The following sermon was delivered on January 5th, 2025 at Free Grace Baptist Church in Poulsbo, Washington. The speaker is Roy Linberry. The title of the message is Coming Like a Thief. Genesis chapter 6, as we read from God's Word together, Genesis chapter 6, let us worship Him. Genesis chapter 6, beginning in verse 1, and this is the Word of God. Now it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. They took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. And then the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall be 120 years. And the Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. And those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. And then when the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. And the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord. And these are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time. Noah walked with God, and Noah became the father of three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. And then God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, But the earth is filled with violence because of them. And behold, I'm about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood. You shall make the ark with rooms and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it. And the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. And you shall make a window for the ark and finish it to a cubit from the top, and set the door of the ark and the side of it, and you shall make it with lower second and third decks. Behold, I, even I, am bringing the flood of water upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven. Everything that is on earth shall perish, but I will establish my covenant with you And you shall enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of the animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. Now as for you, take for yourself some of all food which is edible. Gather it to yourself, and it shall be for food for you and for them. And thus Noah did according to all that God had commanded him, so he did. Amen. Let's continue our time of worship in the reading again of Scripture. Matthew chapter 24 verses 36 through 51 I'll be reading. This of course is a continuation of a much longer passage so much of today will be a little bit of review since it's been several weeks since we were together here in the Gospels together. So let's read from Matthew chapter 24 beginning in verse I'll be reading to the end of the chapter. Hear now the Word of God. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field, and one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken, and one will be left. Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alerts and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason, you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. And 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. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if the 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. Amen. Well, I pray again that the Lord would add his blessing to the reading of his word, and now the preaching of it as well. We're back in the synoptic survey. This is us looking at Matthew, Mark, and Luke together as one whole, as one account, so that we can have a theological look at the gospel accounts, so we can walk away and understand better who God is, better who Christ is, better who we are, who we once were as those who were dead in sin and who we are, having been redeemed by the blood of Christ. Now, if we're reading the gospel accounts and we see only biography of the life of Jesus, we miss the point. What we need to be seeing is what it's teaching us about all of these things. What does it teach us about the gospel? What does it teach us about salvation from our sin? What does it teach us about the holiness of God? What does it teach us about the love of God shown in Christ Jesus? Now, the passage that we're reading, it can seem a little bit harsh. In fact, both passages that I read this morning seem very harsh. The story of God's judgment coming on the wickedness of the world prior to the flood, and then Jesus referencing that very event here in this passage as He speaks of a judgment that was coming upon His people. So we're going to review some things. I want to make sure that we get back contextually into the flow of this passage before we really start diving in deep. I need you to remember the flow of Matthew's presentation here. Matthew has the fullest account of this discourse of the gospel writers. It's primarily found only in Matthew and Luke. And Matthew's account is far more full, though as we're gonna see on the chunk of the passage that I just read, Luke has a little bit more to say. But here's the thing that I really want you to take away as we walk through this. This is not referring to the final coming of Jesus. Too many people make that jump. They make that assumption that this is referring to the final coming and the final judgment. And hopefully, as we've been diligent to work our way through the scriptures, it's become clear why that's an erroneous interpretation. There's really nothing contextually to lead us to that conclusion, but one thing that I will attest to is that traditions are a hard thing to break. It's hard for us to walk away from things that we have maybe heard or been taught all of our lives. But one thing that you know about us here at this church is that we're about what does the Word of God say? Let us go back to the Word. Let's understand it in context. Let's do our diligence to rightly divide it, not simply to rely on something that is a popular teaching, particularly very popular for the last 100, 150 years. But I want you to remember that the entirety of Matthew's gospel is presenting Christ as King. He's presenting Jesus as the King of the Jews, and they are the people then that rejected their King. And even though they rejected Jesus, even though they rejected Christ, He established His kingdom anyway. He established His kingdom, yet with a new people, with a broader people. All the way from the triumphal entry in chapter 21 until now, the opposition to the Jewish leadership that Jesus is experiencing is just intensifying. We've been seeing that over and over and over again. So we read through the book of Matthew. how the Jewish leadership is butting heads with Jesus, who is their King, the promised Messiah. And they don't recognize Him, they don't receive Him, they oppose Him at every turn. And then on that final week of Jesus' life, as He rides into Jerusalem on the donkey in Matthew 21, things heat up to just a fever pitch. He drives people out of the temple again. And remember the imagery clear back from the Old Testament of the priest coming to a house to see if it was diseased and then coming back a second time and if the disease was still there that it was to be evacuated and then the house would be destroyed brick by brick by brick. All of that imagery is coming to fruition here in this passage. We saw that he drove everybody out of the temple. We saw that He cursed the fig tree as a picture of what was coming upon the people of Israel. You remember when He said, may no one ever eat any fruit from you again and how amazed the disciples were when they saw that it had withered from the roots up. He spoke in parables that indicted the Jews. They indicted the Jewish leadership because they had spurned God, because they had stoned the prophets, and even for the future crime of killing His Son, that which, from Jesus' perspective, that was only a few days away. But it was a crime that had yet to happen at that point in time, and yet He was indicting them for it, knowing that they were going to call for His crucifixion. And in those parables, if you remember, not only did He speak of bringing them to a wretched end by setting their city on fire, but He spoke of giving the kingdom over to a people bearing the fruits of it. Those, if you remember the parable of the wedding feast, who were gathered from the highways and from the byways. He was establishing his kingdom with a much broader reach, a much broader people. And then Jesus answered questions that were meant to trap him. Again, the opposition of the Jewish leadership, they're trying to trap him, showing him to be a false prophet. He answers those questions and then demonstrates that they don't even understand what they're talking about. They don't understand that David's son is David's Lord. What do we mean by that? Well, the descendant of David, Jesus, the one who would be king, is also David's Lord. What does that mean? Well, he is God. He is God in the flesh. So he is David's son by physical lineage and descendancy and he is David's Lord by who he is, by the fact that by nature he is God in the flesh. And then we got to chapter 23. Chapter 23, that seven-fold indictment against the leaders of Israel. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you do all of these things. You tie up burdens on men's shoulders and you won't lift a finger. You tithe mint and dill and cumin and all of these other things, but you neglect the weightier matters of the law. You wash the outside of a cup but inside it's dirty. You whitewash the tombs, but inside it's full of dead men's bones. Seven-fold indictment He gives against the people of Israel of how they have been poor shepherds of Israel. That they have not been leading the people of Israel in the way that they ought. That they've not been instructing them in the way that they should. They've not been instructing them in the truth. and then he accuses them of all of the righteous blood shed on earth as those whose fathers had killed the prophets. Now the dramatic conclusion to chapter 23 sets the stage for what we are seeing in Matthew 24. He tells the Pharisees Fill up then the measure of your fathers." And then he goes on as he weeps over Jerusalem and the opposition that the Pharisees have given to him through his entire ministry. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who stones the prophets and kills those who are sent to her. How often I've wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were not willing. You did not desire it. And what's the very next thing that he says? Behold, your house is being left to you desolate. It's done. It's over for you. It's finished. And then we pick up in chapter 24, and what's happening? The disciples are looking at the temple buildings, they're pointing them out to Jesus, looking at the grandeur and the beauty of these buildings, and what does Jesus say to them? The beginning of chapter 24, he says, I tell you the truth, there is not one of these buildings that will not be thrown down, one stone left upon another. This is all going to come crumbling down, tumbling down. And then they ask the question, and their questions. Tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? And all of 24 is given over to answering those questions. When's it going to happen and how are we going to know? And so he begins by giving them the signs. You see, we're very familiar with the sign, the wars and the rumors of wars. We hear that all the time. Wars and rumors of wars only make sense as we looked at in the context of a period of peace. When wars are happening all of the time, it's not much of a sign, is it? Which is why my entire life and the life of my parents and the life of my grandparents, everybody's been going, well, there's wars and rumors of wars. It must be happening. And that will continue. But in the context of first century Israel, what was known as the Pax Romana, which is the Roman era of peace, now all of a sudden wars and rumors of wars make sense. It is a sign. It actually means something because it's out of the ordinary. Because the Roman army had established a peace where these skirmishes and uprisings were almost unheard of. till the start of the Jewish wars. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. We looked at the scriptures to see all of this cosmic imagery that's used here in Matthew 24. That it shouldn't be taken literally. The sun being turned black and the moon being turned to blood. Which means that anybody who's trying to scare people with all of these ideas of, oh, it's coming close, look at blood moons and all of this other stuff, is completely ripping this out of its context. Why? Because the Old Testament uses that language over and over again. And it uses it very specifically to speak of the downfall of a kingdom, the downfall of a city. The downfall of an authority. We saw that over and over again. It's used of Egypt. It's used of Assyria. It's used of the nations in general. That same language. We're not looking for a literal fulfillment of the sun turning black and the moon turning to blood. Then it was capped off with Jesus' statement. What did He say? This is the thing that boggles me, why people will continue to try to interpret Matthew 24 as a future fulfillment. In verse 34, He says, "...truly I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away until all these things have taken place." Those are the words of Jesus. Truly I say to you, I'm telling you the absolute truth. This generation will certainly not pass away until all of these things have taken place. He lays the groundwork for the time when all of these things will be happening. Now we've looked at all of that. I don't want to rehash all of it again. But all of this points to a fulfillment of these things in the first century. 1st century Jerusalem. This is when God came and destroyed Jerusalem through the invading Roman armies. And we looked even at the record of history. We looked at the historians, primarily Josephus, but also Tacitus, and we saw all of these things that were being fulfilled in very striking detail. As it happened, the Christians who were in Judea, They took advantage of the short retreat of the Roman armies, if you remember. The Roman armies came and surrounded Jerusalem, and because of the death of Caesar, they pulled back for a time. There was the break, and the Christians left at that point in time. They got out of town. Just as Jesus said, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then those who are in Jerusalem, those who are in Judea, should flee to the mountains. And they did. And they were spared from the destruction that happened inside of Jerusalem. Now, some interpreters will still maintain... that while this is formally speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem, that it also foreshadows the final coming. Theoretically, that could be the case. I'm not gonna go to the mat and argue on that, but I will continue to ask the question, on what basis do we say that this foreshadows the final coming? What in the text points us there? As we're gonna see, the flow of the text will lead us to the final judgment. Lord willing, we'll be looking at that next week on the flow of the text and how that gets us there. But there's nothing here in the text that suggests this. And so our passage this morning begins with a very famous verse that's used when people begin discussing what's called biblical eschatology, discussing prophecy, discussing things of the end times. Matthew chapter 24 verse 36 begins our chapter this morning. What does Jesus say? But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father alone. He tells us that nobody knows the date that it's gonna happen. Nobody knows the exact day and nobody knows the exact hour. Let's not separate this out from its context. He has just been giving to his disciples all of the signs that they might know that the hour is near. So that then, when it happens, they will know. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies. When you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. Let those who are Judea flee to the mountains. So he's telling them... I'm not giving you the date, I'm not giving you the hour. Nobody knows that information except the father alone. However, I've just answered your question. When is this gonna happen? You don't get a date, but you're getting the signs. I'm telling you everything to look for. I'm telling you everything that when you see these things, you know that it is near, it is right at the door. Now some people will look at this as a transition passage where Jesus shifts from the discussion of 70 A.D. prior. So there are those who would say, well, he's talking about 70 A.D. all the way up to this point. And now he is all of a sudden shifting and talking about that which is out in the future. I don't see any contextual reason in my reading of the text. People will point to the pronouns and say that he's been talking with what's called the near demonstrative pronoun. When these things take place, when you see these things happen, and then saying, but of that day and hour, nobody knows. And people will see in that a transition. Again, I think, and Lord willing, we'll see this next week. that the real transition happens in Matthew chapter 25 verse 1 when he says, then, after these things, then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins. And he goes into that parable and he begins talking about the kingdom of heaven, which is established in Christ. He's speaking in really a chronological order. the end of the old covenant era with the destruction of the temple and the judgment coming upon the Jews and then he's speaking of the new covenant era and the kingdom will be compared to and he speaks of the kingdom and then that leads us into discussions of the final judgment. But here, verse 36, But of that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven or the Son of Man, but the Father alone. This is a call for the disciples to be vigilant, to pay attention to the signs. Because Jesus isn't giving them that day. Jesus isn't giving them a mark on their calendar. Look for this when you hit this, you know, when we hit this day on the calendar, now's the time. He says, no, I'm giving you all the signs. I'm giving you all the information you need, everything to look for. But the day and the hour, no one knows. In fact, the message of vigilance The message of paying attention, the message of being on the alert, and the message of being faithful during this time is what defines the remainder of chapter 24, the passage that we've read this morning. That's what Jesus is now getting at. He's given all of these signs. He's talked about... a lot about how it's going to be. He's talked about what they need to look for, when they need to leave. He's talked about the eagles gathering where the corpses are, how destructive this is going to be. The fact that it's going to be a tribulation such as has not happened from the beginning of time, no, nor shall ever be. He's talked about how terrible all of this is. And now he goes in to say, be vigilant. Watch. Pay attention. Be faithful. And that's where verse 36 starts us out. So I want to just look briefly at three points here. The historical comparisons, the shorter parable, and the longer parable. Those will be my major headings as we sort of work our way through the remainder of chapter 24 here. The historical comparisons. The shorter parable and the longer parable. Now all of these things are pointing to the very same thing. They're telling us that it was imperative that the disciples stay on the alert. They diligently look for the signs. And in so doing, they would be prepared. They would be prepared to flee and escape these terrible judgments that were coming upon Jerusalem. So let's look at the historical comparisons. Jesus begins by demonstrating that the day will be just like in the days of Noah. That's what He says here. He says, "...for the coming of the Son of Man," in verse 37, "...will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark. And they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so will the coming of the Son of Man be." Noah, we read in the Scripture, was a preacher of righteousness. He was telling people what God was saying, and he was telling people what was going to come. But what we read is that they weren't paying attention, they didn't care about it, and they didn't even realize it until it was too late, until it was already upon them, and it had already come. And Jesus draws that same comparison to the destruction of Jerusalem. Notice that we're still talking about judgment here. We're still talking in the flow of the context of 24, we're talking about judgment. It points to this coming judgment, just as the story of Noah demonstrates that there was the salvation of a remnant when God came in terrifying fury, so also will there be a remnant saved in the destruction of Jerusalem when God comes in such terrifying fury. And in fact, If we look at the parallel passage in the book of Luke, this is in chapter 17, verses 26-30, we'll see a little bit more of an expanded text. Luke 17, verses 26-30, and just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will also be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. So far, very much what we just read in Matthew. Now in verse 28. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot. They were eating, and they were drinking, and they were buying, and they were selling, they were planting, they were building. But on the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed." So he uses both of these historical comparisons in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot. But really the focus there in both instances is the same. They didn't really care about what God had to say. They were just going on about their business, regardless of what they were hearing from Lot, regardless of what they were hearing from Noah, regardless of what they knew from the testimony of creation. They didn't care, so the judgment came and swept them away. They didn't care until it was too late. But the truth there is the same. There was that remnant that was saved while the rest of the people were being judged. It calls us really right back to what we read earlier in Matthew when you see the abomination which causes desolation, standing in the holy place, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Luke says her desolation is near. Luke 21, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. When you see that, you know it's happening. It's going down. Get out of town. And that remnant then was saved. Those who believed the words of Christ, those who believed the words of Jesus, were spared. They were saved. Why? Because He told them how they could escape this terrible judgment. And they obeyed. And then they escaped the judgment. Those who are in Judea, this is again Luke 21 verse 21, but those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains and those who are in the midst of the city must leave. And those who are in the country must not enter the city because these are the days of vengeance so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. God is bringing His judgment upon a people who He has borne with for decade after decade and century after century. Who He continues, as He says, to hold out His arms outstretched to a rebellious and disobedient people. And yet they keep spurning Him. They keep sinning against Him. They keep breaking covenant with Him. They continue in their unfaithfulness over and over and over and over and over again. And God has demonstrated His tremendous patience as He doesn't bring them to such judgment for century after century after century after century. And then He sends His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. And what does John say? John says that He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. But, as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. Those who were born, not of the will of flesh or the will of blood, the will of man, but of God. He says very clearly that Christ came to His own and they didn't receive Him. And in fact, not only did they reject him, it wasn't a passive rejection. Listen, I don't want to hear it. We don't want it. Go your way. It was an active condemnation. They accused him of blasphemy. And then they called for his execution and his crucifixion. And that's what Jesus was pointing to in those parables, the parable of the landowner, the parable of the landowner that we read. In chapter 22, 22 or 21, the parable of the landowner where he rents it out to tenants and then when he sends his servants to collect of the fruit and the produce of the vineyard, they mistreat and stone and kill those who were sent. It's a picture of the prophets that were continually being sent to the people of Israel to bring them back. And then the parable says they finally, finally the landowner said, okay, I will send my son and respect my son. I'm going to send my son to them. And so he does. And then they hatched their plan because they realized that if they kill the son, then they can have all of it. They can do what they want. And therefore they kill the son of the landowner. But what was the promise at the end of that parable? Jesus asks. when the landowner returns, what's he going to do? He will bring those wretches to a wretched end. This is where all of this has led. the destruction of Jerusalem, the end of this Old Covenant people with all of its external rights and all of its external practices. Jesus has said very clearly even in John, He says, a day is coming and now is where you will not worship either in Jerusalem or in this mountain. Why? Because the Lord desires true worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. He was doing away with all of the trappings of the old covenants, and He's building a kingdom made of both Jews and Gentiles, a people who come to Him through faith. That's what's happening here. Again, I don't want to keep feeling like I'm just reiterating the same point, but the next parable in Matthew 22 is the parable of the wedding feast. Same thing. Hey, go tell my people that the feast is ready and it's time to come. And they said, no, we got better things to do. And so he sends them back out and says, no, no, go tell them that it's ready. And they mistreat those servants and they beat them. And they all of the same things in the previous parable. And so what does the master of the banquet, what does he do? He sends his servants back out to set their city on fire and then to go out to the highways and to the byways and to compel them to come in so that the wedding hall may be full. This is the establishment of the New Testament church. All right, I got a little bit off track. The days of Noah, the days of Lot. It will be much like that. That was the historical, those historical examples that were given. parallels that were given. And when Jesus judges the nation of Israel, He's telling the disciples it's going to be much the same. The remnant will be saved by fleeing to the mountains, while those who do not heed Jesus' warning will come under the fiery judgment of God. It was pictured in the examples of two people working and one being taken and another one left. Again, when people try to turn that into a secret rapture of the church, as if two people are out here working side by side and then all of a sudden one just disappears. Again, there's nothing contextually in there for us that way. We're reading about what's happening as the Roman armies are coming in and destroying the people. What he's speaking of when he speaks of those who are working together and one being taken and one being left is that there are those who are taken in death and that there are others who were left, meaning they were taken captive. They were left alive so that they might be taken captive. Could be understood the other way around. Those who were taken were taken captive and those who were left were the ones who were killed. They were left for dead. But we're speaking about this judgment that is coming upon the people that they had no idea that it was about to come. They weren't worried about it. They weren't paying attention. And they were taken by surprise. But I want you to notice also that there was an instruction here to the disciples not to be distracted with earthly things. It was the eating and the drinking, the buying, the selling, the planting, the building. Not that these things were wrong in and of themselves, but those were the things in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot that consumed the people's attention. That was the thing that consumed them. Those were the things that took all of their attention, all of their time, and in effect were their idols. So that they weren't listening to what God had to say. And if the disciples would not be caught off guard when the time came, then they were not to be obsessed with the cares of the world. But they must be faithfully executing the ministry that was given to them. And now I'm going to reiterate another point that I'm going to reiterate a couple more times this morning because This is hugely important for us to understand this correctly. We must understand that this is a text about what's happening to first century Jerusalem. This is not something that's being pushed out 2,000 years into the future. Jesus is talking still here about things that will soon take place. And you can notice right here in verses 42 and again in verse 44, He's telling the disciples to be on the alert. His audience, those who He's talking to, His disciples, He says, you must then be on the alert because He will come at a time that you do not expect. This is something that's happening in their time frame that He's telling them to be alert for because it will come at a time where they are not expecting it. And all of this, as I've said, is in an answer to their questions for when these things will take place. So let's look now at the shorter parable. The shorter parable. That was... I'm losing my place in my notes. That was the historical comparisons. Now, the shorter parable is verses 43 and 44, where Jesus says, But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason, you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. Again, this is not for us to be looking over our shoulder constantly wondering, okay, when's he coming? When's he coming? This was for the disciples in the first century to recognize when the things he had just talked about, the temple buildings being knocked down, when all of this was going to take place. And he says, you must be ready because the Son of Man is coming in an hour and you do not think that he will. But this verse 43 gives us this very short parable. If the head of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. In other words, he's taking something that is very common to everybody, even common to us this day, right? I've had my house and my shop and my truck all broken into at some point in time, stuff being stolen. Now, if the thief had bothered to give me a call first, and say, hey, I'm thinking about stopping by and grabbing your tools at this date and this time, guess what? Wouldn't have happened, right? That's what Jesus is saying. If you know what time the thief's coming, you won't allow it to happen. He says, so you be on the alert because I've given you the information that you need. I've told you what the signs are going to be. Therefore, be on the alert. This is one of the passages where we get our idea of Jesus coming like a thief in the night. It's from this here. But he's urging his disciples to be alert, to pay attention, and that way they won't be caught unaware when the time comes in the same way as a person being robbed in the night. Now, see this continued emphasis. Hopefully you're catching this over and over again. Be aware. Pay attention. That's the emphasis over and over and over again. And they tell us that Jesus expected his hearers to be able to rightly discern the signs, to know for certain when the time was upon them. And so the constant drumbeat today of be ready because it is near shows us that the signs people are looking for really aren't definitive. What do I mean by that? I mean that people who have taken this and cast it 2,000 years into the future, into our day, who are telling us constantly, be on the alert, be ready, because the time is near, and they've been saying that for generation upon generation upon generation upon generation, tells us that the signs that they're pointing to are not definitive. They're not clear enough for people to know. But Jesus says these signs were clear, that they would know. It would give them the time, again, to flee Jerusalem, to flee to the mountains. And then we have the longer parable, which really makes up the remainder of the chapter. Verses 44 through 51. For this reason you must also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. Who then? is the faithful, sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time. Blessed is the slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all of his possessions. But if the 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 the 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 he will cut him into pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." So now he gives this longer parable, this idea of the sensible slave, the wise slave, the faithful slave, who continues to do the work that he was tasked with. who continues faithfully in that ministry so that when this time comes and he's found doing what he was charged with, that he will be blessed. So there's this reinforcement of being ready, but it means not only to look for the sign of his coming, but also to be faithful, to be carrying out the ministry faithfully. That's what it meant for the disciples to be ready. Not just, okay, I'm sitting here and I'm watching. I see everything that's going on and I'm waiting for the right time. But rather, it was for them to continue ministering faithfully, to continue preaching the gospel as they were charged to do. It was for them to carry out those duties faithfully, even as they watched. So that when the time came, not only would they know, but then that they would be found to have been faithful and they would be blessed. The idea of shepherding the people of God faithfully, which is what they were charged to do, would set the disciples apart from those unfaithful shepherds of Israel, those who were bringing about the condemnation upon the city of Jerusalem and the nation of Israel as a whole. And Jesus pronounces blessing on the one who is ministering faithfully at the time, but those who are not will undergo these horrific judgments. And he uses the picture of cutting the guy to pieces and casting him into this place. There's weeping and gnashing of teeth. He uses that imagery. But there's no reason not to understand that he's speaking of undergoing those very judgments that are coming upon the people of Israel. This tribulation that is far greater than anything that has ever happened or ever will happen. He may be at that point also speaking, particularly because of the imagery of the weeping and the gnashing of teeth, speaking of their final judgment and the final destiny that will come upon those who are unfaithful, that they will be cast into hell. There's a distinction here between the Christians and the Jews. There's a distinction here between those who were looking for His coming in judgment, which were the Christians, and those who had rejected Him and were going to fall under that judgment, who were the Jews, particularly the Jewish leadership. It's not to say all Jews, because the vast majority of Christians in the first century were Jewish. They were Jewish by descent, but they recognized their Messiah. They trusted in Him. The disciples themselves were Jewish. And so, it's not simply to say that all Jews were condemned, but rather all who rejected their Messiah would fall under this judgment. And verse 48 gives us another hint. Another reason why we ought not interpret this as Jesus' final coming, as something that's thousands of years in the future. What did we see about the unfaithful slave here? He's one who assumes these events are far off. Right? That's verse 48, verse, I've lost my, I've lost my, Yeah, verse 48, but if the evil slave says in his heart, my master is not coming for a long time and then begins to do these things. You see that at the root of that is the assumption that all of this is talking about something that's far off and far away in contrast to what Jesus has been telling them. That it's close. That it's coming soon. That this generation will by no means pass away until all of these things have taken place. Everything about chapter 24, to continue hitting this point, screams that the disciples would soon experience it. In the next chapter, as I've said, Jesus changes His language and He starts talking about things that are far off. And He specifically says that. But here, he's talking about those things which will soon take place. He's telling the disciples, be ready and be found faithful. So now, as we prepare to wrap this up, I think there's a question that maybe we should ask and answer. Because I've been harping on the fact that this is about the disciples in first century Jerusalem. And if this is all about the first century, then what's our takeaway? That would be the question, right? If that's first century, then what do we take away from it? How ought we to grow? How ought we to learn? Well, first off, I want you to recognize that Jesus is faithful to His promises. And He does what He says He's going to do. We don't need a bunch of verbal and mental gymnastics to try to interpret first century prophecy into 21st century and beyond. We can take Jesus at His word when He says, this generation will by no means pass away until all these things have taken place. It ought also to remind us to be diligent to rightly divide the word and to spend our time seeking to understand its meaning. Not simply to take things for granted. I said earlier at the beginning that tradition is a hard thing to break and it absolutely is. We have traditions in our minds and in our understandings that will cause us to make interpretations of passages without us even thinking about it. We make an assumption we know what that means. I had a great conversation last week with somebody. It was actually about the book of Revelation, but it was a very similar conversation. The question was, are these things yet to take place or have they already taken place? Well, certainly they haven't taken place yet, I was told. And I said, okay, so what do we do with Revelation 1, verse 1, which says, this is the revelation concerning Jesus Christ about these things which must soon take place? The person took pause to think about that. Well, what does soon really mean? I said, well, I mean, you can't put a day or a time on it. It would make a mockery of people if I was to come and tell you, hey, I've got something. I've got something that's coming for you soon. Be ready and be prepared. And you guys are all dead and gone for hundreds of years before it ever happens. We must understand it in its context, right? But traditions are a hard thing to break, so let us renew then our commitment to understanding the scripture in its context, to rightly divide the word and spend our time seeking to understand its meaning. I actually asked this person, I said, if you hadn't been told all your life that these things are events that you're supposed to be looking forward to, is that what you would come away with? And I was told, I don't know, I haven't thought about that, let me reread it. What a wonderful thing for us to do, to be able to try to step away from those kinds of traditions in our heads. It ought also to stand, yeah, that's just a repetition of what I said. So not only should this be something for us to be reminded of how careful we need to be with the scriptures to try to understand it rightly, to understand it in its context. But the story of Noah and Sodom and now Jerusalem laid out before us should remind us of some very specific truths. There is a terrible judgment that is coming. One day, this judgment will come and it will fall on anybody who dies in their sin. Much like the judgment in Jerusalem, much like the judgment on Sodom, much like the judgment on the world in the days of Noah, there will come a judgment. God in the person of Christ will judge the living and the dead. All judgment is given over to Him and everyone will stand before the throne and everybody will be judged. And here's the thing, Your sin will be judged one way or the other, whether it is judged in you and you take upon the judgment and the wrath of God on yourself, or whether you plead the case of another, and whether you have an advocate standing before the throne saying, but I died in his place. I already took the condemnation. I already took the judgment that was due his sin or her sin, and therefore, Innocent. Righteous. There's a way of escape every bit as much as God provided it to the people of Jerusalem. Every bit as much as God provided it to Noah and his family. The way of escape is in Christ Jesus. It is in union with Him. It is in faith in Christ. In Luke chapter 17, again the parallel passage to what we read, we read very much this idea of escape. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out. And likewise, the one who is in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot's wife." And then in verse 33, what does he say? He says, whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it and whoever loses his life will preserve it. Now, he's using that in the context of first century Jerusalem and saying, hey, if you're up on the housetop and the time comes, you don't even go down to get your stuff. Don't worry about your stuff. Don't worry about your life. Get all of your household goods and all that other stuff. You need to go. The parallel to that in the grand scheme of things is this. The one who seeks to save his life will lose it and the one who loses his life will save it. The one who continues to focus on the things of earth and the things of this world, the one who loves their sin and the one who loves all of the trappings of earth and the temptations that bring us into dishonesty and pride and sexual sin and anger and all of these other things. The one who wants to live that way and to continue in that life will, in the end, lose his life. But the one who dies to sin and self will save his life. The one who casts himself upon Christ will save his life. That is really the paradox of the gospel is this, that it's only in giving up your life to Christ, it's only in dying, dying to sin and dying to self that you will ever find life. You want to know God? You want to find God? Jesus said there was one way. He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through Me. So I hold Him before you. So I hold before you life and death and beg you to choose life. It's life is found in the dying, the giving up of oneself and trusting in the sacrifice of Jesus for sin. The one who died in the place of sinners. That's what the cross was all about. The Jews that we've just been reading about, in just a few days after these events, we're going to be calling for His crucifixion or bringing it about. But God was doing something much bigger. He was doing something redemptive. What God was doing in Christ was punishing the innocent, Jesus Christ, on behalf of the guilty, so that those who are guilty could be made righteous. in Him. Those who cling to their life and refuse to be crucified with Christ will ultimately lose the very thing they desire to save. Christ calls you to completely give yourself to Him, to die to sin, and then He promises life more abundant. So as we meditate on the faithfulness of Christ, recognize that He is willing and able to save. That if you repent of your sin and if you place your trust in Him, then you will find Him to be a perfect Savior. Let's bow our heads and pray. Our God and Father, I thank you for this day and I thank you for the opportunity that we have to gather before you in worship and praise to sit under the teaching of your word. I pray that your Holy Spirit would continue to give us wisdom and insight as we study your word together. We ask that you would bless your church now that we would grow in our knowledge of you. And I pray, Father, for any here who does not know what it means to be united to Christ through faith, we pray now, and today would be the day of their salvation, and that you would show yourself merciful and gracious. For we have your promise that you are, and that you will be faithful to save all who call upon your name. Father, I thank You for this time. I thank You for this church. We ask that You would glorify Yourself in us and that we would decrease even as You increase. And we ask these things in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for His honor and glory. Amen.