How the Little May Be Used to Get the Great

Luke xvi. 10-12

“He that iB faithful In that which is least is faithful also in much, and he that in uuJuHi in the least is unjust also in much. If, therefore, ye have not been faiilif’.ii in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is auotlier man’s, who shall gite yoa that which is your OWQ?” Luke rvi. 10-12,

These are very revolutionary word a in more than one respect. There are two things remarkable about them. One is the contrast which is run in all three verses between what our Lord calls “mammon” (that is, simply outward good) and the inward riches of a heart devoted to, and filled with, God and Christ. The former, the material good, “is that which is least,” “unrighteous,” “another man*s,” or leaving out the word “man’s,” as conveying a false idea — “another’s.” The inward good is “that which is much,” “the true riches,” “your own.” Christ upsets the world’s standard of value as one might do who went among savages whose only medium of cuirency was cowrie-shells, and putting these aside, let them see gold and silver in the stones that were kicked about by their feet. All that is least in their eyes is greatest, all that is greatest in their eyes is trash.

But another striking thing about the words is the broad, bold statement that a man’s use of the lower goods determines, or is at least an element in determining, his possession of the highest. That is a thing that Protestant Christians are shy of saying; they seem to think th?t somehow or other it militates against the plain teaching of Scripture that faith is the condition of salvation. But it is distinctly a part of our Lord’s teaching here, and the sooner we make room for it in our creeds the better for our practice and for ourselvet.

I. — First, then, I desire to consider briefly that strange, new standard of value which is set up here. On the one side is placed the whole glittering heap of all material good that man can touch or handle, all that wealth can buy of this perishable world; and on the other hand there are the modest and unseen riches of pure thoughts and high desii’es, of a noble heart, of a life assimilated to Jesus Christ. The two are compared in three points, as to their intrinsic magnitude, as to their quality, as to our ownership of them.

Of the great glittering heap our Lord says: “It is nothing, at its greatest it is small;” and of the other our Lord says: “At its smallest it is great.” Just a word or two about these antitheses. “Small” and “great” of course are relative terms; they imply a comparison with each other, and imply also a reference of both to a common standard of value. They not only assert that earth’s good is small by the side of, and in comparison with, the other class of good, but they refer both the one and the other class of good to a standard.

And what is the standard? If you have enough of a thing to fill the vessel which is meant to contain it, you will call that quantity great; if not, it will be estimated as little. What are these two classes of good measured by, but their respective power of filling the heart? Outward good at its greatest is amall if

o measured; inward good at its smallest is great. The smallest soul towers above the biggest fortune. Dives’ riches are all too small to satisfy Lazarus. All the wealth of all the Rothschilds is too little to fill the soul of the poorest beggar that stands by their carriage door with hungry eyes. The least degree of truth, of love, of goodness, is bigger in its power to fill the heart than all the externals that human avarice can gather about it.

Now do we believe that? Do we order our lives as if we did believe it? Do we regulate our desires and wishes as if it were an axiom with us that the least of God is more than the most of the world? Can we thus enter into the understanding of Christ’s scale and standard, and think of all the external as “That which is least,” and of all the inward as “that which is much”?

The world looks at worldly wealth through a microscope which magnifies the infinitesmally small, and then it looks at “the land that is very far off” through a telescope turned the wrong way, which diminishes all that is great. But if we can get up by the side of Jesus Christ and see things with His eyes and from His station, it will be as when a man climbs a mountain, and the little black line, as it seemed to him when looked at from the plain, has risen up into a giant cliff; and all the big things down below, as they seemed when he was among them, have dwindled. That white speck is a palace; that bit of a green patch there, over which the skylark flies in a minute. is a great lord’s estate. Oh, dear brethren, we do not need to wait to get to Heaven to learn Heaven’s tables of weights and measures! One grain of true love to God is greater in its power to enrich than a California of gold. Manchester men and women, who are tempted to the opposite hereby I do yon fix it in your mind that all this visible is trivial, and all the unseen ip iie great 1

Take, again, the second antithesis, the “onrighteooA mammon” and “the tme riches.” That word, “nnrighteous” in its application to material good is somewhat difficult. I do not think that it means only a certain class of outward good, namely, that which is unjustly gotten, but that it is the designation of the whole. If we keep strictly to the antithesis, “unrighteous” must be the opposite of “true.” The word would then come to mean very nearly the same as deceitful, that which betrays. One can see that these two ideas are closely related, and that the meaning of “unrighteous” may easily slide in to that of “deceptive “; and probably it is best to take that as the meaning of the word here. If any one were to contend, however, that the expression pointed to the fact that all material wealth has evil so mixed up with it that though not in itself bad, it leads to all sorts of unrighteousness, 80 that it may be called in a somewhat popular way of speaking, “the unrighteous mammon,” I should not dispute it, though preferring the other sense which makes the word the exact contrast of the tnw riches.

And so we have presented to us the old familiar thought that external good of all sorts looks to be a great deal better than it is. It promises a great many things that it never fulfils, tempting us as a fish is tempted to the hook by a bait which hides the hook. It is “a juggling fiend” that “keeps the word of promise to our ear and breaks it to our hope.” No man ever found in any outward good, when he got it, that which he fancied was in it when he was chasing after it. It has always been and ever will be a delusion and a lie to the man that trusts it. But the inward riches of faith, true holiness, lofty aspirations, Christ-directed purposes, all these are true. They promise no more than they perform. They bring more than they said they would. No man ever goes to that well an lets down his bucket and brings it up empty. No man ever leans upon that sta£^ and it breaks beneath his wrlii

No man evr said: — “I have tasted Thy love, and lo I it does not satisfy me! I have realised Thy help, and lo! it has not been enough!” What we have to say is: — “The little I have tasted rebukes me that I have not longed for and possessed more, for it is sweet beyond all other sweetnesses, and strong” beyond all other strengths! “The riches within are” tte riches.” The outward are like the fairy gold in the old legends that is given into a man’s palm, and when the morning comes it is a handful of withered beech leaves. You get it and you are not happier than you were before you got it. That is the experience of every man that makes the world his confidence. On one hand is the “unrighteous mammon “that does not keep its promises, that does not deal fairly with the people who give themselves up to it and trust to it; and on the other hand the true riches.”

And then the last contrast is between “another’s “and” your own.” Another’s? Well, that may moan God’s; and therefore you are stewards, as the whole parable that precedes the text has been teaching. But I am not sure that that is the only, nor indeed the principal reference of the word here. And I think when our Lord speaks of all outward possessions as being, even whilst mine, another’s, He means to point there, not only to the fact of stewardship, but also to the fact of the limitations and defects of all outward possessions of outward good. That is to say, there is no real contact between the outward things that a man has and himself. The only things that you really have, paradox as it sounds, are the things that you are. All the rest you hold by a very slight tie, like the pearls that are sewn upon some half -barbarous Eastern magnate’s jacket, which he shakes off as he walks. So men say, “This is mine I ‘* and it only means “it is not yours.” There is no real possession, even while there ia an apparent one, and just because there is no real contact.

because there is always a gap between the man and his goods, because he has not, as it were, gathered them into himself, therefore the possession is transient as well aa incomplete. It slips away from the hand even whilst you hold it. And just as we may say, “There is no present, but everything is past or future, and what we call the present is only the meeting point of these two times,” so we may say, there is no possession, because everything is either coming into my hands or going out of them, and my apparent ownership is only for a moment. I simply transmit: —

“‘Twas mine, ’tis hia, and has been Blare to thouflandt.”

And BO it passes.

And then consider the common accidents of life which rob men of their goods, and the waste by the very act of use, which gnaws them away as the sea does the cliffs; and, last of all, death’s separation. What can be taken out of a man’s hands by death has no right to be called his. Other men will stand in this pulpit that I call mine, other men will sit in those pews that you call yours. I have got books on my shelves that have dead men’s names in them; what of truth and wisdom they draw from the books is in them to-day wherever they are, and is theirs, but the book that was theirs was never theirs really. It is mine to-day, it will be somebody else’s to-morrow. Each, for the moment, says “Mine I and Christ says No! no I Another’s! “That which is your own is that which you can gather into your heart and keep there, and “Which death cannot take away from you.

So let us learn how to compare the worth of these two kinds of riches, and to make our own that from which “neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any creature shall be able to eepate us.”

II. — Notice for a moment the other broad principle that iB laid down in these three verses, as to the highest use of the lower good.

Our Lord, as I have said in my introductory remarks, distinctly asserts here, as a principle, that our manner of employing the lesser goods of outward possession is an element in determining the amount of our possession of the highest blessing. And as I said, good people are sometimes chary of asserting that with the plain emphasis with which it is here asserted, for fear they should damage the central truth that God’s mercy and the gifts of His grace come to men through faith, not through their conduct. I believe that, of course, as being the fundamental principle on which all other of these statements of Scripture must be explained, with which they must be harmonised; and nothing I have to say, and nothing I am sure that Jesus Christ wished to say, militates in the slightest degree against that truth, that a man receives into his heart “the true riches” simply on condition of his desiring them and of his trusting Jesus Christ to give them.

If 1 had to speak to a man that had no Christian character about him and no Christian faith in him, I should not begin by saying to him — “Use your outward goods faithfully and well, and then you will get the highest good,” if for no other reason, yet for this, that I do not suppose he could use them faithfully and well unless he had the highest good, which comes to him by faith.

But that being understood, to say that a man’s conduct may help or hinder him towards the possession and in the exercise of the faith which is the condition of his possessing the true riches and highest good, is no contradiction to the central truth of the Gospel. And that is what Jesus Christ says here. Whether you are a Christian man or whether you are not, this is true about you, that the way in which you deal with your outward goods, your wealth, your capacity of all sorts, may become a barrier to your possessing the higher, or it may become a mighty help.

There are plenty of people, and some of them listening to me now, who are kept from being Christians because they love the world so much. They have no desires after God or goodness, because their desires are engrossed and absorbed in the earthly and visible. They so handle that “which is least” that it has taken from them all the wish for that which is greatest. They have lived upon sweetmeats until their appetite is so entirely vitiated that they do not want bread. Like some sea-anemone that gathers in its tentacles and shuts itself up over its prey, so that you cannot shove a bristle into the lips, your hearts may close over your earthly good in such a fashion, so tight, and desperate, and obstinate, that God’s grace and His proffered gifts have no chance of finding their way into your hearts at all. There are some of you of whom that is true to-day.

And is it not true about many Christians that their too high estimate of, and too great carefulness about, and too niggardly disposal of, the things that perish, the goods of this lower life, are hindering their Christian career? “Ye did run well, what did hinder you?” I will tell you what is hindering a great many of you — what hindered the runners in that old Grecian legend, when she whom they were pursuing cast down in the path a golden apple, and they turned aside and slackened their pace to catch at that. Old men, who as Christians are almost dead, and who can remember that, as young men, before they had got on in the world, they were full of earnest desires and self-sacrificing love to Jesus Christ — are there any of that sort here this morning? Christian men and women who do not use their wealth for the highest pui’poses and under the highest responsibilities — are there any of that sort here? Have you loaded your souls with thick clay, and held the world po close to your eyes, that though it be “that which is least” it is big enongn to shut out that which is most, and which lies beyond? Oh I my brother 1 It is a very solemn truth, and you had better find room for it in your creed, that a great many Christians are hindered in their possession of the highest good by their unfaithful use of the lowest.

The world thinks that the highest use of the highest things is to gain possession of the lowest thereby, and that truth and genius and poetry are given to select spirits and are wasted unless they make money oui of them. Christ’s notion of the relationship is exactly the opposite, that all the outward is then lifted to its noblest purpose when it is made rigidly subordinate to the highest; and that the best thing that any man can do with his money is so to spend it as to “purchase for himself a good degree,” “laying up for himself in store a good foundation that he may lay hold on eternal life.”

III. — And now let me say one last word as to the faithfulness which thus utilises the lowest as a means of possessing more fully the highest.

We are not at all left in doubt as to what is the manner of thus employing the lowest gifts. Our text is our Lord’s pointing the lesson of the striking parable of the unjust steward. I gather from it, as well as from other general considerations, these three words which I desire to leave with you as being the principles upon which this faithful use of the lowest class of goods is to be carried out.

You will be “faithful” if, through all your administration of your possessions, there runs, first, the principle of stewardship; you will be “faithful” if through all your administration of your earthly possessions there runs, second, the principle of sacrifice; you will be “faithful” if through all your administration of your earthly possessions there runs, third, the principle of brotherhood.

Stewardship. — The consciousness of having nothing that we have not received, of having received nothing for our very own to be used according to our own will, the ever-present sense of obligation to administer our master’s goods as he would, and for his purposes, must be clear and active in us if we are to be “faithful.” “Of Thine own have we given Thee” is to be always our conviction, for all is God’s — His before it was ours, His whilst it seems ours, and His by a new right when we give it back to Him.

One of the plainest duties of stewardship is that we bring conscience and deliberate consideration to bear upon our administration of this world’s goods. We are not faithful stewards if we spend according to our own whim and fancy, and let our “charity” depend, as it so often does, on little better than accident or habit. We are stewards in regard to what we spend on ourselves and our families, as well as in what we spend for purposes beyond ourselves; our personal and domestic expenditure, our savings and our gifts, and the proportion between them should all equally pass under the inspection of deliberate conscience. If that were once thoroughly understood and practised by us, we should be very different people, and there would be very different results from many an appeal thaj; is made to us. Stewardship means deliberation, and intelligent consideration, and conscientious disposal and administration as of a fund that is not mine, but is put into my hand.

Sacrifice. — That is the fundamental law of the Christian life, and it must be applied especially in this region of outward possessions, where the opposite law of selfishness works most strongly. How much owest thou unto thy Lord? All things, and “thine own self besides.” So, touched by the mercies of God, we should bring in glad sun-ender ourselves, and our all as thank-offerings to Him by Whose bitter sacrifice we are reconciled to God, and put in possession of ourselves and of all else. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive riches.”

Brotherhood. — Christianity is not communism, but it will do all that communism tries to do. Property is not theft, but property selfishly administered is theft. We are but distributing agents and we have a right to take a commission and to support ourselves and families, but we have no right to do anything more. What we call our own is in this sense, too, another’s, and belongs to our brethren, because it, and they, and we all belong to God. We get everything in order that we may transmit it to others. We are all bound together by such subtle and close ties that each is laid under obligation to share his portion with his neighbour. Whether it be outward goods or faculties of the mind or heart, wisdom, or sympathy, or the yet higher gifts of the Gospel that redeems, we receive that we may impart —

“The least flower with a brimming cup may stand
And share its dewdrop with another near.”

These three principles of stewardship, sacrifice and brotherhood, honestly applied, will make us “faithful,” and will make us capable of fuller possession of the true riches which God ever gives as largely as we can receive. Here and now we may win a greater possession of the love and likeness of God, and may have our spirits widened to receive more of all that makes us noble and calm, hopeful and strong, by our Christian administration of earthly goods. And on the other hand, we may so misspend, mis-love, and mis-administer them as that they shall be a clog to keep us down and a mist to blind our eyes, that we may not rise to behold the “King in His beauty, and the land that is very far off.”

Nor does the effect end with earth. Faithful stewardship, like all other true conduct based upon the love of

Jesus Christ, will make us more capable of a larger possession of the life and the glory of Grod hereafter. It may have been some earnest Christian worker, who, like one that some of us mourn to-day, with little of this world’s goods to give, has gone into some neglected neighbourhood and there, with sympathy and effort and prayer, has laboured; and has been laid in his grave amidst the weeping of those he had helped and of the drunkards he had reformed. Or, it may have been a prince, who, like one that all England is mourning to-day, did the duties of his high station, as we have reason to hope, from high motive and under the influence of Christian principle.* It may have been a poor workman who spent his fifteen shillings a week for God’s glory, and as a steward’; or it may have been a millionaire who gave largely out of his abundance to God’s cause. But whoever they were, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours and their works do follow them.”

“Their works and alms, and all their good endeavour,
Stayed not behind nor in the grave were trod,
But as Faith pointed with her golden rod,
Followed them up to bliss and joy for ever.”