The biggest problem people are having, especially when dealing with the parables, is they seem to forget that Christ is speaking to both believers and unbelievers in and of the church. (I’ll get to it.)
Matthew 25 is one of those parables that, unfortunately, too many take literally. Christ was not teaching us how to be bankers, whether He gave five talents, two talents or one talent. That was not the purpose of this parable. Being a parable, it is a bit puzzling, so I can see why people get confused. I know why it is preached the way it is. Let me read something about a parable.
“What is a parable? At its simplest, a parable is a metaphor, or a simile drawn from nature or common life arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” Let’s read the last part again: “and leaving the mind—Christ had a reason for that and I will get to it in a minute—in sufficient doubt about its precise application—what did Christ mean about it in other words—to tease it into active thought”—for the ones that can hear.
“The meaning of most parables is not so obvious or at least it shouldn’t be.”
You can’t use common sense alone to understand the parables without using the verifiable Word of God, which is in a sense almost like its own Bible code. Using different parables to try and figure out Scriptures somewhere else allows us to connect the dots to help us understand what He is actually talking about. Does He do that in Matthew 25? Absolutely, but you don’t even find it in Matthew 25. I know that sounds confusing, but I will get to it.
“If we assume, we know what Jesus is talking about we are probably missing the main point.”
[That comes from not listening with spiritual ears and not reading as a biblical detective. When we connect all the dots, we can figure out what Jesus really meant.]“If we are too familiar with the story, having heard it so often before, we might not think carefully enough about its real meaning.” [It has happened over and over; not just this parable, but just about every parable that has been preached out there.]
“Most parables contain some element that is strange or unusual. [This is one of them.] They should cause you to say, ‘Wait a minute! That is not how farmers do their work. That is not what kings usually do. That is not what normally happens in nature and this strange element should cause you to think. Parables do not define things precisely…” [Let me repeat that. Highlight it in your mind.] “Parables do not define things precisely, but rather use comparisons to describe some aspect of how God acts or interacts with human beings; yet to say ‘A’ is like ‘B’ does not mean that ‘A’ is identical to ‘B’ in all respects, so one should be careful not to misinterpret or misapply the parable. [This is done over and over and over behind pulpits every Sunday.] We might think that Jesus spoke in parables to make it easier for people to understand his message. According to the Gospels however, he surprisingly does not expect everyone to understand them.”
Many preachers use this parable in Matthew 25 to teach that someone who is saved (a believer,) can be lost. Let’s examine it.
Verse 14, “For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.”
I have been to these verses before. Circle the word called. You could go right by this English word and not really understand it, because in the Greek it means something totally different. Called means divine invitation to participate in the blessings of redemption. Not just for themselves, but to participate with others concerning redemption. You could read right through this and have no concept of what Jesus is saying here: He is the man traveling to a far country who is now in heaven officiating as our great high priest at the right hand of the Father. He has called with the divine invitation to participate in the blessings of redemption; his own servants refers to the church, which includes both wheat and tares.
Jesus had twelve disciples and one didn’t turn out very well. Judas was living, breathing, walking, and communing with Jesus Christ himself, so don’t tell me there can’t be both wheat and tares in the church. Too many Christians assume that our Lord is only speaking of believers in these types of parables, and in what He is trying to teach through these parables. Remember that. In the Spiritual Warfare Series, I preached on the wheat and tares and I’ll share some of it now.
“Moving on to verse 26, Christ says, ‘But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.”
Lolium temulentum is a kind of darnel, the commonest of the four species, being the bearded, growing in the grain fields, as tall as the wheat and barley and resembling wheat in appearance. Remember that they are similar in size and looks. [You can hardly tell the difference.] It was credited among the Jews with being degenerate wheat. The rabbis called it [the tares] bastard wheat. The seeds are poisonous to men, producing sleepiness, nausea, convulsions and even death. The plants can be separated out, but the custom as in the parable is to leave the cleaning out until near the time of the harvest. The Lord describes the tares as the sons of the evil one; false teachings are dissociable from their propagandists.
So, tares are a kind of species similar to wheat and barley not only in size, but also in looks. The rabbis called it a bastard species. That is the false preachers and false prophets [or any false individual with the wrong message about redemption] in the church. This bastard species is not under the kingdom of heaven. It is under the kingdom of the wicked one, controlled by him to say what he wants to say and do what he wants to see done…
The bearded darnel, mentioned only in Matthew 13, is a type of species of rye grass, the seeds of which are strong soporific poison. It bears the closet resemblance to wheat until the ear appears and only then the difference is discovered. It grows plentiful in Syria and in Palestine. As Christ said, the wheat comes up with the tares and you cannot distinguish the two. They look the same, they sound the same, but when it is at its most ripened point, the true message is nothing more than an imitation. In this case, the sower sowing the seed produces nothing but bad seed that tries to choke and overcome the wheat. In the church, this is a false prophet or preacher declaring a false doctrine.” [I will go even further, anyone spreading a false message about salvation and redemption. Remember, the seeds are a strong soporific poison, meaning they are a hypnotic and induce or tend to induce sleep or drowsiness.]
What are these tares doing? The enemy is sowing his seed producing tares, the ones proclaiming a false message to hypnotically convince you what they are saying is the truth, when it is anything but the truth. It is definitely not the Gospel. I found that interesting, so I dug a little deeper and found that another way to define a tare is a ‘cheat’. There are many definitions of this word that will be discussed here, however most understand the common definition is to defraud someone. For instance, some may cheat on a test by looking for the answer on another’s paper. That is cheating because you did not know the answer yourself. Most have been guilty of it including myself. However, there is also another definition for cheat. A cheat is also defined as weedy annual grass that often occurs in grain fields (or wheat fields) and other cultivated land; seeds sometimes considered poisonous such as the bearded darnel. [The tares.] The King James translators really got it right and truly explained what Jesus was telling his disciples to expect in the future, and what others who understand this parable should expect in the future as well.
In another dictionary a cheat is a weedy annual native to Europe, but widely distributed as a weed, especially in wheat. From these definitions we know tares are nothing more than cheaters. Using the definition most people associate with cheaters, it would be someone who cheats or ‘deceives by trickery or plunder, to deprive by defrauding to mislead, to fool, escape’. All those definitions sound like false preachers with their false doctrines.
Looking further into another definition of a cheat, it is ‘someone who leads you to believe something that is not true.’ That is what Jesus said. Tares grow the same as the wheat, they look like wheat while they are growing, but it is not until they reach maturity that they are seen as different making you believe something that is not true. They disguise their true identity for what they are, hoping that they will defraud you with their message and that is what Jesus was saying in his Parable of the Wheat and Tares.
Another definition is ‘a person who tries to bluff other people, a person who swindles you by means of deception and fraud’. I will add to that by saying whether they are doing this willingly or unwillingly, they are still a tool of the enemy, sowing the tare seed instead of the good seed that produces wheat. There is plenty of that in religious television today.
Another definition is ‘a beguiler who leads someone into danger.’ And that danger will eventually be the fire described in Matthew 13:40, “As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.” Verse 42 goes on to say, “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Yes, these beguilers will lead you to danger, but as long as I have breath in my lungs and there is life in me, I plan to expose them for what they are, who they are, and who is controlling them.
Other definitions are ‘shifty, deceptive person; a person who says one thing and does another, someone who falsifies’. In other words, a cheat is someone who declares the enemy’s message, the false doctrine or preaching another gospel rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I think you get the point. So why am I bringing that up? Again, the man traveling to a far country is the Lord Jesus Christ; and his own servants refers to the church, which again includes wheat and tares. The problem with so many books on the seven churches in the Book of Revelation is they only want to include the wheat. They don’t include the tares, so they miss half the point immediately. Like I said, many preachers exclude the idea of believers and unbelievers in these types of parables Jesus used to get His point across.
Verse 15, “And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.”
The word talent in the original language could be a talent of silver or a talent of gold, but the question is: was Jesus really speaking solely of money here or using a parable to try to get another point across? Again, a talent could be either gold or silver but the last word in verse 18 (in the Greek) is silver. In the Bible, silver is symbolic of redemption, and we already know the word called in verse l4 means a divine invitation to participate in the blessings of redemption. Silver shekels were always used to redeem, so there is no doubt, symbolically, what Christ meant and what type of talent: not gold, but silver.
The talent Jesus is referring to here is the Word of God. You can find this repeated several different times in the Scriptures. I said you must use the whole Word of God as biblical detectives to make sure you can verify what Scriptures are saying. It is especially important when Jesus is speaking. That is why most parables are not really understood if you try to use common sense, because then you take it at face value, but you must go beyond that. I told you in God’s Word there are so many verifiable ways to really understand what is being said if you do the biblical detective homework. “What do you mean by that?” In Matthew 13:11, Jesus is giving the reason for the parables. The same story is found in Mark and Luke, but let’s read the Matthew version.
Verse 10, “And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you [given to the one asking] to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath [or lay hold of], to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: — you will see something unique here in a few moments—but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.”
Why? Because their hearts are hardened. Talents are just a mere physical example that refer to the spiritual aspect of producing fruit through and by the Word of God; not self-righteous fruit but producing fruit by getting the redemption message out that Jesus saves. It isn’t your works; it is all His. Go to John and many different places and read about this concept Jesus gave here. Most people don’t make the connection.
“For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.”
Remember that. Now back to Matthew 25.
Verse 16, “Then he that had received the five talents went and traded [The word here means to be employed, with the idea of giving whatever that talent was. I’m saying it is the Word of God.] with the same, and made them other five talents. [He doubled it.] And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.”
This is where the word money is found for the first time, but the word for money here is really the Greek word for silver, so what did he do? He hid what was freely given to him in the ground.
“After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
Rewards will be given at the judgment seat of Christ.
Verse 22, “He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
Notice that the first two servants who were called by divine invitation to participate in the blessings of redemption produced fruit. (I said at the very beginning of this ministry, that it is not just all about you. It starts there. It must be nourished. The connection can’t be severed, or you will be in a heap of trouble, but it goes beyond that and this is one of those parables that proves it.)
Again, the first two servants produced fruit and it had nothing to do with their salvation because they were already rejoicing and having joy in the salvation they received—the redemption that they were a part of. They took the commission assignment and said, “You know what! I’m going to take this message—God’s Word, the message of salvation—and do something with it, not so I can keep my salvation, but for others to be able to hear it and also be blessed by it and enter into the salvation of the Lord.” Rewards are given to the saved in accordance with these types of works, not works for salvation. I think I have made that clear. The Word of God and works in this passage is by someone who is saved (a believer) and go hand in hand with each other.
Verse 24, “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 has not strewed:”
He is a liar—how do we know that? The other two were wheat. This servant is a tare. He didn’t know the grace of God, and for some reason he knew Him as a hard man. Obviously, he had no understanding of the free gift of grace. He had no understanding of the one that went to the far country, representing that after He died and rose again it gave him the opportunity of eternal life for trusting in Him only. Nothing else was required, just trusting, and having confidence what He did was sufficient and the completed mission that fulfilled all the requirements of God the Father. This tare was following the righteousness of the law—works. He didn’t have the righteousness of Christ which comes without works. He was walking after the flesh and not by the Spirit. This servant might have thought it was just a tough road to follow and maybe in his mind he only knew its hardness because he had not been captured by the redemption plan that Christ provided. What happened in verse 26?
“His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strewed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.”
Notice here how the Lord condemns this tare/servant because he knew about the sowing. Think about it! He knew about the sowing and strewing or reaping. Where did he get this information? He had access to the Word of God, but what happened? He didn’t place his trust in it. This unsaved servant never produced anything more than what was given to him, so what happened?
Verse 28, “Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.”
Pay close attention to this verse, “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
This is almost a repeat of what I just read in Matthew 13. Connect the dots!
Matthew 13:11, “Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables:”
Connect the dots, folks. This is a repeat and what happens? This tare had access to the Word of God, but he didn’t trust the salvation plan enough (or at all) as the other two did and decided to bury it. I think the reason why money, usury and exchanges are used in these verses is because the Jews had it in the Old Testament. They would bury their money instead of lending it out because they were not allowed to collect any interest from a fellow Israelite/Jew. (They could outside of their nation.) If they couldn’t make any profit from it, they would bury it in the ground. It was their custom. Jesus knew what their customs were like, so this tare/servant who had the invitation to participate in the blessings of redemption decided not to believe how important that talent was, not just for his life but for others. He didn’t place any value in it that could produce something, so he just buried it as they did in the Old Testament. Makes you think that he was just living in the old covenant and he really didn’t want to participate in the new covenant, the Gospel.
Verse 29, “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable [literally the useless good for nothing] servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
This has nothing to do with giving money at all. This is about sharing the Word of God, the redemption plan of salvation. What I want you to gather from this is that parables that address servants, as in this case, are not always unique to believers/saved people only, because wheat and tares are in the same group. Christ says, “Don’t worry about it. At the harvest I will sort them all out.” I guarantee you will see wheat and tares in today’s churches.
For this unprofitable servant, burying his lord’s money was symbolic to his response to the Word of God. Now, the unprofitable servant/tare considered Jesus his Lord, but he didn’t treat Him or consider Him his Savior. This third servant is a tare and it says he was a wicked and lazy servant; slothful in the King James. Remember what I just read about the tares, the poisonous effect produces slothful people, fools, inducing or tending to induce sleep, almost being placed in a hypnotic state? Tares might look like wheat, but they’re not; if you are a wicked tare, you are slothful, you are lazy, and you are hypnotically seduced to believe what Christ did at Calvary has no redeeming value.
This third servant—oh, he was a servant, but he was a servant walking in the flesh not in the spirit. Even a smallest interest payment as referred to here in this parable on the talent could identify this third servant as wheat, but it didn’t. It identifies him as a tare. This is not a parable (as this faithful Hearer of Faith was trying to understand and make the comparison) on what I have been teaching about lately; “I think it is passages such as this and other warnings coming from pulpits that makes it hard for me to make that division between salvation and discipleship.” And the reason why is because “when I read one of his servants was worthless and cast into outer darkness is a quandary.” I understand where your confusion came in because you were somehow relating this as discipleship work, which it is, but it is referring to three types of disciples.
Remember Judas was a disciple, but he was the tare in that group. In this case, two of the three servants (let’s call them disciples) were not the tares, but the wheat producing fruit because they accepted the divine invitation to participate in the blessings of redemption. The whole message says that they didn’t bury it because they took it in, they trusted what they heard and believed it to be true. They acted with all trust and confidence that the one who went to the far country did the completed work that He needed to do here and there. They couldn’t wait to get the message out and they produced double what they were given. The tare didn’t have any trust and confidence in it and all he did was bury it. How many church going professing Christians have made up their own doctrines and believe their own way about certain issues that are unchangeable in God’s Word? What they are is really poison, but they are among the wheat, they look like wheat, the same size, the same look, but at the end Christ will sort them out for what they are.
These verses in this chapter have nothing to do with works for salvation. This has to do with letting other people know what God has done for you in any capacity that He has called you to participate. It has nothing to do with losing your salvation if you don’t participate. The point that Jesus was making in this parable is that this unprofitable servant never believed in the salvation that He provided from the beginning. The tare took the message and he buried it, so he was never saved in the first place. This tare is going to experience outer darkness where the weeping and gnashing of teeth will take place, not because he didn’t produce other fruit. It is because he never believed in the redemption that Jesus Christ provided as our rescue plan at all, period. Don’t confuse the two! I know many have and, again, if you try to read through these parables with common sense you are going to fall short every time. That is why Jesus spoke in parables. It is why verse 29, “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” is almost like Matthew 13.
Jesus is reminding them, “Don’t you remember what I told you about the parables?” Some will get it, and some won’t. The ones that do will have an abundance of understanding and desire to do something with it, which the two servants did, and they went out and doubled what they were given. The one that didn’t, it was going to be taken away because he didn’t believe it in the first place. He didn’t put his trust or confidence in the man traveling to a far country which was Jesus Christ Himself, so he was lost. He was an unbeliever from the beginning and that is why he will suffer a dear penalty for it. Again, not because he didn’t produce fruit, but because he didn’t believe the message in the first place. What message? The message of the Gospel of the Good News of Jesus Christ and what He did for us. That is the difference, the game changer here, and it is unfortunate it is missed so often. Hopefully, I clarified it enough, so you understand what the differences are in this particular chapter from verses 14 and 30 compared to what others are teaching on it. Sorry, this is not a parable about how to be a good banker for Jesus. It has to do with redemption, has to do with once you receive it that you will be overjoyed to participate because you have been divinely invited in the blessings of redemption and to share it with others.
Now let’s go to the Table of the Lord. In the Old Testament, Micah ends his prophesy by noting that his total confidence was in God. Despite Israel’s sins—and they were great—he proclaimed God indeed pardons iniquity and delights in mercy. Not only does God forgive sins, Micah also declares that He casts them far away. He sends them into the depths of the sea. Of course, all this is based on God’s unchanging promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Micah 7:19, “He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities: and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”
In other words, remove them from His sight where they cannot be seen any longer. I have been saying that now week after week. Christ is the one who fulfilled this prophesy. Christ didn’t come to cover. That was an Old Testament practice. He didn’t come to cover our sins; He came to remove our sins and Micah says He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea where they cannot even be seen any more.
“Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.”
Like I said, His unchanging promise from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would go unchanged and He did fulfill that promise. Know this, whatever your sins are, there is nothing you can do to remove them on your own. It is all Christ’s work. He casts them into the depths of the sea. He removes them forever, but also after that He imputes us with His righteousness. That is why self-righteousness is ugly because it is all based on what we do and what we do winds up in sin. Yes, another reason, another Scripture that we can go to and remember what God promised He would do with our sins, cast them into the depths of the sea where they can no longer be remembered.
I don’t care what you have done, put your focus on having trust and confidence in Christ. You are a new creature in Christ, sins removed. Just start trusting and having confidence in Him day by day, faithe in Him, both types of faith, keep hearing to be persuaded what God’s Word has to say about Him which will build you the pisteuo faith where you have trust and confidence. I know one is a noun and one is a verb, but I rather use those definitions because they build upon each other. Rejoice with me and remember what Christ has done for us Keep trusting and having confidence in Christ’s redemptive work, day after day after day until He returns. Put your faith in Christ. Be part of the wheat, not a tare that takes the redemption message and buries it in the ground not to be seen, not to be believed by even the one that had it given to him; in other words, the one that heard but yet refused to believe it to be true. Be wheat and remember daily what Christ has done for us as He has asked us to. Thank Him for removing our sins and iniquities far, far away. Take the elements now in Jesus’ name.
Sermon by Pastor Joseph Cortes