Sleepy Saints | Dr. Conrad Vine

So, um, our uh, uh, sermon today is entitled Sleepy Saints. I was going to call it Lost Adventist, but I thought

that may be a bit too too direct. So, I just called it sleepy saints, and I’m just going to speak about the parable of

the 10 virgins that’s found in Matthew chapter 25. So, we’re going to be focusing on that passage this morning.

Um, if if you want, you can follow me in your Bibles in the pews. But, we’re going to be looking at the parable of

the 10 bridesmaids or the 10 virgins. uh five were fi foolish and five were wise.

And so uh this is a parable that is taught about as we wait for the coming of Jesus. And so it’s a parable

applicable for the times in which we live. And as you see on the screen, that is our journey today. After the

introduction, we look at the foolish virgins. Then we’re going to look at the wise virgins. Then we’re going to look at the arrival of the groom. And then

we’re going to come to our conclusions. And so, um, that’s the journey we’re going to make, uh, this morning as, as

we look through this parable of Jesus in Matthew chapter 25. So, um, as we I’d

like to invite you once again to bow your heads with me. It’s always good to pray before you preach and to ask for the blessing of the Holy Spirit. So,

invite you to bow your heads and we will pray. Our heavenly father, we thank you for the blessings of the Sabbath day. We

thank you for the liberty of conscience we have to worship you here in America. And I pray that as we speak and as we

share today that your spirit will flow through me to all those who are present here today and those who are going to be

watching online. And father I ask that um you speak through me and for me that my words will be from your throne of

grace. And I ask that you be glorified and that the saints will be better prepared for the coming of Christ

through the hearing of this word. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. All right. So for the introduction here um the

disciples um were concerned um about Jesus saying that the temple was going

to be torn down um brick by brick and uh Jesus said that not one stone is going

to be left on another in the temple of Jerusalem and just so you understand you know what how significant was that has

anybody here ever been to Jerusalem to the wailing wall to the western wall all right it’s it’s huge and uh the the the

western wall as the western foundation ation stones upon which the temple of Jerusalem was built, Herod’s temple. And

Herod’s temple was larger than about 10 football fields. It was an enormous facility and it was one of the wonders

of the ancient world. And the the the stones that were used in that temple um

they were as big as as a single width trailer home today. They they they weren’t stones like like this. They

weren’t cement blocks. Each of those stones was larger than many minivans put together. These were enormous stones and

it took 40 years to put that temple in place. So when Jesus said to the disciples at the end of Matthew chapter

23 and beginning of 24, he said that not one stone is going to be left on another, the disciples are shocked

because to them that the temple was the center of everything in Jewish life. It was the center of the economic life.

Like all mortgage records, all debt records, the records of who could be a priest and who could not be a priest.

All debt records were stored in the temple and the temple was the place where God met man in Jerusalem.

Everybody came to the temple to worship God. Uh the the um the Ethiopian unic spent probably months going in his cart

from Ethiopia all the way up to Jerusalem so he could take part in Passover. And so when Jesus says that

this temple is going to be gone to the disciples that’s the end of the world as we know it. And so we our first text is

there on the screen Matthew 24:3 it says there um when when Jesus was

sitting on the mount of olives the disciples came to him privately saying tell us when will this be and that is

the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age. I’ve put the

word the end. You come, that word is going to appear a few more times here this morning. And so the disciples

assume that the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the age of this that is the end of the world and the coming of

Jesus are all one and the same thing. And so what they asked Jesus um when you

uh if the temple’s going to be destroyed, when’s it going to happen? Because that means it’s the end of life as we know it and it’s the end of the

religious system as we know it. And when are you going to return back to planet Earth? And so the disciples are

interested in knowing about the end of the world. And so Jesus responded in Matthew chapter 24 and 25 with a long

sermon. Now actually the book of Matthew is five sermons. And we don’t think of it in those terms. Most famous is the

sermon on the mount. Matthew 5-7. But there are actually five extended sermons

in the Gospel of Matthew. Just want to challenge you. Go home today and look for the five sermons. One of them is

Matthew 5 through7. The other is Matthew 24 and 25. And then there are three other sermons in the Gospel of Matthew.

But go home and find those three sermons for yourselves. And it’s it’s five sermons interspersed with miracle

stories. Okay? But the the teachings of Jesus uh they’re most found really out of all the gospels in Matthew’s gospel.

And so Jesus responds um in Matthew chapter 24 and 25 um by blending the

events from AD31 when this prophecy is given just for his crucifixion. And he

tells them about what’s going to happen down to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD.70. Then he extends it beyond that to

the end of time when Jesus comes again. and Jesus the the theme of the end of the Jewish nation as an independent

entity and the destruction of Jerusalem is blended with the events leading up to the coming of Christ in his second

coming as you go through Matthew chapter 24 and then at the end of Matthew 24 24

um through Matthew 25 Jesus has four parables that describe how we’re to live

while we’re waiting for the second coming of Christ and so if you are awaiting the coming of Christ that means

you’re an Adventist So this is a sermon for Adventists. These are four um teachings of Jesus,

the four parables that directly relate to people who are waiting for the coming of Christ. And so the next slide shows

um Jesus says to them um they say when is the end of the age? And Jesus

concludes his response in Matthew 28:20 with by repeating back to them the

question they asked. He says, “Lo, I’m with you always even to the end of the age.” And so you have the same

expression being used here. The disciples want to know about the end of the age. And Jesus first thing he says

to them is it doesn’t matter what’s going to happen between the fall of Jerusalem and my second coming. The most

important thing you need to know as Adventists is I’m always going to be with you.

Doesn’t matter what happens in life. Doesn’t matter who’s the president or who’s in Congress. Doesn’t matter about

revolutions and world wars. I will be with my disciples until the end. like

I’m not going to abandon you. I’m not going to walk away from you. I’m not going to have better things soon in another part of the universe. I will

always be with my disciples, says Jesus. And that’s good news, isn’t it?

When my little boy was one years old, we used to fly on a Zary Airlines. It was just after the collapse of the Soviet

Union. And um he was one years old. He’d be sitting in his car seat, fast asleep.

And we used to fly on these airy airlines had so many accidents that the theme tune was nearer my god to thee. Uh

because you get on that plane and you’d be praying hard. Every flight was a spiritual experience. We had so many

things go wrong on that airline. We decompressed coming into land the plane at one stage. We came into there was a

very narrow airport we were flying into every month sandwiched between Turkey, Armenia and Iran. And they were they

were at war with two of those nations. And so we’d we’d come in in this tuple of 154 which is like a 737 and you’d

come in high and then in an international air corridor then you do a tight spiral down to the ground in this

big jet. It was terrifying. And as we were spiraling down once the pilot suddenly announces he says we got to go

up again. He says the landing gear won’t come down. That’s a comforting thing for the pilot to tell you. So um the pilot

sent his engineer back. He had went down through a hatch in the floor and we could hear him. He was like mechanically

cranking the wheels down and we were just doing a tight circle to avoid going into enemy airspace in this big jet

waiting for the wheels to come down then we could drop down onto the floor. And so you know in that part of the world

things happened you know one one pilot gave his wanted to give his 10 10-year-old boy a chance do fly by wire

and an airbus and he flew into a mountain. Another pilot tried to land and they left a snow plow on the the

runway and the pilot the plane went straight into the snow plow and of course people died. And then there was

another incident where there was a guard in one of the local airports who was bored. He was just bored. So he decides

to take pot shots at these jets as they’re coming in with his AK-47 and a Yak 40 which carried about 30 people

came down and they’re all killed on that flight. So flying on these local airlines was a deeply spiritual

experience. And um I take go with my wife and then

which is had a a little boy at the time David and he’d be in his in the in his um car car seat and he’d be fast asleep

peacefully all through the flight. Why was that? Because he was with his mom and dad.

He didn’t understand all the nonsense that was happening out there. He was only one. But he was with his mom and

his dad. And therefore he knew he’d be okay. He was peaceful. And Jesus wants us to know that whatever

is happening out there, I will always be with you, even unto the end of the age.

That we don’t understand everything that’s happening out there, but I will be with you. So the disciples are worried about what’s going to happen

till the end of the age. And Jesus responds by saying, I’m always going to be with you to the end of the age. Like

it’s going to be okay. We’re going to get through this. And so the next text that you see on the slide there, I think

he gives four teachings there. Some people call them parables. Um, my Bible calls the first three parables. There’s

the parable of the unfaithful servant, Matthew 24:45-51. And that parable teaches that if God has

placed you in a position of responsibility in the body of Christ, God holds you responsible for how you

treat your fellow brothers and sisters and for how you discharge your responsibilities. So, for instance, I’ve

been an employer most of my life. I’ve always been in administrative positions and um one thing I learned very quickly

was you always make payroll on time. I viewed it as a spiritual responsibility. If I had 50 or 100 or

one place 700 people working for me, I you always make payroll on time. You never default on payroll. That’s a

spiritual responsibility of an employer because so many things hinge on the flow of money coming into families who are

living paycheck to paycheck. So the first parable is the unfaithful servant and Jesus teaches that that if you are

in a leadership position in the body of Christ, you have a responsibility to feed the flock at in due season

physically, financially and spiritually. Then he has the parable of the 10 virgins that we’re going to look at in

more detail now. Then there’s the parable of the talents, Matthew 24:14 through30. And the lesson there is that

God wants us to use our God-given talents for his glory until he returns. And then you have the sheep and the

goats. And I once called it the sheep and the goats because I preached on that parable once and somebody rebuked me.

They said it’s not a parable. It’s a prophecy. It’s not a parable in the classical sense of the world. And I took another

took another look at it and yeah, it doesn’t say it’s a parable at all. The heading in your Bible may say the parable of the sheep and the goats, but

there’s nothing in it that says this is a parable. It’s more like a prophecy given in an allegorical form, you might

say. But um anyway, we’re not going to dispute today whether the sheep and the goats are a parable or not. But the point is in that parable, Jesus teaches

us that in the final analysis, our eternal outcome is not determined by how

correct our theology is, but how we treat those who are in need around us,

the poor in your community, the single mom who can’t pay rent this month, you

know, the family that’s struggling with overwhelming medical bills. When I see in the news an evangelical church that’s

decided to pay off, you know, $5 million of of medical bills for the people in their community, I think, praise God for

that church that they’re reducing, they’re not just paying off the bills, but they’re alleviating this

overwhelming financial stress that many people are living under these days. And so, uh, we’re going to focus today on

the parable of the foolish of the 10 virgins. Some versions call it the 10 bridesmaids. And we’re going to start

out by looking at the five foolish virgins. And so, um, the text we have

the five foolish virgins there. I’m not sure why I chose that picture. It seemed to make sense when I chose that picture for this. Um, maybe it’s because they’re

so encumbered with the cares of this world, like the parable of the rocky soil in Mark 4. But in Matthew 25 and

verse one, this is where the parable begins. And it says, “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. 10

bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. So, um these days

most weddings tend to take in the summer weddings take place around midday because that’s when you get the best

light for the you know it’s the clearest. And uh in the winter I’ve noticed in Michigan people tend to have

to have the weddings later in the evening in a big facility. They don’t have outdoor weddings these days in Michigan in the summer in the winter at

least. But in those days what would happen was the bride would be waiting for the bridegroom to arrive and the

bridegroom would be based at his father’s house and the bridegroom would come from his father’s house with a

great procession of people of celebrating this event and they’d come to collect the bride and or those who

are with the bride and then they would take the bride and the bridesmaids all the way back to the father’s house and

then they go into the father’s house and they’d shut the door and then they’d have the wedding festivities. ities within the father’s house. So when Jesus

says in John 14, “Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my father’s house are

many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you so. I go now to prepare a place for you. If I come again

and receive you unto myself, there that I am there you may be also.” Who does Jesus give that teaching to? Well, in in

John chapter 14, we tend to start in John 14:1, but in John 13, the last five

verses, Jesus is speaking with Peter, and Peter says, “I’m not going to deny you, Lord.” And Jesus says, Peter, he

says, “Before the clock crow crows twice tonight, you’re going to deny me three times.” And the very next word Jesus

says, take out the chapter division, but let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also me. is to

disciples who make mistakes, to disciples who make fa who fail, to disciples who stumble in their walk with

the Lord, to disciples who do things they’re not proud of. It’s not that they want to, but they find themselves doing it. To imperfect men and women like

Peter, who’s going to deny Jesus later that very night, Jesus says, “But let not your heart be troubled because I’m

the heavenly groom. I’m going to go prepare a house for you in my father’s house. I’m going to come to meet the bride and take her back to heaven with

me.” And so in this passage here, you have the bridegroom is going to come for his

bride. And those those 10 bridesmaids, they’re awaiting the appearance of the bridal

party. They intend to join in the procession. They’re expecting to enter the father’s house and to share in the

wedding festival and the the f the wedding supper of the of the groom there. They’re expecting to take part.

They’re expecting to celebrate the union of the bride and the groom. Now the next slide shows that the word for

bridesmaids parathonos um it it really does mean virgin. And so what does that

signify in this story? It means that the these 10 young women represents um those

who’ve kept themselves spiritually pure. They’re awaiting the arrival of the groom. They’re hoping to partake in the

wedding supper. And so those 10 young ladies represent those who profess the

pure faith of Jesus Christ. They believe in the soon coming of the groom that is

Jesus Christ. They’re awaiting the return of the groom that is Jesus Christ. So those 10 bridesmaids

are essentially Adventists not in the seven the Adventist sense like in formal membership of the church

but they are awaiting the advent or the arrival of the heavenly bridegroom. And they are called bridesmaids. They’re

pure the word is parathonos pure virgins because they profess that they have a pure faith.

So these are people who think they’re waiting for the coming of Jesus. They claim to have a pure faith, but not

everything is right with this group. And in their hands, it says the 10 bridesmaids, it says they took their

lamps. And so what does the lamp represent in this story? In this story, the lamp represents the word of God.

Psalm 119 105 says this, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my

path.” And so those 10 bridesmaids represent those who are awaiting the second coming. They have the word of God

in their possession. They know the word of God says that the heavenly groom is coming back for his people. So they have

the Bible. They profess a pure faith and they are Adventists in sense they’re waiting for the coming of Jesus Christ.

That those are the first lessons we can learn about who is this group of people that Jesus is speaking about here. And

so they they have a knowledge of the Bible. They’ve heard about the coming of the second of the second coming of Jesus

Christ. Um but not everything is right with them. They’ve tried to keep themselves spiritually pure,

but there’s a few problems among this group. The next text starts to go

through their problems. It says five of them were foolish and five of them were wise.

Now, it’s always good to interpret scripture from scripture. At the end of the sermon on the mount, uh Jesus gives

us the story about the wise man who built his house upon the rock and the foolish man built his house upon the

sand. And that word for wise is identical in Matthew 25 and Matthew 7.

And the word for foolish, the foolish virgins and the foolish man. It’s the same word that is used in Matthew 25 as

it is in Matthew chapter 7. And so the difference between the the these two groups is that the the wise virgins by

implication they’ve built their lives on the word of God. Whereas the foolish

virgins they have the light the lamp that is that they have the word of God but they failed to build their life on

the teachings of Jesus. The Bibles are collecting dust on the shelves.

When you say, “Today we’re going to look at Habac chapter 2,” they don’t know where Habacook is in the Bible because

it’s a foreign book to them. If you were to say to them, “Let’s do a Bible study on,” oh, I don’t know the doctrine of

baptism, they wouldn’t know where to look in the Bible. If somebody were to say to them, can you

give us an answer for the faith that you hold dear? They wouldn’t be able to give an answer. They’d say, “Let me go back

and do some research on this.” So, they have the word of God. They’re waiting

for the coming of Jesus. They have what they profess to be a pure faith, but they’re foolish in the sense that they

haven’t allowed the lamp in their hands or the word of God on their shelves to be the foundation for their for their

life. I want to challenge us all here today. To what extent are we basing our lives

on the teachings of Jesus Christ? I mean really,

I met some Muslims once who’ve been reading the Gospels and they knew the Gospels better than almost any Christian

I had ever met in my life. Why? Because Jesus is the Isa al- Masi. Jesus the

Messiah. If he is the Messiah, we need to know what he teaches in all these aspects of life.

And so I just want to encourage us as Adventists, if we are to be wise virgins

and not foolish virgins, we need to be basing our lives on the teachings of Jesus Christ. That means we are to know

the teachings of Jesus for ourselves. We’re to know what he taught it, when he taught it, why he taught it, what the

point of what he was teaching was. And we need to be praying that the Holy Spirit will reveal to us how to apply

this in our lives. So whatever else we read on a daily basis, be intentional about feeding your

mind on a teaching of Jesus from one of the four gospels. Because when Jesus says, “The foolish

man built his house upon the rock,” the rock that he’s speaking about is the teaching of Christ in that in that

sermon. The rock here is the teachings of Christ. And so if you build your life on the teachings of Christ, it will

withstand the storms of life. But if you build your life on the fluff of CNN and Fox and video gaming and stuff like

that, when the storms of life come your way, the house that you’ve built is going to collapse because there’s no,

it’s not based on anything solid. And so we have these these 10 virgins here.

They all have the word of God in their possession. They all have a lamp, but not all are basing their lives on the

teachings of Christ. They do not treasure the word of God in their hearts. Their Bibles are collecting

shelf on the dust. They are nominally and physically in the Adventist movement, but spiritually their lives

are based on shifting sand rather than the solid rock of the word of God. It’s

a sobering thought, isn’t it? And if you if you think of it in those

terms, anybody can move from being w foolish to wise

by the daily choices and decisions we made of where we prioritize our time. We all have 24 hours in the day. Nobody is

wealthier than somebody else in how much time you have. And so it really comes down to a matter of priority in our

lives. Is my walk with God my priority or is it something that just happens to intrude in for two hours every Sabbath

morning into an otherwise secular chaotic life? Is it my priority or is it not to base

my life on the teachings of Christ? Matthew 25 and:3 the next verse Jesus goes on and he says this when the

foolish took their lamps they took no oil with them and so uh uh so that’s the

next verse there when the foolish took their lamps they took no oil with them and so we know the oil represents the

Holy Spirit we take that from Zechariah 4:es 4-14 so this passage here Jesus

describes two classes of Adventists it’s not just that they they profess a

pure faith And it’s not so much that they that they are um they are they they have the word of God. They have the

lamp. And it’s not just that they’re waiting for the coming of Christ. Look, let me be blunt. Even Satan is waiting

for the coming of Christ. And he has great anger with it because he knows that his time is short. And the

demons when they confronted Jesus know that Jesus is coming again. Have you come to torment us before the appointed

hour? They know that Jesus is coming again. So you say that I’m an Adventist. I’m waiting for the coming of Christ.

Congratulations. That makes you no different to Satan himself. Something has to be different. And it’s not just

that you have the Bible in your possession because Satan knows that his time is short. That means Satan knows

about scripture. And Satan was the first theologian.

Genesis 3. Did God really say this? That’s what theologians tend to say.

So, Satan is a student of prophecy. He was the first theologian on planet Earth.

It doesn’t change his character. Why doesn’t it change his character?

It’s because there’s no oil in his character. That’s the difference. The

five foolish virgins don’t have oil, but the five wise virgins do have oil.

That’s the difference. And so that represents the Holy Spirit. The foolish virgins have the Bible, but they haven’t

built their lives on it. and they haven’t allowed the Bible to do a work of transformation within their hearts.

They know what the Bible says. They know about God. They they’ve read about grace. They sing the song Amazing Grace.

They like sermons about grace, but they can’t remember the last time they experienced the grace of God for themselves.

When was the last time you experienced the grace of God as an overwhelming flood of God’s

goodness and mercy and faithfulness to you, an undeserving sinner, and you sat

you sat down on your knees or on your bed and say, “Lord, thank you for what you’ve just done for me.”

When you’ve received grace from God, you can pass grace onto other people. But if you’ve not received the grace of God for

yourself, you cannot pass it on to somebody else. You cannot manufacture that grace out of human goodwill towards

somebody. And so the five foolish virgins, they have the Bible, but they

there’s very limited study of the word of God. And they really haven’t opened themselves to the guidance of the Holy

Spirit, the conviction of the Holy Spirit, or the converting power of the Holy Spirit. They know what the Bible

says, but don’t they don’t know what it means for them personally. They read for information rather than for

transformation. I’ll tell you, when you’re a pastor and you’re preparing a Bible study for

somebody and let’s say they’re coming from, let’s say, oh, I don’t know, a Muslim background, you’re preparing your

Bible study because you know you’re going to spiritual war. Yeah. So, I’ve got this proof text and this proof text

on the divinity of Christ because that’s the essential dividing point between Christians and Muslims. And so, when you

prepare your Bible study, you’re preparing for war. And when you’re preparing the sermon,

hopefully the Holy Spirit touches your heart in the preparation so it touches those around you when you’re preaching

that sermon. But oftent times we prepare, we do, we study the word of God because I want to

prove that I’m right and you’re wrong. There’s all kinds of groups out there

arguing all kinds of things. And sometimes as a shepherd of the flock, you have to say, “Well, this is what the

Bible says and this is what the Bible doesn’t say.” And you study for that purpose. And many of the books that we

read focus on information rather than on transformation.

And why is that so? Because information is easy to share. This is how you prepare a diet for people with

diabetics, with diabetes. It’s easy to produce a book like that. This is what you do and this is what you don’t do. We

like that kind of book because it’s just information. But transformation is a messy business. Transformation is where

it’s getting deep down and personal. Transformation is where you you’re not

reading the word of God, but when you read the word of God, the Holy Spirit is reading your heart as well.

And when you read for transformation, you’re asking so that God can reveal to you through the mirror of the word of

God. God will speak to you through his word so that he will change you in the process. When you’re reading for

transformation, you’re not just reading for knowledge, but you’re reading to meet the giver of the book.

You’re reading this word not that you can master it, but so that God will master you through his word.

You’re reading this book so that God can hold a mirror up to your face. You know, there was a time in my life had a battle

with depression. I was very angry with some people. This happens to people in life. And I was reading the Bible every day. I’d read it many times, but I was

hoping, Lord, there’s a text in there that says, “I will smite your enemies with genital herpes and leprosy.” And

that’s what I wanted to readiness. And did I find that text? No.

Unfortunately, no. That’s what I wanted to find, though. I was so angry. I wanted them to be afflicted with with

St. Vitus’s dance and arthritis at the same time. I wanted their bodies to be twitching all the time with arthritis. I

was dream, Lord, there must be a text where you’re going to smite my enemies and assault their homes and destroy

everything of value in their lives. And as I was reading the Bible, I was angry at these other people. What I found

every single morning was that the Holy Spirit would say, “But Conrad, there’s this thing in your heart that’s

not good spiritually.” And I’m worried about your condition.

I’ll take care of those other guys, but what about your heart? And so, we tend to read the these these

foolish virgins. They’re attracted to truth, but they’re not so open to the workings

of the Holy Spirit upon their characters. They come into the church on a diet of history, horns and crowns and

dates and beasts and 20 years later there is there is still no character

transformation. They come in with head knowledge and but

they bring lust and fear and bitterness and anger in and 20 years later those

works of the flesh are still evident in their lives. They don’t experience the transformation of the fruit of the

spirit. This happens in many, many churches. They’re attracted by the

gospel, but self remains on the throne of their heart, and that stops the truth of the gospel from taking a deep root in

their lives and yielding a Christlike character. These foolish virgins, yes, they’re Adventists. They’re familiar

with the theory of truth, but the gospel’s brought no real change into their lives. They’re content with a

superficial nominal experience. As a consequence, they know about God, but they do not know God personally. And

thus many have no assurance of salvation when they come to their their deathbeds.

And I find way too many people come to their deathbeds who’ve been Christians their entire lives who are terrified

that they’re going to die with no assurance of salvation. It happens all too often.

Not to have the assurance of salvation is a tragedy,

particularly for a disciple of Jesus Christ. If you’re a disciple, you’re following where he leads. He wants to

lead you to those heavenly courts. And if I trust him that he’s going to

lead me, yes, through the valley of the shadow of death, but one day in that psalm, he’s going to lead me to so I will dwell in the house of the Lord

forever. That’s what that psalm was talking about, the psalm, the 23rd Psalm. If I’m trusting him that he’s going to lead me in that direction, why

would I have the lack of assurance? If I’m trusting him that he knows the path through the valley of the shadow of death. He knows I’m going to have to eat

in the presence of my enemies. But I also know that his rod and his staff, they’re going to protect me. And he I

know that ultimately at the end of the day, he will lead me into the courts of heaven above. Then why am I afraid? Why

do I have no assurance of salvation? Because I have the assurance of salvation when I keep my eyes on the one

I’m following because he knows how to get me there and I don’t.

Sister White makes this comment. It’s on our next slide there. It says, “It is a solemn statement that

I make to the church that not one in 20 whose names are registered upon the church books are prepared to close their

earthly history and would as verily and would be as verily without God and without hope um in the world as the

common sinner. They are professedly serving God, but they are more earnestly serving mammon living as sinners

claiming to be Christians.” The book Christian Service page 42. You think about what she’s saying there. She’s

saying that not one in 20 has the assurance of salvation whose names are on the church books. That means if

you’re baptized into the church, you still have a greater than 95% chance of being lost.

One in 20 is 5%. So if you’re baptized into the church and you go through a nominal Christian

experience, you are 90 greater than 95% chance of still being lost. This is a

sobering wakeup call talking about these five foolish virgins who are Adventists. They’re waiting for the coming of the

groom, but they have no assurance of salvation. Why? Because they have not allowed the Holy Spirit to begin the

work of transformation in their characters. 5 10 30 years after baptism, there is no

change in the heart. They’re not partnering with the Holy Spirit to allow for that work of transformation.

So then we come to the wise virgins. My wife says, “I have a unique ability to make people depressed.” So, hope you’re

all suitably depressed at this point of the sermon. We’re now going to move to a more optimistic group here, the five

wise virgins. Let’s see what we can learn about the five wise virgins. And the text says this. It says, “But the

wise took flasks of oil um with their lamps.” Matthew 25 there and verse 4.

So, the wise virgins or bridesmaids, they carry oil not just in their lamps, but also as a backup supply in their

flasks. They know that troubled times are coming. They know that there may be a delay until the coming of the

bridegroom. It’s rare that you find a wedding where everything runs on time. Actually, in some cultures, the wedding

is officially at, but the higher the status, the groom or the bride, the later the wedding really is, and

everybody’s forced to wait and to honor them. And as they’re waiting for the bride or the groom to arrive. And so,

the five wise virgins um they have they they are Adventists. They’re awaiting the coming of the groom. They all have a

lamp with them. That is they have the word of God. They’re virgins in in that case they profess a pure faith. But the

difference between the wise and the foolish is that the wise have opened themselves to the presence of the Holy

Spirit in their lives and the foolish have not. So those five wise virgins, they read

the word of God daily, not just for information, but because they want to be transformed into the likeness of Christ.

They seek the convicting and the converting power of the teacher of righteousness. There’s Lord, show me my

sins today and show me how to gain victory over those sins. They’re not

clinging to those sins. They’re not cherishing those sins in their hearts. Um you know Psalm 5 uh Isaiah 591 and 2,

the arm, behold the arm of the Lord is not so short that he cannot save. and his ear is not so dull that he cannot

hear but it is your sins have separated from you from God so that he does not hear your prayers.

So when we cherish sin in our hearts when we have those private sins those areas where we think I live a good life

God will excuse this little sin in my life. I’m good I I I’m a I’m a good man. I I

pay my taxes. I obey the speed limit. You know I I I treat people kindly.

But Lord, just this little bit in my life, this is a private cherished sin.

You know, in the balances, I’m still okay. That’s not the wise virgins.

They read the word of God and ask the Holy Spirit to show them how they can be

more Christlike on a daily basis. They’re looking for that Christlike spirit. They’re looking for that

character transformation. They cooperate with the Holy Spirit by cleaning out the

weeds and rocks in their hearts. So their hearts are no longer rocky soil,

but their hearts represent good soil ready to yield an abundant harvest for God. Their focus is on knowing God and

being known by God rather than the cares of this world, the lure of wealth or the desire of possessions. And Jesus goes on

to say in Matthew 25:5-6, he says, “As the bridegroom was delayed,

all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight, there was a shout, look or behold, here is the bridegroom, come out

to meet him.” Now Jesus was, remember he was speaking this parable to the disciples. And in Matthew 24, they said,

“Tell us when what will be the sign of the coming your coming? When will be the end of the age? And when’s the temple of

Jerusalem going to be destroyed?” and they’re expecting Jesus to come back immediately. In fact, in Luke chapter

19, we have a parallel passage to this. It says the disciples believed that the kingdom of God was to appear

immediately. That’s what the text said in Luke 19:11. So, the disciples think that Jesus is coming back immediately.

And so Jesus introduces into the parable here, he introduces the concept of a delay. He says the bridegroom was

delayed. So for for you 12 disciples on the Mount of Olive, this ain’t going to happen as fast as you want it to happen.

There’s going to be delay here because he says the parable the parable says the bridegroom was delayed. And so there is

going to be a delay. And why is that delay going to take place? Well, the next slide from Desire of Ages, we have

an answer there. It says by giving the gospel to the world, it is in our power to what? Hasten our Lord’s return. You

think about that for a minute. We can hasten the return of Jesus Christ. How? By giving bringing the gospel to the

world. We are not only to look for but we are to hasten the coming of the day of God. So of those 10 virgins, those

Adventists waiting for the coming of the groom. They’re all sitting around and kind of they they fall asleep there. They’re not doing much to hasten the

coming of the groom. But Sister White says here that when we bring the gospel to the world, we hasten the Lord’s

return. That’s a beautiful truth there. We are not only to look for, but we are to hasten the coming of the day of God. Had

the church of God done her appointed work as the Lord ordained, the whole world would before this have been

warned, and the Lord Jesus would have come to our earth in power and in great glory. Have you thought for a minute

what it means to hasten the coming of Christ. When Jesus comes again, all suffering

comes to an end in that moment. Right then stops.

All divorce, all cancer, all depression, all disease,

all despair, everything stops right in that moment. When Jesus comes again,

there’s no more suffering in the animal kingdom either. Creation will no longer groan under the burden of sin that we’ve

piled upon it. So when you labor to announce the coming

of the of Jesus Christ for his second coming and you invite people into his kingdom to be prepared for that glorious

moment, you are contributing to the end of all human suffering. That to me is a worthwhile goal. Like

I’m not an ER medic. I’m not an EMT. You know, I’m not a dentist. You know,

dentists, they, you know, alleviate human suffering and so do ER medics. But regardless of what our trade or our

profession is in life, we can hasten the second coming of Christ by engaging in missionary activity. And in so doing,

we’re bringing a close to the suffering of 9 plus billion people on planet Earth. That to me is incredibly powerful

motivating force. Suffering is everywhere.

It doesn’t matter how fine the house you visit, behind every front door, there is always a story to tell and a heart

that’s aching over something. I’ve never met a family in my life in 30 plus years of pastoral work. I’ve never met a

family or a home that doesn’t have a tale to tell and a prayer to ask. Everybody’s dealing with something. And

when we engage in in in evangelistic work, when we engage in missionary work, when we decide that we’re going to bring

the gospel to the world, we are hastening our Lord’s return. Uh that to me is an incredibly powerful motivator.

And so those wise virgins, they they they all fall asleep with the

with the foolish virgins because they’re not doing what God wants them to. Even though they’re wise virgins, they’re not

actually doing what the groom wants, which is to announce his coming. The groom wants to return for his bride, but

he’s also willing that nobody should perish, but that all should come to repentance and thus be saved. And so

there is a delay. So the wise virgins have a task to do. And hear me on this.

The wise virgins, their lamps are shining until the groom arrives in the parable. Which means their lamps are

shining in the midnight hour because the text says the groom comes in the midnight hour. Now what is the darkest

hour of the night? The midnight hour. So God wants God wants a group of

people, the wise virgins who have a pure faith. They have the word of God.

They’ve open their hearts to the transforming power of the word of God and they are shining for Jesus in

earth’s darkest hour. Their lamps are burning in the midnight hour.

They may be sleeping and drowsy there, but they are determined that their witness will not go out regardless of

the spiritual darkness that is falling upon our world. When the when the when the darkness

gathers before Jesus comes again and that final crisis of conscience comes, when Jesus says, “You’ll be hated by all

men for my name’s sake.” They’re not going to hide their candle under a bushel. They’re going to let it shine before the world.

They are determined to shine for Jesus. No matter what happens, no matter the hatred of this world, no matter the

persecution that is visited upon them, no matter the the division and schism and false prophecy and all the rest of

it within the church and lovelessness and betrayal and all the things that Jesus speaks about elsewhere in Matthew

, despite all this nonsense that’s going on, their focus, their goal, their aim, their those all they can see, their

tunnel vision is focused on I need to win souls for Christ. you know, when when um what’s his name?

Um the guy the Adventist conscientious objector on in in the in the Pacific

Doss. Desmond Doss. When he was up there and and you know, he was taking men off

that ridge for which he got the Medal of Honor. What he was praying as he was doing is said, “Lord, just let me save one more. Just one more.” And he lowered

over was it 59 or so men off that cliff under withering Japanese fire. And somehow God protects him. They and he

saved many lives through that miracle on the rock there in Ewuima. Just one more. Just one more. In the

face of deadly opposition, Lord, just help me save one more. That’s the kind of devotion that God is looking for in

those in those five wise virgins. Now, those five virgins,

all of them, but the five wise in particular, they are living right up until the moment when the groom comes.

which means they’re living in earth’s final hour. Now, those five wise virgins,

it’s not Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in that group, and it’s not Morcayi or David or Daniel, and it’s not Esther or

Rebecca or Mary in that group. The people that God is asking to shine

for him in Earth’s last hours are those who profess to be Adventists today.

In a dying world, in a collapsing world, when the darkness of the world is getting darker and darker, in God’s

mysterious providence, we happen to be living in that time. Not Abraham, Isaac,

or Jacob. When God was looking for people to shine the light in earth’s darkest hour, he

was looking for you and he was looking for me. He didn’t put Joseph here. He didn’t put Isaiah here. He didn’t put

John the Baptist here. He said, “There’s going to be a group of people in North Central Michigan and they’re going to

love me. They’re going to have a pure faith and they’re going to read the word of God on a daily basis and they’re

going to partner with the Holy Spirit in a process of heart transformation and they’re going to shine for me in the

teeth of all the opposition this world can throw at them. We weren’t just born

in this time. We were born into this time.” And we weren’t just born in this time.

And we weren’t just born into this time, but we were born for this time.

It’s us in 2026, not Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So if you think that there’s nothing for

you to do or I can’t do anything for the Lord, well, in God’s mysterious ways, we

are the ones who are following Christ as earth enters its final crisis and darkest hour. Which means he has

confidence in you. He knows we can shine for him. He knows

we can keep that little light out going no matter what this world may do to us. God has confidence in us. And he’s

trusting us to shine for him in earth’s darkest hour. We weren’t just born in this time or

into this time. You were born for this moment in time. So let your light shine for Jesus. No matter what bl winds are

blowing out there, winds of false doctrine, winds of persecution, winds of

apostasy, winds of the world’s hatred, it matters not. God wants those wise virgins to be shining right up until and

through the midnight hour till the moment that Jesus comes again. You were born for this time. God has confidence

in you and there’s no limit to what God can do through the life of one who is wholly committed to him and who’s

empowered by the Holy Spirit. We may be la many or few in number. It matters not to God. God does not save by

chariot or by armies. It is by the spirit of God that the work gets done. And that’s the Holy Spirit can be poured

out to all who ask him today. So these wise virgins, they’re shining

and shedding light in the darkness of the world. Their lamps remain burning throughout the night, throughout the

delay. When the groom returns at midnight, the darkest hour of earth’s history, when this great spiritual

darkness is covering the world, their lamps are still shining for Jesus.

It’s an amazing thought to me that God, I could be among those five wise virgins

who are shining for you in earth’s darkest hour. I want to be in that group of virgins because they’re the ones who

are saved and the foolish virgins are lost in the story. They’re nominal Adventists. They have

the word of God, but their lamp is not shining in earth’s darkest hour. It’s it’s better to go along to get along.

It’s better not to say anything about things. It’s easier not to speak up about things because nobody wants to

stick their head above the parapet. It’s easier not to stand up and rebuke things when things are going wrong

because people will think you’re a troublemaker if you stand up and say something is wrong here. But no, God is looking for people who

will shine for him regardless of what the world says or thinks about them.

That can be me and that can be you by God’s grace. Sister White puts it this way. The next

quote is from a series of quotes here from Christ object lessons. She says, “So the followers of Christ are to shed

light into the darkness of the world through the Holy Spirit. God’s word is a light as it becomes a transforming power

in the life of the receiver. By implanting in their hearts the principles of his word, the Holy Spirit

develops in men the attributes of God. The light of his glory, his character is

to shine forth in his character, in his followers. When that fourth angel, Revelation 18

says the whole earth was lighted with the glory of his splendor. That word glory, you go back to what

Moses said to God in Exodus 33. He said, “Lord,” he says, “show me your glory.” And in Exodus 34, God hides Moses in the

clft of a rock. And then he says, “My glory is my character. The Lord, the Lord, Yahweh, Yahweh, merciful and

gracious, keeping covenant to a thousand generation for those who love him.” You

know, so the glory of God is his character. And God wants the world to be lit by a manifestation of his character

among his followers. That can be us. It can be me. It can be

you. And it’s not beyond within human means. It’s not possible. But when your life is filled and transformed by the

Holy Spirit, all things are possible. All things are possible. Next slide, please. Sister White goes on to say

this. She says, “At this time, a message from God has to be proclaimed. A message, I love this phrase,

illuminating in its influence and saving in its power.” Isn’t that beautiful? that the the the gospel, the good news

of a sin returning, sinbearing, sinner loving savior is illuminating in its

influence and it’s saving in its power. Our world is dying for want of hope these days. She goes on to say, “His

character is to be made known into the darkness of the world is to be shed the light of his glory, the light of his

goodness, mercy, and truth.” And so we have a job to do as Adventists is not to

sit and hide our light under a bushel. is to be unapologetic and unashamedly sharing the good news that there is a

sinner loving, sinbearing, um, place-taking and soon returning savior. His name is Jesus Christ. And that is

why we’re Adventists. And she goes on to say in the next quote here, she says, “But no man can impart that which he

himself has not received.” That is, if you have not received the gospel and you’ve not received of the Holy Spirit,

it’s not going to flow through you to somebody else. So we all have a deep personal work to do of submission and

opening ourselves up before our heavenly father. That is your walk with God is to be intentional. It doesn’t happen by

accident. When there is intentionality and prioritizing of time in our walk with the lord we start to experience

that transformation. She goes on to say in the work of God humanity can originate nothing. No man can by his own

effort make himself a lightbearer for God. It is a love of God continually transferred to man that enables him to

impart light into the hearts of all who united to God by faith. The golden oil

of love flows freely to shine out again in good works in real heartfelt service

for God. I say amen and amen to that. The key point there is that no man can

impart that which he himself has not received. So if you are a church elder and you’re

engaged in visitation of the sick and Bible studies with people and you have a ministry of teaching and preaching which

are the primary responsibilities of an elder if you’re not filling the well on a daily basis from the word of God

yourself that well will run dry in your ministry in approximately one week’s time.

You cannot be involved in continual ministry and sharing the good news and counseling people and preaching and

teaching if you’re not always replenishing the well yourself. Your ministry runs dry and you feel dry

within about two or three days. You you run dry. And so you cannot impart which

that which you have not received yourself. Um so the Christian walk is a daily walk. It’s a daily experience.

Give us this day our daily bread. We are taught to pray in Matthew chapter 6. and uh deliver us from the evil one. Which

means on a daily basis we need food physically and spiritually to survive. And on a daily basis we need God to

deliver us from the attacks of Satan because those attacks are very real. Um

the next slide please. Christ object lessons page 419 says if all were willing to receive all would become

filled with the Holy Spirit. That parallels the promise of Jesus in Luke 9

that if if you seek you shall find. If you ask, you shall receive. And if you

knock, then the door of your heart will be opened and the Holy Spirit will enter into your life. That is Jesus’ promise

to us today. I can’t tell you. Every morning in my devotions, I ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit

because that’s the only way I can maintain my sanity in a broken world. I ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit to

remove the weeds of anger in my heart and replace them with grace and love and forgiveness. That’s the only way I can

survive. You cannot enter into a righteous battle without being changed on the inside in a negative way. Unless

the Holy Spirit is always there performing heart surgery on you on a daily basis. That’s the problem about

engaging in battles, spiritual battles, like I’m in some battles as you know yourselves, is that you may engage in a

righteous battle, but in the process of fighting a righteous fight, you become disfigured on the inside spiritually.

And so if you’re going to engage in that righteous battle, the only way you can maintain your spiritual sweetness is by

asking every day for the Holy Spirit to keep you sweet and to remove the weeds of anger and bitterness that grow every

night. And you got to be honest with yourself as you go through this process. But if all are willing to receive, all

will become filled with his holy spirit. It’s a beautiful promise. It parallels what Jesus says in Luke 11 9 through13.

The next slide goes on to say, “It is the privilege of every soul to be a living channel through which God can

communicate to the world the treasures of his grace, the uncarchable riches of Christ. There

is nothing that Christ desires so much as agents who will represent to the world his spirit and character. There is

nothing that the world needs so much as a manifestation through humanity of the Savior’s love. All heaven is waiting for

channels through which can be poured the holy oil to be a joy and blessing to human hearts.

I sat once in a hospital bed with a Muslim doctor. He was an alcoholic. He

had cerosis of the liver and he was hours from death, not far from death.

He’d already said goodbye to his family. We were sitting in a little little hospital room. It was basically a

warehouse and there was beds there and you had to provide your own bedding, provide your own food, you had to pay

for your own medicines, you had to pay for the doctors to come and visit you. Like literally the hospital was just a place where the sick gathered. Nothing

was done to them unless you put, you know, dollars in their hands. And this man was dying and he was a Muslim and uh

he was lying on his side. When people are dying, you can see it. They’re kind of fading away that the energy goes down

and his eyesight was gone and his speech was gone and um he could barely move his

body and he was lying on his side like like a little sparrow kind of shrinking up there and

the doctors had said you’re dying of sterosis liver we can’t help you. So I held his hand and I said uh Dr. Nami I

think his name was says if you can hear me squeeze my hand.

There’s a little squeeze of my hand. So okay generally speaking the hearing is the last sense to go.

You know be careful at the at the bedside of a dying relative because if you start saying things like ah yeah I

never really loved her. She was a grumpy old so and so. And then she recovers you’ll be written out of the will. So

yes thank you sister. So be careful what you say. If you’re by the graveside of

some graveside, the bedside of somebody who’s dying, ask for their Bible

and look through the Bible and say which bits are underlined.

Isaiah 54 and Isaiah 55 means a lot to me. Read the bits that are underlined

back to them because you know that’s what struck a chord when they were living. And when they’re dying, those

words will bring incredible comfort to them in that moment. So ask for the patient’s Bible and read back to them as

they’re dying the words that you know they’ve underlined. Well, I sat next to Dr. Nami. I held his hand. I said, “Dr.

Namik,” I said, “I’m a Christian. You’re a Muslim, but I believe Jesus can heal you.”

I said, “Do you want me to pray for Jesus to heal you?” And there was nothing. I said, “Dr. Nami, can you hear

me?” There was a squeeze. and his wife has already said goodbye and she’s outside oulating as is the manner in the

Middle East and um I said Dr. Namik I said like you’re dying. I said you want

me to ask Jesus to heal you and there was a gentle squeeze

like this is his dying it’s not even his dying breath he’s like he’s a fading like yes I’m asking Jesus to help me so

I offered up a short prayer in Russian and I asked Jesus to heal Dr. Namik

and then I finished this with a prayer and I said Dr. said do

now do literally means do is until our next meeting so do vida means until our

next meeting it’s like the word aravoir in French means until we see you again

the word goodbye in German is avidane until we see each other again the word goodbye in English is a shorter version

of God be with you until we see again from middle English so when we say goodbye to people we’re actually saying

may God keep you until we see again you’re not saying goodbye forever just says oravvoir

And so I said to Dr. Namik, I said, “Dossa, Dr. Namik, paka,” a very colloquial Russian. It means like, “See

you around sometime.” And then I went back to my office not expecting him to live.

And the next day he turns up in the clinic that we were running like in good health.

The cerosis of the liver is completely healed. And this Muslim doctor can’t stop

telling everybody that Jesus healed his body and brought him back to life. And that Muslim doctor, he was the

cardiologist to the prime minister. He told the prime minister, he didn’t look, he didn’t become an Adventist, but he told the prime minister, “There are

Adventists in town. And this guy prayed for me and Jesus healed me when the doctors had given up on me and I was

dying.” He says, “And you need to listen to the prayers of these Adventists.” Well, he told the prime minister what

had happened and a few years later the prime minister stood up in parliament and the

government was going to ban all the churches in the country, Protestant churches in that country. The prime minister spoke on behalf of the

Adventist church. He says, “God works through their prayers. They’re a blessing to our community. Don’t touch them.” And to this day, we’re still a

legal church in that Muslim country. Like you have no idea the ripple effect

of a simple prayer for a dying man. You have no idea the the privilege it is as

the text says it is the privilege of every soul to be a living channel through which God can communicate to the

world the treasures of his grace the uncarchable riches of Christ. And we have this privilege if we’re to be among

the wise virgins. We don’t just keep the light to ourselves when those wise virgins are waiting for the coming

groom. Even at,, 5 to midnight at night, they’re holding their

lamps high and they’re letting the world know that in the midst of this darkness, there is a coming groom.

And we see there’s darkness, but we want you to look at the light. We’re going to announce the coming of Christ no matter

what this world says about him. We’re going to announce the coming of Christ. We’re going to live for him. We’re going to unashamedly, unapologetically shine

the light of the gospel despite the hatred of the world directed at the followers of Christ. So when they’re

shining their light in the darkest hour as in this parable, it means they’re gritting their teeth. They’re sharing the gospel not in good times but in bad

times. They are not going to give up their witness. No matter what this world does to them, no matter what the church may

do to them, no matter what the society thinks about them, we’re going to keep telling the world there is a savior. He

is a place taking savior. He is a sin removing savior and he is a sooning savior and he’s a sinner loving savior.

and he’s coming for me and he’s coming for you. In an era of widespread apostasy, of loveless saints, a

rejection of the law of God, of schismatic movements and false messiahs, God still has a message shining from

those wise virgins that is illuminating in his influence and saving in its power. And in earth’s darkest hour, the

light of God’s character will shine forth through those wise virgins whose characters now reflect God’s character

of love, mercy, and grace to a planet that is dying in sin. So then we come to the third of our three stages here this

morning and that is the arrival of the groom. And uh there’s a more modern picture I

found there for this. The arrival of the groom and the text says this in Matthew 25 7-9. It says then those bridesmaids

got up and trimmed their lamps. That’s all 10 bridesmaids. The groom is coming. And then the foolish said to the wise

give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. But the wise replied, “No, they’ll never be enough for you and

for us. you better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves. So, we don’t have enough oil for you and

for us. The groom is now arriving. We can see that he’s arriving, but our lamps are still shining, but your lamps

have gone out. So, you run down to Walmart or whatever spiritual Walmart you get your oil from, and you replenish

your supplies, but we have enough. We still have the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We’re still shining

for the groom even as he walks down the road, as we see him coming in front of us. The foolish realize they’ve got no

oil. They beg for the wise to share some of their own oil, but the wise refuse.

Why do the wise refuse to share their oil? The bridegroom is almost here. You think they have a concern for the

foolish virgins as well as for themselves. Why do the wise refuse to give their oil to the foolish? The

answer is this. Because character is not transferable.

Nobody can believe for another. The five foolish virgins had assumed

that casual association with the saints, the wise virgins, is sufficient. They’ve

assumed that somehow just going through the rituals of the religious life, coming to church every week,

participating in prayer meeting, returning a faithful tithe, reading this, reading that, and reading the

Sabbath school lesson if if really you’ve got the time for that. They’ve assumed that going through the rituals

of a religious wall life is what’s going to get them into heaven. But they haven’t had the oil. They

haven’t had the change in the heart. They they are ritualistic Adventists,

but they’re not genuinely converted Adventists. Except a man be born again, says Jesus, he cannot enter the kingdom

of God. You must be born of water and of the spirit.

And you may be baptized once of water, but you need the daily baptism of the Holy Spirit. You are once saved and you then you are

daily saved. You ask for the infilling of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. The the foolish

virgins now are discovering that when the door of probation closes,

it’s too late to go looking for Christlike character.

You cannot be saved because you come, you’re not saved because you live in a godly family. You are saved when you are

born again. You are not saved by association.

Young people, hear me today. You’re not saved because your parents are saved. You need to make a choice for Jesus

Christ yourself. You are not saved because you are um a porn watching alcohol- drinking man

married to a godly wife and her you’re not going to get into heaven on her coattails.

You are saved when you are born again. You are not saved because you associate with godly holy people until you are

counseledled among the godly holy people and saints yourself. So you are not saved by association. Nobody gets into

heaven on the coattails of another. And when the w the foolish ask the wise to say give us some of your oil. The wise

refuse because you cannot transfer character sanctification from one person to another. The crisis at the close of

probation which in this parable is the shutting of the door and the five foolish virgins can’t get in will reveal

the true nature of our walk with God. We cannot hold Christ at arm length today and say but I want intimacy with him

when I get to heaven above. If you don’t have joy in your walk with Christ today, then you’re not going to

be looking for his second coming tomorrow because it doesn’t mean anything to you.

You either walk with the Lord today and you find joy in that walk with the Lord and therefore you’re eagerly awaiting

his coming because it’s a long-distance relationship that you want to come to an end. So, it’s a daily relationship or

you’re just going through the motions and think when I get to heaven then God will have to change my spiritual taste

buds. But for now, let me binge on NFL and all the rest of the stuff that men binge on.

It’s not that I have a problem with the NFL, but you know, we we we divert our minds with the gods of this world all

too easily. And the men who sit down and open a beer at midday on Sundays and watch NFL three

three games, one in a row, what are they living for?

They’re just waiting to die. Thank you, sister. 45 minutes is up. The

groom has coming. The the clock 60 minutes. That was 60 minutes, was it, sister? Oh, man.

I’m going to have some non-Christian thoughts about you in this moment, sister. That was 60 minutes. We better

bring this to a close, haven’t we? We We’re taking too much time on this particular sermon. So anyway, when the

groom comes, Matthew 25, next next verse here, while they went in to buy, the

bridegroom came, those who already went with him into the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. That is the end of

probation. Later, the other bridesmaids came also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he replied, truly I tell you, I

do not know you. When probation closes, your character is fixed. The heavenly pre-advent judgment

is now concluded. Your eternal destinies are fixed when probation ends. The foolish tried to go and buy more oil,

but after probation is closed, you cannot seek for more oil because you can no longer receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Character transformation

must take place before the close of probation, before eternal destiny is known in the pre-advent judgment. Those

foolish virgins who are nominal Adventists will actually receive the final place of God’s wrath just as much

as the wicked because they’re lost. The next slide talks about that. It

says, “Those who have had opportunities to hear and receive the truth and have united with the Seventh Adventist Church, calling themselves the

commandmentkeeping people and yet possess no more vitality in consecration to God than do the nominal churches,

will receive the plagues of God, just as verely as the churches who oppose the law of God. Only those who are

sanctified through the truth will compose the royal family in the heavenly mansions Christ has gone to prepare for

those who love him and keep his commandments.” sobering, sobering words.

After the close of probation, there are two groups. Those who receive the final plagues of Revelation 16 and those who

go through what Jeremiah calls Jeremiah’s time of trouble. The wicked, those who receive the plagues of God are

the wicked. They are the tears and they are the foolish virgins,

Adventists, lost Adventists because they didn’t allow the oil of the

Holy Spirit to change their hearts. And the wise, they go through a testing time

to demonstrate to the universe the depth of their faith and the the the the

veracity, the truthfulness of their profession of faith. Everybody goes to a troubled time before Jesus comes again.

But the foolish virgins are counted among the wicked and they are cast out in that sum in that parable. They will

receive the last plagues of God. This is a sobering message. This is not a message that you want to give all the

time. But you’re not doing your job as a preacher of righteousness if you do not warn people about these matters. Matthew

7:21-23 Jesus says this. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the

kingdom of heaven. Next slide there. But only the one who does the will of my father in heaven. On that day many, many

will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name? Do many deeds of

power in your name? Then I’ll declare to them, I never knew you. Get away from me, you evildoers. And that word

evildoers in Matthew’s gospel, the word is anomir, which means with literally without the law. So those who are lost

at the end of time are not lost because they didn’t come to church. They’re not lost because they didn’t preach and teach and all the rest of it. They are

lost because they rejected the law of God, all ten commandments. And when you say, why is that possible?

Because you cannot be reconciled to God without being reconciled to his character. And the law of God is a

reflection of his character. So if you’re going to be reconciled to God, you are reconciled to his law. And

you are going to uphold his moral law in all aspects of your life. God wants us

to keep his law. You when you become married, your life changes.

You know, if you’re a wise man, you want to uphold your wife’s wishes and desires.

when it’s our I have my 26th wedding anniversary just in a few weeks from now actually. Well, actually it’s next Friday. Thank you for reminding me

everybody. But anyway, it’s good to remember. Um uh I know that my wife

would like to go for a meal and if I say to her, “Let’s go out for a meal,” and I drive past her favorite restaurants and

say, “Let’s go to Taco Bell this year.” Um that’s not going to work out.

No, it’s not going to work out. You see, and you’re not even married and you know that, sister. All right.

The point I’m saying is this. If you love me, keep my commandments. When you’re in a covenant relationship, you

see you seek to bring joy to the other party in all things. And

those those who reject the law of God are rejecting the wishes of God. They’re rejecting his character.

So I want to encourage you today to ask God to give you the grace as a saved

Christian that your life will will be a manifestation of his character and that’s expressed through keeping his

commandments. The sadder words were never spoken. Those foolish virgins will experience the final plagues and eternal

destruction. Not because of lack of opportunity. They’ve been nominal Adventists going through the public

formalities of the public of the Adventist lifestyle. But tragically, they’ve never yielded the throne of

their hearts to the grace of God. Self remained on the throne of the heart. They kept putting off the pleadings of

the Holy Spirit and hardening their hearts. They chose to live life on their terms by their rules rather than asking

for the law of God to be written upon their hearts. And so this is the tragedy of these these foolish virgins. They had

every opportunity to be saved and yet they are lost. Matthew 25:13, the

punchline of the parable. Jesus says, “Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” The

message here is don’t rest on yesterday’s spiritual laurels. Each morning ask for the infilling of

the Holy Spirit. Each day yield your will to the converting power of Christ.

Each day ask for the promised new heart experience. Each day, expect to grow and

cooperate with the Holy Spirit so that he can transform you into the image and likeness of our savior Jesus Christ.

This is what it means to follow Jesus day by day. The closer I get to him, the more like

him I’ll become. I’ve noticed in marriage after 26 years of marriage that that after 26 years of marriage, you

become actually closer and closer in almost every way possible. You start to look like each other after a while. I

mean, really, you have the same tastes. If somebody says to my wife, would you guys like to do this? My wife can

confidently say yes or no because she knows me so well enough. She knows what the discussion would be like. And I can

somebody asks me and I can say yes, we can do that because I know my wife well enough and we we just know instinctively what each other is thinking. The longer

you walk with somebody, the more you reflect them and their character. It’s not just that you you change them, but

they change you in the process. And the longer we walk with Christ and the longer we ask for the infilling of the Holy Spirit like the wise virgins, then

that the closer we become to Christ and the more we reflect his character to the world. And what this world is dying for

want of is not you know living people who claim to follow Christ that what this world is leading desperately more

than anything else is a manifestation of the character of God in all of its glory seen through Christians in 2025.

The next slide talks about this Christ subject lessons. We’re coming to the close here and the sister is looking at

me with her watch. I know I need to bring this to a close. Says, “The religion of Christ means more

than forgiveness of sin. It means taking away our sins and filling the vacuum with the grace of the Holy Spirit. It

means divine illumination, rejoicing in God. It means a heart emptied of self

and blessed with the abiding presence of Christ. When Christ reigns in the soul, there is purity and freedom from sin.

The glory, the fullness, the completeness of the gospel plan is fulfilled in the life. The fragrance,

the acceptance of the savior brings the glow of perfect peace, perfect love, and perfect assurance. The beauty and

fragrance of the character of Christ revealed in the life testifies that God indeed has sent his son in the world to

be its savior. So it’s not just about confession and repentance. It’s about partnering with

God in the process of character transformation. And that process can begin today. We are not fixed today as

wise or foolish. But you can choose today whether you’ll be counted among the wise or counted among the foolish by

the choices we make today and tomorrow in this coming week. By the priorities we set in life. By where we choose to

spend our time. By what we choose to focus our mind on. And if you want to know where you really are in this, ask

yourself when I’m sitting in traffic in a traffic jam and it’s Friday afternoon and my brain is tired, where does it go

when I’m not consciously steering my thoughts? Where does your mind go?

And that will tell you the level of how degenerate or regenerate your mind really is.

Be honest with yourself. You’re not fixed as the wise. You’re not fixed as the foolish. We can all choose

on a daily basis to be counseledled among the wise. I want to challenge you today to make

that choice. Not just to sit in the pews on a Sabbath morning, but to ask God to be

counseledled among the wise. To ask God to work a miracle of transformation within your heart. As we come to our

conclusion here, we know that before probation closes and our eternal destinies are fixed, there will be a

revival of primitive godliness among God’s people. And that is truly our greatest need. Next slide says this, a

revival of true godliness uh says this, a revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and

most urgent of our needs. And you know this revival always happens when people get down on their knees and pray.

And revival never takes place until people get down on their knees and they start praying.

We can all experience spiritual revival in our own homes simply by how much time we spend in prayer and opening our heart

up to God and telling him what’s really going on. He already knows, but we speak it out so that we hear the reality for

ourselves. And then we ask him to change us from the inside out. She goes on to

say, “There is nothing that Satan fears so much that the people of God shall clear the way by removing every

hindrance so that the Lord can pour out his spirit upon a languishing church and an impenitent congregation. If Satan had

his way, there would never be another awakening, great or small, to the end of time. Throughout salvation history,

regardless of whether it’s Baptist, Methodists, me and Menanites, Anabaptists, um or any any denomination,

every religious revival in history takes place when there is concerted and unified prayer among the saints

in our homes and in our congregations. So, I have much more to say on this, but I won’t because time is up.

But I’ve spoken a lot.

I’m praying the Holy Spirit’s brought conviction to somebody’s heart today.

Regardless whether you’re sitting in the pews, you have to choose. The default is to be

foolish. The conscious choice is to be counted among the wise.

Doesn’t matter if you return a faithful tithe or a Sabbath school teacher. None of that really matters in the final analysis.

The wise virgins are filled with the Holy Spirit. They allow the Holy Spirit to transform them from the inside out on

a daily basis. And they’re looking for that experience. Oh, that everybody here today will

counted among the wise. Or that everybody today would make that their life’s priority.

Or that everybody today would determine that in earth’s darkest hour, this little candle ain’t going to go out.

I’m going to shine for God in the darkest moments of earth’s history. And when for the rest of eternity we look at

the plan of salvation, I want to be the news. I want people from unfallen worlds be looking at my life as an example of

what it means to shine for God in the midst of spiritual evil and wickedness. We can choose today. Want to encourage

you to make that choice to be counsel among the wise, not among the foolish. and to receive the gift of eternal life

when the groom comes and welcomes us into the wedding supper of the lamb. Choose God today. Choose life.

Ask God that say, “God, I want to be part of those wise virgins.” And he will send you his Holy Spirit. That is the

promise of Christ to you personally. And God will do for you infinitely more than

you can begin to imagine for yourself. Let’s close with a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, today we’ve dwelt on the te this teaching of Jesus

and Father, regardless of where we’re sitting or what we’re wearing or the books on our shelves at home,

Lord, we confess that there are times when we are foolish virgins. We’re asking now, Lord, that you will

send us your Holy Spirit. you will forgive us for the past and that today will be a new day and

we’ll be counseledled among the wise. Father, we give our characters into your hands asking that you change us

that you transform us that be so we’ll be so transformed there is no hint of what went before but we’ll be so

transformed by the renewing of our minds that our lives are truly a living sacrifice to you. I pray Lord that this

congregation, those watching online, as you transform us into the wise virgins,

that the light of the gospel will shine through us wherever in the vineyard you’ve called us to live. That the light

of the gospel will shine in earth’s darkest hours unashamedly, unapologetically,

unwaveringly. We will shine for you until Jesus comes again. And father,

when the groom comes again in the clouds of glory, we humbly ask that he’s coming looking for each one of us. This is our

prayer in the name of Jesus, our Lord and coming Savior. Amen.