The Honored Servant
(No. 2643)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, OCTOBER 8, 1899.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE
22, 1882.
"Whoever keeps the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that
waits on his master shall be honored." Proverbs 27:18.
IN Solomon's day, every man sat under his own vine and fig tree and
there was peace throughout the whole country. Then, God's Law about
dividing out the land among the people, so that every man had his own
plot, was rightly observed and each one had a fig tree of his own, to
which he gave his personal attention. And, in due time, having waited
upon the fig tree and kept it, he ate the fruit thereof. Solomon says,
in another place, "In all labor there is profit," and it is well when
men feel that it is so, for then they will be inclined to labor. A man
would not long keep a fruitless fig tree. If he was quite sure that no
fruit would be the result of his toil, he would leave the tree to
itself, or else he would say, "Cut it down; why cumbers it the ground?"
There were some men, in Solomon's day, who, for divers reasons, became
servants to others–as there still are and always must be–and they
looked for some return from their service. And the wise man here tells
them that just as, "Whoever keeps the fig tree shall eat the fruit
thereof," so, "he that waits on his master shall be honored." It is a
commonplace truth that those who are faithful servants ought to be
honored. I wish, in these times, that matter was more often thought of
and that men did honor those who are faithful to them. There are some
people who permit others to minister to their comfort, but it never
occurs to them to provide for the comfort of their servants. They will
allow a man to spend most of his life in increasing their business and
yet, when he is getting old, he is discharged and left to perish by
starvation so far as they are concerned. I notice this kind of thing
frequently, with very much regret–and I am not always able to make
exceptions on behalf of Christian masters, for, sometimes they seem
only to remember their business and to forget that they are
Christians–and they act as cruelly as did that Amalekite in David's
day, who left his servant to die because he was sick. I pray that the
time may come when there shall be so good an understanding between all
men that Solomon's words shall be true, "he that waits on his master
shall be honored."
I am sorry that they are not always true in that sense, now, but I am
going to leave that literalmeaning of the words and apply the text to
those who wait upon the Lord Jesus, having made Him to be their Master,
for, most certainly, as surely as he who keeps the fig tree shall eat
the fruit thereof, even much more certainly shall those who wait upon
our great Master in Heaven find a sweet return from their service, for
they shall be honored by Him. Very simple will my talk be and you,
Beloved, who are His servants, do not need anything else, I am sure.
I. The first observation is that OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IS OUR MASTER.
He said to His disciples, after He had washed their feet, "You call Me
Master and Lord: and you say well; for so I am." Is it so with you,
dear Friends? Let conscience answer the question. Is Jesus Christ
really Master and Lord to each one of us? It is a wonderful way in
which He masters us if we are, indeed, His servants. I can never forget
how, in my own case, it came to pass that I, who had been bought with
His precious blood and, therefore, belonged to Him, had yet lived
forgetful of His claims. He passed by and looked on me–and that very
look made me go out to weep bitterly! But He did more. He laid His hand
on me–it was a pierced hand and from that day I had a twist in my
understanding and my judgment! Those who knew me saw that something
extraordinary had happened to me which had altogether changed me. From
that time I thought very little of men, and very much of One whom,
until then, I had despised! Many of my former pursuits ceased to have
the slightest charm for me and I had, for my one pursuit, the desire to
do everything to His honor and glory! From that twist I have never been
able to escape and I have never wanted to do so–from that mystic
influence which He cast over me, I have never come forth and, what is
more, I trust I never shall!
I know that I am describing many of you as well as myself. Oh, did He
not master you from head to foot? If you are really converted, it was
not the conversion of the feelings only, or the intellect only–it was
the subjugation of everything within you to that sweet power of His!
You were quite broken down. You had no strength to stand up against Him
any longer–and the joy of it was that you had not any wish to do so!
When He was about to fix the chains of His love on you, you held out
your hands saying, "Here, Lord, bind my wrists." You put forth your
feet, crying, "Place the fetters here." You asked Him to cast a chain
around your heart–you made a covenant with Him and agreed to be bound
all over–for that part of you which was unbound, you reckoned to be
enslaved and only that which He did bind, you considered to be free!
When He had so mastered us, we longed to lie forever at His feet and
weep ourselves away. Or we wished to sit forever at His feet and listen
to His wondrous Words and learn His blessed teaching. Yet we also
wanted to run about the world on His errands–it mattered not to us
where He might send us–we would not make any choice of our sphere of
service! If He would but employ us, that would be all we would ask. We
wanted, then, to have a dozen lives and to spend them all for Him! Yes,
we remember singing–
"Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing My great Redeemer's praise!"
We said–and we meant it–
"Had I ten thousand hearts, dear Lord, I'd give them all to You,"
and we did give ourselves up wholly to our Lord. We could not help
doing so! We were carried right away, as when a mountain torrent comes,
removes the earth from the young tree that is growing by the river side
and gradually undermines it until the tree falls into the stream, and
the current sweeps it on and on, and never lets it rest again, but
bears it right down to the sea! So was it with us that blessed day when
first we knew that we could call Christ, "Master and
Lord."
Brothers and Sisters, our Lord Jesus Christ has so completely mastered
us that now, today, He is our only Master. It is not always a thing to
ennoble a man when he is able to call another person his master, but we
feel that the more fully we are mastered by Christ, the better will it
be for us–and the more absolutely we can become His servants, the more
noble and honored shall we be! In many passages of Scripture where our
translation uses the term, "servant," the true word is, "slave," and I
think the time has come when we had better speak of it as it ought to
be, that we may learn the full force of the expression! We do not mean
that there is any cruel slavery of Christ's people to Himself, but we
do mean that just as much as the slave completely belonged to his
master, to do his master's bidding, to live or die at his master's
will, so have we given ourselves up to Christ! He has become our only
Master. There are others who struggle for the mastery over us, but no
man can serve two masters. He may serve two rival powers–one
struggling against the other for a while–but they cannot both be
masters. Only one can be supreme within the spirit. In this way Christ
has become so completely the Believer's Master that sin shall not have
dominion over him–and he shall not be any longer under the domination
of Satan. Christ is the Master of all His people, whatever happens to
them. We may wander like sheep, but Christ is still our Shepherd, and
He will bring the straying sheep back, for they are still His property
even when they are wandering away from Him!
What do you say, Brothers and Sisters? Do you acknowledge any other
master beside Christ? If you do, in that divided sovereignty you shall
find ten thousand miseries! Oh, if your right eye is contrary to
Christ, pluck it out and cast it from you! If your very life should
stand up in rivalry with Christ, it would be much better for you that
you should die than that you should lead such a life as that! Our Lord
Jesus is our only Master!
And what a choice Master He is! If we had had the opportunity, in our
old state, of choosing our master, we were so blind and foolish that we
would not have chosen Him. But if we had known, then, what we know,
now, we would have chosen Him. And if we knew infinitely more about
Him, we could never discover a reason why He should not be our Master,
but we would continually find stronger arguments why we should be His
servants forever! There was never such a Master as our Lord Jesus
Christ, who took our nature that He might be able to master such
servants as we are, who even died to win us and whose only mastership,
after all, is that of love! He rules us sovereignly, yet in His hand is
the silver scepter, not the rod of iron!
Our Master is, at the same time, our Husband, whom we must obey. Oh, it
is blessed to obey Him to whom our hearts are fully surrendered and in
whom all loveliness is centered! When a husband truly loves his wife,
it becomes easy for the wife to be obedient unto her husband and, as
Christ loves us infinitely, we must love Him and serve Him in return.
Look, by faith, into His blessed face–it is Jehovah's joy to look upon
Him–and it shall be forever ours! Was there ever such another
Countenance? Was ever such loveliness imagined as really exists in Him?
Look at all His Character, from Bethlehem even until now–peep in upon
Him in His loneliness, or see Him in the midst of the crowd and will
you not say of Him, "He is the standard-bearer among ten thousand; yes,
He is altogether lovely"? Pick out all the charms that ever could be
found in the most amiable character, gather up all the virtues that
ever glittered in the most spiritual man or woman, and bring them all
here. Ah, but they are not worthy to be compared with the glory and
beauty and excellency of the Well-Beloved! All theirgoodness came from
Him, therefore let them all lie at His feet, for there is none to be
compared with Him!
Next, our spirit exultingly says, "As He is our choice Master, so He is
our chosen Master Since He has chosen us, we have learned to choose
Him." The love was, at first, all on His side, but now, through the
effectual working of His Grace, it is on our side, too. We can, each
one, say, "I love my Master. I love His house. I love His children. I
love His service. I have chosen Him to be mine forever. If He should
dismiss me from His service, I would come back to Him. If He gave me
what men call, liberty, I would beg of Him to withdraw such accursed
liberty and let me be, forever, and only, and completely, and entirely
His, for, as He has chosen me by His Grace, so has His Grace led me to
choose Him." I know that many of you can say the same and I daresay,
while I have been speaking, you have been thinking of George Herbert's
lines–
"Howsweetly does 'my Master'sound! 'MyMaster!' As ambergris leaves a
rich scent Unto the taster–
So do these words give a sweet content An oriental fragrance, 'My
Master.'"
We delight to use this title concerning our Lord, for He is, further,
our gracious Master. That word, "Master," seems to lose the idea of
masterfulness when it is applied to Him. He is most graciously and
wondrously our Lord, but yet we no more call Him, "Baali," that is, "my
Lord," but we call Him, "Ishi," that is, "my Man," "my Husband." There
is, truly, a service to which we are called, yet His message to His
disciples was, "Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant
knows not what His lord does, but I have called you, Friends, for all
things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you." We
can never forget that with all His love, He is our Lord! It is our joy
to remember that, yet what loving service we have received at His
hands! He has been so much our servant that we have sometimes had to
ask ourselves, "Who is the servant?" He is Servus Servorum–the Servant
of Servants–as He proved when He washed His disciples' feet. He has
done more than that for us, for He stooped so low as to be despised of
men and rejected of the people in order that He might save us. Then,
surely, it shall be our joy, bliss and glory to henceforth call Him
Master and
Lord!
He is also our lifelong Master. No, that is a mistake, for there was,
alas, a time when we lived, yet we lived not unto Him. Some of us were
but boys when we first began to serve Him. I always feel glad to think
that I wore a boy's jacket when I was baptized into His name. I had not
assumed the garb of a man, but my whole soul was His and I was buried
with Him. I wish it had been still earlier! O dear young people, there
is no such joy as that of knowing Christ in your early youth! We hear,
sometimes, of life-long teetotalers, but I could wish that I had been a
life-long abstainer from self-righteousness, a life-long drinker of the
river of the Water of Life! But, as all of us have failed to serve the
Lord at the beginning of our life, let us try, with all our hearts, to
serve Him right to the end! Oh, to have Him for our lifelong
Master–with no little intervals of running away, no furloughs, no
holidays!
Brothers and Sisters, we have our recreations in Christ's service, but
we never have any holidays. That is to say, He re-creates us, but He
permits us to continue in His work without cessation or intermission.
It would be no recreation for us to have a furlough from the great work
of the Lord–we only wish that we could live, labor, spend ourselves
and find our rest, as some birds do, on the wing–flying, mounting,
singing and so resting and making this to be our continual joy! So, you
see, we are in our Master's service for life. We have entered His
employ and we are bound to Him–and "neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord"
and Master–forever blessed be His name!
II. Now I hasten, in the second place, to remind you that OUR BUSINESS
IS TO SERVE OUR MASTER.
That business is expressed in the Hebrew of our text by the word,
"keep." I will read you the text as it should be rendered and as the
translators will make it read if they use their senses in their
revision of the Old Testament. That is, if they give the same meaning
to a word in all places. The previous translators thought that the
Bible would sound tautological if they gave the same translation of a
word everywhere, so, to charm the ears, they changed the words. But
then, alas, they sometimes changed the sense. Here, the original ought
to be rendered thus–"Whoever keeps the fig tree shall eat the fruit
thereof: so he that keeps his master shall be honored." Is not that a
wonderful word? In the interpretation I am giving to the passage, it
means that as certainly as the farmer keeps and tends a fig tree, so
you and I are to keep and tend Christ! Is it really true that He has
committed Himself to our keeping? Yes! On earth, among the sons of men,
there is One who keeps Israel, but Israel, in another sense, is made to
be a keeper, and is to keep the Lord Jesus Christ!
How are we to do that? Well, first, we must keep Him by always
remaining His servants. We must keep Him as our Master. I like the idea
of that man who once said to his master, "Sir, you talk about
discharging me, but you see, Sir, if you don't know when you have a
good servant, I know very well when I have a good master–and I don't
mean to be discharged. If you put me out of the front door, I shall
come in at the back, for I have been your servant ever since I was a
boy. I was born in your father's house and I mean to die in this
house." The gentleman saw that it was quite hopeless to try to get rid
of the old man, as he would not go, so he decided they should not be
parted. And I think some of us have come to the same point with our
Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Truly, He knows that, in us, He has,
even at our best, only unprofitable servants, but then He accepted us.
He knew all that we were and all that we should be. He had a clear
foresight of our whole future and He has still engaged us for life!
Some of our friends think He only engaged them for a quarter or half a
year, or for a limited period, but I know that He took me on for
life–and for eternity, too! And my soul rejoices in the fact that He
will keep to the bargain. Like the old man, I am determined that if He
puts me out at the front door, I will come in at the back, for I know
that I have a good Master and I will not leave Him. Do you not say the
same, Beloved? Then hold on to Him and tell Him that you will not let
Him go! Should He chasten you with the rod of men and lay many stripes
on you, yet be like some dogs that seem to love their masters all the
better the more they beat them! And so, dear Friends, love your Lord
all the better when He treats you roughly–kiss the hand that smites
you, and let this be your settled resolution–that from Him you will
never go.
What else are we to do in order to keep our Master? I think, next, we
are to keep Him by defending Him. We must defend our Lord's name, honor
and cause at all costs and all hazards. We must not let Him sleep like
King Saul, with his spear stuck in the ground by his bolster, and his
bodyguard asleep! But if the enemy should ever come to attack our
Master, our watchword must be, "Up, guards, and at them!" Give them a
warm reception from whatever quarter they may come. You and I, Beloved,
are put in charge of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and every
child of God is bound to be upon the defensive just as if the keeping
of the Gospel depended entirely upon him. I believe that I am as much
bound to preach against error, and to war for the Truth of Christ, as
if there were not another minister living–and I think that every other
minister stands in the same responsible position! And it is the same
with every Christian. Keep your Master and all that He has in
safety–let no traitor come near Him! Guard His ordinances, His
doctrines, His precepts! Adore His matchless Person and extol His
blessed work–and so keep Him against all comers.
Then, dear Friends, keep Him by guarding all His interests. It is the
duty of a servant to reckon that what belongs to his master is, in a
certain sense, his, and, therefore, to be sacredly defended. I have
heard of servants in the olden times, saying, "That is our park!" "This
is our country house," or, "this is our town house!" "These are our
horses" and one of them was heard by his master to say, "There come our
children, bless their little hearts!" Well, they were no children of
his, were they? Yes they were, for they were his master's children and
he had become so identified with his master's interests that he
regarded his master's children as belonging to him! So ought we to
think of everything that appertains to
Christ–and if the Lord has, anywhere, a little child who needs to be
cared for, each of us who are His servants should be prepared to nurse
it and watch over it for Him–and say to Him, with good Dr. Doddridge–
"Have You a lamb in all Your flock I would disdain to feed? Have You a
foe, before whose face I fear Your cause to plead?
Thus, dear Friends, keep your Master! Watch over your Master's
possessions! Guard your Master's Truth! Defend your Master's honor!
Care for your Master's children! As far as your power goes, try to keep
everything that belongs to Him, labor for the good of His cause,
struggle for the advancement of His interests and for the overthrow of
His adversaries, just as every loyal soldier seeks to preserve his
sovereign's dominions intact and to keep his king's arms from suffering
any dishonor. Thus let us keep our Master and all that belongs to Him.
Now let us come back to our own Authorized Version–"he that waits on
his master shall be honored." This also is a very good translation, if
not equal to the other, and I think it conveys an important meaning for
us. You and I are like servants who wait upon our Master. And that
waiting consists, in part, in waiting for His orders, trying to
ascertain what they are and, when we know them, waiting until He bids
us carry them out. It is not intended that you and I should be
inventors of rites, ceremonies, novelties of worship and all manner of
strange doctrines! Our position is simply that of servants. Our Master
has a certain way of setting out His Table and inviting His guests to
it. And I have no business to go to Him and say, "Look how the king of
Syria arranges histable? Is not that a better plan than Yours?" No,
that would be utter disloyalty! I have to set the Table according to my
Master's plan and custom. There are some old country squires who have
acquired odd ways of their own and the servants whom they employ must
drop into them, whatever their own notions may be. Now, the ways of the
Lord are right–and it is your duty and mine to ask what they are and
to conform our practice to them.
The same rule is to be observed in matters of church government and
discipline, in the ordinances of the Lord's house, in the Truths of God
to be preached, and in the way we go about our Master's business. It is
not for us to make our own laws, or to invent our own methods, but to
wait upon our Master and learn His will concerning everything. If we do
not do that, we shall get into a world of trouble! But if we wait upon
Him for our orders and then obey the orders we receive from our Master,
we shall be honored.
Next, we must wait upon Him for strength to obey His orders; for if we
do not, we shall either fail in our attempts, or else we shall fail
altogether to make the attempt. We must also wait upon our Master,
seeking His smile. I am afraid we do a great deal to get the smiles of
our fellow men–and if they think we have done well, we congratulate
ourselves. But, oh, to preach for the Master, to pray for the Master,
to teach that class for the Master–not for your pastor! Not for the
elders or deacons! Not for your fellow members, that they may say,
"What a zeal for the Lord this person has!" Let it all be done for the
Master! "He that waits on his master shall be honored." Do you not
think that sometimes you and I wait upon ourselves, and that, while we
are very busy and fancying we are working for the Lord, we may be doing
it entirely for self? Because we find some sort of pleasure in it, we
keep on doing it just for that pleasure, or because we feel that some
kind of credit must come to ourselves as the result of it. If we are
serving self, not our Master, we shall have a reward, but it will be a
poor commonplace reward–like that of the Pharisees, of whom the Master
said, "Verily I say unto you, they have their reward." That is the end
of it! They have had their reward and they cannot expect to be paid
twice for what they have done.
We are, dear Friends, further to wait upon the Lord by expecting Him to
fulfill His promises. And His promises will only be fulfilled in His
own time. We are not to run before the Lord, nor to seek to hurry the
Lord as though we thought He was slow in accomplishing His purposes. If
we ever cry, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord," we
shall probably receive for an answer, "Awake, awake! Put on your
strength, O Zion." It is we who are asleep–the Lord never is. And so
we are to wait upon Him and plead the promises that He has given us.
This waiting also includes acquiescence in His will Not only doing it,
but doing it willingly–being ready for anything that He may appoint.
Perhaps lying on a sick bed for months. Why, if we never rose again and
had to lie bedridden until we died, we ought to be perfectly willing to
do so to wait on our Master! You remember the story of poor old Betty
who said that the Lord told her to do this and that, and she tried to
do it, and at last He said to her, "Betty, go upstairs and lie in your
bed and cough." She said, "I am doing it, and I take satisfaction even
in coughing if that is according to my Lord's will." If you have no
will of your own in such matters, you will have very little sorrow. Our
troubles mostly grow from the root of self-will–but when self-will is
conquered and we hold ourselves entirely at God's disposal, then there
is a sweetness even in wormwood and gall–and our heaviest cross
becomes our joy and delight and we say, with holy Rutherford, "I find
the Cross of Christ no more a burden to me than wings are to a bird, or
sails are to a ship." That saintly man said that sometimes he felt so
deeply in love with his cross that he almost feared lest his sufferings
and grief should become so lovely to him as to be a rival to the Lord
Jesus Christ. There is no such danger, I am afraid, with the most of
us, for we are as bulls unaccustomed to the yoke–and we kick against
the pricks. But if you can wait upon your Master and say, "Do with me
as You will, Lord," all will be well. Try to be like the shepherd on
Salisbury Plain, whose story should never be forgotten. When he was
asked, "Is it good weather?" he answered, "Yes, it is all good weather
that God sends." "But does this weather please you?" "If it pleases
God, it pleases me," was his reply. That is the point to get to–may
God bring us there by His Grace!
III. When we get there, we shall come to our last point, OUR SERVICE
WILL BRING US HONOR–"He that waits on his master shall be honored."
Brothers and Sisters, the thought of waiting upon Christ and being His
servant is an unspeakable honor! Therefore I will not try to speak
about it, but ask youto just sit still and think about it. You are His
servants, the servants of the eternal Son of God! Perhaps somebody is
going to be made an earl or a duchess. I do not think that would be any
honor to you, for you have already a higher honor than that, for you
are a servant of the Lord! There will be a coronet for somebody to
wear, but really, I do not see that it could add any luster to you, for
you are a prince of the blood-royal of the skies! As for our pedigree,
there is none like it. We do not trace it to the Normans, but to
Calvary! We are of that seed that was to crush the serpent's head. Our
coat of arms is much more ancient than any that the Heralds' College
can ever issue! We need no other honor and can have no higher glory
than to be servants of Christ! Are you only a little nurse-girl? Well,
if you belong to Christ, you are one of those whom He counts right
honorable! Are you a chimneysweep, my Brother? Never mind that–if the
Lord has washed you in His precious blood, you are as noble as any peer
of the realm and nobler than most of them! Do you have to go to the
workhouse for weekly help? Never mind about your poverty–you are not
so poor, now, as your Lord was–for He had nowhere to lay His head. Do
not talk about being mean and obscure–why, you are descended from the
King of Kings! "This honor have all His saints." "Unto you that
believe, He is an honor"–that is the meaning of the Greek–and I take
it that it is honor enough for us to have such a Savior to believe in
and such a Master to serve!
You shall have honor, dear Friends, among poor fellow Christians. If
you really honor only your Master's name, it will not be long before
they will honor and esteem you. I notice that the moment a man begins
to seek honor for himself, he loses the esteem of his fellows. Do you
ever hear any minister who preaches very grandly? If so, you think to
yourself, "What a splendid preacher he is!" But you will find that, as
a rule, God's people do not care much about him. Notice any worker in
the church who wants to be very prominent and push himself
forward–everybody desires to kick him! But there is another Brother
who serves Christ in the rear rank and who blushes when he is pushed to
the front–he is the man to whom his Brothers and Sisters look up to
and though they may say little to him, they delight to honor him in
their hearts. Perhaps the most honorable thing in Christ's house is the
doormat–when all the brethren wipe their dirty boots upon it, they are
so much the cleaner.
1 know some people who do not like to be in the position of the
doormat–if a person brushes against them, they cry, "What a shame!" It
is a great honor to do anything for your Master's children which will
be for their good. In the Kingdom of God, the way to go up is to go
down–and the way to grow great is to grow little. Look at little
Paul– that man short of stature and with many infirmities. Why, he is
the biggest of all the Apostles! And what is "great Paul"? Oh, he is
only sounding brass and the less we hear of him, the better. Get to be
like little Paul, Brother, and your sound shall go out to the very ends
of the earth! Whereas if you are ever a big Paul, you will only give
out a brazen note which will be heard for a very little way. If the
Lord Jesus Christ has made us to be His servants, let us count it our
highest honor to be a servant of the least of Hisservantsso that we may
bless them and glorify Him!
But our highest honor is yet to come.It is in that day when Christ
shall call His chosen ones to His own right hand to reign with Him. It
is when He shall appoint unto them a Kingdom even as His Father
appointed it to Him. It is when he who was faithful in a few things
shall be made ruler over many things in the Kingdom of the Master
forever and forever! I think I see the King coming into His court–it
is crowded with cherubim and seraphim and all the shining ones that
form His royal retinue! There they stand in all their gorgeous glory
and the Master, from the Throne, looks over all their ranks as He
accepts their loyal and reverent homage. But He is looking for one poor
man who on earth loved Him and who kept the faith under much derision
and scorn. At last He spies him out and says, "Make way, My angelic
servants! Cherubim and seraphim, stand in line and let him come! This
man was with Me in My humiliation, as you could not be. For Me he bore
the cross and was despised. Make way and let him come and sit with Me,
for they who have been with Me in My humiliation shall be with Me in My
glory."
Oh, that you and I, dear Friends, may have that honor at the last! And
what will we do when we get it? Why, we will cast our crowns at our
Savior's feet and say to Him, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Your
name be all the praise and glory forever!" And in that very deed we
shall find the highest honor of all! And we shall then, perhaps,
remember this Thursday evening and this text, "He that waits on his
master shall be honored." The Lord bless you all, for Jesus Christ's
sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW25:14-30.
Verse 14. For the kingdom of Heaven is as a man traveling into a far
country, who called his servants and delivered unto them his goods.
This parable has to do with you who are professors of Christianity. He,
"called his servants," those who, by their own consent, were numbered
among his household servitors. "He called his servants and delivered
unto them his goods." Not theirs, but his! And therefore to be used
forhim. If you are Christ's servant, your abilities are His, He has
lent them to you to be employed for your Lord. "He called his servants
and delivered unto them his goods."
15. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another
one; to every man according to his ability; and straightway took his
journey. He is gone. Our Lord has risen and we, His servants, are left
behind to trade with His goods for His glory.
16-18. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with
the same, and made them another five talents. And likewise he that had
received two, he also gained another two. But he that had received one
went and dug in the earth and hid his lord's money. We are grieved to
know that there are persons with five talents and others with two
talents who do as this man did–but the case is put in this way so as
to reach us all. Since most persons have but one talent, they are the
most often found, each one, saying, "I have so little ability, I will
not do anything. If I had five talents, I might become distinguished.
If I had two, I might be very useful. But with only one, I need not
attempt anything. I am a private person–a mother, quite obscure, with
my little family around me–what can I do?" It is very often a strong
temptation from Satan to those who have but one talent, to make them
think that they may, with impunity, hide that one. And then, you see,
the argument cuts the other way. If it is wrong to hide one talent, it
is much more wrong to hide two, and far worse to dig in the earth and
bury five!
19. After a long time the lord of those servants returned and reckoned
with them. Always remember the reckoning. We have heard of one who went
into a house of entertainment and fed most luxuriously. But, when the
landlord brought him the bill, he said, "Oh, I never thought of that!"
And there are many who spend their whole lives without ever thinking of
the reckoning–yet it must come, and for every hour, for every
opportunity, for every ability, for every sin and for every omission of
duty, they must give account! "The lord of those servants returned and
reckoned with them."
20, 21. And so he that had received five talents came and brought
another five talents, saying, Lord, you delivered unto me five talents:
behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto
him, Well done, you good and faithful servant: you have been faithful
over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things: enter you
into the joy of your lord. I do not doubt that this man had often
reckoned with himself–for he that never reckons with himself may well
be afraid of being called to reckon with his God–and I expect that he
had often grieved to think that he had not turned the five talents into
twenty. He must have thought that to gain only five talents more was
very little. But he found his master was well content with what he had
done. Do you think, Brothers and Sisters, that all of you who have five
talents have gained five talents more? You were richly endowed as a
youth–have you increased the ability to serve your God? You see the
parable speaks not so much of what they had done for other people, as
of what they had themselves gained and still had in hand! Have you more
Grace? Have you more tact? Have you more adaptation to your Master's
service? Are you conscious that it is so? I should not wonder if you
are mourning that you are not more useful and more fit to be used. It
is well that you should mourn in that way, but when your Master comes,
I trust that He will say, "Well done, you good and faithful servant."
22, 23. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, you
delivered unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents
beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful
servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I shall make you
ruler over many things: enter you into the joy of your lord. That is a
beautiful reward–not so much to have a joy of our own as to enter into
the joy of our Lord! It is not a servant's portion that is given to
us–it is the Master's portion sharedby His servants. How it ennobles
Christian work to feel that it is not simply our work, but work done by
the Master through the servant–and the reward shall not so much be our
joy as our entrance into our Master's joy! That is, indeed, giving to
us the best of the best in return for our poor service here!
24, 25. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord,
I knew you that you are an hard man, reaping where you have not sown,
and gathering where you have not scattered: and I was afraid, and went
and hid your talent in the earth: lo, there you have what is yours. "I
was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the earth." See, Friends,
how fear may often be the mother of presumption? Confidence in God
begets holy fear, but unholy fear begets a doubt of God and leads us to
desperate rebellion of unbelief. God save us from such fear!
26, 27. His lord answered and said unto him, You wicked and slothful
servant, you knew that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I
have not scattered? You ought therefore to have put my money in the
bank, and then at my coming I should have received my own with usury.
His lord took him on his own ground and condemned him out of his own
mouth.
28. 29. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which
has ten talents. For unto everyone that has shall be given, and he
shall have abundance. He that has faith shall have more faith. He that
has a secret taste for heavenly things shall have a greater love for
them. He that has some understanding of the Truth of God shall get more
understanding of it. God gives to those that have–it is equally true
that He gives to those who confess that they have not.
29. But from him that has not shall be taken away even that which he
has. If you need an instance of taking away from a man what he has
not–you may have seen it sometimes in the case of a person without any
education or knowledge who is quite content to remain in that
condition. But, all of a sudden he is introduced into learned
society–he hears what educated people have to say, and he exclaims,
"What a fool I am!" What he thought he had, though he never had it,
suddenly goes from him!
30. And cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth. If we give any description of the
world to come which is at all terrible, those who reject the Scriptures
begin to cry out that we have borrowed it from Dante, or taken it from
Milton! But I take leave to say that the most awful and harrowing
descriptions of the woes of the lost that ever fell from human lips do
not exceed or even equal the language of the loving Christ, Himself!
Listen–"Cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth." He is the true lover of men's souls
who does not deceive them! He that paints the miseries of Hell as
though they were but little is seeking to murder men's souls under the
pretense of being their friend! May God give all of you Grace to trust
in Jesus for yourselves and then to point others to Him, for Christ's
sake! Amen.