The second servant was also faithful to his master, and his master’s cause. When required to give account, he too expressed himself in the same modest language: ‘Thy pound hath gained five pounds.
Invest the awareness you have that God is, that he is there, that this is a designed universe, that you have a soul. Start making inquiries. Open your Bibles. Find out the way of salvation. Invest that knowledge and you will be given first of all a deep concern for your soul. You will see your need of Christ. You will really understand like you never did before what he did for a needy sinner like you, and you will hear his call. Not like hearing an audible voice, but you will hear it within you. ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden.’ Come to me and I will forgive you and I will change you and I will make you my child.
This verse raises the issue of different rewards in heaven. Some do not like to talk about rewards in heaven, because all that we receive in the eternal future is the result of grace, and no believer could ever say that, strictly speaking, they deserved what they receive in glory. Like the servant here, they are quick to draw attention to the fact that it was their Lord’s gift that did all the gaining. Like the twenty-four elders in the Book of Revelation, they will ‘cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created’ (Revelation 4:10-11). Honesty demands that we give back to God all the credit for any reward we have received from him. And yet the parable speaks of differences in the eternal future between one servant and another, for that is what the different number of cities allocated represents. It is about different responsibilities in the kingdom of heaven, responsibilities given to us on the basis of what has happened in this life. It is not about a reward given to us in this life. In the parable the return of the nobleman to take up his kingdom stands for the return of Christ at the end of the world, and the rewarding of the various servants stands for their position in the kingdom of heaven after death and after the resurrection, a position which relates to how they handled what was deposited with them in this short life. The reward will take into account their faithfulness, and their usefulness to the Lord in handling his gospel during their earthly life. Matthew Henry says, ‘Blessed Paul was surely this servant that gained ten pounds, double to what any of the rest did, for he laboured more abundantly than they all, and fully preached the gospel of Christ.’ [Ed.]