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Scripture Reading: Matt. 24:45-51; 25:16-30
We believers in Christ all need to have a serious realization that the Lord has given us a double status, a twofold status. We are the virgins in the divine life, in God’s life, and we are the slaves in the Lord’s service. We have seen that we need to be watchful and pray that we may always buy the oil to arrive at the maturity in life so that we might be ready for the coming rapture. In this chapter we want to see the way to be faithful in the Lord’s service.
The Scripture Reading of this chapter contains portions from Matthew 24 and 25. As a background to our fellowship, I would like to describe each of the four Gospels with a single adjective. According to my understanding, Mark is an easy book. Luke is a pleasant book. John is a deep book. It is so deep that no one can touch the bottom of it nor the boundary. John is most profound. When you dive into it, you may get lost. John begins with the words in the beginning. No one can tell us what the beginning is. Also, the book of John does not have a conclusion, an ending. In the beginning was in eternity past, and this book points to eternity future. John does not have a conclusion like Matthew, Mark, and Luke do because John is such a profound and deep book. I would say that the Gospel of Matthew is a heavy book. The more you get into it and understand it, the more you feel that you cannot bear it. Speaking in tongues is not at the conclusion of the pleasant book, the deep book, or the heavy book. It is at the conclusion of the easy book, along with picking up serpents and not being harmed if one drinks poison (Mark 16:18). Many ancient manuscripts, even the best ones, omit the final twelve verses of Mark, in which the aforementioned items are listed. Luke ends with going to proclaim the forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:47). John ends with feeding the Lord’s lambs and shepherding His sheep (21:15-16). Matthew ends with going to disciple the nations, baptizing them into the Triune God (28:19).
The Lord’s charge at the end of Matthew is heavy but not too heavy. The heaviest chapters in the book of Matthew are not in chapters 5 through 7, which concern the reality of the kingdom of the heavens as the very constitution of the heavenly kingdom. The heaviest chapters do not include chapter 13 concerning the appearance of the kingdom of the heavens. The heaviest chapters are Matthew 24 and 25 concerning the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens. In these two chapters two heavy and sobering items are mentioned—the portion that is appointed for the hypocrites (24:51) and the outer darkness (25:30). The issue of these two items is the weeping and gnashing of teeth (24:51; 25:30). This is why I say that Matthew is a heavy book.
Matthew 24 and 25 are both a portion of the Bible and are both the word that came out of the Lord’s mouth directly and shortly before His death. These two prophetic chapters were delivered by the Lord on the Mount of Olives (24:3). The very night before His death, He gave another message, which is recorded in John 14—16 with a concluding prayer in chapter 17. John 14—17 is so deep, while Matthew 24 and 25 are so heavy. Anyone who has succeeded in a certain career gives a serious word when he dies. The message in John 14—17 is very deep, unveiling to us all the riches and depths of the divine life, of the Triune God, for our experience. The message given by the Lord in Matthew before His death is a heavy warning. He had no intention to warn the unbelievers but rather His believers, who all have become the seeking virgins waiting for Him to come back and the slaves partaking in His service. His warning is not to sinners but to virgins and slaves. The believers have such a twofold status. We are virgins going out of the world with a bright and shining testimony, waiting for His coming back and getting ready to meet Him. We are also slaves in service serving Him with a commission. The Lord has delivered His possessions to us and has given us the talents.
I am sorry that such a top student and teacher of the Bible such as C. I. Scofield said that the foolish virgins and the slothful slaves are false Christians. Most of the Brethren teachers felt the same way. However, another group of Bible teachers, among whom were Pember, Panton, Govett, and Lang, repudiated the Brethren teaching. They said that surely these foolish and slothful ones are not false believers. They are genuine Christians, yet they are neither watchful in their life nor faithful in their service, so they will miss the mark in Christ’s rapture and miss the reward in the coming dispensation.
We want to consider again the seriousness of Matthew 24 and 25. I do not have the burden to expound the Bible in this chapter. The truths in Matthew 24 and 25 have been adequately covered in the Life-study of Matthew and in the footnotes of the Recovery Version. My burden is that we would realize the seriousness of our position. Are we watchful to buy the oil every day and all day to get ready for Him to come to take us up? Have we been faithful, and are we still being faithful in His service so that we could be at peace when He comes back to settle accounts with us? Will we receive an appraising word and a reward from Him in the age to come or not? These are serious questions.
In John 10:28-29 the Lord assured us that He gave to us eternal life and that we shall by no means perish forever. The Son’s hand and the Father’s hand are holding us, and no one can snatch us out of Their hands. In Matthew 24 and 25 the Lord is not referring to eternal perdition in the lake of fire but to a place set apart for the believers to be disciplined. The Lord did not say that believers would perish but that many of them will be in a place where they will weep and gnash their teeth. If we believe that John 3:16 and 10:28-29 are the word of the Lord, that we shall have eternal life and never perish, we should also believe the word in Matthew 24 and 25. This heavy book of Matthew tells us that if we are not faithful in His commission in 24:45-51 or in His gifts in 25:14-30, we will be cast out into a place called the outer darkness, where we are cut off from the coming Lord. To be cut asunder in 24:51 means to be separated from the Lord in His coming glory. His presence is the glory and the full enjoyment of the eternal life we have received, so this is a place where the believers will be cut off from His presence, a place called the outer darkness.
If we believe in this portion of the Word and that the Lord will return, we must consider the seriousness of our readiness to meet Him. The Lord Jesus is coming. Are you ready to meet Him? The parable of the ten virgins shows us that to be ready for His coming, we must buy the oil. To be ready is to be saturated with the oil, to get our vessel, our being, filled up with oil. To get the oil, we have to pay the price; we have to buy the oil. For us to receive the regenerating Spirit did not require a price, but for us to receive the filling and saturating Spirit, saturating every avenue of our entire being, our mind, will, emotion, and conscience, does require a price. Everything related to these main parts of our being has to be saturated and filled with the Spirit, who is the very oil. This is what it means to be ready for the Lord’s coming.
Quite often I get warned by this portion in Matthew. Are you buying the oil, or are you wasting time? Do you let the time slip away without getting any more saturating of the oil? Some may feel that they still have plenty of time before the Lord returns, and this could be true. Even the Son, standing in the position of the Son of Man, does not know the day and hour of His coming back; only the Father knows (24:36). If the Son of Man does not know, how could you and I know? On the other hand, none among us knows when he will die. Are any of us sure that we will be alive tomorrow morning? I am not cursing anyone, but I am warning you. Do you know that you will live for another two years? It may be that you will live a long life, but will you have bought enough oil?
It is not a matter of when the Lord will come or when we will die but a matter of our having bought the oil. It is not a matter of when the exam for the students will be but a matter of whether the students have prepared their lessons. To prepare lessons by studying is not an overnight matter. Many students in the top academic universities are very competitive. If you would try to seduce them to play some sports or watch television, they would say that they must take care of their studies. To prepare for a final examination requires you to study your lessons every day. The preparation is an accumulation of your study of the books. You may pray for two hours to repent and get yourself thoroughly cleansed, but that alone could not be sufficient to prepare yourself for His coming. The Lord might admit that you are clean and pure, but He would ask you where your oil is. A student may behave well and study for the final two days of his schooling, but that does not mean he will graduate. He will not graduate unless he has taken care of his lessons day after day. Therefore, it is not a matter of when we will die or when the Lord Jesus will come but a matter of how much oil we have accumulated. To buy the oil takes a lifetime.
We have to remember that the Lord is fair. His judgment will be measured fairly to each one of us. If a person were saved last night and died this morning, I do not believe that the Lord would exercise a long judgment over him. For many of us, though, who were saved years ago and have been in the Lord’s recovery for a number of years, the Lord will ask us how much oil we have bought and accumulated since we came into the recovery. A student’s accumulated learning and knowledge over a long period of time is what qualifies him for graduation. My burden is that we would all wake up. Many of us have been asleep. This is why Paul says in Ephesians 5:14, “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Today is a day that you should not lose for buying the oil. Today you must pay some price to buy the oil.
When I consider the subject of this chapter, the way to be faithful, my heart is nearly broken. By His mercy, I do not like to lose one day in which I am not doing my service, but the present situation in the recovery greatly concerns me. According to my observation, most of us are not doing our best to fulfill our service. This is why my burden is here. It is better for us to be exposed today than for us to be exposed at His judgment seat.
All of us should be those who are feeding the Lord’s people at the proper time (Matt. 24:45) and using the Lord’s talents in full (25:20, 22). On the negative side, we should not be those beating our fellow slaves (24:49). You may not do your duty to perform your service, but instead you are criticizing and sometimes even strongly opposing the brothers. You are not doing the work but beating the fellow slaves. Some of the sisters are always busy on the telephone. When they hear something good about the brothers, they are not interested in letting anyone know. When they hear something bad about certain brothers, especially the elders, they become busy on the telephone. This is why many of the elders in the local churches are afraid to do anything wrong. Once they do something wrong, nearly everyone knows through the use of the telephone. These telephone calls are all beatings. Many of the saints are beating the elders.
When something negative happens to any of the saints, some can never retain it. Passing on the news of this negative situation is a kind of beating. Sometimes you may have a subtle way of praying in the prayer meeting for a saint who is in a negative situation. You may not expose him at other times, but you expose him through your prayers. God knows your heart. The intention in your heart and in your prayer is not so pure. You may pretend to be so spiritual, not criticizing or judging people. You pray for people, but about ten percent of your prayer is a kind of judging. This is beating. The elders in one location may criticize the elders in another location. This is also beating the fellow slaves.
You waste your time of service in beating. Instead of doing the service, you beat the brothers, the fellow slaves. Many of the brothers can testify that they never heard me beating others by criticizing or exposing them. My only burden is to release messages. Although I have no intention of exposing anyone, many are exposed by the light in the messages I release. That is not my job but the Lord’s work. We all have to stop our criticizing, judging, opposing, and murmuring as a kind of beating. We must spend our time, our energy, and our everything to do a positive service for the Lord’s interest.
Furthermore, we should not be one who “eats and drinks with the drunken” (v. 49). This is to drift away further, a further fall from beating the fellow slaves. You have fallen away to the world and have become a world lover. The worldly people are drunk and even drugged with worldly things. They are stupefied with the present age. To eat and drink with them is to enjoy what they enjoy. In a good sense, when you are beating the saints, you are still interested in the church life. If you were not interested in the church life, you would never criticize the elders. Because you are so “burdened for the church” and so interested in the church life, you criticize the brothers and the sisters. Once you make the decision to forget about the church, to have no interest in the church, you enter into the loving of the world, and you keep company with worldly people who are always being stupefied by this age. A saint who loves the world has no heart to talk about what elders are good or bad. He may once have been beating his fellow slaves, but now he is fully occupied with worldly enjoyment. He is now eating and drinking with the drunken. Nearly every day may be a happy day to him, and nearly every weekend a pleasant weekend, because he is enjoying the stupefying of the worldly things.
We should not eat and drink with the drunken, nor should we dig in the earth and hide the Lord’s talent (25:18). The earth signifies the world, so to dig in the earth signifies getting into the world. Any association, any involvement, with the world, even a little worldly talk, will bury the Lord’s gift to us.
All these points we have fellowshipped should be a mirror to us to “see what is on our face,” to see where we are. An example that may help us to further realize where we are is our lack of bearing the burden to distribute the rainbow booklets, which contain a slightly edited version of the Life-study messages. A few years ago many of the churches agreed to distribute these booklets. Initially, the distribution was quite encouraging, but it soon began to wane. Eventually, in nearly all the churches the rainbow booklets have hardly been distributed at all. As a result, the editing and printing of these booklets by the Living Stream Ministry office has become a real burden. We may say that we have no time or burden to spread the truth. We may have many excuses, but when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10), the Lord will settle accounts with us (Matt. 25:19). Could you tell the Lord at His judgment seat that you had no time and no burden? I do not think He will take our excuses.
The slothful slaves who are not so faithful in the Lord’s commission have an excuse that the Lord is not coming back immediately, that He is delaying His coming (24:48). As a result, they begin to mistreat fellow believers and partake of the worldly things. Their excuse is that if the Lord would return right now, everything would be solved; they would not have the time to love the world. However, the Lord’s word in Matthew 24 tells us He would not take this kind of excuse. At His coming back He will cut off, or cut asunder, His unfaithful slaves (v. 51). To cut asunder does not mean to cut into pieces. When we were saved, we became attached to Christ, the anointed One (2 Cor. 1:21). Even if we are in a backslidden condition, the Lord will not cut us off. But if we remain unfaithful and slothful, at His coming back He will cut us off from this attachment. He will carry out a cutting asunder between us and Him. We will be cut off from His glorious presence into a place that will be the portion of the hypocrites. The portion of the unbelievers is eternal perdition, but the portion of the slothful slaves is a temporary, dispensational punishment.
The slothful slave who was not faithful with the Lord’s talent also had an excuse; he said, “Master, I knew about you, that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow. And I was afraid and went off and hid your talent in the earth; behold, you have what is yours” (Matt. 25:24-25). The Lord admitted that He is strict in what He demands of His slaves for His work and indicated that since the slothful slave knew this, he should have done something. The Lord admitted that in a sense He does not sow, yet He claims the reaping. He does not winnow, yet He claims of you the gathering. We may make many excuses that it is really hard to reap anything or to gather anything. We may present these excuses to the Lord at the judgment seat, putting the blame entirely upon Him. We may tell Him, “Why did You delay Your coming back? Why are You so hard, reaping where You did not sow and gathering where You did not winnow?” The Lord will not listen to our excuses but instead will cut us off from His presence and take away the gift He has given to us. This is not my teaching, but this is what the Lord tells us in Matthew 24 and 25.
I hope that this fellowship can be used by the Lord to open our eyes to see that the way we have been taking is not the right way. Instead of making so many telephone calls, use the time to go to contact your next door neighbor, and give him a rainbow booklet that we have published. If you visited one of your neighbors once every two weeks, continuously, regularly, properly, and with a sincere burden and some prayer, do you not believe this person could be caught by the Lord? We cannot take anything as an excuse. We cannot say that many have been poisoned against us or that our particular area is a place full of Christians. We must ask ourselves how much time we have spent in visiting others with gospel tracts, with the Bible, and with some of the rainbow booklets. If you try this week after week and even day after day, you will see the result. The Bible tells us that the husbandmen, or farmers, should labor with patience, expecting to see the gathering (1 Cor. 9:10; 2 Tim. 2:6). You cannot say that it is hard to reap a harvest before you have even sown something. That is not fair. You have to do the sowing, the cultivating, and the watering to help the crop grow. After a certain time according to the natural law, something will grow up. We all must ask ourselves whether or not we have done our duty. We have to realize that some day we will stand before the judgment seat.
The Lord’s word tells us that He will come back, and He even warns us to get ready to meet Him. He will come back to settle accounts with us (Matt. 25:19). We will have to tell Him what we have been doing and what we have been gaining for Him. This is why I say that Matthew is a heavy book. If you do not feel that Matthew 24 and 25 are heavy, it may be that you are deeply stupefied. A sensitive person will have the deep sensation of how heavy these chapters really are.
George Whitefield, who was more powerful than John Wesley, was once preaching the gospel, telling people about the lake of fire. One of the listeners stood up and ran to embrace a big column in the hall and cried out that he was afraid of falling into the lake of fire. George Whitefield preached the lake of fire in such a prevailing way that his listeners were warned to the uttermost. He did not merely talk about the lake of fire, but he showed that the unbelievers would go there. In this chapter we are talking about the Lord’s judgment seat and His settling accounts with you and with me. This is more than serious. I hope that we would all wake up. The Lord is coming, and He will settle accounts with us.
According to the complete revelation of the Bible, the dead sinners have not yet been fully dealt with. Luke 16 tells us that they are still in Hades in a section of torment where all the perished sinners are (vv. 23a, 26, 28, and footnote 261, Recovery Version). Eventually, all the sinners will come out of that section of torment to stand before the great white throne (Rev. 20:11-12). On the white throne, the Lord will be the Judge of the dead (2 Tim. 4:1) to make a final decision for all the sinners to go to the lake of fire. Do not think that any dead sinner’s problems are over. In like manner, do not consider that once a believer dies, his problems are over. We will stand at His judgment seat to receive something from Him according to what we have been and what we have been doing since we were saved (2 Cor. 5:10). The Lord will settle accounts with all of us.
The way to be faithful is to scatter the Lord’s word, which is food to every hungry one. The Lord’s household is composed not only of believers but also of sinners. Who will go to feed the hungry, sinful people? We all have to say, “Me!” We have to go. It is good if we have many full-timers in the gospel, but many of us have to make a living by working in the world. If we all go full time in the gospel, no one could support anyone. We should not put our burden upon the church or upon anyone else to support us. Paul went full time and was supported by the churches, but quite often no church and no saints took care of him. He was forced to make tents (Acts 18:3; 20:34). When he was making tents, he was very busy in writing the Epistles and very busy in caring for the hungry ones. We have to follow his example. He was not a professional preacher. Because he made tents, he had a trade, the same trade as Aquila and Priscilla. This shows us that we need to do a job to sustain our family, to make a living, but this should not be something to occupy us and give us an excuse. We must do everything that we can to spread the Word of God.
Many Christians are nearly void of the truth; they have the Word of God, but they do not care for it, nor do they realize how much is in it. In this age of apostasy the Lord, by His mercy, has opened up His Word to us. Many of the divine riches have been printed and published. The more the riches are put out, the more we should be condemned and burdened. Why do we not go out with these riches? Our edition of the Recovery Version is not as expensive as some other Bibles. It would be wonderful if we could distribute some copies of this version to the Lord’s seekers. We all should have the spirit and the burden to spare some money to get some copies of the Recovery Version into others’ hands. This is one of the ways to feed the Lord’s people.
Some of us may not be able to afford to purchase extra copies of the Recovery Version, but all of us can distribute the rainbow booklets. We have many thousands of these inexpensive booklets stored away, and we are still publishing them. If we would practice this, this will be a base for us to stand before the Lord when He comes back. None of us will care for money when we are standing before His judgment seat. To save some money and spend it on the Lord’s work is to use the mammon of unrighteousness to make friends (Luke 16:9). When you feed others with these spiritual publications, you will surely make friends. The Lord will reward you, and those who get saved and edified will receive you into the eternal tabernacles. Furthermore, we can go to others with our Bible and read Matthew 24 and 25 to them. Many Christians need these chapters to wake them up from their stupor.
My burden is not merely for a particular area of the United States. My burden is for the whole earth. The entire island of Taiwan is ready to be fully evangelized. The church in Taipei recently sent out sixteen gospel teams to surrounding towns, and they baptized nineteen hundred seventy-five people within three weeks. A number of these towns are ready for established churches. Everywhere the saints went, there was absolutely no opposition to Christ. Nearly everyone is open, especially the educated ones. The island of Taiwan is full of highly educated people. All over this earth people are not content to remain in ignorance or blindness. The more knowledge and education that people get, the more they find out that human life is just vanity. They have a desire to know the truth, the reality, the “real philosophy.” The real truth, the real philosophy, no doubt is in the Word we have in our hands. We should go out. If we would not go out, who would? It is not adequate to raise up, fund, and establish seminaries to teach seminary students. This is not up to the standard of the Bible.
The Lord has given talents to all His slaves. To one He gave five talents, to another two talents, and to another one talent. Everyone was required to trade, to do business, to make money for the Lord’s kingdom. In order to do this, we have to feed His people at the proper time. Every day is a proper time, a meal time. Every office hour is a meal time. There is someone ready to eat everywhere, so we need to be those using the Lord’s talent in full. The five-talented slave made a profit of five talents, and the two-talented slave made a profit of two talents. This indicates that they used the Lord’s talent in full, without any loss or waste, so they both received the same reward.
Also, by His mercy and through His grace we must do the best not to beat the fellow slaves, the fellow believers. Do not criticize or murmur about them. Do not speak anything negative about them, because you do not have the time to do it. Your mouth was not made for criticizing but for speaking forth Christ. To criticize the brothers is to beat the fellow slaves. This will cause us to be punished. We should also not go into the world to enjoy ourselves with the stupefied, drugged, and worldly people. We have to be the sober ones. We should not dig into the earth to bury or hide our talent. We should have a job to maintain our living, but we should not dig into it. We are different from the worldly people. I encourage all my grandchildren to do their best to get the highest education, but I do not agree that any one of them would “dig into” their education just to become an expert. I also encouraged all the young people in the churches to get the highest education, but do not dig a hole that buries the talent the Lord gave you. We all need to be faithful in the Lord’s service.
