Get Ready - Matthew 25:1-13

Introduction

Read Matthew 25:1-13

Matthew 25:1–13 (ESV)

“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 is 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 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 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.

Here in the 24th & 25th Chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is teaching His disciples about His return and the judgment that is awaiting all of us.

Here at this point, Jesus has just told the disciples that no one will know the day of His return. Although there have been many who have tried to predict His coming, they have so far all been wrong because only the Father knows the day of Christ’s return. As a result, Jesus is telling us instead of trying to figure out when He’s coming, we need to live and treat each day as if it might be the day of His return.

So Jesus gives us this parable about these ten maidens who are part of a wedding party waiting for the bridegroom to come. This wedding is at night, so they each have their lamps to provide light for the wedding.

these lamps are small clay containpers that you fill with oil and the wick floats on top. As long as it’s got oil the lamp will stay lit. There’s nothing more useless than a lamp without oil.

However, none of them know exactly when the groom is coming so they need to make sure they have enough oil to last until the bridegroom arrives. Unfortunately not all of them are ready for the bridegroom when he arrives.

You Must Be Ready to Meet Christ

The main point of this parable of Jesus is that we must be ready to meet Jesus.

We have these ten maidens or virgins who have been invited and accepted the invitation to be a part of this wedding.

However, this group is made up of two different groups, a group of five wise women and a group of five foolish women.

They all look the same and all apparently want to be a part of the wedding, however the five wise women were ready for the Bridegroom to come and the five foolish women were not ready for him to come and they missed out because they were not ready for him to come.

It is possible to look ready and still miss out

What is scary about this parable is that all ten of these virgins looked like they were ready to be a part of the wedding party. They had their lamps, and their lamps were filled with oil.

However, only five were ready because only five knew that the Bridegroom might be delayed and they needed to be ready at all costs, so they had purchased extra oil in case they ran out. They were not going to run out of oil.

The other five were not ready. They looked ready Because they were there with the other maidens with their lamps burning just as bright.

Who knows how many people the bridegroom invited to be a part of this celebration? There may have been countless others who were invited and rejected and mocked the invitation.

These women at least accepted the invitation. They might have had a surface level affection for the bridegroom and knew they did not want to be left out of the wedding. So they got the minimum of what they thought they needed to join in.

They just didn’t accept the cost of what that meant.

As such, they were not really ready for the delay in the bridegroom’s coming and they did not spend the extra time and expense to stock up on extra oil. They were not fully bought into this. They believed that their acceptance of the invitation would be enough to get them in without really giving it their all to be a part of this celebration.

This would be equivalent to someone simply walking down an aisle and praying a prayer or joining a church simply to mark something off their list to get their fire insurance. It is possible to have everything together outwardly, to look ready from the outside, and not truly be ready for the coming of Christ when it actually takes place.

Being ready to meet Christ is not about how we start the Christian life, but how we finish.

To be ready we must be inwardly changed by Christ

Following Christ is not simply praying a prayer, being baptized, and becoming a member of a church.

Following Christ means experiencing a new birth that results in a true saving faith in Christ. This kind of new birth is going to create an inward change that only God’s Holy Spirit can create.

To be ready means trusting Christ for your salvation, instead of trusting in your own works of righteousness.

To be ready means that we are not simply performing good deeds, but that the Spirit is producing the fruit of the Spirit within our lives. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.

It is possible to do good things, but to not really be changed by Christ. It is possible to look like a believer and not really trust in Christ, because we are trusting in ourselves.

Charles Spurgeon - A great change has to be wrought in you, far beyond any power of yours to accomplish, ere you can go in with Christ to the marriage. You must, first of all, be renewed in your nature, or you will not be ready. You must be washed from your sins, or you will not be ready. You must be justified in Christ’s righteousness, and you must put on his wedding dress, or else you will not be ready. You must be reconciled to God, you must be made like to God, or you will not be ready. Or, to come to the parable before us, you must have a lamp, and that lamp must be fed with heavenly oil, and it must continue to burn brightly, or else you will not be ready. No child of darkness can go into that place of light. You must be brought out of nature’s darkness into God’s marvelous light, or else you will never be ready to go in with Christ to the marriage, and to be forever with him.

To be ready, we must deny ourselves

On Wednesday nights, Dennis has been leading the prayer group through the book of Mark.

They have just recently finished chapter 8 where Peter confesses his faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. Then Jesus proceeds to tell His disciples that He will soon be rejected and will suffer and die and then be raised to life on the third day. Peter rebukes Jesus for this because surely, the Christ, would not suffer, He would conquer.

Jesus proceeds to tell His disciples that the life we are called to is a life of denying oneself.

Mark 8:34–36 (ESV)

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

We are called to die to sin and to deny ourselves of whatever it is that keeps us from truly loving and worshipping God.

Why did the five maidens not have extra oil? Probably because they wanted to be a part of the wedding party without the full commitment of giving up other things to be ready for the Bridegroom. The extra oil would have cost extra, which means they would have to give up something else in order to be ready. The temptation is for us to do the minimum to try to follow Christ without giving up our other gods, idols, and sins.

It might be the cost of losing our job because we are choosing to be obedient to Christ.

Maybe there is some sin, a heart of greed or lust, that we do not want to give up.

It might be our possessions have too much of a hold on our hearts and we do not want to let them go, like the Rich Young Ruler whom Jesus told to go and sell all he had and give it to the poor. He went away sad because he loved his possessions too much.

To be ready is to gladly accept the cost of discipleship, to give up the rights to ourselves and the right to our desires so that we can gain something infinitely better than what we are giving up.

The question we have to ask ourselves is, Am I ready for the Bridegroom to come? Have you truly trusted in Christ, or are you simply trying to create an outward image so others will think you are ready? Have you counted the cost of giving up the rights to your life and pleasures and false idols in order to be ready to meet Jesus?

Salvation Cannot Be Transferred

When the five foolish maidens heard the bridegroom was coming, they realized they were in trouble because they had no more oil. They realized that they were not as ready as they thought they were.

They asked the other five maidens if they could have some of their oil. It might seem heartless that the five with oil would not share, but the point of this is not that they were unwilling to share, but they were unable to share what they had.

Other people cannot give to you the salvation they have in Christ, however much they might want to.

Your family cannot save you

Some people try to place their trust in their families.

If Christ were to ask you why you should be allowed into heaven, how would you answer? Some people might answer by talking about the faith of their family members. You can talk about how your mother was a faithful Sunday school teacher all her life, or how your father was a deacon for forty years.

But it doesn’t matter what your parents/grandparents have done, if you have not placed your faith in Christ, if you are not ready, no amount of faith your family had can be transferred to you.

Your friends cannot save you

Others might respond to Jesus by placing their trust in the people they knew. I have met some people who are really good at dropping names of well known people, as if their acquaintance with such people increase their own importance.

However, if you do not truly know Christ, it will not matter who else you know. It will not matter if Billy Graham was your closest friend. His faith will not be able to get you into heaven.

Your church cannot save you

Neither can your church save you. You can talk about your membership at a faithful Christian church like ours. You can talk about how you attended almost every week and how you came to everything when the doors were open.

However, if you have not truly submitted to Christ as Savior and Lord, there is nothing your church can do to save you. We will not be able to give you extra oil in your lamp to keep you in the wedding party.

The Apostle Paul wanted to be able to transfer his salvation to his fellow Israelites.

Romans 9:1–3 (ESV)

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

However, he knows that we are all saved by grace through faith, and not just any faith, but through the faith each individual places in Christ, not the faith of someone else.

Salvation Will Not Always Be Available

The last thing we need to know is that salvation, while available right now, will not always be available for us. For the maidens, the invitation to be a part of the wedding was available to all who was willing to get ready and accept the invitation. But once the bridegroom came, the time to get ready was too late.

There will be a time when it is too late to get ready

There is coming a time in which it will be too late for us to get ready. Either we are ready before we meet Jesus, or when we meet Jesus, it will be too late to get ready.

For those who ride the school bus, one of the things that the kids and families are told are to be sure they are ready and at the stop several minutes before the bus is scheduled to get to their stop. If the bus arrives and the child is not at the stop, the bus cannot simply remain stopped, blocking traffic until the student gets ready. The bus will have to leave without them if they are not ready. It will be too late to ride the bus if they are not outside when the bus arrives.

When Christ returns, we will not be able to say, “Wait, let me get ready.” Too often, people will say, I know I need to believe, but there’s some things I want to do before I turn to Christ. Do not wait because it might be too late!

Right now is the day of salvation

As such, now is the time to get ready for Christ’s return. If there is coming a time where it will be too late to get ready, then we need to get ready now.

Quoting Isaiah 49:8, Paul writes in 2 Cor 6:1-2

2 Corinthians 6:1–2 (ESV)

Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says,

“In a favorable time I listened to you,

and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”

Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Do not put off for tomorrow what we can do today.

This is one of the lessons we are constantly teaching our children as they go through school, especially as they have entered Middle School and the assignments have gotten larger and more extensive.

They are now receiving assignments and projects that allow them to have a week or more to accomplish. The temptation for them and for us is to say, “I’ve got time to complete this. I’ll do this later.” But there’s typically a reason why they are given that extended time frame, because it will take that extra time to complete. If they wait til the last night before it’s due, it’ll either be next to impossible to complete, or it will be a very late and stressful night for the whole family as they are trying to complete the assignment.

God has brought us all here today to issue the call to everyone of us to be ready. Maybe you are ready. The call for you is to endure and not give up. Keep the oil burning and do not let it run out.

Maybe you’re here and you realize you are not ready. Today is the day of salvation. While there is time, you can still get ready by turning to Christ in faith and repentance.

We Do Not Know When We Will Meet Jesus

Last, and this goes with the idea that today is the day of salvation, is that we do not know how much longer we have til we meet Jesus. We might not have tomorrow. Jesus may come even before the end of this message.

But even if Jesus delays another 50 or 100 years, we still do not know how much longer each one of us has. None of us, regardless of how young or old we are, are guaranteed each day.

I had a friend who was a pastor in San Angelo, TX, who had a youth pastor serving with him, who was about 36 or 37 years of age. I received the heartbreaking news a few years ago that his youth pastor had passed away in his sleep.

You and I do not know when our time will be for the bridegroom to come. We need to be ready now and we need to press on and endure.

Being ready is not just praying a prayer. It is placing our faith in Christ alone as our Lord and Savior and it is living daily in that faith and obedience to Christ.

Hebrews 10:35–39 (ESV)

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For,

“Yet a little while,

and the coming one will come and will not delay;

but my righteous one shall live by faith,

and if he shrinks back,

my soul has no pleasure in him.”

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.