Have You Heard The One About....How To Find A Good Lesson From A Bad Example? - Haddon W. Robinson

1:58 As far as I know, this may be the last time I'll be at Dallas Seminary, and certainly the last time I'll be with all of you. If I come back, you're going to be gone to the ends of the earth. But, you know, some of the things are good, some are poor. This is pretty good. Nice to be with you. You've been very, very kind. And Bonnie and I have commented several times this week that students have gone out of their way to be gracious and the faculty is as gracious as the faculty could be. And in the words of Isaiah the prophet, you're a great bunch. This morning I want to look at a passage in the book of Matthew. It is possibly the most misunderstood, misapplied passage in terms of a parable that I know.

2:58 This comes from Matthew chapter 25. Matthew 25, beginning at verse 31. When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He'll put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, come. You are blessed by my father.

3:51 Take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 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. 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 and the righteous will answer him Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink when did we see you a stranger and invite you in or needing clothes and clothe you when did we see you sick or in prison and go visit you The king will reply, I tell you the truth. Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.

4:50 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. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me nothing to drink. 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. And they also answered, Lord, why did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick and in prison and did not help you? And he replied, I tell you the truth whatever you did not do for one of the least of these you did not do for me and they will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous to eternal life Let me tell you the history of this section of scripture.

5:57 Not the history you get if you go to a New Testament class. I mean my own personal history with it. The first time I remember hearing about the sheep and goats, I was about 12 years of age. My cousin and I were on a spiritual search, looking for a congregation that had a basketball team. and we found it at the Broadway Presbyterian Church in New York. And that's when I discovered a great lesson in life that every silver lining has a cloud. Because in order to play on the team, you had to go to Sunday school at least three Sundays a month. And that's where I came across Miss Lortz. She was a Sunday school teacher. She had never married, a bit of an austere woman, but she loved the Bible and she loved the Second Coming.

6:54 And she seemed to be particularly attracted to the judgments. That was because of the boys in her class, I'm sure. And she introduced us to this parable of sheep and goats. Now that was back in my literalistic days of interpretation and when she talked about the judgment of the sheep and goats, I figured she was talking about real sheep, real goats. Kind of confused me, trying to picture it, the king of the universe, fooling around with a bunch of animals. It was sort of like a county fair, though I had never been near a county fair in my life. And it was Miss Lodge who told me that Jesus counted the hairs on my head. And I figured if he was into that kind of trivia, then sheep and goats made more sense. I came back to this parable two, three years later, and by that time I had figured out, it's not talking about sheep and goats, animals, it's talking about people.

8:05 That the good people are sheep, the bad people are goats. Why the good people are sheep, I had no idea. In fact, for years I wondered about that. I was out in western Washington a few years ago, had lunch with a man who raised sheep. I mean, thousands of them at a time. And I said, man, I always wanted to meet someone like you. You live with sheep. What comes to your mind when you think of sheep? And he shot back, stupid. They have got to be the stupidest animals God ever made. I'm not going to touch that this morning. But I said to him, well, what about goats? He wasn't as quick with that. He thought about it and said, they're stubborn animals. They have no discernment.

8:58 They eat anything. Anyhow, the sheep are the good guys and the goats are the bad guys. At 13, I was always trying to picture things and I tried to picture what this would all be like. says it's the judgment of the nations so i figured there'd be a crowd there and the biggest crowd i could think of where this could work would be at macy's department store at christmas i mean it was a crowd people pushing shoving trying to get at the sweaters the ties underwear the pajamas um and and then up on the balcony it was a big balcony up on the balcony some angels would appear. The musical angels. I mean, they weren't playing their harps. They were using their horns.

9:50 Ba-da-ba-ba-ba! But he's gone. But there would be this blast, and then there would be the announcement. this is the judgment of the sheep and goats you are sheep over to the king's right you're left you are goats over the king's left you're right oh it would be no problem for me and the other guys that went to Sunday school I mean we knew what should be goats are about we don't saunter over to the king's right it was the it was the fellas in my gang and I went there I mean Carl Bacali and Marty Lippin and Henry Morlock, I mean they didn't go to Sunday school. They didn't go to church. They didn't even know there was a judgment to sheep and goats. It was going to take them by surprise. And I wondered, what would they do? And I imagined, somehow one of the angels would be assigned to the fellows in my gang. I'd have to explain all this to them. And He'd come over and he'd say, all right, you guys, you over to the king's left, you're goats.

11:10 What do you get off calling us goats? Well, you're goats. It has to do with the way you didn't treat the king. What do you mean? Well, he was hungry. He didn't give him anything to eat. He was thirsty. He didn't give him a Coke or anything. Didn't give him any home when he needed a place to stay. Didn't give him clothes when he was, he needed some clothes. He was in prison, he didn't visit him. Sick, he didn't take care of him.

11:52 And I could imagine those guys saying, you gotta be kidding, that guy ain't been in our neighborhood, I never saw him before. It's not exactly him, it's the people he knows and likes his brothers. He didn't do anything for them. I can imagine them saying, wait a minute, take a guy in, around this neighborhood, you take a guy in, he'll slit your throat. And I think of my friend Andy Medina saying, well I got a brother up at Sing Sing, and we go to visit him twice a year, does that count? I just knew that was going to be a tough assignment for that angel.

12:35 I came back to this passage years later, and I saw something that was so obvious, I mean so obvious, that I had missed it before. And that is, the sheep are as confused as the goats. I mean, the sheep ask the same question. When were you hungry? When will we feed you? When are you thirsty? When will we give you something to drink? I mean, when did we give you a place to stay or clothes? When were you, you know, they had the same questions as the goats. I thought about that. One thing you know this passage isn't teaching is that if you go to the rescue mission at Christmas time and serve some meals to the people who are off the streets, that you immediately get access to the kingdom. Or if you go to the local grocer and they have one of those canisters to feed hungry children and you put your cash in there and by the time it hits the bottom of the box, you're a citizen of the kingdom.

13:52 I mean, if you know the Gospel of Matthew, you know the Gospel of God, you don't get heaven that easily. So I wondered about all that. It isn't as clear as I thought it was when I started. And I think there's a line, it almost seems like a throwaway line, in verse 34. The king will say to those on his right, come, you are blessed by my father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. Is that phrase blessed of my father?

14:42 It's not a throwaway land. In fact, it picks up an echo of the things discussed previously in the Gospel of Matthew. Now early on, Jesus preached the sermon that we call the Sermon on the Mount, and it starts with what we call the Beatitudes, series of blessings. The first one is the blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are men and women who sense that they are spiritually destitute. That they are bankrupt and they have no coins to get them out of debt. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The second beatitude, I think, comes off the first, and that is, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

15:46 Mourn about what? Mourn about the fact that they are spiritually destitute, desperately needed. They're in the poor house and can't get out. They mourn about that. Then the next beatitude is blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.

16:11 Meek. Other translations come up with something else. Meek doesn't work. I mean, it's the right translation, but who in the world wants to be meek? You call a man meek, he's liable to punch you in the mouth. If you do a word association, it's a meek little man. Meek Meek and weak, they all go together. So blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth. But the word meek is not quite that weak. It's a strong word. It was used outside the Bible of a horse that won a horse race. And they weren't saying this meek horse was too embarrassed to leave the starting line, shy to take the lead. What they meant was that the horse was in submission to its rider.

17:10 One touch of the stick and it bounded forward, one movement of the reins, it went from side to side. So, blessed are the meek, those who are submissive to this king. Theirs is the inherit the earth." That's strange, isn't it? We think of heaven, we think of the clouds and the sweet vine. Part of God's promise for our future is we will inherit the earth. The kingdom is not some misty vision in the future. Kingdom consists of rain from heaven and earth. Then he says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They'll be filled. Hunger and thirst.

18:05 These people who are spiritually destitute, who mourn about their sin, who submit to the king, they develop a hunger. A hunger for righteousness. You often wonder what righteousness is. I mean, there's no such thing as righteousness. You can't go and say, I'd like five pounds of righteousness, please. It's not a thing. It's a relationship. Righteousness is having a relationship with God or a relationship with others.

18:46 Back in the First Testament when it says that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, saying that his believing God about the promise of a son, God counted that as righteous. It gave him a relationship with God. Also gives you a relationship with other people. And these sinful folks who mourn about their sin and are concerned and hunger and thirst for righteousness and they're filled, they're filled with the reality of a relationship to God and a relationship to others.

19:28 And then he says, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. That makes sense. Sort of like a cycle. If you have received mercy and you know that you have been filled and you're aware that this destitute condition of yours, God himself has been it. If he has been merciful to you and you really sense it, you've got to be merciful to other people. You're going to treat them as God has treated you. And then the more you do that, you receive mercy.

20:04 Or blessed are the pure in heart. They'll see God. Not really sure of all of that, what that means. It certainly does mean that if you're pure of heart, it cleanses the way you look at things. You look at God, you see him. One thing is certain if you're not pure of heart, the last person in the universe you want to see is God. You'll see God. And then, blessed are the peacemakers, because they will become sons and daughters, we'll be called sons and daughters of God. Well that makes a lot of sense. Peacemakers, those who are destitute sinners, who have seen God fill them because they are submissive. People of mercy, they're peacemakers. They want to, first of all, introduce people to God. They want to tell people that the war between God and people is over. They want to say to people, look, God has signed the peace treaty in the blood of his Son and he asks you to sign it because God is completely satisfied with all that Jesus Christ has done.

21:33 And you can bet your soul on that. Peace. Constantly trying to talk to people about it. And then peace with others. Wherever Christians go, they should be working to bring people together rather than separate them. And you see it, great congregations in the United States, there's Jews, and there's Arabs, and there's blacks, and there's white, and there's Asians, and Caucasians. They're brought together. Wouldn't normally see these folks coming together, but they're together. They're brothers and sisters. They make peace. We ought not be the people who build walls. We ought to be the people who build bridges.

22:27 That's the mark of belonging to God's family. Well, you take all of that from Matthew chapter five, bring it back to Matthew 25. Come, you who are blessed by my Father,

22:47 take the inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. And now, I come to realize that this isn't just some kind of intellectual checkmate, like the game I'm playing, that when this happens and you are really one of his, you're changed by that.

23:19 These sheep were totally unaware of what they were doing. Because these deeds, these little deeds of kindness and love, came because something happened inside. These kinds of deeds are as natural to them as wool is to a sheep. Now I've never had a conversation with a sheep, but I can imagine saying to them, Sheep, you put a lot of wool. How do you do it? Well, I get out there and I go, ooh. And every so often I get a bunch of wool. Sheep don't even know they do it. They just give it. It's part of their nature.

24:06 So you're not surprised if the sheep aren't keeping a record of what they did. They don't do it. They get into the flock. They do it because Christ made women. Thank you. Well, I thought about that. I thought about this judgment, what it's going to be like. Since it's the judgment of the nations, I suspect I'll be there. I wonder what it would be like to stand before this king. I stand before him and the king says, I mean, Robinson, did you bring your date book? Yes, Lord, I know it says that I brought nothing into the world, I bring nothing out. I was so close to this. I got to pass customs coming into the kingdom.

25:01 Oh, well, okay, good. Let's look at it. Let's look at, look back at November 1983. Oh, yes. I'm sure you're talking about the second week. I was the president of ETS, and I was up at Dallas, up at Denver, came to Dallas for the meeting. Oh yeah, I wrote my paper on the relationship of hermeneutics to homiletics. And the king will say, well, I don't go to a lot of those meetings, they're too stuffy. And I read the title of your paper, I didn't understand it, so I just put it aside. No, no, what I was referring to is before you made the trip from Denver to Dallas, your wife, Bonnie, told you about a couple on the campus.

26:07 I had designed a day so that they had a 25-day check and a 31-day month. And he put some money in an envelope and put it in their box. Remember that? Oh, that was a long time ago. I don't remember. Bonnie probably remembers it. She's better at those things than I am. King said, I remembered it. When you put that money in that envelope, you gave it to me. And I'd never forgotten that. Look at March, second week in March 1996. Oh, it was.

27:03 Yeah, when I was mentioned in Newsweek magazine as one of the 12 best religious communicators in the world. Yeah, it was good. The king said, I never read news magazine. They get it all wrong. Look, they had something like that. You could show how long it is. No, I don't know about that. I do know there was a time after class that week that you were leaving, going to another meeting and there was a young woman sitting towards the back class, one of the students, and you said, well, how you doing? She said, oh, all right. Then you ask another question. He said, how are you doing, really? And she began to weep.

27:59 And you sat down beside her and you didn't say much, you just listened. You and I both know why you didn't say much, you didn't know what to say, but you listened. And for an hour, you remember that? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I think, maybe, Lord.

28:24 Lord will say, when you sat there and listened, you were listening to my pain as well. And that's something I didn't forget. There's going to be a lot of surprises at the judgment. All the stuff we put on our Vita, forget it. You're not going to get past the gate. No, it's the stuff we would never suspect. A lot of surprises. There are going to be people there who are absolutely sure they're getting in. Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and do many mighty works?

29:16 And the king will say, I'm sorry, I never knew you. Deport from me. And then there are going to be others ever soon. I wonder if we're going to get in at all. I mean, you know yourself. How could the holy king of the universe accept someone like me? I almost feel like I want to turn away. And unless that king finds some way for me to be acceptable to him, there isn't anything I can do. I don't even know if I can. But those kind of people will be admitted in because of his grace. He's made a difference in who we are.

30:15 There are going to be a lot of surprises at the judgment. A lot of surprises. Would you let me pray for you before I leave? Father. We pray for these women and men in the student body on this faculty. We who are objects of your grace. oh lord help us to appreciate that we get it all muddled up but we're so grateful that you have brought us to yourself and that you have made it possible for us to spend eternity with you And Lord, we pray for everyone in this room.

31:33 Help us. Help us to make that clear to those on the outside. But God is not angry. Oh, help us to say it in such a way that there's gentleness and kindness and love. So we pray for the seminary, pray for Gordon Conwell, for Trinity, for Denver, for the men and women that you have brought to these places. Teach them your word. Teach them about yourself as they read your word. Teach them about your world, how much you care for it. and start to work with me.

32:33 Amen.