FBC Daily Devotional – March 19, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, here we are. We've come to the end of the week, at least the end of the work week for most of us.

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It's Friday, the last day of our typical work week. Looking forward to the weekend.

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I hope you are, and looking forward to the Lord's Day gathering together. Of course, we will be meeting on Sunday, and our

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Sunday school, adult Sunday school, is meeting in the auditorium and looking at the subject of the heart and the morning service, focusing on the church as Christ's bride.

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Then we're doing a one o 'clock afternoon get together and singing some psalms together, some of the psalms that have been set to music.

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I trust that you can take advantage of some of these opportunities to gather and to worship the

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Lord together on the Lord's Day. If you can't, we do live stream, at least the

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Sunday school Bible study hour at 9 .30, and then also live streaming the morning service at 10 .30.

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You can catch that like you catch this, on YouTube or Facebook or the church website homepage.

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The Sunday school lesson, we don't broadcast that on Facebook live, it's just on YouTube and on the church website.

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Well, newsflash, Judgment Day is coming.

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That thought is kind of treated with ridicule, isn't it?

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I mean, you see it ridiculed like in movies and stuff where some kind of a loony bin, kind of a person who looks like he's a loony bin or behaves a little eccentric or weird or whatever, is carrying a sandwich board that says, the end is at hand, judgment's coming or something like that.

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Only goofballs believe such things. Well, Jesus said it was coming.

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Jesus says there's coming a Judgment Day, and even though this idea is joked about and ridiculed and pretty much wholly dismissed by our culture, it doesn't change reality.

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Our know -it -all world thinks that we can go on making this world a better place, although history bears out that that's a lie, that isn't going to happen.

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But no, there isn't going to be an improvement by man in this world in which we live.

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Things are going to go on until the Judgment Day. There is coming a day of judgment, and on that day, all of the various ways that we divide people up is going to be moot.

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We divide people up by race, we divide by languages, we divide by socioeconomic level, by our economic status.

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You think about the Hindu culture with its different classes and the class structure, and the top doesn't have anything to do with the bottom, and so on and so forth.

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All over the world, people divide people up in a whole variety of ways, and I suppose there's hundreds of different groups of division.

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But on the Judgment Day, there will be two. Everybody on the planet will be divided into two groups, the sheep and the goats.

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That's what Jesus says in Matthew 25 in our passage for the day, that Jesus is going to come and judge the nations, and all the nations will be divided between these two groups, the sheep and the goats.

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The sheep are those who will inherit eternal life, the goats dismissed into oblivion for eternity, into the everlasting fire, he says in verse 41, prepared for the devil and his angels.

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That's where the goats are going to go. So which are you, a sheep or a goat? You say, well, how does one know?

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Jesus provides a test, and here's what he says. He says to the sheep, he says,

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Come, you 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 food.

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I was thirsty, you gave me drink. I was a stranger, you took me in. I was naked, you clothed me.

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I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me. The righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?

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If thirsty, give you drink. When did we see you a stranger take you in or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?

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And the king will answer and say to them, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.

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So in that test, as the sheep are standing before the king, in that test, you could really boil it all down to two basic components.

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Jesus is asking the question, do you love me, and do you love those who are mine?

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Do you love Christ, and do you love those who are Christ's? And the evidence of that love is tangible.

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It's tangible. If you love Christ, you're going to love those who are

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Christ, and your love for those who are Christ will be tangible. Caring for their needs, meeting those needs, expressing love for them, and care, and giving attention to them, and so forth.

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The goats, they may do some philanthropic things, but they're not doing it because people are

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Christ's. They're doing it for maybe humanitarian reasons or whatever, but not because...not

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having no relationship to Christ whatsoever. Not so the sheep.

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They take care of those who are Christ's because they are Christ's.

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Now John, the apostle, wrote in 1 John this same idea, and he expressed it this way.

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So in 1 John chapter 3, listen to what he says. He says, by this we know love, because he,

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Jesus, laid down his life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

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But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brethren in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

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My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed or in truth. And this is what Jesus was saying.

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Those who are Christ's, who really love Christ, will love in deed and in truth, not just in word.

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Not just in word. And at the end of chapter 4, he carries on this same idea.

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He says, if someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love

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God whom he has not seen? And this commandment I...this commandment we have from him, that he who loves

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God must love his brother also. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves him, that is,

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Christ, who begot, also loves him who is begotten of him.

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In other words, if you love Christ, you will love those who are begotten of Christ, that is, brothers and sisters in Christ.

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So this matter of loving fellow believers in Christ is really a big deal.

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You say you love Christ, but you hate those who are Christ's?

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You don't really love Christ. You're a goat. That's what Jesus is saying. You're a goat.

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So, sheep or goat. Judgment Day will bear it out. Everybody will fall into one of two pastures.

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You're going to have the pasture of eternal inheritance in the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world, or the pasture of eternal fire.

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Sheep or goats. Judgment Day is coming. I trust your sheep. Our Father and our

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God, we thank you for this warning, this challenge to us today, and I pray that as we even examine our own hearts, we would look to see, are there brethren in Christ that I'm despising?

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I'm not loving? Is that a reflection of Christ? Lord, convict us if that's our need today.

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Lord, help us to be truly Christ -loving, Christ -honoring sheep who also love the brethren.

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This we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. All right.

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Well, have a good rest of your Friday, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend and are able to get out and worship