The End Is Near — Are You Ready?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | According to the Bible, the appointed time has grown very short.
00:00:10.000 | Jesus calls us to watch for His return. Why?
00:00:13.000 | For you know neither the day nor the hour.
00:00:16.000 | Christ's return is imminent and His timeline makes us urgent.
00:00:19.000 | And given the urgency of the time, how then shall we live our daily lives?
00:00:24.000 | It's a question every generation of Christians has asked
00:00:27.000 | and one John Piper raised and answered in his 2004 sermon
00:00:30.000 | on Jesus' parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25.
00:00:34.000 | Here's a clip of what John Piper said.
00:00:37.000 | Parables are like that.
00:00:39.000 | Sometimes the people of God are portrayed as the bride
00:00:45.000 | and sometimes they are portrayed as those preparing for the marriage.
00:00:52.000 | If you press the details of parables, everything goes haywire in the New Testament.
00:00:56.000 | Parables are meant to communicate one main point
00:00:59.000 | and the main point here is a people of God are being instructed
00:01:05.000 | about how to get ready to meet the bridegroom.
00:01:08.000 | The bride doesn't even show up in this parable.
00:01:12.000 | But we may then collapse it into other teachings and say,
00:01:17.000 | "Okay, we treat this as the bride even though they are ten virgins
00:01:21.000 | leading the bridegroom into the bridal chamber."
00:01:24.000 | So don't stumble over these details.
00:01:26.000 | Go for the main central thing.
00:01:28.000 | Verse 2, "Five of them were foolish, five were wise.
00:01:34.000 | For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them.
00:01:38.000 | But the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps."
00:01:43.000 | All ten of them had a job to do.
00:01:45.000 | They had lamps.
00:01:46.000 | The lamps were supposed to be ready, ignited.
00:01:48.000 | When he comes, light.
00:01:50.000 | Prepare the way of the Lord.
00:01:51.000 | He's coming.
00:01:52.000 | Light your lamps.
00:01:53.000 | Bring them in.
00:01:54.000 | That's their job.
00:01:55.000 | This is a job.
00:01:56.000 | This is these ten women have a job to do and they're supposed to be ready to do it.
00:02:02.000 | That's the situation.
00:02:05.000 | Oil in the lamps is part of the means by which they get their job done.
00:02:10.000 | If they don't have oil for their lamps,
00:02:12.000 | they are neglecting the means appointed for them to do their work.
00:02:17.000 | They're supposed to shine with light and five of them are foolish.
00:02:21.000 | They are not taking seriously their calling to give light.
00:02:25.000 | They're neglecting the only means by which their lamps can do any good.
00:02:30.000 | What good's a lamp in that culture?
00:02:32.000 | What good's a lamp which got no oil to burn so it can make light?
00:02:38.000 | Their job was provide light when he comes and they go off candles without wicks, as it were.
00:02:46.000 | Light bulbs with no electricity, lamps with no sufficient oil, torches with no fire.
00:02:55.000 | They liked their position.
00:02:57.000 | They could have left if they didn't like it.
00:02:59.000 | They liked being lamp carriers.
00:03:02.000 | I have a lamp.
00:03:04.000 | I have a lamp.
00:03:06.000 | I have a shiny lamp.
00:03:08.000 | With no attention to its emptiness.
00:03:12.000 | Their foolishness was to think that mere religious form was sufficient.
00:03:22.000 | Their foolishness was to think that power for light can be borrowed in the last minute.
00:03:31.000 | Ever heard anybody talk about getting saved like that?
00:03:34.000 | I'll just wait.
00:03:36.000 | I'll just wait.
00:03:39.000 | That's really dangerous.
00:03:42.000 | Verse 5, "As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept."
00:03:49.000 | Notice two things.
00:03:51.000 | Jesus tells us ahead of time there's going to be a delay between the comings.
00:03:58.000 | This has been a stumbling block for 2,000 years, right?
00:04:02.000 | This has been a stumbling block for people for 2,000 years.
00:04:05.000 | Oh yeah, right, Jesus, King, came, right?
00:04:08.000 | He brought the kingdom.
00:04:09.000 | Yeah, where is He?
00:04:10.000 | Remember how Peter dealt with this in his second letter?
00:04:13.000 | Scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
00:04:18.000 | They will say, "Where is the promise of His coming?"
00:04:21.000 | "For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation."
00:04:27.000 | And then He responds like this, "But do not overlook this one fact, beloved,
00:04:32.000 | that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
00:04:41.000 | Two days have passed since Jesus left.
00:04:44.000 | "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness,
00:04:49.000 | but He is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish,
00:04:54.000 | but that all should come to repentance."
00:04:58.000 | Jesus told us in advance there would be a delay.
00:05:05.000 | Verse 5, "The bridegroom was delayed."
00:05:11.000 | And the second thing to notice is this, "All ten slept, not just the foolish."
00:05:19.000 | Which means that sleep in this parable is not negative.
00:05:25.000 | Don't say, "Oh, the teaching of this parable is watch,
00:05:29.000 | because you don't know the day or the hour, so don't sleep."
00:05:33.000 | Well, that's wrong.
00:05:34.000 | The wise virgins slept, which means sleep signifies normal, ordinary, day in, day out life
00:05:47.000 | of doing what you've got to do and sleeping when you get tired,
00:05:50.000 | getting up, doing what you've got to do, sleeping when you get tired,
00:05:54.000 | getting up, doing what you've got to do, going to bed, get the rest you need,
00:05:58.000 | get up, do what you've got to do.
00:05:59.000 | This little word, "They all slept," means what God expects of us in this period of time
00:06:07.000 | between the engagement and the marriage is do your duty and get the rest you need to do it.
00:06:13.000 | I remember growing up, and we've got all kinds of Second Coming stuff going on around us,
00:06:19.000 | and movies and books.
00:06:20.000 | I remember a movie when I was growing up, I forget the name of it,
00:06:24.000 | Thief in the Night or something, you know, and as the movie closed,
00:06:28.000 | there was this text read, "Watch, for you know neither the day or the hour,"
00:06:32.000 | and a woman went over and pulled the curtain back and went like this.
00:06:36.000 | That is absolutely wrong.
00:06:39.000 | It's wrong because it put the interpretation, "Watch," on looking up.
00:06:44.000 | This is why people have sold their goods, gone to the top of mountains and waited
00:06:48.000 | because they've got some sun.
00:06:50.000 | "Watch" is taken to mean be gazing up into the clouds.
00:06:54.000 | You know what "watch" means?
00:06:55.000 | Go to bed at 10 instead of 12.
00:06:57.000 | That's what it means because if you don't, you will be sluggish spiritually in the morning
00:07:03.000 | and the devil will nail you at 10 o'clock.
00:07:06.000 | "Watch" means be alert, be vigilant, do what you've got to do in your ordinary life
00:07:11.000 | to stay attuned to the living God and be in the Word without falling asleep.
00:07:16.000 | How do you do your devotions without falling asleep?
00:07:19.000 | Turn the television off and get to bed.
00:07:23.000 | This is a text about live sober, ordinary, duty-performing lives
00:07:30.000 | so that when He comes, He will find you so doing.
00:07:34.000 | What do you want to be found doing when He comes?
00:07:36.000 | Staring in the sky?
00:07:38.000 | Deliver me.
00:07:39.000 | I want to be at a bedside loving a sick person.
00:07:43.000 | I want to be in the city working for the poor.
00:07:46.000 | I want to be in the pulpit, God willing, preaching a sermon.
00:07:50.000 | I don't want to be staring into the sky like that's some godly thing to do.
00:07:54.000 | Oh, that we might be found doing the works of righteousness when He comes
00:08:00.000 | and sleeping after a nice hard day of well-done work.
00:08:07.000 | That would be a nice way to meet Him.
00:08:10.000 | Verse 6, "But at midnight there was a cry, 'Here's the bridegroom, come out to meet Him.'"
00:08:18.000 | Now relate that to 1 Thessalonians 4.16,
00:08:23.000 | "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command,
00:08:28.000 | with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God."
00:08:34.000 | So here He says, "The cry goes out, 'He's here, go meet Him.
00:08:39.000 | Let your lamps burn brightly with life, joy, faith, hope, love, expectancy,
00:08:49.000 | praise, wonder, marvel.'"
00:08:53.000 | This is going to happen, folks.
00:08:55.000 | Jesus is going to come back someday.
00:08:57.000 | Are you ready?
00:09:00.000 | Do you have oil in the form of your religion?
00:09:06.000 | Life, faith, hope, love, reality?
00:09:12.000 | Or are you just carrying your formal little lamp around?
00:09:17.000 | I go to church.
00:09:18.000 | I carry a Bible.
00:09:20.000 | I pray before meals.
00:09:22.000 | I try to keep the Ten Commandments.
00:09:24.000 | Your little lamp, and inside, nothing of spiritual affections for God,
00:09:31.000 | love for the bridegroom, an intense expectancy that it's going to be better
00:09:36.000 | when He comes than the best sex you ever had or the best food you ever had
00:09:41.000 | or the best success you ever had.
00:09:45.000 | No life like that.
00:09:47.000 | He says it like it is.
00:09:49.000 | That clip was taken from John Piper's 2004 sermon on Matthew 25 titled
00:09:53.000 | "Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, Past and Future."
00:09:57.000 | The clip was sent in to us by Tiana in Semi Valley, California.
00:10:01.000 | Thank you, Tiana, for the clip.
00:10:03.000 | And speaking of Jesus, speaking of His life, how did He learn obedience
00:10:09.000 | and how did Jesus become perfect?
00:10:12.000 | There are some really mysterious texts in the New Testament about the spiritual
00:10:16.000 | maturing of Jesus on earth.
00:10:18.000 | So how did He mature if He never sinned?
00:10:21.000 | It's a great question.
00:10:22.000 | It's tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John Podcast with longtime pastor
00:10:25.000 | and author John Piper.
00:10:27.000 | I'm your host Tony Ranke, and we'll see you then.
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