In a sermon on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins from Matthew 25, Robert Bosley emphasizes the importance of spiritual preparedness and vigilance in anticipation of Christ's return. The parable, which features ten virgins awaiting a bridegroom, illustrates the distinction between those who are spiritually prepared (the wise virgins) and those who are not (the foolish virgins). Bosley interprets the virgins as representative of the visible church, highlighting that not all professing Christians possess sincere faith. He stresses that wisdom is not about intelligence but moral obedience and genuine faith. The oil in the parable symbolizes spiritual readiness, with the wise virgins having enough to endure until the bridegroom's arrival, while the foolish do not. Bosley warns against relying on external appearances of faith and urges personal examination. He concludes with a call to watchfulness, reminding the congregation of the unforeseeable timing of Christ's return and the necessity of being ready for the final judgment.

Well, good afternoon. If you would take out your Bibles and open up to Matthew 25. The Gospel according to Matthew 25th chapter. We're continuing the series on the parables. I promise we will be finished one day.

Very soon actually, there's only this one and one more to go. Matthew chapter 25, we're going to look at the first 13 verses, the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. So follow along as I read. Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise and five were foolish.

Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was heard, Behold the bridegroom is coming, Go out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.

But the wise answered, saying, No, lest there should not be enough for us and you, but rather go to those who sell and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding, and the door was shut. Afterward, the other virgins came also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, assuredly I say to you, I do not know you. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming." Let's pray.

Our Father, we thank you for allowing us another opportunity to be in your Word together. Lord, may you enable us to understand your Word rightly. Lord, we pray that you would convict us as we need conviction and assure us in our faith and grant us, Lord, all the blessings you have promised us through reading and hearing your word. In Jesus name, amen. This parable is one of the few that we're given an authoritative interpretation, or at least a final conclusion that we're to draw from the parable.

The words of the Lord at the end, verse 13, summarize the main point that we should take from this parable. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. We are to watch because we do not know when the Son will come. Now if as I laid out last time looking at the parable in the previous chapter in the Olivet discourse, if that is dealing with events in our past, then it's reasonable to ask how we should relate to this parable. Is this parable only about the coming of the Son of Man in the past, or is it something in the future?

It's a good question, and honestly, I'm not sure. John Gill in his commentary says that this parable applies, quote, either as it would be a little before the coming of the Son of Man to take vengeance on the Jews in 70 AD, or as it will be a little before his second coming to judgment. In other words, it could be either. And he does mostly side with this pointing forward to the second coming of the Lord to judge all the world. And I think that's probably right, but I can't say for sure one way or another.

But what I can say confidently is that regardless, the meaning of the parable, the intended application that we must be on guard, we must watch, that applies to all people throughout all time until Christ comes again to judge the nations. So it does apply to us today, unquestionably. Let's consider the different elements of the parable. We just read it, we'll walk through it, and look at the elements as we come to them. So Jesus says, then the kingdom of heaven will be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.

These virgins, think of them as the bridesmaids. That's essentially what this is. This is not necessarily a statement about their sexuality, but this is a position in a wedding ceremony. They are the bridesmaids. These would be young women who are helping with the wedding and apparently have the duty and privilege to welcome the groom to the wedding feast.

And it seems to me that These virgins, these bridesmaids are meant to be a picture of visible church members, those who profess faith and profess to be members of the body of Christ awaiting the return of Christ. Now typically we see the metaphor in the in in scripture that the church is the bride not the bridesmaids. What do we make of that here? Well in this parable I believe the church is represented by the bride's maids as the bride is not the one who goes out to welcome the groom in a wedding ceremony in the first century. But in this parable, to make the parable work for the purposes of the Lord, to encourage watchfulness and waiting for the return of Christ, the metaphor slightly changed to where the church is pictured by the bridesmaids, not the bride.

And regarding the virgins, five are described as wise and five are foolish. Now what does this mean? What does it mean to be wise or foolish in this parable? Well, I don't believe it's merely a statement about IQ or level of academic achievement. This is not a statement of how smart or unintelligent someone is.

Biblically, One who lives in obedience to God's revealed will and his law is one who is wise. One who rejects God's standards is the fool. It's in many ways a moral designation, not an intellectual one to be wise or foolish. It is the fool that says in his heart, there is no God, regardless of how smart he or she may be. And if you take a quick look at the Proverbs, you'll see this is made abundantly clear, I believe.

Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. It's knowing God that brings knowledge and wisdom. Proverbs 10-23, To do evil is like sport to a fool, but a man of understanding has wisdom. Proverbs 13, 19, and 20, But it is an abomination to fools to depart from evil. He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed." So biblically speaking there's a strong connection between someone's moral character and their amount of obedience to the revealed will of God to whether or not they are a wise person or a fool.

It's not merely intellectual. So to walk in obedience to God is wisdom. To reject God and his commands is foolishness. But it's not merely external obedience. God is not saying you're wise if you're only outwardly conformed to his law.

There's more to it than that. God is not satisfied with mere formalism, not a mere external appearance only obedience. No, the real obedience that is true wisdom that actually pleases God is the obedience motivated by sincere faith. And I think that's what we have here with these wise bridesmaids. All ten are a picture of professing Christians, but only half are sincere.

Only half are wise, because only those five have sincere faith. Remember what Paul said to Timothy that the scriptures are able to make you wise unto salvation. These five bridesmaids have wisdom because they have come to salvation through faith. But all ten are described as bridesmaids. And I think this is a picture for us that externally there may not be much of a noticeable difference in the visible church between who is and who is not sincere in their faith.

No one can go down the line, put these ten bridesmaids in a row, no one can go down the line and say this one's real, this one's real, that one's a fake, that one's not real. No one can do that. They are all bridesmaids. It's the long-term action that reveals the heart And that's what we see in this parable. As we've seen in other parables and in passages outside of the parables, we must learn and we must understand and we must really wrestle with this reality that not everyone who professes faith is genuine.

We are warned that there are many false teachers but we're also warned that there are many false brothers in the church. And that is why we are told to watch at the end of this parable. You are to be on watch for your own soul. Examine yourself to see if you are in the faith. Is my profession real?

Now I don't think that we should lay too much of an emphasis on the nice, neat, clean division of five and five. That five were wise, five were foolish. I don't think Jesus is giving us guidance on how many professing Christians in any individual church or any era are genuine or not. Rather, it seems that this is just a feature of the parable, not anything that we should expect in reality. But it should give us pause and make us seriously consider the reality of false professions.

We are to watch over our own souls. We are to examine, to see if we are wise or foolish before God. Now these five foolish bridesmaids, they did not examine themselves. They did not take care with how they behaved and so in the end they were excluded from the feast. Now what are the ten bridesmaids doing?

They take their lamps and they go out to meet the bridegroom. Well, who is the bridegroom? What does the groom represent? Of course it represents Christ at his coming, both, yes, I believe, in 8070, but as well as his yet future return to judge the world. The virgins go out to meet and welcome this bridegroom coming to the feast.

And they go out and the foolish ones are identified as fools because they fail to bring enough oil for their lamps when they went out to meet him and to accompany him back to the feast. Our translation here look in excuse me in verse 3, those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. This could be understood two ways. First, that they had no oil at all, and they took an empty lamp. Some argue that it's torches.

I don't really care. It doesn't matter. But It could be that they had no ability to even light their their lamp at all. It's possible Secondly it could mean that they took no extra oil so they had some in the lamp They had a little bit of light, but it wouldn't last I The first interpretation does make the most sense from just the original language of verse 3, they took no oil. However, I have to side with the second option because That would be to take nothing in the dark would be an excessively foolish thing to do.

And they are revealed as fools when they have to go and buy more oil, not because they took nothing with them at all. Also their lamps are described in verse 8 as going out, not never lit. And so I think we have to understand that in the picture, all ten are going out with lit lamps in the dark to go and wait and welcome the bridegroom when he comes. So again, visibly they all look the same. And this can be very true for our church or any other church.

We can have people who profess and externally may look like a believer, and that can last a long time. And so we are admonished and we are given warnings as we were instructed this morning. Are we really living as Christians? Are we believing as Christians? Is it sincere?

Is it genuine? Because anyone can say the words, but it's the lifestyle over time that will reveal what's really in the heart. And that lifetime of obedience or not is compressed into this parable. What does the oil represent? Some argue it's a picture of the Holy Spirit.

I personally find that to be a poor interpretation. Because what would we be saying then that they all had the Spirit, but only five had enough of him to be saved? I don't think we can go there. Rather, it seems that if the oil itself represents anything, which I'm not entirely sure it does, but if it does, I think it would be best to take it in the general sense of some sort of spiritual preparedness, some sort of spiritual readiness for the return of Christ. All of them had some oil, but only five took enough to persevere through the night until the groom came.

In the same way, some people have just enough spiritual life, Or at least the appearance of spiritual life that they may look like Christians for a time But they don't have real spiritual life in the heart They have a form of godliness while denying its power They have an external readiness where they've tasted the heavenly gift, as the writer to Hebrews says, and they've seen the powers of the age to come, but they've not embraced it fully with sincerely repentant faith. And this can take a few different forms. We heard about the indicatives and the imperatives this morning in our elders message. And that is also, I think, a helpful handle for how we can even evaluate some false professions. Some people can get so caught up on the imperatives.

They just wanna be told what to do Because they see living as a Christian, living in the way that God says you ought to live is better. It creates for a better family, a better society. But if it's merely obedience for the sake of having a better outcome. It's not saving faith Obedience to the imperatives is not salvation At the same time you may be very Indicative minded You are really caught up in the great truths of scripture, the great doctrines of the faith, and it never touches the heart, let alone the hands and feet. Both of these are kinds of false profession.

You can say you live like a Christian, but has Christ actually changed you? And you can say you hold to all the historic Christian faiths, you may be able to recite the Nicene Creed and explain to us what the hypostatic union is, but still die in your sins because it is not repentance. You must have both. You must have that light, but it must be a light that endures. Because we all must endure.

There's a delay. The Lord has delayed his coming. And this isn't a surprise. Jesus told us that there would be a delay. We are told to persevere.

We are told to watch and wait. And so the bridegroom delays and these bridesmaids, five of them were able to endure their lamps burned until they were able to welcome him. Now, it does say that they all slept. Some commentators will argue that this is one of the problems here, that they slept while he delayed. And often we are told that we must watch in the sense of not falling asleep, that we are to wake out of our sleep.

But I don't think that's the point here in the parable. The wise virgins are not criticized for going to sleep. There's no statement that they shouldn't have been sleeping. The sin of the foolish virgins is that they did not have sufficient oil. Not that they slept.

They all slept. Calvin actually takes this to be a picture of death. Possibly, I don't know. But rather, I think we should see here that this is, they're doing what would be normal to do. It's the middle of the night.

The announcement that the groom is coming isn't even made until midnight. It would have been normal for them to rest while they were waiting. And so I don't believe that's their sin. The sin, the error of the foolish virgins, what made them fools is that they were not properly prepared for the groom's coming. At midnight though, they were all awakened.

The cry goes out that the bridegroom has come, go and meet him. Now the word meet here in verse 6 is actually very interesting. It's technically it's a noun not a verb. It's literally go out to the meeting of him. And so the emphasis is on the event, the gathering together, the being with him rather than the action of going.

And this is also the same word that we see in 1 Thessalonians 4 to describe when Christ returns and the dead are raised, those who are alive are caught up to meet Christ in the air. It's the same word. And this term is used almost as a technical term in first century literature for a process of going out of a city to meet a dignitary and escort him back to the city. And that's how it's used, I believe here, as well as in Acts 28, when Paul is welcomed to Rome. And so this parable and the passage in 1 Thessalonians 4, contrary to what many people think, that we're gathered together and whisked away, leaving behind clothing and shoes and hearing aids and all this other stuff on the ground.

It's not that we're disappearing for however many years, but no, we go and meet him and return with him as he judges, as he returns as the triumphant king of kings and bridegroom of his church. So the bridemaids, they arise and they get their lamps ready only for the foolish ones to now realize that their lamps are going dark. When it matters most, their preparation or their lack of preparation is their undoing. As Matthew Henry put it, some wanted oil to supply their lamps when going out. Those that take up short of true grace will certainly find the want of it one time or other.

An outward profession may light a man along this world, but the damps of the valley of the shadow of death will put out such a light." They had a light that endured for a time, but when it mattered, they did not have any more light. It did not endure. And so what do they do? Well first they appeal to the wise among them, asking for some of their oil, and they're rebuffed. The wise rightly tell them, there will not be enough.

If we give you our oil, there will not be enough. Now, sorry, they're told they're not enough and that they should go to a vendor and buy some. Now, I have no idea if there would have been a vendor open at midnight to sell them oil, perhaps if it's a large enough celebration. But the point is that when the groom came, they were not prepared. They were not ready to go and meet him and escort him back to the feast.

What can we learn about this? What can we learn from this example? This isn't a lesson about sharing or not sharing. So kids don't try to appeal to this to say you don't have to share with your siblings. It's not what it's about.

The point is that in the preparation of the soul to meet Christ, that is a personal and individual matter. No one else can make you ready Paul lamented He wished he could be cut off for the sake of his kinsmen after the flesh He wished that he could be damned on their account so that Israel might be saved, but it wasn't possible. No one can save another. No one can save another. I would do anything to have assurance that my children will be ready to meet Jesus.

And I can do what God has called me to do, to evangelize my children, to bring them to the assembly, to encourage them to partake of the means of grace as is right, but I cannot take the grace from my own soul and give it to them. I cannot take the forgiveness Christ has given me and put it on their account." And that's what we have a picture here. The wise are not able to share their oil because salvation cannot be granted from any other mere person. That is something you must do. You must go to Christ personally.

Your parents cannot save you. Your spouse cannot save you. Your pastors cannot save you. Only Christ can save you. You must go to Him yourself.

No one can believe for you. You must believe. You must have that oil. It cannot be given to you. Not by another.

Not by another family member or church member. You personally must turn from your sins and trust in Christ and his work to save you. In verse 10 we read, while they went to buy the bridegroom came, And those who were ready went in with him to the wedding, And the door was shut. The door was shut, like the door of the ark, shut by the very hand of God himself. The door to the wedding feast was closed and there was no more time for anyone to enter the feast.

Those who were ready met the groom and were welcomed in. Are you ready? We do not know when he will come. Are you ready to meet him and to be received into that feast? Or will you be left outside?

The foolish virgins return and they knock on the door and say, Lord open to us and here really the parable falls away and we're given a glimpse of the final day of judgment. The groom might be annoyed But unlikely in a real wedding would he actually say, I never knew you. That's where we see this is not merely the parable now. Because on that final day, you may say, Lord, Lord, Have we not prophesied in your name? Or cast out demons in your name?

Do many wonders in your name? Lord, did I not go to your church every week? Did I not do all these things? But if those things were not done without real lasting faith and you stand before Him in your sins, you will hear, Depart from me, I never knew you. And so we conclude with what Jesus concluded Watch therefore for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming Watch Watch in your own soul examine yourself Christ has delayed, but we do not know for how long.

But we do know that he has delayed for a purpose so that sinners might come to repent and be saved. So do not delay. Come to Him while the door to that eternal feast is still open. Let's pray. Our Father we thank you for your word.

Thank you for giving your Son to be our Redeemer and our King. Oh Lord I pray that there would not be one here who would be lost and on that day told to depart. God, I pray that you would save each one here, save our children, Lord. Show us your kindness in this, we pray. And do not let any of us be deceived or looking to our own works or our intellect or any other thing.

Lord, I pray that we would have only one confidence, only one boast, that we would only boast in Your Son and His cross and His work on our behalf. In His name we pray, Amen.