Well, turn with me to Matthew
25. You bear with me this evening.
I've been so unsure of the message, that this is
the message. I'm not unsure of the content
of it, the truth of it. I'm just unsure that this is the one I'm supposed
to bring. But while looking at the various
parables and deciding which one to begin next, Uh,
during this week, I've been thinking about this parable of the 10
virgins in Matthew chapter 25, Matthew chapter 25. And I began
looking at it and it's such a difficult, difficult parable. And it takes
up about 13 verses there. And each verse in itself is a
message. And it's, I've talked to other
men, read writers and so forth, and it's a very difficult parable,
but yet it's a needful one. It shows the state of the church
at the time of Christ's return. It speaks of these virgins waiting
on the return of the bridegroom and how that they were sleeping. They were sleeping. and unprepared
for his coming, and how that some went in and some didn't.
Well, it certainly is a needful, needful, needful parable to all
of us, myself included. So I began looking at this parable,
and I didn't get past the first verse. As a matter of fact, I
didn't get past two words of the first verse. So this parable
is going to be divided up into two or maybe three parts, but
the first one, first part tonight really is not, doesn't have much
to do with parable, just taking two words out of the first verse. But anyway, let's read it there,
and I'll show you another verse over in John. Verse one of chapter
twenty-five of Matthew, Matthew twenty-five, verse one. It says,
Our Lord now had just that the apostles had come, the disciples
had come to Christ and said, when shall these things be? The
second coming of Christ. And he, you know, the prophecies
he gave in Matthew 24 and then in 25, he says, then shall the
kingdom of heaven, that is the return of Christ, the kingdom
of heaven shall be likened unto ten virgins which took their
lamps and went forth to meet the bride. You know which two
words I couldn't get past? The bridegroom. Couldn't get
past that. Turn over to John with me too.
John chapter three. I began looking and reading some
different writers on the bridegroom. The bridegroom. John chapter
three. Here is a portion of scripture that speaks
of the friend of the bridegroom. John the Baptist calls himself
the friend. of the bridegroom. John chapter
three, verse, well look at verse, all the way up to verse twenty-five.
There arose a question between some of John's disciples and
the Jews about purifying. They came to John and said, Teacher,
he that was with thee beyond Jordan, they're talking about
Christ, to whom thou bearest witness, behold the same, he's
baptized and all men come to him. John answers said, A man
can receive nothing except it be given him from above. And
you yourself, you heard me before, bear witness that I said, I'm
not the Christ. John was called a harbinger,
that is, a forerunner. He said, I'm not the Christ.
I've said this before and I'll say it again. I'm sent before
him to extol, exalt, to tell of the coming of the bridegroom.
He that hath the bride, the owner, the husband, is the bridegroom.
The friend of the bridegroom, that's me, which stands and hears
him, he rejoices. He rejoices greatly because he
heard the bridegroom's voice. And now my joy, therefore, is
fulfilled. He must increase, but I must
decrease. Now, if you may remember, one
of the first messages I brought here, when I first came here,
was on Adam and Eve, a type of Christ in the church. And my
text was from Ephesians 5.31. It says this, For this cause,
that is marriage. Now most of you heard this during
your marriage ceremony. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they
too shall become one flesh. And then he says this is a great
mystery. Great mystery. But I speak concerning
Christ and the church, a great mystery. Now, marriage is a glorious,
God-ordained institution in spite of what this world's disdain
for it. It's a glorious, God-ordained
institution. It's a clear picture of salvation,
of God's salvation in Jesus Christ. Christ is the bridegroom. He's
the husband, and the church is the bride. But just as marriage
has become perverted in our day, it's become a farce. It's perverted
and a farce. So have the views of salvation
become perverted and foolish and a farce, a foolishness. You
see, in our day, in our society, the principle figure in a marriage
is who? Who does everybody make over
and talk about? The bride. The bride is the principal
figure in marriage today. That's not the way it was meant
to be. I'm sorry, ladies. That's not the way it was meant
to be. So much is made over the bride
today that the groom is usually pictured as some half-brained
nitwit that her father The bride's father had to take a gun to his
head to get him to marry her in the first place. Well, that's
not so. Or at least he's some little
henpecked fellow, you know, with a great big woman. You're going
to get married, you know. You've seen this. Well, that's
the way they picture marriage today. But marriage in the early
days, in the Far Eastern countries, was far different. Far different. Everything centered around Why? Because God instituted it, and
it's the picture of Christ, the groom. The bride is insignificant
compared to the groom. Oh, she's beautiful and glorious,
but not until later on. Not until after the groom makes
herself. The groom was the principal figure
whom everybody attended to. He was the figure. He was the
one that everything was for. He was the one that started the
whole thing, instigated the whole event in the first place. And
it's for this reason that I started this. I couldn't get past these
two words, the bridegroom, because Christ is the bridegroom. And you don't start with the
virgins. You don't start by talking about us. You talk about him,
the bridegroom. He is the first, the scripture
says, and the last, and everything in between. So everything must
begin with him. So, you see why we can't go too
far in this parable before we start talking about the bridegroom.
We've got to talk about him first. Jesus Christ is the bridegroom. I have several points to this.
First of all, this thing of a bridegroom. A bridegroom, or just a groom
for short, as we know it. A bridegroom is the one that
purposes to marry. He purposes to marry. The Son
of God dwelled in eternity past with the Father and with the
Holy Spirit in perfect happiness and bliss and contentment. Unneedful. He didn't need anybody or anything. The Father didn't need anybody,
the Son, the Holy Spirit. They didn't need anybody. They
did not need human beings, like Oral Roberts said, because God
was lonely. That's what the man said. I heard
him say that a lot, that God was lonely. So he created man
to talk to him. That's not the case. The Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit dwelled together in eternity
past in perfect happiness and bliss. For, Barbara, it could
have been 150 zillion years that they dwelled together in happiness.
They are all, and in all, in themselves. They don't really
need anything or anybody else. They don't. One day, and when this was, I
don't know, it may be a hundred billion years ago that they got
together on this thing. But one day, the Father, this
was the mind of the Father, but try you and God, yes, these three
are one, but the Father, being God, being the Father, He resolved
to glorify His Son in marriage. Just as He said about Adam, He
said it's not good for the man to be alone in order to magnify
this creation called man. He created this woman to be a
helpmate, to attend to him and so forth. So God was resolved
to have a bride for his son, to glorify his son in this thing
called marriage. And the son happily agreed to
this. this thing of the bridegroom.
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit, they consulted together
about this marriage. It was a three-way consultation. It was a grand and a glorious
marriage council, and it was held in a place called, that
many people like to call, the Council Halls of Eternity. A glorious place that nobody's
ever been to, nobody's ever seen. A magnificent place. And nobody,
when this took place, when the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit got together, and consulted with one another and counseled
together with one another. Nobody was allowed entrance into
this. He said that in many places. With whom took he counsel? He
said to Joe, where were you when I laid the foundations? Nobody
was granted entrance. Nobody heard this. Nobody was
in on it when the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit got
together. This was all their doing, completely their doing. Nobody was allowed entrance because
nobody was born yet. There was nobody else. There
wasn't even any angels, any devils, anybody. So they agreed that
a marriage was to take place for the honor and the glory of
the king's son. And just as you've probably seen
that story of Cinderella, you know, that grandfather, the father
of the young prince, the thing he was more concerned about than
anything was to further his name. He wanted grandchildren. He wanted
grandchildren. And so for the purpose of increasing
the king's family, for the glory of the father, the glory of the
son, the Holy Spirit, to increase the king's family, to have many
sons like unto his son, grandsons, if you will, the father purpose
for this marriage to take place and for them to bear children.
So then, after this consultation took place in the Council Hall
of Eternity, the bride is chosen. Now, this is not a mutual agreement.
This is not a mutual agreement between the bride and the groom,
because the bride wasn't around when this took place. She wasn't
even born yet. She was just a thought, just
a thought, just like a husband and wife get together and consummate
their marriage and have a child. That child didn't even say so
in being born. They just up and decided, let's
have children. OK, we'll wait. And they get together and a child
is born. He didn't have anything to do with it. And that's the
way the bride is chosen. Unlike today, when there's a
mutual agreement between the bride and the groom. And sometimes,
I hear today, even of women asking men to marry. That's about the
way religion is headed, isn't it? Sure is. But back in the
old days, the bride, principally, was chosen by the father of the
groom. The bride, back in these days,
was chosen by the father of the groom. You call it a betrothal. You betroth. The father chooses
to abide for the groom, the one that he thinks is fit for his
son, that will rightly honor his son and bring glory and honor
to the name of his family. He chooses her, and he betroths. She's as good as married to him. There's no way she can back out.
She's the king, or he's the king now, and she's going to be married.
Yes, she is. Besides, every fair maiden back
in these olden days, every fair maiden desired to be the wife
of the prince. I don't care what he looked like.
Everybody wanted to be the wife of the prince. Only a fool, only
a fool would not want to be the prince's bride, the prince's.
So the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit chose a people. They weren't forced to do so.
They weren't coerced into doing this. Nobody constrained them. They weren't constrained out
of admiration or beauty for the bride, because there was none,
remember? There was no bride around, no
character to commend her. There was no, it wasn't forced
looking down, as they say now, and seeing what they're going
to do and then choosing them. That's ridiculous. That's an
insult to any man's intelligence, especially God's. But there was
no, it wasn't even pity that constrained God to choose a people. What did He say? He said, I chose
you and I saved you for my namesake. That's the only reason, my namesake. But we reap the benefits, don't
we? But He freely chose a people. Now remember, He didn't need
to. He didn't have to. He didn't
need to. They dwelled together in the
beginning in perfect happiness. They didn't need a, they didn't
need human beings. Oh no, didn't need them at all. For the foundation
of the world, God chose a people, and it was called election. Now
people today like to call this thing election, a vote. Now remember,
I'm trying to make fun of this because of the foolishness of
this thing that they call election now. They say God voted for you,
Satan voted against you, you cast aside and vote. There was
nobody around now when this election was taking place, but God is
only one vote. And besides, it's not a vote.
This word elect means choose. The word means choose, not vote
for, not give consent to, or not decide for, but choose. Reach down and pick up, handpick,
and choose. That's what it means. God the
Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit got together and
chose the Son's bride. And there were no, like I said,
there's no virtues in the bride to be considered because there
was nobody alive. And when she did come forth,
when this bride did finally come forth, she was ugly. She became ugly. And you know,
if you'd have chose, if he'd have waited to choose, if he'd
have waited for there to be some virtue, some admirable quality
in the woman to pick for his bride. He would not have had
one, because nobody, none righteous, no, no. He looked down. Scripture
says he looked down, Terry, to see if there was any that did
call upon any beauty, any pretty brides. They all together become
ungodly and filthy. None are good to choose from.
So he had to choose them before. Had to. Well, after this marriage
was purposed, God the Father purposed it, then the bride was
chosen, then the arrangements and the final preparations. had
to be made between the groom and his parents. This is the
son, and you could rightly call the spirit the mother, the mother
of the son, because the Holy Spirit gives birth to many people
by planting the incorruptible seed of God's Word. But the king,
in all his wisdom, he set forth all the necessary requirements
for the marriage of his son. and the future acceptance of
his new daughter. Like I said before, he couldn't
just have any old girl be his daughter. There had to be some
laws laid down, some rules, some rules of acceptance. That daughter,
as a matter of fact, had to be perfect. Well, there was a covenant
made. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit made a covenant, made agreement. These
are like the marriage arrangements and the final preparation, just
like the mother of the bride and the father, they all get
together and make the arrangements for the wedding. Well, this is
exactly what God the Father, the triune God did. They entered
into this covenant together, and God, in all His wisdom, He
decided that Christ must become a man. He had to come down here
and become a man. come into a body of a young virgin,
become a child. He had to live a perfect life
as a man for his bride, because he saw that she was going to
be polluted, no virtue in her. He had to live his perfect life,
and he had to assume all her. He saw that she was going to
be in such head-over-heels in debt, much like some of ours
are, who we married, and he was going to have to assume her debt.
And not only that, but he was condemned to die. And he was
going to have to assume her punishment, her condemnation. So Christ had
to come down here, and he had to go to the cross, bearing his
bride's iniquity, and pay that ransom price. Because the price
the Father put down for the marriage of this bride that was to be
was blood. Blood. Without the shedding of
blood, there's no remission. So the Father asked the Son in
this covenant before the foundation of the world, in the Council
Halls of Eternity, looking down in perfect wisdom, seeing what
was going to happen, he asked the son, do you see what you're
going to have to go through? Do you see what she looks like? She's
not much. Do you see what you're going
to have to do it all for? You're going to have to make
her everything she is. And you're going to have to do everything
for her that she can't do for herself. And you're going to
have to die for her. You're going to have to do it
all. It's going to be a hard and cruel road you're going to
have to walk. Are you willing? Are you willing? If the son says yes, I'll do
it. Do it. I'll do it freely, gladly, and
freely. And then the Spirit says, just
like a proud mother, and you have my blessing. You have my
blessing, and when you bring the bride, I'll give her a good
talking to. Well, let's get into it here.
The proposal of marriage. Here's the proposal, just like
a regular marriage. there is something of a proposal
to be made in the marriage of Christ's bride. Now, even though
the plans are made, the decree is set, and it's unalterable. Now, God the Father, none can
stay in His hand or say unto Him, what are you doing? The
plans are made, the decree is set forth, and it won't change. This bride is going to come.
She's going to come. She has to be wooed. She has
to give her consent. I don't want to shock you now,
but I'll explain that here in a minute. She must be willing. He's not going to have any unwilling,
disobedient, like, he's not going to have any unwilling, disobedient
wives, much like some of ours are. I started to say, I go ahead
and say it. Uh-uh, kick and scream and pitch a fit. Uh-uh. This
bride is going to be willing. She's going to be willing in
the day of His power. She's going to be wooed into
loving the bridegroom. He already loves her. He already
loves her. And when He came down here to
get her, she didn't love Him. What does the Scripture say?
Herein is love. What's love? Our love for Him? No, no. Herein is love. Not that we love him. We can't
rightly call our love for him love. Can't. It's so fickle. It's so changing isn't it? Up
we love him, appear to love him one day and not the next. Don't
we? That's just like, that's just
like love between a husband and a wife seemingly. It's up one
day and down the next. Up one day, down the next. Herein
is love. You want the true description
of love. Not that we love him. day first loved us, set his affection
on us. You know, in our day and age,
the old saying is, love is blind. And I believe that's true based
upon some of the marriages that I've seen in this day and age. I wonder sometimes what could
possibly have interested some of these sweet and beautiful
ladies and some of these duds that they marry. I'll not call
any names. But it astounds me sometimes. It truly is blind. Love is blind. The love that God creates, though,
is not blind. It opens your eyes completely. The love that God creates in
the heart of a sinner is not blind. No, He opens your eyes
to see the beauty of the Son. That's this love. He opens your
eyes to see, to give perfect eyesight, to see this glorious
bridegroom. It's not blind at all. There's
a three-part proposal here, and it's always successful. It always
lands against the girl. It always gets the bride. And
this is what the Father did. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit got in on this proposal. God the Father,
first of all, He reveals Himself. That's the first sight that the
future bride-to-be sees. That's the first sight you and
I see. That's the first thing God shows us, is Himself, His
holy and glorious an immaculate person. We see himself, his riches,
his honor, his glory, his sovereign glory. We see him, first of all,
and then the Spirit gets in on it. The Spirit takes this word,
takes this book, and many like things, and shows us ourselves. We see our ugliness. See our
sinfulness. See our condemnation, this state
of condemnation under God's law, our rebellion. We see our ugliness. That's what the Holy Spirit does.
This is the proposal. This is how the Holy Spirit brings
us to cry. And then the Son finally gets
in on it. The Word became incarnate. The Word became flesh. And the
Son, the Word, the written Word, the incarnate Word, reveals The
Son, the Son reveals Himself. He reveals His salvation. He
reveals that He is the only hope of salvation, His hope, His glory,
His person, His work, His character, His blood. He reveals Himself. We call it, in these five points
that we like to denominate, we call it irresistible grace. Now, like I told you before I
started this message, the content's good. We call it irresistible
grace because nobody can resist. When God the Father sets His
affection on a child of His, on a human being, and in all
wisdom and power, He sends the Holy Spirit through the Word
to show the irresistible beauty of the glory of His Son. And
when God begins a work of marriage proposal to somebody, it always
successfully brings that bride to Christ. Always. Always wins
her over. And now, like I said now, this
marriage took place in God's mind long ago, but salvation
for us, Paul said, we've not yet obtained, we've not yet arrived
yet, not as though we've already obtained. We're being saved,
the scriptures say. We're being, we're betrothed. This is a betrothal that we're
living in right now. We're not actually hand in hand
with our bridegroom. We're not actually the song we
sung. When we finally get there, we'll
not gaze at glory but on our bridegroom's face. We're separated
right now to a certain degree. To a certain degree, we're separated
from our bridegroom. But this right here, this life
that we're living right now is the betrothal. And there appears
at times we become adulterous, we become unfaithful. Infidelity, it's called. We become
unfaithful, but He remains faithful. Our bridegroom, he remains faithful
to us, although we don't. But this is like a betrothal.
And for our comfort, for our consolation, for our encouragement,
that God the Father set His affection upon us in eternity past, and
betrothed us to His Son, and sent His Holy Spirit to convict
us, to woo us, to show us the beauty of Christ, we're coming
to him, no matter how unfaithful we may feel like we have been
or are now. When that final great day of
the wedding comes, we're going to be there. We're going to be
there. Now, like I said, we're his for certain. We are his for
certain. But someday, someday, the actual
wedding will take place. And like I said, that There was
an agreement, a mutual agreement, between the triune God before
the world began to have this bride. And then the bride came,
and then the wooing, the proposal took place, and the betrothal,
and the Spirit is making the bride ready for the marriage. And then finally, someday, the
marriage is going to be consummated. They're going to be joined together.
And that's what that marriage supper of the Lamb is going to
be. in Revelation. That's what you hear about. It's
exactly what it's going to be, a joining of the bride and the
bridegroom together, hand in hand. We're going to walk down
the aisles, the aisles of eternity, hand in hand. Turn over to Revelation
19 with me and we'll see this picture of it. The Scripture
says, When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we shall
appear also with in glory as a bride, as a bride prepared
for her bridegroom. Revelation 19 verse 6. John said, I heard,
as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of
many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings say. And
we're going to hear this same voice. We're going to be right
there if God set his affection upon you and shown you Himself
and yourself and pointed you to Christ and given you faith
in Him, you're going to hear this very same voice, the voice
of many waters. Who would dare try to imitate
that? Many waters, thunderings, voice of mighty thunderings saying,
Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be
glad and rejoice and give honor to Him, for the marriage of the
Lamb has come. And his wife hath made herself
ready." What does that mean? I think that means we give diligence
to make our calling and election sure. That's what that means.
And to her, because here the next verse says, to her was granted,
she was given her garments, to her was granted that she should
be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. That fine linen is
the righteousness of the saints. Well, it's not their righteousness.
That's inconsistent with scripture. It's the righteousness imputed
to them, the righteousness of Christ. She was granted this
clean and white robe that all the king's sons, the king's daughters
must be arrayed in. would have been proposed to the
marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said unto me, these are
the true sayings of God. And now look. You saw a little
bit of the bride. Look at the groom here. And I fell at his feet to worship
him. This angel, this, as it were, this best man, with his
attendants. And he said, don't do it. I'm
your fellow servant of your brethren." Now, who this was, I don't know. This could have been one of the
prophets. I don't know. He said, I'm your fellow servant. He evidently
was a preacher of some sort. I'm your brethren that had the
testimony of Jesus. Worship God. The testimony of
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And then, he says, I saw heaven
opened. And unlike our marriages, when,
you know, Everybody stands up and the bride walks in. When
we get up there, the doors are going to open and the music is
going to be playing. The groom is going to walk in.
The groom. And he says, I saw heaven open.
Heaven opened. And behold a white horse. He
hadn't come before on a white horse. There's a night in shiny
armor. He came lowly. and meek riding
on the foal of an ass, but he's coming back again on a white
horse, a white horse. And he that sat upon him was
called, every wonderful adjective and name you could use, faithful
and true, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. And here's his description. Here's
his dress. His eyes were as a flame of And on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that
no man knew but he himself. I don't know. I wouldn't begin
to say what that is. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped
in blood. And his name is called the Word
of God. And the armies which were in
heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen,
And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should
smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron.
And he treads the winepress of the fierceness and the wrath
of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and
on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. And I saw an angel standing in
the sun. a herald, and he cried with a loud voice, saying, All
the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, that's the spirits
that come, gather yourselves together now under the suffering
of the Lamb." Well, it was a miserable attempt
at trying to show you something of the glory of the Bridegroom,
but next week we'll take up the parable of the virgins that go
out to meet the bridegroom. It's a very convicting, very
convicting parable. Ten people went out to meet him. They all professed to be looking
for him, and five went in and five didn't. They all looked
just alike, but five went in. We'll try to look at that next
week. Ask yourself, maybe in the course
of this week, which group am I in? Which group? you