I like reading books on
Assurance—on how we can be certain that we are Christians. Part of this is because assurance is
something that I have struggled with in my own life. I have a good number of books on this topic,
but you can imagine how disappointed I was when I ordered a book entitled, ‘Am
I Really a Christian?’ to find that seven of its nine chapters began ‘You are
not a Christian just because/if
For example, there were
chapters that explained, that ‘you are not a Christian just because you say you
are’, ‘you are not a Christian if you are not born again’ and ‘you are not a
Christian if you do not endure to the end’.
It’s actually a really
good and helpful book. What the writer
is trying to do is make sure that we have the proper foundation for our
faith. He does not want us to have a
false sense of assurance—of believing that you are a Christian when you are
not.
So, how can we be sure
that we are really a Christian? How can
we be sure that we are ready for the Lord’s return? How can we be sure that we are ready to pass
from this life into the next?
This morning we are going
to do two things: we are going to examine the parable of the wise and foolish
virgins and be reminded of the need to be ready to face Jesus, and then we will
look at 1 John and see how we can be ready to face Jesus.
One
day we will all face Jesus
The structure of the
parable of the wise and foolish virgins is such that the main point is made
right in the centre. ‘Here’s the
bridegroom! Come out and meet him!’ (6). Jesus is going to return. If we have died by the time he returns we can
be sure that we will also face him on the day of judgement.
Jesus
is God the Son
Jesus pictures himself as
a bridegroom. That is significant for in
the Old Testament pictures God as a groom.
‘As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God will rejoice
over you’ (Isaiah 62:5). Jesus regularly
uses titles and descriptions used for God in the Old Testament for
himself. That is because he is God the Son. Because Jesus is God the Son nothing is more
important than where you stand with him.
Don’t
be surprised that he is taking his time to return
The parable focuses on
the preparations for a wedding banquet.
This will take place at the home of the groom. The tradition was that the groom would leave
his home and go across the town or to a nearby village to the home of the
bride. He would put her on an animal and
then escort her back to his family home where the feasts will be held. He would take his time as he brought her
through as many streets as possible, so that people could see and cheer. In this parable the groom took longer to
return than the young women had expected.
In Second Peter, Peter’s
readers are complaining that Jesus has not yet returned and brought an end to
their suffering. Peter tells them not to
be surprised if Jesus’ return takes a long time, for with the Lord a day is
like a thousand years (3:8). Peter also
tells us that Jesus is delaying his return because he does not anyone to
perish, but everyone to come to repentance (3:9). Love is the reason that he has not come back
yet!
Jesus
wants us to be prepared
I have known people to be
disturbed by the parable. They fear that
Jesus will say to them those dreadful words, ‘I don’t know you.’ Why does Jesus tell us such disturbing
stories? He warns us because he loves us! He wants us to be prepared!
The groom is not expected
to arrive back until after dark. That is
why the young women had olive oil lamps.
The groom is taking longer than they expected and they all become drowsy
and fall asleep. Then they hear the key
words, ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out
and meet him!’ They wake and find that
their lamps have gone out. Five have
them have prepared for this. They have
small flasks with oil. Five have them
are not prepared. They have not got
enough oil.
You
cannot live off the faith of your parents
The five who are
unprepared ask the five who are prepared for oil. But they can’t for ‘there is not enough for
both us and you.’ The prepared young
women actually have a responsibility to be there to welcome the groom
back. It would be a shameful thing if none
of them were there to welcome him. So,
the unprepared young women have to leave to buy some oil.
I don’t want to stretch
the picture of this parable too far, but I think it is fair to say that it
teaches that we can’t live off the preparedness of others. We each need our own oil. You may have grown up in a Christian home,
but you need your own relationship with Jesus, your parent’s faith won’t get
you in to heaven.
The unprepared young women
aren’t there when the groom arrives. The
wedding banquet starts and the door is shut.
They try to get in and they are rejected. They hear those dreadful words, ‘Truly I tell
you, I never knew you!’
None
of us know when our time is up
All through this life you
have the opportunity to be prepared.
Jesus will never turn away anyone who comes to him in this life. But it is a risky thing to put off coming to
him. None of us know when he will return
and none of us know when we will breathe our last breath.
It is also a risky thing to put off turning to him because saying ‘no’ to the call of Jesus is a dangerous habit. You might find that as you resist the calling of Jesus your heart becomes hard, and then even on your deathbed you will have no interest in his love.
Now I have come across some friend who have been troubled
by this parable. There big question is:
how can I know that I am prepared? Looking
at the whole of Matthew’s Gospel I am going to give you an A, B and C—accept, believe
and change.
Admit: Right
throughout Matthew there is an emphasis on the fact that Jesus came only for
sinful people. The angel tells Joseph
that you will give him the name Jesus—which means Yahweh Saves. Jesus says that he has not come for the
righteous but to call sinners to repentance.
The first thing you got to do is accept that you are a sinful person who
desperately needs to be recued by God.
If you think that you should get into heaven because you are a good
person then you are not prepared to meet Jesus!
As Christians we should never forget this truth and so we should be a humble
people. Our pride betrays the
gospel. Our self-righteousness betrays
the gospel.
Believe: The word
faith keeps recurring in Matthew’s Gospel.
This word can also be translated trust of believe. We are to place our trust in what Jesus has
done for us on the cross. Three times
Matthew shows Jesus predicting his death and resurrection. Jesus explains the resurrection in terms of
paying a ransom for many and pouring out his blood for the forgiveness of
sins. ‘Nothing in my hands I bring,
simply to the cross I cling.’
So, Gerry Adams was being interviewed by Gay Byrne on ‘The
Meaning of Life’. Gay Byrne asked Adams
what he would say to God at the end of his life if it turned out there was a
heaven. Adams replied, ‘I will say, “Here
I am! I have done my best. Let me in!”’
That is neither accepting that he is unworthy of heaven or trusting in
what Jesus has done for him on the cross.
That is to be unprepared.
Change: There is a lot about Christian living in this gospel. Things like loving your enemies. The word repentance comes us again and again. The word for repentance in Greek literally means ‘to think after’. It means to change your mind. You have changed your mind and realised that you are sinful. You have changed your mind in the fact that you are not trying to justify yourself by your own goodness.
You are not made right with God by what you do. Salvation is a free gift. You come as you are. But becoming a Christian changes you. John the Baptist talked about producing fruit in keeping with repentance. That does not mean that
we don’t sin—daily we pray forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin
against us. But we produce fruit—fruit that
comes from being in a living relationship with God. If you are
actively resisting the call to forgive and love and seek purity and shine
as a light and speak about Jesus then you are not producing fruit. If you are struggling to forgive and love and seek purity and shine like a
light and speak about Jesus then you are producing fruit—for the Christian
knows that they are imperfect and they want to change. Remember how John Newton said, ‘I am not what
I want to be. I am not what I ought to
be. I am not what I one day will
be. But by the grace of God I am different
than I used to be.’
Let me end by telling you of a man who was prepared. His name was Count James von Moltke. He was twenty-six when Hitler came to power. He was trained as an international lawyer and
was drafted into the German intelligence.
There he secretly worked to foil the execution of Jews and captured
soldiers. In 1944 he was betrayed and
arrested. His last letter to his wife is
partly a love letter, he writes, “You are not a means
God employed to make me who I am, rather you are myself. You are my 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Without this chapter no human being is
human.” But the letter was also the final word of a believer waiting in
the departure lounge for eternity. He wrote:
“I always imagined that one should feel shock, that one would say to oneself:
now the sun sets for the last time for you, now the clock only goes twelve
twice more, now you go to bed for the last time. None of that is the case. I wonder if I am a bit high for I can’t deny
that my mood is positively elated. I
only beg the Lord of heaven that he will keep me in it, for it is surely easier
for the flesh to die like that.” Facing death at the age of 37 he acknowledged,
“Now there is still a hard bit of the road ahead of me.” “Dear heart, my life is finished”, concluded
Moltke, “This doesn’t alter the fact that I would gladly go on living and that
I would gladly accompany you a bit further on this earth. But then I would need a new task for God. The task for which God made me is done.” A few months before the war ended Moltke was
executed. A fellow prisoner commented,
“Right to the end he was completely free in soul, friendly, helpful,
considerate, a truly free and noble man amid all the trappings of horror.”
May God enable us to know
that we are ready and look forward to meeting with Jesus!
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