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WWJD-WY?
Matthew 25:31-46
It’s not “What Would Jesus Do”, it’s
“What WILL Jesus Do...With You?”,
and the answer depends upon what you do with Jesus. What you do with Him in
this life determines what He has to do with you in the next.
I. The Coming of
the Sovereign.
A.
The Glory Throne.
v. 31 Imagine Jesus sitting there on
His glory throne! He’s there today, and even when everything seems to be
going wrong, He’s still on the throne. But one day soon He will stand up,
and come down, and we will rise up, and bow down.
v. 32, 34 This judgment is written of in
Joel...
Joel 3:2
I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of
Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my
heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my
land.
Joel 3:12
Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for
there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.
We will all stand before God and be judged
one day. If you are not saved, then you will be judged for your sins. If
you are saved, your sins have already been judged at Calvary, praise God,
but you will be judged for your service.
Today men sit in judgment of Jesus, and all
have their opinions of Him, but one day all men will be judged by Jesus.
B.
The Gathered Masses.
v. 32 In Bible days it was not
uncommon for sheep and goats to be herded together. And sheep are a picture
of God’s saved people.
Psalms 100:3
...we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
But goats are a picture of the lost—those
who haven’t been saved. Devil worship still uses the symbol of the goat.
Today we put people into categories of our
own making: rich and poor, educated and uneducated, black and white, but in
God’s eyes their’s only one division among men: saved and lost – sheep and
goats
Jesus said you are for me or against me, a
believer or an unbeliever, bound for heaven or hell.
Today the saved and the lost are mixed
together, working in the same factories, shopping the same stores, attending
the same schools, living in the same neighborhoods, but one day soon a
separation is coming!
If that line of separation was to be drawn
today, which side would you be on? Would you be one of the sheep, or the
goats? You say, I’m a Baptist. That doesn’t answer the question. There’s
2 kinds of Baptist – saved and lost. Some of them are sheep and there’s
some old goats!
We cannot tell the difference – we are not
the judge and we don’t sit on the throne. It’s God’s job to judge who is
saved or not. You may be able to fool me, or fool everyone, but you can’t
fool God! When God separates the sheep from the goats you won’t be able to
pull the wool over His eyes!
The coming of the sovereign...
II. The Celebration
of the Saints.
v. 34 This is the invitation of
salvation remembered. God has always been inviting mankind to come to Him.
Many of today’s churches are trying to bring God down to man’s level, but
the invitation has always been for man to come to God. God has already come
to us, because we COULDN’T get to Him, but now thru Jesus’ blood on the
cross we can come, and the ball is in our court!
·
God told
Noah and his family to come into the Ark of safety.
Genesis 7:1
And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for
thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
·
God used
Isaiah to invite people to come to the place of cleansing.
Isaiah 1:18
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool.
·
Jesus
invited people to come to the place of rest.
Matthew 11:28
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest.
Come forward today at the invitation and
you’ll be answering God’s personal invite for you to come to Him! RSVP
today and you’ll enjoy safety, cleansing, and rest!
Let me ask you an important question to
consider: What ‘on earth’
would you want to go to hell for? Is there anything on earth
that you can have that would make an eternity in hell worth it?
Come be saved today, and in that day you’ll
be told to come to the celebration of v. 34b – “Come...inherit the kingdom”
– then it says, “prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” This
means that long before you born God had you on His heart...He loved you long
before you came into existence.
God says to you today: I love you, and I
always have. Hell was not made for you, so don’t choose to go there!
Matthew 25:41
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:
But if you don’t follow Jesus then by
default you are a follower of the devil, and if you insist on following the
devil, you follow him to his ultimate demise! This means that
if you end up in hell it will be against
God’s will.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is...not willing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance.
The coming of the sovereign, The
celebration of the saints...
III. The Cursing of
the Sinner.
v. 46, 41 What is hell?
·
Hell is a
place of separation.
The phrase “depart from me” indicates it is
a place of separation...not annihilation.
That’s right, the worst part of hell won’t
be the fire, tho’ I do believe it is a literal furnace of fire...the worst
part is separation from God and from everyone forever. The worst pain Jesus
endured on the cross wasn’t the nails, the thorns, or the beating, it was
when the sins of the world were laid upon Him and His own Father God had to
turn His back on His Son...just the act of looking away from Jesus caused
Him to cry out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?!”
Hell is separation...
·
Hell is a
place of condemnation.
“ye cursed” means “no second chance”.
John 3:18
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God.
·
Hell is a
place of excruciation.
“everlasting fire”
You say, I don’t believe God would
send someone to a place of eternal excruciation. Would it surprise you to
know that I say, I don’t believe that either? God doesn’t send people to
hell...they send themselves to hell by rejecting the offer of salvation.
Jesus did what was necessary to keep us out of hell if we will grab onto the
life preserver He has thrown our way.
Would a loving God send a person to hell?
No! The loving God sent His Son to take our hell for us, to die in our
place. But He’s not just a God of love...He’s also a perfect, sinless, holy
God, so pure and so holy that He cannot look upon sin, or have sin in His
presence. No sin can be allowed into heaven, so we must be forgiven. Sin
must be judged, so you need to accept Christ’s payment for your sin, or you
must pay for your own sins.
Revelation 21:27
And there shall in no wise enter into it [heaven]any thing that defileth,
neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but
they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.
Jesus is coming...be ready, if not saved,
get saved!
Jesus is coming...be watching, don’t be
surprised, be found faithful when Jesus returns!
Jesus is coming...be witnessing...share the
good news with others who need to be saved!
Jesus is coming...be working, we are saved
to serve, not just to sit and soak and sour!
Next we continue to the end of the book with
the events that lead to what looks like the end of the road for Jesus, but
just like the end of the world...it proves to be just the beginning!
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