He did nothing with his master’s money. If his master was really as grasping as he made out, he would have tried to invest the talent to have something extra to give back. Our behaviour also makes no sense even in the light of our beliefs about God. Matthew Henry imagines the master saying, ‘Suppose I had been so hard a master, shouldest not thou therefore have been more diligent and careful to please me, if not for love, yet for fear?’ If men believe that God is such a cruel taskmaster, why don’t they make more effort to keep his commandments, rather than abandoning any sense of accountability to him? Why instead do they cast off the fear of the Lord and plunge into every form of evil in an attempt to blot out of their minds any thought of the existence of God? If they hear any mention of the gospel, they dismiss it from their minds, saying, ‘This has nothing to do with me’, and in effect bury it in the ground, putting it as far out of sight as is possible. They want no reminder that they owe anything to God, and ignore the fact that Christ will one day return to judge them. If men are unable to do what they would like to do, says Matthew Henry, yet they will still be held guilty for not doing what they could have done.
The fault lay entirely with the servant; there was not an atom of justification for his attitude. Some people like to distribute blame, and as if in any disagreement there is always fault on both sides, but when it comes to God’s dispute with the human race, he is blameless and man is entirely at fault. God will be vindicated in every encounter with sinful human beings. How reasonable and fair are the Lord’s judgments and how unanswerable! In the day of judgment, men will have nothing to say and will be forced to admit that they deserve to be punished. Every mouth will be stopped and the whole world will become guilty before God.