Matthew 25:24-25

THE DISUSED TALENT

‘Then he which 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.’

Matthew 25:24

I. The talent put away.—Why did the man put away his ‘talent’?

(a) The man took hard views of God. There is hardly an error in doctrine, or a wrongness in practice, which does not begin first where Adam and Eve began, in a false view of the character of God, and almost always, directly or indirectly, ending in a denial or low estimate of His love.

(b) The man received suspiciously; he viewed life darkly. ‘I was afraid’—simply and only afraid of God—‘I was afraid.’ Then fear did its own necessary work. It killed energy. But here comes out the fact that God will not take His own back again the same as He put it in your hands.

II. The talent improved.—Now gather from the picture of this man’s trangressions the converse of your duty—how you are to improve your ‘talent.’

(a) Take loving views of God. Feel Him to be your Father; accept and rest in your forgiveness. This is the spring which sets the whole machine in motion.

(b) Then be in earnest. The hiding of ‘the talent’ in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is supineness, sheer idleness, want of effort.

(c) Above all be definite. Gather up a definite power to a definite point, and the point high enough—the centre of all things—the aim of angels, the desire of saints, the glory of God.

The Rev. James Vaughan.