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Sunnyside Baptist Church Michael Dirrim
To begin with tonight, Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. And we are still in the section of the Olivet Discourse that deals with the coming of judgment within that generation. And we're going to look at some of the images that Jesus uses here.
And some of these images are going to be familiar because they're also used about other promised judgments. And the reason why they're used in more than one context is that they're just really good. They're very helpful.
And the application to us today, I think, is going to be helpful as well. So Matthew 24, 43 -51, Mark 13, 33 -37, and Luke 21, 34 -38. So this time, I'm going to read through all three passages, and I'm going to give you time to think about the first four questions as I read.
There are some things that are going to be unique between Matthew and Mark as we read these illustrations about a thief in the night, the master away, what will the servants do. But also, as I read through all three passages, it will give you time to identify some of the images and themes that are repeated in these passages.
And also to take note of the commandments, the instructions that Jesus gives to his followers so that we can grasp Christ's meanings. I'm going to read all three passages, and we're going to be thinking about these study questions, especially these to the repeated images and repeated commands.
So we'll begin in Matthew 24, verse 43. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore, you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods.
But if that evil servant says in his heart, my master is delaying, is coming, and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Mark 13, verses 33 through 37. Take heed, watch, and pray, for you do not know when the time is. It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch.
Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming. In the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping, and what I say to you, I say to all, watch.
Luke 21, verses 34 through 38. Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness, and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly, like a trap.
For it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth. But keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.
Now during the day he was teaching in the temple, but at evening he would go out and spend the night on the mount that is called Olivet, and all the people would get up early in the morning to come to him in the temple to listen to him.
Wouldn't that be amazing to be a part of that? Well, what images or illustrations do we have that are repeated in these passages? And then you may also note some instructions, some commandments that are being told more than once.
So what are these repetitions that you see? Watch is a central command that Christ gives. Any other repeated images or repeated commands? Sudden return, right, so he's a faithful, good character, good servants.
We see other images or instructions are given. Pray, that's right. By the way, do you remember that combination elsewhere in the scriptures, watch and pray? In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus tells his disciples to watch and pray, lest they enter into temptation.
Did the disciples know what hour the enemy was going to come and take Jesus away to trial? They did not know, did they? Jesus had warned them, right, didn't he tell them that this night the Son of Man is going to be betrayed?
He told them this is what's going to happen, and they went out that night and were spending time together. And some of those disciples, all those disciples fell asleep, though Jesus had told them to watch and pray because they did not know what hour the event would occur.
Okay, any other commands or repeated images that stand out to us here? Right, to watch, to be on guard, ignorance. I don't know what time the thief's coming, otherwise I'd be waiting for him, you know.
I don't know what time the master's getting back, otherwise I'd have the place cleaned up and make it look like I was doing what I was supposed to, right. I don't know what time, that's repeated more than once, the ignorance of the timing.
And, of course, the promise of escape for those who are watchful, who are anything else. Yeah, you better watch. We also have the wicked serving themselves, right. There is evil, we see evil, we hear about it, way down, let's say very distracted, right.
Distracted from what they're supposed to be doing, getting distracted with pleasing the self or getting distracted with the cares of life, getting distracted going to sleep and not being watchful and wakeful.
So, when we read the slave parable in Matthew, the slave parable in Mark, in the passage in Matthew, we have this image of the thief coming in the night, the thief in the night. Now, this is another expression that we have, it is very common, you know, it rolls off the tongue.
We've said it, we know it, we think about it, and it's an excellent illustration, an excellent analogy for the judgment of God, for God keeps his own counsel and he will bring his judgment in his own good timing.
And you know how it is to get right with God right before they die, right, now mercifully that happens. To say that that's your plan is arrogance, thinking that you're in control of all of that. We don't actually know, we're not actually in control of that.
In the same sense, God keeps his own counsel on judgment, and you just don't know when God will bring his judgment. This was something that Jesus said to sober up a church in the book of Revelation. In Revelation chapter 3, Jesus has already said that he is the first and the last, and that he holds in his right hand the seven golden lampstands where the seven stars are.
The seven stars are the angels or the messengers of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands that you saw are the seven churches. So he holds that in his hand, and as you read through the seven letters that Jesus sends, seven messages that Jesus sends by this letter to the churches, by the writing of the apostle John, you discover that Christ is in charge of the church, and he's got some things to say to each church about where he's pleased with them, where he's not pleased, how they better shape up, and more than once he threatens to take away their lampstand, right, to snuff out that church and say, you know, no more of that.
He's in charge of the church. Now, Jesus gets on to the church in Sardis in chapter 3, and let's see if we hear some familiar themes. Verse 2, Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.
Remember therefore how you have received and heard, hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. You see, Jesus uses the thief in the night expression as he talks to this particular church.
It's an excellent image to deal with God's judgment, to better, you better shape up, you better change your ways. And so, that's unique to the illustration in Matthew. Now, Jesus has already said, Jesus has already said in verse 36 that no one knows the hour of when this destruction of, this destruction, this war, this great tribulation is coming.
But even so, even though nobody knows the hour when this great tribulation is going to come, this massive judgment is going to come, nobody knows when it's going to be. However, Jesus did tell his disciples to be watchful and to watch for something in particular.
He wasn't saying, you know, walk around with your eyes like this the whole time. You know, everything's a sign, everything has meaning, watch, watch, watch, be alarmed by everything. No, he told them not to fear, he told them to, how to classify the rumors and the information coming their way and how to understand those things, but he did tell them to watch for something in particular.
Now what was that? Well, he said the wars and rumors of wars, but he said, no, that's just the beginnings of birth pangs. He said, you know, don't get alarmed about that. He said, watch for something in particular.
When you see what? When you see the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not in the holy place, and Jesus clarifies what that is in Luke 21, he says, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, that's what he told them to watch for.
That's exactly what he said for them to watch for, and so they were to be watchful. They were to be ready for that. They were to see that. Now, if they were going to be watchful for that, what then, what then would they be able to do?
They'd be able to escape, right? As Luke says in Luke 21, Jesus says, be on guard so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness in the worries of life, and that they will not come on you suddenly like a trap.
Do you remember his illustrations of, I'm by the cares of life. Don't go run into your house. If you see the sign when you're out in the field, don't drop your tools and run back to the house to get stuff.
Don't go run into your house to grab your stuff. Just go. He said, just go. Be watchful. Be alert. Don't be tied down. Folks in Oklahoma, I don't know how this works, okay? We often go to bed when storms are on the horizon, and the weathermen are like, you know, in all the sweat and hollering about what's going on 30 miles down the road.
Who knows if it's going to hit us or not? We go to bed, and we've got some stuff packed, and we've cleaned out our storm shelters when the storm season is ready to go. We've got the food and the radio down there and whatnot.
We've got our place to go hide, okay? We go to bed, and if it gets bad, we have our alerts set up, and we're ready, aren't we? We're ready. We're living in anticipation that we may have to go underground, or we may have to go to an inner room or something.
We live in readiness. This is the kind of readiness and watchfulness and alertness that Jesus wanted his disciples to live in. I mean, even down to the practical matters of life, what he called them to be his witnesses in where?
Jerusalem, and in Judea, and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. And what did he tell them about that? He told them in Matthew 10 that you need to go to, when you go to a city and you preach the good news of Messiah, if they won't accept you, if they reject it, wipe the dust off your feet and move on to the next town, because you will not finish going to the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes, right?
So there was a sense of, hey, we don't know how long we've got left, but it ain't long, it's a generation, so we've got to be busy about what the Lord is telling us to do, because there's a lot of things that we've got to get done before we can't do anything.
Work while it's day, when it gets night, nobody's going to be able to work. So there was an urgency. We have an urgency today, but it's not the same exact kind of urgency that they had. And they were to be watchful and to be working as servants.
Now, when Jesus brings about Judgment Day, there's two types of servants. Do we see that in the parables? Two types of servants. Who are they? We've got a faithful kind of servant, who does what they're supposed to do, watchful and ready, working diligently, being faithful.
And there's another kind of servant, maybe a servant who's asleep. I don't care. This kind of servant could also be very selfish. Hey, everything that my master has made me steward of, I'm going to be acting like I possess it, and I can use it for whatever I want.
Notice in Matthew's account that Jesus... Let's think about this. Who's the faithful and wise servant? Who's the good kind of servant? It's the one when the master comes, he's going to find them doing his will.
Isn't that the case that when Jesus brought his judgment, that he would find so many of his servants doing exactly what he told them to do? The church was serving and doing the right thing, but... And then, surely I say to you, he will make him ruler over all his goods.
And we're going to see this... Notice the contrast. The evil servant. Evil servant says, my master is delaying his coming. You know, I'm going to do what I want. He beats his fellow servants. He eats and drinks with drunkards.
Well, who was the bad servant who beat his fellow servants? Yeah, but I mean, in this generation, who is the servants who were supposed to be doing what God told them to do, but instead they were beating their fellow servants?
The religious leaders were beating the apostles. They were... Saul of Tarsus was one of these wicked servants before he repented, right? And he was going around beating his fellow servants. And so, when Jesus came in judgment, he was going to find all kinds of evil, wicked servants.
And guess what happened? They were judged. They were judged. Now, Jesus says in Luke 21 that those... That he wants his followers to watch. He wants them to watch so that they will be able to escape all the things that are about to take place.
Only Jesus' followers would have known. I mean, if you rejected Jesus of Nazareth and you... I'm not gonna listen to anything he has to say. And you don't care what he said to his followers on the Mount of Olives about when Jerusalem was surrounded by armies, when you see the abomination of desolation.
Let the reader of Daniel understand. I mean, I don't care what Jesus has to say, but if you were his follower, you would know what he said. You would be on the alert. You would be ready. You wouldn't be tied down to everything where you couldn't pack up and go and leave in a moment's notice.
You'd be ready for it. And that's what he wants for his followers. That's what's necessary to escape and to stand in Luke's account, to be on guard. The heart's not weighted down. Now, that's a hard thing.
Readiness to Jesus' commands, readiness to obey Jesus' commands means what? That we are not heavily intertwined emotionally, even fiscally, with things that we can't do without. Okay, it's, you know, Jesus said you cannot serve both God and mammon.
Okay, now we are to steward our mammon to the glory of God. And there's all manner of ways to glorify him. But if we fear death and we fear man, we're going to be intertwined with all kinds of things, and we're not going to be free to obey Christ.
Jesus is saying in this particular instance, they need to be ready to be flexible and ready to do whatever he wants them to do. So be on guard, be on the alert, properly steward your lives so that you're going to be able to obey when you see what I've told you to watch for.
Now, I think this might put into excellent perspective the stories that we read in Acts 2 and Acts 4 and Acts 5. Do you remember how the early church lived? Do you remember how generous they lived with one another?
And they still owned their own property, but they were willing to sell it, you know, to make sure to supply anyone who had need. Whole bunch of widows who became Christians no longer supported by the Jewish system.
They need to be supported by the church now. And of course, that brought controversy, and they had to figure that out. All kinds of priests who used to make their living by serving. They're not offering sacrifices anymore.
So they're going to need some help transitioning to a new life. All sorts of people needed help in the tumult of the early church. And you know what? If the property you have in Judea is going to get laid waste within one generation, how strongly tied to it are you?
Better use it for something better while we still can, you know? So, Jesus is saying in order to be a good and faithful servant, you need to be watchful and ready. Not in the sense of, oh, you know, when I see signs of the boss coming by, I better make it look like I'm doing right.
No, but a watchful and a kind of readiness to be always about boss shows up or not. That day or the next day, I'm always ready for him to show up. Now, that was the way that Jesus wanted his disciples to live in light of his judgment coming in A .D. 70.
Now, as we turn our attention to, you can turn your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 1 through 10. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 1 through 10. This passage comes after a passage at the end of 1 Thessalonians 4, which talks about the return of Christ and our victory formation in the air with the returning victorious Lord.
But Paul here changes to a related subject, but not the same subject. Notice how he changes his subject beginning of chapter 5, but concerning the times and the seasons. Okay, so he's changing his topic from our meeting the Lord in the air, but concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.
That's what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 24. Remember also that Paul is talking about the day of the Lord that's on the horizon. The day of the Lord, you can read about in Amos. The day of the Lord you can read about in Jeremiah.
The day of the Lord, you can read about in the book of Micah. The day of the Lord, you can read about in Isaiah. The day of the Lord came for Egypt. The day of the Lord came for Assyria. And the day of the Lord came for Babylon, okay.
Well, there's a day of the Lord on the horizon for these folks. Jesus said there was. Judgment coming on Jerusalem. So, verse 3, for when they say, peace and safety, sounds like the folks in Jeremiah's day, then sudden destruction comes upon them.
Of course, they did say peace and safety. After Cestius and his Roman Legion surrounded Jerusalem, then gave up for no apparent reason and ran off through the valley called the Tooth. I don't know how narrow that is.
Between Beth-charon, they killed almost the entire Legion of the Romans and the Jews had this wonderful great victory. We bested the Romans. We're independent. We're free. We're powerful. They said, peace and safety, right?
Then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, right? You're not ignorant. You're not living with no understanding.
You're not in darkness, so that this day should overtake you as a thief. You're all sons of the light and sons of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do.
That's what Jesus said in Mark 13. That was his illustration of Mark 13 about those who were asleep. But let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep sleep at night and those who get drunk are drunk at night.
That's from Matthew 24. Let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
You see how Paul is talking about the times in which they live now? At the end of chapter 4, he was talking about the return of Christ. Here he's saying we need to live ready in the here and now and serve faithfully.
And even if we die before Christ's judgment comes, we're gonna be with him. We're gonna be with him. You see that? There's lots of connections here between 1 Thessalonians 5, 1 through 10, and the whole all of that discourse.
The need to know times and seasons, times and epics. That's how all of that discourse starts, right? They want to know the times and seasons. They want to know that. And Paul says here, you know it's gonna show up, surprisingly.
You already know that. That's something that Jesus had already said. That word had been disseminated throughout the believers. Thief in the night, the suddenness of the judgment that's to come in their own generation.
Well, we've seen that in all three passages here tonight. Labor pains. You may have forgotten, but both in Matthew 24 and Mark 13, the events leading up to the tribulation are called labor pains. It's the same expression there.
No escape for the wicked, no escape for those who reject Christ's Word. Well, that's clearly stated in Luke 17, Luke 21. Paul tells them they need to be alert, sober, awake, and ready. That's what Jesus told his followers to be.
Paul says we're not destined for wrath. Jesus confirms that in Matthew 24, verse 22, and in Mark 13, verse 20. And the fact of the matter is, our salvation is in Christ. Paul is saying, you know, even if we were to die before it was all said and done, we're still safe in him.
And that's what Luke 21, verses 16 through 19 affirms. So, when we read in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verses 1 through 10, you're going to see a lot of the same themes that we've been studying in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, Luke 17.
And the reason why these are the same themes is the same topic, same subject matter. So, sometimes we have those questions like, well, what about this passage over here? But I wanted you to see, this is a synopsis, a summary of the Olivet Discourse, and you can see it especially the pastoral application to be watchful and ready and alert.
And it's all put together there in those 10 verses. It doesn't matter what age we live in as the Saints, we have to listen to what the Master tells us is priority. And to be watchful according to his priorities means that when we look at our lives and we consider what's priority, what's valuable, and what we're to be involved with, we need to use the value system given to us by our Master, given to us by our Lord, so that we're not going to get intertwined and caught up with stuff that's going to keep us from doing what he has called us to do.
So, we need to be clear on those things and understand the values of what it means to live in the kingdom of heaven. That's going to be our next focus. So, we're going to look at several parables throughout the Gospel of Matthew about the kingdom of heaven.
We're going to start in chapter 13. They all start off like this, the kingdom of heaven is love. Okay, so we're going to read all of those and study. We're going to see some more kingdom parables in Matthew 18 and 20 and 21, 22 and 25, and then we go to Matthew 25.
We're going to come back to the Olivet Discourse. We're going to turn the corner from Matthew 24 to Matthew 25, where we're going to read, then the kingdom of heaven is like. So, what I want to do is, I want us to begin reading Matthew 25 after having the benefit of hearing everything else in Matthew where Jesus already started off like that, the kingdom of heaven is like.
So, that way, we'll read Matthew 25 with all those other parables that Jesus has already given. That way, we more fully understand what we're looking at here in this chapter. And then, we're going to cap it off with Matthew chapter 25, verses 31 through 46, which describes the glorious return of Christ.
So, that's what we're planning on upcoming. Alright, well, let's close by singing the doxology together.
