SHEEP AND
GOATS
Jesus knew the weakness of the
Disciples, their weakness of the spirit, and perhaps also of the flesh, and He
puts them on their guard against two great perils in the end: fraud and martyrdom.
"Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name,
saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. Then if any man shall say unto
you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For false Christs and false
prophets shall rise and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were
possible, even the elect. Go not after them, nor follow them." (Matt. 24:4-5, 23-24)
But although they are to flee from the
frauds and religion of the false Messiahs, they cannot escape the persecutions
of the enemies of the real Christ. "Then
shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be
hated of all nations for my name's sake. But take heed to yourselves: far they
shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues' ye shall be beaten:
and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony
against them. . . . Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the
father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall
cause them to be put to death. . . . And then shall many be offended, and shall
betray one another, and shall hate one another . . . and because iniquity shall
abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure to the end,
the same shall be saved." (Matt. 24:9-13)
Then shall begin the signs of the imminent punishment, "And when ye shall hear of wars and
rumors of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end
shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in diverse places, and there shall be
famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrow." (Matt.
24:6-8)
These are the preliminary warnings:
the order of the world shall he disturbed, the world, peaceful at the time when
Christ pronounced these words, shall see man set against man, nation against
nation, and the earth itself soaked with blood shall rise against men; shall
tremble under their steps; shall cast down their houses; shall vomit out ashes,
as if it cast out from the mouth of its mountains all its dead, and shall deny
to the fratricides the food which ripens to gold every summer in the fields.
And nature itself will show great disturbances from the Creator.
Then when all this shall have come to
pass, the punishment will come upon those people who would not be born again in
Christ, who did not accept the Gospel; on the city which nailed its Lord upon
Golgotha and persecuted His witnesses.
"And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know
that the desolation thereof is nigh. But when ye shall see the abomination of
desolation, spoken of by Daniel, the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let
him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judea flee to the mountains:
and let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter
therein, to take anything out of his house: And let him that is in the field
not turn back again for to take up his garment. But woe to them that are with
child, and to them who give suck in those days! And pray ye that your flight be
not in winter. For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the
beginning of creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. There
shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall
fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations:
and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the
Gentiles be fulfilled." (Luke 21:20-24)
This is the end of the
first prophecy. Jerusalem shall be taken and destroyed and of the Temple,
defiled by the abomination of desolation, there shall remain not one stone
upon another. This is great tribulation for the nation.
But Jesus has not said all, until now
has not spoken of His second coming.
"Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the
Gentiles be fulfilled." (Luke 21:24) What are these "tempi dei Gentili, tempora
nationum"? The words of the Greek texts express it with greater
precision than the other languages: they are the times adapted to, fitting, and
awaiting the Gentiles, that is, those in which the non-Jews shall be converted
to the Gospel, announced to the Jews before all others. The 144,000 takes this
message to the rest of the world. Therefore that real end shall not come until
the Gospel has been carried into all nations, until the Gentiles, the faithless
ones, tread down the city of Jerusalem. "And
this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all, the world for a witness
unto all nations; and then shall the end come." (Matt. 24:14)
The second coming of Christ from
Heaven, the Parousia, will be the end of this world and the great tribulation
He springs upon that world and then the beginning
of the true world, and finally the eternal kingdom at the end of a thousand
year reign of Christ. The end of Judea was announced by signs human and
terrestrial; this other end will be preceded by signs divine and celestial. "The sun shall be darkened, and the
moon shall not give her light. And the stars of heaven shall fall. And upon the
earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after these things which
are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. 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." (Matt. 24:29-30)
For the end of
Jerusalem only, the little earth was troubled; but for this universal ending,
Heaven itself is convulsed. In the great sudden blackness only the roaring of
water will be heard, and screams of terror. It is the Day of the Lord, the day
of God's wrath described in their times by Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Joel.
The day of GREAT TRIBULATION. "The
day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it
come. (Isa. 13:6) A day of darkness and of gloominess! The land is as the Garden
of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. (Joel 2:3) The
people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. (Joel 2:6) Therefore
shall all hands be faint and every man's heart shall melt. And they shall be
afraid: pangs and sorrow shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a
woman that travaileth; they shall be amazed one at another. Behold the clay of
the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land
desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of
heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the heavens
shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as
the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig
tree." (Isa. 13:7-10)
This is the day of the Father, day of
blackness in the Heavens and of terror on earth. But the day of the Son
follows immediately after.
He does not appear this time hidden in
a stable, but on high in Heaven, no longer poor and wretched, but in power and
splendor of 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."
And when the celestial trumpets shall have awakened all those sleeping in the
tombs, the irrevocable division shall be made.
"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 his left.
"Then shall the King say unto them on his right
hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from
the foundation of the world:
"For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye
gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
"Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in
prison, and ye came unto me.
"Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we
thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
"When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and
clothed thee?
"Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto
you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye
have done it unto me.
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me,
ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
"For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and
ye gave me no drink:
"I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me
not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
"Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an
hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did
not minister unto thee?
"Then shall he answer them, saying, verily I say unto you, Inasmuch
as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the
righteous into life eternal." (Matt. 25:31-46)
Jesus, even in His glory as judge of
the last Day, does not forget the poor and unhappy whom He loved so greatly
during His life on earth. He came from the glories and riches of heaven to an
earth He had cursed to appear as one of those "least" who hold out their hands at the doors and on whom
the "great" look down. On
earth, in the time of Tiberius, (Luke 3:1) He was the man who was hungering for
bread and love, thirsting for water and martyrdom, who was like a stranger in
His own country, not recognized by His own brothers, who stripped Himself to
clothe those shaking with cold, who was sick with sorrow and suffering and no
one comforted Him, who was imprisoned in the base prison of human flesh, in the
narrow prison of earthly life. He was divinely hungering for souls, thirsting
for faith, He was the stranger come from the inexpressible fatherland, defenseless
before whips and insults, the Man sick with the holy madness of love. But on
that great Day of final Judgment, He will not be thinking of Himself, as He did
not think of Himself when He was a man among men.
The code of this dividing of good from
evil men will be based on one idea only: Compassion—Charity.
During all the time which lies between His first and second coming He has gone
on living under the appearance of the poor and the pilgrims, of the sick and
persecuted, of wanderers and slaves. And on the Last Day He pays His debts.
Mercy shown to those "least"
was shown to Him, and He will reward that mercy in the name of all, as He brings
His curse to an end. Only those who did not receive Him when He appeared in the
innumerable bodies of the poverty-stricken will be condemned to eternal
punishment, because when they drove away the unfortunate they drove away God.
When they refused bread, water and a garment to the poor man, they condemned
the Son of God to cold, thirst and hunger. The Father had no need of your help,
for all is His and He loves you even during the moments when you curse Him. But
you must love the Father in the persons of His children. And those who did not
quench the thirst of the thirsty will themselves thirst for all eternity; those
who did not warm the naked man will suffer in fire for all eternity; those who
did not comfort the prisoner will be prisoners of Hell forever; those who did
not receive the stranger will never be received in Heaven, and those who did
not help the fever-stricken patient will shiver in the spasms of everlasting
fever. (Matt. 25:34-46)
The Great Poor Man in the day of His
glory will, as justice dictates, reward everyone with His infinite riches. He
who has given a little life to the poor will have life forever; he who has left
the poor in pain will himself be in pain forever. And then the bare sky will be
peopled with other more powerful suns, with stars flaming more brightly in the
heavens and there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth, and the Chosen will
live not as we live now, like beasts, but in the likeness of angels.
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