'The children of this world are in their generation
wiser than the children of light.'--LUKE xvi. 8.
The parable of which these words are the close is remarkable in that
it proposes a piece of deliberate roguery as, in some sort, a
pattern for Christian people. The steward's conduct was neither more
nor less than rascality, and yet, says Christ, 'Do like that!'
The explanation is to be found mainly in the consideration that what
was faithless sacrifice of his master's interests, on the part of the
steward, is, in regard to the Christian man's use of earthly gifts,
the right employment of the possessions which have been entrusted to
him. But there is another vindication of the singular selection of
such conduct as an example, in the consideration that what is praised
is not the dishonesty, but the foresight, realisation of the facts of
the case, promptitude, wisdom of various kinds exhibited by the
steward. And so says our Lord--shutting out the consideration of ends,
and looking only for a moment at means,--the world can teach the
Church a great many lessons; and it would be well for the Church if
its members lived in the fashion in which the men of the world do.
There is eulogium here, a recognition of splendid qualities,
prostituted to low purposes; a recognition of wisdom in the adaptation
of means to an end; and a limitation of the recognition, because it is
only _in their generation_ that 'the children of this world are
wiser than the children of light.'
I. So we may look, first, at these two classes, which our Lord
opposes here to one another.
'The children of this world' would have, for their natural
antithesis, the children of another world. The 'children of light'
would have, for their natural antithesis, 'the children of
darkness.' But our Lord so orders His words as to suggest a double
antithesis, one member of which has to be supplied in each case, and
He would teach us that whoever the children of this world may be,
they are 'children of darkness'; and that the 'children of light'
are so, just because they are the children of another world than
this. Thus He limits His praise, because it is the sons of darkness
that, in a certain sense, are wiser than the enlightened ones. And
that is what makes the wonder and the inconsistency to which our
Lord is pointing. We can understand a man being a consistent,
thorough-paced fool all through. But men whose folly is so dashed
and streaked with wisdom, and others whose wisdom is so spotted and
blurred with folly, are the extraordinary paradoxes which experience
of life presents to us.
The children of this world are of darkness; the children of light
are the children of another world. Now I need not spend more than a
sentence or two in further explaining these two antitheses. I do not
intend to vindicate them, or to vindicate our Lord's distinct
classification of men into these two halves. What does He mean by
the children of this world? The old Hebrew idiom, the children of
so-and-so, simply suggests persons who are so fully possessed and
saturated with a given quality, or who belong so entirely to a given
person, as that they are spoken of as if they stood to it, or to
him, in the relation of children to their parents. And a child of
this world is a man whose whole thoughts, aims, and objects of life
are limited and conditioned by this material present. But the word
which is employed here, translated rightly enough 'world,' is not
the same as that which is often used, especially in John's writings,
for the same idea. Although it conveys a similar idea, still it is
different. The characteristic quality of the visible and material
world which is set forth by the expression here employed is its
transiency. 'The children of this epoch' rather than 'of this world'
is the meaning of the phrase. And it suggests, not so much the
inadequacy of the material to satisfy the spiritual, as the absurdity
of a man fixing his hopes and limiting his aims and life-purpose
within the bounds of what is destined to fade and perish. Fleeting
wealth, fleeting honours, mortal loves, wisdom, and studies that pass
away with the passing away of the material; these, however elevating
some of them may be, however sweet some of them may be, however
needful all of them are in their places, are not the things to which
a man can safely lash his being, or entrust his happiness, or wisely
devote his life. And therefore the men who, ignoring the fact that
they live and the world passes, make themselves its slaves, and
itself their object, are convicted by the very fact of the
disproportion between the duration of themselves and of that which
is their aim, of being children of the darkness.
Then we come to the other antithesis. The children of light are so
in the measure in which their lives are not dependent exclusively
upon, nor directed solely towards, the present order and condition
of things. If there be a _this,_ then there is a _that_. If there be an
age which is qualified as being present, then that implies that there
is an age or epoch which is yet to come. And that coming 'age' should
regulate the whole of our relations to that age which at present is. For
life is continuous, and the coming epoch is the outcome of the present.
As truly as 'the child is father of the man,' so truly is Eternity the
offspring of Time, and that which we are to-day determines that which
we shall be through the ages. He that recognises the relations of the
present and the future, who sees the small, limited things of the
moment running out into the dim eternity beyond, and the track
unbroken across the gulfs of death and the broad expanse of countless
years, and who therefore orders the little things here so as to secure
the great things yonder, he, and only he, who has made time the
'lackey to eternity,' and in his pursuit of the things seen and
temporal, regards them always in the light of things unseen and eternal,
is a child of light.
II. The second consideration suggested here is the limited and
relative wisdom of the fools.
The children of this world, who are the children of darkness, and
who at bottom are thoroughly unwise, considered relatively, 'are
wiser than the children of light.' The steward is the example. 'A
rogue is always'--as one of our thinkers puts it--'a roundabout
fool.' He would have been a much wiser man if he had been an
honester one; and, instead of tampering with his lord's goods, had
faithfully administered them.
But, shutting out the consideration of the moral quality of his
action, look how much there was in it that was wise, prudent, and
worthy of praise. There were courage, fertility of resource, a clear
insight into what was the right thing to do. There was a wise
adaptation of means to an end. There was promptitude in carrying out
the wise means that suggested themselves to him. The design was bad.
Granted. We are not talking about goodness, but about cleverness.
So, very significantly, in the parable the person cheated cannot
help saying that the cheat was a clever one. The 'lord,' although he
had suffered by it, 'commended the unjust steward, because he had
done wisely.'
Did you never know in Manchester some piece of sharp practice, about
which people said, 'Ah, well, he is a clever fellow,' and all but
condoned the immorality for the sake of the smartness? The lord and
the steward belong to the same level of character; and vulpine
sagacity, astuteness, and qualities which ensure success in material
things seem to both of them to be of the highest value. 'The children
of this world, _in their generation'_--but only in it--are wiser
than the children of light.'
Now I draw a very simple, practical lesson, and it is just this,
that if Christian men, in their Christian lives, would practise the
virtues that the world practises, in pursuit of its shabby aims and
ends, their whole Christian character would be revolutionised. Why,
a boy will spend more pains in learning to whistle than half of you
do in trying to cultivate your Christian character. The secret of
success religiously is precisely the same as the secret of success
in ordinary things. Look at the splendid qualities that go to the
making of a successful housebreaker. Audacity, resource, secrecy,
promptitude, persistence, skill of hand, and a hundred others, are
put into play before a man can break into your back kitchen and
steal your goods. Look at the qualities that go to the making of a
successful amuser of people. Men will spend endless time and pains,
and devote concentration, persistence, self-denial, diligence, to
learning how to play upon some instrument, how to swing upon a
trapeze, how to twist themselves into abnormal contortions. Jugglers
and fiddlers, and circus-riders and dancers, and people of that sort
spend far more time upon efforts to perfect themselves in their
profession, than ninety-nine out of every hundred professing
Christians do to make themselves true followers of Jesus Christ.
They know that nothing is to be got without working for it, and
there is nothing to be got in the Christian life without working for
it any more than in any other.
Shut out the end for a moment, and look at the means. From the ranks
of criminals, of amusers, and of the purely worldly men of business
that we come in contact with every day, we may get lessons that
ought to bring a blush to all our cheeks, when we think to ourselves
how a wealth of intellectual and moral qualities and virtues, such
as we do not bring to bear on our Christian lives, are by these men
employed in regard of their infinitely smaller pursuits.
Oh, brethren! we ought to be our own rebukes, for it is not only
other people who show forth in other fields of life the virtues that
would make so much better Christians of us, if we used them in ours,
but that we ourselves carry within ourselves the condemning
contrast. Look at your daily life! Do you give anything like the
effort to grow in the knowledge of your Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ, that you do to make or maintain your position in the world?
When you are working side by side with the children of this world
for the same objects, you keep step with them, and are known to be
diligent in business as they are. When you pass into the church,
what do you do there? Are we not ice in one half of our lives, and
fire in the other? We may well lay to heart these solemn words of
our Lord, and take shame when we think that not only do the unwise,
who choose the world as their portion, put us to shame in their
self-denial, their earnestness, their absorption, their clear
insight into facts, their swiftness in availing themselves of every
opportunity, their persistence and their perseverance, but that we
rebuke ourselves because of the difference between the earnestness
with which we follow the things that are of this world, and the
languor of our pursuit after the things that are unseen and eternal.
Of course the reasons for the contrast are easy enough to apprehend,
and I do not need to spend time upon them. The objects that so have
power to stimulate and to lash men into energy, continuously through
their lives, lie at hand, and a candle near will dim the sunshine
beyond. These objects appeal to sense, and such make a deeper
impression than things that are shown to the mind, as every picture-book
may prove to us. And we, in regard to the aims of our Christian life,
have to make a continual effort to bring and keep them before us, or
they are crowded out by the intrusive vulgarities and dazzling
brilliances of the present. And so it comes to pass that the men who
hunt after trifles that are to perish set examples to the men who say
that they are pursuing eternal realities. 'Go to the ant, thou sluggard,
consider her ways and be wise.' Go to the men of the world, thou
Christian, and do not let it be said that the devil's scholars are more
studious and earnest than Christ's disciples.