The Wise and Foolish at the Bridegroom’s Coming (Part One)
Text: Matthew 25:1-13
OPEN WITH PRAYER AND THANKSGIVING
It seems like Eschatological talk (that is, talk about the end times) is ramping us these days. I’ve begun to hear more and more people talking about the rapture, and the 2nd Coming of Christ. And the signs of the end – you know, things like war and famine, and plagues... and the truth is, they should be talking. Several news outlets are saying that by winter we’re going to see fuel prices skyrocket, food prices skyrocket, and it’s going to get really bad. We have wars and rumors of war. We have lunatic billionaires suggesting that we build something that blocks out 1/3 of the sun’s rays in order to prevent climate change… and other billionaires suggesting that everyone get vaccination papers… or better yet, a computer chip, and if you don’t have that, you get locked up, you can’t buy or sell. Sounds an awful lot like what we read in the Book of Revelation to me. We’ve got Russia invading Ukraine, China threatening Taiwan, and the US Military worrying about which pronoun to use. I’m just saying, it really does look like Christ may be returning sooner rather than later. Maybe even in our lifetimes. And a lot of people talk about the “signs” – the “birth pains” – the “Mark of the Beast”… And we should not be ignorant of such things. We should be aware. But I really want to share with you something that I feel gets neglected in all this talk about the End Times. I want to talk to you this morning about each of us as individuals rather than about all that’s going on in the world around us.
So if you’ll take your Bibles and open them up to Matthew 25:1-3, and follow along as I read from the Word of the Lord. (READ TEXT).
Now as we read through that, I want to call your attention first of all to the urgency of this passage. You notice that the wise virgins were ready, they heard God’s Word, and believed it, and because they believed it, they were ready for the Lord’s coming. The foolish virgins had heard the exact same Word, but they did not believe – as evidence by their lack of works (remember James says “faith without works is dead”), and they were therefore not prepared.
You see; whether it’s by rapture or rupture we’re all going to stand before the Lord… what do I mean by that? I mean whether we get raptured, or whether we die before the Lord’s Second Coming takes place, we’re still going to stand before Him. And if we believe that – does our life give evidence to that claim? You know, are we storing up treasures for ourselves here on earth, that will perish, or are we storing up treasures for ourselves in heaven, which will never perish? Are we building with wood, hay, and straw – which will all be destroyed? Or are we building with gold and precious stones? Because here’s what the Bible teaches us. None of us are promised tomorrow. We may be driving home after the service this morning, and be hit head on by a semi and be instantly brought into the presence of the Lord… or Christ may come tonight, because again, no man knows the day or the hour.
The question I’m asking you this morning is – are you ready to meet the Lord?
You know; I’ve seen the memes that say, “It’s 2022, we are now somewhere in-between Mad Max, Soylent Green, Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s ‘A Brave New World.’” There are so many dystopian future films out there in film and on TV that is was almost kind of priming the pump; so that when an actual pandemic did hit, everyone freaked out and there was a lot of panic, and fear, and anxiety… And we can look back over the last two years and see that this fear, and panic, and anxiety has led us closer to tyranny, it has caused anger and violence. And if that’s not bad enough, we have the so called “experts” telling us that the earth is warming… or is it cooling again? Who can keep up? They tell us that there’s going to be global over-population.
And the 24-hour news agencies are continually pushing out headlines designed to instill fear. The “Rona” is gonna’ get you, and if it doesn’t the Murder Hornets will, and if they don’t the “Monkey Pox” is coming, and the sun is going to burn out and we’ll all freeze, it will be “winter always, and Christmas never”. The oceans will rise and swallow up the coasts, (and yet the climate change alarmists continue to buy ocean front property).
NASA will tell us that an asteroid is going to pass very near the earth (and you have to read the full article to learn that to NASA, “near the earth” is over 200 million miles away), but on and on it goes.
IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT – and I feel fine…
All around us, people are speculating about the end of the world, but very few are actually looking at Scripture and saying what Scripture says about this. But the Bible is the first place we should go. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega – the Beginning and the End. God has declared the end from the beginning. He has told us exactly what will happen in His Word, and He tells us how we as believers should be living our lives in light of all that.
Is the end coming? ABSOLUTELY… is it going to happen the way the “experts” say, nope! Should you live in fear? Possibly…
That’s why we’re looking at this parable of the 10 Virgins today.
Now I say it’s a parable because it begins exactly as a parable does. Jesus says, “The Kingdom of Heaven IS LIKE…” In other words, this is an example designed to give us a better understanding but it’s not the actual thing. It’s LIKE this, but it’s not this. And Matthew is the only one of the Gospel writers who uses the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven”, all the others use the phrase, “The Kingdom of God.” Those two things are the same, it’s just that Matthew chose to call it something different. For example, if you read something like “The Kingdom of Pharaoh” you also understand that it’s talking about the Kingdom of Egypt. If you read, “The Empire of Rome”, you could just as easily say, “Caesar’s Empire”. When Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”, He could have just as easily said, “Render unto Rome, what is Rome’s”.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus starts with the parable of the sower, and ends with the parable of the talents, and they’re all parables about the Kingdom of Heaven. And as you read through those parables, you’ll see a sort of contrast over and over again… like good ground/bad ground, wheat and tares, good fish/bad fish, wise and foolish virgins.
So when we read that, and we understand what Jesus is saying, we can say with a fair amount of certainty, that Jesus is talking about the visible Church – where Christ is confessed as Lord, and people profess to have faith in Him.
So let me just give you a little background to some of those parables… where Jesus says “the Kingdom of Heaven is like…” In Matthew 13 Jesus said that the Kingdom of heaven is like good seed planted by God, and tares (or weeds) planted by the devil. He said, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed that grows into a large tree. Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a fishing net that gathers fish of all kinds… after it is drawn in, the bad fish are thrown out, and the good are kept.
And that brings us to the 10 virgins that we read about here in Matthew 25.
Now we’ve got to remember that this parable tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is LIKE something. But it is not that thing. Some people say, “Kenny, you’re just like your dad.” But I’m not my dad. A Chevy Camaro might be “like” a Ford Mustang, but it will never be a Ford Mustang, and vice versa. And you notice here. Just like there are wheat and tares, good fish and bad fish, good ground and stony or thorny ground… Well… there’s also wise virgins and foolish virgins.
There’s 10 virgins… and we’re told that they all took their lamps. But only five of them took oil for those lamps. In one sense, we could say that the lamp is the outward confession a person makes with their mouth. Maybe they went forward at an altar call or something else. They’ve made a verbal confession of faith. And we know from Scripture that’s important right? We have to confess Jesus as Lord with our mouths. We have to confess Him before men. But we also know from Scripture that a lot of people make a confession or profession of faith, but lack the actual faith they are professing. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 7:22-23? “On that day, many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your Name, and cast out demons in your Name, and do many mighty works in your Name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I NEVER KNEW YOU; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.” And then there’s Matthew 15:8 where Jesus said, “These people honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.”
And so we have these wise and foolish virgins all together. They all have their lamps… meaning, they’ve all made the public profession of faith… But only five of them actually have the faith – which is represented by the oil here. In other words, only five of them have been truly converted by the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit.
This is why 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves! Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail to meet the test.” Look at verse 3 from our text. The foolish virgins took NO OIL with them. They had their lamps, all shiny and ready to go, but no oil at all.
Church, one of the things this passage is telling us, as are most of the parables of the Kingdom in Matthew’s Gospel account, is that within the visible Church, there are both saved and lost people.
There are people who claim to know Jesus, but when pressed they couldn’t even tell you who He is, what He’s done, and why that’s important. There are people who claim to love Jesus, but their lives show differently. They never gather with the Bride of Christ, they never share the Gospel with anyone. There is no repentance of sin… Oh, they might try to hide their sin, and keep it on the down-low, but they never repent. John tells us, in 1st John chapter 3, that if you’re in Christ, you’re not going to make a practice of sinning. Listen to what John says here…
1 John 3:4-10, “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that He (that’s Jesus) appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning (that’s practicing sin), no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as He is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reasons the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. (Now catch this – this is how we test ourselves… Verse 10) By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”
There you have it right?
Now people hear this and say, “But Pastor Ken, I made a profession of faith!” Great! But the faith that saves, drives you toward righteousness. I am so tired of people saying, “God loves you just the way you are.” NO… He really doesn’t! He will save you where you are, and then He begins to sanctify you, and change you, and make you more and more like Jesus! God does not love your sin, and He doesn’t take it lightly.
Now let me try to explain this a little more by giving an example from the world we live in. I live in the great – free state – of Oklahoma. I love living in Oklahoma, and thank God that He allows me to live here. We have a family friend who lives out in LA… California. He does not love living in California, and he’s thinking about moving to Oklahoma. But while he’s in California, he has to abide by the state laws – as long as they don’t go against God’s clear teachings and conscience right. So he has to pay an oppressive state income tax. He has to pay crazy high prices for gasoline, he has to wear a muzzle… er… I mean a mask even though dozens of studies now show how ineffective they actually are. But when he comes to visit us in Oklahoma, he no longer has to do those things; even though he’s not a citizen of our state, he’s under the authority of our state laws. The foolish virgins were not true citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, but they were experiencing the benefits of being in close proximity to those who were. Non-believers get splashed with the wine, when our cup overflows. You can go back to the Old Testament book of Genesis and read the story of Jacob and his uncle Laban. Laban says it, “God has blessed me because of you.” (Genesis 30:27).
And maybe it was because of this… this blessing by proximity that these foolish virgins wrongly thought that they were actually going to make it in to the wedding feast. But when the Bridegroom came, they missed Him.
So let me close with this… and then next time, Lord willing, we’ll pick this passage back up and go further through it. If you make a practice of sinning, call out to the Lord and ask Him to give you the grace, and desire, and strength to repent. If you do not trust in Jesus Christ for the salvation of your soul, and the forgiveness of your sin, cry out to Him now, and ask Him to save you by His amazing grace. If all you want of Jesus is for Him to be your Savior, but not your Lord, cry out to God and ask Him to change you right now, to make you a new creation in Christ, to sanctify your heart and your will, and to cleanse you from that stubborn rebellion. Do it today, because none of us know the day or the hour, when the Bridegroom is coming.
Let’s Pray
CLOSING
