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Sunday, September 15, 2019

The Parable of the Ten Virgins

The Parable of the Ten Virgins 

Topic: Do you have enough oil for your lamp? 
Text Matthew 25:1-13 

Pr Lo Yi Ping  
15 Sep 2019



Outline Background
Parables are stories told by Jesus to explain the kingdom of God, shows the character of God and how believers should live in light of the coming kingdom of God. Normally they are in contrast of two groups of people and in this case are the wise versus the foolish virgins. This is the event of waiting for the bridegroom that is taking a while to come and they became tired as they waited. But when the bridegroom arrived is where the contrast was seen between the two groups of the virgins. One group have lamps with no oil and the other took extra oil with them to replenish their lamps. It showed the wise virgins were ready for the event whereas the foolish virgins were unprepared and eventually the wise virgins entered the banquet hall while the foolish virgins were shut out.

This parable was to illustrate the time when the kingdom of God will arrive. The disciples have not understood about Jesus’s suffering and departure and coming back at a later time. Likewise, today we too are like the disciples then asking about the time, date and signs of the second coming of Christ and how we should prepare for it.

 1. The wedding is planned; the bridegroom is coming- Christ is coming Back! (Mt. 24:44) 
In a Jewish wedding, the father of the groom visits the bride’s family and  pays for the bride price and establish the marriage covenant in the presence of witnesses. The covenant could be arranged when the children were young or in their adulthood and within one year to the time of marriage. The bride and groom do not meet until their wedding day. Next will be the preparation of the bridal chamber and may take about a year or more. The bride will be waiting for the return of the bridegroom during this time. When the chamber is completed, the father will determine when to fetch the bride to his house.

In the same way, our heavenly Father also came to us to make the marriage proposal and paid for it with a heavy price of His son in order for us to enter into a marriage relationship with Him. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Ephesians 5:25. God initiated the relationship. He came to look for us first. When we accept Jesus as our personal saviour, we are accepting the bride price and the marriage covenant with God is set and our confirmation and baptism is a public declaration among witnesses that we belong to Jesus and He belongs to us. Likewise, Jesus also goes back to the Father’s house to prepare the bridal chamber to us. And how Jesus went back to the Father’s place, He will also come back for us in the same way. The only thing we are not certain about is the time of His coming back. John 14:2, Acts 1:11. Only the heavenly Father knows the time Jesus will come back and no one else. Matt 24:36, John 14:3. Despite it has been more then 2000 years since Jesus went back to the Father, the scriptures tells us that His promise will be fulfilled. Matt 24: 34-35.


2.   Watch out because you do not know the day or the hour. I have told you ahead of time. 
The bridegroom coming is unknown so it is always preceded by a shout to warn the bride that the groom is coming. Matt 25: 6-7. We are to watch out for the coming of Christ again as only the heavenly Father know the timing and Jesus have told to us this ahead of time. We maybe in the midst of some event but we are to immediately respond to His coming. Matt 24:37-39. Just like the virgins, 5 were invited into the banquet, the other 5 were shut out, so we too will be if we were found to be unprepared. Matt 24: 39-41. This the message to all believers ie all the ten virgins were believers as told in the parable. Just like Noah warned his people, those who chose to ignore his message were wiped out so we too need to heed the above warning. By faith Noah took God’s word to heart and heeded the warning and his family was saved.

3.   You were invited. Are you ready for the party? Are you preparing?
Was God showing favouritism when He only chose the 5 virgins to the banquet? Were they more intelligent or smarter than the rest? Shouldn’t God have let all in? The key to enter the banquet was about one’s readiness and preparedness and not about one’s intelligence. The other 5 virgins were not around when the bridegroom arrived for they were looking for oil for their lamps and as a result missed the banquet. The other 5 virgins couldn’t possibly share their oil as they will need all the oil as they have a way to go to the banquet. The light that was emitted is also limited to the front of their feet. As the verse states, thy word is a lamp on my feet and a light to my path, oil is likened to the spirit and the word of God. For believers to go further in our spiritual journey, we need the word and spirit of God in our lives for without these two, there can be no true salvation. Likewise in our Discipleship Journey, we need to have an encounter with God, experience God by the Spirit and read the word of God so that when we move out of our comfort zone, in times of adversity, we can testify that as the Holy Spirit empowered us we can achieve something beyond our ability and that is the time we can testify that God is faithful and He is the one who empowered and enabled us to achieve what we cannot do on our own. However, when we do not respond to opportunities to serve, one day God may say that He does not know us. For God to know us, it has to be experiential. Our times spent on the reading the Bible, serving, body ministry in the Connect Group, experiencing the life of the faith community are the ways of adding oil in our oil jar. Such encounter and knowledge gained with the Lord can only be experienced personally and this experience cannot be transferred just like the oil cannot be shared with the other virgins. So, it is important for us to stock up our own oil jar. We are all invited to the banquet but are we ready for the party?  In our preparation, are we reading the word of God and having regular devotion, experiencing God daily, pray often, putting ourselves through some spiritual discipline such as fasting and meditating, joining a CG or a group of brothers or sisters to grow spiritually with. This is where we learn to grow our spiritual character, such as loving one another, patience, kindness and perseverance. In our serving, are we putting God given talents to use, setting a goal to grow oneself spiritually, learning new things or reading spiritual books to prepare ourselves? In constant upgrading ourselves, we will have fresh experience and testimonies to share each year. Through it all, God will show He is faithful, for He walks us through the process, He sustains us and we learn to depend on God for one cannot do it on our strength. The guidance of the Holy Spirit and the teaching of God’s word will give us revelation after revelation to the mystery of God’s kingdom. If we have resisted change, then our experience would have been much hampered. This is one way of adding oil bit by bit to keep the light burning.

The picture of Hieronymus Francken the Younger (c. 1616) gave another perspective of the parable of how the two groups of virgins are preparing for the bridegroom. We need to evaluate our lifestyle of indulgence on earthly things that are not pleasing to God. Is our lives are entangled with things that pulls us down preventing us from moving forward, are we loving our live so much that we are not willing to give it up for the eternal kingdom, procrastinating in thinking we still have a lot of time.

Conclusion 
It is never God’s intention to eliminate anyone but it is His heart’s desire for all nations to join the banquet. He desires us to make disciples of all the nations. Matt 28:19-20. Mark 16: 15-16
Our hearts and love may grow cold while waiting for the bridegroom to come if we do not cultivate the discipline of daily devotion with God. Matt 24:12-13
We keep watch for we do not know the day or hour God will come.  Mat 25: 13, 24: 42-44 

Questions for discussion: 
1. Jesus promised to return for us, what if he never comes, how will that affect our hope of salvation? If you can choose the date of Jesus return, would you prefer him to come sooner or later? Why? 
2. The church is encouraging everyone to be on this Discipleship Journey together. In what way do you think the four quadrants "Connect, Equip, Mentor and Release" will be helpful in preparing you for Jesus' coming?
3. "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven." How do you view God with regards to this statement?


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