The Watchers

Last weekend my family and I participated in a graveside service in the Seattle area for my Aunt Ruth. Most of her children and several of her grandchildren and great grandchildren were present for the event. We all got to talking, as you do when you’re eating meals and socializing together. One of my cousins spoke up and mentioned that they had left their teenage children behind at the house. “Who knows what they’re doing now… They could be throwing a party for all we know,” he said.

Paul echoed this sentiment in Philippians 2:12-13 “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

What happens when mom and dad are out of the house? What happens when the boss leaves the room? What happens when no one is nearby to see you? Who you are in that moment reveals a lot about what’s really in your heart.

The Story’s Context

We started this series of messages about Jesus’ Last Parables reviewing the day that Jesus arrived in Jerusalem for the last week of teaching before His crucifixion. We breezed past His triumphal entry on Sunday. We observed Him throwing out the merchants and money changers from the temple. The next day, Monday, we saw Him curse a fig tree that didn’t bear any fruit and then arriving in the temple he answered the priests’ question, “from whom do you get your authority?” In Jesus’ answer we saw His attempt to pierce their hardened hearts and help them see their need for repentance and salvation. One of the stories he told was about the two boys—the one who said he wouldn’t work in the vineyard when his dad asked him to, but then he repented and went to work anyway; and then there was the one who said, “sure I’ll go work in the vineyard,” but then he never did. The religious leaders were the second son—outwardly religious and following all the traditions of faith, but inwardly disobedient and rebellious hypocrites. He then told a similar story from a different perspective; this time focusing on the great responsibility God had given the religious leaders to care for the vineyard of Israel and how they jealously stole the fruit that God expected of them and ultimately He predicted they would kill God’s son. He then told one more parable about the wedding feast, drawing their attention away from their so-called righteous deeds and showing them they needed to be covered with Christ’s robe of righteousness.

They weren’t too happy about Jesus’ answers to their question. Instead of repentance, they hardened their hearts even more. Which is why on Tuesday we find Jesus back in the Temple sharing what are called the “woes on the Pharisees.”

Matthew 23 is a series of characterizations and condemnations of the religious leaders. It’s some pretty harsh stuff. And it’s important to know that these statements aren’t random. The priests and pharisees left their meeting with Jesus on Monday with anger and they determined to kill him, no matter what it took. On Tuesday, Jesus responded to their determined rebellion with these heart-wrenching, tear-filled statements of the woe because of their determined rebellion. Here’s an example or two of Jesus’ words:

Matthew 23:15 ESV

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

He repeatedly calls them “blind guides.”

In one place he pointed out the huge disconnect between their outward behavior and the state of their hearts:

Matthew 23:27 ESV

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.

He said that they were so careful about keeping the rules that they would strain their water to prevent themselves from swallowing a gnat. And yet, because of the wickedness of their hearts, the depths of their sin was like the difference between accidentally swallowing a gnat and intentionally eating a camel.

Outwardly obedient to all the religious forms, but inwardly jealous, envious, greedy, proud and filled with anger.

As He ended His woe-filled message he said this important statement:

Matthew 23:37–38 (ESV)

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate.

The longing in Jesus’ words is so deep you can feel his emotion. Imagine the tears that must have been running down His face as He said these words:

“You were not willing.”

May we never refuse the loving advances of God. May He never be able to say of us, “you were not willing.”

Jesus’ last words in that text were, “Your house is left to you desolate.” On Sunday He had cleansed the temple and He said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” But today, two days later, he says, “your house is left to you desolate.” What God had intended to be a place to talk to and hear from God had become a ritualized set of religious forms devoid of meaning and true significant. Soon, Jesus would do what all those ceremonies had been pointing to all along—the sacrifice of God on our behalf. The priests would not only fail to recognize that Jesus was fulfilling the ceremonies and sacrifices, they would perpetrate His murder as if they were keeping the temple pure from fraudulent religion. They saw themselves as righteous when they were really the embodiment of pure evil.

The Coming of Jesus

Jesus left the temple, and as He was leaving he pointed to the whole temple complex and said, “there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Matt 24:2)

The disciples heard all of this stuff about the religious leaders and then the temple and they were seriously troubled. “When will all this happen?” They wondered. “What will be the signs of your coming and when will the end of the age be?” They asked.

The answer to their question has been the source of all kinds of theories and date setting ever since. You can read about it in Matthew 24:3-44. Here are a few highlights that we need for context before we look at the parable that Jesus uses to teach us how we should relate to this teaching on the end of time.

In Matthew 24 Jesus was describing both the destruction of Jerusalem that would take place in 70 AD when the Romans sacked the city and burned and tore down the temple to get the gold out of it, and He was describing the physical, religious and political climate before His 2nd Coming at the end of the world.

Some of the things he talked about were earthquakes, famines, deadly diseases, wars and warmongering all around the world. He said there would be false christs and people would seek to lead the saints away from following Jesus. And then He said this, “see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.” (Matt 24:6)

This is an important point to mark down. Jesus isn’t telling us not to pay attention to these things, but He is telling us that we can’t use these things to determine when the end is. The world has always had famines and wars and diseases and false Christs and earthquakes. And while they’re going to ratchet up in intensity Jesus makes sure we know that even with all these things the end is not yet. So, what are the indicators of the end?

Matthew 24:14 ESV

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

The defining thing that will happened before the end will come isn’t the false prophets or the miracles or the lack of love in the world or the betrayal of brothers or the tribulation and death threats or the famines and diseases that cripple the world. No, Jesus says those things must happen but the end is not yet. The end will come ONLY when the world has been polarized by the gospel message and either rejected it or accepted it.

There’s a lot of good stuff in Matthew 24, but we don’t have time to grapple with all of it today. Instead, let’s skip forward to verse 32.

Matthew 24:32–35 ESV

“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

When you see the gospel and its fake counterpart polarizing the entire world—as well as all the stuff that goes with it like persecution and death threats and hatred and political upheaval and wars and all kinds of natural disasters—then you can know that Jesus is near, at the very gates of heaven ready to burst upon the world.

But keep in mind what verses 36 and 37 say,

Matthew 24:36–37 (ESV)

“concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

When Jesus says, “For as were the days of Noah” he’s not trying to get us to look around and wonder, “are things just about as bad as Noah’s day?” The comparison isn’t with the evil of that time, but with the normalcy of that time. His point is that you won’t know for certain that Jesus’ coming is happening until its actually happening. Just like in Noah’s day, he was building the ark and people were eating and working and marrying off their children and starting new families just as they always had done. The indicator for the end wasn’t the measure of evil—that had already been filled up—it was the completion of the plan to save mankind, the completion of the ark.

The people of Noah’s day ignored the gospel being preached by Noah. He told them, “there’s going to be a huge flood. No one will survive. God told me to build an ark to save you. Please come and join me on the ark.” But they ignored His warnings and ignored the good news about the ark and they kept right on living their lives. And that’s when it happened. As if it was out of no where, water inundated them from all sides. It was a shock to them. Not because they couldn’t have known it was about to happen, but because they had closed their ears and their hearts.

The same will be true in the last days before Jesus’ return. The gospel must be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations—the salvation boat needs to be finished. But many will stop their ears and close their hearts and keep on doing what they always have done as if nothing different will ever happen. “Things continue as they always have been.” They will say. “planting and harvest, the sun rising and setting, everything is normal.” And that’s when it will happen.

Jesus’ council to us is found in verse 42:

Matthew 24:42 ESV

Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

Notice that after Jesus has told them all about the signs of His return he still says “You do not know on what day…”

Prophetically we know that we’re in the last days. All the great time prophecies of the Bible have been fulfilled. The 1,260 year prophecy about the papal supremacy ended in the late 1700’s. The 2,300 year prophecy who’s end heralded the beginning of the heavenly judgment where Jesus pleads his blood on behalf of all His children—that prophecy ended in the mid 1800s. There are no more time prophecies to be fulfilled. Ever since the mid 1800s the world has been living on borrowed time, waiting for Jesus to complete His plan of salvation and for the gospel to go to the whole world.

Jesus could come at any moment, theoretically. But believer’s in Jesus’ return have been saying this since the mid 1800’s. “Any time now.” Unlike in Noah’s day, we don’t have an observable end to the building of the “salvation ark.” And so we don’t know the day of Jesus’ return, and it’s really not helpful to try to speculate when that time will be.

But if speculating the time of Jesus’ return isn’t the point, what do we do with this information? How does Jesus’ teaching shape our lives and change our priorities? Should we live at the edge of our seats, counting the number of active wars or the intensity and frequency of earthquakes or the devastation of global diseases? Or is there something more important that God has in mind for us?

Since we’re comparing with Noah’s day, imagine if Noah spent a big chunk of his time speculating about the date of the flood. His distraction from his real job of building the ark and proclaiming the gospel would have caused a delay in the preparations for the flood. What about us? Is there something God is inviting us to do, much like Noah, to prepare for Jesus return?

The Watchers

Look at the parable Jesus tells starting in verse 45

Matthew 24:45–51 (ESV)

“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

What was the job of the “faithful and wise servant?” — To give the master’s household their food.

Because of the context of Matthew 24 I believe Jesus was contrasting the hypocrisy of the pharisees with how He wanted His disciples to live as leaders of the church. In a little over a month they would be launching into a church-building movement driven and led by the Holy Spirit. Jesus wanted them to care for His house — His family — the way He originally had intended for the Israelites to do. In Exodus 19 He called all of Israel a nation of priests. His goal was for them to teach all the nations until there was no one left on earth who didn’t know who the creator God was. But they rejected their mission and got bogged down in religious formalism and defensiveness against any outsiders. Jesus wanted better things for the Church. The purpose of the church was a recurring theme for Jesus in these last parables and even after His resurrection. Just a few weeks later, just before He ascended to heaven, Jesus clarified what He meant by providing food for His house:

Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

Bible teaching, discipling, baptizing—kingdom building. That’s what it means to provide food for God’s house.

There’s another parable in Luke 19 where Jesus told of a master who gave 10 pieces of money to his servants and said, “occupy till I come,” according to the King James Version, or in the ESV “do business till I come.” Here it is in the New Living Translation:

Luke 19:13 NLT

Before he left, he called together ten of his servants and divided among them ten pounds of silver,* saying, ‘Invest this for me while I am gone.’

Invest this for me while I am gone… Feed my house... They are the same concept.

God has given the church the riches of His Word. He asks us to do all that is necessary to plant the gospel message in our community until the day that He comes. Like Noah before the flood, we have a responsibility to share the gospel with the world. And Jesus says,

Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.

Like some teenagers who party and disobey when their parents leave them home alone, some servants are not responsible with God’s resources while Jesus is away in heaven.

In Matthew 24 the master found his servant partying with the food he should have been using to feed the house of God. Israel had the “oracles of God” ,” as Paul put it, but they used the resources for their own breed and power, completely abandoning the mission God had given them and obscuring the Gospel plan so few were ready for the Messiah. Many christians do 5e same thing. They greedily gobble up the resources intended to go to take the gospel to the world. the leaders pay themselves richly and the church spends lavishly on beautiful stuff — stealing from the gospel mission.

In Luke 19 the servant simply buried his resources, ignoring the opportunities around him. Many churches are guilty of this sin. Whether they’re focusing on defending themselves against outsiders or focused on apocalyptic surmising or focused on their own busy initiatives, these churches fail to invest in the gospel mission.

Application

Jesus taught the parables of Matthew 24 on Tuesday. A couple days later, at the passover feast with His disciples, Jesus brought these stories home to each of the disciples hearts. He told them that the story of the gospel was primarily about Jesus’ returning. He said, “I go to prepare a place for you… and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:2-3) In the mean time, while He was away preparing the heavenly ark of salvation, He asked His disciples to abide with Him.

John 15:4 ESV

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

What does Jesus want you to do while you wait for His return? Feed his house, tend the vineyard, work in God’s field to harvest the fruit. Put another way, Jesus wants us to bear the fruit that comes from, teaching, preaching and baptizing. But fruit isn’t something that we produce—that’s the result of the HOly Spirit. The only way we can be part of producing fruit is to abide in Jesus.

He says it again a few verses later:

John 15:9–11 ESV

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Abide in My love, He says. That’s the spiritual refreshment you get when you study the Word. That’s the time in prayer. That’s the fellowship of God’s family. And it’s also the faithful pursuit of God’s mission—Jesus’ command—to love and disciple and go and teach and baptize.

I believe that when Jesus comes He will find the Bonners Ferry Seventh-day Adventist church abiding in Him and doing the business of taking the gospel to the world.

Are we doing all God wants us to do? Will God lead us to change or drop some of the things we’re doing now as He leads forward?

We can only answer these questions when we abide in Christ’s love and surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit. That’s why we’re focusing on prayer for the next moth and a half. We need God to guide us or else we’ll be doing the wrong business for the wrong reasons and we’ll be investing in things that have little benefit for God’s kingdom.

What will it look like when the Holy Spirit directs our path?

God leads us in three specific ways:

He reveals his purposes and plans through the Bible. If God tells us to “Go” and teach the gospel and we refuse, then we’re disobeying His Word and He won’t lead us further until we first obey what He has already revealed.

He reveals the path we should be taking as He opens and closes the doors of providence. When we have been praying and stepping out in faith with the plans that we know and God closes the way for one of our plans, we should rejoice that He is leading us. When he opens the door to a new path, we should eagerly step forward in that path.

And God reveals His plans to us through the soft voice of the Holy Spirit whispering into our minds as we spend time in surrendered prayer.

I would love to see every one of us, men and women, boys and girls, praying every day to be directed by God’s Holy Spirit. Every Tuesdays at 9 am and Thursdays at 6 pm I’ll be hosting a prayer session on Zoom and I’d love to see 20 or 30 of us participating each week in corporate prayer. Better than zoom, you can get together in person or on the phone with a prayer partner or two on a daily basis for a short time of prayer and surrender.

God wants to do great things in our community, and He has chosen to work through us for the salvation of mankind just like He chose to work through Noah.

Let us be faithful like Noah so that when Jesus comes he will find us to be faithful and wise stewards doing what He asked us to do.