'He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful
also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is
unjust also in much. 11. If therefore ye have not been
faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to
your trust the true riches? 12. And if ye have not been
faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give
you that which is your own?'--LUKE xvi. 10-12.
That is a very strange parable which precedes my text, in which our
Lord takes a piece of crafty dishonesty on the part of a steward who
had been embezzling his lord's money as in some sense an example for
us Christian people, There are other instances in which He does the
same thing, finding a soul of goodness in things evil, as, for
instance, in the parable of the Unjust Judge. Similar is the New
Testament treatment of war or slavery, both of which diabolical
things are taken as illustrations of what in the highest sphere are
noble and heavenly things.
But having delivered the parable, our Lord seems, in the verses that
I have read, to anticipate the objection that the unfaithfulness of
the steward can never be an example for God's stewards; and in the
words before us, amongst other things, He says substantially this,
that whilst the steward's using his lord's wealth in order to help
his lord's debtors was a piece of knavery and unfaithfulness, in us
it is not unfaithfulness, but the very acme of faithfulness. In the
text we have the thought that there are two kinds of valuable things
in the world, a lower and a higher; that men may be very rich in
regard to the one, and very poor in regard to the other. In respect
to these, 'There is that maketh himself rich, and yet hath nothing;
there is that maketh himself poor, and yet hath great riches.' More
than that, the noblest use of the lower kind of possessions is to
secure the possession of the highest. And so He teaches us the
meaning of life, and of all that we have.
Now, there are three things in these words to which I would turn
your attention--the two classes of treasure, the contrast of
qualities between these two, and the noblest use of the lower.