The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 506

his duty. It we.e duty he could do; duty he ought to do. But when the day of reckoning came, he tried to bide hie shame by complaining of his master, and calling him hard names. How that excused him nobody can see. l. lN MAN 18 AN INVETERATE DIBPOBITION TO RESIST TllE OONVICTION OF BIN. It is the hardest thing we ever try to do, to say, "I am wrong." It is the hardest thing we ever undertake, to persuade another to say be was wrong. A man will set himself upon all sorts of guileful schemes, and readily yielil to all kinds of self-delusions, rather than admit himself to be in the wrong. The man who has the quickest and keenest sense of sin in others is often utterly dull to any sense of his own sin. 1. H is this which partly explains the general conception of the devil. He is a convenient IC other one" outside ourselves, on whom we can shift all responsibility for the sins which we ourselves plan and commit. 2. It is this that accounts for the gracious promise of the Holy Ghost as the "Convincer of sin, of righteousness, and of judg- ment." 3. This disposition is strengthened by every successful act of stifling con- viction. 4. The disposition is even to be found in Christian people, and may be illustrated in relation to specific Ohristian sins. The one-talent man represents a disciple. II. TBE COMMONEST SlGN OF RESISTANCE IS COM.PLAINING OJ!' OTHERS, 1. This tnme our thoughts away from ourselves. It is not safe for a wilful man to have his eye turned inward. He shrinks from reading over his own story. He likes to hear about other people's faults; and will dwell with much satisfaction upon his disabilities and lack of opportunities. Men are so hard, and men deal so hardly by him. If a man speaks harshly of others, it is well to suspect him of being guilty of the fault he condemns. 2, This turns other people's thoughts away from us. See in the parable. The master is searching out the wilfulness of the one-talent man. But he seems to say, IC Think about yourself, and then you will leave me alone."-R. T. Ver. 29.-The law of rewards. Trust comes to the trustworthy. Opportunities are taken away from those who fail to use them. "Men, here on earth, give to him that hath, and faithful wurk is rewarded by openings of a higher kind." "Non-user tends to invalidate legal right. A muscle that is not exercised tends to degenerate and lose its power." Dods calls this verse, "the law of spiritual capital." "However little grace we seem to have to begin with, it is this we must invest, and so nurse it into size and strength. Each time we use the grace we have, by responding to the demands made upon it, it returns to us increased. Our capital grows by an inevitable law." "The unused talent passes from the servant who would not use it to the man who will. A landlord has two farms lying together: the one is admirably managed, the other is left almost to itself, with the least possible management, and becomes the talk of the whole country for poor crops and untidiness. No one asks what the land- lord will do when the leases are out. It is a matter of course that he dismisses the careless tenant, and puts his farm into the hands of the skilful and diligent farmer." "Give it unto him that bath ten talents." J. THE BEWARD OF FAITBFULNERS 1B INCREASED TRUST. We need to correct our common idea that reward is something to possess; the truest and best reward is some- thing to use. He who is faithful in least things does not want a present; his reward is the trust of higher things. Life is full of this idea. The faithful are always in selection for the higher service, and are finding in that higher service their satisfying reward. But there is something deeper than that. He who is faithful gets his real reward in that development of power which fits him for higher trusts. A man's reward is what he becomes, not merely what he gets. What, then, is our final reward in heaven? Not possessions, but. higher service. Think deeper, and we see that it is not even higher service, it is the cultured condition which fits us for undertaking the higher service. Heaven is our ennobled selves, and the work God finds for the ennobled to do. II. TBE REWABD OF FAITHLESSNESS IS REMOVED TRUST. And that this is distinctly Divine judgment will be felt by all who estimnte the honour of being trusted and used. God's severest judgment on the unfaithful is his taking their trusts away. He will not honour them by permitting them to bear responsibilities. There can be no heaven for such as fail to put their earth-pounds to noble uses. For God to say to a man, ~12 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. [ea. xxv. 1-46.