What About Church?

The topic for this week is church attendance.  Is it important?  Should I go?  If so, when should I go?  How often should I go?  What’s in it for me?

Well, let’s start with the obvious question, “Is it important?”  After all, if it isn’t important, then the rest of those questions don’t really matter, anyway.  Romans 10:14 asks the question, “How shall they hear without a preacher.  So, evidently, having a preacher (or a pastor) is an important part of the Christian life.  Jeremiah 3:15 tells us that God will give us pastors according to His heart.  There are a number of references in the book of the Acts of the Apostles to the body of believers gathering together:  Acts 2:46, Acts 5:42, Acts 6:1, and Acts 20:7.  Also, Apostle Paul admonished us to not forsake “the assembling of ourselves together…”  So, God gives us pastors, from whom we should hear the Word expounded, the early church gathered together often, and we are not supposed to forsake the assembly of ourselves together.  That sounds like a pretty clear “yes” to the question of whether church is important, and whether you should go.

When should you go?  Now, there are some that insist that Saturday is the Sabbath day (not Sunday), so you should attend service on Saturday.  Now, the Bible says, “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” (Romans 14:5)  If you want to attend service on Saturday, there’s nothing wrong with that.  If you want to attend service on Sunday morning, there’s nothing wrong with that, either.  There are some that make a lot of noise about it being wrong to worship God on Sunday—I personally have a hard time with the idea that there’s a ‘wrong’ time to worship God—but the only time that I’m aware of in Scripture that it specifies a particular day of the week that the early church worshipped was in Acts 20:7 where it says that they worshipped on the first day of the week (Sunday).  Remember that the Sabbath day is an homage to the seventh day when God rested after creation; so, the Sabbath Day would be Saturday, and the first day of the week would be Sunday.  Now, don’t misunderstand me; I feel certain that the early church held services on other days, also, I just wanted to point out that we know from Scripture that at least once they held service on a Sunday.

How often should you go?  To some extent, that’s up to your pastor.  To a lesser extent, it’s up to you.  Health permitting, you should attend every service you can, unless you are a member of one of those churches that has outgrown its building, and the pastor is officiating multiple services a week in order to be able to minister to everyone in his flock.  In those churches, if every church member tried to attend every service, they would have to turn people away, and it might end up being a lot of the same people each time.  Imagine for a moment that Sister Mary shows up for service an hour early every service to make sure she gets in, but Brother Bob comes at the last possible minute each time and is consistently turned away.  Well, you may say, Brother Bob should get up sooner, and not wait until the last possible minute, and there is some truth to that, but let’s not forget that Bob is evidently one of the weaker Christians and he needs all the help he can get (are we not commanded to bear one another’s burdens?)

What do you get out of it?  That question seems a little mercenary, but, to be honest, it is a fair question.  A lot of people seem to think that church service is your service to God, that it is a requirement that you must fulfill in order to get on with your life (some even think that going to church on Sunday gives them carte blanche to live the rest of the week however they please).  Not so.  In actuality, church service is for you.  It strengthens you, spiritually, it encourages you, and sometimes it even equips you when the pastor teaches you something you didn’t know.  It should be an opportunity for you to celebrate your faith.  And, by the way, your service to God is how you live the rest of the week.

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

            The topic for this week is, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”   The easy answer is that we have an enemy who has, from the beginning of human existence, tried to trip us up and trick us into forsaking the good gifts that God has for us.  Don’t believe me? Read Genesis 3.  The more complicated answer is that, although God is good, and wants the best for us, we have (with a lot of help) managed to mess this world up pretty badly. 

            What it really comes down to is that we are free moral agents, and we are free to make our own choices.  Sometimes we will make choices that are good for us, and sometimes we will not.  I’m guessing that Adam made a lot of good choices in the Garden of Eden, but he is mostly remembered for the one bad decision he made.  We don’t get into fixes because God puts us into a mess, although sometimes He doesn’t protect us from other people’s bad decisions, even when we think He should.

            Another problem that we run into is that sometimes things happen that seem bad, but really aren’t.  In some instances, good and bad are relative.  Think about Jonah for a minute.  When he was in the belly of the whale, he believed that he was being punished for his transgression, and that he was going to die in that whale (or great fish).  In other words, he believed that God had devised a plan, intended to kill Jonah slowly, that would be worthy of a villain in a bad spy movie.  The Scriptures make it clear that God prepared the ‘great fish’ for Jonah, not to kill him, but to keep him alive, because God wasn’t done with Jonah yet.  In any case, I’m sure that Jonah didn’t think that he was in a good place, but consider that he placed himself in a position that the alternative was certain death by drowning outside of the will of God.

            Elisha once found himself in a situation where Jezebel, Queen of Israel, threatened his life, and he took her very seriously.  He went and hid himself in a cave.  While he was in that cave, he must have felt that things just couldn’t get any worse; he probably felt that God had forsaken him.  That’s speculation on my part, but, it seems to me that he knew that God was greater than Jezebel, and that Jezebel couldn’t kill him without God’s permission, so I have to believe that he was hiding from Jezebel specifically because he believed that God had forsaken him.  Looking back at his situation, we can see that God hadn’t forsaken him, his basic needs were taken care of; in fact, he could have been sleeping safe and sound in his own home if he had simply believed God instead of Jezebel.  Part of me is tempted to call Elisha a coward, but, from everything else I have read about Elisha, he was a much braver man than I am.

            In the Gospel of John there is a story about a man that was born blind.  In those days, people tended to be somewhat superstitious about such things and assumed that if someone was struck blind, it was because God (or, in the Gentiles’ case, the gods), were displeased with this person.  Even Jesus’ disciples were confused: why was this man born blind? was it because of his sin (how could he sin before he was born?) or his parents (but then why didn’t God punish the parents directly?)?  Jesus told them flat out that the blindness was not the result of sin, but an opportunity for God to be glorified.  I can’t help but wonder how he felt, all those years being blind; I can’t believe that he thought his blindness was a good thing.

            Sometimes God lets us get into situations just to show people how we will react.  Remember Job?  He did nothing wrong and yet God allowed him to be tested, not because God doubted Job’s integrity, but just to show off Job’s integrity.  Of course, Job had no idea what was going on, he only knew that he was going through a lot of suffering and torment that he wasn’t accustomed to.  His ‘friends’ assumed that Job’s situation was due to some malevolence on Job’s part, but they ended up getting schooled.

            The bottom line is, if it seems like things are bad and getting worse, and everything that can possibly go wrong has gone wrong, the situation is dire and bleak and only getting darker, then you really just aren’t seeing the big picture.  God has promised that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.  Remember the three Hebrew “children” (I’m not sure that they were children when this happened) who told King Nebuchadnezzar that they were not careful to answer him, that they knew that there God was able to save them, but that, even if He didn’t save them, they were still not going to bow down to the image that the king had made?  They were willing to stand up and do what was right, even if got them killed, because they knew that God had a reward for them after their deaths, IF they remained faithful.

Walking On Water

I had someone recently tell me that they wouldn’t want to be like Peter, because he didn’t have enough faith to be able to walk on the water without Jesus’ help.  I can sort of see that point, but it occurs to me that I would like even less to be like the other eleven who didn’t have enough faith to get out of the boat.  To be perfectly honest, most of the time I have more in common with the other eleven than I do with Peter.  That shouldn’t come as a surprise:  In Isaiah, we are told that our righteousness is as filthy rags.  Any time we try to do anything on our own, we are going to come up short.  The Bible even says that we are not sufficient of ourselves even to think as of ourselves.

Jesus once taught that a servant shouldn’t expect thanks for a job well done; after all, he (or she) is just doing his job.  I suppose that it has become courtesy to thank an employee, or to give some recognition when a worker does well, but, realistically, as a worker, you do what you do in order to earn a paycheck.  The words, “Thank you” may sound nice, but they don’t help pay the bills.  Don’t misunderstand me, I understand that a little appreciation goes a long way towards building up morale, which, in turn, helps people to put more effort into their jobs.  A good manager will thank his/her employees when they do a good job (whereas a poor manager will only criticize), but the worker should understand that the expression of gratitude that really matters is the paycheck.  Jesus went on to say that, when we have done all that has been commanded of us, we should say, “We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do.”  To be perfectly honest, there are very few days that I feel comfortable saying that I am an unprofitable servant.  Most days I am just one striving to be closer to being unprofitable than to being a liability. 

The Bible says to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  This is hard for human beings to hear, but when one considers the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, it is hard to escape the realization that He asks less from us that what He has done for us, and even now, He continues to make intercession for us because He knows and understands that, in this life, we will never be perfect.  God understands our limits and our human frailties, and He has made a way for us to overcome.  If we ever think that we have done this by our own strength or by our own righteousness, however, then we are essentially just exalting ourselves.  Of course, God understands human ego, also, and will, if we allow Him, make away for us to get past ourselves.

To get back to the reference I started with, Peter may have needed Jesus’ help to walk on the water, but each of us needs Jesus’ help to do anything worthwhile.  None of us are “man enough,” or holy enough, or righteous enough to achieve salvation on our own, much less  impart salvation to someone else; we have enter through the door that Jesus provided.  Peter walked on the water, even for the short time that he was able to do it, by keeping his eyes on Christ.  When he took his eyes off of Christ and started looking at the physical things around him, then he lost his focus, and he began to sink.  When he cried out to Jesus, Jesus reached out and saved him.  Some would have you to believe that this represents the absolute worst of mankind; I am telling you that this represents the absolute best—we just don’t get any better than that.  We do well when we focus on Jesus, when we “keep our eyes on the prize,” as they say, but, ultimately, we allow ourselves to become distracted; when we turn back to Jesus, He saves us from whatever trouble we’ve managed to get ourselves into.  This is humanity at its best.  Strive to do better, but, this is basically who we are.

Cafeteria Christians

There are many occasions in life where you can pick and choose what you want.  If you are following Weight-Watcher's, for example, you may choose to stick with the prescribed diet plan on some days and not on others; that's up to you, although your weight goals will probably be easier to reach the closer you stick to the plan.  At Subway, you can choose what meats and vegetables you want on your sandwich, and even choose whether they toast the bread before loading on the ingredients.  If you sign up for college courses, you get a certain amount of latitude on your elective courses, as long as you sign up for the courses that are required for your degree.  Of course, in each of those situations, your choices may have consequences:  As I said, if you don’t stick to the diet plan, you probably aren’t going to lose as much weight; if you order a turkey sub, but then opt to not have turkey put in the sandwich, you don’t really have a turkey sub; if you neglect to take the required courses at college, you will never get your degree (I am reminded of the classic John Belushi line, “Seven years of college, down the drain”).

I was going to say that you can’t do that with the Bible, but, of course, that wouldn’t be true.  You can ignore the Bible completely, if you want to, but there are consequences.  My point is that, “All scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”  You have every right to ignore it if you choose, but you do so at your own peril.  I’m not going to waste your time telling you what the threat is; I suspect that you know that very well.  It is not my intention to scare you with threats, anyway, I want you to see how right you can be, and help you to be rewarded in the next life. 

One of the great strengths of the Bible is the lack of contradiction.  The Bible was written over the course of many centuries, by many different writers, and yet it holds together very well.  I know that there are some that will argue that the Bible does have contradictions.  For example, in Habakkuk 2:3, we are told that the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.  Wait, if it tarries, wait for it, because it won’t tarry?  I will admit that this verse is, in and of itself, a little confusing, but, Habakkuk is giving instruction to people who do not yet know what the appointed time is.  Think about that for a minute.  If they don’t know when the appointed time is, how can they possibly know if it is late?  So, clearly, the first use of the word ‘tarry’ refers to when they grow impatient, and think that, “Surely, if the appointed time were coming, it would have been here by now,” even though they have no frame of reference.  So, the second time the word ‘tarry’ is used, he is assuring them that, no matter how late it might seem, the time will come, but on God’s clock, not ours. 

Some people may point out that there are variations in the Gospels.  Each account gives a different list of names of the women who went to the tomb on Sunday morning, for example (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1, Luke 24:1-10, John 20:1).  That, of course, isn’t necessarily a contradiction, since none of them claim to present a complete list of the women involved.  If I told you that Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert held a Rally to Restore Sanity, you wouldn’t assume that they were the only two people there, would you?  There are also minor differences in some of the other accounts, for example, Matthew 20 and Mark 10 are very similar, except that Matthew relates that James and John’s mother asked Him for special dispensation for her sons, while Mark says that it was James and John themselves, and Matthew says that after that, Jesus healed two blind men, but Mark says He only healed one.  These are minor details, and really only show that there was no collusion between Matthew and Mark when they wrote their respective accounts; they have nothing to do with the overall ‘big picture’ of the Gospel message.

The thing that concerns me is that some people will disregard what Peter said, in order to believe what Paul wrote, or discount Paul and trust James.  Paul chided the Church at Corinth for claiming loyalties to individuals other than the Lord:  “For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?   Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”  Clearly, our faith should not be in Paul, or Peter, or James, or Apollos, but in the God that directed them in their actions and in their writings.

The Name of God

What, exactly, is the name of God?  Some people seem to think that His name is ‘God.’  In some ways, that makes sense, after all we capitalize the word God when we are talking about Him, but, then again, we capitalize the pronouns He and Him in much the same way, and those are obviously not His name; the same term is used (without capitalization) for false gods.  The capitalization just indicates that we are talking about the one true God.

When Moses asked God’s name, God told him, simply, “I am.”  That can get a little awkward to deal with, as anyone can say, “I am.”  The Jewish people got in the habit of referring to God by the term YHWH (which, by the way, they never actually say aloud.  NOTE:  Hebrew is also written right-to-left, so it would appear HWHY in Hebrew text), sometimes transliterated into English as Jehovah, but, basically, Hebrew for the phrase, “the existing one.”  That’s a little easier to avoid in casual conversation than, “I am.”  In any case, it didn’t really make too much difference what God told Moses His name was, anyway; no one else knew God’s name, either.

There are many references in the Old Testament to the name of God, or the name of the Lord, but all of those “names” seem to be manufactured titles, rather than proper names.  A tone point, Isaiah quotes God as saying that His name is “the Lord.”  El Shaddai, for example, means, “Most Powerful,” and is translated as “Almighty” throughout the Bible.  There are some passages that indicate that, at some future date, God is going to reveal His name. 

Jesus claimed to have manifested God’s name throughout Israel, and yet, nowhere does He mention a name of God.  In the Book of Acts, Peter talks about the name of Jesus, and says that there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved.  Paul tells us that Jesus is the One for whom the whole family in Heaven and earth is named (or, perhaps he means that the Father is the One for whom the whole family is named, but, if that’s the case, then Jesus, the Son, was named for Jesus, the Father).  Jesus does tell us, in Matthew 28:19, to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Now, the term he uses, name, is singular; He’s only referring to one name.  Now, if the whole family in Heaven and earth is named Jesus, then that makes sense.

It also makes sense that Jesus talked about using that name to baptize people.  Paul tells us in Romans 6 that baptism allows us to put on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  You can’t exactly be baptized in the likeness of the Father’s death, burial and resurrection, or the Holy Ghost’s; neither went through what the Son went through.  So why did Jesus say to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, then?  To make sure that His disciples knew and understood exactly who He was, and what His relationship was. 

If you look through the Book of Acts, at no time do any of the apostles ever mention the Father or the Holy Ghost in the baptismal rites (Acts 2:38, Acts 8:16, Acts 10:48, Acts 19:5, and Acts 22:16).  Some have said that the words recorded in scripture were not their exact words (and they’re probably right), but that the apostles were simply mentioning by whose authority they were performing baptisms.  That seems like a bit of a stretch to me.  They were performing Christian baptisms; the authority for that is pretty obvious.  Going back to what Paul said in Romans, though, they were baptizing people into the saving power of Christ, so they used Jesus’ name.

Now I don’t claim to know if Jesus is the only name God has.  In fact, the name Jesus means, “Jehovah is Salvation.”  If it were not for the fact that this actually was the name that He used when He walked the earth, I’m not sure that I would consider it a proper name.  Even at that, though, we are left with what Peter told us, as led by the Holy Spirit, in the Book of Acts:  There is none other name, given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

The Power of Life and Death

In Genesis it says that Abraham was instructed to offer up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to God.  In Hebrews, we are told that Abraham was willing to do this because he knew that God had promised that in Isaac would Abraham’s seed be called, and that Abraham had faith that, if he killed Isaac, that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead.

            In John 11, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, after he had been in the grave for four days.  In Luke 8, Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead.  In Luke 7, Jesus raised a man from the dead who was the only son of a poor widow woman.  Later on in that same chapter, two of John the Baptist’s disciples came to Him, and asked if He were the one.  Jesus told them to go back to John and tell John what they had seen, and He included raising the dead among the things that they should tell John that they had seen.

            In Job, Satan comes before the Lord and asks permission to torment Job.  The Lord, willing to show off Job’s integrity, grants that permission, but orders Satan to save Job’s life.  Think about that for a minute: Satan had to get permission before he could touch Job, and even then, God wouldn’t allow Job’s death.

            There are some churches that teach something called, “baptism for the dead.”  Now, I am by no means an expert in this doctrine, but, from what I understand, it basically comes down to this:  If a close friend of yours, or a relative expressed a desire to be baptized, but died before they were able to, then you can get baptized by proxy for them.  This idea comes from 1 Corinthians 15:29, which asks, “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?”  Reading the chapter in context, though, we see that the subject at hand was the resurrection of the dead.  Some of the Corinthians had a faulty understanding of the resurrection, and Paul was trying to make a point.  If there is no resurrection, the Christ is not raised.  If Christ is dead, then all that are ‘asleep’ in Christ have perished.  What is the point of being a Christian, if in this life only we have hope?  What would be the point of being baptized in the likeness of His death, burial, and resurrection if—not wait, scratch that, His death and burial if there is no resurrection.

            I, personally, don’t believe in baptism for the dead; I don’t believe that it would ever be necessary.  I think it’s safe to say that I am in the majority with this opinion (which could be a problem, since many are called, but few are chosen), but there are different reasons for believing that this is not necessary.  Many people do not believe that baptism is necessary, so who cares if a friend or relative wanted to get baptized, but couldn’t?  Others believe that baptism is necessary, but that if one has a sincere desire to do the will of God, that God, having the power of life and death, will not allow that person to die until they have fulfilled God’s will.  Remember Jonah?  God had something for him to do, and he tried to go the other way, but God prepared a ‘great fish’ to swallow him and keep him alive until he was ready to what God told him to do.  I will grant you, God doesn’t usually do that for people who are just being stubborn, but, if He did that for Jonah, wouldn’t He take care of someone who sincerely wishes to serve God?

            The Catch-22 here is that people who don’t believe baptism is essential don’t believe that God will protect someone who wants to get baptized simply because they don’t believe that baptism is essential.  Taking that logic one step further, obviously, baptism isn’t essential, because there is always the possibility that someone could die waiting to get baptized.  It’s circular logic, and, quite frankly, it expresses a lack of faith; who do you think is killing people behind God’s back?  I have not heard of anyone in modern times dying while waiting to get baptized, even in churches that don’t do a baptismal ceremony until they have a sufficiently impressive number of people that want to get baptized (which makes no sense to me; if there is joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, shouldn’t there be joy in the church over one new Christian that wants to gets baptized?).  I did know a man who by all rights should have died before his baptism, but didn’t.  We had a young man in our church that was hospitalized because of problems with his blood pressure.  He was placed in a semi-private room with an older gentleman with terminal cancer.  Between this young man sharing his faith with his roommate, and people from the church coming to visit him, the dying man and his wife both decided they wanted to get baptized.  The doctors forbad it, though, on the grounds that the physical trauma would likely be fatal.  When asked how long he would live without baptism, they answered in days, rather than weeks or months; which raises the question, why not allow the baptism, then?  In any case, we were at an impasse.  He couldn’t leave the hospital without being released by the medical staff, which they, understandably, wouldn’t do with his health being so precarious.  They also would not allow us to bring in a portable baptismal tank and baptize him in his room.  After some prayer, the cancer disappeared.  Personally, I would have been happy if it had simply gone into remission, although I suppose the doctors could have still refused to release him from the hospital.  He did not go into remission, though, he experienced a complete healing, and the doctors had no choice but to release him.  He came out to church and got baptized, and has since died.

            My basic point is this: God loves you, and He wants you to do what is right.  God also has the final say as far as who lives and who dies, and when.  I’m not saying that you should tempt God by going out and doing stupid things because you ‘know’ that He’ll protect you, but don’t think that God is going to let you die when you’re in the process of performing His will.

The Parable of the Talents

Jesus taught a parable which has become known as the parable of the talents.  I want to make it clear, at the outset, that a talent was a certain weight of precious metal.  In other words, the lord left two stewards with something to safeguard and invest while he was gone.  Jesus says that the lord gave to them according to their several ability, not that those were their abilities.  In any case, one of the stewards was given five talents, another two, and the third only one.

Some time ago, I was told that the one talent represented faith.  I suppose that makes sense, after all, faith is the one thing that all Christians have.  I am something of a skeptic by nature, though, and I wanted to see proof.  People were able to give all kinds of logical explanations and arguments, but I was stubborn, and nothing that anyone told me qualified in my mind as proof.

A week ago, though, I heard a sermon in Sunday morning service that I think, although it may still not really be ‘proof,’ it certainly comes much closer, and I now feel much more confident that the one talent was, indeed, faith.  This in spite of the fact that the sermon was not about the parable of the talents; in fact, the parable wasn’t even mentioned.

In 2 Peter, Peter tells us to add to our faith.  He tells us to “add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.“  Now, clearly, Peter isn’t going to tell us to add to something that some of might not have.  Further, what Peter says goes right along with what Jesus said in the parable:  The one who had five, gained another five, the one that had two, gained another two, and they were both recognized as good and faithful servants.  The one that was only given one didn’t do anything with it, and was rebuked for being wicked and slothful.  Peter tells us that the man who doesn’t have virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.  Peter goes on to admonish us to give diligence to make our calling and election sure, and that, if we do these things, we shall never fall. Now, everybody slips occasionally; nobody’s perfect; we all make mistakes.  Clearly, Peter is not suggesting that if we have faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, etc. that we will never mess up.  He’s talking about a much more important and permanent fall here, just as Jesus said of the slothful servant in the parable that he was cast into outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

In some ways, it doesn’t really seem fair; the third servant didn’t lose his faith, he just never did anything with it.  Mark Twain once said, “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.”  What good is literacy if you do not put it to use?  By the same token, what good is faith if you don’t use it?  James told us repeatedly in James 2 that faith without works is dead.  He even makes the point that the devils have faith; what they don’t have is obedience.

Don’t misunderstand me:  Faith is the determining factor in salvation, but only if it the kind of faith that drives you to want to try to please God.  Someone who really believes the Gospel message will find themselves wanting to learn more about God, and His plan, and will want to tell everyone about His love.  We could never earn salvation, it is much too precious a gift.  We can, however prove ourselves to be completely unworthy of it.  And, again, don’t misunderstand me; we are unworthy of it, yet God offers it to us anyway.  But there will always be those that will take the gift for granted, and, in truth, treat it as something despised instead of something that is precious and must be protected at all costs and those people have no place with us.

After the parable of the talents, Jesus teaches us that on Judgment Day, the sheep (the obedient ones) will be on His right hand, and the goats (the ones that but all the time) will be on His left.  The sheep will be rewarded for what they did in this life, but the goats will go to eternal punishment for what they didn’t do.