The Parable of the Sheep and Goats

The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats is found in Matthew 25: 31 – 46. Many preachers use this text to encourage us to be kind to strangers, to help the needy and to visit those in prisons. Great advice – but there is so much more to this parable. In fact rather than call it a parable let’s call it a secret message about the last days. You know I love decoding secret messages . . . here I go:

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. (Jesus Himself is talking about His 2nd Coming at the end of the 7 years of Tribulation)32 All the nations (“nations” refers to Gentiles) will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. (the sheep are the saved, those who will come to belief in Christ during the Tribulation, and the goats are the unsaved, those who will side with the Anti-Christ)

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father (implies grace, that is, salvation through faith, not of works); take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  (Did you get that? The Kingdom has been prepared for us since Creation!) 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ (All of these kind acts, though definitely things we should do now, are in fact referring to the potentially fatal acts that Tribulation Christians will graciously perform for “Christ’s brethren” mentioned in verse 40.)

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ (Christians will be surprised that as they help Christian Jews during the Tribulation they help Christ.)

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (“One of the least of these who are members of my family” or in some translations: “these brothers of mine" refers to the 144,000 Jews who will proclaim Jesus as Lord during the Tribulation.)

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ (These verses about what happens to the goats contrast exactly with what happens to the sheep. The goats commit the greatest sin of all: a sin of omission; they fail to put their faith in Christ.)

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Jesus is quite clear: it’s either eternal punishment or eternal life.)

What do you think? Did I miss anything?

The Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven, part 3

We saw how the Kingdom of Heaven was presented in two previous parables (part 1 and part2). We can’t look at just these two when there’s a third parable about the kingdom of heaven in the next 4 verses. Matthew 13: 47 – 50:

⁴⁷ “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. ⁴⁸ When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away.⁴⁹ This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous ⁵⁰ and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Just before these verses Jesus said the kingdom of heaven was like a treasure hidden in a field or like a merchant looking for pearls. Now it’s a net. And not any kind of net. There were 2 types of nets back then. One was thrown from shore by the fisherman and the other, the kind mentioned here, a sagene, was a drag net. This term is a unique term. It is a very, very large net maybe covering one half mile of area.

The Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven, part 2

In Matthew 13: 45,46 Jesus said:

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

In part 1 we saw that the kingdom of heaven was like a man (Jesus) finding a treasure (the Jews) in a field (the world). In this next parable the kingdom is likened to a merchant looking for fine peals.

Pearls were not known or valued by Jews at that time (they’re only mentioned once in the Old Testament) so Jesus’ audience was probably frowning at one another at that point though they understood that the Greek word here, margarites, meant pearl or proverb (word of great value).

The Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven, part 1

In Matthew 13: 44 Jesus tells us about the kingdom of heaven:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

In this verse we have Jesus giving a comparison for what the kingdom of heaven is like. I've found some scholarly debate about what exactly is meant here. I've even found some commentaries condemning the man in verse 44 because he was digging in somebody else’s field so therefore he was really a thief. I don’t think that’s what Jesus was saying. He knew his audience would get this. It was common practice to bury money in fields to keep it safe.

So, who is the man, what is the field, and what is the treasure? You may think that “the man” is us and the “treasure” is Jesus, but we don’t have to buy our salvation – it’s a free gift. I believe the man in the parable is Jesus, the field is the world (as explained in other parables), and the treasure refers to the Jews, to Israel. Here’s why:

The Parable of the Talents

In Matthew 25: 14 – 30 Jesus is still talking to His disciples about the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. He says it will be like a man who goes away and leaves his servants with various amounts of his wealth. He gives one servant 5 “talents,” to another he gives two talents and to the third only one. In the Greek what he gives is “talenton” which is a measure of money. A talent of silver in Israel weighed 100 pounds and a talent of gold weighed 200 pounds. It’s pretty obvious therefore that even the servant who received one talent was entrusted with great wealth.

If I try interpreting just the first few verses of this parable I find that Jesus is the master who goes away and leaves his servants, us, with great wealth “each according to his own ability.” The Greek for ability is “dunamis” from which we get the word dynamite, but what is meant here is power, work or strength. Like the three servants we are given “talents” according to our ability. It’s quite fortunate that in English we understand the symbolism of the Greek money word immediately.

Now, what did the servants do with their “talents”? The first two doubled their money and when the master returned he praised them and rewarded them equally. (I really like that equality. Does it mean that if I work to the best of my ability for the Lord that I will be rewarded the same as someone like Billy Graham? I hope so.)

The third servant buried his talent. That’s actually not so crazy since it was a common practice in Bible times to bury treasure for safety. But we’re not supposed to bury the treasure the Lord entrusts to us. Whereas the master calls the first two servants “good and faithful,” he calls the third one “evil and lazy.” He takes back that single talent and gives it to the one who had the most and then makes these startling statements: “For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

There are a number of people who don’t want to hear the old “fire and brimstone, hell and damnation” sermons, but Jesus mentions this awful darkness and weeping and teeth-gnashing three other times (Matthew 8:12, 22:13, Luke 13:28). You can also find it in Psalm 112:10. What are we supposed to decipher from this? Can you comment, please?

Ten Virgins

At the end of the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25: 1-13) Jesus says (for about the fifth time in two chapters) that we should keep watch because we do not know when he will return. Who are the ten virgins? We are. All ten have torches or lamps. The torches represent our outward appearance in regards to religion. A lot of people call themselves Christians, but maybe only half of them really are.

Five of the ten virgins are prepared for the bridegroom’s late return by having extra oil for their lamps. The bridegroom is, of course, Jesus, and the oil represents the Holy Spirit. Five don’t have that oil; they don’t really believe in Jesus.

The bridegroom returns at midnight, an unexpected time, just as Jesus warns. The unprepared virgins beg the ones with oil to share. They won’t. Are they selfish? Not at all. You can’t share salvation. You must get it for yourself. The unprepared virgins run to town to buy oil.

The prepared virgins enter the wedding banquet and the door is shut.

The door is shut. There is such finality to that statement. It’s too late for the ones who were unprepared. No second chances.

(more posts on parables: parable of the tenants, parable of the wedding banquet, parable on paying taxes)

Paying Taxes

Have you heard the quote “Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”? This comes from the story in Matthew 22. Jesus has been talking in parables to answer many of the accusations that the Pharisees, chief priests and elders make. He catches them up every time, of course, and they get angrier and angrier. They decide to lay plans to trap Jesus in his words.

The Pharisees, who are traditionalists and ritualists, send their lesser known disciples off to team up with the Herodians. The Herodians, who supported the Roman authority in Palestine, were actually the Pharisees’ enemies. The two groups try flattery and praise to begin with: they say, “Teacher, we know that you are a MAN OF INTEGRITY and that YOU TEACH the way of God IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TRUTH. YOU AREN’T SWAYED by men, because you pay no attention to who they are.” Ah, they think they’re so clever. I especially like the last phrase because it’s sort of an underhanded poke at the way Jesus hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes.

After the flattery they get to their big question: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? This is like the old “Have you stopped beating your wife” question. If Jesus says it’s right to pay taxes to Rome they will claim that then he cannot be the Messiah. If he says no, then they will report him to Rome as an insurrectionist.

Of course, Jesus knows their evil intent. He calls them hypocrites and asks them to show him a coin that is used for paying taxes. He doesn’t ask for any old coin. There were specific coins used for paying taxes to Rome and different ones for the temple taxes. Clearly they could see Caesar’s image on the Roman coin, the denarius, that he asked for. Jesus says, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Lesson for me: pay my taxes without resentment. Give to God what is God’s. Hmm, would that be everything else?

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

This parable used to scare me because the ending is so violent and final. Jesus is still talking to the Pharisees who haven’t been able to trip him up. He tells them that the kingdom of heaven is like a king (God) who prepared a wedding banquet for his son (Jesus). People (Israel) had already been invited and when the wedding was ready God sent his servants (prophets) to tell them to come, BUT THEY REFUSED.

God sent more prophets, but they paid no attention and either mistreated or killed the prophets. At this point in the parable (verse 7) Jesus inserts a prophecy that from our point of view we can see was fulfilled a few decades later in 70 A.D. at the destruction of Jerusalem. Verse 7 reads: The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

The parable continues. God told his servants (now the Apostles) to go to the street corners (all the earth) and invite anyone they could find (Gentiles). People come, good people and evil people, and the wedding hall was filled.

Now it gets kind of scary. In the story the king comes in to see the guests and notices a man not wearing wedding clothes. Doing a little cross-referencing I found that in Isaiah 61:10 the wedding clothes are the “garments of salvation”. The man without the wedding clothes is someone who is not saved. What happens to him? He doesn’t just get kicked out of the wedding hall. The king tells his attendants to tie him hand and foot and throw him outside into the darkness where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. This doesn’t scare me personally anymore because I have the wedding clothes – the garments of salvation. The Pharisees that were listening didn’t get it, though. In fact they laid plans to trap Jesus. More about that on Sunday.

The Parable of the Tenants

In the Parable of the Tenants in Matthew 21: 33 – 46 Jesus continues to speak to the chief priests and elders and Pharisees pulling them into another story where they again make a quick judgment and incriminate themselves. These leaders are familiar with the way the parable opens: there is a landowner, a vineyard, a wall, a winepress and a watchtower. If you read Isaiah 5: 1 – 7 you can get into the heads of these men and know what they know. The same landowner, vineyard, wall, winepress and watchtower are presented in the Old Testament.

In Jesus’ parable the vineyard (the kingdom of heaven or Israel) is rented to some farmers (the leaders and people of Israel) and at harvest time the landowner (God) sends his servants (the prophets) to collect the fruit. They are beaten, killed and stoned. He sends his son (Jesus, the Messiah) and they kill him, too.

Jesus asks the Pharisees what the landowner will do to the tenants and they immediately say “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

Boy, they got that right. Jesus then directly says that the kingdom of God will be taken away from them (the Jews) and given to a people (the Gentiles) who will produce its fruit. Just before this, in verse 42, Jesus says “Have you never read . . .” and then he quotes Psalm 118, the very psalm that was sung and shouted three days before (Palm Sunday) on Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”). I think he is ridiculing or at the least being condescending and disdainful of the priests when he starts that statement with the negative “never”.

“Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” The stone, of course, is Jesus as Peter proclaims quite clearly in Acts 4:11.

Verse 44 is double deadly: “He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” The Pharisees and the chief priests have fallen on the stone (Jesus) and they are being broken because they just don’t “get it” and they still look for a way to arrest him. The stone will fall on and utterly crush those who don’t believe – unbelievers will be destroyed – ground to powder. That’s a pretty gruesome picture and it’s one that you can find first in the book of Daniel, chapter 2, where the same crushing stone refers to the Second Advent. Daniel warns that if we do not respond to the ministry of the gospel in the present age, there is coming a time when the enemies of the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be utterly destroyed.
(I am fascinated with how the Old and New Testaments inter-weave so divinely.)