Chapter 26—“Friends by the Mammon of
Unrighteousness”
This chapter is based on
Luke 16:1-9
.
Christ’s coming was at a time of intense worldliness. Men were
subordinating the eternal to the temporal, the claims of the future to the
affairs of the present. They were mistaking phantoms for realities, and
realities for phantoms. They did not by faith behold the unseen world.
Satan presented before them the things of this life as all-attractive and
all-absorbing, and they gave heed to his temptations.
Christ came to change this order of things. He sought to break the
spell by which men were infatuated and ensnared. In His teaching He
sought to adjust the claims of heaven and earth, to turn men’s thoughts
from the present to the future. From their pursuit of the things of time,
He called them to make provision for eternity.
“There was a certain rich man,” He said, “which had a steward;
and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.”
The rich man had left all his possessions in the hands of this servant;
but the servant was unfaithful, and the master was convinced that he
was being systematically robbed. He determined to retain him no
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longer in his service, and he called for an investigation of his accounts.
“How is it,” he said, “that I hear this of thee? Give an account of thy
stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.”
With the prospect of discharge before him, the steward saw three
paths open to his choice. He must labor, beg, or starve. And he said
within himself, “What shall I do? for my Lord taketh away from me
the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what
to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive
me into their houses. So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto
him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And
he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy
bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And
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