Will You be Ready for Jesus When He Comes Again in Glory?
Sermon for the 26th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
Bible reading: Matthew 25:1-13
Dear Friends of Jesus:
Whenever Jesus wanted to teach a lesson with great clarity – one that His hearers would remember – He spoke in parables. And so, when He speaks the Parable of the five Wise and the five Foolish Virgins, it is an extremely important lesson that He want to get across to us.
These were ladies who were waiting for their friend, the bridegroom, to return from taking a young lady as his wife. The custom in Jesus’ day was that the groom went to the bride’s house where her father presented her to him and then with a large procession following, he took his bride to his house for the wedding feast. These anxious young ladies were waiting for the returning bridegroom but it took much longer at the bride’s house than they expected and soon they all fell asleep. But at midnight the cry rang out: The bridegroom’s here! Come out to meet him!
They all awoke immediately and trimmed their lamps but the foolish virgins had neglected to buy oil for their lamps and so they asked the wise virgins for some of theirs. This was an impossible request because these only had enough to get them to the groom’s home and not a drop more...they could spare none. So the foolish girls had to go back into the town to try to buy some oil at the last minute. While they were gone, as you well know, the bride and bridegroom returned and those virgins prepared went into the wedding feast with them. When the foolish virgins arrived some time later and banged on the door begging for admission, the bridegroom replied: I don’t know you.
What a story, eh? But it’s really not about brides and grooms and virgins, is it?
This was Jesus way of warning us that we should be in a constant state of preparedness. Jesus is the bridegroom and his bride is the church of all ages. The five wise maidens represent those who have heard the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, firmly believe it, and then live their lives according to it. They worship regularly. They read their Bible. They pray constantly. They receive the Lord’s Supper often and thus they are ready for Jesus when He returns one day in Judgement! The foolish maidens represent those who have come to faith in Jesus also but who by lack of the exercise of their faith in worship, receiving the Sacraments, prayer and service to the Lord and their neighbour, are not ready to meet Him when He returns.
Jesus said later in Matthew 25: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory!
And at the end of our text He says: Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.
In Mark 13 in a different parable He also says: Keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back ... if he comes suddenly do not let him find you sleeping.
And that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? Keep watch because we do not know when Jesus will return ... but we know that it will happen and that it will happen suddenly!
A supreme court Judge in the United States once informed a man who had appeared before him in a lower court and had escaped conviction on a technicality, I know that you are guilty and you know it too, and I wish you to remember that one day you will stand before a better and wiser Judge than I, and that there you will be dealt with according to justice and not according to the law.
Sometime later, surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, the thief fled out the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down the other side, and found himself in the city prison. Once in awhile retribution happens quicker than one expects.
That is what those who claim to be a Christian but refuse to live as a Christian will find out when suddenly they are called to account on God’s day of Judgement. They are like those foolish virgins. When the Bridegroom arrives they will not be prepared with saving faith. Their faith is not real and shows itself to be fake by its lack of good works of service to God and others. And like the foolish virgins they will be denied entrance to the Wedding Feast.
But those whose faith is real, those who are supremely grateful in their hearts to God and to Jesus for His sacrifice on Calvary on their behalf, will rejoice and walk into the feast with Jesus because they have been justified and made acceptable through a faith that has demonstrated its reality and that it is indeed saving faith by its longing for the things of God daily and by its eager servant-hood and good stewardship of all God’s gifts.
Having believed in Jesus Christ alone as our Saviour and Lord, we are justified before God and will be received by Jesus and welcomed into His Heavenly Wedding Banquet.
This is God’s free gift to everyone who does not refuse it – the ‘oil’ of saving faith and justification by His grace through faith.
What is justification? It is the declared purpose of God to regard and treat those sinners who believe in Jesus Christ as if they had not sinned at all, on the ground of the merits of our Saviour! It is not mere pardon. Pardon is a free forgiveness of past offences.
Justification refers to those offences as forgiven and blotted out. Justification relates to the law, and to God’s future dealings with the sinner. It is an act by which God determines to treat a person hereafter as righteous – that is, as if he or she had not sinned. The basis for this is only the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ ... merit that we can plead as if it were our own. Jesus has taken our place and died in our stead. He has met the descending stroke of justice, which would have fallen on our own heads if He had not stepped in.
—Albert Barnes
So will you be ready for Jesus when He comes again in glory? Will I? We will if we keep our eyes firmly focused on Christ, on His cross and on His empty tomb. For there alone we see our salvation accomplished for us and we are brought to the realization by the Holy Spirit that we can place our entire future into His loving and saving, nail-pierced hands.
There is a true story about some pioneers who were making their way across one of the central states in the US to a distant place that had been opened up for homesteading. They travelled in covered wagons drawn by oxen, and progress was slow.
One day they were horrified to see a long line of smoke in the west, stretching for miles across the prairie, and soon it was evident that the dried prairie grass was burning fiercely and coming toward them rapidly. They had crossed a river the day before but it would be impossible to go back to that place before the flames would be upon them. One man only seemed to have an understanding as to what could be done. He gave the command to set fire to the grass behind them, to the east, then, when a large enough space was burned over, the whole company moved back upon it.
As the flames roared on toward them from the west, a little girl cried out in terror: Are you sure we will not all be burned up?
The leader replied, My child, the flames cannot reach us here, for we are standing where the fire has already been.
What a picture of the true believer who is safe in Christ!
The fires of God’s judgment burned themselves out on Jesus on the cross, and all who are in Christ by faith, are safe forever, for we are now standing by faith where the fire has already been. This is God’s gift to us! And through the power of His Word and Sacraments you and I will be ready when Jesus comes again. We will have our lamps full of the oil of faith ... and so we will enter with him into the His eternal wedding banquet where we will all with one voice sing the praises of our God and Saviour for all eternity! By God’s grace in Christ I look forward to seeing each and every one of you there! Amen.