Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2500
“And they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.” Matthew 25:10.
DURING the waiting period, the wise and foolish virgins seemed much alike, even as at this day one can hardly discern the false professor from the true. Everything turned upon the coming of the bridegroom. To the 10 virgins, that was the chief event of the night. If it had not been for his coming, they would not have gone forth with their lamps. It was because they knew he would surely come that they prepared themselves to join in the marriage procession and attend him with their songs to the place of his abode. Yet, for a while, he did not come. The sun had gone down and darkness had stolen over the whole landscape, but the bridegroom did not come. The dews of night were falling fast, yet still he did not come. The hours were long and slowly passed away, one after the other, yet he did not come. It was waxing toward the middle of the night—a few stars were visible, but there was no lingering light of the day remaining. It was the time of darkness and the eyes of the waiting virgins grew heavy with watching. Why was the bridegroom so long in coming? They had been told to look for him. They had fully expected him, yet he had not come. There were whispers that it was all a delusion and that he would nevercome. And there was that guilty sense of slumber which stole over them. In the case of some of the 10, their spirit was willing, but their flesh was weak. But in the case of the others, both flesh and spirit were perverse, so that their sleep became exceedingly deep, as when a man sleeps even unto death.
But the bridegroom did come, as, Brothers and Sisters, in our case the Heavenly Bridegroom will come! However long we may have waited for Him, let us rest assured that He will come. As surely as He came once, so, “unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” It seems to me that it needs less faith to believe in the Second Advent of Christ than in His First Advent. He has been here before, so He knows the way to come again. He has been here before and worked a wondrous work—surely He will come back to receive the reward of His service. The Good Shepherd came to earth once to lay down His life for the sheep—He will surely come again as the Chief Shepherd to recompense the under-shepherds who have faithfully kept the night watches for Him. Jesus will come again, as surely as the bridegroom came at the midnight hour!
Yes, the bridegroom did come. Despite the waiting time, he did come, and then came the dreadful separation between those who had been waiting for his appearing. Scarcely by any act of his, the foolish and the wise were parted, the one from the other. They were awakened by the sound of his approach—the herald that preceded him cried, “Behold, the bridegroom comes,” and the sleepers were all aroused. Then the true adherents of the bridegroom, the wise virgins, penitent for their guilty sleep, poured the oil into their lamps, which were burning low, and soon they were blazing up clear and bright. As the bridegroom’s procession came near, “they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.” But the foolish virgins—those who had despised the secret stores of oil—those who had never gone to the Divine Spirit for His matchless Grace—were separated from their wiser companions. Not, indeed, by any special act of the bridegroom, but as the natural result of their own unprepared condition. They had to go away to buy oil from those who sold it. And when they came back, it was too late for them to go in to the marriage. They came up to the gate of the palace and found the door fast closed against them—shut forever—and learned that they must abide in the outer darkness, to weep and lament that they were not found worthy to behold the bridegroom’s face, or to enter into his joy.
I am going to talk to you, dear Friends, as simply as I can, but with deep soul-earnestness, about the two sets of persons mentioned in the text. First, I will speak of the ready and their entrance—“They that were ready went in with him to the marriage.” And, secondly, I will say something about the unready and their exclusion— ’ ‘And the door was shut.”
I. First, then, let us think of THE READY AND THEIR ENTRANCE—“They that were ready went in with him to the marriage.”
Let us meditate a little, first, about the entrance, itself, and then talk together about the persons who enjoyed it.
Concerning their entrance, note that it was immediate upon the coming of the bridegroom. As soon as he appeared there seems to have been no interval, but, at once, “they that were ready went in with him to the marriage.” Beloved Friends, the manifestation of Christ shall be the glorification of His people! We shall need nothing else but to behold His face and then our bliss shall be perfect and complete. So each Believer says with Job, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” Never entertain the slightest fear of any such purgatorial state as some have begun to dream of again! That lie, which the Reformers rightly called, “purgatory pick-purse,” which filled the pope’s treasury and was a curse to myriads of immortal souls, was exposed in all its naked ugliness by the Light which God gave to Luther and Calvin. Yet now, amid the abounding skepticism of these evil days, there is coming back this foul night-bird, or rather, this dragon of the Dark Ages—and sometimes even the children of God feel the influence of its pestilential presence.