This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to week 27 of our look through the book of Matthew. We're
looking at chapter 25 today as we continue our look from last week at Jesus'
discourse on the Mount of Olives, his sermon, his long sermon about his own
second coming. Last week we took a look at some of the things that Jesus had to
teach us about making sure that our hope was not misplaced, that we placed it in
him and not in some temple or other religious thing, and making sure that we
were not misled by someone who came and promised some false truth about his
second coming.

He taught us it's going to be sure. It's going to be clear to those of you who
are believers. And then we began to talk about being alert, being aware to the
second coming of Christ.

And as we've talked through this, we're really looking at how does the second
coming affect my life now? What difference should it make in my life now? The
truth of the second coming should not result in a feeling of confusion or
anxiety for you as a believer.

Jesus taught this to give us hope, and he taught it to show us how to live. So
as we look at three different stories that Jesus told us in this 25th chapter,
we're going to see how you and I can live the kind of hope that we can only find
in his power through his love. So let's dig into the fifth picture that Jesus
gives us.

Over last week, we began to talk about seven specific pictures that show us how
to be aware and awake and alive to the second coming of Christ. And in this
fifth picture, he talks about a marriage, and he talks about readiness and
preparedness in our lives. Begins in verse one.

Listen to this story. "At that time, the kingdom of heaven will be like ten
virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them
were foolish, and five were wise.

The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise,
however, took oil and jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long
time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

At midnight, the cry rang out, 'Here's the bridegroom! Come and meet him! ' Then
all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.

The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil. Our lamps are
going out. ' 'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both of us.

'Go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves. ' But while they were
there to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived, and the virgins who were ready
went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. Later, the
others also came.

'Sir, sir,' they replied, 'they said, 'open the door for us. ' But he replied,
'I tell you the truth, I don't know you, and therefore keep watch,' Jesus said,
'because you do not know the day or the hour. '" Now, as you and I hear through
this story, there are some wedding customs that were in ancient Israel and still
are practiced in some Middle Eastern cultures today that you need to be aware of
in this story.

It was customary for a couple to get engaged and then maybe wait upwards of a
year for the actual ceremony. And unlike American weddings where you set the
date, you send out the invitations, and then you have the beautiful ceremony
right on time, the bride was to make her preparations and then wait for the
bridegroom to come and get her when those preparations were complete. He was
going to build a room, usually, that was an addition to his parents' home.

And when he had built that room, when they had a place to live, then he would
come and he would get her and they would go and they would have this wonderful
week of celebration, this bridal feast, this wedding celebration. But nobody
knew exactly in advance what time it was going to be, when was the house going
to be finished. When you're done remodeling on your house, you know, no one
knows exactly when that's going to be finished.

It's never finished exactly on time. The bride knew about when it was going to
be. And when it was close to being finished, everybody would get ready, but they
had to be ready for any moment in case it was today.

This still happens, even though the room isn't built, it's not the same. It
still happens in some Middle Eastern cultures that they will practice this
tradition of surprising the bridal party so that they can go off to the wedding.
In this story, there's these maidens who are fully prepared to receive the
groom.

And they rejoice because they were ready, they were prepared. And there's those
who were not prepared. They were there, but they weren't prepared for a long
wait.

And Jesus says, when it comes to the second coming, there's a lesson here for
you and I. You got to keep watch. You got to be ready.

Now, keeping watch means that you're ready. And here's the truth here for you
and I, you are ready for any moment. And keeping watch also means that you're
ready to wait.

You're ready for him to come at any moment, and you're ready to wait for that
moment. That's what it means to keep watch. So as you look at your life, the
question is, are you ready for Jesus to come at any moment?

And all the bridal party was ready for him to come at any moment at the
beginning. They all had their lamps, and the lamps were full of oil, but there
were some who brought extra oil in case they had to wait a little bit longer. So
with all of them, there's this sense that he could come at any moment, and they
were ready for that at the beginning in one sense.

That's something that goes in our hearts. When you look at your heart, are you
ready for Jesus to come at any moment? For that blessed hope, for that wonderful
hope that only he can bring?

That readiness for him to come at any moment is when you put all your hope in
him. If you start putting too much of your hope in this world, then you don't
feel ready for him to come. If you start putting too much of your hope in
yourself, then you're not ready for him to come.

The more you put your hope in Christ, the more you're ready for him to come at
any moment. If you're going through persecution and difficulty and struggle as
we talked about last week, of course you're ready for him to come at any moment.
Come and rescue me, Lord Jesus.

If life is good and things seem like they're being blessed in your life, then
you have to recognize that those blessings are just a small indication, small
taste of what's going to happen in eternity, and your hope is really in him, not
in those small blessings that you have on this earth. Are you ready for him to
come at any moment? That's the first part of the readiness here.

Then there's the second part. Are you ready to wait? Some of the bridesmaids,
half of them, had brought extra oil.

They were ready to wait as long as they needed for the groom to come and take
the bridal party off to the wedding. There were those others that were foolish.
They were not ready for the long wait.

Because of that, they were not there when the groom came. When the bride came
and had this wonderful celebration, they somehow missed out on it because their
hearts weren't truly ready for the wait. There are people who would say, "I'm
ready for Jesus to come right now, but I'm not trusting him enough to be willing
to wait for him to come right now.

I want immediate rescue. I want it on my timetable, in my way. " Being ready
means also being ready to wait.

So are you ready to wait? Are you ready to wait for his timetable in your life
for him to come? Many times we have the resources that say, "I'm willing to have
faith in the moment.

" But do you have the resources that say, "I'm willing to have faith to wait for
Jesus's moment, to wait for the time that he comes. " All down through Christian
history, there are those who've had to wait for the moment when Jesus is going
to come again. As we've waited, some have faced persecution.

Others have faced difficulty in their own lives. Many have faced the
discouragement that comes from being in a world where it seems like evil is
winning it sometimes. But the truth of the matter is, we are waiting on hope.

And so when you think about the resources in your life, they had to have more
oil. They had to have enough oil. What do you need to have enough of to be
willing to wait, to be ready to wait?

Well, you have to have enough of what Paul says will last in the book of
Corinthians. You have to have enough faith. You have to have enough hope.

You have to have enough love. Those are the things that are going to last into
all eternity. So whatever is going to last into eternity, you've got to build
enough of that into your life now so that you're ready.

You're waiting for all of eternity. And as we pray today, looking just today,
one day at a time, I want to pray that God will give you and I those resources
in our lives because they come from him. So let's trust him for him right now.

Our Father, as we pray, we ask. We ask for faith, hope, and love. We ask that
those resources that cause us to be ready to wait, that those will be in our
hearts today so that whatever circumstance we face, whatever difficulty we face,
whatever victories even we have, we'll realize our hope is not in this world.

Our hope is in you. We're waiting for you. We're waiting for that incredible
celebration of all eternity.

And so, Jesus, we come and we trust you with this now. We pray that you put
those resources into our hearts and lives just now. In your name, amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to begin to look at Jesus' story about how to manage what
he's given us while we wait.