SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/13/2024 11:45 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-2
“Faithfulness”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
24:45-51
Message of the verses: “45 "Who then
is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his
household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 “Blessed is that slave
whom his master finds so doing when he comes. 47 “Truly I say to you that he
will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 “But if that evil slave says
in his heart, ‘My master is not coming for a long time,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat
and drink with drunkards; 50 the master
of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an
hour which he does not know, 51 and will
cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Jesus says the following to the “good and faithful”
slave: “Blessed is that slave whom his
master finds so doing when he comes. 47 “Truly I say to you that he will put
him in charge of all his possessions.” It
seems very obvious that Jesus is addressing believers, those who have submitted
to Him as Savior and Lord, as divine master.
MacArthur adds “The believer who is found faithful to the Lord in what
he has been given will be given charge of all of the Lord’s possessions, having
inherited the absolute fullness of the kingdom of God as a fellow heir of Jesus
Christ (Rom. 8:17). Not only that, but ‘He
who overcomes,’ Jesus said, ‘I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My
throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne’ (Rev.
3:21).”
So if faithfulness describes the “sensible slave”
then the unbeliever represents the evil slave, who will also be held
responsible for what these slaves do with their stewardship from the Lord. It is during the end time, that some
unbelievers will remain openly sinful and rebellious against God, as the care
nothing for His truth or His mercy which will be abundant during this awful
time of the Tribulation. MacArthur adds “Others
will be award f their lost condition and of their need of a Savior but will put
off believing, thinking they will have time after fulfilling their own selfish
interests but before He come in judgment.
They will say but their lives if not by their words, My master is not
coming for a long time.”
I have mentioned that I have now been a believer for
50 years, and the Lord used end time events to get my attention to listen to
the gospel 50 years ago, and so I have studied the end-time events off and on
for a very long time. In looking at this
24th chapter of Matthew for a while now there have been some things that
I have learned that seem to go against the things that I learned a long time
ago. It seems to me that I have to put
myself in the place of those who will be going through the Tribulation to
better understand what they will be going through. I suppose that many, many people will hear
the gospel message during this time, and as Jesus says will put off believing
because they think that they can live it up and then accept His salvation
closer to the end. This kind of thing
goes on in lives today, but there is a parable in the book of Luke about a man
who is very rich with a lot of grain, and decides to tear down a smaller barn
he owns and build a bigger barn to store his crops and then not work anymore. The
problem is that he dies and is not able to do what he wanted to do. This can also happen to people today and in
the Tribulation period that put off accepting Jesus as Savior and Lord. I guess the old saying that my mother used to
say is true “don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”
I
will conclude this SD by quoting a paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary: “The evil activities Jesus then mentions, the
beating of fellow slaves and eating and drinking with drunkards, are not meant
to characterize every unbeliever during the Tribulation. But those activities reflect the attitude
many of them will have. Because they
think the Lord will not come for a long time, they will feel free to indulge
themselves in whatever sins and pleasures they desire.”
2/13/2024 12:21 PM
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