1.
Grace,
mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. The message from God’s
Word comes to us from Matthew 25:31-46, it’s entitled, “The Sheep and the Goats,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
There’s
a book that came out in 2011 by a Christian Pastor named Rob Bell entitled, “Love Wins:
A Book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person who Ever Lived.”
There’s no reason to doubt that Bell wrote this book out of his concern for
people who are put off by the doctrine of hell.
But, unfortunately Pastor Bell uses his communication skills to unravel
the Bible’s message about heaven and hell.
He writes in his book: “A
staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will
spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of
humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for
anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a
central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject
Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious
spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world
desperately needs to hear.” That’s
a huge statement! Rob Bell believes that the doctrine of the eternal punishment
of unrepentant sinners in hell is keeping people from coming to Jesus. That is
a disturbing thought. In fact, Rob
Bell’s teachings have even influenced some famous people like Aaron Rogers, the
Quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. Because,
Jesus spoke clearly about hell. He warned of “him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” [Matthew 10:28]
3.
In Love Wins, Bell does his best
to argue that the church has allowed the story of Jesus’ love to be perverted
by other stories. The story of an eternal hell isn’t, he believes, a good story.
He suggests that a better story would involve the possibility of a sinner
coming to faith in Christ after death, or hell being an end of a person’s
existence, or hell being eventually emptied of all its inhabitants. But, the
problem is that the Bible provides no hint whatsoever of any possibility of a
sinner’s salvation after death. Instead, “it
is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” [Hebrews
9:27] But, Bell’s book, “Love Wins,”
goes most off-course when he describes the Gospel in these words: “It begins in the sure and certain truth
that we are loved. That in spite of whatever has gone horribly wrong deep in
our hearts and has spread to every corner of the world, in spite of our sins,
failures, rebellion, and hard hearts, in spite of what has been done to us or
what we’ve done, God has made peace with us.” Missing from Bell’s Gospel is any clear reference
to Christ, any understanding of our sin, any affirmation of the holiness of God
and his pledge to punish sin, any reference to the shed blood of Christ, his
death on the cross, his substitutionary atonement, and his resurrection, and,
so any reference to faith as the sinners response to the Good News of the
Gospel. There’s no Gospel here.
4.
H.
Richard Niebuhr famously once summarized liberal theology into this sentence: “A God without wrath brought men without sin
into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a
cross.” Yes, we’ve read this book
before. With Love Wins,
Rob Bell moves solidly within the world of Protestant Liberalism. We dare not
run away from all that the Bible says about hell. We must never confuse the
Gospel, nor offer suggestions that there may be any way of salvation outside of
faith in Jesus Christ. The message of the Gospel isn’t merely that love wins —
it’s that Jesus saves.
5.
This
leads us to our text from the Gospel lesson today in Matthew 25 for the Last
Sunday of the Church year. Our Lord
Jesus says in selected verses of Matthew 25:31-46, 31“When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32Before him will be gathered all the
nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates
the sheep from the goats. 33And he will place the sheep on his right, but the
goats on the left. 34Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you
who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world… 41“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from
me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into
eternal life.”
6.
Martin
Luther, in his letter to Hans von
Rechenberg, on the “Question Whether a Person who Dies Without Faith Can Be
Saved[1]”
writes along the lines what our Lord
Jesus is teaching here in Matthew 25. He
says, “Now for our answer we have
formidable passages of Scripture [to the effect] that God cannot and will not
save anyone without faith. Mark 16 [:16] says, “He who does not believe will be
lost.” Also Hebrews 11 [:6], “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”
Also John 3 [:5], “Whoever is not born of water and the Spirit cannot enter the
kingdom of God.” Also John 3 [:18], “He who does not believe is condemned
already.” If God were to save anyone
without faith, he would be acting contrary to his own words and would give
himself the lie; yes, he would deny himself. And that is impossible for, as St.
Paul declares, God cannot deny himself [II Tim. 2:13].”
7.
As
we see here near the end of Matthew 25 Jesus said a good deal about His return
to judge the living and the dead. The
unbelievers will go to eternal fire in hell, while believers will go to eternal
paradise in heaven. Here in Matthew
Jesus is giving us an account of the actual judgment and what will be
consequences of it. In this story Jesus
is telling us that He’s coming again in glory.
Our Lord Jesus came the first time in deep humility when He was born in
Bethlehem and died on the cross for our sins.
But, when He returns at the end of the age, He will come in His heavenly
majesty and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is king of
kings and Lord of lords.
8.
As
the peoples of the ages and time appear before Jesus, they will divide into two
groups: one on the right and one on the
left. Those on the right Jesus calls
sheep. Who are these sheep you may
ask? Jesus says in John 10:27-28, “My sheep here my voice and I know them, and
they follow Me. I give them eternal
life.” At the same occasion Jesus
also said to others who were there listening to him in John 10:26, “But you do not believe because you are not
part of My flock.” The believers are
called sheep. They believe that Jesus,
by the shedding of His blood on the cross, has redeemed them. But, the goats are people who don’t believe
and don’t accept Jesus as their Savior from sin.
9.
So
what does Jesus teach us here in Matthew 25?
The answer’s very simple. That
either belief or unbelief in Him as our Savior from sin, death and the power of
the devil determine our destinies for all eternity. Jesus says in Mark 16:16, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be
saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
10.
Some
non Christians may take false comfort in this text by saying that even though
they don’t believe in Jesus, they still perform deeds of mercy similar to those
listed here in Matthew 25. And by all
appearances some unbelievers may do just as much for those in need as any
follower of Jesus. This is what
unbelievers hope will be a factor in determining their fate on Judgment
Day. But, look closely at what happens
in God’s heavenly courtroom on Judgment Day.
The separation of the sheep and the goats occurs before and not after
the listing of their works of mercy. In
other words, good works aren’t considered in God’s final judgment of believers
and unbelievers.
11.
Did
you notice that the righteous ones were surprised when they were told by the
Son of Man that they were really serving Him?
Their motives were pure. They
weren’t performing their acts for purposes of reward. They didn’t say, “Yes, I was hoping you would notice.”
They were simply doing what they couldn’t help but do as the Holy
Spirit was empowering them to serve their neighbor in love.
12.
This
Judgment Day courtroom scene differs so much from our worldly standards of law,
because it’s entirely focused on God’s grace towards us in Jesus Christ our
Lord. Good works and motive are both
tied to God’s mercy. As believers in
Jesus we will show mercy to others because we’ve already received it from
Him. We will reach out to the least,
lost, and helpless of the world because that was our spiritual condition before
we were rescued by our Savior Jesus. We’re
now and forever numbered with the sheep at God’s right hand because He was the
sacrificial lamb who offered His life in our place. Jesus stands our worldly system of law on its
head. Through faith in Christ our sins
are forgiven, we’re declared righteous, and our misdeeds are purged from our
record. Only fruits of faith, empowered
by Jesus will remain. Amen.
[1]Luther, M. (1999, c1968). Vol. 43: Luther's
works, vol. 43 : Devotional Writings II (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald &
H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (43:51). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every
Person Who Ever Lived (HarperOne, 2011).
No comments:
Post a Comment