And now, we may imagine ourselves sitting with Jesus and his disciples on the Mount of Olives. As we look down we see the city of Jerusalem spread out beneath our feet. We see its walls, and its palaces. And there, just before us, outshining everything in its beauty, is that sacred temple, that was "forty and six years in building." Its white marble walls, its golden spires, and pinnacles, are sparkling in the beams of the sun, as they shine upon them. No wonder the Jews were so proud of it! It was a glorious building. But now Jesus is beginning to speak. Let us listen to what he says. The lessons that he taught on the Mount of Olives run all through the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of St. Matthew. In the first of these chapters, Jesus gave them a sign, by which those who learn to understand what he here says, might know when his second coming is to take place. These are some of the lessons from Olivet. I should like, very much, to stop and talk about them. But this cannot be now. We pass over to the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew. In this chapter we have three of our Saviour's parables. These are very solemn and instructive. They all refer to the judgment that must take place when Jesus shall come into our world again. The second of these parables is the one we are now to consider. It is called--"The Parable of the Talents." We find it in St. Matt, xxv: 14-30. And _the lessons from Olivet_, which we are now to try and learn, are all drawn from the words of our Saviour, contained in the verses just mentioned. This, then, is our present subject--_The Lessons from Olivet_. And there _four_ lessons, in this part of our Saviour's discourse, of which we are now to speak. _The first is--the lesson about the Master. The second--the lesson about the servants. The third is--the lesson about the talents; and the fourth, the lesson about the rewards_. _The lesson about_--THE MASTER--_is the first thing of which we are to speak_. In the 14th verse of this 25th chapter of St. Matthew, Jesus speaks of himself as--"a man travelling into a far country,"--and of his people as--"his own servants." In the 19th verse he speaks of himself as "the lord of those servants, coming back, after a long time, to reckon with them."