When our Lord came to earth and began to express things prophetically in His ministry, even from the Mount of Olives, He was expressing God’s heart for His people. This is something the prophets had been doing down through the centuries. As the children of God veered away from the covenant and the will of God, God sent prophets.
These prophets did more than predict or judge. They revealed the Lord’s heart in the situation. And so, as we come to our Lord Jesus and hear Him speak from the Mount of Olives concerning the end and the last days, we see that He is sharing from a heart that desires to gather His children unto Himself.
He desires to make them aware of the things going on around them outwardly and to give them understanding of the truth of His Word and His promise within them. It is a very difficult thing, when people are going through difficult times, to get them to stop and listen for the inner registration of the Holy Spirit. But this, in fact, is what I believe is the larger burden of this passage of prophecies.
Now we want to begin by reading just two verses in Matthew 24 as a reminder of this burden for the Lord as He shares it with His people.
“Be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.”
— Matthew 24:42
“For this reason you must also be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.”
— Matthew 24:44
Tonight we want to read, beginning in Matthew 25:1, two of the parables regarding this matter of watching and being ready.
“Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
Five of them were foolish, and five were prudent.
For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them,
but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps.
Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep.
But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’
Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.
The foolish said to the prudent, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’
But the prudent answered, ‘No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’
And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut.
Later the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open up for us.’
But he answered, ‘Truly I say to you, I do not know you.’
Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.”
— Matthew 25:1-13
“For it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them.
To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey.
Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents.
In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more.
But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.”
— Matthew 25:14-18
“Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.’
His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.’”
— Matthew 25:19-23
“Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, ‘Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more talents.’
His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.’”
— Matthew 25:24-30
“And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’
But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave. You knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.’”
— Matthew 25:24-27
“Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.
For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.
Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
— Matthew 25:28-30
Let us have another word of prayer.
We are so thankful, Lord, for this desire that You give us in our hearts to know and understand Your precious Word. And then, even another layer back, Lord, we have a desire to know what You are doing among us in these last days.
So, as it were, Lord, make us sit at Your feet at the Mount of Olives as You share these things with Your disciples. O Lord, teach us as well.
Lord, we commit this time to You, thanking You so much for the Holy Spirit, Who is able to interpret things beyond our own understanding. Lord, make it applicable and real to all of us who come here tonight. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
We see before us some parables regarding living in the last days, when the kingdom comes. The burden we see in our Lord Jesus is this: watch and be ready, for you do not know the hour of My coming.
The Lord is aware that there are many things going on in the lives of the disciples that are beyond their understanding. They did not quite understand at that time that God’s great purpose was even then beginning to be fulfilled in their lives.
Jesus was trying to explain some of the outward circumstances that would cause God’s full purpose to be realized. In a dispensation of the fullness of times, God is summing up all things in Christ, including these men. They are being drawn closer to Christ.
They did not understand when Jesus said, “I am going away,” how this could possibly happen. But indeed, they would be drawn closer and closer to the Lord until they realized that the Lord was at the doors. There is a process of being drawn under the lordship of Jesus Christ that is going on in their lives.
Not only that, but things in their outward lives are sometimes inexplicable. When we come to know the Lord and are redeemed, things begin to happen in our lives that we cannot always parse and figure out.
We become Christians and find ourselves strangely, even against our own will, as it were, decreasing in order that the Lord may increase. There is some working in our lives, some changing in our lives, that is hard to understand.
At the same time, it seems as if our trouble increases the further we go with the Lord. It stops being so simple, and a lot of trouble starts to come our way. We cannot always figure that out. But one thing we know is that, more and more as we fail and struggle, our self-confidence and self-effort are undone.
Oh, how the Lord must delight in the happy day when you celebrate your birthday—that is to say, celebrate your death day—when you come to the end of yourself and realize that you have been crucified with Christ. Now it is to live by His life and not your own.
But that is a mortifying process going on in our lives. It causes a lot of sting, turmoil, questions, doubts, and all kinds of things like that. The further on we go with the Lord, the more we realize how deep our sin is and how much the fall has affected us.
We also find ourselves waiting upon the Lord. In the early days we were impatient, but the Lord answered us immediately. Now, in the latter days, we pray and have to wait. We pray and have to wait.
It is not like the early days, when you were first saved and God answered your prayers within twenty-four hours. Now He is stretching your faith, and things are hard to explain.
People seeing you from the outside may say, “Hey, you know what? I think it is better if you do not become a serious Christian. Because as soon as you become a serious Christian, dedicated to really following the Lord, it seems like everything comes down on you and you start going through great struggle.”
Well, do you not know? That is what Matthew 24 is all about. When you look at the signs, the abominations, the false prophets, the earthquakes, pestilence, famine, and all these things, Jesus is basically saying, “Hey, listen, I have good news for you. Your kingdom is crumbling. My kingdom is coming.”
That is what the last days are all about. All the kingdoms of this world are crumbling. The world is passing away and its lusts, but His kingdom is coming.
Now which kingdom are we going to hold on to? Of course, we dearly hold on to this kingdom as long as we can. But if things go south—far south; far south is Alabama, which you cannot get much further south than that—then you might just latch hold of that eternal kingdom, that unshakable kingdom.
Even as things are shaken out of our lives, we find that there are still things right there that we can hang on to. They are not going to go away.
There are various signs mentioned earlier in Matthew 24. Interesting signs. I do not know how beneficial it really is to know those signs, but nevertheless, they are there and I am sure they are instructive to us.
But I want to pose to you the fact that, to me, these two chapters and this Olivet Discourse are telling us something. There is a very, very important sign revealed, but it is not a sign for us. It is a sign that the Lord is waiting for.
What is that sign? I believe the Lord is waiting for a watching and ready church.
I do not know what you feel about the timetable of how He comes back, or when, or the whole details of it. But I think He is looking for those who truly watch and are ready.
In the lives of dear believers, the Lord is looking for what I am going to call the waiting factor. Is there a waiting factor in your life? Is there evidence in your Christian life and mine that we are waiting for the Lord?
We see that this is very important to the Lord. We realize why we are waiting. As I have shared these mysteries of the kingdom, I say it is now, but not yet. That is why we are waiting.
It is near, but it is not here. That is why we are waiting. By faith, the kingdom is here now. He is here now, He is ruling here now, and the place is here. Yet this kingdom in which we are living is set up in such a way that there is still something missing until He comes to complete it.
Is there something in your life that conveys the testimony, “You know, I am so blessed, but I am not satisfied, because there is a big part missing”? Until Jesus comes back and I stand face to face with Him, I am just not satisfied.
I must say, brothers and sisters, so many Christians seem quite satisfied with their existence—whatever that may be, whatever level we have learned to adjust to in the darkness. But I would like to suggest that in the lives of Christians there should be that waiting factor.
Let us look at some Scriptures. We will go through some of Paul’s epistles and touch on a few passages to give you the idea that, for the early Christians, this was a very real factor in their lives.
“And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
— Romans 8:23
There is Paul. Is there any man more filled with the Spirit, with more spiritual experience, more miracles seen, more churches started, more victories won? Yet he says, “I have a groaning going on in me. There is a waiting factor.”
You can ask, “How are things going?” “Oh, the Lord needs to come back.” This was very much in their hearts.
“Even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
— 1 Corinthians 1:6-7
Along with all the gifts of the Spirit that the Corinthian church had, there was one other element you could see in their lives: not just gifts being ministered, but eagerly awaiting the revelation of Jesus Christ. It was a very real part of their assembly life. “We are waiting.”
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
— Philippians 3:20
We call ourselves citizens of heaven, and indeed, born again, we are. But is that our testimony? “Ha! I am a citizen of heaven, and I am eagerly waiting.” The waiting factor.
“For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, Whom He raised from the dead, that is, Jesus, Who rescues us from the wrath to come.”
— 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10
Paul mentions this as one of the foremost signs of their born-again experience. Now they are waiting for something. They have something to wait for.
“So Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.”
— Hebrews 9:28
“Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.”
— Jude 21
Dear saints, is there anything in our lives that evidences that we are really waiting?
There are a lot of Christians who seem to be flying by the seat of their pants. They are on a hyper schedule, trying to do everything, burning the candle at both ends. They have the BlackBerry out, the phone going, and they are driving with their knees in the car.
Well, you know, that is the way life is. Life is spinning up, quite out of control. But is there anything in us?
What does this mean by waiting? I recently read some comments on the life of Margaret Barber, that dear sister in China who was of such influence to Watchman Nee. She was absolutely obsessed with waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus.
Even when she wrote beautiful songs, such as “Keep the Incense Burning,” she was waiting for the Lord to come back, like a priest in the dead of night when the coals are getting dim. Put another piece of wood on that fire. Keep the incense burning for the Lord through the dark night.
She once walked down the street with Watchman Nee and said, “Wait, wait, wait. You see that intersection? I think when we get to that intersection, we are going to meet the Lord Jesus.” It was on New Year’s Eve, and then He did not come. She said, “Lord, do we have to go through another year without You coming back?” with tears in her eyes.
You might think that is obsessive, and I will not comment on her deep feelings about it. But I will say this: in her life, there was the waiting factor. You could see that she was not completely consumed with the things of this world.
How does that happen in our lives? I am going to put it in two very simple ways.
Maybe they do not get that bigger house. Maybe they do not take that great promotion because there seems to be something larger in their lives than the things everybody else is clawing up the ladder to attain.
There is a waiting factor in that brother’s life. He is not just living for today, full tilt—a boat in his yard, a cabin on the lake, a house over here, a timeshare there. Whoa, what a life.
A man works sixty hours a week and vacations sixty hours a week, and perhaps he gives the Lord six and a half percent. The waiting factor means that something is deferred in your life.
I am impressed when I read missionary stories by how gifted these people were. Even Albert Schweitzer, whatever you think of him, was not the typical missionary. But this man was a theological scholar, an organist par excellence, and a great doctor.
He gave it all up to eat beans, live on nothing, and bring the gospel to the African nation. That is deferment. He could have lived the life of a Renaissance man, and yet, like Moses, he despised all of that because he saw a reward ahead. He was willing to forego those things.
Trust me, brothers and sisters, I am not trying to get you to sell your house. I am making a point. Is there a waiting factor in our lives? Can people see that this person has scheduled his life in a different way? It leaves time for Somebody they call the Lord.
In Isaiah 62, to me, one of the most precious pictures in Isaiah comes to its climax when Isaiah is up on the wall of Zion with Shear-jashub, his one son on one hand, and perhaps Maher-shalal-hash-baz, his other son, on the other side. They are up on the wall waiting for the Lord to come.
That is what the Lord told him to do: get up on that wall and give Him no peace night or day until He comes. There they are in that beautiful picture: a picture of a remnant up on the wall, watching and waiting.
Dear brothers and sisters, are we doing any watching and waiting? Is our prayer meeting fifty percent watching and waiting? When we come to the prayer meeting, do we merely want the Lord to do something for us, or are we there to do something for Him?
We have these four parables on how to watch and be ready. We looked at the first one last night, the parable of the steward or head of the household in Matthew 24:45.
These four parables are linked together for several reasons:
The issue is what we do while the Lord is not visibly here. We cannot see Him face to face. What are we going to do? Take a vacation from the Lord? What will we do with that time?
Actually, it turns out that it is very important that we redeem the time of our short lives. It seems like free time—“Hey, do whatever you want”—but suddenly the Master comes back and takes an accounting.
This is a parable of the kingdom. In the kingdom, there are only two kinds of people: the King and the kingdom servants. The King is the King. All the rest of us are servants.
One of the things about the kingdom is that when you enter the kingdom, you are there to serve. It is true: you are saved to serve in the aspect of the kingdom.
That does not mean everybody will be a Sunday school teacher or a preacher. But God has some good works planned for you that you are to do as His servant in the kingdom. This is the basis upon which you will be rewarded or find loss.
Are you His servant? Are you His servant?
It distresses me today that so many Christians are glad they are saved, hands thrown up in the air, having great times of gleeful worship; yet when it comes down to service, it is, “Do not count me in.”
When it comes time for stewardship, for money, it is, “Do not count me in.” I was pastor of a church where we had two hundred people on Sunday—not a lot—but we had about seven at prayer meeting. “Do not count me in. I put in my time. I sat in a pew on Sunday morning. That is all a Christian needs to do.”
That is not serving the Lord. That is not serving in His kingdom. You understand what I am saying?
The household is obviously the church. The issue before us is this: we are going to receive a great reward, or we are going to suffer great loss, and it is all about love.
How do we treat our fellow servants while the Lord is gone? Love is going to be the test. Love is the test.
When you begin a new church, it is wonderful. You love one another and serve one another while it is fresh and new. But if the Master delays, the household becomes merely a house. It is no longer joy; it becomes duty.
If we are not careful, we lose first love. Like the church of Ephesus, we are busy, busy, busy—but where is the first love? The Lord says, “I am going to judge you based on first love, so you better repent and get back to loving your brothers and sisters.”
How do you treat your fellow servants? The Lord is watching. He is watching how much you love your brothers and sisters.
I do not care what other excuse you can give—how you were hurt, or this and that, or somebody did something to you. I have a feeling that when you stand before the judgment seat of Christ, none of that will hold any water. He is simply going to say, “Did you love them with the love of the Lord?”
If you are in the house of God very long, your own human love will wear out. You wear out that human nature. Then, from then on, you are doing things out of duty. Only the Lord can reignite that flame of love which comes from Him for one another.
They are His treasure, and they must be our treasure as well.
Now we come to the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1-13. Notice once again that the moral of the story is in verse 13:
“Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.”
— Matthew 25:13
That is the point Jesus is trying to make by this parable. For some strange reason, this is one of the most popular parables of all Jesus’ parables, and it is open to more various interpretations than almost any other. That makes it one of the most controversial.
But if I could just give you the point and then escape, it is this: be ready. You do not know what hour the Son of Man is coming.
There are two problems. The first problem is, who are the foolish virgins? That is where it all gets stuck.
The Reformers saw the foolish virgins as professing Christians—people who mimicked Christian ways but were not truly saved. In their context, they saw many who were involved in religious forms and superstitious practices but had not been justified by faith.
Spurgeon took much the same line in his own day. He saw the foolish virgins as professing Christians who went through the motions, confessed creeds, and practiced religious rites but lacked living faith.
Now, if you hold that view, I respect it. But I think there is another view that emerged during the time of the Brethren and beyond, when it became apparent that there was a problem in the kingdom of God among those who were saved.
That means that both the wise and foolish virgins are saved.
The principles of Scriptural interpretation tend to agree with that view. Look at the descriptions. First, they were virgins; that speaks of purity. Second, they went out to meet the Bridegroom. Third, they had lamps, which usually means they had light.
They also had oil. The foolish virgins said, “Our lamps are going out,” which means they had oil. How do you have the Holy Spirit if you are not a Christian? Of course, perhaps you do not interpret the oil as the Holy Spirit, but that is certainly the usual biblical type.
They heard the shout, “The bridegroom comes.” Would people who are not Christians be described in such terms? But the main reason I think this applies to Christians is that the whole parable is about this: watch and be ready.
Jesus is talking to disciples. He is not saying, “Watch and be ready,” and then going off the subject to tell them what will happen to professing Christians who are not really Christians. The parable has little point if that is all it is about.
No, here is the point: watch and be ready. He is talking to disciples. That makes the parable immediately much tougher. It means there are Christians who are foolish, and they are going to suffer loss. There are Christians who are prudent, and they are going to enter in because they were ready.
There are many Christians who have no idea that there are consequences to their foolishness. They think, “Once saved, always saved; no matter what I do, I get the best seat in the house. I get a mansion on a hill. I get full reward. I rule and reign with Jesus.”
Even though they live carnally, carelessly, selfishly, and destructively, they think there are no consequences. But this parable is not about somebody getting saved and losing salvation. It has to do with the millennial kingdom and the rewards when the Lord comes back.
It is not talking about somebody being saved and somebody being lost. It is talking about the fact that the rewards Jesus speaks about have to do with what will happen when you fulfill the destiny for which you were born.
“Enter into the joy of your Master.” If that alone is not motive enough to be faithful, what is?
What was the foolishness? They all had oil. They all fell asleep. Sleep was not the issue. Would it not be wonderful if the parable said that five fell asleep and five stayed awake? Then we would know we just had to sleep a lot less.
But all ten got drowsy and fell asleep. The one thing that made the difference was that the wise had a reserve flask of oil.
When push came to shove, when they trimmed their lamps after waiting a long time and the oil in the lamps was going out, they pulled out the flask. They had extra oil. The foolish ones did not.
I think we can agree that the oil speaks of the Holy Spirit. The prudent virgins had a measure of the Holy Spirit that the others did not have. They had made transactions with the Lord.
The wise virgins had already bought extra oil. This speaks of secret transactions between them and their Lord. They had spent time waiting for the Lord. There was a waiting factor in their lives, and it was precious.
In Revelation 3, Jesus tells the church of Laodicea to buy gold, eye salve, and white garments. He is not talking about literally buying these things. He is saying that they need the experiences in life that bring gold to them.
There are transactions that need to be made. When we are saved, we are given the Holy Spirit. We have oil in our lamps. Praise God. He did it by grace. But now we have an opportunity, while it is day, to buy more oil—to make transactions.
I believe our most precious possession at this interim point in the last days is our communion with the Holy Spirit. Some almost completely ignore this communion. Others allow the Holy Spirit to do works of grace in their lives that produce reserve oil.
In Acts 6, when it was necessary to find seven men to help feed the Greek-speaking widows, Peter said that they must be full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom.
There is a difference between being filled with the Holy Spirit and being full of the Holy Spirit. Being filled is often a momentary experience, when somebody needs the anointing of God to do something supernatural in preaching the gospel.
Peter stood before the Sanhedrin, and Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke. Paul stood before the magician in Cyprus, and Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke with authority. There was an anointing.
But being full of the Holy Spirit is a state of being. You are full. There is an increase.
This is not about whether someone has been baptized in the Holy Spirit or spoken in tongues. I do not think this parable has anything to do with that. There are transactions that are made. There are people who take time out. There are people who have a devotional life. There are people who wait before the Lord.
To my mind, the wise virgins are those who have offered their lives to the Lord as a consecrated sacrifice. They are making daily transactions with the Lord.
They meet the Lord in the morning. They have fellowship with the Lord. They read the Word. But they do not just run out.
The typical evangelical thing is: “Okay, what devotional book am I going to use this year? This one is too long. Ah, here is a one-page devotional. One verse, da-bing-da-boom. ‘Oh Lord, thank You for that wonderful word. Amen. I have to go.’”
I am not saying you will not store up anything through that process. But I am saying that you are flying by the seat of your pants, and you are not waiting on the Lord.
It does not have to be a lot of Scripture. Your prayers do not have to be lengthy. But is there any sense in which you are simply waiting there out of love for the Lord? Is there that little extra extravagance?
Or do we treat the Lord as we treat business partners? “That is a transaction, and I am out of there.”
I believe this is primarily secret. When you see those ten virgins, I do not believe you could pick out the foolish and the wise merely by looking at them. Christians are Christians; you cannot always tell the difference.
But when the moment comes, you find that some have a reserve. They have accumulated some kind of deposit within them.
Jesus said, “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” That takes a little waiting, a little time, a little transaction. You read a Scripture and do not just go, “La, la, la.” You read it and say, “Oh, wait. What does that mean?” You digest it. There is treasure there for you.
Oh, how gracious God is to those who are willing to dig in the Word for treasure. Why do you dig? Not because you are supposed to, or because you read a book that says it will make you happy and complete. You do it because you are interested in the Lord and His things.
You cannot fake that in the long run. Do you love the Lord, or is He simply there to serve you? Then wait on Him. Just a little prayer, perhaps a little song. Maybe you have to get up fifteen minutes earlier.
I am not going to make it so simple as to say that if you have a morning devotional, you are in. Some folks do not have a morning devotional, but they are waiting for the Lord. Some people are night people. I do not want to make it legalistic.
But what I am saying is that, in the end, here is the person who is gaining treasure.
“Guard, through the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.”
— 2 Timothy 1:14
How do you get that good deposit entrusted to you? A little treasure every day. A little gold ingot every day. Those transactions you have when you pray and He answers, and you come back and thank Him.
It is that extra little time you spend with Him simply because you love Him. It is the time you go to your hymnbook without other people around, open it, and sing to Jesus. Most people might call that a waste.
I think it is waiting.
There is this wonderful treasure you have been given. It is Jesus, and it is the Holy Spirit working in the inner man, depositing Jesus so that He may dwell there by faith.
There are so many works the Holy Spirit is doing, and in communication and cooperation with Him, it is so precious. The work of God as He perfects us from grace to grace and glory to glory is not merely a process we go through.
Do not think of the Holy Spirit as some kind of engineer with no personality. As you go through a process, you are going through communion with a Person.
If you have been a Christian for a number of years, you love the Holy Spirit. He is your treasure. He shows you Jesus. He brings you into truth. He mortifies the deeds of the flesh. He deals with you. He exposes your lies, comforts your weaknesses, and strengthens you.
Oh, precious Holy Spirit. Precious Holy Spirit. Our treasure.
Do not just have enough for today. God gives grace to every Christian for today, whether you prayed or did not pray. He is gracious to us. Somehow, even when we have been busy and have not prayed for weeks, we get through the day by the grace of God.
But if we are going to fly by the seat of our pants for the rest of our lives, whom are we kidding? We are not ready.
Now we come to the parable of the talents. It is actually quite simple. Here is a man who distributes different amounts of currency to different servants. A talent has nothing to do with talent in the sense of ability. It is a weight or measure.
He gives one man a pound of gold, another man two pounds of gold, and a third servant five pounds of gold. Then he says, “I have to go. Now you men, do your business, and I will come back.”
He gave five talents to one, two to another, and one to another—each according to his own ability. He gives different amounts to different people because they have different abilities and therefore different responsibilities.
But notice that in the end, the servants with five talents and two talents receive the same reward. It does not matter whether you have one gift or five gifts, a little ability or a lot of ability. If you faithfully discharge your stewardship, you will receive the same reward.
“Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.”
— Matthew 25:21
It is all by grace. If you receive little or much, it is all by grace. If you have little, you still need to be faithful.
Why was the servant with one talent called wicked? He was still a servant. Technically speaking, he did not misuse the money. He recognized that the money belonged to the master. He did not spend it on himself, lose it, or fritter it away.
Why was he wicked? It is because he had a view of the Lord as a hard taskmaster. He said, “I was afraid, and so I buried the talent.”
That is the excuse of many Christians. Can you believe being saved by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, yet still thinking He is kind of mean? Someone who has that idea does not know the Lord very well.
Given some responsibility, they seize up. Instead of exercising faith, they exercise fear. Saints who exercise fear are going to fail.
The Lord says, “Use it.” You say, “Oh, but I am afraid. Maybe I will make a mistake. Maybe He will not be happy. Maybe the Lord does not like me. Maybe the Lord does not love me.”
How many Christians are hanging around under the law instead of exercising by faith that which they were freely given by God?
The first parable is about our life of service in the household of God. The second parable is about the secret life we have with the Holy Spirit. This parable is about you and me in the marketplace.
Whatever your marketplace is—school, your job, your neighborhood, the carpool for your children, the people you associate with—God says, “I put you in the marketplace.”
Why are you on your job? If Jesus is your Lord, you are there because He wants you there. He wants you in that marketplace because He has some business to transact in the midst of your business.
Thank God you are working on that job, but do not merely say, “I cannot wait to get out of there.” It is time to look around, because you have an investment to make in your marketplace.
You are in the college you are in because God wants you to make investments there for the gospel. Of course He wants you to study. But how about your investment for Him?
The reason He sends you into that marketplace is because He already went there before you and prepared somebody who needs that investment.
Do you think it is a fool’s errand? Do you think there is nobody there? When saints say, “I go to a school where there are no Christians,” I think they go to a school where they have no discernment.
When they say, “Nobody listens to my witness,” I think there is a chicken who has buried his talent and concluded that nobody will listen anyway.
I am not saying it is easy in the marketplace today. But I know that God called you to be in that place because there is an investment He wants you to make, whether you have one talent, two talents, or five talents.
You had better make it while you can, because He is going to come back and say, “Okay, what did you do in the marketplace?”
Do not let fear freeze you. The Lord gave you faith. He gave you that gift. He gave you that ability by grace. Do you not know that is because He loves you? He is entrusting you with something. He is giving you an opportunity.
I think of that little church in Philadelphia. The Lord says, “I know you are weak, but I have opened a door before you.” I can imagine some of the saints saying, “Oh no, Lord, not a door! Please close the door. We have to go through. We have to talk to people.”
But He says, “I have opened a door which no one can shut.” God forbid that our response should be, “Lord, please shut the door.”
There is a way to invest in the gospel. Consider Luke 16.
“And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings.
He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.
Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you?
And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?
No servant can serve two masters.”
— Luke 16:9-13
Part of this investment the Lord gives you will be out of pocket. I love to see saints who go to a diner or coffee shop and do not leave without putting a tract into somebody’s hand. They are always ready. It is their own money they are spending.
I love saints who give books to people who are interested. I love saints who are willing to spend a little money to take a young person to a concert where they can hear the Lord testified to. It takes money.
If you release some of your money—this mammon of unrighteousness—for the sake of God’s kingdom, it is amazing how impressed people are. Everybody knows that people are tight and out for themselves. When someone is generous, it throws them off completely.
Having somebody over for dinner has become such a strange thing that people almost fall under conviction. Are we givers? What do we have? What is it there for? All right, let us use it.
The kingdom will increase. There are opportunities in the marketplace, and we are held accountable for them: our jobs, where we went to school, what we did while we were there.
Stop making all your rationalizations. Here is the deal: next Monday, your marketplace is there, and there is an opportunity there somewhere.
The Lord is saying, “Watch. Be ready.” Watch in the marketplace for what? For where He shows you to invest.
Watch and be ready. How do you watch and be ready? Be a wise virgin, waiting on the Lord, waiting for the Lord, having given your life completely to the Lord.
These are the ones who will be ready at that hour that nobody knows. The Lord will say, “Come. You have been faithful.”
It is day by day. That is the mystery of the kingdom. It is not getting up and moving to the other side of the universe or the planet. It is being faithful where you are.
That will determine our readiness when the Master comes. May the Lord help us.