Our text this morning can be found on page 987. It'll be Matthew chapter 25, verses 1 through 13. That's page 987. So as I walked in this morning, I started thinking to myself, this is kind of like what a day in the life of Reverend Gordon is like. I drove a truck here that I borrowed from a brother, parked in his spot, I'm preaching God's word. I'm behind this pulpit. My mother's in town, so I'm preaching in front of my mother. That said, I'm not Chris Gordon, if you haven't realized. And we dearly miss him and we look forward to when he gets back. Matthew chapter 25, verses 1 through 13. Hear now the word of our Lord. But then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them. But the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, here's the bridegroom, come out to meet him. Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out but the wise answered saying since there will not be enough for us and for you go rather to the dealers and buy yourself buy for yourselves and while they were going to buy the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast and the door was shut afterward other virgin the other virgins came also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered, truly I say to you, I do not know you. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. And thus far the reading of God's word. So during the summers when I was growing up, my younger siblings and I, we would be at home during the day while my parents went off to work. Typically, or it seemed almost every day, my parents would give us tasks. They would give us chores that we should complete while they were gone. Anything from doing the dishes, to doing laundry, to generally cleaning up around the house, or doing yard work. These were things that were put before us. This is what my experience looked like as a teenager during those summer days. As the day went on, I'd think about the chore or chores that I had to do, and I would have this wise thought to myself, I can do that a little later. And this thought and response would repeat itself throughout the course of the day from the time I woke up to roughly about 3.30 or 4 o'clock, which was about within an hour of the time my parents would be arriving home. Admittedly, this happened regularly. My chores, they would not be done. And so as you can imagine, what would follow would be a reprimanding of sorts. Why did I do this? Why did I act in this way? Being honest, I was so wrapped up and consumed with doing what I wanted to do, That what mattered, which was obeying my parents and doing the chores, those things that mattered, I downplayed and I pushed them off. But here's the thing. I knew my parents were going to be coming home at some point, and yet I still did as I pleased. I ignored it. So when my parents would get home, I would be unprepared. Foolishly, I had not bothered to attend to the tasks that were at hand for me to do. I did not stay constantly ready for them to return, and this resulted in discipline and punishment. Now, in some instances, I can happily say I did accomplish the tasks that were before me. I would be found ready when my parents got home, and they would be pleased. It was either they would be pleased, or maybe they were just shocked that I actually did them. I'm not sure. But you can imagine, upon them coming home, things were much, much better. In many ways, this is not unlike the parable that our Lord was teaching here. The parable of the ten virgins. In this parable, Jesus tells of ten virgins, with the purpose of teaching his disciples to watch and be on alert for his second coming. In this parable, he's teaching his disciples. But as he's teaching this to the disciples in this particular parable, this applies to us as the church as well. And therefore, what we see in this parable is that Christ is bluntly telling his church that you need to be constantly ready for his return. Now, there's three general phases in this parable that, upon inspection, we find it's a common experience to all of life. And as we look through this and put it all together, it's going to help us understand that the life of a believer will be marked by their constant readiness as they await for the arrival of the coming bridegroom. So we will consider this readiness in light of the knowledge of the bridegroom, the delay of the bridegroom, and the arrival of the bridegroom. So knowledge, delay, and arrival. Now as the parable opens up, We're introduced to the characters who are in the story. We have, obviously, the bridegroom, and then we have the ten virgins. We are told that five of the virgins are deemed wise, and five are deemed as foolish. But obviously, we can see that all ten virgins knew this bridegroom in some way or another. Now, in first century Palestine, during wedding festivities, One of the parts of the festivity that would occur would be these young women going out to meet this bridegroom. Presumably they were virgins and presumably they were bridesmaids, if you will. And they would accompany the bridegroom in this procession of sorts with torches as they were going into his house for a great feast and celebration. In the story, all ten virgins have been freely invited to this feast and celebration. And initially, we see that they have all responded to this invitation. So they all go out to meet the bridegroom. The way that these virgins responded, however, are not all the same. Five of them simply lit their lamps and they went out to meet him. But the other five, not knowing how long things might take and not wanting to miss out on being a part of this festivity and miss out on meeting this bridegroom, they took the time to bring extra oil. They prepared themselves. Now, for better understanding for us, the word we have translated as lamps, it refers more to something like a torch. What a person would do back then with these torches would be they would take an oily rag and they would put it at the end of a stick or at the end of the torch and then they would light it. But the reality is, there was no constant source of fuel being fueled there. And so once the oil would be burned up, the torch would go out. Thus, in the story, we understand that this torch has been lit, but the initial oil is going to eventually run out at some point. Now, another thing for us as we frame our mindsets for considering this parable, remember, Jesus is teaching this to his disciples. It's important for us to remember because he's not talking to the masses. He's not talking to just everybody on a hillside. This is something that pertains specifically to his people. He's talking to a group of men who are his followers. But these men, they're also human beings. And they will soon be facing the roller coaster that is the human life experience. They'll have expectations and disappointments. and in the midst of all this they'll have temptations to grow idle and apathetic and be careless these are the things that they're going to have to deal with but if this is true of the disciples in their life experience we can know and we do know simply by our own lives that this absolutely holds true to us today and so as we consider this parable it becomes apparent that we have a picture of something that has gone on since the time of Christ's earthly ministry. This is a picture of the visible church that is all those who profess to be believers in Christ. But what is true in this parable we find is also true of the visible church. The reality that there are those who are wise and those who are foolish. Now consider with me for a second what the visible church or all those who have put the name of Christ in their identity, what is true of them? All believe they know who Jesus is. All have responded to the free offer of the gospel in one way or another. They've responded initially with zeal and fervor for our Lord. And all are aware that he will return. and this common response to him in a positive light it makes sense it's exciting to know that your sins are forgiven it's exciting to think about eternal life and what lie ahead and this all sounds great but the funny thing happens to everybody life and life as we know it is not cut and dry life does not play out according to a script it has its ups and downs it has its temptations and appeals it involves battles against our flesh against sin and the devil and so staying focused on the bridegroom is not easy and yet in light of all of this or with all of this in in our knowledge another thing is there too we know that christ is going to return one day the bridegroom is coming but the problem is he's not here yet there's a delay now diving back into the parable we are informed that the coming bridegroom was delayed we're not told how he was delayed we're not told why he was delayed we're not told how long he was going to be delayed for but in this delay it was never a question of if he was going to arrive his arrival was still an impending arrival it was still going to happen now during this delay time drags on and all the virgins fall asleep so what do we make of this part of the parable well in the first place what is obvious is that the delay of the bridegroom is the time we live in right now for the disciples in the moment they had not fully grasped that jesus was going to die rise again and ascend to the father's right hand and then return think about this this is before his crucifixion so they didn't grasp all these things but even when they did grasp this eventually they still did not know when christ was going to return christ never told them once even after he rose again hey i'm coming at this particular time so as jesus is teaching this to them he's trying to stress the fact of the unknown as it relates to his return our lord says multiple times in this passage and in this section of matthew and in other places in the Gospel. He says that no one knows the time of His return. They don't know the day. They don't know the hour. But what He does know is that all who are believers are human beings. And He knows that at times it may feel endless. It may feel like He's never going to come. But when it comes to those feelings or those experiences, he also knows that when it does happen, his arrival, or when it does happen, we can also think here about death, because the reality is we are all going to die at some point. When these things happen, it will happen seemingly suddenly. It will seem like there was such a short period of time from comparing that to what we were thinking before as in I have time this is not going to happen now take a moment and think of your own experiences think of a time in your life when you were excited for something maybe it was as a child you were waiting for your birthday or you were waiting for Christmas or maybe later on it was waiting to get your driver's license or waiting to get married I remember during Monica in my engagement period, we had this little web page that we set up that had a counter that was counting down the days to our wedding. And when it started, it was roughly about six months or over a hundred days until the time of our wedding day. I remember thinking to myself, that's never going to come. But the point is, whatever the case is, there are periods where it feels like time is standing still and it feels like you will never get to the occasion that you're looking forward to and in these periods of waiting it may feel like it's pointless to even look forward to it it may feel pointless to feel concerned about this because it seems so far off it seems so distant it seems out of touch but as we find ourselves awaiting Christ's return we are prone to this idleness and this carelessness we are prone to these same feelings it feels like he has been gone a long time and if we're honest with ourselves many of us if not all of us have felt at moments pretty sure that Christ is not going to return during our lifetime. And after all, it's been nearly 2,000 years, hasn't it? If he hasn't come by now, who's to say he's going to come during our lifetime? That's the feeling we can have. And as it feels like it's a long time, it can also feel like he's distant. He's far off. He's remote. But brothers and sisters, he is near. He's near because he is the son of God. Think of Heidelberg Catechism question 47, which talks about or asks the question about how can Christ be present at the right hand of the Father and still present with us? And in the answer, it says, in his divinity, majesty, grace, and spirit, he is never absent from us. Our Savior is near to us. Yet in terms of his return, I was also reminded that Christ hasn't really been gone that long. Recently in a class, a professor, he said to us, you know, Jesus has only been gone two days. Now we all look perplexed at him. What is he talking about? Two days. Looking at our calendars, 2,000 years, not two days. Of course, though, he was referencing 2 Peter 3, verse 8. With the Lord, a day is like 1,000 years, and 1,000 years is like a day. So brothers and sisters, do not think Christ has been gone that long. And because he's been gone long, that he won't be coming back soon. The reality is, to him, he's only been gone a short while. So who's to say that he's not going to return soon? And yet, in this delay, though, it is ever so easy to struggle and fall asleep. And so it is also worth noting, in this parable, that both the wise and the foolish virgins fell asleep. The wise virgins are not called wise because they were perfect. They didn't stay awake the whole time. They fell victim to this delay just the same as the foolish virgins fell victim to the delay. But it is what happens next that reveals the difference in the initial responses of these virgins when it came to meeting this bridegroom. Remember, the foolish virgins, they simply lit their lamps and they ran out to meet the bridegroom. They did not prepare for the possibility of a delay to bring more oil with them if they had to wait longer. They loved the idea of meeting this bridegroom. They loved the idea of going to this feast. They loved the idea of participating in all these things. But they did not understand that it called for a proper readiness. They were reckless and careless. and so upon waking up to a voice saying that the bridegroom was coming they find themselves lacking oil their lamps had gone out they needed they needed more oil so they asked the wise virgins can you spare us some oil but the wise virgins they know if they give their extra oil then they're all out of luck no one will be able to light their torches and be ready for this bridegroom to come but another thing happens here that can seem subtle but i think it's important the wise virgins say to the foolish ones go to the buyers and get yourself oil and so within the context of this story we can assume that there were buyers that were available at all times of the night so as we think about this then in the delay when the foolish virgins could have realized before they fell asleep that they were going to run out of oil for their lamps they still carried on and did as they pleased they had this second chance and they did not take advantage of that situation their carelessness their unseriousness these hearts were on full display but on the other side of things we have the wise virgins and upon waking up you could say that they were in a place of rest they were in a place of of peace because they knew they had this extra oil they were not going to miss out on this feast in celebration with the bridegroom and they took because they had taken measures that might have seemed burdensome and they brought this extra oil think about it they were carrying multiple things at one time would have been easier just to carry this torch now sure they fell asleep but upon finding out that the bridegroom was coming they woke and they used this extra oil that they had to light their torch up and go out and meet him now this section of the parable does it not again capture the state of the visible church and the people that exist within it just as in the parable all the virgins fell asleep during the delay and thus were imperfect in the visible church it is made up of imperfect people this point helps us to realize that this parable is not about perfectionism many of us are prone to fall into the trap of reading some of these parables and think that Jesus is demanding perfectionism out of us. That's not at all, though, what is going on here. Further, we can realize this because we know the disciples would show their imperfection soon after this. They would scatter and they would flee upon Christ being arrested. They would show their imperfection and their lack of understanding about why Jesus died. Further, they would show their imperfections in even doubting His resurrection when He was appearing right before them. But what about us? How many of us here have not sinned since we professed our faith in Christ? How many of us have been swept up in our day-to-day activities and have lost track of thinking about Christ and thinking about His return? And how many of us have had seasons or times where we lack the urgency both in our personal walk with Christ, but also in consideration that there are those who do not know Christ? To use the words of the parable, we too have all fallen asleep at some point or another. So it begs the question then, if in the visible church there are those who are wise and foolish, who are the wise and who are the foolish and how can we know and this brings us to the point that Jesus is trying to make in this parable Jesus gives us an imperative that we need to be consistently ready for his arrival we need to be consistently ready to meet him again this also includes a sudden death or the time we do die. Now going back to the parable, as we read, or as we read, the bridegroom arrives while the foolish virgins are off trying to get their oil for their lamps. The bridegroom comes and he and the wise virgins, they enter the feast and they shut the door behind them. The foolish then arrive only to be told that they are not known and they're not let in. And then Jesus ends the parable saying watch for you know neither the day nor the hour. Now our pew bibles, they're the English standard version. They translate the Greek word that Jesus uses for watch here. They translate that Greek word as watch and that's not a bad translation at all. It's very common. It does capture to an extent the point. But the Greek word that is used here actually carries a more urgent meaning than simply watch there's another greek word that's often translated as watch and it's a less urgent word but this this word carries something more in the terms of meeting that goes along the lines of being in a constant state of readiness and if you've noticed i've used this phrase throughout the sermon instead of saying watch or be on alert which be on alert in the NASB. That's how they translate it. The point is, though, it carries this urgency with it. Jesus is not saying, look at the signs in the times. Look to see I might be coming. No. He wants our hearts to be postured in a way where we are constantly ready for His return. A heart that is ready should we die suddenly a heart that is ready when he returns a heart that is ready because it is looking to him and it is looking for him for their salvation the sobering truth of this parable is that there are those who seem ready but they are not truly ready they initially respond to the gospel, only to stop caring after a short time. They prove that they weren't ready. In his commentary on this passage, Calvin said of this emphasis about readiness, he says, it is not enough to have ardent zeal for a short time if we have not also a constancy that never tires. Foolish individuals are no doubt prone to the same sins as the wise. They're prone to the same trials, the same ills as those who are prepared or ready in terms of the parable. But the difference is they have not truly looked to Christ. They carry on not stopping to think about him or his commandments or his impending return. They keep pushing it off. These are individuals who are antinomians. They lack conviction about their sin. They're unrepentant in their sin. They may claim christ but their lives show no evidence of truly knowing him for them the christian faith is a matter of convenience for them it in some cases it's a matter of being part of the club it's convenience in that way because it's only convenient when it suits them and their needs they love the idea of having their sins forgiven they love the idea of eternal life But they do not love the Savior. In their foolishness, they push off repentance and turning to the Lord. They do not consider His nearness. They do not consider that He will return. They are the ones who will believe themselves to be known by the Lord, only to have Him say, I never knew you. They'll be left outside. They were never ready. The foolish virgins were not foolish because they fell asleep. They were not foolish because they were imperfect. They were foolish because they were not ready. They were short-sighted and caught up in their immediate experience. And this led them to not consider the possibility that the bridegroom will show up when they don't expect him to show up. The bridegroom was not going to show up according to their time frame. And this is what is true also of those who will be shut out when Christ returns. For them, the arrival of the bridegroom will be tragic. But for those who are ready like the wise virgins, they will celebrate and enjoy a great feast. Why were the wise virgins so ready? We've already established that they were wise because they were ready. But why? Think about the parable. They've been invited by this bridegroom, and in their gratitude and their thankfulness and joy of being invited, they did what they had to do to not miss out on this. It was not their preparation that earned them this invitation. The readiness came after the invitation. It came after they accepted this gift of an opportunity to feast with this bridegroom. And who do these wise virgins represent? Well, they represent those who are truly in Christ. They are those who look to Christ as their mediator and as their Savior, who have accepted this free offer of the gospel. They are the ones who in gratitude worship and obey Him. They love His commandments. As we sang in Psalm 1, They meditate on the commandments. They love them. They aren't burdensome to them. They are ready in light of what the Savior has done for them. And so they are constantly ready and on guard against idleness. And it's easy to fall into this idleness. We've seen that. But even when they do, they turn in repentance. And how do they do that? Well, they're not doing it on their own strength. but by the strength of the Spirit that was given to them upon turning to Christ. It is this Spirit who helps convict, guide, and lead them in the time of delay before the bridegroom comes. And so we see also then, and what we can know for ourselves also, is that our bridegroom has not only offered us this invitation to come dine with him and feast with him, But He helps provide a passageway to get there. He brings us into the feast alongside of us. He helps us stay ready. Now briefly, because we are partaking of the supper this morning, in consideration of that this morning, is that not another way that our Lord helps us to stay ready? As we have in our formula with this, with the supper. It tells us that the bread and the wine, they nourish us. It is Christ nourishing us. He helps us be ready. But the question is, at the end of all of this, and the question that it's always good to check in once in a while, is are you ready? Are you ready to meet the bridegroom? If you consider yourself a believer, you are called to be ready. You're not called to be perfect, although Christ is helping you become more perfect in this life. You're called to be ready. You're called to look for Him and look to Him. You're called to continue in preparing yourself. And if you found yourself growing idle, you have the Spirit who's convicting you. And maybe you're sitting there this morning and you are convicted by this. And you're called to yield to that conviction of the Spirit urging you to be more vigilant. Our Lord has called us to be constantly ready. And how can we not when we consider how much He has done for us? Think back to our time of confession this morning. We read the Ten Commandments, which are really more of a summary of all that is sin. You know in your own heart the way that you have trespassed those sins throughout the course of this week. And yet our Savior, our Bridegroom, died for us. He offered salvation to us, that our sins would be forgiven. So how can we not, in response to that, obey His commandments? How can we not give ourselves to prayer? How can we not look to Him and look for Him? How can we not be ready? Brothers and sisters, may we heed His words and be ready for the day that we meet Him. For on that day, it will be a joyous time for those who are wise. But it will be a tragedy for the foolish. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning and we confess that we're not perfect. We've already confessed that this morning as well. But Lord, you've called us to look to yourself and to trust in you for our salvation. And in light of that salvation, you've also called us to obey your law. You've given us your law to help us to know how to be more like you. You've also promised that you will return. You've called us to be ready for that return. And so, Lord, I ask that you would use your word this morning to stir our hearts, to be more ready. Help us to not fall into idleness. Help us to be more vigilant as we follow you. But the paradox that is with our faith is the fact that as we're more vigilant, we rest all the more in you and all the things that you've done for us. And we ask that you would just continue to supply us with the needs that we need to be more and more ready and to be more and more like you. We pray these things in Christ's name, amen.