The Heart of Eschatology
Watch this blog on this week’s episode of The PRODCAST.
INTRODUCTION
For too long, Matthew 24 has been hijacked by futurists who have twisted Jesus’ words into an end-times roadmap, leading to endless speculation, newspaper eschatology, and false prophecies about the "rapture." But as I’ve shown in this series, Matthew 24 is not about the end of the world—it is about the end of an age. More specifically, it is about the fiery and definitive judgment that fell upon apostate Israel in AD 70.
The context is undeniable. Jesus had just finished His scathing rebuke of the Pharisees in Matthew 23, culminating in His pronouncement: “Behold, your house is being left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:38). As His disciples marveled at the majesty of the Temple, Jesus turned their admiration into horror: “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down” (Matthew 24:2).
That statement set the stage for everything that followed. The disciples, fully aware of what the destruction of the Temple would mean—the final collapse of the Old Covenant world—asked Him three critical questions:
When will these things happen? (The destruction of the Temple)
What will be the sign of Your coming? (Not His second coming at the end of time, but His coming in judgment)
And of the end of the age? (Not the end of the world, but the consummation of the Jewish age)
Jesus answered those questions directly, warning His disciples about the signs that would precede this judgment and making it abundantly clear that their generation would live to see it (Matthew 24:34).
The Signs of the End:
As I’ve shown throughout this series, every so-called “apocalyptic sign” in Matthew 24 fits precisely within the events leading up to AD 70:
False Christs (Matthew 24:5) – The first century saw a flood of false messiahs, from Theudas to Simon bar Giora.
Wars and Rumors of Wars (Matthew 24:6-7) – The Roman Empire was beginning to fracture, and the Jewish-Roman War (66-70 AD) was a direct fulfillment of this prophecy.
Famines and Earthquakes (Matthew 24:7) – The historical record from Tacitus, Suetonius, and Josephus confirms widespread natural disasters leading up to the fall of Jerusalem.
Persecution of the Saints (Matthew 24:9-10) – The Book of Acts records how the early Christians were beaten, imprisoned, and martyred—many at the hands of the Jews themselves.
The Gospel Preached to All Nations (Matthew 24:14) – Paul himself declared in Colossians 1:23 that the gospel had already gone out to “all creation under heaven” before AD 70.
Every single one of these signs occurred within the lifetime of the apostles, just as Jesus said they would.
The Abomination of Desolation
One of the most critical parts of this series was my exegesis of Matthew 24:15—
"Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place…"
Dispensationalists try to push this into the distant future, speaking of a rebuilt temple and a revived Jewish priesthood. But history proves otherwise. The “abomination of desolation” was the Roman armies marching into the holy city, desecrating the Temple, and massacring the people. Josephus’ firsthand account describes horrors beyond imagination—mothers eating their own children to survive, priests being butchered at the altar, and the Temple itself being set ablaze.
And what did Jesus tell His disciples to do? Run! Flee to the mountains! Don’t go back to grab a coat! Woe to pregnant women in those days!
This was a localized judgment. Why would Christians thousands of years later need to flee Judea? They wouldn’t. But the early Christians did, and according to historical records, they obeyed Jesus’ warning and escaped to Pella before the Roman siege destroyed everything.
This Generation Will Not Pass Away
Perhaps the most devastating blow to futurist readings of Matthew 24 comes in verse 34:
"Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.”
How much clearer could Jesus have been? The word generation (genea, γενεά) always refers to a group of people living at the same time. Jesus was speaking to His generation—the very people standing in front of Him. They would live to see everything He described. And they did.
This verse alone should have ended all debate. The only reason people still resist it is because it obliterates their eschatological assumptions.
The Son of Man Coming on the Clouds—Covenantal Judgment, Not a Physical Descent
Finally, we arrived at the climactic moment:
"Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory."
Futurists insist this refers to Christ’s Second Coming, but that completely ignores the Old Testament background of cloud-coming language. Throughout Scripture, Yahweh is described as “coming on the clouds” in judgment:
Isaiah 19:1 – Yahweh comes on a cloud to judge Egypt.
Psalm 18:9-12 – He descends with dark clouds and fire.
Daniel 7:13-14 – The Son of Man comes to the Ancient of Days, not down to earth.
Jesus wasn’t talking about a literal descent from the sky—He was talking about His enthronement as King and His vindication through judgment. The destruction of Jerusalem was the visible, historical sign that the Son of Man was reigning in heaven.
Futurism Refuted
This series has been a relentless demolition of modern eschatological confusion. I have proven—exegetically, historically, and theologically—that Matthew 24 is not about some future Great Tribulation. It is not about the end of time. It is not about a rebuilt Jewish Temple.
It is about the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, the destruction of the Old Covenant order, and the establishment of Christ’s unshakable Kingdom.
And here’s the best part: that Kingdom is not stagnating. It is advancing. While Matthew 24 has been fulfilled, the victory of Christ is just beginning. His reign is not in retreat. The nations are not slipping away into darkness. His Kingdom is growing, expanding, and filling the earth.
Dispensationalists want you to believe that the world is getting worse. But Jesus tells a different story. The destruction of Jerusalem was not the beginning of the end—it was the end of the beginning. Now, His dominion will stretch from sea to sea. The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Matthew 24 is fulfilled. Christ’s Kingdom is only getting started. And this is why I am so hard on the defeatist mindset, because it is like Rohan retreating to Helm’s Deep. Let me explain.
EVANGELISM’S HELM’S DEEP
In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf saw the danger long before others had a clue. Sauron, the once-vanquished fiend of Mordor, had spent thousands of years rebuilding his power, reforming his body to rise again. As his shadow spread like kudzu across Mirkwood, Gandalf pleaded with the White Council to strike while the enemy was still vulnerable. He urged them to act swiftly, to cut down the darkness before it could grow. But his warning was dismissed—because a treacherous little fox named Saruman had wormed his way into Middle-earth’s henhouse.
Had they listened, the war of the ring would never have happened—at least, not with such devastation. But they did nothing. And doing nothing in the face of rising evil almost always makes things worse.
This brings us to the very heart of biblical eschatology.
Too many evangelicals today treat the state of the world as a call to retreat, as if we are huddled in some theological Helm’s Deep, hoping to survive until Jesus comes riding down the hills like Gandalf to rescue us.. Until then, we are to bury our heads like a herd of ostriches, wet their pants like terrified turtles, and blend into the culture like chameleons waiting for the danger to pass. Some act as if the entire Christian mission is just enduring the storm, waiting for the rapture, and keeping their faith as private as possible to avoid persecution. But Jesus calls us to something very different.
As history unfolds—no matter how long that unfolding takes—our duty is not to retreat but to occupy until He comes(Luke 19:13). We are not bystanders in the Kingdom of Christ. We are its laborers, its stewards, and its heralds. And in the last passage of Matthew 24, Jesus doesn’t describe a people cowering in fear. He describes two types of slaves—one faithful and one wicked.
One is found working when the Master returns. The other is lazy, complacent, and corrupt.
The question is, which one will you be?
That is precisely what our text today addresses, saying this:
“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 begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; the Master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect Him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” — Matthew 24:45-51
Now that we have explored everything Jesus promised would happen within a single generation, now Jesus closes out Matthew 24, talking about the 7 attitudes He wanted His disciples to have, when it comes to eschatology. Lets begin with
ATTITUDE 1: BE FAITHFUL WHERE YOU ARE AT
Jesus begins this passage with a piercing question:
“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?” (Matthew 24:45)
This was not some vague, abstract idea about faithfulness. It was a direct challenge to the disciples standing in front of Him. Jesus was calling them to faithfulness in a specific moment of history—a moment that would demand everything from them.
They were about to endure the most tumultuous 40 years the world had ever seen. The temple—the beating heart of Jewish religious life—was going to be destroyed. The Old Covenant system, which had stood for centuries, was going to be torn down, never to return. The Jewish world was going to be engulfed in war, their people scattered, slaughtered, or enslaved, and the religious order they had known since birth would be wiped off the face of the earth.
And what did Jesus tell them? Be faithful. Do not waver. Do not compromise. Work and build, because the storm is coming. For the disciples, faithfulness meant surviving until that day of judgment. It meant holding the line, spreading the Gospel, preparing the Church, and enduring until Jesus returned in judgment upon Jerusalem in AD 70—just as He said He would.
And He did. The abomination of desolation already came. The wars and rumors of wars? They already happened. The earthquakes, famines, persecutions, and destruction? All fulfilled. Jesus returned in judgment upon apostate Israel, and the Old Covenant world came to its final end.
This is not our mission today. We are not laboring to see another judgment like AD 70. We are not waiting for some future abomination, another temple to be destroyed, or another catastrophic upheaval of human history. That was their reality. That was their mission.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US
For us, faithfulness looks different. We do not labor to survive the end of an age. We labor to see Christ’s Kingdom thrive in history. We are not waiting for another great collapse—we are working for an unstoppable expansion.
Yet too many Christians today miss this. Instead of working to advance the Kingdom, they spend their time chasing end-times speculation—as if Matthew 24 is about us instead of them.
They obsess over world events, thinking every war, every disaster, and every corrupt politician is part of some new eschatological countdown.
They fixate on blood moons and global conspiracies, convinced that history must spiral into chaos before Christ can accomplish His mission.
They live in fear and passivity, acting as if the Great Commission is nothing more than waiting for the world to burn.
That is not the call of faithfulness. Jesus never said, “Blessed is the slave who correctly predicts the next global crisis.” He said:
“Blessed is that slave whom his Master finds so doing when He comes.” (Matthew 24:46)
Not watching. Not speculating. Not retreating. Working. Building. Advancing.
WHAT FAITHFULNESS LOOKS LIKE
Faithfulness is not passivity. It is not sitting around waiting for another judgment to fall. That judgment already came. Our job is to build—to spread the Gospel, to disciple the nations, and to establish the reign of Christ in every corner of the earth.
This world is not headed for inevitable destruction. It is headed for transformation. Christ is not retreating. His Kingdom is not shrinking. He is reigning now (Matthew 28:18), and we have been called to expand His dominion until the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).
So what does faithfulness look like?
It looks like obedience to Christ – Learning to obey everything He commanded (Matthew 28:19).
It looks like loving God with all our being – Heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matthew 22:37-38).
It looks like loving our neighbors – Caring for them with the same intensity we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39).
It looks like proclaiming His reign – Announcing that Christ is King now (Acts 1:8).
It looks like storming the gates of Hell – Knowing that they will not prevail against His advancing Church (Matthew 16:18).
This is the charge. Not speculation. Not retreat. Not fear. The timing of His return iat the end of human history does not matter. What matters is whether He will find us faithful when He comes. Or will we be found hiding, waiting, or wasting our time on distractions? The choice is ours.
ATTITUDE 2: SERVE SENSIBLY WHILE YOU WAIT
Jesus continues His charge in Matthew 24 by not only asking who is faithful but who is sensible. Faithfulness without sensibility is reckless. Sensibility without faithfulness is cowardice. Jesus calls for both. But what did this mean for the original disciples?
For the first-century Church, serving sensibly was a matter of survival. The disciples were not in positions of earthly power. They were a marginalized, persecuted minority, despised by the Jewish elite and hunted by Rome. They had no military, no legal protection, no political representation—nothing to shield them from the violent hostility of their world. They were, quite literally, slaves in a society that viewed them as a threat to order. The word Jesus used—δοῦλος (doulos), meaning bondservant or slave—was not incidental. It perfectly described their condition between AD 30-70. The world saw them as nobodies. Rome crushed anyone who dared challenge its rule, and the Jewish authorities considered them heretics worthy of death.
And yet, these “slaves” were entrusted with the most important mission in human history: to preserve the true faith, spread the Gospel, and prepare for the greatest judgment the world had ever seen. They could not afford to be foolish. They had to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16). They had to discern the right battles to fight and the right moment to act. They had to establish a Church that would not only survive the coming catastrophe of AD 70 but thrive beyond it.
When Jesus said that a faithful and sensible slave gives food at the proper time, He was not just speaking metaphorically about spiritual nourishment. He was calling them to timely, strategic action. They were not to be reactionary, impulsive, or careless. They were to build wisely, choosing their moments, preparing for hardship, and structuring the early Church so that it could withstand persecution. Jesus had warned them: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains” (Luke 21:20-21). And that is exactly what they did. When the Roman legions advanced, the faithful and sensible Christians did not hesitate. They left everything behind and fled to Pella. They did not perish in the slaughter of Jerusalem because they had served sensibly. They had prepared. They had acted with wisdom.
That was their mission. But ours is different.
We are not waiting for AD 70. That judgment has already happened. The temple is gone. The Old Covenant is finished. The Kingdom of Christ is now expanding, not collapsing. That means we are not called to serve sensibly in a time of survival. We are called to serve sensibly in a time of dominion. The early Church was running on the fumes of the old world, clinging to the promise of a better covenant, building an ark before the flood of judgment came. We are different. They hid in homes; we plant churches. They ran from cities; we disciple nations. They braced for war; we prepare for victory. Their sensibility meant avoiding destruction. Ours means building civilization.
But many Christians today are anything but sensible. Some act as if common sense is beneath them. They take on foolish battles that do nothing to advance the Kingdom. They waste time chasing conspiracy theories instead of building institutions. They live in isolation, refusing to engage in real culture-making work. Others act as if prudence is the same as fear. They compromise when they should stand firm. They go silent when they should speak boldly. They abandon the public square because it’s “too hostile.” Neither of these is true, biblical sensibility.
If we are to be faithful and sensible slaves, then we must understand what sensible service looks like. Sensible service prioritizes what actually matters. Sensible service knows when to fight and when to build. Sensible service is not reactionary—it is strategic. If we are senseless, we will squander our energy, our witness, and our opportunities.
We must know our mission. The disciples’ mission was survival and preparation. Our mission is conquest. That means we don’t waste time with foolish distractions. We don’t pour energy into losing battles that don’t advance the Kingdom. We don’t spend hours on online outrage instead of real-world impact. We must be focused. We have work to do. We must know our time. The disciples knew their time—they had a short window before judgment fell. Our time is different. We are not racing toward destruction—we are building toward victory. That means we don’t act like the world is ending tomorrow. We don’t live like defeat is inevitable. We work toward generational impact—our children and grandchildren must inherit a stronger Kingdom, not a weaker one.
And finally, we must know our role. A faithful and sensible slave does what the Master commanded. So what has Christ commanded us? To disciple nations—not just individuals. To take dominion—not retreat into Christian ghettos. To build a world that reflects His righteousness—not complain about how bad things are.
The Church must wake up. We are not in a holding pattern. We are not just waiting for Jesus to return. We are in the middle of the greatest expansion in human history—His Kingdom is growing. His reign is increasing. His enemies are falling. And what are we doing? Are we serving with sensibility? Are we wasting time on meaningless debates? Are we building institutions that will last for generations? The sensible slave understands the moment he is in. The foolish slave either wastes his time or abandons his post.
So which will you be?
ATTITUDE 3: TALK LIKE HE OWNS THE PLACE
“Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his Master put in charge of His household
When Jesus spoke to His disciples about the faithful and sensible slave being put in charge of His household, He wasn’t talking about a mere spiritual abstraction. He was talking about a real-world transfer of authority. The household in view was not a small, isolated community—it was the entire world that He was about to purchase through His death and resurrection. Jesus was not preparing His disciples to be caretakers of some invisible, irrelevant kingdom that exists only in the heart. He was giving them dominion.
The disciples understood this in a way that modern Christians often miss. Jesus had been speaking for years about the coming shift in power—that the kingdom of God was at hand (Mark 1:15), that He was going to receive all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18), and that the kingdoms of this world would become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ (Revelation 11:15). The cross was not merely a payment for sin; it was a legal transaction in which Christ claimed ownership of the world. The resurrection was His vindication as the true King, and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was His eviction of the last remnants of the Old Covenant order. The squatter—Satan—had been cast out. The thief had been bound. The usurper had been dethroned.
And just like a man who buys a dilapidated house, Jesus gained ownership of the world when He rose from the dead. He cast out the original squatter, and now, through His Church, He is renovating the world to conform to His vision. What is that vision? That the world would become Eden once more—a place filled with people who have been fruitful and multiplied, a land overflowing with righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Unlike the first Adam, Christ will accomplish everything He set out to do. This is why He told His disciples that He was putting them over everything—because they were now His appointed rulers in His newly conquered domain.
This is the weight of what Jesus was saying in Matthew 24:45. He wasn’t just telling His disciples to hold on until the world ends. He was commissioning them as the first stewards of His Kingdom. He was putting them in charge of the Household of God—not a temple in Jerusalem, but a global empire of righteousness that would spread to the ends of the earth.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US
If everything belongs to Christ, and He has put us in charge of what He owns, why do we act like we’re powerless? Why do we talk like the world is in charge when it belongs to our King?
If your boss puts you over a project, wouldn’t you take ownership of it until it’s handed back to him? If a friend asks you to watch over his house while he’s away, would you let squatters turn it into a crack den? If you were appointed as the police chief of your city, would you sit back and let criminals run wild in the streets? Of course not. So why do we, the people Christ has put in charge, act like we have no say in what happens in His world? That is neither faithful nor sensible.
The greatest failure of modern Christianity is not that we lack numbers, money, or influence. It’s that we lack boldness. We talk like this world is not ours, like we’re just renting space, like we have no right to govern in the name of our King. But Jesus owns the place. He is not a guest in His own world, and neither are we. We are co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), His royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9), and His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). We are not here to ask permission to exist. We are here to establish the rule of Christ in every sphere of life.
And yet, many Christians today have bought into the lie that we are losing. They act like we’re supposed to stay in our lane, keep our faith private, and just hope that Jesus comes back soon to fix everything. But that is not the mission. That is not how stewards of a kingdom talk. That is how defeated men talk.
A steward who speaks with authority does not say, “Well, we can’t impose our beliefs on the world.” No, he says, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1).
A steward who speaks with authority does not say, “Well, I don’t want to offend anyone.” No, he says, “Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11).
A steward who speaks with authority does not say, “We just have to accept that the world is getting darker.” No, he says, “The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).
We are not beggars in the house of Christ. We are His appointed stewards, charged with bringing every inch of His dominion into obedience to Him. We should speak like it, act like it, and command the world like it.
This means we must abandon the soft, apologetic, permission-seeking attitude that has infected the Church for too long. The world does not need us to whisper about Jesus as if we’re embarrassed of Him. It needs us to declare His Lordship with authority. It needs us to walk into every industry, every institution, every nation, and every sphere of life knowing that we belong there—because Christ already owns it all.
The time for mush-mouthed evangelicalism is over. This world lies in rebellion against its King. It is trespassing on His land, using His resources, breathing His air, and rejecting His law. Our job is to warn them, instruct them, and call them to submit to the rightful King before He returns in final judgment. If they refuse, they will be left weeping and gnashing their teeth. That is not our problem. Our problem is whether we will be found faithful when the Master comes to inspect His household.
So, Church, talk like, walk like, and act like He owns the place. Because He does.
ATTITUDE 4: WE FEED THEM JESUS
“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?
When Jesus described the faithful and sensible slave as the one who feeds the household at the proper time, He was not just giving a generic call to charity or hospitality. He was issuing a divine commission to His disciples—a charge that would define the mission of the early Church. They were to take the bread of life and feed it to a starving world. And in their time, the ones who were starving the most were the lost sheep of Israel.
The first-century Jews were clinging to a dead system. The Mosaic Covenant, the temple sacrifices, the Levitical priesthood—everything they had known for generations was on the brink of collapse. But they did not see it. They trusted in the flesh of bulls and the blood of goats (Hebrews 10:4), convinced that the old sacrifices could still atone for their sins. They refused to believe that the Lamb of God had already come, that the final Passover had been offered, and that the bread they truly needed was not found in the temple courts, but in Christ alone.
This is why Jesus had already made it clear to them:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.” (John 6:53)
The apostles understood the scandal of this statement. They knew it was not about cannibalism—it was covenantal. It was about abandoning the old system and embracing the new and better covenant. It was about walking away from the temple, from the festivals, from the obsolete sacrifices, and coming to the true altar—the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
And so, as they went into every street, every synagogue, every village, they proclaimed a message that shook the Jewish world to its core:
"Leave your temple. Leave your priesthood. Leave the sinking ship of apostate Israel. The bread you need is not in the holy place of Jerusalem. It is in Jesus Christ. If you do not eat of Him, you will die in your sins."
This was the food they were called to serve. Not mere material provisions, but the Gospel itself. They were not called to be mere distributors of earthly bread. They were ambassadors of a feast far greater—the wedding supper of the Lamb.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US
The command to feed the household did not end with the apostles. It continues with us. But here’s the question: who is the household?
In the first century, the household primarily referred to Israel—God’s covenant people under the Old Testament system. But now, with the Old Covenant fully and finally dismantled, the household has expanded. The household is the entire world. And the food we bring them is Christ Himself.
The world is starving—not for new philosophies, not for better political theories, not for empty religious rituals. The world is starving for the bread of heaven. And yet, what does the modern Church do? It offers them scraps instead of a feast.
Many churches today have abandoned their role as stewards of Christ’s table. Instead of calling people to eat and drink from the Lord, they give them empty calories. They preach self-help sermons instead of the Word. They offer moralism instead of the Gospel. They hand out entertainment instead of the sacraments.
But what did Jesus command?
“Take, eat; this is My body.” (Matthew 26:26)
This is what the Church is meant to give to the nations—not worldly wisdom, not gimmicks, not therapeutic deism, but the real presence of Christ. The faithful slave feeds the world Jesus.
And how do we do that? Through Word and Sacrament.
First, through the preached Word. The Gospel must be proclaimed. Nations do not eat Christ unless they first hear Him (Romans 10:14). That is why the Church is commanded to baptize and teach all that Christ has commanded (Matthew 28:19-20). Every pulpit, every household, every street corner is to be filled with the call to come and eat the true bread.
Second, through the Lord’s Table. The world does not just need to hear about Christ—they need to feast on Him. The Lord’s Supper is not an afterthought. It is the meal of the Kingdom. It is the covenant renewal where Christ feeds His people with Himself, strengthening them to advance His reign.
That is why all nations must come to the Table. This is the great vision of Revelation 22:
“On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Revelation 22:2)
This is not a picture of some distant paradise in heaven. This is the New Covenant reality, unfolding in history. The nations are being healed right now—not by politics, not by secular ideologies, but by eating from the tree of life, which is Christ Himself.
THE CALL TO THE CHURCH
If Jesus has put His Church over the household to feed it, then we must take this responsibility seriously. We do not have the right to serve anything other than what He has commanded. We must banish cheap substitutes and serve Christ alone.
The world is hungry. The nations are waiting. The Master has commanded us to feed them Jesus. The only question is: will we do it?
ATTITUDE 5: THE BLESSING OF SLAVERY
“Blessed is that slave whom his Master finds so doing when He comes.”
Jesus declares, “Blessed is that slave whom his Master finds so doing when He comes” (Matthew 24:46). That word—blessed—means happy, fortunate, deeply satisfied. And yet, this blessing is directly tied to slavery. In a world that recoils at the very notion of servitude, Jesus proclaims that true happiness is found in being His slave. This was not an empty sentiment for the disciples. It was the bedrock of their joy, even as they marched into the most brutal persecution in history.
For the first-century believers, this was not theory—it was reality. The Old Covenant was collapsing, the world as they knew it was crumbling, and they were being called to suffer the wrath of Rome and the hatred of their own people. And yet, they were blessed. Infinitely more blessed than the richest high priest under the Mosaic economy, more blessed than the kings of Israel who had ruled for centuries, more blessed than all the rulers and elites who sat in their palaces untouched by suffering. Why? Because they had been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Christ.
This is why they sang in prison (Acts 16:25). This is why they rejoiced after being flogged (Acts 5:41). This is why they considered it pure joy when they faced trials of various kinds (James 1:2). Because being a slave in the Kingdom of Jesus is better than being a king in the kingdom of darkness. The disciples understood this. They had seen it with their own eyes. They had watched as the Pharisees clung to their decaying power, as the rulers of Israel rejected their Messiah, as the Old World collapsed beneath its own corruption. They knew they had been set free. They had a better Master, a better inheritance, and a better future.
And because of this, they worked. They didn’t retreat. They didn’t mope. They didn’t sit around lamenting the sorry state of the world. They labored, knowing that their Master had given them a mission—to establish His reign, to disciple the nations, to be found working when He returned in judgment upon Jerusalem. And they did. When Christ came in AD 70, bringing an end to the Old Covenant world, the faithful slaves were vindicated.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US
And yet, today, the Church has lost this mindset. Instead of being found working, many Christians are standing around, passive, fearful, and distracted. The modern Church looks like a construction site where only two men are holding shovels while everyone else watches. Instead of a Kingdom on offense, we have pastors who apologize for preaching the truth, Christians who act as if they’re trespassing in their own culture, and churches that function more like therapy centers than battle stations. This is not the attitude of a faithful slave. This is the attitude of an unfaithful coward.
Jesus says that the faithful slave will be found working when He comes. That means the Church must stop standing around, waiting for permission to act. The time for passivity is over. If we truly believe that slavery to Christ is a blessing, then we must live as His slaves—working, obeying, building, and advancing His Kingdom with urgency.
This means rejecting lazy Christianity—the kind that shows up to church for an hour on Sunday and then lives the rest of the week as if Christ isn’t King. It means rejecting cowardly Christianity—the kind that avoids confrontation, compromises truth, and bows to the cultural gods of the age. And it means rejecting defeatist Christianity—the kind that spends more time whining about the state of the world than actually doing anything to change it.
A faithful slave is not caught off guard when his Master comes to inspect His household. He is not found wasting time, indulging in distractions, or sitting on his hands. He is found working—laboring with joy, knowing that his efforts are not in vain.
This is the blessing of slavery to Christ. It is the joy of knowing that your work matters. It is the privilege of serving the One whose Kingdom will never end. It is the assurance that no matter how much you suffer, no matter how much the world rages against you, no matter how costly the mission is—your reward is certain.
The Master will return to inspect His household. Some slaves will be found wasting time, and they will be cast out with the hypocrites. Others will be found working, faithful, sensible, and unshakable.
Which one will you be?
ATTITUDE 6: THE CHURCH AS STEWARD OF THE EARTH
Jesus concludes this section of Matthew 24 with an extraordinary promise:
“Truly I say to you that He will put him in charge of all His possessions.” (Matthew 24:47)
This was not a vague metaphor. This was a royal decree. The faithful slave—the one who is found doing the work of the Master—will be given dominion over everything the Master owns. And what does the Master own? The entire world.
The disciples, steeped in the Scriptures, would have understood the weight of this statement. Jesus was not speaking in isolation—He was fulfilling the prophecy of Daniel 7, where the Son of Man ascends to the Ancient of Days and is given a kingdom, dominion, and glory. And what happens next?
“Then the sovereignty, the dominion, and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One.” (Daniel 7:27)
Jesus was telling them in unmistakable terms: You will reign with Me. The entire world, once ruled by pagan kings, would be handed over to the saints of God.
This was not an empty comfort. It was a commission. The disciples were about to witness the end of an age, the collapse of the Old Covenant, and the destruction of the temple. But this was not a tragedy—it was a transfer of power. The Jews had forfeited their stewardship of the world, and now the Church was being appointed as the new and rightful rulers under Christ.
The apostles understood this perfectly. That is why they spoke like kings, acted with confidence, and labored with urgency. Paul told the Corinthians:
“Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?” (1 Corinthians 6:2)
The world belongs to Christ, and He has put His Church in charge of bringing it under His rule. That was the mission of the first-century Church, and they embraced it without hesitation.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US
The stewardship of the earth did not end with the apostles. If the Church was given authority over all Christ’s possessions, and Christ possesses everything, then we are stewards of the entire world.
And yet, modern Christianity has forgotten this. Too many believers act as if we are squatters in Satan’s territory, as if the world still belongs to the devil, as if we are waiting for Jesus to come back and finally take control. But that is a lie.
The world is not Satan’s. It is Christ’s. And He has put us in charge of it.
That means we are not waiting for a future Kingdom. We are living in it, expanding it, and enforcing it now. Christ’s government is already here, and the Church is the administration of that government. That means we have a divine mandate to disciple the nations, establish godly justice, tear down wicked institutions, build righteous ones, and plant the flag of Christ’s dominion in every corner of the world.
This is not optional. This is not something we can sit out of. This is the reason we exist.
THE WEAPONS OF OUR WARFARE
But how do we exercise dominion? Not through military conquest, not through earthly tyranny, but through spiritual warfare, cultural transformation, and gospel proclamation. The Church’s weapons are not swords and spears—they are truth, righteousness, and unshakable obedience to Christ.
“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”(2 Corinthians 10:4)
These are our weapons:
The Word of God – The sword of the Spirit that tears down lies and establishes truth (Ephesians 6:17).
Preaching the Gospel – The unstoppable force that brings men and nations into submission to Christ (Romans 1:16).
Worship & Prayer – The acts that overthrow demonic strongholds and shake the foundations of the world (Acts 16:25-26).
Christian Families & Generational Faithfulness – The strategy that ensures long-term dominion, as covenant households raise up godly seed to inherit the land (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).
Christian Education & Discipleship – The command to take every thought captive and replace the lies of the world with the wisdom of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Righteous Justice & Civic Engagement – The duty to establish laws, institutions, and governments that reflect God’s righteousness (Proverbs 14:34).
Every time a faithful pastor preaches the gospel, he is waging war. Every time a Christian parent trains up a child in the Lord, he is securing the future of Christ’s rule. Every time a believer stands boldly for truth in the public square, he is taking dominion.
THE CHURCH MUST WAKE UP
Too many Christians act like employees in a company they don’t own, instead of stewards of a world they have been given. But Christ has not put us here to rent space—He has put us here to govern the world on His behalf.
This is why the defeatist attitude in the modern Church must die. The Church has too often surrendered its authority—to the state, to the media, to pagan academia, to the cultural elites. Instead of exercising dominion, we have retreated. Instead of building institutions, we have abandoned them to the enemy. Instead of advancing the Kingdom, we have adopted a losing mindset.
But Jesus is not losing. His Kingdom is not shrinking. His reign is not in retreat.
“The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14)
That is not a possibility. That is a certainty. The only question is whether we will act like we believe it.
THE TIME TO WORK IS NOW
The Master has put His Church over all His possessions. The world belongs to us. The question is, will we act like it? Will we work? Will we fight? Will we take dominion?
Or will we be like the lazy slave, sitting back and watching as the enemies of Christ run wild?
There is no neutrality in the Kingdom. You are either taking ground for Christ, or you are ceding ground to the enemy.
Which will you choose?
ATTITUDE 7: THE MODERN DAY WICKED AND LAZY SLAVE
Jesus ends this passage with a warning so severe, so jarring, that it should send shivers down the spine of anyone who claims to follow Him but refuses to work for His Kingdom.
“But if that evil slave says in his heart, ‘My Master is not coming for a long time,’ and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; the Master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect Him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24:48-51)
In Jesus’ day, there were many who claimed His name but did not believe His words. They heard His prophecy, yet they doubted. They were told to prepare for His coming in judgment, but they mocked the urgency and chose to live as if Jesus had lied.
For forty years, from AD 30 to AD 70, the faithful Church prepared. They spread the Gospel, endured persecution, and stood firm in the face of Rome and the corrupt Jewish elite. But many others—those who claimed Christ outwardly but denied Him in their hearts—began to drift. They grew complacent. They acted as if Christ’s words were not true. And, in their arrogance, they began to abuse the faithful, persecute true believers, and live like the world.
Jesus was clear: those false disciples would not escape judgment. They would be cut to pieces, thrown into the same ruin and destruction as the rest of apostate Israel.
This was not theoretical. This happened. When Rome obliterated Jerusalem, those faithless ones—those who had abandoned their first love—were swallowed up in the carnage. They were not rescued. They were not spared. Because when Christ calls a man to follow Him, He requires faithfulness until the end. It is not just about starting the race—it is about finishing well.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US TODAY
The modern Church is filled with wicked and lazy slaves. It is filled with people who bear the name of Christ but do not believe His words. It is filled with people who claim to trust in Jesus but ignore the reality of what He has already done.
Just like the first-century false disciples, modern dispensationalists refuse to take Jesus at His word. They believe in a postponed coming, insisting that the very judgment Jesus promised to His disciples 2,000 years ago is still somewhere off in the future.
But let me be blunt: that is the exact same attitude that Jesus condemned in Matthew 24. The wicked slave says, “My Master is not coming for a long time.”
What are dispensationalists saying? “Jesus has not come yet, but maybe He’ll return in our lifetime.” They twist Christ’s words, reject His timeline, and act as if His warnings to that generation do not matter.
This is not faithfulness. This is wicked laziness.
The first-century Church was told to prepare for AD 70, and they did. They worked, they labored, and they advanced the Kingdom. The modern dispensationalist Church? It sits on its hands. It does nothing but watch for signs, fear the future, and wait for an escape plan.
STOP WAITING, START WORKING
Jesus will return at the end of human history, but He is not coming back for a defeated, cowardly, lazy Church. He is not coming to rescue a weak, faithless people who spent their lives hiding from the world, speculating about rapture timelines, and whining about the state of culture.
He is coming back for a faithful, victorious, obedient Bride—a Church that built, worked, conquered, and established His reign while He was away.
The question is, which one will you be?
Will you be the wicked slave, wasting your life waiting for an escape?
Or will you be the faithful slave, found working, fighting, and advancing Christ’s Kingdom when He comes?
The world does not need more Christians predicting the next global disaster—it needs Christians taking action.
Plant churches.
Disciple the nations.
Establish businesses that honor Christ.
Take over institutions.
Train up children to be warriors for the Kingdom.
Dominate the arts, the media, and the culture.
Preach the Gospel with authority, without fear or compromise.
Christ is King. His Kingdom is growing. His rule is spreading.
The only question is: are you working for Him, or are you wasting time?
CONCLUSION
Nineteen episodes. Nineteen weeks of exegesis, historical deep dives, and relentless demolitions of modern eschatological nonsense. And now, we stand at the end of this journey through Matthew 24—the hinge upon which so much of biblical eschatology turns. If you have followed this series, I thank you. Your hunger for truth, your rejection of the doom-and-gloom paralysis that has plagued the modern church, and your commitment to seeing Christ’s victory unfold in history is exactly what we need today.
But the work isn’t finished. We are not spectators, waiting for the world to burn so we can escape. We are soldiers in a war already won, laborers in a vineyard that will bear fruit. Postmillennialism isn’t about passivity—it’s about action. Christ’s kingdom is advancing—not in one dramatic moment, but like a mustard seed growing into a mighty tree, like leaven working through the dough. He did not command us to sit around watching for signs; He commanded us to disciple the nations.
So how long will it take? Centuries? Millennia? We don’t know. But we do know this: the trajectory of history is victory. The Gospel is spreading. Cultures are being transformed. His enemies are being subdued. And one day, when all things are under His feet, He will return—not to snatch us away, but to raise us up into the final, glorified new creation He has been building all along.
And so, my final charge to you is this: Be found working when Christ returns. Do not be a lazy, cowardly, complacent servant who buries his talents and wastes his life waiting for an escape plan. Be bold. Be faithful. Be a laborer in the vineyard of the King.
The Kingdom is growing. The Gospel is advancing. The nations will bow before Christ.
God bless you—and get out of here.
