Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #38 of Revelation, chapter 21.  We are continuing to look at the statement the Lord made in Revelation 21:24:

And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

We spent a little time looking at the Bible’s teaching of two nations.  Throughout the history of the world, the way God views the human race is as if there are only two nations: “the nations of them which are saved,” and the “nations of the world,” typified by Jacob and Esau, respectively.

In our last study we had gone to a parable that Jesus gave in Matthew, chapter 25 and we read of the end of the world in that parable.  Let us take a look at what God said in Matthew 25:31-33:

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 divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then it goes on in a very interesting way in this parable, but we are just going to look at these verses and what we notice is that the Son of man comes in His glory and we will go to some Scriptures that will show this is speaking of Judgment Day. 

Then we see that Christ is on the “throne of his glory” and this would be the judgment throne and there are gathered before Him “all nations.”  We know that those that are before Him are the nations of the saved and the nations of the world, because He is separating one from another; He is taking the sheep and putting them on His right and He is taking the goats and putting them on His left.  The sheep represent the “nations of them that are saved” and the goats represent the “nations of the world.”  There is a separation process that is going on in the Day of Judgment.

First, let us show that this is what time frame is in view.  Again, it says in Matthew 25:31:

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him…

We find a similar statement in the Gospel of Mark.  It says in Mark 8:38:

Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

What point in time does this speak of?  Christ is saying that if you are ashamed of the teachings of His Word, the Bible, He will be ashamed of you when He comes in His glory with His holy angels.  Obviously, it is the time of the end, the final judgment of mankind.  We know that Matthew 24, verse 29 tells us of events that take place immediately after the Tribulation: the sun is dark and the moon does not give its light.  When did the Tribulation conclude?  It was on May 21, 2011, the end of the 23 years of the Great Tribulation, so what we are going to read applies to our present time period.  Then it says in Matthew 24:30-31:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.  And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Christ comes in His glory with His holy angels.  We have both facts in view in these Scriptures in Matthew, chapter 24.  By the way, the “holy angels” are the “holy messengers,” the true believers.  We know from other Scriptures that Christ comes with “ten thousands of his saints.”  The saints are the same as the holy angels.  Actually, the word “holy” is closely related to the word “saint.”  That is what it means to be a saint.  It is to be made holy, purified and cleansed from sin.  To be an “angel” or “messenger” of God applies to all of God’s people and Christ is the Chief Messenger.  So Christ is coming with His saints is equivalent to the Lord Jesus coming with the “holy angels.”  It is saying the same thing.

Let us also go to Psalm 102:15-16:

So the heathen shall fear the name of JEHOVAH, and all the kings of the earth thy glory. When JEHOVAH shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory.

This is an important verse because it is telling us when Christ will come in His glory.  Notice it says “when,” which is indicating a time reference.  It is when JEHOVAH shall build up Zion, which is another name for Jerusalem and we have been reading in Revelation, chapter 21, about holy Jerusalem that is made up of His elect.  He had been building this city all through history and Psalm 102:16 is letting it be known that when JEHOVAH builds up Zion, He will appear in His glory and this means at the time when the house is “finished,” like the example of Solomon’s temple.  Once that temple was finished, what was the next thing that happened?  The ark (Christ) entered into the temple.  Once God saved the last of His elect (which occurred prior to May 21, 2011), He had finished evangelizing the earth as He saved the last one whose name was recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  He had built Zion, His holy city, and at that point He appeared in His glory with all His holy angels.  Christ comes with “ten thousands of his saints,” because “ten thousand” points to the completeness of His saints.  The judgment is that God has saved everyone that was to be saved and, therefore, there are no more to become saved.  God used this action to shut the door of heaven and put out the light of the Gospel, so, in a sense, He came with all the saints He had ever saved, from Abel to the very last saint.  Then He appears in His glory and that is what we are reading about in Matthew, chapter 25 in this parable.  Again, it says in Matthew 25:31:

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:

It is Judgment Day.  Remember how God portrayed this in Revelation 20:11:

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

It is the throne of judgment.  The judgment throne of God is established and Christ is seated upon it, ruling with a rod of iron.  Then it goes on to say in Matthew 25:32:

And before him shall be gathered all nations…

And now we are very familiar with this language because we have looked at many verses where God uses this same Greek word “ethnos” translated as “nations.”  He is gathering everyone together and a separation will take place.  It is not a separation where North Americans go here and the Chinese go over there, and so on.  God only separates them into two groups: the group on the right is sheep and the group on the left is goats.  There are only two nations, as He had said to Rebecca when He told her that two nations were in her womb.  They are the nations of them which are saved and the nations of the world.

What really ought to make us stop and think is that in Matthew 28, Jesus has just laid out how He comes in judgment and the very next thing He talks about is judging the people of the world in the sense of “separating” them into groups of saved or unsaved.  So what does this mean?  Think about that.  What does it mean if both “sheep” and “goats” are before Him?  The “sheep” are God’s saved people and there are many Bible verses that show that God likens His people to sheep.  For instance, it says in Ezekiel 36:37-38:

… I will increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am JEHOVAH.

The sheep are people.  They are people God has saved and He is their Shepherd.  Psalm 23:1 says, “JEHOVAH is my shepherd; I shall not want.” He is the Shepherd only of His people.  This is another confirmation that God gives us.  We were forced to understand (due to the fact that we remained on the earth after judgment began on May 21, 2011) that we would actually go through Judgment Day on this earth.  We had understood prior to this date that we would be raptured out of this world and we would have no experience of going through Judgment Day.  We thought we would be judging the world with Christ from somewhere else; God would be the Judge and we would be the jury.  But we did not think we would stand before the judgment throne while remaining on this earth.  

But once we looked back to the Scriptures, the evidence of this was all over the place.  Then we realized what God meant in 1Thessalonians 4:17 when He referred to the believers and said, “Then we which are alive and remain.”  We would be left on the earth.   It is also what God had in view in Zechariah, chapter 13, when He said he would bring the “third part” through the fire.  It is in view when God describes Judgment Day in Revelation 14:10 and He uses the awful language of “the wine of the wrath of God.”  Then in verse 11 He says, “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image.”  Then in verse 12, He refers to the saints and He says, “Here is the patience of the saints.”  The saints are present in the Day of Judgment.  Why would God speak of pouring out His wrath on the unsaved and then, suddenly, talk about the saints and their need of patience?  Following this, He goes back to describing the outpouring of His wrath in the Day of Judgment.  This is because it had always been God’s plan to judge the “quick and the dead.”  The word “quick” means the “living,” and in this instance, the “quick” refer to God’s elect.  Both groups appear before Him.

I would really recommend and encourage anyone listening to read 2Corinthians, chapter 5 and carefully consider the plural pronoun “we” that is used throughout this chapter and it refers to God’s elect in every instance.  For instance, it says in 2Corinthians 5:7:

 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

Another example is 2Corinthians 5:3:

If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

In every instance the pronoun “we” is used, it is referring only to the elect.  Then it says in 2Corinthians 5:10:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Christ will look at those that appear before Him in the Day of Judgment and He will determine whether they have done “good” or “bad.”  And what do we find in regard to the sheep and the goats in the parable in Matthew, chapter 25?  Again, it said in Matthew 25:32:

And before him shall be gathered all nations ,and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

God sets the sheep on the right and the goats on the left.  Then God goes on to speak of the “good works” of the sheep and the “bad works” of the goats.  For example, He says to the sheep, “I was naked, and you clothed me.  I was hungry, and you gave me meat.”  Conversely, He says to the goats, “I was naked, and you clothed me not.  I was hungry, and you gave me no meat.”  Of course, this is all viewed in light of the saving work that Christ did for the sheep and that is what justifies them in God’s sight.  Christ did not die for the goats and that is why their evil deeds are seen by God, but the deeds of both groups are evaluated and the judgment is made.

You know, we tend to think that God, the Judge, only punishes in the Day of Judgment.  But, more accurately, a judge is called a judge because He is the one that makes a determination or decision whether a man is “guilty” or “innocent.”  Is a man “good” or “bad”?  Is a man someone God will bring into His holy heaven or is a man someone that will go into the everlasting punishment of annihilation?  These are the judgments God makes in the Day of Judgment.  We have been going through this prolonged period of Judgment Day since May 21, 2011.  And how has God been judging?  Yes, He shut the door to heaven and ended His salvation program.  And, yes, He is severely trying His elect, but He is also determining guilt or innocence, even though God already knows the end from the beginning.  However, He wants to reveal it or make it manifest.  That is why we are “appearing” before the judgment throne.  That word “appearing” is the same word that was used when Christ “made manifest” on the cross what He had already done from the foundation of the world.  And, we, likewise, must all “appear” or be “made manifest” before the judgment seat of Christ.  God is going to make a final determination in separating the sheep from the goats.

It is really something that this parable in Matthew 25 starts with Christ coming in His glory with the holy angels.  That is the start of Judgment Day.  Then the parable shows us the process of judgment.  Christ is upon the throne and all the nations are before Him and then there is a separation that God is performing as He places one nation at His left hand and one nation at His right hand and, yet, we see a reference made to “sheep” in the Day of Judgment. 

Does that remind us of anything?  Yes, it does, because when we read John, chapter 21, we saw that there was a great catch of fish and we correctly understood it tied into the great multitude that came out of Great Tribulation.  The Great Tribulation concluded on May 21, 2011 and God transitioned into Judgment Day and it is what we are reading about in this parable in Matthew 25.  And after the great catch of fish, Jesus said to Peter three times, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” Then He tells Peter three times to feed His sheep.  After the great catch of fish, there is no more “fishing” to be done in the sense of evangelizing the world to find the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but it is as if Jesus is saying, “It is now Judgment Day and I am seated on my throne of judgment.  I will set my sheep on my right and while I go about the business of judging and separating the nations, your task is to feed the sheep that I have placed on my right hand.”  That is why they are set on His right because the Bible often speaks of Christ on the right hand of God and, therefore, the right hand of God is a place of grace and mercy and salvation.  So the sheep are set on the right and the command is declared, “Feed my sheep.”  We do that by teaching the truths of the Bible and that is what feeds the sheep.  Again, it says in Matthew 25:33:

And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

The Greek word translated as “set” is Strong’s #2476.  It is the word that is often translated as “stand.”  It is translated as “stand” in some very significant places related to Judgment Day, but, here, Christ “stands” the sheep on His right.  Remember the question about “standing” in regard to Judgment Day, in Revelation 6:17:

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

That is the question that God is asking and the answer is that the ones that Christ makes to “stand” will stand, as we read in Romans 14:4:

Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

This is what Christ has done.  He “stands” the sheep on His right.  They are saved and they are equipped with the armour of salvation, as it says in Ephesians 6:13:

Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

The word “withstand” is the same Greek word as “stand.”  Then it goes on to speak of all the spiritual armour which points, ultimately, to the Lord Jesus Christ and His salvation.  This is what God does for His sheep and it is that which causes them to “stand.”

In Luke 21, chapter that deals with the Great Tribulation and the end of the world, it says in Luke 21:34-36:

And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

The word “stand” is the identical word and it is the same picture we were given in the parable when Christ, the Son of man, comes in His glory with the holy angels.  Before Him are gathered all nations and He separates them one from another and He stands the sheep on His right hand.  Before Him, they will “stand” and that means they will “endure to the end.”  The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, we are told in Psalm, chapter 1.  The goats are not said to “stand.”  This word is only used in regard to the sheep.