P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

HELL FOR THE UNHELPFUL

Timothy McVeigh forfeited his life because he killed 168 people and injured 500 others. Well, he deserves to be lost, we say. But in Jesus’ classic parable, He suggests that careless, thoughtless people who simply neglect to feed the hungry around them will share McVeigh’s fate.

If you were a big shot working with the President in the White House, you’d think that Chuck Colson’s favorite memory would have to be some moment of triumph sitting in the Oval Office right across from President Richard Nixon, just the two of them. Or, considering that he was at one later time a convicted Watergate conspirator, maybe that Friday afternoon, January 31, 1974, when Judge Gerhard Gesell decided to let him out of Holabird Prison before his sentence was finished.

But no. Those don’t seem to be his favorite memories at all. Instead, he remembers with tears in his eyes a very ordinary evening when a bunch of no-talent prison convicts put on a singing recital.

Let me permit Chuck Colson to tell his own story — but first a reminder that we’re in Week Four of our new radio series on the parables of Jesus. And this week our title is: SAINTS TO MY RIGHT, SINNERS TO MY LEFT. You may remember the Matthew 25 story, usually called “The Sheep and the Goats,” where the Son of Man, the King, the Judge of all the universe, lines up all the kind people on His right, and all the mean, selfish people on His left. The “sheep,” the generous people, had fed the hungry, clothed the naked, given out cups of cold water. And yes, they had visited the prisoners in their jail cells. The “goats” standing on the left had done none of these things. And then the great classic line:

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

All right. Now back to Chuck Colson’s story, told in his most recent book with Nancy Pearcey, entitled How Now Shall We Live?

“In Manila, the capital of the Philippines, one section of the city houses more than 65,000 people,” he writes, “in shacks that are nothing more than wood and corrugated metal lean-tos. With no sewers, no plumbing, and no city water, the stench is sickening. Children run naked in the streets while adults sit on the sidewalk, staring vacantly.”

Well, that’s an accurate description, and I’ve been there to see some of that very heartache. But now, what have God’s people done about it? You know that ever since born-again Christian Chuck Colson got out of jail himself, he’s directed a worldwide organization called Prison Fellowship. So now, listen to this:

“In the midst of these desperate conditions, Prison Fellowship International has started a microenterprise project that takes people out of the nearby Mantalupa Prison, mentors them in a church, and then loans them $120 to buy a pedicab (a bicycle with a cab on the side, used for ferrying passengers and packages through crowded streets). The loan program has become a stunning success: 95 percent of those who receive loans repay them within nine months. I visited the program and saw the parking lot where thirty brightly painted pedicabs, all bearing the Prison Fellowship logo on the front, were lined up like automobiles in a showroom, polished and gleaming in the sun. Greeting us were the proud pedicab owners (all former inmates) and their families, along with the pastors who mentored them.”

And now, here comes the moment that trumps getting out of Watergate jail, trumps sitting across from President Nixon, trumps flying around and eating strawberries on Air Force One with the leader of the free world. Colson finishes up his story:

“The former inmates had put together a concert,” he writes, “and as they stood on the stage singing, one little girl, perhaps four years old, with brown button eyes, pulled herself up onto the platform and walked toward her father, who was standing in the front row. She clutched his legs and looked up with an adoring expression; he looked down and began to caress her hair. That picture is frozen in my mind’s eye; everything I have done in the ministry over twenty-five years was worth that ONE MOMENT — to see an ex-prisoner, ex-gang member with a loving family, a job, and hope.”

And of course, we can hear the Savior say, to Colson and all his fellow volunteers, and to those who contribute money to Prison Fellowship’s “Angel Tree” program and other outreaches: “Chuck, I was a prisoner without hope of parole. I didn’t have any job skills. I didn’t have any way to make a living and support my family once I got out onto the mean streets of Manila. But Chuck, you and your friends gave ME an expression of confidence. You mentored ME in a church. You loaned ME $120 so I could drive a pedicab around town and earn money and earn self-respect and earn my family’s trust. Chuck, you guys did that for ME!”

Or Jesus might say to Prison Fellowship: “I was that little girl. My daddy in jail. My mom and my sisters and brothers living in poverty. But you helped me by getting my daddy out of prison and helping him to work. You made him feel like a man again, like a worthwhile father, like a provider.”

And I suppose, like in the Bible story, many of PF’s employees would look around in amazement. “That was YOU? Jesus, that was YOU? We didn’t see You in the Philippines; we just saw convicts at Mantalupa Prison. We saw orphans. We saw young wives with no income trying to stay away from the horrors of prostitution and AIDS. But we didn’t see You on the streets, Lord. We didn’t know it was You!” It’s quite a story, isn’t it . . . Chuck Colson’s favorite moment.

On the other hand, some of us might not be convinced that this is our favorite Bible story. There are some places in the four Gospels where the born-again Christian can joyfully feed like a hungry lamb and contentedly journey like a well-protected traveler . . . but not here in Matthew 25. If you’re one who has taken refuge in John 3:16 — “For God so loved the world” — or Ephesians 2:8, 9 — “For it is by GRACE you have been saved, through faith — NOT by works” — then this hard-hitting little story by Jesus, about cups of cold water and prison visits, is going to shake your mountain of assurance. Because, friend, Jesus doesn’t just say that nice people feed the hungry and mean people don’t. He also says that our eternal reward is to be found IN THIS STORY! Eternal judgment happens on the basis OF THIS STORY! In other words, even if you say you accept the cross, and you say that Jesus is your Savior, and you say that your home in the kingdom is based on grace . . . if you don’t help Chuck Colson buy a Filipino prisoner a $120 pedicab, you might not be IN the kingdom. You might be standing on Jesus’ left side instead, where it’s uncomfortably warm.

What do you think about that? Matthew 25:45, 46, even softened up as many verses are in the gentle paraphrase, Clear Word, reads like this — and remember, this is Jesus talking face-to-face with the “goats”:

“Then the Son of God will say, ‘Because you didn’t care about others, I know you don’t care about Me.” Now listen to this chilling indictment coming from gentle Jesus, meek and mild: “I have no choice but to end your lives forever, because in My Father’s kingdom everyone cares about everyone else.”

David tells me that he was doing preparation for this radio program on the very day that Timothy McVeigh was executed in Terre Haute, Indiana. What a terrible reminder that there is a finality to the decisions we make in life . . . but can it be that not only do mad bombers meet eternal destruction, but also those who carelessly ignore the hurting and the fragile among us? Friend, this is what the Bible says, and it seems many universes away from “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.”

In a Bible commentary we’ve borrowed from freely in this series, the Tyndale collection for Matthew, author Richard T. France makes this very assertion, that the end-time judgment scene is found right here.

“In particular,” he writes, “the call to be ready for the parousia (or second coming) of the Son of man has increasingly raised the question of what constitutes READINESS, of how one may be prepared.”

And he goes right to Matthew 25. How does one get ready for Jesus to come in the clouds of heaven with His reward? You read this parable right here. However, France almost suggests that we shouldn’t even have this story in our new “parables” radio series. Listen to this:

“This powerful description of the final judgment is sometimes MISLEADINGLY described as a ‘parable.’ In fact, while verses 32-33 do contain the simile of a shepherd, OTHERWISE THIS IS A STRAIGHTFORWARD JUDGMENT SCENE.”

And you know, friend, he’s absolutely right. Read this parable — excuse me, this sermon — for yourself; it’s right here in Matthew 25, verses 31-46. And Jesus doesn’t begin, as He often does, by saying, “The kingdom of heaven is LIKE such-and-such.” No, He launches right into a factual narrative:

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him . . . HE WILL SEPARATE THE PEOPLE ONE FROM ANOTHER.” Then He adds: “AS a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”

So friend, this story is real. You and I are going to be standing right there. Did we feed the hungry? Clothe the naked? Buy a $120 pedicab for a prisoner? For the moment, at least, God’s free offer of salvation seems a long ways off.