Matthew 25:31

Matthew 25:31

In Matthew 25:31-34 Jesus said, “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides 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.”

The first time that Jesus came, He came as a man because He associated Himself with our weaknesses and our sinfulness. He took our sins upon Himself. He identified Himself with us, and bore our sins upon His back. He who knew no sin, became sin for us. And so Jesus loved to call himself Son of man, perhaps to remind us of the purpose for which He appeared on the earth the first time. But Jesus always reminded His disciples that He would appear on the earth a second time, and that the second appearing would be much different than the first. In verse 31 Jesus called Himself Son of man, as He often did during His first coming; but in verse 34, He called Himself King in talking about His second coming.

Jesus will return as a King. His appearing will be glorious. It will involve all of the majesty and splendor that would befit the eternal King of the universe. In the first coming, Jesus was only known by a few people in a humble stable and in a small village. But in His second coming, His appearing will be a worldwide spectacular event. Everyone will see Him, instantaneously and miraculously. In the first coming He had none of this world’s goods: no political power and no position; and the kingdoms of this world judged Him, cast Him out, and killed Him. But in the second coming, He will be the judge, and everyone will be judged by Him because verse 32 says, “And before him shall be gathered all nations...”.

Jesus reminds us that He will judge the world for two reasons:

1. In order to warn the lost so that they will get saved before it is too late.

1. “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

2. In order to encourage the saved that there is justice, because He is judge.

In the final analysis, no one will escape justice. You may not always find justice in the courts of this world, but justice will eventually be served, because when Jesus returns, He will judge the world. We who believe on Jesus are encouraged because we know that the world is temporary, and that human history is marching towards a great climax and will ultimately conclude with the glorious appearing of King Jesus.

When Jesus appears the second time, He said in Matthew 25:31 that He will come with all the holy angels. Some humans believe on Jesus and serve Him, but they are not the only servants of God. There are also angels. We don’t know the exact number of angels, but we do know that there is a vast number of them, at least many tens of thousands. We know from the vision that Jacob had about angels that they go back and forth between heaven and earth; each one probably being sent by God to do something in the service of God and for the benefit of man. We also know that when angels come to earth, they sometimes take on the form of humans. But when Jesus appears the second time, all of the angels of heaven will appear with Him. It may be the only time that there will be no angels in heaven, because every one of them will be with King Jesus. It will be a spectacular display of thousands upon thousands of angels massed together into one mighty army, and with Jesus at the head of that army.

Not only will all of the angels be present, but all the people of the earth shall also be present, and we see that God will divide up all people based upon two criteria. When God looks at humanity, He sees two groups. For now the two groups are mingled together, but at the appearing of Christ we will be divided once for all. Jesus taught this same thing in the parable of the wheat and the tares. During the days of Christ, a farmer would let the wheat and tares grow together, but would separate them in the day of harvest. In the same way, a shepherd would divide the sheep from the goats; and King Jesus will one day make a final division of all the peoples of the earth, and He will divide them into two groups. One of the groups will end up in the kingdom of God, as it says in verse 34, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” The other group will end up as Jesus said in verse 41, “Depart from me you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”

How does one become a part of the more fortunate group, the group that ends up in the kingdom of God? A good example of how one becomes a part of the kingdom of God is found in verse 34 when Jesus said, “Come, you blessed of my Father...”. Jesus gave an invitation. He said, “Come.” Salvation always begins with an invitation, and the invitation is given by God. You can’t get saved until you are invited by God to be saved. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit to touch the hearts of people, and to convince them of their need for forgiveness and to invite them to be saved. But salvation will not take place unless a person also responds to the invitation.

Once you respond and give yourself to God, then you become blessed; as Jesus said in verse 34, “Come, you blessed of my Father.” That’s what King David was talking about a thousand years before Christ, when he said in Psalm 32:1, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” This is the greatest of all blessings, to be forgiven of your sins. If you have this blessing from God, then you are one of the blessed. No matter what else happens to you, nothing will ever be able to take away the forgiveness of sins from you, and you will always be the object of God’s love and mercy because you are one of His sheep. And one day you will hear Him say to you like He will say to these others, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you...”.

Once we have been invited by Jesus, and blessed by Him with forgiveness, and given an eternal inheritance in His kingdom, things do not stop there. We are saved by faith alone, but faith without works is dead. If you are not a different person because of what you believe, then you believe the wrong things. Ultimately, what we really believe is shown by what we do.

And so Jesus said in Matthew 25:35-40 to those who will be welcomed into His kingdom, “For I was hungry 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 in prison and you came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, and fed you; or thirsty, and gave you to drink? And when did we see you a stranger, and took you in; or naked, and clothed you? Or when did we see you sick, or in prison, and came to you? And the king shall answer and say unto them, Truly I say unto you, Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it unto me.”

If we love God we will love all the people of the world, and if we love the people of the world, then we will have compassion on them and care about them; and when they are in a time of need, we will do something to help them. Jesus identified the people that we should try to help: those that are hungry, those that are homeless, those that are sick, those that are in prison, and those that are without proper clothing. Jesus said that whenever we have helped people that are in such conditions, we have helped Him; whatever we have done for them, we have actually also done for Him.

Many years ago there was a Christian Christmas program broadcast on the television that illustrated this point very well. It was a fictional story about another wise man that is not recorded in the Bible. We know from the Bible about the wise men who brought to Jesus gifts of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh as a symbol of their worship and adoration of the Christ. And the story of this wise man was about his gift, and his desire to also give his gift to the Christ. The problem was that he missed the caravan to Bethlehem, and when he finally got there, Jesus and his family had moved. The wise man spent many years trying to find the Christ so that he could also present his gift, a sack of precious diamonds. As he traveled to Palestine, and then to Egypt and back to Palestine, looking for the Christ; this wise man met several people who were in great need of help.

One was a man who was sick and in need of medical care. One was a widow who had just been cheated out of her home. And there were others. To each he gave one of the diamonds, having compassion on them and not being able to turn away from someone in need. The years passed, and finally he met the Christ in Galilee, as the Master taught beside the sea. The man bowed before Jesus as the other wise men had done so many years before, but his heart was filled with sadness because his sack of diamonds was now empty and he had none to give to the Christ. But Jesus looked on him with compassion and said, “Sorrow not, because you have already given me your diamonds, for inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these my brothers, you have done it unto me.”

Jesus also described those who will not be allowed into the kingdom of God, and He said in Matthew 25:41-46, “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was hungry 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, and you visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not help you? Then shall he answer them saying, Truly I say unto you, Inasmuch as you did it not unto one of the least of these, you did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”

Again Jesus shows the great contrast between those who will enter the Kingdom of God, and those who will not. Some of the most loving people that you will ever meet in this world are people who have been touched by Jesus. According to Jesus, you and I should always aspire to be just like them. It says in First Corinthians 13, “Now abides faith, hope, and love; these three, but the greatest of these is love.”

The worst people that you will ever meet in the world: those who can hate, use, and deceive their fellow man; are just like the people that Jesus is describing here. They are only selfish, and they never do anything to help relieve the suffering of their neighbors. Unless they repent and turn to the love of God that is offered to them, they will one day stand before Jesus and hear the words found in verse 41, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” They have an opportunity now where they could know Jesus as Savior, but if they do not seize the opportunity, they will one day know Him as Judge.

It’s a very sad thing that some people will end up in hell. It’s not the desire of God. As a matter of fact, the reason that hell was created is given in verse 41 where Jesus said, “into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” It was the will of God that only the devil and the other evil angels would end up in hell, but not humans. If someone goes to hell, as strange as it may seem, it will be because they chose to do so. It will be because they rejected and refused God, even after God Himself visits them and speaks to them and invites them to come to know the forgiveness of sins that is in Christ Jesus.

Jesus looked into the future and He told us in Matthew chapter 24 and 25 some of the things that would happen; and the last thing that He reminded us about is given in Matthew 25:46 where He said, “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” Jesus gave a warning about hell and a promise about heaven. He hopes that no one will end up in hell, and in order to make sure that everyone would have an opportunity to go to heaven, Jesus now faced the last few hours of His life. We will all be eternally thankful that He was faithful to the end, because all of the things that Jesus taught and did up to this point in His life would not have gotten us into heaven. We needed His death on the cross for our sins.

Our problem is the sin problem. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” “There is none righteous, no not one.” No one in heaven will be talking about how good they were, or how much they deserved to be there. It will only be by the grace of God, and the mercy of God, and the forgiveness of sins that is in Christ Jesus. It will only be because of what Jesus went through in Matthew chapters 26 and 27. In chapter 26 Jesus was betrayed and arrested and judged. In chapter 27 He was crucified for your sins and for mine, but in chapter 28 He rose from the dead.

Matthew 26:1-5 says, “And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples, You know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified. Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, And consulted that they might take Jesus by trickery, and kill him. But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.”

When Jesus criticized the scribes and Pharisees earlier, He said that they were murderers because He knew what was in their hearts. They were murderers before they even committed murder because of their thoughts and motives. What they thought about, they ended up doing. It all started with jealousy and hatred, it continued with the desire they had to see Jesus out of the way, and it ended with them committing murder, and the worst of all the murders that have ever been committed: they killed the Son of God.

Jesus knew that they would kill Him, but He permitted it because of His great love for mankind, and because of His obedience to the Father. God used the sin of man in order to save man from sin. And all who become forgiven of their sins, and everyone who ends up in heaven will be eternally grateful for what Jesus did in His sufferings. Isaiah 53:4-5 says, “Surely he has born our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

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