Vince Squire Preaching (Matthew 25:14-30)

A new twist as we explore once again our spiritual roots. Amen. So he who had received the talents had went and dug his money. And then at some point in time, the Lord had came to his servants and he had called his servants. And so he who had received the 5 talents came and brought 5 other talents, saying, Lord, you delivered to me 5 talents. Look, I have gained 5 more talents beside them. His lord said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord. He who had also received the 2 talents came and said, Lord, look, you have delivered me 2 talents. Look, I have gained 2 more talents beside them. His lord said to him, well done, thy good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few, I will make you ruler of many. 'Enter into the joy of the Lord.' Hallelujah. Then he who had received the one talent came and said, 'Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you had not sown, gathering where you had not scattered. And I was afraid, and I went and I hid your talents in the ground. Look, there you have what's yours.' Mhm. This is where it confuses comes in, and I'm going to read this. The Lord says to him, but the Lord answered his servant and said to him, you wicked and lazy servant. Have mercy. Controversy. Man right now is saying two things, saying one of the two things that you don't hear men say. First and foremost, a man will never cry. So the theory is— second, man, I really dispelled that when my mother passed away because I cried like for you. Second and foremost, another rule of men that I probably will break here is that you never let them see you sweat. Or never let them know that you are afraid. Yet this man is confessing to the Lord, Lord, I was afraid. You would think that once a man confesses his sins to the Lord, the Lord would embrace him. Yet the Lord says to him, uh-uh, you wicked, lazy servant. Have mercy. Have mercy. I wanted to prove this point, find out who was telling the truth. Was the man who was feeling it telling the truth, or was the God, the creator of the universe, of everything that we know, telling the truth? So I looked and investigated fear. Fear, according to Webster, is an actual reaction to an immediate threat of one's person, or emotions. Fear is caused— and we look at it from a neurological standpoint— fear is caused by 5 major points in the brain. First, the thalamus, which decides where to send the incoming threat or danger. Then the sensory cortex interprets what the thalamus has sent and then decides there to take it to the next step, which goes to the hippocampus, which stores and retrieves every conscious memory. Wow. That you have had dealing with that object of fear. Okay. Jesus. Now, you could have experienced it, you could have seen it, you could have dreamed it, or someone could have told you about it, but yet it is still in the resources of your consciousness. Yes, it is. Then it goes to the amygdala, which decodes the emotion and lets you know that what you are experiencing gears you up for one of two things: fight or flight. From that point, it goes to the hypothalamus. That's right. And once that fight or flight— ladies, if you are here and any other ladies want to see this, I'm gonna tell you something about that fight or flight. It is triggered primarily in men. And what that fight or flight does is that the hippocampus releases things that puts men on a heightened sense ability. Heightened sense. His blood pressure has now elevated to the point where he could probably kill himself. His heart rate is racing faster. His eyes are fixed and focused. His testosterone level has shot up 20%, not to mention his adrenaline. This man is armed, he is ready, and he is dangerous. So if any of you right now that think that you can mess with your man and he's gonna listen to you because he love you, I got another point for you. When that man is in that heightened sense right now, the blood vessels in his ears swell up. Have mercy. He can barely hear a word. Wow. He is focused on his task. So you can sit up here and say, 'I'm sorry,' he ain't hearing you. You can say, 'I made a mistake,' he ain't hearing you. You can say, 'Oh Lord, I was just playing,' he ain't hearing you. Have mercy. Be careful with what you do when you push a man to that level. Amen. Fear. Amen. United States, United States military had an issue with one of the most popular branches right now, the Airborne Rangers. Now I know we got some servicemen on one here. And it is hard to believe— amen— it is hard to believe as popular as the Airborne and Special Forces is right now, that in 1940 they had 3 volunteers. They could not find men who wanted to jump out of perfectly serviceable airplanes. Go, Fred! So— go figure! So, to answer that question, they invested $400,000 of your grandparents' taxpayers' money back in 1940, which makes it today a ratio of $49 million to investigate fears. What they find using the greatest pathological theorist at our time, B.F. Skinner, they found out that there were at 1940, 1,700 registered documented fears. Wow. Now God told him that he ain't— he ain't scared. Man has found 1,700 fears. And here's some of my favorites: arachnophobia, fear of spiders. Yep. Acrophobia, fear of heights. Ophidiophobia, Fear of snakes. Cardulophobia, fear of clowns. And here's a good one, ecclesiophobia. Whoa. Fear of church. What? Say what? Yes. Say that again. Say that again. Ecclesiophobia is the fear of church. What? Wow. Ecclesiophobia. Yes. And my all-time favorite, and here's two more of my favorites. Triskaidelephobia. Triskaidelephobia. Fear of Friday the 13th. Oh, and you think that's good? You're going to love this one. Hippopotamostracibus esquioequiplididumpiophobia. Stop playing. Fear of hippopotamuses. Nope. Fear of long words. What? You overcame that, brother. However, According to your government dollars at work, we have found out, which confirms the Bible, there are— we are, as man, as human beings, God has blessed us and born us with only 2 fears out of 1,700 registered fears. Now, by the way, that's up to 32,000 fears. Whoa. Yes, we are only born with 2. Anybody got them? Fear the Lord. Fear the Lord? Nope, that's not one. Fear of our parents. Fear of our parents? No, that's not one either. Fear of dying. Fear of death is not one. Fear of the snakes. Fear of the snakes is not one that we're born with. Abandonment. Nope, it's not one that we're born with. Self-hatred. Nope, not— come on, come on, guys, 1,700. Let's get one out of here. The fear of giving the wrong answer. No, but that is one of the top 20. What about the fear of being alone? Nope, nope, nope. I'm gonna give it to you. The two fears that we are born with Boom! Scared. What? Right, correct. Fear of sudden and loud noises. Wow. Wow. Yeah, we got that in church all the time. And which is why when you go to the movies and you see those horror movies, they always got somebody jumping out. Correct. The other fear is fear of the sensation of falling. Oh, that's why roller coasters are the number one money makers in amusement parks. Now, if you think of right now what fears you have that has you paralyzed, what fears you have that keeps you still, what fears you have that keeps you from growing and prospering— hmm— if it's not one of those two, it's not a fear. Hmm. How did the guy The government find out, they put a total of several hundred infants from the age of 6 months to 1 year and put them in, in a room with everything— snakes, spiders, airplanes, loud noises, jumping, falling, everything. They found out that infants are only half those 2 things. Wow. Wow. Every fear that you have right now is learned. Okay, okay, but that sound that you're hearing right now, that's some chains breaking off of us, right? All right, because if we have learned of fear, hallelujah, then the power of Lord, of our God, can get us to unlearn that fear. Okay, that's right. Bound by fear, then the power of Jesus can break every chain and release those fears. All right, it says in Romans chapter 8, verses 15, you did not receive the spirit of fear, of bondage against you. But the fear, but you did receive the spirit of adoption from whom we cry out, Abba. That sensation that you have that's got you running scared is designed so that you can say, Father. All right. Or as Peter said when he walked across the water and then that water started to rise above him and the waves started coming, Peter didn't say, oh Lord, assistance. He said, Lord, help me. Yes, he did. That's what he said. Yes, he did. Fear has us, and the two fears that we learn and most common are fears that— and here's the thing, we learn fears from people who love us the most. Have mercy, you could say that again. We have learned every fear came from people who love us the most. Let's start with that wonderful person called our parents. Amen. It has been written and documented, by the time a child reaches the age of 3, he has heard stop, no, and don't a total of 42 million times. Wow. Our parents, as we discovered that children are fearless, our parents teach us fear out of their fear. They're scared we gonna die. Yes, they are. But it don't work because how many times have our parents told us hot? Anybody here ever burn their hand? Come on. Amen. Come on. So you have no reason to fear for your child's life and safety. Yet we do. The other fears that we learn are social fears. First fear, most common fear, which is not a fear, is called fear of failure. Anybody experience that fear of failure? Because you generally learn it in public school or school that you go to. That's when you're sitting up there, you come to school, you were supposed to prepare for something, and the teacher calls you. Now, I'mma date myself back in Philadelphia. When the teacher called you, you didn't sit at your chair. You stood up, you said, "Yes, ma'am," gave the answer, and you sat down. Now that fear of— Failure comes when that teacher call you, you didn't do your homework, you're not prepared, and you're standing up going, "Duh, the dog see where that happened." And then you get what's called the womp womp moment. That's when womp womp and all that stuff. Fear of failure is designed, it's called peer pressure, it's designed to have you take your behind home and study your homework for the next day to be prepared. Bible says let a man be studied to show himself approved. Amen. That's right. Amen. Amen. Second fear that we have, social fear. Fear of success. Hmm, hard to believe, ain't it? Yeah, because everybody wants success. Fear of success comes from two ways. First, fear of success Success is peer pressure. Anybody was ever the smartest kid in the class? Always answered all the questions, got everything right. You were great with the teacher, the teacher loved you. Well, then the fear of success comes because you were doing great in the room, you're getting lots of rewards, but then comes recess. Mm. Then all the dumb kids surround you. Yeah. They wanna talk to you. You can't be answering all them questions. Yeah. You making us look stupid. Really? I'm making you look stupid? Or was the 4 years that you had in 3rd grade? Fear of success because you want to fit in. How many people dummy down what they truly know because they want to fit in? Everybody wants to be accepted, you want to be loved, yet you do not say what's right because you want to fit in. Jesus walked the earth and everybody knew that he was great, but yet the crowd said kill him. Because they want to fit in. Oh man, what we need to do today is to stop these fears, stop worrying about fitting in, and start standing up for what's right. That's right. What we need to do today is stop sitting up here, let the crowd tell us what to do, and start doing what God told us. All right. What we need to do today, yes, is start listening to the voice of the Lord. Yes. The voice of the people. Amen. Amen. Fear Another part of that fear of success is the simple fact that people don't want to do the work. Hmm. Michael Jordan says, "Yes, everybody wants to make the game-winning shot, but nobody wants to do the 12 hours a day that I practice." Yeah. Fear of success. And fear of success and being lazy with that fear is the number one reason that you have people in church every time the lottery shoots up to $100 million with a ticket in their pocket. Wasting prayer time. Lord, if you just help me, it's 200 million, Lord. I promise to give the church my 10%. Everybody wants to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous, but nobody wants to put in the work of the rich and famous. Fear of success is better known as called mediocrity. We are now in a society of mediocrity. Okra, where status quo, not moving, not budging, but maintaining that line is what people strive to do. Have mercy. Don't we have a God of excess? A God who says that, you know, everything you should do, you should do to the glory of me? Amen. Yeah, we sit up there lazy and wicked and we condemn ourselves. Not only that, our children. We have now grown into a nation of lazy and wicked children. That's right. See, my day, I grew up, when you came home, you got your homework done. Yes, you did. Then you got your housework done. That's right. Then you— yeah, then you go on and you get out of your school clothes. That's right. Then you go out and play, or you watch TV. Parents come home now, they kids go out. True. Did you clean your room? I'll get to it. Did you hear me? My mother had a rule, and it was an unspoken rule, but she only called you once. That's it. That's it. Once. One time. After that one time, now she come to look for you. Amen. And it ain't because she want to tell you she love you. Amen. Can you hear me? Amen. But you're new to hear her voice, just like in the Bible he says, my sheep know the sound of my voice, because you have now broken out of that fear and now you are hearing the word of the Lord. Amen. Yes, hallelujah. But yet one thing that we should teach our children is that failure is not The end all. The reason that we're having so many people who get broken up in a relationship and then they go and kill somebody is because they are afraid of failure. And let's look at it today, we have our kids in these intramural sports where there is no winner and no loser. Hmm. Then how you gonna know? You are raising them to be mediocre. And what happens? Well, let's look at mediocrity in the church, if we may, since we are in church. Mediocrity in the church is nothing new because mediocre people in society come to the church, right? Amen. That's right. Mediocrity in the church, you meet the first time that somebody who comes in new with a fresh idea and says, "Pastor, let's see if we can make this happen." And then the pastor put him in front of the committee, and the first person in the committee who is mediocre says to you two things. First, "Let me tell you something, boy. Don't be coming here with these new ideas because my great-great-great-great-grandfather put the first nails in this church, and my grandmother been paying all the lights." Mediocrity in the church comes, and you know it, when somebody bust out in church and said them 7 fatal words that every church is going to die suffering: "We ain't ever done it this way before." That's right. Amen. They being mediocre. Now they being mediocre and they want you to dumb it down to their level. They don't want the church to progress. They don't want the church to grow because they want to be lazy and they don't want you to show them up. All right. Amen, you preaching. Amen, amen. Well, you praying, preaching, brother. Fear failure. They are looking at society, looking at history. Our history, the greatest men in our country, in the world, have experienced failure. Walt Disney, amen, multi-billion dollar industry. The man was a complete failure until he drew a picture of a mouse. Abraham Lincoln lost every election. He had a failed business with bankruptcy, suffered depression, and yet he became president. Yes. Wow. Wow. Bill Gates. Yeah. Yeah. Failed business. Yeah. And then all of a sudden he started doing computer programs. Muhammad Ali got his behind beaten, amateur and then the next thing you know, he's standing before the world saying, "I am the greatest." Amen. Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of my generation, cut from high school basketball. Yes. Learning how to deal with failure. And let's take Michael Jordan as an example. He failed, cut from high school basketball. He went around the house terrorizing everybody 'cause he got cut. He's all upset because he's thinking that, you know what, the Lord has put it on his heart that he is great. He is destined for his greatness. Yet, this stupid coach don't realize that he is the great Michael Jordan. So his father said to him, "Look here, son, don't be sitting up here tearing up the house. Go ask the coach, man up." So he did. He said, "Coach, I'm the best player in the neighborhood. In fact, I'm probably the best player in the city. How come I got cut?" And the coach told him the truth. Point number 1, tell our children the truth. He said, "Listen, you probably are the best player in the neighborhood." athlete, but yet you will take a shot with 3 defenders rather than find an open man. You do not move the ball well, you do not handle the ball well, and your shots are inconsistent, especially the foul shot where every basketball player knows that he has to make at least one. Michael Jordan spent that year of failure, rather than mulling and crying and lulling himself into a false sense of life, better known as being mediocre, he decided to work on that calling which was given to him. He decided to step and work on his greatness. Greatness. He didn't sit up here and take his basketball talent to say, I'ma wait for my lottery to come. No, he said that I will work on it. He sat up there and worked on his foul shots so much, the fourth quarter, 1992, Chicago Bulls down one, he got two shots to make and he makes them. Yeah, with his eyes closed. Yeah. Wow. Win the game. Win the game. He has practiced. Amen. His craft. So much that he made it with his eyes closed. That's the moment that God has for all of us. Everything that we have done has prepared us for that moment. Everything that we have learned has prepared us for that moment. Everything that we have practiced has prepared us where the Lord has us, center court, all eyes are on us, and we do it with our eyes closed. That's right. Amen. Don't look for me to preach with my eyes closed, y'all. I'm telling you. Fear of social is called haters. Today's term, they call them haters. And let's look at haters. Everybody's got haters. People hate you if you're short, they hate you if you're tall, they hate you if you're dark, they hate you if you're light, they hate you if you got long hair, they hate you if you got bald head, they hate if you got a mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, they hate the clothes you wear, the shoes you wear, the way you walk, the way you talk. Haters just hate. Have mercy. Have mercy. But here's my theory. If you hating me now, just wait till the Lord get finished with me. Because no eyes have seen, no ears have heard the greatness that God has planned for me right now. So if you hating me right now, hallelujah, brother, you really gonna hate me once the Lord get through. All right. Amen. Amen. But yet he says to us, A wicked, lazy servant. In the parables in the Bible, Jesus tells everybody it has two things. One of the dualities of God. He comes with one, a reward, or two, a punishment. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Everybody wants the reward, but nobody wants to deal with the punishment. Everybody wants the triumph, But nobody wants to go through the tribulation. Everybody wants the glory, but nobody wants to put in the groundwork to tell the story. Everybody wants to be praised, but nobody will put help in the church being raised. It comes with one, and I read it. He says to him, the blessing, well done. Well done. Amen. Well done, thy good and faithful servant. Hallelujah. But yet it comes with a curse. He says to the servant, you knew I have not sown and gathered— you have— you knew I have not reaped where I have sown and gathered where I have scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bank, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. Amen. Let me take a step back. Everybody says, well, that man only had one talent. That's true. But who hasn't made a success out of one talent? Anybody heard of Larry Bird? One talent. Bill Gates, one talent. Muhammad Ali, one talent. Okay. Beyoncé, one talent. Michael Jackson, one talent. Each according to his own ability. You can take that one talent and turn it into an empire if you're using that talent for the glory of God. Hallelujah. Amen. But then you say, okay, well, that's just a talent in terms of things. Let's look at it in terms of money. Okay, let's look at it in terms of money. He got a talent. Everybody— one got 5, the other one got 2. He got one talent. One talent, which at that particular time, the currency of that era was either silver or gold. Let's examine gold. Gold. According to Friday exchange rate, gold equivalent to 1 ounce— not a troy ounce, 1 ounce of gold— $1,080.80. One talent that man had, right, was the equivalent of 75 pounds. That means that the Lord gave his servant $1,285,032. Wow. One talent. And he hid that one talent. You give me a million dollars and see what happened, bro. Hey, look, you give me half of that, I'll see what happened, bro. Amen. That's why I keep challenging people, you know. You don't have to sit up here and, and, and listen to these prosperity pastors who telling you all you got to do, son, is go on, put your hand up on it and praise Jesus, begin claiming it as yours. No, all you had to do is take that talent and put it to work. Amen. Amen. Amen. One talent, yet he was afraid. Now, who was right? The man who said he was scared, or God who said he was lazy and wicked? And the reason he said he was wicked— laziness is, you know what, rebellion. Laziness is practiced disobedience. Laziness, the opposite of discipline. Rebellion. God says rebellion is worse than witchcraft. Have mercy. When your child is lazy, is wicked. When your child is disobedient, they're being wicked. They're not— that's not, that's not just euphemism. No, they are practicing disobedience. Another thing we scared of. Why are we scared Why do we discipline our children? Because they call the cops. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Look, I saw a woman whose child stole her credit card. She took the child. She— the child stole her credit card, went to New York, partied with her friends. Credit card got declined, couldn't pay the room. They called her mother, found the kid in New York. The police sitting up there talking to her. They called the pastor to talk to this woman. This woman, only thing she said was, Where my child at? Police there, social worker there, everybody there. They told her what she did. She said, where my child at? Okay, we're going to let you see your child. They let her in there, she get this girl a beat down in the police station. I mean a beat down. And then she go to the cops. Wow. When we let the government tell us how to discipline our children, when we let another man tell us what to do in our home. When we let a man who do— does not know God tell us what God says and how we do our children, our jobs as parents are over. And you know what the government going to do for them? They got them nice little rooms where they get beat up by everybody. Yeah, when they get 3 hots and a cot, they feel like they're safe. Yeah, have mercy. Come on, man. See, my parents had a theory called I Wish You Would. Mine too. I wish you would call the cops. While you at them, tell them to connect you to homicide because by the time you get here, you'll be dead. Lord have mercy. So I ask you this question. What happens to that? He says, for he who has more, more will be given. That's why people who are doing tend to do more. People who are prosperous tend to grow because they have a pattern of success. They understand how to use that talent for the glory of God. Next. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. He says that a lot. You know what that means, right? Yeah, you're going to hell. And it ain't gonna be a picnic because there is gnashing of teeth and weeping. That doesn't sound like the party that they had on the posters in the '60s. Now I'm asking you this: to this day, those who have had talents like we have seen today— we have seen the brothers have some beautiful talents. Amen. Amen. Hey, and the sisters weren't too slack in using their talents in their cooking. Come on. Amen. Amen. That's right. Are you going to use your talents for the glory of God? Are you going to use your talents to build his kingdom? Are you going to use your talents to help further the church? And this isn't, you know, a dialogue. This is actually rhetoric. Are you going to use your talents to build the church? I see some heads shaking. Amen. Are you going to use your talents to build the church? Amen. Are you going to use your talents to further the kingdom of God? Are you going to use your talents to give God the glory? Or if you do that, then you will sit there like the rest of us who hope to be before the Lord hearing him say, well done, well done, well done, well done, well done, thy good and faithful servant. Yes, amen. Thank you very much. Amen.