We continue today in the exposition of God's Word, and today we turn to the parable known as the parable of the talents. Forgive me if I have not welcomed anyone who is new here in our midst today. Sometimes we keep saying it, it sounds almost automatic, and so I would like to say that if you are new with us, please feel very much at home with us and accept our love, and join us at the refreshments afterwards downstairs where we can get to know you.
Matthew chapter 25, verses 14 to 30. Last week we studied the parable before this, the parable of the ten maidens, or ten virgins. And today we read from Matthew 25, verse 14 onwards: "For it will be as when a man, going on a journey, called his servants and entrusted to them his property, his possessions. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money."
"Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them." This settling of accounts is generally a picture of the judgment in the Bible. "Then he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.'" I would like you constantly to notice the frequency of this word "more." "His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.' And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, 'Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.' His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.'"
"He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow. So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.' That is also the more. 'So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance. But from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.'"
Now here is a parable which is rich in meaning and powerful in content. Here the picture is of a household of a master and his servants. This picture of a household of a master and servants — the word literally "slaves" — is very common in the Bible. Earlier in Matthew 24, in the last section, you will notice that verse 45 onwards has exactly the same picture of a master, describing a whole group of servants, and one who is in charge of those servants, who then misuses his authority to beat up some of his fellow servants, getting himself drunk and feasting himself without any care for his fellow servants.
The picture of the church as a household is also very common in the New Testament. This concept is something that we need to grasp very clearly because it is so fundamental to the scriptural teaching. Paul speaks about the household of faith, for example, in Galatians chapter 6, verse 10. And he speaks of the household of God in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 19. So Paul is drawing on the Lord's teaching about this household of which the Lord Jesus is the master, and others in the household — that is you and I — we are His servants.
Now, in this sense, you will see that in the Lord's teaching there are all servants. There are no exceptions. Within this household, everyone are servants, serving the same master. Now, are there any part-time servants? We notice that the word "servant" is "slave" — doulos, the well-known word for slave. Are there any part-time slaves? No, there are no part-time slaves. There is no such thing as a part-time slave. A slave is always wholly, completely, the possession of his master.
Now, I would like today to be able for us to catch a glimpse of the New Testament concept of the church. I say "catch a glimpse" because we may not have reached spiritually the stage in which we are yet able to implement it. But at least it is time for us to catch a glimpse of what the New Testament concept of church was like. Look carefully again at this picture. The Lord Jesus, of course, is represented by this master who is going away, who is going to come back. The Lord Jesus has gone to be at the right hand of His Father and He is coming back again for us. That is the whole point of the parable. Notice its position after Matthew 24, speaking about the last things and His coming again. And now He turns His attention to us and points out that we are in His household and we are His servants. Indeed, we are His sons, but we also are His servants. And we often like to stress our sonship much to the neglect of our responsibility as expressed in this idea of servanthood.
Paul delighted in one title: the title of being a slave of Jesus Christ. He doesn't speak of himself as son of God. He doesn't speak of this much at all. But he opens every letter with the words, "Paul, servant" — slave, that is the word, the same word as in this passage here — "slave of Jesus Christ." For him that was the title of supreme glory. For him it was even more precious in some way or other than his adoption as son. It's remarkable, isn't it? We would have expected he would have begun with a statement, "Paul, a son of God." He doesn't use the term, but he rather speaks of himself as a slave of Jesus Christ. And then he sees everyone in the church as a servant of God, as a slave of Jesus Christ. Living wholly for God. Living totally for Him, as indeed every slave was totally the possession of his master. Living totally for Him.
If only we could seize hold of this concept of the New Testament pattern of the church as the household of God in which we are all fellow servants. We can forget about this distinction of some being full-time workers and others not full-time workers, because all of us would be living for Him. Everyone would have this responsibility of being a full-time servant of God, a full slave of Jesus Christ.
I feel our churches are full of part-time employees of Jesus Christ — not servants, not slaves of Jesus Christ. We clock in in our spare time. We are spare-time attendants of the household of God. That's not the New Testament picture at all. If everyone in the church was a full-time worker of God, every person a true slave of Jesus Christ, every person could be trained as a full-time worker. Don't think of a whole church, all fully trained, fully equipped. Maybe some young Christians are in the process of being equipped. But everyone fully equipped.
You see, what are we speaking about? We are speaking about the New Testament idea in which no Christian lives for himself but only for Christ. Let us read again Romans chapter 14, lest you think that I am inventing all this. Romans chapter 14, verses 7 to 9. Let me show you what Paul is writing, what is his concept of the Christian. And he is not here talking about some high level of specialized Christian workers. He is talking about Christians generally. Chapter 14 of Romans, verses 7 to 9. And he is talking about relationships within the church. And then he goes on to say: "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living." That He might be Lord. That is why He died. Is Jesus Lord in your life? If so, you live to Him. You do not live to yourself anymore. You are answerable only to Him. Your whole life is lived with Him as its direction. You live to Him.
If you claim to be a real Christian, can you honestly say that that is the direction of your life, that you live to Him? If this is not plain enough, let us turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 15, to make sure that we have understood the matter perfectly. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 15. And what do we read here? Paul writes: "And He," that is Jesus, "died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised." He died for us. He died for you, that you don't live for yourself anymore, but for Him. He died for me, that I don't live for myself anymore, but for Him. Can you honestly say, if you say that you are a Christian and that Christ died for you, that from now on you live for Him?
Now think of this, brothers and sisters. If in the church, all of us are living for Jesus, then where is the distinction between a full-time worker and a non-full-time worker? Where is the distinction? You mean that the full-time worker lives more for Jesus? Well, in the state of affairs today in the church, it does indeed look like that. The full-time worker does indeed live more for Jesus. But is that what it should be? What does the Scripture say? He says that if Jesus died for you, if He truly died for you, you don't live for yourself anymore.
Let me ask you: can you honestly — do you honestly dare to say that that's true in your life? Now if you live for Him, day by day, moment by moment, that's a full-time worker. How else do you define a full-time worker? A full-time worker doesn't mean necessarily that he will not be engaged in any form of employment. That's not the scriptural sense of a full-time worker. It's well known that Paul often, when the financial necessity arose, engaged in working with his hands, doing a job to earn his own living. Those of the first team in Hong Kong — what are they doing? As you know, they also engage in jobs. Some in teaching, some, like Tim, in the lab, in chemical research, and others. And doing this, these are jobs for them. They can apply their learning, just to earn their living. But for them, they live for Jesus. The moment there is a necessity in the Lord's work, the job is gone. Immediately. Like Tim, he immediately resigned his job when he discovered that his job in the chemical research position was taking too much of his time, so that he was no longer able to concentrate on getting on with the Lord's work fully. He decided that he would look for something less time-consuming so as to give more of his time to the Lord. So that even when he was engaged in that job, he was doing it for the Lord. His direction of life was for Jesus.
So where does the difference lie? How does anyone in the team differ from anyone else? No difference. Oh, when those of the present training team go back, they will, according to the necessity of the situation when it arises, take up their own jobs for a time. Whether it be engineering or whatever it was — most, the larger proportion, are engineers, I guess. That will be the job they will turn to. But this being the case, you see, for them this is simply a way of maintaining their livelihood. The direction of life is living for Jesus. And the moment that work requires it, all of them will immediately drop their jobs. Their commitment is not to the job. Their commitment is to the Lord.
Now, if this is true for them, how does it differ for any other Christian? If you are engaged in a job, is that your priority? If that is your priority, how do you live for Jesus? Now try to think of the concept of a church in which everyone lives for Jesus. That's how it should be, is it not? Isn't the Scripture perfectly plain about that? That's how it should be. Let us grant that by God's grace this scriptural teaching will become a reality in our midst, where not only the training team, but everybody in the church will function in just the same way as the training team functions.
In fact, you know that the training team is meant merely to be a model, a nucleus for the church as a whole, to show, as it were, like pioneers, what is the path for the whole church to go. Because that's the way the New Testament church functioned. You may be in your job. That's okay. But are you prepared, when the Lord requires it, when the spiritual strategy of warfare requires it, that you go somewhere else and do another job, that you will say, "Sure, I go. I am at the Lord's disposal. At any time I am available for His service"? Is that attitude primary in your life? Is it foremost in your life? That is vital for you to think about.
Now, if that is your thinking, then you are no different from the training team, because that's their attitude. And if that is your thinking, we are on the way to building a New Testament church in which every person genuinely lives wholly for Jesus. I say "genuinely," because I know most Christians are prepared to beat around the bush and begin to say, "Oh yes, I live for Jesus." Some must take an awful great thickness of the skin to be able to say that. I must say, I am being — you know, I am a very blunt person when it comes to speaking the words of the gospel. But I doubt, if closely questioned, that kind of a statement can be sustained in the lives of many Christians. So let us try to capture, if at all possible, by the grace of God, this vision of the church of the New Testament. No wonder that New Testament church could turn the world upside down, because everyone could see their devotion, their devotion to God. When people look at your life, are they impressed by the devotion, or just by the spiritual-sounding language that you are able to draw forth, even if you even do that much? In your place of work, or in your school — maybe when you get to school, you are so cowed and so embarrassed about being a Christian that hardly you open your mouth at all. Christianity is for the church. And when you come to church, then you put on the church gown. When you go to school, you put on the school gown, and then it has nothing to do with the church. Living for Jesus — is 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 15 a reality? When your family, when your friends look at you, do they see, "Wow, this guy really lives for Jesus. I mean, for him nothing else matters. His devotion is totally there. He does his job, yes, and he may do his job well, but his direction is for Jesus." Would that God grant us such a church in these days. Because until then, the world will not bat an eye with all our talk about Christianity.
Now the next thing we see from this parable. We saw now that there is this household in which everybody is equally committed. Everybody has a job and a responsibility within this household. He didn't say He gave one five talents and one two and one one, and some got nothing. No. Everyone has been entrusted with a certain responsibility.
Now talents here — I must remind you again — it has nothing to do with natural abilities. The word "talents" here is simply a term for a particular sum of money. In fact, the word "talent" began as a weight — a weight of silver, or a weight of gold. So in the Old Testament you can read about a talent of gold, or a talent of silver, or a talent of brass. It has nothing to do with "talent" in the English word meaning, having abilities or gifts. It has nothing to do with that. It's simply: talent is a weight, which became the term for a certain sum of money. And a talent was a very big sum of money. If you have a Revised Standard Version, you will see in the footnote: the talent was worth more than 15 years' wages of a laborer. 15 years' wages. It means you work for 15 years, and all the money you can save up in those 15 years would be equivalent to one talent. That's a big sum of money. I suppose, assuming that the average worker earns about 20,000 in Canada, then if you talk about 15 years, we are talking about something close on 300,000. 300,000 dollars. A quarter of a million dollars. That's an awful lot of money. Talent was a very big sum, a very, very big sum. And in the old days, the transaction of states between one nation and another was talked about in terms of this great unit of monetary wealth called the talent. So what is being indicated in this parable is something of enormous value is being entrusted to us. And one is being entrusted with five talents — that's, we are talking now in terms of modern days, in terms of millions.
So we can see there that God has entrusted something to us. But now notice here, in this parable, that not all are entrusted with the same amount. One is entrusted with five, one entrusted with two, and one only with one. What is the decisive factor? What decides this matter? Well, the parable tells us that it is decided on the basis of each man as he is able. Verse 15: "To each one according to his ability." Now "ability" here must never in the New Testament be understood solely in terms of natural ability. That is a great mistake, to think in this way. God does not entrust one with more simply because he is naturally more able. Natural ability, worldly ability, in God's work is not necessarily always an asset. It can in fact become a hindrance. It can instill a lot of pride into one. People who are able are generally very conscious of their ability. You know your own capacity because you have many chances to compare yourself and your performance with others. And you become fully aware of your ability. And no matter how humble you try to be, it's very difficult to be humble when you know that you are better. You know you are good. I mean, at least Muhammad Ali was not trying to be super humble when he said that he is the best, you know. He is the number one. And he used to blow his big horn, as you remember. And people thought, well, this guy is just a big mouth, a braggart. But he knew he was good. And some people know they are good, and all pretend to be, "I am really nothing." But in your heart you say, "I am the best. But of course, I am not going to say that."
True humility, of course, comes when you don't deny the fact that you are good. I mean, if you are good, you are good. You don't have to pretend you are no good. But you also recognize that in the realm of spiritual reality, your natural abilities do not necessarily advance the work of God. And therefore, we have a genuine reason to be humble. Now the genuine reason, then, is not the failure to recognize, as I repeat, the reality of your ability, but only that in the spiritual realm it is not necessarily that useful. In fact, it can be counterproductive, because we tend to do things in our own way, relying on our own ability rather than doing things in God's way. We are too confident in our own capacity. We don't need to trust in God. Whereas the person who is weak and recognizes his weakness and inability realizes he has to trust in God when it comes to spiritual things.
So it is very important for those who are capable to learn the lesson that in the spiritual realm, in the realm of spiritual warfare, your ability is not what counts. It is God's power manifested in you which counts. Paul was a very capable person. You need only read his letters and you realize how intelligent he was, how capable he was, both in management as well as in his profound insight into the Scriptures and into spiritual truth. Yet, because of that very ability, God had to cripple him. Did you realize that? God had to cripple him because he was simply too capable and too brilliant. And that is why we read in 2 Corinthians, the last chapters of 2 Corinthians, chapters 12 and 13, that God had to put a thorn, as it were, into Paul's flesh. And Paul understood it. Paul said it was to keep him humble. It made him very uncomfortable. It weakened him greatly. But he pleaded with God to remove this thing, and the Lord would not remove it. The Lord said, "You are going to be stuck with this." Paul says, "I know it. It is because I am proud and I have to be kept humble. Therefore, from now on, I would rather rejoice in my weakness, that God's power may be manifested in me." You see, Paul was a very capable person, but it began to be a hindrance to him, so that God had to put this thorn into his flesh. Some of us have to be humbled in this way, because this business of ability goes to the head and begins to affect the way we work and becomes a hindrance to the advance of God's work.
So once we realize this, we must understand then that when the Lord distributes these talents to the various servants, it is not based on the matter of natural ability. It is based rather on this: this word translated "ability" is the Greek word for "power." "Each man according to his power." His spiritual capacity. Now spiritual capacity is the key idea here. Clearly, you give and trust a certain responsibility to a person according to his capacity. As I have illustrated this before: you don't put power in the hands of a person who is not really capable of using that power. For example, you do not put a live hand grenade in the hands of a 12-year-old, or a 5-year-old child. Maybe a 12-year-old may be quite sensible, perhaps. You can't entrust him — he might just one day get so angry, the temptation, he pulls the pin out, you see, in utter spite. A 5-year-old, there is definitely no way, because he has no clue what's this thing in his hand. You see, and he might think that pulling this string will have some interesting effects. And he will be right, of course, except he wouldn't be around to see what those interesting effects would be. Why? Because he has not reached the capacity — the moral capacity — of this 5-year-old child to cope with the responsibility of this explosive in his hand. You can't play around with this.
The same way, when God entrusts things to us, He must look at whether we have reached the capacity where we can handle this situation. Now it is very important for us also to grasp that this capacity is not a fixed thing in the Bible. The scriptural evidence constantly indicates that you can increase the capacity. That is, you may start out as a one-talent man — spiritually speaking now — and go on to becoming a two-talent man, and on to a five-talent man. Now, the word here is "according to each one, according to his very own ability," or power. "Own" does not mean that we have this power in an innate sense, in which we somehow were born with this or predestined with this.
# The Parable of the Talents (Part 2) — Matthew 25:14-30
In Luke chapter 1, Luke chapter 1, verse 17, it speaks about "the spirit and power of Elijah." The power of Elijah. There you have the same word in the Greek as we have here translated as "ability." Now what is Elijah's power? Did he sort of generate this power in himself? No. When we speak of the power of Elijah, we mean God's power as functioning in Elijah. So fundamentally the power is God's. But it is the power of God in Elijah. And therefore it can properly be called Elijah's power. It's been given to him by God. It is in a sense truly his. And so here we have this word "according to each one's power," each one's ability.
Now we said that this is not something predestined, that God somehow predestined some people to be able to have five talents and predestined others to two talents. That is not scriptural teaching at all. The scriptural teaching is indeed that every person can rise to the level of Elijah and have the power of Elijah within himself. What is the determining factor? To answer this, let us look for a moment at Romans chapter 4, verse 20. Let me read to you Romans chapter 4, verse 20. And this is what we read here: "No distrust made him" — that is Abraham — "waver concerning the promise of God. But he grew strong in his faith, and he gave glory to God." Now the words "he grew strong" — here, as I say, you cannot really expound the Bible without knowledge of Greek — the words "he grew strong" are in the original of the same cognate as this word translated as "ability." The same word as the word translated as "the power of Elijah" and so forth. They are all the same word. And this word means "increase of power."
Abraham, in the face of the challenge, of the reality of Sarah's barrenness, which would seem to make God's promise impossible — that his descendants would be for multitude as the sand of the sea — yet, having God's promise, Abraham did not waver concerning the promise of God as He told him. But he grew strong by faith. The word "in faith" or "by faith," same thing in Greek. Doesn't make any difference here. He grew strong by faith. Now this power then comes through faith. This point is made very clear.
Acts chapter 9, verse 22, has exactly the same thing. In Romans we have it as relating to Abraham. In Acts chapter 9, verse 22, it relates to Paul. And it reads like this. Here Paul has become a Christian, and his name has not yet changed from Saul to Paul. Soon he was going to abandon the name Saul. But when he became a Christian, he met the strong opposition of the Jews. "But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ." Now this word "increased all the more in strength" — translated in this whole long thing — translates exactly the same word that we saw just now in Romans chapter 4, verse 20: endunamoo, from dunamis. That is, "he grew strong." Saul was growing strong. He didn't start out that strong, but now he was increasing in strength through faith.
And this point goes on right through the New Testament. You'll find that in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10. In Philippians chapter 4, verse 13, for example, where Paul says, "I can do everything through Him who strengthens me." There you have the same word again in the original: "who increases my strength." God increases my strength, so that I can do all things. Paul's confidence in God is limitless. Paul is totally confident that God can do anything through him. Therefore he can do anything through God. Now that's the kind of Christianity we need in the church. When your faith is of that kind, your faith is such that your strength increases through faith, then God can entrust more talents to you. You see. Very easy to understand. He entrusts more talents to you.
Now let us come to the central part of this parable. Last week we saw, in the parable of the maidens or virgins, that the whole thing hinged on the matter of the extra oil. The whole parable had to do with the extra oil. The extra oil was what made all the difference. You see, the five virgins, all had their lamps burning, and the other five — the five foolish and the five wise — all had their lamps burning. There was no difference in that point whatsoever. But the whole difference was that five of them, as you remember we were expounding, prepared for the age to come. Their extra oil was no use in the present time. The extra oil only became useful in the age to come. That is where the whole thing mattered.
Now how we expound the picture, how we try to unravel the symbols, as it were, of this metaphor, is not very important. Remember the word "more" in this parable. The extra. The increase. That is the key idea here. And what this means is what we need to look at in more detail. Now the virgins carried a lamp, as we looked at last week. The lamp, and the lamp of life, the light of life, the burning lamp, symbolized life in the Old Testament. That is in Proverbs, for example: when the lamp goes out, you die. When the lamp is burning, it symbolizes you are alive. When the lamp goes out, the person is finished, is dead. The lamp of life is extinguished.
Now if we follow in this picture, of course, the vessel then would represent the body. The fire, the flame, would represent the activity of a person who is alive. When he is dead, there is no more activity. The lamp goes out. The light, the fire, ceases to burn. The oil then, which is critical for the burning of the lamp, would represent life. And so the picture would be that as the oil runs out, the life runs out. The fire goes out. It stops burning. If this is the picture that is understood in the parable of the virgins, then the extra oil would refer to life — an extra supply of life. Now what this means does not mean life within themselves. This is very important to grasp. Because that life, that oil, is not in the virgins. As we saw, it is oil that they bring along with them.
What does all this mean? Well, the Lord's parables have a way of explaining one another. And instead now of using the picture of the extra supply of oil, the Lord now changes the picture to talents. Let's try to see what this means.
The picture here in the parable of the talents is virtually the same in the fundamental idea as in the parable of the virgins. What happens is this: they all started out with being entrusted with certain talents. But what makes the difference — not at the present time, but in the time of the accounting, at the time of the judging, at the time of the judgment — is whether you could produce more. See, exactly like the extra oil. Whether you had more. Now if you have five talents, there needs to be at least another five talents. If you had two talents, there needs to be another two talents. And if there's one talent, there needs to be another talent. Because the last one did not have the extra, the "more." He was in trouble. He is out — into the outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth. He is finished. That servant is finished. Everyone had to have more. You see the same idea. Can you see the picture? It is just the same basic idea, but now it's elaborated in greater detail.
Well then, what does it all mean? What are these extra talents? How are we to understand the picture? To understand the picture, let us compare the parable of the pounds and the parable of the talents very quickly. Now I have expounded on the parable of the pounds some two and a half years ago, so I shall not go through that again, but simply look at the difference in order to bring out the meaning.
Now in the parable of the pounds, it stresses one aspect of the spiritual life, an aspect which is evident to all of us. It's a matter of empirical observation. And that is that basically we all start out the same. Each person begins with one pound. There, isn't it? That's the parable of the pounds. Everyone got the same one pound to start with. And this point is brought out in Scripture. What is the one pound compared to? Well, in Acts chapter 11, verse 17, we read that we all equally, we all equally have the same gift of life. The idea is that all are equal to start with. All get the same pound to start with. We get the same spiritual life. We get the same Holy Spirit. And there you have, in Acts chapter 11, verse 17, which does not come out again in the English, the word "same" — in fact, is the Greek word for "equal." There are different words for "same" in Greek, but this word is the word for equality, of equal value. The life of equal value, the Gentiles and the Jews now have life — not that you and I have the same life in the sense of having a certain sameness, but of being equal. That God has treated each one equally by giving him the same Holy Spirit, the same life.
This equal portion of life — in 2nd Peter chapter 1, verse 1, the same word for "equal" appears again. We have the same faith, the same gospel. And there the Revised Standard Version translates "the faith of equal standing." Quite correctly: the faith of equal standing. So we have, to begin with, you and I — we all got one pound when you came to the Lord. You got the same pound as I got when I came to the Lord. You got the same life from the Lord Jesus. You got the same gospel. You got the same Holy Spirit, equal with me, I with you. No difference. We all started out the same.
And what strikes me time and again, as I have many times remarked, is, for example, as you are all sitting there, you hear exactly the same words as the guy sitting next to you. Everyone is hearing the same word that I am speaking. You are hearing the same parable that the Lord Jesus is teaching. Now how is it that from that same message and from the same word, one becomes a spiritual giant and another one drops out altogether? Amazing, isn't it? The word was no different. They listen to the same message Sunday after Sunday. Yet one becomes a spiritual giant, another is a spiritual pygmy, a spiritual dwarf, and another one is completely out of the picture altogether. How come?
Now there you have the parable of the pounds. The one person got one pound like all the others, and he ended up with ten pounds at the end of the day. The other one starts out with one pound, he ends up with five pounds at the end of the day. And another one starts out and he ends up with nothing. He even lost the one pound that he got. That's true to life, isn't it? Very true in the spiritual life. Look at those who came to the Lord recently, or baptized recently. Watch in five years' time. By that time — right now they all look the same, right? But in five years' time, the difference can be very significant. Five years from now, one is way, way ahead. Another is way, way behind. And somewhere in the middle, you see. Yet it started out with the same thing. Did I hear a different gospel from you? No. I received exactly the same message. Did those in the training team have a different gospel, a different message? They got the same message, you see.
The vital difference is in the difference of the response. And it is that which we call faith. The response. Faith is a response to God. And it is that response which determines the power. The ability, as it's translated there. The power begins to vary. And the difference between the power begins wider and wider as time goes on. Paul describes this in terms of the race. You start at the same starting point, right? You all got on your marks. Get set. Bang. The gun goes. You all start from the same line. After a time, one is so far there, and another one is somewhere in the middle. Another one is way behind, trying to catch his breath yet. You see. You can describe that as a race.
But now picture the situation. By now the picture should be clear. Let us say that in one month, one has made ten talents, another five. But then you have the parable of the talents. Do you see? There you have it. Somewhere halfway between the starting point and the finishing mark, there comes the parable of the talents as a reality now. Because by that time, one has got five, one has got two, one has got nothing. There you have exactly the situation, you see. The person who has ten talents — that he suddenly on the last day got ten talents? He got one talent to begin with. He got one talent on the second day, one talent on the fifth day, one talent on the twentieth day. And suddenly on the thirtieth day he got ten talents. Or ten pounds. Now the difference between pounds and talents really doesn't matter in the least. There's no difference between. It's just a different figure of speech there. What matters is simply the same basic idea.
That the number of pounds, of course, that the person had who had ten pounds at the end was building up all along, right? So on one day he had one. The starting day he had one pound. The next day he might have a little bit more. And then by the end of the week he had two pounds. And then by the next week he had five pounds. You see. There it is.
Now you may say, "Okay, but isn't it — the ten talents were all given to them as well, and in this case they would be earning their five pounds instead of having it given to them." If you think like this, you have not yet understood the scriptural principle. In the spiritual life, everything is of grace. There is nothing in spiritual life that is not of grace. Remember what Paul said: "I can do all things through Him that strengthens me." So fundamentally everything he does is of grace. It is through Him that strengthens me. If you got the five pounds, did you do it of your own strength? No. It was of grace too. All the time He was enabling you. Or as Paul puts it in Philippians chapter 2, that God is at work within you to will and to do. But without cooperation, it is your faith that determines how much He will will and how much He will do in you. You see, that is the vital thing. Your faith is the determining factor about this.
Now, here we must quickly come to a conclusion. We see then that after a period of time — the parable of the pounds really indicates what the Christian life is about at the start. The parable of the talents has to do with something further along in the Christian life, where there has been a continuing increase of power and things have begun to change. God is entrusting more and more to you. Did God entrust all that to you when you first started? In a sense, prospectively, yes. Maybe right from the beginning your response to God was fuller. But in some cases, people responded poorly at the beginning but changed completely afterwards and had a very full response. You see. So the parable of the talents really describes something further along the Christian life than the parable of the pounds. Yet whatever we have of the increase is all of grace through faith.
Now this also means that within the church, of course, a gap widens out. And this widening of the gap is what makes the difference within the Christian life. You begin to have a stratification. You begin to have some emerging as spiritual leaders because of their increased spiritual capacity through faith. Others are further behind, and some are non-functional at all in the church. There are many non-functional Christians in the church, unfortunately. Why? Because God is less kind to them? No. Because their response to God is either very inadequate or non-existent. If these same people would now throw away their obstruction to God's grace and commit themselves totally, unreservedly to God, they would have the same power as those who are presently the spiritual leaders, or becoming the spiritual leaders. You see. God would be entrusting more talents, more responsibilities to you, more gifts to you. I have seen people who began with a virtual inability to preach at all, and you say that's no preaching material, you can't make a preacher out of him. And the Lord goes on and transforms them and anoints their lips and makes a mighty servant out of a person who was a very unlikely candidate in human estimation. God can do amazing things with each one, if only there is that response of faith to Him, without reserve. Without reserve. If you don't believe what I say, just test it. Put my word to the test. Put the Scripture to the test and see what God can do with you. There is nobody here that He cannot transform into a mighty man or woman of God. He can do marvelous things indeed.
Let us then hasten to the conclusion. You say, "Okay, now I understand that there is to be the increase of talents, the increase, as it were, of life." Now notice this, and it's very important in this parable to notice it. If God has entrusted something to you, whether it be the pound or the talent — when He has entrusted His life to you, and on the judgment day you are going to stand there and say, "Lord Jesus, I thank You for giving me eternal life. Now here is the life that You have given me intact. You see, here it is. I have kept it safe for You." You are in trouble, my friend. Anybody who thinks that he will be saved simply because he has got the gift of life and he can keep it to himself and he is okay, will be in trouble. You have not understood the Lord's message yet.
God gives us this life not just so that you can save your own spiritual neck, or that I can save my own spiritual neck. He gives me this life as a trust. That I am His servant and you are His servant. If you have got that life, you are answerable to Him for what you are going to do with that life. You have got to do something with life. Life is not there just for keeping. Life is something to be lived. Something to be exercised. You have to do something with it. If you don't do that, you are in trouble.
So many Christians today — I dare not think what is going to happen to them on the judgment day. I dare not even look on that day. They are going to come to the Lord and say, "Thank You, Lord, for giving me life. Now I have kept it very safe all these years. I haven't done anything with it. No, no, no. I have kept it very safe. Oh yes. I was afraid I would lose it. And now I have kept it safe. And here, see, I still got it." And the Lord will say, "Depart from Me, you worthless, useless servant." The word translated "worthless" there is "useless servant." And you will say, "Now wait. Hey, Lord, what are You getting angry for? Now just keep Your hair on. I mean, don't get angry. Look, I am giving it back to You. You see. I know You are a hard man, You are a tough character. And so I kept it safe. You see. I was scared that this very thing would happen. Now I am giving it back to You." You will not get away with this.
Because if God gives you eternal life, He means you to be a channel of that life, to pass it on to others, to live for others and for Him. Now you begin to see why we quoted these words at the beginning: if Christ died for you, He died so that you will no more live for yourself, and you live for Him. Live for Him means that you channel the life that He has given to you on to other people.
Now think of it. How do you channel life? How do you have another pound? Another talent? Very easy. When you draw someone to Christ and you make another person a disciple of Christ by His grace, by His power — does the life in you diminish? Do you have less life in you? Of course not. Now here is the wonder that happens. You still got the life, and that one also got the life through you. Now the one pound, the one life in you, has become two lives. Because you have brought another one to life. You have given him — you have been a channel of life to him. Two. Two lives now. Now if you bring another person to the Lord and he becomes a disciple of the Lord, that life that started out as one in yourself now becomes two, now becomes three. And then maybe four, five, six, seven, ten. Now you see what it means? Extra oil. Extra talent. Extra pound. There it is. That is the extra one. You've got the one still with yourself, right? Still in you. The life is still in you. Now there is another life in there. There is another life in the next one. Another life. All starting with you, transmitting the life to the next one.
The parable of pounds and talents is very easy to understand. No problem at all. On that day when you stand before the Lord, you don't just say, "Lord, You gave me life. You see, here I am. I've kept it safe in me." Oh, you are in trouble if you do that. No, no. You'll say, "Look at this one! Look at that one! Look at this one!" Paul will say — "Who is my joy and my crown?" Paul says. "You are my joy and my crown. You are the evidence of the life that is in me, because you got the same life in you now that was in me and still is in me." Paul — the whole Corinthian church, the whole Ephesian church, the whole Philippian church. Well, how many pounds did Paul got there? Oh, hey. This man has become a spiritual millionaire. What's going on here?
Can you grasp the message? Grasp it clearly in your mind. There is the message for you. Any person who thinks "I will save my life" — he will lose it. But he who loses his life, the Lord Jesus says, for My sake and the gospel's, will gain it unto eternal life. When you are giving your life to another person, when you are training him as a disciple, or training her as a disciple, you are giving your energy, your time, your sleepless nights. You are giving your own life. You are losing your life. But you will gain it in giving it. But if you keep your life in yourself and you are going to keep it to yourself, you will lose even what you have. That is the gospel of the Lord Jesus. That is what He says.
And what is more: not only do you lose what you have, you are in trouble. Look at the ending of this parable. What does the Lord say here? He says in Matthew 25, verse 28: "So take the talent from him." If the talent represents the life that He gave to us, the pound — the same thing is true of the parable of the pound — if the pound was also taken away from that slothful servant, if that is taken away from you, you have lost it. You are finished. You have lost the life that was given to you. What else does it mean? And this point is confirmed perfectly and explicitly in the next statement, or rather in verse 30: "And cast the worthless, the useless servant, into the outer darkness."
Now the meaning of that is not to be escaped. It is very, very plain. You see, in the Bible, life is always associated with light. That is why the Lord Jesus can speak of being the light of life. Light and life are always associated together. Where there is light, there is life. Where there is life, there is light. Always the two together. And this also means that in the Bible, darkness always has to do with death. Death and darkness in the Bible always go together. "Outer darkness" is the place of death. And in the spiritual sense, it is the place of eternal death, as the opposite of eternal life. Death.
This is what Peter says in 2nd Peter chapter 2, verse 17, that this darkness is reserved for the perverse sinners. The darkness of death. Weeping and gnashing of teeth is what they will do in that place of outer darkness. This is the place where the hypocrites go. We are told in Matthew 24, verse 51, just in the previous chapter, that the unfaithful servant will be put with the hypocrites. "There men will weep and gnash their teeth." Now where do the hypocrites go? Where they will weep and gnash their teeth? In Matthew 23 we are told twice that the place that the hypocrites go to is Gehenna — hell. In Matthew 23, verses 15 and verse 33, twice you have the word "hell." The place for the hypocrites. And that is where the unfaithful servant goes. Also twice in Matthew 13, in verses 42 and 50, the Lord tells us that this place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth is the furnace of fire. That is why hell is often pictured as a place of fire, furnace of fire. Actually it comes from the idea of the branches that were cut off. What do you do with them? You throw them into the furnace of fire and leave them there to burn up. And this means that the picture of darkness and fire, in fact, are one. The fire symbolizes the destruction in hell, and the darkness symbolizes the same thing. Destruction is the opposite of life. It is to be cut off from the life of God. From His life and from His light. It is total darkness and total destruction. Fire. The fiery furnace. The place of spiritual darkness.
That is not a place that anybody would like to end up in. But let me say it again, because that is what the Lord Jesus says. If you have received the gift of life from the Lord Jesus — the gift of eternal life, this talent, this pound, whichever — talent representing the greater responsibilities later on, as we saw, but fundamentally still that life functioning in us — unless you multiply it, unless there is going to be more, when you are on that day before the Lord Jesus, you can be like the wise virgins with extra oil — the life that has been produced in others, and then the life which will be your joy and crown. Indeed it has to do with you too, but also the life that is represented by these increase of pounds or the increase of talents.
You see, the one who had two talents had to bring at least another two. The one who had one talent needed to bring only one more. And he didn't even manage that. Which shows you there is a direct proportion between commitment and the end result. You see. Think back one more time as we close: on what basis were the extra talents given? On the basis of the response of faith. If that is the case, then clearly the person with five talents was one with a greater response of faith. Therefore, as he grew in the spiritual life, he was entrusted with greater responsibilities, more gifts, to do his work in the Lord's service. The one with two talents had also a full response, but not to the same extent as the other one. It is not surprising therefore that the one-talent man, in both parables, is the one that fails. Both of them came, just to get a pound or a talent, they produced no results. Nothing. No more. You see, their commitment was already shown by the fact they were entrusted, in the parable of talents, with only one talent. One talent.
Beware therefore. Let me come back to this thing. I cannot overemphasize it. Check carefully your commitment to the Lord. What sort of commitment have you got? Can you honestly say you live for Him? If not, be careful. Because if there is not more — if on that day you cannot say, "Look! Here is the result. My son, my daughter has come to You. I have brought them to You. And look at my friend, and those people in the church — this one and that one. The life has multiplied. The life that is in me has now multiplied in them and into the next one." On that day, they will be your joy and your crown. They will prove that they are your joy and your crown because they are the ones who are going to be the evidence of God's saving grace and power in your life in such a manner as is acceptable to Him.
And I pray that as the training team goes forth, they will bear this message in mind. Maybe they have to labor with weeping sometimes, with tears, as they give of themselves. But remember this: that as you lose your life, you gain it. It is in giving of yourself that you will multiply life in others. It is no easy road. It is a hard road. But it is well worth it. And you will see how worth it it is when on that day you and I will stand in His presence and, by His grace, rejoice with unspeakable joy. Let us be quiet before God in prayer.