We'll be reading from Luke chapter 19 verse 11 to 27. That's the parable of the talents Parable of their talents our opportunity reveals our character Our responsibilities also reveal our character. This is what the Lord Jesus taught in the parable of the talents now as they heard these things he spoke another parable because he was near Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately and Therefore, Jesus said, a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then to return. So he called 10 of his servants, delivered them 10 miners, and said to him, do business until I come. But his citizens hated him, and they sent a delegation after him saying, we will not have this man to reign over us. And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, He then commanded his servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called before him, that he might know how much each man had gained by trading. Then came the first, saying, Master, your miner has earned ten miners. And he said to him, Well done, good servant, because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities. And the second one came and said, Master, your miners earned five miners. Likewise said to him, you ought to be over five cities. Then another came saying, Master, here is your miner, which I kept away in a handkerchief, for I feared you, because you are an austere man. You collect what you did not deposit, and you reap what you did not sow. And he said to him, out of your own mouth, I will judge you, you wicked servant. You knew that I was an austere man, collecting what I did not deposit, reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not at least put the money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest? And he said to those who stood by, take the miner from him. Give it to him who has 10 miners. But they said to him, master, he has 10 miners. For I say to you that to everyone who has will be given more, but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. But bring here those enemies of mine, those who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them here before me. This is the Word of God, found in Luke 19. Although these three men had different amounts, one 10, another five, and the third one one, two of them succeeded in multiplying their gifts. But the third failed to even take advantage of the opportunity and the responsibility presented to him. It wasn't lack of opportunity. It wasn't even lack of ability. It was lack of character that caused the third man to squander his opportunity and to fail in his duty. When the day of reckoning comes, those who have proved themselves able by their character to make the most of those opportunities entrusted to them, they will be rewarded with greater gifts and greater opportunities. However, those who fail in their responsibilities in small matters and fail to be productive because of lack of character will lose everything they have. For I say to you, to everyone who has, more will be given, but to him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. The world is inclined these days to penalise the productive and to reward the parasites. You can see that seems to be the whole ethos of work society. They will give lots to the people who did nothing and they'll take away from those who worked hard and productively and sacrificially. The Lord makes it clear that his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His ways are greater and higher than our ways. And the Lord Jesus teaches in the parable of the talents. He will punish the unproductive. He will reward the hardworking and the productive. A lack of work ethic will disqualify a man from mounting the horse of usefulness and influence. Too much is given, much is required. Too much more is given, much more is required. The more industrious will receive greater rewards. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful for the master, prepared for every good work. As we read in 2 Timothy 2 verse 21. Now, in Isaiah 36, we read a challenge by one of Sennacherib's generals, Reb Sheker, during a speech demanding the surrender of Jerusalem. Isaiah 36 verse 8, I will give you 2,000 horses if you are able on your part to put riders on them. The Assyrians had come down on Judah like a wolf on the fold. Rabshakeh presented a powerful piece of propaganda laced with lies and half-truths with boasty and blasphemy. And his speech in Azad 36 was designed to demoralize and to discourage God's people, to persuade them to give up all hope and to surrender to the Syrians. In his speech, Rabshakeh insulted and taunted the representatives of King Hezekiah. And one of his memorable taunts was, how is it possible for you to resist the overwhelming military might of Assyria? Even if he, Rabshakeh, were to give them 2,000 horses, it would do them no good, for they had no trained cavalry to ride them. However, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Isaiah. Do not be afraid of the words which you've heard, which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor, and he will return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own hand. And we read in Isaiah 37, then the angel of the Lord went out and killed all in the camp of the Assyrians, 185,000. And when the people arrived early in the morning, there were the corpses. They were all dead. So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed and went away and returned home. And he remained at Nineveh. Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Neshroch, his god, that his son struck him down with his own sword. So that's all in Isaiah 37. However, amidst this remarkable propaganda speech in Isaiah 36 by Rabshakeh, there is a gem of wisdom and of insight. There are horses to those who can ride them. And horses to those who can ride them. There are cars to those who can drive them. There's equipment to those who can operate it. There are messages to those who can deliver it. There are ministries to those who can serve faithfully. There are missions to those who can complete them. They're places of importance waiting for the man or woman who can fill them. Achievements are waiting for those who have the character, or the determination, or the diligence, or the dedication to accomplish them. And I think you can just see one example in that remarkable man in America, Donald Trump, who is exhibit A of the power of positive thinking. He seems to be the man of the hour, and he's a man who's given hope to a lot of people after decades of workmanship and insanity in public policies. There are many people desperate for a bit of common sense, for peace, for an end to these no-win, useless, endless wars, and so on. And we can see that it's like the person was prepared for the opportunity, and now the opportunity has come, and people have hope for the first time in quite a while in terms of the international political scene. So your attitude will determine your achievements. There is power in positive thinking. And Norman Vincent Peale, the pastor of Donald Trump, wrote in his book, The Power of Positive Thinking, that there's always silver linings to every cloud. Focus on the silver linings, don't focus on the cloud. Don't have anything to do with worry, fear, doubt, and hate. You push those out of your mind. You focus on positive things. You surround yourself with positive people. You don't go into the, don't sit down in the seat of the scoffers and join those who are the scornful. What you're meant to do is focus on the goal, focus on the positive, focus on the opportunity. Don't worry about other people not doing what they're meant to do. Focus on being the person you're meant to be. And so the question to all of us is, do you make excuses, or do you make a plan? We have the saying in Afrikaans, in boer, maak en plan. And it's true, the people of the city often make an excuse, but the people on the farm have to make a plan. They can't depend on someone else normally. Farmers have to do it all themselves. So in boer, maak en plan. And we must make ourselves worthy and prepared and ready and fit. Victory loves preparation. Your attitude determines your achievements. And anyone can make excuses for why something is not done. That's easy. But people of character must make a plan, adapt, improvise, innovate, overcome, persevere to accomplish the task or overcome the obstacle. Obstacle courses are not built to stop us. Obstacle courses are only there in order to be overcome. And every decision determines your destiny. Every decision you make helps to shape your destiny. C.S. Lewis emphasized, you don't get to heaven or hell by one decision. It's not quite like the picture on some tracks where there's one crossroads. Hell, you go left. Heaven, you go right. It's thousands of decisions, actually. And so, as we know, to climb to the top of Table Mountain takes thousands of steps. And so it is, in our discipleship walk, there are thousands of decisions we make, either on the broad way to hell or the narrow way to life. Every decision we make forms our character more and sets us more on that downward path that's broad or the upward path that's steep and difficult. Alexander the Great was not only one of the most accomplished military commanders in history, he was also a fine horseman. And one day as a youth, he saw a beautiful black horse, Bucephalus, who was about to be rejected by the king's officers because he reared and he bucked and he plunged and he kicked about when anyone tried to ride him. Alexander requests to be able to ride this horse before they settled on their decision. So he first spoke soothingly to the horse, and then calmed him down, turned him, and then speaking reassuringly to the horse, he vaulted gracefully on the back of the horse and rode him in full control, canted about to the admiration of King Philip and his officers. What Alexander noticed was that the horse was facing away from the sun, and his shadow was terrifying him, and he was being startled by his own shadow. On one of his military campaigns in India, Alexander was struck by an arrow, and his men were about to operate him to remove the shaft. firmly gripped his arms to hold him still while the excruciatingly painful operation was conducted. And Alexander dismissed him, saying, there's no need to hold him who's able to hold himself. He had that kind of self-control. Well, it's not so much that we break God's laws, it's that we break ourselves upon God's laws. God's law breaks those who violate them. The law of God is like gravity. It's not just a good idea. Gravity is the law. If you wander off the side of Table Mountain trying to defy the laws of gravity, you will lose. It's not the fall, it's a sudden stop at the end that will kill you. You cannot violate the law of gravity without harming yourself. You can't harm gravity, you can only harm yourself. And so nobody can actually break God's law without harming themselves and their eternal destiny. Now those who would control others must first learn to control themselves. Self-discipline is absolutely essential to effectiveness and to productivity in life. Where opportunity is the most abundant, their temptation is the most seductive and it's the most powerful. It's incredible how universities have moved from places of great learning and advancement to cesspools of temptation, debauchery, frivolity. Those people who go to universities today seem oblivious to the scriptures which used to be written over the doorways and gates of many institutes of higher learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding. And those were common messages over the entrances to universities like Harvard. Let only the earnest, thoughtful, and reverent enter here. Yet many test for how they squandered their great opportunities while studying at universities. For many, the time at university was a time of indulging in never-ending series of parties, drunkenness, time-wasting diversions, not to mention drunkenness and perversion, or stone-throwing, writing, burning, and so on. Libraries of wisdom were ignored as students disqualified themselves from the school of life. by ignoring precious opportunities for advancement in favor of frivolous time-wasting? And how many students are there like that? I mean, there's magnificent libraries, not that UGT would notice because they burned their great library there back in 2021. Honestly, I've seen these people sitting on jammy steps a few feet from the library, never going into the library during lunchtime and so on. They spent their time talking nonsense and doing ridiculous things. An amount of people have destroyed their lives. When I asked one person how they knew the smell of duck and a person said, I studied at university. And so there we go. It's like, what did you major in university? And most of the people, debauchery, actually. and stupidity, it seems, too. Like, remember the time in 2005, these students could not study because they were traumatized by a statue for the founder of the university. Imagine that. They've got a statue of the man who paid for, built the university, and is funding their education. And it's too traumatic. How can I study at a university where they've got a statue to the founder? Instead of boycotting the university, they decided to remove the statue. And this was the most important thing that preoccupied students for more than a month. Ridiculous. You would have thought they had something better to do, but apparently not. And this is why the scriptures command us to study, to show yourself approved unto God. We need to be prepared for every good work. Do you remember when Gary Player was the world's number one golfing champion? Somebody commented to Gary Player, who, by the way, was a Christian, you're lucky. And Gary Player responded, yes, and the harder I practice, the luckier I get. You know, the idea that some people are just lucky to be the best at their sport, whether you're talking about skiing, running, whatever different things are they doing in sports, why am I getting blank suddenly? I've got very limited amounts of sports in my mind. But yes, whether it's the shot put, the relay race and so on, you're not lucky. The person trained hard. They gave up on their life. They just basically, their diet, what they did, when they went to sleep, everything was just governed by preparing for the Olympics. And so you don't actually succeed by luck. And by the way, luck is a Hindu word. Lakshmi is the goddess of fortune. And it's the British soldiers who went to India who started to say, good Lakshmi, because Lakshmi was the goddess of fortune. And it's a Hindu god. And so good luck. We don't believe in luck. We don't believe in Lakshmi. We're not Hindus. We don't even believe in fortune. We believe in providence or God's blessing and mercy. But the idea of wishing a person luck or expecting to get lucky, that is not a biblical concept. We can be blessed, but being lucky, that shouldn't be part of our vocabulary. So Gary Play was quite right. The harder I practice, the luckier I get. And I think we can say in everything, the harder I work, the luckier I get. The harder I study, the better my results, and so on. But luck has nothing to do with it. But if we yield to the temptations of the flesh, it can disqualify us from riding the horses of influence and the horses of usefulness. Jeremiah 48, verse 10. Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord deceitfully. Cursed is he who keeps back his sword from bloodshed. I remember Uncle Lolo preaching on this at a minister's conference back in, was it 2021? 2001, I should say. 2001, Uncle Lolo preached on this. Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord with slackness. Cursed is he who keeps his sword from bloodshed. And just as a doctor must not keep the scalpel from cutting out the cancer or whatever is the evil that he's got to deal with, neither shall a minister hold back the sword of God's word from a situation. Even if it cuts deep and it hurts and a person does not want to hear it, our job is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. As Christians, we are called to wholehearted sacrificial service. Whatever you do, Work at it with all your heart as though you're working for the Lord and not for men. That's in Colossians 3.23. The greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself. It follows then that the greatest sin is to fail to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, honor, and power, for you created all things, and by your will they exist, and they were created. That's Revelation 4.11. We read in Revelation 5, they sang a new song saying, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and you have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and language and tongue and people and nation. And you have made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth. And we read in Revelation 5, 13, And every creature which is in heaven above, and on earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard them singing, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever. Did you hear this pounded out in the hands of the messiahs? So exhilarating. Our great God, our loving creator, our merciful redeemer, he deserves all the praise, all the honor, all the glory, all our faithfulness, zeal, and dedication. It is a terrible sin to do anything as unto the Lord and be lax in our service. To be lax in doing the Lord's work is a curse. Amos 6 verse 1 says, woe to you who are complacent in Zion. 2 Chronicles 24 5 reports, the Levites didn't act at once. To procrastinate in obeying God is a sin. Nehemiah 3 verse 5 says, but the nobles did not put their shoulders into the work. The servant who knows the master's will and who does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. Our Lord said in Luke 12 verse 47. James 4.17 says, anyone then who knows the good that he ought to do and fails to do it, sins. Sin is not just the bad things we do, it's the good things we fail to do. Sins of omission. Revelation 2.12 says, in the letter to the church at Pergamon, the Lord rebuked the believers for tolerating idolatry and immorality of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore, otherwise I will come to you and fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Even just tolerating evils of others is a terrible sin that God condemns. Conflict requires courage. Warfare calls for sacrifice, conscription, rationing, dedication, determination, courage, tenacity. In a war, you are required to fight. to attack the enemy, to apply all the force that is necessary to defeat the enemy and to defend your homeland. It used to be a sign of contempt that women would send a white feather to men in the envelope if they did not sign up or volunteer to fight. And in fact, Henry Morton Stanley says what led him to enlist in the Confederate Army in the war between the states was a woman sent a package of a petticoat, a pink petticoat to him. implying that, you know, what's the matter with you? Why have you not signed up to fight? And apparently there's a lot of Southern women like that who galvanize the men into action. There's a film called The Four Feathers about a soldier who leaves his unit when they are being conscripted to be sent off to Sudan to go and fight against the Mahdi's forces. And each of four people sent a white feather to him in the envelope. And this led him to follow his unit and to go and fight as a civilian in Sudan because he was so stung by the implication of cowardice. Well, there used to be a time that women would encourage men to go off and fight. And there used to be a time when men would be ashamed if they didn't go and fight. But unfortunately, these days, it's more likely the woman will try and persuade the man to be a pacifist and not to get involved. And many men wouldn't even feel shame, even if somebody did send them a petticoat or a whole lot of white feathers. So society's changed dramatically, but that's giving us an insight to the Victorian era. King David was an extraordinary soldier. He was a devoted servant of the Lord, and David was definitely Israel's greatest king. He is the author of the most loved psalms and hymns. David had the unique privilege of being described by God as a man after my own heart. Yet, in 2 Samuel 11, it records the most disastrous fall into sin for David. It all began with these ominous words. In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David remained in Jerusalem. 2 Samuel 11 verse one. there's a great danger in inactivity. And Numbers 32, verse six says, shall your countrymen go off to war while you sit here? Judges 5, 23 says, curse Meroz. The angel of the Lord says, curse its people bitterly because they did not come to the help of the Lord, to help the Lord against the mighty. It was at a time of invasion in the book of Judges. So there is a great danger in inactivity and passivity. The quickest way to destroy your spiritual zeal is to respond to a biblical command with apathy and inactivity. It's a guaranteed pathway to spiritual disaster. When God speaks and we do not listen, When the Bible teaches and we do not apply. When the Bible commands and we do not obey. When God sends and we do not go. There's a tremendous danger in passivity. Inactivity is deadly to spiritual life. Some temptations come to the industrious. All temptations come to the idle. Anyone then who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it sins. Those who linger inactively at home when they should be off to war are easy targets for temptation. The devil has a lot of evil work for idle hands. And we know our idle days are our days of temptation. When God commissions us to fight, we dare not flinch from our duty. We as Christians have the obligation to love our neighbors, and this love must be shown in action. When Christian brothers and sisters are suffering persecution in China, or Sudan, Zimbabwe, elsewhere, we must respond with prayer and action. We need to publicize their plight. We need to alert other Christians to the crisis, and pray both privately and corporately for the persecuted. Mobilize pressure against the persecuted, like we seek to do with our International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted, IDOT Africa. We need to be generous in our support to those who are practically doing something to help the persecuted. We need to encourage others to contribute whatever skills or resources they can towards helping brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering. If God calls you to go personally to serve his people, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Angola, Congo, wherever, we need to be prepared to respond with wholehearted enthusiasm and dedication. And praise God for Johan, who's gone all the way to the Congo, and he's still there. And praise God for that kind of fervency to actually do something to help. It's easy to criticize, and the amount of people who sit in that grand stance like the armchair warriors and critics, criticizing those who are in the field trying to do something. Well, if they can do better, why don't they get out there and show us? It's easy to criticize, but it's harder to actually do something. And it's spiritually refreshing to step out in faith and to obey God. I praise God I did things the easy way. The first time I heard the gospel, I went forward and I surrendered my life to Christ. The first time I heard of baptism, I went forward, commit myself to baptism, went through the baptismal process, got baptized. The first missionary who came past our church, I went to the front afterwards and joined his mission, Francis Grimm of Hospital Christian Fellowship. And the first time I heard of Scripture Union needing workers for holiday missions, I went and I volunteered. And that's the easy way. That's so much easier. When posters need to be put up all the way along Forest Drive to advertise evangelistic outreaches in the stir cinema, I volunteered to get involved. When EE wanted people to go door-to-door in puns, I went forward and volunteered. That's the easy way. The rest of my family, I'm afraid, chose the hard way. They needed strokes, heart attacks, all kinds of problems in order to give their lives to the Lord. Now, you can listen to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. You can listen when God speaks straight in the Bible. Or you can listen when God uses his hand to get your attention. Whack. You know, if you need to get a motorbike accident before God gets your attention, that's what he'll do. But it's more loving than to let you go hurtling over the cliff into eternity, lost. And so I've got to thank the Lord for when I was not listening to God, that he gave me some motorbike accidents, or I ended up in hospital, or whatever other ways God could use, or in prison. God's got ways of getting our attention if we're not paying attention. So we can do it the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. but we need to respond to God's commands promptly. Responding with enthusiasm is the best thing one can do. Now, it's followed by spiritually testing times, sometimes tough times, always teaching times, but God uses these in order to purge and purify, to prepare us to be more prayerful, to be more practical in the adventure of Christian discipleship. We're told in Colossians 4.17, be sure to finish the task you were given in the Lord's service. Wholehearted obedience to the Lord is essential. According to my earnest expectation and hope that nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness as always, so now Christ will be magnified by body, whether by my life or by my death. That's Paul writing in Philippians 1.20. And we ought to read in Acts 20 verse 24, Paul saying, none of these things move me. Nor do I count my life dear to myself, as long as I can finish my race with joy, and finish the ministry that I've received from Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Where God guides, He provides. The will of God will never leave you, but the grace of God cannot keep you. General Stonewall Jackson, or Thomas Jackson, often said, duty is ours, the results are in God's hands. And he said he is as safe in battle in the middle of God's will, he's safe in battle in the middle of God's will, than he is in bed outside of God's will. And so it's spiritually refreshing to step out in faith. The most healthy habit we can cultivate is a habit of responding to God's commands and the words of the scripture in obedience. Whatever happens, conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel. Now, there's a wonderful example of this in A Message to Garcia. This is a letter that dates back to 1899, and it became very well-published and well-circulated afterwards. Let me read this letter to Garcia written by Albert Hubbard. When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba, and nobody knew where. No mail or telegraph could reach him. The president must secure his cooperation, and quickly. What to do? Somebody said to the president, there's a fellow by the name of Rowan who will find Garcia for you if anyone can. So Rowan was sent for, given a letter addressed to Garcia and told to deliver it. Now how this... man by the name of Rowan, took the letter, sealed it in an oil-skinned pouch, strapped it over his heart, and in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba in an open boat, disappeared in the jungle, three weeks' time came out on the other side of this island, having traversed the hostile territory in a time of war, and he had delivered his message to Garcia. These are things I have no special desire to tell in detail. The point I want to make is this. President McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia. Rowan took the letter. He did not ask where is he at. By the Eternal. There is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and his statue placed near the college in the land. book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this or that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae, which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, to concentrate the energies, to do the thing, to carry the message to Garcia. General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias, no man who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands are needed, but has been well-nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man, the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and then to do it. Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, half-hearted work seem to be the rule. And no man succeeds unless by hook or crook or threat he forces and bribes other men to assist him or mishap. God in his goodness performs a miracle and sends an angel of light for his assistance. You reader can put this matter to the test. You are sitting now in your office. Six clerks are within your call. Summon anyone and make this request. Please look up in the encyclopedia. Make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Corregidor. Will the clerk go quietly and say, yes, sir, and do the task? On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions. Who was he? Which encyclopedia? Where is the encyclopedia? Was I hired for that? Don't you mean Bismarck? What's the matter with Charlie doing it? Is he dead? Is there any hurry? Chance I bring you the book and let you look it up for yourself. Why do you want to know for? And I will lay you 10 to 1 after you've answered these questions and explained how to find the information, why you want it. The clerk will go off, get two other clerks involved to help him find Garcia, and then come back and tell you there's no such man. Of course, I may lose my bet. But according to law of averages, I will not. Now, you wish. Now, if you are wise, you will not bother to explain to your assistant that Corregidor is indexed under the Cs, not in the Ks, but you'll smile sweetly and say, never mind, and you'll go and look it up for yourself. And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch, hold, and lift are the things that put pure utopia so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, will they do so for the benefit of all? A first mate to the knotted club seems necessary. That's how the Royal Navy was operated. And the dread of getting the bounce. Saturday night might hold many a work in his place. At the task for a stenographer, nine times out of ten, those who apply can neither spell nor punctuate, and they don't think it's necessary to do so. Can such a one write a letter to Garcia? You see that bookkeeper, the foreman said to me in the large factory. Yes, what about him? Well, he's a fine accountant, but if I'd send him to town on an errand, he might accomplish the task. On the other hand, he might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, he'd forget what he'd been sent for. Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia? We have recently been hearing much more than sympathy expressed for the downtrodden denizen of the sweatshop and the homeless wanderer searching for honest employment. And with it all too often go many hard words for the men in power. Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne'er-do-wells to do intelligent work and is long-patient striving with help that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. Slipshot assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, half-hearted work seem to be the rule. I've slipped onto the wrong page. Ah, there we go. In every bookstore, in every factory, there's a constant weeding out process going on. The employer's constantly sending away helpless help that have shown incapacity to further interests of the business. Others are being taken in. But no matter how good times are, this sorting continues. Only if times are hard and work is scarce, this sorting is done even finer. But out and forever out, the incompetence and the unworthy must go. It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep only the best who can carry a message to Garcia. I know of one man of really brilliant parts who does not have the ability to manage a business of his own, yet who is utterly worthless to anyone else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employers are oppressing him or intending to impress him. He cannot give orders, he cannot receive them. Should a message be sent through him to Garcia, his answer would probably be, take it yourself. Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular firebrand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress this man is the toe of a thick-soled number-line brute. Of course, I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple. But in your pitting, let us drop a tear, too, for those men who are striving to carry out a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, whose hair is fast growing white through the struggle to hold the line in dowdy indifference, slipshod imbecility, and heartless ingratitude, but for their enterprise would be both hungry and homeless. Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have. But when all the world has gone a-slumming, I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds, the one who, against great odds, has directed his efforts, and having succeeded, finds there's nothing in it, nothing but bare board and clothes. I've carried a dinner pail, and I've worked for a day's wages. I've been an employee of labor. I know there's something to be said on both sides. There's no excellence per se in poverty. Rags are no recommendation. All employees are not rapist and high-handed any more than all poor people are virtuous. But my heart goes out to the man who does his work when the boss is away as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter to Garcia, quietly just takes the missive without asking any idiotic questions and with no lurking intention of chucking it into Nirosua or of doing naught else but delivering it. That sort of person will never get laid off, nor do they have to go on strike for higher wages. Civilisation is one long, anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks will be granted. His kind are so rare that no employer could possibly afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, every town, every village, in every office, shop, store, and factory. The world cries out for such. He is needed. He is badly needed. The man who can carry a message to Garcia. So this was, as you can imagine, copied many times. I believe there are millions of copies circulating by the early 1900s, A Message to Garcia. This was required reading at Hospital Christian Fellowship. I had it repeated to me many a time by Francis Grimm. He's a firm believer in A Message to Garcia, and we heard it quoted many a time in that phrase. He also quoted a lot from C.T. Studd. C.T. Studd was like required reading at HCF. And Fool and Fanatic was a textbook. That was one of the biographies of C.T. Studd. And C.T. Studd pointed out when he was a cricket star, he was everyone happily called themselves cricket fanatics, and he was a fanatic for cricket, and that was fine. But the moment he became a fanatic for Jesus, he was considered a fool. And so, isn't that amazing? It's good to be a sports fan, getting all worked up about a ball being chased around the field by grown men, but if you want to be a fanatic for Jesus and for the gospel and for missions, then you're considered absolutely foolish. So, CT studied. was definitely another one that we were quoted often. But I can never forget Francis Grimm drumming into us the message of Garcia. So that just seemed to fit the thoughts about the parable of the talents and the horses to those who can ride them. So we have in our world today Horses for those who can ride them, ministries for those who are prepared to serve, messages to those who can deliver them, missions to those who can complete them, and when it comes to talents and opportunities, you use it or you lose it. In Latin, the term is carpe diem, seize the day. Any questions? Complaints, comments? It's like the enemy throws in a word of deception, and it might look all true, but there's just a bit of a tweak to it. Asar 36 is all psi war, seeking to discourage the people of Jerusalem to get them to give up. Yes, there is hope in the silver line, as you say. Yeah, just a thin silver lining. Most of us are 36, it's just propaganda, but that is a truth. There are horses to those who can ride them. Any other comments? I remember at one time Colin got a message across here, printed out, and he got it laminated and put on the outside of his door. Is it? Well, probably there was something else put on the outside, but I think the whole point was correctly pointed. Yet it was required reading in, I'm sure, many businesses. But HGF, they might have gotten it framed in gold by now. What is it, The Message to Garcia? The Message to Garcia, G-A-R-C-I-A. So, Albert Hubbard wrote it in 1899, obviously during the American-Spanish War, which is the whole background to the story. At that point, Teddy Roosevelt was running around fighting in Cuba. And just a year later, he was vice president, and a few months later, he was president of America. And Theodore Roosevelt was a great, great grandson of the American revivalist, Johnathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. There's, in the back of our Make a Difference book, a list of all the different interesting descendants of that one marriage of Jonathan Edwards and his wife, how they had what was called an uncommon union, and how many hundreds of missionaries, ministers they produced, and governors, mayors, chiefs of police, and a vice president and a president, which, of course, was Teddy Roosevelt. But that's an extraordinary legacy that Jonathan Edwards has believed to be the greatest mind America has ever produced. He certainly preached the most famous sermon. I don't know any sermon in the world that at least the title's known, even if most people haven't read the actual sermon. Today, they're more likely to have a sermon on God in the hand of angry sinners. Things have changed, but that's back when people feared God.