'Thou hast been faithful in a very little.' Some of you may remember
a recent sermon on the previous part of this parable, in which I
tried to bring out an explanation of the small sum with which these
servants were entrusted--the pound apiece for their little retail
businesses--and found reason to believe that the interpretation of
that gift was the Gospel of Jesus Christ which, in comparison with
the world's wisdom and philosophies and material forces, seemed such
a very insignificant thing. If we keep that interpretation in view
in treating my present text, then there is hinted to us the contrast
between the necessary limitations and incompletenesses even of the
revelation of God in Jesus Christ which we have here, and the flood
of glory and of light, which shall pour upon our eyes when the veil
of flesh and sense has dropped away. Here we know in part; here,
even with the intervention of the Eternal and Incarnate Word of God,
the Revealer of the Father, we see as in a glass darkly; there face
to face. The magnificences and the harmonies of that great
revelation of God in Jesus Christ, which transcends all human
thought and all worldly wisdom, are but a point, in comparison with
the continent of illumination which shall come to us hereafter. 'The
moon that rules the night' is the revelation that we have to-day,
the reflection and echo of the sun that will rule the unsetting day
of the heavens.
But I pass from that aspect of the words before us to the other,
which, I suppose, is rather to be kept in view, in which the
faithfulness in a very little points to the smallness of this
present, as measured against that infinite future to which it
conducts. Much has been said upon that subject, which is very
antagonistic to the real ideas of Christianity. Life here, and this
present, have been depreciated unduly, untruly, and unthankfully.
And harm has been done, not only to the men who accept that
estimate, but to the world that scoffs at it. There is nothing in
the Bible, which is at all in sympathy with the so-called religious
depreciation of the present, but there is this--'the things that are
seen are temporal; the things that are unseen are eternal.' The
lower hills look high when beheld from the flat plain that stretches
on this side of them; but, if the mist lifts, the great white peaks
come out beyond them, glittering in the sunshine, and with the
untrodden snows on their inaccessible pinnacles; and nobody thinks
about the green foothills, with the flowers upon them, any more.
Brethren, think away the mist, for you can, and open your eyes, and
see the snow-clad hills of eternity, and then you will understand
how low is the elevation of the heights in the foreground. The
greatness of the future makes the present little, but the little
present is great, because its littleness is the parent of the great
future. 'The child is father of the man'; and earth's narrow range
widens out into the infinitude of eternity and of heaven. The only
thing that gives real greatness and sublimity to our mortal life is
its being the vestibule to another. Historically you will find that,
wherever faith in a future life has become dim, as it has become dim
in large sections of the educated classes to-day, there the general
tone of strenuous endeavour has dropped, and the fatal feeling of
'It is not worth while' begins to creep over society. 'Is life worth
living?' is the question that is asked on all sides of us to-day.
And the modern recrudescence of pessimism has along with it, as one
of the main thoughts which cut the nerves of effort, doubt of, and
disbelief in, a future. It is because the very little opens out into
the immeasurably great, and the passing moments tick us onwards into
an unpassing eternity, that the moments are worth living through,
and the fleeting insignificances of earth's existence become solemn
and majestic as the portals of heaven.
III. Notice the future form of activity prepared for by faithful
trading.
'Thou hast been faithful in a very little; have thou authority over
ten cities.' Now I do not need to spend a word in dwelling on the
contrast between the two pictures of the huckster with his little
shop and the pound of capital to begin with, and the vizier that has
control of ten of the cities of his master. That is too plain to
need any enforcement. We are all here, all us Christian people
especially, like men that keep a small shop, in a back street, with
a few trivial things in the window, but we are heirs of a kingdom.
That is what Christ wants us to lay to heart, so that the little
shop shall not seem so very small, and its smoky obscurity shall be
irradiated by true visions of what it will lead to.
Nor do I wish to risk any kind of fanciful and precarious
speculations as to the manner and the sphere of the authority that
is here set forth; only I would keep to one or two plain things.
Faithfulness here prepares for participation in Christ's authority
hereafter. For we are not to forget that whilst the master, the
nobleman, was away seeking the kingdom, all that he could give his
servants was the little stock-in-trade with which he started them,
and that it is because he has won his kingdom that he is able to
dispense to them the larger gifts of dominion over the ten and the
five cities. The authority is delegated, but it is more than that--
it is shared. For it is participation in, and not merely delegation
from, the King and His rule, that is set forth in this and in other
places of Scripture, for 'they shall sit down with Me on My throne,
even as I also overcame and am set down with My Father on His
throne.'
If, then, the rule set forth, in whatever sphere and in whatever
fashion it may be exercised, is participation in Christ's authority,
let us not forget that therefore it is a rule of which the manifestation
is service. In heaven as on earth, and for the Lord in heaven as for the
Lord on earth, and for the servants in heaven as for the servants on
earth, the law stands irrefragable and eternal--'If any man will be
chief among you, let him be your minister.' The authority over the ten
cities is the capacity and opportunity of serving and helping every
citizen in them all. What that help may be let us leave. It is better
to be ignorant than to speculate about matters where there is no
possibility of certainty. Ignorance is more impressive than knowledge,
only be sure that no dignity can live amidst the pure light of the
heavens, except after the fashion of the dignity of the Lord of all,
who there, as here, is the servant of all.
But there is a thought in connection with this great though dim
revelation of the future, which may well be laid to heart by us. And
that is, that however close and direct the dependence on, and the
communion with, Jesus Christ, the King of all His servants, in that
future state is, it shall not be so close and direct as to exclude
room for the exercise of brotherly sympathy and brotherly aid. We
shall have Christ for our life and our light and our glory. But
there, as here, we shall help one another to have Him more fully,
and to understand Him more perfectly. What further lies in these
great words, I do not venture to guess. Enough to know that Christ
will be all in all, and that Christ in each will help the others to
know Christ more fully.
Only remember, we have to take this great conception of the future
as being one that implies largely increased and ennobled activity. A
great deal of very cheap ridicule has been cast upon the Christian
conception of the future life as if it was an eternity of idleness
and of repose. Of repose, yes; of idleness, no! For it is no
sinecure to be the governor of ten cities. There will be a good deal
of work to be done, in order to discharge that office properly. Only
it will be work that does not disturb repose, and at one and the
same moment His servants will serve in constant activity, and gaze
upon His face in calm contemplation. Christ's session at the right
hand of God does not interfere with Christ's continual activity
here. And, in like manner, His servants shall rest from their
labours, but not from their work; they shall serve Him undisturbed,
and shall repose, but not idly.
IV. Lastly, our texts remind us of the variety in recompense which
corresponds to diversity in faithfulness.
I need but say a word about that. The one man gets his ten cities
because his faithfulness has brought in ten pounds. The other gets
five, corresponding to his faithfulness. As I said, our Lord pays,
not for results, except in so far as these are conditioned and
secured by the diligence of His servants. And so we come to the old
familiar, and yet too often forgotten, conception of degrees in
dignity, degrees in nearness to Him. That thought runs all through
the New Testament representations of a future life, sometimes more
clearly, sometimes more obscurely, but generally present. It is in
entire accordance with the whole conception of that future, because
the Christian notion of it is not that it is an arbitrary reward,
but that it is the natural outcome of the present; and, of course,
therefore, varying according to the present, of which it is the
outcome. We get what we have wrought for. We get what we are capable
of receiving, and what we are capable of receiving depends upon what
has been our faithfulness here.
Now, that is perfectly consistent with the other side of the truth
which the twin parable sets forth--viz., that the recompenses of the
future are essentially one. All the servants, who were entrusted
with the Talents, received the same eulogium, and entered into the
same joy of their Lord. That is one side of the truth. And the other
is, that the degree in which Christian people, when they depart
hence, possess the one gift of eternal life, and Christ-shared joy
is conditioned by their faithfulness and diligence here. Do not let
the Gospel that says 'The gift of God is eternal life' make you
forget the completing truths, that the measure in which a man
possesses that eternal life depends on his fitness for it, and that
fitness depends on his faithfulness of service and his union with
his Lord.
We obscure this great truth often by reason of the way in which we
preach the deeper truth on which it rests--forgiveness and
acceptance all unmerited, through faith in Jesus Christ. But the two
things are not contradictory; they are complementary. No man
will be faithful as a steward who is not full of faith as a penitent
sinner. No man will enter into the joy of his Lord, who does not
enter in through the gate of penitence and trust, but, having
entered, we are ranked according to the faithfulness of our service
and diligence of stewardship. 'Wherefore, giving all diligence, make
your calling and election sure, for so an entrance shall be
ministered unto you _abundantly_ into the everlasting kingdom
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.'