Presbyterian Church of Easton
Sermon Matthew 25:1-13 “Be Ready”
November 8, 2020
We are approaching the end of the church year. Every November, just after Thanksgiving the Season of Advent starts a new year with the anticipation of the coming of our savior. As the church year ends in November, we think about the end of things, the end of the year, the end of the age, the end of the world, and Jesus’ return. So it is appropriate that the church has traditionally taken these weeks in November to look at what the Bible teaches us about the end of the world with the coming Kingdom of Heaven. We will get to this important subject, but first, let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, teach us this day as you taught the faithful in the temple two thousand years ago. Open our hearts to understand what you are saying to us. Help us to believe what we must to achieve eternal life. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
From the moment women and men started to communicate, we have wondered what will happen when the world ends. Will it go out with a bang or a whimper? How long do we have to wait for this to happen? What if anything should we do now to prepare ourselves? Who will survive and who will perish?
A few years ago, I was driving to church. While on the Beltway, the main freeway around Washington DC, I encountered a major traffic jam. The radio said that several lanes of traffic were closed ahead because of a fatal accident. Later, I found out that a drunk driver had hit a car driven by a pastor on the way to church. The drunk walked away from the accident without a scratch. The pastor died instantly.
When things like this happen we have to wonder about God’s justice. Why would God let a drunk live while a pastor perishes? How is that just? Our sense of justice demands that in the end times the pastor should be rewarded with a privileged place in the presence of God, and the drunk should experience endless thirst in the fires of hell. Certainly, we think, the good will go to heaven and the evil will be excluded. We look forward to the day when, as Paul said:
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Jesus alone can tell us about the end of time because Jesus came from the end of the world back to our time to tell us and show us a little of what the end will be like. Jesus spoke as a rabbi in the Jerusalem temple to a crowd that included the religious leaders of the day. The parable of the ten bridesmaids gives us important clues concerning what the end of the world will be like and what we have to do to be ready. Let’s listen to Jesus’ teaching.
Matthew 25:1 "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 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, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' 7 Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' 9 But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' 10 And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11 Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' 12 But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' 13 Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
In this parable, there are three characters. First, there are wise bridesmaids. Second, there are foolish bridesmaids. And third, there is a groom.
I suggest that we look at this parable allegorically. The groom is Jesus. The wedding is the Kingdom of Heaven. The bridesmaids are us, hoping to accompany Jesus into the Kingdom.
The wise bridesmaids got into heaven. Why? Maybe they got in because they were good. Maybe they were righteous people. I don’t think so. They hoarded their oil, refused to share any with those in need, and sent the foolish bridesmaids on a wild goose chase in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t call them particularly virtuous, would you? Yet it was these wise bridesmaids who entered into the Kingdom of Heaven.
The conclusion that we have to draw from this is that just being good or bad has little or nothing to do with our entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. Something other than ethical behavior must be required.
So let’s take a look at the foolish bridesmaids. They didn’t get in. Why were the “foolish” bridesmaids excluded?
Some argue that the “foolish” bridesmaids were excluded because they weren’t ready when the time came. Under this view, we need to be ready when Christ comes at the end of the age. So with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, they look at world events to see if anything is happening in the news that might indicate that the end times are at hand so that we can be ready. If you put together a Bible prophecy about the future destruction of Jerusalem and combine this with the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear program, you may think it is possible to accurately predict that Jesus is just about to return to the world. So you better be ready.
The Christian fiction literature of the Left Behind series is a perfect example of this. The authors seem to know not only what will happen in detail, but also that it will happen very soon. But before we accept this view let’s look back at Jesus’ story.
The groom was late. Whenever we try to come up with a model to predict the end of the world, Jesus always shows up later than we thought. Jesus will come at his own time. And Jesus told us that we will never know when that time will come until it is finally here. Christians have been trying to predict the end of the world in this way for two thousand years. Every time someone has announced a date for the end, that date has come and gone and this world remains. And if we really don’t know when the end will come how could we ever be ready.
So it seems that the “wise” bridesmaids got into heaven despite their unethical behavior. And the “foolish” bridesmaids failure to enter heaven really had little to do with their readiness. So what is going on here?
So far we know three things. First, there is no ethical test to determine who gets into heaven and who does not. Second, not everyone will go to heaven at the end of the age. And third, we do not know when the end will come.
How then should we prepare ourselves for the coming end so that we can be assured of having whatever is necessary to enter the Kingdom of Heaven even though we don’t know when this time will come? Jesus is very clear on the answer to this question. What we need to have to get into heaven is olive oil. That’s right, the “foolish’ bridesmaids were barred from heaven because they did not have sufficient olive oil for their lamps.
The obvious conclusion to all of this is that we should go out right now and buy every bottle of olive oil we can find at ACME, Aldi, and Giant. Stock it up in your basement. Like the “wise” bridesmaid, hoard as much as you can and share your stash with no one. Let’s start a worldwide run on olive oil supplies as all Christians stock up as the end of the world approaches.
Of course, hoarding olive oil is absurd. We do not need to hoard olive oil as our ticket to heaven. Rather we need what olive oil represents in this story. So what does the olive oil symbolically refer to?
Earlier, you heard the story of Joshua who had led the Israelites into the Promised Land. When they arrived God blessed them with everything they needed, including an abundance of olive oil. So Joshua gathered the people together and told them this:
Joshua 24:14 “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
This is the choice the bridesmaids had. They had to choose which god they would serve. The wise bridesmaid had made the same decision as Joshua’s family. They would serve the Lord. And they were ready when Jesus returned. The foolish bridesmaids took no oil with them. They did not love and serve the Lord. And so they were excluded.
The foolish bridesmaids had little faith and what little they had evaporated while they waited for Jesus’ return. But the wise ones had an abundance of faith that stayed with them while they waited for Jesus to return and bring an end to the age. Belief in Jesus Christ is the key that opens the gates of heaven. If you want to be certain that when the world ends you will be part of God’s new creation then believe in Jesus Christ, love and serve him.
So I urge you to be like the Israelites. Here is what they did:
Joshua 24:16 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; 17 for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed; 18 and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”
People of God, I urge you this day to be prepared for Jesus’ return. Be filled with faith. Love and serve the Lord. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, we believe in you. Bless us with deeper and deeper faith. Help us to express this faith with our pledges, tithes, and offerings to the church. And prepare us for your coming and your kingdom. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.
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