Sue J Love
Loyal
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2015
- Messages
- 3,624
Please read this passage of Scripture through to and including verse 46 to get the whole picture of what is being taught here:
“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.” (Matthew 25:31-33 NASB1995)
Now, the Lord uses all kinds of things in my life to illustrate biblical truth to me, such as dreams, visions, and cockroaches suddenly appearing right on cue by me, and spiders lurking in my closet, etc. They all serve as parables, such as this parable of the sheep and the goats. And sometimes the Lord will put a song in my head (secular or Christian) to lead me in a certain direction. And he did that today with the song, “The Lonely Goatherd,” from “The Sound of Music” musical. And this is what I got from that:
A goatherd is someone who herds goats for a living, much like a shepherd herds sheep. And in the song, the goatherd was yodeling, which is a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch. And a pitch can be a tone, and a tone can be a message. And a pitch can be a descend, a fall away, or a proposal, or a stumble, sway, plunge, or to teeter. And that all fits with this passage in Matthew 25, which is where this song about the goatherd led me. (Sometimes songs are in our heads for a reason.)
For the goat in this passage of Scripture is symbolic of the wicked, the ungodly, the rebellious, and the disobedient to God, which can include people who profess faith in Jesus Christ who have not been crucified with Christ in death to sin, and so have not been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin, but as slaves of righteousness in walks of obedience to our Lord’s commands. Although they may claim Jesus as Savior, they are still living in sin. Jesus is not their Lord.
So a goatherd would be a shepherd of these wicked and ungodly people, some or many of whom claim to be Christians, but not in practice, but in lip service only. And their “yodeling” would be their false teachings of a false gospel message which is a change (alteration) from the gospel that Jesus taught, and that his New Testament apostles taught. For their gospel makes no requirements of the sinners to forsake their sins and to obey God, in practice, and it promises them eternal life with God based upon a lie.
Now I have not done the research on this currently, not in recent years, but since the movie “The Sound of Music” is about a Catholic nun who becomes a governess for some children, it has a Catholic theme to it. And the shepherd of the Catholic church is a newly elected (or selected) pope who is the first pope to be from America. And if you take the time to study the Catholic religion, and its practices, you should discover that the Catholic faith, as a whole, does not align with the Scriptures, as a whole.
But the Catholic faith is not the only “Christian” faith which follows false teachings and that worships idols. Many protestant church denominations, previously or more recently, have swayed from the truth of the gospel, and they are teaching the people an altered gospel message which does not agree with the teachings of Jesus and of his apostles, taught in the appropriate context. So this covers not just one faith (“Christian” religion) which has departed from the truth, but it covers many of them.
So, “the goats” are not just all who have never made professions of faith in Jesus Christ, but they are all who have denied the Lordship of Christ over their lives, who have remained on a course of living in sin and for self, and who are not walking in obedience to our Lord’s commands, in practice. And this is not “works salvation,” but this is the gospel of salvation as taught by Jesus and by his New Testament apostles: We must die with Christ to sin and now walk in obedience to our Lord’s commands to be among his sheep.
In verses 34 to 46 we learn what this looks like. And this is NOT about trying to earn your salvation via good works. For not one of us can be saved from our sins and on our way to heaven based upon good works done in the flesh. But by faith in Jesus Christ, we are now God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared in advance that we should “walk in them.” For if our faith is genuine biblical faith, it will result in us serving the Lord with our lives in walks of obedience to his commands.
So, the object of verses 34 to 46 is to illustrate for us that if our faith is of God, persuaded of God, and gifted to us by God, our lives will be surrendered to the Lord, committed to serving him with our lives in doing what he requires that we do. And how we treat other people is how we treat God, specifically here speaking of how we treat those who belong to Christ and who are serving the Lord with their lives, some of them imprisoned for their testimonies and walks of faith in Jesus Christ. We should love others.
And this isn’t just to be on a physical level where we give others a literal piece of food or drink of water, but this has a spiritual parallel. For, as the body of Christ, we are to be ministering to one another, and not just to physical needs, but we are to speaking truth to one another so that none of us are hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And we are to be encouraging and exhorting one another so that we don’t fall captive to deceitful workmen who are twisting God’s truth in order to appease human flesh.
[Acts 2:42-47; Romans 12:1-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 1 Corinthians 14:1-5; Galatians 6:1; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:1-16; Ephesians 5:15-21; Ephesians 6:10-20; Philippians 2:1-8; Colossians 3:12-16; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 10:23-25; James 5:19-20]
Therefore, when Jesus returns, and we stand before him in judgment, he is going to separate us into two groups: the sheep and the goats. The sheep are all who are listening to the Lord, who are heeding his counsel, and who are walking in obedience to his commands, in practice, and no longer as slaves to sin. The goats are all (including professers of faith in Jesus) who have denied Jesus as Lord (Owner-Master) of their lives, who are still living to please the flesh, and who are not walking in obedience to our Lord.
The sheep will enter into God’s eternal kingdom, but the goats, who are being led by these “goatherders” (false shepherds), will go away into eternal punishment because they did not honor God/Christ as Lord of their lives.
[Matt 7:13-14,21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 10:27-30; Ac 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,15-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10]
For Our Nation
An Original Work / September 11, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Trust Him with your life today.
Make Him your Lord and your Savior.
Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.
He will forgive you of your sin;
Cleanse your heart, made new within.
Men betraying: Our trust fraying.
On our knees to God we’re praying,
Seeking God to give us answers
That are only found in Him.
God is sovereign over all things.
Nothing from His mind escaping.
He has all things under His command,
And will work all for good.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Men deceiving: We’re believing
In our Lord, and interceding
For our nation and its people
To obey their God today.
He is our hope for our future.
For our wounds He offers suture.
He is all we need for this life.
Trust Him with your life today.
The Goats and The Goatherders
An Original Work / May 10, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.” (Matthew 25:31-33 NASB1995)
Now, the Lord uses all kinds of things in my life to illustrate biblical truth to me, such as dreams, visions, and cockroaches suddenly appearing right on cue by me, and spiders lurking in my closet, etc. They all serve as parables, such as this parable of the sheep and the goats. And sometimes the Lord will put a song in my head (secular or Christian) to lead me in a certain direction. And he did that today with the song, “The Lonely Goatherd,” from “The Sound of Music” musical. And this is what I got from that:
A goatherd is someone who herds goats for a living, much like a shepherd herds sheep. And in the song, the goatherd was yodeling, which is a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch. And a pitch can be a tone, and a tone can be a message. And a pitch can be a descend, a fall away, or a proposal, or a stumble, sway, plunge, or to teeter. And that all fits with this passage in Matthew 25, which is where this song about the goatherd led me. (Sometimes songs are in our heads for a reason.)
For the goat in this passage of Scripture is symbolic of the wicked, the ungodly, the rebellious, and the disobedient to God, which can include people who profess faith in Jesus Christ who have not been crucified with Christ in death to sin, and so have not been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin, but as slaves of righteousness in walks of obedience to our Lord’s commands. Although they may claim Jesus as Savior, they are still living in sin. Jesus is not their Lord.
So a goatherd would be a shepherd of these wicked and ungodly people, some or many of whom claim to be Christians, but not in practice, but in lip service only. And their “yodeling” would be their false teachings of a false gospel message which is a change (alteration) from the gospel that Jesus taught, and that his New Testament apostles taught. For their gospel makes no requirements of the sinners to forsake their sins and to obey God, in practice, and it promises them eternal life with God based upon a lie.
Now I have not done the research on this currently, not in recent years, but since the movie “The Sound of Music” is about a Catholic nun who becomes a governess for some children, it has a Catholic theme to it. And the shepherd of the Catholic church is a newly elected (or selected) pope who is the first pope to be from America. And if you take the time to study the Catholic religion, and its practices, you should discover that the Catholic faith, as a whole, does not align with the Scriptures, as a whole.
But the Catholic faith is not the only “Christian” faith which follows false teachings and that worships idols. Many protestant church denominations, previously or more recently, have swayed from the truth of the gospel, and they are teaching the people an altered gospel message which does not agree with the teachings of Jesus and of his apostles, taught in the appropriate context. So this covers not just one faith (“Christian” religion) which has departed from the truth, but it covers many of them.
So, “the goats” are not just all who have never made professions of faith in Jesus Christ, but they are all who have denied the Lordship of Christ over their lives, who have remained on a course of living in sin and for self, and who are not walking in obedience to our Lord’s commands, in practice. And this is not “works salvation,” but this is the gospel of salvation as taught by Jesus and by his New Testament apostles: We must die with Christ to sin and now walk in obedience to our Lord’s commands to be among his sheep.
In verses 34 to 46 we learn what this looks like. And this is NOT about trying to earn your salvation via good works. For not one of us can be saved from our sins and on our way to heaven based upon good works done in the flesh. But by faith in Jesus Christ, we are now God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared in advance that we should “walk in them.” For if our faith is genuine biblical faith, it will result in us serving the Lord with our lives in walks of obedience to his commands.
So, the object of verses 34 to 46 is to illustrate for us that if our faith is of God, persuaded of God, and gifted to us by God, our lives will be surrendered to the Lord, committed to serving him with our lives in doing what he requires that we do. And how we treat other people is how we treat God, specifically here speaking of how we treat those who belong to Christ and who are serving the Lord with their lives, some of them imprisoned for their testimonies and walks of faith in Jesus Christ. We should love others.
And this isn’t just to be on a physical level where we give others a literal piece of food or drink of water, but this has a spiritual parallel. For, as the body of Christ, we are to be ministering to one another, and not just to physical needs, but we are to speaking truth to one another so that none of us are hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And we are to be encouraging and exhorting one another so that we don’t fall captive to deceitful workmen who are twisting God’s truth in order to appease human flesh.
[Acts 2:42-47; Romans 12:1-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 1 Corinthians 14:1-5; Galatians 6:1; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:1-16; Ephesians 5:15-21; Ephesians 6:10-20; Philippians 2:1-8; Colossians 3:12-16; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 10:23-25; James 5:19-20]
Therefore, when Jesus returns, and we stand before him in judgment, he is going to separate us into two groups: the sheep and the goats. The sheep are all who are listening to the Lord, who are heeding his counsel, and who are walking in obedience to his commands, in practice, and no longer as slaves to sin. The goats are all (including professers of faith in Jesus) who have denied Jesus as Lord (Owner-Master) of their lives, who are still living to please the flesh, and who are not walking in obedience to our Lord.
The sheep will enter into God’s eternal kingdom, but the goats, who are being led by these “goatherders” (false shepherds), will go away into eternal punishment because they did not honor God/Christ as Lord of their lives.
[Matt 7:13-14,21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 10:27-30; Ac 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,15-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10]
For Our Nation
An Original Work / September 11, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Trust Him with your life today.
Make Him your Lord and your Savior.
Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.
He will forgive you of your sin;
Cleanse your heart, made new within.
Men betraying: Our trust fraying.
On our knees to God we’re praying,
Seeking God to give us answers
That are only found in Him.
God is sovereign over all things.
Nothing from His mind escaping.
He has all things under His command,
And will work all for good.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Men deceiving: We’re believing
In our Lord, and interceding
For our nation and its people
To obey their God today.
He is our hope for our future.
For our wounds He offers suture.
He is all we need for this life.
Trust Him with your life today.
The Goats and The Goatherders
An Original Work / May 10, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
