Osborne, Bernard: Month Of Meetings-1996-07 ~ -The Olivet Discourse

Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap what I sold not, and gather what I've not strawed. Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchanges, and then at my coming I should have had received mine own with interest. Take therefore the talent from him. Give it unto him which hath ten talents, 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. After the unprofitable servant into outer darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, I want to read another passage outside the, um, the Olivet Discourse, and it's a comparable parable, though there are differences, and it is to point out the differences I particularly want to read it, um, and it's found in Luke's Gospel, chapter nineteen. Luke's Gospel, chapter nineteen. Luke chapter nineteen and we read at verse twelve. Luke nineteen verse twelve. He said, therefore, a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. He called his ten servants and delivered them ten pounds and said unto them, Occupy until I come. But his citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. It came to pass that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded those servants to be called unto him to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first saying, Lord, thy pound has gained ten pounds. He said to him, Well, thou good servant, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. The second came saying, Lord, thy pound has gained five pounds. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over uh five cities. You notice there's an omission here. To this man, he did not say, well, he just simply said, thou shalt have command over five cities. And verse twenty, and another came saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a sweat rack. For I fear thee because thou art an austere man. Thou takest up that thou layest not down, reapest that thou didst not sow. He saith unto him, out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that which I laid not down, and reaping I did not sow. Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with interest? Said unto him then that stood by, take from him the pound and give it to him that hath ten pounds. He said to him, Lord, he has ten pounds. For I say unto you that unto every one which hath shall be given, and from him which hath not even that which he hath shall be taken away from him. Those mine enemies which would not that I should bring over them, bring hither and slay them before me. In the parable of the talents, the one which is found in the Olivet Discourse, we are told that the master was away for a long time. But of course, that is understandable in the parable, and that was required by the story, for otherwise there would not have been sufficient time for the servants to trade with the, what had been entrusted to them. And, uh, the excuse of the one who had hidden his talent could well have been that he didn't have time enough to trade with it. And so we're told in this particular parable that the master was away for a long time. I want to say to you tonight that God's servants, you and I, will never be able to plead this as an excuse. The trading which we have to do for the master will be judged according to the opportunities given to us, and will begin from the moment that we trusted Jesus Christ as Savior till the time that we are taken home or the Lord comes. There will be no ground for the excuse of time. Now, on the other hand, we have the power of the pan, and that's in Luke's gospel, and that explains the reason for his absence. He went away, it says, to receive a kingdom. At the same time, it gives the assurance of his return. He came back to receive from his servants the results of their trading. So in these two parables, then, we have someone, a master, a nobleman in one, who's gone, who goes away, and whilst he's away, he gives his goods, talents in one case and pounds in the other, to his servants to trade with. And whilst he's absent, he ex- expects them to trade. Now, what happens during his absence before he comes back and holds investigation into how they traded is told us in other parables. In other words, in the New Testament, we find in the parables that there is a tremendous amount told us of what the Lord expects us to do during his absence. And the parables tell us that. Let me now briefly refer to some of the parables which tell us that. You see, there is a parable in Matthew chapter thirteen of a man who is sowing seed, and he goes out and he sows seed, and he waits for the harvest, and the seed is cast into the ground, and he is absent till harvest time. And what's the parable telling us? It's telling us simply this, in his absence till the harvest, what you and I are to do is to sow the seed and bear fruit. Or there's another one, there's the story of the wedding feast in Matthew's gospel, in Luke's gospel, it's comparable, a comparable one, which is the parable of the great supper. And in the, in these cases, i- i- the, the king, the prince is not present until all the guests are assembled. And when are they assembled? During his absence, what has happened is this, that his servants have gone out, and they've gone into the highways and the byways, and they've compelled them to come into his feast. So in the absence of the king's son, what was done was that his servants went out and invited others to come. And then there's a part of the good Samaritan. Do you remember that? The good Samaritan said, when I come back, when I return, he's going to return, you see. And what was to happen during his absence? Well, during his absence, what was to happen was this, uh, that there was to be care to be given to the wounded, which was brought into the care of the person who in charge of the end. And then again, there was another, eh, eh, which we read the other night. The household, remember it? It was in Matthew twenty four. And what was to happen there that the Lord was absent? And what was to happen whilst he was away? The servant who was faithful and wise was to care for the, his fellow servants and to minister food to them. And then, of course, you have the parable that we looked at this morning, that the wise and foolish young, young women, and the bridegroom was on his way, but he hadn't arrived yet. And what were they to do during his absence? They were to have their lamps trimmed, and they kept them, and he used to be burning bright. And here we have talents and pounds, and the master's absent, but he's coming back. And what were they to do whilst he was away? They were to trade with those things which he'd given them to trade with. So when you put together those parables, you get what the Lord Jesus is saying. In those parables to us, of what he expects his servants to do whilst he's away. What's he expect us to do then? He expects us to sow the seed. So you got the parable of the sower. He expects us to go out into the highways and byways and compel them to come in. He expects us to care for those who are given into our care, the sick and the wounded of this world, spiritually sick, spiritually wounded. He expects us to minister and care for our fellow servants. He expects us to have our lamps trimmed and burning bright and be a testimony in the scene, and he expects us to trade with those things which he's given to us. Those are things which the master is expecting during his absence. Now, let me very briefly look at the parable of the pound, and then I want to go on in more detail to look at the parable of the, of the pound. I only want to look at one or two features of the parable of the pound. What we have here again, of course, is service, and what the Lord Jesus says in the parable of pounds is this, occupy till I come. Now, the word occupy means to trade, to do business till I come. And the best preparation, as I said the other night, for the master's coming again is the faithful, patient performance of a task which is left behind. Those tasks I've looked at already with you. Now, in his service, we need to notice, first of all, that he provides the capital. We don't, he does. Because he comes in the parable of pounds, and to each one he gives a pound. So it's he who provides the capital. Each, uh, of these servants must have had some own private concerns. They had family to care for. They had friends to visit and look after. They may have had businesses to a- to attend to. And of course, through all these affairs, the master and the parable would have expected them to discharge their responsibilities worthily. Yet those affairs, family, friends, business, or whatever you care to say, those affairs, affairs are not mentioned in the parable. All is concentrated on the business and the duty of representing the absent master, the one who is away, the one who says, occupy until I come. On the duty of safeguarding his life, on the duty of increasing his revenue. Now, the lesson for us as his disciples is obvious and searching. Each one of us has personal affairs. We have our family. We have our daily occupations, whatever that might be. We have our responsibility to our friends, and so on. And these may be God appointed, which we are to discharge worthily as servants of God. But at the same time, what the Lord is indicating in the parable is this, that though we are to discharge these particular responsibilities responsibly, our supreme duty and our highest responsibility is that we are sent into the world to glorify Christ and to represent him. And our first responsibility is towards our Lord and Master. Here too is a contrast when you look at the power of the talents and the parable of the pounds. Because when you look at the parable of the talents, what is underlined is the sovereignty of God. Because he looks at his servant and he says, well, to that servant I'm going to give five talents. And he looks at his other servant and he says, now that servant, well, he can handle two, I'll give him two tons. And he looks at another, he says, well, that man's, I'll give him one ton. And so it's not a question of the men themselves, this is a question of the sovereignty of God, and he gives as he will. And you'll remember that in the New Testament, in the question of spiritual gifts that are given to Trageri, it says in the Epistles of the Corinthians that the Spirit gives sovereignly as he will. So it's the matter of the sovereignty of God, which you see here, first of all, in the parable of talent. But then, of course, when you come to the parable of pound, it's different because to each there is given one pound, no difference. And here, what he is underlining is not divine sovereignty, but human. And he is saying each one of us is responsible to handle which that which God has given us, and God will hold us responsible for it. And so each of them is given the same. Now, when the nobleman returns in the parable of the pounds, the time of reckoning comes, just in the case of the talents. And what he says in the parable of pounds is this: how much again? How much? You know, sometimes the scripture says what quality, what sort. But to get the whole picture, you need to look at all the scriptures. Now, in one Corinthians three, when it's talking about the service in Corinth, in the local church at Corinth, service in an assembly in a local church, it tells us that they will come when the Lord Jesus will judge what is done, and he will judge it of what sort it is. And there underlined is the quality, whether it's hay, straw, stubble, or gold and silver and precious stones. And the lesson underlined is, what quality is this? And the power of the pounds, he comes and he says, how much? How much? You've got the other side of it. It's not quality he's talking here. That's in Corinthians. Here he's saying, what's the quantities you've done? How many pounds have you got for me? What revenue have you got in return? And so he comes and asks the question. Now, his servants come to him, and they come with deep humility, a- and they acknowledge that these gifts they have are not theirs, but his. And they say to him, not our pound has gained, but they say, thy pound has gained, because it's his. I want to tell you today that whatever gift the person is given by God, it's his gift, not yours. It's his. And the Apostle Paul would underline that when in the epistles again to the Corinthians, he asked this question, what have you that you've not received? It's the gift which is given by God sovereignly, but it's his, not yours or mine. And so they come and they say thy pound, and there's no question of merit in this. They gave the Lord all the glory, and they say, you delivered unto me. The man in the talent say, you delivered to me. It's you gave it. It's yours, not mine. When they speak of their gain, they take care to tell when it came from, because there could be no gain without the deposit. There could be no interest without the capital being given. And what they say to him in the talents that there's sickly is, I have gained beside them. That is, with the help of what you've given me, with the help of the capital, I have gained. They feel they've done no more than their duty. So what has happened in both talents, pounds and talents is that the master has advanced the capital. And if they've traded in success- it successfully, then they will give him all the glory of the return from it. And notice what he says to them, eh, particularly the power of the pounds. He says this, you have been faithful. Now I like this. Notice what they say, your pound, so it's all of him. And then he comes to them and he rewards them as if the merit was all theirs, and he says, you have been faithful. So though they acknowledge that the gift is from him, yet he in his graciousness recognizes that the merit was theirs too. Now, I want you to notice the point I made in the power of the path. To the first servant he said, well, thou faithful servant, have thou charge over ten cities? And along comes the second sir. And he had a pound, just like the other man, so he had the same opportunity, but he only had five pounds in return in his trading. And the master says to him, how does charge over fighter!" cities? But he did not say, well done. Why is that? Because he started off the same as the other man, and if he had put the same enthusiasm and zeal into it, he could have got ten pounds like the first man, but he hadn't. And so the Lord recognizes that. He doesn't say well, but he recognizes what he's done, so he says, I'll command all of five cities. I want to tell you tonight that the Lord Jesus will never, never say well done to any one of us, unless it's been done well. And in the first case it was, it was done to the best of that man's ability, and the Lord says, well done. But then, of course, when we come to the talents, well, there's a different spread, because here you've got different, uh, capital given. A- a- and when you come to the talents, it's a bit different because here's a man and he- he'd come with five. The Lord gave him five and he says, you have five and gained five. and the master says to him, well done, good and faithful servant. And here's the other guy, and he comes along and he says, Lord, you gave me two talents and they gained two. and the Lord says to him, well done, good and faithful servant. And you say, hold on. This man's got five and this fellow's got two. Why does the Lord say well done to him? Because he hasn't gained so many as the other man. Oh yeah, but he didn't start off the same, did he? He started off with five. How many did he gain? Five. What's that? 100%. Huh? Other fellow started with two. What did he gain? Two. What's that? hundred percent? And because they had put everything into it with what ability they had, with what capacity they had, with what gift God had given them. Because they put everything into that, the Lord recognized it. They were hundred percenters, and to both he said, well done, good and faithful servant. Now, in the parable of pounds, the third servant laid up his pound in a sweat rack. I altered the reading because that is what it says. I mean, napkin seems a little bit too dainty for what it was. It was a sweat rag. By a sweat rag, what was meant, of course, was the rag which went around a person's neck when the sweat poured down and a- a- and it soaked up the sweat which poured off them. And you know, it's it's... what the Lord is saying is this, that this man put his sweat rag to the wrong use, because he used it to wrap his pound up in, and he put his pound to the wrong use. Instead of trading with it, he put it away. And what the Lord is saying is simply this, that here was a man in his service for Christ who was not going to sweat, and he wasn't going to trade. He had no use for sweat, right? There'll be no toil in his service. You know, it's interesting to observe that time and time again in the New Testament, you get this word toil, toil. I know thy toil, says the Lord Jesus, the church at Ephesus. And this word toil comes up, and the word toil, the Greek word toil means labor to the, to the point of exhaustion and sweat. There's gonna be none of that in this man's service. What do we know of that? Why didn't he labor then? Why didn't he pray? I fear, he said. That's a certain sign that he didn't love his master. Because perfect love casts out fear. It is when a person loves Christ, that's the true motivating basis of all service to him. Peter, do you love me? If you love me, feed my sheep. The church at Ephesus, he looks at them and he says, you know, my, they come to the meetings and they, they labor to the point of sweat. In fact, these, this church is active. A- a- and it has not no track to do with w- w- with that which is false. It casts out the Nicolite things and into their doctrine. And yet he says there's one thing which is missing from it. And he says you've left your first love. And service which is not motivated by deep, deep love for Christ is of no value to him. Then let's look a bit more fully, shall we? Oh, incidentally, I want to just stop for a moment and just put, say something, a little note onto that. I laid it up in a sweat rack. Comes back to my mind. I laid it up in a sweat rack, said the man. And that was it. It was taken from him, the pound, and there was no reward for him. At the end of his life, the Apostle Paul looks forward to the time when he's going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and he's going to be rewarded. And he says, you know, the Lord has, in that day, because I love his appearing, he has laid up for me a crown of glory. He uses the same word as the man here. But you see, this man had laid it up, and there was no reward for him. He'd wasted time and, and money, uh, the talent, the pound which the master had given him, and then in the opposite of that, he was a man who expended his life for Christ, and for him laid up there was a crown of righteousness. Now let's look, shall we, at the parable of the talents, which I really wanted to get on to. Now, again, this, this parable is a voice for the Lord's people during his absence. Of course, he's not absent in the sense of spiritual power, because the Lord is present in that respect. Now, in the parable of the talents, he's represented as a man, and he has servants. And, uh, when he talks of servants, of course, he's not talking of just simple house servants or, or, or, or, or whatever. He's talking of bond slaves, and the word is for bond slaves. He's talking of those who are his slaves. You remember the Apostle Paul called himself the bond slave of Jesus Christ. That's what he's talking about here. A- and to these slaves, ultimately, when he comes to reward, he is going to commit administrative duties in the kingdom. He is going to give them charge over this and the other. He's going to elevate those who were slaves to rulership. And so that's the picture which you end with in this particular parable, rewarded because of their faithfulness. But they were his own servants. They were his absolute property. They were the absolute property of the master. And I want to tell you tonight that there's only one concerning who, whom it is, can be said that I'm his absolute property, belonging to him, at his disposal. And that's the man who died to me at Calvary's cross. So there it is. That's what he's talking about here. And he's got goods too, not just servants, he's got goods. The goods of the gospel in all its vital powers, the wealth of the Lord Jesus for purchase at infinite cost, the unsearchable riches of Christ, they are his goods. The goods were given for the glory and the enrichment of the absent Lord, not for their benefit, for his. You know, it's a remarkable thing, isn't it, that Christ has entrusted his interests, his affairs in this world to those who are his bondslaves. He's done just that. And if the gospel is to get to men, we've got to proclaim it. And if the work of the church is to be done, we've got to do it. And if the suffering is to receive comfort, we've got to give it. The only hands that Christ has to work in this world today are our hands. We need to redeem the time, and we need to buy up the opportunities. And so he gives to his servants talents. Now, a talent wasn't a pa- wasn't a coin. A talent was a weight, and a talent was a very large sum of money. Now, you know, you must not make the mistake here, because we speak of talented people. We say that people are talented musically, and what we mean by that is that they have a natural talent. He's not talking of natural talents here. Natural talents are possessed by the unregenerate as well as by the regenerate. He is not talking of natural talents. He is saying that they were the Lord's talents. They didn't belong to the servants at all. They were his, and the talents are the spiritual gifts which he dispenses to his church, and are properly the gifts of the ascended Lord to his church. And whatever gift is given, whatever it may be, and there are a whole host of gifts, they are given for trading with. They are given to be used. They are given to gain more revenue for the master. Now, the master looks at each one of them, of these servants of his, and he gives talents which will vary according to his knowledge of the individual's capacity and ability to manage them, because he knows us, and so he gives accordingly. And it says he gave according to their several ability. And so the Lord knows what use to make of a person. He knows the character of the gift. He purposes deposit in the vessel, in the person itself, and he shapes and molds the vessel and shapes the person accordingly. He knows everyone's individual capacity, and he gives gifts accordingly. But I want to say this, that the more gifts he gives, the more responsibility that person has to discharge them. And so, to much, whom much is given, says the Lord, of him the more will be required. Now, each person then is given in the parable what he's able to care for. And that's exactly so what happens in the spiritual life. And nothing is impossible, and nothing impossible is asked of any one of his servants. It's not demanded of anyone that he should do something which he cannot do, because he will have gifted that person according to his capacity. So he's not going to ask him to do something which he cannot do. We need never say, of course, that, uh, we can't do the things he requires of us. We can do what he asks us to do because he's made the choice for us, and he's given the wherewithal to do it. There's one thing which we are certain of, and it's this, that when he chooses a man or woman to do something and gifts that person, then that gift is aptly, apt- aptly suited to the task he gives them. Because sometimes we make the mistake of thinking a person can do a particular thing when that person has not been gifted by the Lord to do it. Therefore, there is the burden of a recognition of gift. And we would be wrong to think that everyone, every Christian is an evangelist. Oh, in one sense, everyone is required to tell the word of God and to confess Christ and to seek to win others and to testify concerning him. But that special gift, an evangelist, which reaches out on the day of Pentecost, and men listen, and three thousand are saved. That special gift of evangelists in which people preach, and men are saved time and again. That's the sovereign gift of God, and he gives it to some, not to others. And so it is. But as I said the other night, whatever gift is given, every gift is necessary to the benefit and well-being of a local church, and none must be despised, so that the head cannot say to the foot, I got no need of thee. Each one is necessary in the well-being of a local church. But every servant of Christ, every Christian is endowed with the means to achieve his particular part in the work to which God has called us. If you say to me tonight, well, I've got no gift, then my brother, my sister, respectfully, I must say that you're not quarrelling with me, but you're quarrelling with the word of God. Because it says in the word of God, to each one he sovereignly gave a gift, dispensed sovereignly to everyone, and each one of us has some ability, some capacity given to us by God, in which we can trade for his benefit and for his glory. Of course, the gifts vary, and in this particular parable it was so, but every one of us has some capacity, some gift to forward the claims of the absent master, and there is some work which you and I can do for him. At home we sing, I don't know whether you sing it here, at home we sing something like this: There's a work for Jesus ready at your hand, there's a work the master just for you has planned, pays to do his bidding, yield him service true, that the works of Jesus none but you can do. Now, when the master gave the gifts, the talents to these servants, the first thing which happened with the five-talented man and the two-talented man was this, that immediately, it says, they went out and they began to trade. There was no hesitation, they straight away went. There was, uh, it wasn't a temporary burst of enthusiasm. Sadly, too often you see people who become saved and, and for a brief while there's, there's a burst of enthusiasm, and then some or other they tail, tail off. Other things press in, cares of life and so on. But not with this case. Because in this case, he went, these two went straight away to work, and it was after a long time that the master returned, and the implication is they worked all the way up to then. You see, having spent most of my life seeking to serve the Lord, failing me, I know that it's the long, hard pull of prolonged service which sometimes damps enthusiasm. I know that. And we are liable to get weary in, in well-doing. But these servants didn't. They didn't delay. They went and traded, and they traded right up to the time that the master came. And then the day of accounting came, and you and I know full well, of course, the day of accounting is going to come. And you and I are going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Well, of course, thank God our sins will not be called into question then, because the Lord Jesus paid the price for our sins at Calvary's cross, and that judgment is over. But our service will be accounted for, and, uh, we need to remember, of course, the parable we looked at the other night. Remember the parable of the, of the servant in the household? Uh, and he was appointed over his master's house to feed the, his fellow servants and to care for them. How was he to serve? In the light of his master's return. A- and because he believed his master was going to return, he served faithfully. But the foolish servant, how did he fail? Because he lost sight of his master's return. My Lord delays his coming, he says. So here, after a long time, the master returns and he reckons with his servants. We need to keep in mind that there is a reckoning time coming. I want to say to you tonight that when you and I stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and each one of us will, there's a review given of all our work. There may be no remorse there. That is probably reserved for the lost, remorse. But though the state will be perfect, I'm fairly sure that there could well be regret. Regret that we've had to stand before him and had to blushingly admit our failures. Regret that rewards which we could have had have been lost, because in the judgment seat of Christ, not only is the opportunity for rewards to be given, but there is also the sad fact that there can be loss. The loss of crowns, the loss of well done, the loss of his approval. When he spoke to these two servants, his commendation, as I pointed out, was the same. They made the maximum use of what he entrusted to them. And then there came the one with the one talent. Well, now if you had one talent, of course, I suppose really that you should really especially be on the watch. But, you know, the problem is that very often a person feels that they can do very little. I can't do much. That they are tempted to do nothing at all. When you listen to the first two men, then what they say occupies sixteen words only. Five talents, two talents. And when they tell him of their service, it occupies sixteen words, and they're through. And along comes the guy who has one talent. And when he starts telling the master why his one talent has not got anything, and you number the words which he uses, the excuses for the failure of the third take forty three words to say, three times as much as the first guy, as the first two. You know, it's interesting that it's so true to human life, you see. Because the sad point of it is this, that so many of us as Christians grow eloquent and verbose and wordy in explaining why things can't be done. That's what this man did. Well, the other two had got on with the job, and they had worked and got revenue for the master. Now, the Lord condemns outrightly the man who wouldn't, uh, trade, he wouldn't try. Of course, it would have been far better to have tried and failed, but this man didn't even make any effort. Maybe he felt it not worthwhile trade trying. He only had one talent anyway, and perhaps it didn't seem worthwhile to use it. And he turns to the master and he says, you know, you're a hard and exacting man, so the reason he didn't use it was not because he had one talent, but far more fundamental. He had a wrong view of his master. Gathering into the garden from another threshing floor when you had not winnowed, he said, that is exacting interest when you hadn't invested any money. You know, all wrongness of... of action, failure to work for God, basically at bottom is because you've got a wrong idea of God. If we think of the Lord as this man did, well, we shall have no heart to labor for him. But you know, it's a testament that his master was wrong, wasn't it? If your master was hard and austere and harsh, I tell you what, logically, it should have been the reason for you to do the best you could, because otherwise he might exact off you with a hardness to your master. Perhaps you ought to logically do the best you could. But of course, in the spiritual realm, it doesn't work like that. I- it's not fear which inspires service in the spiritual realm. It's love which inspires service in the spiritual realm, and we serve Christ because we love him. It's not the expectation of punishment, but it's the anticipation of a happy reward which causes us to serve him. God's love is the infinite longing to give. And the answer to the man's statement is found at Calvary's cross. His master didn't take up what he hadn't scored. He didn't pick up interest where he hadn't invested. His master made the greatest investment of all. He gave his son at Calvary's Cross. And so the man says, as he turns to the master, Lord, thou hast thine own. He throws the talent back at him. He was wrong, wasn't he? Talents, when dug up or misused, are tarnished by those things. And a life which is never not devoted to God is never carried back to him unspoiled. In the pounds, the servant laid up the s- the pound in a sweat rack. Well, it signified idleness, of course. He wasn't gonna work. This man buried his talent in the earth. He desecrated his spiritual gift to the service of the world, but he didn't use it in his master's service. Well, of course, the talent was taken from him and given to another. The lesson there is this: if we use our talents, use what God has given us to trade with, we grasp our opportunities and use the gifts he's given us, then our sphere of service will expand, and our area of usefulness will expand. But if we fail to do that, we're losing what we got. I want to impress upon us tonight as I close, that you and I are waiting for the coming of the Lord. And you know, as you sit and listen to the prayers which are made so often in prayer meetings, it's something which we are constantly thanking God for, that the Lord is coming back again. That's absolutely true. But what the New Testament makes just as clear and plain is this, that in the period of his absence is the opportunity for service, the opportunity to trade, the opportunity to get revenue for our master, the opportunity to increase his estate, the opportunity to reach souls for Christ. It's the period of service. Let's put our hand to the plow, shall we? Perhaps we've never done the best we can before. Perhaps there's some amongst us who have never really put their whole heart into it. Well, you know, in his graciousness, the Lord can restore something to us of that. But we need to remember that now is the day of opportunity to serve him. And who wouldn't serve such a master? For he gave his all for us at Calvary's cross. Now, I don't know whether we know this hymn, and if you don't, please don't expect me to sing a solo, but we're going to have a look and see. Do you know the hymn Must I Go On Empty-Handed? Good. Must I Go On Empty-Handed, the hymn number four hundred and eighty-five. Four hundred and eighty-five, Must I Go On Empty-Handed.