11. The Gospel of the Kingdom
Because lawlessness is increased, the love of many
will grow cold. But the one who endures
to the end, he shall be saved. And this
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole inhabited earth for a
witness to all nations, and then the end shall come.
-Matthew 24:12-14
An expert in the Law of Moses asked Jesus one day, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25) Eternity as understood in the Bible is not some time in the future. It is beyond time, awaiting us in the future, but also reaching to us from before the beginning. So it is written in Isaiah, “Even from eternity I am He” (Isaiah 43:13), while he says again, “You will not be put to shame or humiliated to all eternity” (Isaiah 45:17). Micah 5:2 says, “His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.”
Eternal life is not only past and future but present. Deuteronomy 33:27 says, “The eternal
God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” That refuge is now, so that the practical daily
wisdom of the Proverbs says, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the
righteous runs into it and is safe” (Proverbs
Jesus answered the legal expert by the parable of the
priest, the Levite and the Samaritan (Luke
But if we keep reading, Jesus answers the same question
again but quite differently - or so it seems (Luke
These two answers are one. If we sit down and listen to God, hearing will cause us to believe what He says, and what he says is to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.” Seeing the guy on the side of the road, we will hear and believe what God says about that, and so we will do something about it. But when we’re too busy with our important business, like fulfilling religious duties or protecting ourselves from danger, we don’t notice God’s business, and so we hurry by on the other side like the priest and the Levite. It looks a lot uglier with the priest and the Levite than with Martha, but both were busy rushing past the word of God to their duties.
One way used in the Bible to make one big point is to tell the same story several times in a slightly different way. For instance, the same three essentials are stated somewhat differently in Deuteronomy 10:12, Micah 6:8, and Philippians 3.3. In order to make the point that God seeks and rescues the lost, Jesus used a series of three parables that were really only one: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (Luke 15). And in Matthew 25, Jesus uses the same method – three parables that are really one - to make another big point: how to endure to the end and be saved.
When lawlessness increases, we’re likely to imagine that we need to save ourselves by thinking of how to protect and defend ourselves. In this way the love of many grows cold as most of us harden our hearts to do what we think we need to do – anything from passing by on the other side to dropping bombs on people that have done us no harm because we’re afraid that they might. In this we fulfill the proverb that says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is death.” In three parables that are really just one, Jesus explains how to endure to the end and be saved. This is the tight and narrow way that few find – not only at the end of the age, but every day since Jesus spoke these words.
The Days of Noah (Matthew 24:37-51)
For as in those days before the flood they were eating
and drinking, they were 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 away, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be . . . For this reason you
be ready too; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think.
- Matthew 24:38-44
The first mistake many make here is to read into this warning the idea that we’re supposed to be fervent for Jesus, not taking time off just to enjoy life. This arises directly from the notion that Jesus is calling people to call him, “Lord, Lord,” when in fact he warns us that this is what people do instead of doing his will, which is to hear his voice and do what he says. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Not trusting that we heard him right, Jesus tells us immediately just what he means by being ready, and how we fail to be (Matthew 24:45-51):
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 that evil slave says in his heart, “My master is not coming for a long time,” and shall begin to beat his fellow slaves and to eat and drink with drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect and at an hour which he does not know, and shall cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; weeping shall be there and the gnashing of teeth.
The first offense to strike the modern ear is the reference to slavery, and the second is the punishment. But unlike the original abolitionists, modern people have forgotten what’s wrong with slavery. The injustice of slavery is treating human beings, made in the image of God, as though they belong to anyone else. Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Since God’s image and superscription is stamped on people, they are to be given to God, not others, and they are degraded when you give them to anyone else.
We are demeaned when we become someone else’s property, but our service to God is to obey the truth. He accepts no other service. At least in other people, we all recognize that to be free from truth or to serve truth as a hired hand is corrupt and untrustworthy. We can be trusted only when we become the property of truth, when we serve the truth as a slave. Such people, the slaves of truth and the only ones who are truly free, are those that the world admires after it has killed them.
The slave who takes a vacation from the Truth (John 14:6) begins to beat his fellow servants with guilt-trips and religious garbage to make them do whatever he wants, when he is supposed to be teaching them to obey the truth. He wants those in his charge to make him look good, so they have to be beaten when they don’t. They need to be working hard for Jesus. To enjoy being the boss of his fellow servants is to eat and drink with drunkards, those who intoxicate themselves with their worldly importance at the expense of those that God has ordained them to care for. Jesus promises that they will reap the cruelty that they have sown.
In the days of Noah, the whole earth was corrupt and full of violence. People like these and those who approve their deeds made it that way. When God shut Noah into the ark, these are the ones that He was shutting out (Genesis 7:16). In the parables that follow, Jesus fills in the details.
The Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13)
Five virgins were wise and five virgins were foolish. When the bridegroom appeared, the wise brought oil for their lamps and the foolish didn’t bother. When the lamps of the foolish began going out, they wanted the wise to give them some of theirs, but the wise didn’t want to run out of oil too, so they sent the others away to the dealers to buy for themselves. While they were away the bridegroom appeared and the wise went in with him, and the door was shut. When the others returned, they said “Lord, Lord, open up for us.” But he answered, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.”
Our first reaction is that this is pretty harsh. Should they be shut out forever just because they were foolish, went and made it good, and were a little late getting back? Jesus clearly expects this protest, because after delivering the punch line - “Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour” - he goes on to explain further in another parable.
But before we go on, we should note several details. When the wise go in, the door is shut. In view of everything Jesus has said about Noah, we’re meant to remember how God shut the ark behind Noah and those with him. When he shuts the door on the foolish, the master says, “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.” As we see in Matthew 7:21-23, it is reasonable to shut them out. If God does not know them, there is one reason - they would not allow it, as the apostle John describes in 1 John 1:6-10. The master shut them out because they had persistently shut him out. There is an obvious way to make sure that God never says to you, “I never knew you.” Make sure it isn’t true. Tell Him the whole truth about yourself, early and often, as 1 John 1:6-10 advises – so that in fact He knows you.
Finally, who are the dealers from whom the foolish were told to buy oil? That becomes clear in the parables that follow.
The Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)
A man setting out on a long journey entrusts his wealth to his slaves to make it grow while he is away. To one he gives five talents, to another two, and to a third one talent, to each according to his ability. The first two go out and trade with them and double their money. The third hides his master’s money in the ground. When the master returns he praises the first two and tells them, “Enter into the joy of your master” – very much like the five wise virgins going in with the bridegroom to the wedding feast. The third says, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter” – explaining that for this reason he hid his master’s money in the ground, and here it is. The master tells the slave that since he knew that the master reaps where he didn’t sow and gathers where he didn’t scatter, he should have put his money out to the bankers, and the master would have gotten his own back with interest. He then takes the one talent from him and commands him to be cast out into the outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
Isn’t he indeed a hard master? But remember that God’s money bears God’s image and likeness – this money is human beings – and remember what these parables are explaining: the two kinds of overseers described in Matthew 24:45-51. Those are human beings that he is hiding in the ground, and he is doing so by beating them instead of teaching them to be free in God, for fear that he will lose them. He thinks his master is a hard man because he does not know his master, and has not permitted his master to know him, and so he himself is a hard man. Indeed the master does reap where he did not sow and gather where he did not scatter, but this does not mean he is a hard man. It means that he makes everything prosper for his faithful servants, who for such a master should not be afraid to trade aggressively because he will give success. For the slaves to trade with the talents or put them out to the bankers is the same as the virgins buying oil for their lamps from the dealers.
The Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46)
The King sits on the throne of his glory and all the nations are gathered before him. He separates them from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep and the goats, and he puts the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. To the sheep he says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me.”
And then the sheep wonder when they ever did any of these things.
The goats did none of these things, and they wonder when they didn’t. It’s always that way. The righteous wonder when they ever did anything right, and the wicked wonder when they ever did anything but the right thing.
One clear parallel to the ten virgins is that the sheep and the goats are both clean animals – not like swine – just as both the wise and foolish are virgins. This draws our attention to other points.
What separates the virgins is that the wise buy oil for their lamps. What separates the sheep and the goats? The shepherd doesn’t separate them arbitrarily. He doesn’t say to one, “You’re a sheep, come here! You’re a goat, go there!” A shepherd leads them where they will separate themselves, and each animal goes where it likes to graze.
The grazing ground that attracts the sheep is the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoners. The same ground repels the goats. So in this way the shepherd separates them. To serve these is the food of the sheep, just as Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34). And so we discover that the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoners are the dealers from whom the virgins were to buy their oil (Matthew 25:9). Jesus says rightly that when you come to these needy you come to Jesus, and if you do, you get fed. Those that the world has dismissed with contempt or condescended to as charity cases are the dealers who sell us the oil to light our path and admit us to the kingdom of God. They are those with whom we trade and multiply the master’s wealth, the bankers from whom God’s deposit in our lives earns interest.
I have done my best to set before us good and evil, life and death. The “unbeliever” reading this may well wonder at such a detailed biblical treatment of what seems quite obvious – and it should be. But as we know, many zealous “Christians” have no clue. To them, the hungry, thirsty, naked, and sick are lazy people who need to be closely watched lest they rip off the welfare system, while rich military contractors can be trusted to do the right thing as they steal billions. The strangers must be shut out with a border fence and pursued by the Border Patrol, and the prisoners must be locked up forever. There’s no money to do mercy, but there’s always another $100 million for a prison or another $100 billion for an invasion. Truly, when they see lawlessness, their love grows cold. They think they are keeping themselves and their families safe, when the gospel testifies that they are on the broad road to damnation.
What religious delusion has had the power to so completely blind the eyes of Americans to things this obvious, and of American Christians most of all, just as it was with the Pharisees in the days of the gospels? We turn to that next.