The Weekend Word

Matthew 24:36-51

No One Knows That Day and Hour

³⁶ “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

• How many times has someone predicted the day & time of the end?
• How many have tried to predict the timing of the rapture? Annual Revelation seminars with charts, graphs and much more.
• Who? William Miller 1847
• The Jehovah Witness leaders … several times.
• Harold Camping – up to just a couple of years ago.
• Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel 1981
• Hal Lindsey of ‘The Late Great Planet Earth fame
• Several had 1988 as the year (40 yrs = 1 generation from the establishment of the nation Israel) with the Rapture in 1981 (7 yrs before the 1988 end).
• Why is it in the face of Jesus’ very words people still want to crack the code?

³⁷ For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

• Jesus had previously taken us back to the days of Daniel – and now we travel with Jesus back to the days of Noah.
• They lived as if nothing ever was going to change or happen. There will be no judgment.
• People may not be aware of Daniel – but everyone knows the story of Noah.

³⁸ For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,

• Just going along in their day to day life. This is the same crowd that we witness to today.
• People will be going about their lives as if the end will not come – as if what Jesus says is not true. Then they will be caught unaware.

³⁹ and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

• The building of the ark was their object lesson – Noah preached and built for 120 years – and the people scoffed, just as they do today.
• “so what are you doing Noah?” or “Noah, what a waste of time and wood.”
• How about the false christs in Noah’s day? “Don’t listen to him folks, he is coming to you with a false word – listen to me.”

⁴⁰ Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left.

⁴¹ Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left.

• 37-41 are being told in support of no one knows the day or the hour. That you cannot calculate – look what happened – the flood came and swept them away in judgment before they knew what was happening.
• Here is another place where our rapture friends get it wrong – who is taken and who is left. The unbelievers are taken away in judgment and the believers are Left Behind.
• We see this throughout- the weeds were taken and burned and the wheat was left in the silos and barns.

⁴² Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

• You do not know and I will add this – you will not know.

⁴³ But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.

• You won’t know that, but I want you to know this.
• Stay awake

⁴⁴ Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

• Jesus’ number one theme in Matt 24 – be ready!
• He is coming when you when you don’t expect it.
• This is the reason for telling of Noah, the 2 men in the field, the 2 women grinding – and here the master of the house.
• No excuse at judgment day – “Lord, how was I to know you were coming back??”

⁴⁵ “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?

• What kind of person should you be? 2 Peter 3:11; “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness…”
• Faithful – Holy – Ready
• We live this life not because we have a harsh master, but because Jesus came, dies, provided me with baptism, his body and blood and has promised to come again.
• It is simple – it is this 2 fold shape of the Christian life and this is where our liturgy helps us. – when we pray the collect.
• Then, having received the Lord’s Supper, we might live in faith towards God and in fervent love towards one another.
• This is the life of the Christian – this is the daily life of the baptized. A daily repentance, when God repents us daily – we then live our life in Christ for the sake of the neighbor.

⁴⁶ Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.

• Who is that faithful and wise servant? The one who is ready.

⁴⁷ Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

⁴⁸ But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’

• Now the contrast back to the wicked servant – the one who is not and will not be ready.

⁴⁹ and begins to beat his fellow servantsand eats and drinks with drunkards,

⁵⁰ the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know

• There are consequences to not being faithful and not being ready.

⁵¹ and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

• What about the theology that everyone goes to heaven?
• What about those who do not believe? And those who are not expecting Jesus – what becomes of them? We are talking eternal separation from God.
• Faith in God / Love towards neighbor – fully expecting Christ to return at any time and not worrying “is it today?” Is this the hour?
• Rather, the true and faithful servant just lives this way — Ready.
• I am in Christ therefore I will just be about my task – Christ has it handled and I will commend all things into his hands.
• The Christian lives this way because they have heard the last day judgment verdict rendered at Calvary – “it is finished.”
• They have had that verdict revealed to them – “it is finished” in holy absolution – we hear it personalized and we hear it in the preaching of the gospel and in the Lord’s Supper.
• A Christian knows that they are good in Christ – forgiven – a certainty.