Yes, you read that right. When the time comes, the righteous will be separated out from the evil and the evil will be tossed to the fire.

“⁴⁹So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous ⁵⁰and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” – Matthew 13:49-50 (ESV)

We will ALL be gathered up when the time comes. We will be separated into the righteous and the evil. And then the evil will be cast into fires of hell. It seems so definitive, and it is. It seems so cold and callous, well, what did you expect based on the cold and callous actions taken by the evil. It seems so divisive and unfair, well, the world is not fair and there is a stark difference in the righteous and the evil. It seems not compassionate and without love, well, the LORD loves and gives every opportunity to the evil to accept Him into their heart and turn to Him and they still turn away.

I know there are those who look at the followers of Christ and their actions and claim there is no love there. To them I say, WRONG. Love takes many forms and one of those forms is truth. Truth is hard. When we are confronted with truth, it tends to sting, even for those following Christ. The truth of the matter is there is a difference in the righteous and the evil. The evil do not get to inherit the Kingdom of God where the righteous are heirs with Jesus. The evil will be separated from the righteous and be cast out where the righteous will find rest in the LORD.

The righteous have accepted Christ as their savior and thanks to the love of the LORD, they do the work assigned. The righteous do not do the work to get something and be rewarded, they do it out of love for the LORD and know that it is just a small payment for the sacrifice of Jesus taking on their sin. The work is not repayment, only a small payment toward repayment. The righteous know that there is not enough payment to repay the LORD, yet the payment is made anyway and the righteous will continue with the payments until the time is come.

By contrast, the evil pay and expect to receive. They do a little work to get something out of it, not to repay, but to buy. They feel as though they are owed and when it does not come, they are return to the evil. As they return, they lash out and call out the LORD for somehow being less than loving and against them when in reality it is they who are less than loving and against the LORD.

This is the reason for the separation of the evil from the righteous. The righteous are seeking to repay the debt owed (even as it cannot be repaid) and the evil are looking to pay for acceptance. The evil cannot buy the LORD (even as they try) and the righteous continue to receive from the LORD in the form of love, grace, and the Kingdom of God.

What is your view of the righteous and the evil? Are you somehow expectant that all are equal and will receive the same regardless of which they are? What if you understood that there is a significant difference and accept the love of the LORD and seek to repay Him as opposed to paying Him?