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Sermon preached by Nick Burton at Christ Church on 10/11/02. It was on the topic of the 'The parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins' (also referred to as 'The parable of the Ten Girls') and was given at the evening service. The Bible reading was from the twenty fifth chapter of the gospel of Matthew and reading from verses 1 to 13. |
Bible Reading: Main Themes: The story of the wise & foolish virgins is one our Lord's great parables. What is it about? What was the message Jesus was wanting to convey, and is there any particularly relevance for us now? The story was told in the latter part of Jesus' discourse on the end times [1], which he gave to his disciples on the Mount of Olives. You remember they asked him "Jesus, when will this happen and what will be the sign of the end of the age?" (Matt 24:3) and he proceeded to give this great prophetic teaching, seated on the Mount, which is in Matthew chapter 24. Interestingly, Jesus' ministry started in Matthew with the Sermon on the Mount, about Christian living, and now again towards the end there is the teaching on another mountain about the end times. We are certainly now closer to the last days [2] than they were then and I, among many, believe that the final events of this age could happen in my lifetime. From the Olivet discourse in Matt 24, [3] we hear Jesus saying in verses 7-8 that "there will be famines and earthquakes in various places, which are the beginning of birth-pains". Just in the last fortnight, there have been major earthquakes in Pakistan & Italy, and the week before there was even an earthquake in Manchester. The number of earthquakes around the world is rising. And famines - again another huge famine is beginning to take effect in Africa, and it is said around 14 million people could starve. That is a serious thing and these are signs. The frequency and scale of these things is increasing [4]. In Luke 12 it says: "You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time". In Matthew 24 v 12-14, Jesus says that wickedness [5] will increase and love will grow cold but that the good news will be preached to the whole world. The subject of wickedness I'll come to later, but that the kingdom would be preached in the whole world "and then the end will come", that too is now. How many nations are there that have not heard the gospel? Not many. There are some really trying to keep it out, like most Muslim nations, but even there it will soon get in. Friends, we are drawing to the last pages of the age [6]. So if the parable of the Virgins is particularly for the end times, we need to know what it means. It is part of the gospel given to the Church for all time, but being in this end times discourse, it has a particular poignancy for a certain time, and that could be now. So what is the message Jesus wants us to understand? Jesus' exhortation at the end of the parable (Verse 13) is to watch. This theme of watching actually flows through the whole discourse. Right at the beginning, after the disciples ask him what will be the [7] signs of the end of the age, in Chap 24 verse 4, Jesus says "Watch out that no-one deceives you". Then again at the end, before moving on to the parables, in verse 42 of the same chapter, he says, "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come". The need to watch is like the frame of the prophecy - at its beginning and end. Notice the similarity between Matthew 24 v 42 and the exhortation at the end of our parable: "Therefore keep watch because you do not know the day or the hour". It is the same thing. So our parable is a bit like an appendix where Jesus gives further teaching and illustration on the principle of watching, this most necessary thing in the last days. "Watch out that no-one deceives you". So lets now look at our parable, the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, in more detail. There are ten virgins who were waiting for the bridegroom. They all had lamps with them, but only five had oil as well as their lamps. This, to me, seems to show that Jesus was addressing the parable to the Church, rather than people in general. At the end, Jesus will come as a bridegroom for His bride, the Church (Rev 21). And these virgins are as the bride, waiting for him. Also they are all carrying lamps. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 v 14-15: "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house". God made the Church to be the light of the world, like a lamp that all would see. When John saw Jesus in Revelation Chapter 1, He was standing among lampstands and Jesus said "the seven lampstands are the seven churches". So in making the subject of the story virgins waiting for the bridegroom, carrying lamps, Jesus is saying 'this is for the Church'. So as we know what the lamps are about, to have light and indeed be light for the world, what is the significance of the oil? Well, Jesus says that the bridegroom was a long time in coming so they all became drowsy and fell asleep. There's lots of talk in the scripture about not falling asleep but I don't think its a significant part of this story. Even the wise ones fall asleep, so I think its OK. That's not to say it would be OK to fall asleep now. And then at midnight, there's a loud cry "Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!" They all go "Woooaaahhh - This is what we've been waiting for!" It will happen that way. Jesus said earlier, in Matthew 24 v 31: "And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other". Again in Thessalonians, (1 Thessalonians 4:16), "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first." It is now we see the significance of the oil [8]. When before they all looked the same with their lamps, we now see that there was really a world of difference between them, and that difference is with the oil. Some were ready to meet him and some were not. Some could keep their lamps burning and some could not. They had gone out. Imagine that, if the one you've been waiting for comes, but your lamp goes out so you're not ready to meet him. It would be totally disastrous. Of the ones with the oil, the wise, Jesus says: "The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet". But to the others, the bridegroom says: "I tell you the truth, I don't know you." It is the difference between eternal life and damnation. It was too late to make amends. The ones without the oil tried to get it right, and said "Give us some of your oil" etc, etc, but it was too late. They were not ready and prepared when he came. It is a sobering parable. So what is the oil and why the need for it? The end will be a time of great darkness and testing [9]. There will be a separation of true and false, like at harvest time there's the sifting of wheat from the chaff, and a lot of scripture speaks of this. Jesus, in chapter 24 verse 21, says: "for then there will be a time of great distress ...", the King James version says tribulation, "... unequalled from the beginning of the world until now - and never to be equalled again. If those days had not been cut short, no-one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened." The elect [10], the true children of God, will only just get through the tribulation, but everyone and everything else will fall. In Revelation's terms, they will worship the Beast. It will be a time, a day, of evil. When Jesus was arrested, he said "this is your hour when darkness reigns" (Luke 22:53). As I see it, there will be a brief time before the coming of Jesus when Satan will again be given considerable authority, before he is finally thrown into the lake of fire to be destroyed forever. This is the meaning of Revelation 20, the millennium chapter, which is a symbolic figure for the period Satan is bound. From verse 7 we read "When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth - Gog and Magog - to gather them for battle...". Similarly, in Revelation 16 v 13-16, which is at the end of the last series of plagues before the judgement of Babylon, the Beast and all the other evil things, it says: "Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole earth, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty. (Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he that watches, and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed.) Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon." So you see this clear distinction between opposing sides, between [11] good and evil, light and darkness. The picture drawn is that the sides will be so opposite, so contrasting, that it will be like two sides of a battle. But it also will be a battle. Satan will try to confirm for himself, mark out for himself, in his fury before his final destruction as many as he can, especially of the apparent children of God. In the millennium chapter, Revelation 20, after he has gathered multitudes from the four corners of the earth for battle, it says "they marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them." Do you think all of God's people will be gathered physically in one place, a camp, perhaps Jerusalem, and everyone else will attack them. Of course not; this is a spiritual battle. There might be a war in Israel in the last days, but this gathering against God's people is fundamentally spiritual. Satan will be given a time of great power again to deceive the nations and it will be a time of gross darkness, great tribulation, when even the elect would not survive were it not shortened. In 2 Thessalonians 2, St Paul talks about a falling away [12] and the man of sin being revealed in the last days. As I see it, that man could be an individual or the sinfulness of man generically being fully revealed. Mankind as a whole. God is currently restraining it, but for a time he will let it go. And we will not be prepared for that time unless we are truly regenerated and have the Spirit of God within us. It will be too powerful, overwhelming. Paul then writes, verses 10 & 11: "They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness". In other words, God will allow Satan a brief time to deceive those who delight in wickedness or do not truly believe in God. But Jesus, on the Mount of Olives, warns us "Watch out that no-one deceives you." This is a cry of the heart from our bridegroom. So what is the oil? It is the power of God to keep on shining, to hold on, when all the power of hell is against you [13]. It is not our power but Gods. It is the difference between just having the appearance of church, the lamp, or being church with power, in reality. St Paul wrote in 1Corinthians 4:20 "For the kingdom is not a matter of talk, but of power". When strong delusion comes [14], will you be able to see through it, resist it and stand up for truth. In the parable of the ten virgins [15], Jesus is saying that there are some with their lamps, some who call themselves Christians, who at the final separation will prove just to be chaff. They will have no substance in them. They trust in their own strength. They walk in the light of their own fires, their own understanding. They have the appearance of Christians but not the power. On the other hand there are the wise, who have the lamps and the oil. The Hebrew prophet Zechariah had a vision (Zechariah 4) in which he saw a lampstand with seven lights on it and seven channels to the lights and there were two olive trees beside the lampstand. And he asked what it was. And the reply was "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit' says the LORD Almighty." Then a few verses later: "Again I asked him, 'What are these two olive branches beside the two golden pipes that pour out golden oil?' He replied "Do you not know what these are?" 'No, my lord,' I said. So he said "These are the two who are anointed to serve the LORD of all the earth". The oil my friends that the wise have is the Spirit within them, the power of God, the anointing. It is true life in Jesus and Jesus in us. It is about not getting so engrossed in the affairs of this world, getting choked by the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches, but rather like a watchman who stands by the city wall looking out and waiting for the one who will come. Watching for the signs, to be prepared. Alert, studying your scriptures, waiting in prayer. My friends, I afraid it is not a game. The key phrase in the parable, I think, is in verse 10: "the virgins who were ready went in with him". Ready. That's the key. Are you, brothers and sisters, making sure you will be ready? Now we have time to prepare ourselves, to really get walking by faith and in the power of God, because later it could be just too late. Please give us some of your oil. No, sorry, there might not be enough. Verse 44 of the previous chapter says the same thing: "So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." Are you so with God, and connected to Him, that if the Day of evil were to come, you could withstand it? When the Nazis took greater hold of Germany in the 1930s and people started going along with their National Socialism lie, the Church split. Unfortunately, many went with the Nazis and bought into the lie. But not all though. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and many others did resist the Nazis and broke away from the complying church. Karl Barth, the great theologian, wrote a clear declaration of truth, the Barmen Covenant, that they all swore, standing against the Nazi propaganda and for the Word of God, and they were persecuted for it. But which of the groups had their lamps burning in the time of trouble? If the going got tough, which side would you be on? Is our vicar, Tim, teaching and equipping the church so that we would be ready [16] if tribulation came? Or would we be found to be in reality naked, our lamps go out? Are we like the foolish virgins with their lamps but no oil, or like the wise who took oil in jars along with their lamps so that their lamps would burn when needed? I'd like us to finish with a passage from Micah. Pay attention to where his heart is in the midst of tribulation [17]. ref: The Wise & Foolish Virgins - Nov 2002
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Web page last updated 24 Oct 2006 |
