You are living on borrowed time, judgment is near, and there is nothing about you that

earns that borrowed time, so it is purely at the merciful discretion of God that you live

another day. And his patience is not permanent.

Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.

Perhaps you've heard Jesus' parables described as memorable stories designed to promote

wise behavior that pleases God. Something like Esop's fables, but with a Christian spin.

But really, the parables often deliver messages that are genuinely terrifying.

Today, John looks at a parable with that kind of sobering theme in his lesson titled

Living on borrowed time. It's part of John's series titled Stories with Purpose.

But before we get to the lesson, John, if there is one thing I know about you,

it's that you are an inveterate reader. You're never far from a book or a stack of books that

you're working your way through. So what's on your reading list these days?

Well, I move pretty rapidly through books, but recently I've been reading a book,

a banner of truthbook on Scottish theology. It's just been very rich. It's kind of a slow

read because it's pretty dense, but I love it. Reading a biography of John Owen,

the Great Puritan, I have finished a book that is really remarkable. Its title is Epic,

EPOCH. It's one of the most profound books I've read in recent years in that it

correctly analyzes from a biblical worldview where the world is today.

It's a powerful book. Epic, in fact, I actually wrote an endorsement and a little bit

of a forward for a new edition of that book, and I certainly would commend that book to the reader.

If you want to understand the world in which you live and the research done to produce that book

is amazing. I'm currently reading a book that may seem very strange to people. It's a book

...