A Fork in the Road

I was hungry, thirsty, a naked stranger, sick and in prison; some of you cared, some of you did not. This is the test found in the parable of the sheep and the goats. The parable is found in Matthew 25:31-46.

The seeker of truth seeks truth because it is his nature to do so. Our quest for truth is a quest for God, who is one with Christ, and so it follows that our quest for God is a quest for Christ, with whom we are one. The seeker of truth is actually on a quest for self. Our self-nature is the nature of the one we seek, and the very reason that we do what we do. Our choices follow the nature to which we are most closely aligned.

The parable of the sheep and goats is a parable about natures. The nature of the sheep is aligned to the nature of the shepherd. The nature of the goat seeks self-elevation. A cursory observation of goats is enough to show that goats seek out a higher position. They are climbers. Their nature is aligned to the one who sought to be as high as God.

Mark 8:33, “Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.” John 8:44, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it.” 1 Timothy 3:6, “Lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” Isaiah 14:12-14, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven . . . I will be like the most High.”

The parable represents a fork in the road of personal choice. The king divides the sheep to his right and the goats to his left: choice. The sheep choose to focus on the small details of each pasture their shepherd leads them to, and thereby sustain themselves; the goats choose to focus on self and higher ground. It can be said that the sheep have a predilection toward the right while the goats lean ever to the left. Also, there are two opposing destinations, each the natural outcome of personal inclination.

Matthew 25:40, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25:45, “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.” That being put forth, it must be noted that sheep and goats alike had a blind spot. The goats for all their climbing and self-absorption, could not see that their focus excluded the people that Christ the King considered his brethren. The focus of the sheep, on the other hand, was so commonly attuned to the brethren that they failed to associate the details of their nature with the details of the nature of God.

The small ordinary details are always a part of the bigger picture. A person who gathers pennies shares the exact nature of the one who possesses dollars.

There are two epithets associated with the king's judgment of the sheep and goats. Matthew 25:34, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Matthew 25:41, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Let us examine the words chosen. Blessed simply means a better happier state. That might work out as either actively made better or happier through the work of God, or better and happier as the outcome of alignment between our nature and that of God. On the other hand, cursed may not necessarily be an active application by the hand of God, but rather, and this is my assumption, a recognition of the nature of opposition.

The choices are always our own. Every step places us at the fork in the road of personal choice. That being said, I would like to end this small study with a few points of interest. First is the fact that Christ immediately associates himself with the king who sits in judgment. He 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. “ Glory is a state to be arrived at, to attain. Holy angels will accompany him, and the throne of attained glory speaks of a kingdom, (one which will be inherited by those who are aligned to him by their very nature.)

It is interesting to note that just as the Son of man will be accompanied by angels when he arrives, so too will the devil be accompanied by angels when he attains the outcome of his self-will and opposition to God. For me, that says both God and the devil are big enough and strong enough to have angels. Angels, in one particular sense, are messengers of the will of their master. God's messengers tell men the message from God. The angels of the devil have a message of opposition to God.

Who are those angels? Revelation 12:9 says, “Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” Who are the ones speaking the message of opposition to God and Christ? They are the angels of the devil. They are here in the earth. They are real. Are they you? In that vein, we must see more than a few wayward individuals. We must know that the message goes out on a national level. Islam is a national phenomenon. Atheism is a national phenomenon. Christ said this in Matthew 25:32, “And before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another.”

You will always find yourself at a place where choices must be made. You must align yourself. You will always be a member of some nation. What is that nation's alignment? What message does it send? Which angels has the strongest voice? If men who speak the message of the devil go to the place where the devil's angels go, then might it not be a real possibility that seekers, like some of you are, may speak with the mighty voice of an angel of God? The choice is yours to make.

Let's look at opposites for a moment. The blessed achieve eternal life while the cursed achieve eternal punishment. One is not immediately impressed that life and punishment are listed as opposites. We think of death as the opposite to life. The outcome of the cursed predilection is given added veracity in that it is named in another way. The punishment that is said to be everlasting is also phrased as everlasting fire. Similar expressions from other areas of scripture are eternal damnation, the second death and outer darkness. We never see that death is eternal or everlasting. Only life has that guarantee.