Matthew 25:1-13

The Virgins, Talents and Sheep

Recap:

In the last passage we talked about the Lord’s timeline for the end of the world…

It was a whole lot to go through but somebody tell me anything that they remember about the end of the world.

The Beginning of Sorrows (Matthew 24:5-8)

Birth pangs worsen (v.9-14)

Rapture (Restrainer is removed)

The Antichrist comes on the scene as a leader of 10 European nations

After 3.5 years he breaks his agreement (Dan 9:27)

Tribulation begins and he become evil ruler

Judeans flee to mountains for safety

Jesus 2nd coming, fights in Armageddon locks satan up in bottomless pit

1000 (millenium) year Reign (people survived the trib, all bowed the knee but not all the heart)

Satan released and deceives those on the earth after 1000 years are up

Then Jesus fight against them and puts an end to evil for good, lake of fire.

White throne judgement

new heavens and new earth!

V.1-13

Okay so as we enter this passage Jesus is now transitioning from talking about his second coming to now talking to his church and the exhortation on how to live and what to do now before the rapture of the church.

Slide 2

Real Quick, what is the rapture?

Slide 3

1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 NKJV - "For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive [and] remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

And we believe based on what the Bible teaches in whole, that the rapture can happen at any moment...

And here in this chapter we are going to see a few different illustrations, some parables that Jesus uses to prepare us for His coming!

This is absolutely relevant and incredibly important...

it is as if we were all on a plane and the captain just came on the com and said...

slide 4

“folks we have lost both of our engines due to mechanical errors and we are loosing altitude, we have 10 min before we hit the ground”

I am your flight attendant and I tell you “okay we’ve got 10 min here is what you need to know about your parachute and how to save your life before we crash...”

this is what Jesus is saying in this passage...

we are all on this journey together right now and it could end at any moment...

Jesus could come or we could loose our life and what does Jesus want us to know?

lets look at this passage...

The first parable that we look at is the parable of the ten virgins

Now in order to understand this parable we must first understand a typical Jewish wedding:

In a Jewish wedding…

First would be the engagement

And this would be a lot more firm and binding than an engagement today…

Anyone who no longer wanted to be engaged had to write a formal letter of divorce because it was considered as if the couple was already married.

After the engagement period the groom would be the betrothal which would be where the bride and the groom would exchange wedding promises…

After that the groom would go to prepare a house for him and his bride typically taking about a year and then after that year the groom would return for his bride.

After he took her from her father and mother’s house they would return to their new house and have a marriage feast…

As we start this passage… these virgins would be standing at the door to the house to welcome the groom

Insert story about being the groom leading the presession and how the “virgins” aka Angie’s wedding party walked behind me as I led.

If they were late I would’ve left them behind and we would have excluded them from the wedding ceremony.

And this is what Jesus is describing in this parable.

Now…

v.2

okay so we’ve got the bride’s wedding party...

her 10 bridesmaids

and the bible says 10 were wise and 10 were foolish… why?

because of oil...

This whole parable focuses on the idea of having oil...

who do the virgins represent?

Who does the bridegroom represent?

What does the oil represent?