READY OR NOT...HERE I COME!

by Pastor Paul Naumann

"Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was heard: 'Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!' Then all those virgins arose 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, 'No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.' And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us!' But he answered and said, 'Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.' Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming." 

— Matthew 25:1-13

In Christ Jesus, Whom we are all waiting to meet, Dear Fellow Redeemed,

You and I probably don't worry too much about the prospect of nuclear war. The United States and the Russian republics still have thousands of missiles aimed at each other, still capable of being launched. And yet, the fact is we've been living under the nuclear threat for decades now, and, especially with the end of the cold war, nuclear attack is something we just don't think about very often. But there is a group of men in this country who do think about it all the time - they're called the Strategic Air Command. Right now as we speak, members of United States Strategic Air Command are sitting in darkened underground bunkers, the lights of radar scopes and control boards lighting their faces. They're job is to be prepared in case war should break out...not next year or ten years from now, but in the next minute! They are repeatedly drilled and trained, trained and drilled, until they are in a state of constant readiness to engage the enemy at a moment's notice. A nuclear war may be years away or decades away; it may never come at all - and that's certainly our prayer! But if it does, and when it does, there's one thing we can be certain of: our Strategic Air Command will be ready.

Unlike nuclear war, Judgement Day is one event that we know for sure is going to happen. When our Lord Jesus ascended into the clouds of heaven, two angels appeared to the disciples and told them that Jesus would be coming back, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven." — Acts 1:11. Jesus is coming back to earth; when...we don't know. The question is: are we ready to meet Him? Our text today is a parable that Jesus told about the Christian's state of readiness. The theme of our message is:

"READY OR NOT...HERE I COME!" As Christians, let us be:

I. Personally ready. II. Ready no matter how long the wait. III. Ready to go to Him immediately.

When kids play the game of Hide and Seek, the shout, "Ready or not, here I come," means that the one who is "it" is coming to look for the others. Any child who hears that shout and hasn't found a hiding place yet, knows he is out of luck. Well, the Apostle Paul tells us that on the Last Day "...the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout." — I Thes. 5:16. The shout probably won't be "ready or not, here I come," but it might as well be! Because anyone who's not ready when Jesus returns will have lost his soul for eternity! The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins is Jesus way of illustrating the importance of being ready for that day.

In order to understand this parable, we need to know the way weddings were celebrated during Jesus' time. Weddings always took place in the evening. There was a bride and a groom, and bridesmaids and groomsmen, just like we have today, but they didn't all meet at the church. First the groom and his attendants would go someplace and celebrate together. When they were good and ready, they would come back to town and make their way to the house of the bride. As soon as word reached the house that the groom was on his way, the bridesmaids would all go out to meet him, and they'd carry oil lamps to light the way. Then they'd escort the men to the room of the bride, and the whole group of people would march to the home of the groom, where the marriage ceremony would be performed. Since the bridesmaids never knew exactly when the groom would come for his bride, they had to have their lamps full of oil and ready to light at a moment's notice. And this is the point on which Jesus turns His lesson of the ten virgins...five of them wise and five foolish.

In the parable, the groom took quite a while to come for his bride. In fact it was many hours. It was getting very late at night, and all the bridesmaids had dozed off. But suddenly, in the middle of the night, the cry went up, "'Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!' Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.'" All of a sudden it was time - the groom was coming - and the five foolish virgins discovered that they were not prepared to meet him. They had no oil for their lamps! When they asked the five wise virgins to give them some of their oil, they said, "No, lest there should not be enough for us and you." In the Greek, their reply is stronger: "No way! Absolutely not! It is utterly impossible for us to share our oil with you!"

Our Savior is coming back to earth suddenly. He is the groom in this parable. Those who will supposedly be ready to meet Him when He comes are the Christians. They are are bridesmaids. But is it enough to have the name "Christian"? To come from a "Christian" family? To be an official member of a "Christian" church? Obviously not! The five foolish virgins were all bridesmaids, just like the others. And they all had lamps. The difference was that they had no oil in their lamps! Jesus tells us that, to be truly prepared for His return, we too must have that oil, that one necessary commodity...what is it? It's faith; a living, personal faith in our Redeemer!

On the Last Day, we will need to be in a state of personal readiness to meet our Savior. Even if you're whole family as far back as you can remember has been Christian, even if your name is on the membership list this church, even if you've never missed a Sunday service in your life, it won't mean a thing if you haven't got a living, personal faith in Jesus as your Savior. Paul says, "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law." — Rom 3:28. God's Law tells us that we need a perfect righteousness to stand justified in His sight. His Gospel tells us that that perfect righteousness is available to us through faith in Jesus. All He asks us to do is receive the righteousness of Jesus' perfect life, and the forgiveness of sins that he earned for us on the cross. That's what faith is, and we've each of us got to have it on our own. No one else can believe for us! When Jesus comes to judge all men, we must be personally ready, with the oil of faith burning brightly in our lives!

Another point Jesus makes in the parable is that we must be ready no matter how long the wait. The bridesmaids knew that the bridegroom would be coming, but they didn't know when. Maybe those five foolish virgins meant to get oil for their lamps...but when the minutes turned to hours and the groom still hadn't shown up, it somehow didn't seem so important anymore.

The minutes are stretching to hours for us, too! It's been almost two thousand years now since anyone on earth has laid eyes on Jesus Christ. He said He's coming back; He told us to be ready, but...after so much time... Well, it's easy to let our guard down! Who would ever expect the end of the world to come and Judgement Day to arrive tomorrow...or next week? But remember the parable - it was exactly when the virgins least expected it that the bridegroom actually did arrive! That's why it's so absolutely important to be ready, no matter how long the wait. Jesus said, "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming." And in many other places, the Bible warns us not to let our preparedness slide just because He's delaying His return. At my family's home in Seattle, there had been several burglaries in the neighborhood, but we never worried about it; we just thought it would never happen to us. Imagine my surprise when I returned home from work one night to find the front door of the house swinging open, and all of our valuables gone! The arrival of Jesus will be just like that! The Bible says, "But you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night," — I Thes 5:2, and "...if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into." — Matt 24:43. God wants us to be ready, no matter how long the wait!

Finally, we should be ready to go to our Savior immediately. How much time will there be between when Jesus comes back and when the doors of heaven are shut forever? How much time was there in the parable? The cry went up that the groom was coming, and the foolish virgins immediately asked the wise to give them some oil. "But the wise answered, saying, 'No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.' And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us!' But he answered and said, 'Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.'" They were lacking the oil that they needed, and they found out the hard way that there was no time to get it before the door of the wedding was shut.

How suddenly will Jesus come back? How suddenly will time end and eternity begin? I'm sure you've all seen a night-time thunderstorm was moving across the plains. When a lightning bolt splits the sky, the entire landscape is suddenly lit up as bright as daylight from horizon to horizon. That's just how suddenly Jesus will reappear on earth, "For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west," Jesus said, "so also will the coming of the Son of Man be." — Matt 24:27. At that instant (and it could be any moment now!), those who find themselves without faith, or those who put their faith in anything but the blood and righteousness of Christ, will see the door of heaven close on them forever. When Jesus comes, we must be ready to go to him immediately...or not at all!

On their way home from church one Sunday, a mother asked her little girl what she had learned in Sunday School that day. She replied, "Today the teacher told us that this world is only a place where God lets us live for a while, so that we can get ready to go to heaven. But Mom, I don't see anybody getting ready! I see you getting ready to go to Grandma's house, and I see Daddy getting ready to go to work, but I don't see anybody getting ready to go to heaven! Why isn't anybody getting ready?" That's a good question! Christ has not come yet. Let us, as Scripture says, "work while it is day, for the night comes, when no man can work." If we have no oil for our lamps, or if our supply is running low, we can still fill them up. By God's grace, we can still prepare! Our Bibles are there in our homes for us to read. Worship services are held here every Sunday, where we can hear and believe the life-giving, faith-giving Word of God. If you want to be truly ready for Christ's return, if you want to replenish your stock of the oil of faith, God tells you exactly how it's done: "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God!" AMEN.