Earburner
Well-Known Member
First, from which Bible version are you quoting from?Hello
The three Matthew_25 parables covers the period of the Millennium Age. The parable of the Bridegroom/Ten virgins is about the Wedding Banquette at or very near to the start of the last Age, i.e. the Millennium Age. The Parable of the Talents is about Satan's good and faithful servants using money to oppress the people of the earth such that they have no time to consider the thinks of the Kingdom of God established at the beginning of the Millennium Age. The Parable of the Separation of the Sheep and the Goats is a description of the final judgement of those who call God/Jesus Lord, Lord.
In Ezekiel_34:17: - "'And as for you, O My flock, thus says the Lord God: "Behold, I shall judge between sheep, i.e. the flock that calls me Lord, and sheep, i.e. the flock that does not call me Lord, and then, between rams, i.e. the flock of sheep who have a heart after God's heart, and goats, i.e. the flock of goats who have a Hellenistic Heart which is not after God's heart."
The parable of the separation of the sheep from the goats is an explanation of how the sheep will be separated from the Goats which is based on the respective flocks activities is showing their heart's desires to bless those around them. Because they had the fruit of the spirit, the fruit, i.e. their good works, that showed God's heart to the people around them, the rams and the Goats could be separated within that flock of those who called God/Jesus Lord, in the initial separation of the one flock from the other.
Those that are found to have been renewed such that they had a refurbished heart after the heart of the Father entered in to receive their inheritance of the whole earth. The Rams were dispatched into the Lake of Fire because they were not recorded in the Book of Life.
Now your question of, "Are the sheep and the goats being separated on the earth right now?" has two answers with respect to the time frames in which they occur.
Ephesians _4:22-24: - 22 Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, 23 and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and put on the refurbished nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
The above verses explains how the separation is occurring at this present time where the people who have repented of their sins and are prepared to renew their minds and put on the refurbished nature of God to live their lives with God are being transformed into the sheep of God's fold.
Whereas, the people who belong to the flock of Goats have said that they repent of their sins, but they do not renew their minds nor do they put on the refurbished nature created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Then at the time of judgement before the judgement seat of God the comingled flocks will be finally separated into their respective heart natures based on their righteousness and holiness. As said above, this will occur at the very end of the Millennium Age when Christ comes in all of His Glory.
Shalom
Second, according to you, when does the 1000 years begin, IOWs what heralds it, for us to know that it has begun?
