Would you turn with me to Matthew
chapter 25? I want everyone to remember Geraldine
Bigelow. She's in intensive care right
now, and she's on a respirator, and I don't know what's going
to happen with her, but remember her in prayer. We're also thankful
that Tim Daniel got through the surgery well this week, and Also,
Robbie Mayhem, the grandson of Henry and Doris Mayhem, passed
away yesterday. And everybody remember that family.
They're going to be having a viewing in Ashland tomorrow night. Matthew chapter 25. Now, I feel,
I believe, impressed of the Lord to bring three sermons from this
chapter, these three different stories. But let's read the parable
of the ten virgins together. Then shall the kingdom of heaven
be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went
forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and
five were foolish. They that were foolish took their
lamps, and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their
vessels with their lamps, while the bridegroom tarried, they
all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry
made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him.
Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps, and
the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil, for our
lambs are gone out.' But the wise answered, saying, Not so,
lest there be not enough for us and you, but go ye rather
to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.' And while they went
to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went
in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut." Afterward came also the other
virgin, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said,
Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for you know
neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh. Then shall the kingdom of heaven
be likened unto ten virgins. When? When? When will the kingdom of heaven
be likened unto ten virgins? Well, this is a reference to
Judgment Day. Look in verse 44 of Matthew chapter
24. Therefore be ye also ready. For
in such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man cometh. Who then is a faithful and wise
servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household, to
give him meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom
his Lord, when he cometh forth, shall find him so doing. Verily
I say unto you, that he shall make him ruler over all of his
good. And if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord,
delayeth his coming, and he shall begin to smite his fellow servants,
and to eat and drink with the drunken, the Lord of that servant
shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that
he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint
him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth. Then shall the kingdom of heaven
be likened unto ten virgins which took their lamps, and went forth
to meet the bridegroom. Now who are these ten virgins? Five of which are wise and five
of which are foolish. The ten virgins are the professing
church. They're us. They're the people
sitting in this room. They're those who profess to
believe the gospel. And I believe all of these people
maintain some hope that when Christ would come, they would
be in heaven ready for him. But we read of these ten virgins
in verse two, five of them were wise. And five of them were foolish. These represent the two great
classes that compose the visible Church of Christ. Now, in this
room right now, and I don't know who is and who isn't, I have
no idea. But in this room right now, we
have both of these classes. We have the wise and we have
the foolish. We have the regenerate. and we
have the unregenerate. We have true believers and we
have pretenders and hypocrites. We have foolish builders. We
have wise builders. We have the living and the dead. We have the wheat and we have
the tares. We have the good fish And we
have the bad fish, that passage of scripture I just read. Remember,
the kingdom of heaven is like a net that got into the sea.
It's brought in. The good fish they keep, the
bad fish they throw away. Now, perhaps we cannot distinguish
the two, but the day is coming when the difference will be seen. Verse three. Here's the difference
between the foolish and the wise. Verse three. They that were foolish
took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took
oil in their vessels with their lamps. Now, I think this is so
interesting. The difference in reality was
something that me and you can't see. It's something that's seen
only on the inside. One had oil on the inside. The other didn't. There were
both lamps, perhaps beautiful lamps, but there was a vital
difference. One lamp had no oil. Five lamps
had no oil. A lamp without oil can give no
light. And five lamps had oil. Now, the oil represents the oil
of the spirit and the grace that comes from that. They didn't have. With the ones who didn't have
the oil, didn't have what was needed. Maybe a beautiful lamp,
but it was no good. They didn't have the spirit of
God. They didn't have a new nature.
They didn't have a new heart. What was inside they did not
have. They had no true faith in Christ.
They had no real love for Christ. They had never truly worshipped
the Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts. They knew nothing of
repentance. They had no oil in their lamps. Now, if I knew I had to drive
a hundred miles. And I knew I was just about out
of gas. It would be very foolish for me to take off on that trip
and bypass the gas station, wouldn't it? And I couldn't use the excuse
that I didn't have the money for the gas because the gas was
free. I would have to make a conscious decision to not use that gas,
wouldn't I? These people who didn't have
oil, they knew they needed oil. They had some vague notion of
it. But they thought it's not really necessary for me to have
it. So they had no oil. What was truly needed, they overlooked. Now, the wise that we read of
in verse four took oil in their vessels with their lamps, they
knew a lamp was useless without oil. And remember, this oil is
free. The grace of God is free. No one here can say, I don't
have the wherewithal to obtain it. God's grace is free to all
who ask for it, who all who come for it. And these people knew
that they had to have his grace, the grace of his spirit. Now,
the only way I can be ready for his coming is by being in him. And the only evidence that I'm
in him is if he is in me by his spirit. I have genuine faith. I'm someone who really does rest
in the Lord Jesus Christ. I cease from my own labors as
God did from His, and I rest in Him. He really is my all. You know, we sang that hymn this
morning. All that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life to me, and
the fairest of ten thousand in my blessed Lord I see. What's the difference between
the saved and the lost? Christ. Simple enough answer, isn't it? Who made this difference? God
did. Who made you to differ from somebody
else? And what do you have that you
didn't receive? If you have the oil of His grace
in you, you know where you got it. He gave it to you. You know
that's why you have it. He is the one who made the difference. Now, these wise people, you know,
believers are wise. Every believer is wise. A lost
man is crazy. A lost man is insane. Looking
somewhere other than Christ, that's crazy. A believer is wise
and he looks only to the Lord Jesus Christ. The unbeliever
is foolish. He really doesn't see the need
of this oil of grace. Now look in verse 5. Now, while
the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept, all
ten of them, not just the foolish, the wise also. They all slumbered
and slept. Now, they had been expecting
him perhaps at 6 p.m. He didn't show up. Seven, he
wasn't there. Eight, he wasn't there. Nine
o'clock and he didn't come. Ten o'clock, they start getting
sleepy. Eleven o'clock, they all fall
asleep. They all slumbered and slept. Now, what do sleeping people
most resemble? You know, dead. Dead. You look at a sleeping person,
quite often he looks dead. He looks like there's no life
in him. Now, this is said of the foolish. This is said of
the wise, both, they both looked dead. If I look out in my backyard
right now, all the trees look dead. No leaves. Now, when springtime comes, some
of them are going to look alive. There's going to be leaves. You're
going to see the evidence of life. I know one tree in my backyard
that's still going to look dead. Big old pine tree. I got to do
something about it. It's been dead for a couple of
years now, but it's dead. Now, right now, they all look
dead. But, you know, even though they
all look dead, they're not all dead. They have the sap of life
in them. They're living trees that look
dead. Now you can see the five wise
and the five foolish at this time they all look dead. Now what am I to learn from this?
A believer can be led astray, hardened through sin, desensitized
as it were because of sin. They become entangled in the
world, and we have so many examples of this in scripture, and anyone
who knows what the scripture calls the plague of his own heart.
Do you have any familiarity with that? The plague of his own heart. They know that you can get into
a state like this, and you look dead. You feel dead. You're just saying, my eyes are
dry. My faith is old. My heart is hard and my prayers
are cold. Now, that's the feeling of one
of these sleeping, slumbering virgins and the Lord hides his
face and you can't really hear. Oh, you hear the words. But you
can't really hear all the virgins. The bad ones, the good ones,
the wise ones, the foolish ones, They all slumbered and slept. And you couldn't really tell
at this time which were wise and which were foolish, could
you? But there they are. They all slumbered and slept.
And some have suggested that this will be the state of things
upon Christ's return. And I wouldn't deny that. Our
Lord Himself said, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find
faith on the earth. That's up there. Scary thought
it. And he actually says, well, I
even find any true saving faith upon my return. Verse 6, And
at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh. Go ye out to meet him. And they all woke up and they
all went out to meet him. Verse 7, Then all those virgins
arose and trimmed their lamps. Verse 8, And the foolish said
unto the wise, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. Now, these foolish virgins had
no oil, so they could not light their lamps. Now, perhaps they
considered the need of oil sometime in the past, but they overlooked
it. But now they see their need of
it, and these foolish virgins ask the wise, give us some of
your oil. Now. I never really thought about
this before, but how foolish was it for the foolish to ask
the wise for oil? How foolish would you be if you
asked me for grace? Can I give you any? How foolish
would I be? If I asked you for grace, could
I give you any? Absolutely not. These people
proved by this that they had never really come to the Lord
Jesus Christ for grace. They asked the wrong person for
grace. You see, there's only one person
to ask to have the oil of grace. You know who that is? That's
the giver of grace. You come to the only one who
can give you grace. That's who you ask grace for.
These people demonstrate that they never really come to the
Lord Jesus Christ. The foolish, verse 8, said unto
the wise, give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. But
the wise answered, saying, not so. Have you ever read that and
thought, why couldn't you give them a little bit? That almost
seems kind of heartless, doesn't it? I mean, why not? Why couldn't
you give them a little bit? I thought that. Maybe nobody
else did. But I thought, man, you know, if you got a little
bit of extra oil, give it to them. Here's the problem. First of all, they knew they
couldn't give the old grace. They were well aware of that.
I can't give you any grace. I can't do it. Plus, I thought
of this. Isn't this true? No matter how
much grace you have, You don't have a surplus. It's just enough,
isn't it? You don't have any to give to
anybody else. Not so, lest there not be enough for us and you.
You go to them that sell and buy for yourselves. Verse 10. And while they went to buy, the
bridegroom came. Now, these other five foolish,
they go to try to get oil. And the bridegroom comes. Here
are the wise, they had the oil in their lamps and while they
went to buy the bridegroom came and they that were ready went
in with him to the marriage and the door was shut. Now. I want you to notice that
these that were ready were sleeping and slumbering just like the
foolish virgins were. And when you looked at him, you
really couldn't tell the difference at that time. And then all of
a sudden we read of these who were ready at the return of the
bridegroom. Now, what makes someone ready
for his return? Well, turn with me to 1 Thessalonians
chapter 3. First Thessalonians chapter 3
verse 13. Beginning verse 11 in 1 Thessalonians chapter 3.
Now God himself and our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct
our way unto you. And the Lord make you to increase
and abound in love one toward another and toward all men, even
as we do toward you, to the end that He may establish your hearts
unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints. Now, did
you see those words? Here's what it takes to be ready.
I must be unblameable in holiness. Nothing short of that will do.
The only thing that will make me ready on His return is if
I myself am unblameable in holiness. Not simply forgiven. That's not
enough. If you're forgiven, well, You
can still find some blame somewhere, could you? It's not enough. I
myself must be unblameable in holiness to where God looks me
over and searches me through and through and can find nothing
but that which is holy. Now that's the only way I'll
be ready. Now turn with me to 1 John chapter
2. Do you understand in light of
this? Do you understand why Paul the Apostle said, Oh, that I
may win Christ and be found in him. That's how I want the Lord
to find me in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way I'll
be ready. And that's the only way I can
truly be unblameable in holiness. Now, look in 1 John, chapter
2, verse 28. And now, little children, abide in Him. Now what does it mean to abide
in Him? It means to stay in Him. It means
you don't go outside of Him. Now I've used this illustration
before, but if you knew that all of God's blessing was in
this room, and if you were outside of this room, there was nothing
but God's curse, But in this room, you had all of God's fullness,
all of God's blessing, all of God's mercy, all of God's grace,
all of God's favor. Would you want to leave this
room? No, you'd want to stay right here. Now, the Lord Jesus
Christ is a whole lot bigger room in this room, a lot of room
to move around in him, but being found in him. Now, he says, now,
little children abide in him that when he shall appear, We
may have confidence and not be ashamed before him that is coming. Now, the only way I'm not going
to be ashamed is as I abide in him. Now, look in verse four
of chapter three. Whosoever. Committed sin. Transgressed also the law. For sin is the transgression
of the law. And you know that He was manifested
to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth
in Him, what? Sinneth not. It doesn't simply say that his
sins are not charged to him. It doesn't say that his sins
are forgiven. It says he sins not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen
him, neither known him. Now, the only way I can be unblameable
in holiness is if I sin not. And in the Lord Jesus Christ,
I sin not. I'm unblameable in holiness. And that is what makes me ready. If there's a sin anywhere, I'm
not ready. But if I'm in Him, I'm unblameable
in holiness. I'm ready. I'm ready. You know, the only thing that
would make you fear or make me fear judgment is sin. If I have no sin, if I'm unblameable
in holiness, I'm ready to go. Are you ready to die? Are you
ready to die? Now, if you believe this gospel,
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, if you believe that because
of it, you have no sin, you're unblameable in holiness, not
just Viewed that way when you're not, but that's what you are.
That's what you are. Unblameable in holiness. That
makes you ready. They that were ready. Why did
they come in? They were ready. They didn't
sin. They were unblameable in holiness. They that were ready, back to
our text, went into the marriage. Now, before you go back to our
text, turn to Revelation chapter 19. Verse 7, Revelation 19, they
that were ready went in with him to the marriage. Let us be
glad and rejoice and give honor to him, for the marriage of the
Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. You know
how you make yourself ready? By abiding in Him. You know,
abiding in Him and faith in Christ is the same thing, really. Abiding
Him is a conscious desire to only be in Him, so that all God
sees is me in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the bride made herself
ready. Verse 8, And to her was granted
that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white,
for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. The fine linen is
the righteousness of saints. Well, what righteousness is that?
The righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. His righteousness
is my righteousness. His righteousness is my fine
linen, clean and white. This is the righteousness of
the saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which
are called into the marriage supper of the Lamb. Now what
a blessed thing to enter in and be called to this marriage. I
love the way heaven is described as a marriage supper. What a
blessed, blessed thing. Rise and enter in. Now go back
to our text in Matthew 25. And while they went to buy, verse
10, the bridegroom came. And they that were ready went
in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. It was open to let them in, and
it was then shut." Now, this is what I like to think about
this door being shut. Sin shut out. Trial and trouble shut out. Beloved, it may be that you have
trial and trouble right now. last just a little while, and
it's going to be shut out. Our light affliction, which is
but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory. You know, all this stuff that
we're going through right now won't be much longer. It's so
temporary. And all trial, all trouble, all
sin, all unbelief will be shut out. At that time, we won't even
remember what it is to be a sinner. We won't even remember what it
is to be unbelieving. I love thinking about this. The
only thing that the only consciousness of sin will even have is seeing
the scars of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll know at that time,
although we won't have any evil thoughts or sinful thoughts,
we'll know the only reason we're there is because of His workforce. That's the only evidence that
will be left. The door was shut. Everything was shut out, but
somebody else was also shut out. Look in verse 11. And afterward
came also the other virgin saying, Lord, Lord, look at the repetition,
Lord, Lord, you ought to know who we are. Opened us. Lord said in Matthew, chapter
seven, in verse 21, many. Now that ought to cause every
one of us to stop. Many will say unto me in that day, Lord,
Lord, have we not preached in your name? In your name, have
we not cast out demons? And in your name, have we not
done many wonderful works? The Lord says, then will I say
unto them, depart from me. Ye that work iniquity, I never
knew you. Now notice what he says to them
in verse 12. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you,
I don't know you. I know you not. Now, if he knows you. And this is the issue, does he
know you? If he knows you, you will know
him, I'm sure of that. But the issue is, does he know
you? When you use his name, is it
name dropping? Or does he know you? Would he recognize you as someone
who actually believed him? Someone who actually worshipped
him? Someone who actually loved his
person? Now, if He knows you, it's because
He foreknew you. Whom He did foreknow, He also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. The
reason you're going to stand before God without sin, unblameable
unholiness, is because he knew you. He foreknew you and he predestinated
that that would be your end. That's why it's that way. Because
of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ for you. He foreknew you. And if he doesn't know you, he
never knew you. Now, remember that word know
means, as much as anything else, love. knew his wife Eve. Mary or Joseph knew not Mary. This is talking about an intimate
relationship of love. He says to these people who had
no oil, he says, I never knew you. I don't know you. The door was shut. You know, when Noah was shut
into the ark, What a blessed, secure feeling that must have
been when the Lord shut the door. But there were many others who
were shut out at that time. Verse 13, Watch therefore, for
you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man
cometh. And we're getting ready to take
the Lord's table. Who should take the Lord's table?
Let me ask you another question. Are you ready to die? Are you ready to die? Now, here's
how I'm going to answer that question. If Christ. Really is my righteousness. And if it's true. that all that
God requires of me, He looks to His Son for. And if salvation
really is all of grace, yes, I'm ready to die. And I'm ready to take the Lord's
table. Let's pray.