Mat 25:24 He also who had received the one talent came
forward, saying, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did
not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, Mat 25:25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your
talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' Mat 25:26 But his master answered him, 'You wicked and
slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I
scattered no seed? Mat 25:27 Then you
ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should
have received what was my own with interest.
In my most recent attempt to teach through Matthew I thought
a little more about the words of this wicked servant at his day of
judgment. The main point of this and all
three parables in this chapter is to not be caught unprepared for the coming of
Christ. So whether we fully understand
what is meant in his words we must at least get that. To see what is going on here I also think it
is important to see that in each of these parables the lost are false
professors who think that the Lord should receive them into heaven and are rather
surprised when he doesn’t.
The first two servants call him master and admit that the
talents given to them are his to give and that therefore it is their duty as
servants to use the money and produce more for their master. But there are significant differences in the
thinking of the third servant. He calls
him master and admits that he has been given a talent but there the
similarities end.
He calls him hard and not gracious. Immediately he accuses his master of assuming
more rights over him than he should. He
demands service that is not his to demand and so is seen as hard, mean and
uncaring. The idea behind this is that
God is unfair and has no right to hold him accountable. This is clear from the next phrase that
claims God takes what is not his by right; that he steals someone else’s
crop. What he is saying is that you have
no right to my life and my affections and to judge me for living life the way I
want to live. My life is my own and you
have no right to reap from me; I am a self-made man.
Of course this is just not true. Our lives are the Lord’s by creative right
and to live as if he has no rights over us and that we should be free to do
what we want is exactly what being unprepared to meet God is all about in
chapters 24 and 25. This was the problem
with those living during the days of the flood when, because they ignored God
by ignoring Noah’s message, they could not withstand the judgment of God. The message of these chapters is that being
prepared for the second coming is not by being presumptuous and assuming we are
saved merely because we acknowledge him as God, but by living a life of
faithful obedience. That is the Lord’s
will for us until he comes. Obedience
doesn’t earn admittance into heaven but all those who are going to get in will
live obedient and faithful lives.
Now you might say, “Wait just a minute. The Lord seems to be agreeing with him about
what kind of God he is; so what is going on here?” First of all, I think that 26 is said with
sarcasm. No way is the Lord hard or
ungracious and one who takes what is not his.
I think what the Lord is doing is telling him that his own view of God still
condemns him. I think we can connect
this to Romans 1. The mere fact that you
believe there to be a God (this servant calls him Lord and understands that
there is a God who has given him talents) means you owe him something and as
our creator we must owe him everything. In
Romans 1 the lost are seen as those who suppress what they know of God by
natural revelation. This applies even if
they are suppressing what they know of God from reading the Bible.
This goes back to seeing all these lost as those who claim
to be servants of God or believers. To
claim to believe in Christ and believe the Bible and yet live as if none of it
matters and that we are free to ignore God is to live contradictory to our
profession and such are not ready to stand before the just God of the
universe.
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