Matthew 24:42-44: “Lash up and Stow”

Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming,” Jesus, Matthew 24:42

“Lash up and stow; the boss may come today.”  (Frank Wild to his men every morning on Elephant Island, near Antarctica, in the summer of 1916, while they waited for Sir Ernest Shackleton to return with a rescue party and a bigger boat after a failed expedition.) 

When I was a young Christian someone taught me a Bible study tool.  When I find a “therefore,” I should immediately ask, “What is the therefore there for?”   In this passage, the therefore (v. 42, 44) is there to remind us that Christ will come when we do not expect Him.   He will interrupt the daily lives of people.  They will be eating, drinking, marrying, working at the mill or laboring in the fields (see vv. 38-40). 

“Therefore,” we should “stay awake, for [we] do not know on what day [our] Lord is coming,” (v. 42).  Jesus continues:  “if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into,” (v. 43).

The New Testament compares Christ’s return with a thief in the night: (Luke 12: 35-40; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10, Revelation 3:3; 16:15).  Not that Christ is a thief but that He comes unannounced like a thief.  At His first coming, John the Baptist proclaimed Christ’s imminent arrival, telling  “[I am] the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight...” (Luke 3:4).  But there will be no heralder at His next coming, for He will come like a thief in the night.

Several years ago our house was broken into while we slept and the thief stole several of our electronics.  We had no idea the thief was coming.   Yet had I known the thief’s arrival was that night, I would have secured our garage door, turned on lights, and I would have stayed awake to chase away the thief.  But we did not stay awake, we missed the signs and we were not ready.  The thief came anyway.

The average 21^st century western Christian is not ready for the Son of Man to return, even though He is coming at an hour [we] do not expect (v. 44).   We pursue the idol of materialism as if the Lord will never return;  Americans spend more on pet food and bubble gum than we do on missions.  Most of us are more concerned about the return on our investments than the return of our Lord.     

Shackleton’s men were cut off from the outside world; even Shackleton had no way of communicating with them. Those were the days before helicopters and satellite technology.  Every day the men would climb to the highest point near camp on that remote and cold island.  They studied the horizon, watchful for any sign of their master.   Then on August 30, 1916, a boat appeared on the horizon.   Shackleton had returned!  He rescued every man he left on that island 4 months earlier.   Not one had perished.  

Shackleton returning for his men.

"Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ,” (1 Peter 1:13).

 

Lash up and stow.  The Master may come today.  Stay awake. Be ready.