The End of the World - Part 2

For those who missed the last post here's the parable of the Ten Virgins retold. It's got a lot to do with the end of the world so you may wanna read it closely.

Ten women go with lamps to await the arrival of the bridegroom. Five of them are prepared with extra oil. Five of them however make no extra preparation. It is what makes them "foolish" for reasons we will soon discover. The bridegroom is delayed in his coming and, tiring of waiting for him, the women fall off to sleep. Suddenly at midnight the bridegroom’s arrival is announced. The women wake up and check their lamps, the ones without surplus oil realizing that their lamps are running dry. They plead with the other women to share their oil, but the women refuse, saying there is not enough to go around. As the women without oil go out to try to find some, the bridegroom comes and takes those who are prepared with him to the wedding banquet. When the foolish women arrive much later, they are not allowed in. "I do not know you," the bridegroom says.

We're the women in the story - Christians carrying the lamps of salvation. The oil is, of course, generally considered a symbol of the Holy Spirit (cf. Exodus 29.7, 27:20, Psalm 133:2, Mark 6:13, James 5:14, Leviticus 8), and some of us are filled with him! As a result, love overflows from our hearts. And joy. And peace. And patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (cf Galatians 5:22-23). That's what happens when your lamp is full. Others among us have just about enough to get us by.

Jesus is the bridegroom and he is a little late in coming (folks have been expecting him for nearly 2000 years!), and we get complacent. Then suddenly - you gotta picture this - you hear the rumble of excited noise and, then, a moment later somebody yells out that Jesus is around the corner and he is headed your way. You do a lamp check and discover that you're short of oil. Very little love. Hardly any peace. You're low on everything. Worse, you got unconfessed sin your life. You have unforgiveness in your heart. There are areas in your life that are unsurrendered. You go out looking to right whatever's wrong and while you are gone, Jesus comes in and takes whoever is ready.

Finally, you get everything sorted and you make your way to the wedding banquet, which is heaven in case you haven't figured it out already. The gates are closed and as you approach it you see a man knocking on it. Jesus comes out and the man says to him, "Jesus, let me in. I'm a believer. I went for mass every Sunday and went for prayer meetings every Friday." But Jesus says to him, "Sorry, buddy, but that won't do. Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (cf. Matthew 7:21).

As you watch, open mouthed, another man knocks on the gates and says to Jesus. "Lord, let me in. I drove out demons and healed the sick and did other assorted miracles, all in your name." But Jesus says to him, "But you didn't have any love in your heart. Sorry, but I don't know you. Away from me, you evildoer!' (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, Matthew 7:22-23).

You stand there frozen as yet another man approaches and asks Jesus to let him in. "I'm sorry, but I can't," Jesus replies. "I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' And the man answered, "Lord, when did I see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' And Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me" (see Matthew 25:31-46).

What do you think is going to happen to you? Are you going to be allowed in?

These things that I have spoken about are things that Jesus has said. He may have been speaking to the Jews, but His words are equally relevant to us. He constantly cautions us to be careful about how we lead our lives. Faith in Christ Jesus is the only thing we need to be saved, but once we are saved we can't continue to live like pagans. Paul and the other apostles also warn us repeatedly to be careful about this. See Paul's warning to the Galatians:

"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

Paul was speaking to baptized Christians! As a Christian preacher I am duty bound to warn you too, despite the fact that it is an unpopular (and very scary!) message. A lot of people would have you believe that you have nothing to worry about and lulled into a false sense of complacency, you'd probably find yourself sleeping well at night. I would rather keep you awake a few nights here on earth, than have you spending an eternity of sleepless nights. I want to see you there at the wedding feast.

Which brings me to the important question? When is the feast gonna begin? Or, if you want to ask the question in a different way, when is the world going to end? I don't know. It could be five years from now; it could be fifty; it could be five hundred. But what I do know is that for YOU the world ends the day you die. And that could happen at any moment as the people in Indonesia discovered when the Tsunami came and swept them away. Or, more recently, as the people of Haiti found out when the ground swallowed them up; nearly 300,000 of them died in one single blow.

Are you ready?