rvant
who had received five, the example of unfaithfulness. It does not mean,
If you have only one talent you will be unfaithful; but it does mean,
Although you have only one talent, you will be condemned for
unfaithfulness if you do not employ it. The lesson is much more
emphatically given than if the servant who received five talents had
proved unfaithful. Much of the master's property was entrusted to him:
if he had permitted it to lie waste, and been punished accordingly, it
might have been supposed that the essence of the guilt lay in the
largeness of the loss. As it is faithfulness, without regard to the
amount of capital at stake, that determines the sentence of approval; so
it is unfaithfulness, without regard to the amount involved, that
determines the sentence of condemnation. He who has least is bound to
serve the Lord with what he has; and if he serve the Lord faithfully
with little, he will be honoured and rewarded, while those who had
greater gifts, but less diligence, will be cast out.

Every one possesses some talents. He who has bestowed them expects that
we shall diligently improve them. He has departed, but he desires that
we should act as in his presence. In this respect he is never
absent--"Lo, I am with you alway." Now is the time for laying out our
gifts in the Lord's service; for it will be too late to begin, in
terror, when he comes to judgment.

"After a long time the Lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with
them" (ver. 19). The time is not long in the account of the Lord
himself: his latest warning to the Church is, "Behold I come quickly;"
and with him a thousand years are as one day. Nor is the time long to
ungodly men; for in such an hour as they think not, the Son of man
cometh. At whatever time he comes, he comes too soon for them who would
give all the world, if it were theirs, that he should not come at all.
But to the true disciples of Christ, especially in times of persecution,
the period of his absence has often appeared long: they have often
borrowed the unbeliever's cry, "Where is the promise of his coming?" and
used it with a new significance. But to saints and sinners, whether they
long for his presence or loathe it, he certainly will come at length.

The two who had received from their Lord unequal gifts, and had laid
them out with equal faithfulness, give in their account with joy. They
are equally approved; and either is rewarded with the fruit of his own
diligence.