What are you going to do about it? Part I: Parable of the 10 Virgins

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I want to thank all those who stepped up last week to carry the mission while my family and I were away for some rest. I have decided I am in love with Bolognese food. It touched my heart in a special way. And I want more.

But I will ask that you continue to pray for Pastor Angie while she is back stateside ministering and taking care of some personal and church business - pray for her success and quick return home, and that Alana, Elijah, and myself do not fall into chaos and panic while mama is away. We are managing right now, but there is a reason that God provided me my amazing wife and mother to my children. Only by God’s grace and mercy are we making it.

Bro Manfred preached a great Word last week - and I thank you, Brother for being prepared and intentional with your words.

Today new series in the form of a question:

What are you going to do about it? Part 1: Parable of the 10 Virgins

Matthew 25:1 CSB

1 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the groom.

At that time - develop the context for what this word is about today:

Matthew 24:36–51 CSB

36 “Now concerning that day and hour no one knows—neither the angels of heaven nor the Son—except the Father alone. 37 As the days of Noah were, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. 38 For in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah boarded the ark. 39 They didn’t know until the flood came and swept them all away. This is the way the coming of the Son of Man will be. 40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41 Two women will be grinding grain with a hand mill; one will be taken and one left. 42 Therefore be alert, since you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this: If the homeowner had known what time the thief was coming, he would have stayed alert and not let his house be broken into. 44 This is why you are also to be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. 45 “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give them food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom the master finds doing his job when he comes. 47 Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49 and starts to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 that servant’s master will come on a day he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“At that time” is referring to the days leading up to the day and hour nobody knows -

Church we are living in the last days. Most of the prophetic requirements in Scripture for the Lord’s return have already been completed. King Jesus will be returning soon - and His return is imminent, with no knowing the day or hour He is returning.

The first Church - the First Church of Jerusalem - they took Jesus’s words literally. They anticipated His return while they were still living.

They anticipated the Return of the Messiah - the One who would come and save the world from the tyranny of darkness and evil - Who will rid the world of Satan and his minions.

That return has not happened yet! But He will soon.

Nearly 2000 years, we have been waiting - it has been the ultimate “hurry up and wait” scenario!

Hurry up and Wait

Hurry up and wait describes a persistent state of readiness. Where you quickly and diligently get to a place of readiness - ready to respond at a moment’s notice.

Military personnel are trained for the hurry up and wait.

First responders are trained for the hurry up and wait.

Men, we are trained for the hurry up and wait with our wives often needing “just five more minutes” to get ready.

And if you’ve ever been a participant in serving at a friend’s wedding - you know the hurry up and wait!

Jesus here once again uses the imagery of a wedding to describe the Church - but here He’s talking about a future that I believe we’re living right now.

Where the Believers and Followers of Christ Jesus can get lulled to a place of unreadiness in waiting for Christ’s return.

Jesus says at the time of imminent arrival, the kingdom of heaven WILL BE LIKE -

Matthew 25:1–5 CSB

1 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the groom. 2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they didn’t take oil with them; 4 but the wise ones took oil in their flasks with their lamps. 5 When the groom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

There is a great danger in the hurry up and wait game! The danger is in the waiting, individuals will often become complacent in their readiness.

Complacency kills! Complacency kills mission readiness, and can ultimately cost real human lives.

In the spiritual, there’s no difference. Complacency kills faith.

James 2:17 CSB

17 In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.

The danger of an imminent mission requirement, and the development of a hurry-up response only to begin waiting - the danger is that we human beings have a tendency to become complacent.

The longer the waiting, the more complacent, and higher the risk of unreadiness.

But in this context - we are looking at the Christian, the one who proclaims to be Christ-like - living a lifestyle that hopefully reflects

Matthew 24:46 CSB

46 Blessed is that servant whom the master finds doing his job when he comes.

Jesus here gives us the intent and desire of the Christian’s condition that He’ll be looking for when He returns: equipped, empowered, and active.

King Jesus will be returning and in that time will be a judgment of what we have done with our lives He’s given us.

Christ’s Imminent Return

Matthew 25:6–9 CSB

6 “In the middle of the night there was a shout: ‘Here’s the groom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 “Then all the virgins got up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise ones, ‘Give us some of your oil, because our lamps are going out.’ 9 “The wise ones answered, ‘No, there won’t be enough for us and for you. Go instead to those who sell oil, and buy some for yourselves.’

What we see here is the contrasting behavior between the wise and the foolish - Jesus reflecting on the first 7 chapters of Proverbs, with the two women described as Wisdom and Folly.

10 Virgins - some translations will say bridesmaids - are celebrating in the wedding festival and are waiting for the bridegroom’s arrival to start the party.

In the time of this writing, wedding festivities lasted for days - typically start in the late evening with guests gathered in the bride’s parents’ house. Entertainment and food are offered while they are waiting for the groom. The husband-to-be accompanied by a party of friends arrive late - about 30 minutes before midnight. After negotiating the dowry, the wedding party will travel back to the bridegroom’s home in a processional ceremony - and the matrimonial ceremonies, the banquet, and the entertainment will all happen there at the groom’s place.

That processional ceremony - that wedding parade - is illuminated by the torches, including those owned by the 10 virgins here.

So in the long night - during the wait - waiting for the groom’s arrival - those that are supposed to be there for celebrating His arrival are caught in the hurry up and wait. They’ve been positioned for the celebration of the groom’s arrival, with torches in hand but half of them did not use wisdom to prepare for the wait!

The military and first-responder context, we understand the need for disciplinary standards to maintain readiness. We have been given spiritual disciplines to maintain our spiritual readiness for our King’s return.

Those disciples of Christ that maintain these spiritual disciplines are ready for His return.

What are these disciplines:

Making Jesus Christ your Master

Putting Jesus first in your day - beginning with prayer and His Word

Being involved in Church - knowing the Next Steps for growing in faith

Giving Christ your time

Giving Christ your abilities

Giving Christ your material possessions

Telling others about your faith in Christ

These are necessary to maintain spiritual readiness in your life while you wait on Christ’s return.

The wise will seek these things out on a daily basis.

The foolish will dismiss them - thinking you’ve got it all together and you’ll be fine.

The 5 wise virgins here prepared! The 5 foolish virgins thought they could get by.

The 5 wise virgins made preparations and invested on what was to come. The 5 foolish lived on the moment - wanting to get all they could experience now.

And what was the result?

The 5 wise virgins were prepared for Christ’s return. As for the 5 foolish:

NEEDING OIL

Matthew 25:9–13 CSB

9 “The wise ones answered, ‘No, there won’t be enough for us and for you. Go instead to those who sell oil, and buy some for yourselves.’ 10 “When they had gone to buy some, the groom arrived, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. 11 Later the rest of the virgins also came and said, ‘Master, master, open up for us!’ 12 “He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you!’ 13 “Therefore be alert, because you don’t know either the day or the hour.

Now the oil here is what is used for the torches. As they burned their torches, they would have to reload the torches with more oil throughout the night.

The oil represents the Holy Spirit at work in the life of the Believer. Paul exhorts the Church in

Ephesians 5:18 CSB

18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit:

We need the power of the Holy Spirit to stay aflame for others to know Christ.

Let me say it this way…put this in common context…

Most of us here have cell phones - and there’s few places we go without them.

Imagine yourself being put on alert, short-notice for a deploying mission. You’ve packed all your gear: your PPE, your smart books, any tools, laptop, harddrives, and you’ve got your 36 hour bag all ready… and you’ve got your snacks and your cell phone.

You’ve been recalled to the holding area to standby…and you begin to wait for the call to GO.

What do you do? Out comes the cellphone - you spend next several hours, texting, calling, facetiming, bookfacing, the gram, tocking the tick and snapclapping…and the battery begins to run out.

The wise Airman or Soldier - has the battery backup fully charged and ready. But the foolish one begins to panic - wondering around with their phone charger looking for a place to juice up.

The foolish Airman looks to the wise one and says hey let me borrow your backup battery. The wise one says, Nah, Cuz, there won’t be enough for me and for you - go find your own battery and charger…

While they were away and their battery was dead. The call came in to load up. The wise got on just fine. The foolish came running back only to see the wheels go up, and they missed their movement because they had no power.

Missing movement as a warfighter is one worst things you can do in uniform.

You need power to be ready for the phone call.

You need power like the 10 virgins needed oil for the lamps.

The power of God’s Word in us, activated by the Holy Spirit keep us going and faithful in serving Him. You’ve got to have the power of the Holy Spirit in your life.

We have too many self-proclaimed Christians walking around with no power in their lives.

Not enough Word, and not enough of the Holy Spirit - leading you, guiding you, checking you, correcting you, enabling you, and fulfilling you.

You need the Holy Spirit in your life, and you need to be full of the Spirit to live victoriously!

God’s not interested in weak faith in a weak Church. He wants His Children to know the power of His Name, and carry the Fire of God into this world so that others can really see -

THERE IS NO GOD LIKE OUR GOD.

THERE IS NO KING LIKE OUR KING.

He is Creator - I will not compare the creature to the Creator.

There’s nothing on this earth I want more than to be with my Creator, my King, my God.

JUDGMENT

But what’s worse than missing movement in uniform that is to here the words from the Master, “Truly I tell you, I don’t know you”

Because of their foolishness, judgment was rendered.

From the Groom’s perspective its this: “That if you truly loved Me and wanted to celebrate Me, you would have spent your time wisely and prepared for My arrival.”

You see - the fact that these 10 virgins or bridesmaids were there was because they were INVITED to be there!

Yet when they knocked on the door, the judgment was rendered, “I don’t know you”.

There will be many people that say they believe in Jesus. There will be many people that will show up at church and sing a song. There will be many people that where a cross around their neck. And yet they will still hear the words “I don’t know you”.

Why? Because when the Groom came back, when the King returned, to find them where they were supposed to be, they weren’t there.

They fall into the category Jesus describes in Matthew 15:8-9

Matthew 15:8–9 CSB

8 This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 9 They worship me in vain…”

CLOSING

You’ve read and heard the Word of God this morning.

My question to you is: “What are you going to do about it?” Because you’ve been invited to stay; the King and Groom have given an open invitation for all who would go. What are you going to do about it?

How is this Word going to change your life?

How is this Word going to change your view of the faith?

How is this Word going to challenge you, should God continue to His breath in your lungs tomorrow, how will you respond?

Matthew 5:15–16 CSB

15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

God did not give you His light to be hidden undercover - but rather to be put on display - your life on display - so that all can see Christ and know Him.

Do not continue to walk in darkness, but be carriers of light - as He has also made you children of ight.