The End is the Beginning

The Last Judgment in Matthew 25

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 25th chapter. Jesus said, when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

And He will place the sheep on His right, the goats on the left. And then the King will say to those on His right, Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry, and you gave Me food. I was thirsty, you gave Me drink. 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.

And then the righteous will answer Him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you?

And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And then the King will answer them, Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, My brothers, you did it to Me. And then He will say to those on His left, Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink. I was a stranger, and you did not welcome Me. Naked and you did not clothe Me. Sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.

And then they also will answer, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you? And then He will answer them, saying, Truly I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.

And these will go away into eternal punishment. But the righteous into eternal life. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus, Amen. The end of the world, it's an anxiety-causing thought, if you were to put it in those terms.

You'll note that this kind of sits in our psyche, even in our pop culture. We have really bad movies, and I mean bad movies that kind of cover the end of the world. They're all terrible if you think about it.

And if you think about it in kind of a broader scope, I mean some of the movies that we have that kind of address the end of the world are like ones that involve alien invasions. Always and again, when humanity is on the precipice, in come the aliens and they nearly destroy the planet and we always come up with a way of right at the end of licking those aliens and turning the tide back.

Christ Will Not Be Defeated by Gnostic Fantasies

But you'll note that when Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, despite all the Gnostic fantasies to the contrary, they will not conquer Christ. They will not turn back the day of judgment.

And as a result of it, the world is about to change, and change dramatically, but change in a way for us that we look forward to, and in a way for the world that they loathe, despise, and actually fear.

And the reason why they fear it is the same reason why you and I have that tendency to fear the end of the world. And that is that because at the end of the day, when we look at God's law and we compare our lives to the mirror of God's law, the image that comes back, it's worse than the one I see in the mirror in the morning.

Look in the mirror of God's law and you see somebody, well, who's a rank sinner. And as a result of it, we all know deep down inside, it's like on the ROM chip, let me use a technology thing, it's down in the innards of our psyche that we all know that we deserve God's eternal wrath.

But you'll note over the past few weeks as we've studied the end of the world, I have not been preaching, don't be left behind. I have not been preaching that you've got to make sure that you're ready, right?

And I was thinking about how the Simpsons covered the rapture. Have you ever seen the way the Simpsons covered the rapture? It's quite ridiculous. And what's really funny is that everybody in the pop culture talks about how the Simpsons have predicted so many things that they look now at how the Simpsons cover the rapture as if somehow it has prophetic significance.

And I'm thinking, oh, good grief. Even the Simpsons got this one wrong. But what's really funny is that in the Simpsons version of it, the people who got raptured were the pious, the goody two-shoes and the people like that.

But I'm just sitting there going, they don't really understand that there's nobody like that on planet Earth. We are all sinners. And as a result of it, we have earned God's wrath. And so the ones who are raptured, although they may be pious, piety is not the issue.

They have faith in Jesus Christ. They have confessed their sins. They have heard the merciful, loving response from Christ that their sins have been pardoned and forgiven. And you'll note then that as we look at our text today from Matthew 25, I think we should rejoice.

I think we should look at the positive aspects of it and thank God that he has brought us from death to life. In fact, Ezekiel sets it up wonderfully because in the prophet Ezekiel in our reading today, listen to the kind words that begin this reading.

For thus says the Lord Yahweh, behold, I myself will search for my sheep. I will seek them out as a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered. That's you and I. And here you have this beautiful picture of Christ on the last day seeking us out so that he can gather us together as a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered.

So I will seek out my sheep and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I'm thankful for this because I've been scattered to Minnesota, you know, to North Dakota, Minnesota.

I've been scattered to American Siberia. Hopefully he won't overlook this place, you know, but what's with the snow this morning? Where did that come from? Right? I didn't see that in the forecast at all.

But you'll note that he says, I will bring them out from the peoples. These are from the nations. I will gather them from the countries. I will bring them into their own land. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel by the ravines and in all the inhabited places.

I will feed them with good pasture and on mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land on rich pasture. They shall feed on the mountains of Israel.

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord Yahweh. I will seek the lost. I will bring back the strayed. I will bind up the injured. I will strengthen the weak.

Beautiful pictures, by the way, because you'll note this is where we all sit. We are the weak, the strayed, those who are injured, and we need Christ to strengthen us. As to the fat and the strong, those are the people who just want to exploit others spiritually, financially, and other ways, and basically have their best life now.

He says, I will destroy them. I will feed them injustice. But that is not our fate, brothers and sisters. So we need not despair. Instead, consider then Christ's final parable in the Olivet Discourse when he says, when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.

If you want to get an idea of what that looks like, go back to the beginning of our Ezekiel study. It is quite the glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations. He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Saved by Grace Through Faith, Not by Works

I have to point this out over and again because there are many who use this text for the purpose of saying we are not saved by grace. We are not saved by our faith. We are saved by our works. Remember what I brought up last week in the sermon when I pointed out that in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8, 9, and 10, we read those wonderful words that we are saved by grace through faith.

This is not our own doing. It is the gift of God. It is not by works so that no one may boast. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. So the reason why sheep do good works is because they are sheep.

And remember, without faith it is impossible to please God. So we cannot turn this text into a salvation by works text. So you have to pay careful attention to the nuance and understand what's going on here.

So when Christ shows up, he separates you by what you is. Is you a sheep? You are over here on his right. Is you a goat? You are over here on his left. How are we to understand the difference between the two?

The sheep are those who believe. As sinful as they are, they cry out to Christ to forgive them. He has bled and died for them because Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And they trust in his promises.

And they are awaiting his coming. The goats, on the other hand, they've been busy dealing with all the things of the earth, only the things of the earth. They have no heavenly mind at all or worse. They're believing in false gods and things of that nature and have never trusted in Christ.

In fact, they even hate him. And so they are on the other side. Once this takes place, the judgment has already happened. It's already taken place. Before there is any discussion of works, first you are judged by what you are.

And your fate is determined at this point. Only now that your fate has been determined can we discuss works. And you'll note, for the sheep, it's a very interesting thing. They're kind of unaware of how they've done all these great things because sheep are not the brightest bulbs in the animal kingdom.

But you'll note this. So he will place the sheep on his right, the goats on his left, and the king will say to those on his right, these are the sheep, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

You'll note that they are already blessed. Whom are they blessed by? They are blessed by the Father, who sent the Son, who bled and died for your sins and mine, and Christ, who sent the apostles to preach the good news of the forgiveness of our sins in Jesus Christ, and who died martyr's death for their confession that they saw the risen Jesus who was crucified for the sins of the world.

And so note, they are blessed already by God, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you. He doesn't say, now here are your wages, here's what you get for what you did, all the good things you do. Instead, here eternal life is described, and you'll note many other passages are described in this way as well, as an inheritance.

In order to receive an inheritance, you have to do nothing except for be breathing when the person who wrote the will dies. It's just that simple. Inheritances are gifts, they are not wages given for a fee.

And so, who is the one who has died so that we can receive this amazing inheritance? It is Christ himself. He is the one who laid down his life, and in his last will and testament, he gifted you and willed for you the inheritance of eternal life, and a new earth, and a world without end with him as king.

All of this is gift. And then he mentions the good works, and here's the thing. These are not works in general done as works of mercy, instead, these are very specific good works done particularly to a group of people, and you'll see this in the context.

He says, for I was hungry, and you gave me food. Note the language. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. 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. Now, this kind of invokes some interesting texts. One of them is in the earlier part of the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus has his mother and brothers come to want to talk to him.

They think Jesus has lost his mind. He's kind of off his marbles a little bit, and they want to collect him up. And so, somebody says, hey, your mom and your brothers are outside. They want to talk to you.

And Jesus just completely changes the subject. He says, who are my mother? Who are my brothers? Right? And he says, those who do the will of my father, they are my mother. They are my brothers. Keep that in mind.

So, the one who does the will of his father. What is the will of the father? Well, we got clear passages to make it clear that the will of the father is that you believe in the Son, that you trust in him.

And so, Jesus has a very specific thing when he talks about brothers, but there's another text that we have to think about here. Remember the Apostle Paul? Before he was the Apostle Paul, he was Saul of Tarsus.

And Saul of Tarsus was a, well, he wasn't really known for being a kind person to Christians. In fact, quite the opposite. He murdered them. He persecuted them. He had them flogged in synagogues. Every time I think about that, I'm thinking, we haven't had a good flogging here at Kongsbinger in a while.

But, you know, alas, we'll just have to let that pass. But you get the idea. This is a guy who was on a tear. He legitimately hated Christ and anyone who confessed him. And so he was on his way to Damascus, and we learn from several accounts in the book of Acts where Paul recales us with the story of his conversion, that Christ himself showed up and we like to say he was knocked off his horse, but you'll note that in no passage in Acts does it actually say that Paul was riding a horse.

So we don't know if he was knocked off his horse. He might have been just knocked to the ground. Either way, Christ shows up in his glory and says to him, Saul, Saul. When Jesus uses your name twice, that's kind of similar to like when your mother uses your middle name when you're in trouble, right?

I always knew. My mother, my mother would say my full name, Christopher Michael Roseborough. Oof, I knew I was in deep trouble. So when Christ says to you your name twice, Saul, Saul, next word's out of the mouth of Christ, why are you persecuting me?

And Paul responds, Saul responds, who are you, Lord? I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. So you'll note there's this thing that happens. When Jesus' disciples are mistreated, when they are persecuted, when they are made to suffer, when they are murdered and killed and other things like this, Jesus takes it personally.

You mess with my disciples, you messing with me. That's the way Jesus talks. But you're going to note that that runs both positive and negative. Where you mess with Christ's disciple, you're going to be messing with Jesus.

Whereas if you treat kindly Christ's disciples, those who believe in him, who bring the good news of the gospel to us, that Christ returns that kindness because he takes that personally. Because the one who hears the apostles hears him.

So this litany of all these things that the sheep did, that he was hungry and they fed him, he was thirsty, they gave him a drink, he was a stranger and they welcomed him, he was naked and they clothed him, he was sick and he visited him.

Then the righteous, don't let that little sentence get by you, then the righteous, how are they righteous? By grace, through faith, because they're clothed with the righteousness of God that depends on faith and is for those who believe.

Then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty or give you a drink and when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you and when do we see you sick or in prison and visit you?

Again, sheep are not that bright. But you're going to note, just put the things together so the king will answer them saying, truly I say to you, and listen to the words, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

So how is it? How's that going for us, by the way? You're going to note here that when I came to Kungs of Inger Lutheran Church, I did not come, by the way, for the big benefits package, just did not, that was not a thing.

But you're going to note here, you guys have done a fantastic job because I have come to bring to you the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am your brother in Jesus Christ and Christ sent me to you for the purpose of preaching the gospel, forgiving your sins, administering the sacraments, caring for your spiritual needs, and being an under-shepherd of Jesus Christ, our good shepherd.

And you know what you have done? You have fed me, and my wife, and my kids. You've clothed me, the very clothes that I have on right now, these have all been supplied by your kind way of paying me for the work that I do.

And when I was a stranger, you all welcomed me here. Some of you didn't, by the way, but that's a whole other story, that Jantaloven thing is a big deal. But you welcomed me, and you've clothed me, and when I have been sick, you have been there praying for me and been helping me all along.

So note, and here's the thing, we've all done this for each other too, have we not? Who among us has gotten sick and we have not gone to visit them in the hospital? Who among us has fallen into need and we have not risen to the occasion to meet those needs?

We have. But why are we doing these things? Because this is just what we do, okay? You'll note that we don't sit there and go, boy, Cogsfinger, look at all the good works we're doing. We can't wait to get to heaven and Christ will say, well done, wow, look at the, here's your wages.

No, we just do this because this is what we do. We're being sheep, right? And we're with this with each other. And so I must point this out to you, not for you to boast, but for you to be comforted. You were created in Christ Jesus for good works and your good works are noticeable among each of us and even in the community.

So as you did to the least of these, my brothers, you've done it to me. But what about the unbelievers? They have the time of day to listen to the gospel? Do they really care about that crucified guy?

In fact, I showed this to one of the Bible studies yesterday. It was a men's study. If you're familiar with the actor Stephen Fry, back about eight to 10 years ago, as the British would say, there was a row, okay?

It's actually spelled R-O-W. And one time I said, row? What's a row? And so somebody emailed me from the UK. So it's not a row. It's a row. Okay, all right. There was a row, a kerfuffle in the media because he was interviewed by somebody and Stephen Fry is an avowed denier of the existence of God, at least the God of the Bible.

And somebody asked him, what would happen if you were to die and you were to stand before the God that you don't believe in and what would you say to him? And he immediately, without even skipping a beat said, I would say to him, really, God?

You give five-year-old children bone cancer? What is this world of misery that you've put us into, right? And so he then just railed on God. You can look this up on YouTube. It's still there. It's horrible.

And you'll note that he exemplifies that attitude and somebody said, well, don't you want to be saved? He says, not on that God's terms, not on God's terms, I don't want to be saved. I'd rather go to hell.

That's what he said. It's quite the thing. And you're going to note here, what he exemplifies is exactly the mindset of everybody who is still dead and trespasses and sins. If it were not for the grace of God and him fulfilling his promises to you in the preached word and the waters of baptism, you and I would be no better and in fact, quite the same as Stephen Fry.

So does Stephen Fry invite the local Lutheran pastor over to his house to share the gospel with him? Not at all. Do any pagans do that? No. They're quite annoyed by the things that we Christians have to say.

Eternal Punishment and Eternal Life

So then he will say to those on his left, depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And here's the first mention that hell is eternal. You'll note that there are some people who believe that, well, God, in order for God to be just, he's only going to punish those who are damned up to the point where they've basically have paid their debt to God.

And so after that, they will cease to exist. Baloney. The fires of hell are eternal because those who are in hell are there for that long, eternally. Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

I was hungry and you gave me no food. And this isn't talking about feeding homeless people at the local soup kitchen. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger. You didn't welcome me. Naked and you didn't clothe me.

Sick and in prison and you did not visit me. And then they will answer saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to you? And then he will answer them saying, truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these and the least of these, he's pointing to the sheep, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

And then one of the most poignant and terrifying and comforting verses in all of Scripture. In one sentence, it says, and these, these, the goats, will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

How long is the punishment? It's eternal. How long is eternal life? It's eternal. It's eternal. The two are bound together and you can't unbind them. They're bound together as one is eternal, so the other is eternal.

If you say that hell isn't eternal, then eternal life isn't eternal. You know, if you were to think of it kind of in that term, well, if God only punishes somebody for as long as they were, you know, as much as their sin needs to be paid for and after that they cease to exist, then conversely, you must come to the conclusion that anybody who ends up in the new heavens and the new earth along with Christ can only stay there as long as their good works last, you know, as much as their good works have earned, and after that, poof, they cease to exist.

And by the way, I'm pretty sure that based upon my proven track record of sinning every single day of my life, week after week, month after month, and ad infinitum, that what I've earned from God as far as time in heaven is probably less than a nanosecond, if at all any.

You get the point. But here's where we will come back to this and focus on this point. The righteous, that is you and I, we have heard that our sins were forgiven today. We again today will feast on the body and blood of Christ, given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

Christ has taken your sin and my sin. He became a sinner so that you and I can be clothed in his righteousness as a gift by grace through faith, and we have been promised eternal life. I've used this metaphor before, and I recently taught on this in San Diego at a conference put on by the 1517 folks, and I did a lecture on Narnian eschatology.

Seems like kind of a weird topic, but if you know the Chronicles of Narnia, C .S. Lewis, they were written as Christian allegory, and the final book in the series is called The Last Battle, and in The Last Battle, in the last page of The Last Battle, there is something just so brilliant, and this is where I think we need to take, we need to transition and consider what it is that is ahead of us.

In The Last Battle, once everybody gets into the new Narnia, and that's going to include Lucy and Peter and Edmund. It doesn't include Susan, if you know your Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, because she had become too big for her britches, too focused on things of the earth to no longer believe in Narnia or in Aslan, but once everybody's in, and here's the funny bit, Lucy and Peter and Edmund had no clue that they were even dead.

Kind of let that sink in for a second. That's some good theology right there, by the way. That's some good theology, because remember in the Gospel of John, chapter 11, this is the passage where Christ raises Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus says, he says, I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live. And then he takes it and goes even farther. Anyone who believes in me will never die.

And to then punctuate the point, he asks the question, do you believe this? Do you believe that you'll never die? Well, I've never known Jesus to be a liar, so yep, we ain't going to die. So here's some good eschatological stuff borrowed from C .S. Lewis.

So Aslan, he sees the Pevensie kids, they're adults at this point, and they're not quite happy yet. They're kind of worried and have a little bit of anxiety that they're going to be sent back to planet Earth, because every time they've been to Narnia, they all got sent back, and they don't want to go back.

They want to be there forever. So Aslan says to him, you don't yet look so happy as I mean you to be. So Lucy speaks up, and she says, well, we're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan, and you've sent us back into our own world so often.

So Aslan interrupts her and says, well, there's no fear of that. Have you not guessed? So their hearts leaped, and a wild hope rose within them. There was a real railway accident, said Aslan softly. Your father and your mother and all of you are, as you used to call it in the shadow lands, and what a great way to describe this Earth, the shadow lands.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And this is this world. You are, as he used to say in the shadow lands, you are dead. And then Aslan's next words are beautiful. The term is over.

The holidays have begun. The dream is ended. This is the morning. In one sentence, he just encapsulates that great, great anticipation, that joy, that ooh, I can't wait for that to come. You guys remember when I was growing up, kids didn't go to school all year round.

I don't think they do that here, but in California now, they have year-round schools, but when I was a kid, you would have to do the drudgery of school from early September all the way to the first or second week of June, and it was terrible.

I hated it, right? And so what would happen is that when you got closer and closer to the last day of school, your ability to do homework flew away like a bird, and you can only think about things that were coming up in the summer, warm weather, days at the beach, body surfing, playing kick the can with your friends, playing wiffle ball until the streetlights go out, and just all the joys that come with eating ice cream, swimming in the public swimming pool, and all the things that you do as a kid.

And this is the only thing that's filling your mind as we get closer and closer to the end of the school term. That's what Lewis is invoking for us. Consider the joys that are before us, the drudgery of this world being under the curse of sin and under the toil under the curse because Adam and Eve brought on us a sinful nature by transgressing God's law.

This world that just seems like a dream which oftentimes turns into a complete and abject nightmare, this will finally be gone, and off in the horizon we can see the sun beginning to come up. It is about to end, and this is what we have to look forward to.

Lewis then concludes, he says, as he spoke, Aslan no longer looked to them like a lion, but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.

But for them it was only the beginning of the story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page, and now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.

The New Heavens and New Earth

Eternal life. Prophet Isaiah describes it in these terms. Behold, Yahweh says, I create a new heavens and a new earth. The former things shall not be remembered or come into mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create.

For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.

No more shall there be an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days. For the young man shall die a hundred years old, the sinner a hundred years old shall be considered accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For like the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of Yahweh and their descendants with them. Before they call, I will answer. While they are yet speaking, I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall graze together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox. The dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all of my holy mountains, says Yahweh. This is what we have to look forward to.

The current world that we are in is passing away. It's terminally ill. The sickness has hit stage four at this point. There's no turning back. This world that we live in will die. Christ will bring it to an end, only to create a new heavens and a new earth, Genesis all over again.

And now, rather than two human beings, an entire kingdom full of those who've been forgiven by Christ, gifted the forgiveness of their sins, and granted by God an inheritance in the world to come. That is you and I.

So brothers, take heart. The day is far spent. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Christ is at the door. He will be here soon. In the name of Jesus, amen.

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