Let me explain it this way. On the surface, it's just saying this: God's a good businessman. Let’s say I'm a contractor, and you're a subcontractor, and I give you eight jobs. So today I give you eight jobs, and at the end of the day I say: hey, how did the eight jobs go?
You say: well I got to six, I didn't get to two. Alright, so tomorrow I give you eight jobs, and at the end of the day you get to six, you don't get to two; what if I give you eight jobs on the third day, and you get to six and you don't get to two? Then on the fourth day I give you eight jobs, you get to six, you don't get to two? What if on the fifth day I give you eight jobs, you do six, you don't get to two?
How long is it going to take me to start giving you six jobs, and then taking the two you're not getting to, and giving them to someone who actually has the capacity to do it?
Jesus says: heaven's like that - that God's going to establish His kingdom, whether you like it or not; and if you're not going to participate in it, then the grace that He gave you to accomplish, He's just going to give it to someone who will accomplish it, because God's kingdom is going to be established.
Now let’s make a couple of observations: 1) the one who buried his talent has a skewed view of the master.
The view that God is a hard and vengeful God only holds us back. Who really wants to work for a crazy maniac, who you don't know whether you're coming or going, you don't know if he's going to like you today or yesterday? Who really wants to do that? It only holds you back. So many people don't try anything with God, because they're so afraid of God, that they're scared of giving it a go. That is dreadful.
The question is this: are we using what God gave us to bring heaven to earth; or are we burying our talent?
Maybe we can say it this way: if heaven invaded your life today, you would find out if you used what God gave you for the common good; or if you buried it.
What have you done with your talent? Have any of you ever been at work, and one of your co-workers says: how could your God be real, with all the suffering in the world? Anybody ever heard that argument, like: how could your God be real? There's all this suffering. Is your God not powerful enough to do something? Your God's a failure. Even if your God is God, He's a failure.
Has anybody ever heard that, and you're sort of like: man, don't talk about my God like that, right? Like you're all just jacked up and - right? But then you walk away, and you're like well: man, that makes sense actually, he's got a point. Have you ever thought like that? You want an answer to that? Okay, here's the answer. The answer is actually not in the Bible. The answer is in Forbes Magazine. Let me explain.
In October Forbes Magazine, every October they put out a celebration of the 400 richest people in the world. It's called the Forbes 400 okay? The 400 richest people in the world combined have $1.27 trillion dollars. 400 people, have $1.27 trillion dollars. Roughly the same numbers of people in this room right now, have $1.27 trillion dollars.
Let me tell you how much money that is. That's enough money to put clean water and sewerage in the whole world; that's enough money to vaccinate the whole world against disease. That's enough money to set up perpetual education for the whole world; and enough money to start the perpetual production of food to end world hunger; and still leave them all billionaires! And God's the failure? Really?
Or it's enough money to run the US Government for five days! I can't believe how much people trust their government to take care of them. It never works. Even with Joseph, Joseph was a righteous man, and when he tried to set up the government to take care of the Egyptians, by Genesis 47 it says, that he reduced the entirety of Egypt to slavery; because he took their grain and stored it up, and then instead of giving it back, he sold it back. It has a price!