THE TWO SERVANTS

Matthew’s twenty-fourth chapter contains the first half of Jesus’ Olivet Discourse and looks forward to the end of the age. “While he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately and said, ‘Tell us, when will these things happen? And what is the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’ ” (Matthew 24:3).

Jesus predicted that the last days would be difficult, and “the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other” (Matthew 24:30-31).

He’s coming. We must be prepared, because the “Master will come on a day he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know” (Matthew 24:50). The Parable of the Two Servants compares one who is prepared for Christ’s coming, and one who is not.

The first is “a faithful and wise servant, whom his master has put in charge of his household… Blessed is that servant whom the master finds doing his job when he comes” (Matthew 24:45-46).

On the contrary, a “wicked servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delayed,’ and starts to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with drunkards, that servant’s master will come on a day he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know” (Matthew 24:48-50).

The first servant is prepared and busy doing his master’s work. The second is lazy, selfish, and disobedient. Jesus promised… “Blessed is (the faithful) servant whom the master finds doing his job when he comes” (Matthew 24:46). But woe to the second. “That servant’s master will come on a day he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”(Matthew 24:51).

“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).