We all must realize that the Lord is hard. He does not give something to you, but He asks something of you. He does reap where He has never sown, and He does gather where He has never scattered. Whenever you open your mouth and function, immediately you open the way for the Lord to come out. He is rich in you, but you have to function by faith. How unfortunate that many Christians have never realized that after they are saved, they need to be wise virgins growing in life, and they need to be proper servants serving the Lord with the talents He has given them. We all must be the five wise virgins, and we must be those who use their talents. Otherwise, when the Lord comes back, we will have a problem. At the time of the manifestation of the kingdom we will have to account for our shortage. Many Christians only care for one thing: to be saved and to go to heaven. They think that as long as they are saved, one day they will go to heaven, and everything will be fine. We must say strongly, "No!" There will still be a problem.

From Matthew 13 we saw that the Lord has sown a seed and that we are all the wheat. But that was only the sowing stage. The reaping of the harvest is in chapters twenty-four and twenty-five. In chapter thirteen the Lord sowed the seed, and in chapters twenty-four and twenty-five He comes to reap. You cannot say that the Lord has not sown something into you. Neither can you say that the Lord is hard and that He never scattered anything to you. That is not fair to say, because He has at least scattered one talent to you. Can you say that you have received nothing from the Lord? At least you have received a little portion from the Lord. Regardless of how small the gift or the talent you have received from the Lord may be, you must use it. The more you use that little gift, the more it will be increased. If you will use it, it will be multiplied. The more you use your talent, the more the Lord will give you. But the more you do not use the gift and talent the Lord has given you, the more you will lose. The Lord will take something from you. This is a serious situation.

Let us also read Matthew 25:30: "And cast out the useless slave into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth." You must realize these are the words of the Lord. According to the word of the Lord in this verse, even a saved one could be cast into a kind of darkness. Don't ask me what kind of darkness. For sure it will not be pleasant. Do you think you will be laughing and rejoicing if you are in that darkness? Some have said that this slothful servant was never saved. This is not logical! If he has never been saved, how could he be a servant of the Lord? Furthermore, if he has never been saved, how could the Lord give him a talent or gift? No doubt this slothful servant is a saved one. All three are servants, and all three have received some talents. This strongly proves that all of them are saved. As far as salvation is concerned, there is no difference between the three of them. Can you say that because one is less talented, he is not saved? Can you say that the five-talented servant is fully saved, that the two-talented servant is half saved, and that the one-talented servant is not saved? If he has received a talent, surely he is saved. To say that a person can be lost due to slothfulness would indicate that salvation is not by grace but by works. But according to the divine principle, salvation is by grace. This parable is not related to salvation; it is related to something beyond salvation. It is related to how we serve the Lord after we have been saved.

All ten of the virgins are saved ones, and all three of the servants are also saved ones. The point is that even as saved ones we must be diligent to be filled up with the Spirit as wise virgins, and we must be faithful to serve the Lord as diligent servants.