Amen. Thank you very much Neville for your help this evening. Let us turn once again in the scriptures to the gospel of Matthew chapter twenty-five. Matthew chapter twenty-five and the text I want to share with you tonight is the verse ten of Matthew chapter twenty-five and And they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. They that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. May the Lord bless his word. Let us seek the Lord for prayer. Father in heaven, we come to you in the name of our Savior, and we pray for your help as we would explore and examine your word this evening. Open up the truth to our hearts. Give help and clarity of wisdom in the exposition. Father, I pray that the words of my mouth and meditation of my heart would be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Amen and amen. Ready for eternity. We often talk about getting ready. If you're going on a holiday, you need to get ready for that holiday. You're planning to put into place. Before you came to this service tonight, you get ready and we use the phrase getting ready, getting your clothes on, getting prepared to come to church. It's true of wherever we go in life, there has to be a a certain readiness, certain amount of planning going we might do what we plan to do. And here we have this phrase in verse 10 of Matthew 25. They that were ready went in with him to the marriage. And the real lesson the Lord is teaching us here is the importance of being ready, not for a mere earthly event, but getting ready for eternity. That's the lesson. because we're just travelers through time and one day we'll come to the river of death and there is an afterwards because death is not the end. Eternity. And we need to be ready to face death, ready for eternity. That's the lesson here. The whole of life that God has given to us The whole purpose of life is that we might be ready for eternity. And if you tonight are not ready for eternity, if you're not ready for this, then up until now, you've been wasting your time. You've been wasting your life. It is all accounted for nothing. How dreadful it would be to spend the years of life and then face death. You're not ready. You're not prepared. That would be a tragedy. To lose one's soul, what a tragedy. It's important to be ready. The Lord uses an illustration. It's one of his great parables to explain the importance of getting ready. He talks about that most wonderful of all, Earthly events, the most memorable of earthly events, a wedding, and how special a wedding is. And there is so much planning goes into a wedding, the organization, and it's two young people, they covenant to spend the rest of their lives together. It's a remarkable thing, a wedding. Time of great joy and happiness and celebration, but you need to be ready for the wedding. And the Lord takes this story that all of us hearers could empathize with, they could understand, they could appreciate, and he uses this story to teach us the importance of getting ready for eternity. It's perhaps a little difficult for us to get the culture. Because the wedding the Lord described here in Matthew 25, it's all like weddings in our culture in the 21st century. So we have to appreciate what's going on here. In the first place, this wedding takes place at night. That's the first thing that's different. The marriage takes place at night. And the marriage doesn't take place in a church, in a place of worship. It takes place in the home of the bride. And the bride and her family are waiting for the bridegroom to come. We wait for the bride to come. The bridegroom waits for the bride. And we often say, the bride is allowed to be late on her wedding day. But on this occasion, it was not the bride who appeared to be late, but it was the bridegroom. And it wasn't that he was late, it was simply that no one knew at what time he would arrive. But in the meantime, the bride had sent these virgins who were her friends, perhaps some of her sisters, They were what we would call the bridesmaids, and they had gone out from her father's house to meet the bridegroom, and their job was to accompany the bridegroom back to the home of the bride's father. And their task was to wait. And they were dressed, they were clothed, and they had their beautiful garments. And their simple task was to wait. But they did not know when the bridegroom would come and so they waited for him. Darkness fell and they waited. And their task was to carry their lumps. To be without their lumps would not to be ready. And so these lumps were in all probability simple pieces of iron or even earthenware and they were covered in rags, and they were dosed in oil, and they were burning. And they had their lamps burning, and they were waiting. And so, as the bridegroom came, he would see the glow, the glimmer of lights, showing him the way to the home of the bride. And so, they waited, and they waited, and their lamps, they started to flicker. And so there had to be the trimming of the lamps, and the cloth that was charred and ashen had to be trimmed away to reveal the fresh cloth below, and then the fresh cloth had to be replenished with oil. And so they were working at trimming the lamps, and the cry went up, the bridegroom is coming! But the foolish virgins, they didn't bring extra oil. They thought the bridegroom would have come by now, and so they didn't bring extra oil. They should have brought extra oil, but they didn't. They didn't anticipate staying to such a late time. But there were five that brought enough oil. And they pleaded with the other five, give us some of your oil. We have none to spare. We have just enough for ourselves. And so they went out to buy, and when they returned, The bridegroom had come, and the five wise virgins, they accompanied the bridegroom to the home of the bride. But the five foolish were too late. They weren't ready. They weren't prepared. They were too late, and they went up to the door, and they tried to go in, but access couldn't be given. They had failed the bride. And so they were locked out. the darkness of the night. And within there was joy and celebration. There was laughter and music. There was song. And there was the food. There was the companionship and the fellowship and the love. But outside in the empty void of that night were those five virgins that did not have enough oil. That's the picture. And the Lord turns this parable around, and he says in verse 13, Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh. And he's talking here about the second coming of Christ. He says, I'm going to return to this earth, and you need to be ready, but you don't know when I am coming. And so you must be prepared. But ultimately, we meet with God. Whether it is at the second coming of Christ, or whether it is at death, we have an appointment we're not gonna miss. And so ultimately the lesson here is that we must be ready for eternity. And heaven is described as being like a marriage, the marriage supper of the lamb. We don't actually see the bride in this parable. She is not described, we don't get a view of her. We only get a view of the bridegroom and the virgins. Because the virgins represent the bride, you see. And there were these 10 virgins, all seemed to be part of the bride, but five weren't. Because they weren't prepared. but five were. And so there is this appeal that comes from this parable to make sure in our own hearts that we know God, that we are prepared for eternity. We are prepared for that time when we will meet God. And so we're going to think about this and see what we can learn. In the first place, Let's consider the expectations. Managing. Managing our expectations. Sometimes we talk about managing expectations. Some people have very inflated expectations. Their expectations of life and what they're going to get out of life or what they're going to earn or whatever a certain venture is or whatever it is they have planned for. Their expectations are so inflated, you know it'll never come to pass. Some people have very grand ideas. And regarding eternity, I think there's a warning here is we need to manage our expectations. Now, five of these virgins, their expectations were well-founded. There was no managing about their expectations. They had come, they were prepared, they had enough oil, they could sit through the night, they could wait. Whatever time the bridegroom came, they were going to go in. because they had the oil. Their expectations were well-founded. And the oil speaks of the Holy Spirit. The oil speaks to us about the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. Whenever a person truly knows God, the Holy Spirit has done a work in that person's life, and we call that the new birth to be born again. And it's a mysterious work. It's a hidden work that goes on in the heart, but it's real. John Bunyan in Pilgrims Progressive tells the story of the pilgrim and he sees a fire. and the fire is burning, but there's a man standing at the fire continually pouring water in the fire, trying to put it out, and the fire just gets hotter and hotter and hotter. And he looks at this and wonder, how is this so? How is it that this fire can keep burning even though this man is trying to put it out? And then the interpreter takes him round the back of the fire, and at the back of the fire, there's another man with an oil vessel, and he's putting the oil on continually. And no amount of water could put that fire out because the oil is feeding the fire continually. And that was a picture of the new birth. And whenever God saves a man or a woman, when the Holy Spirit comes and does a work in his heart and his soul, that work cannot die. That work will continue because it is a work of grace and it is a work of God. And these five virgins that were wise, they were truly wise because they had the Spirit's work within. And they represent those that are born again of the Spirit of God, who have put their faith in Christ alone, and trusted Him, and made that preparation. And whenever you know Christ as your Savior, you're sure of eternal life. You're as sure of heaven as if you were there. And death has no fear. And there's a wisdom in that. There are many things you may understand. There are many things you may know. And some of it's not worth knowing. But to know God and be prepared for eternity, that's the climax of all wisdom. Now, what about these? five foolish virgins because they too expected to go into the marriage. But their expectations weren't well-founded. And this is the real challenge, isn't it? Because you look at the ten, they're standing out. They have enjoyed all of the outward preparation. So, they're all dressed the same, and they have a relationship to the bride, and They've been chosen for this task, and there's this expectation. They shared, it seemed, an equal expectation with the wise virgins, but their expectations weren't good. And although they thought they would go into the marriage, they were never going to go into the marriage because they hadn't enough eyes. That was the problem. That represents a person who may even profess to be a Christian. Someone who claims that they're a child of God. Someone who attends the church, who occupies a pew, who sing hymns, who's a knowledge of God's Word, but yet there hasn't been a work of God done in the heart. No preparation. George Whitfield, the great and the famous English evangelist. As a young man, he was really sincere, really zealous for spiritual things. Whenever he went to Oxford University as a teenager, he was spied out by Charles Wesley, and he said, will you join our little fellowship? It was nicknamed the Holy Club because The worldly-minded people of the university despised these men who spent their time reading, praying, doing good to the poor, visiting prisoners. They were known as Methodists, and George Whitfield threw in his lot with them. And they were serious, and they were religious, and they were prayerful, and they knew God's They were Church of England men, devout, full of sincerity about their faith and about their religion. And then Whitefield got a book. It was written by a little-known author by the name of Henry Scougal, a Scotsman. And it was called, The Life of God and the Soul of Man. And Whitefield started reading this book, And he read about this work of the Spirit that must take place in your heart. And Schugol said there are people who are going to a particular denomination and they think because they go to that denomination that that makes them Christians. There are people and they attend church and they take communion, they come from a Christian background and they think that that's enough. And Schugol said it's not. Because they must have Christ formed within their hearts. They must be born again. And Schuylkill started to explain what this life of God in the soul looked like. He said, it's a life of humility, recognizing your sinfulness. It's a life of purity. where you are made pure by the righteousness of Christ given to you, and that enables you to live a different kind of life. He said it's a life of love, where God's love rules and reigns in your heart. It's a life whereby you don't just go through the ritual of a religion, but where you want to obey God and serve God out of love because of what Christ has done for you. And Schuylkill started to write about Christ and about Christ's submission, how he went to the cross, submitted to his father, not thy will, not my will, but thine be done. He talked about the purity of Christ and the loveliness of Christ. Whitfield read all of this and he was horrified because he knew that with all of his religion and all of his good works and all of his sincerity and all of his zealousness, that it wasn't enough. He never knew that before. And he said, I knew from that moment, unless I am born again, I'll be damned. Unless I am born again, I'll be damned. He was a young man, 20 years of age. He spent the next six months seeking this new birth. Someone commented to me just the other day about not only Whitefield, but the Westleys. Before they were converted, they prayed more than most modern Christians pray. And they weren't converted men. Because they were seeking God. As the reality of sin came upon them, they sought God. That was Whitefield's experience. He sought God with all his heart. He sought Him in the wrong places. He went through Lent. He ate a most meager diet through the weeks of Lent, so much so that his body started to waste away. And it affected his mind and his mental state. But ultimately, it was the burden of sin upon him. And he still hadn't peace. And then at the end of it all, as he lay upon his bed, sick, he cried unto God and trusted in his mercy. And suddenly he said, glory came. He went to the cross. and suddenly he was ready. Is it any wonder the man could do nothing else for the following years of that which God allotted to him to preach to men and women everywhere you must be born again? It was the only way because he had false expectations and they were shattered as he understood you need to be born again. Are you born again of the Spirit of God? Where are your expectations if If you were to meet with God tonight, would you be ready? But let's also think about this lack of preparation and how it was exposed. How was the lack of preparation exposed? Well, you look at what happened. They were slumbering and sleeping in the verse five. And then in verse six, the cry goes up, the bridegroom come out. The foolish discovered their lamps had gone out. As the bridegroom came, the foolish virgins realized that their lamps weren't lit. Whatever light they had, it wasn't enough when the bridegroom came. The person that doesn't know Christ. When Christ comes or when death comes, whatever light you have, it'll not be enough if it's not the light of Christ to realize that you're in darkness. Wouldn't it be a tragic thing to know the gospel and to have the gospel? And to know scripture in your minds and to know the way of salvation, to have that light, and yet for that light to be darkness when Christ comes. because you're not ready. The scripture says that it'll be more tolerable for those that have heard the gospel, it'll be more tolerable for Sodom in the day of judgment, and Sodom didn't have Christ, didn't have the gospel, than it will be for those that knew Christ. He said, Capernaum, Capernaum that had Christ walking within. There would be a greater judgment upon Capernaum than upon Sodom because Capernaum had more privileges. The light that you have, the privilege that you have, the opportunity that you enjoy to come to Christ, that'll be as darkness when Christ comes or when death comes because you've squandered all of that which God by his mercy has given to you. That's a shocking thing. The Apostle Paul said the gospel is a saver of death unto death. The gospel brings death to those that know not Christ, who turn away from Christ. And then, you notice again about these foolish virgins, they wanted the oil that belonged to the wise virgins, but they couldn't have that. They couldn't have that. Everyone had to have their own personal supply of oil. The supply of the Holy Spirit that someone else has will not get you to glory. The supply that your parents have will not get you to glory. The supply that your husband or your wife has will not get you to glory. The supply that your children have won't get you to glory. Everyone must personally know Christ themselves. And if you don't know Christ personally, you're lost. And there's a division in every meeting between those that are saved and those that aren't saved. And you need the new birth for yourself. It's a personal work in each and every person's heart. And then they went out to buy, but that wasn't enough. And so they went out to look for oil, the darkness of the night, but that wasn't enough. There are so many people that are trying to buy their salvation through their good works or whatever, through trusting in themselves and what they can bring to God, and not understanding that they can bring nothing to God. You cannot buy. It's without money, without praise. Oh, don't misunderstand the gospel. I'll tell you something. You'll be found out on the day of judgment. Better to be found out now. Better to be exposed now. That's what Whitfield discovered. He discovered that his wickedness and his sinfulness was exposed before a holy God. And suddenly he sought the Lord. Oh, that that would happen for you tonight. That you would bow that heart and surrender that soul to Christ as your savior. But let's think in closing about the happiness, the happiness for the ready. This 10th verse says, they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. There's a certain security there. Those that were ready, they went in, and they were shut in to all of that blessedness, all of that satisfaction, all of that happiness. The door was shut that they weren't going to be let out into the night. They were secure in that place of light. The foolish virgins were locked out into the darkness, but the wise were closed in to the light. And heaven is represented as a place of light, a place where the sun never sets. In fact, a place where the sun is not required because Christ is the light thereof. It's a place of absolute security. The darkness speaks of fear. Darkness represents crime. Darkness is the time when people tend to be worried. But light is so welcoming, and the light of glory. The light of glory will be more wonderful than the light of the sun. The light of glory will be more wonderful than the sweetness of the longest summer's day. And all those that know Christ, they are in a place where the roses never fade. And these five wise virgins, they represent all of God's people that have gone on before. And all those that have made their preparation for eternity, who wouldn't want to be in heaven? Is there anyone here who will say, I don't want to be there. I want to be closed out into the darkness. I want to be shut out into hell. Because as this door was shut, the door of opportunity was shut for the foolish virgins. They couldn't cross that threshold. They couldn't cross that door. They had their chances, we would say, and they blew it. You have your opportunity now. For I tell you something, that door is open. I tell you, in the authority of God's word, as long as you have breath in your lungs, the door is open. The door is not shut. The door is open. One day it'll be closed. So come tonight. Seek the Lord. Be born again of the Spirit of God. Call upon the name of the Lord. Trust in the mercy of Christ alone. Get to that cross where Jesus died as a poor lost sinner and the burden of your heart will be rolled away. For that's what Jesus does. Let's bow for prayer. You're here tonight without Christ. Come tonight. lift up your heart to the Lord where you're at. Lord, save me. I'm a poor lost sinner. Save me. You don't need a particular prayer, a particular form of words. You only need a heart that cries unto Christ. Don't leave this place tonight without Christ. We'll sing another hymn and we'll have the the supper and but don't allow the conversation to much too important. Come and talk to me or someone else. I want to be saved. It's the best thing you could ever do. Lord, write your word in every heart for Christ