PARABLES OF CHRIST
THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 25:31-46
SEPTEMBER 13, 1998
On July 18, 64AD, residents outside of the Circus Maximus in the city of Rome saw flames rising from a few buildings. The word spread. Trumpets sounded the alarm, but it was too little, too late. Strong winds fanned the flames and the great fire spread throughout the eternal city. That fire raged out of control for a solid week, killing thousands of Romans and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. The rumor circulated that the fire had been started by the Emperor of Rome himself, by the 26-year-old Nero who had ascended the throne ten years earlier at the age of 16. But even as a teenager, Nero was a debauched degenerate. He had arranged, he had orchestrated, the murder of his own mother. He had arranged and orchestrated the murders of his wives and his rivals and enemies. He was a patron of the arts, a patron of the athletic games, but he had a kind of twisted taste. He fancied himself a god but for Christians throughout the ancient world, he was a monster.
He was accused of arson, accused of starting that fire in 64 AD because he had once boasted that he would rebuild the city of Rome to the manifestation of his own glory. He had once boasted that he would rebuild the city of Rome and name it after himself. Many thought that he destroyed the city by fire in order to rebuild it. Today, historians do not know whether Nero actually burned the city of Rome, but they do know this. They know that Nero accused the Christians of starting the fire. They know that the persecution, the tragic persecution of Christians began under Nero in 64 AD. Tacitus, the great Roman historian, tells us that Nero, in his private Circus near his royal gardens, wrapped Christians in flesh and fed them to wild animals for his daytime amusement. At night, he rolled Christians in tar and lit them on fire, and he watched them bum to death from his balcony, screaming torches in the night. He crucified Christians and he beheaded them. It was at that time, historians tell us, that Nero killed, murdered, the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter.
Four years later in 68 AD, Nero himself was terrified and trembling and hiding in a cellar four miles from Rome, pursued by his own armies which had risen up in rebellion. He tried to take his own life. He tried repeatedly to commit suicide, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. Finally, he convinced a friend to stab a dagger into his throat, and so it was that the hideous Emperor Nero died and surely this world became a better place.
Today, incredibly, on the very spot where Nero had his private Circus and where he persecuted and butchered so many Christians, on that very spot stands St. Peter’s Basilica. On that very spot stands the 106-acre Ecclesiastical government called Vatican City. Vatican City is, of course, the earthly throne of the Roman Catholic Church. It is there that the Pope himself sits. It is there that the College of Cardinals, together with the Pope, render verdicts and make decisions. But, of course, the papal throne has little true power. The Pope has no authority over the Orthodox churches. The Pope has no authority over the Protestant churches. Even with regard to the Catholics in this world, many of them wink at papal decrees. The Pope at best, is a servant of Christ. You see, one day the King will come, Jesus Christ Himself, King of Kings. He will come and He will take His throne, and this is the setting of our parable for today, Christ enthroned. This is the setting of the parable of the sheep and the goats. From this parable we have two messages, and the first message is a warning of judgement. This parable warns us of impending judgement.
I know some of you have taken classes in anthropology and you know that anthropology is the study of Anthropos. It is the study of man. It is the study of humanity. The message of anthropology is that people are diverse. Biological anthropologists tell us that people are varied morphically. There are endomorphs, mesomorphs, and ectomorphs. People come in various shapes and sizes.
Biological anthropologists tell us that people are varied hematologically. Some people have Type A blood. Some have Type B blood. Some of you have Type AB blood. Some of you have Type O blood. Some of you are Rh Negative. Some of you are Rh Positive. We vary in terms of blood type.
Of course, biological anthropologists tell us that we vary racially, and we know that red, yellow, black and white People vary in terms of skin color. Cultural anthropologists tell us humanity is varied spiritually and religiously. On this earth are Muslims. There are Buddhists. There are Hindus. There are Christians. As we know, within the Christian world, there are Orthodox Christians and Catholic Christians and Protestants Christians. Within the Protestant world, Baptists, Methodists, and Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, etc. People are varied. Linguistic anthropologists tell us there are three thousand spoken languages in this world, with hundreds of thousands of dialects. People vary according to language and dialect. People are diverse.
The Bible tells us that in the end, at the consummation, at the final judgement, there will really only be, in the sight of God, two types of people. In this parable, Jesus calls them the sheep and the goats. Jesus tells us that He will come from heaven in glory and all of His angels with Him. He tells us that He will sit on His glorious throne and before Him there will be gathered all the nations, “ponto tah ethni.” These words, in the Greek, “ponto tah ethni” mean “all peoples” or “all people groups,” all ethnicities. Humanity in all of its diversity, in all of its variation, humanity will be gathered and then there shall be a great separation and He shall separate them one from the other as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He shall place the sheep at His right hand but the goats at His left. He will say to those at His right hand, ‘Come oh blessed of My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.’ But to those at His left hand, He will say, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’” A warning. A warning of judgement.
There is no one in this room, there is no one in the world who is capable of making that judgement but Christ. None of us are qualified to separate the sheep from the goats. Of course, we know from God’s word that all who believe in Jesus Christ truly are His sheep. We know from God’s word that all who accept Christ as Lord and Savior and truly believe in Him will be saved. We also know from God’s word that all who hear the gospel of Christ and reject it, all who reject Christ are going to be in a whole lot of trouble. But, you see, we really do not have enough information to judge people. That is why Jesus tells us, “Judge not.” That is why Jesus tells us, “Condemn not.”
There are 1,700,000,000 nominal Christians in this world. But, you see, Christ knows those who truly believe. Christ knows those who truly believe.
I was reading recently regarding the Institute of Animal Psychology Magazine Cambridge, England. Strangely enough, the Institute of Animal Psychology is studying sheep and goats. They tell us that scientifically sheep and goats are close, a lot of similarities but there are some distinctions. They tell us that goats tend to have short tails which rise, and sheep have long tails which fall. They tell us that many goats have beards, but they tell us that no sheep have beards. They tell us that goats have a kind of odor that sheep do not have. They tell us that both goats and sheep have cloven hooves, hooves which divide into two toes. They tell us that sheep always have a gland between those toes and goats never do. They tell us that even though sheep and goats are oftentimes herded together by shepherds, they never interbreed. They never mate so that sheep and goats always remain distinct.
But, you see, at the Institute of Animal Psychology, they have done an amazing thing. Their scientists have created in test tubes, or through test tubes, a hybrid, a new animal, part sheep, part goat, and they call it a Geep. Isn’t that amazing? And yet isn’t it kind of a parable of life? I mean, don’t you at times, kind of feel like a Geep? I know I do. Part sheep, part goat. Even though I have accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, I’m still fallen. I know that is true of you, too. There is this battle within us. It is not for us to judge. It is for Christ alone. He is the King of Glory, and He will judge on that final day.
I’m sure most of you know that just a few weeks ago, Swiss Air Flight 111 crashed into to the Atlantic near the coast of Nova Scotia, sending 229 people to a watery death. The plane was on its way to Geneva but less than an hour out of New York, the pilot radioed that there was smoke in the cabin, smoke in the cockpit. Investigators really do not know what made that MD11 go down. That will be a subject of continuing investigation, but we all know this. We all know that what happened to those 229 people is going to happen to us. Probably not in the same way, but we’re all going to die. Unless we are the final generation that sees the return of Christ, we are all going to die. This has been true of every generation before us. The Bible says, “It is appointed unto men once to die and after that, the judgement.”
You see, this is part of the message of the parable of the sheep and the goats. A warning of judgement. There will come a separation. Certainly, this warning is meant to prompt us to make sure that we are right with God through Christ, and we have received Him truly and He is, indeed, our Lord and our Savior.
Now, there is a second message from this parable and the second message is a call to compassion. The first, a warning of judgement, but the second, a call to compassion. Jesus tells us that He will one day say to the sheep, He will one day say to those at His right hand, “Come oh blessed of My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world for I was hungry and you gave Me to eat and I was thirsty and you gave Me to drink, and I was a stranger and you welcomed Me. I was naked and you clothed Me. I was sick and you visited Me. I was in prison, and you came to Me.” Compassion.
This parable is not really a soteriological parable. Christ is not trying to tell us how to earn salvation as though we could. He is not saying to us, “If you become people of compassion, I will save you.” He is not saying to us, “If you feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty and clothe the naked, I will save you.” This is not a soteriological parable. He is not discussing the means of salvation. He is simply describing the saved. He is saying to us that those who are saved, those who truly believe are going to be characterized by compassion… The Bible makes it clear that we are saved by grace through faith, but what Jesus is saying here is, if you have really come into His grace, and if you really have faith, if He’s really come into you, His compassion is going to be seen in you. If you really are His sheep, then you are becoming people of compassion.
Earlier this year, May 16 of this year, a young man, 15 years old named Christopher Searcy, died. Christopher was 15 years old. A lot of people are upset today. Christopher Searcy was playing basketball at an outdoor court with some of his friends on a Saturday night in the city of Chicago. A car drove by, filled with gang members, and they just capriciously, arbitrarily, fired two shots into the chest of Christopher and that 15-year-old boy fell to the ground. His friends tried to save him. Ravenswood Hospital in Chicago was only two hundred yards away. At first, they tried to carry him but they could see that that was hurting him and so they put him down and they ran to the hospital. They went inside that hospital and found nurses and explained the situation. The nurses said, “We’re so sorry but we can’t help. According to hospital policy, we’re not allowed to service people outside of the walls of the hospital.”
Christopher’s friends were just stunned. They went further into the hospital and found some doctors, some physicians, and they explained the situations. In a panic, they explained it, and the doctors said, “We’re sorry. We are restricted by the rules of this hospital. You’re going to have to get him in here because we can’t service anyone outside.”
Well, there was a police officer there named James Mower. He went to the hospital with Christopher’s friends, got a stretcher, came back, and they put Christopher on the stretcher. They took him into the hospital. Doctors began to minister to him, but it was too late. Christopher died May 16, 1998.
The community was outraged. At first the hospital administrator defended the nurses and the doctors, saying they had only followed hospital procedures and rules. At first the administrator defended those procedures and rules, saying that they had been established for a just reason and for a just cause, but because of the public outcry, the rules at Ravenswood Hospital in Chicago have changed today, and now doctors and nurses are allowed to go outside of those walls to help people.
B ut is it not true that we live in a world where sometimes there’s too little compassion? Is it not true that sometimes compassion gets lost in the midst of all the rules? In the midst of all the policies and procedures, compassion gets lost. Certainly, there’s not enough compassion in this world. Is it not true that the church of Jesus Christ is called to be a hospital? Is that not true? Is it not true that this church, Cherry Hills Community Church, is called to be a hospital, a place where broken people can come, broken relationally, broken emotionally, broken spiritually, broken physically. They can come and they can know that they will find compassion here. Is it not true that if you are a believer in Jesus Christ and you are, indeed, part of His flock and one of His sheep, is it not true that when you leave this place, you take a little bit of the hospital with you? Is it not true that wherever you are, you’ve been called to reach out to the needs of hurting people in the name of Jesus Christ because that’s part of what it means to be a Christian.
That compassion that we have for people is to begin with the household of God. That compassion which we have towards people, and which is meant to extend to the world is to begin right here in the body of Christ. Really this is the message of the parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus says to us, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto Me. The word “adelphoi” which is used almost never in the Bible refers to humanity and totality, but almost always in the Bible, this word “adelphoi” refers to the church and to the brothers and sisters, the believers in Christ. Indeed, in the way that Jesus uses the phraseology in this parable, it certainly refers to the church and to the body of Christ because Jesus said, “Ton adelphone moi.” My brothers and sisters.
That same phraseology is found in Matthew 12 and in Matthew 28 and Matthew 23, and it refers to the church. In fact, wherever “ton adelphone moi” is found in the entire Bible, it refers not to humanity but to the church. So, Jesus is saying, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you’ve done it unto Me.” Compassion begins with the household of God and I would ask you today, “Do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ?” It begins here. I mean we are called by Christ to love our neighbor. We are called to love those out in the world, but it begins here. Do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ?
You see, in the First century, Christians were so often incarcerated. For their faith they were imprisoned. Christians were so often poor, without clothing and food. It was critical that Christians helped one another, but it is really no less true today that Christians need to help each other. That is why we invite you to join a small group. I mean how can you help a brother or sister in Christ unless you get to know that brother and sister? How can you help a brother or sister in Christ unless you know what their needs are and what their wounds are? How can I reach out to somebody if I do not know their needs? That is why we invite you to come together in a small group, that you might be the body of Christ. ministering to one another. That is why we encourage you to sign up for a small group in the lobby today.
It is really why we invite you to teach Sunday School too, that you might minister to the least of these, His brothers, and sisters, for His kingdom’s sake. Some of you might feel, “Well, you know, I feel so unable, but you see, Christ is simply looking for a willing heart.”
I read this last week, and with this we will close. I read of a little girl whose mother was sick. Her mother was in bed. The little girl was trying to comfort her. The little girl got an idea. She went down to the kitchen. She decided to make her mother tea. When her father had been sick, she had often seen her mother make tea for her father. She made her mother tea. She put it in a cup and saucer. She brought it upstairs and her mother was amazed. She said, “Dear, I didn’t know you knew how to make tea” and she began to praise her little girl. Her little girl felt proud, and she said, “Well, Mommy, I just did what I saw you do when you made tea for Daddy. I just boiled the water and the leaves. Then I couldn’t find the little strainer, so I used a flyswatter.” Her mother said, ‘“You used the flyswatter?” The little girl said, “Don’t worry, Mommy. I used the old flyswatter because I knew you would not want to ruin the new one!”
I would ask you. Would something like that make the mother reject her daughter? Would something like that drive the mother further away or would it draw the mother close? You know the answer to that because the mother sees the compassion and she is touched by it. The mother sees the love and she is moved by it. I promise you, your Father in heaven is just looking for compassion in you and in me.
So, this is the call of Christ, a call to compassion. In this parable we have a warning of judgement. There will come a separation. Christ enthroned. The sheep and the goats and a call to compassion if indeed we are His people. Let us look to the Lord with a word of prayer.