We just had the Feast of Trumpets pointing to the return of Christ in His glory with the blowing of trumpets. And 10 days later, on the biblical calendar, the Day of Atonement is a picture of Christ on the throne, judging individuals to see who has atonement. It is written in Matthew 25:31, when the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne, and 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. Picture this. You're standing in that moment right now before the throne of God, alongside multitudes. And the king goes down the line of people before him. Sheep. Goat. Sheep. Goat. Goat. Goat. Goat. And then he comes to you. You're perplexed because some of those who stood in front of you are called goats by him, and yet they thought of themselves as believers, even calling him Lord, standing there. And you know that in this moment, your eternal destiny hangs in the balance. Eternal life or eternal punishment. Matthew 25:34 says, Then the king will say to those on his right, the sheep come. You who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. But in verse 46, we see him saying to those on his left, to the goats, these will go away into eternal punishment. There's this assumption within Christianity that saying a prayer, asking Jesus to come into your heart is the only thing that will be considered when we stand before God one day. I was taught this. You are likely taught this. But today we will look deeper at how Jesus, who is our atonement, will judge men according to what the Bible defines. Yes, we've all heard of the Jesus who has come. The first time he came, he came as a lamb to die for our sins and provide us a way to eternal life. Amen and Hallelujah. As it's written in John 12:47, I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. But have you heard of the Jesus who is coming again? For it is written that the second time that he comes, he's coming as the lion of Judah to judge the world on the last day. It's written in John 12:48, the one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. Revelation 22:12. Behold, I'm coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha, the Omega, the first, and the Last, the beginning and the end. So what will that day of atonement look like for us all? He will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left. The reason that they are called goats is prophetic. And the reason that the sheep are called sheep is prophetic. First, let's begin with the goat. Where else in Scripture is a goat separated from the people? Well, on the day of atonement, where the high priest will enter the holy of holies once a year, and as part of that, there is a separation of a goat called the Azazel goat. In Leviticus 16:21, we read, and Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. All right, so we have this goat. Sins are placed upon him, and immediately we can start drawing parallels to Christ. We see that the sins of the world were placed upon Christ. It says in 1 Peter 2:24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we may die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you've been healed. Secondly, we read that he was taken outside the camp, just like this azazel goat. Hebrews 13:12 says, Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. And thirdly, Yeshua became the goat that takes the sin away. It's written in 2 Corinthians 5:21, for our sake, he made him to be sick sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. See, we as a people have all fallen short and sinned, and we deserve to bear the consequences of our own sin. We deserve to be the Azazel goat taken outside the camp to be separated from God and man. But with Christ, he takes our place of punishment. He was the spotless lamb of God who had never sinned, and we, the cursed goat, fool of sin. But he voluntarily took the sin of the cursed goat upon himself so that we can become in turn as the spotless lamb, as a sheep, so he can then eventually look to us from his throne and say, you are my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. Most Christians know Jesus as their atonement, but they don't know Jesus. And as their judge. And this can even sound offensive and Contradictory to us, Offensive because, well, how can Jesus both atone for me and judge me? And even contradictory. For what is he going to judge me for? I thought he wiped my sins away. But as you have heard, there is a separation of sheep and goats. But who then are these goats before Christ's throne? And why don't they have atonement? Let's look at how he describes each category, the sheep and the goats. Then the king will say to those on his right, the sheep 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. Then the righteous 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 as a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothed you? And when did we see you sick in prison and visit you? And the King will answer, truly I say to you, as you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. Then he looks to his left and describes, the cursed goats 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. I want you to see the measure that Christ uses to decide someone is a goat worthy of eternal power, punishment. The only thing that he uses to decide that separation on is not whether they confessed him as Lord. For in this story, both the sheep and the goats called him Lord. It says that the righteous answered him, saying, lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? And on the other hand, the goats on his left said, lord, when did we see you hungry and not minister to you? Do you not see that not everyone who says to him, lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of the Father who is in heaven, Yeshua, tells us there's this singular test that he is going to apply, whether they took care of the needy. I mean, just think about all the things that Yeshua could mention that he's going to use to judge us by. But he does signs to make this primary example out of this one thing, because this must happen as an Arabic manifestation of the Holy Spirit in us. Now, you know, you can immediately go and ask, does this mean that I am saved by whether I fed poor people and clothed the naked? See, Yeshua is not telling us this is the means of salvation by works. Caring for those in need is not the work which saves us, but it is the evidence of a new heart, the evidence that we are his. And it is the evidence by which he measures those who call themselves his and call him Lord. See, God places us before people who cannot pay us back, people who are despised and forsaken by this world to see how we will respond. So it's easy to read this story of Yeshua judging the goats and, you know, get convicted and think, whoa, I need to do better at this, right? And that's good. But at the same time, don't think that behavior modification alone is going to solve the root issue. We should also be asking, if I am a believer baptized in the Holy Spirit, why haven't I been caring for those who are needy? If my heart has been turning away from those who are in need, do I actually have a new heart? For Yeshua considers these acts of compassion that should be occurring naturally in the life of a believer, in of itself, not that which saves the believer, but as the evidence that that person is a believer. So ask yourself then, when you see someone who has less, someone who's in real need, do you naturally turn away? Or does your new heart compel you to help them however you can? And Ezekiel 36 tells us about this new heart in verse 26. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. The heart of stone that we all once had gives no food to the hungry and no clothing to the naked. It doesn't help to say, Lord, Lord with stone hearts towards men. For Yeshua said, how you treat your brothers is how you will treat me. For the acts that you have done reveal who you are in the sight of Christ. It is written that he will say to those who have not done these things that he does not know them and that they will be goats, cursed and cast off into Eternal punishment. And so that day will come. The question is, before it comes, will you judge yourself rightly today as you stand, will you do introspection and look and see today? If he were to have me before his throne and judge me as a sheep or a goat, am I a sheep or am I a goat? But if we will judge our hearts on this day, let us also judge rightly. For when Yeshua says that we should be feeding the hungry and giving water to the thirsty and giving clothing to the naked and visiting those in prisons, this is going to look different for each of us according to our own giftings, abilities and stages of life. Life. So don't allow the enemy to make you feel condemned because it just looks different for you compared to a brother. For how you looked after the downcast is not the focus of Jesus's questions to the sheep and goats. It's whether they did. We've all had a moment where someone asked us for money and we weren't able to help. Maybe due to our own finances, due to the the timing of that, maybe because we froze and we didn't know what to do. Jesus is not condemning anyone due to a single moment and mistake in their lives. We all are going to be learning and growing to respond better to situations where people are in need. But what we see in Yeshua's interaction is that the goats were identified by the overall condition of their hearts towards the the least. So here's the question that you can ask your own. Am I known by God for my generosity and love towards the least, or am I known by him for my greed? 1 John 3:16 by this we know love that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. And if you are a true believer on fire for your Messiah, then you will know what I am talking about. For when we become a believer and the Holy Spirit changes our heart gives us a new one. We no longer only hunger for bread, but now we hunger to give our bread away. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. And this is the message of hope. No matter where you are regarding all of this is that he says to those who are the sheep, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. So he's talking about these things, feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and in prison. And he is talking about this blessing from God that they have. In other words, this is not a blessing that's coming from themselves that has enabled them to be so sacrificial and towards all these people, he's saying, no, this new heart is the blessing from God. That God is the transformation former of our hearts, not us. And if we realize, well, my heart is producing death, I do not care for the people Yeshua said I should have been caring for, then you need to come to a place where you wrestle with God, just like Jacob wrestled with the Lord and said, I will not let you go until you bless me and see. It is those who have wrestled with God who walked away, blessed by God, who will stand before God and hear from God. You are the blessed sheep, you who have Christ, the true bread of life living inside. Speaking of bread, do you remember how Yeshua fed the 5,000 with just a few loaves of bread? It said that he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And then of course, it miraculously multiplied in the crowds. But what is the meaning of this miracle for us today? When we who have received the bread of life from Christ, who is the bread of life, and we go and we tell someone about Christ and his sacrifice, then they also eat and partake in Christ the bread. And when we go and we tell another of Christ, they eat of Christ. And so we go to another and to another. And Christ multiplies in the hearts of men through the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. You see that feeding the hungry is physical indeed, as Christ called the sheep to do. But it's also spiritual. Clothing the naked is physical and it's spiritual. Visiting those in prison is physical, something we should do and it's spiritual. For who is spiritually naked, let him be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, who is spiritually in prison, let him be set free from his sin, who is spiritually hungry, let him taste and see that the Lord is good. Do you not see that these are the acts of the sheep, of Christ whom he will accept on the day of atonement. And so we should be careful not to disconnect the spiritual needs of people from the physical needs or the physical needs from the spiritual needs. For if a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, you go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? And if you were to provide them all things needed for the body, yet you neglected to give them that which they need most, which will actually fulfill their hunger, what good is that? In feeding the 5000, Christ used physical bread to accomplish a spiritual purpose. Even ordinary bread we see can become living. For once you take that physical bread and you give it to another who is hungry in the name of Jesus, that bread suddenly becomes alive. And when they partake, they're not only having their physical needs met, but they are being spiritually impacted. For the bread that they're eating is testifying of the life that is found in Christ. That gave you a new heart of generosity to give them that bread in the first place. I want to share with you a short testimony related to this. I will never forget that many years ago we were ministering at a church and we were doing the bread and the wine with them, partaking in the body and in the blood of Christ, right? And after the service, an older lady came up to me and she asked, where did we get this bread that we were eating during the service? Because she would like to purchase some more of it. And I'm like, what do you mean, why? And she says to me, because when I ate of this bread during this service, all my pain left my body. And so she, not fully understanding yet, thought that it was about the physical bread. But I could explain to her, of course, that it was because she partook in the body of Christ. It was because she partook in the bread of life, that is Christ, who by his wounds we are healed. And so this is why our ministries must be multifaceted. We must look to the physical issues that people are suffering, as was the ministry of Christ to heal the sick, open blind eyes, cleanse lepers, cause out demons. These are very physical, real life issues. So many churches, they deal with the spiritual, believe in Jesus and be saved. And this is wonderful, but not at the cost of proclaiming the Jesus who actually heals the sick, the Jesus who actually calls out the demon, the Jesus who actually takes away the pain of that old lady in that congregation. That's the Yeshua who is alive today, who is the living God, who is resurrected from the dead, not just a theory, but alive. Is that your ministry? Is that the ministry not of the sheep, of the Lord, of the shepherd. And if I want to submit to you, you walk in this and you start making sacrifices, stepping out in faith and believing for the greater things. Things own Ministry. And in giving up, you will see that your spirit is filled up. For the more bread that you give out, spiritually and physically, the more you will have left in your basket. See, some of you have so much knowledge, yet you remain hungry for knowledge in of itself doesn't satisfy our spirit. Applied knowledge does. Applying the knowledge of God's word is always going to be a leap of faith. And that's why so many people just study it and never take a leap of faith to do it. If your baskets are empty, Christ will multiply and be enough for you and for them. But you must apply what you know to do and you must step in faith as Christ did. For it is written, they all ate and they were all satisfied. He was enough. And they took up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about 5,000 men besides women and children. And the way that Yeshua multiplied the bread, the secret to this miracle came out of his heart of compassion on the needy, on those who were hungry that day. This was the mark of the good shepherd, his compassion on the lost and the downcast. Therefore our mark as the sheep of the shepherd is our compassion. That is why he looks for that compassion to separate the sheep from the imposters, the goats. For many people called on the Lord. Many went to the synagogue. Certain Pharisees and many enemies of Christ were around in the first century, and they were all known for one their lack of compassion, their oppression to the rejected, the downcast, widows, the orphans, the poor, the strangers and the sinners who were in prison. We will not be like them, for we are no longer hungry as the world is hungry to fill their own cups at the cost of others and to stand on the heads of others for their own gain. No, we are a people so satisfied because we have him, the Messiah. We have a bread that we have eaten that the world does not know about. Our bread is to do the will of our Father. But what is the Father's will for us on this day? How do we keep the day of Atonement this year? There's a few things mentioned. Amongst the things mentioned is to afflict our souls, that is to fast according to Leviticus 23:32. And so many have gone in ancient times, throughout history, and they have incorporated fasting. But sometimes it has come at the cost of understanding the greater meaning of it all. And Isaiah tells you the same thing regarding the day of atonement. In Isaiah 58:6 he says, not this. The fast that I choose to lose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked, to cover him and to not hide yourself from your own flesh? Do you not notice how these instructions from Isaiah are the same elements that Christ mentioned that he will look at when judging the sheep and the goats? In Matthew 25 and Isaiah, the prophet tells us to do these same things in keeping the biblical festival of Day of Atonement, to prepare us for facing Christ on the actual coming D day Day of Atonement. And so I will repeat to you what John the Baptist said in conclusion, Matthew 3. 8. Bear, therefore, fruits worthy of repentance, even though the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Your repentance is real when it is real when transformation takes place. Some of us are setting out the Day of Atonement, just like last year, with the same temper, with the same addiction, with the same unforgiveness, with the same lukewarm attitude towards sin. But we showed up for a day to throw ashes on our face again, to sing a sad song, pray a sad prayer of sorrow, and to suffer through another day of not eating. But tomorrow we'll be back to the status quo of our life unless we truly repent this year. I mean, come on, let's ask ourselves, was this what happened last year? Am I repenting for the same sin? And could it be that I didn't actually repent, that I just said sorry? See, God requires more than our sorry. He requires our life. And this is not bad news. This is good news. For your life is better in his hands than in your own. You may feel frustrated with yourself, overwhelmed by your own sins. Confess it, then. Surrender it to Him. Truly confess it to one another. For you cannot overcome your challenges alone. Only he can do it. Only he can transform you, only by His Holy Spirit giving you a new heart. But there's a cost. There is a price. That new heart costs you your old heart. You need to lay that old hardness of the heart, that stone heart down and say, I'm done with that. I don't want that anymore. Lord, change me. Give me a heart of flesh again that is soft, that can beat again, that can live, that can feel pain when others are in pain, I can mourn with those who are mourning. We have seen so many hard hearts in this season. God has exposed it in this season with world events on purpose. Look internally, see when your heart hasn't bled, when it should have bled, and ask the Lord to break your heart for other people so that it can bleed when people get hurt, so it can pour itself out for other people. Yeshua was pierced for us. Are we being pierced? Are we allowing ourselves to be poured out for others, to make a sacrifice for another? There is no greater love than to lay our life down for a friend. And is that not what we have been called to as his sheep? To love our neighbor above all other commandments. And so this is a different day of atonement this year. As you can hear, there's more passion in my voice because the day is drawing more near than ever before. We are the closest generation that there has ever been. And you may even not make it home after walking away from this teaching that some of us do not have tomorrow. And then that day is there, and you will stand before him. And the question is, did you truly have a heart change? And the way that we can start this process is to keep the Day of atonement as instructed by the Father, by keeping it as a high Sabbath, setting it apart and not doing ordinary work on that day, by focusing on our heart's posture and fasting, fasting food, fasting something that's got a hold on your flesh. And not only that, but fasting and giving that bread you would have eaten to those who are hungry, taking the clothes that you would have bought to those who are naked, taking that time you would have spent on yourself and giving it to someone who is in prison and ensuring that you yourself are repentant of your own sins during this day. As I conclude, and as it is written in Hebrews 13:12, so Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come through him. Then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Father, I ask that you would help us to be the people who stand before you, who are the sheep. Help us, Lord, to be pouring out. Help us to bring the bread of life to others. Lord, let our life be a testimony of your goodness. Not a disgrace to your name, but a blessing to Your name. Father, I ask that you would transform our hearts. I ask that you would empower us from on high. I ask that you would forgive us of our sins. Lord, I ask that you would forgive us even where we have held unforgiveness, where we have repeated our addictions, where we have refused to acknowledge the least. Father, I ask that anyone who today, if you would have come today, would be a goat. I ask that you would convict. I ask that you would change. I ask that you would show them that they cannot change themselves. Holy Spirit, you are our only hope. You are the only one who can make us new. Help us to bear the image of Christ in this season unto the last day when we are face to face with you. Lord, let us be a people who not just say, Lord, Lord, but let us be a people who hear. Well done, my good and faithful servant. I praise you, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. I praise you, the spotless one who is worthy of all honour. All praise, all glory in heaven, on earth. Father, there is no. No one like you. Amen. Thank you for joining me this day. May the Father bless you during this day of atonement. May your family experience him. And may this be a time where even if you fasted, you would experience the filling of the bread of life more than ever before. Shalom, Sam.