Amen. Please be seated. And as you do so, do turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew and Chapter 25. The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25. This morning, I drew your attention to the frowning providence that has visited Kabwatha Baptist Church in the death of our brother Saidi Mlewa. And it inevitably begs the question, what happens when we die? What happens when we die? Now, if you haven't lost a loved one, that may be a theoretical question. But I am pretty sure that to our sister Peggy, Mrs. Mlewa, and the children, that is not a theoretical intellectual exercise. Every other moment, they must be asking themselves, where is my husband now? Where is dad now? The heart cannot help but answer, rather ask that question and seek solid answers, not just theoretical ones. And yes, Most of us here would have lost loved ones. And we can look back to the day, perhaps a day or two later after that loss, when the brain began to just eat away at that question. What happened to this person? Where is he? Where is she? And so forth, even now as I think about it. Well, we looked at look in chapter 16 at the story of the rich man and Lazarus. I emphasize the fact that it was not a parable. There's no hidden meaning in it. It is as plain as Jesus spoke it. And through that we sought to answer some questions related to what happens to us immediately after we die. immediately after we die. We saw, first of all, that death is inevitable. Before the Lord Jesus Christ returns, all of us will die. It is inevitable. But in dying, we will not come to the end of our existence. We will go from one phase into the other. We'll go from the period of time into eternity. And I mentioned the fact that there is a lot about our nature that will still very much remain with us. We will have memories. Our senses will be active. We will be in a state where we can feel pain or we can be comforted. We will be in a state where we still experience the power of sympathy. And therefore, as we saw, the rich man pleading that Lazarus would get back to go and warn his brothers. There is sympathy there. We will be in that state, but we will be in two separate camps altogether. the place of heaven full of joy and comfort, the place of hell full of misery, anguish and pain. Well that's what we saw last time and it is important for us to emphasize that there is no soul sleep. There is nothing like after you die you are just somehow asleep until Jesus returns. There is no purgatory. a place where you are taken to just be sort of cleaned up, cleaned up for a season, purged of your bad record in heaven, and then for I don't know how long that will be, finally an angel opens the gates and says, come in, I mean rather come out, you've paid for your sins long enough. There is no second chance. In other words, there's no coming back into this life having learned your lesson the hard way and this time you become a very, very good person because you blew it the first time. There is nothing like that. There is no annihilation. I think we've covered that already. You don't disappear. There is an immediate going into the next phase, conscious, as conscious as you were this side, and either being in a place where you are suffering for your sins or you are in a place where you are rejoicing because of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the salvation you have experienced. Now I said to you in the morning that that was going to be phase one. Now I want us to look at the second phase. I spoke about the immediate experience upon a person dying. His body remains with us. It's in a mortuary. And perhaps soon after that, we leave it in the ground. That person, the soul of that person is rejoicing or suffering. It's in one of the two. Well, I want us to ask now the same question, but I want us now to go even further, because the state in which that person is is not the final state. It is an intermediate state. Yes, the person is in eternity. But it is not the final. It is intermediate. So I want us now to go to the very end. What is it that will now usher in the permanent state in which each one of us will finally be? And in order for us to appreciate that, turn to Matthew chapter 25. And we're going to read from verse 31. Now in this passage of Scripture, again the Lord is revealing what if it was not revealed in Scripture we would not know. And therefore We are being dogmatic, not because of our own personal stubbornness, but because the Bible itself says so. But also, we need to appreciate that these are solemn words. This is not us watching a movie. and seeing some people sort of being thrown into some fire and others rejoicing at a party. As we read these words, bear in mind that you are in this story. You are one of the people that Jesus is referring to here. And it's not about just wishing that I'm on the right side. It is as I was saying this morning, you need to ask yourself, with judgment seat honesty, based on your experience, where in this story am I? Verse 31, Matthew 25. When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations. And He will separate people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He will place the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me." will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you, or thirsty, and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger, and welcome you, or naked, and clothe you? And when did we see you sick, or in prison, and visit you? And the king will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry. and you gave me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me naked, and you did not clothe me sick and in prison, and you did not visit me. Then they also will answer, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you? Then he will answer them, saying, truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. I have just said, brethren, that these are words that are in Scripture, and they are speaking about matters that you and I have no experience of. This is not something that we can take into a laboratory, process, and then say yes. By repeating a number of times and getting the same answer, we can conclude that this is the way it will be. These are words that have been spoken by the Lord himself, and I hope to argue in a moment that they must be true. When we think in terms of the final state, our brother has left us this weekend. He has gone ahead of us. And as I said, the wife's announcement was that he has gone to glory. He's gone to glory. That's where he is now. What is it that we should still look at and expect to be true in the end? The answer is this, that we will all together be gathered into a single agenda. A single agenda. Right now, some of us are on this side of eternity. Others are gone. And you can be sure as we go on day by day, we'll continue receiving news that brother so-and-so is gone, sister so-and-so is gone, or my cousin or my nephew or my sister and so on has died. And we will cry and cry and cry. It will be one person at a time, one person. And history will continue. But there's going to be a time when it will not be you on your own and you on your own and others are left doing this. A time is going to come when the whole of the human race will be brought together to now experience one and the same agenda. And it will all begin with the second coming of Christ. the second coming of Christ. We see it in verse 31 of Matthew and chapter 25. As Jesus was getting towards the end of His public ministry, a lot of His teaching was related to the end, the end, the end, a lot of it. You see it in chapter 24, chapter 25, chapter 26 and so on. Towards the end, And this is what he says in our text, when the son of man comes in his glory, he's referring to himself. And he's referring to himself contrasted to the way in which he came the first time. The first time he came in a humiliated state. He came as a little baby born from the poorest of the poorest of parents. Born in a cow shed. Can anything be more humiliating than that? But He's going to come again. And when He comes, this time He says it will be in His glory. He also adds there that when He comes in His glory, He's going to come with all the angels and all the angels with Him. And then he adds that he will sit on his glorious throne. What a contrast, an absolute contrast from his previous coming. But I want you to notice that when he comes this time, all of the human race will be gathered in front of Him. Verse 32, before Him will be gathered all the nations. Before Him will be gathered all the nations. Now, right now, we've got our own agendas. When this service comes to an end, you have all your individual plans. Some will be heading out to the funeral house. Others will be heading back home. Others will be heading to some appointments that they have, and so on and so forth. We've all got our individual plans. Well, what we're being told here is that when the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords comes, all our individual plans, especially those of us who are still alive, will be dropped. and we must now be summoned before this great being. Now according to Scripture, very quickly, I won't spend much time on this, this will be preceded by a lot of activities. One of them is simply that the Gospel will reach the ends of the earth. The Gentiles will be brought in. There is some understanding of some kind of revival that might take place among the Jews themselves, that a great number of Jews would turn to Christ. It's debated, but a number takes that way. Then there is also the Antichrist, whether it is one person or a number working together, but the point is they will be doing miracles. signs and wonders that will mislead so many people. There is the great apostasy that is referred to often. In other words, a coldness, a backsliding that is taking place in the context of the church itself. Then there is teaching concerning a growth in persecution for the people of God, and so on and so forth. There are differences, and often it depends on your view with respect to the millennial teaching that is there in the book of Revelation. I'll touch on it briefly in a few minutes. So, but after all those things, whether they are pictorial or real, but when all that has taken place that the Bible speaks about, suddenly there will be the second coming of Christ. It will be personal. In other words, it is not Jesus sending others in His name. He Himself will come when the Son of Man comes. It is a coming that is physical. In other words, we will see Him in as physical a form as can ever be. It will be sudden. The Bible speaks in terms of people going about doing their activities on earth and then all of a sudden the Lord Jesus Christ comes. There will be the trumpet call of God that will be heard signaling the end of human history and all of humanity being called together. And as I said earlier on, it will be glorious. Now you might be sitting there and saying, come on. How do we know that this is going to happen? How? What assurance have we got? Brethren, the answer is quite simple. The Old Testament speaks about Jesus Christ coming. It speaks about Him coming, number one, in poverty, weakness, as a servant of God, doing miracles quite okay, being rejected by people. In fact, being born of a virgin. Finally, being handed over to Gentiles and being killed in the worst form of death possible that you couldn't even recognize him, being buried in a borrowed tomb, being raised again. And here's my point. All that happened. Even the fact that he would be sold for 30 pieces of silver. Even the fact that his clothes would be sheared out. All that which was prophesied happened to the minutest details. And here it is, the same accounts also say, He will return in glory. Now my friends, you would be a fool. Now in this time in history, when you've seen all these fulfilled, all these fulfilled, all these fulfilled, and then to come and say, but this one won't. How? Because what was fulfilled already was impossible, was miraculous. Virgins don't give birth. He rose from the dead. It's impossible. It's miraculous. So what should make you think that him returning is just a pipe dream? What? In other words, we are dogmatic because this book says so. And it has been proven right over and over again in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ what should make you think that now it won't happen. The timing is what is unknown. But as to the purpose for which He is coming, that we don't doubt. He is coming to usher in the final and eternal state. The final state. Let's quickly look at that. What is it that will happen when He returns? Two things. First of all, it is the final resurrection. the final resurrection. In other words, it's not just us who are alive who will have to, as it were, stop our agenda and gather before Him. It is all human beings that have ever been given life to from the beginning of history. Back to our text. When the Son of Man comes in all His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations." Before Him will be gathered all the nations. Now you may be of the opinion. that the ones that are being spoken about are only those who are alive at that point. Just one or two passages of scripture and I want you to see that there is the resurrection of all human beings. John chapter 5, very quickly. John chapter 5, verse 28 and verse 29. John 5. 28 and 29. Let me begin from verse 25. Truly, truly, I say to you. Now when Jesus says truly, truly, all He is saying is, believe me. That's all He's saying. Because He always speaks the truth. So He doesn't need to say, look, I'm now telling you the truth. But what he's saying is, you better take seriously what I'm about to say to you here. It's amen, amen. That's really what the word is, amen, amen. I said to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the father has life in himself, so he has granted the son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment." We'll come to that in a moment. Because he is the son of man. Now verse 28. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment or condemnation. The point there is there is a day that is coming when all will hear His voice and the dead will arise and notice there's no discrimination. It is all who have died coming to life. First Corinthians and chapter 15. First Corinthians 15. We touched on this earlier in the morning when I spoke about if in this life only we have hope, then we are of all people to be pitied. But we read in 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 51. Let me begin from verse 50. I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. But we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed." And on and on he goes. Now, although in this text he primarily has in mind an encouraging message to believers, the point he is making there nonetheless applies to all. When this moment comes, all who are dead shall rise in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. The trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised. That's one more passage, and it is also primarily to do with believers, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 16. I begin reading from verse 15. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord." In other words, exactly what I'm telling you now, this is not something we've arrived at in some test tube or laboratory experiment. This we believe because the Lord himself has spoken. And what is that? That we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." In verse 14, he had said, for since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. In other words, those who have already died have gone to be with him. We learned that this morning. They are with him. When He comes, with all the angels in His train, in that glorious scenery, those who have already died, at least their souls, will come with Jesus. And then their new bodies will rise, they will be rejoined to their bodies, this time glorious bodies, and then as they go into the heavens, we will join them. I hope that solves a bit of a mystery. If you are sitting there thinking, yeah, but we are with him. So then we are coming out of the ground. Where are we? And there are cults that teach that therefore when we die, we don't go to be with the Lord. We are in the grave until he comes. Our bodies are. They are in the grave. But to be thinking that our brother Saidi Mlewa is in that fridge in UTH is to be totally mistaken. Right now, he is celebrating in the presence of the Lord. But a time will come when Jesus comes to wrap up history, when he, together with all those that have died in Christ will come. Their bodies will arise from wherever it is that they have been buried, burnt up, thrown into the sea, totally destroyed in incinerators or whatever else it might be, the bodies will rise, joined with their spirits. We will be transformed like the twinkling of an eye, as we keep being told here, and then we will forever be with the Lord. That's the way this text ends, and so we will always be with the Lord, therefore encourage one another with these words. So friends, what is our hope? We believe in the final resurrection. As will be happening on Tuesday, our brother's coffin is here, or as often the case, taken to the lobby. And we are all passing by, viewing that body for the very last time. Feel free in your heart to say, see you in the morning. See you, my friend, in the morning. There will be a day coming when you will rise. I will see you again. That's our Christian hope as you'll be shedding tears by that coffin. There is one thing you can say that the people of the world cannot repeat. It is a temporal part. We shall meet again when that morning dawns. We shall meet again when the trumpet is heard. We shall meet again when that voice cuts through the entire skies. We will meet again. Now, some people look at the book of Revelation, chapter 20, and think there are two resurrections. So let me just quickly take you there briefly. I don't think I will convince those that may strongly still have that position, but I still want us to see that Usually people who arrive at that conclusion of two resurrections miss the symbolic nature of the book of Revelation. So I won't take too much time, but it is important that at least I take you through that. Revelation 20 and verse 4. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also, I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus. and for the word of God. And those who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands." Now, there it is. You either really believe that this is physically what will happen or that this is symbolic about something that is going to happen across history. Now, here it is. They came to life. and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. Now those of us who are millenialists believe that this is referring to the actual salvation, our coming alive when we get saved and that it is in this between the first and the second coming that we are actually reigning together with him. Now listen to this. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. In other words, all the rest of the human race only comes to participate in one resurrection, and that is the one when Jesus returns. at the end of this thousand years. And this is the first resurrection. And the first resurrection there is now referring to that which takes place with us who have come to faith in Christ. At that point of our becoming Christians, we go from death to life. And hence it says, blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection, in this spiritual coming to life. Over such, in other words, only those who've undergone this first resurrection, the second death has no power. In other words, they will not suffer hell at all. And they will be priests of God and of Christ. And I think that we already know from first Peter. And they shall reign with him a thousand years. So obviously, if you believe in an actual physical 1,000 years, then it becomes difficult. You have to have an actual first resurrection. When the millennial period is starting, not everybody will participate in this resurrection. And then there will be a second resurrection when everybody is going to participate in it. But I want to repeat, as a failure to see, that this book is symbolic. The first resurrection is that which takes place when we go from death to life. And those of us who experience that will never experience the second death. Let me hurry on. So the first is, there will be a resurrection. And my argument in bringing this in is that there's only one, just one resurrection that will take place when Jesus Christ returns. There won't be a second one. There won't be those now who die in that 1,000 years also being given a chance now to rise. There's nothing like that. He's going to come once. He will raise the dead, both sinners and saints. The second thing that will happen is the final judgment. The whole of the human race will undergo judgment. Back to our text, Matthew chapter 25. I won't read it because we already read it in the beginning, but I will summarize it. He says there, verse 32, before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. In other words, the first aspect of this judgment is to separate the righteous from the unrighteous. Those who believed in Christ from those who did not. Those who repented from those who were living in sin. Those who were living in integrity from those who were living hypocritical lives. Separate them. Because this judge knows all things. He sees all things. Nothing is hidden from his eyes. Even that which happens in the darkness, in the inner room, it is like daylight in the open with respect to him. So he will judge. What is however interesting as you read this, is you notice that that's not the language he uses. He doesn't say, those who believed in me on the left and those who didn't on the right. Rather, he speaks about works. Works, isn't it? He says to those on his right, come you who are blessed by my father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. In other words, you are part of God's elect and now this is yours. And then he says, I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink and so on. Is this a salvation by works? The answer is no. No. But the point is this, and brethren, listen very carefully. That although our salvation is by grace and by faith, 100%, when God saves us, He changes us. Listen to me very carefully. He changes us. from self-centered, selfish lives to people in whom God comes to dwell. And our God is a God of love, a God of love, who has so loved the world that he has given in a very practical way. He's given sacrificially his own son. And that love that dwells in us, kills self-centeredness and gives us a genuine love. First of all, a love for the brethren, for those who also trust in Jesus, believe in Him. There is a special bond that we have because we become one family from the point of our conversion. And therefore, it does make sense that if my brother is suffering, I will be the very first to quickly get up and go to do something for him or for her. So all that Jesus is doing here is using a test for us to test ourselves now. Too many people claim to be Christians. and never, never go out of their way to meet the needs of the brethren. Never. You can announce, like we're announcing here in the pulpit for about two years, Brother Saidi is unwell, Brother Saidi is unwell, Brother Saidi, and never will it cross your mind that let me go and visit him. My brother is unwell. He's in a wheelchair. All this time, let me give a little to the wife and say, here's something to just help you along, because I'm touched. I keep hearing my own brother in the Lord is unwell. Never! It's still me, myself, and I, full stop, and still think I will be accepted in heaven. And then I would say, hey, brother, nice to meet you here. You are cheating yourself. On that day, Jesus will say, not once did you get touched by the infirmities and sufferings of one of these, the least of my brothers, not once. Church to you was like going to the post office. You got what you wanted over the till and off you went. You knew nothing of the love that I put in my people. You knew nothing. And so, of course, you'd be surprised, you'd be saying, but Lord, if I had really recognized that you were the one on the old chair, mama, mama, mama, mama, I would have been giving every month half my salary, half. And his answer is quite simple. You didn't do it for the least of my people. You are not inside. You are outside. That's where you are. On the outside. And these will go away into eternal punishment. So this is not a salvation by works, no. It is simply saying that the faith by which we are saved, we are saved by faith alone, but it never comes alone. It comes with love, genuine love. And I cannot miss those who are my people. This judgment will be final. There will be no court of appeal. There will be no High Court, no Supreme Court, no Constitutional Court, no nothing. And hence those last words. These will go away into eternal punishment. There will never come a time when that punishment comes to an end. Never ever. It is eternal. And those to whom He says, welcome, these will go into eternal life, abundant life. It will be our permanent, permanent estate. That's what lies ahead of us. That's what lies ahead of us. Let me quickly conclude, first of all, with a warning. Brethren, you can hide your non-Christian life and living before other human beings. You can hide. You can be a hypocrite and people on earth are not omniscient. They can't see all things. You can cheat fellow human beings. But you can't cheat God. He knows all your life. To borrow the imagery of the book of Revelation towards the end, everything that you are doing, everything that you are saying, everything that you are thinking is being recorded in those books. Those books will be opened on this day. and read out. That's a picture language that is simply saying there's nothing about your life that's hidden from you. Never content yourself with a hypocritical Christianity, never. When Jesus saves, He makes you hate sin and love righteousness. He makes you a God-centered individual. He makes you a genuinely loving person, even loving those who hurt you, those who persecute you. He gives you something of His nature. Has that happened to you yet? Are you now an individual who lives for God, who lives for others? Is that you? Oh, if it's not. Today itself, cry to Jesus Christ. Say to Him, save me. Make me this kind of person. Transform me from the inside out. Lord Jesus, save me. Make me the genuine article and not that which is fake. Don't content yourself. with some kind of half-baked Christianity, with the view that is often only true in aeroplanes and trains and so on, where you've got business class and first class and economy class. And you see the zealous ones, you say, yeah, those are for the business class. Me, I'm economy. That's economy. I'm content enough. to simply be somehow gliding along in the background. Never cheat yourself. That's a lie from the evil one. Jesus changes us, transforms our hearts in an extraordinary way. But lastly, this is our hope. Yes, Brother Said is gone. And yes, we can draw comfort and assurance from the fact that he is enjoying the Lord's presence. It doesn't answer the fact that we miss him and that we will miss him. The answer to that is in this, the final, the final, the final state. When you hear the trumpet call of God, know that our hope will finally be realized, finally. dad, mom, brother, sister, spouse, child, whoever trusted in Christ, we will now meet again. Yes, we will stand before Jesus Christ, but it will be, as Paul said, to receive the crown of righteousness. to receive that which He will give me, but also give to all who have eagerly waited for His coming, to receive our reward. for all the labors and all the suffering that was involved in this life for Christ and all that we did. Not because salvation is based on that, but because the Lord will be no man's debtor. No man's debtor. What a hope. What a hope. Sister Peggy's tears will be wiped away. When out of that crowd, Saidi comes. Picture that. Never ever to be separated again. Saidi Jr. and his sisters, Osungu, Kwendelani, there is dad. But not only that, the receiving of the eternal rewards. Compared to the non-Christian world, friends, you can't even begin to compare. We have solid hope. And may God encourage us, even now, while we are mourning. We, of all people, have hope. Jesus is coming again. Amen.