Goats and Sheep

Having raised both goats and sheep I may see something different in the message of parable found in Matthew 25:32-46

Many animals like cows, goats and sheep are herd animals and have a social structure to that heard. Both goats and sheep know the shepherd and both will gather together but goats will also look for greener pastures to the point they will start deciding for themselves which way to go. They will go where the shepherd says not to go and they will challenge the wisdom of his staff.

If you put them in a rich lush field with green grass and water they will invariably stick their head through the fence to get to the other side.

The kingdom at hand and the righteousness of God we are to be seeking which was preached by Christ and Paul for the living is simple. You need to repent and you should pray to your Father in heaven for the daily bread or benefits and rewards and grace and mercy you desire or need. Not to the “fathers of the earth”. Jesus said so. Do you know who the fathers of the earth are?

We should all know why the Corban of the Pharisees made the word of God to none effect. Why did Jesus say he would take the kingdom away from the Pharisees and appoint it to a bunch of different Jews we call the apostles and then tell them at the same time in Luke 22:25 “And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so:”?

Who are the men who call themselves benefactors but exercise authority one over the other? Those are men who take from your neighbor to provide you with benefits. They are rulers who offer benefits that are paid for by exercising authority over your neighbors. At that time rulers in Judea and throughout the world offered benefits through systems of “Qorban” by exercising authority rather than by charity. Christ did not. Christians would not do that. They did it by charity alone. They would not sign up for free bread or meat or cheese or any of the give away program of Rome or Judea.

People may ask how do we covet our neighbor's goods? Let us look at something simple. I have six children who could have gone to public school. That would have cost the government near half a million dollars. During that time I might have paid 40,000 in property tax. Doing simple math the extra $450,000 has to come from somewhere. Who is going to pay the rest of that cost?

We know the governments of the world does not pay it. The government exercises authority over my neighbor and forces them to pay it. I am not saying that the government does not have the right to force them to pay it for they surely do. Why they do have that right is another matter but lets keep it simple. I am not saying the people do not have a right to send their children to those schools for they surely do. What I am saying is that if anyone is to say they believe in and follow Christ and therefore seek to be a Christian it “shall not be so” with them. A Christian by policy if they are a follower of Christ are to be seeking and believing in what Christ told us to do and not do.

This has nothing to do with saved by grace or works it has to do with repentance. Repentance has to do with direction. If a “Christian” is a follower of Christ then they need to be going in the direction Christ said to go.

There is no way I could desire benefits of men who exercise authority one over the other without coveting my neighbor's goods because that is where the benefits come from. If we all did that soon the country would be bankrupt and our children would be cursed with paying the debt to those men who call themselves benefactors. Oh! Wait that has already happened. :-)

Now we can take that simple knowledge that these benefits we seek come from men who exercise authority and not the charity or the perfect law of liberty Paul talks about and those he was writing to were standing in and look at the myriad of benefits offered by the rulers of the world including health care and old age pensions and disability etc. Why are we not getting these benefits through the Church like the early Christians did or many of the Christians did just a hundred years ago?

Why? Because “...certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jude 1:4 The word lasciviousness means unbridled desire for benefit. There are hundreds of references to this precept.

One is my personal favorites is Proverbs 23:1 “When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what [is] before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.” But then there is the “one purse” in Proverbs 1:10-19 which is clearly about socialism. The United States has become more and more a socialist state as the rest of the world too. The Church appointed by Christ does less and less of what it was told to do by Christ. Is there any wonder the world is on the brink of such disaster.

Has anyone figured out who the fathers of the earth are and why we should not be applying/praying to them for our daily bread or any other benefit provided at the expense of our neighbors through their exercising authority.

I am sure that those who Jesus will say “depart from me” also "sincerely believed" they were believers in Christ. The problem was they were wrong about what they sincerely believed. "Sincerely believing” and a couple of bucks might get you a cup of coffee somewhere but it wont get you saved. How does one know they sincerely believe? Because they repeat it over and over.

You have to believe in the real Christ, not one you make up by picking and choosing what Christ said, nor by dividing Christ's message into one for Jews and one for gentiles. There is one God and one gospel although many parts to that gospel. Jesus was speaking to his apostles who were take the gospel to the whole world when he said we were not to be like the governments of the gentiles who exercise authority one over the other.

No one here is suggesting that we have to be perfect or without sin. We are talking about direction and seeking the ways of Christ. It is not the ways of Christ, the prophets or God to force your neighbor to contribute to your welfare through men who exercise authority and if you are doing that as a matter of personal policy as socialists do then you are not following Christ nor believing in his way.

It is simply not loving your neighbor or the ways of God and Christ to desire to be benefited by forcing your neighbor to contribute to your welfare like they did in Babylon, Egypt etc.

That has nothing to do with being gentile or Jew or Israel. That is the basics of love. That is the basics of charity and is not charity to force people to give.

1 Corinthians 13:2 “And though I have [the gift of] prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” nor 1 Corinthians 13:13 “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these [is] charity.” Of course when Jesus uses that word or charity they always translated it love.

And we were told not to covet what is thy neigbors by everyone from Moses to Paul. But people who want to believe they believe will ignore that and continue in their iniquity o applying to men who exercise authority one over the other and devour widows houses as we see in Mark 12:40 “Which devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.”

How many people have lost their homes because they could not fulfill the appetite for benefits by people who went to Church but wanted more and more benefits from men who exercise authority to provide those benefits? This should be simple to understand. Wantonness or charity and love?

There are two basic words translated into “iniquity” in the Bible but they both mean unrighteousness.

That is very simple and not hard to understand. Where does it say Christ came to give us license for an unrighteous way of life? Christ did not die so the pig could return to his mire and the dog to his vomit. This is why Peter warns you in 2 Peter 2:3 "And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not."

And why we are to " Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Galatians 5:1

And why Peter goes on in 2 Peter 2:20 to say "For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning."

Jude 1:11 “Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.” But according to the do nothing gospel that has crept into the Modern Church there is no woe. As soon as you mention repentance they jump on the not by works bandwagon. But repentance is not about works it is about direction, it is about the way of Christ or some other way. Christ way is love the worlds way is force. So do you believe in forcing your neighbor to provide you with benefits or do you believe in the love of Christ?