“And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” Such is the lesson which the Lord draws from the picture. Difficulties, indeed, adhere to the phraseology in its details; but the interpretation, in its main line, is determined and made evident by landmarks which can neither be overlooked nor removed. The mammon of unrighteousness means the world with all its business and its possessions; mammon is denominated unrighteous, generally on account of the manner in which it is employed by worldly men, and specially on account of the case in hand, where a gross injustice was perpetrated without scruple, and as an ordinary matter of business. Alas, how prevalent is this form of unrighteousness still! Although justice in a large measure pervades and so sustains the vast commerce of the country, many mean tricks insinuate themselves between its mighty strata, corroding its fabric, and undermining its strength.
In counselling the disciples to acquire for themselves friends from the mammon of unrighteousness (ποιησατε ἑαντοις φιλους εκ του μαμωνα της αδικιας), the Lord obviously adopts the terms of his spiritual lesson from the structure of the parable which conveys it. By remitting part of their debts the steward made the debtors his friends; he won them to his side, and made sure of their sympathy when his day of need should come. His prudence and skill were commendable, but the fraud which was mingled with them is neither approved by the Lord, nor prescribed as a pattern for the disciples.[90] Nor is it difficult to lift the pure lesson from the impure ground on which it lies. The steward could not reach his unrighteous object except by a crooked path; but the ends which a Christian strives to attain neither require nor admit the employment of falsehood. Use the world in such a way that it shall help and not hinder the interests of your soul and of the world to come.
The position of the phrase, ἐις τὴν γενεὰν τὴν ἑαυτων, in or for their own generation, near the end of the sentence, determines that it is applied equally to both parties. It is implied that both classes, the children of the world and the children of light, look after their own affairs; and it is intimated that the one class attends to its business more earnestly and more skilfully than the other. This man cleaves to the world as his portion, and that man has chosen the Saviour as his: but, in point of fact, he who has chosen the inferior object prosecutes it with the greater zeal. The superior energy of the worldling in the acquisition of gains is employed to rebuke the Christian for his slackness in winning the true riches. This is the main lesson of the parable.
The specific form which the lesson assumes is,—Provide now for future need, and make the opportunities of time subservient to the interests of eternity.
The characteristic features of the steward’s skill were, that when his dismissal was near, he occupied the short time that remained, and the resources still at his disposal, in skilfully providing for the future. We are stewards in possession still, but under warning; do we employ the time and the opportunities that remain in making our calling and election sure?
Many precious possessions have been placed in our hands by the owner of all; health of body and soundness of mind; home and friends; good name or great riches, or both conjoined;—these and many others have been by their owner placed under our charge, that we should lay them out for him. Soon the stewardship will be taken from us. “When ye fail,”—that is, when we can no longer retain our hold of time and life; when flesh and heart are failing; when a mist comes over the eye, so that it can no longer see the circle of weeping friends that stand round the bed of death,—have we an everlasting habitation ready to receive the departing spirit?
More particularly the practical question is, Have we disposed of earthly possessions and opportunities, so that they helped and did not hinder the acquisition of an incorruptible inheritance?
There is a place and a use for temporal things in making sure of the life eternal. How constant has been the tendency of fallen humanity to run wildly into opposite extremes of error; because the Popish system gives worldly possessions too high a place in the concerns of the soul, we may readily fall into the error of giving them no place at all. We lean hard over against the superstition that expects by alms, and money paid for masses, to smooth the spirit’s path to peace beyond the grave; but when we have refused to make money directly the price of our admission into heaven, we have not exhausted our duty in regard to its bearing on our eternal weal. The property, and money, and occupations of time may instrumentally affect for good or evil our efforts to lay up the true riches. According as they are employed, they may become a stumbling-stone over which their possessor shall fall, or a shield to cover his head from some fiery darts of the wicked one.[91]
Could it be truly said of any who are lost that the mammon of unrighteousness brought them to the place of woe? or, conversely could it be truly said of any who now stand round the throne in white, that the mammon of unrighteousness became the friend who introduced them to that everlasting habitation? I reply, this mammon is not and cannot be a cause either of being saved or being lost; but it, as well as all other things in time, may become instruments in the saving or destroying of a soul, according as it is wisely used or foolishly abused. For example, in the next parable, it was sin and not wealth that ruined the rich man; many richer men than he have walked with God on earth, and entered rest when they departed. Wealth was not his destroyer, yet he so used his wealth as to permit the wicked one to bind his soul with it as with chains over to the second death. On the other hand, it was neither the poverty nor the sores of Lazarus, nor both together, that saved him; many as destitute of money and as full of sores as he are never saved. Christ was this man’s Saviour,—Christ alone; yet, his poverty became in God’s hands, and through his servant’s faith, the instrument of shielding him from temptation and purging his dross away. In the same subordinate and instrumental sense in which the rich man’s wealth was his ruin, the poverty of the poor man saved him. But these results are not uniform—are not necessary; they may be—they often are reversed. The wealth of a rich man may help him heavenward, and the poverty of a poor man may press him down toward the pit. The cardinal point of the parable is, employ the mammon of unrighteousness—this world’s affairs all, with forethought, skill, decision, and energy, to further your own salvation; turn all to account for the gain of godliness.
A ship leaves our shores bound westward to an Atlantic port: the wind, being from the north, beats on her right side all the way. She makes a quick voyage and reaches her destination in safety. Another ship at another time leaves these shores for the same destination: the wind, blowing from the south, beats on her left side. She wanders from her course and is shipwrecked. Whence these opposite results? Was the first ship saved because she met a north wind, and the second lost because she fell in with a wind from the south? Nay, verily: but because the one so received the wind, from whatever point of the compass it might blow, as to be impelled by it onward in her course: and the other, instead of wisely employing every wind to help her forward, allowed herself to drift before the wind that happened to blow.