How wonderful when the Spirit comes in seasons of refreshing upon His people. Truly, that happens when we have a repenting heart that truly desires to know the Lord’s will and the Lord’s way.
We are also thankful when the Lord enables those who minister the Word to be refreshed by the Lord. I am very thankful for this day of rest and refreshment from the ministry of the Word this morning, from just spending time with the Lord. It is wonderful.
I remember one time I talked to a real old, old saint when I was in Hong Kong. This person used to go and listen to Watchman Nee, and I said to her, “Well, what was your impression of Brother Nee?”
Without any hesitation, this was her statement. She did not tell me how tall he was or how much he smiled. But this is what she said:
“Well, I was a nurse, and I had to travel across town by several buses. Then I had to walk over a bridge and walk a couple of miles. By the time I got to the meeting, I had already been on a three-hour trip.
“No matter how tired I was, when our brother stood up to minister, I was refreshed like the morning.”
Now, that is a great thing to be said about somebody who ministers the Word. We realize that it is not the servant himself, but the Word itself that quickens us, gives us life, and refreshes us.
So we pray tonight that the Lord would do that. As our bodies are tired and as the sun begins to set, may the Lord keep us refreshed in His presence.
I would like for us to open the Gospel of Matthew again. We are going to pick right up where we left off last time. For those of you who did not hear, of course there is a recording available.
Matthew 24. Let us begin reading in verse 42, and then I will go to a few other verses.
Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.
But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into.
For this reason, you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.
Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household, to give them their food at the proper time?
Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.
Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
But if that evil slave says in his heart, “My master is not coming for a long time,” and he begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
And then, just the moral of that parable in Matthew 25:13:
Be on the alert, for you do not know the day nor the hour.
Lord, we do not know when You will return, when we will be caught up into Your presence. We know right now that You are with us. We ask that Your Spirit might quicken us, refresh us, and bring us to that kind of alertness that You desire and require in Your kingdom.
We submit ourselves to You, the only Master of the kingdom. In Jesus’ precious name, we pray. Amen.
Last time we took the context into view of this Olivet Discourse, which means the words Jesus spoke on the Mount of Olives. As you will remember, He had been down in Jerusalem, and in a day of intense controversy, Jesus rose with a wisdom from God that enabled Him to stand and even to shame the various leaders of the sects of the Jews, with a wisdom that was direct and even gained the approval of the people, who instinctively sensed that He was speaking the truth.
After listening to these questionings and controversies—and, by the way, you can tell somebody with the true authority of God, because through all of that you never see Jesus on the defensive—they came to Him with questions, and He turned them right around. The next thing you know, they were answering questions and on the defense. What a wonderful Master our Lord Jesus is.
But having taken all of the abuse and rebuff from these leaders, Jesus turned in very strong words and condemned them for their hypocrisy. Then He condemned Jerusalem as a whole, because He had come to them as the Messiah of Israel, as a hen looking for her baby chicks, willing to place these people under her wings. But they rejected Him.
So the Messiah summarily judges Jerusalem and the temple and says that one stone will not be left upon another.
When He left the temple after these strong judgments, obviously the disciples were struggling with them. All the disciples knew was this outward religion: adhering to rules, offering sacrifices, obeying, being part of feasts, smelling the lamb at the temple, seeing the beauty of its objects, and hearing the choirs singing in four-part harmony and various choruses through the day and night.
It was an addictive thing, which now Jesus was saying was going to crumble to nothing. They were having a tough time accepting the judgments of this usually gracious Jesus.
But, you know, our Lord, having rejected these rejecters, walks up to the Mount of Olives. As the disciples begin to talk to Him, He again confirms that the temple would be left with not one stone upon another.
They began to ask Him questions. They wanted to know when this temple would be destroyed, what would be the sign of His coming, and of the end of the age. They were looking for something outward, some signs so that they could know exactly what was going on.
Our Lord came to His own disciples like a hen and took those chicks under His wing and spoke to them words that we call this Olivet Discourse.
I just wanted to try to convey last night that Jesus was not at all interested in giving us charts and timetables regarding coming events. He was taking these disciples under His wing. There was so much more He wanted to say. What could He share with them?
Obviously, His burden was to bring them through a great transformation: from looking at things as they are outwardly to an awareness of the great spiritual reality of the kingdom that was even in their midst at the moment, but to which they were almost entirely blind.
And so He answered their question. He spoke of some signs, but I ask you the question: did He answer their question?
The summation of all He said in His answer was actually there in Matthew 24:36:
But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
Well, that pretty much dashes all the other signs.
As a matter of fact, if I may be so bold as to sort of say what I think Jesus was really saying, He was saying this: “Now, you know those birth pangs of the creation that is groaning—the earthquakes, the famines, and the things? Do not look at them.”
“Nor the persecutions, or even the betrayals, or the coldness that will befall many saints when lawlessness runs rampant through the land. Ah, ah, ah, ah—do not look at that.”
“Rather, look behind these things to My unseen hand, removing the seals of the scroll of the destiny of this universe, provoking this world toward its end and into its renewal in eternity. It is My hand behind all of these circumstances.”
“So here is what I want you to do: I want you to endure faithfully to the end, and allow even these persecutions to press you out to the furthest reaches of the earth with the gospel of the kingdom. That is what you need to do. Do not get your eyes on all of these tremblings and birth pangs of creation. No, no, no. Keep your eyes on Me.”
“And when you see the abomination of desolation in the temple, and you realize that even those things we said, and that Daniel spoke of years before, would come to pass—when you see that, do not stare at that. Do not sit there paralyzed as you see these things come to pass. Listen to My voice. Flee where I tell you.”
“You will be directed by an inward leading. It is not the abomination of desolation that is a sign to you; it is what My Spirit says to your heart.”
Oh, praise God, the Christians listened to the Spirit and fled Jerusalem before that dread catastrophe of 70 A.D.
And you see the fig tree, of course meaning Israel. Well, when you see it getting ripe and you see—okay, well, but, but, but—do not keep your eyes on the fig tree. Get your eyes on the door. He is coming.
So, if I could interpret these signs, He did not really give them signs. He was actually weaning them off of signs and prescribing to them a new and living way.
You see, these saints, these dear saints, had yet to experience that which we have experienced by grace: namely, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit leading from within, in a voice showing a way and designing our circumstances.
Oh, they knew a Holy Spirit who had been with them, but they had yet to have that experience of the Spirit living in them and directing them.
As you know, this was a great burden of our Lord Jesus. As a hen folded His disciples, His chicks, under His wing there in John, we see Him telling them: people do not embrace the new reality until the old reality is devastated.
Isn’t that a terrible thing to say? We should be willing to—you know, the Lord says, “Go west, young men.” We should be able to go west, although you guys cannot go much further. But no, we need devastation in the east before we go west.
And so Jesus, in talking to His disciples, had to do this to them. He said, “Okay, hey, by the way, guys, now that we have had this meal together and sung some songs, I have got to tell you something. I am going, and you cannot go.”
That was devastation. They had heard the clues that Jesus was going to the cross. They had heard Him speak, but it was like words up there in some other language.
So now Jesus plainly said, “I am going away.” Suddenly, it was, “Well, where are You going? What is happening? Show us the Father.” Jesus started telling them, “I am the Father. I am the way. I am not leaving—I am just leaving.”
A whole new understanding had to be born in the hearts of the disciples. So it is with this precious Olivet Discourse, as Jesus speaks to them of the new kingdom that is coming in.
After saying in Matthew 24:36, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father,” He is saying, “You are not going to get a clue from anybody when I am coming back.”
But here is what My burden is: our Lord Jesus, the Prophet of prophets, said, “Watch. Be ready.”
That is My burden for you, My disciples: watch, be ready. Watch, be ready. Watch, be ready. Watch, be ready.
Now, it cannot be any clearer than that. That is the one thing that comes out of this chapter that everybody can read. Whether you understand the signs, or exactly who the false prophet was, or this and that, this is the essence of what Jesus says by way of His burden: watch and be ready.
Now, even that is a bit of a complication, I suppose, when you really stop and ask: wait, wait, wait, wait—where do we watch? How are we to be ready?
Of course, the hen knows that the chicks have need. So He speaks to them four very wonderful kingdom parables on what it means to watch and be ready.
These four parables—I am going to change the names of them, or at least the names by which you familiarly know them—begin in Matthew 24:45 and go through Matthew 25. He gives these four parables on this one simple point: watch and be ready.
The first parable is of the watching and ready steward. The second parable is of the watching and ready virgins. The third parable is of the watching and ready investors, if we could put it that way. The fourth is of the watching and ready cupbearers of mercy.
There it is. The bottom line is the same in each case.
These four parables are connected together as a unit because they have four common elements.
First of all, in each of the stories there is an apparently, temporarily absent master.
In the first parable, the master has left the house. With the virgins, it is the bridegroom who is delayed. In the parable of the talents, it is the businessman who has gone out of town. In the sheep and goats parable, whatever you want to call it, you have the King who has come back and is appraising what His people have done.
Secondly, all four parables are distinguished by the fact that the people remaining behind have time to redeem. They have free time.
“Oh, the master is gone. Maybe I will watch television today, and I will do my work tomorrow.” We have freedom—seemingly free time. People like that. That is what most people define grace as: having free time to do whatever I want.
Strange. Paul, in his great letter on grace, says, “You have been called for freedom, brethren, but do not let it become an opportunity for the flesh.” You are called to freedom, but not to be free, but to live by grace freely.
So, in all four stories, there are these servants while the master is gone. There are the virgins who have some time to store up oil or not. There are these people given different amounts of talents, and they can do what they will with them. Then there are these people with cups of cold water, with time to visit in jail or not—whatever they want to do.
Of course, the third part that is in common with all the stories is that the master suddenly comes back and asks for an accounting immediately.
There is no time to make a quick investment, get over to the stock exchange, and make a quick trade—a day trade, in and out. “Oh, You gave me one; I got three back.” No, no, no.
These investors were probably having their afternoon tea and dozing. Suddenly, the master comes back: “Okay, what have you done?”
The master came back to the house to check up on the servants. The bridegroom finally came, and some virgins were ready while some were not. And so on and so forth.
The fourth thing they all have in common is that all of them were judged—either given great, far beyond what they deserved, reward, or suffering great loss, much worse loss than we thought they should have received.
We are really quite surprised by the way these kingdom rewards and losses are measured out.
Isn’t it interesting? These four parables are so simple, and they all have the same point. Yet these kingdom parables cause people no end of quandary today, wondering, “What on earth does it mean?”
People go around and up and down about the five virgins. Well, I will talk about that, God willing, tomorrow night, and I will tell you the answer—which only my answer can be right—who they were.
No, but the whole point is: why are these simple parables so difficult to understand? After all, they all have this simple point.
Ah, but brothers and sisters, we live in a day when some things that used to be easy are hard to understand.
Number one, we are going to have to understand—and so we will spend a little time introducing a context—the mystery of how we live in the kingdom in between.
That is to say, what Matthew calls the kingdom of heaven has to do with that which takes place from the first coming of our Lord until He returns in His second coming. Now, how do we live in the mystery of that kingdom that cannot be seen?
It is very difficult for people to understand. Second of all, many people cannot understand at all the King’s emphasis upon inheritance and reward—inherence and reward. What is He getting at?
Actually, the problem is that we have such little understanding of how absolutely important to God’s purpose the millennial kingdom is. All that is to be fulfilled, all that is to be accomplished in that millennium—most people do not even bother thinking about it.
But for the King of that kingdom, He is very much interested in inheritance and rewards in the kingdom.
Now, the reason that this living in the kingdom of heaven is a mystery, and the matter of rewards is a mystery, is because, as our dear brother said this morning, many do not understand the true nature of grace.
I have to confess, I receive so much refreshment when I hear somebody talking about grace the way it is spoken of in the Word of God. Our dear brother just refreshed my soul because he spoke about grace, rightly dividing the word of truth.
But today there are those who propound the doctrine of what I call “gracianity.” It has taken a truth of God and distorted it in such a way that it has lost its beauty.
Now, it is true that we are saved by grace, and that is the emphasis of such people who pronounce gracianity as the doctrine of the day. They say, “Just come, be saved by grace—no works. That is it.”
Now, once you get saved, “Oh, if you can possibly do it, if it is not too much of an annoyance for you, would you be baptized?” Well, you do not have to be. It is all by grace—all by grace and gracianity, the new doctrine which is touted about by many Christian anonymous. It is all good.
Because, you see, here is the deal: Jesus had enough grace to save you, but He did not have enough grace to save you to the uttermost. Now you are saved, but frankly, just live out of your own wits as best you can.
Every good Christian should live an abundant life and make a million dollars and should be free of disease. Then you should try to be as religious as possible. But, you know what? He has not really given us enough grace for a holy life.
Nor has He given us enough grace to be able to crucify the deeds of the flesh. Nor has He given us enough grace to serve sacrificially. Oh, God forbid the word sacrifice. Oh, the shame of our brother even bringing that word up this morning—that Christians would sacrifice. Oh my goodness. Law. Works. Oh no, we live all by grace.
But, you see, they have distorted and taken away the punch of grace. For when we get saved, as our dear brother shared, there is an enabling that takes over our lives, and we are no longer our own.
We are living in another strata, with amazing grace at our command and able to serve God—not by our own strength, but by grace. Oh, these things are so little understood.
Last week our dear brother Stephen Kaung—he is ninety-four years old now—got up and shared twenty-two messages on the purpose of the second coming.
Basically, he conveyed something this way, which people do not usually hear the truth encapsulated like this. He said, “Of course, the first coming was a revelation of the absolute grace of God, and His second coming will be a revelation of the absolute work of judgment.”
He said, “Grace and judgment are inseparable. You cannot separate those two words. Grace lays the foundation which judgment completes.”
Now, if you think about it, let us just say that God says, “Okay, it is all My grace—no more judgment.” You know what? Then this whole world economy in eternity cannot be resolved. It is all unresolved. Satan goes on his merry way instead of being thrown into the lake of fire.
That has to happen for there to be justice. God is just, and a justifier of those who through faith trust in Jesus.
God is just, and He is not happy until everything is rectified—until those who have been faithful are given great rewards, until those who have persecuted the name of Christ face their just reward.
There must be a just judgment seat of Christ for Christians in order to resolve everything. There must be a great white throne of judgment over the universe in order to resolve everything.
Now, our brother Stephen did not go into all that. That is me. But he did say this: by the grace of God, if we understand the Word of God and trust and love the Word of God, even those parts we do not understand, one day we will come to the place where judgment will be as beautiful a word to us as grace.
I will probably touch on that a little more Saturday night. I am going to leave it alone because our brother probably is going to be all over that thing tomorrow. Okay. I hope he is.
Now, let us go back to these two matters: living in the kingdom of heaven and the matter of rewards. This is context, because this first parable has rewards in it. It is talking about the kingdom, so we need to get a few things squared away.
The disciples had been living in the kingdom. They had been living in the kingdom of Israel, in an outward kingdom where they saw the manifest power of God through the ministry of Jesus. They began to understand the mysteries of the kingdom as Jesus began to explain it to them.
Indeed, Jesus helped these men to begin the transition of living in the mystery of the kingdom of heaven.
Now, what do I mean by that? Think of these three things. Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Here is the trick of living in this kingdom between the two comings. Number one: what time is it in the kingdom time zone? Here it is: now, but not quite yet.
Where do you live? Where is the space of the kingdom? Not here, but near—at hand.
Translators cannot stand “at hand,” so half of them say, “The kingdom is here,” and half of them say, “The kingdom is near.” But it is not here; it is very near.
The third thing these disciples had to learn after Jesus left and ascended into heaven is this: an unseen King is absolutely in control from His throne of everything that is going on in the history of the world right now. But He is an unseen King. Do you see Him?
So it is a bit of a mystery. Over there in Iran, they know who their leader is. In the United States, we know who our leader is. Okay, now, how about the servants of the kingdom of God? Where is your leader?
Well, He is here—not here, but near. It is now, but not quite yet.
You are living in some kind of imposed two kingdoms: the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven that is coming down on it and wrestling with it. There is a violence going on in this kingdom.
For the life of me, I do not understand why so many Christians are not aware that there is a violent conflict, contest, force, triumphing thing going on in this kingdom of heaven. They say, “Where? What? Who? What is going on? Oh, you mean the squabble with the deacons last week?”
Not knowing that even our elections are fraught with kingdom contest. So much is involved in this.
Jesus did not leave them just to be puzzled. This is what the Gospel of Matthew is all about. The Gospel of Matthew is known for the five pericopes of teaching—five sections of teaching where Jesus teaches on the kingdom of heaven.
It is wonderful what He teaches, but it is completely opposite to the kingdom they had experienced in this world.
We know the first pericope. You know that word pericope? I do not know why big shots use that. I do not know what it means either. But it is the first section of teaching, called the Sermon on the Mount by many people: Matthew 5, 6, and 7.
What does Jesus teach? Here is what He teaches in three simple statements.
First, the kingdom of heaven is upside down. The poor are rich. The mournful are happy. The persecuted are filled with joy. The last are first. The weak are strong.
Second, the kingdom of heaven is inside out. Whereas in the kingdom of the past you heard, “Do not do this; do not commit adultery,” Jesus says true righteousness starts from the heart and works inside out. It is no longer outward righteousness.
Upside down, inside out—and, if you are still hanging in there—death is life.
So deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me. It is much more than that. Here is what I think the punchline of Matthew 5 through 7 is: if you really read it, then your eyes open. “Whoa, that is what it means to live in the kingdom.”
Then you realize that only Jesus can live the kingdom life, and you realize the best thing you can do is die and live by His life, because that is the kingdom life. You cannot do that by yourself. Turn the other cheek—just try.
You know, I love this sort of liberal Christianity that says, “Live by the Sermon on the Mount.” Boy, that will be the biggest outward hypocrisy you could possibly imagine.
We do not have time to take up all these things. Think about Matthew 13. There is a whole section on the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, where Jesus says, “You disciples, it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom. But to those, I speak to them in parables, that hearing they may hear and not hear, and seeing they may see and not perceive, and remain dull.”
Wow—these parables, these mysteries, these talents. But what were the mysteries of the kingdom He was conveying in Matthew 13? Again, I will give you a very simple bottom line, as you know I always do.
It is simply this: despite all the outward appearances, the Lord completely is in control and knows exactly what He is doing.
But if you look at Matthew 13, you see anything but the Lord being in control. You see a sower going out to sow, sowing all of his seed, and only a quarter of it grows and comes to fruition. The other is in hard places, rocky soil, or thorny ground. Only a quarter. What is this sower doing? He is wasting a lot of seed.
Oh, but He knows what He is doing. Then in come the tares along with the wheat and really mess up the kingdom bed. These are parables of the kingdom. The kingdom of God has tares as well as wheat. What? How can that possibly be successful?
Then throw in some leaven. Then throw in a mustard tree gone haywire. Thus is the kingdom of heaven. Amen.
He leaves and goes inside. Now His disciples are saying, “Holy smoke. Hey, what? What is this kingdom? This kingdom is not working out. Everything that starts out goes haywire. What is going on here?”
Jesus says, “Psst,” and then He tells them secretly three more parables. He says, “Listen. Out of this whole mess, I am getting My treasure. I am getting My pearl. I am netting My prize. I am getting a bride out of this thing.”
“Let all those outward disappointments and things—church divisions, destructions, devastations, kingdoms up and down, rising and falling, men taking over the church—all of that is just the outward surface. Do you know what the kingdom of heaven is really like? I am gaining a bride: My treasure, My pearl. It is happening.”
“That is why I am sowing. I know what I am doing.”
God knows what He is doing right now, even if we are completely confused.
When we get to Matthew 24 and 25, which is the last of the five pericopes, Jesus is trying to declare to them the wonderful mysteries by giving them clues about what it means to be watching and ready for kingdom coming.
Now, before we get into it, let me ask you a question. I think I could safely assume probably just about everybody here is a Christian by the grace of God.
Has the Lord opened your eyes to kingdom reality—to the reality of that unseen kingdom that you are very much called to be a servant in?
Have you been quickened to the contests of the kingdom and to His invisible lordship and throneship, very much over the servants of His kingdom? Are you aware of these things?
Have you been feeling Him taking you and basically turning you upside down, turning you inside out, and showing you that to die is to live? Are you aware of these things?
Ah, praise God, I think many of you are. That is why it is so precious to come and speak to some whom I know are servants of the kingdom of heaven, because they alone will understand what it means to watch and be ready.
If you are not sure what I am talking about, because we often equate the church with the kingdom—and it is, but there is more going on there—the Word needs to be rightly divided in such a way that we can understand not only life in the church, but service in the kingdom. They go hand in hand.
If we are those servants in the kingdom, then we will be able to understand these parables.
Now, the other matter that we will take up for a moment is this mystery regarding rewards.
Rewards should be a very simple thing to understand, but they have lost some ground and come out of favor. Most people are embarrassed by the thought of rewards. “It is so beneath us. Why, we do everything out of love. I do not care—just give me a little tiny mansion in glory. Oh, rewards, tush, tush.”
We make it seem almost a shameful thing that Paul keeps testifying how he is pressing on for his reward. We say, “Oh, Paul, he is such a reward-o-maniac.”
You know what? It is gracianity that has done that once again. Let us identify the culprit here.
Gracianity has everybody saved. Gracianity has everybody going up in the rapture. Gracianity has everybody ruling with the King in the millennial kingdom.
So, you know what? Let me tell you the truth: you do not have to watch and wait. You do not even have to try to be spiritual. You can be carnal, because when the Lord comes, He is going to reward everybody. “Come on, He is egalitarian here. It is a democracy in the kingdom, you know that.”
So why should I deny myself? Why should I defer accumulating riches and instead put riches in glory? Why should I work by the grace of God when I could live for myself and gain the same reward?
Now I ask you: if you believe that God is just, do you think that is a just summary of what is going to happen?
But rewards have been thrown out in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Christianity in America.
All I know is, when I go into Siberia and talk to those Russians, and there is a new wave of persecution coming by Putin and his government upon those Russians out there, they know about reward. They are sacrificing their lives.
There is nothing phony belonging to them, and reward is not their motive for service. Love of Jesus is their motive. But it is an encouragement to endure, as is so often exhorted in this matter of rewards.
Jesus—inheritance and kingdom rewards are great issues.
And so His kingdom exhortations, as our brother shared this morning—that word exhortation is so beautiful, and you can take it a number of different ways—but one thing we know about exhortation is that exhortation always has a conditional element to it.
When there is exhortation, there is always in view reward or loss. There is possibility for great reward. There is possibility for great loss.
Our brother will go through the book of Hebrews, and you cannot go through that without seeing it. Every exhortation has an if clause, as it were.
Jesus is so concerned. As an example, there in Matthew 19, His disciples sometimes heard Jesus say things that were so tough. “It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” They said, “Ah, well, originally I cannot make it. Who could be saved?”
We cannot go into that whole story, but there in Matthew 19:25, when the disciples heard that, they were astonished and said, “Who can be saved?” Jesus said:
With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
Now Peter—Peter has given up his cigarette money and some other things, and he feels like he has given up a lot. He has spent some time away from home, and he has not seen anything yet, but he feels like he has.
Peter said, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You. What will there be for us?”
It is a good thing I was not Jesus, because if I were Jesus, I would have smacked him. “Peter, you have no idea. You are going to deny Me in just a couple of weeks, and that is just for starters.” I would have said, “Oh, get off your high horse. ‘We have left everything.’ What is in it for us?”
Yet, when Peter asked that question, Jesus gave him a most wonderful and encouraging answer, which I am sure came out in Peter’s heart as they were turning him upside down to crucify him.
Jesus said:
Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.
But many who are first will be last, and the last first.
So Peter, you may think you are first now. You just be faithful later on, and I will determine who is first and who is last. But there is great reward. There is great reward.
Jesus wants—I do not know if we can fully understand how we can fully understand the love God has for us. When He created you, just as He gave the twelve tribes an inheritance, He created you to fulfill a purpose, to do certain good works, to enter into His kingdom, and to rule and reign in a certain place.
That is your inheritance: to be gained or to be lost.
So He exhorts us: watch, be ready.
We know the gospel is quite clear. How do we enter the kingdom? By grace. We are born again. Who earned getting into the kingdom? Let us see—nobody, right?
Unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. We all enter in by grace.
But what is this? I will ask you: what do you think this means in 2 Peter 1?
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.
For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
Now, Peter has just gone through a list of things that the grace of God does in our lives, moving us in character ever deeper, ever fuller, starting with faith and moving right up to agape.
In this increase, Peter says, “You know something, brother and sister? If you are increasing, do not worry about it. You are increasing by grace, and you will enter abundantly into this eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Entering abundantly is what the exhortation is for. I will not even go into the negative side.
We have entered the kingdom of God by grace, but now how about an abundant entrance by abundant grace? All those who are increasing never need worry that they are going to stumble. But it is increasing that is important.
Just as we have been saved by the grace of God, we increase by the grace of God. Because, you see, grace, as it increases, becomes glory.
As we follow and take grace and grow in our lives, He changes us from grace to glory. So we abundantly enter the kingdom.
Jesus is very concerned about all of these matters: great reward, great loss.
The thing that is sobering, dear brothers and sisters, is this: the great loss and the great reward are determined in this short lifetime we live now.
There are tremendous millennial kingdom issues being determined in our lives right now, as short as they are. That is not to frighten us; it is to awaken us. Watch. Be ready.
Now, having said that, let us look at this simple parable here in Matthew 24. It just takes a couple of minutes. It is very transparent.
Turning to Matthew 24:45:
Who then is the faithful and sensible slave—
butler, steward—
whom his master put in charge of his household, to give them their food at the proper time?
Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.
Truly I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
Wow. What a reward.
Now, just think of this butler, this slave. He is nothing more than a slave, but he is a head slave. The head of the household says, “Okay, I am going out of town. Now look, you take care of everybody. Be sure they are eating their meals. Be sure things are organized. Come up with a plan every day. Be sure the supplies are here. Discipline anything that needs to happen. Just be faithful, and then I will come back. That is all I am asking.”
You can imagine, while the master is there, what a tight ship is run. This servant hums as he works. He is very happy that he is working for the master because he sees the master every day. The master gives him a special handshake and all that.
All the servants in the house love it, because even if you are just the chambermaid making up the bed every day, making up the bed for the master is a big deal. You like doing that.
She has to make up all the beds in the house for the other servants as well—no problem, because the master is there.
The cook specializes in Chinese and Japanese sushi because the master likes it. She is taking special lessons, finding the freshest fish, and making these four-star meals. It is so wonderful being in the household.
Now the master goes away.
At first, the thing is just running like a tight ship. But after a while, the head of the house says, “Oh man, I spend long nights checking the books, making sure everything is matching up, and going out and getting stuff. The master is not coming back right away.”
“They have to take a little time off. My buddies from college—I think I will go down there. They have a football game at the university, and we can drink around a little bit and have a good time. That is okay. The house will be okay. The master is not coming home for a while.”
This head guy takes license with what he considers to be the master’s delay. He even starts treating the servants the way he has always wanted to treat them. He would not dare do it around the master.
He says, “What kind of a jerk are you? Do not you know how to make a hospital corner on those beds?” He gets after the gardener because there is some weed behind the geranium.
A funny thing happens: the steward starts to think he is the owner. Things go badly wrong.
The other servants may be dense, but they are not dense enough not to rebel. The next thing you know, they are whining and moaning and carrying on, and everything is going south. The beds are not being made, and the cook is now nuking leftovers from McDonald’s.
People are not eating right, there is gastric distress all over the house, and then suddenly, in the midst of everybody reaching for the Tums, the master comes back.
“What is going on here? The garden—what happened? The food? Look at my bed. It is a mess. What is that? You evil servant, out you go.”
Jesus is just making a point. I do not think we should take this literally, necessarily. But Matthew 24:50–51 says:
The master of the slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
I do not know where you think that is or what is going to happen, but I think Jesus is just making a point. This guy is going to be made the next meal.
It is great loss. Think of it: this simple slave could rule the master’s whole household or be made into a minced-meat pie. But because he was not watching and ready, he was made into mincemeat pie.
The point of this story is so transparent that I do not think it takes much to exegete it. Here it is: in between the first and the second coming of the Lord Jesus, you are on watch to see how you treat your brothers and sisters in the household of God.
This is a parable of church life, first of all aimed at those of us who supposedly lead—whether deacons, elders, pastors, workers, or whatever you want to call them. Those who are responsible are just servants, not owners.
But this is a great bane of the church: when so-and-so gets hold of a church and calls it “my church.” Oh, God forbid. Unfortunately, I am sure that falls upon the ears of the true Head of the church, and action will be taken.
To think they own the church, boss people around in some supercilious way, be critical of everybody, and think that they are serving their master by doing so—well, we need not look far to see that such people who decide they are the head honcho, start acting like it, and then believe they are the head honcho, are going to face a certain condemnation because they hurt the lives of the servants of God in the church.
But now, let us not get after these guys, because that would be me and I do not want to get on that. Let us get on the rest of the saints: the bed makers, the cooks, and the gardeners.
Ladies and gentlemen, when we feel the Master’s presence ever so near, it is so easy to be all in love with our brothers and sisters. We have a great meeting, and we all give everybody a big old hug, and everything is cool and fine.
But the reality of the interim between the first and second coming is that the days run long, and things seem pretty earthy.
It is possible to go down from a deep sense of service, out of love for the Lord, to a sense of duty because it needs to be done.
Unwittingly, in the household of God—the church of Jesus Christ—we can fall into a law. “Well, I have got to go teach the kids. If not, they are going to ask why I was not there.”
Some kind of duty starts calling, and the next thing you know, those things that are meant to be done out of first love are done out of legalistic duty.
Our Lord Jesus, our Master, never intended for the household to be run that way.
When we start treating one another with despite, start gossiping, start belittling one another, start judging one another, and become critical of one another, you know what we are doing? We are sealing our fate. That is what we are doing.
Because when the Master comes back, He knows exactly what is going on.
The moral of the story is very simple, but it is poignant. Watch and be ready means exactly this: serve each day in the church life out of love for Jesus.
Those servants would be corrected in a minute if the head servant himself would simply say this to the arguing servants—and these things are inevitable:
“My dear fellow servants, let us serve the Master as if He were coming back today. Come on. Get the house back in order. Shake things up for the sake of the Lord. Let us live as if He were coming today.”
If the fellow servants took it to heart, you would find the place being repaired and recovered in its proper way—things done in first love and not out of duty.
Now, these things sound all spiritual and easy to say, but you have got to learn how to live by the life of the Lord to truly be able to do this. This is overcoming life.
What does it mean to watch and be ready? Does it mean not to sleep anymore? Does it mean to stay awake until three in the morning to prove your diligence? No.
Here is what it means. Matthew 24:46 is the key, I think, in a simple way:
Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.
My dear child of God, whatever position you are in—you do not have to be the head-honcho butler guy—it does not matter what you are doing. If you are doing what you were called to do out of obedience and love for the Lord when He comes, you are ready.
Isn’t that simple?
Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.
You cannot figure out which day you need to turn around and be nice to the saints. It is your daily life before the Lord. You do it because you love the Lord.
It is a humbling thing, but we are all just servants—even those who supposedly lead. We are just servants together. Are we ready?
In the assembly that you gather with, in the church that you live in, what is your relationship with the brothers and sisters? Have you got something against somebody? Are you holding back your service because somebody did this, and so you are doing that, and that is making them do this?
Well, shame on you, because when the Lord comes back, He will not listen to a moment of that stuff. Nonsense. He gave you life. He gave you grace. He gave you mercy. He gave you forgiveness. Now live it out, and be ready when He comes.
We do not know when. But may the church that you and I are part of know that we have been faithful today, whatever the role is. It makes no difference.
We soon learn as we read these parables that there is not a sense of hierarchy, as though people serving at the top will receive a greater reward. No. Jesus said, sometimes the last are first.
I know that you all would say amen to this. To me, there is nothing more precious in any church that I visit or am part of than those few saints who seem to stand out as gracious servants.
Whether they are just shaking everybody’s hand at the door, cleaning up after the meeting, or talking to people who need help, there are those precious ones who are just so gracious.
To me, you can feel the liquid love of Jesus in a place where there are such precious servants. High stature, low stature—it makes no difference.
When you see Brother Lawrence doing dishes in the kitchen, what could be better? He is ready. Are we ready?
This is the first simple example. Forget all the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven for just a minute. Here is the deal: the Lord Jesus is away right now. He is the Head of the church, but you cannot see Him.
When we look around at our peers, it always becomes a problem, does it not? If we have our eyes on Jesus, it is not a problem.
We look around at our peers. I mean, who is worthy to be our peer anyway? When it comes to peerage, I am a better jerk than you are. I am a notch up in my nothingness.
Do you see what I mean? How foolish it is. But, oh boy, we immediately take sides and have hierarchies. No, no, no, no.
Here it is: may the church be the Master’s household. May the church be ready when He comes back and says, “Good job. Well done, faithful servant. Faithful in little things, by My life, by My love, I will make you head of many things.”
Great reward awaits those who are ready in the church life.
May the Lord help us.