Parable of the Wicked and Righteous Servants, Matthew 24:45-51

Well on this resurrection Sunday in 2017 we are to have two messages this morning. That doesn't mean we are to be here for two hours. I've been gone so much, we've had different things going on the last couple months, and I reached the decision a couple of weeks ago that instead of having a message today focusing on the resurrection that we would just keep going in our study of Matthew 24, 25 because it's so critical. We've lost too much context into much continuity and so we needed to do that. But this is an important day. So I did want to let it go by, and three times in the last three weeks I have been asked almost the identical question. First time I was asked this question I was asked at a dinner when I was in Washington DC for the AIPAC policy conference, by a Jewish lady sitting across the table from me. Somewhere else along the line someone else asked me this question, and then I got an email from a member of the congregation yesterday asking the identical question. Now I may be a little dense and slow, but I thought well maybe the Lord is giving me some guidance here that I need to address this question. It is not even a spiritual question, but it's what everybody comes up with.

So before we look at the parable of the wicked and righteous servants in Matthew 24:45-51, we will address this question. Why do we observe Easter on this particular day and date of the year? How do we choose when we observe Easter? Because it's a floating holiday, it is not the same every year. It is determined by what some people may think of as somewhat mystical or magical formulae, but there's a reason for it. And it also impacts in Christianity that there are different Christian traditions that observe Easter on a resurrection day on other days. So here's the question: Why do we observe Easter on different days between the Eastern Orthodox church, so-called, and the Western church which would include both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches? And then why is this date sometimes different and not close at all to Passover. We know Jesus was crucified at the same time the lambs were sacrificed on the 14th of Nisan, Nisan based on being the first month in the Jewish calendar, and the fourth that in their ceremonial calendar, and then on that evening at sundown they would observe the Seder meal. Jesus is crucified on that 14th of Nisan, and then it was, depending on when you think it was crucified, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday was, two or three days later that you have the resurrection.

This goes back to a conflict in the in the early church. And here's a new word for you. It was called The Quartodeciman Controversy. Those of you with a little Latin in your background figured that this out. The Quartodeciman Controversy [quarto = four; decimen = ten] means fourteen, so it has to do with a controversy over the 14th of the month. Now those of you who are sharp recognize that I just talked about the fact that Jesus was crucified on the 14th of Nisan. Remember the early church even up to approximately 200 AD, according to some sociological studies, at least 50 per cent of Christians by 200 were still ethnic Jews. If you think about how many Jews were saved on just the day of Pentecost and the a few weeks after that, and the fact that it's probably six or eight years before the gospel really begins to go out to Gentile communities, then you realize that with that large number of Jews and the fact that Paul on his first, second, and third missionary journeys always went to synagogue first. So the initial believers in each location were Jewish and when they had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so forth, that they were still ethnic Jews even though they were believers in Yeshua as the Messiah.

In the eastern part of the church where you had a larger Jewish population in the area of Judea, Galilee, Syria, Turkey, over into the Mesopotamian area where Babylon is, there was still dominant Jewish influence, and so they would want to remember the crucifixion of Christ on the 14th of Nisan, and that evening instead of having a Seder meal they would have communion. And then two days later they would celebrate Easter. So in the Eastern churches they celebrated the date as opposed to the day of the week. In the western churches there was an emphasis on the resurrection as opposed to the crucifixion, and so they observed the remembrance of the resurrection on a Sunday morning, which is when Christ rose from the dead, and they did it on the first Sunday following the March full moon.

Now the problem that came up was that once every seven years—Now some of you are saying wait a minute, you have leap year. No you don't, because they were functioning on Julian calendar time and didn't have leap years; they made other adjustments—the 14th of Nisan, landed on the same day that the resurrection was celebrated. So half of Christians were about remembering the crucifixion of Christ and the other half is celebrating his resurrection, and that was a little bit of little bit of a conflict. The way this developed in the second century was that you had a bishop named Polycarp who was the Bishop of Sardis. That is one that is also mentioned as one of the seven letters to the seven churches in the beginning \ Revelation. But Polycarp stands out in church history because he was personally mentored by the apostle John. He argued that, according to John, who when he died was in Ephesus, they were to observe a remembrance of the crucifixion on the 14th of Nisan, and then have communion that night. So he went down and went over to the Bishop of Rome and they had a sit down, very nice, very cordial, very friendly, each trying to convince the other their view, because in Rome they were celebrating Easter on a Sunday. Neither one convinced the other. Polycarp went home and died about a year or so later.

There were constant arguments about this, but the next major event occurs around 190 AD when there was a different Bishop in Rome. He's a little more headstrong. His name was Victor and he attempted to impose his authority. Remember, he is not a not Pope yet; it's the West trying to impose starting on the East that eventually led to the split between East and West, and the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. But he tried to impose Roman tradition on the bishop in Ephesus, and he was going to excommunicate anybody who observed on the 14^th. Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons, who incidentally was personally mentored and discipled by Polycarp, intervened and got him to back down. About 135 years later was the Nicene Council where this was brought up. This was one of the major decisions they came up with, along with articulating that the Trinity. They settled in favor of Rome, and then they came along and they just said working excommunicate anybody who observes the 14th of Nisan. There is a hint of anti-Judaism here, not necessarily anti-Semitism because frankly you see the beginnings of replacement theology already in both East and West and they are generally anti-Semitic. That's really growing at this time but the West is more concerned with divorcing itself from any kind of Jewishness because of Judaism and the Judaizers. So that's their motivation.

This is how Philip Chaff his History of the Christian Church articulates that relating to the Nicene Council. He says, "This counsel considered in unbecoming in Christians to follow the usage of the unbelieving, hostile Jews, and ordained that Easter should always be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon succeeding the vernal equinox (March 21), and always after the Jewish Passover. If the full moon occurs on a Sunday Easter day is then the Sunday after. By this arrangement Easter may take place as early as March 22 or as late as April 25."

However the West did not always adhere to that, that is, the idea that it's always through the Sunday. No matter what the calendar says it always has to follow the order of Passover first and then Easter. In fact, last year interestingly enough, as I got caught in the middle of it, the Eastern church observed Easter on 1 May, which was a Sunday. And then the Passover was about a little more than a week earlier on April 22, but in the Western Church Easter was observed on March 27 and almost 4 weeks before Passover. So all of that came together as to one reason why the Eastern churches split from the Western churches in the 11th century.

The second issue has to do with the calendar. The first issue was whether or not preserve the exact date, 14th of Nisan, and then resurrection two days later, or the day of the week, which would be Friday for the crucifixion, Sunday for the resurrection, And so coming out of Nicaea they made this decision that Easter would never fall before Jewish Passover. However, the Western church didn't view that. The calendar change is the second problem, and it resulted in problems in the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar came into effect with Julius Caesar in 45 BC, but it didn't accurately account for the length of days in a year; it was a little bit off, so there was a calendar creep, and every few years things would shift a little bit. By the time you get into the 16^th century you have a 10-day difference that's developed. As of today there would be a 13-day difference, so they had to make an adjustment and under Pope Gregory in 1582 the Gregorian calendar was put into effect, it was authorized to correct the problem. However not everybody in Europe got on board at the same time.

It took the British Empire, the Anglican Church, 170 years before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. Other places adopted it at different levels. Russia didn't adopt it until 1918. So in Russia and Ukraine they still celebrate some dates a little bit off from the West. They still celebrate what they call the Old New Year on January 13^th according to the Julian calendar. But the Eastern churches still use the Julian calendar to determine some ritual dates and that creates this discrepancy.

Furthermore, for example, last year because the vernal equinox occurred in March and right away, you had a full moon, so the Western church celebrated Easter after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. But because that preceded Easter, the great Orthodox Church is didn't celebrate Easter until after Passover, so that came change somewhat later. The two dates though sometimes go inside as they did this year, 2017. The two days coincide when the full moon following the equinox comes so late that it counts as the first full moon after 21 March in the Julian calendar, as well as the Gregorian calendar. Now that's not a regular occurrence but it has happened more frequently in recent years—2010, 2011, 2014, 2017. According to one website it will not occur again until 2034.

Eastern churches determine their dates differently based on these calendar issues. That just had to do with when they were going to observe things; it's ritual it is not doctrine. But the important thing is that they all recognize is that Christianity is grounded in a historical event that must be observed. It's not something that happened off in heaven somewhere, or in some spiritual or mystical ground, but is something that was grounded in space, time, history, and was witnessed to by well over 500 people. This is what Paul says in first Corinthians 15:3-8.

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also."

How many witnesses does it take to confirm something in a court of law? Two. That goes back to the Mosaic Law. Paul is saying there are over 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrection. If you don't believe me, many of them are still alive and you can go talk to them and get their first-hand witness.

That is our base. How do we know that Christ rose from the dead? Because the Bible tells us, and it's not just that we believe in a vacuum, but because there is also confirmatory evidence that this is true from the eyewitness accounts and from the fact that it changed their lives. When Christ was crucified, they fled in fear. They denied Jesus, denied having anything to do with Him, and yet after the resurrection, especially the transformation Peter, there is tremendous courage and there is a willingness to die. All but one died for the message of resurrection. They knew it was true because of their own eyewitness.

Then Paul concludes in verses 13 to 14: " But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain." In other words we are just wasting our time, let's go home and have a party on Saturday morning and sleep late.

Now let's turn to Matthew chapter 24. First of all we want to remember the context. I keep talking about the context here because it is so important. If we misunderstand, and many do, the context of Matthew 24 and 25, then the result is that we will misinterpret what is being taught here and what is being said. So we have to keep remembering these key things. Second, we need to be reminded of what we looked at last time in terms of the meaning and the significance of the parable of the fig tree. Third, as we look at this parable of the righteous and the wicked servants at the end of Matthew 24 in verses 45 to 51, we need to determine who the key players are. Fourth, we see that there is a massive failure here. What is the failure? And we need to understand the dynamics of that failure, and then understand the judgment that occurs and that is announced in verse 51. It says: "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."

There is a lot of controversy related to this, so we have to go back and review the context. Jesus is talking to his disciples. In Matthew 23. He has announced 7 (textual issue), maybe eight judgments upon the Pharisees and the scribes for being hypocrites. "Woe unto you, arrived in Pharisees, hypocrites". That's in the immediate context. That same day, just that morning before Jesus left the temple, He walks across to the Mount of Olives and on the way He points to the beautiful buildings and this rebuilt Herodian Temple, and He says that a judgment is coming and no stone will be left on top of another. And the disciples are flabbergasted. He's talking about the Jewish temple, He is talking about a judgment that is going to come on Israel and on Jerusalem.

The context is judgment. I can't beat that horse enough. The context is judgment; the context is not rescue; that's rapture. So the disciples are in shock over this. They think that that this is the eighth wonder of the ancient world. How can this happen? And so they wanted basically two things. When will this be? That's not addressed in Matthew, but it is addressed in Luke's account of the Olivet discourse. The second thing is, what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? The word there that is translated coming is the Greek word PAROUSIA, which is not a technical term for the Rapture. It is a general term for someone who arrives or comes, or for Jesus coming. It may in some passages refer to the Rapture but it also has that idea of presence. How will we know when you are going to present yourself as the King and bring in your kingdom?

Remember, in about 43 or 44 days as Jesus prepares to ascend to heaven in acts chapter 1, what is the question they ask: "Lord is it now that you can bring in your kingdom?" It's all about the kingdom. Matthew is presenting Jesus as the King, and we have the message of John the Baptist, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand". When Jesus began to preach it was, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand". When He sent out the disciples to the house of Judah and the house of Israel and forbade him to go to the house of the Gentiles, He said, "This is your message, 'Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand'. It is all about the kingdom, the coming promise messianic kingdom that was postponed because of the rejection of Jesus' claims to be the Messiah by the Pharisees. That means that, with a few notable exceptions like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, the Pharisees as a whole were not believers. They did not accept Jesus as the Messiah.

So this sets us up with the context, that Jesus is talking about answering this question related to His coming to establish the kingdom—not His coming to rescue the church that the rapture but to establish his kingdom. The question is: What the sign of your coming? And if you look at verse 30 you see that Jesus says specifically what the sign is: ^NASB “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory."

I believe that that is the brilliant flash of light that will penetrate the absolute darkness that occurs at this point, what is described as the day of the Lord, when the sun is darkened and the moon will give its light. There is this impenetrable darkness on the face of the earth, and it is pierced with this blinding flash of light that is the sign that just behind it is coming the Messiah, the king who will establish his kingdom upon the earth. The sign is that brilliant flash of light.

The sign of the Son of Man will appear in the heavens and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. He is coming to establish His kingdom. We know this occurs at the end of the seven-year period of Daniel's 70th week, the Tribulation period, as He comes to defeat the armies of the Antichrist and to defeat Satan, and to bring judgment on rebellious man who is described as the earth dwellers in the book of Revelation.

There are some key things to remember. First of all, this is Jewish background. Jesus is not talking about the church or the church age, He is talking about what's going to happen to the temple, and that is specifically tied to God's plan for Israel in history. He has a plan for Israel is not over with. Israel will eventually be restored to the land and Jesus will establish that Jewish divinity kingdom on the earth.

Second, all the events that are described in verses 4 through 31 in this chapter take place between the beginning of Daniel's 70th week and the end of the 70th week. They all occur with in the Tribulation. The wars and rumors of wars, the earthquakes and pestilences here are great universal signs and is as a sign they or not the same as the wars and earthquakes and diseases and everything that we have today. Those aren't signs; they have been going on since the fall of Adam. Here Jesus says these are related specifically to this one sign of His coming.

So all those events take place. And Jesus said in verse 33, "You also, when you see all these things". What are the "these things"? The wars and rumors of wars, the earthquakes, the pestilence, the abomination of desolation, the persecution of Israel: "When you see these things, you will know that the that the end is near, its at the doors." So there is indication that you can see when it's near, when it is proximate. Now we don't know if the Rapture is near. That can happen at any moment. But this is talking about something that's getting a sign, where you can know that it is near. So again were not talking about the Rapture.

He says, "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation …" He is not talking of His generation; He is talking about the generation that is with in that seven-year period who see these things going on. He's talking to the Tribulation generation of believers.

Starting in that section in Matthew 24:32-35 it opens an excursus, a parenthesis, addressing that generation of Israel that lives during the Tribulation to warn them. This excursus actually continues on to the end of the chapter. He is addressing that generation. This informs them that they need to watch and be prepared because they don't know that the day or the hour when He will return.

So the fourth thing to remember is that generation is warned that they can only know that the time is near, and they cannot know the day or the hour. We might say, well wait a minute, we have a pretty good timeline back in Daniel chapter 9, and we know that there are seven years. Yes, but the countdown begins when the Antichrist signs the treaty with Israel. How many of us know when anyone signed any treaty? It might be reported in the news, but generally we don't know the precise day or hour that a treaty is signed. So they don't know when the stopwatch began.

Secondly, with all the chaos that occurs, I don't imagine that they're pulling out their day timers, or they've got their i/Calendar all figured out, and they can access it because they have had a battery work in their and their iPhones. This is about the second day of the Tribulation after the seal judgments begin. It is going to be really easy to lose traffic. They will know generally—seems like seven years is almost up. So they are to watch. The text says they know it's near but "of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven but my father only". Jesus in His humanity has not been given this information to be able to disclose. That is sealed off. Only the Father knows.

Now the next thing we saw was He uses his parable of the fig tree. You can tell that when you start seeing the little buds develop and the leaves start to come out that that summer is near, and it's not long before fruit is coming. In the same way you can figure out that it's getting pretty close. And one of the things that gets pointed out here, in Matthew 24:36, He makes the point that of this day and hour no one knows, you just know that it is coming, it's near. And then look down to verse 42. You can even underline verse 36 in verse 42, and connect them together because verse 42 says: "Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour …" Verse 42 repeats the idea of verse 36. In artillery they call this bracketing, and in literature it is an inclusio. That means you state something at the beginning and state it at the end, and that shows that this is a tied-together integral unit. The word there, GREGORIO, means to watch, to be alert, to be awake, to focus on something. And this is used not only in this immediate passage in verses 42 and 43, but is used again in verse 13 of the next chapter, at the end of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.

What I'm pointing out here is that the vocabulary here is important. They are to watch, they are to be prepared. That language is picked up in the subsequent parables to show that all of this is a unity, that the warning that is given in the parable of the fig tree is to say you know it's near, you need to watch and be prepared.

Now I'm going to give you three parables and the key idea in each of these is that there is somebody who watched and was prepared, and somebody who didn't watch and wasn't prepared. And just as the illustrations here of judgment in verses 40 through 41 dealing with two groups of people, believers and unbelievers—and trust me, nobody thinks that these are two groups of believers. Everybody agrees that this involves a group of unbelievers and a group of believers.

There are some though that misidentify those taken as those taken as those who were taken in the rapture, which doesn't make sense because contextually were talking about Israel, not the church, and contextually were talking about judgment, not rescue. They are to watch; they are to be prepared. Each parable that comes up focuses on somebody, some group that is that isn't prepared. So in between here we see this comparison with the days of Noah.

Matthew 24:37 ^NASB “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah."

"Coming of the Son of Man Son of Man" is Second Coming terminology. The Son of Man is a term related to his humanity, it comes out of Daniel seven when the Son of Man comes to the ancient of days, God the Father, and is given the kingdom, and then immediately goes to the earth to establish his kingdom. So the term Son of Man tells us is again it indicates it's not Rapture, it is Second Coming.

The two groups that are mentioned in verses 40 and 41: two men will be in the field, one will be taken and the other the other left. Two groups: Two men in the field, one will be taken. That's not taken in the Rapture, that's taken in judgment, just as at the time of Noah. Those who were outside the ark died, they were taken in judgment; those that survived on the ark survived to establish a new civilization after the flood. So two men once taken in judgment, and the other is left behind. That represents the Tribulation. Believers who survive to the end are those who will go into the millennial kingdom to repopulate the earth during the kingdom period. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken and the other left. Once again, the one taken is taken in judgment. The one left is the one who lives in survives and goes into the millennial kingdom.

The theme here of the parable is to know that the coming is near, to watch to be prepared. Those that are judged relate also to the wicked servants mentioned in verse 50. The master of the servants will come on a day that they think not and it's the date later. It also mentions our will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware. It's not just Daniel's timetable of the 1230 days but down to the hour. So they are to watch.

The other thing that comes up in here that is important is Matthew 24:43 Jesus says, but know this important word. We are to know, which means we are to understand this. This is written so that we can understand it. Some people get to passages like this in the Bible say well, could be this, it could be that, it could be the third thing, be warned, be filled bless you, my son, let's closing prayer. That's not how God revealed things. He revealed things. We may disagree as to what it means but it means something; it is not ambiguous. It may be unclear to us, but God intended it to be communicated. And I find that scholars who bail out on the meaning of something are really blasphemous; they say, well God just didn't make clear enough. I may make the mistake of misinterpreting it, but at least I don't make the mistake of saying God is ambiguous. God knows how to communicate to us. He created us in his image and likeness so that we can understand it. If there's a problem it's a problem on our end, not a problem on God's end.

Jesus said that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched. There is our word again. He would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. So the imagery here is of a home owner, of a how a man who runs the household and is in charge of the security of the house, and he knows he is trying to take care of the house if he knew when the thief would come, then he would be prepared at that time and at that moment. He has to keep the alarm systems going. He has to stay awake; he has to keep his weapons in hand all the time because he knows that when the security is breached he is only going to have seconds to respond and to react. That's the analogy. If you know when it's going to happen then you're going to be prepared. That's the whole theme of watching that is introduced by the parable of the fig tree.

My point is the parable of the fig tree sets the stage for everything that follows through the end of chapter 25, it's not a conclusion to what is said before the parable of the fig tree. There's some that take that view, but that would cause a massive misinterpretation of the second half were you trying to apply the rest of this to church age believers. Similarities there are, but remember similarities don't mean identical, that things are the same.

We have this imagery, and it relates to the thief. Now, this idea of a thief, that Jesus is going to come like a thief in the night runs through a lot of people's popular understanding of prophecy. They think often that this refers to the Rapture, and that's just not true at all. There is a very popular song that was written and sung by a Jesus rock musician in the early 70s named Larry Norman who, after he read Late Great Planet Earth, took these verses and applied them to the Rapture. So a lot of people thought that these are Rapture versus. But the thief imagery relates only to the second coming of Christ. It is only used seven times in the New Testament: Matthew 24:43, Luke 12:39; 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 4. Now 1 Thessalonians 4 is talking about the Rapture, but 1 Thessalonians 5 is talking about the day of the Lord, and the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night to the unbeliever. The surprise of the thief coming is always related to the unbeliever, who's been suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, who doesn't believe he is going to be accountable for his sin, and suddenly, boom, there is the Lord and he's going to be judged. That's the imagery. The thief imagery always relates to the unbeliever and relates to the surprise that comes when he's going to be held accountable in judgment before the Lord.

There are the seven references and in each case it describes the sudden, unexpected arrival of divine judgment. It's not talking about rescue and the Rapture, it's talking about the Second Coming. Tommy Ice has written about this. He says,

"The thief in the night imagery never applies to the Rapture. Such language usually is descriptive of unbelievers in God's wrath or judgment related to the Tribulation or Second Coming. The picture painted by a thief in the night shows it is the unbeliever who was caught off guard, since he never really believes God is actually going to judge in history."

That is a very clear very clear statement.

One of the passages where that used is in Revelation 16:15. Jesus says to the generation at the end of the series of bowl judgments at the time of the seventh of bowl judgment, just before the battle of Armageddon, warning them to keep watching because they don't know the date of the hour: “Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake [watches] and keeps his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame.”

There is a similarity here between some things that are said in the seven letters to the seven churches, but similarity doesn't mean that the same thing. We church age believers need to live our life as if Jesus is coming back at any moment. So we need to watch. We too need to be alert because it any moment Jesus can come back and we are taken to be with the Lord. Either way it applies. But that doesn't mean that that's what this is talking about. The context here is Second Coming.

Jesus concludes in verse 44: ^NASB “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.}"

Notice: "you also." Who is the first group? I believe the first group that is implied here is probably the church. That generation at the Second Coming also needs to be ready. Actually, I recognize that that "you also" there refers contextually to just like Noah. His family was ready; you also need to be ready; but I think it has an implication for the church age. "Therefore you also be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour". Notice the tighter time word, not day—"at an hour you do not expect". This is one of the words is used here. GREGORIA earlier, HETOIMOS here; "be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect." And it is picked up and used again in the parable of the of the 10 virgins in Matthew 25:10 while they went to buy the bridegroom came; those who were ready went in with him to the wedding and the door was shut. That parable clearly relates back to this particular statement.

We look at the things to remember. The meaning and significance of the fig tree is to be ready, because you know it's near you can't know the day of the hour. And now who are the key people? Who is the master; who are the servants?

Jesus begins the parable and he says: Matthew 24:45 ^NASB “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?"

We will read the rest of the parable. Matthew 24:46 ^NASB “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes." That is, carrying out his responsibilities. [47] “Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions." So there is going to be a reward for the obedient one. That doesn't mean it is necessarily the judgment seat of Christ, the bema seat. Similarity is not the same; it just means it is similar. [48] “But if that evil slave says in his heart, ‘My master is not coming for a long time,’ [49] and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; [50] 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, [51] 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."

We need to ask the question who is indicated here. The master is of course the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Messiah who is about to leave on a journey. After the crucifixion and resurrection He will send to heaven and will be gone for a while. This is the master who is going to give responsibility to spiritual leaders. I believe that's the idea of the slaves. He is talking about, not church age leaders but the leaders of the spiritual leaders of Israel. The term slaves DOULOS can also be translated servant, and what we find in the Old Testament is that a number of people in Israel are described as God's servant. There are prophets who are described as God's servants. You have Isaiah who is indicated as Isaiah is indicated as "my servant", the prophets are all his servants. Passages like Isaiah 20:3 indicate Isaiah as his servant. In Isaiah 22:20 he says, "Eliakim is my servant". David is identified as God's servant in Isaiah 37:35. All of those are leaders in Israel. So this is a term that really relates to understanding Israel.

Now we get to the parable of the talents and the servants there, the same thing is going to apply. Servant is a term not for believers—there are some who come along and say since they are both slaves, and later on the New Testament talks about church age believers as being no slaves of Jesus, servants of Jesus, and Paul says, "I am a bond servant of the Lord Jesus Christ"—that therefore both of these categories are believers. That completely rejects and ignores the Jewish context here. The term servant has a rich heritage in the Old Testament, and aside from leaders being identified as God's servant Israel is called my servant. In Isaiah 41:8 we read, “But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen …" Also seen in Isaiah 41:9; Isaiah 44:2; Isaiah 45:4 and many other places in Isaiah as well. And of course we have the Messiah spoken of as God's servant in Isaiah chapter 53, and throughout the latter part of Isaiah we have the reference to the Messiah as God's servant.

When we understand this, that the servant represents leadership in Israel then that gives this a different twist. It is not talking about every believer; it is talking about Jewish leaders in the Tribulation period. So the two groups, the faithful and wise, refer to the good leaders or good shepherds. Remember that Ezekiel condemns the evil shepherds who are misleading and abusing Israel in the Old Testament. The same thing happens here. The evil servants represent the Pharisees and the evil shepherds. In the Tribulation period there is going be one group who understands who the Messiah is. They are believers and they are going to wisely and faithfully shepherd of God's people. There's another group that is going to abuse them.

Verse 45: “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?"

This indicates by the Greek grammar [Granville Sharp rule] that the two adjectives are seen together, synonymous, "faithful and sensible servant, whom his master put in charge over his household, to give them food in due season." So he's reliable; he's trustworthy; he's wise. Notice "over the household". The household is Israel. That's the context not the world, not the church, but Israel.

Further, he says that this one ruler is made a ruler over the household. That indicates that this parable is about those who are leaders, not the everyday believer, not the average Jewish believer in the Tribulation, but the rulers, their spiritual leaders. And they are to feed them. That is spiritual sustenance, not just physical feeding but the spiritual feeding. This is in contrast to this whole chapter in Matthew 23 were Jesus just as really rakes the Pharisees over the coals.

Now what we see is the one who is faithful is called blessed, which means he's fortunate. He benefits especially from the grace of God. "Blessed is that servant, whom his master when he comes, will find so doing." Why? Because he will be given additional rewards in Matthew 24:47. I believe this is the judgment of surviving Jewish believers at the end of the Tribulation. It is not the judgment seat of Christ.

Now, sadly, there is a big division among so-called free grace advocates, and in the free grace movement and Grace Evangelical society more and more are taking the view that that not only does the Rapture occur back in verse 36, but if that is the rapture then were now justified in making these parables all about church age believers at the judgment seat of Christ. And so the conclusion is that everybody here is his talking about believers. The contrast isn't between believers and unbelievers; the contrast is between virtual and carnal believers. And that is horrible; that is distracting and deceiving to most believers, and this interpretation has zero to do with the progress gospel. But has a lot to do with poor exegesis, poor methodology, and the desire on the part of many to read their theology everywhere they can possibly ram, cram and jam into the Scripture.

There is a judgment for Tribulation believers who survive, and that's at the end of the Tribulation. What is the failure? The failure comes with the wicked servant, the evil servant, versus 48-50. "But if that evil servant says in his heart …" So this is a mental attitude sin; this is what he is thinking. He is thinking: You know he is delaying his coming. Of course you and I can have the same kind of thinking today related to the Rapture, He is delaying his coming, I'm just going to live the way I want to. But this is talking about context within the Tribulation. "…My Master is delaying his coming …" The evil servant is not a believer. This is the unbelieving Jewish leader who is abusing his responsibility and the Jewish people because of his failure. He's like the evil shepherds in Ezekiel.

Matthew 24:49, "and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards." He is an abusive leader. The drunkards relate to those who are unbelieving Gentiles. He eats and drinks with the drunkards, the unbelieving Gentiles. He is in league with the Antichrist. And then were told in verse 50, "the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him at an hour that he is not aware of". What is the problem? He is not watching. He's not prepared. Why? Because he is not listening to Jesus; he is not a believer.

So what's going to happen to him? What happens to him is described in the next verse. What is the judgment? The judgment is harsh.

Now let me give you another warning. Within the GES movement if you take this as believers, and one is carnal and one is spiritual, then there is a warning here that if you are a carnal believer, then there's going to be a punishment at the judgment seat of Christ. But if you read first Corinthians 3 which talks about the judgment seat of Christ that our works of the judged, that we build our lives with various building materials, gold, silver, precious stones—that's the work that is produced by God the Holy Spirit in us when walking by the Spirit—and then wood, hay and straw, and that, as it were, God is going to reveal by fire, the gold, silver, precious stones. Notice, it's not talking in context of God's revealing the wood hay and straw. The focus of the judgment seat of Christ is not to reveal our failures but our success.

Now the only reason there's going to be a negative, is 1 John 2:28 warns that it's possible that we will be ashamed at His is coming, and that's because everything was burned up. There's no gold, silver, precious stones. There's no penalty assigned; there is an absence of reward, but there's no punishment. But that's not what free grace people teach. Some of them some of them teach and say that what we have here is that the believer who is a failure will be cut in two and his destiny will be with the hypocrites. Now the Arminian is going to say he has lost his salvation. But the free grace person is saying no, he is going to have some kind of temporary punishment. It will be in the extreme forms, he is going to be excluded from the kingdom; he is going to be in a place of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. He's going to go through this horrible time of judgment. That is heresy.

That is one reason I don't have anything to do GES anymore. I think they are dead wrong in this, and this is misleading, and they have demonstrated some bad exegesis. The word hypocrites never ever refers to a believer in Matthew, it always refers to the false religious leaders, specifically, the Pharisees, as mentioned in Matthew 6:2, 5, 16, and this is a Sermon on the Mount when Jesus is contrasting the righteousness that should characterize the believer versus the state righteousness of the Pharisees. And so there's always this contrast there and they are described as hypocrites in Matthew 6:2, 5, 16 and 7:5. Later in Matthew 15:7 He refers to the Pharisees as hypocrites and then seven times, maybe eight in chapter 23 He says, "Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites", and announces seven, maybe eight judgments on the Pharisees as unbelievers.

So why on the basis of the usage of this word would anybody think that this is talking about carnal believers? It is absolutely beyond me. We have to be warned. I know some of you read their literature; some of you are familiar with them. This is becoming much more popular and one of the reasons I've taken so long going through this is we have to correct these errors, and my job as a pastor is to protect the sheep from the wolves, and sometimes you have walls were in sheep's clothing. I appreciate a lot of other studies that some of these men have done, but in this particular area. I believe they are dead wrong.

There is a warning though, and that's what this warning is all about—to the Tribulation Jewish believers. It is to watch out. They have to watch; they have to be prepared. Don't be deceived by those who say, Look the Messiah's here or there; but you can watch for his coming. Be alert and those who are abusing the Jewish people in terms of the leadership in the Tribulation are following in the pattern of the Pharisees, and they will come under severe divine judgment.

The only way anyone can escape the eternal judgment is by faith in Christ. That's what the resurrection of Christ is all about. It's God's approval of Jesus' death on the cross. He paid the penalty for our sins and we have eternal life with no fear of this kind of punishment at all, ever, for the person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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