It's good to be with you again.
Pray God give me liberty to preach to you. Also pray that God would
give you the ability to hear. It's a mutual thing, isn't it?
Preaching and the people who hear the gospel. You need us
and we need you. It's a mutual thing. And we both
benefit from the same message, the same Christ. So I do pray
that God would be with us. Let's go to him in prayer before
we begin. Our most gracious Heavenly Father,
thank you. Thank you, Father, that we have
been allowed to come and a symbol around your holy word here of
your most gracious and precious son. It is our heart's desire
and prayer that you would give us liberty and unction of thy
spirit that we may worship him. And Father, you would use the
word, apply it to the hearts of your people that they might
be comforted, that they might have, Father, the assurance of
hope that is in Christ, assurance of faith in him, that he has
accomplished all our salvation. And for those who do not know
Christ, whoever they are, Father, you know, and I long for them. I pray that you would, this evening,
even now, quicken the dead. It is our heart's desire that
thy churches be full, full of thy people. full of those whom
you have chosen, redeemed, and we pray you would call them even
now at this time. According to your mercy, we ask
these things in the name of our blessed Redeemer, Jesus Christ,
amen. You take your Bibles and turn
with me to Matthew chapter 25, Matthew chapter 25. We're looking at verse 31 through
the remainder of this chapter and we'll read this passage together. The scripture says, when the
son of man shall come in his glory. And all the holy angels
with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory. And
before him shall be gathered all nations. And he shall separate
them one from another, as a shepherd divided his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on
his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the king
say unto them on his right hand, come, you blessed of my father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. I was in 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 in stranger,
and took thee in, or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we
thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the king
shall answer, and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Insomuch
as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
you have done it unto me. Then shall he say unto them on
the left hand, depart from me you 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 in prison you
visited me not. Then shall they also answer him
saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered or a thirst or a
stranger or naked or sick in prison and did not minister unto
thee? Then shall he answer them saying,
Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as you did it not to one of the
least of these, you did it not unto me. And these shall go away
into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal,
into life eternal. And the title of my message this
evening, I give it two titles, or you can pick one, whichever
one you want. Five Marks of Christ's Sheep, or who are the sheep? Who are the sheep? A most vital
question. Who are the sheep? I'm staring
this evening at either sheep or goats. One or the other. It is vital. that you know who
you are. I cannot tell. I cannot tell
by looking. I cannot even tell by your speech. This is something you must know.
It's something that I must know. Who am I? A sheep or a goat? Now in the previous two parables
The Lord Jesus Christ shows us the division of all men by the
ten virgins. If you were to go back over,
you could see these two in this chapter, these two previous parables.
The first one, he divides all men by either wise or foolish
virgins. In this parable, all of these
men are religious. They are all considered virgins.
In other words, their conduct, their outward moral character,
all seem to be pure. But there is one difference.
The wise have sufficient oil to wait, while the foolish virgins
have not sufficient oil. The oil is the spirit of God. The oil is the spirit of God. The oil of the foolish is their
works, their will, their religion. And I tell you this, if that's
your oil, if that's what you're depending on, you won't have
enough. You won't make it. There's not enough of your works
or your determination to make it till Christ comes. The trials
are too hard. They're too difficult for someone
to depend upon themselves to make it. But those who have the
oil of the spirit, listen, you and I shall endure unto the day
of Jesus Christ. Why? The oil is sufficient to
keep the light burning, to keep our faith in Christ. These wise virgins, they not
look not to their will or to their works, but the oil of the
spirit gives us the light of life and we shall endure. You
see, we don't have this oil or light by our own merits or our
works. This is a gift of God's grace,
if you have it. He gives it to us. We have no
merit before God, but it's by the righteousness and blood of
Jesus Christ that we have this oil. Now that's encouraging if
you are a wise virgin. If you have the oil of faith
that is given by the Holy Spirit, you shall endure unto the end,
but the foolish will not. And the second parable is likened
to this. The second division of all men,
there are three servants and a master, and the master gives
each of the servants talents. He gives one five, one, two,
and then one, one talent. And you know the parable that
the two first servants who had five and two talents, they multiplied
theirs. This is speaking of believers
in Christ and the fruit of the spirit. In other words, what
God gives us of faith, love, joy, peace, meekness, temperance,
all of these things will be engaged in preaching the gospel, in declaring
the word, in witnessing of Christ. And guess what? We're going to
multiply. We're going to multiply. In other
words, every time the gospels preach, you know, it's successful.
Every time, not because of the preacher, but because of the
spirit, because of the word that we preach Christ, he's always
successful, always. And so those who have true faith
in Christ, we we multiply. I like this, Ecclesiastes said,
cast thy bread upon the waters. That doesn't sound logical, does
it? To cast seed on water. But it doesn't sound too logical
to preach to dead people either, does it? But we don't trust in
human wisdom or reasoning. We cast the seed at a venture,
and the spirit of God applies it, and this is the result always,
for thou shalt find it after many days. It will work. what God intends for. But those
who are pretenders, they don't declare the gospel, rather they
hide it. That's what that man with the
talent did, the one talent, he dug it in the earth. He was a pretender. And he was
cast out into outer darkness. And so now we come to this portion,
this third I wouldn't call it a parable because it's just a
statement of future history. Something that's going to take
place. And our Lord here, he brings
this last one and he looks at it from a different viewpoint.
Those first two parables are looking at it from a time perspective
and the believers walk through this life until the end. But
this is actually looking at the end. This is actually showing
us what is going to take place. This is going to happen. This
is going to happen. Our Lord brings us to show us
the end of all things is looks from the future. when Jesus Christ
shall return and what's going to take place is simple. It's
very clear. You can't read this without understanding
the Lord is going to gather all people from all time of all nations
before him. He's going to sit on his judgment
throne. He is going to divide all men
into two groups. He is going to take the sheep
and he is his people and he's going to put them on his right
hand. He's going to take the goats and he's going to divide
them on his left and he's going to tell His sheep, he's going
to. Bless his sheep. He said, Come,
you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from before the foundation of the world, and he's going to
tell them why they are accepted. You know why that you if you
are a sheep, you know why you're going to be accepted because
you're righteous. That's why you're going to be
accepted. You're going to be accepted because you are righteous.
No one is going to be in heaven that is not righteous. Everyone's
going to be there righteous, without sin. Matter of fact,
that's what he says. He calls them that. He said,
and he shall answer and then shall the, this in verse 37,
then shall the righteous answer him. So those are the ones going
to heaven. They're going to be righteous. And God declares,
that all those who are outside of Christ, all those who do not
believe on Christ, these are the goats and they shall depart
into everlasting darkness. I want to give you one thing
and then I want to enter into these five aspects, five marks
that Jesus himself points out concerning his sheep. Now, friends,
I tell you, there is no more vital question. I want to know
myself. Am I His or am I not? Is there anything more important?
There's not. Because this is going to happen.
This is coming. And it's vital that you know
who you are. First of all, I want to deal
with the Lord's return. Jesus here in our text says,
when the Son of Man shall come in His glory. When? I see Jesus plainly here declares
that he will return. He will return. And how will
he return? He will not return in humility
as he came the first time. He came first, born of the Virgin,
born in the manger. He was a man subject to difficulties
and troubles and afflictions. But when he comes again, he's
not going to be like that. Oh, no, he's coming. He's going
to come in a full display of His divine glory. Full display. He will return
not to call men to repentance. There will be no chance, there
will be no place for repentance at this time. There will be no
hope. He's not coming to save men. He's coming to bring in
His save. He's already saved them. When
He comes again, He is just fulfilling the promise that He has given
to those He has saved. When He comes again, it won't
be in humility, it will be in judgment. When He came the first time,
He did come in humility. We remember this. This brings
us great joy, that He did come as the servant of God. He came
as the great high priest and only mediator for all of God's
elect. And in his humility, he laid
down his life. He came providing all the righteousness. All the obedience that his people
could not perform. And our Lord Jesus Christ, in
his humility, came and died upon the cross. suffering the shame
of our sin. Scriptures are very clear as
to his humility. As that brother just read concerning
the servant of God, how low did he condescend as he bore our
sins in his own body on the tree. You cannot imagine the depths
that he had to plummet to save us in humility. And what did he say when it was
done? It is finished. The work was accomplished. He
rose from the dead. And now, listen, now is the day
of grace. Now is the time of repentance. Now is the time to come and believe
on Christ. Not tomorrow. Now. For he may
come this evening. And oh, what a wonderful thing
that would be. For who? The sheep. The sheep,
it would be a wonderful thing if he came. You should come now
and believe on Christ because there is a day when this day
of grace will end. This time of being calling men
to repentance will come. Our Lord Jesus Christ, after
accomplishing his work on Calvary, where is he now? Where is he? He is right now seated upon the
throne of God. Right now. Ruling all things
after the counsel of His own will. And what is He doing? He
is not ambiguous as to what He is doing. He said, Thou hast
given Him power over all flesh. That. That. He should give eternal life to
as many as thou hast given him. So now Jesus gives eternal life
to all that the father gave him. And he is so sure. So sure that
before the work was accomplished, before he actually went to the
cross and accomplished it, before he rose from the dead and sat
on his throne, he said, this is the will of my father, which
has sent me that of all he has given me, I should lose nothing. But raise it up again. When? When the Son of Man shall
come in His glory, He shall raise it up, all His people. He will raise them up to what?
Eternal life that He has purchased with His own blood. He will raise
them up and not lose one of them. This is a glorious thought when
that last one's brought in. When that last one professes
and believes on the Son of God, it's over. You know, that's what
he's waiting for. You know, that's what he's moving
all this for is to bring that one last sheep in. And when he does, then shall
the Son of Man come in his glory. Then he will in that day raise
the dead. Raise all the dead to life. Listen, literally. Right now,
He's raising the dead spiritually. Isn't that right? If you believe
in Christ and you're dead in your sins and you believe on
the Son of God, that is a resurrection from the dead. Salvation is not
a decision. It is a miracle of grace. It is the power of God to raise
one from the dead to believe. Don't think little of faith.
Don't think little of your faith. You couldn't have faith if he
didn't give it to you. You just couldn't have it. You
couldn't muster it. Faith is not a small thing, and
if you have it, don't despise it. Only those who are raised from
the dead, but one day he's literally going to raise all the dead.
At his voice, he said this, the hour is coming, in John 5, he
said, the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall
hear his voice. And what's going to happen and
they shall come forth? You suppose any is going to reject coming?
You suppose any would have power to reject the voice? No, no,
all will come. And now look at this when He
comes. What is He going to be doing? Look at your text. When
He comes again in His glory and all His holy angels with Him,
listen, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory. Now listen, I just told you He's
already seated on His glory, on His throne. Right now Christ is ruling over
all things for the salvation of His elect. But such knowledge
is not common knowledge. Not all people know where he
is and what he's doing. Only his elect know this. Only
those who believe know this. Not all men receive that he is
on the throne. Not all men love it. Not all men by nature, they despise
such words. But pay attention, when He comes
again, they will see it for themselves. Then we'll all know it. All will see it and all will
bow down and none will be able to escape the sight of Jesus
Christ upon His throne. Run now, if you will. Hide now,
if you will. In that day, you will not be
able to hide. In that day. Do you despise to hear of His
sovereignty, of His deity? And that day you'll not be able
to deny it. You know, really, there will be no Armenians in
that day. No. Every knee shall bow and every
tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father. Now, some of you If you're lost,
I know you are running to refuges. You hear these things and you're
trying to run in your mind to some refuge. In that day, your
refuge will be taken away. You say, surely I've made a covenant
with death and with hell and the overflowing scourge shall
not come on me. Surely you're not talking to
me. Look, if you will, to the vanity
of your refuges, all your works and all your useless religion.
In that day, you will not benefit you at all. God says in that day, you'll
no longer be able to hide. I will tear your refuges and
they shall be nothing. Your covenant, he said, I will
disannul. I'll disannul it. But look here at this bright
and glorious hope of some. He says, and before him shall
all gather all nations, and he shall separate them one from
another, as the shepherd divided the sheep from the goats, and
he shall set his sheep on his right hand, but the goats on
his left. Here's the bright spot. Then shall the king say unto
them on his right hand, come, you blessed of my father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. In that day, there's going to
be a great separation. And the Lord will separate His
sheep on His right hand, and He will give them the kingdom
of heaven. This is the bright and glorious
cause for rejoicing. Now listen, not all men are going
to be cast into hell. That's a good thing, isn't it?
Now we're all worthy of being cast into hell, every one of
us. I'm thankful that there's hope for sinners. This is a message
of hope for sinners. And not all will be cast out,
some will be separated. And these are called sheep. Sheep. And that day, there will be some
separated as sheep to inherit the kingdom of God and live in
eternal glory. Now then, the question is, who
are the sheep? Am I one of these? Am I one of these? I want to
give you five marks, five marks concerning these sheep. And I
pray the Holy Spirit would show you. Look upon your own soul and see
if these things, these marks are yours. First of all, These
sheep are blessed of the Father. Come, you blessed of my Father. First of all, these sheep are
blessed by the sovereign election of the Father. The sovereign
election of the Father. The apostle declares in Ephesians,
he said, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
who had blessed us. with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. So these sheep are blessed by
the sovereign election of God. They're blessed with not carnal
but spiritual blessings, all spiritual blessings. When were
we blessed? They were blessed from eternity.
Our text tells us that. Look at that. He says he come,
you bless to my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world. This kingdom, which we shall
see is an inheritance of all the sheep, was not prepared for
all men without exception, but it was only prepared for the
sheep. It was prepared for them. That surely does away with all
this foolishness of universal atonement, just does away with
it completely. The scripture says that this
kingdom was prepared for them and only them. Why? They were
blessed. They were blessed of the Father,
according as he had chosen us in Christ before the foundation
of the world. And behold the goodness and grace
of our Father that put us in Christ. This is a blessing, isn't
it? This is the blessing of election. Not that you were just chosen,
but that you were chosen in Christ. That God put you in a vital union
with His Son. He hits your wagon to His. And
so everything that He gets, you get. Everything He does, you've
done. You are in union with Him. This
is the greatest blessing. that all our salvation was not
dependent upon anything that we have done or could do. This is great news because I
cannot and could not do anything to please God. So then the sheep
are so blessed that they are blessed from eternity by God
himself put in union with Christ. And listen, not only that, we
were loved of God. This was not God that God had
to do this. God did it. And he was motivated. by love, love, eternal love. These sheep are blessed with
eternal love. The Lord said. In Jeremiah 31,
three, the Lord at the period of old unto me saying, yes. I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. Do you feel at times that if
you're a believer in Christ, you know you're a sheep? Do you
feel at times as though God doesn't love you? And you ask that question,
you say, do you love me? The word said, yes. Yes, I have
loved you with an everlasting love. I'm glad he could just
repeat that in my ear all the time. I need to hear that. Yes.
Yes, I've loved you. I've loved you because I would
love you. I love you not because of you. I love you because of
me. That's what God says, I love you for my own sake. For my own
namesake. And second of all, we're blessed
by redemption. We're blessed by the redemption
that is in Christ. How could the elect ever enjoy
heaven except they be made fit for it? You couldn't. If God took you to heaven right
now, you'd hate it. In this body, in this flesh, you couldn't enjoy
it. You couldn't. You must be made fit for heaven
and you could not make yourself fit. Therefore, you are so blessed
that God said to his son, to his son, make them fit. And the son said, I will make
them fit for heaven. You remember that that text I
just read to you, according as he had chosen us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children. How? By Jesus Christ. By Jesus Christ. Go over to Isaiah
chapter nine. Look over here and see this blessing
of the sheep. This is the blessing of the sheep,
even Christ. Isaiah chapter nine in verse
six. The scripture says, for unto
us a child is born. unto us a son is given. What is that? That's his humanity
and his deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the government, his
church, his elect, his people, his kingdom shall be upon his
shoulder. And his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father,
the Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government
and peace, there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David
and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment,
with justice from henceforth, even forever. The zeal of the
Lord of Hosts will perform it. Behold, the Son of God was given
to be your surety. The surety of those sheep rested
on his shoulders and his shoulders alone. Listen, any message that adds
any work at all to his is not the gospel. That's just so. It's not a cooperative effort
to get you to glory. It's just not. Matter of fact,
salvation is everything is done outside of you, isn't it? Before
it's done. It was done outside of you long before it was done
in you. And in grace, he come, he came and as our surety, he
obtained our righteousness and as our surety, he died for our
sins. And listen, the blessing of the The sheep is this, that everyone
that God chose, everyone Christ redeemed, the Holy Spirit will
come and quicken. That's a blessing. I knew nothing about it, did
you? When I was born in this world, I had no idea what I was
until God made it manifest to me. I had no idea about Christ's
redemption or God's election until The spirit of God quickened
my soul and manifested to me. You see, I was a son long before
I was born again of the spirit. But because I was a son, I was
born. And that what he says in Galatians,
chapter four in Galatians, chapter four, he says, because you were
the sons of God, God sent forth his spirit into your heart, crying
of a father. And so this is the blessing of
of those sheep. And so then I ask you. Have you
been quickened by the Holy Spirit? Have you been redeemed by the
blood of the son? Have you been chosen by the by
the father to inherit a kingdom? And friends, you are blessed.
And because you are blessed, that's a mark of every sheep.
They're blessed, blessed by the father. We've been born again
of the spirit of God. And by the gospel now, then the
second thing I will move quickly through the second thing is this
sheep are heirs. Look at that. He said they shall
inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation
of the world. All those who are blessed to
the Father and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, listen, you
are the heirs of God. You are. Well, what if? No, you are. Period. You are. There is nothing you
can do to change that. This kingdom was prepared for
you from before the foundation of the world, shall he not then
give it to you? You bet he will. Why? You are heirs. You are heirs. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? What do you have that you didn't
receive? Now, if you've received it, why
do you act like you haven't? We spend a lot of time in false
humility, don't we? We are the heirs of God. That
should bring you joy. It should abase you in your heart. I know it does. True humility
it brings you, but it should cause you to have peace that
you are the heirs of God and you since you are the heirs of
heaven, when he comes, then you shall receive what is yours. It is yours. You shall receive
it. He will give it to you because
you are heirs of God. It should be a great source of
every comfort to the believer. Now listen, I don't see it now,
do you? I don't see what I'm going to
receive right now. Right now, all I see is trouble.
but because I am an heir, I will endure every trouble looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of my faith, the cause of my salvation, until I receive what
is mine. Third mark of the sheep is this,
they love Christ, And they are righteous. The Lord
here, he calls his sheep. To receive this kingdom that
the father prepared for them, and then he gives a list. A list
of righteous service that they have performed. And listen, they didn't perform
it for him, they did it to him. Listen to the words. Come, you bless to my father
here at the kingdom, prepare you from the foundation of the
world for I was in 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 called me. I was sick and you visited me.
I was in prison and you came to me. Our Lord here declares that they
have done these things to him. And listen, he's in heaven. I've
not seen him. Have you? Do you not desire to do these
things to him? Do you not desire to serve him?
Only true believers desire to do these things to him. We long to embrace him. I long to serve my master. That's a mark of the sheep. You
know that because they love him. We want to serve him. Do you want to serve him? You
do if you believe in, if you know it and you want to serve
it, you love it. And listen, he not only we do, we love him.
Do we want to serve him? And we do serve him. Listen,
he calls us righteous. Look at that. Then shall the
righteous answer those who believe him, those who love him, those
who serve him, those who are blessed by him. They are righteous
in the eyes of Jesus, the judge of all men. Righteous. Righteous. Now, why are they
righteous? Well, they're righteous because
of Him. He made them righteous. But do they see it? No. Not even then do they see
it. Do you see it now? You who are
believers in Christ, do you look in the mirror and say, man, there's
a righteous guy? No, you don't. You say there's a vile wretch.
That's what you and I say. We're going to say that when
he comes back. Listen what they say. They said, Lord, when did
we do any of these things to you? When did we do them? Our Lord Jesus Christ. He says
we've done them. He says we are righteous. We
know we're righteous because of him, we confess. Our sins,
and that's the fourth thing, is that true sheep confess our
sins. To us who are by nature rebels
and sinners, vile, we confess that I have done none
of these things. In myself, I know that I've done
none of these. And the only hope for me and
any other sheep is that Christ has done them for us. He's done
them for us. We were a leper. We were like
that leper who bowed down and worshipped and we said, if thou
wilt thou can't make me clean. And he said, I will. And he touched
me. He touched me. He identified
with me. He took our sins. In his own body. and suffered
so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And the last thing is this, true
sheep love the brethren. Jesus said, you have done these
things unto me when you have done them to the least of these,
my brethren. Those who are true believers
in Christ, they love the brethren. I know this. I love you. I love you more than I love any
of my family that are akin to me in the flesh who have no love
for Christ. I love you above all of them. And I know you love me. This
is a mark of the sheep. John says, if any man say love
God and he doesn't love the brethren, that man's a liar. I mean, why
are you here? You're here to worship God, but
you're also here to encourage the brethren. You don't realize
that when you come to worship, you encourage not only your pastor,
not only you, but the other brethren. That's why we assemble together.
We love one another. We want to be with one another.
This is a mark of true believers in Christ. So then are you blessed
to the father? Are you chosen? Are you redeemed? Are you called by the Holy Spirit? Are you an heir of all things?
You are, if you're in Christ. Are you righteous, made righteous
by the Son of God? Do you love the brethren? Do
you love to serve Christ? Then, my friend, you are his
sheep. You are his sheep. But if you are not these things, you should right now flee to
Christ. I compel every one of you to
believe on the Son of God. But if you continue in your rebellion,
it is just evident that you were a goat the whole time. I'm thankful God has made me
his sheep. He chose me, redeemed me, called
me. And I tell you, I'm glad he keeps
me. And when he comes again, he's gonna manifest it to everyone.
I pray God bless this to your hearts.