1. It is now one week before Easter Sunday (often to referred to as “Palm Sunday”), and sometimes on this day pastors preach from Luke 19:28-40 – often referred to as our Lord’s “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem.
2. Right before our Lord left for His final visit (before the cross) to Jerusalem, He spake a parable, and I would like for us to consider this important parable this morning.

I. THE KINGDOM OF GOD SHALL COME (19:11).

1. Luke 19:11 says, “And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.”
2. None of us knows when the kingdom will come, but we can be certain it will come. Our Lord taught His disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
3. Notice also, Luke 19:11 says, “And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.”
4. Many people thought that our Lord was about to establish His kingdom in Jerusalem (cf. Luke 19:41; Psalm 48:2; Matt. 5:34, 35).
5. The apostles were wrong about the timing of the kingdom.  They did not understand that there had to be the cross before the crown.
6. Our Lord would soon be crucified, and the kingdom of God would be postponed.  The kingdom will not be established until the second coming of Christ.
7. This is something the apostles did not understand, even after His death and resurrection (cf. Acts 1:6-11).
8. To illustrate this important teaching our Lord gave the parable of the ten pounds  (19:11). “He said therefore…” (19:12).
9. In this parable, our Lord likens Himself to a certain nobleman who had gone “into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom” (19:12).
10. Our Lord would soon be returning to God the Father up in heaven.  During His absence He would confer a responsibility on His servants (His apostles, and all of His disciples).
11. Luke 19:11 says, “And as they heard these things…” What things?  In context, “these things” would include repentance and restitution (19:8) and salvation (19:9, 10).

II. WE ARE TO OCCUPY TILL HE COMES (19:13).

1. Since this nobleman anticipated being gone for some time, he called his ten servants and gave to each one a pound.  A pound was approximately three months wages – a considerable amount of money (19:13).
2. The nobleman’s instructions were very clear – “Occupy till I come” (19:13). This is the only time we find this word “occupy” in the New Testament.  Strong’s Concordance says the word means, “to carry on a business.”
3. In other words, we are to be busy taking care of the Lord’s business while He is away – cf. 19:15, “trading.”
4. The nobleman called his servants, and he delivered into the hands of each one of them a pound and said, “Occupy till I come.”
5. The Lord is saying, “Take this that I’ve given you, and trade with it.  Do business with it.  Labor with it.  Work with it…until I return” (cf. Luke 19:15-19).
6. These servants were held responsible as stewards for the use of money entrusted to them.  The application is simple.  As Christians we too are stewards, and some day we will have to stand before God and give an account.
7. First Corinthians 4:2 says, “Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”
8. Our Lord has gone back into heaven and soon He will return.  In the meantime we know what we have to do. Our orders are easy to understand: “Occupy till I come” (Luke 19:13).
9. The word “occupy” means “to carry on a business,” but unfortunately, some Christians think it means, “to sleep.”  They say, “I’ll just occupy this couch till Jesus comes back” (cf. Mark 13:34-37).
10. But beloved, this is no time to slack off!
11. The apostle Paul says in Romans 13:11, “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”
12. Back when the King James Bible was translated, “occupy” meant to “trade.”  Vincent’s Word Studies says, “The word occupy has lost the sense which it conveyed to the makers of the Authorized Version – that of using or laying out what is possessed.  An occupier formerly meant a trader.  Occupy, in the sense of to use, occurs in Judges 16:11.”
13. In Judges 16:11, Samson says to Delilah, “If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were occupied (used), then shall I be weak, and be as another man.”
14. Therefore, our Lord is telling us: “Use what I have given you; what I have entrusted to you, until I come back.”
15. “To occupy” means to do business.   Queen Victoria called one of her noblemen and told him she needed to send him overseas on an urgent mission.  He told the queen that he could not go because he had important business at home to attend to.  The queen said, “You take care of my business and I’ll take care of your business.”

III. WHY IS THIS SO VITALLY IMPORTANT?

1. Since “occupy” means to do business, this nobleman was saying to his servants, “Put my money (the ten pounds) to work,” by either investing the money or by purchasing goods and selling them for a profit.
2. The idea is that they were to give back to their master more than what he had given to them (cf. Luke 19:15-19).
3. During this dispensation, since our Lord went away and is in heaven waiting for the consummation of the kingdom, He has given to each one of us a substance, an amount, and He says to us, “Use it.  Work with it.  Labor with it.  Trade with it.  Do business with it, until I return.”
4. This is the idea behind stewardship.  There is an old song, “This Last is Your Land.”
5. But there is not any land but God’s land.  It’s all God’s land, not your land or my land.
6. Woody Guthrie, the man who composed that song, was not a Christian.  In fact, he was a communist. 
7. Everything belongs to God.  We are just stewards.  The Lord has given us certain things but only for a while, and we must give an account to Him for what we do with them.
8. Have you ever considered this?  The certain nobleman did not need the profit – the ten pounds and the five pounds (19:16-19).
9. In this parable, the nobleman represents God, and God does not need your ten pounds or my five pounds!
10. Psalm 50:10-12 says, “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.  I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.  If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.”
11. God wants us to be good stewards so we can be better Christians – happier Christians, and more useful Christians.
12. Do you remember what the apostle Paul said to the Philippians?  He wrote in Philippians 4:16 & 17, “For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity.  Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.”
13. God wants us to be fruitful Christians.  Growing Christians.  Strong Christians.  During this dispensation, the LORD is preparing us.  He is growing us, and the LORD is training us and preparing us for His kingdom (cf. Luke 19:11).
14. WA Criswell told a story about a Christian farmer who had six boys.  And he had a neighbor with a farm nearby, and this neighbor watched him work those six boys night and day.
15. And the neighboring farmer, watching that those boys slaving away on that farm, finally decided to talk to the father.
16. So one day the neighbor walked over there to his friend and said, “You don’t have to work those boys that hard to raise a crop.”
17. And the farmer replied, “Sir, I’m not raising a crop.  I’m raising boys.”
18. WA Criswell said, “That’s exactly what God is doing with us.  He doesn’t need our little gifts, and what little we can bring before Him, which is inconsequential compared to the wealth of Him who made and possesses the whole universe.  What He’s doing is, He’s raising us.  He’s establishing us.  He’s building us.”
19. There is much unscriptural thinking in this world, and unfortunately it has invaded the churches too.
20. People feel the world owes them a living.  And they think the government should provide for all their needs. 
21. Consequently the government is plunging deeper and deeper into debt by foolishly handing out, and bailing out, and doling out.
22. I have even had people tell me, “Why doesn’t the government help our church?”  Can you imagine the apostle Paul asking Caesar for help with his missions work?
23. I read that there were a bunch of seagulls that sat on a wharf, where the shrimp fishermen came in.  And those shrimp fishermen fed the seagulls some shrimp.  Some of the shrimp wouldn’t be suitable for human consumption, so the fishermen just gave it to the seagulls.
24. So the seagulls didn’t have to work.  They didn’t have to fly.  They didn’t have to scavenge.  They didn’t have to seek their food.  They just set down and ate fish, and ate shrimp and got fat and lazy.
25. Well, one day the fishermen didn’t come anymore, and so there was no more shrimp for the seagulls.
26. But those seagulls continued to sit there day after day waiting for the fishermen to feed them, until they finally all starved to death.
27. Can you imagine that?
28. When I read that story, I thought: America is becoming a country of lazy seagulls!
29. Beloved, God does not want us to sit around like those lazy seagulls (cf. Luke 19:20-27).   It is in the purpose and plan of God that we work for Him, and that we pray, and that we give, and that we win souls, and stick with it, and keep working at it.
30. We read in II Samuel 24:18 that the prophet Gad came to King David and said, “Go up, rear an altar unto the LORD in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
31. “And David, according to the saying of Gad, went up as the LORD commanded” (II Sam. 24:19).
32. Araunah, who owned the property, wanted to give the land to David, but David said, “Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing.”
33. “So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver” (II Sam. 24:24).
34. In the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, we see a great emphasis on sacrifice. If we don’t feel it, if it doesn’t cost us something, then God is not in it.
35. Like the fellow who told his friend, “I can give $100 to this special offering and not feel it.”  His friend wisely replied, “Brother, give $200 and feel it.  The blessings come when you feel it!” 
36. In the parable, the kingdom comes and the lord returns (Luke 19:15).  And he first calls his servants before him, and when the Lord Jesus comes, first He will call His servants before Him.
37. Second Timothy 2:12 says, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us.”
38. There are some believers who are not good stewards (Luke 19:20-26).  They are not only missing out on God’s blessings now, but they will miss out on the blessings when our Lord returns. 
39. How sad. How tragic. 
40. First John 2:28 says, “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.”
41. Furthermore, there are some who say, “We will not have this man to reign over us” (19:14).  These wicked rebels will have to face the judgment of God (cf. Luke 19:27).   

CONCLUSION:

1. Charles Thomas Studd was born in England in 1860.  He was saved in 1878 at the age of 18.
2. The Lord led CT Studd to go to China.  Then to India, and Africa.
3. CT Studd was one of the “Cambridge Seven” who offered themselves to Hudson Taylor for missionary service in the China Inland Mission and in February, 1885, sailed for China.
4. It was while he was in China that CT Studd reached the age (25 years old) in which according to his father’s will he was to inherit a large sum of money. Through reading God’s Word and much prayer, CT Studd felt led to give his entire fortune to Christ!
5. Three years after arriving in China, CT Studd married a young Irish missionary from Ulster named Priscilla Livingstone Stewart. Just before the wedding he presented his bride with the remaining money from his inheritance. She, not to be outdone, said, “Charlie, what did the Lord tell the rich young man to do?”
6. CT Studd replied, “Sell all.”
7. “Well then, we will start clear with the Lord at our wedding.” And they proceeded to give the rest of the money away for the Lord’s work.
8. In 1900 the Studd family went to South India where CT Studd served as a pastor of a church for six years.
9. Contrary to medical advice, CT Studd sailed for Africa in 1910, where he continued to work until his death in 1931.

“Only One Life” by CT Studd, missionary to China, India, and Africa
 
Two little lines I heard one day, Traveling along life’s busy way;
Bringing conviction to my heart, And from my mind would not depart;
Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
 
Only one life, yes only one, Soon will its fleeting hours be done;
Then, in ‘that day’ my Lord to meet, And stand before His Judgment seat;
Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
 
Only one life, the still small voice, Gently pleads for a better choice
Bidding me selfish aims to leave, And to God’s holy will to cleave;
Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
 
Only one life, a few brief years, Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears;
Each with its clays I must fulfill, living for self or in His will;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
 
When this bright world would tempt me sore, When Satan would a victory score;
When self would seek to have its way, Then help me Lord with joy to say;
Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
 
Give me Father, a purpose deep, In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
Faithful and true what e’er the strife, Pleasing Thee in my daily life;
Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
 
Oh let my love with fervor burn, And from the world now let me turn;
Living for Thee, and Thee alone, Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;
Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
 
Only one life, yes only one, Now let me say, “Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call, I know I’ll say ’twas worth it all;
Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.