Well, it was the very first doctrinal crisis that hit the church in America. It was known as the Antinomian Controversy of the mid-1630s. If you know your American history, especially American church history, you've heard the story, maybe. A woman named Anne Hutchinson, who was a member of the church in Boston, became convinced at some point that all the pastors in Massachusetts were teaching a false gospel. That is, all except her own pastor and her brother-in-law, Reverend John Wheelwright. The crux of the issue was that the Puritan clergy of New England were teaching that salvation was by God's grace through faith in Christ alone. That's orthodox, certainly, but the other caveat was they maintained that the fruit of a regenerated heart was a life of good works that confirmed the inward transformation. However, Hutchinson believed that this was a works-based gospel and maintained that her pastor, John Cotton, did not teach such a thing when, in fact, he did. She maintained that the only evidence needed for the Spirit's regeneration was an inward impression, which was, of course, as you can imagine, highly subjective. No outward evidences were required, she maintained. But ultimately, this led the Massachusetts court to bring upon her heresy charges in 1636. Now, admittedly, the proceedings of the trial were a bit convoluted, and many questioned whether or not Anne Hutchinson actually held to antinomian tendencies. But the controversy virtually led every church in New England to address the question of the role of obedience and good works in the Christian life. Antinomianism, if you were to define it, which literally means anti-law, asserts that Christianity is all about feelings and the profession. Basically, it's as long as I say that I'm a Christian and I feel like I'm a Christian, then therefore I am. But the Puritan pastors endeavored to correct this error among their people. Because after all, the Bible does teach that while we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone, and works and obedience do not justify you, however, they certainly are the fruit of a justified, saved person. We think about Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10. For by grace you've been saved through faith. It is not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast. But then it says that we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which we are to do, which he's prepared beforehand for us to walk in them. And so works are certainly connected to a salvation experience in Christ, even though they're not the cause of that salvation. One pastor, a pastor named Thomas Shepherd, set out to teach through this very issue at his church, and he did so by teaching the parable of the 10 virgins. He went through a 41-sermon exposition of the parable of the 10 virgins. I like him already. And it actually gives me pause to think about how I wanna, no, maybe not, maybe not. This exposition of the Parable of the Ten Virgins actually was published in 1659, and it filled 625 typed pages. I've got two editions. It's really cool. I've gotten about this far into it, all right? Anyway, he used the parable in Matthew 25 as a backbone, and what he did, Shepherd basically waged war against false conversion, against easy-believism, against antinomianism, and he insisted that saving grace is always accompanied by sanctifying grace. That is, it's not those who only make the profession of faith, but those who, by preparation, watchfulness, faithfulness, evidence the possession of faith. Those are the ones who will be accepted when the bridegroom comes. Again, themes of faithfulness and watchfulness and alertness. And these very themes are the kinds of virtues that are commended to us by the Lord Jesus Christ in the parables given to us in the Olivet Discourse. And so that's what we're gonna look at today. Matthew chapter 25, we're gonna go through the parable of the 10 virgins and I will attempt to do so in only one sermon. You're welcome, I love you. As we've been seeing in our exploration of Matthew 24 and 25, Jesus is giving instructions on the events of his second coming at the end of the age. This has been an eschatological exploration, an exploration into the end times. That's what eschatology means. And he's telling his disciples about the signs surrounding the coming of Christ. And he doesn't give an indication about when exactly that's going to be, but he does give us the signs and he gives us the general look at the times. He impresses, however, on the disciples and on all of us, the importance of waiting and being watchful. We looked at the first two of these parables last week. We looked at the parable of the householder and the parable of the faithful and wise or prudent servant at the end of chapter 24. But we've seen already, we talked about this last week, there are four main parables in this little section here. We're going to look at the third parable today from chapter 25 verses 1 through 13. Again, the parable of the 10 virgins. Look at this with me in your copy of scripture. Matthew 25, verse one, the Lord is speaking to us now. Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to 10 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 and 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 and 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 be not 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 alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour. Now the first thing to remember about the parables is that they are essentially real world stories or real world situations designed to illustrate a deeper truth, a spiritual truth in the case of the Bible. And Jesus uses these kinds of parables all the time. There are several, there are dozens and dozens of these kinds of parables in the gospel record. It is through parables that Jesus is able to give us a better sense of sometimes difficult doctrine through very simple stories. And so, in this parable, Jesus teaches about the second coming of him, himself, through the use of one of the most common occurrences in the ancient world, a wedding celebration. Now, the scholars are very quick to tell us that they actually don't know very much at all about ancient Jewish marriage customs. And the reason is because for some reason in the ancient world, no one seemed to write down what they were doing in these wedding customs. It was just assumed. But we do have some information about what weddings and celebrations like this were like. We know that in the early years in Palestine and the Jewish culture, marriage was a three-stage process. We do know this, a three-stage process. The first stage was called engagement. Engagement. This is when two young people pledged their lives to each other through this marriage contract. And so in the first stage, they're actually legally bound together, legally married by contract. The second phase was called betrothal. and this would last up to a year prior to the actual wedding. This is when they would prepare themselves and the husband would prepare his house and his home and all of his, basically his life to receive a bride. And then finally when that was done, the engagement was finished, the betrothal was complete, then there was the actual marriage ceremony which solemnized the arrangement and culminated in a week-long wedding celebration. We spend a lot of money on one day. They had seven days of feasting and celebration. A wedding was a huge deal in Israel in these days. And so the parable here seems to feature the events of the first night of the wedding celebration. On this night, customarily, the groom and all of his attendants would leave his home and make his way across the city or across the land to go to the home of the bride. And along the way, at some point, the bride would then send all of her attendants or her bridesmaids out to go and meet the groom and then escort him back to the house where they would have the festivities, including the marriage supper. And so verse one here brings us to this point in the evening. So look again at verse one. Jesus says the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now right off the bat, Jesus tells us the intention of this parable. He wants to teach us something. And he's teaching us again about the kingdom of heaven. Now, he's taught us about the kingdom of heaven many times before, certainly in Matthew's gospel. And generally, when we've talked about the kingdom, which is, again, undefined in the scriptures, but when we learned about the kingdom, we've generally talked about it as being the rule and realm of salvation. Essentially, once you become a Christian, you are now entering into God's spiritual kingdom. You're saved and you're headed for heaven, his future and eternal kingdom. But here, in the context of the Olivet Discourse, the kingdom is referring to the kingdom that Christ brings with him when he returns. And what will that be like? When he returns and the kingdom comes with the king himself, what is that going to be like? And he says, in one way, it's going to be like a wedding celebration. And we know this because he says it will be comparable. The kingdom of heaven will be comparable to this illustration. The coming of the bridegroom particularly as it pertains to us as we're going to see like these ten virgins going out to meet him. Now this does take a little bit of explaining. The Greek word that's used here for virgin is parthenos, and it literally refers to a young unmarried woman, which in this context, in this age here, would have been a virgin at that time. Now this young maiden, she would have been in her late teens, and she would have served the bride as sort of a bridesmaid. So these are all these young unmarried virgin attendants for the bride. And in this specific wedding party, the bride has 10 maidens or 10 virgin bridesmaids who, on the summons of the bride, they were prepared to take their lamps and go out to meet the bridegroom when they see him coming. Again, their only responsibility is to meet the bridegroom. And when we study out this word meet in the Greek, it tends to refer to meeting an honored guest or a dignitary to bring him to the celebration. But then we learn something about these 10 virgins in verse two. Jesus says, five of them were foolish and five were prudent. Now, Jesus says first that half of these young women, out of the ten, five of them were morai in the Greek. This is the root, this is where we get the root word of moron. Literally, it's a person who is dull or stupid. But the translators have softened this language, this moron language, and translated this as foolish. But if we understand that that's what he's talking about, moron, that we understand what he's trying to say about these, these, these five virgins here. So these five are foolish and the other five are phronomoi. It's prudent or wise. We saw this word last time we talked about the faithful and wise or faithful and prudent servant. So these other five are wise. Now, why are the first five considered to be foolish and the other half wise? Well, we learned about this in verses three and four. Jesus says, Now you have to remember again in context here in the times, there's no flashlights in the first century, so people had to use lamps or torches at night. And here we have 10 maidens going out to meet this bridegroom at night, most likely in the late of the night, each carrying some kind of lamp with them. Now normally the lamps were made use of a rag that would have been soaked in the flammable oil and then that oil would stay, would keep the thing lit and you just keep on immersing it in the oil and it would stay lit for a long time. Now, knowing that they would need enough oil for the entire wedding procession. Now, if they were traveling maybe a mile or half a mile or even maybe several miles, you're going to need a lamp lit for a long time. So knowing they had a procession to make, the wise, the prudent maidens, they knew enough to take oil in the flasks along with them on their trip. But the foolish ones, they took none. They were not prepared at all. And you can already see, if you've been in this exposition of Matthew with us for a little bit now, you can already see where Jesus is going with this. They were not prepared for the coming of the bridegroom. So verse five says, now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. So the night is progressing, it's getting late into the evening, and the bridegroom is delaying. Again, you already see sort of these end times themes here. We've been waiting for a long time. It seems as though the bridegroom is delaying. Jesus talks about that. The bridegroom is delaying. He's not coming when they were expecting him to come. And so what happens? They all begin to get drowsy and they go to sleep. Notice here that all the maidens get drowsy and all the maidens go to sleep, but it's what happens when they wake up. That's what distinguishes them. Verse six, at midnight, there was a shout. Behold, the bridegroom come out to meet him. Literally, the maidens are startled awake by this shout, and we hear this language of the shout or the cry. Again, this becomes an eschatological theme as well, of the shout of the Lord coming from the clouds of heaven. So this shout rings out, behold the bridegroom, come and meet him. And so now is their time to act, verse seven. Then all the virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. They all get up. They're all getting themselves ready. They're getting their clothes back on from their, maybe their sleeping clothes. They're getting ready to meet the bridegroom. They all begin to attend their lamps. They trim and replace the rags. They fill up the oil, but then something happens as all of them are getting ready. Five of the maidens realize that they did not, they failed to bring any oil with them at all. And so in their panic, what did they do? They turned to the others. Verse eight. The foolish said to the prudent, come give us, or excuse me, give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. So because of their failure to prepare, the foolish maidens try to take the oil from the prudent ones. Verse nine, but the prudent answered, no, there will be not enough for us and you too. Go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves. Now this isn't unkind. They're not being mean. The simple fact is that the prudent, the wise women here, the maidens, they recognize that they don't have enough to share with the other maidens and have enough for them to also go out and meet the bridegroom as well. So what do they do? They encourage these other maidens to go out and buy some of the oil for themselves. Verse 10, and while they were going to make the purchase, the bridegroom came. And those who are ready went in with him to the wedding feast and the door was shut. So while these foolish maidens were out, the bridegroom finally appears and he's coming. And who are the ones who go out with him to the wedding feast? Well, it says here, the prudent ones, the ones who are prepared for his arrival, they're the ones, they show up and they escort him to the feast. They go inside the house and the door is shut behind them. And then the story progresses. Verse 11, later, the other virgins also came saying, Lord, Lord, open up for us. They try to get in, even though the door is been shut. Verse 12, but he answered, truly I say to you, I do not know you." A shocking conclusion to this parable. You'd almost expect him to say, okay, well, open up the door and let me see all the oil and let me see what you prepared and whatever it may be. But no, the moral of it is that no, this is shut and you're not welcome. And he says, I don't even know who you are. To which then Jesus provides the lesson. Here's the lesson of the whole thing, verse 13. And this has been repeated several times in this narrative, right? In the Olivet Discourse, verse 13. Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour. Now the you, who's he talking to? The disciples. All of this was for their benefit. Therefore, be on the alert, for you don't know when I'm going to be coming. So I want to unpack this. We've kind of walked through. This is a very simple parable. All the parables are relatively simple. That's the point of the parable, is that you want to have a simple story. It's the underlying truth that is underneath this. And so I do want to explore this. But here's my question. What in this parable did Thomas Shepard preach 41 sermons about? I mean, you look at it and you're like, boy, there's not a whole lot here, right? Well, I think you have to look a little bit deeper. And you do have to look at the symbolism that is inherent here. Again, this is not a strict allegory. And we've been talking the last couple weeks about parable versus allegory. Parable's a little bit looser. It's kind of a generalized story to just teach kind of one or two lessons. And allegory is a thought for thought, word for word, symbol for symbol, sort of alongside narrative. where everything has a symbol, everything has a meaning. And so some have actually called this an allegorical parable. They just like multi-syllabic words and I would agree with that. But this is not a one for one thing, but there are some spiritual parallels here that I think are interesting for us to note. So looking at this together, the bridegroom is clearly the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no doubt about that. In fact, it's interesting because when he's asked about the relationship to Jesus in John 3.26, John the Baptist gives the same illustration. John the Baptist in his illustration, he likens Jesus to the bridegroom and he likens himself to the best man. And he uses this wedding imagery to talk about who Jesus is and the fact that he's coming. Beyond this, however, God refers to himself as the husband of Israel in the Old Testament. He does this in many places. Isaiah 54, Isaiah 62, Ezekiel 16, Hosea 219. These are all passages and verses that liken God to the husband of the bride, which is Israel. But even if you look a little bit further, Ephesians 5.25. Christ is likened to the husband and the church is the bride of Christ, the wife of Christ. Again, that imagery is stacked up and it's very clear. Beyond this even, Revelation 19, verses seven through 10, pictures at the end of the age, a wedding feast where the bride of Christ, the church, celebrates her marriage to the bridegroom who is called the Lamb of God in verse seven. And so this whole marriage metaphor is a biblical, spiritual, and even eschatological reality. The symbol is impossible to miss. You have to see this for what it is. And so we're gonna see here the spiritual wedding in heaven that takes place when the Lord returns. And by God's grace, through faith, all of you, all of us will be at that spiritual wedding feast, the heavenly wedding feast at the end of the age. That is if you know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. But this is a fitting imagery considering Matthew 24 and 25, the context he's dealing almost exclusively with his own return at the end of the age. But it's interesting to note here, as we're talking about the last days, the end of the age when Christ returns here, in this parable alone, you see the bridegroom, you see all the bridesmaids, but it's noticeable that the bride is absent. There's no bride in this parable, only the virgin bridesmaids. you Now, if the church is called the bride of Christ in the Bible, then who are the bridesmaids? That causes us to scratch our head a little bit. Some scholars, and if you know the difference between premillennial, postmillennial, amillennial, don't worry about it for today, but some premillennial scholars will argue that Jesus is talking about, because of the placement of this parable in the discourse, they're concluding that because we're in the last days in the parable here, if the church does not go through the tribulation, And I haven't even talked about this yet, but if the church is actually raptured, they argue that the 10 virgins represent the Jews who are alive at the end of the age, some of whom are ready to receive the Lord when he returns. That's one view. If you were to follow it out, but there are several, I believe several, uh, exegetical issues with that, which I'm not going to get into today. But I think the biggest one, in my opinion, is the fact that there's no specific cues from the text to tell us that that's what he's talking about. Now, it doesn't mean that this is what he's not talking about. I mean, it could be that he is referring to this kind of a thing, but it's not explicitly here. And so my rule of thumb, if I can't find it explicitly in the text, or if there's no connection to other passages in the Bible, I tend to back away a little bit. I mean, I can understand and sort of see it there, see where scholars and theologians get it, but I'm not gonna be dogmatic, because I just don't see it here yet. Again, doesn't mean it's not there, I just don't want to go that far. Because I think what's more likely happening here is that Jesus is simply painting a loose picture to illustrate the need for readiness in the last days. Again, the whole theme of all of these parables all together, he's not giving us detailed information of the end. He's already done some of that earlier in the discourse, but at this stage of the Olivet Discourse, he's teaching lessons. He's not getting into sort of complex and dense theology. These are lessons. Doesn't mean he's not doing any of that, but the whole point is he's teaching on the theme of readiness. He's exhorting the disciples, be ready, be an alert, watch out. And he's doing so through these parables. And so many scholars safely conclude The parable of the 10 virgins represents professing believers in the last days. And even Thomas Shepard, my good friend here, interpreted the 10 virgins as 10 churches, which stood as a representation of all the church congregations. Again, other parables addressed to believers. And even in verse 13 here, Jesus makes this general exhortation to all believers to be on alert. He's talking to the disciples, but it's meant to be for all of us. Be on the alert. You don't know when the Lord is returning, so be ready. So without going too far into speculation, it is safe for us, I believe, to interpret these 10 virgin maidens as professing believers. Now, why do I emphasize the word professing, professing believers? Well, because as we see in the parable, they're not all the same, are they? Some are wise and prepare themselves to receive the Lord, but others are foolish, dull, moronic, unwise, and they are not prepared for him at all. And so the question then pushes us into, okay, well, what is the difference here between the wise and the foolish, the prepared and the not prepared? What does this preparation entail? Well, in the parable here, we see that there's one factor, one factor, and it's all about the oil in the lamps, isn't it? Isn't that what we see here? It's all about oil. Well, what does oil symbolize? What does that have to do with anything? There's been several ideas, several Bible interpreters who've seen oil as a symbol for something. One view is that this oil in the lamps represents good works done by genuine believers. And this brings us to mind the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5. He says here, you are the light of the world. Again, we're talking about lamps now. You are the light of the world. A city that's set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do men light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp stand. And it gives light to all who are in the house. Verse 16, let your light shine before men in such a way that they will see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven. And so Jesus here would be making the connection between the believer's lamp and their good works. Again, good works that give evidence that they have saving faith. So that's one possibility. But there's another possibility here as well. In many places in the Bible, oil or anointing oil is seen as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. For example, In Luke 4, 18, Jesus is proclaiming from Isaiah 61, he's reading Isaiah 61, and he says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He's talking about the Holy Spirit now. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel. Even Jesus connects the Spirit and the anointing. So Holy Spirit and anointing oil are linked in that illustration. And so if we were to use this intended symbolism here, we see that then five of the virgin maidens who possess the Holy Spirit and therefore are prepared to meet the Lord, and then also five virgin maidens who are professing believers, they profess to know Jesus, but they do not have the oil, they do not have the Holy Spirit, and are therefore not prepared to meet Him when He comes. Of course, that would certainly make sense in this parable, wouldn't it? That some possess this oil and some do not. And when we take this out, if we're talking about the Spirit again here, a Christian can no more share the Spirit within them, with anybody else, than a prudent maiden could share her oil with someone who does not have it. How so? When a person receives or when they hear the gospel and they receive Christ and they believe on him, the Holy Spirit takes up residence within them. We call this the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God takes up residence within us. This is what we call regeneration, new birth, a new enlivening, a spiritual awakening that happens inside of you. It's from dead to life. It's the spirit who opens our ears to hear the gospel and understand it. It is the spirit who illuminates our minds and gives us understanding. It is the spirit who causes us to be born again. It is the spirit who causes us to believe. Without the Spirit's work, we have no light to see Christ. He is absolutely essential to all of us in Christ. And yet there are those who claim to be Christians and yet do not have the Holy Spirit and cannot see Christ. They might show up at church, they might have a Bible underneath their arm, they might go to all the things and do all the things and use the verbiage and say I'm a Christian and say they're walking in Christ, and yet they don't confess their sins, they don't believe the gospel, and they do not walk in obedience to the Lord. Now I'm not talking about growing slowly in sanctification over time, I'm talking about zero. or as the parable of the soils. They sprout up for a little while, and then when the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and all these other things creep in their life, it just chokes it out. And the next thing you know, they're gone. And we never see them again. And it's a sad thing in the life of the church. I mean, there have been people who've come in, even into this assembly, and they do really well for a while, and man, they're saved, and they're growing, and then all of a sudden, they just apostatize, and they run away, and we never see them again. I've even baptized people who've had a profession of faith. They're growing in the Lord, and it's like I baptize them, and next thing you know, they're gone. Never heard from them again. Now, I don't know where they are. Maybe they go into a better church. I have no idea. But the bottom line is that, you know, this happens all the time. Profess to know Christ and then have nothing of godliness in them at all. They're holding a lamp, but there's no light because they have no oil. Makes sense. They don't have him. But those who have the oil, again, whether that's the Holy Spirit or the good works, again, those who have the oil have the Spirit. When you have the Spirit, He motivates you to good works, so the two actually work together. And so we're not antinomians, we're not rebels. We don't claim to be Christians and then launch ourselves into disobedience. That's not who we are. And even if you're here today and you're saying you're a Christian and you're living in opposition to the kingdom of God, check your heart. Examine yourself. I mean, that should actually be a cause of warning for you. Am I living a life that is consistent with being a Christian? I'm not talking about perfection. I'm not talking about doing everything right. Because let me tell you, nobody does everything right. All of us sin against God. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We're all growing in the Lord. We're all seeking after him. I mean, the Bible talks about working out the reality of our salvation with fear and trembling. And sometimes it feels like agony to grow in the Lord. He chastens us and disciplines us and we stumble and fall and we help each other get back up. And it's a hard thing, isn't it? But if you say you're a Christian and then you leave all of godliness behind and just do your own thing and live for yourself and you live in the flesh, You have a lamp, but you have no oil. And there's gonna come a day when you will not see him. Jesus says, John 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. He doesn't say, if you keep my commandments, I'll save you. He says, no, if I've saved you and therefore you love me, you'll keep my commandments. You'll obey the Lord. You'll be on alert and watch your life and you'll watch your teaching, your doctrine. You'll confess your sins and you'll seek forgiveness. Let me just put this out to you. Believers confess, we confess our sins. When we sin against the Lord or against each other, we confess and we seek forgiveness. And when other people confess to us that they've hurt us, we forgive as well. Well, I don't wanna forgive. Has not Christ forgiven you? If Christ has forgiven you, then you have no right to withhold forgiveness from somebody else. That's Ephesians 4.32. And so we forgive our other people when they sin against us. We seek forgiveness from the Lord. We pursue reconciliation. We pursue unity. We focus on spiritual disciplines. We wanna grow in our prayer life, in our praise and worship. We wanna grow in our Bible reading. And I'll tell you, it's very easy for me as the preacher to just give commands of things to do. Let me tell you, anybody in this room, if you're struggling with any of these things, Bible reading, prayer, giving, serving, getting plugged in, whatever it may be, come and talk to any one of us. Elders, deacons, whoever, whoever's spiritually mature. If you see someone who's mature, ask them a question. I would love to help you study your Bible, I really would. But this is what we do, we desire to do the things that are pleasing to God. We wanna honor Him, we wanna commit ourselves to growing in Christlikeness. I wanna be like Jesus because I love Him. And if you have the Spirit of God within you, you will not seek to grieve Him. Now there are times that we sin and it is grievous to him, yes, sadly, and we repent and we turn away, we confess, we find forgiveness, but I'll tell you, believers don't set out to try to grieve him. That's not who we are. And so the day when the Lord returns for you, either by death or by his own return, and you hear this shout and you hear this voice, will you meet him in the air? Will you meet him? Will he accept you into the wedding feast? Into heaven? Into eternal life and abundant joy? Ask yourself these questions. And if you are in Christ, if you are faithful and wise, as the parable talks about, if you prepared yourself and have the oil with you, if you have the spirit of God in you, then yes, you will. You will be welcomed into the wedding feast. But what about the foolish? What about those who brought no oil with them? What about those who profess to know God, but by their deeds deny him? As Titus 1 16 says. What about those? Turn your copy of scripture back to Matthew chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven. At the end of the sermon on the mount, which we looked at quite a long time ago, Jesus addressed the listeners directly at the very end of his sermon, and he exhorted them to choose their path. He only gives two here, only two ways, only two ways, and we must choose. Matthew chapter seven, starting in verse 13. Jesus is concluding his sermon when he says, enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every tree that bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then you will know them by their fruits. Verse 21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles? then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house and yet it did not fall for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand and the rains fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house and it fell and great was its fall. Immediately here, you see these two paths, these two ways. There's the narrow gate, the narrow way, which is the way of wisdom and fruitfulness and eternal life. And then you see the broad way, which consists of foolishness and disobedience and destruction. And remember in the parable, the foolish maidens, they arrived at the door as it was shut and they banged on the door and they said, Lord, Lord, open up for us. But they were foolish and disobedient. And they had chosen the broad way, the lazy way. They weren't prepared for his return. And so what does he say to them? It's virtually the same thing he says in Matthew 7. I never knew you. I don't know you. Matthew 7, the end of Matthew 7, I think, is some of the most terrifying scripture ever written. It scares the life out of me. Not in a fear of not being with the Lord in heaven kind of a way, by grace through faith we trust in Him, but I'm terrified for those Not necessarily all the pagans and the people who don't even know Christ, don't care to know Christ, don't profess to know Christ, they're lost, they know they're lost, but those who sit in the pews and hide among us as tares in the wheat and they think they're gonna get to heaven one day and walk up and say, I'm here. Lord, I did all kinds of things for you. I served the church. I gave a lot of money. I was there every Sunday. I read the Daily Bread. I did all these things. I did lots of things in your name, and he's gonna look at that person and say, I have no idea who you are. I never knew you. Does that mean he has no cognitive knowledge of that person? Of course not, he's omniscient. What does he mean? We had no relationship. I never had fellowship with you. I never knew you. You never knew me. You don't come in. The door is shut and they perish. That should sober you. Again, that scares me to think that there are people who will come to him and say, Lord, Lord, open up for me. Foolish, foolish. And yet, what will the Lord say to you on the last day? What will you hear? Will he say, well done, good and faithful servant? Or will he say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity? What will he say? If you're not sure, you'd better be sure. Don't leave here with question marks. Don't leave here with, eh, maybe I'll be okay. I think I'm a good enough person. And I'll tell ya, and that's another one of those preacher things. When we repeat phrases from people, I think I'm good enough, I hear people say that verbatim all the time. I'm a good person? No, we're not. If you think you're good enough, you are not. Because God's standard is perfection. His holy standard is so high and lofty and exultant, we can't even see him. And yet he condescends, he comes down from heaven and he embodies a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes in flesh and he lives his life among his people and he walks with us and he eats with sinners and tax collectors. and he lives his life and he lives a perfect, righteous life, flawless in the sight of God. Why? Well, because he is God in human flesh. And then what does Jesus do? He goes and he gives his life as a ransom on the cross, and on the cross, he pays for sin. He accomplishes the work of salvation. All of our sins are nailed to His cross and die with Him and yet the Father imputes or credits or lends His righteous life to us and we receive it by faith as a gift. If you think you're good enough and you're not good enough, what do you do? You have to receive a gift. You have to receive the righteousness of Christ given to you by faith in him. And so if you hear this message, repent, turn away from your sin, stop chasing goodness, stop getting off, get off the hamster wheel, thinking that you're good enough for heaven. And you say, but that just seems like too much to bear. It means I have to give up my whole life and do something different. Yes, it does. It means that your old self has to die, but it does also mean that you have become a new creation in Christ. If any man is in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold, the new has come. When you turn from your sins and put your faith in Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God indwells you and turns the lights on. You begin to understand the things of God and all of a sudden, your affections for Christ begin to grow. Your desires in life begin to change. You no longer want sin and rebellion. You want righteousness. You want the Lord. You wanna know Him. You wanna be comforted by Him. You wanna be saved by Him. and you want to see him one day. Beloved, don't you wanna see him? Your mind's eye sees him now in the scriptures, but there's coming a day when all of this will pass and you won't have to see him by faith, you'll see him by sight. You'll behold the glorious face of Jesus Christ and he'll welcome you in to his kingdom. and you'll stand before his throne not condemned as a sinner, but adopted and beloved as a child of the Most High God. All of this comes to you, beloved, by faith. And yet, a life of faith will produce a life of faithfulness. Do you know him? Do you know him? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you So much for this wonderful parable that teaches us, even though there's so much mystery wrapped up in this parable. And Lord, maybe there are layers here that we don't clearly see. I'm sure there are. And Lord, maybe one day we will have the blinders taken off and we will see all the glorious mystery and majesty of these words in full color. But even, Lord, for us with our limited and even earthly understanding, we can still, by the Holy Spirit's ministry to us, apprehend a glorious truth that one day we will see you because we're preparing to meet you. We wanna know you. We wanna know the fellowship of your sufferings. We wanna know the fellowship of your death and resurrection. We wanna know everything about you, Lord. We wanna be connected to you and linked to you. We wanna have life in you. The way that a branch is connected to the root and has the spirit of the sap flowing through us, oh Lord, that's what we want. I wanna do the things that please you, oh Lord. We wanna walk in righteousness. So Lord, I pray that our lamps would be lit and have oil burning in them, Lord. that we would be ready for your return whenever that day comes. And whether we see that here on earth or whether we see you by being taken to heaven through death, oh Lord, there are many saints who die in this life and come to life in the next and they see you. But Lord, let us be ready. Let us not be like those foolish ones who have no oil, who profess knowing you only but don't actually know you at all. Let us be born again by the Spirit. I pray that every single person here would believe the gospel, the message of the salvation of Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, let us be ready. We love you. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.