This parable of Christ seems to be pretty simple. Even though there doesn’t seem to be much hidden meaning here, somehow, most of humanity seems to ignore it completely. What I mean is, the lesson may be simple, but the action we are called to, seems to be hard for many people. Is it because we do not understand it? Is it because we do not think it is serious enough? Or is because we are the people who are not serious enough?
We can see through God’s Word in this case that people will not know when Christ is going to return. It seems that that doesn’t stop many people from trying to predict it anyway.
Just two or three months ago, do you realize people traveled to villages on odd parts of the world because they thought the Mayans might be right when they stopped their calendar back on October 22nd? What was that about? If you know anything about Scripture, we have to know that Christ is very clear when He says, no one will know the day or the hour that He will return and the world ends, at least the world that we know of. That was completely ignored by thousands of people.
But we don’t have to look far before we find groups of people that believed they knew when that day would come. There were biblical scholars from as far back as year 110 A.D, again in the year 275 A.D, and on and on, in the 1600’s there were groups of people that believed so strongly that they knew the world was ready to end, they didn’t plant their crops or take care of their basic daily needs because they didn’t think they would be around much longer.
It goes on today! I was telling the Teen class last week, there are churches in this city, well known churches with a million members around the world that have tried to foretell the ending of the earth and the return of Christ no less than three different times in the last 50 years. Wrong every time! How is it that people still go to that building every week? I just don’t know. And I don’t know when Jesus will come back. But there are things that He told us, that we do know. Last week we talked about some of those signs. Wars, and rumors of wars, famine, disease, the persecution of believers.
We know that, and we know from the natural disasters that we do fit into those end times that the Bible describes. Then again, we have fit into that time for the last two thousand years. (pause)
I think I can make it easier for all of us. If we can simply watch for three things, we will be much better off. And whenever that day does get here, we return to heaven with our Lord. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t that be the best day in your whole life?
Well here they are: First, Watch Your Correctness. Then watch your commitment, and lastly watch your companions.
The first of those three things again was Watch your Correctness.
What I mean by that can be found in our scripture focus for today. The parable tells us that when the groom returned, that 5 of the young women were ready, and 5 were not. Five of them had prepared ahead of time. It didn’t matter what time he came back, because they were prepared. They had extra oil for their lamps, and simply had to wait to refill them. They were doing it correctly.
Are you? Your lamp is your life. Is it ready for Christ to look at and give His approval? Or is it empty? Is it Dirty? Does your life look like His life? You know better than anyone, no one can tell you if you are ready or not. But you know. You know if you ever lie, you know if you ever cheat and you know if you ever steal.
For the younger kids, do we lie to get out of trouble? DO we take what isn’t ours? Do we cheat on tests? Do we say mean things, or talk about others? Do we help people around us?
And the adults don’t get away with anything either. Do we look at people that we shouldn’t be looking at? Do we listen to people, to music or to TV that we shouldn’t be? Do we lie? Do we steal? That could be on our taxes, that could be stealing time from our employer who thinks we are working.
And teenagers, don’t think you’re somehow safe. The devil gets to teenagers even faster than adults and kids. Kids have adults looking out for them. And adults have enough maturity, at least they are supposed to, to have some self control. But teenagers are generally less mature, living in an adult body, in an adult world. We think we are giving them space to grow up, to make their own decisions, and many times we are giving them just enough rope to hang themselves.
Does your life show biblical correctness. Can you say in front of God, that I try to be a holy person. That leads us to our second thing to watch for. Your Commitment. Romans 12:1-2 says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will”.
If we look at that first closely, we see that our bodies, and our whole lives are transformed by the renewing of our mind. In other words, we need to make that decision. Our lives will change, our bodies will be changed, after we make up our mind on who to follow.
The whole process of changing, the whole process of being who God wants you to be, begins with making the decision that, no matter what happens, I am going to do as God asks me to do. People get no where, until they make the hard decision to do what needs to be done. You know some of those hard decisions. Do I go back to school? Do I study for that big test? Do I work hard for my boss? Do I tell the truth even though I may get in trouble? Those decisions show others who we are. They also show God who we are. Why would God bless those that will not make the hard decisions for Him? He doesn’t. But He does bless those that love Him, that listen to His commands, He tells us so. (pause)
Let’s get to that third thing to watch for. We watch for correctness, we watch for commitment, and we should be watching for companions. Not a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, but our companions. We should watch those we hang around with. We all know that human beings will mimic what we see, and what we hear. You can take a kind, polite person and put them in a group of thieves and liars, and sooner or later, they will be stealing and lying. Kids prove it all the time. Whenever we see good kids, begin to hang out with new friends, they begin to get in trouble, act like them, talk like them. That is humanity, we want to fit in. So if our companionship is less than Godly, they will drag us right down with them.
Teenagers call it peer pressure, but adults do it too. We do what our boss asks us to do. We do what our spouse tells us to do, or at least we should in most cases. And we do what our friends ask us to do, good or bad.
So you might be thinking, why is that a problem? Well, because if we want to be hanging out with God someday, we should be hanging out with His friends. If we don’t want to be in heaven someday, we hang out with others who do not think that is important.
Even scripture shows us that you and I are known by who we associate with. When Peter was being questioned if he knew Jesus, they said, “We saw you with Him just a few days ago”. They recognized him as a follower because of who he was with earlier. We have a term for that today too. Or at least the police department does. It’s called guilty by association. Many teenagers know first hand, or maybe secondhand, hanging out with the wrong person, or being with the wrong person at the wrong time, can get you arrested. You don’t even have to be the person doing the action, if you were with them, you are guilty too. And again, we find that lesson in God’s Word, 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 verse 17 says, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you”.
So as we look at the parables that Jesus told, we see great lessons for our lives, great examples that we are supposed to follow. We see most of the world not preparing their lamps, not caring what is going to happen in the middle of the night. And we are reminded that not one person knows what day or hour our Savior is going to return. We are reminded that the young women came back to find the door closed and locked. It isn’t going to be any different with us. We don’t get to prepare after we see the world has ended. We don’t get to ask Christ to give us a few minutes to fix things. We are either ready, or we are, just like the 5 young women, left out in the cold.
I pray that you don’t get left out. And I pray that, like the bridesmaids, we, as the church in our time, take the warning seriously. And someday, we will see each other on the other side. Would you pray with me?
