The Lord, the woman was brought
to him guilty and cast at his feet. And he began to write on
the ground. And it says, beginning at the
eldest to the youngest, they all were convicted. Well, we
should be too, because we're guilty as charged of being unjust
stewards of God's grace. What do we have we have not received?
It's all been given to us. He said this to his disciples,
verse 1. He said unto his disciples, there was a certain rich man
which had a steward, and the same was accused unto him that
he had wasted his master's goods. What did he waste it on? Himself. Right? This was to his disciples,
wasn't it? Ah, boy. I'm his disciple, so I need this.
Very convicting. The story of an unjust steward.
Like the son. He just told about the son who
wasted his section. The father gave the son everything
and he wasted it. Now, here's a steward that the
master gave him everything and he wasted that. That's us. It's both of us. We play the
prodigal and we waste our Lord's goods. Largely on herself. Well, He called the rich man
unto Him, verse 2. And I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad
you're here. Whom the Lord loveth. He chastened
him. If you be without this, you're
not a son. Well, verse 2, He called him
and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? Is
this true what I'm hearing? Give an account of your stewardship.
He may no longer be a steward. I'm going to remove you. Do you
remember the previous chapter, or chapter 14, he talked about
salt? It's not good for anything. People just walk all over it.
They don't even know it's salt. He said to us, you're the salt. Then, you're the light. Another
place he said, light is meant to be seen. Well, we need to
hang our heads on it. Now, we're all stewards of the
grace of God. A steward is one who's given
charge of the stores and the goods of someone else to distribute
them. That's what a steward is. And
the accusation of this man and all of us is you've wasted your
master's goods. You've wasted it. And what is
the greatest gift of God to us? We're stewards of God's grace.
What is the greatest gift? The unspeakable gift is the gospel. And this is what we're primarily
stewards of, isn't it? This is our purpose, like salt. We're going to see in Colossians,
the next chapter of Colossians, he said, let your speech be always
with grace, gracious speech, seasoned with salt always. Let there be something that has
to do with your God, your Lord, your Christ. Always. Especially. Out in the world. The only way
people are using that name is in blasphemy. Oh. So we're stewards of the grace,
the gospel of God's grace. And that's what 1 Corinthians
4, 1 Peter 4, turn to 1 Peter 4. 1 Peter 4. In 1 Corinthians
4, Paul said, let a man account of us as stewards of the mysteries
of God. This gospel is a mystery to everyone
by nature. Why do we know it? God revealed
it to us. He's made known this mystery
unto us. He's hid it from the wise and the prudent. So what
do we do with it? Make it known. Make it known. 1 Peter 4, Peter says this in
verse And all through 1 Peter, he's talking about suffering,
suffering, suffering, and suffering, suffering. For Christ's sake. That's what it's all about. And
in verse 15, let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief,
an evildoer, a busybody, and other men's matter. This is what
we've been looking at in Colossians. Put off that old man. Put on
a newt. But, now verse 16, if any suffer
as a Christian, A follower of Christ, a believer on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Don't be ashamed, glorify God. Verse 17, here it is, the time
has come, judgment begins at the house of God. Judgment begins at the house
of God. Do you remember the letters to the churches in Revelation?
Almost all of them, the Lord said, I have something against
you. Didn't He? Almost all of them. Only two
of them, I think, that the Lord didn't rebuke sharply. It began with
Ephesus. We love Ephesus, don't we? Love
it. Well, that church, and Timothy
was the first pastor there. He said, you've left your first
love. That's you've heard the gospel
so much. You know, every time we hear
the gospel, how can we hear the gospel with a dry eye, if we
really heard it? And then he went on, the last
letter was to Laodicea, and what did he say then? He said, you're
rich in increasingly good. You have it all. You have all
this world has to offer, and you don't know. You have need
of nothing. You know, we're just as poor
and needy as the day we first heard the gospel. He said to
them, you don't know, just forget that you're wretched, miserable,
poor, blind, and naked. They said, repent. Every one
of them, he said, repent. That's us, that's us. We get
caught up in this world and we're still just poor and needy sinners.
This is the one thing needful. But 1 Peter 4, let's see. Yeah, I've just read that to
you. Judgment begins at the house of God. No one is hearing this
right now but you. Us. Me. Right? Perhaps some others
over the air. We need them. If any sufferer
is a Christian, for righteousness' sake, for Christ's sake, for
the truth's sake, for the truth's sake, he says, that's great and
it's wonderful. He rejoiced. If you're persecuted
for my name's sake, Christ, then rejoice. The prophets were... And someone once said this, if
it was a crime to be a Christian, would there be enough evidence
to convict you? Well, go back to our text. I'm guilty. Are you guilty? Well, he said, I can't believe
what I'm hearing. I can't believe it. After all I've done for you. And verse 3, the steward, here's
the steward, now he said, what am I going to do? Now remember,
this is not, this is an unjust steward. The Lord's using an
unjust steward to convict and convince and rebuke his true
men who are just men, but yet he's using an unjust steward.
What he was resolved to do and did with mammon, wiser in mammon,
and then he goes on to say in a minute, maybe you've never
understood what he's saying, but you're going to, that the
people of this world are wiser than God's people when it comes
to some of these things. We need to be wise as serpents.
Harmless as duck. Now, he said, what am I going
to do? The Lord's going to take me away from the stewardship.
He says, I cannot dig. Matthew Henry said, what he meant
was, I won't dig. I'm not going to dig. I'm not
going to beg. Well, buddy, we need to be willing to dig, don't
we? Or beg. Beggars can't be judges. Verse 4, he said, this is what
I'll do. I'm put out of the stewardship.
that they may receive me in their houses. So he called, verse 5
through 7, he called one of his Lord's debtors unto him and said,
how much owest thou unto my Lord? And he said, a hundred measures
of all. He said, he said unto him, take thy bill, sit down,
quickly, quickly, write this, write 50. And he said to another,
how much owest thou? He said, a hundred measures of
wheat. He said unto him, take your bill and write fourscore. All right? Everything is, the
Lord said, he just didn't pull things out of the air. They meant
something. Right? Oil. How much oil have we received? Our cups run over. The oil, the blessed oil that
came down from Christ, the oil of His Spirit, the oil of gladness,
the gospels come down, head to the beard, we're just dripping
with it, aren't we? We've got so much of God's truth
and grace here. People out there don't have any. How much oil has the Lord poured
on our heads? Thousands of messages we've heard. That tape room down there is
literally several thousand messages. Stephen, thank you Stephen, Stephen
is taking those off of cassettes and putting them into computers
and has to do it real time. No fast way to do it. I say has
to. I said I'm sorry you have to
do this. It takes a lot of time. He said,
oh, I'm enjoying it. I'm hearing it. I'm listening to every message. But we're trying to get those
out, and we are. And he's putting them up on thousands
of them. Why are they sitting there? Well,
we'll just waste it away. Let's either burn them or distribute
them. Just the other day, a man came
here on business, and I took my own advice or counsel. Talked to him a little bit, and
I gave him some. He had a four-hour drive back home. I said, do you
have a CD player in your car? He said, yes, sure do. I said,
good. Good captive audience, you know. I gave him some, but we need
to distribute these things. There's a couple in California,
I told you about them, in their 80s. And they just heard the
gospel not too long ago. Listened to my dad, listened
to me. And they're rejoicing. Oh, they're rejoicing. They're
loving the gospel. They can't get enough. We've
been sending them CDs. And it's just difficult. They
don't have a phone. They don't have a computer. They
don't have anything. They're dinosaurs. But they have a CD player. And
we've been sending them CDs. And other places have too. And
I got the idea, I thought, Man, we can do this a little easier.
So we, the church, you pay for it. I sent him a MP3 player,
okay? And you can stick one of these
little flash drives in it, and you can put four zillion messages
on it. And I sent him 150, he asked
for the short messages, the radio messages, 15 minutes. And honestly,
they're the best to give to somebody. They really are the best to give
to somebody. People won't listen very long. 15 minutes is long
enough. So I put 150 messages on this,
one of these, and sent it to him. That was two, three weeks
ago. He just called me yesterday and said, can you send some more? He's been sharing them with a
man up the street from him, a young man who's a physician's assistant,
and he said he's loving what he's hearing. We're stewards of this gospel.
I need to send it out. And we do. You do. I know you
do. But who can say I've done well? Anybody. Not me. My dad used to say this, though.
My job is to feed you and witness. And I have a wonderful opportunity. I can speak over the radio and
so forth. But dad used to say this, he
said, talking about the preacher, he said, my job is to fill the
pulpit, your job is to fill the pew. He said, if all I care about
is filling the pew, I won't fill the pulpit. You know, you stop and think
about that. But it's your job. And these means, what these means
are is not, What we hope and pray is that the Lord will use
these means to bring people to where they'll actually hear the
gospel. These tapes and all that are no substitute for being under
the sound of the gospel with God's people. God uses this to
the salvation of souls. And that's the means, that's
a means, which you maybe spark an interest, or a little bit
of discontent, or just like the blind man who starts seeing men
as trees, but he didn't see clearly, and then finally he came to the Lord where the
Lord was, and now he sees. So we use these means, and we
need to use them. We need to use them. Have we received bread? You know,
the Lord tried the children of Israel on manna. He said, I'm going to prove to
you by this manna. He gave them manna, angels' food, bread from
heaven. What's that? Christ said, I'm
hungry for manna. And they ate it for 40 years.
How long have we been eating this gospel? I don't know. It
was 40 years. Most of them got tired of it. And God was tired of them. Oh,
let us never weary, get tired. Let's be, oh, fear, growing weary
of this sweet bread, the gospel. The article, look at verse 8.
The Lord commended the unjust steward because he'd done wisely.
He commended the unjust. This is an unsafe, unregenerate,
unjust man. Okay? He's not a believer. He
commends him for doing the wise thing. And he said in verse 8,
the children of this world in their generation are wiser than
the children of light. This man realized, he's going
to kick me out and I've done wrong and I've got to do something.
I don't want to be cast out. And I don't want to be ashamed. I'm ashamed now, and I don't
want to be ashamed. I've got to do something. It's
not too late. I'll do something. You know, the children of the
world and the things of the world are often wiser and more industrious
and diligent and fervent and active and zealous for the things
of this world than God's people are the things of God. Right? There's a man who came, well,
you know, people are all taking up political causes. And they
post a man's name everywhere. If only we were that zealous
for the name of God. Now, we wouldn't post it up like
that, but we'd be glorifying his name. And that was a religious
man that put that thing right there. I thought if he feared
God's name and loved his people, he wouldn't have put that there.
That man's name, right, you see it, big old poster. What's his
name? Running for delegate? Poindexter. This place and us, as believers,
we've got one cause. We have one cause. One name we're extolling in honor.
One call. We're not in politics. Margaret
has to, she has to, you know, that's her job. Okay? That's,
excuse me. And, you know, I rarely vote
for Margaret. I'll vote for Margaret and say
aye. But she knows the Lord put her
in there. It's not the man. She knows that. It's just, and
she, she's not, that's not a political office, is it? She said to me
many times, you shouldn't have to vote on that. But our cause
is not, we don't have any political causes. Brothers and sisters,
we don't. Christ said, my kingdom is not
of this world. If it were, my service would
fail. Yes, I'm concerned about our children. Yes. But it's not going to change. It's bad, and it's going to get
worse. The Lord promised that it's going to happen. There's
nothing we can do about it. And that's not fatalism. But
what I'm saying is we're just going to have to trust the Lord,
aren't we? I'm a child of the 60s and 70s,
born in the 50s, grew up in the 60s and 70s. That's when all
hell broke loose. You know it was. You remember,
John, don't you, when it started? Hippies and all that, free love,
and just San Francisco and all that, just woo, everything, anything
goes. Well, my dad wasn't out rallying
for, you know, political causes. We got to do this, got to do
that. No, no, no, he's calling on the
Lord. And though I was caught up in
the middle of that, What's the power of God in salvation? Politics? No, the gospel. It's one thing
to save souls. This is the one thing. This is
what people need to hear. Our kingdom is not of this world,
and we don't fight for this world. We're not polishing the brass
on this sinking ship. We have jumped ship. We're in the ark. Well, Luke 16, look at verse
9. So the Lord said, Make to yourselves
friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when you fail, they may
receive you into everlasting habitation. Maybe you've never
understood what this means. Maybe this will help you. Go
back to chapter 11. The Lord's not saying love the world, the
things of the world, or try to accumulate all the things in
the world that you can so that when you fail, you'll have a
savings account to look back on. He said the opposite. He said, sell what you have. Well, what is He saying? Friends
of the mammon of unrighteousness. He just commended an unjust steward
for being wise in these things. And the people of this world
are very wise to invest, You know, riches are their security. And I saw just the other day,
it says an advertisement for some kind of securities firm,
and the question was, will a million dollars be enough for you to
retire on? A million dollars? Seriously? Boy, if that doesn't
describe the times. If the Depression hits, 10 million
won't be enough. Ask my grandfather. My grandmother
went through the Depression in 1929. They had a house. He had
a job. Gone. No, but we've got, you know,
there's insurance companies. The National Federal Reserve
is going to make sure we, yeah, right. What is our hope? What are we depending on? Riches from above. Unsearchable
riches. Where am I? Oh, chapter 11, Luke
11, verse 41. This is what the Lord said. Give
alms of such things that you have, and behold, all things
are clean unto you. In other words, we have things.
Why do we have things? To give alms of, to use, to distribute. for the cause of crime. Paul,
throughout the epistles, talks about graces and ministries that
God has given people, and some people have given earning power,
good jobs, to earn a lot more money than others. Why? To get
more money. Right? Because all of us, let's
face it, few of us give sacrificially or give to the point where it
hurts us. So he gives some people the ability
to earn more money. Well, they ought to get more.
So give alms and all things are clean. There's nothing evil about
money. What's he say? The love of money. And consider the gravity of what
all is in that statement. The love of money is the root
of all evil. That you can't find one evil
thing on earth that doesn't have the love of money in it. Think
about that. People will sell their souls
for money. Yes, they will. We sing that
song, and I was convicted by it. I love it. Be thou my vision.
Listen to one of the verses. Riches I heed not. Yeah, right. nor man's empty praise. Yeah. It'd be a good prayer, though,
wouldn't it? Lord, let me not heed riches and let me not heed
man's empty praise. It's a good resolve, but only
by the grace of God. These things have such an appeal
and allure, don't they? Yes, they do. And he said, look
at Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12, verse 33. Here's what he said. Here's what
he said. First thing, oh my, verse 32
is very special to me. Fear not, little flock. It is
your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. What did Christ, how did Christ
prove His love for us? He gave Himself. He who was rich did what? for
our sake became poor, that we through His poverty might be
made rich." Sell what you have, verse 33.
Give alms, provide yourself bags which wax not old. This is what
he's saying in Luke 6. Treasure in heaven that faileth
not. You're going to fail, he said.
You're going to fail and everything you have is going to fail. You're
going to lose it. Now this is the treasure. These are the bags. This is the savings account,
if you will, you need to invest in. Things above. Set not your affection
on things below. It's all going to fail. But on
things above. That when this fall fails, you're
going to be received in an everlasting kingdom. You know, the Lord talks
about the gold and silver. It's going to rise up the rust,
the rust, the canker of gold and silver is going to rise up
in the judgment against a lot of people. Years ago, a woman, a widow woman
over in eastern Virginia in the Tidewater area, well, I'll tell
you her name, Vernell Firth was her name. She heard Henry Mahan
preach and the Lord Savior. And she, oh, how she loved the
gospel. And she was very rich. I don't
know, inheritance or business or husband, whatever. But she
was very rich. And she just loved the gospel. And dad would go visit her son.
I think I went there. Yeah, I did. I went there with
him one time. Gracious lady, lovely lady. She just loved the
truth, the gospel. Well, when she died, she left
most, nearly all of her estate to 13th Street Baptist Church
for Henry Mahan to distribute for the sake of the gospel. That's unheard of. Most people,
they get a bunch of stuff and they're saving it for what? For
who? For our children so that they'll, what are they going
to do with it? They're going to blow it. They're going to
blow it. That's what the proverb says.
Wouldn't it be good to at least give half of our goods? Zacchaeus
said that. Half of my goods I'm going to
give. The Lord didn't correct him. Half of my goods I'm going
to give. And you know how many people
benefited from that woman leaving that. Every Grace Church I know
of was a recipient. This church was. This was 25,
30 years ago, whatever, and we were going to remodel this whole
building. We didn't have any money, and I wasn't going to
ask for it. I was about to ask. Well, Dad,
the church sent a $25,000 check. That was 25 or 30 years ago.
That went a long way. But what we're enjoying right
now is partly from Mexico. All those villages in Mexico,
all those people in Mexico bought bicycles. People down there don't
have cars. Around here, my neighbor next
to my mother, they have five cars in their driveway. Across
the street, there are seven. And the brethren down in Mexico,
some of them, most of them walk everywhere they go. Grass huts.
They bought bicycles, mopeds. There were preachers down there
who were going to village to village walking. And they bought
little scooters. Oh, they might as well be in
a Mercedes Benz. What'd they do? Went everywhere
with the gospel. You know what the Lord's done
down there? Cast your bread on the water
and you'll see it after many days. You'll see it. You're going
to see your brethren in glory. Bernal, the Lord could well have
said to her, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Well
done. Look at all this fruit. And if
she had answered, I know what she would have said. She would
have said, I'm still an unprofitable servant. And so he committed this unjust
steward for that, and he tells us, verse 10, look at it. He
that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in
much. He that is faithful in that which
is least is faithful also in much. He that is unjust in the
least is unjust also in much. If therefore you have not been
faithful in an unrighteous manner, who will commit to your trust
the true riches? If you've not been faithful in
that which is another man, who shall give you that which is
your own? Well, so here's the lesson for
all of us. The unjust steward said, quickly,
quick, get the checkbook out. I'm not appealing for money
at all. No, no, no, no, no. I don't need
money. The church really doesn't need money. But this gospel needs
to go out. We're stewards of the gospel
of God's grace, and other people need what we have. He just told of that son who
didn't rejoice over the salvation of his brother. And that's the Pharisees. And
the Pharisees heard this, and they were covetous, and they
said, You know, we tithe of everything we do. Oh, man. You're going to be taken out.
You're going to be removed. You're not supposed to do it. So how
convicted? Well, quickly. It's not too late. Start now. Okay.