Chapter Overview

The deeds of the Lord Jesus recorded in this chapter differ from those recorded elsewhere. In other accounts, we hear of talents given to servants – one talent, two talents, and five talents respectively. The servant who received five talents earned another five, ultimately possessing ten. Here, however, the focus is on each servant receiving one talent. Whether that single talent yields five or ten is immaterial. What matters is what Luke intends to convey. The theme of the previous chapter was Faith is a Choice of the Heart.” I have titled this chapter, The Consequences of Belief and Unbelief.”

In this chapter, we see Zacchaeus abruptly believe in Jesus. What then is his fate? After Jesus visits his home, Zacchaeus not only repents but also distributes half of his possessions to the poor! Previously, he cherished money above all else, but now, for the Lord's sake, he is willing to do anything. Thus, we observe that the consequences of belief and unbelief are vastly different.

From verse 11 to 27, the narrative recounts a wealthy man who, before journeying to a distant land, summons ten servants and entrusts each with a mina, instructing them to engage in trade until his return. Upon his return, some servants have multiplied their single mina into ten, others into five, while some have gained nothing. God treats these individuals differently. Some are given authority over five or ten cities; others receive criticism instead of cities to govern. Still others, unbelievers, are dragged out and slain. Such are the consequences of belief and unbelief.

Some, through their belief, have earned wealth. They are faithful and good servants of God, so their master appoints them to govern. Verses 28-37 then describe the contrasting reactions of belief and unbelief sparked by a donkey. Jesus requests a donkey be brought to Him, and when the owner asks why his donkey is needed, the response, The Lord needs it, is met with permission. The reactions between belief and unbelief are stark. An unbeliever might question, The Lord needs my donkey? I have not even used it myself! Such a reaction would be peculiar.

From verse 37 onward to verse 40, we encounter the unbelief of the Pharisees. Some Pharisees begin to rebuke Jesus, saying, Teacher, rebuke your disciples! Jesus replies, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out. The entire chapter illustrates the contrasting reactions and consequences of belief and unbelief. In verse 41, Jesus laments, If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Thus, Jerusalem is to be destroyed because its people do not believe, even though it is a Holy City, it has become a paradigm of unbelief. Verses 45-48 are similar. These people turn God's temple into a den of robbers because of their unbelief. Some might say, The Bible becomes so simple when you explain it this way! I am puzzled. Reading a passage is primary school work; it should not be difficult. The difficulty lies in losing sight of basic common sense. If you ask me what the most challenging aspect of leading a Bible study is, I will tell you it is discerning the author's intended message.

Endings Determine Development

In fact, the author wishes to emphasise only one point: the consequences of belief and unbelief. The consequences we speak of are not immediately apparent, but are a series of reactions resulting from faith. The end of something is better than its beginning and process, and if the end is not good then no matter how good the process it is useless, so the ending determines the development of things. As you walk to today you did not make a series of reactions and series of choices from the past?

The previous chapter spoke of faith as a result of choice; after our discussion, we discovered that the difference between belief and unbelief is immense. Some believe for ten days, then on the eleventh day, they lose faith, overturning all the choices made during their period of belief. In other words, those who believe will continuously trust in God and act according to His word. Let us address these points one by one.

People need continually believe that God's word, believing in what God told us, the final outcome will follow God said to implementation . There was a tax collector named Zacchaeus, who in that era discovered the secret of multi-level marketing. Given the difficulty of his job as a tax collector, he started a pyramid scheme. How did he do it? He recruited downlines, who are also tax collectors, to collect taxes. A portion of the taxes collected by these subordinates would go to him, resulting in great wealth. However, the common people deeply resented this tax collector because he emptied their purses.

Although this tax collector was short in stature, he was very clever. To manage his tax collectors, he used many tricks to deal with them. The more one uses tricks, the more intelligent one becomes. He heard of a man named Jesus who had arrived, and having listened to some of His teachings he pondered who Jesus might be, he began to see that the essence of money was through.

Although Zacchaeus was successful in his multi-level marketing scheme, he gradually realised that living this way was meaningless. Those people who have never seen money, who have never seen the world, are full of worldly thoughts and think that having money is particularly good. But Zacchaeus, who had seen the world and suddenly became wealthy, heard that Jesus, who could make the blind see, had come to his territory, and he wanted to see Jesus. People always act with an intention. He did not simply want to see Jesus: he felt that this matter was very important.

As a result, Jesus went to the location, look up and saw the person in the tree. Zacchaeus this man is very famous he is in the city everyone is talking about he is short, the people is very bad, if something happen in his home, the every one in the city will knows, people will say he deserve it.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately! I must stay at your house today.” (Luke 19:5)

If I knew Jesus but Jesus did not know me, and we happened to meet on the road and he addressed me by my name and told me that he must stay at my house today, what could this mean? A very special feeling would arise in my heart. The Bible does not say how this happened, maybe no one recognises Zacchaeus but Jesus knows his name exactly, better than fortune tellers even!

As a result some one like Zacchaeus would say, my God actually knows me. We must remember this principle, do not hate the rich as hating the wealthy puts under the curse of poverty. No matter how much you wish you could take there place and hate them, you can't wish you could take the place of the rich and hate them. If you wish that you could take their place and hate them, the curse of poverty will be upon you. In fact being wealthy isn't the problem at all: the problem lies with whether you believe, because if you believe then God will recognise us.

When people believe, God recognises us, God will select according to your name. God calls us and He knows each and every one of us. God chooses those believers, those non-believers even if they are running all over the streets, God will not care about them. Zacchaeus has faith inside and he wants to see Jesus. Even though because he is petite, temporarily he cannot see but he continues to try all sort of methods to climb up the tree to see.

When he did this, Jesus Who was incarnated in the human form, He actually said his name! Sometimes I would think, will the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob also become my God in the future, will my name be linked with the name of Jesus Christ even, this is incredible! To what level did Zacchaeus’ faith reach, he did not need everyone to go announce that he believed in Jesus.

The amazing influence that a person had as a result of believing, how significant this influence is in the sight of God, people with faith are no ordinary people you know! If you ask me, how many types of people are there in this world, is it that there are men and women? This is incorrect, who is a man and who is a woman is not important: the important thing is whether he or she have faith or not.

Those Who Believe are the Lost People God is Seeking

There are only two types of people in the world: those who believe in God and those who do not believe in God. If you believe in yourself, that is not faith. If you believe in yourself, even if Jesus passes in front of you you would not care to cast a glance at Him as those who believe are eager to see Jesus. Zacchaeus never expected to Jesus to say His name and to say his name: how could it be that Jesus would stay over in the home of the sinner, do not contaminate yourself or anything! Many people are foolish because they think that sinners can contaminate Jesus whereas, in fact, sinners cannot contaminate Jesus as it is only non-believers that can contaminate Jesus. Therefore, regardless of what we must do we must be a person who has faith.

When we are people with faith, we do not have faith in ourselves but rather, we have faith in God. Zacchaeus welcomed the Jesus into his house: this shows that faith continued to move forward and in the past he loved money but now he loves God. Those who have experienced the ways of the world feel that worldly matter are meaningless but those who have not seen the world feel that worldly matters are very meaningful. After zacchaeus has experienced this before discovering that money is not interesting and cannot resolve the complications inside his heart: neither can it resolve the way that he has lived on the earth.

He said that that he would distribute of half he owns, all his to the poor, this is faith! You are may not be able to sell everything when you just begin but you could give half of it away. Not placing a high value on wealth, maybe one day for you when you continue to grow in faith, all your wealth will mean nothing to you.

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:8-10)

Jesus isn’t talking about the physical descendants of Abraham but all those who have faith like Abraham are the sons and daughters of Abraham. It is not important whether you are a sinner: the important thing is if you have faith. If you have faith then you are the lost person that God is looking for. If you do not have faith, then you are not the last person that God is looking for. Abraham was very lucky, because Abraham after he has seen the world, he felt that living was meaningless.

Zacchaeus also felt that living was meaningless: he wanted to look for the meaning to why people live, the same manner as Abraham. All those who model after Abraham who feel that there is no meaning to living in the world, these people will be looking for the meaning of living. Suddently, they have found a God because the God is searching for the lost. Do you think that everyone in the world are the lost people? No.

But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’” (Luke 19:27)

They do not know the meaning of living, so for God those people are like a pile of dog poop, they are like “Jiang Mi Tiao (a type of food)”. It’s not important what others think of themselves its the important of how God sees you. When others saw Jesus stay in Zacchaeus’ house their reactions were very strange: they thought how could it be that Jesus would stay over in the home of the sinner. Worldly people do not know that the righteous and the sinners are differentiated by believers and non-believers but worldly people differentiate the righteous and the sinners based on whether they have done good deeds, have accumulated merits. For example: if you were the tax collector and you used sales techniques to steal money them you are a sinner. In fact the Bible doesn’t delineate in this way: the people in the Bible are categorised based on whether they believe or not.

The righteous shall live by faith, those who believe they are righteous and those who do not believe they are sinners, and those who believe are the last that seek to be found by God, the endings between believe and unbelief are different. they thought that God’s nation was soon going to be made know that Jesus would be very strong and that he would lead them to war and then overthrow people the Roman Empire: they would establish a David dynasty and they would establish the dynasty of Jesus Christ. In fact, they do not know what Jesus Christ wants to do.

These people were brought into this world an arrangement of logic, thinking that Jesus had to be in this world to be Chen Sheng, Wu Guang, as be under the oppression of emperor Qin Shi Huang for a long time must rebel and revolt. In fact Jesus came not to do this task but to search for those who are lost, not to overturn the Roman Empire but to overturn the nation of Satan and then return those people with faith back his country.

Faithfully and Practically Put Faith Into Practise and Then God Will Cause Things To Come To Pass Corresponding to Man’s Faith

He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. (Luke 19:12-13)

Our work in the world is just like one pound that Jesus gave each person if us . God is really good, we are all the same, are the same type of thing even, and the result depends on the one talent and practise the result of one’s faith. This is true for all Christians as well: each person has been given one, and if you’re a Christian the outcome is based on one’s faith in practice. Every Christian. If you feel that you do not have one talent then you have categorised yourself is to disbelief as although your body has a body, has arms and hands, has legs and feet and you are not lacking anything the thing that you are lacking is faith and the resolve in your faith.

Many people spend their entire lives engaging in hypocrisy, including the preachers and the Christians. God gives us the homework of faith so that where’s your faith? Some people believe: I’ll be this way for the rest of my life, I am not Paul and I’m not the Jesus, and I don't have the gift, I can't do it. and then day after day passes, just working through the day and then the next day and in the end, not only what he has had that was that Jesus. If a talent give them lost: some people even challenge Jesus - Jesus what are you saying? Don’t think that if you don't do anything it will be ok, know that as a result of doing so you will be taken out by God and assassinated!

If you are a person of faith there the faith and you will be able to cause there to become ten talents in the faith and I often say the miney runs into my pocket, people will respond - why doesn't the money run into my pocket? Because you don't have faith, you have it inside of you. For people with faith will be money running into your pocket and if you have faith and you believe God how if it possible that God does not know your faith, do you? God will cause things to come to pass correspondingly to what their faith is.

All the brothers and sisters will be coming to go with the 102 course, in actual fact, it is the practise of ones faithfulness of one of their faith. Some people ask me - teacher I went to church when I was young and now Im almost 60 years old, and Bible look like many times how is it that I am not been able to understand? The reason is that you do not wish to cause the one has given you to become ten pounds this could be able to have been understood? How can u possibly put your confidence into practice? If one does not wish to work out how is it possible for one to be able to come to understand the Bible? God does not love money, God means for us to really and truly doing things and God is wanting us to be able to manage what you manage will be your money. Is the only way it run in your pocket. If you have no means of managing and what would be for God to turn your city over?

You have God gives you two eyes: you use your eyes to watch TV series is is how your eyes managed? God gives you to those the 2 eyes is to allow you to see. How could you be so pleasing to God?

When growing they have the opportunity, but actually what is. The

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## Persevere with Faith and Hope

Brothers and sisters, today must all know God's rule, this principle is called the Matthew effect, that is, those who have will have more given to them, and those who do not have, even what they have will be taken away. In the early days, our church experienced a considerable period of desolation, but in that desolate process, I could have nothing, but I could not be without faith. It doesn't matter if I have nothing, but I can't be without perseverance.

I persevered day after day with faith and hope. In my heart, I can weep every day, but I cannot lose faith. I can cry, I can suffer, but I cannot lose faith and hope. Those days of fighting and losing against the devil are actually not fun at all. But in my faith, I know that God will make us prosper and flourish!

Can you endure hardship? In fact, our suffering is far from the point of bloodshed and sacrifice, isn't it? Some of the children from poor families among us can't endure hardship, which makes me very emotional. If you work beside me, watching me move planks, climbing up and down to work, you will find that I am not much different from young people, and I work even more nimbly than them. Why? It is for those ten pieces of silver, for the love of God to persevere, and will continue to persevere until the Lord comes again. In this way, when I see the Lord, I will not be ashamed.

I serve God to achieve an exceeding eternal weight of glory, which is what we should have done. I was originally a useless person, since I can receive God's grace and have the opportunity to know and trust Him, isn't what I do what I should do?

## Summary

Brothers and sisters, restore the faith within us. If God entrusts you with a small matter, do it well, not to make it disappear, but to do it better and better. If you play tricks on a small matter, the same will be true for big matters. I know that we have not seen much of the world, have not seen too much money, we are still children who grew up in poor families, and we have not accomplished anything, but we have faith in us.

We know that God sees those who have faith as treasures, and we can draw on the power of God's kingdom in the process of practicing faith. You are God's treasure. When we see the Lord, our tears and all our endurance will not be in vain. We will overcome difficulties one by one, fight battles one by one, and we must know that today is the path of practicing faith, what a glorious path it is.

**But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’ (Luke 19:27)**

Do you think our God is Santa Claus? Do you think God can forgive these people? God will not spare those who do not want Jesus to be their king, this is the end of these unbelievers. So we should be determined to run this road until we see the Lord.

We must never become unbelievers before God. Those who are unwilling to run for God, unwilling to let God be their king, may say it is because of five oxen, wife and children, and newly bought land... These things that seem important are actually very ridiculous, and they put down the mission entrusted to you by God. So are you willing to give up many things for the sake of God's kingdom today?

**This is a lesson of faith, we must not gnash our teeth at that time and hate ourselves for not investing in God's kingdom, knowing that this is a business with huge profits.** If the Lord wants to use you, are you willing to be used by God? Know that no one can stop you from being used by the Lord, only you can. Even if it is a donkey, if God wants to use it, no one can stop it, let alone you are a person?

Remember, **those who are willing to be used by God are people of faith**. Brothers and sisters, know that blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! Today you and I must see the glory of heaven descend in our midst. Even if we do not shout, God can make the stones shout. Jerusalem is a symbol of glory. I wish you knew that what determines your peace is your faith. Unfortunately, these things are hidden, and the things of faith are also hidden. It is not faith to see it, and it is also faith to not see it!

**So I think, everyone should know that the things of faith are hidden. Why did you see ten pieces of silver when you got one piece of silver? This is the eye of faith.** If you don't have the eye of faith, what you see is hidden. The days will come when your enemies will come to attack you, surround you on all sides, and destroy you and your children. Because people have no faith, they do not know that God will take care of us.

But today we must know for sure that this is the time for God to take care of us, this is the time for God to hear our prayers, and God's care for us is every day. If you know that on the road to practicing faith, your one piece of silver will definitely become ten pieces of silver, don't say that you are stupid, don't say that you have no conditions, and don't say that God did not give you that one piece of silver and ten pieces of silver when He created you. God must have given it to you when He created you, just to let you practice faith.

Never turn your body into a den of thieves. Faith can make our body a temple of God and manifest God's glory; unbelief can turn our body into a den of thieves. So brothers and sisters, reflect carefully on whether our flesh has expanded to a certain extent, so that we cannot obey God's word. What mortifies our flesh is the faith within us, which is originally salvation. If God wants to save you, God will definitely help you, which is originally God's will! The question is, can it be harmonized with the faith within you?

**Start believing that no matter how great the difficulties, you can always overcome them with God's power! It doesn't matter if it's hard! It is this hardship that can mortify the flesh within us.** Persisting for one hour can persist for two hours, persisting for two hours can persist for one day, persisting for one day can persist for one week, persisting for one week can persist for two weeks, then you can persist for one month, and then you can persist for one year, until you see the glory of God, climb the mountain of the Lord God, enter the temple of the God of Jacob, and behold the beauty of God!

Our lives will definitely show the glory of God, this is my faith, and this is the faith I want to share with everyone, look at yourself according to God's eyes, no one can change your destiny, only yourself, your faith and unbelief inside, is the result of your choice! Persevere, it doesn't matter, we have plenty of time, as long as we continue to persevere, you will definitely see the glory of God!

May God bless everyone!