by the Rev. CHARLES G.
FINNEY
Modernized by Cliff Collins
“Give an account of your
stewardship.” (Luke 16:2)
A
steward is one who is employed to transact the business of another, as his
agent or representative.
The
duty of a steward is to promote, in the best possible manner, the interest of
his employer. At any time, he could be
called in to account for how the transacts his business, and he could be
removed from his office at the pleasure of his employer.
One
important purpose of the parable that contains this passage is to teach that
all men are God's stewards. The Bible
declares, that silver and gold belongs to God, and that God is, in the highest
possible sense, the owner of the universe.
Men are mere stewards, employed by Him to transact His business, and
required to do all they do for His glory.
Even their eating and drinking are to be done for His glory, which is
that they may be strengthened for the best performance of His business.
That
men are God's stewards is clear from the fact that God treats them as stewards,
and removes them at His pleasure, and disposes of the property in their hands,
which He could not do if He did not consider them His agents, and not the
owners of his property.
1.
If men are God's stewards, they must account to Him for their time. God has created them, and keeps them alive,
and their time is His. Reader, should
you employ a steward and pay him for his time, would you not expect him to
spend that time employed in your service?
You would consider him dishonest if he spent his time idle, or promoted
his private interests while you were paying him. If he were idle a lot, that would be bad enough. But suppose he totally neglected your business,
and when you called him in to be censured for not doing his duty, he said,
“Why, what have I done?” Would you not
think that, because he has done nothing and let your business suffer, he was
wicked and he deserves to be punished?
Now,
reader, you are God's steward, and if you are an unrepentant sinner, you have
completely neglected God's business, and have remained idle in His vineyard, or
have only been attending to your own private interests; and now are you ready
to ask what you have done? Are you not
a knave to neglect the business of your great employer, and go about your own
private business to the neglect of all that justice and duty that God requires
of you?
But
suppose your steward should spend his time opposing your interests, using your
money and time doing things that are directly opposed to the business for which
he was employed? Wouldn’t you consider
this dishonest? Wouldn’t you think it
was ridiculous if he considered himself an honest man? Wouldn’t you feel obliged to call him to an
account? And wouldn’t you consider anyone
a villain who approves of his conduct?
Wouldn’t you feel that you had to tell everyone what he had done so that
the world might know his character, and you might clear yourself from the
charge of supporting such a person?
How,
then, shall God dispose of you, if you spend all your time opposing His
interest, and the money He has placed in your hands to support anything and
everything that is directly opposed to the business for which he has created
you? Are you not ashamed, then, to
consider yourself an honest man; and will not God consider Himself obligated to
call you to an account? If God doesn’t
do this, wouldn’t this omission be considered evidence that He approves of your
abominable wickedness! Must He not feel
constrained to make you a public example, so the universe may know how much He
abhors your crimes!
2.
Stewards must give an account of their talents. By talents, right now I am talking about mental talents. Suppose you should educate a man to be your
steward. Suppose you support him while
he was going to school and you paid for all his education, and then he either
neglects to study to be better equipped for your service, or he uses what he
learns promote his own interests; would you not consider him a cheater and an
enemy? Now, God created your minds, and
has paid for your education. He has
trained you up for His service. And do
you either let your mind remain idle, or do you use the powers of your mind to
promote your own private interests, and then ask what you have done to deserve
the wrath of God?
But
suppose your steward should use his education to oppose your interests, and use
all the powers of his mind to destroy the very interest for which he was
educated, and which he is employed to sustain; would you not look on his
conduct as evil and wicked? And do you,
sinner, use the powers of your mind, and whatever education God may have given
you, to oppose His interests and pervert His truth. Do you think you can scatter “fire-brands, arrows, and death” all
around you, and think you can escape His curse? Shall not the Almighty avenge such a wretch?
3.
A steward must give an account for the influence he exerts on the people around
him.
Suppose
you employed a steward and educated him until he possessed great talents. You gave him a lot of money, exalted him
into high society, and placed him in circumstances that made him able to exert
a lot of influence in the commercial community. Then, after all of this, he refuses or neglects to use this
influence to promote your interests; wouldn’t you consider his behavior against
you fraudulent?
But
suppose he exerts all this influence against you, and arrays himself with all
his weight of character, talent, and influence, and even uses the money you
trusted him with to oppose your interests.
In your estimation, what language would adequately express your sense of
his guilt?
Reader,
whatever influence God has given you, if you are an unrepentant sinner, you are
not only neglecting to use it for God to build up His kingdom, but you are
using it to oppose His interests and glory; and for this, don’t you deserve the
damnation of hell? Perhaps you are
rich, or learned, or have a great influence in society, and you are refusing to
use it to save the souls of men.
Instead, you are bringing all the weight of your character, talents,
influence, and example, to drag all who are within the sphere of your influence
down to the gates of hell.
4.
You must give an account for the way that you use the property in your possession. Suppose your steward should refuse to use
your money you trusted him with to promote your interest. Suppose he were to consider the money his
own, and use it for his own private interests, or use it to gratify his
lusts. Or perhaps he squanders it on
his family, giving large sums to his daughters, or feeding the lusts and pride
of his sons; while at the same time your business is suffering for the lack of
this very capital. Suppose that this
steward was put in charge of your wealth, and that he was responsible to pay all
of your other servants. Their welfare,
and even their lives, depended on being paid promptly; and yet this steward
ministers to his own lusts, and the lusts of his family, and allows your other
servants to perish. What would you
think of such wickedness? You entrusted
him with your money, and commanded him to take care of your other servants, and
through his neglect they all suffered and starved.
Now,
you have God's money in your hands, and God’s children surround you. God commands you to love them as you love
yourself. God could have, with perfect
justice, given his property to them instead of you. The world is full of poverty, desolation, and death. Millions are perishing, body and soul. God calls on you to exert yourself as his
steward for their salvation, to use all the property in your possession, to
promote the greatest possible amount of happiness among your fellow-creatures.
The Macedonian cry comes from the four winds of heaven, “Come over and help
us!” COME OVER AND HELP US! Yet, you refuse to help. You hoard up the wealth in your possession,
live in luxury, and let your fellow men go to hell. What language can describe your guilt?
But
suppose, when you called your servant to account, he said, “Have I not gotten
this property by being industrious?” would you not answer, “You have used my
money to do it, and my time, for which I have paid you; and the money you have
gained is mine.” So when God calls on
you to use the property in your possession for Him, do you say it is yours,
that you have obtained it by being industrious? Tell me, whose time have you
used, and whose talents and means? Did
not God create you? Has He not sustained
you? Has He not prospered you, and
given you all His success? Yes, your
time is His, your all is His, you have no right to say the wealth you have is
yours. It is His, and you must use it
for His glory. You are a traitor to
your trust if you do not use it for His purposes.
If
your clerk steals only a little of your money, his character is gone, and he is
branded as a thief. But sinners don’t’
take just a dollar or two, but they take all they can get and use it for
themselves. Don't you see that God
would be wrong not to call you to account, and punish you for filling both your
pockets with His money, and calling it your own. Are you religious? If you
are doing this, don't call yourself a Christian.
5.
You must give an account for your soul.
You have no right to go to hell.
God has a right to your soul; your going to hell would injure the whole
universe. It would injure hell, because
it would increase its torments. It
would injure heaven, because heaven would not benefit from your services. Who shall take your place in singing praises
to God with unimaginable joy? Who shall
contribute your share to the happiness of heaven?
Suppose
you had a steward to whom you had given life, and educated him at great expense,
and then he willfully tosses that life away; does he have a right to dispose of
a life that is so valuable to you?
Isn’t this as unjust as to rob you of the same amount of property in
anything else? God has made your soul,
sustained, and educated you until you are now able to render important service
to him, and to glorify Him forever; and do you have a right to go to hell,
throw away your soul, and thus rob God of your service? Do you have you a right to make hell even
more miserable, and heaven less happy, and thus injure God and the whole
universe?
Do
you still say, “What if I do lose my soul, it’s nobody's business but my
own”. That is false! It is everybody's business. You might as well allow someone to bring a
contagious disease into a city, and spread dismay and death all around, and say
that it was nobody's business but your own.
6.
You must give an account for the souls of others. God commands you to be a co-worker with Him in converting the
world. He needs your services, for He
saves souls only through the agency of men.
If souls are lost, or the gospel is not spread over the world, sinners
charge all the blame on the Christians, as if they were the only ones required
to be active in the cause of Christ, to exercise benevolence, to pray for a
lost world, and to pull sinners out of the fire. I wonder who has absolved you from these duties? Instead of doing your duty, you become an
obstacle in the way of other sinners. Thus, instead of helping to save a world,
all your actions help to send souls to hell.
7.
You must give an account of the opinions you entertain and propagate. God's kingdom is to be built up by truth,
and not by error. Your opinions will
have an important bearing on the influence you exert over those around you.
Suppose
the business in which your steward was employed, required that he should entertain
right ideas about how things should be done, and the principles involved in
doing them; of your will and of his duty.
And suppose you had given him in writing a set of rules to govern his
conduct in all of the affairs entrusted to him. Now if he should neglect to read those rules, or should twist
their plain meaning, and thus pervert his own conduct, and be instrumental in
deceiving others, and leading them in the way of disobedience, would you not
look on this as criminal and deserving the severest reprobation?
God
has given you rules for governing your conduct. In the Bible, you have a plain revelation of His will in relation
to all your actions. And now, do you
either neglect or pervert it, and thus go astray yourself, and lead others with
you in the way of disobedience and death, and then call yourself an honest man? FOR SHAME!
8.
You must give an account of your opportunities to do good.
If
you employ a steward to transact your business, you expect him to take advantage
of the state of the market and of things in general, to improve every
opportunity to promote your interest.
Suppose during the busy seasons of the year, he spends his time idle, or
involved in his own private affairs, and isn’t looking for those most favorable
opportunities to promote your interest, would you not soon say to him, “Give an
account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be a steward?” Now, sinner, you have always neglected
opportunities to serve God, of warning your fellow-sinners, of promoting
revivals of religion, and advancing the interest of truth. You have been diligent only to promote your
own private interests, and have entirely neglected the interests of your great
employer; and are you not a wretch, and do you not deserve to be put out of the
stewardship, as a dishonest man, and to be sent to the state prison of the universe? How can you escape the damnation of hell?
REMARKS
1.
From this subject you can see why the business of this world is a snare that
drowns men's souls in destruction and perdition.
Sinners
transact business to promote their own private interests, and not as God's
stewards; and thus act dishonestly, defraud God, grieve the Spirit, and promote
their own sensuality, pride, and death.
If men considered themselves as God's clerks, they would not lie, and
deceive, and work on the Sabbath to make money for Him. They would know that such conduct would not
please Him. God never created this
world to be a snare to men; this world is abused. He designed this world to be a delightful abode for them, but how
it has been perverted!
Should
all men's business be done as if it was for God, they would not be tempted to
cheat and be dishonest to the point where they ensnare and ruin their souls; it
would have no tendency to wean their soul from Him, or to banish Him from their
thoughts. When a holy Adam dressed God's
garden and kept it, did that have a tendency to banish God from his mind? If your gardener should spend his day busy
In your presence, dressing your plants, asking for you r opinions, and doing
your pleasure continually, asking how shall this be done and how shall that be
done, would this have a tendency to banish you from his thoughts? So, if you were busy all day seeking God's
glory, and doing all your business for Him, acting as His steward, knowing that
His eye was on you, how will this please Him? Your being busy doing such things would have no tendency to
distract your mind, and turn your thoughts from God.
Or,
suppose a mother, whose son was in a distant land, was busy all day gathering
clothes, books, and necessaries for him, continually asking, how will this
please him? And how will that please
him? Would what she is doing have a tendency to divert her mind from her absent
son? Now if you consider yourself as
God's steward doing his business; if you are in all things consulting His interests
and His glory, and you consider all your possessions as His, your time and your
talents; the more busily you are engaged in His service, the more God will be
present to all your thoughts.
Do
you see why idleness is a snare to the soul?
A man who is idle is dishonest; forgets his responsibility, refuses to
serve God, and gives himself up to the temptations of the devil. No, the idle man tempts the devil to tempt
him.
Do
you see the error of the maxim that men cannot attend to business and religion
at the same time? A man's business
ought to be a part of his religion. He
cannot be religious while he is idle.
He must have some business, to be religious at all; and if it is
performed from a right motive, his lawful and necessary business is as much a
necessary part of religion as prayer, going to church, or reading his
Bible. Any one who
pleads this maxim is a knave by his own confession; for no man can believe that
an honest employment pursued for God’s glory is inconsistent with
religion. The objection supposes in the
face of it, that he considers his business either as unlawful in itself, or
that he pursues it in a dishonest manner.
If this is true, he cannot be religious while pursuing his business: if
his employment is wicked, he must give it up.
If the business is honest and pursued in an unlawful manner, he must
pursue it lawfully; or he will lose his soul.
But if his business is lawful, let him pursue it honestly, and from
right motives, and he will find no difficulty in attending to his business, and
being religious at the same time. A
life of business is best for Christians, since it exercises their graces and
makes them strong.
4.
That most men do not consider themselves as God’s stewards is clear from the
fact that they consider any business losses as their own losses. Suppose that some of your debtors fail, and
your clerks say that it is their loss, and that they had suffered great losses,
would you not look on it as extremely ridiculous? And it is not just as ridiculous for you, if any of your Lord's
debtors fail, to make yourself very uneasy and unhappy about it? Is it your loss, or His? If you have done your duty, and taken
suitable care of His property, and a loss is sustained, it is not your loss,
but His. You should look at your sins and
your duty, and not be afraid that God might become bankrupt. If you acted as God's steward or as his
clerk, you would not think of saying that the loss was your loss. But if you have considered the property in
your possession as your own, it is no wonder that God has taken it out of your
hands
In
the popular acceptance of the term, it is ridiculous to call institutions for
extending the Redeemer's kingdom in this world, charitable institutions. In one sense, indeed, they may be called
charitable. Should you give your steward orders to appropriate a certain amount
of funds to benefit the poor in a certain city, this would be charity on your
part, but not on his part. It would be
ridiculous for your steward to pretend that the charity was his. Therefore, institutions to promote religion
are the charities of God, and not of man.
The funds are God’s and He requires that it is spent according to His
directions, to relieve the misery, or advance the happiness of our fellow-men. God, then, is the giver, and not men; and to
consider the charities as the gift of men is to maintain that the funds belong
to men, and not to God. To call them
charitable institutions in the sense in which they are usually spoken of, is to
say that men confer a favor on God; that they give Him their money, and
consider Him as an object of charity.
Suppose
that a company of merchants in the city should employ a number of agents to
transact their business in India with an immense capital, and suppose these
agents should claim the funds as their property. And so, whenever a request for money was made from them, they
consider it begging, and asking for charity from them, and they call the
servant who sent the request, a beggar.
Furthermore, suppose they should get together and form a charitable
society to pay these drafts. They then
become “life members,” by paying a certain percentage of their employers’ money
into a common fund, and then hold themselves exonerated from all farther calls;
so that, when an agent is sent with requests, they might direct the treasurer
of their society to let him have a little as a matter of charity. Would not this be ridiculous! What then do you think of yourself, when you
talk of supporting these charitable institutions as if God, the owner of the universe,
was to be considered as soliciting charity, and His servants were the agents of
an infinite beggar? I think it is
remarkable that God doesn’t take such presumptuous men, put them in hell
instantly, and then take the money from their hands to execute His plans for converting
the world.
Nor
is it any less ridiculous for them to think that by handing over some funds for
this purpose, they bestow a charity on men: for it should all along be
remembered; that the money is not theirs.
They are God's stewards, and only pay it over to His order. In doing this, therefore, they neither
confer a charity on the servants who are sent with the orders; nor on those who
receive the benefit of the money.
When
the servants of the Lord come with a request for you to pay over some of the
money in your possession into His treasury, to defray the expenses of His government
and kingdom, why do you call it your own, and say you can't spare it? What do you mean by calling God’s agents
beggars, and saying you are sick of seeing so many beggars? How can you say you
are disgusted with those agents of charitable institutions? Suppose your steward under such
circumstances should call your agents beggars, and say he was sick of so many
beggars; would you not call him to an account, and let him see that the
property in his possession was yours, and not his?
You
see the great wickedness of people hoarding up property as long as they live,
and at death leaving some of it to the church.
What a will! To leave God some
of his own property after he is dead!
Suppose a clerk makes a will, and leave his employer part of his own
property! Yet this is called piety. Do you think that Christ will always be a
beggar? And yet the church is greatly
puffed up with their great charitable donations and legacies to Jesus Christ.
Do
you see the wickedness of laying up money for your children, and why money so
laid up is a curse to them? Suppose
your steward sets aside your money for his children, would you not consider him
a knave? How then dare you take God's
money and lay it up for your children, while the world is sinking down to
hell? But will you say, Is it not my
duty to provide for my “own household?”
Yes, it is your duty to suitably provide for them, but what is a
suitable provision? Give them the best
education you can for the service of God.
Make all the necessary provisions to supply all their real needs, until
they become old enough to provide for themselves. Then, if you see them disposed to do good in serving God and
their generation, give them all the advantages for doing this that is in your
power. But to make them rich simply to
gratify their pride and to enable them to live in luxury or ease, or to provide
that they may become rich, to give your daughters what is called a refined
education, to allow them to spend their time in dress, idleness, gossiping, and
effeminacy, you have no right. It is
defrauding God, ruining your own soul, and greatly endangering theirs.
Unrepentant
sinners will be finally and eternally disgraced. Don’t you consider it a disgrace when a man is caught committing
fraud and every kind of knavery in transacting the business of his employer? Should not such a man be thrown out of
business? Is he not a disgrace to
himself and his family? Can anybody trust
him? How then will you appear before an
injured God, and an injured universe, a God whose laws and rights you have
despised, a universe with whose interests you have been at war? How will you, in the solemn judgment, be
disgraced, your name execrated, and you become the hissing and contempt of hell
for the numberless frauds and evil deeds you have practiced on God and on his
creatures! But perhaps you profess to
be a Christian. Will your profession
cover up your selfishness and vile hypocrisy, while you have defrauded God,
spent His money on your lusts, and treated those as beggars, who came to you
with drafts to pay over into His treasury?
How will you hold up your head in the face of heaven? How dare you now pray; how dare you sit at
the communion table; how dare you profess the religion of Jesus Christ, if you
have set up your own private interest, and do not consider anything that you
have as His to be used for His glory?
We
have here a true test of Christian character.
True Christians consider themselves as God's stewards. They act for Him, live for Him, transact
business for Him, eat and drink for His glory, live and die to please Him. But sinners and hypocrites live for
themselves; consider their time, their talents, and their influence as their
own; and use all of them for their own private interest, and thus drown themselves
in destruction and perdition.
At
the judgment, we are informed that Christ will say to those who are accepted,
“Well done, good and faithful servants”.
(Matt 25:21) Reader! Could He truly say this of you, “Well done,
good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things”, that is, over
the things committed to your charge.
God will not pronounce a false judgment. He will put no false estimate on things; and if he cannot say
this truly, “Well done, good and faithful servant”, you will not be accepted,
but will be thrust down to hell. Now,
reader, what is your character, and what has been your conduct? God will soon call you to give an account of
your stewardship. Have you been
faithful to God, faithful to your own soul, and the souls of others? Are you ready to have your accounts examined,
your conduct scrutinized, and your life weighed in the balance of the
sanctuary? Are you interested in the
blood of Jesus Christ? If not, repent,
repent now, of all your wickedness, and lay hold on the hope that is set before
you; for, hark! A voice cries in your
ears, “Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward”. (Luke 16:2)