Episode 06: The Parable of the Ten Virgins

[00:00:07] Speaker A: Good afternoon. I'm Pastor Peter from Eyes to See Ministries International. And every Wednesday we meet at Community Media of South Central Pennsylvania. I gave you last week. I read the mission statement there and I really encourage you to go on their website. Basically they're a community resource that ties the community together and I would really encourage you to go look them up. I didn't know about them. One of the owners called me and we had the discussion and here we are every Wednesday. And this is my wife Sherry. We're co founders of an international nonprofit ministry. Again, ICE to See Ministries International. You can look on our website. And we're missionaries that are based here in Adams County, Pennsylvania. The whole purpose of meeting here is to give you ex explanations and commentary on the Holy Bible, the Christian Bible, and to talk about Jesus Christ. As I travel locally and throughout our country and internationally, what I'm finding is there's more and more people that attend church today that don't know what really how salvation comes. It's a free gift from God. I was at a men's conference this weekend and there were people that responded and they, they said they never heard that before. And these are people, some of them have been in the church every Sunday for a decade. And I. And at the conference was livestreamed and the same thing happened. There were 7,000 men. Was a men's conference in attendance. And when they presented the gospel and gave the people an opportunity to respond, hands went up all over. I mean, and that's significant, which is exactly why I've been inspired to talk about Bible prophecy. And we always have to add the gospel in the Bible. The entire Bible is the word of God and it is about Jesus Christ from the beginning to the end. And we're close to the end. So I just want to make a statement, a general statement and say time is running out. We are on a timeline. And the things that you see happening in the world today, the Bible talks about them. There's a scripture in the Bible that says all things that pertain to life and godliness are found within the Bible. And there is historical research findings and archeological findings today that are confirming the truth within the Bible. So I know Jesus Christ is real yesterday, today and forever. Many people don't know that there were 500 witnesses that witnessed his resurrection. So Mohammed was not resurrected. No other biblical leader or no other religious leader in any other church is eternal. No one was raised from the grave. And if you take the resurrection out of the Bible, the Bible would become no more than any other historical book on your shelf. And we're not here to criticize people, but we're here to talk about the truth. And Apostle Paul, who was the apostle sent by the church, the early church, commissioned by Jesus himself to the Gentiles, which is anybody other than a Jew. And in the first century that meant he was going to talk to more people than anyone else. And yes, I, I, I like to follow the epistles these days. They were written to non Jews. And when we read the Bible, we have to read it in context and rightly divided. So there is a gospel message that is in the epistles that does not contradict the message that we have that Christ gave the Jews. There's different contexts. They were coming from their Jewish law and Jesus came to give them an explanation of not just the law but the context of things where when Paul went as a Jew into the other part of the world, mostly Asia Minor, he was going to come up against what we would call heathen religions. But there still was religion there. So he still had to battle the spiritual battle against the religious leaders there. But Paul, before he left, shortly before he was martyred, he called the leaders of the church of Ephesus. And this is important. I'm going to repeat it again tonight because at some point in the near future, we're going to look at Jesus's seven letters to the churches in the book of Revelations. And the very first one is the Church of Ephesus. So as the apostolic leader, Paul calls them together and he gives them a brief dissertation, but he tells them that no, no person's blood is on his hands because he did not hesitate to give them the entirety, the whole counsel of God. I have been in churches where they do an incredible message, the gospel message is in there. They talk a little bit about repentance. They, they give people the opportunity to repent, but there's no discussion of the sins listed in the Bible. And nobody responds to that. They don't know what to respond to or they're not given a complete definition of what repentance really means. And as, like I said, as I travel and I'm called to go over these things with people, I'm finding more and people that do have salvation, that now understand repentance for them, how that applies to their lives today or the church in general. And if people are given an understanding, they will respond one way or another, another, but they will respond other than just sit there and look at you and not know what to do, because they don't know how to respond because they don't know what it is you're asking them or they're being asked to do. Even if the Spirit of God is mo them. So they have to hear the gospel. We'll talk about that at some point. But I just want people to understand that there is a recordation of the crucifixion of Christ in the Bible. And I just want to tell you this. When he was on the cross and the two thieves were there, one criticized him and mocked him and the second one told the first one, we deserve what we deserve to happen to us here, but this man is innocent. And then he turns around and he. What he does is he says to Jesus, will you let me into your kingdom? Will you remember me when you get to your kingdom? In one sentence that man acknowledged Christ as king and that he had a kingdom and Jesus let him in. So we don't have to over complicate things. We just need to know. You need to know who Christ is. Peter said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus told him that no man had revealed that to you but his Father in heaven. That was divine revelation. And Jesus praying to his Father said, this is eternal life, that they know you, Father, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent. So as a Gentile being sent to the Gentiles, I use in the epistles what Paul spoke to the people and people will respond to that. Not everybody's going to respond the same day. And we have to use discernment. But I'd like you to go and I challenge you to go read that about the thief on the cross in the Gospels. Now one day there's going to be a trumpet sound, a mighty trumpet sound. And our Father, which is in heaven, Father God, is going to tell Jesus to go get his bride. So we're going to look at a parable today called the Parable of the Ten Virgins. This is why it was important that you understood what a Galilean wedding was like. Because when Jesus gave these parables once the disciples following him understood it was a wedding, it meant more to them than it does to a lot of us, say when we're first hearing things or reading them in the Bible, they understood it was a wedding. They were all but one from Galilee. So they would have understood what this meant as they went along. And all they needed to know was for Jesus to explain some of the things. And they did. He took them aside and they asked them some questions. So I'm going to get into the Galilean Wedding, briefly. But we are in. There's different dispensations in the Holy Bible. We are in what's called the church age. The church is still here. The church was birthed in the. In the Book of Acts. And if you want to know what a model of the church should be today, read the Book of Acts. Everybody, when they read that, they want to look at the powerful things that were happening. But there was much more that happened within the church. And that's really what you don't see in a lot of places that I go to, especially maybe in other countries where they don't have access to some of the information that we have. So we're in the last days. I would even go so far in my heart the burden that's been put on me. I would say the church is in the last moments of the church age. And one day the church age is going to go away and there's going to be another age that gets ushered in. And that is. I'm not going to go over that today. We'll touch on that next week. I'm going to actually give you an outline from what I called the Rapture several weeks ago to the very end when the world ends. I'm going to give you the timeline of that. And when I say timeline, I mean the events to come, which is going to follow which biblically speaking. And if you do research in the Bible and you are honest and you can set aside anything that you were taught by somebody and you just accepted it because somebody that you respected told you that if you actually open up the Bible and study the word rightly divided, you will see that out of the entire Bible, there's roughly between 27 and 33% of the Bible are prophetic words. So it shouldn't surprise us that there are people right now throughout the world that a burden's been put on them by God to speak about Bible prophecy, because we need to know where we're at. And if you do study this and discount any theological teaching that you've heard in the past from somebody without being a berean saint and going to verify biblically what they told you, at some point in your life, you will actually see that out of the prophetic words in the Bible, out of the prophecy, there is no Bible prophecy yet to be fulfilled before the rapture of the church, the catching up of the church, that's the next prophetic word to happen. So it's important that we understand that the early church felt a sense of urgency because when Jesus talked to them. He talked to them in present terms. So as far as God is concerned, this church age is a present age. And it began in the Book of Acts. It's going to end. There is going to come a time when you don't see the church mentioned in the Bible anymore. And it's in the book of Revelation. You open that book up and read the first three chapters, you'll find that after the first verse in chapter four, the church is not mentioned anymore until chapter 19, when the church comes back with Christ from where he's at. And that's important to know. So we are in the last moments. I'll review briefly from this day, from actually from the day that you first heard about a Galilean wedding. Everything that you hear from now on, there's going to be a. It's going to relate back to that. So I'm not going to go over the whole Galilean wedding, but you're going to see when we go over this parable of the 10 virgins, how that ties into a Galilean wedding. Now, before I go and review the difference between Galilee and Judea, because this is important, we're going to be speaking. Jesus was speaking in cultural and traditional terms to his disciples. And he was from southern Galilee. He lived most of his life there. Galilee, or Israel itself, is divided into three provinces. Galilee to the north, Judea to the south, and it's separated by Samaria. So there's differences that I'm going to go over with you before we look at the 10 parables. But I want you to think about this. Every human being that's ever lived was actually set by an almighty God who was the Creator of all things, to live in the time and the space that they were born into and that they died in. So if we think about that from a historical perspective, today we are in a time and space that an omnipotent God, an all powerful, all knowing, Almighty God, determined before we were ever born that we were going to live here and we all have a purpose. It's important that we find out what our purpose is. If you study history, and that was one of my majors, I love history and I study history. So when I study the Bible, I'm going to look at biblical history as well. But I would say this. There are times in each culture where I would call it, there's a cultural moment that happens. It's a significant, you may hear people use this term lately called a paradigm shift, but there's a cultural moment that happens in each culture. In America, we are experiencing a cultural moment today in the time that we're in, which is significant for us to understand how that relates to the Bible. But I would also go out and say beyond cultural moments, there are times in the history of mankind that there were what I would call civilizational moments. And we are right now in America in a cultural moment. But we on a world scale are in a civilizational moment. And if you read the story of Noah's Ark in the Bible, there is archeological discoveries that have happened over the last few years where they know where the ark is. And again, the Bible's being confirmed not as fairy tales, but as true history. That was a civilizational moment. God decided he regretted, he grieved, creating humanity through the corruption and entered into the human heart, which happens to all of us. We're born that way. But if you look in the book of Noah or Noah's history, you'll see that when Noah entered the ark, it took him 100 years to build that. Maybe 120, I don't remember. But he was given explicit instructions. He followed God's instructions. And when he entered the ark with his seven family members, the Bible says God shut him in. God closed the door. He gave humanity an extra hundred years to listen to Noah. It says Noah was a godly man, he preached, and everybody but eight people died, every animal but what was on the ark. And it's beyond the scope of today to get into why that is. But that was a civilizational moment. There's another civilizational moment that's going to happen. It's going to happen during what's called the seven year Tribulation, where God, most people believe that. I'm finding when I talk to them, they believe the tribulation. All those bad things happening, literally hell on earth is happening because the enemy, the devil, is reigning hell on earth that comes after God's wrath comes upon the earth. The death of Jesus Christ, the sacrificial death of Christ, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, the marriage supper of the lamb. That's what we're called to do. When the church age ends, we're going to go meet our bridegroom. There's going to be another civilizational moment that comes where God unleashes 21 different plagues and catastrophes upon the earth. And if you read the Bible, you do not want to be alive here when that happens. And there is instructions in the Bible on what to do. But unfortunately, as I go around and I'm finding out that less and less people that think they have God's salvation don't. It tells me there's an awful lot of people that are sitting in church on Sundays that are going to still be there when Jesus comes and he calls his church home. And we're going to see that when we get into the parable of the 10 virgins, these 10 virgins are waiting for their groom. This is metaphorical about the groom coming. And we'll tie that into the Galilean wedding. But this is the church, so to speak, and half of it is not ready. And they're not going to. They're going to miss out. So remember, civilizational moment, cultural moment. The cultural part is important. And I'll briefly go over some of the differences between Galilee and Judea in a minute so that you understand that there's a typical Middle Eastern wedding tradition, and Israel falls into that. The tradition in the first century was the same everywhere, except in Galilee, it was a little different. And just remember that one day Jesus is going to come and get his bride. Now, a parable by definition, and I'm going to read this from the Noah Webster 1828American Dictionary of the English Language. Noah Webster was a devout man who was asked to put a dictionary together in America because we had a lot of immigrants and you had a lot of different people using different slang, their own terms. So that's why he wrote this. But he, he told the people that asked him to do this, I will not write that dictionary unless I can include the Holy Bible in it. And he said that education, education without the Holy Bible was useless. So the definition of a parable is to compare to or against something, a fable or an allegorical relation or representation of something real in life or nature from which a moral is drawn for instruction, such as the parable of the trees choosing a key in the Book of Judges, Chapter 9, the Parable of the poor man and his lamb in 2 Samuel, chapter 12. And the last parable that Noah Webster mentions by definition is the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew, chapter 25, which we're going to look at shortly for you to have an understanding of what this parable means. And we're going to give it to you. You're going to hear, you're going to hear Sherry and Order speaking in a minute. But I just want to, I just want to keep in mind a Galilee and wedding. Galilee and Judea were distinct regions in ancient Israel with differing geographical distinctions, population and cultural differences, social perceptions and historical context, political and economic differences, and Religious observance. This is all in Israel. The geographical distinctions. Galilee I mentioned was located in the northern part of ancient Israel. It's bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, the Jordan river to the east, and it's separated by Judea and Samaria to the south. So it includes fertile plains. It's a mountainous region. Judea was mountainous. So they're geographically separated. There's actually even in southern and northern Galilee, there's a valley that separates those two parts. So population and cultural differences. And this is fascinating. It was fascinating to me. Galilee had a more mixed population which included Israelites and non Jews, which would be Gentiles, partly due to historical Assyrian resettlements. So there's a lot of non Jews that are in Galilee in Jesus time. So cities like Tiberius and Sapporus, they were Hellenistic centers or Greek centers. While towns like Nazareth and Capernaum maintained conservative Jewish communities. Judea was more homogenously Jewish. So there's an inclusion of other cultures in Galilee that is not in Judea as it is in Galilee. But just when I read the historical part of this, it fascinated me because Apostle Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, he's going to go to the Gentiles and there's a lot of Gentiles here in Galilee. So Jesus came into contact with some of these people and he made reference to them, that some of them, by Jesus own words, had more faith in his own disciples than his own people did. Social and historical context and perceptions. Galileans were sometimes seen as outsiders in Judea. With their accent, you could tell a Galilean from a Judean. And historically, Biblically, we see that when Peter, when Jesus was arrested, they knew where he was from because of his language, the political and economic differences. Politically, Galilee was under a different rule. There was a Herodian prince, while Judah was governed by the Roman prefect. Economically, Galilee benefited. It had fertile land and abundant fishing resources. That's where Peter and James and John, Peter and Andrew and James and John were when Jesus called them the Sea of Galilee. From a religious observance standpoint, the Galileans were perceived by by the Judeans as less strict in their ritual observance of the Jewish customs than they were in Judea. So in summary, in essence, Galilee and Judea did differ geographically. Population diversity, culture, political administration, economic resources, language and religious observance, which would be the. Which shaped social interactions and customs there. Which is why this Galilean wedding is a little different than the wedding in Judea, which was the typical Middle Eastern wedding. And I'VE listened to people on certain teachings. That video, for one, before the Wrath, where there was a Middle Easterner that was converted to Christianity, and he confirmed that there's a Middle Eastern wedding and then there's the Galilean wedding. So I will let Sherry go through the parable of the ten virgins. It's only 13 verses. And once she reads through that, I want you to keep in mind as she's reading the. The Galilean Wedding. If you didn't hear it before, go back and look at the second session. And once she gets done reading, we're going to look at different verses here that tied directly into the teaching you had of the Galilean wedding. And this is just one part. So you're going to hear next week. I'm sure of it. Now I'm going to give you the outline of Matthew chapter 24 and Matthew chapter 5. What starts in Matthew 24:1 all the way to the end of Matthew 25. It is what's called the Olivet Discourse. Jesus is going to go on the Mount of Olives. And there's a reason for those two. The reason for those two complete chapters is because Jesus has asked the question. He comes out of the temple with the disciples, and they're enamored with the architecture of it and the building of the temple. And Jesus tells them that not one stone will exist on this building. And he taught and they. And they heard him mention about the End of days. So they ask him a question. In verse three of Matthew 24, it's when will these things happen? And when is the end of the world? And verse four is where Jesus starts to answer the question. And these two chapters are significant because he's telling us when these events are going to happen in the sequence that they're going to happen. This parable is just one part of chapter 25. It's verses 1 through 13. It's an allegory or a parable of. Something that they would understand. And I'll talk about that after you hear the word of God. [00:32:33] Speaker B: So this is a reading from the amplified version, Matthew 25, 1:13. It says, Then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish. They were thoughtless, silly, careless, and five were wise, which means they were farsighted, practical, insensible. For when the foolish took their lamps, they did not take any extra oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil along with their lamps. Now, while the Bridegroom was delayed. They all began to nod off, and they fell asleep. But at midnight there was a shout. Look, the bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet him. Then all the virgins got up and put their own lamps in order, trimmed the wicks and added oil and lit them. But the foolish virgin said to the wise, give us some of your oil, because our lamps are going out. But the wise replied, no, otherwise there will not be enough for us and for you too. Go instead to the dealers and buy oil for yourselves. But while they were going away to buy oil, the bridegroom came. And those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast. And the door was shut and locked. Later the others also came and said, lord, Lord, open the door for us. But he replied, I assure you and most solemnly say to you, I do not know you. We have no relationship. Therefore, be on the alert. Be prepared and ready for you do not know the day nor the hour when the Son of Man will come. Now, you know when Pete had mentioned earlier that. That. That half the people are not prepared. You know, the 10 virgins is not the only area of the Bible that speaks to this. Because if you go to Matthew 25. Excuse me, 24, 40, you look down when the disciples had asked the Lord to say, when. When is this going to happen? What are the signs that are going to be happening? And it says, he tells them that for as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking. He's talking about in the days of Noah marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man. And just as the Lord shut the door, when Noah came in, he shut the door behind the five wise virgins. And then he said, then two men will be in a field. One will be taken, one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken, the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. So you have. You have different areas of the Bible that support that. You know, that speak to that. That many people. [00:35:56] Speaker A: Yes. [00:35:56] Speaker B: That think they're prepared and they're not, or that they're. They'll be. Have access and they won't. [00:36:03] Speaker A: Yes. Last night I was with someone, a dear friend of mine. And it turned out that he gave his heart to the Lord and he thought he was saved before that. And he was baptized in the Holy Spirit last night. So if that's the case. What my question is, what are we speaking about? Now? If you're called to be a pastor and that word means shepherd of a particular church, then you should know the congregation and their needs. And if you're hearing from, if the messengers are coming from God, those messages would be specific to that group of people. So if, if I would go online and listen to what somebody was speaking, say at church a and it mentions nothing about this. And I don't go. And I don't know that those people have been with that pastor for a long time and they just came off that teaching. I would be wrong to be saying those people aren't being fed what they should be being fed. So that doesn't mean that every message should include the same things everywhere that being said and done. That's exactly why God almighty God, remember this is Jesus church bought by his blood for his purposes, does not take people out from a mainstream of something and say, I'm going to put this burden on this person and this is what I want you to do. So that's exactly why we have Wednesday at 4. Because my calling right now is to teach church leaders and internationally the church these types of things. That doesn't mean everybody's called to do that. Pastor Brad Reeves that we had on the show last week has called to do that. And we're having a conference. There will be a conference in gettysburg on Saturday, August 1st. It's called Abraham the father of faith in the Bible, Abraham to Armageddon Prophecy Conference. And those six speakers, which includes Brother Brad, are right now traveling around the United States and some internationally speaking because they've been. They're a collection of people that have had the same burden put on them. So there is. There are people that can teach you outside of where you are some of these things. And unfortunately, that's a travesty. Travesty that exists within the universal church is an unwillingness for a church to actually hear something from someone that's not on the roster sheet from the church that they go at. So I was excited, re energized in a way this past weekend to be at a men's conference where it wasn't held at a church. It was held at the Adams County Christian Academy. And there were multiple people there. It wasn't the church that I'm helping at right now, so I was kind of a minority. But they were going to offer prayer and people that go to the church that the majority of these men came from, remember it's a men's conference so by nature it wasn't. Both genders weren't there, but because of a relation that I have relationship with another brother in Christ who was in that church. And he knows what God's called me to do and my giftings. He asked me if I would pray over people and speak on prayer a little bit before the conference kicked off and make myself available. Now that was, that was important that some people had to do that because the conference by nature was going to challenge people. They were going to find out either they weren't. That they were not saved, or they were going to find out that there were wounds within them and certain grieving and sorrows that they never let go of. And this conference was going to, by the, by the nature of the messages going out was, as a side note, was going to touch people's hearts and give them the courage to be able to get up and seek somebody. And some people you had to bring into another room and talk to them because there were some things that, that bad things can happen to good people, a lot of them and most of the people that I know, including myself, we had to bottom out in life before we turned to an invisible God and trusted somebody that you couldn't see. And, you know, I have friends like that that I'm able to speak to into their lives because of that. So this parable, many of the parables, Jesus started out speaking by then, or the kingdom of heaven is like this, or then the kingdom of heaven, notice it says, then the kingdom of heaven will be like. So when we talked about the Galilean wedding, there was a betrothal period and there was a covenant made, a written contract by the father of the groom that the bride would get. And the difference between a Mediterranean or a Middle Eastern wedding and the Galilean wedding was at that point the bride had the power to say, I will accept the covenant of marriage or not. Now that's important because the Father is representative of our Father in heaven, God. The bridegroom in this parable is Jesus Christ, who is God. He's the word of God. The Bible declares that. And there's scriptures that tie him and the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth, together. The Father is the only one that knows when he's going to send the bridegroom to go get his bride. So there's going to be a procession out in the street and it's at midnight or earlier beyond there in the next day. So they would have either a wicked or a stick that would be saturated in Oil, or most of them would have a vessel that you would put oil into. And you have to keep in mind when I go through this, because when we go into the churches in the Book of Revelation, you're going to see terminology like candlestick in the Bible. And what that really is is it's a vessel with multiple ports coming out of it for oil to come in constantly to keep the light on. So in this parable, you're going to see that out of 10 people that are virgins, this is the betrothal period. This is where the church is right now. We're supposed to be preparing ourselves for the wedding feast that you're going to see in the Book of Revelation. And I will continue to give you the scripture that says that Christ is going to come and he's going to catch up the church. Those that were dead in Christ, that already died, that were in Christ, first will rise, and then those here on earth, this earth, that are alive in Christ, will be next to meet the Lord in the air. He never touches his feet down on the ground. And then it said, the Bible says we will be with the Lord forever. So we're not going to be separated at that point. We will come back at some point. Christ is going to come back for the. That is what's called the rapture, harpazo, and the Greek term for being caught up. So it's important that you hear these things because there's people all over the Internet denying that there's an event called the Rapture, because that word is not used in the Bible. And I just want to reinforce that those translations use the word harpazo. One word means to be caught up, snatched away. Snatched up. When they translated the Bible into Latin, they used the word repair, different variants of it, whether it's the noun or the verb, but rapturo. So that's where the word rapture comes from. That's what we've adopted as the universal term floating around the church for this, catching up the Second Coming. When Christ comes. And I'll be going over this, because this is going to be in your outline next week. He comes and touches down on the ground, a mountain splits, and then he's going to deal. And there's certain events that are going to happen prior to that and during that. So if you look in your Bible and look at those scriptures, you will clearly see that these are two separate events. There are several scriptures, and we'll get into that moving forward that say God did not call his church to wrath. We're Saved from God's wrath. Because we believed Christ was the Son of God, that Jesus is the Son of God, that he was born of the Virgin Mary, he lived here on earth, the Son of God, the Son of Man. He was crucified, he died, he was buried. And importantly, he was resurrected by the power of God and sits at the right hand of the Father today in intercession. And Jesus told the disciples, it's expedient that I leave you. I will come back for you. But I'm leaving you now because you need to go to Jerusalem and wait for the promise of the Father, which is the Holy Spirit. And that's a whole nother 12 part teaching. But Jesus is going to come back and catch his bride. The ones that are ready from the wrath of God, which is going to be poured out in the beginning of this seven year tribulation. God's wrath, the seven seals of judgment, the, the seven trumpets of judgment, and then there will be seven bowls of judgment, one after the other. The last judgment in each one of these triggers the next one and the first judgment, the first seal that gets opened. And only the, the Bible in Revelation tells us only the Lamb can open the seal. When Jesus opens the first seal, you'll also see scriptures that refer to the wrath of the Lamb. So God's wrath is going to be poured out on the earth over sin. And if you don't have the seal of the Holy Spirit because you're not saved, you're going to be left behind. You'll still have an opportunity at that point to receive Jesus, to acknowledge Christ like the thief on the cross. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. I'm a sinner, I was born in sin and I need a Savior. Jesus saved me. That's what that means. Those that call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. You have to believe these things in your heart and make confession with your mouth. And that is a glorious moment. When that happens for one person, all of heaven rejoices. So there, the world at one point is going to end. There's going to be a heat. The Bible says that so consuming it burns up every element that's in existence. Not just earth and heaven, but everything. And there will be a new heaven and earth and, and you get to live for eternity. If you make that decision, the choice is yours. So my question tonight is you in America are in a cultural moment right now where you're going to have to make a decision. Do I want to compromise what Jesus Christ tells me to do and who I am supposed to be in Christ and follow the world, am I going to keep one foot on the fence and one off? Because I'm going to tell you, the Bible talks about two people groups, the wicked and the righteous. And if you're on the fence just because you're in church and you got one foot on the off the fence in the church world and the other in the world world, you're damned. You're not saved. You have to make that decision. There's going to be a lot of people when the church isn't here anymore that are going to wonder, wow, that was real. That really happened. What do I do? And the Bible actually gives instructions on what those people are to do. The wrath of God. The wrath of God is going to be more severe than what he poured out on the Egyptians when he. When he pulled his people out of Egypt. They used Moses to do that. So in this parable, you clearly saw that there was a door shut. So when this wedding procession went down the street, before they left the father's house, there was a trumpet blast. The bridegroom picks up the shofar, a trumpet, and blows it. And those people in their houses that hear that call, let those with ears hear what the spirit's saying to the churches right now. Those that hear that call, if you're hearing this call tonight and you respond to it, you can call us at 443-386-3941. And we need to have a discussion. If God's moving on your heart and you're not sure whether you are saved or you do see that this world isn't right, something's wrong. And you, you want to be a. You want to be a child of God. You want to be adopted into God's family and have him be your father. But because it's night, the wedding party, the, the bride and her bridesmaids would come out, and so would the people with lamps filled with oil because it's dark out. And they're going to follow the bridegroom to the father's house. I must go and prepare a house for you in my father's house, a room for you. When they go to the wedding feast, they're going to enter into the father's house and the door is going to close. And when that door shuts, when that door shuts, there is no more chance for those people in the street to get in. They're closed out, just like those people in Noah's day. So looking back again, there's 10. These are bridesmaids. So this is representative of the church. Half of them have enough oil in their lamp. This was going to be a betrothal period. They needed to have enough oil when that oil ran out to refill the lamp. So five of them have oil in the lamp, but they don't have oil to put back. And that's what this is. They let their oil go out and what happens? The five that were wise, now, all of them have the knowledge of this. Wisdom is applied knowledge. You have the knowledge. Now what are you going to do with it? And James tells us to be a doer of the word, that knowledge, and not a hearer, only deceiving your own self. So five of them are going to deceive themselves by being foolish, unprepared. They're unprepared. This is a preparation period for the church. Now, you are going to hear me every Wednesday give you some parables. It could be an allegory. I'm not going to use what I would call marketing taglines and I'm not going to mention them by name that are flying all over the world today for the church because both sides don't understand what the other sometimes is trying to say because they're using a tagline that means something for this person, but it's different for that and it's continuing to separate the church. So what I noticed at the men's conference this weekend, I knew what they were talking about when they each preached, but they didn't use terminology that was going to trigger people to say, I'm not going to listen to that. I know what it means. And they walk out the door. I see that happen all the time. It happens with people that I'm close to and. And that's the end of the conversation. And then I have to go pray for God to open their eyes and open their ears and send somebody that can explain this better than I did right then, where they don't tune it out and walk away in the same condition that they're in. So if we go back to verse 10. But while they were going away to buy oil, while the foolish ones went to get more oil, the bridegroom came. So the procession from this Galilean wedding, there's things happening, including that stretcher that's going to be picked up and the bride's going to be lifted up off the ground and carried away to the father's house. That was significant that you heard that, because that's what's in Paul's letter to the church in thessalonica the ones that were ready, the ones that were prepared, the bride of Christ, the church that was in preparation and diligently watched and they didn't get caught asleep. Those were the wise ones, the foolish ones. The door was shut on them. And when that happened in a Galilean wedding, that festivity would go on for seven days in that house. No one else could get in. No matter how they screamed and yelled, they weren't allowed to get in. When they came, the other ones, the door was closed and they weren't allowed to come in. Notice the bridegroom said, he's solemn. I do not know you. We're not in a relationship. So I wonder how many people go to church and they hear this phrase, we're not about religion, we're about relationship. And I'm wondering if the people hearing that, do they actually. Are they. Do they actually know what that means? Because I'm finding out most people don't know. They know that Jesus Christ was a historical figure and they know some things, but they don't know what they're supposed to be doing as a child of God and what some of these terms like repentance. What does holiness mean? What does righteousness mean? You know, salvation. The gospel is the power of God to salvation. Salvation leads to righteousness. The Bible says it's righteousness onto holiness, onto final salvation. Final salvation. You have to finish the race. So verse 13, therefore, be on the alert, be prepared and ready for you do not know the day nor the hour when the Son of Man will come. Now, I will close with one more statement because I'm beginning to see this on social media, because these events that are listed in Matthew chapter 24 and 25 primarily are leading up to the second coming of Christ. And this parable is found in the first 13 verses of chapter 25. There's people refuting the. The rapture and this analogy because it's in. It's intermixed within the what. What is leading up to the second coming. And there's all kinds of things that when you read and I. I do this not to linger on social media, but this gives me a barometer of what are people looking at and what are they publishing out there. Because there's a lot of falsities being said on social media. And I'm not going to be critical of those people. I believe they're ignorant. And ignorance by definition means lack of knowledge. The knowledge that they lack is out of this book. God said, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. And he was talking about lack of knowledge of him. That's why Christ was sent. He's the image in character, integrity, faithfulness and purity of the invisible Father. So we need to know these things. And I'll close in prayer. Father, we just thank you that we can turn to the Holy Bible, your holy writ, that you've given us written instructions, you've given us a book of your testimonies, of your judgments, of your instructions, of your precepts and principles. The Ten Commandments are principles of life that we would flourish if we followed them. So I just come before you in thankfulness and I thank you that your word never returns empty. That when the word of God is spoken, it will always accomplish that which you sent it forth to accomplish for your good pleasure and your purposes and your purpose is for the church to be betrothed. We have an opportunity as the bride of Christ under that Galilean covenant, to reject the offer that Christ has from the Father, to give us or to accept it. And I praise God that his goodness and mercies are new each day. I'm thankful that I received your free gift of salvation, that I accepted your invitation to that wedding feast. And I'm thankful for the Spirit of God, the power of God and your grace to keep me on that narrow path that you can level mountains and raise up valleys. Because we're not sin free and we stumble and fall at times, but we have your grace. And when we ask the Spirit of God, the power of God for grace, we don't need to ask you to take away that circumstance. We need the grace to stand fast in our faith and walk through there. So we grow in our faith and our preparation for that wedding day. Because when our judgment comes, we will be given out our assignments in the in heaven, our rewards will be given out. The judgment that will come later will be the separation of the goats and the sheeps. So God, I pray that this word touches every heart that you've already laid bare, that you've already circumcised and cut deep into them to spur an interest, to find out who is Jesus, what is salvation? Am I really saved? What is repentance? What does holiness really mean? And send workers into the harvest field to explain to these people who have questions. The world has questions right now. The majority of the world believes the world will end in their lifetime. And. And yet most people are unsaved. They don't believe Christ in Christ in general, and they don't believe he's coming back. So there's work to do. So I pray that you inspire people by dreams and visions, whatever the means is, because you weigh the spirit and the heart. The ways of man in his own mind are right and true, but you weigh our spirit and our heart. Inspire every one of your children alive in Christ today to what their purpose is during this betrothal period so that they can go out in these last moments, these last seconds that we're in, this civilizational moment, to go do what Christ wants his church to do while these last days tick away and time is short. So I pray this in Jesus name, Amen. [01:04:49] Speaker B: Holy, holy, holy? Lord God Almighty? In the morning our song shall rise? To the holy, holy, holy?