Matthew 26 - The climax is near

26:1-5

Jesus knew what was going to happen and He is increasingly open with His disciple about what was about to happen. The religious leaders wanted to avoid this happening during the Passover festival, because they feared a riot happening. They wanted to be in control of events, but had no control at all.

26:6-9

Note that we are only two days away from the climax of Easter, but Jesus is still teaching. Simon was a well-known victim of leprosy who had been healed by Jesus. A woman came in with an alabaster jar of perfume. She poured this on the head of Jesus as He was reclining at the table. The disciples were indignant about this. It was just the Pharisees or priests who lacked understanding, His disciples did too, and we need to be aware that our understanding is often flawed. The disciples thought this was a waste of the use of the perfume.

26:10,11

The disciples were indignant, but Jesus was indignant with the disciples. “She has done a beautiful thing to me”. The woman had more spiritual understanding than the disciples, she may not have fully understood what she was doing, but she was motivated by the Holy Spirit. The disciples were motivated by the flesh. The word beautiful here has both an aesthetic and ethical meaning. 

“The poor you will always have with you will not always have me”. The first part comes from Deut 15:11. Jesus would soon be gone from this earth, they could help the poor at anytime. 

26:12,13

Jesus now turns to the positive and immediate meaning of the woman's actions. She was preparing Jesus’ body for burial. The disciples were indignant, but what the woman did is now spoken of in glowing terms throughout the world and time.  It is good to study the Bible in a theological sense, seeking to get a deep understanding. But a deep understanding does not come just by the intellect, it comes by the heart and spirit as well.

Matthew 25:31-46 - Sheep and goats

25:31-43

It is a fundamental theological fact that Jesus will return in glory and as judge. There will be a day of judgement, and all the nations will be before Him. There is no one who will escape the judgement. We are answerable to Christ. And there will be a separation, we will be split into sheep and goats as a shepherd would separate out a flock. Sheep were considered to be more valuable than goats.

At the judgement the king commends those on His right, the sheep, saying their inheritance is ready for them. We should also note that it was prepared “since the creation of the world”. God’s plan was made long, long ago, and has not changed. What are they commended for? Feeding the hungry, helping the stranger, clothing the naked, tending the sick and visiting those in prison. It might seem that they are earning salvation, but this is not the case. This is what those who are blessed by God do. It is also what we are to do in preparation for the return of the King.

The “righteous”. Jesus is emphasising the characteristics God wants to find in His faithful people. The righteous did not realise what they were doing. They certainly did not see it as a way of earning salvation! They just got on with being what they were meant to be. They were living kingdom life. They did not feed the hungry thinking “this will put me right with God”. Rather they just fed them because they were hungry. The King then tells them that whatever they did for these people, they did for the King.

Those on the left are now given the opposite verdict, and for the opposite reasons. They are to depart from Christ. We should note that it is Christ, the Son of Man, who is sitting in judgement here. It is the Son of Man who condemns them to the “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”. Severe judgement comes from Jesus.  Why? For they did not not feed or help him.

25:44-46

Like the righteous, they ask when did we not feed you? Whenever they did not help “the least of these”. We were all created by God, we belong to Him. In Christ there is an amazing identification with humanity by God. So when either individually or as a society we do things that harm humanity, we harm God. 

So the goats will go to eternal punishment, the righteous to eternal life. It is perhaps worth noting that there is a correspondence between eternal life and eternal punishment here which perhaps is relevant to the eternal punishment-conditional immortality debate. Now one does have to be careful with taking too much out of a parable. However, one thing that we can definitely say is that if a proponent of conditional immortality/annihilation seeks to lessen the prospect of “hell” then they are being unbiblical and are going against the clear teaching of Jesus.

Matthew 25: 14-30 - Parable of the talents

25:14

We now come to the parable of the bags of gold and this is all part of the same block of teaching. We have just been told to keep watch. What does this mean? The final two parables show quite clearly that this does not mean watching out for signs in the sky or in political/military changes. It means living our lives faithfully doing God’s work. In the parable we have a man entrusting management of his wealth to his servants. Back in Genesis God entrusted humanity with care of the earth. We were to be fruitful and multiply, and to have dominion over the earth (Gen 1:26-28).

25:15-30

So in this well known parable the master gives five bags of gold to one, two bags of gold to another, and one bag of gold to a third, “each according to his ability”. The first two put their money to work and double their money. The third person, who had only one bag, dug a hole in the ground and buried it. When the master returned he met with each of the servants. The first two got very good reports, and were told “ you have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things”. The third person received a very bad report. He is severely rebuked for not doing anything with the money and he is thrown out into the darkness, “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”.

So we know this parable very well, but let’s look at the lessons we can learn. First, remember that this part of the teaching on the last days or second coming of Christ. The overriding lesson is that we are to make use of the resources that God gives us to do His work. God expects a return! In terms of the second coming, the third man could be likened to those who waste all their time speculating about when or how He will return. 

Jesus often added we surprise twists to His parables. Here it is the man with only one bag of gold who gets it in the neck. We can always find excuses for not doing much, we only have one talent or whatever. This is no excuse. We were created to be fruitful, and were saved to be fruitful.

Sometimes people have very silly ideas of “heaven”. One thing that will not be happening is that we will not be sitting around all day doing nothing. We will be put in charge of many things. 

Finally, life here and now matters. We are to get on with serving God today. As an aside, perhaps those isiots who are against our drilling for oild and gas, should note thta it was the man who put wealth in the ground who was rebuked! Just a thought.

Matthew 25:1-13 - Ten virgins

25:1

In this chapter there are three of the most well known parables of Jesus. We should remember that all this teaching is occurring in the days between Palm Sunday and Easter. It is amazing that Jesus gave so much deep teaching in this most critical of weeks. “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like...”. When we think of the end times we tend to focus on the teaching of chapter 24, but what Jesus says in this chapter is part of the “end times” teaching, and at the end of chapter 24 He has said how good it will be for the servant whose master returns to find him serving faithfully. So these three parables show us something of what serving faithfully means.

25:2

So in this parable we have ten virgins. The virgins would be something like bridesmaids at a wedding. Now note that all of them were waiting for the bridegroom. Five were wise and five were foolish. Outwardly they were all the same, all waiting for the groom, but inwardly there was a great difference between them. All these three parables contain a severe warning, and the one here is that following the outward form of being a Christian is not enough, or can be misleading. Christianity is a matter of the heart, a matter of our deepest being.

25:3-5

At the end of chapter 24 we have been warned that Christ will return suddenly, at a time we do not expect. Here we are told to be ready for the long haul. The foolish versions had taken a lamp but no oil, it was like taking a torch with no spare batteries. The wise virgins had lamps and “spare batteries”, i.e. extra oil. So outwardly there would be no immediately obvious difference between the wise and foolish virgins. The groom was a long time in coming and they all fell asleep.

25:6-9

Though he was a long time in coming, he did eventually arrive, at midnight. Likewise, it has been two thousand years since Christ ascended, but one day He will return. All the virgins awoke and got their lamps ready, but the foolish virgins had a problem, they had no oil. So they asked the wise virgins for some of theirs. The wise virgins refused for there was not enough to share. Now we might think this was rather selfish of the wise virgins, but there are some things that we can only do for ourselves, and we cannot borrow from others. Too often when we talk about Jesus and Christianity it is all “too nice”, but if we look at the gospels (and the whole of the Bible) we see that there are many places where Jesus makes it clear that decisions and actions have consequences.

25:10-13

Realising they needed oil, the foolish virgins went off to try and get some (though how successful they would be at midnight is doubtful). However, the bridegroom arrived while they were away. The wise virgins went into the wedding banquet with the groom and the door was shut. When the foolish virgins got back they asked to be let in, but He replied “Truly, I tell you, I don’t know you”. We should take on board the severity and harshness of these words. If your picture of Jesus does not allow Him to say such things then your picture is a false picture. 

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour”. We are to be ready at all times. If we look back at the teaching in chapters 24 and 25 then we are to be ready for the long haul, and ready for Jesus coming back at any moment.

Matt 24:45-50 - Get on with the job

24:45,46

So what are we to do instead of musing about when Jesus will return? We are to get on with the tasks assigned to us. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant?” Notice “faithful and wise”. If we do what Jesus tells us we are being faithful to Him and we are acting wisely. There are no kudos in knowing the date or hour (which we cannot do anyway). It does not please Jesus, and it does not help us live our lives. Jesus has “put us in charge of the servants”. We all have responsibilities of various kinds. We need to get on with doing them! We are to love those around us, we are to preach and teach the gospel. We are to do the work of the kingdom. If we are serving God, then whenever He returns we will be ready. It will be good for us when He returns. The best preparation for tomorrow is to trust and serve Christ today.

24:47-50

The price of not following Jesus’ advice is really high. Jesus is not mincing His words here. The person who says “He is not coming back for a long time”. Such a person has forgotten that God sees all that we do anyway. Note that while utterly disobedient he is still referred to as a servant. We have a God given duty to be servants of the Lord. While obsessing about the day and hour is futile, so thinking that Jesus is never going to come back is a wrong attitude to have. Conversely, the good servant who does about his daily task of serving the Lord will be greatly rewarded.

Matthew 21:37-44 - As in the days of Noah

24:37-41

Earlier Jesus spoke about wars and rumours of wars, earthquakes and famines, and said that this does not signify the end, but they are the beginning of birth pangs (Matt 24:6-8). Now He tells us that people will be going about their normal daily lives just before Jesus returns. Note that this is the complete opposite of the approach taken by the prediction merchants. They look at the frequency of earthquakes or other events and claim that this means the return is soon. Jesus takes the opposite approach. In the days of Noah it was not as though people did not have the chance to learn, but they chose to ignore the message of Noah. 

24:42-44

“Therefore keep watch”. This does not mean keeping watch to see if we can work out when Jesus will return. The whole point is that we do not and cannot know when He will return. Moreover, we do not need to know when He will return. In fact we have the explicit statement that Jesus will return when we do not expect Him. So to spend our time trying to work out when He will return is the most idiotic, disobedient , utterly stupid thing to do.

Knowing the Father

Knowing the Father, a sermon preached at Gate Church International