Sermon Transcript

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Matthew 25 beginning in verse 1, Jesus said, "Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the prudent, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the prudent answered, ‘No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. Later the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open up for us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly I say to you, I do not know you.’ Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour."

0:01:28.6

Well, we've been in this series of messages of titled "What On Earth Is Happening?" We've been working our way through the Olivet Discourse. We went back 2000 years ago to a time just days before the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ when He met with four of His disciples- Peter, James, John, and Andrew. You ought to know that by now. And He was answering questions that they had about the end of the age. In weeks past, we've looked at some general signs of the times that He told us to look for. He went specifically into a point in time known as the midpoint of the Tribulation Period, an event and a time period future to us today. And He talked about something called the abomination that causes desolation. We went all the way back to Daniel 9 to bring context and understanding to that. We talked about the day Christ returns and how nobody knows the day or the hour. The angels don't know. The Son of Man, Jesus said, doesn't know. Only the Father in heaven knows.

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As we go from Matthew 24 now to Matthew 25, Jesus continues the conversation. But Jesus, who is both the Son of God and the Savior of the world, was also a master storyteller. Everybody loves a good story. And I love reading through the Gospels- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And we land upon at least 38 parables that Jesus told, stories that He told in a very masterful and purposeful kind of way. And He tells two stories in Matthew 25, one we're looking at today.

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I've titled this message "The Midnight Cry." The big idea behind this parable is really a question. Are you ready? Are you ready for the midnight cry? Now, the Bible describes the second coming of Jesus Christ as happening in sort of a clandestine way. We've come across this phrase a couple of times even in Matthew 24, the idea that when He comes, He will come as a thief in the night. Jesus describes His own second coming that way, and then the New Testament writers pick up on that. And throughout their writings they talk about the second coming of Jesus happening as a thief in the night.

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But that's not the only way that the Bible or Jesus describes His second coming. There is another way He describes His return. Jesus says, "I will also return like a groom coming for his bride." We sang about it just a few minutes ago. "Like a bride waiting for her groom, we are the church waiting for Him." That is good biblical theology, and it flows from stories like this in Matthew 25 where Jesus tells a story about a wedding, about a marriage that was taking place 2000 years ago. Here is the question that I brought to my study this week. What does marriage have to do with the second coming of Jesus Christ? A whole lot more than you ever thought it did, and we're going to unpack that today. Perhaps the most powerful picture of the second coming of Jesus Christ and the most compelling case we can make for it comes from the marriage relationship. And Jesus illustrates this best when He tells this story in Matthew 25:1-13.

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Now, before we get to some of the details of the parable, I just want to pause for some observations about this story. This describes a wedding ceremony that would take place 2000 years ago. But this is a wedding unlike most any of us in the west have ever experienced. Culturally, weddings were different. And the cultural background of this wedding is absolutely necessary for us to understand what Jesus is talking about here, and why Jesus describes Himself basically as a heavenly groom coming for His bride. Jesus promised not only will He return, but this story…listen to me very carefully…this story tells us why He must return. Why He absolutely must return as our heavenly groom to get His bride, who we know to be in New Testament terms the body of Christ, or the church.

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In the ancient Near East, and specifically in the region of Galilee where most of the disciples were from, the bridegroom was the focus of the wedding ceremony, not the bride. In fact, the cry that you would hear, the midnight cry, is "Here comes the groom. Here comes the groom. The groom is coming." Now, I know that's foreign in our understanding of weddings in the west, because in the west, the last wedding that I officiated, it was all about the bride. If we've got a groom here, that's great. Can anybody stand in here? But this is all about the bride from the very beginning. From the moment of engagement, it's all about the bride. We say, "Here comes the bride. Here comes the bride." But not in a wedding in this context. Two thousand years ago in the ancient Near East in the Galilean region from which the disciples came, they said, "Here comes the groom. Here comes the groom."

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We were talking about this in my life group, and one of the ladies in the life group said, "Well, thank God things have changed in 2000 years." And every would-be bride would agree with that. But you've got to take your understanding of a wedding in our culture and lay that aside for a moment, because it's all about the groom.

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In Jesus's time, when two people in love wanted to get married, they entered what was called the betrothal period. The closest analogy we have is in the engagement. But the betrothal was more…well, it had more teeth to it. The betrothal was a legal arrangement. And you were legally married once you were betrothed. There were no sexual relations between the bride and the groom until they got married, and the betrothal period would last for up to a year. And it was a time when the groom made a promise to his bride. It was also the time when they entered into that betrothal period when the father of the groom paid the dowry. I have a son and a daughter of marrying age. Neither of them is married right now, but I kind of like this idea of a dowry. Maybe when my daughter gets married, we'll do an ancient Near Eastern wedding, and somebody can pay me a dowry. Maybe not. She probably wouldn't go for that.

0:08:44.6

But this is the culture of that day. And during that time, during the betrothal period, both the bride and the groom were busy preparing for their wedding day, a specific wedding day in the future known only to the father of the groom. Now, again, this is not in line with our cultural understanding. In our culture, it's all about the bride. And the bride and the groom together, they set they wedding date. They're the first ones to know. Neither parents get involved all that much in the setting of the date. But in this culture, this bride and the groom would prepare for their wedding, but the father of the bride was the one that knew the day or the hour when he would turn to his son and say, "Son, go get your bride."

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In the meantime, during the betrothal period, the bridegroom…listen to this…would go back to his father's house. He would go back to his father's house. It may be near; it may be far. But he would go back to his father's house and begin a construction project. He would start adding on to the rooms of his father's house. Why? Because on that day when the groom's father turned to his son and said, "Go get your bride," he would go and return, get his bride, marry her, have the celebration, the wedding feast, and then bring her back to his father's house. And that’s where they would live. That was the culture of the time. And everybody knew that.

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Now, what was also traditional about this was nobody knew the day or the hour when the father of the groom would say, "Go get your bride," but traditionally it happened around midnight. And that comes into play in the story as well. Nobody in the wedding party, including the bride and groom, knew the day or the hour. But it was everybody's responsibility to be ready for any time, to be ready for that moment.

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One other thing to keep in mind here. Because the groom's return would typically happen at midnight, it was important for the wedding party to have lamps. Because what would happen is the groom would return, grab his bride, and with the wedding party, they would start a procession through the streets of the city known as the torchlight parade. This was the beginning of their celebration. The wedding party would grab their lamps filled with oil, and they would light them up in this parade all the way through the city, ending up in the place where the wedding would be performed. And they would enter into that place, and they would shut the door. They would stay there to have the wedding ceremony. Bride and groom would have their wedding night. And then there would be upwards of a week-long wedding feast that would take place. And once they shut the door, nobody got in or out. And all of that is part of the culture that Jesus brings in this particular story.

0:11:55.6

What's interesting in the reading of this particular parable, Matthew 25:1-13…I won't take the time to read it again. Do that on your own time. The bride is never mentioned. The ten virgins or bridesmaids are mentioned. Five of them are called wise, and five are called foolish. Five prepared for the groom's return; five did not. And then, again, it's all about the groom. "Here comes the groom. Here comes the groom." The bride is implied in the story, but she's never mentioned. I think there are probably two reasons.

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Number one is the cultural reason that I just unpacked. She's not the center of attention in an ancient Near Eastern wedding, and especially in the Galilean region from which the disciples came. But there is also maybe a theological one we could bring to bear as well. We know as New Testament believers we think of the bride of Christ as the church, and rightly so. In the progress of Revelation, the New Testament unpack this. In the Old Testament, Israel was called "My bride" by Yahweh. The wedding analogy is even there. But in the New Testament it shifts, and the bride of Christ is the church. But don't get too far ahead in your theology. Because in Matthew 25 we're just days before the crucifixion. The only mention of the church happened in Matthew 16 when Jesus was with His disciples at Caesarea Philippi. He said these words, these familiar words, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." You will look for vain in the Old Testament for any hint or reference to the church. This idea of the church, the ecclesia of God, was a mystery unfolding ever so slightly at Caesarea Philippi. But the disciples hadn't clued in, so they're not thinking so much in terms of our heavenly groom for the bride of Christ, which again, is why perhaps the bride isn't mentioned here. We have a tendency to fast-forward the theology behind the context of the time in which this story was told.

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So, what is this midnight cry. Let me define it for us. The midnight cry mentioned in this story is the anticipated moment, that moment in Bible prophecy when Jesus our heavenly groom returns for His bride, the church. And the question of the story is, are you ready for the midnight cry? For this one who is coming. Yes, as a thief in the night, but according to the story, He is coming like a groom back for His bride.

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There was one other occasion I know in the Gospels when Jesus drew from this deep cultural well in the marriage and wedding analogy, and that was just a few days later when He was with His disciples in the upper room. He shared these encouraging words. They're recorded in John 14. In light of what you know about the culture behind the text, listen to what Jesus said. "Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not true, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also." Those are the words of Jesus on the night before He was crucified, comforting His disciples. He was speaking like the heavenly groom who was going back to His Father's house. Now, keep in mind, just hours later He'd be on the cross.

0:15:50.0

Remember the dowry that I was talking about where at the beginning of the betrothal period the father of the groom would pay the dowry? This is what happened when Jesus went to the cross and died for our sins. The Father of the groom paid the dowry for the bride, who is the church. It doesn't get any better than this, folks, when you begin to understand the richness of the analogy here, which is the wedding and the marriage relationship and the impact that it has on our understanding of these kinds of things.

0:16:30.9

What does marriage have to do with the second coming of Jesus Christ? It has everything to do with it. Not only to say to us that Jesus will return as He promised, but He must return because He made a promise. That's the betrothal. The dowry has been paid in full. That's why you don't have to work for your salvation. You don't pay God for your salvation. The groom's Father already paid it. And Jesus went to the cross, went into the grave, rose again three days later. Forty days later He ascended to the Father. He went back to His Father's house. And for 2000 years, get this, can you imagine the construction project? He's adding on rooms right now, and there's a room for you. This isn't limited to just a duplex. There is room for you. Is He building that room for you?

0:17:33.2

Marriage is a picture of two things in the Bible. It's a picture of the second coming of Jesus Christ, but it's also a picture of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This story is a reminder of something that you've heard me say before, but I'll say it again because it's so appropriate here. Don't mess with marriage. Do not mess with marriage, because God created marriage all the way back in Genesis 2 in the early chapters of creation for a whole lot more than your personal happiness and mine. Marriage throughout the Bible is a picture of our relationship with God. And primarily, it is a picture of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it is a picture of the second coming of Jesus Christ. You mess with marriage in any way, shape and form, and you're messing with these two divinely ordered pictures.

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For example, it's a picture of the gospel. Now I want to take you in your mind to Ephesians 5. Just write down that reference. The largest section of scripture in the New Testament, instruction to husbands and wives about how to live out the relationship in marriage. Remember, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church," and, "Wives, respect your husbands," all that kind of stuff. (0:19:00.1) And then Paul inserts this in verse 32. He says, "This is a great mystery." He says, "But I speak concerning Christ and the church." You read Ephesians 5, and you think you're getting all this instruction about how to be married and how to have a good marriage and all that. And you are. That's all good stuff there. But there is something much more to all of this. If the church was a mystery in times past, marriage is a mystery as well. Paul says, "This is the mystery," this picture between Christ and the church. And this is where I say your marriage and my marriage, it isn't about our personal happiness primarily. It's a gospel presentation. Furthermore, for all the reasons that we talked about the cultural implications of this story in Matthew 25, it is a picture of the second coming of Jesus Christ.

0:19:56.7

By the way, friends, now you know why the devil attacks (0:20:00.0) marriage. Don't mess with marriage. My wife, who I've been married to for now 26 years…we're in our 27^th year of marriage. She's from Texas. We lived in Texas for 20 years. We have Texas flowing through our veins. I always say I was born a Hoosier, got to Texas as fast as I could, and I’m a Virginian by the grace of God. But there is still Texas flowing through our veins here. You travel along the highways and freeways of Texas, and you'll see this sign that is an anti-littering sign. It says, "Don't mess with Texas." Texans are serious about that. Texans are also serious about their second amendment. They carry. They lock. They load. Don't mess with Texas or…no, that may be going too far. But I say don't mess with marriage. Don’t mess with marriage.

0:20:52.4

But that's exactly what we've been doing for the past two generations. The Bible's definition of marriage is one man with one woman for one lifetime. And the Bible says, "The two shall become one flesh." I call that marriage math. One plus one equals one, and only God can come up with that solution. But a generation ago we messed with the "one lifetime" part. And today the law of the land…check it out in every state…is called no-fault divorce. What a mess that created, no-fault divorce. You're not only messing with the gospel picture and the picture of the second coming of Jesus Christ, but you're messing with lives when you pass laws like that, legislators.

0:21:39.5

And now, a generation later, we're messing with the "one man and one woman" part- gay marriage, love you who will. That was never God's intention from the beginning. And we're just beginning to understand the cultural mess that this is creating and will create in the generations to come. So much so that now that we've opened the door to that…and I predicted this a couple years ago, and it's beginning to happen. Now some states I believe in the northeast are passing laws that say you can pretty much define marriage the way you want. Now they are putting on the law plural marriages. You can be married to more than one person at a time now. Of course, logically, just define it any way you want. What a mess this will create. And you watch. Next, people will want to marry their pet. You laugh. I had a Navy chaplain come up to me after the earlier service and said, "Pastor, I can take you to a place where that discussion is happening right now." The devil will attack marriage and attack family not only because of the mess that it creates in our culture, but because it messes with the gospel message and with this picture of the second coming of Jesus Christ. I say don't mess with marriage. Don't mess with marriage.

0:23:08.6

That's actually not the primary message of this story though, this wedding parable that Jesus told. The primary message is, are you ready for the midnight cry? Are you ready for this One who will come, yes, like a thief in the night, but this One who also promises to come like a groom for his bride? Readiness is the theme here. Some parables have multiple points and themes. This has a single point to it, a single them. Are you ready?

0:23:44.0

And readiness is an important theme throughout the scriptures, but especially as it relates to the second coming of Christ. Those of you in the military, you understand what military readiness is all about. We live in Virginia Beach. How many military bases do we have here? Military readiness is all about understanding how mission critical you are as an active duty service man or woman. You need to be ready at any time to defend our country and ready at any time to go into war. There are all kinds of implications to military readiness.

0:24:22.1

In the sports world there is something called the ready position in any sport. I could talk about it in football, in basketball. I was thinking this morning about tennis. When was the last time you saw a tennis player at Wimbledon who was on the receiving end of somebody's serve just kind of standing there like this? No, they're down. They've got their racket. They're in their ready position.

0:24:44.4

Well, there are implications to this in the Christian life. We need to be in our ready position. There are two ways that I can see that I'll just leave you today, two ways in the text to suggest how we get ready for the midnight cry. Number one, stay awake. Stay awake and stay alert. In Matthew 25:5 it says, "Now while the bridegroom was delaying…" He was delaying. Remember, from the betrothal period when they started the relationship, it could be up to a year before he returns for his bride because he is back to his father's house. Nobody knows the day or the hour. It says, "Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they…" That is all the bridesmaids. There were 10 of them here. "They all got drowsy and began to sleep." Spiritual drowsiness is a dangerous place to be. We can get so drowsy spiritually that we don't give a second thought to the second coming of Jesus Christ because we're busy, busy, busy just living our lives, doing what we're doing, just trying to keep our head above water, so to speak. And in the process of our business and all of that, we become spiritual drowsy, less alert, less even caring about matters like this. I know pastors…I've mentioned this in weeks past. Pastor will never preach on a text like this because they're listening to the itching ears who are saying, "Just feed us something that helps me on Monday morning, that helps me raise my kids or work the 9-5, something relevant and practical to my life." I say there is nothing more relevant than being in the ready position for the soon return of Jesus Christ. Live your lives. Don't climb up on the top of a hill and just go into passive mode but be in the ready position.

0:26:42.1

Jesus concludes this story by saying in verse 13, "Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour." I'll even toss in Romans 13:11. Write this one down. Paul says, "You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep." He is saying this 2000 years ago. He's writing to the Romans and saying, "Get in the ready position here, guys. Jesus is coming." He goes on to say, "For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed." Hey, if Paul was saying that 2000 years ago, how much more so now. Right now, we have a down payment on our salvation. Ephesians 1 tells us that. That down payment is in the person of the Holy Spirit. But like an earnest money deposit contract in real estate—that's the analogy in Ephesians 1—the Holy Spirit is a down payment. Maybe in a real estate transaction you put $1,000, $5,000, or $10,000 down. And what you're saying to the seller is, "I'm good for the rest at closing."

0:27:46.5

Likewise, when you receive the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation and He came to live inside of you, it was a down payment on a salvation that will be more fully received and delivered to us when He comes and when we see Him face to face. And so, Paul says for salvation, the whole salvation package that will be delivered to us, is "nearer to us now than when we first believed."

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How much nearer is it to us today? And are you living in that state of readiness where the thought of the second coming and the soon return of Jesus is never far from your thinking or from your conversation? You're praying, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus. And if You don't come today, help me to be in that ready position to share the blessed hope that I have in my heart what somebody else to help them get ready for His soon return." Stay awake, friends. Stay alert. Don't become drowsy, or the midnight cry may just pass you by.

0:28:57.1

Secondly, I’m going to draw this from the story itself, and I'll explain what I mean here. Fill your lamp with oil. Remember in the story, Jesus talked about 10 bridesmaids, 10 virgins. Five of them were wise, and five were foolish. The wise ones not only had their lamp, but they had enough oil. Remember, he'd come at night, perhaps midnight. And they would need to light up their lamps with enough oil to process through the streets for that torchlight parade. Five of them brought enough oil with their lamps; five of them never gave it a second thought about getting ready and preparing in that way.

0:29:44.0

Now, there is all kinds of discussions in the theological journals and among commentaries as to what this is a picture of. Some say that it's a picture of those who seem to have all the external trappings of religion. They have a lamp. But they have no internal reality. They have no oil in there. And that's probably a fair analogy there. There are some people who say, "I’m religious. I'm spiritual. My parents were religious. We went to church. My great grandaddy was a preacher." None of that counts for you personally. You can't borrow that from somebody else. That's one way of looking of at it.

0:30:35.3

The other way of looking at it too is that oil is oftentimes a picture of the anointing of the Holy Spirit in the Bible. Kings were often anointed with oil, and with that came the presence of God and the anointing of God in the Old Testament. In the New Testament we talk about the anointing. Keep in mind that Jesus Christ, a name followed by a title, that Christ is His title. It means "messiah" or "anointed one." So, in one sense, He is coming like a thief in the night. Another sense He is coming like a groom coming for his bride. Another way of saying it is He is the anointed one who is coming for His anointed ones. Follow me there? The question is, are you one of the anointed? To say it another way, are you a believer in Jesus Christ by grace alone through faith alone and in Christ alone. If you are, you are one of His anointed ones because at the moment of salvation, the Holy Spirit came to live inside of you. We call that the baptism of the Holy Spirit, by the way. You are among the anointed ones. You have the anointed One.

0:31:49.2

Now, the question of whether or not His oil is flowing through you…we call that the filling of the Spirit. That is a whole other question and whole other sermon. When I say fill your lamp with oil, my question is, are you an anointed one? Do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior evidenced by the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you who, according to Romans 8, gives witness to your spirit that you're a child of God? That's part of the role of the Holy Spirit. He comes at the moment of salvation and bears witness to your spirit to where you know that you know that you know that you're a child of God. Is that true of you? To use the language of the parable, is your lamp filled with oil? Are you an anointed one? Because the anointed One is coming for His anointed ones.

0:32:50.2

The other thing that you have to understand…and I alluded to it a moment ago…is you can't borrow someone else's anointing. You can't borrow your daddy's or your granddaddy's or your great granddaddy's just because they were religious people or preachers. You have to personally possess your anointing and a relationship with Christ yourself. That's why when the five foolish bridesmaids said, "We have our lamps, but we don't have enough oil. Let us have some of yours," the wise bridesmaids said, "No, that's not the way it works. Go get your own." And by the time they got their own and they came back, the torchlight parade had processed through the city. They came to the location of the wedding. They went into that location, and the Bible says the door shut. A sobering picture here. They knocked on the door. They knocked. "Let us in. Let us in." And the word comes back…did you see this? "He answered, 'Truly I say to you, I do not know you.'" And the door never opened again for a second opportunity.

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So is your lamp filled with oil? Do you know Christ as your Savior? The most mission-ready position to be in is to know that you know that you know you're a child of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You are among the anointed ones because the anointed One, the Christ, the Messiah, is coming back as a groom coming for His bride.

0:34:31.9

One other picture that I want to paint here, and then we're done. I said earlier that marriage and the wedding is a picture of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's a picture of the second coming of Jesus Christ. It's also a picture of a future event in Bible prophecy only mentioned in Revelation 19:9 known as the wedding supper of the Lamb. John is writing the great apocalypse, the revelation and unveiling of Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation. And he comes to chapter 19, which gives us, second to Matthew 24, the most detailed description of the second coming of Jesus Christ an didn't Battle of Armageddon. In verse 9 John writes this: "And the angel said to me, 'Write this. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.'"

0:35:26.6

What's that all about? Well, again, back to the culture of the day. The groom would come back at time nobody knew about. When the father of the groom said, "Go get your bride," he'd get his bride. The torchlight parade through the city, they would end up at the location of the wedding itself. They would go in and have the wedding ceremony. The bride and groom would have their wedding night. And then what followed was about a week-long wedding feast where they celebrated. And from this cultural picture comes what is known as the marriage supper of the Lamb. It's how we will celebrate with Jesus through all of eternity. And John says through the angel, "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb."

0:36:17.9

How many of you have been invited to a wedding and a reception, whatever the culture might be? What's the proper thing to do when you receive an invitation? You RSVP, right? You fill out that card, or some people do it digitally now. Here is the good news. Every one of us has been invited to this wedding celebration. The question is, have you RSVP'd by placing your faith in Jesus Christ and by doing so, you're born again, born into the family of God. You become a child of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You become part of the bride of Christ. And that groom who is waiting to hear from His Father, "Go and get your bride," will come for you, will come for me. When He comes, there will be a time when we enter the celebration. The door shuts for all of eternity. It shuts to those who didn't RSVP. It shuts to those who were not ready. It shuts to those who were too sleepy to even care about all of this.

0:37:38.3

But it doesn't have to end that way. You can be on the inside. You can be part of the heavenly celebration known as the wedding supper of the Lamb. And that's my prayer for all of us here today, that if there is something so sleepy in our soul that needs to be awakened today that God would use this text and this story and this message to do just that in all of us, to get us ready, to put us in that ready position. And for some of you that means making a decision today to place your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. For others who are already believers in Jesus, you're among the anointed ones, you've placed your faith in Him, how ready are you? Are you living your live everyday with that longing in your heart for the second coming of Jesus? And if He doesn't come today, are you busy about the Lord's work helping other people get ready? Family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, anybody God puts you in touch with. That's the job of the church, the body of Christ as we await His return.

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