24;42-51 42 Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.45 “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. 47 Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. 48 But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying [j]his coming,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, 51 and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Expert writers say the trick to writing a best story is to start at the ending. Get a good, strong climax ending, and then write backward. It is the ending that gives meaning to the story from its beginning, makes the story interesting, and determines the significance and lesson of the story. You can’t know the meaning or significance of anything if you don’t know how things end, how the story turns out, what ultimately happens to everyone and everything.
What is true of a drama or story is true of every human life. In the passage we are studying in Matthew, our Lord is telling us the end of everything, the ultimate climax: how everything we see today will lead up to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the end of the world.
Our death is not our end. All the dead will rise again when Christ Jesus comes. What happens at His coming to each one of us is the ultimate climax. He will bring salvation and judgment with Him. Eternal bliss or eternal woe awaits every human being on that day. That is the ending. We have been told the ending. It is now ours to write the story; each one of us has to write our story. The life we are living is our story. How are you writing your story? Look at your life: are you writing your life story which will end in such glorious salvation and eternal bliss, or end in judgment and eternal agony?
If we are going to be glorified in that climax, our story now must rise to a significant ending like that. It can’t be a dull, uninteresting, insignificant, or meaningless story. If our story is to be worthy of such a glorious ending, like those writers who decide the ending and keep the ending in mind while writing the whole story, we must strongly imprint this glorious ending in our mind and heart and live in the light of this ending every day. That is what our Lord is teaching in the remaining chapter as applications.
He says your story and lifestyle, to be worthy of that glorious ending, should be a lifestyle of watchfulness, preparedness, and faithfulness. No life can be rightly lived, usefully, or fruitfully lived if not lived in the light and realization of how this will all end. The saddest and most useless life is to live thinking everything will continue as it always has been, with no serious thought of the future, eating, drinking, and marrying like in Noah’s days. How sad when the end comes, it is going to be too late to change anything.
So our Lord, after talking about His glorious coming, after declaring His coming is unknown to anyone, now as a concerned Shepherd about our lives today, brings three inevitable, inseparable applications that come as a result of the time of His coming being unknown to us: Watch, Prepare, Be Faithful. The time of His coming is hidden, but our duties related to His coming are revealed. These duties come with tremendous intensity.
If we truly believe He is coming, how will that faith show in our life? We will be watchful, prepared, and faithful. The Lord is so concerned we understand these things, because this has to be our lifestyle. He gives some illustrations and parables to help us understand these three things. Let us look at them today under three headings: Watchfulness, Preparedness, and Faithfulness.
See, all these are interconnected, or consequent upon one another. One will not come without the other. If you don’t watch, you cannot be prepared. If you are not prepared, you will not be able to live faithfully. These are like an ascending ladder: You watch, as a result of that you are prepared, and as a result of that, you live faithfully. One is a prerequisite to the other. Let us see them, our duties connected with the Second Coming.
1. Watchfulness (vv. 37–42)
42 “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.”
Notice the reason for watchfulness is we do not know when He is coming, so we have to watch. What is the meaning of watchfulness? What are the practical results? If you turn to the Mark parallel passage, He expands on this.
Mark 13:33 “Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is.”
First, He says Take heed. The Lord also kept saying “Take heed” (v. 4): “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name.”
The first step to watchfulness is Take heed. Take heed of yourself. Don’t allow your mind to forget all these eternal realities I have taught you. Take heed and watch to rehearse this in your mind, keep it as a reality. Take heed to maintain the perspectives, attitudes, and spiritual disposition for preparedness for My return. This is how it is going to end; don’t forget this. Take heed. This is the exact opposite of forgetfulness, distractedness, indifference, and carelessness. Don’t be careless about these things. Hear, forget, go eat, drink, forget these truths. Take heed and watch.
Watch means wakefulness—meaning chase sleep. Maybe when driving at night for an urgent trip, not having slept properly the night before, you travel. While on the highway, your eyelids are slowly closing. Would we allow that? “Oh, okay, let us sleep.” No, no, we will try to chase sleep every way possible: open the window, stop and wash your face, slap your face, play a song, do anything possible to drive sleep from the eyes. So the Lord says, like that, keep yourselves in a state of wakefulness. You must dedicate yourselves to constant wakefulness, like the man driving: do whatever it takes to keep you awake. Like a soldier guarding his country who cannot sleep—if he does, it is a threat to national security—so constantly maintain a condition of spiritual wakefulness.
It is not talking about physical sleep. God knows we need that for physical health, but He is using that as imagery for spiritual slumber. Don’t allow your mind to sleep and forget these realities.
Why should we chase spiritual sleep? See, sleep has the power of separating or cutting us off totally from the world’s reality in which we are living. A man may have so many problems in life: he may have great debt, a big disease, a horrible nagging wife, terrible ungrateful kids that don’t appreciate him, all kinds of problems. But the moment he sleeps, he is consciously separated from all that. They are all still there (his wife next to him, the kids), but as far as he is concerned, they are not there; he is out of touch.
Sleep makes us out of touch. In the world, so many things may be happening—the Twin Towers in the US were attacked in the morning when many were sleeping. We are totally out of touch with what happened. Sleep also makes us senseless and inactive. In the same way, spiritually, when we sleep, we will be out of touch with spiritual realities. We become senseless and even inactive spiritually. Don’t allow yourself to be out of touch, senseless, or inactive regarding these things. Be watchful. Realize what is happening in the inter-advent period. To watch implies not only to believe that our Lord will come, but to desire that He would come (in a state of stupor, we prefer He doesn’t come, right?), to be often thinking of His coming, and always looking for it as sure and near, and the time of it uncertain.
We are beset by perpetual temptations to sleep, to spiritual drowsiness. Even now, some are tempted to sleep from hearing this true sermon. And without continual effort of watchfulness, our perception of the unseen realities is lulled to sleep, and we will not be able to serve God as we should. Watchfulness is a vivid and ever-present conviction and consciousness of His certain coming, and consequently, a habitual realizing of the transience of the existing order of things and of the fast-approaching realities of the future. To watch is the keeping of our minds in an attitude of expectation and desire, our eyes of faith traveling to the future and seeing the shining of His coming and living in the light of that. This is how true believers have lived.
What a miserable contrast today, when believers like you and me live in deep slumber about these future realities, but are fully awake and swallowed up in the present, wide awake to politics, the state of the economy, job, family, eating, drinking, and marrying. Once in a while, when we hear a sermon or sing about the Second Coming, we remember our future, our eyes slightly open, and immediately, like a coma patient, soon we close our eyes to those realities, sunk in slumber.
So the Lord is blowing the alarm here, saying take heed and watch (wake). In your routine life, as you go to work, sleep, eat, do not allow yourself to get into a condition that you are out of touch or senseless with all these great spiritual realities. Realize you are living in the inter-advent period of spiritual deception, international conflicts, natural disasters, wars, pestilence, earthquakes, apostasy, abounding lawlessness, and fierce persecution to believers. It is going to be like this, and after this, I am going to come. You do not know when. I have been setting before you particular truths of the coming of the Son of Man. Don’t allow this worldly life to put you to sleep about these truths, to get out of touch with great spiritual realities.
Watch and Pray
Mark 13:33 “Take heed, watch and pray;”
Why prayer? You will only be able to pray when you take heed and watch. 1 Peter 4:7 says: “The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.” Why prayer? When you are sensitive to these realities, watchful, not allowing this world to put you to sleep (eating, drinking, marrying), that watchfulness will make you a prayerful person. It will make you a person who lives fully dependent on the Lord. Prayer is the language of dependence. The essence of prayer is a felt consciousness of need that drives us out of ourselves and seeks the help of another.
Realizing “I am in the inter-advent period, where there is so powerful religious deception even the elect, if possible, could be deceived,” we pray: “Lord, help me not to be deceived.” International conflicts, wars, pestilence, earthquakes, all disturb us and fill us with fear. “Will our India’s state become like Sri Lanka’s? We are exactly doing the same politics they played. Today they are in famine, and a big recession is coming in six months. The US recession started. So much trouble.” The Lord says, “Do not be disturbed.” How will we not be disturbed? There will be fierce persecution, even in the family.
In light of these changes, where are we to find strength? How to keep spiritual equilibrium so we are not deceived and have discernment? Where to get stability of soul amidst tumultuous wars and natural calamities, to have a heart that is not troubled, when we personally experience opposition from family or job, abounding lawlessness, and the cold love of many? Where will we get that kind of strength? Weak souls like you and me?
Take heed and be wakeful—not to daydream. Wakefulness joined to eminent prayerfulness—continually seeking the face of the heavenly Father, constant praying. Because it is in the place of prayer we receive enough discernment, we receive peace in the midst of these things, we exchange weakness for strength, and a determination to live holy in an age of abounding lawlessness.
So, the first duty because we do not know the time of the Lord’s coming is to continually take heed, continually be watchful and prayerful. Unceasing vigilance is imperative.
2. Preparedness / Readiness (vv. 43–44)
43 “But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
The second duty, Be ready, is the consequence of watchfulness. Notice there is also an increasing weight of reasons for each command.
- Verse 42: Be watchful, for you do not know when He is coming.
- Verse 44: Be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Also, note the different designations of Christ in each command: watch as ‘your Lord,’ standing in a special relation to you, your Master, and be ready as ‘the Son of Man,’ the Messianic title anointed to judge every man.
Note the three vital truths about His coming: He will certainly come, but we do not know when He will come, and He will come when we do not expect. Any future event which combines these three things—absolute certainty that it will happen, utter uncertainty when it will happen, and when we don’t expect—if believed, should naturally create watchfulness and readiness.
He illustrates that with the example in verse 43 for watchfulness and verse 44 for readiness.
43 “But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.”
So He says you don’t know when the Lord’s coming, but you do know this: one example is that if a man knew when a thief was coming, if he knew in general, he would have watched. That you do know. Any fool knows that if a robber is coming and you know he’s coming, you’re going to be watchful and be ready for him when he gets there.
Have robbers come to your house? A few years ago, we were doing some alterations to our house, so we stayed in a rented house. Pastor Bala had a conference for five days in Madurai, so I left my family here and went. My wife felt alone with the children, so she went to stay at her mother’s house. One evening, she came to just check the rented house. The front door didn’t open, so she thought of going back, but slid the door open. The door was broken open, and all clothes scattered. Imagine, she was alone. She called the police, called the town, called me. What could I do, sitting in Madurai? A big scene happened. If that guy would have informed me before, at least a WhatsApp clue, I wouldn’t have gone to the conference, I would have informed the police in advance, been ready, and not allowed my house to be broken into. The word for “broken into” here means “digging through.” In those days, robbers would dig through the mud walls or dig through the tile roof to get in and steal everything, not break doors. We know a simple fact: thieves don’t advertise their arrival—”coming, coming.” That is what the Lord is saying.
The children of this world are thus wise in their generation: that when they know of a danger approaching, they will keep awake and stand on their guard against it. Though it were the midnight-watch, when he was most sleepy, yet he would be up and listen to every noise in every corner, and be ready to give him a warm reception. Now, though we know not just when our Lord will come, yet, knowing that He will come, and come quickly, and without any other warning than what He has given in His word, it concerns us to watch always.
The Lord’s coming is often likened to the coming of a thief in many places (1 Thessalonians 5:2, 2 Peter 3:10, Revelation 3:3, Revelation 16:5, Luke 12:35-40). It is not to say He will come secretly like a thief, but He will come suddenly and unexpectedly like a thief comes suddenly and unexpectedly. That’s the only analogy.
So because it is going to be sudden and unexpected, unless you are prepared before that, you will never be able to prepare when He comes. You have to be ready. So verse 44 says:
44 “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
Not only watchful and alert (v. 42), but ready. It is an opposite argument. If a man knew a thief was coming, he’d be watchful and be ready. And if you truly believe Jesus is coming, you better be ready. Only a fool who has all that information isn’t ready. That’s His point. Since no one can know when it is, we need to be ready at all times—at all times. So watchfulness and readiness should be part of our lifestyle as we wait for Christ’s coming.
It is not enough to look for such things; but we must therefore give diligence to be in a ready state. Readiness implies a prepared heart. If you are not saved, come to Christ, don’t delay, and be ready. If saved, you should make your election and calling sure by living a holy life. Be ready to meet our God with assurance of salvation. He comes at such an hour as you think not—that is, such an hour as they who are unready and unprepared will perish eternally, such an hour as the most lively expectants perhaps thought least likely.
So, be watchful, be ready, and then Be Faithful.
Only when you are watchful and praying are you living a holy life so as to be prepared and assured that if He comes today, you go with Him. That state of assurance (as our confession on assurance says) means your heart may be enlarged in peace, joy in the Holy Spirit, love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience. You will cheerfully and faithfully serve God. The basis and motive for faithfulness comes from watchfulness and preparedness.
What does a person look like who is ready for Christ’s coming? He illustrates with a parable (vv. 45–51) about faithfulness. It is a beautiful illustration. It starts with a piercing question:
45 “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season?”
He is telling a story which would have been immediately understandable to everyone who heard Him speak that day. It was very common for wealthy landowners or householders to take long journeys. There were no flights, trains, or buses. Often those were business journeys, in which the whole family would be uprooted from their home and would travel to another place, or maybe a summer vacation when the climate got too hot in Palestine. It would have been standard practice for a wealthy householder or landowner to put the chief servant, the most trusted servant, in charge of all his possessions and in charge of all the other servants. The chief servant was to take care of the property, give food to all other servants, and watch them so they did their work properly. And then when the householder came back, that servant would give account as a steward for all his actions and what he had done while the landowner had been away. Here, the master gives the responsibility and goes without telling when he is coming back. He tells him, “See, I fully trust you; I give all responsibility to you, My wealth, My servants. Take care.”
In our life, Jesus Christ is our Master. All who claim to believe Him are His slaves. He tells us that He has bought us with an inestimable price, and that we are His property; we are not our own. He wants us to be faithful and sensible slaves. As believers, He has given us responsibilities before His coming. And every one of us has been given a stewardship. What is our primary responsibility? It is not to eat, drink, or marry. You are not your own; you are purchased with a price, so glorify God in this body. Live for the glory of God. “I have redeemed you; you are My slave. I have given you life, time, talents, gifts, My word, and placed you in the church. You have covenant membership responsibilities. Use all this and glorify Me and serve Me faithfully.” Your chief end should be to glorify Me, and be faithful and use all opportunities to serve Me. We are stewards for which we are accountable. Like the master in the story, Jesus Christ has given us responsibility and stewardship. Now, who will truly believe that he is not his own, but is his Master’s slave, and live faithfully, glorify and serve Him, and use all his talents for Christ’s glory? Only the truly saved. False believers will not. That is what happens in this story.
The Faithful Servant
46 “Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing.”
So when the master comes unexpectedly and finds the servant doing his work faithfully, he is blessed. Their faithfulness in service indicates that they are true believers. Faithfulness is always the mark of true salvation. A hypocrite cannot be faithful; he just acts a drama when people see him. Faithfulness is serving God when no one sees. So when the Lord comes, He’ll find the true servant doing what He told them to do—fulfilling His will. Living out their stewardship to the fullest. Using all talents, time, and opportunities to glorify God, realizing he is not his own.
Look at his reward:
47 “Assuredly, I say to you that He will make him ruler over all his goods.”
That’s marvelous. He is going to put him ruler over everything He possesses, just as Joseph was preferred in the house of Potiphar. In the same way, the faithful will inherit everything with Christ and be glorified with Him. What you do with this little slice of time will determine your eternal destiny. So when the Lord comes, how will He identify true believers? People who are faithful to Him and His word, faithful to their stewardship, live not as their own, but glorify God. The one who is proven faithful will be rewarded with eternal ruling.
The Evil Servant
48 “But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards.”
When the Lord comes, He’s going to find some who weren’t faithful. Look at how He describes him: “The evil servant”—kakos, evil in quality, evil in nature. He is an unregenerate, evil man by nature, just posing as a slave. He is a hypocrite. Because he is evil, look at his response: He “says in his own heart, ‘My lord delays his coming’“—”he won’t be here for a while.” That is where it all starts, in his heart.
Firstly, in his heart: He says in his heart. Oh, how important! I can preach, but that will not change your life. You know 101 people can say 101 things, but you know what will affect your life? What you say to yourself in your heart. That is what will impact your life. I can preach Jesus Christ is coming soon for one year, but unless you believe and say that in your heart, no change will happen in your life. When you stop listening to your evil heart, take God’s word and say it to your heart, “This is what is true,” that is what will impact your life.
And you know all of us have this tendency to say to our heart about Jesus Christ’s coming: “Oh, He is not going to come, so why watch, prepare, and live faithfully?” Seriously, that is why some of your lives don’t change. He says that is the thinking of the evil servant. By nature, not regenerated, his evil nature makes him ignore God’s word. He doesn’t listen to what God’s word says, but he says to himself, “He is not coming now.” Christ knows what they say in their hearts, who with their lips cry, “Lord, Lord,” as this servant here.
That attitude of heart, how it is revealed in this life and in this example: “and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards.”
“My master is not coming soon. Forget about watching, readiness, faithfulness, and doing my work. So I’m going to have my fun, eat and drink, party it up. Enjoy as much as I want. I’m going to grab all the gusto I can get.” He beats his fellow servants, either because they reprove him, or because they will not bow and do him reverence; they will not say as he says and do as he does, against their consciences. He associates with the worst of sinners, has fellowship with them, is intimate with them; he walks in their counsel, stands in their way, sits in their seat, and sings their songs. The drunken are the merry and jovial company. He does like them: eats, drinks, and is drunken. This is an inlet to all manner of sin.
“I’m going to live the worldly lifestyle.” Live a selfish, careless life.
You may not be beating and doing all this, but it is an illustration in the story, ignoring your responsibility, living a worldly life. He’s an illustration of an unregenerate person. His heart philosophy resulted in this lifestyle: no care about the future, but just eat, drink, worldly pleasures, and enjoy. “I’ll have a great time.” The cause of his wickedness is a practical disbelief of Christ’s Second Coming. The delay of Christ’s coming, though it is a gracious instance of His patience, is greatly abused by wicked people, whose hearts are thereby hardened in their wicked ways. When Christ’s coming is looked upon as doubtful, or a thing at an immense distance, the hearts of men are fully set to do evil. They are ready to say of the unseen Jesus, as the people did of Moses when he tarried in the mount upon their errand, “We know not what is become of him,” and therefore, “up, make us gods”—the world a god, the belly a god, anything but Him who should be.
50 “the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, 51 and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Can you imagine the shock? He is living, thinking the master will not come for a long time, so he is beating, drinking, and abusing everything. Suddenly the master comes and sees all he does. “I trusted and gave all this privilege and blessing.” What a shock it will be for him. The coming of Christ will be a most dreadful surprise to secure and careless sinners, especially to hypocritical believers. The master, how angry! It is a doom that carries in it utter ruin, wrapped up in two dreadful words: death and damnation.
This is a terrible thing: “he will cut him in two.” The Greek verb is dichotomeo, “dichotomized.” This phrase refers to the sawing in half of an animal, or the definition of a curse (Deuteronomy 29:21). It is to illustrate the serious, devastating deadliness of the judgment of the Lord.
This person who took it easy, doing whatever he wanted, it’s going to be too late. He’s going to come when he doesn’t expect it, and he’s going to pay a very severe price. The man’s going to be cut in half, given a portion with all the rest of the unbelievers and hypocrites, and spend the rest of eternity weeping and gnashing his teeth. And by the way, weeping and gnashing of teeth is mentioned at least five times in the book of Matthew, and each time is a way to describe the terrible, unrelieved, unceasing, unconsolable pain of eternal hell. That will be the condition of all nominal believers on that day.
Final Application and Conclusion
So, what is to be the right kind of preparation for an unexpected and sudden coming of Christ? Watchfulness, readiness, and faithfulness.
Faithfulness doesn’t come automatically. It comes in the way of conscious effort, particularly in the effort of spiritual awareness (watchful) and being ready. If we are watchful and ready, that will show in how faithful we are to His commands, His word, and the stewardship He’s given us: our responsibilities to His church, how faithful we are to Christ and His word.
He tells us to be alert since we don’t know the time of His return; to be ready for the suddenness and unexpectedness of His coming so that we’re not caught unprepared; and to be faithful in serving as a devoted slave would serve his master. What is so clear about all of this is that being a Christian is not merely a state of being or a passive claim. Many in our day tend to think that as long as they claim to be Christians, then all is well. But what Jesus shows us is much different from such a claim. Genuine Christian faith is always evidenced by faithfulness in the things Christ has entrusted to us. Faithful service must occupy us until Jesus comes again. What will Jesus find you doing when He returns? That question begs our deep thinking.
Summary Lessons
So, we come to the end of this great chapter. The Lord Himself gave these applications. It is the Lord’s will that, as a response to His coming, we live with Watchfulness, Readiness, and Faithfulness (WRF). Let us close the chapter with solemn feelings, and determination of our duties: watchfulness, readiness, and faithfulness. The things we have just been reading call loudly for great searchings of heart and a change in our lifestyle. We’re going to see the Lord will further emphasize these things in Chapter 25 with parables: the 10 virgins (some of whom were ready and some of whom were not), and the parable of the talents (some of which were wasted and some of which were used). And they will illustrate for us the same issue of being watchful, being ready, and being faithful, in view of the coming of Christ.
Let me close by emphasizing a few points from what we read.
- Pray God to transform our mind and teach us to live every day as if Christ will come today.
- The Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is a certainty; we have the word of one who never lies, who is truth, every word of Him has been fulfilled, who said “heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away.” It is the Lord’s will we must live in the tension of not knowing when Christ will return, while being certain that He shall come. We must live watchful, prepared, and faithful; that is the best possible state or condition for a depraved heart to be in. No matter when it happens, like the Scottish preacher Robert Candlish said, it should not diminish the effect upon our minds and hearts now. Just like our faith goes back to the past and believes His first coming for our salvation, the same faith should go into the future, forget about the intermediate ages, see Him coming, and live in hope and expectation for that coming. Behind me, Christ dying in shame; before me, Christ coming in glory. That is what should determine how I live today.
- This conviction ought to keep us not only awake and ready, but careful to live our everyday life as we want them to be lived if He comes today night. Think of it: how productive, blessed, useful, holy, and God-pleasing our lives will be if we lived every day as if Christ may come today—watchful, ready, and useful/faithful in all that He has given. We read Church history and wonder how saints have achieved so much in a short life, how zealous, even dying for the truth, how they lived so holy. This is the secret: They were faithful unto death.
- How much would that attitude change our lazy, sleepy, unfaithful, slow-tortoise-speed growth lives if only people could see by the eye of faith the Lord coming in glory every day? Christ says be watchful; don’t allow this sight to go away from your eye of faith. If every day we watch and see the shining of His coming looming above us; this great day of salvation and doom, if we saw that prospect clearly and took to heart the certainty of its coming, then, of course, our lives must change, our decisions must be made differently, our view of this world and our life in this world must be revolutionized, and our priorities must be radically readjusted. How could it be otherwise? It is only when one does not believe the flood is coming or Christ is not coming that he remains unconcerned, he goes about their business, living a useless life, eating, drinking, and marrying. Pray God to transform our mind and teach us to live every day as if Christ will come today.
- Secondly, the parable of the faithful and evil servant teaches that our attitude and response to the truth of His Second Coming determines whether we are true born-again believers or hypocrites posing as believers. See how you respond to the Second Coming shows who you are. Are you a faithful and sensible slave or an evil slave?
The “faithful and sensible slave” serves the master regardless of the delay in returning. The piercing question, “Who then is a faithful and wise servant?” shows Christ’s high estimate of the worth and difficulty of such conduct and sets us to ask for ourselves, “Lord, is it I?” How does this teaching of the Second Coming affect you? Does it make you watchful, ready, and faithful?
Learn to be like the faithful and sensible servant.
He is “faithful” in heart and sensible in head to his master. Head and heart lean toward Christ in the faithful servant. He is “sensible” as one that thinks about glory and the privileges of being a slave of such a big master, King of kings and Lord of lords. Being “sensible,” he serves conscientiously. Is that the disposition of your heart and the direction of your life? The one faithful and sensible slave represents every believer. Do you see yourself in this slave? “I don’t know when the Lord will come, but He will come. I will faithfully serve Him, because I am His slave; He is my master.” Are you serving Christ?
There’s no place for laziness and lethargy among Christians. Jesus Christ has called each of us to serve. What are my service areas?
Areas of Faithful Service
1. Christian Witness: Every Christian is called to serve Christ by being a witness for the gospel. Work hard by example and word to spread the gospel. We are called to be salt and light to this perishing world. That is the call of Christian witness. It’s something that all of us share. We are called upon to pray for the furtherance of the gospel in the world. How faithful are you in that service?
2. Service within the Church: We are called as members in His church to serve one another. To use our talent to serve Christ and His people in the church. We all have different talents. Our duty is, instead of hiding them, to identify and faithfully serve. Are you faithful in that?
3. Covenant Responsibilities: Church membership is a covenantal membership before God and Christ. You have basic responsibilities of attending the meetings, praying for the church and pastor, and supporting the church with tithes. Fellowshipping. Are you faithful there?
Everyone can be involved and must be involved in each of these areas of Christian service. We’re not going to be “cookie-cutters” at this point. We’re going to approach these areas of service in different ways. But the important thing is that we engage regularly in witness, prayer, giving, and fellowship.
See, Christ gave particular work to this servant. In the same way, He gives a particular calling for each to serve in His church. It may be to teach and care for children, or to organize acts of mercy, or to care for the poor, or to plant churches, or to show hospitality for others, or to help with worship by using musical gifts, or to take care of little details that allow the church to function smoothly. Areas of service generally run along the lines of the spiritual gifts imparted graciously by the Holy Spirit.
He is not only faithful, but sensible. He knows what Christ has given him: to feed the servants. He does not go to the field or get into agriculture; he keeps running the household. He is focused on that. You cannot do everything; that’s where the servant of Christ must be “sensible.” Not doing 101 things, but focusing on what Master has given—the scope of my service. Be sensible. Unless you are sensible, you will do 101 things, and you cannot be faithfully diligent in any of them. The master expected faithfulness in the area of service laid out for him. The “faithful” servant sticks with the task before him. Christian service is rarely a sprint but more normally a marathon. It is the kind of thing that we must pace ourselves so that we remain steady, dependable, and diligent. “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.” Instead, we’re to steadily engage all that He has given to us in serving Him so that when He comes, we have nothing to be ashamed of.
Jesus Christ rewards faithful service. “Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions.” The faithful slave discovered the delight of his master. As Alexander Maclaren expressed it, “Faithfulness in a narrower sphere leads to a wider… [The servant] will be lifted to loftier dominion over a grander world when he passes hence.”
Let us be busily engaged in serving Jesus Christ, so that when He comes, He may find us faithful. We must guard against becoming entangled in the things of the world and losing sight of devoted service to Christ (2 Timothy 2:4). No doubt, all of us are busy people. But are we busy serving Christ in the sphere of service where He has placed us?
The Warning of the Evil Servant
Take warning of the evil slave to your heart. See, in this context, his response to the Second Coming shows that he is an unbeliever. He says in his heart, “The master will come after a long time.” But he refuses to bow to the master’s authority, and instead, pursues his own desires. Such a person may be in the membership of a church or outside; he may be in regular church attendance. He may give the outward appearance of being a good slave. But the evil slave cannot forever hide his inward disposition.
The evil heart presumes upon the Master. He thinks that he can predict when to go wild and when to clean up his act. But the problem was that he did not understand his own heart. The inward disposition—the inner desires of the deepest recesses of the heart—had no leaning toward the master. Notice that he talked to himself: “My master is not coming for a long time.” William Hendriksen rightly tells us, “Now what a man says to himself is often even more important than what he says openly.” The wise man, centuries before, said, “For as he thinks within himself, so he is” (Proverbs 23:7). He believed what he wanted to believe rather than what the master had spoken as truth.
What do we discover about the evil servant? The one who fails to take seriously the revelation of God inevitably pursues assorted paths of sinful behavior. He can indulge his lusts and consider it his right in this world. Jesus calls him “that evil slave.”
The secret thought of the evil servant is the mindset of the last days. How many of you have this thought: “Oh, Pastor, you are unnecessarily fervently preaching Christ is coming; He is not coming soon, so I will eat, drink…” A secret dismissal of the anticipation of the Lord’s return, this unspoken dimming over of the expectation and unconfessed doubt of the firmness of the promise, is a sign of the evil servant. How many live with this mindset and heart self-talk? Unless we consciously repent, resist this last day disease, and make a constant effort to resist the tendency and to keep awake, this will affect us.
See, the sad decline in church history could be traced to this problem. The first generations were all aflame with the glad hope ‘Maranatha’—‘The Lord is at hand.’ They turned the world upside down with their witness. Their successors gradually lost that keenness of expectation, and at most cried, ‘Will not He come soon?’ Their successors saw the starry hope through thickening mists of years. The evil idea of the servant spread among churches. The thought “He delays” helps to open the floodgates and let sin flood the life. So an outburst of cruel sins and of riotous sensuality is the consequence of the dimmed expectation. There would have been no usurpation of authority over Christ’s heritage by priest or pope, or any other, if that hope had not become faint. If professing Christians lived with the great white throne and the heavens and earth fleeing away before Him that sits on it, ever burning before their inward eye, how could they wallow amid the mire of animal indulgence? The corruptions of the Church, especially of its official members, are traced with sadness. These foreboding words, which are none the less a prophecy, show what will happen. We live under the effect of this last day disease; the whole of Christianity today lives with this philosophy: “My master is delaying his coming.” Let these words of the King ring an alarm for us all, and rouse our sleepy souls to watch, as becomes the children of the day.
Conclusion: The Double Lesson
So we learn the double lesson that the attitude of continual outlook for the Lord coming is needed if we are to discharge our duties faithfully, and that the true effect of watchfulness and readiness will reveal itself as faithfulness to Him, His commands, His word, and His church. A church or a soul which has ceased to be looking for Him will have let all its tasks drop from its drowsy hands, and will not feel the power of constraining motives of Christian service.
Our Lord teaches against the false idea that true waiting for Him is best expressed by faithfully doing what He has assigned. We cannot be better employed, if the end has come, than in doing our duty. Some believers thought waiting for His coming required blind zeal: leave all duties, don white robes, sell all that they owned, and wait on the mountaintop to be the first to wing their way to the returning Christ. No. The best way to wait for Him is to faithfully preach the gospel to the world and exercise ourselves in spiritual disciplines. As Ben Witherington III notes about Thessalonica, “Eschatological fervency had led to lethargy on the part of some.”
Final Admonition
Those of you who have not come to Christ, Christ is certainly coming. Are you prepared? What if He comes today? Are you so living in relationship to Christ that if He should come soon, He would find you alert, ready, and faithful? You know why you don’t believe me? Because that evil servant’s thought is your life philosophy. That is what Satan is using to put off your salvation.
There were three apprentice demons who came before Satan. And he sent them to the earth to do their apprenticeship. And the first apprentice demon said, “I will tell people Christ is not coming.” And Satan said, “It won’t work; they know better.” And the second apprentice demon said, “I will tell people there is no hell.” And Satan said, “It won’t work; they know better.” And the third demon said, “I will tell people, Christ is coming, there is no hurry – there is no hurry.” And Satan said, “You will gain many souls.”
There is a hurry. There is a hurry. Listen to what Paul said: “Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” Today we’re closer to the Second Coming than we have ever been in human history. “The night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light.”
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 