Transcript
The capable servant of this story received not merely one talent of silver, he receives five talents. Now, there have been a number of ways in which the amount of money has been brought over into American dollars and cents, but it seems to me that perhaps this is the easiest one. Let us say that the average working man in America made eight through ten thousand dollars a year, and if that is a good figure, then, basing it on yearly earning capacity, we might say that one talent of silver was worth in the neighborhood of $200,000, and five talents of silver would be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of a million dollars in American money. This was a large commitment.
The second servant that came before his master was capable, and he received less than half the amount of money. But even so, you see, in two talents of silver he received money which we might consider to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000 in American money. The third servant was least gifted of all of the servants, and he receives only one talent of money, but even that is a substantial sum of money, something like $200,000, as I have already suggested. And if somebody were to suddenly drop $200,000 in my lap, I would consider that a financial bonanza. As I have sometimes said, $200,000 will buy a lot of three-thousand-dollar dinners, and so it will. And though this may have been a small amount of money in comparison to what the first servant received, it was a substantial and significant commitment.
This money, then, the servant goes out, and the lord leaves, and he is every bit as capable as his lord estimated that he was, and he invests very prudently the five talents of money that were given to him, and he accumulates an additional five talents, so that when his lord returns he is able to offer his lord a doubling of his investment, we might say, somewhere in the neighborhood of two million dollars. The second servant goes out, and although he had received a lesser amount of money, he also does the best he could with this particular amount of money, and when the lord returns he is able to report that he too has doubled his lord’s investment, something in the neighborhood of $800,000.
But the third servant is the spiritual midget of the story, and maybe he looked at that first servant and he said, “You know, he received five talents of silver, and if he happens to invest a couple of talents unwisely, he’s still got three talents left that he can invest and recoup his fortune, get back to the money of his lord.” And then maybe he looked at the second servant and he says, “He has two talents of silver. If he invests one of these talents unwisely, he still has another talent to invest with, thus perhaps recouping what he has lost. But I only have one talent of silver, and if I invest this talent of silver unwisely, I may lose everything, and when my lord comes back, I’ll have nothing to give Him.”
And so he decides that he is going to go out where no one is watching, and he digs a hole in the ground, and because these talents of silver may very well have been silver bullion, he takes his talent of silver and he buries it in the ground and covers it over again. He says to himself, “Now it’s safe, and when my lord comes back, I will be able to give him back the talent that he entrusted to my care.”
Well, I suspect very strongly that at this juncture the meaning of the story is almost altogether obvious. The wealthy businessman who went on a long trip represents our Lord Jesus Christ. He went to Heaven and has been gone a very long time, just as the master of these servants was gone a long time. While He is gone, however, He has committed to the care of His people, to each and every one of us, responsibility, opportunity, talent, if you will, in that sense financial capital, something that we can use in terms of opportunity for His service. And a remarkable thing about the commitment that the Lord has made to us is that, just as the commitment of the man in this story, it is made to us, “to every man according to his several ability.” He commits to us responsibilities in line with the capacity that He knows we possess.
Try to imagine for a moment, and this will take a little imagining, but try to imagine for a moment that you are home tomorrow evening, you’re watching the television set, or you’re reading the newspaper, or whatever you do on Thursday evening, and the phone rings. You pick up the telephone, and the voice on the other end of the line says, “This is the President of the United States, Mr. Gerald Ford.” And after you’ve collected your scattered wits and regained your composure, Mr. Ford then is going to say, “I want you to know that I am just about to fire my chief of staff, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, and I’d like you to function as his replacement. I want you to serve as chief of staff for me. You’ll be the man who organizes the entire White House staff. You will be my connecting line of communication to the various heads of the departments of government. You will be my chief of staff.”
I’m wondering if there is anybody in the audience who would accept the appointment. I don’t see any hands. I don’t blame you, because I wouldn’t accept it either. I just simply do not have any political skill, any ability to function in that kind of a responsibility. And I suspect if I tried to serve as chief of staff in the White House, in a very brief span of time I would have so messed up things, and the country’s affairs would be so messed up, that very likely the editorial writers all over the nation would be demanding that I join President Nixon in retirement in San Clemente.
I just simply do not have that kind of ability, and I am very, very grateful that the responsibilities and the opportunities that my Lord and Master has committed to me are responsibilities that are meted out to me in a way fitted to the capacities and spiritual gifts that my Master knows that I possess. You know, I suppose that there is hardly anyone in the Christian world that I admire more than Billy Graham, and I am deeply glad that there’s somebody who can appear on a talk show and do a good job, somebody that can sit down with a president, or a congressman, or a governor, and in bearing witness about his need of the Savior, can do it well. I think, really, that Billy Graham is, in a real sense, a five-talent man.
And if I had been given the opportunities that Billy Graham has, I would probably have done them badly. But my Lord knows better than to give me that kind of opportunity. And the responsibility that He commits to you, and the responsibilities that He commits to me, are always responsibilities measured out to us according to His knowledge of what we are able to do for Him by His grace.
Well, when the master of these servants returns, there comes a day of reckoning. His servants, in turn, are used to giving an accounting of what they’ve done with his lord’s money. And I’m sure that by this time I hardly need to remind you that there is coming for every Christian the day of reckoning. We’ve spoken about it already in an earlier message. We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And let me just remind you of something that I know is familiar to most of you. A day of reckoning is not designed to determine whether we go to Heaven or to hell. Whether we go to Heaven or to hell is determined entirely by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the fact that we have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as our own personal Savior.
If there is anyone in the audience who doesn’t realize that, I want to make it very, very clear, because the Bema Seat of Christ is not designed to determine our eternal destiny, but is designed to evaluate the kind of life and service we have lived while we’ve been here on earth. And there is coming, at the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, there is coming a moment of review. And first these servants report to their master, and the first servant is able to come before his master, and he has doubled his master’s investment, and he receives from his lord some very wonderful reward.
And the very first reward that the faithful servant received is the reward of commendation. He is commended by his master: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” And I am firmly convinced that one of the very finest rewards that you and I can ever receive is a word of praise from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. You know, I’ve discovered as a teacher in the seminary that oftentimes it is beneficial for a teacher to commend that student when he has done something that is particularly worthy, something that is particularly good. And I’ve come to believe that if a student happens to have that word of commendation, it means more to him than the grade he received in the course.
May I say something to the parents that are here? I have known of parents who, in fact, never commend their children’s conduct or accomplishments, and tend only to be critical. I hope that you’re not that kind of a parent. I suspect you are not. I hope you’re the kind of parent that will single out the worthy accomplishments of your children and will commend them for it. My own mother and father have always had this habit, and even to this day, occasionally my dad will call me long distance to commend me on something that he feels is worthy that I have accomplished. And you know, that means a great deal to me, and it will mean a great deal to your children if you deal with them in that way.
It will improve your communication with them. Don’t pass out compliments if they don’t deserve them. They’ll see right through that. But when they’ve done something worthy, commend them. The way I feel, I can’t think of a single person in all the universe that I would rather receive a commendation from than the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And it is a thrilling thought to think that someday I have the opportunity, by the grace of God, to stand before the throne of our Lord Jesus Christ and hear Him say, “Good job. Well done.” That’s something worth having, and that was the first reward of this faithful servant.
But that wasn’t the only reward. Not only is the faithful servant commended, the faithful servant is also promoted. “Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things.” Promotion. Those of us who have had jobs know that one of the very finest rewards that we can have for a job well done is for our employer to promote us, to give us bigger and better and more significant responsibilities. And listen, I don’t care how significant your opportunities to serve the Lord Jesus Christ have been in this world, when you step into the world to come, the possibilities of serving Him are even greater.
Do you realize that there is a world to be ruled? There are nations to be governed. There are cities to be administered. And the faithful servant, whatever his responsibilities here have been, will be a man who can be promoted to opportunity and greater privileges in the service of his Lord, for in the world to come he will be allowed to serve Him. But that isn’t the only reward that he received. Not only was the faithful servant commended, not only was the faithful servant promoted, but he was also invited into a fellowship with his Lord: “Enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.
And if we are talking about good and faithful service, our Jesus Christ is the one and only most perfect Servant of God, and He deserves to be the happiest person in the kingdom of God, and He will be. And nobody can have all that joy, but faithful servants can enter into it and share it.
Doubtless, we will discover in the world to come that there are some very special joys, some very special happiness, some very special forms of fellowship, reserved for the faithful servant, to whom our Lord can say, “Enter thou into the joy of My lord.” And that will be a very splendid and a very wonderful reward.
Then the second servant comes, and who did not have as much native ability as the first servant had, and he did not have nearly as much money, but with the two talents that he had, he had worked as effectively as he possibly could with those two talents, and he too had doubled his lord’s investment. And here is the striking thing, I think. This second servant, who had only a commitment of two talents, receives exactly the same reward as the first servant. He has exactly the same word: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant... enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
You know, I find a tremendous amount of comfort in this. I don’t have all of the opportunities and privileges that Billy Graham had. If I am as faithful to mine, I can be rewarded just as much as he. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting for a single minute that I am as faithful as Billy Graham, but the principle is there. And you know, I like to think, I like to think that in the kingdom of God, when Billy Graham stands before the throne of our Lord Jesus Christ and is rewarded, that standing right next to him, sharing the same honor and sharing the same glory, will be a Christian that nobody has ever heard of.
Maybe it will be a scrub woman, and she spent most of her life mopping floors and cleaning buildings. She scrimped and saved her wages so that she could send money to the Lord’s servants in various places and give money to the needy. And maybe this woman lived alone most of her life, but because she lived alone she had extra time for prayer, and she spent a great deal of time praying for the Lord’s work all around the world. Wonderful things happened because of the prayer life of this poor woman. She never had the opportunities that Billy Graham had, but she made the most of the opportunities that she had, and in the kingdom of God there she should be, right next to the outstanding servants of God, rewarded and honored to the same extent, because she was faithful just as they were faithful.
You know, it’s possible that there could be somebody in the audience tonight just like that. We don’t have the opportunities, the outstanding opportunities. There may be somebody in the audience, it could be, it could be somebody in the audience like this: “I was afraid, my lord, and I hid your talent in the ground, and now here it is. Here is the talent that you committed to me.” I want you to observe that the words of the master to this particular servant are, in all respects, the direct opposite of the words that he has spoken to the faithful servants. You see, whereas the faithful servant was commended, the unfaithful servant is rebuked.
Verse 26 is,
His lord answered and said unto him, ‘Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed. Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.’
Let me suggest something to you. Usually, I think, it is not the five-talent Christian, not the Christian with many, many abilities, with a very great gift, who is afraid to serve his Lord. More often than not, it is the Christian who doesn’t feel he has much ability, and whose opportunities he feels are small, and he says, “Oh, let a Dr. Chafer do the work, or a Brother McKnight do the work, or a Dr. Walvoord, or somebody else. But if I did it, I’d only fail.”
Very often it is the Christian with meager ability and small opportunity who buries the talent in the ground. But there is no reason for doing that. No matter what excuses we may give to ourselves, we cannot give any of those excuses successfully to our Lord Jesus Christ. If we have any opportunity at all, that opportunity carries with it responsibilities which our Lord Jesus Christ graciously has given us and expects us to fulfill.
The unfaithful servant is rebuked. The faithful servant has been promoted. The unfaithful servant is demoted. Verse 28:
Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
The tragedy, I think, that will attend the life of unfaithful Christians is that, having not used the opportunities that God has committed into their care, when they step into the kingdom of God they will lose the chance to serve Him there.
I know there are Christians who are not particularly interested in serving God now, and nevertheless there are Christians like that. I’m going to tell you something. In the kingdom of God there will not be any Christian who does not want to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we stand in His presence, our hearts no longer dimmed by the environment of the world, and no longer distracted by the attractions of earthly life, we would give our right hand to do something for the One who has done so much for us. But that will be a privilege reserved for faithful Christians, and denied to unfaithful ones. Watch a man who has nothing really to show for the rights that he has. Opportunity in the world to come, “from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” A solemn moment, serious thoughts.
But then we come to the problem of the passage. Our Lord concludes His words to the unfaithful servant in this way:
And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Well, I am not surprised that some people, in reading the passage, have come to the conclusion that if a Christian is unfaithful to the responsibility that the Lord has committed to him, when he stands before his Lord and is observed unfaithful, that he will be cast away forever into an eternal hell. May I point out to you, however, that that is not quite what this passage says. This passage does not say, “And cast ye the unprofitable servant into hell,” but “cast him into outer darkness.”
Now, before I go a step further, let me reemphasize for you the fact that the principle that we wish to apply to this particular passage of Scripture is the principle that I stated at the very beginning of my message. No unclear passage of Scripture should be interpreted in such a way as to contradict clear passages of Scripture. And it is the clear teaching of the Word of God that those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ are eternally secure on the basis of their faith in Christ. I know that most of you not only know this, but believe it. Still, permit me, if you will, to reinforce it with some passages of Scripture.
Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life.”
If anyone ever came into eternal judgment who had believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, that verse would be false.
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.”
All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me, and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from Heaven, not to do Mine own will, but to do the will of Him that sent Me. And this is the Father’s will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.
You know, very often it is believed by people that although we are saved initially by faith, the reality of our salvation depends on how well we do the will of God after we are saved. Did you know that those verses that I quoted at the last make our eternal security rest, not on how well we do the will of God, but on how well the Lord Jesus Christ does the will of God?
I came down from Heaven not to do Mine own will, but to do the will of Him that sent Me. And this is His will, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.
You and I might have every reason to be justified to wonder. We have no reason to doubt that the Lord Jesus Christ will accomplish God’s will for Him. His will for the Lord Jesus Christ is that we might be raised up at the last day. I know that you are, for the most part, in agreement with this. I hope you understand it. When we come to this particular passage of Scripture, we certainly must understand that the failure of this servant to do his lord’s will in no way affected his eternal security or his eternal salvation.
May I also say that there is not the slightest ground in this passage of Scripture for assuming that this third servant is not a Christian at all. If we had not had the last verse of this passage, we would have assumed quite naturally, and quite correctly, that this third servant was as much a real servant of his master as the first two servants. The talents that were committed to the third servant were real talents, just as truly as the talents committed to the first servant. He had real opportunities for service to his master, just as the other two servants had opportunities for service. There is not the slightest suggestion in the passage whatsoever that this servant is somehow a spurious servant. He is a real servant, but he has failed, and we must face the possibility, the reality, that failure can occur in Christian experience.
And to this real servant the master said, “Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness.” Now I can hear somebody say to me, “But, Mr. Hodges, there is no darkness in the kingdom of God.” And I would agree with you one hundred percent. There is no darkness in the kingdom of God. But may I point out something else? There are no silver bars in the kingdom of God either. Men will not be standing at the threshold of the kingdom of God handling silver bars there. It is obvious that we are dealing with a parable. It is obvious that we are dealing with figures of speech. We are dealing with metaphors. There is no more literal darkness in the kingdom of God than there are literal silver bars there, and I would suggest to you that verse 30 is a metaphor.
A metaphor of what? Well, if you take out a concordance sometime, you will find that the statement “cast ye someone into outer darkness” occurs three times, and three times only, in the New Testament, and all three of these times are in the Gospel of Matthew. The first of these times, I think, it does refer to someone who is being cast into hell. The second time it is used, it could refer to that, and this third time, I submit to you, it cannot. Let me throw out a simple principle. Our Lord Jesus Christ had a number of very striking and very effective metaphors. He used these just like most preachers use their illustrations. I use some of the illustrations that I have in one sermon if it is appropriate to that series, and I think that a study of our Lord’s teaching will show that He used His sayings and metaphors in exactly the same way.
He used the metaphor in situations to which it was appropriate, and if you study the three places where this metaphor occurs, I think you will find they have something in common. In all three cases, the individual who was cast into the outer darkness is in some way excluded from an experience of joy and fellowship. And I would like to propose to you tonight that this particular metaphor is designed to be the opposite of the final reward which the master offered to his faithful servants. To the faithful servant, he said, “Enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” But to the unfaithful servant he says, “Cast ye the unprofitable servant out into the outer darkness.”
What does this mean? Well, I think very simply it means that the unfaithful servant is excluded from the special joy, the special experiences of fellowship with his Lord, into which the faithful servant enters. He stands in the world on the other side. He is in outer darkness so far as these experiences are concerned, and he is regretting his exclusion deeply.
Most of you know that my work back in Dallas is with a small group of Christians, many of whom are Latin American people. Latin American people sometimes have very large families, and over the years I have watched the fathers in our particular church, and I have discovered that these fathers have a very special kind of joy in their children. I remember that we had a little boy in our church named Raul. He’s about ten years old now, and I recall the night he was born. His father called me up on the phone, and his voice literally rang with pride over the telephone. He says, then he says, “I’ve got another son.”
So I went down to Baylor Hospital in Dallas, and there was his father standing right next to me as we were looking through the window where they show their little newborn infants there in the maternity section, and his father was brimming with pride as the nurse showed me little Raul. Now, I have to confess that little newborn babies, you know, wrinkled-faced and red-faced and puffy-cheeked, you know how they look, look just about the same to me, no particular difference. But try to tell that to a new father. Try to tell it to a new father. That little kid was just as special as he can be from the very moment that he is born.
You know, I watched the fathers of our church, and I see that they have a very special kind of joy. I want to know what that joy is about. Well, I do know what it’s about, but I don’t experience it. I can simply understand it in a sense. I watch it, but in a sense I am on the outside looking in. No, I had a father tell me one time, he said, “Now I understand how God the Father loved His Son, because I love my son like that.” I thought to myself, man, that must be a wonderful experience, to have a wonderful, wonderful communion with the heart of God the Father that is possible to a father, but I’m on the outside looking in, and I’ll never have that experience unless I become a father.
Now, I believe that we shall discover that in the kingdom of God there are experiences, for the faithful Christian, deep experiences of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, deep experiences of His joy. And faithful Christians will be standing there and say, “My, that must be wonderful. I can see that. I wonder what it is like.” And it will be sort of like standing on the outside of a brightly lighted room, inside, and realizing that you can’t go in and join it. And I think that is what our Lord means when He says, “Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And those are tears shed, I am sure, over missed opportunities, and I’m sure also that God will wipe away those tears just as much as He wiped away the tears of every other kind of earthly experience and hurt.
But there will be no way that God can give back to the Christian the life that is wasted, or restore to him the opportunities that were squandered. That joy, that reward, belongs to those to whom our Lord can say, “Well done, well done.” Many of you are young in the audience tonight. Remember, and even to those of you who are not young I say, be charged by this reality. Faithfulness is not something that is automatic in Christian experience. It is not something that will come just because you have become a Christian. It is something that you will have to resolve in your heart.
Do you want to be able, by the grace and power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to say:
“Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee.
Take my voice, and let me sing
Always, only, for my King.
Take my love, my God, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee.”
Shall we pray.
Father, we thank Thee for the challenge and inspiration of the Scriptures, which are given for our admonition and for our instruction. There is no one sitting in this audience, our Father, least of all the preacher, who is not well aware that at many times and in many ways we have failed and been unfaithful. Today, then, our Father, we pray, not that You will spare us from all failure, because we know that is a part of life, but that You will make the basic thrust of our life a life of fidelity to the Lord Jesus Christ, so that You would make the basic attitude of our heart an attitude of loyalty and love to Him, that You would make the basic characteristic of our experience as servants of Christ a faithful and acceptable experience.
Now, as we look forward to that time and that moment when we shall meet before Jesus face to face, we know now that we love Him. We know now, our Father, that we owe Him a great deal. But we realize that when we stand with uncrowded vision before Him, that our hearts will go out to Him in a way that they have never gone out to Him before, and we pray that that would help us to have the wisdom to prepare for that moment, so to live that when we stand before Him whom we love, though we have not seen, but when we stand before Him, He may be able to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Father, we desire that day, and we pray that Thou wouldst give us grace to realize it by Thy power and by Thy working. For we ask in Christ’s name. Amen.