Wisdom of Solomon 6:17–20
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13
Put off today, what you can do tomorrow. Isn’t that what we do sometimes? Maybe some of us do this, a little more often than others. I am guilty of that, especially when it comes to school work or projects I just don’t have excitement over.
I know my kids have heard this from me often, sarcastically at least. Hey, no sense in doing what you are suppose to do today, just put off what you can do today, until tomorrow. You would never guess, I get dirty looks when I say that to them. Then of course you never know what tomorrow holds. I have a daughter that must have heard me say these words too often. When she gets schoolwork that is due in three weeks, often she has it done the week it was assigned or sometimes the following week.
Ever heard of the Boy Scout Motto: “Always be prepared.” Wonder where they might have pulled that from? I use to be a police officer and a firefighter, we always were checking and rechecking our equipment, getting additional training, training in realistic mock situations. Always done before we needed the supplies or needed the training for real.
There are all sorts of things we do and have done to be prepared in many situations. Saving for retirement, the purchase of life insurance, auto insurance, homeowners insurance, saving up for repairs, and the list can go on. We know that we need to be prepared. Many if not all of the things I mentioned, we have no idea just when we may need to take advantage of our preparation.
Have you ever noticed that when Jesus is saying something that is really really important, He always starts out with, “Truly Truly I say or Very Truly I say”. This is a point that Jesus wants us to pay attention very carefully. Its not that the other things He says are unimportant, but these are of particular importance.
Very truly I say, our gospel today, is important. This parable of the ten bridesmaids is one of several parables speaking of the importance of being prepared and not sitting idle. The parables are bookended with the telling of the coming of Son of Man and judgment of the nations. Of the parables, each also contain the words of “very truly”, with the exception of the parable of the talents, which speaks of judgment and precedes the judgment of the nations.
The women in our scripture today are a fine examples of being prepared and not being prepared. Five of them brought with them extra oil for their lamp, prepared because they could not be sure of when the bride would show. They may have an idea but sometimes things do not always work out the way we expect. The others did not have a contingency plan. There seems to be an assumption that they knew when the bride would show. The bride in this case is parallel to the second coming of the Jesus Christ.
On one hand we have been told of the signs of the second coming yet on the other hand we have also been told by Jesus, that only the Father knows when the Son will come again. If we know when Jesus is to come, we run the danger of not doing the things that we have been commanded of. If we knew the day and hour, then we could just live our lives any which way we wanted and ask for forgiveness just before the hour. What are we to do? How can we remain prepared, see what appears to be the signs yet not assume that we know when it is?
It is a matter of living our lives each and every day, as if Jesus is about to come that day. Billy Graham many times had a prepared himself for Jesus coming the following day. He said, “Many times when I go to bed at night I think to myself that before I awaken Christ may come.”[1]
Now maybe you might be saying to yourself that you are not ready, you have not put your house in order. How about, I have too many sins that I have not confessed to. All of this stuff getting in our way of the simple fact of what has already been done for us, in Christ Jesus.
Let me leave you with the following story:
Just before General Eisenhower died, Billy Graham was invited to visit him at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. He was told he could stay thirty minutes. When he went in, the general was wearing his usual big smile, even though he knew he didn’t have long to live.
Later Billy Graham told what happened:
“When the thirty minutes were up, he asked me to stay longer and said to me, “Billy, I want you to tell me again how can I be sure my sins were forgiven and that I am going to heaven, because nothing else matters now.”
“I took my New Testament and read him Scriptures. I pointed out that we are not going to heaven because of our good works, or because of money we’ve given to the church. We are going to heaven totally and completely on the basis of the merits of what Christ did on the cross. Therefore he could rest in the comfort that Jesus paid it all!
“After prayer, Ike said, “Thank you I’m ready!”[2]
Fulton Community Church, Fulton IA
[1] Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000), 685.
[2] Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996), 1085.