The master has come back. He is a king now, but he is the master
still, and he wants to know what has become of the money that was
left in the servants' hands. Now, that is but a metaphorical way of
bringing to our minds that which we cannot conceive of without
metaphor--viz., the retribution that lies beyond the grave for us
all. Although we cannot conceive it without metaphor, we may reach,
through the metaphor to some apprehension, at any rate, of the facts
that lie behind it. There are two points in reference to this final
declaration of profits suggested here.
The first is this, that all the profit is ascribed to the capital.
Neither of the two men say: 'I, with thy pound, have gained,' but
'Thy pound hath gained.' That is accurately true. For if I accept,
and live by, any great moral truth or principle, it is the principle
or the truth that is the real productive cause of the change in my
life and character. I, by my acceptance of it, simply put the belt
on the drum that connects my loom with the engine, but it is the
engine that drives the looms and the shuttle, and brings out the web
at last. And so, Christian people who, with God's grace in their
hearts, have utilised the 'pound,' and thereby made themselves
Christlike, have to say, 'It was not I, but Christ in me. It was the
Gospel, and not my faith in the Gospel, that wrought this change.'
Is it your teeth or your dinner that nourishes you? Is it the Gospel
or your trust in the Gospel that is the true cause of your
sanctifying?
With regard to the other aspect of this trading, the same thing is
true. Is it my word or Christ's Word ministered by me that helps any
of my hearers who are helped? Surely! surely! there is no question
about that. It is the 'pound' that gains the 'pounds.' 'Paul
planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So, then,
neither is he that planteth anything nor he that watereth, but God
that giveth the increase.'
The other consideration suggested by these words is the exact
knowledge of the precise results of a life, which is possessed at
last. Each servant knew precisely what was the net outcome of his
whole activity. That is exactly what we do not know here, and never
shall, and never can know. But yonder all illusions will have
vanished; and there will be two sorts of disillusionising then. Men,
for instance, of my profession, whose names are familiar, and who
hold high places in the esteem of the Church, and may be tempted to
suppose that they have done a great deal--I am afraid that many of
us will find, when we get yonder, that we have not done nearly so
much as our admirers in this world, and we ourselves, were sometimes
tempted to think that we had done. The searching light that comes in
will show a great many seamy places in the cloth that looks very
sound when it is inspected in the twilight. And there will be
another kind of disillusionising. Many a man has said, 'Lord! I have
laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought,' who will find
out that he was mistaken, and that where he saw failure there were
solid results; that where he thought the grain had perished in the
furrows, it had sprung up and borne fruit unto life everlasting.
'Lord! when saw we Thee in prison, and visited Thee?' We never knew
that we had done anything of the sort. 'Behold! I was left alone,'
said the widowed Jerusalem when she was restored to her husband,
'these'--children that have gathered round me--'where had they
been?' We shall know, for good or bad, exactly the results of our
lives.
We shall have to tell them. The slothful servant, too, was under
this compulsion of absolute honesty. If he had not been so, do you
think he would have ventured to stand up before his master, a king
now, and insult him to his face? But he had to turn himself inside
out, and tell then what he had thought in his inmost heart. So
'every one of us shall give an account of himself to God'; and like
a man in the bankruptcy court, we shall have to explain our books,
and go into all our transactions. We are working in the dark today.
Our work will be seen as it is, in the light. The coral reef rises
in the ocean, and the creatures that made it do not see it. The
ocean will be drained away, and the reef will stand up sheer and
distinct.
My brother! 'I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire'--and
when you have bought your pound, see that you use it; for 'it is
required in stewards that a man be found faithful.'