Nobody in the parable denies the return. One servant simply moves it further out.
When we picture the man who gets the end times wrong, we picture a scoffer. Someone at the back of the room with his arms folded, saying the whole thing is a myth and always was. Scripture certainly knows that man and warns about him. But he is not the man Jesus warns His own disciples about at the end of the Olivet Discourse.
The man Jesus warns about believes in the return. He works for the master. He holds the office, carries the keys, and has responsibilities in the house. He has one problem, and it is a problem of timing.
But if that evil slave says in his heart, “My master is not coming for a long time,” and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; 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, 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.
Matthew 24:48-51, NASB1995
Says in his heart. He never preaches it. He never announces a change of doctrine. He simply revises the schedule privately, and everything else follows from the revision.
Jesus Answered the Timing Question by Refusing It
The disciples had asked what the sign of His coming and of the end of the age would be. Jesus gave them a long, specific answer about the tribulation, the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, the sun darkened, and the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and great glory. Then He closed the timing question with a door He would not let them open:
But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
Matthew 24:36, NASB1995
Read plainly, that is a hard sentence and it is meant to be. The Son, in His humanity, was not given the date. And if the date was withheld from Him, no chart, no news cycle, and no confident calculation is going to pry it loose for us.
What is remarkable is what Jesus does next. Having refused the date, He does not change the subject. He tells four stories in a row, and every one of them is about the same thing: how a person lives in the gap.
- The days of Noah (24:37-39). They were eating, drinking, marrying, and they did not understand until the flood came. Ordinary life, running right up to the edge, with no awareness that the edge was there.
- Two in the field, two at the mill (24:40-41). One taken, one left. Identical work, identical location, opposite outcomes. Proximity is not readiness.
- The thief in the night (24:42-44). If the head of the house had known the hour, he would have been ready. He did not know the hour. So be ready at every hour.
- The two slaves (24:45-51). Same house, same master, same job description. One is found doing it. One revised the calendar.
Four illustrations, one point, and the point is not information. Jesus is not building anticipation. He is building conduct.
Notice the Order of the Collapse
Look carefully at what happens to the second slave, because the sequence is exact and it is diagnostic.
First, a belief about timing: my master is not coming for a long time. Second, a change in how he treats people: he begins to beat his fellow slaves. Third, a change in appetite: he eats and drinks with drunkards. The timing belief came first, and the cruelty and the indulgence came out of it.
That is not incidental. It tells you that the doctrine of the second coming is an ethical doctrine. What a servant believes about when the master is coming shows up in how he handles the people under his authority and what he does with his own appetites. Move the date out far enough, and the house becomes yours to run as you please. Nobody is coming to look at it.
Peter says the same thing from a different angle. He names the mockers who ask where the promise of His coming is, explains that the delay is patience and not indifference, and then does not end with a chart. He ends with a question about character:
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God…
2 Peter 3:11-12, NASB1995
What sort of people ought you to be. That is what prophecy is for. Not to satisfy curiosity. To produce a kind of man.
The Faithful Slave Has an Unspectacular Job
Set against the evil slave is a servant most of us would overlook entirely.
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? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes.
Matthew 24:45-46, NASB1995
That is the whole assignment. Feed the household. On schedule.
He is not calculating. He is not stockpiling. He is not standing on a hillside in a white robe, and he is not building a following out of the fear of what is coming. He is doing the plain and repetitive work he was given, at the ordinary times he was told to do it, on a day that looks like every other day. And the commendation is not for insight. It is for being found doing it.
Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing. Not whom his master finds having predicted correctly. So doing.
The Sentence Most of Us Actually Say
Very few believers say out loud that the Lord is not coming soon. We say it functionally. We say it with a calendar.
We say it when the decision we know we need to make gets moved to next year, because there is time. We say it when a relationship we have let rot goes another season without repair, because there is time. We say it when we tolerate something in private that we would be undone to have found in us on the day He appears, because there is time. Nobody preaches a delayed return. We just schedule like one.
The New Testament assumes the opposite posture everywhere it touches this subject.
…instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.
Titus 2:12-13, NASB1995
Looking. Present tense, continuous, and tied in the same sentence to how a man lives right now. And John draws the line even tighter: everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
Three Questions for a Servant in the Gap
- What is my household? Not the church at large. The people actually under your care: a wife, children, employees, a small group, a man who calls you when it is bad. Name them.
- What is their food, and am I giving it at the proper time? The proper time is the part we skip. Truth delivered late is not faithfulness. What have you been meaning to say, and to whom?
- Where have I quietly revised the calendar? Find the place where you are telling yourself there is time. That is the exact spot where the second slave started.
Why the Knock Is Good News
It would be a mistake to walk away from Matthew 24 with nothing but dread. The return is not first an audit. It is the master coming home to a house he owns and to servants he loves.
Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.
Revelation 22:12, NASB1995
My reward is with Me. The one who is coming to inspect the house is the same one who bled to buy it. The faithful slave is not braced for the door. He is waiting for it. The knock is the best thing that will ever happen to him.
You do not know the day. You were never going to. But you know the assignment, and you know where the people are that He put in your care. Go feed them. Let Him find you doing it.
Teaching the Word. Watching the Times.
— SmithForChrist