The Parable of the Talents

Have you ever wished you could forecast the future? A lot of people have tried and failed. Take, for example, two well known authors who wrote a book called Megatrends 2000. The book appeared just three years ago, and immediately went to the top of the bestseller lists. It offered a long-range forecast of some of the major social, political, and economic trends we could expect to see in the decade of the 90’s as we approach the year 2000.

The first chapter of that book was entitled: The Global Economic Boom of the 1990’s. Well, here we are, almost three years into the 90’s, and we are mired in a worldwide recession that shows no signs of letting up anytime soon. The Japanese stock market has lost 25% of its value in the last year. The entire continent of Africa is teetering on the brink of economic catastrophe. There are more people living in poverty in America than at any time since the Great Depression. If this is a boom, then I’d hate to see a bust! Forecasting the future is a risky business!

But that’s just what Jesus’ disciples asked him to do in Matthew 24. Just four days before he was crucified, Jesus was teaching in the Temple. As usual, his religious opponents, the scribes and Pharisees, were there. In Matthew 23:39, Jesus said

“I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” He meant by this that he was going away, and he wouldn’t be coming back until the Jews had had a spiritual change of heart, and welcomed him in the name of the Lord.

After he had said that, Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. The Jerusalem Temple was a marvellous structure; one of the wonders of the ancient world. Herod the Great had begun to renovate it in 20 BC, and it had been under construction for 50 years. It was a tremendously impressive building, and the disciples were in awe of it.

But Jesus said, “Do you see all these things? I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” Now that prediction literally came true forty years later, in 70 AD, when the Romans, under General Titus, demolished the Temple. They set fire to its buildings. The heat of the fire was so great that it melted the gold leaf that covered the roof. The molten gold ran down between the cracks of the stones, so the Roman soldiers actually pried the stones apart to get at it. Not one stone of the Temple was left on another.

Well, as you can imagine, Jesus’ statement about the Temple really bothered the disciples. And they were also pondering what he meant when he had said that he was going away, but would return again someday. So a little while later, while they were sitting on the Mount of Olives, which is east of Jerusalem, opposite the Temple, they asked him “When will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” In other words, they wanted Jesus to take them on a little trip into the future.

And you know what? That’s just what he did! The next two chapters of the book of Matthew (24 & 25) are called the Olivet Discourse, because they were given on the Mount of Olives. These two chapters are Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ questions: When will this happen (“this” being the destruction of the Temple); what will be the sign of your coming; and what will be the sign of the end of the age?

Now we simply do not have time this morning to go into very much depth in studying this fascinating portion of Scripture, but let’s see if we can’t hit the high points along the way.

You have to understand that Jesus is going to describe various time periods in human history. And the way you tell which period is which is to look at the prepositions that he uses. He says things like “then” and “when” and “after” and “at that time”. And those words serve as a kind of road-map for us to keep the time-frame straight.

He begins by talking about the present age; the age the disciples were living in.

Matthew 24:4 “Watch out that no one deceives you (present tense). For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. (In other words, this all precedes the end of the age.) Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

You know, as you look back on the last 2,000 years, that all these things have happened. There have been false messiahs who practiced spiritual deception and led people astray. We have them today. There have been wars and rumors of war. We have them today. There have been famines and earthquakes. We have them today. But none of these things indicates that the end is at hand. They are merely the preliminaries. They are signs which mark the beginning of end, not the end itself.

Now look at what Jesus does in v.9. He says “Then…” He’s changing the time frame. He has talked about the present age and what happens in the present age. Now, he shifts gears and begins to talk about a future period; a period that introduces new and even more terrible conditions. Look at verses 9-14.

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Now in verse 9, who is the “you”? Well, who was Jesus talking to? He was talking to his disciples, his followers; the little band of guys who acknowledged him as king. Now what was their nationality? They were Jews, right? Is that significant here in this context? You bet it is! They were sitting there on a hill across from the holiest site of Judaism. They were talking about the destruction of the Temple. The whole Olivet Discourse has a Jewish flavor about it. Jesus says “you will be hated by all nations.”

The time frame that Jesus is talking about here is the Tribulation Period. It’s a time during which the world begins to persecute the Jews. Now you might say “Well, what’s so different about that? Hasn’t the world always persecuted the Jews? What about the Spanish Inquisition? What about the pogroms in Russia under the Czars? What about Hitler and the Holocaust? Weren’t the Jews being persecuted then?”

Yes, they were. But there is something fundamentally different about the persecution that Jesus is talking about here. He says “You will be persecuted because of me.” In other words, during the Tribulation Period, Jews are going to be persecuted because they have become followers of Jesus Christ. That’s never happened before, has it!

You might say, “Well, how in the world are the Jews going to become followers of Jesus? Right now, they hate Jesus. They don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

That’s very true. And that has happened because God said that he would harden the Jews spiritually because they rejected their Messiah. And during the time of their hardening, God would turn to the Gentiles and invite them to come into his kingdom. But the hardening of the Jews is not going to be permanent. God is going to bring a spiritual awakening to the Jewish people. He is going to pour out a spirit of repentance upon them and they are going to turn to Jesus Christ in great numbers.

(If you would like to read more about this, read Romans 9,10,11, Ezekiel 37, and Zechariah 12 &13.) But that spiritual awakening in Israel will happen in the Tribulation Period. The Jews today have returned to their land in a spiritually dead condition. You go to Israel today and the Jews are not alive spiritually. But at the beginning of the Tribulation Period, they will turn to Jesus Christ in great numbers, and the world will begin to persecute them for it.

Jesus shifts gears again, in verse 15:

So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak.

How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.

From other Scriptures we know that the Tribulation Period is going to last for 7 years. This is divided into two 3 1/2 year periods. The dividing point is marked by something that Daniel calls the “abomination that causes desolation”. That’s when the Antichrist enters the Temple and desecrates it.

Now we’ve already seen some of the terrible things that will happen in the first half of the Tribulation Period. But Jesus says here in v.15 “When you see that happen, head for the hills, because things are going to get a lot worse!” Then there will be a time of great distress, like nothing the world has ever seen before - and this world has seen plenty of bad times!

Now I want you to understand something very important about the Tribulation Period. From Daniel 9, we understand that the Tribulation Period is a particular period of time when God deals with the nation Israel. It has nothing to do with the church. In the book of Revelation, chapters 4-19 describe the events of the Tribulation Period in great detail. Nowhere in those chapters is the church of Jesus Christ even mentioned.

That’s because the church is not there. 1 Thessalonians 4-5 tell us that the church will be taken out of the world, caught up to be with the Lord, before the Tribulation Period. This is what we call the rapture. In Revelation 3, the Lord tells the church “I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.”

So let’s be clear when we’re talking about the Tribulation Period that we’re talking about a period of time which will affect Israel, not the church. If you have received Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are a part of his church, and you will not go through the Tribulation Period.

There will be Christians on earth during the Tribulation Period, however. Remember that the nation Israel is going to turn en masse to Jesus Christ. They will be followers of the Lamb. And they will take the gospel of the kingdom to the rest of the world during the Tribulation Period, as it says in Matthew 24:14.

In fact, the book of Revelation tells us about 144,000 witnesses from the nation Israel who will serve as an elite missionary force during that time. And countless thousands of people will be saved during the Tribulation Period because of their ministry.

But these believers will be hunted down and persecuted and killed by the Antichrist and his forces. So much so, that Jesus says “for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.”

Now look at verse 29. Jesus shifts gears again.

Matthew 24:29 “Immediately after the distress of those days ”’ the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

What time is it? It’s time for Jesus to come back! No one knows the precise day nor the hour, Jesus says in verse 36, but his coming will be heralded with signs in the heavens, and his coming will be visible to everyone on earth.

But still, people will be caught unawares.

Matthew 24:37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.

That’s why Jesus proceeds to tell his disciples four parables about being ready. And these parables are not just addressed to Jewish believers who will be alive during the Tribulation Period, they are addressed to all of us, because we are living during the period between the time that the master went away, and the time he will come back. That means that we’re part of the audience for these parables.

The first parable is about a homeowner who had his house broken into. If the homeowner had only known what time the thief was going to come, he would have kept watch. The lesson of this parable is that we need to keep watch, because we don’t know when the Lord is going to come back.

The second parable is about a servant whose master goes away. If he is a wise servant, he will continue to carry out his assigned duties, even though his master is absent. But if he is a wicked servant, he might be tempted to slack off, and take advantage of the fact that the master has been gone a long time. But then, when the master returns unexpectedly, and finds him behaving irresponsibly, that servant will be judged.

The third parable, found at the beginning of chapter 25, is about ten virgins. We might better think of them as ten bridesmaids. They are awaiting the arrival of the bridegroom.

A word about Jewish wedding customs: It was customary, on the day of the wedding for the bridegroom to come, with his attendants, to the home of the bride. As he approached, the cry would go up “The bridegroom comes!” and the brides’ attendants would go out to meet him and escort him back to the house.

Now in this story, the wedding takes place at night, and they are all waiting on the bridegroom to come, with their lamps all lit and trimmed. Five of the bridesmaids are wise and have brought with them extra oil for their lamps. But five are foolish and bring no extra oil.

As Jesus tells it, the bridegroom is delayed. The hours go by. The bridesmaids become drowsy and fall asleep. But then suddenly, at midnight, the cry goes up “Here comes the bridegroom.” The bridesmaids awake and trim their lamps, but by this time, the five foolish bridesmaids find that they have run out of oil. They can’t borrow oil from the wise bridesmaids, so they have to run off and try to buy some more oil for themselves.

In the meantime, the bridegroom arrives, the bridal party goes into the wedding banquet and the door is shut. But then the five foolish bridesmaids arrive back on the scene and begin knocking at the door. But they are turned away. The bridegroom says “I don’t know you. You weren’t here when I arrived.” They have missed the wedding feast because they were not prepared.

The spiritual lesson is this: All ten bridesmaids were looking for the bridegroom’s arrival. They all seemed to be professing Christians. But only five of them were truly ready for the bridegroom’s appearance. Only five of them had their lamps lit and burning brightly when he came.

We not only have to be watchful for the Lord’s coming, we not only have to be diligent as we wait for the Lord’s coming, we have to be prepared for the Lord’s coming. Our lamp must be lit with the oil of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

The final parable is the one about the talents. Again in this parable, we have the theme of the master going away and being gone a long time. The master has three servants. To one he gives five talents; to another he gives two; to the third he gives one.

A talent was a originally measure of weight which came to be used as a unit of currency. One talent of silver was worth a tremendous amount of money - about 6,000 denarii, or close to 20 years’ wages. So these servants had been entrusted with a very large sum of money.

Now while the master was gone, the first servant took his five talents and put them to work and earned five more. The second servant took his two talents and put them to work and earned two more. But the third servant took his one talent and buried it in the ground.

When the master returned after a long time, he called his servants before him to settle accounts. What had they done with his money while he was gone?

The first servant reported his profit and the master warmly praised him for it. The second servant reported his profit and the master warmly praised him for it. But the third servant came and began to make excuses for having done nothing with the money.

He said “Master, 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 talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.” And he handed the master back his talent.

What does that show you about the third servant? It shows you that he didn’t love his master. He mistrusted him. He was afraid of him. He thought of him as a hard man. In fact, he figured that his master was the type of man who would probably exploit him for his own profit.

He said to himself “There’s no use me bothering to put this money to work. There’s no point in trying to increase this talent. My master will just take it all away from me in the end, because that’s the kind of skinflint he is. I know what I’ll do. I’ll just bury the infernal thing in the ground. That way, I won’t have to bother with it again. Then I can get on with life and do my own thing.”

His attitude toward the master was completely different from that of the other two servants. That’s why his relationship with the master ended up being severed. The master expelled him from his household, out into the darkness where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.

What is the spiritual lesson here for us? Simply that God has entrusted us with spiritual resources. A lot of people speculate about what exactly these talents represent. Some say that they represent spiritual gifts. Some say that they represent natural abilities. Some say that they represent the material possessions that God allows us to have.

I say that these talents represent spiritual opportunity. God gives all of us spiritual opportunity. The opportunity to trust him. The opportunity to serve him. The opportunity to help his kingdom grow. Some of us have been given more spiritual opportunity than others, just as some of the servants were given more talents than others.

Here in North America, where we’ve been exposed to the Gospel for years, where everyone has at least one Bible, where we have all kinds of resources to help us in our Christian life, we’ve received more spiritual opportunities than the peasant in China who may never have even seen a Bible.

But the bottom line on this parable is this: What are we doing with the spiritual opportunities that we’ve been given. Do we seize those spiritual opportunities and try to use them so that the master’s kingdom will increase? Or do we treat those spiritual opportunities with disdain? Do we say “I’m going to bury this, so I can just do my own thing.”

There are many people who have heard the Gospel and disregarded it. There are many people who have felt God’s call on their life, and ignored it. There are many people who have seen opportunities to serve God and have excused themselves for some reason or another.

A long time ago, there was a movie called Papillon. It was about a man who had been sentenced to life in prison for crimes against the French government. Now he was wasting away in a miserable dungeon on Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guiana.

The movie portrayed the dreams that Papillon had while in prison. In one dream, he stood before a tribunal for a crime. He pleaded with the judge that he was not guilty of the crime for which he was being tried. But the judge replied that he was not being tried for that crime. He was being tried for a crime that is the most heinous crime of the human race.

Papillon asked what crime that might be. The judge replied, “The crime of a wasted life.” And Papillon began to weep, and confessed “Guilty, guilty.” as the death sentence was pronounced.

Don’t be guilty of the crime of a wasted life. God places before us spiritual opportunities to invest our lives for him. Just because Jesus has been gone a long time doesn’t mean that he isn’t coming back. The first time he came for recruiting purposes; the second time he comes for accounting purposes. The first time he came to call servants; the second time he comes to check on their service.

So we need to be watchful. We need to be diligent. We need to be prepared.

And we need to be resourceful with the spiritual opportunities God gives us.