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Bro. Bill Nichols
including the steward, and hold him to account. And he called him, that's the master summoning the steward, and he called him and said unto him, how is it that I hear this of thee?
Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer a steward.
The master gave notice of an accounting from the steward. The steward is gonna be held accountable for what he has done.
And when that is completed, that accounting is completed, it very well might be that the steward will be fired.
So he informed the steward up front that there's a good chance that you'll be fired. If you don't give me the answers that I want to see, the things that I want to hear, you will be fired.
Well, that probably was a mistake. MacArthur added this, by announcing his intention to fire the man, the owner acted unwisely, and it cost him even more.
Evidently, he thought the man was guilty of incompetence rather than fraud. And that will explain how he's going to react when we finally get to verse eight.
But as we go through the first verses of Luke, we will find evidence to the contrary, that he was not incompetent.
In fact, we'll find that he's very competent. He is extremely shrewd. He is so shrewd that he's able to cheat the master.
Though the master might have thought that the steward was incompetent, he was far from that.
As we shall soon see, he was so shrewd that he was able to swindle his master.
Verse three. Now we begin to see why it is that we know that the steward was a crook, not just incompetent.
Then the steward said within himself, what shall I do? For my
Lord taketh away from me the stewardship. I cannot dig, and to beg
I am ashamed. What he faced was a dire threat. He didn't see himself capable of doing manual labor.
And he was too proud to beg. So he does the only thing left to him.
He begins to reveal his true nature, his true color. We see the first bit of evidence of his malfeasance.
Here's what he said. I am resolved to do that when I am put out of the stewardship they may receive me unto their houses.
He says, I am resolved what to do, that when
I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. He's talking about the people that owe his master a debt.
He is deciding that he's gonna do something to put the people that owe his master a debt into debt to him.
So that when he loses his job as the steward and is kicked out of his master's home, he'll have a place to go.
So he decides to cheat his master. He cheats his master.
He ingratiates himself with his master's debtors so that when he loses his job, something he is certain is going to happen, he would have someone to go to for help.
Now, if you remember the wasteful son in the parable last week, he wasted all of his substance and there he was.
He had no money, no food, no friends. The corrupt steward is not going to allow that to happen to him.
And now is when we begin to have an inkling that he is not incompetent, he is corrupt.
He's gonna use his power over the master's purse strings to write off part of each debtor's debt.
By reducing the debt to his master, they become indebted to him.
And thus they'll be obliged to take him into their homes when he was put out of the master's home.
And if you listen carefully to the way he does it, you will see that he put them in a position that they could not afford to refuse to help him.
So he called every one of his Lord's debtors unto him. And he said unto the first, how much owest thou unto my
Lord? And he said, a hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, take thy bill and sit down quickly and write 50.
Now I've got a couple of questions. Did the steward write off the debt?
Yes. Well, he kind of did, but who actually did it? The borrower.
The borrower, he told the person that was in debt, he called every one of the debtors unto him.
And he said to the first, how much owest thou to my Lord? And the debtor said, a hundred measures of oil.
And the steward said unto the debtor, take thy bill. You take the bill.
You sit down quickly. While the master's not here and doesn't know about it and write 50.
So the debtor ordered his own bill. He did that to all those with substantial debt.
Understand, this was a secret transaction unauthorized by the master.
And the borrower was guilty of deliberate complicity with the steward in the fraud.
Not only that, but also, not only that, but also, well, let me keep reading.
I kind of lost my place. Then said he to another, how much owest thou?
And he said, a hundred measures of wheat. And he said to him, take thy bill and write for score.
Write 80. So he discounted him 80. And he didn't tell him to do it quickly. I guess he wasn't so concerned about that small amount.
But in any case, he told the debtor to take the bill and alter it.
In doing this, he put each one of them in debt to him. A debt that they had to repay or risk the steward revealing their part in cheating of his master.
See, the steward already knew that the master suspected him of dishonesty.
But the debtors didn't know, the debtors weren't involved, but now they are. So now when he says, my master has kicked me out, take me into your house, they would have to say yes, or they would have to admit that they were part of the fraud.
After all, they, not the corrupt steward, actually changed the note.
Clearly now, we know that the steward was corrupt. We know the debtors that colluded with the steward were corrupt.
And together, they stole from the master of the estate. Now, what was the master's response?
Very strange. This is the thing that was so startling to me when I first read it.
What did he do? The master commended the steward. Let's see what he said.
And the Lord commended the unjust steward. Now, why did he commend him?
Not because he had done a good thing, not because he had done something good with the master's wealth.
In fact, he stole more from the master than he had already stolen. Not only did he waste what he wasted, but now he has wasted what was in the accounts of the master.
So the master is in worse shape now than he was. Why would he commend that man?
He didn't know any better. Well, here's what it says.
And the Lord commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely, not wisely for the master, but wisely for himself.
For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of white.
Now, the master was surprised that the steward that he thought was incompetent was able to best him in any kind of contest.
And now, clearly, the steward has. Now, here's what
John MacArthur says, and this is where I got my idea that, in fact, not only was the steward corrupt and the borrowers corrupt, but the master was as well.
So here's what he said. Unwittingly, he applauded,
I'm sorry, outwitted. Outwitted, he applauded the man's cunning. His admiration for the evil steward's criminal genius shows that he, too, was a wicked man.
MacArthur says, it is the natural tendency of fallen hearts to admire a villain's craftiness.
Now, I'm not so sure that I think it's the natural tendency of fallen hearts to admire a villain's craftiness so much as it is the tendency to justify our own bad behavior by observing a worse behavior in someone else.
So the master's looking at the steward and saying, what a self -made man, he is even a better crook than I am.
That's how he was admiring him, not for what he had done, but for the fact that he was able to do well for himself.
And in either case, we have Psalms 49, verse 16 that we can go to. Psalms 49, verse 16.
Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased?
For when he dieth, he shall carry nothing away. His glory shall not descend after him.
Though while he lived, he blessed his soul, and men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself.
The self -made man or the man that thinks he's a self -made man, the world will admire, not for how he did it, but for what he accomplished for himself.
Now, MacArthur goes on to say, note that all of the characters in this parable are unjust, unscrupulous, and corrupt.
Most unbelievers, referred to in Luke as the children of this world, are wiser in the ways of the world than some believers, that he refers to as children of light, are toward the things of God.
So the children of this world are wiser in the ways of the world than some believers are toward the things that are
Jesus. That are God's. And that's what he's dealing with here. And then he says something else that was hard for me to understand.
And I say unto you, make to yourself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.
That's the money of the unrighteous. That's the earthly money. That's the dollars and cents that are in your pocket.
That when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.
Now, what in the world is he talking about? I got a little help.
Chuck Missler said Jesus was not teaching that his disciples should be dishonest. He was teaching that they should use their present material opportunities for their future spiritual benefit.
So one would say, if one had some money, that it would be well to invest some or most of it into things that will outlast you here on this earth.
Not so much a new car as doing something for the betterment of Christ's kingdom.
Because that's the kind of thing that's gonna remain behind you when you believe to go to the next world.
Here's what I said. So what Jesus was really teaching here is that the children of light should use whatever resources the
Lord gives them in this world that he referred to as the mammon of unrighteousness to ensure a better position in the next world.
Verse 10, and he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.
And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
Something that's implied here is that if we're able to manage faithfully, whatever monetary blessings were given on the earth will be given greater blessings in the future in the spiritual kingdom.
It won't be monetary blessings, but it will be blessings nonetheless. Verse 13, if therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust true riches?
This is also implied. If the Lord cannot trust you with the meager riches of this world, even the meager riches possessed by someone like Donald Trump or Bill Gates or the people that we don't think their riches are all that meager, they're meager compared to what we will have in the next life.
If the Lord cannot trust you with the meager riches of this world, he will not trust you with the immense riches in the next.
And if you have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
We're now gonna look at three men who were given part of another man's wealth, given to manage.
It's not their wealth, it's the other man's wealth, and they're given it to manage while he was away.
And we're gonna see what they did and what happened to them as a result. And if you have a
Bible, I would like for you to, at this point, turn to Matthew chapter 25, and we'll pick it up at verse 14.
While you're turning there, I'll just tell you, this is the parable of the talents. What did you say,
Matthew what? Matthew 25, verse 14. And he has just talked about the unwise virgins, and now he is picking up a new parable.
And he says, for the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his servants and delivered unto them his goods.
Now, whose goods are they? They are the master's goods. Do they ever belong to the men to which he gives it?
And he gives every man some gifts. Unto one he gave five talents, and to another, two, and to another, one.
He distributed his money according to the ability of each man.
To every man according to his several abilities. So different men got different amounts because they had different abilities.
Different wherewithal to deal with the gifts that he gave them. But everybody got some.
And straight away, he took his journey. And then he that received five talents went and traded with the same and made them another five talents.
So he's taken his five talents and he's doubled it. He's got twice as much now as he had. He's got a lot of money to work with.
He's got a lot of natural talent. He has financial ability. He trades, he makes money, and he doubles his money.
Likewise, he that received two. Now, the one that received two had less talents. He had less natural talents.
He had less money to work with. He made less, but he also improved his amount.
Now, it turns out that he also doubled his. There's nothing magical about doubling. The master's not gonna ask for doubling.
He's just gonna ask that you deal wisely with what he gives you. And likewise, he that had received two, he also gained other two.
But now let's look at the third one. But he that received one went and digged in the earth and hid his
Lord's money. Whose money was it? His Lord's. What did he do with it? He buried it in the ground.
He hid it. And after a long time, the
Lord of those servants cometh and reckoned with them. And so he that received five talents brought the other five talents, saying,
Lord, thou deliverest unto me five talents. Behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.
And his Lord said unto him, well done, thy 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 thy Lord. So he got his commendation and he got his, and he's gonna get a reward.
His reward is going to be, he is gonna be made ruler over many things. He's gonna give a lot of things of his own that he is in charge of.
It's not gonna be the Lord's talents simply anymore. It's gonna be they belong to him.
He also received, he also that had received two talents came and said,
Lord, thou deliverest unto me two talents. Behold, I have gained two other talents.
And his Lord said unto him the very exact same thing. Well done, good and faithful servant.
Thou has been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many.
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. That's if you have been faithful.
If you have been faithful, you will receive the commendation from your master and you will receive a reward.
But if you've not been faithful, we come to Matthew 25, 24.
Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man.
I wanna pause there just a minute. He's got a bad attitude about the
Lord to begin with. That's going to explain part of what happens.
Part of what happens is he's not viewing his Lord in the same fashion as the other two did.
If you were to describe in one word what the other two felt about the Lord, well, that's not gonna be one word.
You could say they loved him, but this one doesn't.
You'll see in a minute, he probably hated him. Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown and gathering where thou hast not straw.
And I was afraid. And I went and hid thy talent in the earth. Lo, there it is.
Thou hast what is thine. And his Lord said unto him, thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not and gather where I have not straw.
Now, John MacArthur adds this, and this helped me out a good bit too. In repeating the servant's charge against him, the master was not acknowledging that the charge was true.
He was allowing the man's own words to condemn him. If the servant really believed the master to be the kind of man that he portrayed, that would be even more reason to not be slothful.
If you knew that your man was an austere man gathering where he had not reaped, you would be very careful to do all you could to return more than you got.
His accusation against the master, even if it had been true, it wasn't true, but even had it been true, did not justify the slothfulness or the laziness of the servant.
Jesus goes on to say in the parable, 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, he's not asking him to double it. He's just saying,
I wanted mine back with a little extra because that's what you should have done. If you'd been faithful to my, if you'd been faithful to me, you would have given me back more than you took, not less.
Take therefore the talent from him and give it to him which hath 10 talents. For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he that hath abundance, and he shall have abundance.
But from him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath.
And cast ye the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Now, there's a question here. And I do want to kind of discuss this one a little bit. Is this servant a servant who lost his salvation?
The man is in servant, if the parable is the Lord leaving on a journey, coming back, expecting us to have done something with the talents he gave us, when he came back, he rewards two.
And this one, it's not that he just doesn't reward. What does he do with him? He sends him into Hades, into hell, a place of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
So, is this servant one who lost his salvation? Did he have salvation and lost it?
Or is something else going on here? He never had it, if that's the case, he never had it.
If he lost it, he never had it. That's what we all say. That's what all we good Calvinists say. If he lost it, that means he never had it to start with.
I want to ask you this. Consider this. Did he love his master? Obviously.
Obviously not considering how he described him. He viewed his master as one to be feared.
He feared him. He viewed his master as a hard man, as a harsh man, as one who harvests where he had not sown.
John MacArthur characterizes it this way. The man with one talent characterized his master.
In his characterization, he maligns the man as a cruel, ruthless opportunist.
Cruel, ruthless opportunist. Reaping and gathering what he had no right to claim as his own.
This slothful servant does not represent a genuine believer for it's obvious that this man had no true knowledge of his master.
His master was one that was deserving of love. He didn't love them. In fact, what happened to him is he hated him.
Now you might note that not all are given the same amount. Every person got a different talent, but all are expected to use what they're given and use it wisely.
This servant was granted resources. This servant was granted resources, not so much as the others, but yet enough to use wisely.
So why didn't he use his talents? Because he didn't love his master, he hated him instead.
And then Jesus goes on to say in Luke 13, no servant can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon. Now let's go back to the parable that we dealt with.
The one with five loved his master and served him. The one that got two loved his master and served him.
The one that got one loved his money and didn't serve his master.
In fact, he hated his master. So let's read again what he says.
No servant can serve two masters, just one or the other. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon. Choose wisely what you will do with your resources.
In the parable of the talents, two chose wisely, one didn't.
Two received rewards, one didn't. Two loved their master, one didn't.
Two were saved and one wasn't. Verse 14, and the
Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things and they derided him.
The word deride means to turn up your nose at, to sneer at, they sneered at him.
Why did they sneer at him? They didn't like what he said. They had already chosen what they were gonna do with their resources.
They had chosen, but they had not chosen wisely. So now he goes on to talk to them a bit.
And he said unto them, the Pharisees, ye are they which justify yourself before men, but God knoweth your hearts.
For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.
The Pharisees' belief was that it was their own goodness that justified them.
They thought they were good enough that they were justified by their good deeds. Paul tells us in Romans 10, verse one, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.
For I bear record that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
For their being ignorant of God's righteousness are going about to establish their own righteousness and have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
So this goodness, the belief that goodness was justified by their works is the very definition of self -righteous.
But Jesus suggested that their righteousness was flawed, being an external veneer only, that it might be enough to justify them before men, but not before God, because he knew their hearts.
Now, Jesus repeatedly exposed their habit of seeking approval from other people.
I'm gonna look at two or three of them quickly. Matthew 6, one, he says to the
Pharisees, take heed that you do not put your arms before men to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward.
And you will be punished for this, for you have not heard the voice of your Father, which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine arms, do not sound a trumpet for thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have the glory of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have the reward. So what they would do when they wanted to present their arms, they would have a trumpet blow so that everybody would know that they were doing it.
And men would think that they were like great, it, and God would know what was in their heart. And when thou prayest, thou shalt be not as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogue and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, they have the reward. Moreover, if ye fast, be not as the hypocrites of sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.
Verily I say unto you, they have the reward. You won't get any from God, because He knows what's in your heart.
Even so, ye also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Men see you as righteous, God sees you as full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
I've got just a couple more verses left, and it almost seems like this one is a change of subject, but it's not.
The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time, the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.
As I said, this seems to be a change of topic, but it's not. Jesus is simply saying that the
Pharisees are incorrectly trying to gain access to the kingdom of God.
John has been preaching, John the Baptist has been teaching, and people have been following, and people are trying to get into the kingdom of God.
Some accept Jesus' way of coming into the kingdom of God. They are the ones that belong to Him in the first place.
Others are trying to get into the kingdom of God of their own doing. And that's the
Pharisees, and that's who Jesus is talking about here. So the
Pharisees are incorrectly trying to gain access to the kingdom of God by their own good works.
And I commented, works that are not so good after all. Now, it's key to our understanding that Malachi is the last book in the
Old Testament, but Jesus, John the Baptist, and all the people we're talking about lived before Jesus died on the cross and was crucified, and before we went into the new economy.
So the Pharisees that he's talking about were still obligated to do what? Live under the law, as Jesus was obligated to live under the law, as John the
Baptist was obligated to live under the law. Jesus didn't pay for the sins actually yet.
He won't do that until he's crucified, until he is raised from the dead, until he puts the blood on the seat, the throne in God, and sends the
Holy Spirit back down to comfort us. All of that is in the future for these guys. They are still under the dispensation of the law.
Now the Pharisees misunderstood the blessings of God's covenant. They thought that a person's wealth was an indication that he was righteous.
They thought the wealthier you are, the more righteous you were. They forgot, even though there were lots of wealthy, righteous men,
Job was wealthy and righteous, Abraham was wealthy and righteous.
There's a lot of wealthy, righteous men. But there were also wealthy, unrighteous men.
Righteousness had nothing to do with how much wealth you had. They completely neglected the fact that many righteous people in the
Old Testament lacked material things, while many unrighteous people had plenty. And the next three verses, 16, 17, and 18, are included in Jesus' teaching about money to the
Pharisees because it illustrates what Jesus had just said about the Pharisees justifying themselves but being judged by God.
Okay. Verse 17, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than one tittle of the law to fail.
Now, a tittle is a little hook on the end of a word. In some words,
Matthew 5, 17 says, think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets.
I come not to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth shall pass, one tittle or one jot shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.
However, in spite of justifying themselves, the Pharisees were still not living according to the law.
And Jesus chose an example of divorce to illustrate that.
To divorce and to remarry in the law constituted adultery.
Now, here's what Luke says. Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery.
And whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, committeth adultery. Now, Luke gave an abbreviated account of Jesus' teaching on divorce, stressing only the main issue.
Matthew's fuller account makes it clear that he permitted divorce in some cases.
He permitted divorce in cases where one's spouse was guilty of adultery. This countered the rabbi's doctrine, which permitted men to divorce their wives for just any reason they wanted to.
They just didn't like how the toast was toasted this morning.
They could put her away. They could divorce her. All they had to do was get a
Pharisee to present a paper declaring a divorce. And she was done away with, figuratively not physically.
Some Pharisees took a loose view of divorce. It was acknowledged that a man should not commit adultery.
But if a man wanted another woman, many Pharisees condoned divorcing his present wife for no valid reason and marrying the desired woman.
In that way, they thought that adultery didn't take place. Because they thought if they had the paper, the adultery didn't take place.
Jesus pointed out that this was a perfect example of justifying themselves in the eyes of man, but not being justified before God.
So all the time that Luke is being written, we are still under the law, and we must abide by the law.
And some things carry over even beyond that. The law still consists of good things.
And that's about it for this morning, unless we have any questions or comments. If not, let's pray.
Most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us together in person again. We love having the presence of other physical bodies in our midst.
Bless us and keep us. Go through the service with Brother Dave as we go forward. Bless the
President, keep him well -informed, keep him doing the things that he needs to do to lead us through this time of crisis, both in the world of anger and in the world of the great pandemic.