Six Words That Will Determine Your Eternity — Carter Conlon

The Parable of the Talents and the Six Words of Eternity

And this morning I want to talk about six words that will determine your eternity. Six words that I live to hear one day. Six words that if you are a true believer in Christ, this should be at the very foundation stone of your heart and your service to God.

Matthew chapter 25, please, in the New Testament, if you'll go there with me, Matthew 25. I'll be in that text the whole time this morning. Six words that will determine your eternity. Now, Father, I thank you, God, with all my heart for the strength, the enablement, the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

I thank you, Lord, for the men and women that you have gathered here in this sanctuary today. Those that are with us in North Jersey. Those that are at home listening online. Oh God Almighty. We need strength for this generation.

We need strength for these darkened days in which we live. Lord God, you promised the measure that we need and so we take you at your word. Give us the grace to reach out to you today. The humility to acknowledge our need.

The courage, Lord, to step forward into whatever it is you have for each of our lives. Father, we thank you for this in Jesus' name. Matthew chapter 25, beginning at verse 14. Six words that will determine your eternity.

For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents. These are deposits of money. To another, two.

And to another, one. To each according to his own ability. And immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them and made another five talents. And likewise he who had received two gained two more also.

But he who had received one went and dug in the ground and hid his Lord's money. And after a long time the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. So he who had received the five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, Lord, you delivered to me five talents.

Look, I've gained five more talents besides them. His Lord said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.

He also who had received two talents came and said, Lord, you delivered to me two talents. And look, I've gained two more talents beside them. His Lord said to him, well done, good and faithful servant.

You've been faithful over a few things and I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Then he who had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

And I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. And look there, what you have, you have what is yours. But his Lord answered and said to him, you wicked and lazy servant. You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed.

Now in the original context of this verse, the Lord is saying to this man or this woman, is that really what you thought I was like? It's a question. It's not a statement. Christ is not agreeing with this man's assessment of him.

So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers. And at my coming, I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore, take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents.

Christ’s Gifts and Each Believer’s Specific Calling

For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will have abundance. But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. Now back in verse 14, it says the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them.

When Christ rose from the dead, when he triumphed over the powers of hell and darkness, Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 7 and 8, he gave each of us grace according to the measure of his own gift.

And therefore he says when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. In other words, each of us, you and I here today are all called to a specific purpose on this earth.

Now there's a general will of God that we're all called to follow. We're called to be honest and truthful. The promises of God that were to obtain through the scriptures. There are very specific things that you and I are to do that are practical to all who are called by the name of Christ.

But each of us also has a specific calling. Something beyond the general. And it's this calling through which Christ would be glorified and others would find him as their Lord and Savior. And might I say it's been my experience that this unique calling of God, the unique will of God as I like to call it, most often takes us into areas where we don't have the strength to go and calls us to do what we can't do and be what we could never be.

It calls us to walk pathways in the natural we could never do. And it's a very unique thing that Christ will be glorified through it. And God may be calling some right now to this specific thing that he's set apart for your life.

And you're finding it very, very difficult. Now in order to accomplish this divine purpose for each of our lives in these different places, these times, and these different seasons, we find ourselves, we're given the exact measure of his life and strength that we need to bring his name to reputation there.

I was sharing with somebody this morning and saying if you're going to Philadelphia, you don't need a ticket to California. You just need a ticket that gets you to where you're going. And this is when you go to verse 15, he said he gave one five talents.

That means a deposit of his life. A deposit of his victory, a deposit of his character, his strength, his power. He gives you exactly what you need to get through the journey that you're in. Because you have five talents doesn't mean that you're in a high-profile ministry.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking the five talent people are all singers and they're all in pulpits and they're all doing high-profile things. They all have their names on brochures. That's not true.

He deposits the measure of his life according to the calling. You might be in a two-talent ministry in a five-talent marriage right now. You might need two talents to stand in public and do what you do, but you need five talents to stay in the home where God placed you and to be the wife to your husband or the husband to your wife or the son or daughter to your mother and father.

Oh no, it's not about, it's the measure of his life. The one thing I love about Christ is he says I'll give you what you need. I'll give you exactly what you need. I won't allow you to be tested above you're able to bear, but I'll make a way for you in the midst of that trial that you might be able to walk through that.

It will not overpower you. It will not take you down. It will not defeat you. Remember that our former captivities are captive and we have a new freedom now to embrace the new life and pathway just before us.

When he ascended up on high, he took captivity captive. That means all the former restrictions of your life, all those places that your own heart, your own enemies, and even those who meant well in your life told you you can't go there.

You're not smart enough. You're not strong enough. You're not talented enough. All of those captivities are gone. All the words that were spoken over your life that God was not part of are now destroyed.

You're now a new creation in Christ if you've come to him. The old things are passed away and behold, all things are become new. Therefore, you have a unique calling ahead of you. You have a unique place that God set you in.

And he says to you in that place, I'm going to give you the strength that you need to get through. I won't give you more and I won't give you less. I will give you the exact measure of my life and my power and my spirit for you to do what I've called you to do.

For you to be a lamp in a darkened place that you find yourself in. For you to be words of life when words of death are being spoken all around you. For you to speak truth when everyone around you is lying.

For you to be honest when thievery seems to be the order of the day. For you to speak kindly when vilification seems to be on the lips of every second person around you. I've placed you. You're not there by mistake.

God placed you exactly where you are. You're in the home you need to be. You live in the apartment he assigned you to. You're in the neighborhood where he placed you. You're on the job where he put you.

There is no happenstance with God. He has not forgotten your name. He placed you there for a reason. Think about it for a moment. If you weren't there, who would he have to put there in your place to be a testimony of his love and his life that's available to all?

God’s Grace in Difficult Places

Some of us get to ride through easy places in life. Others of us have to go through the valley of the shadow of death. We have to be in difficult places. Paul and Silas never would have reached the jail had they not gone into the inner prison.

They never would have been able to sing a song that broke everybody's shackles and chains and to see all kinds of people who are living in no doubt deplorable lifestyles set free by the power of God had they eluded the inner prison.

They never would have seen this incredible victory that we read about in the book of Acts. But I want to remind you one more time that God gave them the exact measure of his life and strength they would need in the place where they found themselves.

The challenges change. They're different in different seasons. One day I need more grace than another. But the deposit of his grace is the exact amount to continue our journey and to walk through our journey in victory.

So remember, the pathway of God will never lead you where his grace will not sustain you, where his keeping power will not give you a song that has nothing to do with the things of this world. For those who are new in the faith, he gives you the grace to believe that your sins are forgiven.

It took grace to believe that. Whether or not you believe that, it took grace to believe that. Hallelujah. You didn't come to him. You didn't find him. He was never lost. He found you. His grace found you.

He revealed himself to you. He unlocked your darkened mind and showed you, some in a moment of time, some over time, some visited church 15 times before the truth finally laid hold of them. But he gave you grace to believe that you could be forgiven, no matter what you had done, no matter what kind of a person you had been or how many lies you told or how many wrong things you had done.

And he gave you the grace to believe that your sin, that means you're wrong, that you committed against God and your fellow man could be forgiven. And he gave you grace to believe in your heart that a new life had opened up before you, a supernatural life, because you knew that you could not change.

I knew that when I came to Christ. I made so many New Year's resolutions. Every year, as a matter of fact, every New Year's. And they lasted about 8, maybe 10 minutes, if I felt very strong. He gives you grace to read the Word of God, because without His grace, you wouldn't understand it.

But many here today, you remember when you believed that your sins were forgiven and God's grace and God's Spirit came upon you and you knew you were forgiven. Suddenly, this book that was a mystery opened, because it's not a dead letter.

It's a living Word. And God began to teach you. You began to read. That was grace. And you began to believe His promises, as absurd as some of them may have seemed in the natural. How could this ever be?

How could I ever be a father, a good father? I didn't have a father, in many cases, you can say. I don't know how. There's been no fathers in my family for five generations. How do I learn this? How do I become this?

But yet, you're here today and you'll say, Grace, you can say, grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home. God gave me grace. He gave you grace to move into what was formerly impossible to you.

Liars that are here learned to speak the truth. Selfish people learned to be kind. People learned to be given for others when self-focus was the dominating force in your life up to the point where God's grace came into your heart.

Fearful people learned that fear is cast out by the presence of this incredible love of God and suddenly courage came into your heart. You're given the grace and the power to be morally clean. You're given the grace to be faithful, given the grace to walk away from what you needed to walk away from and to walk towards that which you had a glimpse of that could be for your life.

You took grace to believe that rewards for faithfulness and obedience are eternal and they're exceedingly more than we can think or imagine. It took grace to shift your focus from the things of this life to the things which are eternal.

This life is a vapor, folks. It's here and it's gone. I came here 21 years ago to New York City and it seems like yesterday. It was a long yesterday, mind you, but it seems like yesterday. Grace, grace, grace gives us the courage to work for that which is eternal and to leave off that which is not.

And grace gives us the power to believe that the rewards of eternity. Remember, Jesus said on that day of reckoning, when my servants stand before me, I will say to them, well done, good and faithful servant.

You've been faithful in a few things. In other words, I didn't ask you to do a lot of things. I didn't set before you things that were out of reach. I didn't so pile them up that you saw no hope of ever fulfilling them.

No, I gave you just a few things in your life to do and you did them well. Which brings us to verse 19. It says, after a long time, the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. Christ is coming and he's coming soon.

Standing Before Christ and Seeking His Approval

And soon you and I will be standing at the throne of God. We will be there. Each of us will have our own personal and very private and intimate moment with him. And he said, his Lord said to him, and so he would receive the five talents, came and brought five more, saying, Lord, you've delivered me five talents and look, I've gained five more besides him.

And then his Lord said to him, and here's the other six words that will determine your eternity. Well done, good and faithful servant. Now you and I know that the Bible says God cannot lie. We can say well done when it wasn't.

We can call things good that aren't. And we can say that we ourselves are faithful when we've fallen far short of what God called us to be and God called us to do. One day I stand at the throne of God.

I just had my 62nd birthday, so it's probably sooner than I realized. I stand there alone. It doesn't really matter if a million voices said, oh God, did you hear this man on the internet? Did you hear the anointing?

Did you hear the touch of heaven? Did you hear his testimony? It doesn't matter if a billion people think I'm wonderful. It doesn't matter if a million enemies think I'm not because when I stand there, only one voice matters now.

Only one voice. That is the one who determines what my eternity will be. Not that I'll get into eternity, but my eternity will be. And there are rewards, it's said, that are deeper than you and I can even begin to imagine.

I live for the day that Christ can look me in the eye and say well done. Well done. Well done good and faithful servant. Six words that will determine my eternity. Six words that will determine what I do for all of eternity.

Six words that will determine whether or not I can be faithfully trusted to perform that which is before me. And so my question is when we get to this place where all the other voices fade and only one voice matters, will Jesus be able to say to you, will he be able to say to me well done, good and faithful servant.

Well done. You know when I was a young Christian, a young pastor, I started to feel in my heart like I had to win the whole world to Christ. It's a noble sentiment. So I set out with a passion to do what I felt in my heart needed to be done.

And I traveled the length and breadth of the country that I was in at the time. I preached in a lot of different places. I traveled to the Arctic. Spent time with the Inuit people. I went on to Indian reservations in Canada.

I traveled east. I traveled west. I preached until I burst blood vessels in my eyes one time. I fasted. I ran. I prayed only to find out that my strength left me. It left me in a very, very difficult place at the age of 37.

And I remember going out on a country road and I was angry with God. And I accused him of being unfaithful to me. I said words to the effect of, Lord, I've given you everything. I've given you my future, my family, given you my home.

And you reward me by taking away my health as I headed out to serve you and basically win the country to you. I was so angry. I didn't really care what God said to me at that moment because I felt like I was in danger of not recovering physically.

I didn't know what God was going to say. I really, really got it out that day. But it surprised me, his response. He just said, I love you. And when he said, I love you, it just melted my heart. And it was like a Damascus road experience to me, although I was already a Christian.

Learning to Serve Only Where God Calls

I ended up saying, Lord, what do you want me to do? And that's when the revelation came to me and God said to me clearly, Carter, you've done a lot of things in my name. You've traveled, you've preached in a lot of meetings and good things have happened in some of these places.

People did come to Christ. Some churches were strengthened. Others were warned. But he said, when you get before me one day, when you stand before me, there will be no reward for any of it because I've not asked you to do it.

You did it yourself. You took it upon yourself to do it. That's why your strength is gone. That's why you have exhausted yourself because there's no reward for anything I've not asked you to do. And so I said, Lord, what do you want me to do?

And he said, there are 100, I still remember, there's 158 names on the membership roll of the church that I've given you to pastor. That's the only thing I've asked you to do. When you stand before me one day, if this is the finish of your work, when you stand before me one day, these names will be presented to you and you will answer for them.

The whole 158, where are they? And if they're not here, why are they not here? Did you speak to them? Did you tell them about me? Did you warn them about walking in rebellion to a holy God? Did you give them a balanced meal?

Did you set before them the hope that the cross offers to those that are struggling with failure? I remember standing on that road and say, Lord, for the rest of my life, I will serve you where you plant me.

I'll not be looking outside of what you've given me to do because there's no reward for it and there's no provision of strength for it. And so suddenly I found myself fully given to this little church and a new joy came into my heart.

My physical strength started to come back and I found a grace that I had rarely ever touched before. I remember one guy in the church in particular, he was just always rising and falling. He rose and fell more than Lazarus.

He was sober, he was drunk, he was sober, he was drunk and he'd come to church and I used to grab him by the lapel and say, listen, I stopped drinking, you can stop drinking. He'd look at me and say, I can't, I can't, I can't.

I said, yes, you can. And when I came to the place where I knew I couldn't do something and I needed grace to go forward, I'll never forget, it was only a short time after this encounter with God on the road that this man came to me and said, Pastor, he said, I find such hope under your preaching lately.

He says, it's not that you are saying much different, it's just the way you're saying it. I find such hope. I think part of the hope is I think he knew in his heart I was fully given to him, fully given to see him walking with God and the last report I have even to this day, he is.

Thank God for that with all my heart. And I prayed and I said, Lord, I will go nowhere, I will do nothing except you called me to do it because I realize there's no reward for those things that I'm not called to do.

And I remember my prayer, I said, Lord, I'm not a mystic. If you ever want to change where I am, have somebody just call me on the telephone and ask me and that's exactly what happened months later. David Wilkerson called.

He said, would you consider coming to New York? When I came to New York, we were walking out on Broadway there used to be a show called Cats. I used to, I laughed with him one time. I said, it's cats over there and it's acts over here across the street.

And he said to me, what has God been doing in your life in the last two years? And I said, honestly, killing me. I said, I lost my strength and I only got it back when I determined to do the will of God for my life and only the will of God, nothing else.

I just remember him looking at me and he said to me, oh, that's good. I found out later that he had prayed two years earlier and said, God, I need somebody. You got to send somebody here to help me. This church is growing fast and I don't quite know how to manage all of it.

And the Lord answered him and said, I have a man, but he's not ready yet. Two years before, I was still running the road, still very much driven by my own agenda, still doing it all in God's name, still relying very much on human reasoning and human effort only to be brought down to that place of saying, God, what do you want me to do?

And I told him even, I'm not even interested in coming to New York unless it is the will of God. I've been there before, I'm not going there again. I don't care how big the church is or the ministry, none of this matters anymore because there's no reward when I get to the throne of God.

If I step out of the will of God, there is no reward for it. And so coming to New York was a more difficult challenge than I'd ever faced in my lifetime. And the early years were very, very hard, but I had learned that with the calling comes the exact measure of strength that we need to accomplish it.

Maybe I needed three talents over here, but I needed five. I'll tell you, when I got to New York, I needed five talents. I needed the full measure of God's strength. I needed the full measure of his wisdom.

I needed courage. I needed understanding. I needed everything that God had, but I also knew that with the calling comes the strength and the power and the ability to perform what God has asked us to do.

Faithfulness in Ordinary Callings

Five talents doesn't mean, as I said earlier, that you have a high-profile ministry. The single mothers that are here today, and you have to work two jobs to feed your kids, and you have to drag those three teenagers to church on Sunday that don't want to get up out of bed and don't want to come to the house of God, but you're choosing to believe you need five talents to do what you do.

I might only need two, what I do today, but you need five, and God promises you will not be overwhelmed. The fire will not burn you. The flood will not drown you. The circumstances will not take your joy, and you will be given the measure of strength that you need, the exact measure of strength that you need to do what God's called you to do.

Take courage, my brother. Take courage, my sister. We're not going to be triumphed over in this generation. We're not going down with any ship. We're going up with the one who rose from the dead and promised to give us power.

The Warning of the Buried Talent

And so the question that comes to mind as I close today is what happened to this final person, this final reckoning? He said, then who had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you've not sown and gathering where you've not scattered seed.

Here's this man who stands before God or this woman and says, you're a hard master. You set me in a difficult place, and you asked something of me I cannot give. You're asking me to produce a harvest in a place where I can't see your hand reaching out to help me in any way.

You put me in a place, and where were you? Where are you? Where's your strength? Where are your promises? I'm in a difficult place, and I don't see you. And I don't understand how you work. And actually, it was an accusation.

You're a hard man. You're requiring of me something that you're not giving me any help in doing. That was actually his accusation against Christ. How can we say that when we think of the cross? How could anybody ever stand one day and accuse Christ of not being faithful?

When we look at the cross, and we understand suddenly the miracle of the fullness of our salvation, the power that God was willing to give us, how would we ever dare stand before God and say, you put me in a hard place.

You put me in a hard job in a hard neighborhood. You gave me a hard life. And you asked of me to bear fruit there, but I don't see you anywhere. I don't see you. You're sending me out to gather where you've not sown or to reap where you've not sown and gather where you've not scattered seed.

In other words, there's nothing of you there. And I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground, and here, what you have is yours. In other words, I gave up on your kingdom. I placed my hope in the things of this world.

I buried this incredible call you gave to me. I just buried it, and I became so worldly that nobody could see you. I buried it in the earth. So I just sort of traveled through life looking like everybody else around me.

But I believed that one day that I could present myself to you, and somehow you would look at me and say, well done, good and faithful servant. What a tragedy when people bury the testimony of Christ.

You see, God cannot lie. One day you stand there. One day I stand there alone, and there are six words, only six words that I want to hear. That's what I live for. That's why I do what I do. To hear those words, well done, well done, good and faithful servant.

Jesus looked at this man and said, verse 27, you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers that by coming I would have received back my own with interest. In other words, you knew the truth. If you weren't willing to walk in it, why didn't you at least pass it on to somebody who would?

You knew that I'm faithful. You knew that I give gifts unto men. You knew that if anyone be in Christ, he's a new creation. You weren't willing to walk in it. You buried it. I had a man meet me one time that I knew from years ago, backstage, actually only about a year ago, backstage, and he greeted me, and I knew this guy for a long time, and I said to him, you're saved.

You're saved. It's amazing. When did you get saved? He said, oh, I've always been a Christian. The only thing I thought of, wow, you sure could have fooled me all those years. I've always been a Christian.

There's a man, I'm not trying to be his judge, but his talent was buried deep in the earth. I mean, when I was suffering persecution for many, many years, and I went through hard times because I was a stand-up for Christ, not once did this man ever come and just say, I'm with you.

I'm a brother in the Lord. I'm standing with you. I'm believing God for you and with you. His talent was buried in the earth. I pray that that not be the case when he stands before God. And so in verse 29, he says, 28, he says, therefore take the talent from him and give it to him who has 10 talents for to everyone who has more will be given and he will have abundance.

Asking God for Strength to Fulfill the Calling

But from him who does not have even that, even what he has will be taken away. Now here's the point. Christ says, give the strength that I promised and provided to the one who wants it to the one who believed that I will give him a full supply of life to accomplish it.

God says, I am more than willing to give you what others choose not to use. I'm willing to give you a supply of strength, hope and help for the future. For those that are walking through a difficult place, you don't have to be great in the eyes of men.

Just do well where you are. When the victory where you're planted, stay in the marriage that God put you in, raise the children. God gave you work diligently in the job you have or search diligently for the one you don't yet have stand strong in your neighborhood.

Be kind to your neighbors across the hallway, speak truth. When other people lie and trust me, God says for the provision to do it, I'll give you more than you need. Never less, but I'll give you more.

If you need more strength, ask me for more strength. If it's the cry of your heart to stand before God one day and to hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant, then ask for what you need now.

Don't leave it till tomorrow. Don't put it away. Don't think that you're dealing with a savior who puts you in a hard place and gives you nothing to win the victory. Don't accuse God of being unfaithful to you because he isn't, but just come and ask and say, Lord, I'm in a difficult place and I don't know how I'm going to get through, but you have the supply that I need.

You have the supply of faith, of peace, of strength, of courage, moral conviction, the power to walk away and the power to walk towards you have everything I need. And so Lord, I'm asking you that you would make me a good and a faithful servant, one that can stand before you in the not too distant future.

And you look eye to eye and say, well done. You've been faithful over a few things. Behold, I'll make you ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of your Lord. Let that be the voice that we hear.

Let none of us fall short of this calling of God, especially now in this darkened time in which we live. God, give me the grace. God, give us the grace to stand and to stand as lights in a darkened place and in a darkened world.

Give us all the courage and the strength that we're going to need and help us now to win the victories in our private places, our secret places. Give us the grace to win the victory where we are now and to put away everything that takes away our strength.

Altar Call for Grace, Faith, and Perseverance

If this is the cry of your heart this morning, I'd like to give an altar call. My altar call is just Lord Jesus Christ. Give me the grace I need to get through this place I'm in right now. Very simple prayer, but God will answer it.

I know that with all my heart. Oh God, give me the grace to stop the excuses. Give me the grace to lay down the accusations. Give me the grace to put away the doubts and the unbelief that somehow I've missed the will of God.

Give me the grace. Oh Jesus Christ, to become the man, to be the woman that you've called me to be and to finish my course with joy, to finish it with life. Give me the grace to pray. Give me the grace to stand.