Parables No.5 The Watchful Servant

I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil.

My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Let's turn to the Word of God as it is found in the Gospel of Luke in the second chapter – I'm sorry, the twelfth chapter. We're going to be looking at verse forty-two and onwards, but I'll pick up the context from verse thirty-five.

Parables are heavenly stories which our Lord Jesus taught. They have an earthly meaning. They're also earthly stories and they have a heavenly meaning.

So here is our Saviour, having just taken my coat off, it seems as though I'm running foul of the first injunction – be dressed, ready for service, and keep your lamps burning like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks, they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, we'll have them recline at the table and we'll come and wait on them.

It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. But understand this, if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

Peter answered, Lord, are you telling this parable to us or to everyone? The Lord answered, Who then is the faithful and wise manager whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose the servant says to him, my master is taking a long time in coming and he then begins to beat the men's servants and maid's servants and to eat and drink and get drunk.

The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbeliever. That servant who knows his master will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows.

But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Keep your Bibles open there and particularly verse 41 and also verse 42.

Well the political party conference, at least the major ones, are now history, thank goodness until next time when we go through the same cycle of events, but let's pray for our politicians and not be too sceptical about them. Have you ever noticed when a politician is interviewed, the technique of the interviewer, he tries to push him, her, into a corner to say things that maybe they don't really want to be questioned on. Now depending on the skill of the interviewee, and Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock I think run shoulder to shoulder in this one, they conduct the question.

They can avert it, they can go under it, they can go over the top, or they can do, as they significantly often engage in, they answer the question to a query that actually was not put. They remind me of a preacher of whom it was said that though he had many texts he really had only one sermon. Sometimes our blessed Lord does not always immediately answer questions that are put to him.

On occasions, and deliberately, what he will do is he will put another question. For example, on one occasion the adversaries, the enemies of Jesus came to him and they tried to knock him into a corner as to what the reason was behind this fantastic ministry that he was exercising, what is his authority, and Jesus doesn't answer the question. He says, tell me this, John the Baptist, was he from God or not, and he got them, you see.

Because if they said he was from God, then Jesus would have said, well why didn't you believe him? If he said that he wasn't from God, then he'd have had problems, because the popular conclusion was that John was a man from God. So Jesus doesn't always answer questions, and that's something I want you to bear in mind as I proceed to try to expound, to explain this chapter, I'll come back to the thought in a little while. Aren't you glad that Peter comes across the pages of Scripture? I don't think A. W. Tozer was kind to his own race, because he was an American, when he said that Peter would make a good American, because he always taught first and thought afterwards.

I see myself like that. And so here is our Lord Jesus, and he's set up a parable, the one preceding what we're going to look at this evening, and it's a parable which seems to denote the criminal factor in Palestine in those days. Jesus sometimes, extraordinarily enough in the stories he tells, refers to criminal activity.

I mean, there was a man who was mugged, wasn't there? Between two cities, he went on a dangerous road and he's mugged. And our Lord, on another occasion, he speaks of the wisdom of ensuring that you invest more in heaven than you do in the banks on earth, or you're doing your own home. Because, well, the thief can get at it.

Molson and Rust can cause earthly treasures to decay. And our Lord is aware that the crime factor in Palestine is high during his day. Now, he speaks about a man who goes off and he's not contacted security corps, he's not got the burglar alarms going, and unfortunately while he's on holiday, the thief breaks in.

And Jesus said, had the man who owned the house known that the thief was going to come, he would have taken provision. He would have made certain preparation to offset the thief in his activity. Our Lord uses sometimes this criminal tendency, never applauding it, but as an illustration for people to be even more vigilant, especially regarding his second coming.

You must also be ready, says our Lord in the 40th verse, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. Now Peter, now here he comes in with the question in which his sort of brain catches up afterwards. Maybe that's being a little unfair to Peter, maybe you will think on reflection that it's a good question, Campbell Morgan said that, it was a fair question.

Peter steals in on the scene and he says, Lord, that story which you've just told, are you telling it to them, the larger crowd, or are you telling it specifically to us? And Jesus seems to do a Neil Kinnock and a Margaret Thatcher, because he doesn't address the question. What he does actually is to put up another question. He says, verse 42, Who then is the faithful and wise manager whom the Master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? He tells a tale, a different story.

It's again of a land owner, of a wealthy man who goes into some vacation spot, he's away for a long time, and there is a good servant and a bad servant. And the good servant, well, he looks after his master's wealth and property as though the next day the master might be back. And he ministers to everyone who's under his authority in a careful and a kindly way.

The other fellow, well, he predicts that the man is going to be out of the home for a long period of time. So, he lives it up. He does so at the expense of others.

He's cruel in his treatment to his contemporaries. And the master comes back sooner rather than later. And the man who's dealt honorably is not embarrassed.

But he's elevated in his position of authority from a mere domestic position to one of far greater implications. And the man who has dealt so foully with his master's wealth and so cruelly with his master's servants, his own colleagues, that man is punished. He's punished in a very brutal fashion.

Now remember, our Lord is talking to an Oriental, certainly a Middle Eastern audience, and very often his stories have an Oriental flavor. And we're dealing with parables, so we're not expecting minute doctrine to be written into every aspect of the story. He's securing one principle in the telling of the story, as any adept storyteller will do.

But here's the punchline. Here's the thing for you and for me to examine very carefully, because though Peter doesn't get an answer directly to his question, did you tell the other parable to us or to everyone, Jesus puts up one of the most fundamental questions for Peter and all who would be Peter's to look at and to respond to. Who then is the faithful and wise manager whom the master puts in charge of his servants? I wanted to suggest to you, dear Christian friend, that that is the most important question after your conversion for you to attend to.

What words do you want one day to fall from the lips of Jesus Christ? Some of you will recall the context of this quotation. Well done, you good and faithful servants, enter into the joy of your Lord. Taken from another parable.

Maybe others of you who are more skillful in Scripture will remember not only that statement, but also one the Apostle Paul makes when as an old man he says, I've fought a good fight, I've kept the faith, I've finished the course. Henceforth there is a crown of righteousness which the Lord will give to me on that day, and all who are faithful are looking for His coming. And on another occasion in the epistles, references made to those who, when they die, have an abundant entry into the kingdom of God.

Here's the question. When you die, what words will Jesus say? I'm old-fashioned in my theology, not everyone will agree with this, though I've got the majority of church fathers in their theological understanding with me. I believe that when I die, the first person I see when I awake is that of Jesus.

What words do I want Him to say? Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord. So, you see, our Lord is right in coming at Peter's question with another question.

Who then is the faithful and wise manager? You see, there are certain questions, and here I come back to what I was saying ten minutes ago, if I've been going that long. There are certain questions which are very much secondary, and it would perhaps be best for us not to try to ask and find an answer this side of eternity. We're all good at asking the Lord for information about which He doesn't feel we ought to be fully knowledgeable.

And we all perhaps are like Peter on one occasion when he says, Lord, now that's my future, but what about that man? And Jesus says, well, don't bother about that man, bother about yourself. There are occasions when our Lord Jesus will relate to secondary issues, what we think are primary ones, and shake us to the roots of our being in attending to the more vital issues, which as far as we are concerned is our own spiritual well-being, and having assured by the Holy Spirit and by the proof of Holy Scripture that we are saved, that we are then living a life which is pleasing to the Lord Jesus. Who then, says our Saviour, is that faithful and wise manager? There's a parallel passage of Scripture dealing with this, Matthew 24, almost the same words.

Charles Russell was once reading those particular verses. Russell, many of you may not know, it's not terribly important that you do. He found a society which has become known.

It wasn't in those days as the Watchtower Society or as more popular is remembered by or recalled by most of us as the Jehovah's Witnesses. He had an incredible way of dealing with this Scripture. It was even extended by a man called Rutherford who built on Russell's misplaced theologizing, I don't speak bitterly, I speak with compassion, particularly to those who are deluded by the false teachings of these men.

And he worked out that the faithful and the true manager, are you hearing me, is none other than the Watchtower Society with its headquarters at Brooklyn, USA. Now some of you perhaps don't know this, but Awake magazine, a Watchtower magazine, is actually edited, published, perhaps not entirely printed, but many millions of copies are there. And amongst the thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses' kingdom's halls around the world, you'll always get on any given Sunday the same address being attended to.

Why? Well, you see, according to these men, the faithful and wise manager is the Watchtower Society. And God only speaks to the world today through that society. That's why someone like myself, and I've sometimes had to brush shoulders with JWs and challenge them on this, and they can't back away.

They have to admit even if they're kindly folk and reluctant to do so. Someone like myself is a minister of Satan, deluding people here in the center of the town. A perverted explanation as to what our Lord was referring to when he puts the question to Peter, who then is the faithful and wise steward? Our Lord, you see, has got Peter and he's got the eleven disciples on one side and he's dealing with them.

And he's saying, look, the most important thing is not so much eschatology, when the Lord is coming back and how he's coming back and the thief in the night and all that. That does have an importance, but the thing that is more significant than anything else is how you are in your own one-to-one relationship with the Lord, and having found him as your Savior, how you are dealing with other people as you make your way through the world. I want to share with you, there's not time to go into any full detail, and I would have put them up on the overhead projector, but I ran out of time a little while ago.

My afternoon was fairly busy. I want to share with you several propositions, several principles that follow from what our Lord is here teaching in this parable as he responds to Peter and explains to Peter the sort of man that he wants Peter to be and the sort of person that he wants you and me to be. And by contrast, the person that he doesn't want us to exemplify.

What are my propositions from this passage, from this delightful way in which our Lord Jesus responds to the question of Peter by putting up another question and then answering his own so that Peter will know what our Lord feels is important. Now think this one through. It will not hit you straight away, but it will by the time I've explained it.

Your life will not finish with a loose end. Did you hear that? Your life will not finish with a loose end. You say, what do you mean? Well, our Lord tells a lot of end time parables and he does so to demonstrate amongst other things this.

The whole of our world is still within the control of sovereign God. Now I need to remind myself of that as a pastor. You see, some deaths to me are inexplicable.

I don't know why some people die from my perspective prematurely. I don't know why for some people death is so untidy. They linger.

I can't understand as a pastor the drawn out deaths. It seems to me that there's a fraying at the edges of life from my perspective. Sometimes I'm disposed to say, Lord, if I was you, I wouldn't do it like that.

Somebody reminded me a little while ago, God says in response, if you were me, you would. Because there's a great distinction between the way he operates and the knowledge that he has and my own puny little intellect. But here this parable teaches me the response to our Lord as he answers his own question.

That life does not finish with loose ends. All of us go into the presence of God at some point. Think of a candle.

You blow it out. And that's the end of the flame. Human life is not like that.

There is something about you and I which will continue. We go into the presence of the Lord and there he brings the loose ends together. There he keeps the promise in his word that one day we shall know as we are fully known.

To quote Martin Luther, he reveals to us the hiddenness of God. Now you see my point? When I said earlier that there is reason for you sometimes to put some of the secondary questions into the background in order that the primary questions can be dealt with as our Lord demonstrates to Peter here. But here's another proposition.

Not only does our Lord show us that however we live our lives, ultimately we will be brought before him. But the implication of this is that our life is faced with certain choices. How will you use it? He were two servants and they had the option of going one way or the other way.

Here is Adam in the Garden of Eden. He has the option. Does he live according to the law of God? There are certain things that you can do, certain things that you can eat.

There's one thing that you can't. And Adam says, I won't submit to what you say I can't do. And throughout the Bible, Eden is replayed.

Joshua will say to the people, choose you this day. Elijah will bring the same challenge to the people. Pilate will say, will you have this man to reign over you or not? The Apostle Paul as he preaches and is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and insights of his preaching in the Epistles challenges people to make up their mind.

So you and I, my good friends, are brought face to face in life with a choice. And the choice for these two men is simply this. Fidelity, faithfulness in the one hand.

Doing what you believe the master, if he was present, wanted you to do. Or on the other hand, I'm alright Jack, pull up a dingy, I've declared you DI. I will take all and squander it and live as I want.

Which is in effect doing what the prodigal did. Now there's sense in prodigality if nobody blows the whistle. There's sense in prodigality if life finishes with frayed edges.

But if I'm right in deducing from this parable that there is no such thing as a frayed edge. Then the choices you make in time are important because they affect your eternity. That's what Jesus is saying.

So here's the question. Are you living your life? How's it developing? What fundamentally are your priorities? Listen to a little series of quotations about death. A preacher from yesteryear, Joseph Alexander.

If men are prepared to die, they are ready for anything. It's someone else writing, it's anonymous, don't know who put this down. There is nothing more certain than death, nothing more uncertain than the time of dying.

I will therefore be prepared at all times for that which may come at any time. Here's a man with the same surname as my present secretary, William Dyer. Look upon death as a thing you must meet with.

Look upon yourself as a thing you must part with. There's still wisdom there, isn't there? So you see, these choices, how are you coping with your life? I mean, you can live as though the Master is on holiday forever and will never come back. Or you can live in such a fashion that it honors and pleases Him, so that when He returns, He finds you in such a lifestyle that it causes Him to give you His accolade, well done, you good and faithful servant.

You see, here's my third proposition. You'll be judged in regard to your response. You will be judged in regard to your response.

Jesus talked about a narrow way. He talked about a broad way. He talked about a way that led to life.

He talked about a way that led to eternal death. Now here's a fourth proposition. It's not wrong for you to live your life with a view to pleasing God and being rewarded.

Well, there are some super-spiritual people who think that to contemplate eternal reward is somehow to drop down three or four legs of the ladder of spirituality. But Jesus doesn't blush when He's teaching in the first and second verses of Matthew 6 on the Sermon on the Mount, Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

See the implication? Live your life as though Father will reward you. You say, but this business of rewards, Mr. Preacher, you've always been saying that salvation is by faith, it's the invitation, it's the gift of God, there's nothing I can do. You know, you've said this and Tim's said it and Hugh's said it and so many other people have said it.

And now here you're talking about working for rewards. Well, don't you see? You are saved by the grace of God. But how you live your life as you move down that narrow road will be computed by the Lord in terms of your eternal reward.

So, here is a very wise servant. You see, the master is away. What does he do? He's put in charge of his colleagues.

He gives them food allowance at the proper time. It will be good, says our Savior, that the servant whom the master finds, it will be good for the servant when the master returns and finds him doing. In the Bible, the New Testament, sometimes the church is referred to as the household of God.

Peter and his like and you and myself as extensions of the church to this day, we're going to be judged in the way that we treat one another. In how we handle our finances, how we handle our time. This is what the Savior is saying, you see.

It's not wrong to work for the reward. It's not wrong for you to feel that if you live your life in a fashion that is like that of the Lord Jesus' you will please your Heavenly Father and at the end you will receive from Him the eternal well done. Now, it would be easy for me to leave it at that and say, well, life is not ragged.

It doesn't finish with a loose end and there are choices to make. You know, it's very nice to make the right choice and this will give you the approval of God. But the Lord Jesus doesn't finish there, does He? Unfortunately, He turns the spotlight uncomfortably on someone who is the unwise servant.

And He says, that servant, verse 47, who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. I don't know how you come at the subject of hell. I don't think a preacher can come at the subject without tears in his eyes.

There have been attempts today, and I'm reading the debate and keeping very much up to scratch with what folk are saying to suggest that hell is not eternal punishment but punishment in eternity. That it will not last forever on the basis that something that is done here would not be right of God to exact eternal punishment of endless duration from them. I've read the arguments of Dr. John Stott and Roger Forster and others.

All I can say is this, until I feel absolutely convinced that hell is not of eternal duration, I must warn people of the dread possibility that that is indeed the case. And our Lord, when He's talking about these servants, He's talking about the genuine servant and the done. He's talking about the counterfeit spirituality.

He's talking about the man who uses religion to his own advantage as did some of the Pharisees and the Sadducees in His day. He has in mind prophetically as He thinks out the future some of the occasions when the church of Jesus will be taken over by a power block and used for its own advantage. He'll be thinking of American teachers who go off the rails and exploit people and fleece them with thousands and thousands of dollars.

He'll be thinking of other people who go through life knowing that they are not what they claim to be. They haven't lived in direct alignment with the will of the great Master. And when the Lord Jesus returns in power and glory, He will judge these folk.

So, by way of review and completion, here is our Lord telling us that the end of life is not death. That is the end of one mode of being. He doesn't give out the hope that you will be extinguished when you die, that there will be nothing left of you.

What He tells you is that on death you will go into the immediate presence of God. My dear friend Dorothy Fez was to quote John Milton or John Newton. How about that for a Freudian slip? Was to quote John Newton.

I am packed, sealed and waiting for the post. She's ready to go. Philip Crawley, my doctor.

Incredible experience of God. About ten days before he went home. Only I know of that, because as far as I am aware, I was the only one told.

A realization. Leaving this world and longing to be in the next with God. Is that your longing? How will God receive you? With a well done.

I am not too sure at the moment and you are making me feel uncomfortable. That's good. Because I think as a preacher I am called to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed.

If you are comfortable, I want to disturb you. But if you are disturbed because you don't feel perhaps you have done enough, then probably the answer is, my friend, relax. You have done what God wanted you to do.

Some of you have lived 70 or 80 years of life. You have been faithful in working for the Lord as best you could. Then relax in that.

You may not have been a Bob Stokes or a Billy Graham, but He doesn't judge you in the way that He judges them. He judges you according to the potential that you have. And having been faithful in this, the day will come when God will entrust to you far greater responsibilities in the world that is yet to be.

We are not going to be angels on clouds, strumming guitars, or playing violins. God has a great purpose for this universe yet. He didn't create all these universes for nothing, to wipe them all out like that.

Eye has not seen nor ear heard of the things that God has in store for those that love Him. This world is to be regenerated. It is to be cleansed.

A new society is to be brought in. What is the key to entering into that society? It is faith in the Lord Jesus, living out your life on this earth in such a fashion that you become as a faithful steward. So Peter doesn't get the answer to the question.

He gets another question raised and the answer to that one is supplied. Who then is the faithful and wise manager? Listen to Peter as he tells you that he learned the lesson. Years ago, when he was an older man, he started to write what he had learned.

When he says to those who read his first epistle at the end of the fifth chapter, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings, one who also will share in the glory to be revealed, be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers, stewards. The very word, not because you must, but because you are willing as God wants you to be. Not greedy for money, but eager to serve.

Not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. Peter listened to the preacher on that occasion and altered his course and lived his life by what he learned.

Have you? Let's pray. Father, we have come and dealt with a passage in your Word which is rich with encouragement and also full of solemn warning that all those who claim to follow our Lord Jesus and their claims are counterfeit. We know that today, Lord.

It's not for us to judge them and to distinguish one from the other. Judgment is yours. But what we're asking now is that everyone in this congregation may not be a dud, but genuine, trusting Jesus our Saviour.

And then having done that, living a life that is so compatible with that of the Lord's, that as you said to Him on one occasion, or more than one occasion on earth, my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased, you will say to us when we enter into your immediate presence, Well done. Well done, faithful brother. Well done, faithful sister.

Well done, Bob. Well done, Sally. Well done, you 80-year-old who has just come through.

Well done for your faithfulness during two world wars. Well done for sticking to your wife or to your husband and not playing around. Well done for the way that you handle finance and time.

Well done for the compassionate way in which you took people into your home and showed them the love of Jesus. O God, we're asking that all of us may hear your well done. Use this to the extent of the gifting that you have given us and help us to relax, having done all that we've done, what we could.

May we be faithful and wise managers of all that you've entrusted us with for the Savior's sake. Amen. Somewhere I have got my order of service.

Here we are. Now, those of you who were present last week couldn't have been but moved to have heard Leng Gruber, heart almost breaking when he was telling us of the experiences he'd just had the few days back in Romania. He's now got some of those experiences.

If you can photograph them, he's got them on a photograph. He's going to show some slides about Romania and speak to us. We'll start around 8.15 and we'll be through by 9 o'clock and you're invited to stay, take some tea and coffee, an opportunity to say hello to folk that you don't know in our church lounge here.

We'd be glad of your company and let's listen to the challenge that Ben brings and others. Alan Collier, he too has been out to Romania. There are several folk who are concerned in the town that we do something to help these dear, dear people.

So we give you that invitation. If you can't stay, God bless you. Don't be under condemnation if you can't stay.

Then that's fair enough. The Lord give you a good week. Be with us on Wednesday if you can.

Some of you have covenanted to pray with us and you haven't prayed with us, you know. The Lord will check you on your covenant statement. That's not a threat from me.

But we are men and women who will be called to book, to give an account for what we promise. So try and be with us as you can. Not under condemnation, but as you possibly can.

In one of our prayer sessions, come along and help us because we need you. As Brother Bob has emphasized, the need for prayer and the response to the challenge that we make for prayer here in the tab. So God give you a good and a very blessed week.

And be with us again next Sunday if you possibly can. Now let's sing 132. Tis the church triumphant singing, worthy the Lamb.

And keep your hymn book in your hand because at the end we're going to do something a little different and go on to another song. 132 in hymns of faith. Though distant from us physically, is ever with us spiritually.

May we be conscious that the King is coming back. The Lamb has been slain. Salvation has been made obtainable for all men and women.

Enable those of us who've entered into the fullness of that blessing to live lives that bring pleasure to the Saviour so that one day we may hear that well done, good and faithful servant. And all God's people said, Amen.