Matthew 25:1-13

Open your Bibles to the book of 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.

This parable we read today is part of the Olivet Discourse.

Matthew 24 and 25 is the Lord’s own sermon on His second coming, and this particular parable is a warning parable.

The disciples had said to Him, to begin the sermon, really, “When shall these things be?”

In other words, they wanted to know the time of the second coming,

the time of setting up the Messiah’s rule on the earth.

His answer came in chapter 24:36,

36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

He repeated it in verse 42, verse 44, and then in verse 50.

Four times already, the Lord has said He is coming in an unknown moment.

In our text this morning it will conclude with the same warning.

When will it be? No one will ever no.

the Lord will come as a thief in the night, unexpectedly and suddenly.

Read with me please

25:1 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.

2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.

3 For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them,

4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

5 As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept.

6 But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’

7 Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.

8 And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’

9 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.’

10 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.

11 Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’

12 But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

13 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

PRAY

This parable declares the suddenness and the unexpectedness of the coming of the Lord

-it should drive us to always be prepared.

Now as we look at this, it’s important to remember that a parable is a fictional story made up to display a truth.

There is one central message in here.

Let’s start off with…

I. The Wedding.

Now if were to read this passage without the understanding of weddings in this time period, it would be hard for us to make sense.

Let me tell you a little bit about

1. The setting.

It would be a very typical wedding in a typical Israel - very typical.

A wedding was the greatest event in a village or a town.

It was the greatest single social celebration those people knew anything about.

Everybody got involved, friends, family, extended family, everybody.

It was a time of happiness.

It was a time of celebration. And that’s the scene we have here.

Now, in a...

2. Jewish Marriage

it’s essential for us to know that there were three elements.

The first is engagement.

Long before the scene here, there was an engagement.

the engagement was an official contract between the two fathers who were giving their daughter and their son to each other, as it were.

So engagements weren’t really made with the couple, they were made with the fathers.

A little while after that, there would be what was called the second phase of the wedding or the marriage, and that was a betrothal.

Now, the betrothal was the official ceremony.

The couple would come together before friends and family, and they would make vows and covenants and binding promises.

They had an actual marriage ceremony, and they made their commitments.

They were then officially married.

any breaking of a betrothal period was a divorce.

if the husband happened to die during that period, the wife was considered a widow, even though the marriage had not been physically consummated nor had they come to live together.

The point was this.

The fathers made an initial engagement for the children to be married, the children then made their vows to each other which were binding, and then there was up to a year for the young man to get things ready to take the bride to be his own.

He had to provide a place for her,

perhaps to build an addition on his father’s house, or a house of his own, or to purchase land and cultivate a field, and show that he could care for her. And so he had a year to prepare his home for her, to prepare his life for her.

At the end of the time that he needed he would go to take her,

There was no ceremony to this.

They already had the official wedding.

And that’s the third phase and that’s what we see here.

The wedding festivity

Now, can you imagine the anticipation in the heart of a bride and a bridegroom having to go through the process of finally getting to this point. the wedding festivity, the wedding feast, the wedding celebration itself, where he comes to her house.

And she’s waiting there with all of her bridesmaids, and he arrives with all of the men that are with him and they -

he collects his bride and her maids and they all go with torches, parading through the night sky and through the village in a celebration of singing and talking and joy.

It’s finally come to that.

Everything is ready.

He has prepared a home for her. He is now going to get her and take her to that place.

And when they arrive at his home that night -

Now listen, they always started those weddings at night so that they could have a procession through the village and everyone in the village could enjoy the joy and the festivity - then the wedding party would go into the house and celebrate as long as seven days.

A second thing we need to know to understand this parable is...

II. The Bridesmaids

Notice verse 1. “Ten virgins,” it says, “took their lamps,”

actually, the Greek word here means torch.

It is not the word lamp, for example, used in Matthew 5:15, when Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount a man does not take his lamp and hide it under a bushel. That’s a lamp.

This is the word torch, a different word. It is used, for example, in John 18:3 to speak of the torches that the Romans carried when they came into the Garden of Gethsemane to take Jesus prisoner.

There was a long wooden pole.

On the top of the wooden pole would be some kind of a wire mesh apparatus attached, filled with cloth.

That cloth would be soaked in oil and then lit to give a flaming torch.

They would carry on their person somewhere a little flask of oil so that they could keep that lit for as long as was necessary.

So here are ten virgins who take their lamps and go, waiting to meet the bridegroom.

they have their torch, it’s like their invitation.

It shows that they’re part of the wedding party, like carrying flowers today

And their torches would light up the night sky in the procession when the bridegroom finally came.

Now we ask ourselves the question,

1. Who are these girls?

it’s very obvious

They are professed Christians.

They are those who claim to belong to Christ.

They are those who say they know Christ and they anticipate His coming.

they’ve made their preparation.

They have on their wedding garment and they have their torch.

Their presence symbolizes their interest, and their torch symbolizes their profession of faith in Christ.

They show outward marks of watching for the coming of the bridegroom.

They show outward marks of commitment to Jesus Christ.

They’re part of the believing community.

They profess to hear the gospel and believe. They profess to be disciples.

They all look the same.

They all have torches.

They all look ready...from the outside. But they are all not alike.

And this is the message of the parable.

The searcher of the heart knows.

Verse 2, five of them were wise and five were foolish.

So they are very different. Not outwardly distinguishable, but inwardly very different - wise and stupid.

the difference here is preparedness.

Here’s where their wisdom and foolishness manifests itself.

3 For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them,

4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

The wise, they carried the flask with the oil.

The fools had no oil at all.

They made no proper preparation.

It was all outside. It was all external.

But they hadn’t cared for the most necessary thing, and that is the oil so they could light the torch.

They all made profession, but only five had the genuine oil of preparedness.

Now,

2. What is that oil?

It is the necessary reality of saving grace that distinguishes people.

the oil is the necessary grace without which no man shall see the Lord.

It is true salvation.

It is imputed righteousness.

It is genuine holiness granted by faith in Jesus Christ.

It is a transformed inward life.

But some of them were like those of whom Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:5 and says

2 Timothy 3:5 ESV

having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

The foolish virgins were outwardly committed.

They were committed intellectually.

They were committed socially.

They were even committed religiously.

But they had no light and they had no life.

Their faith in terms of James 2 was dead faith.

It was faith that had no product, that could do nothing.

And the purpose of the parable is to warn us not to be unprepared when the Lord comes.

The wheat and tares will grow together.

When the time comes, they will be separated.

III. The Delayed Bridegroom

In this particular analogy, the bridegroom doesn’t come when they expect him.

It’s later and later and later and later.

Now remember last week and the week prior.

All these things are happening, climax after climax

People are waiting, but just go back to normal things of life, they doze off and go to sleep.

What Jesus is saying is there will be a time of waiting before He comes, and it’ll be a time that will sort of lull people into “Well, we have to go on with routine as usual.”

Now there’s Nothing wrong with sleep.

Sleeping is not condemned.

The wise were asleep like the foolish.

But there’s something wrong with it if you’re not prepared

That’s the issue.

That’s why, as we saw in chapter 24, verse 40, it says that when He does come, two will be in the field and one will be taken, the other left, two will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and the other left.

like it was in the days of Noah, verse 24:38, there will be eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage. In other words, life as usual.

The ones who were prepared could afford to go on with the routine of life.

The ones who weren’t prepared couldn’t.

Their false security let them sleep through their day of opportunity. And that’s the tragedy.

IV. The Midnight Cry.

6 But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’

That’s a funny time to start a wedding - at midnight.

the point though is to say it’s at an unexpected time.

And now we understand more why they were asleep, right?

Exodus 12:29, it tells us that the deliverance of Israel from Egypt began at midnight, also in an unexpected time.

And the cry is this, Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him”

And this is, of course, is the moment that begins the wedding festivities.

Verse 7 says, 7 Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.

Those who had no oil, they knew it now.

Oh, maybe they thought they could get some before he got there.

Maybe they didn’t think it would be midnight when he came and everything would be closed.

maybe they thought they could just sort of borrow some,

we don’t know, they were just unprepared.

2 Corinthians 13:5 says,

2 Corinthians 13:5 ESV

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!

5 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!

They were deceived.

They have no oil.

They can’t light the torch. And verse 8,

8 And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’

They lit their torches with no oil, and no wonder the cloth is burning up and going out.

John MacArthur said

If you are not ready for the Lord when he comes , all the saints in heaven and all the people on earth could stand weeping on your behalf but could never save you.

salvation is non-transferable.

That’s the point.

It’s not meant to say that the wise were selfish.

The parable is not intending to teach selfishness.

It is intending to teach the non-transferable nature of salvation.

The saved can’t save the lost.

Every person must have his own salvation.

So, the wise answer in verse 9 and say,

9 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.’

The idea here is simply to teach that you’ve got to procure your own.

Oil was plenty and oil was available.

But not at midnight and not right now.

There was equal opportunity, but not everybody took advantage of the opportunity.

The sellers of oil you know, the Scriptures, the apostles, the prophets, teachers.

And the implication here is that no one is allowed into the festival without a lit torch.

It was sort of like the symbol that you were a part of the wedding party. And there was no way in without it. And they didn’t have it.

This teaching is shared over and over again by the Lord.

And in that last moment when they are told to go and get their own, it says in verse 10,

10 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.

What a thought.

Think about when the rains came, how many people banged on the door of the Ark and it wouldn’t open.

The door’s open now.

It’ll be shut then.

Some will not be ready.

Don’t let that be you.

Well, notice verse 11 in the parable. They’re gone. The marriage begins. And it says,

11 Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’

They want in.

But He answered in verse 12 and said,

12 But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

There’s no second chance.

the only sure way to be ready on that unexpected day is to be ready every day.

He closes the parable with the word

Watch

This is the fifth time He has said it in this sermon.

You don’t know, So be ready all the time.

Lesson

Be prepared.

Eph. 3:20-21 - Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.