Saturday after the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on November 12, 2022 by under
Scripture: St. Matthew 24:43-51 (NKJV)
24:43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
45 “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. 47 Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. 48 But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, 51 and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Devotion
Thieves steal. They take away the possessions of others. But our Lord Jesus is not simply talking about earthly cutpurses. The thief that all men should beware of is the devil. He seeks to rob us of our greatest possession: salvation found in Jesus Christ alone. The thief of the devil has certainly stolen away the Word of God from many people in this world. He has robbed them of faith in the Christ by allowing them to believe falsehoods about the Word, or to deny it altogether.
The devil also sneaks around us Christians like a thief. He desires to rob us of our faith. He deceives us by leading us to believe that our sins are either nothing to worry about, or gets us believing that our sins are so great there can be no forgiveness for us. This is why our Lord in His compassion has left to us His faithful and wise servants who give us our spiritual food in due season. We receive this spiritual food through their preaching. They preach into our ears that we have the perfect works of the Christ. They preach to us that our sins have been paid for in full in our Lord’s crucifixion. Through his faithful preachers He guards and protects us from the thievery of the devil, so that He may be welcome us into our eternal home on the Last Day.
Prayer: Almighty God, we beseech Thee, show Thy mercy unto Thy humble servants, that we who put no trust in our own merits may not be dealt with after the severity of Thy judgment, but according to Thy mercy; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
