, your grace
you have reserved for your people in our Lord Jesus Christ. How
we thank you for a savior who has accomplished an eternal salvation
that is sure and certain for all of your people. Father, I
pray this morning that you would show us your glory. I pray that
you deliver us from just going through the motions of religion,
but Father, make this a special hour of worship. Show us your
glory, the redemptive glory that you have in redeeming your people
from their sin and cause us to in awe and wonder worship and
praise your holy name. Father, we're thankful for the
many gifts and blessings of this life that you've given to us.
We're thankful. And we do pray for those that
you brought into the time of trouble and trial, the time in
the valley. Father, we pray that you would
accomplish your purpose, that you'd be with your people, that
you would deliver as soon as it could be thy will. Father,
we pray for those who are away from us traveling, that you'd
be with them, keep them safe, Give Him traveling mercies and
bring Him back home to us as soon as it could be Thy will.
All these things we ask in that name which is above every name,
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, the verses we're going to
look at in our text this morning, the Lord gives us a picture of
that great day of judgment. The day when the Lord will return
and when He returns, He will return as the judge of all the
earth. He'll come and He will judge in that day every human
being who's ever lived. And the judge will be the Lord
Jesus. He's the judge because the Father
has committed all judgment under the Son. Now the day of judgment
might make us think of something different than what that day
is. This day, when we must all appear before the judgment seat
of Christ, is not going to be a day where evidence is presented
on each person to see what they've done good and what they've done
bad. And then a decision is going to be made. On the day of judgment,
the Lord is simply going to pronounce judgment on all men. He's going
to pronounce the verdict. All men will either be found
guilty or not guilty, righteous or unrighteous. And that's all
that's going to happen on that day. It's the announcing of the
verdict. So I've titled our lesson this
morning, The Verdict Is In. Now remember, in this chapter
and the previous chapter, the Lord's been teaching us about
his second coming. And one thing that's been all
the way through this is teaching us is the church on earth is
always made up of a mixture of believers and unbelievers. It's
a mixture of sheep and goats, the wheat and the tares. And
that's true of the whole population of earth, too. The whole population
of earth is a mixture of believers and unbelievers. And that mixture
will always be part of our lives until this day of judgment, the
day that the Lord returns. And then he's going to separate
those people eternally. So the first thing we see on
this matter of the verdict being in is the judge, Matthew 25 verse
31, when the son of man shall come in his glory. Now here he's
coming, you know, Christ is coming again. There that's, that's something
that every believer is absolutely confident of. The angel made
that promise to the disciples. Remember when the Lord ascended
back to glory and they're standing there staring up at the sky?
And the angel said, Acts 1-11, this same Jesus who's taken up
into heaven, he shall so come in like manner as you've seen
him go into heaven. He's coming again. The Lord's
promised just in these past couple weeks where we've been studying
many times, he's promised he's coming again. And when the Lord
returns, it's not going to be like when he came the first time.
You know, the first time that our Lord came into flesh, he
came as a servant, a low, humble servant. Very few people knew
he was born. And the people that did know
he was born, very few of them believed that he was who he said
he was. Very few people believed he's
the son of God. Very few people, I mean, and
you can understand, naturally speaking, you couldn't possibly
believe that, could you? Unless God gave you faith. Naturally
speaking, you could never believe A man in the flesh looking just
like you is the Son of God. Very few people believed He was
the Son of God. Few people believed He was the
Messiah. But when the Lord returns the second time, the whole earth
is going to see Him at once. Everybody who's ever lived is
all going to stand before Him and see Him at once. And in that
day, everybody's going to believe He is who He says He is. There
won't be any doubt about it. No one will be able to deny this
is the Lord of glory. This is the sovereign king of
kings. You have to say that he's sitting
on the throne of his glory. When you see him, he's sitting
on the throne of his glory. He's the king. And that day,
different from when he was here before, different even than now,
every knee will bow to him and they'll do it willingly. because
everybody's going to know he's the sovereign. I'm in his hand
and he can do with me what he pleases. Everybody will bow to
no question about it. And the Lord Jesus, Jesus of
Nazareth is going to sit on a throne and he's the judge. He's going
to announce the verdict on every son of Adam and there'll be no
appeals. Nobody will even attempt to appeal
his verdict because they're going to know this is the verdict of
the king. There's no need to try to appeal
to a higher authority, because there is no higher authority.
And more importantly, there'll be no appeals, because everybody's
going to know that the verdict he handed down was right. Nobody
will argue against his verdict. They'll know it's right, that
it's done in righteousness. The Lord said he's going to come
and judge the world in righteousness. Everybody's going to know it's
right. Nobody's going to argue against it. So there'll be no appeals.
All right, that's the judge. Second, we have the witnesses.
Verse 31 says, when the son of man shall come in his glory and
all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne
of his glory. Now I thought about these angels.
I thought about this a lot, the angels who are coming with him,
the angels who announced his birth. Remember there was, I
don't know if it was the whole heavenly host or if it was part
of them, but the angels who announced his, his birth, they sang glory
to God in the highest peace. and God's goodwill is now on
earth. In the person of Mary's baby
boy, who's born in Bethlehem, those angels that sang to announce
his birth will come with him when he comes a second time to
judge the earth. And those angels, I know they're created beings,
but I don't know exactly for sure when they were created,
but after they were created, they've seen pretty much all
that God has done. They've been witnesses, they've
watched it. I'm sure they were there and they saw God speak
the world into existence. They saw God make Adam from the
dust of the ground and make Adam in his own likeness. They saw
God breathe the breath of life into Adam, and Adam became a
living soul. They watched as God Almighty
had fellowship with this creature, Adam. They saw God take walks
with him in the garden. And then they watched in amazement
as Adam rebelled against God. And they watched as Adam fell
into sin, and they were amazed. God didn't swoop down and destroy
it. God didn't swoop down and cast him into chains and outer
darkness like he did the angels who had fallen previously. They
watched in amazement. God didn't destroy Adam and Eve.
Instead, he came and killed an animal. He took the skin of that
animal and clothed Adam and Eve. And God made a promise. And angels
heard this promise. God made a promise to Adam. There's
going to be salvation through one who's coming through the
seed of woman and the angels watched and they desire to look
into these things. That's what the scripture said.
Angels desire to look into these things that you know and believe.
And they thought, what does this mean? What does the seed of woman
mean? What is this redemption? What is he talking about? And
the angels kept watching. They saw God's dealings with
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They heard tell of God's covenant
of grace, his covenant that he's going to confirm with Abraham.
And they watched God's dealings with those descendants of Abraham,
with Israel. They saw God deliver Israel from
Egypt with a mighty arm. And to their utter amazement,
they saw Israel murmur and rebel against God. And again, they
watched in amazement. God didn't destroy him. God didn't
destroy him. And they kept watching. They
kept watching. The years rolled on, and they
were utterly amazed. They thought they were amazed
before. Now they're truly amazed. The Son of God, the Prince of
Heaven, was made flesh and born as a baby in Bethlehem. And they
were amazed. He was born into a poor Jewish
home. I mean, maybe the angels would
be like you and me and think he's going to be born into a
king's home. He could have more influence. He could have more
power that way. That's not what happened. He was born in this
poor Jewish home. And they watched in amazement
how that baby grew. He grew into a man. They watched
him, tempted of the devil. He allowed himself to be tempted
of the devil. They watched as the Lord obeyed
his own law. He put himself under his own
law and obeyed it perfectly. And then, even more amazement. I mean, it just keeps getting
more and more and more amazing to them. They watched as the Holy
Son of God was made sin. They couldn't believe it. They
watched the creature treat their creator so shamefully. They watched,
those angels watched as those men, they pulled out his beard
and they spit in his face. They lacerated his back with
that cat of nine tails. They nailed him to a cross and
hung him up there and mocked him as he died. And you know
it, that whole time they're just waiting on the brink of heaven
to just swoop down and destroy mankind, aren't they? They're
going to put a stop to this thing. But the order never came. They
watched as the Father turned the Son off. And maybe they thought,
now in this darkness, this is where we're going to come down
putting an end to this thing. The order never came. They watched
as the Son of God, life Himself, died. He died for the sin of
his people, and a dead body was laid in the tomb. And those angels
stood watch, didn't they, over that tomb. They were there after
the Savior had arisen and told those that came to the tomb,
he's not here, he's risen. Why seek ye the living among
the dead? And they watched as those poor illiterate men, maybe
they were all just barely educated at all except for the Apostle
Paul, watched the gospel spread by these men over the whole earth. They watched people hear this
preaching of Christ and believe it. Whom having not seen, they
loved and they believed. These people believed in forgiveness
of sin and righteousness and peace through the God-man, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And they watched as sinful men
and women believed that message. And they desired to look into
these things. And I tell you why they desired
to look into those things. There was no Redeemer for them.
There's no Redeemer for the angels. These are the elect angels. You
know the only reason they didn't fall with Lucifer and follow
Lucifer's rebellion? God kept them from it. They're
the elect angels. And they watched those other
angels who followed Lucifer and his rebellion be cast into outer
darkness, be reserved in chains to this day of judgment. But
there was no Redeemer for those angels who fell. Nobody came
in the nature of angels to redeem the angels, but somebody came. the Son of God came in human
flesh to be the representative of and the redeemer of all those
sinful men and women that God Almighty chose to save. And they
watch that in amazement. They desire to look into it.
They know the ABCs of the gospel. They know the ABCs of how a sinner
is saved. They've watched it happen. But
they desire to look into it in this sense. They've never experienced
it. You think how much greater of
a created being the angels are than us. Yet you've experienced
something the angels desire to look into. The experience of
faith and belief in Christ. The experience in your heart
of believing that the Son of God came flesh to obey the law
for you. That he went to the cross and
suffered and died for you. The angels desire to look into
that. Well, now they come with the Lord, but he returns a second
time To watch him judge the world in righteousness. To watch him
separate the sheep from the goats. And the angels have seen it all.
And this is what the witness can tell you. He's done everything
perfectly. Everything he's done is perfect
and right. I can't understand it. I can't
partake in it like saved sinners can. But the angels, as a witness,
can tell us this. He's done everything right. The
judge has done everything right. All right. Here on this day we
have the sheep, verse 32. And before him shall be gathered
all nations, and he shall separate them one from another as the
shepherd divided his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the
sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Now the
sheep, who are these people? The sheep are God's elect, the
people that God chose to save. He chose to save them, he did
save them, he's preserved and protected them. God has loved
his sheep, always, eternally loved his sheep. That's why he
chose them out of Adam's race, because he set his love upon
them. And he chose to save those sheep by the obedience and by
the sacrifice of his son. The sheep, they have been objects
of God's grace from before the foundation of the world, before
anything was ever created. And all the sheep, every one
of them, They're just like every other son of Adam in themselves.
They're fallen, they're sinful, but the sheep, they were the
righteousness of Christ. God made them righteous in the
righteousness, the obedience of his son. Now the sheep, God's
sheep, they've always been sheep. When God saves a sinner, he doesn't
take a goat and turn them into a sheep. No, if you're a goat,
you're always going to be a goat. If you're a sheep, you're always
going to be a sheep. God calls his sheep, come to him. He goes
out and finds that sheep, puts it on his shoulder, and brings
that sheep home. The sheep just didn't know it
was a sheep until God came and found it and said, come follow
me. When the good shepherd found it, that's when they found out
they're a sheep. Look back over at John chapter 10. God has given
all of his people the nature of a sheep. They've got the nature
to follow the shepherd. They've got a nature to eat grass,
to eat the grass of God's word. They've got the nature to be
led by the still waters, deep still waters and drink from them.
They've got the nature to desire to be under the protection of
the shepherd and Christ loves his sheep. Oh, how he loves him. Look at John 10 verse 11. I am
the good shepherd and the good shepherd giveth his life for
the sheep. Christ, the good shepherd, loves
his sheep so much he laid down his life that they would live. He took their sin into his own
body on the tree and died the death they deserved so they could
live. Now that's love, isn't it? If that isn't love, the ocean's
dry. Isn't that right? Oh, Christ
loves his sheep. And the sheep, they know Christ.
They love him, they trust him, and they follow him. Look at
verse 14. I'm the good shepherd and know
my sheep and am known of mine. As the father loveth me, even
so, or as the father knoweth me, even so know I the father,
and I lay down my life for the sheep. The sheep know Christ
and they follow him. They recognize the sound of the
shepherd's voice. Look back at verse four. And
when he put forth his own sheep, he goeth before them. And he
doesn't drive the sheep, he goes before them and leads them. And
the sheep follow him for they know his voice. And a stranger,
Well, they not follow, but flee from him for, for they know not
the voice of strangers. God's sheep know the voice of
the shepherd. They know the gospel when they
hear it and they know the sound of a false prophet. They know
the sound of a false gospel and they won't follow that, but they
know that the sound of Christ's voice, they know that the message
that glorifies him and they follow that message. They're sheep.
And when Christ returns, He's gonna come, He's gonna separate
those sheep out from among the goats, and He's gonna take them
to Himself. He's gonna vindicate His sheep.
Oh, how they've been hated by the world. How they've been mistreated
and misunderstood by the world. And that day, the Savior's gonna
vindicate His sheep. He's gonna show all of creation,
these have always been my sheep. I love my sheep. I gave my life
for the sheep. I made them righteous. And the
only right, just verdict for them is not guilty. Righteous. Come with me. And everything
God's ever done in time, I don't know when this day of judgment
is going to take place, but I do know this. Everything has ever
happened in time and everything's going to happen from this moment
to the moment Christ returns. Everything God's done in Providence,
every event of history, every motion of human beings on this
planet has all been brought to pass to bring the sheep to Christ
and bring them to be with Him, to be made just like Him and
to worship Him face to face forever. That's the purpose of everything
God is doing in this creation. Everything. That's the sheep.
Fourth, there's the goats. Now, who are the goats? Well,
they're the ones God just left to themselves. He gave them what
they wanted. They didn't want a representative
to come keep the law for them. They wanted to do it their own
selves. They wanted to establish their own righteousness. And
God let them have what they wanted. And they'll perish because of
it, because they can't establish their own righteousness. Goats
have Adam's fallen nature, and that's the only nature that they
have. And they stubbornly refuse. It's not just that they're that.
Oh, well, you know, they're good people, but they're mistaken.
No, sir. They stubbornly refuse to submit themselves to the righteousness
of God. They stubbornly refuse to quit
doing their works and quit trying to establish their own righteousness
and beg God for mercy. They just stubbornly refuse to
do it. They cannot believe. They don't have the nature of
a sheep. A sheep believes. They don't have that nature.
They can't believe, and they won't believe. If you're still
there in John 10, look at verse 26. But you believe not, why
don't you believe? Because you're not of my sheep,
as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me. The Lord didn't say, oh, well,
we're gonna find out if you're a sheep or a goat, and well,
you don't believe on me, that makes you a goat. No. He says,
you don't believe me because you are a goat. That's the nature
of it. You refuse to believe. But my
people, my sheep, they believe on me. They believe. All right. Fifth is the verdict. Now we've
got, we got the judge, we got the witnesses, we got the sheep
and the ghost. Now here's the verdict. First, let's look at
the verdict of the sheep. Matthew 25 verse 34. Then shall the king say unto
them on his right hand, to the sheep, come ye blessed of my
father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. Now the verdict of the sheep is the verdict of grace,
of grace. He tells the sheep, come inherit
the blessing, come inherit the blessing of God. You didn't earn
it by your works, you inherit it by grace. You know, in inheritance,
It's something somebody else earned. Somebody else saved it
up, and somebody else gave it to you freely. That's an inheritance.
That's salvation by grace. Somebody else purposed it. The
Father did, didn't he? Somebody else purchased it. Christ
the Savior. He purchased it with his own
blood. Somebody else applied it. The Holy Spirit comes and
applies it to the hearts of God's people, preserves and protects
them, till God brings them all to glory. And the sheep enter
a kingdom. The Savior said, has been prepared
for you. Almighty God has prepared it
for you from all of eternity. Remember when the Lord was going
away when he told his disciples, I go to prepare a place for you. That's his kingdom. He's gone
and prepared a kingdom for his people, and he's prepared his
people for the kingdom, to live in the kingdom. He's made his
people holy. He's made his people righteous,
and that makes them fit to enter into this kingdom. a kingdom
of righteousness, a kingdom of holiness, the kingdom of God.
It make this righteousness of Christ. He's given me. He's made
them the righteousness of God in him. Makes them fit. To worship God face to face. As we are right here today, we
can't look in the face of God. In that day, we will. He made
us fit to do. He prepared us for that place.
And the sheep, they didn't earn any of this, did they? They didn't
earn this and their good works makes it able for them to enter.
They're blessed of God. That's what he tells you. You're
blessed of God. You're blessed of God's grace. So the verdict
for the sheep is you're innocent. You're righteous. I look in the
books. The judge says there's no sin.
You're righteous. You're innocent. You're holy.
You know why? Because that's what the Savior
made them. He made them that and the verdict for them to enter
into the kingdom prepared for them from all of eternity. It's
a just right verdict in God's given them the nature to enter.
Second, sadly, we had the verdict for the goats. Verse 41 the answer. He say also unto them on the
left hand, depart from me. Ye cursed into everlasting fire
prepared for the devil and his angels. Now I hate to think about
hell or talk about it, but to at least a certain degree we
must. No, we have to because it is in God's word. And this
is the place where the goats will spend eternity. And it'll
be their own fault. I can't stress this enough. If
I go to hell, it's going to be my fault because of my sin. Now, If Lord takes me to glory,
if I'm one of these on his right hand and he says, come ye blessed
of my father and inherited kingdom, that's going to be God's doing,
isn't it? That's because he chose me, because he washed me, he
sacrificed himself for me, washed me in his blood, he gave me faith,
he kept me and preserved me. That's going to be all God's
doing. But if I wake in hell, that's my doing. It's my fault
and my sin. And that's what these goats will
have to admit. They'll have to say, I wanted
my own righteousness and it's not good enough. I thought that
my works could be good enough. I thought my good works could
outweigh my bad works and they're not good enough. I'm unholy.
I'm unfit to be in the presence of God. They refused to believe
on Christ. They refused to bow to him. Whatever
light God gave them, if it's the light of nature, if it's
the light of scripture, the light of hearing God's people talk
about the Lord, whatever light it is that they might have seen,
they didn't use it to seek the Lord. Creation tells them God
is, and they still refuse to seek him. And that day, Christ
the judge will give them exactly what they deserve. No more and
no less. They'll receive eternal death.
And nobody in that awful place will be able to say, that's not
fair. It's not fair that I'm here.
I was watching a, I like detective shows and police shows. I like
to have something about an hour where I see the criminal and
end up seeing, in an hour, I see the criminal put in jail. I like
that. It just makes me feel good. I like that. And I watched these
two men were talking, and this fellow went to visit this guy
in federal prison. And he came back. He said, this
guy swears he's innocent. And this other fellow told him,
the older policeman, he said, Everybody in jail is innocent.
Everybody there who screams are innocent. Not in this day. Nobody will be able to say this
is not fair. They'll have to say the verdict is just and right. The wages of sin is death. And God gave me my exact wages.
They'll have to say that. All right, now six, here's the
evidence. And I like this order of looking
at these things. The evidence wasn't presented
so the sheep could go to the kingdom. The evidence that God,
that God gives here is the, is the proof that his verdict is
right. See the difference is not evidence
presented. We say, Oh, this is a sheep. They're innocent. This
is the evidence presented to show the verdict. The verdict
was announced first. Now the evidence we have first
35 he says fries and hunger and you gave me meat. I was thirsty,
and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took
me in. Naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited
me. I was in prison, and you came
unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when
saw we thee in hunger, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee
drink? When saw we thee a stranger,
and took thee in? Or naked, and clothed thee? Or
when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And
they said, I don't remember doing any of that. And the king shall
answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you've
done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them
on the left hand, depart from me. Ye cursed into everlasting
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was in
hunger and you gave me no meat. I was thirsty and you gave me
no drink. I was a stranger and you took me not in. Naked and
you clothed me not. sick and imprisoned, and you
visited me not. Then shall they also answer him,
saying, Lord, when saw we thee in hunger, or thirst, or a stranger,
or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, as much
as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not
to me. And these should go away into
everlasting punishment, but the righteous unto life eternal.
At verse 46 it tells you there's no appealing this verdict. The
verdict is eternal. And the evidence here is what
is presented to show the verdict is right and just and good. Now
the works of the sheep. The Lord talks about the works
of the sheep. Good works, things that they
did. But now those works didn't save them. Christ is the one
that saved them. He's the one that put their sin
away. He's the one that paid their sin debt. But the works
of a believer are the evidence God has saved them. They're the
evidence that God has done a work of grace in their heart because
they couldn't have done these works any other way. God had
to do a work of grace in their heart first. And I tell you so
often, this is a crystal clear scripture, no mistaking what
the Lord's saying here, that a good work is a work that's
done on his body, on the very least believer, There's no least believers to
God. I mean, we might say they're all precious to Him. They're
all redeemed by His precious blood. But just the smallest
thing that you do for God's people, that's like you're doing that
to Christ Himself. You think of that. A good work
is a work done for no other reason than love. You're not seeking
recognition or praise for it. You're just out of love. You
do for somebody else. And the sheep, no doubt, did
all these things. They had to do them. The Lord
said they did. They did all these things. But I find it very interesting. They didn't know they did them.
They didn't know. You know why they didn't know?
They weren't keeping score. They weren't trying to keep track
of their good works to see if I've done enough during my way
into heaven. They weren't trying to do good works to get anything
from God. They were just acting in love
for those that they loved. That's the evidence that the
verdict is just. It's the evidence God's done
a work of grace in their heart. Now the goats, they're very religious,
very religious. And they kept diligent track
of their good works. Boy, they, I mean, they, they
had food, feed the homeless and clothe the homeless. They had
Coke drives and all these things, you know, They're very, oh, well,
they make a habit of going up and down the halls of the hospital,
visiting people and trying to get them to make a profession
in things. It's like, ugh. Remember that fella that priest
came in the hospital room? I said, oh, my goodness. They're
very, very diligent. They're using their work to try
to buy their way into heaven. Do enough to earn my way into
heaven. They're keeping score. They know
they got some bad works. They're just hoping the good
works outweigh them, you know? They're keeping score. And they didn't
know of a time that they didn't go visit somebody in the hospital.
And they didn't feed somebody. They said, we're doing that all
the time. That is what made their works wicked. Keeping score. Doing it trying to earn God's
favor. That makes that work wicked. Even if it is feeding the hungry.
Even if it is clothing or sheltering the homeless. If you're doing
it thinking that's going to make God happy with you, that's an
evil work. And that's the evidence God's
verdict is just in sending them to hell. They're trying to earn
God's favor instead of receiving it by grace. So the verdict was
just what Lord bless you.