Bonus Study Two: Part Two

Part Two

Now I must turn my attention to the ‘unprofitable servant’; the mediocre servant who only does what he is supposed to do but does not take it any further than that. I want to note, in this next reference: Luke 12:46, that the unprofitable servant is mentioned in contrast to another type of person: the unbeliever. I want to note that the unprofitable servant, while cast in with the unbeliever, is nevertheless referred to as a servant.

“The Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for Him, (the servant is not waiting and watching) and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.”

That ‘portion’ may be a reference to ‘hell’. Someday there may be enough of these studies to fill a book. If I should get published, and be read, I hope that the reader, as he or she follows this particular part where I look into the ‘hypocrite’, will constantly drape this tapestry on the framework of the church as well as the individual. The hypocrite is a member of the current religious structure. That was, in Jesus’ day, the Scribes and Pharisees and experts in the letter of the law. They were the upper echelons; they dressed and acted accordingly. In our day and age, we must look at the contemporary Christian church; we must look for similarities to those that Jesus cut down. I turn first to the nature of the hypocrite.

Read Matthew 16:2 and 3, “He answered and said unto them, when it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

Note that Jesus called them hypocrites, rather than ignorant. They could have, in fact, discerned the signs of the times – had they ever bothered to investigate. Scripture tells us that if we seek, we will find. This passage shows that the hypocrite has a set way of doing; a limit to his knowing. In Jesus day there were men who looked into the Holy word and saw Jesus. The hypocrite had access to those same scrolls but they closed their eyes to anything which they had not ‘set’ for themselves. This puts me in mind of those that jailed Leonardo De Vinci. Narrow-mindedness can help a man stay focused but closed-mindedness simply puts one out of the loop. In the modern contemporary Christian church, there are many book-smart scholars. They wear their suits and jewelry; they jet with the scholarly crowd; they proudly display their credentials in ornate frames on the walls of their offices. Their speeches are long-winded and are usually structured to support ‘things as they are’: such as tithing, winning souls, and preaching deliverance from sin.

Of course, that is pretty much a closed circuit; the preaching of deliverance garners souls, which keep the church buildings full and the tithes flowing. They have treated faith like a hermit crab treats old seashells on the ocean floor, for the hermit crab will encase itself until it is forced to seek a larger shell.

But Jesus said, in Matthew 15:7 through 9, “Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophecy of you, saying, this people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”

I see this occur in the contemporary Christian church every time they observe Easter, lading upon the souls of children the fertility symbols of Ishtar. I think the nature of the hypocrite is self-exaltation; they fit rather snugly in the shell of anything that spotlights their involvement in an event that lifts them up above others.

Matthew 7:5, “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

Even in acts of benevolence, lifting oneself up only exposes one’s error. Hypocrites really got our Lord worked up. He never had a good word for them. He told His followers not to be like them. And, too, there is one thing in the equation of being a hypocrite which the hypocrite has not ‘set’ for himself, that is the reward of a hypocrite.

In Matthew 6:2, 5, and 16, Jesus describes the hypocrite for the edification of His followers.

1. They ‘sound a trumpet’ before them (a lot of fanfare) both in their congregational meetings and out in the streets.

2. They seek praises from other men.

3. They pray in a fashion that is intended for the hearing of other men.

4. They put on airs so that others will notice them.

Jesus said that is all they will get out of it. What is the difference in making broad their phylacteries;

enlarging the borders of their garments; (Matt. 23:5) and wearing a fancy suit, Florshiems, and a

Rolex? Honestly, I can’t see a difference.

Jesus did not try to hide His dislike of hypocrites. He was not one to pull His punches. In Jesus’ day, it seemed never to be the little man, but always the Scribe and Pharisee (I should also note: never the Sadducee). Today’s equivalent might be the Doctor of Divinities or any other such pompous title. The Scribes and Pharisees were always the ones trying to catch Jesus in some slip or omission. They must have thought of themselves as word specialists. We have our share of those, too. They drop this or that word; they harp on imagined subtleties; they publish book after book. They pick things to pieces to better build their own constructs.

Matthew 22:18, “But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, why tempt ye Me, ye hypocrites?”

In Matthew 23:13 through 29, and in Luke 11:44 and 13:15, Jesus floored the reigning champ with these blows: “Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!”

1. They close the kingdom of Heaven to men. They won’t go in themselves, and those who desire to enter, they block.

2. They eat up widow’s houses, & make long prayers (a pretense for which they shall receive the greater damnation).

3. They search the world to make converts, and when they do, those souls are the more likely to be damned.

4. They tithe of their best, but for show only; in their customs, they omit the more important matters of law, judgment, mercy, and faith.

5. They place much effort into projecting a good image, but that is only a cover for their crimes against others, self-abuses, murders, and unclean things.

6. They build monuments, lay wreaths, and hang garlands for the prophets, and righteous slain, but they prove themselves aligned to the ones who killed the prophets and all else who belong to God.

7. They hide their own pollution so that others are unknowingly tainted.

8. They know what good is; they do it for themselves, but they use the law against others to maintain power and control.

So then, I return to the main theme of this study: ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’. There shall be a particular group of people who shall ‘weep & gnash their teeth’ – so says Jesus. Just on face value, we may surmise that the reference is toward very intense suffering. These lamentable souls are those who are placed in ‘hell’. Now, there are many uses of the word ‘hell’. I want to point out some of the common inferences.

1. Hell is a place, state, or condition where the “whole body” may be cast. (Matthew 5:29 and 30)

2. Hell is a place, state, or condition where “both soul and body” may be cast for their destruction. (Matthew 10:28)

3. Hell is a place, state, or condition that is on a lower level than our current place, state, or condition. (Matthew 11:23)

4. Hell is a place, state, or condition where there is a form of consumption. (Matthew 5:22 and 18:9)

5. Hell is a place, state, or condition that is reserved for the most despicable. (Matthew 23:33)

6. Hell is a place, state, or condition that comes after death. (Luke 12:5 and Revelation 6:8)

7. Hell is a place, state, or condition that Christ controls. (Revelation 1:18)

8. Hell is a place, state, or condition where the individual remains conscious. (Luke 16:23)

9. Hell is a place, state, or condition that already exists; where the fallen angels are bound in “chains of darkness”; a keep for those “reserved unto judgement”. (II Peter 2:4)

Hell has been, and still is, used to refer to the grave: a place where dead bodies may be found. It is a place of corruption and decay.

1. Dead bodies are returned from the “sea” and “death and hell”. (Revelation 20:13)

2. Dead bodies arise from “graves” where they were held in a reserved state. (Matthew 27:52)

3. Dead bodies are able to hear Christ calling to them from their “graves”. (John 5:28)

4. Dead bodies are sealed into caves. (John 11:17, 38, 44, and John 12:17)

5. Dead bodies are withheld from the grave as a punishment in the course of revenge. (Revelation 11:9)

Hell, or the grave has been seen as the delineation, or gate, between the corruptible and incorruption, between the mortal and immortality, which can be clearly understood in the reading of I Corinthians 15:54 and 55. Hell is seen, in Acts 2:27, as a force that may even corrupt the soul, and in Matthew 16:18, as a force that is in opposition to Christ’s church, but it is a force that, ultimately, will itself be cast into the final destruction that is the lake of fire, Revelation 20:14.

In Mark 9:43 through 48, our Lord speaks of hell, using a set phrase three times within His discourse. The words are graphic and, while they may be symbolic to a point, I can’t help but read them literally.

There is a singular expression: “the fire”, and there is a plural expression: “their worm”. In speaking

of graves and dead bodies in relation to the expanse of eternity, such ongoing states can be downright

scary. However, I wish to recall that the grave is a temporary keep (II Peter 2:4) between death and

judgment. The lake of fire: now, that’s eternal.

We must not jump to the conclusion that just because normal worms do die, this statement from our Lord is symbolic. A spiritual worm may actually not die for all we know – and we know so very little about the spiritual realm. But, in a sense, ‘worm’ is symbolic of corruption or decay, in general. Having already determined that consciousness is retained in the grave, the perpetual gnawing of that worm is a horribly unthinkable thought. As for the fire of hell or the fire of the grave, consider this: fire is a consumption. I read once in an encyclopedia that ‘rotting’ or decay, (since heat is a by-product) is considered to be a very slow form of combustion.

Bible scholars have the following things to say about hell and the grave. Hell is derived from the Saxon word: ‘helan’, which meant ‘to cover’ and so was used for ‘the covered’ or ‘the invisible place’. The word: ‘sheol’ occurs in the Old Testament 65 times, and basically means ‘insatiable’ and is rendered as ‘grave’ 31 times. It is rendered in the Authorized Version 31 times as ‘hell’ or the ‘place of disembodied spirits’.

The citizens of sheol, according to Proverbs 21:16, are “the congregation of the dead”. Various scriptures have sheol both as the abode of the wicked, and of the good. Sheol is described variously in scripture as “deep”, “dark”, having “bars”, and in a position where the dead must “go down”. In the New Testament, the Greek word: ‘hades’ means much the same thing. It is a prison with gates, bars, and locks. The word: ‘gehenna’ designates ‘the place of the lost’. The Greek contraction of the Hinnom, Gehenna was not used except to denote the future place of punishment. All the associations are Jewish. Hinnom was a deep, narrow ravine separating Mount Zion from the ‘Hill of evil counsel’. It took its name from the son of Hinnom, an ancient hero.

In Joshua 15:8, it was the place where idolatrous Jews burned their children alive to Moloch and Baal. A particular part of the valley was called ‘Tophet’, or ‘fire-stove’, where the children were burned. After the exile, to show their abhorrence of the locality, Jews made that valley the receptacle for the offal of the city, which was kept constantly burning. There are two basic associations (ideas) about that valley: (1) the suffering of the victims sacrificed there, and (2) filth and corruption: which in turn engendered the popular symbolism of ‘the abode of the wicked hereafter’. These facts were culled from a Bible dictionary.

Now, there is an erroneous Catholic belief, on a par with ‘purgatory’ and ‘limbo’, that hell is divided between the good and bad. They believe that the parable about Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom places both Lazarus and Abraham in a sort of West Wing of hell. They cite scripture in defense of their stand. Let me just show what that scripture says. That scripture is Matthew 16:19 through 26. The short of it is this: the rich man died and was buried; in contrast to the fate of the rich man, Lazarus died and was transported by Heavenly beings into the bosom of Abraham. The rich man called out to Abraham, who was “afar off”; whereupon, Abraham answered that between him and the rich man was a “great gulf fixed”. That could have been equally rendered as between ‘us’ and ‘you’ (two separate entities), or, between us and you in torments (two separate states), or, between us, and you in hell (two separate places). The word: ‘gulf’, if taken something like the gulf that divides Texas from Florida, could conceivably be considered, at least in a sense, as a great gulf fixed. And yet, one must consider that if it is the gulf itself that separates, then of necessity, there must be absolutely no access by following the coast.

The Bible presents the reader with ‘either-or’ situations: light and dark, good and evil, Heaven and hell. We may be looking at a singular position (the grave) with two separate and distinct forms of consciousness, one wide awake, one sleeping (Matthew 27:52). Awakening someone who would rather be asleep gives rise to ire, for example, when Saul had the spirit of Samuel raised from the earth, Samuel responded something like: ‘why troublest thou me, to bring me up?’. That is not to say the reward of the righteous, or the position of Heaven, per se, is to be found in the earth. And yet, there is the paradox of Christ’s location after His crucifixion. Christ, for the sins of man, was slated to die on the cross, descend into the realm of Satan for three days and wrestle from the enemy the keys to death and hell. Like Jonah in the big fish, Jesus was supposed to be held in the bowels of the earth for three days.

On the cross, Christ calls out: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me” as if God had turned His back on His son as if Christ already felt the searing torments of hell as it insatiably licked at His feet. When Christ said to the repentant thief that he would join Christ, that very day, in ‘paradise’, could He have possibly meant that paradise had anything to do with torment? I think not. But then, Christ is the beginning and the end; He is both before and after; in our beginning, and also in the promise of our forever. He once said that where He ‘Is’, there is His servant also.

I believe that our Lord has never been bound by linear time but may be anywhere and everywhere all at once. Therefore, the thief’s translation to paradise may well have been to that glorious future we have yet to taste. In none of our Lord’s discourses about hell did He ever mention it as a paradise but, rather, as a terrible place. It is a place where dues are collected, where stripes are dispensed. The servant, not the outsider, is judged according to preset standards.

Read Luke 12:47 and 48, “And that servant, which knew his Lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.”

Here’s the kicker: the preset standard, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”

God has given much to His servant the church; He has given considerably less to the unbeliever. Be very clear on that one point: it is the servant that has the most to lose; it is the servant who will weep and gnash his teeth.

Hell is associated with darkness; fallen angels are bound in chains of darkness but Christ named hell not merely darkness – He called it “outer darkness”. Christ experienced outer darkness, Himself when He was forsaken of God the Father for three days. Here, Christ is speaking of the worst kind of hell: separation from God. I began this study with five scripture references to ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’, or in other words, writhing in abject torment. Of whom, then, does our Lord speak? Is it the outsider, the atheist or believer in other gods? Is it the hypocrite within the body of the church, the ones who deliberately do wrong, or is it the servant, the one who thinks he or she is on the straight and narrow, but really is not?

It is the latter, the unprofitable servant, the one who did what he was supposed to do – but failed to take his or her spiritual connection seriously enough to ask, seek, or knock. They preached salvation to the saved and they thought that was all they had to do; they never took anything new out of the treasure chest of God’s word. Like the Jews who thought that obedience to the law was an end in itself and, thus, rejected change, so the modern contemporary church has viewed itself through rose-colored glasses and, thus, rejected growth.

Those with the most to lose and those who will cry the loudest are the self-deceived, both Jewish and

Christian. The Christian will awake some morning and discover that he was not ‘raptured’; he will

cry to the Lord, “we healed and prophesied in your name,” and Christ will answer, “I know not

whence you are.”

To the Jew Christ says, “When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and He shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: then shall ye begin to say, we have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets. But He shall say, I tell you, I know not whence ye are; depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.” (Luke 13:25 - 28)

Again, to the Jew Christ says, “And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Heaven. But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:11 – 12)

To the contemporary Christian, as well as to the church, Christ says, in Matthew 22:12 through 14, 25:30 and 24:50 and 51, “And He saith unto him, friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the King to the servants, bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

In regard to this message to the modern church, Christ told his disciples in John 15:15, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”

What exactly is the failure on the part of the unprofitable servant? It is a failure of friendship with God. Having been let in on the closest thoughts and intents of the Highest and having been brought into such confidence, the profitable friend is without excuse and condemns himself with evidence of unprofitability.