The one man says, 'Thy pound hath gained ten pounds.' The other
says, 'Thy pound hath gained five pounds.' And the others who are
not mentioned, no doubt, had also varying results to present. Now
that inequality of profits from an equal capital to start with, is
but a picturesque way of saying what is, alas! too obviously true,
that Christian people do not all stand on the same level in regard
to the use they have made of, and the benefits they have derived
from, the one equal gift which was bestowed upon them. It is
the same to every one at the beginning, but differences develop as
they go on. One man makes twice as much out of it as another does.
Now, let us distinctly understand what sort of differences these are
which our Lord signalises here. Let me clear away a mistake which
may interfere with the true lessons of this parable, that the
differences in question are the superficial ones in apparent results
which follow from difference of endowments, or from difference of
influential position. That is the kind of meaning that is often
attached to the 'ten pounds' or the 'five pounds' in the text. We
think that the ten pounder is the man who has been able to do some
large spiritual work for Jesus Christ, that fills the world with its
greatness, the man who has been set in some most conspicuous place,
and by reason of intellectual ability or other talent has been able
to gather in many souls into the kingdom; but that is not Christ's
way of estimating. We should be going dead in the teeth of
everything that He teaches if we thought that such as these were the
differences intended. No, no! Every man that co-operates in a great
work with equal diligence and devotion has an equal place in his
eyes. The soldier that clapped Luther on the back as he was going
into the Diet of Worms, and said, 'You have a bigger fight to fight
than we ever had; cheer up, little monk!' stands on the same level
as the great reformer, if what he did was done from the game motive
and with as full consecration of himself. The old law of Israel
states the true principle of Christian recompense: they that 'abide
by the stuff' have the same share in the spoil as they 'that go down
into the battle.' All servants who have exercised equal faithfulness
and equal diligence stand on the same level and have the same
success; no matter how different may be their estimation in the eyes
of men; no matter how different may be the conspicuousness of the
places that they fill in the eyes of the world whilst they live, or
in the records of the Church when they are dead. Equal diligence
will issue in equal results in the development of character, and the
only reason for the diversity of results is the diversity of
faithfulness and of zeal in trading with the pound.
Notice, too, before I go further, how all who trade make profits.
There are no bad debts in that business. There are no investments
that result in a loss. Everybody that goes into it makes something
by it; which is just to say that any man who is honest and earnest
in the attempt to utilise the powers of Christ's Gospel for his own
culture, or for the world's good, will succeed in reality, however
he may seem to fail in appearance. There are no commercial failures
in this trading. The man with his ten pounds of profit made them
because he worked hardest. The man that made the five made all that
his work entitled him to. There was no one who came and said, 'Lord!
I put thy pound into my little shop, and I did my best with it, and
it is all gone!' Every Christian effort is crowned with success.