From His Heart

Speaker 1

John Greenleaf Whittier was the poet of the 1800s. He wrote a poem called "Maud Muller." It's a poem of regret.

And there's a line in that poem that is so famous, it says this: "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.'"

What are you doing with what you have been? Because the Lord is one day going to settle the account.

Speaker 2

It is true that life is made up of opportunities to really make a difference. Doors that God opens for you and me to step through. So what do you do when opportunity knocks?

This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. Thank you for being with us today for a powerful message as we explore the parable of the talents, encouraging believers to live with purpose and courage as good stewards of God's gifts.

This lesson we're about to hear today is entitled "Buried Talent Part Two," and it's from Pastor Jeff's new nine-lesson series, "When the Son of Man Comes," a study of Matthew 24 and 25.

If you'd like more information about this series, how to get it, and how to listen to the other programs in this series, go to From His Heart and click the Listen link right now.

Open your Bible to the book of Matthew and let's dig up your buried talent. Here again is Pastor Jeff.

Speaker 1

Now here's our big question for today. What are you doing with what you have been given? So three discoveries from this parable.

**Discovery Number One:** God entrusts a certain amount of talent to each one of us. And *talent* is in italics because when we think of talent, we think of some special ability that you have, a talent to sing or a talent to play an instrument or whatever your specific ability might be. But in the parable, that's not what it means. A talent was a unit of weight. And when it says that the master, who's on a journey, entrusted his own possessions to them, a talent was money—60 to 80 pounds of weight of money. In this case, it would have been silver. One guy gets five bags, 60 to 80 pounds of silver. The other guy gets two bags of silver, and the other guy gets one bag of silver, 60 to 80 pounds. It says he gave that each according to his own ability. Now, the word *ability*, *dunamis* in the Greek, means power, might, strength, capability. That was the master's prerogative to dole out his possessions the way he saw fit.

Now, it's a fact of life that some have more abilities and opportunities than others. But that's okay; it's the Master's prerogative. He doesn't make us all the same. The guy that had one talent, I could see where he was. He felt ripped off because he didn't get as much as the other guy. Well, listen, here's what the Bible says in Luke 12:48: "To whom much has been given shall much also be required. And to whom they have entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more." God is fair, and if he's entrusted you with a lot, he is going to expect a lot from you. But everyone has something entrusted to him or her. So what are you doing with what you've been given?

**Second Discovery:** God expects us to use what he has entrusted to us. He expects a return. He wants us to use what we have been given. So here's a big question: Are you working with what you have? Are you using your gifts, your talents, your abilities, and the resources God has entrusted to you? God expects us to work with what we have. What he doesn't expect from us and what he doesn't want us to do is to bury what we have. And that's what the one-talent guy did. I like this quote from Zig Ziglar: "You are the only person on earth who can use your ability. I can't use your ability. Only you can use your ability." That's what God has given to you. Have you been burying your master's treasure, his talent, in the ground? It's a serious question.

**Discovery Number Three:** God will one day settle your account. It says in verse 19, "After a long time, the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them." It was a day of reckoning, and the big question is, "What did you do with what I gave you?" Now remember this: For those who use what God has entrusted to them, we call them the faithful. Because Jesus said, "Well done, good and faithful slave." The faithful will be greatly excited and greatly blessed when the master returns. They got affirmation, commendation, and then promotion: "I'm going to put you in charge of many things because you're faithful with a few things."

You know, when it comes to money in this world and the tithe and the offerings, God entrusts each of us in different ways with finances. What are we doing with our finances? The Lord makes it very clear in Malachi, chapter three. He says, "You're robbing me. Will a man rob God? Certainly not. But you're robbing me." But they say, "How have we robbed you?" "In tithes and offerings. You're cursed with a curse, the whole nation of you, because you're robbing me. So bring the whole tithe into the storehouse," says the Lord, "and test me now in this, if I will not open up for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing so big that you can't even contain it."

You know, why does God entrust us with more when we're unfaithful with what we have? You don't look at the guy at your job if you're in a management position and think, "Well, I got this worker, he's always late and he never does his stuff. I think I'm going to promote him." No, you say, "That guy, he's untrustworthy, he's unfaithful. Let's promote the faithful guy." Well, the Lord promotes these guys: "You're going to be over much because you were faithful in a few things. I'm going to put you over many things." And guess what? You get to enter into the joy of your Master. The Bible says that the kingdom of heaven is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And we're one day going to have the joy of the Lord. We get to experience his joy. It says in Psalm 16, "In his presence is fullness of joy, and at his right hand there are pleasures forevermore." Well, that's what comes to the faithful—the five-talent guy and the two-talent guy.

But now the faithless, the one-talent guy, he is going to be greatly exposed and greatly abased. Verse 24 states, "And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. And I was afraid and I went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.'" Wow, what an insult this one-talent guy gave. You can see why he only got one talent; he was not a faithful guy. The faithless are going to be exposed for being a fake, a fraud, and a phony. As Jesus is going to say, "You're wicked and you're lazy."

So let's talk about four facts of the faithless. **Number One:** The faithless have a false view of God. He says, "I knew you to be a hard man." The word for *hard* in the Greek is *scleros*. We get our English word for medical terms from it. It's a hardening—*scleroderma*. If you've ever heard of scleroderma, it's when your skin starts to harden. Hardening of the arteries uses that word, *scleros*. It's a hardening; it means to be dry, to be hard, to be tough and fierce. That's what this guy says to the master: "Well, you're hard. You're hard to please. I knew that you were so tough and so hard to please. What's the point of even trying? There's no way I could please you because you're a hard man." Well, that's not the Lord; he has a false view of God.

And then he goes on to say, not only are you this hard man, but you're a guy who reaps where you didn't sow and gathers where you scattered no seed. That's like going onto somebody else's property and filling up your fruit basket with their apples. Well, those aren't your apples; those are his apples. You didn't grow that; he grew that. And somebody that would do that, we would call that person a thief. So I knew you were a hard man. I knew you were a thief; you were unscrupulous. Can you imagine saying that to the master? That's what he says. He has a false, distorted view of God. No wonder he's afraid.

There are so many people in our world today. One of the reasons I wrote the book *The Devil's Newsroom* is to turn people on to the truth. Here are the Devil's lies. Here's the truth of God. The devil's not just a liar among many liars; he is the father of lies. He's the master liar.

Speaker 2

You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve and today's message, "Buried Talent." Pastor Jeff will elaborate a bit more on this in just a minute. But first, the answer is yes. The devil not only lies; his character is a lie. You see, the truth is when people persist in untruth, when they lie and lie and lie, they align themselves with the devil's character rather than God's character. God is truth. And that is a profound truth that we need to know so that our character will mirror His. We don't need to bury our talents and therefore bury the truth that is in us.

This month, Pastor Jeff Shreve is in his brand new series. It's a nine-lesson series called "When the Son of Man Comes," answering questions like, how are we to live until the Son of Man comes? Well, we must be wise stewards of the time and resources that God has given us while also being spiritually alert, obedient, and committed to following Him. In this compelling message today called "Buried Talent," Pastor Jeff shares three essentials for living God-centered lives, continually aware of the imminent return of Christ. It's nine messages in this series that will help you get ready.

This series is also our gift of thanks to you for your support of any amount to From His Heart. This month we're in our 21st year and growing our outreach. Each year, Pastor Jeff Shreve has never, is not now, and never will receive any income from this ministry. So request "When the Son of Man Comes: A Study of Matthew 24 and 25" when you make your gift today. Call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-24253) or go to fromhishheart.org. It's available on a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or an MP3 download. Don't delay. Get this teaching, "When the Son of Man Comes," and be ready for the return of Christ.

Now let's conclude the message, "Buried Talent."

Speaker 1

I was going back and forth with somebody on social media concerning supporting Israel in the war against Iran, and they were very negative about things. They were saying things about God that weren't true, claiming that God is mean, vindictive, and cruel; that God destroys people and does this and that. I responded to him, saying, "You believe lies about God." He replied, "Well, that's why I don't want to go to heaven. People like you are going to be there." I said, "Well, hey, guess what, pal? You'll get your wish. And you're not going to like it. Because in the place where you're going, as you continue down that road, there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. It's horrible. The Lord doesn't want you to go there. I don't want you to go there." But people have this false view of God.

Jeremiah chapter 9 states, "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast of his might. Let not the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth. For I delight in these things, declares the Lord." He's compassionate and gracious, abounding in loving kindness. God is a wonderful, wonderful God. But this guy doesn't have a clue who the real God is. He has a false view of God that makes him afraid, leading him to say, "You are a hard man. You are impossible to please. What's the use? I quit before I even started," and he just buried it in the ground. So that's the faithless false view of God.

Secondly, they have a preoccupation with self. Now, this is really interesting. I was looking through some old notes and I ran across this and thought, "Man, that's really good." I don't know if I read it somewhere or if I came up with it, so since we can't remember, let's say I came up with it. The five-talent guy and the two-talent guy, when they have their time with the master, the settling of accounts, the day of reckoning, they say, "Master, you entrusted this to me." The one-talent guy, however, says, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man." So the faithful say, "Master, you." Everything is about the Lord. The unfaithful, the faithless, say, "Master, I." Because it's all about me.

In the last days, difficult times will come, as the Bible says in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 1. "For men will be lovers of self." That's the very first thing on the list of difficult times. Men are going to be lovers of self, lovers of money, insolent, arrogant revilers. It gives a long list of things, but the first one on the list is lovers of self. This guy is all consumed with himself, and he tries to pawn it off, saying, "Well, you know, I knew you to be a hard man. So here's what I did: I just preserved your money. I buried it in the ground so nobody could get it. Here you have what is yours." Well, the Lord's going to expose that. That's just stupid. If you knew me to be a hard man, then why didn't you put it in the bank? Then I would have gotten interest.

A preoccupation with self—do you have a preoccupation with self? You know, one thing about social media is that you can find out who's really into themselves. All the posts they have are just about, "Look at me. Have you looked at me lately? Hey, there's me. Look at this picture of me." Norm MacDonald once said, "You know, go back to the late 1800s, and you might find one picture of your grandfather. He was a farmer, and they had to pull the rope for the camera to take a picture. He always looked like he wasn't ready. Now, what do we have? Somebody sitting on an airplane? Would you like to see 100,000 pictures of my grandfather?" It's just way, way different than it was back in that day and age. But we need to watch out for a preoccupation with self, being a lover of self.

The faithless are wicked and lazy. That's what Jesus says to this guy. He says in verse 26, "But the Master answered and said to him, 'You wicked, lazy slave.'" He doesn't say, "Oh, you dear boy, you are believing lies about me." No, he says, "You're wicked and you're lazy. You knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. Oh, you knew that I was this person who did that, that was a thief, then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival, I would have received my money back with interest." If you knew that, then why did you bury my money in the ground? He was exposed as being a liar. He was wicked and he was lazy—wicked because of what he said about the master, and lazy because he did nothing with the opportunity that he had.

And he's dealt with justly. That's the fourth fact about this guy. The faithless are dealt with justly. Jesus said, "Therefore, take away the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents, for to everyone who has more shall be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Now, I've preached this before, where I said, "Okay, I was running into trouble with that guy being thrown out where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth." That sure is the description of hell. You have this slave, this doulos of the Master, and he doesn't use what he's been given, and he ends up in hell. The question arises, "Does that mean you can lose your salvation?" No, you can't lose your salvation. This guy never had salvation. He didn't put his faith and trust in the real God. He saw God in a distorted view. What you see in this guy's life is no faith because there are no works to show.

Now, that's what James said. James said, "Faith without works is dead, being by itself. You show me your faith without the works, and I'll show you my faith by my works." A professor in school used to say, "It's faith alone that saves a person. But faith alone is never alone." When you have true, genuine faith, you put your faith in Jesus. He comes into your life, changes you from the inside out, and what do you see? You see a change. You're now under new management, and people start to notice. They recognize that you belong to a different master because of the way you're living.

What do we see about this third slave, this one-talent guy? He'd never been saved. He believed lies about the Master, insulted the Master, and he's dealt with justly. Jesus is saying, "Listen, when you have five foolish virgins that don't bring oil, they're not waiting. They're not ready and waiting. When you have somebody that doesn't work, he's just revealing that he doesn't have a genuine heart of faith."

But there's also a lesson for us as believers because we're going to have to appear before God one day and give an account of our lives. We're not going to lose our salvation, but we're going to have to show. We're going to have to say, "Okay, Master, this is what you entrusted to me: a mind that could function in this way, resources that you blessed me with, opportunities that you blessed me with, people that I worked with that I never shared with, money that I made so much that I never gave away, just wasted it."

You know, we don't want to have to stand before the Master, and when he says, "What did you do with what I gave you?" we have nothing to say. The judgment seat of Christ is fire, and if what you've been building in your life is wood, hay, and straw, it's going to be revealed because the fire is going to test the quality of each man's work. If what you have burns up, that's it. You didn't have anything to show to the Master. You say, "Well, here's what you gave me," and I didn't make any hay with this. I didn't make any hay while the sun's up. You're going to be ashamed and embarrassed.

It doesn't mean you lose your salvation, but the Master has no joy in a servant who buries his talent in the ground. It's a warning to believers as much as a strong word to unbelievers. No works mean no true faith. John Greenleaf Whittier was the poet of the 1800s. He wrote a poem called "Maud Muller." It's a poem of regret, and there's a line in that poem that is so famous: "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been." Only one life will soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last. What are you doing with what you have been given? Because the Lord is one day going to settle the account.

Speaker 2

Are you willing to invest what you've been given for God's kingdom today? We hope that these have been encouraging and stirring insights for you. Today's lesson is called "Buried Talent." You heard part two today. This is the eighth message in the nine-lesson series, "When the Son of Man," a study of Matthew 24:25. This series is our gift of thanks to you for your support of any amount from From His Heart.

This month, you can request it on a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or MP3 digital download. You pick. It will be a blessing to you, keep you grounded in what really matters, and keep you safe in the arms of Christ. Call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-24253) or go to fromhisheart.org to make your gift and request the series. Thank you for listening and praying for From His Heart.

Well, as we close out today, a reminder of what poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote in his poem "Maud Muller": "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been. Only one life, 'twill be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last."

So as we close, consider this: What are you doing with what you've been given by God? Thank you for being with us today. I'm Larry Nobles, trusting you'll return next time for the last message in this "When the Son of Man Comes" series. Pastor Jeff will begin the message, "The Most Misunderstood Parable." Join us again when Pastor Jeff Shreve will open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His heart.