In
reference to the Lord's coming, we as the church have one job and only one job.
That job, contrary to the opinion of many teachers, is not figuring out
when. The job of the church and the individual disciple is to be ready. Not
only do we not know when Jesus will return, we cannot and are not capable of
knowing when He will return.
The
Father alone knows when the Son will return; a fact that He did not see fit to
reveal to the Son and certainly not to us. The parable the Lord tells is to illustrate
the proper attitude and is fairly simple and straightforward. We are to be
doing what we are supposed to be doing until the Lord returns. The doorkeeper
is especially singled out as the one who must not be caught sleeping while on
duty. His job is to keep watch, to be
ever ready, not to try to guess when the master will return, just be ready. We
see here that the single most important principle of apocalyptic and
eschatological literature is ethical and not chronological. Remove from your
minds every aspect of prediction of when the Lord will return. Instead spend that mental space and energy on
knowing how we shall live until He returns.
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