Keep Your Lamp Burning

Pray for all of the families right now within the family at CWC, who are dealing with the Covid-19 virus.

You know, when I was a boy growing up in Chattanooga, TN, my good friend that I grew up with, Terry, was a part of an organization that, for decades in our country, was an organization that was considered honorable and well respected as to the upbringing and character development of a young man.

That organization was of course, the Boy Scouts of America. And for two reasons I became a Boy Scout myself. One, because, as I just stated, my best friend Terry was a part of the Boy Scouts and two, because my dad was a part of the Boy Scouts when he was my age at that time, and so I decided that I would join as well!

And please hear me out, it was a really good learning experience in my life. There are things that have transpired over the last couple of decades within the organization that I completely disagree with, but at least when I was in the organization, there were many great traits that we were taught as members of the Boy Scouts.

Years ago in this nation, when a young man attained the level of being an “Eagle Scout”, which was the highest honor that you could attain within the Boy Scouts, and one that took a long time and a lot of dedication to acquire, it was a huge thing! The newspapers would be there for the ceremony as they awarded the young man his status as an Eagle Scout and a large crowd would attend the ceremony to honor the young man!

And wherever that young man went in his life, anytime anyone saw on his résumé that he was an Eagle Scout, they just knew that they were potentially getting the highest caliber of a person that there was! That status carried clout and notoriety for the life of the man who had earned it!

The Boy Scouts taught each young man about a 12 point standard of life that they were to live by. Those steps said that a Scout was to be: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

And along with these standards of life, they also taught each young man the Boy Scout Oath, which was to be committed to memory and which stated, “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”

And the motto for the Boy Scouts was, “Be Prepared”!

Robert Bayden-Powell, the founder of the organization, wrote that to “Be Prepared” means, “you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.”

“BE PREPARED; be in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty; be mentally awake!”

And it’s with this thought process, of “being prepared and in a state of readiness and of continually being mentally awake”, that we will look at a very familiar parable this morning that Yeshua taught us in the gospel of Matthew.

So, if you have your Bibles ready, turn with me please to the book of Matthew 25:1-13, and we will begin reading there.

Matthew 25:1–13 ESV

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.

As I just mentioned, this passage, this parable, is very familiar within the Body of Christ.

And if you read before and after this parable, as to what our Lord and Savior is talking about and who He is talking to, there is not some great mystery as to what He is stressing to us from within this passage and those around it!

Back in chapter 24 of Matthew, we find the disciples of Yeshua coming to Him after they have all left the temple and they comment to Him about the beauty of the temple and about the stones and all of the detailed structures.

This temple, according the Jewish leaders in John 2:20, took some 46 years to build and it was magnificent in every detail!

One commentary said this of the temple, “From a distance it looked like a mountain of gold, because its nine massive gates and much of its exterior was plated with gold and silver. The great bronze gate alone was worth more than any of the other gates.”:

The historian Josephus recorded this detail about the temple in Jerusalem, “The exterior of the building wanted nothing that could astound either mind or eye. For, being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays. To approaching strangers it appeared from a distance like a snow-clad mountain; for all that was not overlaid with gold was of purest white. Some of the stones in the building were forty-five cubits in length, five in height and six in breadth.”

The incredible size of the foundation's stones, almost the size of boxcars, was breath-taking.

The Temple was indeed a wonder!

And as the disciples made a big ta-do about the temple and its glory and splendor before Yeshua, He simply said the following to them in Matthew 24:2, “You see all these, do you not? (talking about the stones and the buildings) Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

And soon thereafter, the Lord went and sat down atop the Mount of Olives, which was across from and slightly elevated above the temple to give a perfect view of it, as His disciples, specifically, Peter, James, John and Andrew came to Him and asked Him, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are going to be fulfilled?”

And it was here, that Jesus began teaching what we know to be, His “Olivet Discourse”, where He gave details about, both the fall of the temple and of Jerusalem, as well as details that pertain to His second coming.

Or what is referred to as His “Parousia”, which means His return!

This same discourse is also found in the gospels of Mark 13 as well as Luke 21:5-36.

And yes, there is much information packed into this teaching, and yes, there is much debate about everything that He was saying to the disciples and to us as well within these verses, especially as to the timing of everything.

No one can perfectly give all of the detailed answers that people want pertaining to this teaching, because Yeshua didn’t give it in such a way as for us to have them all, in exact detail and in a chronological manner!

Though men have tried and tried and speculated for centuries about these verses and about this teaching and wracked their little eschatological brains for answers and used all of their deep seminary theology to deduce and come up with their flavor and spin upon its meaning for the “Olivet Discourse”, in the end, there remains much speculation.

BUT, as to the reasoning for Yeshua giving this parable, the parable of the 10 virgins as well as a few more parables like it, we can see with clarity, the main emphasis that He was making to His disciples and to us, and without trying to dig some deep, bottomless theological hole to get lost within!!

At the opening of this parable, Jesus changes the time perspective with which He usually refers to when He spoke of the kingdom of heaven/God.

For instance, when Jesus spoke of the parables in Matthew 13 that He gave, as in the parable of the Weeds, He opened by saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to...”.

Or with the parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven, Yeshua opened these two parables up in the same way, by saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like...”.

Again in the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value, He started them both out by saying, “The kingdom of Heaven is like...”.

The point being, whenever He referred to the kingdom of heaven in His parables, it was in the present tense that He spoke. He did so, because with His coming into this world, the kingdom of Heaven and the reality thereof had broken into the present existence with Him and there is a present reality that we all become a part of as His children!

But, in this parable, you notice a shift; there is a dynamic change. In the opening of this parable, Jesus starts off by saying, “THEN the kingdom of heaven WILL be like...”! In other words, for the purpose of this parable, He is speaking of a future time frame and of what is going to take place that affects the kingdom of God here on earth!

This parable was not mentioning a future time period as some allegorical statement or to try and throw us a curveball, but rather, it and the other parables similar to it that Jesus gave at that same time-frame, were issued as both warnings to the reader, as well as sources of encouragement and comfort to all who paid attention!

So, let’s start off by taking a quick look at the people who we’re dealing with in this parable of Yeshua, shall we?

Jesus tells us that there are 10 virgins and that there is the bridegroom within the parable.

Of the bridegroom, we know Him to be the Lord Yeshua, as He is referred to the bridegroom of the church.

He said so of Himself, when the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist questioned Him as to why His disciples didn’t fast as they did.

To this, Jesus answered that as long as the bridegroom (Himself), was with the attendants of the bridegroom (His disciples), they couldn’t mourn. They would mourn once He was gone from them!

In 2 Corinthians 11:2, Paul said that he had betrothed the church of Corinth, to one husband (Jesus), showing again that Yeshua is the bridegroom and the church, is His bride!

Just as God, Himself, in the Old Testament, is called the husband of Israel, as we find in verses such as Isaiah 54:5, where we read,

Isaiah 54:5 ESV

5 For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.

And again Jeremiah 31:32 mentions of God, Himself, being a husband to Israel.

So also is Yeshua called the bridegroom of the Ecclesia, His body, the church. God is the husband to His people in the Old Testament and Yeshua, who is God the Son, is the husband to His people in the New Covenant!

That is, He is the bridegroom and we are the bride!

And in saying this about the bridegroom and the bride, let me quickly point out that in this parable, although there is a wedding and a bridegroom and a bridal procession, we are never introduced to, or mentioned of the bride herself in this parable.

Although we know Biblically, that the bride of Christ is His body, the ecclesia, the church. But that is not the focal point here and thus she is not represented as such.

Instead, we meet the bridesmaids in the parable, who are the 10 virgins.

In a wedding setting back in the days of Yeshua and in that culture, the bride would have been looked after and assisted with her coming new life, by her closest friends and maybe relatives, who also were not yet married, and thus they were called, “virgins”, because that is what they were.

How different the cultures are now, that virginity in a young man or a young woman is something that has little to no value and something that people feel the need to try to give away, so that they can fit in with society, or to gain the “love” of another person!

And yet the God of creation and His created purpose for our bodies, has never changed.

The Bible clearly tells us that we are to keep our vessels pure and free from the sin of lust and fornication and that only in marriage do we freely yield that special give of sexual purity to and between another person of the opposite sex!

And that is what was expected to happen within a marriage back then, two people coming together on the night of the wedding celebration and becoming ONE FLESH, as God had created mankind to do.

And that is still supposed to happen today as well!

God has NEVER changed His mind, nor can He on His purpose for creation!

And real quickly, for those of you who may not very clear about the wedding process back then, in the days of our Lord and Savior, let me quickly try and create for you a mental image of what was going on. Their weddings were not like ours today! (ELABORATE on a typical Palestinian wedding process)

As to the other details about this parable that are mentioned, the virgin’s lamps and the oil for those lamps let me say this.

The emphasis is not upon the items of the parable, but on the care for those items. In other words, Jesus gives no attentive detail about any explicit meaning for the lamps and the oil, but He devotes the attention of the parable to how they are are cared for by the virgins. And that it what makes all of the difference for the parable and the heart of the listener!

Throughout the Olivet Discourse, as Yeshua is teaching the disciples about the signs and things leading up to His return, He mentions four times to them that no one knows the day nor the hour of His second coming! And then He gives a series of parables about the fact that the day and hour of His second coming would catch EVERYONE off-guard!

And with that same mindset in place, that we DO NOT KNOW the day and the hour of our Lord’s return, we can derive the purpose and the meaning of the parable of the 10 Virgins, as well as the parable of the Thief and the house owner and the Faithful/Wicked servant and the parable of the Talents.

Look at what happens with the 10 virgins in the parable.

We are told that there 5 wise virgins and 5 foolish virgins. (The word for wise in the Greek, refers to someone who has gained understanding from having insight. On the other hand, the word for foolish used in this parable, which is the, mōrŏs, means to be dull and stupid; a blockhead! From the word mōrŏs, we get our word, “moron”!

And what separates the 5 wise from the 5 foolish virgins?

Simply this: the five wise virgins made the proper preparations to keep their lamps burning until the return of the bridegroom and thus they were ready to enter in with him into the wedding celebration!

The five foolish virgins brought NO extra oil for their lamps, and thus when it came time to join in with the bridegroom for the wedding celebration, they had no oil, no LIGHT and thus they couldn’t be identified with the bridegroom and the wedding procession and they were excluded!

The parable informs us that the bridegroom was delayed in His coming and because of this “delay” all 10 virgins became drowsy and they thus fell asleep.

There is no chastisement for their falling asleep, as all 10 of them, the wise and the foolish became tired and slept.

This is not about the “good” and the “bad” virgins, the “holy” and the “unholy” virgins.

This parable is about one group who did what was needed, even in the face of a prolonged period of waiting, to be able to go out and join in with the bridegroom at His return!

Look, in this life, just like with the virgins and their prolonged period of waiting for the bridegroom, we too become tired and weary.

And yes, we sleep in between going about with our normal lives.

But within our normal lives, we are to EVER be vigilant and longing to see the return of our Lord!

The five foolish virgins claimed to be a part of the bridal procession: they looked like the five wise virgins, the talked liked them, they walked like them, they carried lamps like them and the went around declaring that they were excited to see the bridegroom come and to be a part of the wedding ceremony!

BUT........in the end, the truth came out and it was revealed that they had no oil for their lamps. In other words, when it really mattered the most that their lamps be lit, it was found that they could not make it happen, because they were not ready for the bridegroom’s coming.

And when they realized this, in desperation, they tried to get the five wise virgins to give them some of their oil, so that they could light their lamps and be identified as one who was ready for the bridegroom.

The 5 wise virgins told them, “there will not be enough for you and for us; go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.”

And here is the point of what the wise virgins were saying, and pay very close attention to this fact everyone...................you cannot obtain your eternal security and salvation from another person’s relationship with the Lord!

The oil for the lamps, which for the believer would truly be Holy Spirit active and alive inside of us, cannot be imparted to another person, so that they can enter into eternity by borrowing some of your relationship with Holy Spirit!

You either have the oil within you, or you do not!

You are either born again, or you’re not!

When the time comes for the bridegroom to return, and at that time, if you do not have Holy Spirit living inside of you, then you will be left out and you will here the words of the bridegroom, the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, as He says to you, “You cannot come in with Me..........I do not KNOW you!”

Listen to me everyone. When Yeshua came the first time to the is earth and to the nation of Israel, they were not ready. They were not looking for His coming and they were definitely not readying themselves for His coming.

Even though they had been told that He was coming by the prophets and the writing of the prophets. They knew the law and the prophets and they knew that there was coming a messiah.

But they ignored the truth of who He was and what His coming would look like, and thus they rejected Him at His first coming! Yeshua actually wept over this, as He approached the city of Jerusalem with on His triumphant entry. He cried out in anguish and said, “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! But now it is too late for you!”

And in saying this, He foretold of her destruction that was coming from the Romans in 70 AD. In the parable of the 10 virgins that we read this morning, Yeshua is again, warning us to be ready for His next return, which was also foretold by the same prophets in the Old Testament!

Just as Israel was without excuse for not being ready and not looking for His coming, so will we be as well. BUT..........in our case, it will be worse than before, because now, we have had and seen the messiah’s coming and heard and read His own words given to us as teachings and as warnings.

We have seen from the Holy Bible, His great miracles and we have been told, many of us, multiple times, the truth of the gospel message.

Yet, many of us, will be just like the 5 foolish virgins and believe that we are good and that we will be a part of the glorious wedding celebration that is foretold of in Revelation 19:7-9, where it says,

Revelation 19:7–9 ESV

7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. 9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

The bride will be adorned with white, fine linen, that is bright and pure.

And this linen will be the righteous deeds of the saints!

In other words, our work in His name and for His glory while we are still here (a.k.a. being prepared and keeping our lamps lit) will provide for us the necessary garments to be a part of His wedding celebration! We will be clothed from our righteous deeds in His name!

Just like in the parable that Yeshua taught about the wedding feast of the man that was found to not be in the proper garments for the celebration and he was bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.

You cannot enter the final wedding celebration based upon prior acts and deeds and based solely upon the call of the Lord to come to Him!

Jesus said that MANY are called, but FEW are chosen!

That is, only a few that receive the call for repentance and salvation, will actually do what is required to make themselves ready and thus be chosen on that day!

Yeshua stressed that we MUST be ready for His return. He said numerous times that we MUST persevere to the end, that we must overcome until the end.

In Revelation 3:10 He said,

Revelation 3:10 NKJV

10 Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.

We must have a burning desire and love inside of our hearts if we are truly His children, to long for and eagerly look for His return!

Look, the bride of Christ will be raptured out of here, before the tribulation, that is the doctrinal stance of imminence.

Paul clearly told us of His coming for the bride, which is the event that we call the rapture, in I Thessalonians 4:15-18, where he said to us,

1 Thessalonians 4:15–18 ESV

15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

The second coming of Yeshua is that which we read of in Revelation 19, where Jesus is seen coming in the clouds, riding on a white horse in all authority and power! This next time He will not be coming as the humble and quiet Lamb of God, seen riding on a humble donkey as before, but rather His second coming is where He returns as the king and the judge of all the earth.

And whether you are talking about the rapture of the bride of Christ, or His second coming after the tribulation, or whether your’e talking about just being called off this earth in death and going to meet Him...........we are ALL going to meet Him, one way of another!

And the whole gist and point of the parable of the 10 virgins and those like it, is that there is NOTHING that warns us of His coming for us.

There are signs for the season that we are close, but as to the day and the hour (a.k.a. the exact time He is coming), there is NO WAY TO KNOW!

Jesus, Himself, stated that His return would be as thief coming. In other words, it happens in such a way as it completely catches us off guard.

He stresses that we are to be ready........AT ALL TIMES!

We are to keep our lamps lit............we are to keep the oil of His presence flowing withins us and always looking for and longing for His return!

The thought of finally getting to stand before Him and look into His face and hear Him speak to us in person, should just set our hearts on fire!!

In passages like Hebrews 9:28, and 2 Timothy 4:8 and 2 Peter 3:12, we see the phrases, “eagerly awaiting Him” and “those who have loved His appearing” and “looking for and hastening the coming day of the Lord”, all of which stress that we are to passionately and fervently be desiring and longing and awaiting His return for us at all times, whether it be of the rapture, or the second coming, or death.

However He comes for you and I, we are to be ready and waiting.

A bride would have looked at every single day when she opened her eyes back then as, “Is today the day? Is my groom coming to take me home to be with him today?”

We have received His teachings and His warnings to us to be ready and looking or His return...........and it is very close!

Look at this way, to stress to you the importance that the Bible puts on His return.

There are 260 chapters in the New Testament, and Christ's return is mentioned no less than 318 times in those chapters. Statistically, that is one verse in every twenty-five mentions the Lord's return, in some way, shape form or fashion!!

As I started off from the beginning this morning in mentioning about the Boy Scouts and their decree to always BE READY and then with the parable of the Ten Virgins and the necessity of always being ready and keeping your lamps lit and looking for His return, I will ask you a very simple question right now.

Do you know that His return called the rapture, has no prerequisite to it? In other words, there is nothing that has to happen before God the Father can look over at the Son and say, “Go and get your bride Son!”

And as we see the times and seasons lining up very quickly, right before our eyes, for the end time events of the book of Revelation, you and I must understand that His return for the church, the Rapture, could happen even as I am speaking to you right now!

The questions that I will leave with you this morning are this. “Is your lamp filled with oil and remaining constantly lit? Are you ready for His return? Are you positive that you have been born again? If He should return in the next 30 seconds, would you be left out of the wedding procession and here Him say, You cannot enter, I do not know you!”