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And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
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He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.
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And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.
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But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.
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And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.
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Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds.
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And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.
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And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds.
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And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities.
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And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin:
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For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow.
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And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow:
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Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?
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And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.
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(And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.)
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For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
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But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
When Jesus gives this particular parable, it is in a time of very serious developments in His life and ministry because, as indicated in the reading, He is near Jerusalem. He is on his was to Jerusalem and to suffering and shame and to the cross. I suppose that He is very much aware of the great heavy responsibility that He fills upon His heart as He moves toward the end of His earthly ministry and where He will accomplish in Jerusalem the things that will please God and bring about the will of God for the salvation of mankind. It is very interesting as we look at the different kinds of things that happened to Him as He draws near. Already, the shadow of the cross, so to speak, is falling upon Him. And yet, even in the midst of this great weight of expectancy after He is already resigned to do the will of God and He would yet surrender greater Words of prayer and surrender to the divine will of God. In the midst of all this, He still has the time and the love and the compassion to reach out and speak to others and minister to others. For example, He gives us the Third Passion Prediction when He says ‘the Son of Man must go to Jerusalem and be arrested and be beaten and be killed, and He will rise again the third day.’ The apostles do not understand those sayings, even though He has done this in the gospel of Luke three times, they still have not grasped it. They still do not understand that He is going to be a suffering servant Messiah instead of one coming in great power and glory at this moment. They are saying that they expect the Kingdom of God to just burst open to appear immediately. There is great Messianic expectation in the air. Jesus is dealing with other things. He takes time to minister. He heals a blind beggar. He also deals with a business man named Zacchaeus. He goes to his house and brings him into the faith and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
So because of this great expectancy, of so much that is going to be done and that the Kingdom would immediately and Jesus would be lifted up as King and Lord of glory, then He gives the parable that I read to you to let them know that there is time coming yet and there is some responsibility for His people while He is away, after His suffering, after the cross, and while He goes to receive a great Kingdom and come back in the power and authority of that Kingdom. There is much to be done in the meantime.
He gives this particular parable. It is the parable of the pounds which is different from the one in Matthew that has to do with the talents. In Matthew, the parable of the talents has to do with people receiving different talents to begin with, to invest or to use and they do not start on an even keel. They do not have equal opportunity because they do not start out with the same. In this parable, He is indicating that everyone starts out on the same level. He called his ten servants, he speaks of this lord in parable, and he calls his ten servants and gives each one of them a pound meaning a certain amount of money to invest and to trade. He said to occupy. The word ‘occupy’ literally means to carry on business, trade, get involved with this money that I am leaving with you and see what you can make of it until I return. I think this is one of the greatest openings, I think, of opportunities for the people of God that could ever come our way. Every person that is brought in to Christ has the opportunity to start on the same level with the same kind of invitation from the Lord to occupy until He comes.
We can make a lot of this word ‘occupy’ because I think not only does it mean to trade and invest and do business. It really means to take care of business, to see that everything is going well, to really put your life and heart into it, to see what can be developed. I think that is akin to the great commission that He has given us to make disciples of all nations. He calls upon every one of us to be a part of what the body of Christ does to spread the gospel, to make disciples, to send the influence of the Christian life around this world to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.
The story has two outstanding success stories. I’ll just mention them briefly. Mainly, I want to focus attention upon this man who did nothing. In fact, that’s what I’m talking about tonight; the person who does nothing to respond to the challenge that God gives to us when He brings us into His Kingdom and He places confidence in us and He places a great deposit within us that can bring forth with great power.
The apostle Paul used that word deposit several times. In 2 Timothy, chapter 4 he says to people that are teaching the Word, I want you to take what I have committed (that means deposited) with you and you turn right around and you teach others. You commit it to them, you deposit it in their lives. Take the truth, take the good news that has been deposited. Take the grace and the power of the Holy Spirit that God has deposited and invest it in you and you turn around and deposit that into others. If you don’t deposit it, it won’t draw interest. It will not grow. It will not develop. It will not expand. But if you invest it, if you invest the Word, if you invest faith, if you invest grace, if you invest the power of the Holy Spirit, anything that comes from God that He gives us, it is meant to flow right on through us to others so that we invest it in other people. It is not meant to just reside in us for our own specific purposes. The fact is, if we tried to keep it and hold it dear to ourselves in some kind of selfish way, we simply lose it. Jesus would talk about the Spirit like this to the woman at the well. He said this Living Water will be a spring in your life, springing up into everlasting life, keep on flowing with eternal life. Then in John 37 He says if you believe on Me, then out of your life will flow rivers – and He is saying that it is flowing out of you. The more He puts into us and deposits in us, the more He expects to flow out from us and through us. The more blessings we receive, the more He expects us to bless. The more power He bestows upon us, the more He expects us to use that power in His name to bless and help people. This is the principle by which He is talking in this particular parable.
When the master returned, he called for an accounting. This is a somewhat awesome kind of thing. I don’t know about you, but in my own life and ministry, there are numbers and numbers of times all along when I am on my face before God and thinking of this business of giving an account when reckoning day comes, when some kind of judgment of rewards perhaps is done. Oh, to hear Him say ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant,’ it seems to me that is perhaps the greatest reward a person could ever receive. That may be the most beautiful and wonderful words a person could ever receive to stand before the Lord and He says ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter ye in to the joys of the Lord, and I’m going to make you ruler over many things.’ That’s the way it reads in Matthew.
The master came to call on the people for an accounting, his servants now. One man came and he had only received one pound to invest, but he must have been an outstanding business man. I don’t know myself, but it appears to me that God does indeed give some people special gifts in being able to do business. I can travel on and see a piece of land and it just looks like it’s grown over with weeds. Somebody else can drive along there and see that as a great shopping center or a place for a subdivision. They see all kinds of big dreams about it, things that I never see. I used to have a member in Louisville, Kentucky who was that kind of man. In the little town of Shepherdsville he looked out at one of the corners where one of the state highways cornered with the interstate 65. He saw one of the corners looked swampy. It didn’t look like it would ever amount to anything. He saw a big truck stop. He saw a big place for merchandise of all descriptions. He saw businesses and restaurants, malls and all kinds of things in that corner. I couldn’t see that at all. But, he saw it and made a fabulous fortune by developing it. It seems to me that God gave him and some other people I know just special abilities to tend to business and see visions and then, of course, the man was very, very generous in what he did. Maybe that’s why God opened so many doors. I don’t know. But he was faithful in his support of the work of the Lord.
Well, here was a man who seemed to have talents like that and he just simply multiplied that one pound, whatever that amounts to in money, he multiplied it ten times and he says ‘Lord, your pound has gained.’ He didn’t say ‘Now look what I’ve done.’ I like his attitude. He is not one of these big bragging people who says ‘I want you to look what I did, now Lord. You need to give me special recognition.’ No, he said ‘Lord, your pound – your pound – has gained ten pounds. ‘ He is talking about investing money and doing business. He says ‘Lord, thy pound…’ That lets me know something here, folks. Everything that God invests in us is His. It is His. Everything that He invests in us belongs to Him. It may the ability to do business well. It may be gifts of the Spirit. It may be the ability to do all kinds of things as He bestows gifts, but they belong to Him. They are His to be used at the discretion of the Holy Spirit under the guidance of the Word of God.
When we start to make personal claims, then we start getting in trouble because then we tend to think we can do it ourselves. Well, another one came up and said ‘Your pound has gained five pounds.’ Wonderful stories! He said ‘Well done’ to him as well. I’m going to put you over five cities. I’m going to put the first fellow over ten cities. It seems to me that God is looking upon us to see how well we allow His Spirit and His grace to work through our lives. Does it seem that way to you? It seems that He is keeping some kind of books to see how well we allow the deposit that He places in us to grow.
But let’s focus upon this man who did not do anything. Well, he didn’t do anything in a positive way. Right away, we can see that this is a good man. He’s not a thief. He’s not a spendthrift. He’s not wasteful. He doesn’t take his lord’s money and just blow it and throw it away. He’s not even careless. The fact is, he is quite careful how he handles it. He wants to keep it safe. I suppose he said ‘Well, I don’t want to run any risks.’ He sounds very cautious to me. I don’t want to run any risks. I want this to be safe. The fact is, I’m going to hide it away and keep it folded in a napkin, hid away.
Now let me preach right there just a minute or two. I am persuaded to believe that in the church there are people who have this ten pound capabilities but they’ve got everything hid away in a napkin and they just don’t let it out. They may be backward. They may be fearful. All kinds of things may be working in their thoughts and their lives. There are a lot of people who have tremendous ability that just simply do not allow God to work it out through them. I’m reminded of one of Robert G. Lee’s sermons when he said ‘There are some people with steam shovel ability that are doing teaspoon work for God. There are some people who have pipe organ ability, but they sound like a wheezy out of tune saxophone.’ It is his way of saying that a lot of people have tremendous abilities if they would just let go and let God work through them. That is the appeal of this message tonight. Don’t discredit yourself in what God wants to do through you. Don’t shut the door of the stream of grace that can keep flowing through your life. I know some of us are over the hill and we’re saying our work is about done and I don’t have to worry about too much. But I want to tell you it is never too late for God’s grace and love to keep flowing through our lives to the very end. Even Elijah, after he was dead, had some power in his bones and when they threw a dead man on his bones, the man came to life because God had a lot invested in that prophet.
I’m saying to you in this message tonight that God invites us. When He saves us and brings us into salvation and saving grace and fills us with His Spirit and power, He invites us to enter into partnership and business with Him, where He is the senior partner and He runs it. He is the boss. But when we respond, things turn out well. They turn out well because He is chairman of the board. In fact, He is the whole board put together!
Someone said many years ago ‘If you’re going to work for God, expect big things.’ Well, I think that is true. I know in my own life, I feel like I have failed in so many ways. But on the other hand, I look back and see where I came from, out of the dust and dirt of a hill country farm in Mississippi as a plow boy, and think about what God has enabled me to do. It’s far beyond my wildest imagination back in those days. I’ve seen God put His hand on people that you wouldn’t expect anything to come of their lives and somehow they yielded to God and were touched with the anointing of the Holy Ghost and God simply used them and made powerhouses out of them for His glory and honor. Tonight, hundreds of people are in heaven because of them already.
One thing that the devil wants to do is to make every one of us feel like you don’t really count. You can’t do very much. Besides, you’ve got too many hindrances standing in your way now to do much about praying, about sharing the love of God, or to let your light shine, or just live a good Christian life. Nobody’s expecting that too much out of you. He just keeps lying and lying and lying. It’s not true.
The Lord doesn’t make a deposit in anybody that He doesn’t expect to work through them. The only exception I suppose to that might have been Judas Iscariot. Chosen and that’s a strange kind of thing for Judas to be chosen. But where there was one Judas out of twelve, and then out of hundreds and thousands, God saw the others that He could call and bless and invest His love and grace in and they could share it. They could share it.
Today as I was grading papers, I read the account of a young man who was saved out of a life of pagan religion. It was because one man who was full of the Holy Ghost and fire came into their place and radiated the love and power of God. He went to the Bible study to learn what they were teaching so he could fight it. That’s the wrong thing to do because God got ahold of him and He saw in this man’s life God at work! Did that man ever think that he would be a missionary student in America studying and who has already had an outstanding ministry and who will go again and he will write books and he will teach and he will train men and women for ministry? Listen, let me tell you, you can never underestimate or you can’t overestimate what God can do through the lives of people that are yielded to Him.
It looks like this man is just going to be great. He is honest. He is very sincere, but he didn’t do anything in a positive way. Here are some reasons why. Here are the kinds of things that Satan comes to us to hinder us from allowing God’s grace and love to work through us.
The first one is he had the wrong concept of his master. He didn’t look at him right. He didn’t understand him clearly. In his thinking, he saw he was an austere, fightful man. I don’t know if I can even get along with him. I’m afraid. That is one of the number one things that Satan uses to hinder people: I’m afraid. I’m afraid to attempt it. I’m afraid to try. I’m afraid to lean out on God. I’m just afraid.
I think fear is one of the worst enemies to the church regardless of where we are in the world. Fear is one of our worst enemies and it is Satan’s business to bring fear. But you know, Paul said ‘God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.’ How more positive can you get than to say God has given us a spirit of power and love and sound mind. He has not given us a spirit of fear, so when there comes a real spirit of fear to hinder you in the work of God, you can just turn and rebuke the devil because that is from him. A spirit of fear.
We still wrestle with fears. It doesn’t matter how old you get, there are still some fears that come to you, but I still think that it originates from the source of fear, Satan himself. Because, God gives us a spirit of power and of love. The Bible teaches that perfect love casts out fear.
One of the main problems with this man that paralyzed him was this fear and this dread of his master, not being in a right relationship with him, standing and looking at him as a terrible enemy who might come back in great judgment and power. Christianity is not meant to be lived in that kind of an attitude or relationship between us and our lord. It is meant to be lived with a joyful, wonderful, glorious relationship between child of God and Heavenly Father and a Father who looks down and sees us, and He understands us and He wants to bestow upon His children everything of His Kingdom and His power and His inheritance. He doesn’t want to hold anything back. He wants to bestow it all.
When Paul describes in Corinthians this summary statement of all the gifts of the Spirit, he talks about different powers, but the same God, different gifts and ministries, but the same Lord, and he talks about different manifestations and gifts, but the same Spirit. He gives us a summary statement of the Godhead working as one together with powers and ministries and gifts to bestow abundantly upon His people. That’s the way God intends for His church to live, in wholesome relationship to Him as the Heavenly Father.
You know, we hear a lot of people talk these days in psychological terms and saying that you have some problems that you can notice in your later years probably because of a relationship you had to your parents and especially with your father and all this kind of thing. There may be something to that. I don’t know for sure. I’m sure some people have had a very horrible and tragic childhood, a childhood of abuse and no telling what. So the idea of ‘father’ may not even conjure up anything that sounds good to some people. I want to tell you that when it comes to our Heavenly Father, if you will allow Him, He will erase all of that kind of fear and all of that kind of worry and build a relationship. After all, Christianity and being in Christ is a relationship with God Almighty through Jesus Christ the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit. What in the world could be greater than that, to live in the world, but have the world to come already in your life and in your thinking and in your very heart?
He was afraid. He didn’t have the right concept of his master. He didn’t have the right relationship with him. He didn’t seem to understand what the whole thing was about. He didn’t get the great picture. He even overlooked one obvious opportunity. He could have at least taken the money to the bank where it would accrue interest and said to the man when he came back to his lord, ‘Here is your money plus interest. I didn’t know how to invest so I just put it in the bank so it drew interest and here it is.’ He would have been commended for that the man said. But he didn’t do that.
We take risks every day we live. If you don’t believe it, just try to drive through Cleveland if you want to take a risk! We take risks at everything and think nothing about it. Sometimes the devil will use that very idea to keep us from swinging out in faith to take a risk for God. What can you lose? You can lose everything if you don’t do anything. The man who did nothing lost everything. When his lord came and he had this reckoning and he demanded, he said ‘I’ve still got it. It’s been safe. I’ve cared for it. It’s here. Here’s your money.’ He was called a wicked servant because he didn’t deposit the money for interest. He didn’t take what had been given him and use it. After all, it would have been no loss to him if he had lost the whole thing. Here’s the principle. I’m not sure I understand this. You pray about it and think about it and if you can help me with this, I’ll appreciate it. It seems that there is a principle that comes up here that I’m not sure I understand. He says I want you to come and take this money from this person who did nothing. Take it away from him. He has nothing and he is gone. I want you to give it to the people who produced. Now what does that say to you? What kind of truth comes out of that story and out of the pages of this Word? What does that say to you and to me? It seems to me like it says if you invest what God deposits in your life, He adds more to it. Not only does it grow and He sees that it grows, but He keeps adding. You start obeying God in one gift and pretty soon you will have two. I think that’s what He is saying. Am I too far out here in this interpretation? I really think that the more you invest of God’s grace and His love, the more you get. The more it builds and multiplies.
I could testify like this and say I can remember when I don’t think any gift of the spirit was operating in my life. I had an anointing to preach, but as the Lord began to move upon me, I remember the first time I received the gift of the Word of Knowledge. I suddenly knew something that God revealed to me that I couldn’t possibly know. I was to go to church that night and suddenly I knew that they would call on me. I was just beginning in the ministry and they called me Little Brother May then. It’s been a long time since anybody called me Little Brother May! But that was because my dad was a great preacher and pastor and I was just starting out. He said you will be called upon to say a few words and this is what you are to say and God just dropped in my heart certain words. I went to church that night expecting this. Sure enough, the pastor said ‘We’d like for young Brother May (they don’t call me that anymore, either!) to come up and say whatever is on his heart.’ Well, by the time I got up there I was crying. I started saying what the Lord had given me to say. The power of God began to fall in that place and the first thing you know, people were running to the altar. I had a man who had been a member of that church for years, an older gentleman, came to me afterwards and said ‘I had already decided in my heart that I was quitting the church and quitting God but God sent you to speak to me the very words I needed to hear tonight. Well, I was totally astounded that God would do something like that through me. But I learned that if you open up, if you obey, if you cherish His divine leading and you respond, He adds others. He brings other gifts all along and the first thing you know, you’ve got a whole mixture of gifts that He can use through you for His own glory and honor as long as you’re humble and obedient and you give Him the glory.
I’m trying to say to you that the Lord has too much deposited in us for us to fold it in a napkin and keep it hid. He wants us to keep investing it in His kingdom work for His glory and honor and He will keep multiplying it and adding to it. Amen!
Will you please stand?