Verse 48, “But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delays his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow servants and eat and drink with the drunkards, the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for him and in an hour that he is not aware of and shall cut him in half and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Hmm, on the other hand, when the Lord comes, He’s going to find some who weren’t faithful. Some who not being faithful over little can’t be made lord over much. Some whose lamps were not trimmed in the terms that we’ll see in chapter 25. Some who didn’t take their talent and use it but buried it and hoarded it. And they’ll be cast into a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. The evil one, it says there, doesn’t it? The evil servant kakos, evil in quality, evil in nature, says in his own heart, “My lord delays his coming, he won’t be here for a while, I’m watching the signs.”
And you know there’s going to be people like that. They say, “Well, look, okay, I’ve got all this prophetic stuff laid out as I see the signs going along, I’ll just wait till the last moment. And in the meantime I’m not going to use what I’ve got for others, I’m going to feed myself and if the others get in the way and try to take any of what I’ve got, I’ll hit them, I’ll smite them. And I’m going to have my fun and I’m going to eat and drink with the drunks. I’m going to be a good-time Charlie, I’m going to party it up. I’m going to grab all the gusto I can get. I’m going to live the worldly life style.”
It’s not that everybody who’s unregenerate lives like that. NOt everybody who’s unregenerate beats other people up or abuses other people to the degree that this servant did. Not everybody that’s unregenerate parties with drunkards. But he’s an illustration of an unregenerate person. And that’s why it says he will be given a portion with the hypocrites, verse 51. It doesn’t seem to indicate here that he’s much of a hypocrite. I mean, a hypocrite is somebody who pretends to be religious. This guy isn’t pretending to be religious, not beating up people and living around…running around with drunks. But he’ll go the same place that religious phonies go, which is to say that the category is broader than just this single illustration. It’s for all the unregenerate.
By the way, Luke in paralleling this says he will be cut in half and appointed a portion with the unbelievers. So he’s only one illustration of a whole lot of kinds of unbelievers, including not only those who live a drunken dissolute life style, but those who are religious hypocrites as well. So, he thinks he’s got all kinds of time.
And there will be people who say, maybe some listening to me right now, you’ll say, “Well, okay, I see. I want what I want. Okay, I’ll watch for the Rapture. If I miss the Rapture, I’m in good shape. I know what’s coming. I’ll watch for the abomination of desolations, when I see that happen, I’m right on. I’m checking through my thing. And then I’m going to watch the unfolding of Revelation 6 to 18. Then when I see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, since I don’t know just exactly what’s going to happen after that, I’ll try to stay sensitive and just before I think it’s going to happen I’ll just get in there and I’ll just take Christ and I’ll just make it. And in the meantime I’ll have a great time.”
Well, the lord of that servant is going to come in a day, verse 50 says, when you’re not looking for him and an hour you’re not even aware of. Don’t try it. What makes you think if you won’t give your heart to Jesus Christ now, you’re going to want to do it in the future? Christ isn’t going to change. He will be no more wonderful, no more glorious, He’ll have no more power to save, no more power to change your life then than He does now. If you don’t want it now, why would you want it then? If you don’t want Jesus Christ now when sin is to some extent restrained…and it’s hard to imagine, but it is…do you think you’ll want Him more in a period when sin is unrestrained and your evil can run amuck to the degree that it’s never in the history of man run amuck? The world will be worse than its ever been. You think you’re gratified by your lusts now, there will be such lustful gratification in the Tribulation that it’s indescribable. Why will you want Christ in the midst of that more than you want Him now?
And don’t you fool yourself in thinking that you’re able to read the signs. The Bible says nobody is able to do that. And Jesus is going to come when you don’t think He’s going to come…in an hour you’re not even aware of. And there may have been a lot of folks in Noah’s day who said, “Well, if the water gets up to my knees, I’ll bang on the door.” Too late…too late…too late.
And verse 51 says, this is a terrible thing, “When the master comes back and finds his unfaithful servant, he cuts him in half.” The Greek verb is dichotomeo, dichotomize. It is used in Exodus 29:17 in the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament, of the sawing in half of an animal when an animal was offered in sacrifice and cut into two pieces. It’s to illustrate the serious devastating deadliness of the judgment of the Lord. When He comes back and finds this person who thought he could sow his wild oats and live it up and do whatever he wanted and slide in under the wire, it’s going to be too late, He’s going to come when he doesn’t expect it and he’s going to pay with a very severe price. The man’s going to be cut in half, given a portion with all the rest of the unbelievers and hypocrites and spend the rest of eternity weeping and gnashing his teeth. And by the way, weeping and gnashing of teeth is mentioned five times at least in the book of Matthew, and each time is a way to describe the terrible unrelieved unconsolable pain of eternal hell.
So what is to be the right kind of preparation for an unexpected and sudden coming of Christ? Alertness, readiness, and faithfulness. We need to be watching for the signs. We need to get ready for His coming. And to do that we need to be faithful to His command and His Word and the stewardship He’s given us. We’re going to see more about this as we go into chapter 25 as we look at the virgins, some of whom were ready and some of whom were not…and as we look at the talents, some of which were wasted and some of which were used. And they will illustrate for us the same issue of being faithful, being ready, being alert in view of the coming of Christ.
Now listen carefully as we conclude. First Thessalonians 5 verse 2, I want to read this to you. “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.” That is to say suddenly and unexpectedly. It’s emphasized again. “For when,” verse 3, “they shall see, Peace and safety,” just when men think everything is okay, just when they think they’re going to make it and they’re going to survive, then sudden destruction comes on them like travail on a woman with child. And there are those birth pains again. And they shall not escape.
So, there are going to be those people who say, “O peace and safety, it’s all going to work out, everything is going to be fine.” And suddenly the devastation and destruction is going to fall upon them. And some of those people who think they can survive the great Tribulation are going to find themselves facing God before Christ comes through death and devastation and disaster that occurs in that time period. And so Paul says, “You, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief, you are sons of light.” That day is not going to overtake us. That day is not going to take us captive. We’re not people in the darkness. In fact, God has not appointed us, verse 9 says, to wrath.
I don’t believe we’ll ever go into that Tribulation. I believe we’ll be taken out. We’re not children of the darkness. We’re not sons of the darkness. We’re sons of the day. We’re children of light. And I believe the Lord takes us before that darkness breaks loose. I don’t have any desire to go through that period. It’s infinitely worse than any description in the Bible could conjure up in our imagination. There’s no sense in having a silly preoccupation with wanting to see the Tribulation. We want to see Jesus Christ. Why would I want to be in an Antichrist rule when I could be in the presence of Christ at the marriage supper of the Lamb And I believe that we’re not the children of the darkness. The Lord will take us out because our hearts are ready. But for the rest of the world, they’re going to say, “Oh, it will all work out, peace and safety.” And then sudden destruction when they least expect it. I hope you’re ready.
William Barclay records the interesting story of three apprentice demons who came before Satan. And he sent them to the earth to do their apprenticeship. And the first apprentice demon said, “I will tell people there is no God.” And Satan said it won’t work, they know better. And the second apprentice demon said, “I will tell people there is no hell.” And Satan said it won’t work, they know better. And the third demon said, “I will tell people there is no hurry…there is no hurry.” And Satan said you will gain many souls.
There is a hurry. There is a hurry. Listen to what Paul said. “Knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” Today we’re closer to the Second Coming than we have ever been in human history. “The night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light.”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
