Matthew chapter 25. I want to preach to you this morning on a very important subject. In Matthew chapter 24, of course, before that, the Lord had been teaching lessons and pointing a lot of the things He said to the Pharisees and the religious people. Chapter 24, He started talking directly to His disciples, His apostles. In chapter 25, He deals with something that I think needs to be dealt with in all of our lives. You know, when it comes to a lot of people today, I've talked to a lot of people about serving the Lord, and it just seems like there's an apathy. And you say, well, Pastor Kemp, do you know where you're at? I know where I'm at. And the 25 years I was here, I saw all kind of apathy in the students that were here. Even though you were here supposedly preparing to serve the Lord, it's like you had an idea that you were going to do what you wanted, the students, you know. Listen, when it comes to the service, it's not what you want. And this section deals with that. I think we're getting a lot of things mixed up in our thinking. You know, in my relationship with the Father, I understand and I rejoice in this truth, I'm a son. I'm an heir. I'm a joint heir with Christ. That's a great relationship, isn't it? And when it comes to my relationship with the Son, I'm a part of His bride. And I think I could say this, I'm a friend, because He called His apostles His friends. I think He would want to call us His friends. That's my relationship also with the Son. But I think sometimes we get our relationship mixed up with our responsibility. See, everything... and I could spend a long time talking about this in Scripture, but when it comes to my responsibility to the Father, or my responsibility to the Son, even though I'm a part of His bride and I'm His friend, and I'm the Father's son, and I'm an heir to the Father, when it comes to my responsibility, it clearly teaches in Scripture that I'm His servant. In other words, and Paul said it well over in 1 Corinthians 4, that I'm a steward. That means I have been given a responsibility to do to fulfill. This passage this morning deals with this in a very strong way. Christ is teaching this. Down in verse number 14, and I want to deal with verse 14 down through verse number 30, and being that I'm going to try to squeeze about two hours worth of preaching and teaching into the time in which I have, I'm not going to read the whole passage at the beginning. I'll read the passages as I deal with them for the sake of time. But may I say that Christ is teaching here. So my title this morning would be, The Lord's Lesson on Stewardship. And being that it is a lesson that our Lord is teaching, I believe it would do us all well to pay attention, don't you? Usually, the level of expertise we give to the teacher usually is the same level of attention we give to that teacher. And here the Lord is. How much does the Lord know about this? Oh, by the way, you can talk to Him if you want to. How much does the Lord know about this? Everything. Alright, how much does He know about you? And we see those principles here. So let's dive in verse number 14 and verse number 15 first. For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country who called his own servants and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, and to every man according to his several ability and straightway took his journey. Before we dive into this section, I'd like to ask Dr. Scoville, will you lead us in prayer, please, for this time? Father, we thank Thee for Thy Holy Word, and we look forward now to the Spirit of God speaking to our hearts as Pastor Kemp breaks it to us. And I pray, Lord, that we'll a lot of hear different people obedient because we've heard, and then we're going to do as well in Jesus' name. First thing I want you to see in these two verses is what I call the divine gift. The divine gift. Now, first thing you see is the amount. It says here that He gave five talents to one, two to another, and to one, one. You know, when it comes to the amount of whatever it is the Lord gives, and may I say that the talents here in this passage does not represent salvation. I say that because I saw a commentary that said it represented salvation. All of us get the same salvation. None of us get a better salvation than the other. So this is not dealing with salvation, but when it comes to what God gives us to use for His glory, it's His business, not mine. It's the divine gift of God and it's totally based upon His foreknowledge of each and every person that He's given a gift to. Notice in this verse it says it's according to their several ability. It literally means one's own. It means that which is particular, that which is individual, that which is personal to each individual. Now one thing I know, everybody in this room is different. We don't have the same level of intelligence. Some people just have a bigger ability to learn than others. Some people really have to bear down and study to get what others it seems to be easy. I mean, a lot of you in this room, you're aggravated at somebody else because they seem to learn so easily and you have to really struggle and dig and apply yourself to get what other people seem like they just get by blinking their eyes almost, right? Yeah. And here... but it's a several... that which God knows. I want to read a verse to you. You don't have to turn over. 1 Peter chapter number 4 and verse number 10, it says, "...as every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth." It's a divine gift, my friends. And we need to don't get aggravated because you don't have what you think you want. I have talked to students over the years, well, I want to do this, and I want to do that, and I want to do this. I've looked at many of them in my office and said, but you're not gifted for that. I learned this a long time ago. Most people don't know what their gift is. Other people know it. By the way, if you become faithful in your local church, your local church will know it before you do. And by the way, that's the proven ground. That's where you need to find out what your gift is and there use it for God's glory, but let God decide for you what your gift is. He's the one that made you for it, and He's the one that's given you it to be used for His glory and, of course, for other people's goods. You know, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4, verse number 1, that we're stewards of the mysteries of God. You know, he told Timothy in another place that we had been entrusted with the gospel. Now, that's not just salvation. That goes beyond being saved. It goes to the point of what we do with the salvation that we be given. But we see here a divine gift. The amount is God's business. The ability is something God gives us. And instead of us being upset about the amount and whatever it is that's given, we just need to get busy fulfilling that which He's given us, using that which He has given us, and improving our ability. And I'll deal with that more here in a few minutes. Whatever ability you have, I promise you, you can improve it. You can get better at it. God will help you if you're willing to get better at whatever it is He's laid upon your plate to do. Notice the third thing here in this divine gift. It says, "...and straightway," verse 15, "...took his journey." There's an absence. There's going to be times in your life that you're not going to sense the Lord's presence. And I've been in the ministry long enough to know that most people, when they don't sense the Lord's presence, many times they'll start living in the flesh. They'll start living by their feelings instead of living by principle, instead of obeying truth, even when they don't sense the Lord's presence around. Now, we could go over to Luke chapter 19 and we could find a similar passage where he's teaching about what you're supposed to do. In there, verse number 13, he told some that he had given some things to, he says, you occupy till I come. implying that He was going to be gone out of their lives visually. By the way, we're not supposed to live visually. We're supposed to live by faith, right? And here we see that there's going to be an absence. And what should we do in that time of absence of the Lord's presence, so to speak? Fill in that present. Faithfulness anyway. Doing what He wants us to do with the divine gift that He's given us anyway. And not rely back upon our flesh. in human thought, but follow the divine gift. Come back to this passage. Notice the second thing in verse 16 and 17. Not only the divine gift, but the diligent responsibility. Verse 16, that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made them other five talents. And likewise, he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that received the one went and digged in the earth and hid his Lord's money. In verse number 16 and 17, I want you to look at what I call the diligent responsibility. Now, there's one thing missing in verse 16 and 17 that's an understood. Now, the understood in these verses here is the Master expected these servants to do something profitable with what He gave them. It doesn't say He told them that. That's just simply an understood. God doesn't give us anything for us to do nothing with it. It's a clear understood. that he expects something to be done with this. But the diligent responsibility is seen in this passage four different ways. The first we see with the word went. It said, then he that received the five talents went. We see a diligence, first of all, is a diligence of what I call initiation. He went. By the way, there's something interesting about this word. It's a passive for you Greek students. It literally carries the idea of being sent out. So it goes back to the understood. This master gave them everything they needed to be sent out to do with what he had given them to invest somewhere along the way. Now, what's interesting about this went, it's the same word that's the go in Matthew 28. in the Great Commission. It's the same go in Mark 16, where we're to go into all the world and preach to God. It's the same go. And somewhere in your life, and somewhere in my life, we've got to get some initiative. We've got to be willing to go. By the way, biblically, this initiative we would call obedience. You know, somewhere along the way, everyone has to Everyone has to decide they're going to be obedient to the commands of Scripture. They don't take place by accident. They don't take place when it gets convenient. You have to make that choice when the times are tough. You have to make that choice when you really don't want to. You make the choice of obedience. And here we see this diligent responsibility, first of all, we've seen in the initiative. Secondly, the second word in verse number 16, he went and traded. The second part of this diligent responsibility is involvement. The word traded here literally means to work at, to labor, to build something, to do business. That speaks of involvement. You can want to do something all day long, but as long as you sit on your seat, what happens? Absolutely nothing. You've got to get involved in the work. You've got to put legs, you've got to put hands, you've got to put eyes, you've got to put mouth, you've got to put ears, you've got to put your being into the responsibility if something's going to be done. And here, this man, Not only had initiative, he went, but he had involvement. He got busy trading. That means he had to deal with probably a number of people. If you buy and sell and trade, you're going to have to deal with more than one person. You know what I've learned a long time ago about that? That means you have to step out of your comfort zone because in the process of trading, you're going to meet people you're not going to like. But you're going to need to talk to them anyway. And you're going to need to learn to talk to them in such a way that you'll be a success in the trading process. I mean, if you don't learn this sooner or later, the old saying is, you're not going to have much to eat. Right? And your family's not going to have much to eat. If it's a business situation, you're going to become a poor person unless you learn how to get involved in situations that you might not like. But this servant right here got involved. He traded. He worked. He labored. He did business. He produced something. He built something. The third thing you see in this passage of the diligent responsibility is not only initiative and involvement, but increase. Come back to verse number 16. It says, "...he went, he traded with the same, and made them other five talents." The word made here literally means to advance. It means to bring about or to cause something to take place. Its result is productivity. It's increase. Here, he doubled. He had five, now he has 10. He doubled, that's a pretty good return. I mean, any business would want to hire you as a salesman if you could always double the productivity. If you could go into a plant and encourage the people that's working there to double what they normally would do, oh, you'd make money. You'd become rich in the business world. However, we're not talking about the business world here. The principles I want you to see this morning are for the spiritual world. For the Lord Jesus Christ, we should always be striving for increase. And by the way, that doesn't always, there's more ways to increase than souls. Although souls should be the ultimate goal. I mean, increase in the fruit of the Spirit, increase in godliness, increase in holiness, increase in kindness. I could list a whole list of things that we should increase in and all that would result in the final goal of seeing more people become saved and decide to do the same thing for the Lord. But we see here an increase. But then there's a fourth thing. Come back. Verse number 17, it says this, and also it says it down in verse number 20. Verse 17, "...and likewise he that received too, he also gained." There's the fourth word that talks about a diligent responsibility. And this word is sort of interesting because it means to give an advantage or gain an advantage. And it carries the idea of you do something with what you've made. You know, it's one thing. Let's say I love to do woodworking. I was a shop teacher in a public school for 10 years, and I love to work with wood. But it's one thing to make a whole bunch of pieces of furniture and just stack them back in your storage house and never do anything with them. I mean, why are you going to make something? This is a stack them back and say, hey, let me come show you what I made. What good is that? No, you make something in order to sell, right? To make some money. So the increases is that carries the idea of productivity, what you've made. This gain carries the idea of then selling that and making an increase. So, you have an advantage. That's this word, gain. By the way, this word, gain, in Philippians chapter 3 and verse number 8, it's translated this way, that I may, what's the next word? Win Christ. Same Greek word. So, again, the idea of improvement puts you in an advantage situation. And the Lord here is telling these servants, here's four qualities that I want you to have. We see that lived out in two of these servants' lives. we should have initiative, we should have involvement, we should have increase, and we should have improvement. So we see the diligent responsibility. Come to verse number 19, verse number 20, we see the third thing this morning in the lesson of stewardship by our Lord, and that is the detailed accounting. Verse 19, after a long time the Lord of those servants cometh. Now, notice, there has Back up another passage, we looked at an absence. But here we look at an arrival after a long absence. Now, the book of 1 John, in chapter 2 and verse number 28, talks about abiding in Christ and abiding with Christ to the point that when He comes back, we will not be ashamed at His coming. Right now, we are given a point in our life to abide, to occupy until He comes, right? Are y'all breathing? And how do we do that? We abide in Christ. The only way that you will ever abide in Christ is called obedience. And by the way, obedience is another word for living by faith. You can't separate the two thoughts, and this is not a message to prove that to you, but you just can't. And here we see that there's going to be an arrival of the Master. Romans 14 tells us that there's going to be an arrival of the Master. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 teaches that there's going to be an arrival of the Master, and every single one of us will give an account to Him when He comes. And we're going to have to tell Him all the things that we did that were good or bad. we're going to have to give an account to us. Alright, so that should tell us all that there's a very important thing that we abide in Christ. And here we see the arrival. The second thing you see in this detailed accounting is the authority. Now here's something we've got to grasp, folks, is the authority of our Lord. It says here, and after a long time, the Lord. The Lord of whom? It says, of those servants. Now, if you run the those back and find what the antecedent of that is, it would take you back over to verse number 14 where it says, he called his own servants. I heard an old country preacher say this years ago, the Lord doesn't go across the street and whip the devil's young'uns. But I promise you, he will whip his young'uns. He will teach his young'uns. and He will provide for His young'uns. Why? Because He loves His young'uns. But here we see His authority. We're His servants. He's our Lord. And the problem with so many people today, and I would say this is true of so many students right here in this student body this morning, is you've never made Him your Lord. By the way, Really, the only way He becomes your Lord practically? Listen, I know and you know, He's your Lord positionally, but He's not your Lord practically. And the reason why He's not, because you've never made Him that. See, there's three servants mentioned here this morning in this context. Two made Him not just the Lord positionally, Two of these servants made Him their Lord practically. One did not. And I hope when we leave here today that there's not any one of you here that refused to make Him your Lord. we see the authority. The third thing we see in this detailed accounting, not only the arrival and the authority, but the accounting. It says in verse number 19, "...and reckoned with them." The word reckoned here means, by the way, it's a commercial term, and it literally means to compare ledgers to see if there's any discrepancy. Literally the idea of a day of doing an audit. If any of you have ever done work where you were in charge of a cash register, it carries the idea of making the cash drawer align with all the receipts. That's the idea with this term right here. And one thing, if you've ever worked a cash register, at the end of the day, if your money in the drawer doesn't match up to the receipts, you're going to have to make up the difference. Or you're going to end up getting the pink slip and you're out the door. Why? Because you're accountable for that drawer. You're accountable for the money in it. And guess what? We all are accountable for that which the Lord has given us. And we better be using it. We better make sure that all the receipts match up because there will be a reckoning day. We've already talked about that. If you don't believe in the judgment seat of Christ, again, you need to read the two passages I gave you just a few minutes ago. The fourth thing I want us to see this morning, verse number 21. Now, verse number 20 is just a repeat, basically, of what he said with the five talents. He deals with the two talents, and he gains five there in verse 20, and then you have the two talents being given there in verse number 22. You see the word gain there again. But in verse number 21 and 23, we see what I call the delight of the Master. And this is...we're going to see three things here. First, the praise. Verse 21, His Lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee rule over many things. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. Notice verse 23. His Lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. Now, the Lord said the same thing to the man that he'd given five to, and the same thing to the one that he gave two to. Now, obviously, the one that had been given two wasn't upset that he didn't get as many as the man that got five. It's amazing how so many people, they say, somebody gets a blessing, instead of rejoicing with the blessing, they all hear, man, why didn't I get that? I wish I'd have got that. This man obviously did not do that. He got as busy as the guy that got five, and he started working, trading, he got involved, he saw increase, and he saw improvement. And he gets the exact same praise That's the first man did. The praise is given in three words, well done. By the way, that's a way of me saying, good job, excellent job, great job. That's what it means. The second word is good. That means profitable, useful, you're advantageous, you're beneficial to me is what the master said to these two servants. Then he uses the word fateful. It means dependable, trustworthy. I promise you, the older you get, the more important the word fateful is going to become. Every single person in this room that's married knows how important the word fateful is. And every single pastor in this room knows because he's had to deal with unfaithfulness in marriage situations in his church. And what you see in an unfaithful, you see hurt, you see tears, you see wounds, and you will see scars that takes years to heal because of unfaithful. So this is a very important word. And these three statements show us exactly what the Master wants us to be. He wants us to do a great job. He wants us to be beneficial. He wants us to be dependable. And that's the praise He gives to these two. Notice He did not give this praise to the third servant. But notice the second thing about this delight of the Master. Not only the praise, but the position. He says, I will make thee ruler. over many things." Now, they had been fateful over a few things, is what he said. He said, but I will make you ruler over many things. When it comes to position, the Lord is the one that elevates. I promise you, you don't have to posture, you don't have to push yourself, you don't have to run around in the background laying the foundation for your success. The Lord will place you when He wants you placed somewhere. When you're worthy to be placed, He will do it. And here we see the Lord given a new position. One with more responsibility. And I'll deal with that thought again here in a second. The third thing you see in this delight of the Master is pleasure. Oh, here is the world's desire. That's what He says. He says, enter into the joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord. The word joy here means gladness. It means delight. It means great happiness. That which brings pleasure. It means jubilation. Everybody loves a good party. Isn't that the world's motto? Now I told you earlier you could talk to me. Isn't that the world's motto? What is Hallmark's theme? Now, I know some of y'all watch Hallmark movies. What is the theme of Hallmark movies? I just want you to be happy. It's said in every single movie they have ever produced, I think. That's the world's desire, just be happy. Well, the only way for you to have true happiness is serve your master. That's the only way. Everything else is fleeting. Everything else is empty. Everything else you will regret. You will never regret serving your master. Now notice, I said serving your master. I know a lot of people that have, on the surface, seem like they serve the master, but they were doing it for their own glory. That is empty. I've known of a whole bunch of preachers that this sort of burns out. Why? Because they were wanting the praise of men, the pats on the back, and they didn't get it, so they quit. No, you do it for the Lord. That brings the only joy that's lasting and fulfilling is the joy of the Lord. You can't beat it. Number 5, look at verse number 24, down to verse number 30, and here's what I call the dismay of the Master. Verse 24, Then he which hath received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee, that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed. First thing I want you to see in this dismay of the Master is what I call the perception era. This man said, I knew you. It's a know of experience, but this experience is based on this man's perception. I learned this a long time ago, that my perception can be flawed. Do you think it's possible for you to be wrong? about what you think about other people. You know, first impressions. I learned a long time ago, first impressions can deceive. You better not make life-changing decisions based on first impressions. But this man's perceptions, he had a wrong view of God. You know, it's hugely important for you to have the right view of God. You know, at least 10 times in the Old Testament, the testimony of God is that He's gracious, He's merciful, He's slow to anger, He's of great kindness, and He repenteth of evil. That is the testimony of God in the Old Testament, at least 10 places. And I'm not going to take you to those 10. I challenge you to find them sometime. By the way, one of those is in Jonah chapter 4, and it was Jonah's reasoning on why he did what he did that was wrong. Same thing we find right here. This guy thought he knew God, but he had a wrong view. Oh, by the way, we can step into the New Testament, and what do we find in the New Testament about our God? It says that He's rich in grace, He has great grace. He's rich in mercy. He has great love for us. Listen, it's hugely important to have the right view of God. And here we see that the dismay of the Master, first of all, was based upon a perception error. The second reason the dismay of the Master in verse number 25, and I was afraid The second reason for the dismay of the Master is because of the practice of fear. This man, he says, I was afraid. Now what's really interesting about this is he doesn't say what he's afraid about. One thing that he's not afraid about is the Lord. I don't have time, but I challenge you sometime to read Psalms 112. And you'll find out in Psalms 112 that the man in Psalms 112 feared the Lord. And it says in that passage that the man that feareth the Lord delighteth greatly in His commandments. Now let that soak in. If you fear the Lord properly, you will greatly delight in His commandments. And if you don't delight greatly in His commandments, don't try to tell me because you can't even convince your own heart that you really fear God. This man right here didn't really fear his master. He feared the work that it was going to take for him to be successful. We have raised, and I say we, I'm talking about America, it seems like it's raised a generation of ingrates. Not only we have raised a generation of ingrates, we've raised a generation of lazy people. I hope you don't fall into either one of those categories. Because if you do, you're going to do nothing for God. Really, you won't. You'll end up complaining about everything that happens. You'll become a victim. You'll think everybody's out to get you. And you just will not be satisfied with anything that comes your way. I just described this man right here, this one with the one talent. He is brought dismay upon his master because he had a perception error, because he practiced fear. But then notice verse number 26. The master steps on the scene. We see the pointed rebuke. Verse 26, His Lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, Thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not straw." There's a pointed rebuke here. A threefold rebuke. First of all, we see the servant had a moral problem. Notice what it says. He says, Thou wicked. The word wicked here is a word that means evil in a moral sense. It means that this man was not just wicked in himself, This word carries the idea of a wickedness, an evil that corrupts other people. So this guy, through his wickedness, he probably tried to affect the other two, but he didn't succeed. Praise the Lord for servants of God that doesn't listen to the complaining and negativity of another servant. And I promise you, when you get in the ministry, there's always going to be somebody who says, well, I don't know if I'd try that. I just don't think it will work. Well, I mean, I did this all these years and the Lord didn't, and they're going to point their finger and condemn the Lord because of defeats in their life. You better not listen to people like that. They're out there. Just be faithful. This guy had a moral problem. Secondly, we see that he had a motivation problem. The Lord said, you're not only wicked, you're slothful. The word slothful here means lazy. It means, oh, come here. The second meaning of this word is tardy. I can take a little time here because I was a teacher here for 25 years, I know this issue. It was almost every single week I had students tardy in my classes. By the way, if you came in tardy in my class, the second time I met you at the door. And you were gonna have an eyeball-to-eyeball talk with me in my office. Why? Tardiness is not something that you need to be okayin' in your life. It's a character flaw that will haunt you the rest of your life. And the Lord said to this servant, you're slothful. It means to be slow. It means to delay. It means to lack ambition. You need to get some excitement about coming to class instead of, oh, I have to go to class again? I have to get up? My bed is so comfortable. Well, that bed was comfortable this morning when it was nice and warm and cold outside, huh? And by the way, we always had more tardies on cold mornings. Are you still breathing? You know, Romans chapter 12 and verse number 11 tells us not to be slothful in business. It tells us to have fervency of spirit. Oh, by the way, that word fervent there means zealousness, red-hotness in spirit. By the way, how do you get that? Is that something the Lord just miraculously comes down and forces upon you, as the Calvinists would say? I had to say something about Calvinism this morning. By the way, if there's any young man here that's even tempted to read after that garbage, I feel sorry for you. That's some of the most insidious bunch of liars that I've ever met in my life. A Calvinist will lie you to your face. I feel better now. Back to this. Now, how do you get that zeal? You choose to have it. It's called obedience to Scripture again. I promise you, zeal will not creep up on you and overtake you. It won't lie in wait and sneak out and jump out in front of you and say, ah, got you. It will not do that. It will only come from a choice of your heart to have the zeal that you need to serve God and to do what you're supposed to do when you're supposed to do it. This slothful man, here's another word that would just smack this slothful man right in the face, disobedience. Another meaning of this word slothful is timid, hesitating. Over the years here, I've met all kind of students that, well, Brother Camp, I'm just timid. You know what I've said to dozens of young men over the years that told me that? There's a young man in this building this morning that I used to stop in the hall when I was here, because he wouldn't talk. The only thing he would say when he got here was, yep, nope. That's the only thing he'd say. And I'd get in front of him when he'd come down the hall, and I'd make him stop and say something to me. And now I understand he's preaching at nursing homes. The last two or three times I've talked to him, he's talked to me. Marvelous. I appreciate the growth I've seen in you, buddy. He changed. By the way, if he hadn't changed, he'd never serve God. This guy was slothful. He had a motivation problem. Get some motivation. Number three, come back to verse number 26, 27. We see that the dismay here in this pointed rebuke was this servant had a moral problem. He had a motivation problem. But thirdly, he had a mental problem. You say, what are you talking about? Notice the master said, Thou knewest. Now what's really interesting is this. The master, when he said, Thou knewest, uses a whole different Greek word for no. Not only does he use another Greek word, he uses another tense of a Greek word. So what you have here is the master is rebuking him for what he said. He said, You did what you did based on your perception. And what the Master is really telling me here is, you really didn't act properly on what you said you do. By the way, I point you back to Psalms 112, where the man that really fears the Lord delights greatly in His commandments. This servant knew exactly what the Master wanted him to do with that which had been given to him. But he didn't do it. May I say to everybody here this morning, everybody here this morning can and should think better. Everyone here can think deeper. Everyone here can think more in-depth. Everyone here can think more logical. Everyone here can think more balanced. Everyone here can think more biblical. And everyone here can think with less distraction. Can I have liberty at another area? Many of you are distracted because you don't know how to turn your phone off. Many of you have gotten to the place where your phone controls your thinking. Many of you, if I didn't say something right here, as soon as this chapel would be over, the first thing you'd do would be check your phone. In class, before I ever left here, three and a half years ago. One of the first things students was doing as soon as class was over, pulling out that phone. And they'd walk down the hall. They wouldn't even watch where they're going. Many times I'd grab them by the arm and pull them to the side because they're going to run into me while they're looking at their phone. Distracted. I was reading an article just, listening to the news article just recently in South Carolina that accidents were up 35%. Insurance companies couldn't figure out why. I could tell them because five out of every seven car drivers that pass me are looking at their phone. You breathing? You have no business allowing something to control your thinking, distract you from thinking. A lot of you can't even listen in class because you have your phone on vibrate in your pocket and it vibrates. Who's talking to me? What are they saying? I've got to respond. I think I did this one other time, I got to do it again. I've seen students in my class, here I am teaching, and teachers can hear, meh, meh. And the students, they lean back. They've got to see whatever it was. All of us can think less distracted. But what that means is, we have to make some choices. on what we're going to concentrate on. This servant right here should have been concentrating on what the Lord, his Lord, wanted him to be doing, but he didn't. You know, the other two men, they brought to the master five talents and two talents. This man, when he gave his accounting, Verse 24, then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou were a hard man reaping where thou hast not sown and gathering where thou hast not strawed. I was afraid and went and hid my talent in earth. Lo, there thou hast that is thine. This lazy, good-for-nothing servant didn't even get the talent and bring it back to the Lord. He said, Lord, if you want it, it's there. You can go get it yourself. I can't imagine that. And one of my daughters is sitting right back there. And my daughter can tell you, if I'd have told her to go get, you know, do something, then she came back and said, well, daddy, it's there, you can go get it. And she can tell you that that wouldn't have been a good thing to tell her daddy. I can't even comprehend what my daddy would have done if I'd have said something like that to him. I learned this early in life. I feared my daddy more than I feared the dark outside. My dad would tell me, go do something at night, in the dark. When I was a little boy, I was afraid of the dark, but I was more afraid of my daddy. I went and did it. But this man didn't have fear of the Lord. That's obvious in what happened. This guy had a mental problem. He didn't know how to think. He did not know how to act on that which he thought. Again, may I say, true fear of God causes one to do what God wants and not what He wants. Not what the person wants. It causes you to do what God wants if you really fear the Lord. So, we need to evaluate our hearts this morning. Are we doing what our Lord wants? If we're not, we don't fear the Lord. We just love ourself too much. Come back to this, verse 27 and following, we see the last thing here in this passage, the dismay of the master, and that is the principle that is necessary. Verse 27 is the lesson. Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Now notice, the Lord is saying to this man, if you were so lazy that you wouldn't go out and work, you wouldn't go out and get involved, you wouldn't go, you wouldn't get involved, you wouldn't bring about an improvement, you wouldn't bring about an increase, You should have put it in somebody else's hands, let them do the work for you. But he didn't even do that. He put it in a hole in the ground, instead of getting it to somebody else that could have helped making money. You know, there's all, and the Lord knew this, there's all kind of people out there who's willing to help you make money, if they can make money at the same time. They're called financial advisors. When you get my age, they call you all the time. They send you, I don't know how many pieces of mail I get every month from people wanting me to help me fix my money or use my money. And the Lord's telling him the same thing. Now, what's the lesson here? Use what God has given you for others. Other people's good. I mean, that's the lesson that he said. The exchangers, that way they can make money off of it. And it will be for my good, the master says here. You know, notice verse number 29. For until every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Now in verse number 28, he says, take that talent from this one and give it to the man that has ten. Now, humanly speaking, that just doesn't seem right, does it? Now, what it doesn't seem right, our whole society today is, well, that would be unfair. And instead of taking the one from the guy that has one and giving it to the ten, hey, let's divide what the guy has from ten, let's give four or five and then it will be even out. That's what our society is teaching today. By the way, what is being taught in our society is nowhere biblical. And I don't need to get too political. I understand that. But here we see, if you are faithful, if you are serving your Master like you're supposed to, He's going to give you more to do. I've talked to people, and I used to have students here come to my office, and they'd say, Brother Campbell, I just can't do everything that I have to do, and I'm asking the Lord to remove some of it. I said, don't do that. They look at me, why not? I can't get everything done. I said, instead of asking God to remove something, won't you ask Him for more ability to do that which He's put there? Don't ask Him to take something off your plate. Ask for a bigger plate. And I promise you, the bigger plate, the more responsibility, the more you do, the more God helps you do, and the more He's going to keep putting there, and the more joy you can have. The more help you can be. Remember, it's about being a blessing to others for the Lord's sake. Helping other people for the Lord's sake. That's the lesson that's here. But notice verse number 28 and 29 again. Not only the lesson, but the loss. See, when it comes time for us to stand before the Lord and give an account, come here, listen to this. You will not be able to say what you keep. You'll have no say in what you get to keep. You won't be able to look at the master and say, that's not fair, I deserve, no. He'll look at you and say, you don't deserve that. This is what you, remember, how much does he know? How much? Everything. He knows everything you think, everything you want to do, and everything you don't want to do. Everything you've done, he knows all that. But a loss. A loss of what here? A loss of stewardship. A loss of position of a servant. Oh, I know. Our society. They're going back and trying to rewrite history. Every single forefather of our country, if he ever owned a slave, he's worse than dirt, you know? They're trying to dismantle everything that America's ever stood for. No matter. Listen. Here it says that this man is losing his position as a servant. Notice it says it's going to be taken away from him, last part of verse 20, and then verse 30, "...and cast you, the unprofitable servant, into outer darkness." That's not talking about losing your salvation. It's talking about losing your position as a servant. The position of being able to serve the Lord of glory. The opportunity Yay, the privilege of serving the God of redemption? I can't comprehend why anybody that calls themselves a Christian wouldn't want to do what their Redeemer wants them to do. I can't understand that. Where's the gratitude of being saved? A man that does not want to do what the Redeemer wants them to do, I question if they're really saved. Because redemption brings a gratitude where, Lord, I can't do enough for you. Doesn't the New Testament teach that you're not your own, you've been bought with a price? Doesn't the New Testament teach us that that price is the precious blood of the Lord Jesus? Where's your gratitude? And losing a position of stewardship or servanthood should break our heart I think the Lord Jesus taught a powerful lesson here on stewardship, a lesson that everybody in this building needs to evaluate. Father, we thank you this morning for the lesson that you taught to these three men and the lesson that, by extension, you've taught to each one of us. Help us, dear Father, to fear you. so we'd greatly delight in your commandments, where we'd want to do what your will is in service, with that which you have given us to do it with, and help us to do it to the best of our ability. In Jesus' name, amen.