Making Ourselves Ready For The Lord’s Coming
Message Four
Making Ourselves Ready for the Lord’s Coming
by Being a Faithful and Prudent Slave
OPENING WORD OF THE PROPHESYING MEETING
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
Matt. 24:45-47 Who then is the faithful and prudent slave, whom the master has set over his household to
give them food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Truly I say to you that he will set him over all his possessions.
48-51 But if that evil slave says in his heart, My master delays, and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eats and drinks with the drunken, 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…
Word of Appetizer
How can we be faithful and prudent slaves for the Lord’s coming?
The faithful and prudent slave is a steward in God’s house, a household administrator, dispensing Christ as “food” to His believers. Faithfulness is shown toward the Lord, whereas prudence is exercised toward the believers. In the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens, the Lord will set the faithful slave over all His possessions; this will be a reward to His slave.
Give them food refers to ministering the word of God and Christ as the life supply to the believers in the church; Christ as the life-giving Spirit is our food, embodied and realized in the word of life.
Spiritual Burden
In order to make ourselves ready for the Lord’s coming, we need to enjoy Him as our spiritual food so that we can feed others; we can enjoy Him when we receive His word by means of all prayer and when we muse on His word, which is to taste and enjoy His word with much reconsideration.
Concluding Word of the Prophesying Meeting
The Revelation of the Truth
“Who then is the faithful and prudent slave, whom the master has set over his household to give them food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Truly I say to you that he will set him over all his possessions”.
“But if that evil slave says in his heart, My master delays, and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eats and drinks with the drunken, 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 appoint his portion with the hypocrites. In that place there will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth”.
The Experience of Life
We need to pray ourselves into God to receive the life-giving Spirit as our supply, our spiritual food, to feed ourselves and those under our care.
We need to be “sons of fresh oil,” those who are continually being filled with the fresh, present, and consummated Spirit as the oil of gladness, to flow out the Spirit into the lampstand for its shining testimony, the testimony of Jesus.
Practice and Application
In order to enjoy the Lord as our spiritual food so that we can feed others, we need to receive His word by means of all prayer and by musing on His word, speaking His word aloud with much reconsideration.
We need to prophesy to build up the church—speaking what we see with the living words of this life under the instant and fresh inspiration, anointing, and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit through the exercise of our spirit.
We should not judge and condemn our fellow believers but be kind to them, tenderhearted, forgiving them even as God in Christ forgave us.
PROPHESYING TOPICS—TWELVE TOPICS PER WEEK
Day 1
T1 Faithfulness is shown toward the Lord, whereas prudence is exercised toward the believers (Matt. 24:45)
(Please illustrate that to give them food refers to ministering the word of God and Christ as the life supply to the believers in the church.)
T2 The meeting time is the appointed time (Matt. 24:45)
(Please illustrate that we must be diligent in seeking the Word that we could prepare to serve good food when we come to the meeting.)
Day 2
T1 A faithful and prudent slave, ministers the proper food to the Lord’s possessions, which are all kinds of persons, at the appointed time (Matt. 24:45)
(Please illustrate every day is an appointed time for us to minister the proper food to anyone.)
T2 In the Body life there is the urgent need of certain ones to function as channels of supply (Phil. 1:24-25; 1 John 5:16)
(Please illustrate Paul was a person full of Christ; he lived with Christ, and ministered Christ to the churches.)
Day 3
T1 The two olive trees and the two witnesses (Zech. 4:3; Rev. 11:3)
(Please illustrate the two olive trees in Zechariah 4:3 typify the two witnesses in the last three and a half years of the present age.)
T2 The gold that fills the bowl is the Spirit; the Spirit is God (Zech. 4:12, 14)
(Please illustrate we all should be olive trees emptying God from ourselves into others.)
Day 4
T1 The evil slave will be cut off from the Lord’s presence, and from the glorious sphere in which the Lord will be (Matt. 24:48-51)
(Please illustrate to be cut off is not to perish eternally, but to be chastened dispensationally.)
T2 We must spend our time, our energy to do a positive service for the Lord’s interest (Matt. 24:49)
(Please illustrate with examples that what it means to “we should not be those beating our fellow slaves”.)
Day 5
T1 Since we know that the Lord’s second coming is so precious, we should love the Lord’s appearing (2 Tim. 4:8; Phil. 3:20)
(Please illustrate that as long as we have today, we should love the Lord and His appearing, await the Lord’s coming.)
T2 When the Lord comes, He will come secretly as a thief to those who love Him, and will take them away as a treasure (Matt. 24:42)
(Please illustrate if we desire to be raptured, first we must be filled with the heavenly breath and have oil in our vessels.)
Day 6
T1 We should not be those who “eat and drink with the drunken” (Matt. 24:49)
(Please illustrate the reason that who “eat and drink with the drunken” drifts away further, a further fall from beating the fellow slaves.)
T2 The slothful servants who are not so faithful have an excuse that the Lord is not coming back immediately (Matt. 24:48)
(Please illustrate that the portion of the unbelievers is eternal perdition, while the portion of the slothful slaves is a temporary, dispensational punishment.)