'Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord
doth come. 43. But know this, that if the goodman of
the house had known in what watch the thief would come,
he would have watched, and would not have suffered his
house to be broken up. 44. Therefore be ye also ready:
for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man
cometh. 45. Who then is a faithful and wise servant,
whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to
give them meat in due season! 46. Blessed is that
servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so
doing. 47. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make
him ruler over all his goods. 48. But and if that evil
servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his
coming; 49. And shall begin to smite his
fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
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, 51. And shall out him asunder, and appoint
him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth.'--MATT. xxiv. 42-51.
The long day's work was nearly done. Christ had left the temple,
never to return. He took His way across the Mount of Olives to
Bethany, and was stayed by the disciples' question as to the date of
the destruction of the temple, which He had foretold, and of the
'end of the world,' which they attached to it. They could not fancy
the world lasting without the temple! We often make a like mistake.
So there, on the hillside, looking across to the city lying in the
sad, fading evening light, He spoke the prophecies of this chapter,
which begin with the destruction of Jerusalem, and insensibly merge
into the final coming of the Son of Man, of which that was a prelude
and a type. The difficulty of accurately apportioning the details of
this prophecy to the future events which fulfil them is common to it
with all prophecy, of which it is a characteristic to blend events
which, in the fulfilment, are far apart. From the mountain top, the
eye travels over great stretches of country, but does not see the
gorges, separating points which seem close together, foreshortened
by distance.
There are many comings of the Son of Man before His final coming for
final judgment, and the nearer and smaller ones are themselves
prophecies. So, we do not need to settle the chronology of
unfulfilled prophecy in order to get the full benefit of Christ's
teachings here. In its moral and spiritual effect on us, the
uncertainty of the time of our going to Christ is nearly identical
with the uncertainty of the time of His coming to us.
I. The command of watchfulness enforced by our ignorance of the time
of His coming (vs. 42-44). The two commands at the beginning and end
of the paragraph are not quite the same. 'Be ye ready' is the
consequence of watchfulness. Nor are the two appended reasons the
same; for the first command is grounded on His coming at a day when
'ye _know_ not,' and the second on His coming 'in an hour that
ye _think_ not,' that is to say, it not only is uncertain, but
unexpected and surprising. There may also be a difference worth
noting in the different designations of Christ as 'your Lord,'
standing in a special relation to you, and as 'the Son of Man,' of
kindred with all men, and their Judge. What is this 'watchfulness'?
It is literally wakefulness. We are beset by perpetual temptations
to sleep, to spiritual drowsiness and torpor. 'An opium sky rains
down soporifics.' And without continual effort, our perception of
the unseen realities and our alertness for service will be lulled to
sleep. The religion of multitudes is a sleepy religion. Further, it
is a vivid and ever-present conviction of His certain coming, and
consequently a habitual realising of the transience of the existing
order of things, and of the fast-approaching realities of the
future. Further, it is the keeping of our minds in an attitude of
expectation and desire, our eyes ever travelling to the dim distance
to mark the far-off shining of His coming. What a miserable contrast
to this is the temper of professing Christendom as a whole! It is
swallowed up in the present, wide awake to interests and hopes
belonging to this 'bank and shoal of time,' but sunk in slumber as
to that great future, or, if ever the thought of it intrudes,
shrinking, rather than desire, accompanies it, and it is soon
hustled out of mind.
Christ bases His command on our ignorance of the time of His coming.
It was no part of His purpose in this prophecy to remove that
ignorance, and no calculations of the chronology of unfulfilled
predictions have pierced the darkness. It was His purpose that from
generation to generation His servants should be kept in the attitude
of expectation, as of an event that may come at any time and must
come at some time. The parallel uncertainty of the time of death,
though not what is meant here, serves the same moral end if rightly
used, and the fact of death is exposed to the same danger of being
neglected because of the very uncertainty, which ought to be one
chief reason for keeping it ever in view. Any future event, which
combines these two things, absolute certainty that it will happen,
and utter uncertainty when it will happen, ought to have power to
insist on being remembered, at least, till it was prepared for, and
would have it, if men were not such fools. Christ's coming would be
oftener contemplated if it were more welcome. But what sort of a
servant is he, who has no glow of gladness at the thought of meeting
his lord? True Christians are 'all them that have loved His
appearing.'
The illustrative example which separates these two commands is
remarkable. The householder's ignorance of the time when the thief
would come is the reason why he does not watch. He cannot keep awake
all night, and every night, to be ready for him; so he has to go to
sleep, and is robbed. But our ignorance is a reason for wakefulness,
because we can keep awake all the night of life. The householder
watches to prevent, but we to share in, that for which the watch is
kept. The figure of the thief is chosen to illustrate the one point
of the unexpected stealthy approach. But is there not deep truth in
it, to the effect that Christ's coming is like that of a robber to
those who are asleep, depriving them of earthly treasures? The word
rendered 'broken up' means literally 'dug through,' and points to a
clay or mud house, common in the East, which is entered, not by
bursting open doors or windows, but by digging through the wall.
Death comes to men sunk in spiritual slumber, to strip them of good
which they would fain keep, and makes his entrance by a breach in
the earthly house of this tabernacle. So St. Paul, in his earliest
Epistle, refers to this saying (a proof of the early diffusion of
the gospel narrative), and says, 'Ye, brethren, are not in darkness,
that that day should overtake you as a thief.'
II. The picture and reward of watchfulness. The general exhortation
to watch is followed by a pair of contrasted parable portraits,
primarily applicable to the apostles and to those 'set over His
household.' But if we remember what Christ taught as the condition
of pre-eminence in His kingdom, we shall not confine their
application to an order.
'The least flower with a brimming cup may stand,
And share its dew-drop with another near,'
and the most slenderly endowed Christian has some crumb of the bread
of life intrusted to him to dispense. It is to be observed that
watchfulness is not mentioned in this portraiture of the faithful
servant. It is presupposed as the basis and motive of his service.
So we learn the double lesson that the attitude of continual outlook
for the Lord is needed, if we are to discharge the tasks which He
has set us, and that the true effect of watchfulness is to harness
us to the car of duty. Many other motives actuate Christian
faithfulness, but all are reinforced by this, and where it is feeble
they are more or less inoperative. We cannot afford to lose its
influence. A Church or a soul which has ceased to be looking for Him
will have let all its tasks drop from its drowsy hands, and will
feel the power of other constraining motives of Christian service
but faintly, as in a half-dream.
On the other hand, true waiting for Him is best expressed in the
quiet discharge of accustomed and appointed tasks. The right place
for the servant to be found, when the Lord comes, is 'so doing' as
He commands, however secular the task may be. That was a wise judge
who, when sudden darkness came on, and people thought the end of the
world was at hand, said, 'Bring lights, and let us go on with the
case. We cannot be better employed, if the end has come, than in
doing our duty.' Flighty impatience of common tasks is not watching
for the King, as Paul had to teach the Thessalonians, who were
'shaken' in mind by the thought of the day of the Lord; but the
proper attitude of the watchers is 'that ye study to be quiet, and
to do your own business.'
Observe, further, the interrogative form of the parable. The
question is the sharp point which gives penetrating power, and
suggests Christ's high estimate of the worth and difficulty of such
conduct, and sets us to ask for ourselves, 'Lord, is it I?' The
servant is 'faithful' inasmuch as he does his Lord's will, and
rightly uses the goods intrusted to him, and 'wise' inasmuch as he
is 'faithful.' For a single-hearted devotion to Christ is the parent
of insight into duty, and the best guide to conduct; and whoever
seeks only to be true to his Lord in the use of his gifts and
possessions, will not lack prudence to guide him in giving to each
his food, and that in due season. The two characteristics are
connected in another way also; for, if the outcome of faithfulness
be taken into account, its wisdom is plain, and he who has been
faithful even unto death will be seen to have been wise though he
gave up all, when the crown of eternal life sparkles on his
forehead. Such faithfulness and wisdom (which are at bottom but two
names for one course of conduct) find their motive in that
watchfulness, which works as ever in the great Taskmaster's eye, and
as ever keeping in view His coming, and the rendering of account to
Him.
The reward of the faithful servant is stated in language similar to
that of the parable of the talents. Faithfulness in a narrower
sphere leads to a wider. The reward for true work is more work, of
nobler sort and on a grander scale. That is true for earth and for
heaven. If we do His will here, we shall one day exchange the
subordinate place of the steward for the authority of the ruler, and
the toil of the servant for the 'joy of the Lord.' The soul that is
joined to Christ and is one in will with Him has all things for its
servants; and he who uses all things for his own and his brethren's
highest good is lord of them all, while he walks amid the shadows of
time, and will be lifted to loftier dominion over a grander world
when he passes hence.
III. The picture and doom of the unwatchful servant. This portrait
presupposes that a long period will elapse before Christ comes. The
secret thought of the evil servant is the thought of a time far down
the ages from the moment of our Lord's speaking. It would take
centuries for such a temper to be developed in the Church. What is
the temper? A secret dismissal of the anticipation of the Lord's
return, and that not merely because He has been long in coming, but
as thinking that He has broken His word, and has not come when He
said that He would. This unspoken dimming over of the expectation
and unconfessed doubt of the firmness of the promise, is the natural
product of the long time of apparent delay which the Church has had
to encounter. It will cloud and depress the religion of later ages,
unless there be constant effort to resist the tendency and to keep
awake. The first generations were all aflame with the glad hope
'Maranatha'--'The Lord is at hand.' Their successors gradually lost
that keenness of expectation, and at most cried, 'Will not He come
soon?' Their successors saw the starry hope through thickening mists
of years; and now it scarcely shines for many, or at least is but a
dim point, when it should blaze as a sun.
He was an 'evil' servant who said so in his heart. He was evil
because he said it, and he said it because he was evil; for the
yielding to sin and the withdrawal of love from Jesus dim the desire
for His coming, and make the whisper that He delays, a hope; while,
on the other hand, the hope that He delays helps to open the
sluices, and let sin flood the life. So an outburst of cruel
masterfulness and of riotous sensuality is the consequence of the
dimmed expectation. There would have been no usurpation of authority
over Christ's heritage by priest or pope, or any other, if that hope
had not become faint. If professing Christians lived with the great
white throne and the heavens and earth fleeing away before Him that
sits on it, ever burning before their inward eye, how could they
wallow amid the mire of animal indulgence? The corruptions of the
Church, especially of its official members, are traced with sad and
prescient hand in these foreboding words, which are none the less a
prophecy because cast by His forbearing gentleness into the milder
form of a supposition.
The dreadful doom of the unwatchful servant is couched in terms of
awful severity. The cruel punishment of sawing asunder, which,
tradition says, was suffered by Isaiah and was not unfamiliar in old
times, is his. What concealed terror of retribution it signifies we
do not know. Perhaps it points to a fate in which a man shall be, as
it were, parted into two, each at enmity with the other. Perhaps it
implies a retribution in kind for his sin, which consisted, as the
next clause implies, in hypocrisy, which is the sundering in twain
of inward conviction and practice, and is to be avenged by a like
but worse rending apart of conscience and will. At all events, it
shadows a fearful retribution, which is not extinction, inasmuch as,
in the next clause, we read that his portion--his lot, or that
condition which belongs to him by virtue of his character--is with
'the hypocrites.' He was one of them, because, while he said 'my
lord,' he had ceased to love and obey, having ceased to desire and
expect; and therefore whatever is their fate shall be his, even to
the 'dividing asunder of soul and spirit,' and setting eternal
discord among the thoughts and intents of the heart. That is not the
punishment of unwatchfulness, but of what unwatchfulness leads to,
if unawakened. Let these words of the King ring an alarum for us
all, and rouse our sleepy souls to watch, as becomes the children of
the day.