What About Those Servants and Their Money?

Matthew 24:3  As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “….what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

 

The Parable of the Bags of Gold; Matthew 25:19-28

“Again, it [The Kingdom of Heaven] will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.  To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.  The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more.  So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more.  But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more. His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness! The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more. His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness! Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.  So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you. His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?  Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags.  For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Many people think this parable is quite scary. Crying and gnashing of teeth is sounds brutal! Exactly what is Jesus saying about these servants?  Is He saying we can lose our place in heaven if we don’t use our money correctly?  

Well, rest assured, this is not a story about money. Remember, Jesus is describing to His students what The Kingdom of Heaven will be like upon His return. Jesus will have no interest in our financial portfolio when He returns, and He certainly won’t need our money. 

Faith is the ability to believe God, and it is Faith that is the currency of Heaven. God is the source of Faith, the precious Heavenly treasure God deposits into every heart. God has given all people a measure of faith. It is a piece of Himself, and therefore able to know all He is.This is a parable about appropriately responding to The Spirit of God within you.

When the Faith He places inside us encounters The Spirit of God, one bears witness to the other. The Spirit says, “I am of God and you are of God”, and our Faith responds, “You are of God and I am of God.” Faith leads us to believe in God as Creator and Jesus as Savior. His Spirit then dwells in us and God's Living Faith begins to multiply, replacing all that is lifeless with Jesus!  Jesus alone is the way of God, the truth of God and the life of God.

So, how were the servants in the parable to know what to do with the gold they were given? By Faith! By knowledge of their Master!  Their generous master gave them a bag of gold when he left them. By knowledge of their master, they knew it wasn't their money.  Some knew him better than others, but as they invested what they were given, they saw their gold multiplied, providing more to be invested, and beginning a cycle of ever increasing abundance. This is a parable about supernatural multiplication of something so much more valuable than money! 

The good and faithful servants in the parable increased their bounty because what they were given did not lie stagnant, but for one, who continued to live his life, invest in what he knew, and ignore every invitation to remember his generous master. When we respond to God’s Spirit with our measure of Faith and invest our faith, it is supernaturally productive. By believing what we hear from The Spirit's voice in our heart, and by investing what we heard in ourselves and others, our hearing grows more accurate.  Jesus used the example of money earning 100% interest to show how our spiritual abundance increases as we simply believe God and follow His voice.

God is extravagantly generous. When we seek God we find more of God. When we ask for Divine Wisdom we are given more Divine Wisdom. When we ask for Grace we receive more Grace. Those who believe revelation from The Spirit of God, will be given deeper revelation. The Kingdom of Heaven’s economy never changes. It’s always about the miraculous increase in Heavenly Treasure by faith from God.
This is why Jesus taught us to store up Heavenly Treasure that does not become moth eaten or corroded, because The Spirit of God is Heaven's Treasure. He is the gold entrusted to us in the parable. 

However, there is the matter of the wicked, useless servant who did not increase but hid the treasure given him. What are we to think of the master’s response to him? We stop too soon if we don’t pay close attention to the master’s conversation with the servant.  

The wicked servant told The Master he believed Him to be cruel and abusive. This was not knowledge or revelation from The Spirit of God. It brought no increase. This servant did not know his Master's voice. This servant took the Faith that His Master deposited with Him and buried it in the ground as though it were a dead thing, because he was afraid. 

He saw no increase because his mind was filled with fear, confusion and lies. His faith was dead, unproductive. It never gave life to the servant or to anyone else, because it was buried in the darkness. The Master tells the wicked servant, "Even if you had known me as the fearful master you say I am, you would not have treated my gift as a useless trinket. I will give it to someone who will use it."  The Master didn't cast the servant into outer darkness from The Kingdom of Heaven. The Master had once again retrieved the servant from outer darkness, call it a Divine intervention!  However, even in the master's presence the servant fails to see who he really is. The master tells the others to throw him back where he was, reminding him that gnashing of teeth goes on out there.

Jesus told this parable explaining that this is what the Kingdom will be like at the end of the age. There are powerful forces at work in this world offering us different perspectives of God’s character and different assessments of His expectations. Before He went to the cross, Jesus told his disciples that The Holy Spirit would take what was His and give it to us. This is how we know Jesus and His expectations. We either know Him through intimacy with His Spirit, or we are fatally misinformed. 

You can hear the voice of God. You can see the majesty of God. You can feel the swelling of your measure of faith at His voice, at the majesty of His creation, and you can feel His Spirit drawing you to Himself. How are you going to respond to Life inside you?  You have been given a treasure trove of Divine Faith-the power to believe Him. You are blessed indeed. Don't live in darkness gnashing your teeth about things that don't matter. Go ahead, invest some of your Heavenly Treasure!!