The Unknown Day and Hour
Imagine you work in someone’s home. One day, the master of the home leaves and entrusts you to steward their property, and you have no idea when they will return. What would you do?
Take a nap? Throw a party? Eat all the food in the pantry? Ignore instructions?
No. A faithful servant would follow their master’s directions and keep the home ready for their return.
Jesus’ parable in Mark 13:32-37 illustrates that the same is true of what our Master, Jesus, has given us—possessions, gifts, talents, and the like. It’s not really ours, after all—He left it in our care temporarily. We don’t know when He will return, "whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn" (Mark 13:35, NIV). But God’s Word tells us what we should do in the meantime. Here are a few tasks our Master has for us while we wait:
“And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel ...