Life's Final Examination Matthew 25:14-30

Life’s Final Examination and the Coming Final Judgment

One of the most unnerving things in life is to have your performance examined by someone else. Everyone in this room who is old enough knows what it is like to go through school and be examined. You are examined by what you know.

Your teacher teaches a particular topic, and in order to figure out, your competency and examination is given. The time will come when you take a test and the teacher will examine your work. I don't know about you, but sometimes I have nightmares about my school days.

I have a dream that I am performing poorly in a class and in danger of flunking, but then I wake up and realize it's all just a dream. To be examined is unnerving. It is not just school where we experience examination.

When we go to the doctor, you are examined. All of us know what it is like to have a physical where the doctor tells you if you have any health issues to be concerned about. It's not pleasant to experience this when a doctor takes a close look at your body to observe your overall health.

I also remember the days when I was in high school and how nervous I was to take my driver's test. To have the examiner sitting next to you in the passenger seat is not a pleasant experience. The first driver's test I took, I failed.

I was at a four-way stop. One of the cars went out of turn and I found myself stopped in the middle of the intersection. The driving instructor didn't see it that way. He said, it was your fault. So I failed.

And I don't know if I've ever been as nervous in my life as I was before the second driver's test. No one wants to be known as the guy who failed two driver's tests. I had to wait a month to take the test and as you might imagine, it was a stressful month.

But the day came and I wanted to put this behind me and pass. For the second driver's test, I had a different examiner, a more lenient one, thankfully. During this test, I didn't do as well as the first time.

I hit a post during the parking portion. When the test was done, I for sure thought I was going to fail. But to my surprise, he didn't even bring that up and said, there was one spot where you should have looked more carefully, but you passed.

And so I'm thinking, he must have just wanted to go home. But all of the examinations in life are so small compared to the biggest examination that is coming. And that is the final examination of your life, the final judgment.

A judgment that no one will be able to miss. Everyone will be there. And the God-man himself, Jesus Christ, will be the judge. Over the next two Sundays, as we continue our sermon series through Matthew, Jesus is going to describe what the final judgment will be like.

He is going to explain that the decisions that you and I make every single day, the life that one leads will be under close examination as he gives a verdict. So at this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew 25.

We'll be looking at verses 14 -30. And if you use the Red Bible, it's on pages 987 and 988. This sermon is titled, Life's Final Examination. And here's our big idea, what this text is calling you to do.

Strive to be rewarded by this world's judge. Strive to be rewarded by this world's judge. And we're going to see two practices how in this text. But before we jump in, I want to give you a little recap of where we've been.

For a while now, the topic of conversation has been the end times. Because in Matthew 24, Jesus took us through what will happen before the end. In Matthew 24, Jesus explained the signs that will occur before his return.

The signs are like birth pains. They increase in frequency and intensity as his return nears. The theme of Matthew 24 is to anticipate the soon return of Christ. And as we looked at the first 13 verses of Matthew 25, this theme is continued.

And we saw that in Matthew 25 one week ago. Jesus explained there the importance of readiness for his return through telling a parable. Jesus explained this through the parable of the ten virgins. In this parable, Jesus describes a Jewish wedding custom to illustrate how his return will be.

The Jewish wedding customs of his day had a bridegroom and a bride who were betrothed. And to be betrothed is kind of like engagement, the period before the marriage becomes official. During this period, the bridegroom and the bride were apart.

The bridegroom spent this time building a room attached to his father's house. Once the room was completed, his father would tell him when he would go to get his bride. And the time he would go would be in the middle of the night.

Only the father knew when he would tell his son to go get his bride. What Jesus details in this parable is that ten bridesmaids would wait along the road to meet the bridegroom and as he was en route to get his bride.

In this parable, the bridesmaids were called ten virgins. What Jesus explains is that five bridesmaids were wise and five were foolish. The five wise ones had oil to keep their torches burning in the night, while the five foolish were not prepared and did not have the oil while the bridegroom was delayed.

So they had no choice but to go buy oil. But while they went out to buy the oil, the bridegroom came and met the five wise bridesmaids on the road en route to get his bride. The five foolish ones missed this procession.

And they also missed the feast. The five wise ones go into the ceremony and the feast with the bridegroom and the five foolish are shut outside the door. Many in the world will experience this when Christ raptures his church.

The world will be unprepared and the door will be shut on them, while in heaven Christ and his people enjoy the wedding feast. So the conversation of the return of Christ has been the focus from chapter 24 to the first 13 verses of Matthew 25.

But now as I alluded to in the introduction, we transition to a different event that will take place at the very end and that is the final judgment. Jesus explains this through another parable. So let's begin by looking at the first two verses of this parable in verses 14 and 15.

These are the words of the Lord Jesus. For it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.

Then he went away. So what we see here is that Jesus once again gives an illustration describing a master's charge over his servants. We saw him give two illustrations at the end of Matthew 24 pertaining to a master and his servants.

In Jesus' day, a master-servant relationship was common. Slaves under the rule of their masters were a large part of the workforce, not only in Palestine, but in the whole Roman Empire. As Jesus gives this parable, he is speaking to his disciples.

Through this parable, he once again uses an illustration from ordinary life that his disciples would have known that communicated a spiritual truth. What Jesus says in verse 14 is that a master calls his servants and gave them the responsibility to have charge over his property.

The property that he gives them is money, as verse 15 says. What he does is he gives them a large sum of money, a very large sum of money. He gave them his talents. What is a talent? Yes, in one sense, it's a natural ability that we have.

In this text, though, that's not what it's talking about. A talent was not a specific coin. It was a precious metal like gold or silver. The type of talent that Jesus describes in this text is silver.

We know this because at the end of verse 18, where it says money, the Greek word literally says silver, and it's translated as money in our English translations. One talent of silver was a unit of money worth 20 years wages for a laborer.

You heard that right. Twenty years wages for a laborer. The average salary for an American is about $50 ,000 a year. If a man or woman makes $50 ,000 over 20 years, that person will have made $1 million over that time.

This master, a very wealthy man, is entrusting much of his wealth to his servants as he goes away. Verse 15 says he gives five talents to one man, two talents to another, and one talent to the third servant.

He gave these talents according to their ability as the text says. What ability is he referring to? He's referring to their ability to invest in the right things in order to increase his wealth. The more talented someone is, pun intended, the more talented someone is, you're going to give them more responsibility.

We see this in different ways in our day. People invest in companies and when these companies do well, they get a small cut of the company's profits. You also see this with banking. Banks make it so that people can earn interest over time as their money is deposited in that bank.

But what this parable probably has in mind is using this money toward a business venture. More on this in a little bit. The master doesn't want them just to sit on this money. He wants them to invest wisely so that his profit would increase.

After he gives the talents to his three servants, the master leaves as the end of verse 15 says. Now is the time for them to put this money to work. Verse 16 says what the man who had received five talents did with what he was given.

Verse 16. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them and he made five talents more. So the man who received five talents used them wisely. Now the word traded in Greek means that he put his five talents of money to work.

The text does not tell us how he put this money to work. But anytime someone starts a business, they need money. They need money to start out. They need investors. If they don't have it naturally, other people need to give that money to them.

What verse 16 says is that he was successful at his business as he had this money to start out. He started with five talents of silver and came out with five talents more. I found it interesting to hear how Donald Trump got his start in business.

And as I say this, I'm not endorsing every big business practice he ever did. But when he was younger, his father, a successful businessman, gave Trump one million dollars. And he used this million dollars to make his fortune in real estate in New York City.

This illustration helps us understand the responsibility given to these men. They were given temporary ownership over a large sum of money. And the master expected them to use this money wisely to increase his fortune.

The master expected them to start a business venture of some kind. And they would be set up well to have a successful business. Because through the talents of silver, they had an enormous amount of money to invest in a product that would sell to the population.

They had the resources to invest in a high quality product and set up the business well to prosper. The people in this room know this about business. Any business that you see started from scratch with a portion of money and ideas to launch a product.

Some of you work for businesses. They started somewhere. Someone invested in them. And then people wisely built the business up. One of the most interesting stories to me is how Nike got its start in the early 1970s.

The University of Oregon had a track coach by the name of Bill Bowerman. And he designed waffle spikes for his track athletes. He was trying to be on the cutting edge of shoes at that time. At this time, he coached arguably the most famous distance runner in American history, Steve Prefontaine.

Prefontaine once held every American record from 2 to 10 ,000 meters. And his coach, Bill Bowerman, who designed the shoes, he made these specific shoes for him and the other athletes to be able to run as fast as they could on the track.

This small company started in Bill Bowerman's house and it grew into the behemoth it is today. He had his own money. He had investors probably. He made a good product. The company prospered over time.

This is what the master expected of his servants. I have given you this lump of money. Invest it wisely. Don't squander it. The second man did what the first man did with the five talents, as verse 17 says.

So also he who had two talents made two talents more. So the first two servants do what they're supposed to do. They're given this silver. They invest the silver in a business venture. They prosper. They're doing what they're supposed to do.

They are wise.

Both doubled the income of their master. The first started with five talents of silver and produced ten talents more. The second had two talents of silver and gained two talents more. But there's a different story with the third servant.

It's a sad story. That we will look at in more detail in our second point, but we'll get a little taste of right here. The third servant is a story of squandering what the master had given him. Let's look at this in verse 18.

But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. What the third servant does is what people did in the ancient world in order to protect their money. In the first century, banks were rare.

So what people did to protect their money was hide their money in the ground and then come back at a later time when they needed it. It was not wrong to hide valuables in the ground. Everyone did it. And what's interesting is that in the modern day, archaeologists find these valuable possessions in the ground.

They never got back to them. They left them there and now they're here for us to see in the present day. But as we think about this ancient practice of hiding valuables in the ground, in this situation, it was wrong for the servant to hide his talents in the ground because it was not what the master expected of his servants.

Once again, he expected his servants to prosper his money, and the first two servants did that. As we saw, the first two servants maximized the silver given to them, while this servant did not. He missed that opportunity and instead dug a hole and hid the silver in the ground.

The third servant was not given as much as the other two slaves, but he was still given one talent and he was expected to maximize that talent of silver. He was expected to produce a profit over time.

Now that we have seen what the three servants did with their talents of silver, let's see what happens as the day of reckoning comes. Verse 19,. Now after a long time, the master of the servants came and settled accounts with them.

So the day arrives where the master assesses the work of his servants. This is the time when the verdict is delivered on how these servants did with their master's silver. Think about your school years, and some of you are in those years right now.

The master arriving to see how his servants did is like the day when you find out how you did on a final exam. You studied, you took the test, you did your best, and now you're going to find out what the final result is.

Did you pass with funny colors? Did you fail? Now Jesus is going to explain the three servants who come before their master, and we're going to focus on the first two servants and the remainder of this point.

Verse 20,. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, Master, you delivered to me five talents here. I have made five talents more. So the first servant comes before the master and tells his master what he did with the five talents.

He tells him he not only is bringing the five talents of silver given to him, but he's also bringing to him five talents more. This is the master's response to him when he sees what the first servant produced.

In verse 21, His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. This is the response that every servant and every worker should desire to hear from their master.

You did a good job with what you were given. And here is your reward. Then the second servant hears the master's examination of his work in verse 22. And he also who had two talents came forward saying, Master, you delivered to me two talents.

Here, I have made two talents more. And then here is the master's response once again. In verse 23, His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much.

Enter into the joy of your master. So the first two receive the response due for their work. They were given talents of silver. And both of them doubled the talents of silver given to them.

Their master's away.

And they make the most of their time. They do what they're supposed to do. And they hear the words of commendation. Well done, good and faithful servant. They did not squander the time given to them. They were given plenty of time to maximize the talents of silver.

And they did that. And not only did they hear well done, good and faithful servant. He also says to them, Here's your reward. Enter the joy of your master. As we think about our lives, These are the words that every Christian should desire to hear.

Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter the joy of your master. And you will if you're faithful. You will hear that at the final judgment. We as humans naturally like receiving praise. It's in our nature.

Who doesn't like receiving praise? We don't like receiving criticism. When another human praises you, it feels good. I remember the days when I was working at a running store in the Twin Cities during my college years.

We had a manager over the store who was there pretty much all the time. I knew the manager well and she appreciated me. But I wasn't sure what the owner of the store thought of me. Because she was rarely there.

And she wasn't really the one who hired me. The manager hired me. But the owner said, okay, that's fine. So I wasn't sure how the owner thought of me. And so a day came when a manager from another store was coming in the morning.

And I was the one closing down the store that night. I was one of the last ones there. And she gave me the responsibility to make sure the place looked clean. She wanted to make a good impression on this manager from another store.

As this manager comes, she wants the store to look in tip-top shape. And she wasn't going to be there to make it look in tip-top shape. I was the one who was there to do that. So I wanted to make a good impression because I knew my owner was coming the next day to see what the store looked like.

So I cleaned everything very carefully. I made sure it was spic and span. A couple days later, I came into work and she gave me a hug. She told me, you did a good job making sure the store looked great.

And it felt really good to receive those kind words of approval from her. It is a natural desire to hear praise, to want to hear praise for the job that you do. But the praise of man is fleeting. At the end of the day, there's only one opinion that matters, and that is the opinion of the triune God.

And this opinion will be delivered by the second person of the Trinity, the God-man, Jesus Christ. Every one of us should desire to hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant. And you will hear this as you live faithful lives to him.

So strive to be rewarded by this world's judge. In this text, we've seen one practice is how this far and that practice how is by pursuing productive faithfulness for the Lord's sake. And here's our second practice how you are to strive to be rewarded by this world's judge.

And that is through refusing to live unproductively in unbelief. Refusing to live unproductively in unbelief. And we're going to see this in verses 24 through 30. We get to the third servant where it is a much different story as I've already alluded to.

He hid in the ground what was meant to be prospered. The third servant approaches his master and this is what he says to him in verses 24 and 25. He also had received the one talent, came forward saying, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.

So I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours. So the servant did not do what the first two servants did who were commended for doing what their master wanted them to do.

Prosper the money that he had given to them. And what we read here is that he insults his master. He considers his master to be cruel and dishonest. This is something the first two servants would never say.

But this servant falsely accuses him of being so. He is shifting blame for failing at his responsibility. And that's what people do, right? When people are foolish, it's never that person's fault. It's always someone else's fault.

We see that in the Garden of Eden. Adam blames Eve when he sins. This is so true. This is what he's doing here. It's not my fault. You're a cruel and dishonest manager, he tells him. And what he says about his master is that his master gathers crops that are not his.

That is, he owns possessions that don't truly belong to him. After reading this, we know the strong condemnation that is coming. These two C words, right? Condemnation. The day of reckoning, the master's response comes to him in verses 26 and 27.

Let's read that right now. But his master answered him, You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scatter no seed. Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers.

And at my coming, I should have received what was my own with interest. The master calls the third servant wicked because of the false accusation made against him. And he calls him slothful because he was lazy.

He did nothing with the talent of silver entrusted to him. The other two servants maximized the opportunity given to them, while this one wasted it. In the second half of verse 26, what the master said is, You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scatter no seed.

Now the master is not saying that the third servant is right in his evaluation of what kind of a master he is. That I have possessions that are not mine where I expect interest. What he is saying here is, You accuse me of this, and if you accuse me of this, and I expect interest when I am dishonest, how much more do I expect interest when I actually own what I have given to you?

You see that in verse 27? He says, And at my coming, I should have received what was my own with interest. So if you really thought I was this bad and I expect interest, how much more when I actually own it do I expect interest?

Earlier I mentioned that banks were rare, and so people hid their valuables in the ground, but in the first century there were banks as verse 27 says. The Romans had banks, and an average interest earned for depositing money with these banks was 6%.

Now the previous two servants doubled what the master gave them through business ventures. But what this master is saying to the third servant is, If you just earn me 6 interest through the banks, the simplest way possible to gain me more money, I wouldn't have been this angry at you.

I might have thought, Okay, well you could have done better,.

But you know what,.

At least you got something, at least you made some profit here,.

But he didn't even do that.

He did nothing. He was lazy. He hid his master's talent in the ground, and who knows what he did. He was supposed to prosper what his master gave him, but he just did his own thing. He pursued his own selfish pursuits instead.

Earlier, we saw the positive consequences for the first two servants. They received commendation through the words, Well done, good and faithful servant. And they entered the joy of their master. But this third servant receives condemnation.

Let's read this in verses 28 -30. This is the master. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance.

But for the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. There are two types of people in this world.

Those who bear spiritual fruit, and those who don't. Every genuine believer has some fruit, while every unbeliever bears no fruit. Jesus said that earlier in Matthew. He said, a good tree bears good fruit.

A bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Not every believer bears fruit as much as others. The first two servants in this parable represent followers of God who are quite fruitful. The more work that one does for God, the more responsibility God gives that person to bear more fruit for Him.

Did you hear that? The more faithful you are in your life, the more responsibility God gives you to be faithful, and even more. And this is, you might think, oh man, that's more work. That's not the right attitude to have.

Because the service to the Lord increases your joy. The greatest joy you can have is service to the Lord in this life. And that's what we need to remember. And this is what Jesus has in mind in verses 28 and 29.

The servants who double the value of their master's money will be given more opportunity to bear fruit for Him, and more opportunity means more opportunity for reward in the age to come. True believers are given more opportunity in this life, and therefore will be rewarded with a higher responsibility in the age to come.

And this is really important to emphasize here. This might sound like a works righteousness sermon. It is not. Let me be very clear on this. We are all saved the same way. None of us can earn our way to heaven.

Our salvation is 100 based on what Jesus Christ has done for you. He lived a perfect life. He died a sacrificial death, a substitutionary death on the cross. He was raised gloriously from the dead on the third day.

And anybody who believes in Him has their sins forgiven, His righteousness becomes your righteousness, and you have eternal life. So that's the criteria to get into heaven. The thief on the cross is in heaven.

Not because of his works. There aren't any works. Now, that being said, heaven will not be the same for everyone. Depending on how faithful you are in this life, you will be given responsibility in proportion to your faithfulness here, and the more opportunity for service will increase one's joy in the age to come.

So in other words,.

You might be doing just such a menial thing in this life, but you're faithful to the Lord, and He's going to give you some huge responsibility in the age to come. And there might be some other guy who's got this big platform who actually squanders much, and you will have a higher rank than that person in the age to come.

Think about that. Angels have different ranks. Humans in the age to come will have different ranks. That's what He's telling us here. It's interesting to think about. Heaven will not be the same for everyone.

It'll be great for everyone, yes. It's a place of fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. But there is increased joy for those who are given more responsibility in the age to come. And while the faithful servants are given more opportunity, the unfaithful servants, whatever it seemed in this life, were never under God's blessing.

This is pictured with what happens with the third servant. Whatever service he appeared to be offering to God, and the blessing that comes from that is taken away. In this parable, the third servant represents the false Christian.

The first two servants represent the faithful Christian. And the master is, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ at the final judgment. This third servant, this false Christian, may have appeared to be working for God, but he wasn't.

So God continues to bless His faithful servants, but His judgment remains on the false disciples. As one author said, the reality of what those blessings could have been will be given to someone who has proved His genuineness.

The divine principle is that those who trust in Christ will gain everything. And those who do not trust in Him will lose everything. Have you ever met someone who lost everything? Sometimes, maybe you know someone who committed a crime and ended up in jail.

All their possessions taken away. Reputation taken away. It's such a sobering reality in life. And this is going to be the reality for many people, for the unbeliever. Everything will be taken away from that person.

Everything. Every blessing they ever enjoyed will be gone. As verse 29 says,. For to everyone who has, more will be given. And he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

The results of the faithful Christian and unfaithful are the polar opposite. The first two servants who picture a productive, faithful believer hear the words, Well done, good and faithful servants. You have been faithful over a little.

I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Master. But the false disciple who is described as a worthless servant will experience what Jesus says in verse 30 and cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness.

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The false disciple indirectly enjoyed benefits of being in the visible church. This is the false Christian. But any loose benefit he or she had is taken away.

This person experiences judgment while the true disciple experiences blessing as he is able to continue to joyfully serve the Lord and live under his joyful blessing forever. Now verse 30 gives three images of what hell will be like.

It is a place of outer darkness. It is also a place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So outer darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth. Three images. Outer darkness is a picture of one's removal from God's blessing as I mentioned.

Unbelievers will have no blessing in the age to come. Think about how many things people enjoy in this life. Family, good food, good drink, being able to prosper your finances, being able to exercise, being able to enjoy the creation, even if they don't call it the creation.

Think about all the things that people get to enjoy. That will be taken from the unbeliever in the age to come. It's such a sobering thought. It is a place of outer darkness, removal from God's blessing.

It is also a place where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is a common image used for hell by Jesus. This is the sixth time in Matthew He uses this image to describe hell. Weeping and gnashing of teeth.

It's a place of weeping because people are sorrowful to be in this place of torment forever. And it's a place where there's gnashing of teeth because people are angry. And you know why they're angry? They're angry at God for sending them there.

Sometimes people say, God doesn't send anybody to hell. Well, in one sense, there's truth to that because people choose to go there through their unbelief. But in another sense, it's not true to say that.