The Parable of the Talents and the Parable of the Pounds

THE PARABLE OF THE TALENTS AND THE PARABLE OF THE POUNDS
STEWARDSHIP SUNDAY
DR. JIM DIXON
NOVEMBER 14, 1993
MATTHEW 25:14-30

Jesus talked a lot about money. Of His 38 parables, 16 deal directly with the subject of money. And incredibly, in the Gospels one out of every 10 verses deal explicitly with the subject of money. In the Bible, there are 500 verses that deal explicitly with the subject of prayer, a very important subject. But in the Bible, there are 2,000 verses that deal explicitly with the subject of money. Now, this is Stewardship Sunday. Every year we have two or three Sundays where our focus is financial stewardship. This morning God wants you to understand that this is not a digression from the gospel. This subject is very near and dear to the heart of God.

Today we look at the parable of the talents. In this parable, we see two themes, and I would like us to focus briefly on both of them this morning. The first theme is the theme of ownership. Now, I assume that most of you have heard of Peter Minuit. Peter Minuit, many, many years ago represented the Dutch West India company. And of course, it was Peter Minuit on behalf of the Dutch West India company who purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians. It was, as you recall from your history classes, called the Great Manhattan Swindle because Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians for 60 Gilders, which was equal to 24 bucks. He bought New York City for 24 bucks. The great Manhattan swindle. Except historians now understand that it really wasn’t Peter Minuit who did the swindling.

You see, it was May 6th, 1626 when Peter Minuit and some of his colleagues were walking through the woods in Manhattan Island and they came across a tribe of Indians. From those Indians Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan Island for 60 Gilders, which was a lot of money in 1626. But you see, the Indians that Peter Minuit ran into that day were the Canarsee Indians. They did not own Manhattan Island. They did not live on Manhattan Island. In fact, they very happily took the 60 gilders and went home to Brooklyn.

You see, perhaps it was the Indians who did the swindling. But the Canarsee Indians sold something that didn’t really belong to them. They sold that which did not belong to them. And God wants us to understand that whenever we sell anything, we do the same—not legally speaking, but theologically speaking. Whenever we sell anything, we sell something that doesn’t belong to us.

We’re kind of like Arthur Ferguson. It was in 1924 when Arthur Ferguson sold Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square in London, England. He also managed that year to sell Trafalgar Square itself, and he sold Buckingham Palace, and he sold Big Ben. And then he came over to the United States and he sold the White House, and he sold the Statue of Liberty. Of course, the next year he was in prison because he sold things that did not belong to him. And that’s what we do. We sell things that do not belong to us because the Bible says God owns everything. That’s what the parable of the pounds teaches us. That’s what the parable the talents teaches us. In both parables, we are told that the master entrusted to his servants his property, his money. The Bible says, “The Earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof.” God owns everything.

Now, the subject of this parable is not God the Father. The subject of this parable is God the Son. It is Jesus Christ who is the noble man who has gone into a far country and will one day come back with kingly power. He owns all things with His Father. Jesus said, “All that the Father has is mine.” But you see, you own nothing. I own nothing.

The truth is God has entrusted some of His stuff into our care. If you lived in the 12th century in England and you had some money and you were raising pigs, you wouldn’t spend a whole lot of time with the pigs. You would have someone else take care of the pigs. The person who took care of your pigs would be called a stygward. That’s what you would’ve called him—a stygward from the word styg, which refers to pigs and the enclosure in which the pigs live, and the word ward, which meant “to guard or to watch.”

Pig keepers were called stygwards. And we get the word steward from the word stygward. You see, we’re all pig keepers before God. We’re all pig keepers. I mean, God’s the owner. He’s just entrusted some things to us as stewards. And so, we need to know this book. We need to know everything God has said about money, everything God has said about possessions, that we might honor the owner in the way we live. And of course, this parable teaches us that one day we’re going to have to give an account. The owner is going to come back. And if we die before he comes again, we’re still gonna stand before the owner someday. And we’re going to have to give an account. We’ll be held responsible. It is the owner you have to please.

In the year 1925 an Italian freighter named the Ignacio Floria was sinking in the mid-Atlantic. It was going down. It’s about the 11th hour when a US liner called the President, Harding arrived. The sea was rough, the situation impossible. The waves were tossing. Somehow someone on the President Harding had to get a lifeboat over to the Italian freighter to rescue the 38 men on that freighter. And the first volunteer was a man named Salvatore Broco. And he took that lifeboat from the President Harding over to the Italian freighter, and he rescued all 38 men, and he became famous. Salvatore Barco received five medals, one from the hand of Mussolini himself, and Salvatore Barco became a hero in two nations.

In 1929, January, another Italian ship called the Florida was sinking off the Virginia capes. And again, at the 11th hour, a United States liner called the America arrived. And again, the first volunteer was a man named Salvatore Broco. And again, he was a hero. This time he received two medals from Italy and the United States. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor. He received seven additional medals from a variety of sources in New York City. There was a great parade for Salvatore Broco. And of course in his home city of Union City, New Jersey, his name was enshrined in fame. Salvatore Broco was famous, but time passed and the world forgot. Broco’s heart went bad. He could no longer go to sea. In fact, his health became so bad he could no longer work. He had no job; he had no money. He had a wife, he had a son, and they were starving. He asked the government for help. And after all, he had received the Congressional Medal of Honor. The government couldn’t help him much, just gave him seven and a half dollars a week. Ultimately, Salvatore Barco died, broke and heartbroken. The world had forgotten him.

God wants you to understand that what’s true of Salvatore Broco is going to be true of you. What’s true of Salvatore Broco is going to be true of me no matter what I accomplish. No matter what you accomplish, it doesn’t matter. The world’s going to forget you. The world’s going to forget me. There’s only one person who ultimately matters. There’s only one person before whom,ultimately, we must give an account. There’s only one person we must please, only one person we must make proud. And that person is God. We have this message from the parable of the pounds that one day we will stand before Him. Do you want to hear Him say, “Well done, good servant”? He is the owner.

Now there is a second theme in this parable, and I must say the second theme is more important. The second theme is not ownership, but the second theme is kingship. In the parable of the pounds, we see something very different from the parable of the talents. In the parable of the talents, the subject of kingship is barely mentioned. But in the parable of the pounds, the subject of kingship is stressed. You see, the nobleman is going to a far country to receive the kingdom, to receive kingly power. And some of his citizens do not want him to reign over them. It says, and those citizens who refuse to embrace his reign at the very end of the parable are brought before him and they’re slain before him. This is not found in the parable of the talents; it is unique to the parable of the pounds. This issue of kingship.

Kingship is at the very heart of the Christian faith. If you would be a Christian, the kingship of Christ must be embraced. The early church understood this, and when they were brought before Roman authorities and they were told to say, “Caesar is Lord,” the early Christians refused. They responded, “Jesus is Lord,” though they knew they might die, they might pay with their lives. They said, “Jesus is Lord” because they understood the reign of Christ could not be compromised. The reign of Christ is foundational to the Christian faith.

Christians living in China today understand this. There are 50 million Christians in the underground church in China today. Why don’t they go to the visible churches in China? There are visible churches—open churches, government churches. There are government-sponsored Protestant churches in China and government-sponsored Catholic churches. Why do these 50 million Christians stay underground? They stay underground because in the government churches the pastors must be approved by the government, and those pastors approved by the government are told that they cannot call Jesus Christ King of Kings. And they are told that they cannot teach the second coming of Jesus Christ, that He will come to reign. See, that’s why 50 million Christians in China stay underground. They will not compromise the reign of Jesus Christ.

So Christ is looking for Christians the world over who embrace His reign. Now, this past week, as I was preparing this message and praying for God to lead me, I felt like God told me to say something to you. I feel like God told me to say to you that He doesn’t want your money. He wants your soul.

He wants your soul. Hundreds of years ago, there lived a man named Dr. Johan Faust. Some people believe his name was Faustus. Little is known about him. They know that he lived between 1480 and 1540. They know that he was an astrologer. They know that he was a magician. They know that he was endowed, allegedly, with many powers. We know that Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer, believed that Johan Faust was empowered by the devil. We know that in 1587 a book appeared with an unknown authorship. The book was called The Faust Book, and it was a history, a biography, of Johan Faust. And the book stated that Johan Faust had sold his soul to the devil for 24 years of power.

Thi,s of course, became the inspiration for Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe’s great work called Faust, and also for Christopher Marlowe’s play called Faust. And through the centuries, Faustian themes have influenced literature. And so, we see in the 20th century The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benet, a Faustian theme. And Faustian themes have impacted Hollywood, and Hollywood through the years has made movies with Faustian themes—people selling their souls to the devil, from Damn Yankees to The Devil and Max Devlin. Faustian themes. In Faustian thought, the soul refers to the immaterial part of man. In Faustian thought the soul refers to the part of you that survives the death of the body. The soul in Faustian thought refers to that part of you that will spend eternity in heaven or in hell—your essence, your personality.

Sometimes in the Bible, the word soul is used in that way. Sometimes in the Bible, the word soul refers to the immaterial part of you, the part of you that will survive the death of the body. Sometimes the word soul is used in that way, but the Bible has a more complex view of this word soul. See, the Bible says that you are a tri-part being. You are by nature trichotomous. You are body, soul, and spirit- soma, psyche, and pneuma. Both your soul and your spirit will survive the death of the body. Biblically, both your psyche and your pneuma, both your soul and your spirit, are immaterial and they will survive the death of the physical body. Your soul and spirit will either reside forever in heaven or forever in hell, biblically.

But you see, the soul is distinct from the spirit biblically. Sometimes they are used interchangeably because they both are immaterial and they both survive death. But the soul is distinct biblically because the soul biblically is where your will resides. See, the soul biblically is the throne of your ego. It’s where your volition is seated. It’s where you make choices. It’s where you make decisions. It’s where you express your will. That’s the soul. It’s your throne. It’s a difficult passage in the Bible, in Mark 8, where our Lord Jesus said, “He who would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me. For he who would save his life shall lose it. He who would lose his life for My sake will find it.”

The word “life” in that passage is unfortunately rendered. It really shouldn’t be translated “life” because the word is psyche, which is soul. Soul. The verse doesn’t use bios, which is the word for biological life, or nor does it use zoe, which is the word for spiritual life. It uses psyche; it uses soul. “He who would save his soul shall lose it, but he who would lose his soul, for My sake, will find it.” And you only can understand that when you understand the biblical teaching regarding the soul—that it’s not simply the immaterial part of you that survives death, but it’s your throne. It’s where your will resides. And it’s only as you relinquish the throne, it’s only as you let go of the throne and deny yourself that you embrace the reign of Christ.

See, God doesn’t want your money. He wants your soul. And if He has your soul, everything else will follow. If you relinquish the throne, He’ll have your money, He’ll have your time, He’ll have your talent, He’ll have your treasure, He’ll have everything He wants. If He doesn’t have your soul, don’t bother to give Him your money. You can’t buy your way into heaven.

You know, some churches just want your money. That’s all they want. Some churches don’t care about your soul and the day will come when they’ll have to give an account. If you’ve attended this church for any length of time, you know we care about your soul. We care about your soul. The reality is that we have more than 4,000 members in this church—4,000 men and women who have stood up here on a Sunday morning on this stage, and who have born testimony publicly that Jesus Christ is their Lord. Over 4,000 men and women have stood up here and have said, “Jesus Christ is my Lord.” And they’ve made a commitment, a consecration of their life to Christ and to this church. 40% of those members, 40% of you who are members, give nothing to this church. Are we concerned about the money? Yes, a little bit. But most of all, honestly, we’re concerned about your soul.

God wants your soul. He wants the throne. And so, this morning from this parable, we have these two teachings, and the first teaching concerns ownership. God owns everything. He has entrusted some things to us. One day we’re going to have to give an account for what we’ve done with His stuff. And the second teaching concerns kingship, and this is more foundational than ownership. It mean unless you embrace the reign of Christ, stewardship’s not even an issue. What’s foundational is the reign of Christ. Kingship. Do you want Him to reign over you? Let’s close with a word of prayer.