Transcript
Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his house?
Who is this servant? And I think there is a sense in which our Lord Jesus Christ is saying to each of His servants, “Are you that servant, or you that servant, or you that servant?” Who can identify himself in this way?
And I think another way of saying that is, are you still the faithful and wise servant that I put over my household? Are you still the same kind of person that I appointed originally?
Years ago, when I was still a student in college, I had the privilege of hearing Billy Graham speak in person for the very first time. He came to Wheaton College Chapel, and his purpose in coming was to record a message for his Hour of Decision broadcast.
When he began to record the message, he told us, “Now I may be talking a little bit too loud for an audience there, so please bear with me.” And he recorded the message. But after he was finished, he lowered his voice and he began to talk to his college audience.
And I’ll never forget that, because there must have been a thousand students in that chapel that day. And you could have heard a pin drop. He held every single one of us in the palm of his hand, and we listened intently to every word he said.
I’ve often thought that that is one of the most masterful performances of public speaking that I have ever heard. But as impressed as I am with the public speaking ability of Billy Graham, and it is considerable, there is one thing about him that impresses me even more.
Billy Graham is the same kind of man, as far as I can tell, that he has always been. Here is a man who has received mountains of publicity. Here is a man who has socialized with kings and presidents and governors and the rich and the powerful of the earth.
And as far as I am able to discern it, he is still a humble man. He is still a man dedicated to the ministry of the word of God and to the glory of God. And the only real change I can tell in Billy is that he’s greater now than he was when I heard him years ago.
And if Billy Graham is able to continue faithfully to the end of his life or to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that he will illustrate what our Lord has in mind in verse 46, when He says, “Blessed is that servant, blessed is that servant, whom his lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing.”
Blessed is that faithful and wise servant who has been appointed originally to give the household of God its meat. And when I come, he is still doing what I asked him to do. He is still faithful. And wise.
Verily I say unto you that he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
Now I believe that in these words the Lord Jesus Christ is suggesting to His servants, “Are you the man that I appointed as faithful and wise? Are you still that man? Are you still doing the tasks that I committed to your hands?”
Well, if you are doing that task when I come back, then I will permit you to share in my reign. I believe that verse 47 is a reference to the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ and to our participation with Him in that reign, as rulers with Him, if we have been faithful in the responsibilities that He has given to us.
But mark something well. Not even Billy Graham, not even Billy Graham, honored and faithful servant that he is, not even Billy Graham can afford to look back. And there follows in this parable a word of warning that I think is indeed solemn and is appropriate not only for the leaders of God’s people but for all of God’s people as well.
Notice it in verse 48. But a solemn word. “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming.”
Do you see something here? A man who was originally a wise and faithful servant, whom his lord appointed him over his household, can become an evil servant. How can it happen? How can it happen?
Well, it can happen when you begin to say in his heart, “My lord delayeth his coming. My lord delayeth his coming.” Now I want you to think with me for just a moment about the words of the evil servant.
We notice first of all that we are not talking about someone who rejects the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not say, “The lord delayeth his coming,” but “My lord delayeth his coming.” He acknowledges the lordship of Jesus.
We also notice that we are not dealing with someone who does not believe in the coming of the Lord. He does not say, “My lord is not coming.” That is not what he said. He says, “My lord delayeth his coming.”
What kind of a person would be likely to speak these words? Well, I suggest to you that it is not probable that the servant of this passage is to be understood as a servant who is living during the period of the great tribulation.
I am assuming that in a church like this most of you are aware in general outlines of the prophetic program of God. The next thing that we are looking for is the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to take all true Christians, who are members of the one great universal church of Christ, take them out of the world to be with Himself.
And following this there begins to unfold a prophetic program which is frequently referred to as the seventieth week of Daniel or the tribulation period. This is a very definite and specific part of the program of the prophetic word: three and a half years and three and a half years, seven prophetic years, in accordance with the prophetic Scriptures.
Now if a man is living after the rapture of the church and during the seventieth week of Daniel, it is very hard to understand in what sense he might say, “My lord delayeth his coming.” For at that point the prophetic clock will once again be ticking.
And there will be a prescribed period of time through which those who are living at that time will pass: the three and a half years plus the three and a half years, consummated by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I consider it therefore greatly improbable, it may not be impossible, but I consider it greatly improbable that the servant under consideration in this passage is to be understood as a servant living after the rapture of the church.
I would submit to you that the servant that our Lord Jesus Christ has in mind is primarily the servants of God who live before our Lord takes the church out of the world, at a time when it is easy to say, “My lord delayeth his coming.”
How can a person reach that kind of conclusion? There are a number of ways in which he may reach it. One way in which it might very easily be reached is to adopt post-tribulationism and to come to the conclusion that the church must pass through the tribulation and will not be raptured until the tribulation is over.
I remember once again during my college days that my very first teacher of Greek was an ardent post-tribulationist. And he gave us devotions every day. And I am not exaggerating: just about every day he gave us devotions designed to promote post-tribulationism and to destroy pre-tribulationism.
I did not find that extremely devotional, but I did find it instructive. And that particular professor exposed me to most of the major arguments that I have heard since then by post-tribulationist writers and expositors.
It is an interesting fact that my professor was required to sign an agreement with a doctrinal statement of the college that stated that the college believed in the imminent coming of Christ. His explanation for his agreement with the statement was that he believed that the coming of Christ would occur in seven years. He thought that was imminent.
I must say that it did not seem too imminent to me, particularly in view of the fact that since we knew that the seven years had not begun and there were no clear indications that it was about to begin, one had to postpone it at least in theory not only seven years but in all probability longer than that.
Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that the post-tribulationist man must say, “My lord delayeth his coming.” I am saying that he finds it easier to say, “My lord delayeth his coming.”
And I believe they would agree with me on this, because post-tribulationism puts all that ought to be viewed as near into the distance. These are the ways in which we may reach the conclusion that “My lord delayeth his coming.”
One of these is to consider that our parents were looking for his coming and they didn’t see it, and their parents, our grandparents, were looking for his coming and they didn’t see it. And therefore to draw the conclusion that probably we will not see it.
But no matter how this conclusion is reached, it is one of the most dangerous conclusions one can possibly come to. “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming.” It does not stop there.
And shall begin to smite his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunken. Do you see it? That the man who has said in his heart, “My lord delayeth his coming,” has begun a spiritual toboggan ride that is all downhill.
It began with the idea that the coming of Christ is far off. But it does not end there. And the next thing we know, the man cannot get along with his fellow servants.
And the next thing we know, he’s eating and drinking with the drunken. There’s a progression here. First of all, there is an error with regard to his Lord: “My lord delayeth his coming.”
Then there is an error with regard to the Lord’s people: he begins to smite his fellow servants. And then there is an error with regard to himself: he begins to eat and drink with the drunken.
First he loses a sense of imminency. Then he loses the spirit of love. And then he loses the capacity for self-control.
And I would like to emphasize something to you tonight that I think is extremely important. In all of the range of the word of God, there is no greater incentive to faithful living than the realization that our Lord Jesus Christ may come back at any time.
And when that realization is lost, very much else may also be lost. I heard a story a number of years ago about a preacher. I believe that he was on the west coast.
And this preacher was a man who apparently had a considerable gift from God, considerable capacity to minister the word of God to the people of God. But somehow he got himself entangled in a romantic affair with a woman in his church. And he was a married man.
Well, while he was able to keep this entanglement under cover, but at last it was exposed. As a result, he had to resign his pulpit. He had to leave the ministry.
One of my colleagues on the seminary faculty was telling me this story and was telling me about a personal conversation that he had with this man. And he asked this former preacher this question. This is the experience that you have had, he said.
What lesson would you draw from it? If you could tell my students back at the seminary one thing that you have learned from your experience, what would you tell them? And his answer was a very interesting answer.
“Tell your students that when they stop walking with God, they are walking on the edge of a precipice.” When they stop walking with God, they are walking on the edge of the precipice. And I would like to revise that only slightly.
When we stop walking with God in the living, vital expectation of the coming of Christ, we are walking on the edge of the precipice. And it is so easy to fall over into a life of resentment, jealousy and envy and self-indulgence and worldliness.
Look at this evil servant. “My lord delayeth his coming.” He smites his fellow servants. He eats and drinks with the drunken. He is down at the bottom.
What awaits a servant like that? What is his future? Well, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ are in verse 50:
The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder.
I don’t know what your reaction to that is. I find that jarring. The lord of that servant will come when he’s not looking for him. And what will he do? He will cut him in two, just as if he took a gigantic sword and cut this servant.
Now I’m assuming, however, just about everybody in this audience will understand that our Lord does not mean to say that he is going to take a literal sword and cut his servants open. This is very obviously a metaphor, a figure of speech. But a metaphor of what?
When, if you think carefully, you will remember that in more than one place in the New Testament the word of God is compared to a sword. The writer of Hebrews says,
The word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and joints and marrow.
And it is a critic, a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight. For all things are naked and open before the eyes of Him to whom we must render account.
May I make a suggestion? For every unfaithful Christian, for every unfaithful servant, I believe that there is coming a moment of exquisite pain. I am not talking necessarily about physical pain. I am talking about spiritual pain.
The Bible makes it very plain that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things done in the body, according as every man has done, whether they be good or bad. Every Christian who has truly trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ must some day stand before the judgment seat of Christ to have his life assessed.
And I’m sure that if you think about it for a moment, it is obvious that our life will be evaluated in that day by the standard of the word of God, to which we are responsible right here and now. And the word of God will be the instrument of that judgment.
And the word of God in that day will lay there like a penetrating sword. Everything that has been in our life, not only the things that we have done, but our thoughts and our motives and our aspirations.
You remember the Apostle Paul says, “Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of the heart. And then shall every man have praise of God.”
It is probable that in an audience like this every one of us, including the speaker on the platform, has secrets. It is probable that there are things that we would not like to have brought out into the open. The Bible says there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed, nothing covered that shall not be disclosed.
And the judgment seat of Christ is the moment of disclosure. And the word of God is the instrument of disclosure, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, dissolving in our life what was cut open.
And it sits as a critic and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And when a Christian who has not been faithful stands before the judgment seat of Christ, I am satisfied that it will seem to him as if in that judgment God is taking a sword, tearing him open and exposing to view all of the unfaithful deeds, all of the unfaithful motives, all of the unfaithful aspirations, as well as all of the unfaithful thoughts.
And that, I think, will be an extremely and exquisitely painful moment. Paul said, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” And then he adds, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.”
I am afraid that in teaching the judgment seat of Christ we have very often made it sound innocuous, as though it was sort of a preliminary exercise or something very nice. And I’m not denying for a single moment that the judgment seat of Christ can be, for the faithful servant, a most joyous occasion when he will hear the commendation of his Lord, “Well done.”
But I’m suggesting to you that for the unfaithful servant that will not be a pleasant experience. The Apostle John says, “My little children, abide in Him, that when He shall appear we may have boldness before Him and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.”
And there are Christians so living that their embarrassment at the judgment seat of Christ will be intense and painful. The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him and cut him asunder. And then what?
Verse 51: “And appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.” The unfaithful servant of this parable was a hypocrite. He had been placed in a position of responsibility. He occupied the role of at least a professing servant of Christ.
That is what he presented himself as being before men. But he lived and behaved otherwise. He was supposed to care for other people, and he smote them.
He was supposed to feed God’s children, and he got himself drunk. He was supposed to watch for his Lord, and he decided that his Lord was not coming back soon. In every way he was an impostor.
This is not to say he was not a real Christian. But he stood before men in the capacity and role of a servant of Christ, and he served himself.
I could wish that every hypocrite in the Christian church would wear a sign on their front saying, “I am a hypocrite. Straighten me out.” But that isn’t the way it works. Let’s face the facts.
There are people in the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ across the land who are trying very hard to convince the other members of the church that they are spiritual Christians, dedicated to God, walking with Him. Deep down in their heart they know better. They’re not. And they’re hypocrites.
Worship there are men standing up behind pulpits proclaiming the word of God and wanting to present themselves to people as the servants of Christ. And they’re not. They got into it because they wanted to make an easier living.
Or they got into it because they liked the attention or the following that was created. Or maybe they got into it for the right reason and soon developed the wrong reasons for continuing. But now they are hypocrites.
And the judgment seat of Christ is the moment when the mask falls off, when the pretense is stripped away, and when a hypocrite is exposed as being a hypocrite. And God will appoint the portion of the hypocritical Christian with other hypocritical Christians. They belong together.
Their portion is something that they have in common. What is their portion? I suggest to you it is the last part of the verse:
And appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Please do not misunderstand me. I certainly am not suggesting, and would not suggest, that the unfaithful Christian will spend the rest of eternity weeping over the failures in his life. The Lord Jesus Christ does not say that this weeping will go on forever.
There is no mention of eternal weeping. But He does say this: there will be weeping. There will be gnashing of teeth.
You know, one of the things that happens to us, I think, as individuals is that since we still have the old sin nature inside of us, sometimes, since we’ve been exposed to the truth of God so often and so often and haven’t responded to it as we really ought to have responded, that old sin nature inside of us just sort of hardens the heart.
And the arrows of divine conviction bounce off of us like they would bounce off of a shield. And I know of Christians right now, not known to you perhaps, but people that I know. I’m satisfied that they are truly born again by the gracious favor of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And let’s never forget that a man is not saved and does not go to heaven because he is faithful in his service. He is saved by the grace of Christ. “By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works.”
Not of works you did before you were saved, not of works you do after you are saved. And there’s no issue here that I am raising about the salvation of individuals. There are individuals who have truly trusted Christ and have been born again by the grace of God.
But they’re not living in response to the truth that has come to them. And furthermore they don’t regret it. And I know of people that I would be willing to wager have lived out of communion with God for many years and have probably never shed a tear over their failure.
But listen: when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, we will no longer have a sin nature. The moment the Lord Jesus Christ comes to catch us out of the world, we will be transformed into His likeness. We will be sinless people.
And all of the hardness of heart will disappear. And we will be sensitive as we have never been sensitive before to the realities of good and evil and holiness and unholiness and the approval of Christ and the disapproval of Christ.
I’m going to tell you something I believe. That when Christians, delivered from their own sinful self, stand before the judgment seat of Christ and are forced in that moment to face over a life of unfaithfulness, it will break their hearts. It will break their hearts.
That is how I lived in the light of the grace of God that had reached me. And here before me is my judge, but also my Savior, who gave Himself on the cross for me. And that’s how I paid Him back.
And I believe Christians like that are going to weep and gnash their teeth. And it will be a moment of intense sorrow and regret. And that is precisely why it is so important to keep our eyes fixed on the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and to live for His approval.
There is something supremely tragic in the terrible moment when Orpheus steps out into the broad daylight and turns around and sees Eurydice for the last time. And in seeing her, she is gone. And all that is left behind is the word “farewell.”
But that is a mythological tragedy. Here is a real one: a Christian stepping out into the broad daylight of the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, turning around and seeing the lives that they have lived, and realizing in an instant that they have seen them, that they are gone.
And oh, how they might wish that they could go back and live them all over again. And they can’t. It’s farewell.
Have you ever stopped to consider that today might be the last day you have to live for Christ? Or tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or the year that lies ahead? And that when it is gone, it is gone, perhaps forever.
May I make a suggestion? Keep your eyes fixed on the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t let the world attract you and lure you to look back. Remember, remember, it is always too soon to look back.
Shall we pray?
Our Father in heaven, we thank thee so very much for thy word and for our Lord Jesus Christ who stands behind it and who speaks to us through it. We believe, Father, this audience is probably made up largely of born-again people who know Him as their own personal Savior.
And what an immense and unspeakable privilege this is, Father. May we just pray that each of us may be challenged by thy truth to live for the one who loved us and gave Himself for us, to live in the realization that this is the only life we have and that it must be lived to the full for His glory.
Help us, Father, to keep our eyes fixed upon His coming again and to live faithfully in the light of this our great and wonderful expectation. For we ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.