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In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear saints, woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. That’s what Amos says. Why would you have the day of the Lord? It’s darkness, not light. As if a man fled from a lion and ran into a bear, and then escaped the bear and ran into his house and leaned his hand against the wall to rest and was bitten by a snake. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light, gloom with no brightness in it?
That means that if you are ready for that day, for the last day, for the day that our Lord Jesus returns, then I promise you, you’ll be ready for every day in between. The best way to be ready for tomorrow is to be ready for the coming of Jesus. So we’re going to think about that, not only this week, but for the next couple of weeks, as we study Matthew 25.
The first parable today is the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins, then next week the parable of the talents, and then the week after, the division of the sheep and the goats. Now, let’s put it in context.
Matthew 25 is the last half of this great sermon called the Olivet Discourse. It’s called the Olivet Discourse because it was given on the Mount of Olives. And this is the story. In the last week of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus and the disciples were staying in Bethany, which is a little town on the east side of the Mount of Olives. They were staying, most likely, with Mary and Martha and Lazarus in their home in Bethany. So every day, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Jesus and the disciples would travel over the Mount of Olives, down the side, through the Kidron Valley, and up into Jerusalem, and then back to rest, and so forth.
On this day, Holy Tuesday, the last day of Jesus’ public ministry, the disciples were leaving Jerusalem and heading down into the valley, and as they were walking by the temple, the disciples were in awe of the architecture, and they said, “Lord, look at how huge these rocks are here in the temple.” Jesus says, I’m paraphrasing, but Jesus says, “Are you impressed with that? Don’t worry, one day not one of these rocks will be on top of another one.”
That sort of stunned them for the whole conversation down through the valley and up onto the Mount of Olives, but when they got to the top of the Mount of Olives, they stopped to rest. It’s a beautiful spot. You can look back and see over the whole city. As they’re sitting there, they come to Jesus and they say, “Lord, tell us when this will be. When will Jerusalem be destroyed? And tell us also what are the signs of the coming of the kingdom and the end of the age?”
Jesus answers both of these questions. When will Jerusalem be destroyed and when will he return? He mostly kind of weaves the answers together in Matthew chapter 24, but then into Matthew 25, he really gets into the very last day and what things will be like when he returns. So consider this is just a verse from Matthew 24 towards the end of the chapter. Jesus says, “Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect the Son of Man will come.”
That’s really the idea that Jesus is unfolding in these parables. In an unexpected hour, Jesus will return. Now, he tells us this so that we will be ready. In fact, he tells us this parable of the ten wise and ten foolish virgins so that we, every single one of us, will be ready for that last day. The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
It seems like Jesus is referring to an ancient custom in the East, although it’s not that well-known of a custom, but there is evidence that the number ten was not accidental. The custom was that the bridegroom was accompanied by ten attendants in and around the city. The way it would work is this: the groom would gather up these ten light bearers, and it’s that it is bridesmaids is perhaps unique. Here it seems like it could have been men also, but here in the parable that Jesus tells, it’s ten bridesmaids, and they would have ten lamps.
These lamps were these clay lamps that would have a wick on it and a place for the oil to be poured, and a little handle that could be lifted up on a stick so that they would lift these ten lights around, and they would accompany the groom all through the city. As he went through the city, he would be gathering up people to come to the wedding feast. That is the picture. But in this parable, the groom is delayed.
Now Jesus, right out of the box, tells us. I mean, he kind of lets the cat out of the bag right at the beginning. He gives us the punchline right here in the second sentence. Jesus says, “Five of them, of these bridesmaids, were foolish and five were wise.” The Greek word for foolish is the word morons. It’s moronos. There were five morons and five wise. Jesus makes the judgment even before he tells us why, which is not like him.
Jesus normally will hold back the punchline a little bit so that we see it first, but not here. There are five foolish, five wise, and then he tells us why. Those who were foolish took their lamps, but they took no oil with them. But the wise had oil in their lamps. The bridegroom was delayed, and they all slumbered and slept.
So the first scene of the parable comes to a close. Now, Jesus, we see, is getting after two temptations that we have. The one temptation is to think that we can be Christians all on our own. This sort of rabid individualism, the idea that I don’t need to go to church, I don’t need to be around other Christians, I can believe in God all by myself.
In Colorado, it was, I can worship God in the mountains, I think here it’s I can worship God in the fishing boat, probably, or something like that, or in the deer blind, or… In other words, and you know, I mean, I’m probably not preaching to you guys because you’re in here in church, but people who say, “I don’t need that, I don’t need church at all, I can do, I’m just fine by myself,” no. These virgins are all gathered together. We are not given the option of being Christians by ourselves. Every Christian needs Jesus, and every Christian needs the Christian Church.
This is not an option, gathering together. It’s what the Lord’s commanded. “Do not neglect the meeting of together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encourage one another, and even more, as you see the day approaching.”
So the gathering together of the Christian church becomes more and more important, not less, as the days get darker and as his second coming grows nearer. But there’s a second danger, and this is really what Jesus is getting after in this parable, and that is the idea that if I’m around Christians, I’m safe.
The five foolish virgins had lamps, they had wicks, they just had no oil, and as far as you can tell, they all looked the same. They even all fell asleep. If you were to go and visit these ten bridesmaids at any point during the day or the night and said, “Which of them are wise and which are foolish?” you wouldn’t have been able to tell. They looked exactly the same.
But then something happens. At the critical moment, at midnight, verse 6, there was a cry. “Behold, the bridegroom is coming. Come out to meet him.” All the virgins arose, trimmed their lamps, straightened things up. The foolish said to the wise, and now we see it, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the wise answered, saying, “There isn’t enough for us and you. Go to those who sell. Buy for yourselves.”
The critical moment is when the trumpet sounds and the Lord is back, and each of us are to appear before him on the judgment day. On that day, it does not matter how much faith your parents have, how much faith your grandparents have. It does not matter how deep your lineage, your Christian lineage is. It doesn’t matter how many of your friends are Christians or how much time you spend around them. What matters is the oil in your own lamp.
You cannot ride anybody’s coattails into eternal life. Each of us, as individuals, will face the judgment of God. The foolish had no oil, the wise did. Jesus is telling us this parable so that we would be numbered with the wise.
Now, there’s a way that in the Christian church we think, well, we want to be ready for the last day by knowing when it is. I don’t think this temptation is so strong among us, but in some churches, you notice it. There’s just a desire to try to figure out when these things are going to happen. So you have Christians who are reading the Bible and reading the newspaper and trying to sort out the signs of the times to figure out when Jesus is going to come back.
I see this a lot less than I used to, but even I think last week I got an email from someone or, I don’t know, someone got me a message and they said, “Well, we’ve figured it out. It’s December 17th, 2023. That’s when Jesus is going to come back.” I don’t know how they sorted it out this time around; it’s never been right. But I don’t even want… I, by the way, wonder that if, you know, if ever someone accidentally did pick the day that Jesus was going to kind of come back, then he would change it to make sure we weren’t expecting it. That’s the point. It’s unexpected.
Jesus says it. “Nobody knows the day or the hour,” and we’re not supposed to know the day or the hour. This is like the foolish virgin pinching herself to try to stay awake until the bridegroom gets there. It still doesn’t do her any good, because to be ready for the second coming of Jesus is not to know the day or the hour when he’s coming.
To be ready is to have oil in your lamp, and that is to trust in his promises, to trust that the forgiveness that He won on the cross is for you, to trust that His blood is shed for you, the price for your atonement, that His suffering, that His burial was for your salvation and resurrection. It is to put your hope in Christ, not in yourselves or in anything else. This is what matters.
And it’s more than just knowing. It’s more than just knowing that Jesus died and rose again. The devil knows that Jesus died and rose again. It is to know that his death and his resurrection is your only hope, but it is your secure and certain hope. “Go,” the wise said to the foolish, “go to those who sell and buy for yourself.” There’s not enough for us and for you.
It matters on the last day if you are ready. And so then look what happens, verse 10. So they went away to buy, and the bridegroom came. Those who were ready went with him into the wedding feast, and the door was shut. Later on, the other virgins came; perhaps they found some oil somewhere, who knows? They came to the wedding feast, and they bang on the door, and they say, they plead, “Lord, Lord, open to us.”
But he answered, and I suppose in all of Scripture, these are some of the harshest words. He answered them, “Amen, I tell you, I do not know you. I do not know you.” The last day, we should know this, the last day will be a day of separation. For the unbeliever, they will be separated from God and His mercy and His goodness eternally. For the Christian, we will be separated from sin and death and sorrow forever to be with the Lord.
The day will be a day of separation, one way or another, and Jesus is warning us beforehand. He wants us to hear these words today, right now, so that on the last day, you will not hear them. So hear the warning. Jesus answered them saying, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.”
The Holy Spirit would have this warning to take deep root in our own hearts, so that we would not take lightly or unadvisedly the seriousness with which we approach our faith. That we would know that this life and death and the last day is no game, but that there is the serious threat of eternal condemnation for those who do not know the Lord.
Jesus intends for us to be troubled by that. He wants us to be troubled by that. So he finishes the parable with this exhortation: “Watch, therefore, because you do not know the day or the hour in which the Son of Man will come.”
You cannot be ready by guessing the time. You cannot be ready by setting a date. You cannot be ready by perfecting your life and being holy enough or good enough to pass God’s judgment. You cannot make yourself ready by your own preparation, by your own efforts, by your own intention, by your own doing. Your readiness comes from Jesus Himself who gives you faith, who fills your lamp with oil, who by His Holy Spirit causes you to trust in Him.
When you have that faith, you are ready. The last day, the day of woe, the day of bears and lions and snakes, the day of darkness and not light, the day of the resurrection of all the dead, the day that the sun turns to blackness and the moon turns to blood, the day that all the dead are raised, the day that the mountains are called falling into the sea, the day that the rivers turned to blood.
You are ready for that day because Jesus has forgiven your sins, because Jesus has clothed you with his righteousness, because Jesus has adopted you into his family by the gift of your baptism, because Jesus knows your name and has called it, because He has elected you and chosen you to be amongst those who stand before him forever in his eternal kindness, because He has put oil in your lamp by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.
By this, you are ready. By this, you can pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” and long for that day. By this gift of faith, you can, when you see it happening, stand up straight and lift up your eyes knowing that your redemption is drawing near.
Dear saints, I promise that if you’re ready for that day, you’re ready for every day in between. So may God grant it by His Spirit and by His Word that we would trust in Christ, and trusting in him have the boldness and courage to stand on the last day and to thank the Lord for his mercy.
May God grant it for Christ’s sake, amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.
