Clean Transcript

Unfaithful And Unjust Stewards

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• Luke chapter 16, and we're going to be reading the first 13 verses. Luke 16, verses one through 13, the title of the message deals with unfaithful and unjust stewards. So notice, if you would, beginning there, Luke chapter 16 and verse one, "And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods."

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• "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 steward. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?"

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• "And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light."

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• "And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. 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. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?"

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• "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Stewardship is an important issue. We run into stewardship everywhere in our world, and we certainly run into it on the pages of Holy Scripture. And let me make a statement and think about this. If you are a Christian, you are involved in stewardship. The Christian life is a life of stewardship. In 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 1 and 2, the apostle Paul said, "Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful."

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• Faithfulness, by the way, is an attribute and characteristic that is lacking in our day and time. Yet it's one that is of great importance. It was Dr. Bob Jones Sr. who used to say, that the greatest ability is dependability. And when you stop and think about that, that is absolutely true. The greatest ability is dependability. So it doesn't really matter how many gifts a man has or how preeminent those gifts are in his life. If he is undependable, if he is unfaithful, those gifts practically are worthless.

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• I would imagine that most employers would rather have someone of minimal talent who was faithful and dependable than someone with great talent whom they could never ever count on anyhow. But when we talk about faithfulness, we have to understand that one of the names of God in the Bible is the faithful God. That's what the Bible calls him in Deuteronomy 7 and verse 9. Moreover, the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 9, "God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." And you've heard me say that one of the passages I believe that Christians should quote every day is Lamentations 3, 22 and 23, when the Bible says, "It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness." And the Bible also tells us in 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 13, "If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself."

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• So I want you to stop and think about this. Since we have been commanded to be conformed to the image of our Lord, and if one of his attributes is faithfulness, that means that we should become like our Heavenly Father, like Lord Jesus Christ, and become faithful in every area of our lives. So here's an interesting question. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but have you ever considered what would happen in your life, what would happen in your family, what would happen in your church, what would happen in your society, what would happen in your world if God ceased to be faithful? There'd be no sunrise. There'd be no seasons of fruitfulness.

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• There would be no air to breathe. There'd be no sustaining of life. Everything would just simply be death and destruction. I don't know how many people have ever realized how much everything depends upon the faithfulness of God. You remember that passage in the book of Colossians that says, "by him all things consist" and have their being. And so it's just the very faithfulness of God that basically holds everything together.

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• So we must learn then to be faithful as he is faithful. And just like he is faithful in everything, so we must learn to be faithful in everything as well. We must learn to be faithful in our marriages, in our businesses, in our money, in our promises, and in every area of life.

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• Now, before we even get to Luke chapter 16, the first 13 verses, let me tell you that the scope of this passage is to teach us and to quicken us and to educate us on how to use this world without abusing it. In fact, that's what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7 and verse 31, that we should use the world without abusing it. So basically what he's teaching us is this, that we are to manage all of our possessions and all of our benefits, everything that he's entrusted in us, not only for the sake of this life or this world, but also for that which is to come.

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• So let me say it another way. Whatever God has given us, whatever possessions we have, we're to use it so that it is beneficial in this life and not harmful to us in the next life.

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• Now, this passage in Luke chapter 16 is one that represents everyone as a steward. That includes the unsaved. It is true that Christians particularly are stewards, but it is also true that everyone is a steward in one sense of the word, and I'm going to explain why. There's a quote in Dr. Lightfoot's book, and this is the quote. I want you to listen carefully to what it said.

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• "The world is a house, heaven the roof, the stars the lights, the earth with its fruits a table spread. The master of the house is the holy and blessed God. Man is a steward, in whose hands the goods of this house are delivered. If he behave himself well, he shall find favor in the eyes of his Lord. If not, he shall be turned out of his stewardship." So generally speaking, everyone is a steward because every one of us has been entrusted with certain possessions.

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• I want you to listen to this. And this is going to be emphasized before I close, but another author said it like this: "The right use of riches in believers is a trial of their loyal use of their spiritual graces and gifts. And on the contrary, the abuse of the one shows the abuse of the other. God likewise taking away his spiritual graces from them who do not use the temporal ones well." We're going to see something similar to that before we finish. The old Puritans used to have a saying, and it went like this: "When a Christian gets rich, God either gains a fortune or loses a man."

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• And that certainly is true. So let me give you a warning about Luke 16 before we begin to look at this passage. This warning is from the book of J.C. Ryle on the Gospels, and he says this: "The steward whom our Lord describes is not set before us as a pattern of morality. He is distinctly called the unjust steward. The Lord Jesus never meant to sanction dishonesty and unfair dealing between man and man. The steward cheated his master and broke the eighth commandment. His master was struck with his cunning and forethought when he heard of it and commended him as a shrewd and foreseeing man. But there is no proof that his master was pleased with his conduct. Above all, there is not a word to show that the man was praised by Christ. In short, in his treatment of his master, the steward is a beacon to be avoided and not a pattern to be followed." Now before we get started he says there was an unjust steward. The word steward is derived from the Greek word oikonomos and actually it is made up of two words.

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• Oikos is the Greek word for house and nomos is the Greek word for law. So the word for steward actually means the law of the house or house law. By the way, that's where we get our English word economy from. It basically means the law of the house or house law. So a steward then was someone who ruled over a house into whose hands goods were trusted. And he was to use those goods faithfully according to the law that was laid down by the master of the house. So that is where you get the word steward, and that is where we derive our word economy from.

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• Now, it should be clearly obvious that stewards then are to properly dispose of whatever is entrusted in their hands. Do you realize that everything that we possess has been given to us? We actually don't own anything. In fact, I've heard people say, "I own my own house." And the answer is no, you really do not. "Well, I own my own property." No, you really do not. You may have paid off the mortgage and you may not owe any monthly payments, but the truth of the matter is if you cease to pay property taxes, you'll find out who really and truly owns your property and who really and truly owns your house.

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• The state will claim it, although it is not theirs. The Bible says in Proverbs 24 and verse 1, "The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." So everything that we are and everything that we have has been given to us by God, and therefore we are stewards of whatever we have. However much or however little, we are stewards.

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• Now, many people call this passage in Luke 16, verses 1 through 13, a parable. I've read it in some of the commentaries that I've looked at, but an interesting thing is nowhere in these 13 verses does the Bible refer to this as a parable. If you look in verse 1, "And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward." In other words, our Lord is thinking particularly of one man. Now, you can say this is a parable if you would like, but it could also possibly be true that our Lord personally knew of this individual and personally knew of this incident. But whether it's a parable or whether it was someone that was personally known of our Lord, the truth that is taught clearly needs to be understood and needs to be applied because this is indeed, I think, a very awesome truth. We need to remember that this steward is someone who is unfaithful and unjust.

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• He's accused of wasting his master's goods. Look at it in verse 1, "There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods."

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• Now the Greek word for wasted literally means to scatter, to disperse, to throw away. And this word is also used for winnowing grain. And the way they winnowed grain in the Old Testament, particularly, and probably in the New Testament as well, is they put the grain on a sheet, and they would be high on a hillside or a mountain, and they would throw it up in the air, and the wind would come along and take the chaff and blow it away, and the seed or the wheat would fall back down on the sheet. And so literally what it means is this man just scattered the master's goods to the wind.

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• He had no idea where anything was or what was done. Matthew Henry says it like this: "Here is the dishonesty of the steward. He wasted his lord's goods, embezzled them, misapplied them, or through careless effort or through carelessness, suffered them to be lost and damaged, and for this he was accused to his lord." Now listen to what Henry says: "We are all liable to the same charge."

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• "We have not made a due improvement upon what God has entrusted us in this world, but have perverted His purpose, and that we may not be for this judged of our Lord, it concerns us to judge ourselves." So Matthew Henry's saying, this applies to every Christian because most of us have failed to make a proper application of everything that God has given us. And therefore, he said, it's up to us to judge ourselves. And actually what he's referring to is 1 Corinthians 11, verses 31 and 32, for there the scripture says, "For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." So he says we need to take a proper accounting of everything that God has given us and how we are disposing of it.

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• So if you look in verse two, now, verse one tells us about the unjust steward. Verse two, "And he called him," that is the master, "and said to him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest no longer be steward." Now, interestingly, in verse two, the master called him and said, "How is this? How is it that I hear this of thee?"

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• In other words, "I trusted you. I thought you were an honest individual. How can this actually be happening?" So the master is actually giving him an opportunity to fess up. "How did this happen? Why is this happening to you? What have you done?" And the interesting thing is, when you look at this passage, the unjust steward is not contrite. He is not sorrowful. There is no real confession. There is no real repentance.

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• In fact, the opposite is true. He's not even concerned with his master or what the master thinks. He is only concerned with himself. So look in verse three. "Then the steward said within himself," in other words, he didn't answer this out loud. "But the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed." Wow, "I cannot dig."

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• There was no work ethic in him. He was ashamed of real labor. Matthew Henry says this. I want you to listen. He hits the nail on the head. He said he asked, "But why can he not dig? It does not appear that he is either old or lame, but the truth is he is lazy. His cannot is a will not. It is not a natural, but a moral disability that he labors under. If his master, when he turned him out of his stewardship, had continued him in his service as a laborer and set a taskmaster over him, he would have made him dig. He cannot dig, for he was never used to it."

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• "Now this intimates that we cannot get a livelihood for our souls by any labor of this world, nor indeed do anything to purpose for our own souls by any ability of our own." Wow. He also says, "to beg I am ashamed." So this demonstrates his pride and his arrogance as well as his unwillingness to dig indicates his slothfulness. It is not a shame to ask for help if we are totally disabled or totally unable to accomplish something on our own. The shame comes in when we can do it, but we refuse to do it.

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• Let me give you an illustration. For years, Alice and I when I would be preaching out west, we would always drive from Nevada to California where I would be preaching in a Christian history conference. And we'd go through this little town and here was an older VW van and a woman sitting out in a chair under an umbrella with little kids running around. And there was a sign, "Help, need gas and need money for food." The interesting thing is, she sat there, I know, for at least three years. When I say three years, Alice and I would make that trip once a year, every year. And for three years in a row, she was sitting there needing gas and needing money for food.

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• Well, what she was doing was scamming the people. She was basically stealing. What she was doing was not only shameful, it was a violation of God's law. She obviously was in good health, just looking at her. But there she was just simply sitting there begging. So this is what the man is saying. "To beg I am ashamed." In other words, "I'm not going to do that. My pride will not allow me to do that." So the unjust and the unfaithful servant now strikes upon an idea, watch carefully, that is ultimately going to benefit him alone.

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• So let me make this exceedingly clear. I think this is the ultimate sin of all unfaithful stewards. This is the ultimate slap in God's face. Because the unjust steward is totally unconcerned about his master and is only concerned with himself. It's just like today, most Christians are really not concerned with being holy, not concerned with being obedient, not concerned with being truthful, not concerned with being honest, not concerned with having character and integrity. They're not concerned about obeying God and bringing their lives into conformity to His Word. They're just simply interested in their own selves. And so that means that just like this unfaithful and unjust steward, we are absolutely, totally selfish and self-centered and really do not care about our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

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• Now, let me show you what he struck upon. Let's look in verse 3 again, and we're going to read through verse 9. "Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed."

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• Now watch this, "I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they," that is our lord's debtors, "may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him." There were a multitude of them. How many? I do not know. The Bible does not say, but he only lists two here. "So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?"

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• "And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore."

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• Now let me just stop and point this out. This unjust steward, this unfaithful steward, had already been stealing from his master, wasting his master's goods, throwing away his master's goods, now he's cheating him again. I want you to watch. Verse 8, we'll come back to this verse. "And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." Now, it should be easily seen that this unjust and unfaithful servant cheated his master again.

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• He stole, he defrauded, and he schemed. It was all for himself. He said, "I know what I'm going to do." Remember now, he's not going to work. He's not going to dig ditches. To beg he is ashamed. And so what he's going to do, since these men were already obligated to his master, he's going to make it now where they're going to be obligated to him. An interesting thing is this.

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• He said in verse three, look back in verse three, he asked this question. "What shall I do?" You know, I'd be wise to ask a question similar to that before we sin. But the truth of the matter is, most people somehow think that they're going to escape the consequences of their sins. They think that somehow they're never, ever going to be called into account. Everybody else will, but they are the exception and not the rule. They're going to get by. But he asked, "What shall I do?" It'd have been wise to ask that before he became unfaithful and unjust. I personally know a man that stole, defrauded $93 million from his clients and from his friends. Yes, he was caught. Yes, he went to prison. Yes, he lost his family. Yes, he lost everything. It probably been wise, before he began stealing, to ask, "What am I going to do if I get caught? What's going to be the consequences? What's going to happen to me?"

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• Seemingly, we always ask these questions when it's too late. So in verse four, the steward then resolves exactly what he's going to do. He's resolving that he's going to fix it so that when he is kicked out of the stewardship, those people who owe his master are going to take him into their houses and take care of him. Therefore, he will not have to work because other people are taking care of him.

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• So the scheme is very simple. They owe my master. I'm going to fix it where they owe me. I'm going to be their savior. I'm going to be their benefactor. And when I get through with this little scheme, each one of them is going to be obligated to me. And they're going to have to take care of me in order to pay me back. That was his scheme.

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• So once again, here's the ultimate sin. Not concerned with the master. Not concerned with master's goods. Not concerned with the master's will. Not concerned with pleasing master. I'm only concerned with taking care of myself.

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• Now look in verse 8. "And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." First of all, the master commended the unfaithful servant, not for his theft, not for his fraud and deceit, but for the fact that he acted wisely for himself. He was making sure that he would be taken care of in the homes of these people that owed money to his master. He does not commend him because he had done falsely to his master, but because he had done wisely for himself. Now look in verse 8 again. He said, "The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light."

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• So what is meant here? Well, the truth is this. We cannot scheme and plot as the unsaved. Theft, fraud, deceit are not options for us. We cannot act like the unjust steward. We're bound by the law of God and we must act according to his will and his word and his commands. The old Puritan John Trapp made an interesting observation. Listen carefully. He said, "A swine that wanders can make better shift to get home to the trough than a sheep can to the fold."

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• We've not received the spirit of the world. We cannot shift and plot as they can but we've received a better thing. A swine, he said, will get back quicker to the trough than a sheep will to the fold. In other words, the swine is wiser than the sheep many, many times. So while it's obvious that you and I cannot live and act according to the world and of the unsaved, there's another side of the coin, and that is this.

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• We're also required to look out for ourselves. Just because I'm a Christian does not mean that I want to be defrauded. Just because I'm a Christian does not mean that I want everybody to take advantage of me and steal from me. No. I have to look out for myself in one sense of the word. But let me read something to you that I think is very, very good. Robert E.

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• Lee, in writing to his son, William Fitzhugh Lee, better known as Rooney, wrote this letter to him while he was in studies and he said this: "You must study to be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do, and on every occasion take it for granted that you mean to do right. If a friend asks a favor, you should grant it if it is reasonable; if not, tell him plainly why you cannot."

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• "You would wrong him and wrong yourself by equivocation of any kind. Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one. The man who requires you to do so is clearly and dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly and firmly with all your classmates. You will find it the policy which wears best. Above all, do not appear to others what you are not. If you have any fault to find with anyone, tell him, not others, of what you complain. There is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before man's face and another behind his back. We should live, act, and say nothing to the injury of anyone. It is not only for the best as a matter of principle, but it is a path of peace and honor." And then in another letter, Lee told Rooney that he must look out for his own benefit while not harming or defrauding others.

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• So I want you to note what happened in Luke chapter 16. The steward did indeed look out for his own benefit, but it was at the cost and the harm of his master.

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• Now, notice if you would verse 9. Our Lord said, "And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." So basically what he's saying is this. If you're going to sell your life and yourself and your soul for the mammon of unrighteousness, that is for riches and treasures of unrighteousness, you're going to be with your like-minded friends in their everlasting habitations. In other words, if you're going to live for this world, make the most of it, because that's all you're going to have. Your joy, your happiness, your wealth, your riches will all vanish in eternity.

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• Now, Adam Clarke said this: "Riches promise much and perform nothing. They excite hope and confidence and deceive both in making a man depend on them for happiness. They rob him of the salvation of God and of eternal glory. For these reasons they are represented as unjust and deceitful. It is evident this must be the meaning of the words because the false or deceitful riches here are put in opposition to the true riches," which I'm going to point out just momentarily.

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• But there is another interpretation of this passage, another interpretation of verse 9, and that would be an admonishment for the children of light to be as wise in the use of their gifts and their possessions as the children of the world are in their gifts and their possessions. So again, Matthew Henry says it like this: "It is the wisdom of the men of this world so to manage their money as that they may have the benefit of it hereafter,"

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• "and not for the present only. Therefore they put it out to interest, buy land with it, put it into this or the other fund."

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• "Now we should learn of them to make use of our money, so as that we may be the better for it hereafter in another world, as they do in hopes to be better for it in this world. So cast upon the waters that we may find again in many days." And he quotes Ecclesiastes 11 and verse 1. "And in our case, though whatsoever we have are our Lord's goods, yet as long as we dispose of them among our Lord's tenants and for their advantage, it is so far from being reckoned wrong to our Lord that it is a duty to Him as well as a policy for ourselves." He goes on to say this: "The wisdom of worldly people in the concerns of this world is to be imitated by us in the concerns for our souls."

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• "It is their principle to improve their opportunities, to do that first which is most needful in summer and harvest, to lay up for the winter, to take a good bargain when it is offered, to trust the faithful and not the false. Oh, that we were wise in our spiritual affairs." So he is saying that we can learn to use everything that they use, but use it differently.

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• and make sure that we are indeed the ones who are advantaging ourselves for eternity. Now, I want you to look at verses 10 and 11. I went through all of this just to get you to verses 10 and 11. Because in this passage, our Lord emphasizes one of the most awesome, one of the most powerful truths imaginable. We must grasp it, we must understand it, and we must apply it. Look at verse 10 and 11. Our Lord says, "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. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?"

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• Now, notice if you would, please, these principles. First, faithfulness extends to that which is least, as well as that which is the greatest. The problem that most of us have is this. We always look for the big. We always look for the great. We always look for something that is exceedingly large. And most of the time we overlook little things. In fact, the Bible says, "despise not the day of small things" in the book of Zechariah. And many people just simply despise the little things. And our Lord is pointing out that if we are unfaithful in the little things, we're going to be unfaithful in the great things. If we're unfaithful in that which is least, we're going to be unfaithful in that which is much. Secondly, he's pointing out that if we're unjust or unfaithful in the least, once again, we're going to be unfaithful in that which is much. It's how we handle the little things that demonstrates how we're going to handle the large things. So if we cannot be faithful in that which is small, little, and insignificant, we're not going to be faithful in that which is large, huge, and great.

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• But here's the next principle. I want you to listen carefully. The possessions in which you and I are entrusted, the money, the riches that we possess, whether you call it silver, gold, Federal Reserve notes, land, houses, it doesn't matter, the possessions which you and I are entrusted with, that which we possess, are the small things. That is the mammon of unrighteousness, and it is in those things that we have the test for faithfulness or unfaithfulness. Now listen to what he said. "If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon," that's the little things, "who will commit to your trust the true riches?" So pay attention, listen to these questions. Do you tithe? Do you give offerings?

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• Do you use that which God has given you for his honor and glory? Do you treat your brothers and sisters, your neighbors, yea, even your enemies, honestly? fairly? Do you keep your word? Which means more to you, your riches, your possessions, or your testimony? Would you rather have riches or a clear and clean conscience? Now stop. I want you to go back. Look at verse 11. Pay close attention. In fact, let's read verse 10 and 11 again.

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• "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." Now watch it. "If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon," that's which is least. Whatever you possess, that is the least. "Who will commit to your trust the true riches?" So it doesn't matter if an individual is a millionaire, a multimillionaire, or even a billionaire. Those are not the true riches. That's the mammon of unrighteousness.

  #59 | 41:21 to 41:59 | cleaned

• That is the little things. And no matter how much money we have and no matter what it's made of, whether paper, silver or gold, it's going to be gone one of these days. It'll deteriorate, it'll spoil, it'll rust, it'll be stolen, it'll vanish. And it doesn't matter how much we have, when we die, we cannot take any of it with us. So here's the question. Look at it in verse 11.

  #60 | 41:59 to 42:33 | cleaned

• "If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?" The word true, as alethinos in the Greek, is from the word aletheia, the noun aletheia, which is truth. It occurs 27 times in the New Testament. And it actually means that which is real, genuine, true, as opposed to that which is fictitious, counterfeit, false, imaginary, simulated or pretended. In other words, this word refers to realities and not the semblance. It is the real thing.

  #61 | 42:33 to 43:26 | cleaned

• So what's, if you would, the question? "If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon," that is what God has entrusted to you, "who will commit to your trust the true riches?" Now, wait a minute. Let me see if I can understand this argument. Here's what our Lord is saying. If we cannot be faithful in that which is small, little, least, negligible, which is our possessions, why would God give us the true riches? Do you see, true riches is in opposition to false riches. Now let me ask you a question. If our Lord said, "If you cannot be faithful in unrighteous mammon, if you cannot be faithful in that which is least," now listen, "who's going to commit to you the true riches?"

  #62 | 43:26 to 44:34 | cleaned

• Could this be a reason why most Christians today are absolutely ignorant of the Word of God? and ignorant of honesty, character, integrity, godliness, holiness, obedience. Those are the true riches. Multi-billionaires are not, that's not true riches. That's what our Lord is saying. If we cannot be faithful in any and every little thing that God has given us, what makes us think that we're going to be faithful in His grace and His gifts and His mercies and His goodness and His kindness? Why would God give us more wisdom and understanding if we're going to abuse it the way we abuse the little things that He's already given us?

  #63 | 44:35 to 45:28 | cleaned

• I quote Matthew Henry one more time. I want you to pay close attention to the last statement. Listen to this. "The riches of this world are the less. Grace and glory are the greater."

  #64 | 45:30 to 45:42 | cleaned

• "Now, if we be unfaithful in the less, if we use the things of this world to other purposes than those for which they were given to us, it may justly be feared that we should be so in the gifts of God's grace that we should receive them. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in the much. He that serves God and does good with his money will serve God and do good with the more noble and valuable talents of wisdom and grace and spiritual gifts and the earnest of heaven. But he that buries one talent of this world's wealth will never improve the five talents to spiritual riches." Now listen, "God withholds His grace from covetous worldly people more than we are aware of." Isn't that amazing? He said God withholds His grace from covetous worldly people. Why? Because they're unfaithful. They're looking out for number one. They're looking out for themselves. They could care less as to why God entrusted them with riches. They could care less why God has given them the possessions that they have.

  #65 | 45:43 to 47:00 | cleaned

• Now I want you to watch what he said in verse 12. Again, look in verse 12. "And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?"

  #66 | 47:00 to 47:13 | cleaned

• Now, I can make this very easily understood, I think. So if I go to Steve and say, "I need to borrow some of your tools. I don't have what I need to do some work." And he said, "Sure, I'll be glad to loan them to you." And he loans them to me. And when I get through with them, I just throw them down. Maybe a month later, Steve asked me where they are, and I said, "You know, I don't even know." And Steve starts looking around and picks one up out of the dirt and picks another one rusted and picks another one up that's broken. Do you think I'm going to get any more loaner tools from Steve? The answer is no. If I can't take care of his, I'm certainly not going to take care of mine. So he said, "If you're not going to be faithful in that which is another man's, if we're not going to be faithful in that which belongs to God, do you think he's going to give us that to own for ourselves?"

  #67 | 47:13 to 48:26 | cleaned

• And the answer would be no. And you have to understand this, that everything that we are, everything that we have, everything that we will ever have is all God's anyhow. You remember when Job lost his 10 children in one day? He also lost all of his possessions in one day. And what did he do? He bowed down in worship and said, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither."

  #68 | 48:27 to 49:00 | cleaned

• "The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." What is he saying? "I didn't own any of these things anyhow. I was a steward over them. God gave them and God took them away." So if we're not going to take care of that which belongs to God, what makes us think that God is going to give us anything to possess of our own?

  #69 | 49:01 to 49:24 | cleaned

• Now, I want you to watch verse 13, because here he ties it together. He says, "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." So what he's saying is this, if you're going to just serve yourself, have at it. But if you're going to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, then you must have at it as well. In other words, you're not going to serve both. If you're going to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, we must learn then to handle our affairs, our money, our obligations, our duties, our responsibilities according to His Word, according to His will, for His honor and for His glory. And what He's telling us is this, if we cannot be faithful in that which is the least, we're not going to be faithful in that which is the greatest or that which is much. So let me make a couple of applications and I want you to listen because I believe that this is one of our real problems in Christianity today.

  #70 | 49:24 to 50:38 | cleaned

• The first one is this. We really and truly have no other way to prove ourselves to God or to prove ourselves to each other other than faithfulness. That's it. Faithfulness is the key. And therefore we have to learn to be faithful in everything, no matter how small, no matter how great. We have to be faithful in our tithes, faithful in our offerings, faithful in our Bible studies, faithful in our prayers, faithful in worship, faithful to each other. Because faithfulness is how we demonstrate our love for each other and for our Lord. Here's a second application.

  #71 | 50:40 to 51:38 | cleaned

• I want you to think about this. Our Lord said, "He that is faithful in the least will also be faithful in the greatest." I suppose every preacher and many Christians think about and pray for what you and I would call a worldwide revival, or at least a national revival. We think of George Whitefield. Think of Jonathan Edwards. I told you, I think, that Ben Franklin, who attended many of George Whitefield's preachings and services, he estimated that 10,000 people could hear George Whitefield at one time.

  #72 | 51:39 to 52:33 | cleaned

• With no electronics, no megaphones, his voice was sufficient. And look, if you would, at the awakening that happened wherever George Whitefield went. Same thing with Jonathan Edwards. And, you know, we think that, "Lord, what we need is a national revival. What we need is a revival that'll sweep over this country." And I don't doubt that is what we need. But the point I'm trying to make is this, if you and I cannot be faithful in our daily lives, if we cannot be faithful in that which is least, if we cannot be faithful in reading our Bibles and prayer, if we cannot be faithful with our money, if we cannot be faithful in our marriages, if we cannot be faithful in our businesses, what makes us think that God's going to do something great for us?

  #73 | 52:35 to 53:29 | cleaned

• If we want a greater ministry, we have to be faithful in the smaller, insignificant, and little ministries. God is not going to use us greatly if He cannot use us in the little things. We may not ever be rich. And we may not ever be famous, but one thing we could have placed on our tombstones by His grace is this: "Here lies a faithful servant of Jesus Christ." So you and I need to strive in our lives for the gift and the grace of faithfulness. And if we're faithful in that which is little, small and insignificant, God says he can trust us in the great things. The faithful Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we bow to thee this day. We thank you, Father, for your word, for your truth.

  #74 | 53:34 to 55:10 | cleaned

• And Lord, we do pray that you would make us faithful stewards, just stewards of everything, Lord, that you've given to us. Every ministry. Every opportunity. Make us faithful because thou art the faithful God. And we bow before thee. May our lives be conformed to Thee and Thy Word. In the name of Jesus Christ we ask and pray. Amen.

  #75 | 55:11 to 55:44 | cleaned

• so so

  #76 | 56:07 to 56:07 | cleaned

deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-05T14:16:09Z