The Parable of the Talents*/A message of God the Father for us!*Anointing of Jesus with the precious ointment/*A corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies!/
The faithful servant and the evil servant
Jesus told a parable for warning us to remain watchful for His second coming, Jesus told a parable in Matt.24: 45-51. A master has appointed a servant as a ruler over his household to give the food in due season. The said servant becomes a faithful servant if he rules his household in a faithful manner. But the same servant becomes an evil servant if he does not rule his household in a faithful manner.
The servant is expected to give the household “meat in due season”. “Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing”. The servant is supposed to give food to the inmates in due season. The Lord has appointed you as a ruler in His body, the Church. You are supposed to give food to the other members of His body. Food means “material help” and “spiritual food”. When the Lord comes again, if He finds you so doing, you will be blessed to have dominion over the world along with Him. He will make you ruler “over all His goods”. After His second coming, the Lord will make that faithful servant to rule over His kingdom.
If that servant thinks that his master is delaying his coming and begins to “smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken”, the lord, when he will come “in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of”, will cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”.
Nobody in the body of Christ is supposed to harass or persecute the other members of His body, and to resort to self-indulgence by way of lavish spending of His money for himself/herself. These days, we find many ministers of God indulge in lavish life-style. If Jesus comes on a day when the evil servant is not looking for Him, and at an hour that he is not aware of, He will not reward that evil servant. He will not be allowed to rule with Him but will be thrown into a place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Through this message, the Holy Spirit wants those who persecute or judge the fellow servants (the other members of His body) and also who commit self-indulgence with His money.
In Matt.25: 14-30, Jesus told a parable about the talents to be used in His vineyard. A man traveling to a far country called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. He gave five talents to one, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability, and immediately he went on a journey.
But he who had received five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. Similarly, he who had received two gained two more also. But he who had received one talent went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money.
After a long time, the lord of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. To those who had gained five more talents and two more talents respectively, he told them, “Well done, 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”.
He who had received the one talent, came and said, “Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine”.
His lord told him, “Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Though oughtest, therefore, to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury”.
This parable teaches us a very important lesson. Talent means an ancient unit of weight and of money. The Lord has delivered His goods to the members of His body. He then gives “talents” to them, according to their own ability, for trading. The Lord has entrusted His goods to the members of His body because He trusts them. All His goods belong to them because He is the Lord of the earth also. Secondly, He gives them, according to their ability, His talents. He does not distribute the talents in an equitable manner amongst His servants. He chooses to give more talents to some people, and to give lesser talents to some other people.
Talent means “material prosperity”. We are all His ministers/servants. The Lord has given us His talents, according to our own ability. He wants all of us to trade with His talents. After accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior, all our material possessions belong to Him only, and we are supposed to use the same for the extension of His Kingdom on earth. Moreover, He has blessed some of us with more wealth or money after accepting Him.
Those ministers to whom He has given five talents are required to use the given material prosperity to bring in equal or more material prosperity for His body, and not lesser than the standard measurement fixed by Him. The talents and the additional talents are for His body only, and for us. If God has materially prospered you, you have to make use of your wealth for His body. In case any of His servants has misappropriated His talents, the Lord will judge them. They have to return the talents along with the equal quantity of additional talents.
Now His sword falls on those who are given “the one talent”. Nobody can have any excuse that he/she does not have any talent at all. There are great multitudes in the body of Christ who fall under this category. “The one talent” means such amount of wealth or money, which, if compared to those with five and two talents, would be lesser in quantity. It cannot be measured by human standards but by divine standards.
The person who has got the lone talent cannot tell God that God has not given him that talent. The person who has received the lone talent cannot take the plea before the Lord that he could not make use of it because he had received lesser than the other two persons.
What is wrong with the person who has received the lone talent? Jesus calls him, “Thou wicked and slothful servant”. He/she is in fact a shirker in the body of Christ. There are many who do not want to labor in the vineyard of God today with the lone talent saying that they have received only one talent. They have dug in the ground and buried the lone talent. They could have given the lone talent for some mission field or Christian organization if they do not want to get themselves involved in evangelical work.
If you use the lone talent for His vineyard, the Lord will definitely get the return in the form of that lone talent. In other words, your money or wealth used for His vineyard will bring about due blessings upon His body. As you minister to the servants of God who are directly involved in various ministries through the one talent, the servants of God concerned will get equipped to labor in His vineyard. The administration of this service, not only supplies the needs of the saints but also is abounding through many thanksgivings to God (2 Cor.9: 12).
The judgment on the person who had received the one talent and who could not deliver the additional one talent is very terrible. The Lord does not expect more talents in return for the lone talent. The Lord will not only take away the lone talent from the unprofitable servant and give the same to another who has ten talents but will also order him to be cast into “the outer darkness” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Many people, on the second advent of Jesus, will lose their reward of ruling with Him but will find themselves in a place called “outer darkness”.
Majority of us must have “the one talent” given by our Lord. We are born-again Christians, filled with His Spirit. What about the one talent given to us by our Lord? Now the Lord Who had gone to a far country is about to come. By not making use of the lone talent, we should not find ourselves in “outer darkness”. This parable is a warning to us!
A message for us from God the Father!
Let us meditate on Mathew 17:1 to 21. Jesus took His beloved disciples who were very close to Him in fellowship to a mountain where He was transfigured before them. His face did shine as the sun and His raiment was white as the light. There appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Jesus. Peter desired to be there and to make three tabernacles, one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elias. Then a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud which said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him". Then the disciples out of fear fell on their face and Jesus comforted them. When they had lifted up their eyes, they say no man, save Jesus only. Jesus asked His disciples not to tell this vision to any man until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.
Then the disciples and Jesus entered into a conversation regarding Elias. Jesus told them that Elias would first come and restore all things.
When they alighted from the mountain and came in contact with the multitude, a certain man, kneeling down to Jesus and told Jesus that His disciples could not heal his lunatic son. Jesus rebuked the devil and the child was cured. Then He rebuked His disciples for their unfaith.
The disciples enjoyed close fellowship with Jesus and desired to be with Him always. They had the wonderful vision of transfiguration of Jesus. They had also the vision of Moses, the receiver of the Law of God and Elias, the great prophet who represented the Old Testament prophets. Peter equated Jesus with Moses and Elias as he wanted to build three tabernacles for all of them including Jesus. The voice of God the Father from the Heaven conveyed a very clear message to the disciples that they should hear Jesus. The voice did not exhort them not to hear Moses and Elias. It said, first, that Jesus was the beloved Son of God and that God the Father was well pleased. The same message holds good for us today. We should not ignore the Law of Moses and the Old Testament prophecies while meditating on the Bible. But, at the same time, we should hear Jesus in the Law and the prophets. While meditating on the Old Testament books, we should discern the voice of the Son of God. When I meditated on the book of Song of Solomon, I discerned the voice of my Beloved and wrote a wonderful book. It took nearly 15 years to write this book. If I read any book of the Old Testament, I can hear the voice of the Son of God.
Today we find many servants of God like Peter who want to build a tabernacle for Christ in the same manner as Moses built an earthly tabernacle in the wilderness and Elijah repaired an earthly altar for the sacrifice for Jehovah. They have built earthly tabernacles and confined Jesus Christ to the boundaries of their church denominations and their evangelical ministries. "Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool, what kind of house will you build for Me? says the Lord.." ( Acts.7:49). Though miracles and healings are being performed by God in the Name of His Son through such churches and ministries, God and His Son cannot be tabernacled by any servant of God. Some servants of God who have all the material resources build towering buildings or acquire costly properties in prime localities of metropolitan cities, and want to confine Christ to such earthly tabernacles. But Christ cannot be tabernacled in such perishable buildings. If they present a tabernacled Jesus Christ, they present another Jesus Christ who is tabernacled in their churches and ministries. However, He is tabernacled in truth amongst His people who abide in Him and who do the perfect will of the Father.
These days, we teach from the Old Testament books. It is good. But do we give the message of Jesus Christ to the lost world? Do we give the message of Jesus Christ to the Body of Christ for edification? We find many false christs in our midst who give their own messages which are contrary to the gospels, epistles and the book of Revelation.
The disciples ultimately saw no man save Jesus Christ. We should see only Jesus Christ in our devotional life. A dear servant of God claimed to have heard the voice of God the Father who asked him to start a television channel. We cannot see or hear God the Father save Christ Jesus. The voice of God from the Heaven had given a clear message to all of us that we should hear Jesus. Jesus Christ is the preeminent Person. He is the Word of God.
Let us not be deceived by hearing any voice from the Heaven. God the Father had spoken once and for all. He had spoken in His Son. We should hear Jesus Christ. How can we hear Jesus Christ who is now seated on the right of the Father in the Heaven? He speaks to us through the Holy Spirit who indwells us. He speaks to us through the written books of the Bible. We can hear Him only if we are sanctified through His Blood daily.
Lastly, the disciples who had seen the wonderful vision of the transfiguration of Jesus on the Mount in the company of Moses and Elias could not cast out the devil when they alighted from the mountain. Today we see wonderful visions of Christ and enjoy His presence during our worship services. We lift up our hands and worship Him. It is good. But we fail to cast out the devil from the persons possessed by him. What is important is not the vision that we see but the output that we produce in His vineyard. We have to bear fruits. Our ministry will be measured or judged not in terms of input but in terms of output. It is not the hours of Bible Study or prayer that we spend but the output that matters here. Do the people around us see Christ in us? Do the people around us get saved through our ministry? Does the Church get edified through our ministry? I was sending email devotionals to about 4000 people through our email ministry in InJesus.com. I thought that I was doing a wonderful ministry. When I asked these 4000 people to give me a feedback, only 150 responded and wanted me to send them daily messages. Only about 200 people were reading our messages daily. Others must have either deleted these messages without opening the same or glanced through the same in a few seconds.
When Jesus was in
Mathew and Mark have reported that Jesus visited the house of Simon, the leper. Jesus chose to take supper in the house of a leper! Can you and I visit the house of a leper just to have fellowship with him? Under the Old Testament, lepers were social outcastes. How are we ministering to those who have been afflicted with this dreaded disease? Are we following the footsteps of our Master?
This Bible passage depicting the anointing of Jesus by a woman before His crucifixion is so significant that Jesus Himself said that wherever this gospel would be preached in the whole world, this incident shall also be told for a memorial of her. I wonder whether our evangelists tell about this woman, while preaching the gospel.
Mathew and Mark have not mentioned the name of this woman whereas John has identified her as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. When Mathew and Mark saw her pour out this ointment on the head of Jesus, John saw her anoint His feet with this ointment and then wipe His feet with her hair. All the three writers of the gospel, though inspired by the same Holy Spirit, have reported the same incident but from different angles. This is how the Holy Spirit functions through the members of the Body of Christ. When one member of the same Body gets revelations from the Word about certain truth, some other member gets revelations from the Word about the same truth from a different angle. When we put together both their revelations, we get at the whole truth. When we put the different accounts given by Mathew, Mark and John together, we come to know that a woman identified as Mary poured out the precious ointment on the Body of Christ, first on His Head and later on His feet, and that she anointed His feet with that ointment and wiped His feet with her hair. We can neither ignore both the two versions nor can we attach importance to one of these two versions.
John says that in
Now the disciples, especially Judas Iscariot, were indignant with Mary. Judas said that this fragrant ointment could have been sold for three hundred denarii’s and this money given to the poor. It was not that he cared for the poor but because he, a thief, used to pilfer the money put into the money box (John 12:5-6). Judas could not have misappropriated the entire money in the moneybox meant for the ministry of Jesus but have definitely misappropriated a part of the money in the box. Many ministers in our midst misappropriate a part of God’s money.
Mary gave the best gift in her possession to the Body of Jesus Christ. This is symbolical of our sacrificial offerings to the Church, the Body of Christ. If we love Jesus today, we have to give the best of our worldly possessions to the Body of Christ. We may not find the resurrected physical Body of Jesus today. However, we can find His Body, the Church today. Christ is the Head of the Church (Gal.5: 23). As we pour out our precious ointment on His Head, it will flow over His Body, and will reach His feet. O dearly beloved in Christ, you have to wipe His feet with your hair. There are precious ministers of God in our midst who work in far-off mission fields in other nations. They preach the gospel to those who have not heard the gospel. These ministers constitute the feet of Christ today. We have to anoint them with our precious gift and to wipe out their tears, fear and anxieties through our words of comfort and through our intercessory prayers. In this regard, I mention below the testimony of the wife of an evangelist in a mission field in
“I SAW DIFFICULTIES IN EVERYTHING BUT GOD!”
I heard about Jesus Christ when I was a child through my believing parents, relatives, church pastors, my Sunday school teachers and many other people. As I grew up, my desire to know Him more grew within me. When I became a college student, I committed myself for God’s ministry. Years later when I got married to a missionary, little did I realize that serving God as a cross-cultural missionary was not as easy as I thought it would be. I enthusiastically went to the mission field along with my husband. However, all my enthusiasm and zeal died out in the very first month of my stay in the village.
Difficulties galore!
I started seeing difficulties in every thing – financial, lack of facilities, difficulty in moving around and even difficulty in getting water. More than anything else, I kept hearing stories of persecution from almost everyone. I wept in my heart, “O Lord how can I survive in this place? How can I do Your ministry here with all these struggles and difficulties of non even being able to meet the basic needs of our lives?”
An unknown fear gripped me and I started thinking negatively about everything. The passion for serving the lord faded away and I became irritable and started complaining about everything. In my heart, I struggled to cope, even though outwardly I seemed all right and adjusting. I found it difficult to take the first step of faith. Eventually I realized that I was a failure. I felt angry with myself.
However, the Lord was patient with me. He gently dealt with me through His Word. I read in Hebrews 12:10-11, “but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it”.
I said, “Lord, I understand that You want me to be disciplined and You want me to produce a harvest of righteousness. Yes, my Lord, help me to accept Your disciplining in my life with joy. I surrender myself to be trained by You so that I may “share in Your holiness”. Slowly, His Word began to work in me. All my negative attitudes vanished. I started loving the people. I accepted our cultural differences and tried to adapt myself to their culture. I started even loving the small hut in which we lived! I found myself enjoying life in spire of poor facilities. I felt the joy of serving my Lord with hardship. Yes, God worked in me patiently. He taught me to serve Him joyfully. He restored my faith and made me strong, firm and steadfast. He removed my fear and negative attitudes and filled me with His love and peace. He continues to work in me and helping me in my ministry.
Certain Greeks who had come to worship at the feast desired to see Jesus. Philip informed Andrew about this and Andrew and Philip then informed Jesus. Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it: and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will my Father honor….” (John 12:21-26)
When the Greeks came to see Jesus, He gave them a message of loss and death, and not a message of joy and prosperity. He told them about the consequences of following Him in unambiguous terms. He did not promise a life of ease and enjoyment. He told them that a corn of wheat had to fall into the ground and die. In this regard, I testify to a dear servant of God who had served one of the toughest mission fields in
The villagers, to their great surprise, saw a man who looked like an angel, sitting by the side of the graves and weeping. That man was restless and was moving in the graveyard here and there. After some days, the Campus Crusade for Christ showed a film on the life of Jesus to the villagers. When the film was being shown, the villagers asked the missionaries to stop the film, and informed them of their intention to become Christians. When the missionaries wanted to know the reason for this sudden change of their mind, they informed that the Man in the film was the same Person Whom they had seen near the graves of the dead missionary and his son. In fact, they had seen a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief in the graveyard (Is.53:3). Many people accepted Christ that day. Then a revival broke out in the mission field. Today there are thousands of people who have become the children of God.
There are many servants of God like Jeyaraj who had fallen into the ground of