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Collierville First Baptist Church
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Today, we're going to pick up a series that I started before Christmas.
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That series is entitled, "Perfect Ending."
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That series is based upon Matthew 24 and Matthew 25. It's called the Olivet Discourse.
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And when Jesus taught this to the disciples,
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he was mere hours from going to the cross and offering his body and blood as a sacrifice for our sins.
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He was hours from the glorious bodily resurrection.
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He was hours or days from the ascension back to the cross. He was hours or days from the ascension back to heaven.
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Listen, it was almost too much for the disciples to take in. So they had some questions for Jesus.
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In Matthew 24, verses one through three, the Bible says, "Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when his disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to him.
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And he said to them, "Do you not see all these things?
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Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down."
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As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, "Tell us, when will these things happen and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?"
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With that question that the disciples asked, Jesus launched into an extended teaching time.
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He shared with them some specific signs that point to the nearness of his coming. We cover those in Matthew chapter 24.
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He also talked to them about the great tribulation that this world is going to experience at some point in the future. Seven years of tribulation with the last three and a half being termed a great tribulation. A tribulation like this world has never seen before.
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And then Jesus gave his disciples a vivid description of his glorious coming. In Matthew 24, verses 29 to 31,
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Jesus said, "But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. And the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
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And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And he will send forth his angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of the sky to the other." What a glorious moment that will be. I'm sure you have many questions about the future yourself.
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Questions like will believers go through the tribulation?
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Questions like what happens at the judgment?
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Questions like if I die before Jesus comes, where will I go? What will happen to me?
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Questions like do I receive a new body in heaven?
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Questions like will I know my loved ones in heaven?
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Some people are so obsessed with the future that they are oblivious to the present.
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And some people on the other hand are so obsessed with the present that they're oblivious to the future.
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I tell you folks, we've got to strike a happy balance. We've got to make sure that we think about the future and we have a biblical understanding of what's going to happen. But also we need to realize that Jesus left us here for a purpose.
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And the Bible says that we're to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our toil is not in vain in him.
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Now, the one question that we should be asking is this,
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am I prepared for Jesus to come? Have you ever been unprepared for something?
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Hey, look, I remember several times during my 22 year ministry here, I've had a crazy dream.
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I remember one time I dreamed that I was here at church. We were about two minutes before church was supposed to start, I was supposed to preach and I couldn't find my shirt. I had no shirt.
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Now, can you imagine me coming up here in a t-shirt and preaching?
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Well, I tell you, when I woke up, I was in a cold sweat. Have you ever been unprepared for something?
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Don't you listen to me.
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I hope and pray that no one within the sound of my voice
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will be unprepared for the coming of Christ.
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That's one thing you cannot afford to be unprepared for.
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Robbie Robbins was an Air Force pilot during the first Iraq war.
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He flew 300 missions and he was surprised at the end of that war when he was given permission to gather his crew together and to fly his plane back home to America.
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So they flew, they landed in Massachusetts and they had a long drive in their vehicle to Western Pennsylvania.
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They drove all night.
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And when his friends dropped him off at his driveway, just after sun up, just after sun up, he looked at the garage and the garage had a huge sign that said, "Welcome home, Dad."
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And he was confused.
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How did they know? He hadn't called them and told them he was coming home.
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None of his friends had called and told their families they were coming home.
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So he walked in the door and his kids were scurrying about half dressed, getting ready for school. And when they looked up and they saw him, they screamed out, "Daddy!"
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And they ran and jumped in his arms.
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And then Susan, his wife came running down the hall.
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Her hair was fixed perfectly. She had her makeup on, she had on a crisp yellow dress
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and he said to her, Robbie said to her, "How did you know?
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How did you know I was coming?"
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And here's what Susan said.
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She said, "Number one, we knew the war was over.
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We knew that you were coming home.
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We didn't know when you were coming. So we just made up our minds as a family that we were gonna be ready every single day for you to come."
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That would be a good idea for us, right?
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Every day that we're ready for Jesus to come, we're prepared for Jesus to come. That's what Jesus emphasized over and over again in the New Testament.
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In Matthew chapter 24, verses 42 to 44,
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Jesus said, "Therefore, be on the alert.
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Be on the alert for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.
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But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert. It would not have allowed his house to be broken into.
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For this reason, you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think he will."
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Now, when Christ comes, here's the question.
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Will you be prepared or will you be unprepared? That's the question that dominates our text today.
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Now, in chapter 25, we move into a new chapter and the first thing we run into in this chapter is a parable that Jesus told that emphasizes the absolute necessity of us being prepared for his coming. It's the parable of the 10 virgins.
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Let me read the first five verses for you because it gives us our context.
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"Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
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Five of them were foolish and five were prudent.
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For when the foolish took their lamps
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or a better translation would be torches, okay? They took no oil with them,
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but the prudent took oil in flask with their lamps.
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Now, while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep."
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Now, Jesus was a master teacher.
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He often used parables to make his point crystal clear and this is a parable, okay? A parable is basically an extended metaphor or simile woven into a story and placed alongside one point that Jesus wanted to stress.
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And this is a one point parable.
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In this parable, the Lord utilized the picture for the backdrop of a Jewish wedding.
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Now, Jewish weddings included three basic parts.
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There was the engagement.
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And that's when the bride's father
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and the groom's father got together
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and they made an agreement that their children would be getting married.
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They made an agreement about what the dowry would be that the groom's family would give to the bride and her family and what the arrangements would be for the wedding.
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That's the engagement.
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And then the betrothal, this is second part of a Jewish wedding.
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This was a legal union brought about by the exchange of marriage vows
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between the bride and groom before family members.
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The dowry was given for the bride at that time and the groom, the groom, now look, the groom would leave and go back and he would prepare a home for his wife and his family to be.
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That usually, the betrothal period usually lasted for a year. The only way to break a Jewish betrothal was divorce. That's how serious it was. It's much more than our engagement period. And then the final part of a Jewish wedding, first you've got the engagement,
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then you've got the betrothal and thirdly, you have the wedding feast itself. Now we call those the reception, okay? This is what Jesus is describing in this parable.
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The wedding feast. The groom and his friends would come to the bride's house where she and her bridesmaids were waiting and the whole party would parade through the town
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in a joyous celebration where their torches held high and most of the time this was in the dead of night. So it was amazing spectacle and friends in the town and family would join that procession to the wedding feast itself. Whether the wedding feast was at the groom's home or the wedding feast was at another building in town.
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Now, those 10 virgins in this story that Jesus told were bridesmaids. They were bridesmaids. They were gathered at the home of the bride's parents.
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Remember, during the betrothal period, the bride lived with her family and the groom lived with his family as he was preparing a home for his family.
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And what do you notice about them in this story? We've looked at the first five verses here.
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Notice they all had torches. All of them had a lamp or a torch.
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They were all anticipating the wedding feast.
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They were all together.
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They all got sleepy and went to sleep.
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By the way, in this story, there's nothing wrong with going to sleep. You can't stay up for 72 straight hours and expect to have much of a wedding, right? You gotta get some sleep. Because they don't know, listen, the bride and the bridesmaids did not know exactly when the bridegroom and his men were coming to get the bride.
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So they had to be ready.
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They had to have their sleep.
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You know what's interesting in this story?
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The bride is not featured in this story.
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You know who's featured in this story?
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The groom and the bridesmaids. Now here's a surprise part of the story.
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Five of these bridesmaids were prudent. They were wise.
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And five of these bridesmaids or virgins were foolish, absolutely foolish. Why were they foolish?
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The Bible says here in Jesus' story that they didn't bring any oil with them.
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Now were they being presumptuous
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or were they just simply being careless?
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Whatever the reason, these five foolish virgins, these five bridesmaids had no excuse whatsoever, none.
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Look at verses six to nine. As the story goes to another level here.
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The Bible says, Jesus said, but at midnight, at midnight,
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and this is nothing unusual.
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Most of the time, the bridegroom would come and get his bride and the bridal party would make their way through town when the torches would have an amazing impact upon the night sky.
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But at midnight, there was a shout,
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behold the bridegroom, come out to meet him.
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And all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.
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The foolish said to the prudent,
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"Give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out."
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But the prudent answered, "No,
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there will not be enough for us and you too.
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Go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves."
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Now all of the bridesmaids knew
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that the groom would be coming soon. They knew that. They knew that the engagement part of the wedding was over.
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They knew that the betrothal part of the wedding was over. It had been about a year. So they knew about when the bridegroom would come, but they didn't know precisely when he would come.
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And listen, they were awakened by shout.
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Behold the bridegroom, come out to meet him.
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All the virgins jumped up and began to cut off the ragged edges of their torches.
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They started to soak them in oil and lit them.
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Why? Because they were about to process through the town. It was gonna be a joyous celebration. At that moment, at that very moment,
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the foolish bridesmaids were exposed.
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They trimmed their torch
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and they tried to light their torch, but it wouldn't stay lit
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because they had run out of oil.
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And they had no oil in which to dip their torch. They tried to borrow some from the prudent bridesmaids, but you know, there are just some things you cannot borrow from others.
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Can I just say this to you right now?
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A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that they're going to heaven because of their mama's faith,
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or they're going to heaven because of their daddy's faith or their grandparents' faith or their child's faith.
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But let me tell you, salvation is a non-transferable gift.
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You can't go to heaven on somebody else's spirituality.
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You've gotta be saved to go to heaven.
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You've gotta come to a point in your life where as an individual, you realize that you're a sinner separated from God and that Jesus is the only hope you have, the only savior, and you must repent of your sin and place your faith in Jesus as your savior and Lord if you wanna go to heaven.
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Salvation is a non-transferable gift from God.
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So all they went in the middle of the night,
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trying to find some place where they could buy some oil.
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Now, as you would imagine, and I'm reading something into this here,
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but I would imagine not many Jewish stores were open at midnight to sell oil. Maybe they went to the owner's home and knocked on the door, "Sir, sir, we need some oil."
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Now, what store owner would get up in the middle of the night, go to his store, open the store, and sell oil to these five virgin bridesmaids. I doubt if they had much luck. What a predicament they were in.
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And then in Matthew chapter 25, verses 10 to 12, the story moves on. Jesus was such a masterful storyteller.
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And while they were going away to make the purchase,
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the bridegroom came and those who were, notice it, you ought to underline this in your Bible, those who were ready.
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Those who were prepared went in with him to the wedding feast,
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and you ought to underline this in your Bible, and the door was shut. It was shut.
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We read those words,
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those four words, and our hearts sinks, because we're reminded of a story in the Old Testament.
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When Noah and his family were on the ark,
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for over a hundred years, they had been preaching that people needed to repent and believe in God. And finally, the time came when God told them to get in the ark, they got in the ark, and the animals got in the ark, and the Bible says that God shut the door of the ark.
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Can you imagine the hundreds and hundreds and maybe even thousands of people who gathered outside that ark beating on the door? Let us see and let us see and let us see. And the water's rising and they're drowning. They're drowning by the hundreds and the thousands,
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and Noah couldn't open the door because he didn't close the door. God closed it.
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So we read these words in this story,
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and we're immediately carried back to what happened with Noah. Verse 11, "Later the other virgins also came saying, "Lord, Lord, open up for us."
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But he answered, "Truly I say to you,
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"I do not know you."
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Let that sink in.
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Now the bridegroom in this story is Jesus.
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The bridesmaids represents people who affiliate or call themselves Christians who affiliate with the church.
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So the bridegroom came and he took his bride and the five prudent bridesmaids and with torches lit, they joyfully processed through the streets in the middle of the night. Guests and family joined with them as they made their way to the wedding fees, once inside.
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Let me say it again.
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The door was shut.
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The time had come and the foolish virgins were totally unprepared.
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When they showed up at the door and they begged to come in, the bridegroom refused to let them come in.
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And he said he didn't even know them.
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I wanna say something to you this morning.
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In Nahum 1.7 the Bible says the Lord is good,
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a stronghold in the day of trouble. Listen, "And he knows those who take refuge in him."
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In John chapter 10 verse 14, Jesus said, "I'm the good shepherd and I know my own and my own know me." In 2nd Timothy 2.19 Paul wrote, "Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands having this seal.
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The Lord knows those who are his
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and everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness."
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He knows.
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He knows, look, you can fool everybody in this church.
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You can fool your entire family.
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You can pretend to be a Christian and not be one.
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My greatest fear as a pastor is that after preaching countless sermons, after offering the gospel to people countless numbers of times, after begging people to come and give their heart to Jesus,
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that one day there's at the great judgment,
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there's gonna be a lot of church members
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who heard the gospel, who were baptized,
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who had their name on the church roll,
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but they were never truly born again. And let me tell you, nobody in this church may know, but I'll tell you, Jesus knows.
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He knows where you are spiritually.
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He knows.
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There will come a time when it will be too late for the unbeliever to believe in Jesus.
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It'll be a moment of sheer terror
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when unbelievers face a holy God
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and realize with absolute certainty
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that they are eternally lost and they are cast into hell.
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That must've been the feeling of people in Noah's day
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when the door to the ark was shut and the water was rising
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and rising and rising until the whole world
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except eight people were drowned.
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Only Noah's family survived the flood of God's judgment.
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In Matthew chapter 25 verse 13,
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we see the one point of this parable, just one point. Look at it. Chapter 25 verse 13, "But be on the alert," Jesus said,
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"for you do not know the day nor the hour."
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I thought about this parable
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and I thought about how it relates to us. Jesus is a bridegroom.
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The Bible calls us as the church, the bride, right?
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And the arrangements have been made, the engagement period has been made.
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The Lord Jesus offers salvation to everyone who will believe in him.
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And the Lord Jesus paid the dowry price. He went to the cross of Calvary and he spilled his blood on the cross of Calvary, paying for our sins with his own blood. And the Lord Jesus during that betrothal period has gone to heaven to prepare a place for us according to John chapter 14 verses one to three.
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And he's coming again.
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Bridegroom's coming for his bride.
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You get ready folks, I'm telling you, the bridegroom is coming for his bride, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you a part of the legitimate church? A legitimate church of Christ. Have you believed in Christ? That's the only way to be a part of his church. And he knows, he knows whether you are not.
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This exhortation to be prepared for the coming of Christ
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appears throughout the gospels and epistles.
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In Luke chapter 21 verses 34 to 36, Jesus said, "Be on guard so that your hearts "will not be weighted down with dissipation "and drunkenness and the worries of life. "And that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap.
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"For it will come upon all those who dwell "on the face of all the earth, "but keep on the alert at all times praying "that you may have strength to escape all these things "that are about to take place "and to stand before the Son of Man."
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In Titus 2, 11 to 14, the Bible says, "For the grace of God has appeared, "bringing salvation to all men, "instrucing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires "and to live sensibly, righteously, "and godly in the present day." By the way, if you wanna know how to be prepared for Jesus to come, listen to what Paul writes here to Titus, "Instrucing us to deny ungodliness." That's how you get ready. That's how you're prepared.
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"Worldly desire to live sensibly, righteously, "and godly in the present day." Look at this, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus.
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You wanna know how to be ready? You wanna know how to be prepared? There's the way you're prepared and ready.
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Listen, Jesus is coming again. And this parable screams at us.
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Be prepared.
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Be prepared.
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Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote a poem based upon
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the text we looked at today, the parable of the 10 versions. Listen to it.
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"Late, late, so late, and dark the night and chill.
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"Late, late, so late, but we can enter still.
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"Too late, too late, you cannot enter now.
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"No light had we for that we do repent.
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"And learning this, the bridegroom will relent.
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"Too late, too late, we cannot enter now.
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"No light, so late, and dark and chill the night.
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"Oh, let us in that we might find light.
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"Too late, too late, you cannot enter now.
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"Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet?
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"Oh, let us in though late to kiss his feet.
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"No, no, too late, you cannot enter now.
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