III. The bearing of faithfulness in this life on the fuller
possession of our true riches in the life hereafter.
There lies under this whole context a striking conception of life
here in its relation to the life hereafter, A father sets his son,
or a master sets his apprentice, to some small task, an experiment
made upon a comparatively worthless body, supplies him with material
which it does not much matter whether he spoils or not, and then if
by practice the hand becomes deft, he is set to better work. God
sets us to try our 'prentice hands here in the world, and if we
administer that rightly, not necessarily perfectly, but so as to
show that there are the makings of a good workman in us by His
gracious help, then the next life comes, with its ampler margin,
with its wider possibilities, with its nobler powers, and there we
are set to use in loftier fashion the powers which we made our own
being here. 'Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make
thee ruler over many things.'
I have said that the great use of the world and all its wealth is to
make character. I have said that that character determines our
capacity for the possession of God. I have said that our
administration of worldly wealth is one chief factor in determining
our character. Now I say that that character persists. There are
great changes, changes the significance and the scope and the
consequences of which we can never know here. But the man remains,
in the main direction of his being, in the character which he has
made for himself by his use of God's world and of Christ's Spirit.
And so the way in which we handle the trivialities and temporalities
here has eternal consequences. We sit in a low room with the
telegraph instrument in front of us, and we click off our messages,
and they are recorded away yonder, and we shall have to read them
one day. Transient causes produce permanent effects. The seas which
laid down the great sandstone deposits that make so large a portion
of the framework of this world have long since evaporated. But the
footprints of the seabird that stalked across the moist sand, and
the little pits made by the raindrops that fell countless
millenniums ago on the red ooze, are there yet, and you may see them
in our museums. And so our faithfulness, or our unfaithfulness, here
has made the character which is eternal, and on which will depend
whether we shall, in the joys of that future life, possess God in
fullness, or whether we shall lose Him, as our portion and our
Friend.
Now, dear brethren, do not forget that all this that I have been
saying is the second page in Christ's teaching; and the first page
is an entirely different one. I have been saying that we make
character, and that character determines our possession of God and
His grace. But there is another thing to be said. The central
thought of Christ's gospel is that God, in His sweetness, in His
pardoning mercy, in His cleansing Spirit, is given to the very men
whose characters do not deserve it. And the same Lord who said, 'If
ye have not been faithful in that which is least, who shall give you
that which is greatest?' says also from the heavens,' I counsel thee
to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich.' My
text, and the principle that is involved in it, do not contradict
the great truth that we are saved by simple faith, however unworthy
we are. That is the message to begin with. And unless you have
received it you are not standing in the place where the message that
I have been insisting upon has a personal bearing on you. But if you
have taken Christ for your salvation, remember, Christian brother
and sister, that it is not the same thing in regard either to your
Christian life on earth, or to your heavenly glory, whether you have
been living faithfully as stewards in your handling of earth's
perishable good, or whether you have clung to it as your real
portion, have used it selfishly, and by it have hidden God from your
hearts. To Christian men is addressed the charge that we trust not
in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, and that we be
'rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate,
that we lay up in store for ourselves a good foundation against the
time to come'; and so 'lay hold on the life that is life indeed.'