Address—Doug Buchanan
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Come, thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace, streams of mercy, never ceasing call or ceaseless praise.
Oh, to grace, how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee, like to continue.
With the last five parables, the Kingdom of Heaven.
Because I believe we find something practical in the last five we've had before us. The councils of God, His thoughts back in eternity, How He has revealed His ways, His purpose to us so that we might know it, so that we might fit our lives in with His plan. Reap the blessing. Walk with God here on earth.
We've had.
How there are two parts?
In God's eternal plan, the earthly and the heavenly, and how in this day and age that we live, God is choosing a people out for himself to feel heaven. That's our lot, the most blessed part. But we're still here on earth, natural bodies, and we're living in the.
Time when you enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
And you learn to possess it and make it your own. You learn to send your treasures ahead.
So that you will have them when Christ comes back.
And on these last five parables similitudes the Kingdom of Heaven.
I believe we will notice that we have.
Something about our attitude, forgiveness, something about work.
Something about dress or appearance.
And then in the fourth light bearing.
Or power of testimony.
And lastly, rewards.
So let's turn to Matthew 18.
We won't read all of these. I'm going to take it for granted that you have read.
These.
But I will read this first one.
Matthew chapter 18, verse 23.
Therefore is the Kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him which owed him 10,000 talents. But for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and worshiped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me.
And I will pay thee all. Then the Lord of that servant was moved with compassion.
And loosed him and forgave him the dead. But the same servant went out and found one of his fellow servants, which owed him an 100 pence.
And he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou oweest.
And his fellow servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not, but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. So in his fellow servants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their Lord all that was done.
Then his Lord after that he had called him, and said unto him.
Oh, thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desires me.
Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother.
00:05:01
Their trespasses.
I believe we will notice as we go through these last five similitudes that in each one there's a common thread, a common theme, and that is grace, Mercy, love, grace to those who do not deserve it. That is what is particularly characteristic of the time that we live in.
We're living in the time when God has chosen to show blessing to mankind on the basis of grace. Not works, not doing, not meriting anything, but as in this case, this man was in a terrible predicament and hopeless predicament.
10,000 talents one time. I calculated it several years ago and it was over $1,000,000.
Maybe even over 2 by now. I haven't recalculated it. Tremendous debt. If he worked all his life time hard, he probably could never accumulate that.
It's a picture to us of what we owed God, our debt to God. There's not a soul on earth that could have ever paid it.
But what did God do? He sent his beloved Son to pay the debt for us.
He paid it and now he offers us the forgiveness just for the taking of it.
By faith it is. It's so accessible you don't even have to step up to the front to get it. By faith accepting it. And so we have in this parable.
This.
Man who was forgiven all his debt.
I trust that everyone here has received this forgiveness. May not be that all have. Sometimes I wonder by the actions if it's true, because I think what we see taught to us in this parable is our attitude after we have received such blessing. That's what's noticeable and stands out in this. How do we appreciate?
God has given to us.
Oh, that it be not like this man who soon forgot what had been done for him.
The power to a Christian life, your young people to go on for the Lord, is to enter into what God has done for you and me.
That great forgiveness, that debt that we owed, how much it was. I believe that's part of the reason from week to week, we, the Lord instituted the remembrance of Himself and his death, and the disciples were accustomed to do it. Each week, because we need to be reminded what a cost it was that redeemed us. We forget that. We become appreciative.
You also have the privilege of living in one of the richest countries in the world.
As to material and perhaps spiritual blessings.
Or provisions for you, for your Christian pathway in the Christian fellowship. There's not very many countries where there's gathered Saints that can meet together with over 100 young people together at one time.
It's part of the grace of God, dear young people, shown to you.
Now the challenge for us is how do we receive it? How do we appreciate it? Oh, I know you appreciate it. We all appreciate it. But it's easy to forget it. And when we get tested, when somebody comes along and does that's a wrong, it's so easy to forget that and start thinking of my own self and what has been done to me. You know, this is a, this is a follow up or Peter asked the Lord how many times he was to forgive his.
When he had trespassed against him, and he said till seven, and the Lord told him, no till 70 * 7. Or in other words, never stop doing it because this is the the rest of the story is our parable. How do we forgive our brethren?
Oh, look back at Calvary's cross, dear young people. Look at that death that he paid.
00:10:00
It becomes easy. It becomes easy.
But this man did not enter into the sense of what Grace really was. I don't really believe he ever repented.
No, He was in the Kingdom of heaven, yes.
Probably one of those.
Tares, Professors.
And so he teaches us a great lesson, doesn't he?
We do learn lessons from our young people and older brethren who make mistakes too. May we learn them.
From the examples of the mistakes in the Old Testament or elsewhere in the scriptures, rather than having to learn it ourselves the hard way. And so we have this parable about forgiveness.
And how to do it and it ends up?
So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother.
Their trespasses.
I believe this is perhaps a governmental thing I have seen.
Some who are walking with us turn aside from the path of obedience, from the path of appreciation and giving thanks to God for the many blessings that we have. And it's sad to see the governmental hand of God fall upon them. You know the stories, you've seen it too. You don't have to be very old to witness.
Examples of this of how they are delivered over to the tormentors.
You see young people we really have no other option than to take.
The blessing that comes to us through the Lord Jesus Christ because it's already been shown.
There's no other way to be blessed. God already proved that in the past dispensations.
And if we turn away from this offer of grace and become unappreciative of it? Unbelieving.
There's nothing else left for you. What can you do for a person who won't even take a gift?
And that's the basis that we get all of this on.
God's free grace.
There's no other, there's no other recourse and that's why I believe at the end of this dispensation.
There's going to be a strong delusion sent aloud.
Of God, the Spirit of God, Satan himself is going to send a strong delusion that they believe a lie that they may might be damned. It says why? Because there's no other recourse. That didn't happen at the end of the law law period. There were many that were under the dispensation of the law and when that finished they entered into the blessing of the following dispensation.
But it's not going to be true.
At the end of the time of grace.
God is perfect in his counsels and ways, and it's the most solemn for those who sit and listen in gospel meetings, make a profession of it, but aren't real.
Don't really have a sense of appreciation for the grace of God.
And aren't willing thus to forgive if God lets a little Trump problem in your life difficulty with some person, Dear young people and us older ones too.
I think even more so us older ones because sometimes we get a little more hardened and stubborn in our ways as we get older.
Look back to Calvary. Don't forget what's been forgiven you. Now we'll go on to the next parable, chapter 20.
This beginning with verse one, we have the parable. I'm not going to read all of it. We might just read a few little sketches because perhaps this is one of the more difficult ones to comprehend or understand the force of.
We have here idle men looking for a job.
There's no work, kind of like things in California, a depression, no work. Understand there's some of our brethren here that don't have work too, and our heart goes out to them. But here it's a lesson taken from this and the Lord.
00:15:03
This householder, he goes out and he sees him and he has compassion on him. He sees they need work, they're hungry, they have families and they need work. And so out of the goodness of his heart, he goes out there and first of all, he makes a deal.
We like to make deals and this, this, this parable can be an example to us about making deals.
With God.
They agree to work for a penny a day. I understand that was fair labor wages for that time. We've had a lot of inflation today. Things have got less valuable. Our numbers are bigger now, but the money is not worth more.
Penny a day, they agree.
He goes out a little later in the day and he finds some others. But notice when you read it.
Let's notice it.
Verse 4.
And he said unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right.
I will give you and they went their way. Notice he did not agree to pay them a penny a day.
Or he did not agree to prorate a penny a day to the number of hours they worked. He just said what is right.
You see this householder, he was a Goodman. He was going out there in goodness towards them. He wanted to help them.
And so it gives them work.
That's what our gods like.
He's a good God. We've been noticing the blessings that He purposes to give to us over angels, over all any other of the creation, we are the most favored.
And in this dispensation that we are the ones that he has chosen.
And called into that nearest and dearest relationship with Him in heaven to sit with the God in the Father's house.
And all eternity in the counsels of God and the joy of God.
Before him, you see these people that made the deal.
They.
Agreed, according to their.
Appreciation, their standard of wages, and that's what they got.
But there's something better than that. Let's not be making deals with God. God, if you give me this, I'll do that.
There's a better way.
Rely on the grace of God.
The goodness of God. And we notice in this parable that those that work only an hour or two a day of the day, they ended up getting paid a penny too.
That revealed the heart of the 1St.
So that when?
Payday came the end of the day.
He started with the last ones and he gave them a penny.
Well, you know what our hearts are like. We see somebody get something.
Ah, then we want it too, don't we? That's what our natural hearts.
And they saw that he was a Goodman.
They started becoming covetous.
So when their turn came.
Remember, they had agreed to a penny.
He paid them a penny and they were angry with them. They had thought, well, he was going to pay him more, but remember, that wasn't the deal.
They should have not made a deal. If they had not made a deal, they might have got more.
You know, there's people. Beggars on the street are pretty astute. Have you ever noticed it?
Try it someday.
Have you ever noticed a beggar? I've gone up to 1.
Perhaps we don't see them too often here, but maybe if you ever get down to Mexico or somewhere.
You might have a chance to try this. You go out on the street and see a beggar, put your hand in your pocket like you're going to give them something.
And say how much do you want?
More often than not, they will say to you whatever you want to give me.
I've had very few that will tell me how much.
They've had experience. Waiters and waitresses, I think, learn a little bit about this too.
You see?
00:20:01
When they see a person who's willing to stop.
And give them something. And a beggar doesn't get something because he deserves it or because he's worked for it or anything like that. No, it's strictly on the basis of whatever you want.
And when it's left up to you, your reputation is at stake. If you just give them a penny, you don't look too good, do you?
You give them a dollar bill.
They smile at you.
They'll say something about you when you walk on down the street. They'll appreciate it.
God.
Wants to bless us. Dear young people, there's no other better basis to deal with God than God's own thoughts about us and His ways and blessings.
When that gets a hold of our souls, dear young people, it changes us.
An understanding, a realization of grace. May it sink deep into our hearts. May we understand how good our God really is.
Now we go on to the next parable, chapter 22.
Here we have the marriage feast.
The King with a son and a wedding.
Weddings are one of the most wonderful things to go to here on Earth, aren't they naturally?
Beautiful, happy marriage in the Lord. Beautiful.
And so we have here a parable.
But this time it's the Lord who's given the marriage.
And it's his son that is to be married.
And they're the guests that are invited.
The invitation goes out, but people are too busy, too occupied. One for this thing, one for another.
Make excuses and so on. Why do they do that?
They do not believe the goodness of the man that is putting on the wedding.
O may our hearts enter in and enjoy and appreciate what God wants to do for us.
This is so often used in the gospel preaching, and rightly so. Beautiful invitation.
Picture of God inviting us to his marriage, the marriage of his son.
Even a more wonderful part of it is that we are to be the bride.
Now that doesn't come out here, I have to go to other scriptures.
You young ladies, I know you look forward to the day when you're going to have that beautiful white.
Garment picture of the righteousness Purity. Our brother was speaking to us about purity last night. Twice we had it. You know, purity is a wonderful thing.
The bride in heaven is going to be all white and pure. No stain, no block, no bad reputation to look back on.
May we keep it so now in our life and testimony.
Well.
We have before us here our dress and appearance. There was a person that came to the wedding afterwards.
And he had no wedding garment. Now I understand that it may have been the custom in those days for the householder or the one that put on the marriage fees to provide a garment.
It seems to fit the picture here, and it seems to speak to us of the garments of salvation.
That we have by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He clothes us in the righteousness of God.
Perfection. How will the bride be there in spotless raiment?
Christ died for them, washed them away and made them such.
It's a sense of that entering into our souls that helps keep us pure.
Not seeking to add our own righteousness to that our own works, things of our own self. It's all of God. Everything we have is of God. We receive it in appreciation and use it. And so this person here who came in without the wedding garment, he was.
00:25:07
He didn't have any answer.
No answer.
He had despised.
The wedding garment wouldn't have cost him anything to take it.
But he was occupied with himself alone. He went there on the basis of his own garment, garments and scripture. Speak of our outward testimony, what people see of us exterior, the exterior testimony.
Well, he's taken and he's cast out.
It says at the conclusion of it, for many are called but few are chosen.
So that anything of our own dress, our own actions.
Not going to have any place in heaven at the wedding feast.
All things of God.
So let's take it now, young people, what God has given us and accept that.
No other righteousness, no other object.
The Lord Jesus.
Our outward appearance, how we behave, is a Christ like.
If it's Christ like, I believe it will compose part of the dress of the bride there in glory.
We get that in the Book of Revelation.
Now we'll go on to the 25th chapter.
Where we have the 10 virgins.
Light bearing lamps. They're waiting for the bridegroom.
There are ten of them. Five are wise, five are foolish, 10 speaks of responsibility, 5 is the number of men.
We notice they all have lamps.
But some of them don't have oil.
You can't see the oil in the lamp.
All you can see is the light and the lamp.
And so it's a picture here, professors, people that profess to be Christians, they got lamps.
This is what the Kingdom of heaven is like, but not everybody is real.
But they all have one purpose. They're waiting for the bridegroom, that is they own allegiance to the king, and they're waiting for the king to come back. Because remember in the in the Kingdom of heaven, the kings in heaven and the people are on earth and the king is going to come back and take them home.
That's our picture of our position here on earth. We're not earthly people. That's not our destiny. We're waiting for the Lord to come.
A lot of years have gone by, haven't they, since the Lord promised this?
He hadn't come yet.
Everybody's lamps are burning kind of low.
Not much testimony in the Kingdom of Heaven today.
To the truth of the Lord's coming, the lamps.
The truth was actually lost, only recovered about 160 or 70 years ago.
And the proclamation went out. The rapture. The Lord is coming.
It isn't just a general rapture at the end of the world when God is going to raise everybody and then he's going to divide the sheep and the goats and all.
No.
It's amazing to me how much.
Christians today in the systems of men are giving up the pre tribulation.
Hope of the Rapture.
They're giving it up. That's dangerous. That's vital your young people.
Because when you give that up, you become earthly minded.
And you perish with the world and its judgment. That's coming.
So these virgins are waiting for the bridegroom. They have their lamps.
Do you ever try to stay awake in a dark room?
They say one of the best ways to stay awake is to put a bright light in there. They're just now learning that people who work shift work.
They put real bright lights in there because along about 2:00 in the morning, they just can't stay awake. They need light.
I believe there's an application for us spiritually in this. We need light, brethren, to stay awake.
To not go to sleep, to not lose the hope of our possessions in heaven.
00:30:05
Sad to say, all ten of these started going to sleep.
All ten of them. Did you know we failed? We often do. It's so easy to lose the sense of what our position here is on earth and of the hope of the Lord's return. It's a sure thing.
Well.
Bridegroom came. The Lord came.
The foolish had no oil in their lamps, and while they were looking for oil the others went in and the door was shut and they were on the outside knocking.
If we have not been born.
By the Spirit of God.
And have the Spirit of God dwelling within us. There is no oil.
Our lamps will go out.
You know, sometimes we like to, at a time like this when we got a lot of people watching this, put on a good appearance.
We can fake it, like it's been said, we can put on a show.
But it's an exterior thing.
It's like lightning a kerosene Lantern.
With this the wet Wick but no oil down underneath.
And a Wick like that will burn really real bright for a little bit.
You have awful lot of light, quite a bit of smoke too though sometimes.
And then it will go down real fast. It will burn the Wick up until the wick's gone, and then it'll go out.
You can't live the Christian life if you don't have the Spirit of God dwelling in you. Impossible. Oh, there are people that will do it for a month or two or even years sometimes if they're really, really have a strong character.
But that's not the way to live.
Now who are we fooling?
Not God. Anyway, I don't know whether these the five wives had noticed about the foolish or not. Doesn't say. It doesn't really matter. One thing matters is the bridegroom.
The Lord and He sees your heart, He sees my heart, He sees the outward testimony to and He knows.
Now we have the last one in the same chapter.
Parable of the Talents.
Well, wait a minute. Before we do that, I want to I want to touch on the 13th verse of of the.
First the next to last parable says, Watch therefore, for ye know not neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh.
I'd like to express a thought or two on this.
We are subject to Christ. He is the Bridegroom.
He is the one that sets the date in this case.
When he's coming back.
How good it is for us to learn our position before the Lord.
Everything we have comes from Him. Isn't it right for us to wait till He comes instead of getting impatient sometimes? You know we want the Lord to come right now, get us out of our troubles.
Well, there's nothing wrong with wanting the Lord to come, but are we patient on the Lord? He knows the right time to come back. If He had come back yesterday, those who are will be saved today or might be saved today. Would not have gone in, never had a chance. So there are reasons why the Lord does things. But I think we have a lesson here on patience, endurance.
Waiting till the Lord comes. And it's a real test. It's probably the hardest test of all going on for the Lord day after day after day.
Maybe it isn't too hard to go on for the Lord here, with all the young people and the help around us and the good food and the beautiful place to be, and we don't have the temptations before us in the same way as we do when we go back to school or in our jobs.
But the Lord.
Has a reason and how good it is for us to wait on him.
He's the one that calls the shots.
Oh yeah, I ought to say it in much more magnificent terms than that, because it is so beautiful how God does it all.
00:35:05
But I think you understand that.
Now we'll go on to the last parable. The Kingdom of heaven is like a man in verse 14 traveling into far country. And you have the Italians given out every man in verse 15 according to his abilities, several abilities.
We all have abilities given to us young people.
Everyone of us naturally and according to those natural abilities also the Lord gives us spiritual.
Talents or spiritual responsibility? Moral obligations to fulfill? For who?
For whom? The Lord Jesus our King. That's the purpose. And that's what we notice in the use of the different ones here. There was one who used it on himself. That is, he went and hid it in the earth. He didn't use it for the Lord, his Lord. He had made a profession to recognize him as Lord, but he really didn't recognize him as Lord because he didn't use what belonged to his Lord.
For his Lord, he hid it in the earth.
That's a picture of using what God has given to you in the material and things here on the earth. Every all your abilities and everything given to you to use this time. They're only loaned to us. Dear young people, we're not our own. We don't belong to ourselves.
We don't have a right to do our own will if we're in the Kingdom of heaven. If you're on the outside, fine. That's what you want, that's what you get.
But not in the Kingdom of heaven. You have the responsibility, because you have owned the King, to recognize him as such.
It'd be better to be outside and not even own him than to be inside and get something put into your responsibility and then not use it. So it's a serious thing to profess to be a Christian.
And not be real, it would be better to make no profession at all.
Because to whom much is given will much be required.
Rewards, though, we don't want to just look at this in a negative sense.
To think that our Savior, our God, will give rewards.
He gave us the faith to believe. He gave us everything that we used to do. What we do, our bodies, the world, the air, the sun, the water we drink, the food. He gives us everything.
Then we use it for Him, we play the volleyball for the Lord, the baseball.
We eat at the tables for the Lord, trying to help and encourage one another and fellowshipping together.
For the Lord.
And then he gives us a reward for us. Isn't that grace?
Wonderful, wonderful.
Our Savior.
What he wants to do for us. May I get ahold of our souls.
May it cause us to walk with him, in fellowship with him.
So it concludes verse 29.
For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance, but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
And then you have the casting of the unprofitable servant into outer darkness. He was never born again.
To everyone that hath shall be given.
Have you made made your own what God has given, and have you used it for Him? If we use what God gives us in temporal things here for the Lord, He's going to give them back to us as our own. They're in glory. Nothing of what we really is committed to us here on earth is really our own.
Everything tangible that you can see touch.
Feel here on earth is really only loan to us.
It's given to us to use why we're in this life, but nobody is going to of their own self going to take anything of it with them when they die. The rich man who dies, he dies just the same as a poor beggar. He's just as dead as the as the rich man or the poor man.
No different. Or they may put him in a gold casket or something.
00:40:02
They may write nice beautiful words on top of the stone, but underneath down there, he's just the same.
Lord gives to those who use it for him, for the King.
He gives to the everyone that hath, to him shall be given.
Well, it's wonderful that the Lord would give us that that reward. Not that the reward would should be the motive before us, I believe, but it certainly is therefore encouragement.
It's the King, brethren.
It's the Lord to have before us and the sense of His love and grace.
I'd like to close with him.
Hymn #17 in the little flock.