Now let us read Luke 12:42-47: “And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful and prudent steward, whom the master will set over his service to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Truly I tell you that he will set him over all his possessions. But if that slave says in his heart, My master is delaying his coming, and begins to beat the male servants and the female servants and to eat and to drink and become drunk, 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 asunder, and will appoint his portion with the unbelievers. And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not prepare or do according to his will, will receive many lashes.” If the steward is faithful, the master, at his coming back, will make him ruler over all that he has. But if he is not faithful, that steward will be cut asunder and will have his portion with the unbelievers. Please notice that there are two possibilities for the same steward. Both possibilities refer to the same person. This is a matter of the reward of the kingdom. Today we are in the kingdom to be ruled, but in the next age we will be in the kingdom to rule. Today the kingdom is an exercise, but in the next age the manifestation of the kingdom will be a reward. First, we must be ruled, and then we can rule over something. If we have never been ruled, we can never rule over something. We must be exercised in this age so that we will be qualified to rule in the next age. The present age is the age for the Lord to exercise His children and to prepare His kings. We all must be prepared. As a steward, you must learn how to take care of the household of the Lord. You must learn how to be exercised to be a king and to rule. Then when the Lord comes back, you will be appointed to rule in the kingdom. At that time the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens will be a reward to you.
There are two possibilities for the same slave. The first possibility is that he would be faithful and be appointed to rule over all that his master has. The second possibility is that he would be a slothful slave and would be punished by his master. Some Christians have the wrong concept that these are two different slaves. They think that one is the real slave and the other is the false slave. But by careful reading, we can see that these are not two different slaves. It is the same slave with two different possibilities. Instead of being faithful, the steward may quarrel with the brothers and sisters and may beat them. When his master comes, he will surely cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. This steward is a believer, but he will suffer in that time as if he were an unbeliever. This does not mean he will lose his salvation. This means he will suffer some loss. When the Lord comes back, he will be beaten. Some Christians would argue that when the Lord comes back, we all will simply be resurrected and taken up to be with Him. They cannot imagine that the Lord would punish any believers. It is not my word which says that the master will beat the slave. The Bible says that he will beat the slave.
We must see several points very clearly. Surely this steward is saved, because once we are saved we can never be lost. Yet because of his unfaithfulness, the steward will suffer a beating from his master. The master will reward the faithful one and will punish the unfaithful one.
We must realize that there are four dispensations, or ages, in which the Lord will accomplish His work. There are the age from Adam to Moses (Rom. 5:14), the age from Moses to Christ (John 1:17), the age of the church, and the age of the millennium. The last of these four ages, the millennium, will be an age of restoration but not an age of perfection. This means it will still be an age of dealing, an age for the Lord to accomplish something. In the age of the millennium there will still be some of the curse, and some will be dead due to that curse (Rev. 20:5). In addition, at the end of these thousand years the nations will rebel again (Rev. 20:8-9). Although mankind will be restored for one thousand years, man’s rebellious nature will still remain. This proves that the millennium is not the age of perfection but the age of restoration. The Lord’s dealing with the believers is mainly in two ages: the church age and the millennium. If we are willing to be dealt with by the Lord to the fullest extent in this age, we will enjoy the reward in the next age. But if we are not willing to be dealt with by the Lord to the fullest extent in this age, He will still deal with us when He comes back. At one time or another we must be dealt with—either in this age or the next. But there is a big difference. If we are willing to be dealt with by the Lord in this age, we will be rewarded. If not, we will be punished during the next age. Either way, we will be dealt with by the Lord.
Why would the Lord still deal with us during the next age? It is because we are His harvest (Rev. 14:15; 1 Cor. 3:9), His crop. As a crop, we must ripen; otherwise, the husbandman cannot receive us into the barn. If we would not ripen in this age, the Lord will make us ripe in the next age. If we are not mature in this age by the time the Lord comes back, He will cause us to be matured in the next age. For a crop to be matured is a fixed principle. We must be matured. As the Lord’s crop we must be mature and ripe. If we are not willing to be ripened and matured in this age, the Lord will cause us to be matured and ripened in the next age, but we will suffer.
Many Christians today mistakenly think that once they die, everything will be all right. That can never be. Even after we die, whatever problems we have with the Lord will still remain. If we are not ready and mature before we die, we will remain in the same condition after we die. Then, when the Lord Jesus comes back and we are resurrected, He will tell us that we are not ready and that we need to pay the price to become ripe and mature. This principle is quite logical. On the one hand, it corresponds with Calvinism, which says that we are saved eternally, and on the other hand, it corrects Arminianism by the fact that we will not be lost again but may suffer some punishment. At the Lord’s coming back, immature believers will not be lost, yet they will suffer some kind of punishment. If we are not living in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens today, under the heavenly rule, we will not be able to go into the manifestation of the kingdom in the next age as a reward. If we want to enter into the manifestation of the kingdom in the next age, we must live in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens today. In other words, if we would rule in the next age, we must be ruled in this age. We must be exercised in the matter of the kingdom in order to enter into the kingdom to rule.
The kingdom is the requirement of the gospel, and the life we receive at regeneration is the supply to meet this requirement. It is not a loose and light matter to become a Christian. It is a very serious matter. We have been saved, and we have been born into a royal, heavenly family. Therefore, we have to be exercised in a heavenly way and to be ruled and governed by a heavenly rule in order to be qualified to be heavenly kings in the next age.