“And throw the worthless servant outside,
into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:30)
“The angels will come and separate
the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew
13:49-50)
I used to wonder about the “weeping
and gnashing of teeth.” Where is this
place and who gets thrown there? It
sounds like an awful place to be, and I always assumed that it happened in
hell.
But what I couldn’t figure out is
why the “servant who hid the talent” in Matthew
25 is thrown there, too. It makes it
sound as if a believer (a lazy one) ends up in a place with weeping and
gnashing of teeth. But how can that be
if “weeping and gnashing” happens in hell, as seen in Matthew 13? How can a
believer end up in hell?
But I think I may see the difference
now. The Matthew 13 passage says that the wicked are thrown into the “fiery
furnace,” whereas the Matthew 25
passage says the servant is thrown “out into the darkness.”
I believe that these are two
different places and times where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” One is the final judgment when unbelievers
are thrown permanently into hell, the “fiery furnace.” And the other is, possibly, at the rapture when lazy,
unprepared believers are left behind in the “darkness.” (Other options I've read about are that it's about people being left out of the millennial kingdom or left out of the heavenly city of the New Jerusalem, though I haven't explored these for myself. But they're worth considering too.)
As seen in the parables in Matthew 24 and 25, those believers who
were not ready for the Lord to come back again were left behind. This doesn’t mean they are eternally
condemned to weeping and gnashing of teeth, but that they missed the first
coming of Jesus when He takes with Him those who were prepared for His coming (Matthew 24:44), those who “longed
for His coming” (2 Tim 4:8), and those
who were busy doing His Will (Matthew
25:14-30).
At the rapture, Jesus takes only the
believers who are ready and who are doing His Will, while the rest on earth go
into the darkness, the tribulation. And
those who knew the Truth but didn’t live it will be left behind to weep and
gnash their teeth. (Although they missed
the rapture, they will be taken out with the great multitude later, if they come
to Christ after the rapture.)
So why should this passage matter to
us? If I am right (and I’m not totally
sure if I am, but I am leaning this way), it should matter because it means
that there are believers of God (lazy servants) who will be left behind to face
the tribulation because they were not ready, did not stay awake, and were not
doing what they should be doing. And if
this is true, it should greatly affect how we live our lives because how we
live our lives will determine if we are taken out in the rapture or not. (I'm not sure if believers can be left behind in the rapture or not, but it's worth considering. See this post for more on that.)
If we took this warning seriously,
it would cause us to strive for righteousness, to remain vitally connected to
Him, to prioritize our lives as God wants us to, to focus on eternal things and
not temporary things, and to get busy discovering and doing the Lord’s
Will. This is how we get ready for the
Lord’s coming.
To summarize, there are two types of
believers (“servants”) working alongside each other (Matthew 24 and 25). Some
servants are doing “the will of the Father,” ready for Jesus to come back at
any moment. And the others are lazy, not
doing the Lord’s work, and have fallen asleep on the job. And I believe that Scripture says that these
people will be left behind in the rapture, thrown outside into the darkness, “where
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
And then there is another group of
“believers” - those who think they are believers because they are “doing things
in the name of the Lord.” But in
reality, they are not believers. They
are not really living God’s Will. They
are following their own will and plans, for their own glory. And although they claim to know Jesus, Jesus
doesn’t know them.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord,
Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my
Father who is in heaven. Many will say
to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your
name drive out demons and perform miracles?’
Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew
7:21-23)
Those Jesus does know are the ones
who do the will of God, who hear His words and put them into practice (Matthew 7:24). And the rest - those He doesn’t know - will
not enter the kingdom of heaven. They
will be thrown into the fiery furnace at the end of time, where there will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth forever.
Two different times when there will
be weeping and gnashing of teeth: after the rapture and in hell. Two different people who will weep and gnash
their teeth: unprepared believers who are left behind at the rapture and
unbelievers who end up in hell.
If this is true – if knowing and
doing the Will of God makes all the difference, if it separates the genuine
believers from the fake ones, if it separates the prepared servants from the
unprepared ones – it seriously begs the question: “What is the Will of God and
how can you know it?”
(I also wrote about this in the
“Understanding God’s Will” series on my blogs, sweetlybrokengirl.blogspot.com
and myimpressionisticlife.blogspot.com.
Click on the label.) Here are a
few passages which talk specifically about the things that are part of God’s
Will.
1
Peter 2:15-17: “For it is God’s will
that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom
as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the
brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.”
1
Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Be
joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is
God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
1
Thessalonians 4:3-7: “It is
God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual
immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that
is holy and honorable . . . For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a
holy life.”
Colossians
1:10: “And we pray [that you
are filled with the knowledge of God’s Will] in order that you may live a life
worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good
work, growing in the knowledge of God,”
I think that many Christians have
gotten soft, lazy, selfish, comfortable, and sleepy. We are much more concerned with our happiness
on earth than with eternity. And we
think that we can coast through life, accomplishing the things God wants us to
accomplish while we go about doing whatever we want to do.
For some reason, we skip the parts
of the Bible that talk about our responsibility, our need to seek righteousness
and transform our minds and lives. Most
of us don’t want to put that kind of effort into our Christian walks. Because it is too disruptive to our lives,
our priorities, and our happiness. And
so instead, we hope that we will stumble into God’s Will, that He’ll guide us
in it as we go about our lives, and that our “good enough” is good enough for
the Lord. We hope that this will earn us
our ticket out of here when Jesus comes back.
But the Bible repeatedly and
strongly warns us to not fall asleep, to be prepared, and to be found doing the
Will of God when Jesus comes back again at a time we do not know. If I am right in what it means to be “thrown
into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth” (that lazy
believers will be left behind in the rapture) then how we live our lives today
will have a huge impact on us when Jesus comes back.
May you be found awake, ready, and
busy doing the Lord’s work when He returns.
And may you hear the words that every faithful servant of God longs to
hear:
“ . . . ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I
will put you in charge of many things.
Come and share your master’s happiness.’” (Matthew
25:21)
So the big question is, are you
living like you are ready for His coming?
Are you busy doing His Will and His work? Are you really living for Him (does He really
know you) or are you really just living for you? Because this will make a huge difference in
whether you are taken up with Him or left behind in the darkness where there is
weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Do you long – really, truly long -
to hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”? Are you waiting for Him to return, prepared
for Him to come back at any moment? Your
priorities and how you live your life will testify “yes” or “no.” They will determine if you will hear “Well
done” or if you will experience “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Don’t let these warnings go unheeded while
there is still time!
“But seek first His
kingdom and his righteousness . . .” (Matthew
6:33)
“Love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. . . . Love
your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37, 39)
“ . . . whatever you do, do it all
for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)
