This hymn was written by Watchman Lee before
he was imprisoned, and it brings back so
much memory to me.
The Lord is coming soon.
Generation after generation, those who love the Lord,
they waited for his coming.
It's not because he does not want to
come, he is anxious, like a bridegroom is
anxious to take his bride.
But unfortunately, his bride has not been ready.
But we do thank God.
Today is nearer than yesterday.
He is coming soon.
We know his spirit is with us.
He has never left us, nor forsake us.
But we long to see his face.
Will you please turn to Luke, the Gospel
according to Luke, chapter 12.
We begin with verse 42.
And the Lord said, Who then is the
faithful and prudent steward, whom his Lord has
set over his household to give the measure
of corn in season?
Blessed is that bondman whom his Lord on
coming shall find doing thus.
Verily I say unto you, that he will
set him over all that he has.
But if that bondman should say in his
heart, My Lord delays to come and begin
to beat the manservants and the maidservants, and
to eat and to drink and to be
drunken, the Lord of the bondman shall come
in a day when he does not expect
it, and in an hour he knows not
of, and shall cut him in two and
appoint his portion with the unbelievers.
But that bondman who knew his own Lord's
will and had not prepared himself and done
his will shall be beaten with many stripes.
But he who knew it not and did
things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with
few.
And to every one to whom much has
been given, much shall be required from him.
And to whom men have committed much, they
will ask from him the more.
1 Corinthians chapter 3.
We begin
with verse 11.
1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 11.
Now if anyone should build upon this foundation
gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, straw, the
work of each shall be made manifest.
For the day shall declare it, because it
is revealed in fire.
And the fire shall try the work of
each what it is.
If the work of anyone which he has
built upon the foundation shall abide, he shall
receive a reward.
If the work of anyone shall be consumed,
he shall suffer loss, but he shall be
saved.
But so as through the fire.
Let's take a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we do sense that we
are on the verge of thy coming for
us.
Do prepare us, make us ready for thyself.
Thou who has loved us and gave even
thyself to us, much has been given.
Lord, make us faithful.
We commit this time into thy hands and
trust thy Holy Spirit to speak to our
hearts.
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Then when we shall see thee face to
face, we shall not be put to shame,
but thou will be glorified.
We ask in thy precious name.
Amen.
Yesterday morning we considered together on the first
question on this matter of responsibility.
Why?
Why should God put any responsibility upon us?
If he loves us so much, he should
take care of everything.
He should do everything for us.
He should not put any burden upon us.
Why?
I think this is a question we need
to solve.
Otherwise we will never understand God.
Our God is a God of responsibility.
And because of what he is, and because
he loves us so much, he wants us
to be like him.
Therefore, he gave responsibility to us.
So far as God is concerned, it is
very risky.
He would be much safer if he made
machines, robots.
Everything has been programmed and everything will do
according to what he wants.
But that's not love.
So, brothers and sisters, I hope that our
whole concept of responsibility should be changed.
Instead of seeing it as a burden, as
a hardship, as an expression of
the hardness of God our master.
You know the evil servant thinks that way.
But dear brothers and sisters, I hope that
none of us will think in this manner.
Because if we do, we misunderstand our God.
It is through love that he puts responsibility
upon us.
Now, this morning, we would like to consider
together the second question.
What?
What responsibility has God given to us as
men, as believers?
Again, I want to remind you, brothers and
sisters, we are here meditating the Word of
God together.
I want your spirit to be alert, your
mind to be open, and together we draw
near to our Lord and meditate
upon his Word.
Allow his Word to become real, living in
our lives.
And that's what it should be.
When you think of responsibility, the very word
responsibility tells us that it is a response.
In other words, you are not taking the
initiative.
There is somebody who takes the initiative and
took an action, and after he has taken
that action, you respond to it.
So again, brothers and sisters, we have to
go back to God, because he is the
initiator.
He is the one who is the beginning.
He begins everything, and when he has taken
that first step, we respond.
Yesterday, we mentioned that God created man in
his own image.
Unfortunately today, man thinks that he is
self-existing.
He is his own God.
He is his own master, own maker, and
that's the reason how man lives.
But we need to remember that we have
a maker.
We are not self-existing.
Somebody out of love has made us.
He has given us a body.
Even though this body is made of dust,
and one day we'll go back to dust.
But brothers and sisters, the psalmist said, how
wonderful, how terrible is our body that God
has made.
A masterpiece.
But more than just a body, he breathed
his breath into the nostril of that body,
and that breath of God, that entering into
that body, becomes human spirit.
God created us according to his image.
He is spirit, so he creates us with
a spirit, and with that human spirit, we
can commune with God.
What a glorious thought.
What a loving consideration that God wants to
commune with you.
He wants to be friends.
He wants to cultivate a friendship with you,
so he makes it possible for you to
do that.
And when the breath of God touches that
earthen body, a living soul is produced.
That is you.
You become conscious of yourself.
You have your will, a free will.
You have a mind that can think.
You have an emotion that can express how
you feel.
Brothers and sisters, these are the gifts of
God.
Even though, awkwardly, we are born through our
parents, but brothers and sisters, it is God
who gives life to each and every one
of us.
This animated life, this life of the soul
that enables us to live, to be conscious,
to be an individual, to be special.
There is no one in the universe just
the same as you are.
Everyone is special.
Brothers and sisters, that's the gift of God.
He gave us a will.
He gave us a mind to think.
He gave us expressions and emotion.
Not only that, when he makes us, he
also endows us with talents.
Everyone that is born into this world has
natural talents.
By natural, it simply means God has given
it.
Not only that, he gives you time.
Even though the time is not too long
in comparison with eternity.
Moses said, the year of man is 70.
And if he is strong, he may be
80.
But Moses lived to 120.
God gave us time.
Brothers and sisters, why does God give us
time?
Because he works in time.
Because he wants you to accomplish, to fulfill
something in time.
He gives you time to train you, to
complete you, to mature you.
Time is very precious.
Not only that, he gave you lots of
relationships.
You're not alone.
It is not good for man to be
alone.
You find that you have your families, you
have your friends, you have all kinds of
relationship.
Relationship is given by God.
Not only that, he creates the heavens and
the earth for you to enjoy, for his
glory.
Brothers and sisters, God has taken action in
creating every one of us.
He has given us so much when he
brings us into this world.
And do you think that there is a
response that we should give to him?
How do you respond to the gift of
life?
How do you respond to the talents he
gave you?
How do you respond to the time he
allocated to you?
How do you respond to the world around
you that he has surrounded you by his
love?
Isn't it the first fundamental, basic, primary
response for man should be, thou shall love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy mind, and with all thy
strength.
Isn't it our responsibility towards God to love
him above everything?
Isn't it our responsibility that we should honor
him, serve him, worship him?
That is the first universal law of responsibility.
No one is accepted.
Brothers and sisters, do we honor our maker?
Do we give him his rightful place in
our lives?
Do we use our life to serve him?
How do we use our time?
Do we live for ourselves, or we live
for the one who gives life to us?
It is the duty, the responsibility of every
man in this world to honor God, to
worship him, to thank him, to be grateful
for what he has given to us.
The greatest thing in the world is ungratefulness.
Look at man today.
We are not only ungrateful, we turn against
our maker.
We live for ourselves.
We waste all the gifts that God has
given us with a glorious purpose.
That's what we have done, but thank God
he has not forsaken us.
I remember when C.
H.
Spurgeon, when he was in his teens, his
conscience bothered him.
This is what he said.
He said, if there is a God that
he should condemn me to eternal death, to
hell, because that's what I deserve.
Thank God give us another chance.
Thank God for sending his beloved son into
this world.
Thank God for our Lord Jesus, who is
willing to die for us, for such as
we are, to redeem us, to pay such
a cost, such a price no one can
pay, but he alone, he who knows no
sin, was made sin for us.
That we might be the righteousness of God
in Christ Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, he has not only forgiven
our sins, all our past are under the
blood.
He will not remember them anymore.
Satan sometimes tries to bring your past back
to trouble you.
But remember, God never does.
He forgave and he forgot.
Thank God he gave us a new beginning,
a new life.
It is an uncreated life, his own life.
It is eternal life.
It is a life of power, life of
love, life that has been proven on this
earth.
When our Lord Jesus was on earth for
thirty-three and a half years, he proved
to the world how victorious, how glorious, how
surpassing, transcendent is that life.
A life that can fulfill every responsibility that
God has ever put upon man.
And that life is in you and in
me.
Thank God.
Brothers and sisters, we who have received this
life, how shall we respond?
Is it not that we shall be doubly
grateful?
I remember when I was a boy, I
have never left home.
From my childhood until my college years, I
always was with my parents.
When we were sick, we were always taken
care of in homes, not in the hospital.
I remember the first year I went to
college, I left home, stayed in a dormitory.
And after a few months, my father came
and saw that I was so thin.
He said, come home.
But I wasn't grateful.
Not until I left home, after I graduated,
I began to work with watchmany.
I stayed in an upper room alone.
One day, it dawned upon me how much
my parents loved me.
I wrote a letter to them.
I told them, I'm grateful.
Brothers and sisters, how do you respond to
your Heavenly Father who takes care of you
and me much more, hundred times, million times
more than our earthly parents?
Are we grateful?
Do we honor His name for
a believer, for one who is saved by
grace?
We have no right to live for ourselves.
The only way open to us before such
love, before such grace, is so much gift,
a cost that can never be counted.
Brothers and sisters, isn't it?
The only response we can give to Him
is to present our bodies a living sacrifice.
We cannot hold back anything from Him.
Have we done that?
Are we doing it today?
The Apostle Paul says, I beseech you, brethren,
by the mercies of God, to present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is your reasonable service, your spiritual worship.
Brothers and sisters, how do you deal with
the life that He has given you?
How do you treat the life, the new
life, the divine life, the life that has
been laid down, go through death, into resurrection,
and into you?
How do you treat that life?
How do you use that life?
This is our responsibility.
Brothers and sisters, do not think of other
responsibility now.
Think of your own personal responsibility of
your life towards God.
Are you faithful in that responsibility, or
do you neglect that life and
continue to live in your old, Adamic, selfish
life?
The prodigal son, he was a son, but
he only thought of his father's things.
He forgot his father.
He went to a far country.
He wasted everything, but thank God, he came
to himself.
Not completely.
He said, I'll go back.
I'm not worthy to be a son anymore.
Let me be a servant.
Oh, the Father's love.
Forgive him.
Took him in.
Had a feast.
Brothers and sisters, where are you?
Where am I today?
Am I in a far country, wasting away
what my heavenly Father has given us with
such a cost?
Or are we home?
The reason why God give us his own
life is because he wants that life to
grow.
He wants that life to be matured.
He wants you to be like him.
He wants you to take upon you his
own character, that he may
be manifested in and through you.
That's what life is for.
That's why God still gives you time to
live on this earth.
Brothers and sisters, do we live for him,
or do we live for ourselves?
That's responsibility.
The apostle Paul said, no longer live I,
it is Christ who live in me.
Now I live, I live by his life.
Isn't that true with every one of us?
How do you deal with this life of
God given to you?
How do you treat it?
You shut it in the closet and continue
to live by your own life, or you
allow him to be the head of your
life and glorify him in your body.
Brothers and sisters, that is our first responsibility.
You remember the parable that our Lord Jesus
spoke in Matthew chapter 25, the ten virgins.
You know the Lord used that parable in
relation to his coming.
Now, who are these virgins?
Now, even though I know there are different
interpretations, but allow me to share with you
how I feel.
The Bible never calls an unbeliever a virgin.
On the contrary, the Bible calls the people
of this world adulterers.
So, I believe these ten virgins represent believers,
such as we are.
The apostle Paul says in 2nd Corinthians chapter
11, he said, I'm jealous with the jealousy
of God, because I have presented you as
chaste virgins to the one that is to
Christ Jesus.
And I'm afraid that the enemy may entice
you away from the simplicity of Christ.
Dear brothers and sisters, we are virgins.
The moment we are saved, our sins are
forgiven.
We become a new creature in Christ Jesus.
We become pure virgins, and
as chaste virgins engaged
to one who loves us, and gave himself
for us, how do we live our lives
on earth?
Should we not live for him to whom
we are engaged?
Should we not prepare ourselves to do the
things that the one whom we love would
like?
Should we not try to purify ourselves, take
away all the bad habits that our beloved
may not like?
A chaste virgin engaged is one who already
lives for the one whom she loves, and
that's what we should be.
That's our responsibility.
Unfortunately, we find among the ten virgins, five
are wise, five are foolish.
In what way?
In the way that the wise virgin, you
know, all the virgins, they have a torch,
they have a lamp, and there is oil
in that lamp.
And the Bible tells us they all go
out to meet the bridegroom.
Is this our attitude?
Brothers and sisters, are you going out to
meet your bridegroom?
Generations after generations.
Those who love the Lord, they all went
out to meet the bridegroom, but because the
bridegroom was delayed, they fell to sleep.
Were they mistaken?
No.
That's what they should be.
And especially today, the time is at hand,
nearer today than yesterday.
Brothers and sisters, are we, like virgins, on
the way to meet the bridegroom?
Is that our attitude?
Or have we totally forgotten him?
Where are we?
But the wise virgin, they are prepared.
They are prepared in case that the bridegroom
should delay, because they do not know when
he will come, and anytime.
But they are ready.
They have extra oil in the vessels, but
a foolish one.
Do they have vessels?
Certainly do.
But they fill their vessels with things other
than oil.
They think that there are other things more
precious than oil.
But in this case, you cannot put gold
and silver in the lamp and let it
burn.
Is this what we are doing?
Is this the reason why our Lord Jesus
said, do not say what I shall eat,
I shall drink, I shall be close with.
Do not be anxious with the things of
this life.
Do not lay treasures upon the earth.
He will take care of us.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness, and all these things shall be
added to you.
But brothers and sisters, how we fill our
vessel.
We eat and drink and care of this
life, as if they are the most important
things in life.
They are not prepared.
When the Lord shall come, they all got
up and trimmed their lamp, but the wise
have extra oil to pour ye.
You cannot meet a bridegroom with a dark
lamp.
The foolish virgins, they are not prepared.
They are shut out of the marriage lamp,
feast of the lamp.
Brothers and sisters, think about that.
Meditate on it.
The oil represents the Holy Spirit.
Every believer has the Holy Spirit in him
or in her.
That keep us burning, become sons of light.
But brothers and sisters, to have the Holy
Spirit and to be filled with the Holy
Spirit are not the same.
Empty your vessel and let him fill it.
A life filled with the Holy Spirit, ruled
by the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit, he will transform you
and conform you to the image of Christ.
So, you will fulfill your responsibility towards the
life that he has given to you.
We are not only responsible to the life
he has given to us.
To see that this life will accomplish its
purpose, that God has set for that life.
But brothers and sisters, the Bible tells us
he has also given us gifts, spiritual gifts.
Every believer has a gift of gifts.
It is different from our natural talent.
Now, it is true that our natural talent
is also given by God.
But unfortunately, that natural talent has been under
wrong control.
So, aside from our natural talent, God, when
he brings us into his family, he gives
to each one of us a gift, a
spiritual gift, or gifts.
That with these gifts or gifts, we may
serve him.
We may work in his field.
We have a responsibility not to live, not
only to live for him.
We are also given responsibility to serve him
and his purpose.
So, our Lord Jesus, he told another parable.
Also, in Matthew chapter 5, chapter 25, he
said, a man called his servants to him,
and he gave each gifts
according to their ability.
Now, brothers and sisters, again, we find in
this parable the servants.
On the one hand, so far as the
life he has given to us is concerned,
we are virgins.
But so far, as service is concerned, we
are servants.
We are both.
Virgin speaks of life.
Servant speaks of service.
So, everyone is in the service of our
Lord.
I don't like the term, this man, that
woman, is a full-time serving the Lord.
Because, according to the word of God, every
believer is full-time serving the Lord.
In different ways, but is full-time.
And in order that we may serve him,
he gives us gifts.
He always provides before he requires.
So, do not be afraid.
But he measures the gifts to you according
to your talent, to your ability.
Now, to me, I feel the ability is
not the natural talents.
Why?
Because the ability here is the capacity.
God makes us each with different capacity.
Some have the capacity to handle five talents.
Others have that capacity to handle two talents.
If you give him more, he will fail.
And others can only handle one talent.
That's his capacity.
And, according to the capacity God has built
us, he will give us gifts accordingly, so
that everyone will reach his full capacity.
He will not demand anything more than he
has already enabled you to do.
Now, thank God for that.
You know D.L. Moody, that great evangelist?
He has a conference in Northville every year,
and he invited all the great speakers, talented
speakers from all over the world to speak
there.
And he used to introduce them.
These are people with five talents, because I'm
a person of two talents.
But that two talents have reached his capacity.
Brothers and sisters, do not quarrel over that.
God knows better.
Be content with what he has given, but
be faithful to all that he has given
to you.
Spiritual gifts.
Gifts that would enable you to serve in
the house of God.
Gifts that will enable you to function as
a member of the body of Christ.
Every believer is useful to God.
Do nothing because you have only one talent,
so you are like that wicked servant.
Oh, they have five talents, two talents.
I have only one talent.
It doesn't matter.
Bury it.
Every servant of God.
The young and the old, the moment you
are saved, you are given a spiritual gift.
You may not know it.
You don't need to worry about it.
People come to me and say, brother, what
is my gift?
Now, how do I know?
God knows, and you will know.
Just wait.
If you are faithful, you will know.
If you are unfaithful, you will never know,
because it's buried.
We are responsible for the gifts that God
has given us.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord said, trade with
it.
The five talents diligently trade with the five
talents according to his capacity, and earned another
five.
Double it.
The two, double to two, to four.
But the one, bury the ten.
Take it out of the earth and say
to the Master, here you are.
You are a hard master.
I'm afraid of you, so I buried it.
Give it back to you.
And the Lord said, you're wicked.
Brothers and sisters, the day is coming.
We shall all appear before the judgment seat
of Christ as a family.
Thank God, we who believe in the Lord
Jesus, we who have received his life, we
have been delivered out of eternal death into
life, we will not be judged at the
last judgment, the judgment of the great white
throne.
A judgment of life and death eternal.
Thank God, Christ has judged for us on
Calvary's cross.
But that doesn't mean, brothers and sisters, as
members of the family of God, we will
not be judged.
The Bible tells us in Romans chapter 14
verse 10, one day we shall all appear
before the judgment seat of God.
Second Corinthians 5 10, one day we will
all appear at the judgment seat of Christ,
and we will be judged, every one of
us, according to the responsibility that he has
given.
Our life will be judged, our service will
be judged.
And if it is gold, silver, and precious
stones, if it's of God, of the redemption
of Christ, of the work of the Holy
Spirit, when the fire tests it, it will
glow.
They will be rewarded.
And if one builds with root, grass, straw,
with the nature of man, the glory of
man, the work of man, it will be
burned.
You will be saved.
Thank God, but barely saved.
Brothers and sisters, it is not too late
to repent.
It is not too late to give yourself
to the Lord.
Allow him to work out his purpose of
your life.
It is not too late to rise up
and serve according to the gift he has
given to you.
As long as there is still time, there
is opportunity.
Don't miss it.
Dear Lord, Thou hast given much, and much
is required.
But praise and thank Thee that Thou hast
already provided for all that is needed, for
life and for service, that we may be
able, by Thy grace, to fulfill according to
Thy will.
O Lord, make it so to every one
of us.
We thank Thee in Thy precious name.
Amen.