The Church at the End Times

In the Olivet Prophecy in Matthew 24, Jesus makes this statement. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations. And then the end will come. Now, we have read the Olivet Prophecy. All of us have read it, heard it in sermons, read about it in books and articles and booklets. Because it is a center prophecy about what it will be like before Christ returns. There's a tribulation on the earth like a time no other, with wars and famines and disease epidemics. It'll be so bad that Jesus says that He doesn't come when He does. No one will survive. And that section of this prophecy is probably being emphasized more than any other section of Biblical prophecy. As sort of a center point of anti-prophecy. But what's really interesting about the Olivet Prophecy is that when you look at all of Matthew 24 and all of Matthew 25, most of the prophecy is about the followers of Jesus Christ. Most of the prophecy isn't about the world events. Now what we tend to emphasize is the part about the world events. The rest of the prophecy, what we do is we break it down because there's four basic parables and we talk about the parables. So you'll hear all four of those parables used in different sermons as we cover them. In fact, I've given entire sermons on some of those parables, just on the parable itself. But it's interesting to put them all together. What I want to do today is I'm going to look at the Olivet Prophecy as Christ's prophecy about the church at the end. What would his people be like at the end times? And when we put it together, obviously we can't go through all the details. I mean, this is, I'm taking a large section of Scripture and trying to bring it down into an hour sermon. But we can get an overview of what he said and what he says to us. So let's go to Matthew 24. And let's go ahead and read the part of the Scripture, or part of this that we all usually read. Matthew 24.

And then I want to show you where the shift begins. Now, it's not completely a shift here because through the rest of Matthew 24, he goes back and forth between talking to his disciples and talking about the world.

Verse 3. Now, as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? So, the specific thing he's going to talk about is his coming and the end of the age. Now, like most prophecies, there's a dual fulfillment of some of what he says. Some of what he said happened to those people directly in their lifetimes. That's why at one point he says, You. This is going to happen to you because you have the problems the church went through in the 50s and 60s AD, and the destruction of the temple in the 70 AD. So, you have a dual prophecy here. But I want to specifically look at the end time part of it. It would be interesting sometimes maybe to do a Bible study just on the first fulfillment of parts of Matthew 24 and what happened to those people who actually heard this prophecy. But remember, the focus is not its first time fulfillment, but its end time fulfillment. And most of it is about the end time fulfillment. Verse 4, And Jesus answered and said to them, Thank ye that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many. And ye will hear wars and rumors of horrors, see that ye are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For a nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes and various places. All these things are the beginning of sorrows. Now, many times, in a discussion of this, we'll jump down to verse 15, that talks about the abomination of desolation and the tribulation. As he continues and talks about these world events. But there is, starting at verse 9 here, there's a slight change in focus on what he's saying. Let's look at verse 9. Then they will deliver you. See, the shift here is not wars and rumors of wars and diseases and massive problems in the world, which we should look for. And we study, you know, history, we study world events, we look at what's happening in the news, to try to look at these things. But the shift here is now what is going to happen to you. Now, what he describes here happened to some of them. But remember, the main focus of his prophecy is just before his second coming. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my namesake. So the church is going to go through persecution. We know the persecution of the church is the fifth seal in the book of Revelation. So, we have, this fits into, remember when I went through an outline of Revelation, they kept going back and forth between the Olivet prophecy and Revelation. This gives us the template, the lay revelation on top of.

And then, this instilled the church, many will be offended and betray one another, and will hate one another. Within the church, people will offend each other, and they will betray one another, and they will hate one another. He hasn't switched back to talking about the world yet. That happens in a few more verses. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many, and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who adores to the end shall be saved. He's not talking to the world about enduring to the end. They don't know. This passage starts with you speaking to his disciples then, and carrying on to his disciples now. The church will be enduring at the end. It will be a struggle. But he who adores to the end shall be saved. The gospel of the kingdom will be preached to all the nations, as a witness to all the nations, to the world, as a witness to all the nations. Then will the end come. Yeah, that's a pretty scary negative viewpoint of the church at the end time. Persecution, betrayal, hatred. Now, not all the church is that way. Now, we will know that. In the sermon, where the prophecy that shows that all the church ends up that way. But he says this is going to happen too, inside the church. He goes on that it talks about the world and more things are going to happen. But then, he switches here at the end of chapter 24. Remember, these were chapters. He didn't say, verse 1 of what I'm talking about today. Verse 2 of what I'm talking about today. He spoke these words that got written down and passed on.

So, Matthew 24 and 25 is a continuous sermon in which he tells them these prophecies. And then he goes into four parables about the church. Telling us at the end time what to be careful for. Now, what's very interesting is if you read these parables, they actually apply to Christians at all times. Because they deal with certain attitudes and problems in Christians' lives. So, we're going to go through the four parables. Now, once again, I'm not going to go through trying to explain every detail of each parable. Because that would take a sermon on each one. But what I want to do is get an overview and show us something that we derive from putting the four parables together. And here's what I want you to do. If you have a piece of paper there in front of you, I want you to draw a line. Take a page and draw a line down the middle of the page. Or if you have a computer, you might be able to do that. I don't know. It would be this easy to do if you're working off a pad or a computer.

And on the left side, I want you to put bad traits. And on the right side, good traits. What we're going to look at is something that Jesus does. And why does he give four parables? Because they don't all talk about the same thing. Each parable teaches us about what will be right and wrong in the church.

What will be the bad traits of Christians who are failing at this time. And he talked about failure. And there will be good traits of those who are not failing. So what we need to do is look at each parable now, not specifically, but in a general sense. Looking at the traits that each one teaches.

And as we make this list, if we're honest with ourselves, we're going to find there's a few bad traits in our lives. It may be different between each of us. And hopefully there's good traits in our lives. And we need to understand and be serious that we need to be moving from the bad traits to the good traits. So these four parables, you know, we look at them myopically, each one individually. When you put them together, we have a big picture of the end-time church.

So let's look at the first one. Matthew 24-25. Who then is a faithful or wise servant who is master made ruler over his household to give them food and do season? He said, who can be the leaders? Now, this could specifically be the leaders in the church at the time, but all Christians are being trained to be leaders when Jesus Christ returns in the millennium. So who are those that are faithful servants that can be prepared?

Remember, this is all part of the Olivet prophecy. He's still standing on the Mount of Olives, talking to his disciples. Answering the question, tell us what it will be like before you return? He's still answering that question. But the whole emphasis now is that the world is his service. Blessed is that servant who is master when he comes will find so doing. So, in the context of what will be like when you return? Well, blessed are my servants who are doing this when I return.

They're doing. That's very interesting. They're active. They're doing. They're not passively waiting. They're not hiding out, just sort of thinking about Christ's return, but living lives totally disconnected from that reality. But they're doing. Assuredly I say to you, he will make him ruler over all his goods. And the emphasis here is doing. Servants who are doing the work of God, both the work that God does in them and the work that God does through us towards others. We can't just be recipients of the work of God and that not flow through us to other people.

Just to say, well, I'm going to have God work in me and then I'm not going to interact with anybody else and hide my Christianity, then God isn't going to work through you. Because it comes into us, the work of God is in us and works through us to do his work with others. One of the things I'm going to be talking about to the new ministers here this week is that their purpose in life is the same.

Our purposes are all the same, to be the children of God. So our purpose is the same. But every one of us has a little different mission. You have a mission from God. As an ordained elder, they have a specific mission from God. It is to serve God and to serve his people. It is not a career. It is not an upwardly mobile American corporate concept.

That is not what the ministry is. It is totally foreign to the society we live in. It is a lifestyle of service to God and to God's people. Doing. But, verse 48, if that evil servant says in his heart, My master is delaying his coming. See, the faithful servant is looking for the return of Jesus Christ. The unfaithful servant has lost the vision of Christ's return. So the goal of life is sort of lost. It is interesting what happens to them and begins to beat his fellow servants and eat and drink with the drunkards.

See, here we have, they are still servants, but what are they doing? They are in constant conflict with other servants. They mistreat other servants. They abuse other servants. They are in conflict with other servants. They are always in a power struggle with other servants. They are always trying to enforce their will on other servants. So the unfaithful servant is in conflict mode with other servants all the time.

And their compromising was sin. Now, outwardly, they don't appear to be, but inwardly, their compromising was sin. Because it says they eat and drink with the drunkards. In other words, they are living worldly lifestyles, but it appears that they are not. It just appears that they are servants. The master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of. So Christ is coming back. Remember, what are the signs of your coming? When I come, this is what I will do to the world and with my servants. And we will cut him into an appointed portion with his hypocrites, and they shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That is a strong statement. Weeping and gnashing of teeth, if you look at the New Testament, always has to do with the eternal judgment of going to the like of fire.

So he condemns these servants. He says, I will come. You know, you think about, I will come and I will give you rewards and crowns of life. Think of all the positive things that Christ says about his people, his church. Now, here is a group of servants that do not give the reward. They are not given the resurrection. They are given something else.

So, we can center in on the messies to the world of the Olivet Prophecy and become experts on prophecy and miss the point to the church. All of chapter 25 is to the church. The whole rest of the Olivet Prophecy, and that's why, if you look at it, there is more said to the church in the Olivet Prophecy than there is to the world.

Christ was very concerned that his disciples know, when you look at the things that come, look at yourself.

So, if you take your piece of paper there, and you look at your list, on your bad traits list, what can we get from this parable? On the bad traits, you can list lack of vision of Christ's return. They believe the Lord delays his coming. They still have a vision of his return. It's not a focal point of life. It's not a goal. They have a lack of dedication to the work of God. The emphasis of their lives are not God working in me and working through me. They just go through the motions of being a Christian. They've lost something. So, they still appear to be Christian, but really, they're not. They're not living like a Christian. But remember, they are service. So, he's talking about his service. Number three, they're conflict-oriented. They just always are embroiled in conflict, or abuse, or power struggles. It's just the way of life. They beat their fellow service. And then the fourth point, they have a compromising attitude towards sin. But that would not be apparent, necessarily. Because then everybody says, well, that's not a servant. That's not a fellow Christian. This person's out committing adultery and getting drunk. You may not have seen what's going on in their lives. That's not saying they're not doing those things. They're going to be covering them. Everybody says, well, that's not a servant. That's not a fellow servant. Now, let's look at the good traits. The good trait of the faithful servant here would be the opposite of the unpayable servant. Strong vision of Christ's return. A strong vision of Christ's return. Dedicated to the work of God. Both in ourselves and outward towards others. Cooperation towards others. An attitude of cooperation, not conflict. Now, everybody has some conflict in life. We're talking about an attitude here. Because the unpayable servant is embroiled in conflict all the time. And sensitive to recognize and avoid sin. Sensitive to sin.

So we have two different servants, don't we? Now, he uses this to launch into three more parables. Parables we all know. Parables we've all read so many times. Once again, I'm not going to go in all great detail. I want to look at the traits. So we're going to have to read each parable to get the traits. So I'm going to read here now the next of the four parables. So you have your list of what we just simply learned about the servants in the first parable. Verse 1 of chapter 25. Now, 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. And those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. Now we're going to look at ten virgins. Now, you've heard this given many, many times. What's amazing is how many different interpretations there are of this parable. And part of that is because it has multiple levels of meaning. And part of it is because people don't...we almost analyze it too much. I read something this week when I was working through this. One commentator said that he felt like this proved polygamy. And he gave reasons why. It was a ludicrous explanation of what Jesus is actually saying. The problem with all parables is that they break down. I mean, they're only used to make a certain point. So you can take certain points out of one parable, and it applies maybe to two or three parables. Some points are just specific to that parable. One thing that's interesting here is that there are certain translations of this passage that twist this meaning just a little. And I know what the translators were trying to do. They were making it more clear, but they actually made it more cloudy. In the common English version, the New Living version, and the new Revised Standard, it doesn't say virgin. It says bridesmaids. So the bridesmaids are waiting. Well, then the bride's not mentioned at all. So then the question comes down to who is the bride, who are the bridesmaids? Now, there's these huge discussions on who are the brides, who are the bridesmaids? And an entire commentary spent pages trying to explain that. There's a problem. The word bridesmaids is not in the language. It's virgin.

You say, well, what's the difference? It's a huge difference because of what virgin means. Spiritually, if you look through the Old and New Testaments, a person who was in a right relationship with God was a spiritual virgin. A person who is not in a right relationship with God is a spiritual, lewd woman, sometimes called a harlot. Think of Hosea. I was supposed to give a Bible study at the home office this week on Hosea and wasn't able to go. But I had already prepared it. I thought, you know, I think sometime in the future I'll just give...we'll just do 12 sermons on the 12 minor prophets. Let's go through each of them. But Hosea was told to marry a...it says a harlot. It's usually how it's translated. Literally, it would be a woman of fornication. In other words, a woman who is just loose. Yeah. I'm trying to think of a word. A loose woman. He's told to go out and find it, and he does. And he's told to love her. And he does. She runs away from him at one point and goes...runs off on his liver with another man and God says, go buy your back. And he does. And everybody's watching this and saying, how could this be a prophet of God? This is against the law of God. And it keeps getting up and saying, no, this is your relationship with God. And you are like someone committing adultery. That's how he feels. Like he's married to you through covenant. And you are destroying this special relationship to him. We see in the woman writing the beast, the great harlot in Revelation, which is a false religion. So the word virgin here, and not bridesmaid, is very important. Sometimes there's an attempt to make these bridesmaids and tie this into the Jewish wedding ceremony, which is very interesting. But it doesn't say bridesmaid. It says virgin. Bride is not mentioned at all. So what do we derive from that? I think we have to derive something from it. And I'm not going to go into great detail, but something to think about. Any analogy. Let's go to... leave a marker here, because we'll come back to it. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 11, verse 2.

Paul writes to the church of Corinth, For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, For I have betrothed you to one husband, That I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. So he's telling the people there, he's using the same analogy. I have come along and taught you and brought you into a covenant with your husband, and I'm preparing you to be a chaste virgin. Now notice, virgin here is a collective word. Each individual member of the church of Corinth was to be a spiritual virgin. He doesn't mean you, and the rest of you aren't. So he's not talking about one person, he's talking about the church of Corinth. So here's used in a collective way, because he's making a spiritual principle. Sometimes we have a hard time thinking of this, because, well, wait a minute, does that mean that Christ is going to marry every person that was in the church of Corinth that was converted? Yes. Is he going to marry every person who has his spirit, who's converted, his return? Yes. Does he eventually...well, we could get into all the prophecies. He eventually remarries Israel. Yes. Now these are all related concepts. They're not all one concept, but they are related. So we have a problem. If I want to talk to individual members of the Corinthian church, but they're all the virgin, what do I do? I have to now refer to them as virgins. Here's what I mean. Look at Romans 12.

Here, Paul continues this concept that he's preparing a bride. He doesn't use the bride here, but he uses the body. He's preparing this person to marry Christ. He calls it the virgin, the bride, the body of Christ. He's preparing this body. And then he says, okay, now I have to explain something about this body. There are Eastern concepts about all beings merging into one of oneness, sort of one being, one body. That's not what he's talking about. Those Eastern ideas from Hinduism, Buddhism were actually extant at that time and sort of making their way into the Roman Empire. So, look what he says here in verse 5.

He says, I want to stress here that even though we are all one body, we are individuals within that body. Just like if we're all one bride, we're individuals within the bride. If we're all one virgin, we have to be virgins within the same group. So, it's a use of analogies that aren't... it's really strange in our world. These are strange analogies for us in a modern world. They're not so strange in that world. This all makes sense. So, what we look at, and we go back to Matthew 25, what we're looking at is he's talking about Christians. Anything beyond that, we can discuss what that means and who they are, but he's talking about Christians. It is interesting that the bride is not mentioned, just members, just individuals who are also virgins. They're waiting to what? Meet the bride group. It doesn't say they are there to serve the bride, it says they are waiting to meet the bride group. So, we know that these virgins then represent Christians. And we know that the main emphasis is at his return. So, now we're going to look at how he describes the traits of the ten virgins and what we can learn from them. Behold, at midnight a cry was heard. Behold, the bride group is coming up. Go out to meet him. Don't prepare the bride. Go out to meet him. Because they're all virgins, they're all righteous, if you will. They're all ones who have been called by God. They're not loose women. They've all been prepared to meet the bride group. That all the virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. Now, here we have an interesting analogy. We have the light that God gives us. And we know in the scripture that oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. So, they have lights that are burning. Their energy, their spiritual life is coming from the oil that is from God. Now, they have to trim their lamps. You can buy replicas of these. In fact, you can actually buy... They have thousands and thousands of old bits and pieces of lamps and lamp vessels from 2,500 years ago, from the Middle East. And you can go to a reputable dealer if you have the money, and you can buy an oil lamp and an oil vessel from the time of Jesus. Well, a couple hundred years before or after, I mean, they can't put in exact dates. You guys can go buy these. And you have a little lamp and you have a vessel of oil. Because when the oil goes down, because it's pretty small, you have more oil to pour in. So, it's talking about God's Spirit and the burning of God's Spirit.

Then all the virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. Now, I want to go back to something we already read. They all fell asleep. They all fell asleep. That's interesting. If you look at the parable before, with all this conflict, I mean, you've got the good servants and the bad servants all living together in the church. And the church just gets numb to all this. Now, I'm connecting something Jesus did not, okay? He didn't say, this one leads to this one that leads to this one. I'm just saying, if you lived in that condition, you would get numb. Plus, the world around us, we just get numb. They all go to sleep. They lose their spiritual fires there, but it's not burning brightly. They're not looking around with it. They're not letting it light their way. And the boy said to the wise, give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. They say they've gone out. They're going out. But the wise answered and said, no, lest there should not be enough for us and you, but go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves. Now, once again, there's an attempt to say, oh, how can we get Holy Spirit from somebody else? You can't. That's not the point. We're trying to get the details of this into too fine of a concept. The point is, you must have God's Spirit interacting with your life. And there reaches the point where you wake up and say, I'm not close to God. And you look to your neighbor and say, help me, teach me. Your neighbor says, I can't. This is between you and God. Right? We can encourage each other. We can help each other. But there's a point where each one of us, in our personal relationship with God, that's where this is happening. So these relationships are important. But you and I can't drag each other into the kingdom. It is because of our relationship with God. And there's a point where these five foolish virgins say, give us what you have and what you have what we have. You have God's Spirit, but you have to get close to God.

I can't make you close to God. You can't make me close to God. Right? And that's the point of the problem that's happening here. You have to go to God. It's God who gives you. Go to the person who sells you all his Spirit. You have to go to God to receive this help and let that lamp and that fire get bigger and catch and not go out. First, Tana, while they went to buy, the bridegroom came. And those who were ready went in with them to the wedding, and the door was shut. They went into the wedding with him. So I say this has to be Christians. The bride doesn't go in. They go in. The bride's not even mentioned. But then if the virgin church is made up of virgins, then it makes perfect sense. Afterward, the other virgins came and saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Surely I say to you, I do not know you. That is a frightening statement. But I am your servant.

I've lived my life dedicated to you. I don't know you. Jesus makes another statement just like that at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Because of people who practice lawlessness. And they will come and say, but we did all these great things in your name. And he says, but I don't know you. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. What do we learn? What do we do now in our list? Well, let's look at what we learn from this. The bad traits of the five foolish virgins. They are spiritually unprepared. That's why I say this stuff is more... what we learn about them is more important than understanding the details of the parable. I get lots of parables. I don't know all the details. But boy, the overall teaching is quite odd. The point Jesus was trying to make is obvious. They are spiritually unprepared. They are uninvolved in personal growth. They're just asleep. There's nothing... you know, they wake up and they're the same Christian they were 20 years ago. They are inactive in their daily interaction with God.

They are not interacting so that God's Spirit is working through them and in them. That means if they don't have a prayer... I mean, to break it down into practicality, they don't have a prayer life or a Bible study or fasting or meditation. They're not involved in the very simplest aspects of our relationship with God.

So, what do we put in the good traits column? Well, the five wise virgins would be active in being spiritually prepared. Remember, in the first one, he will find these ones doing. And when you go through, you find that there's activity going on. There's activity in the wise virgins. They are active in being spiritually prepared. They are active in growing in spiritual virtues. You know, there's spiritual growth going on in their lives. And they are active in a personal relationship with God.

They are participating in prayer, Bible study, meditation, fasting. And they are interacting with God. They're opening themselves up for God's interaction in their lives.

Those are the major differences between the foolish and the wise virgin. Now, let's go to the next parable. The parable of the talents. On this one, we could spend a lot of time on it. Because I think this one teaches a lot of practical lessons about life. Remember, today, we're just looking at the traits. Verse 14. For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. He said he gave one five talents to another two and another one, to each according to his own ability. And immediately, he went on a journey. Now, this would be very interesting for them, because he gave all of them special talents, if you will. Now, talent here is a measure of money. But this has to do with the resources that God gives us. And God gave Peter and John and Thomas, he gave them different resources and different abilities. And he said, now go do! And then he went away. He went on a journey. But he said he's coming back. Generation after generation, a Christian has come along, become disciples of Jesus Christ, and in doing so, God gives us the talents, whatever he gives us, to fulfill what he wants in each one of our lives. And remember, we all have the same purpose, but sometimes we have different missions. I sat with women and said, well, I don't know, it seems like all I do in life is raise my kids. And I said, good. Because right now in your life, that's your mission. That's God's mission to you. And that's a great mission. You see, God gives us missions, and they change sometimes, and we're all in life. And you live long enough, you realize, yes, sometimes God has you doing this, and then God says, no, we should do this. And sometimes you get too old to do certain things, so he moves you into something else.

You just keep following the mission. Same purpose. Because all of us have the same purpose. We're all to be his little children.

To give them these talents. Then he would receive the five talents, went and traded with them, and he made another five talents. And likewise, he would receive the two, two more also. And he would receive one, went and dug the ground, and hid the Lord's money. And after a long time, the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with him. So he would receive five talents, came and brought five other talents, saying, Lord, you delivered me five talents. So, look, I gained five more. And of course, the one who had two talents said, I gained two more. Now, there's another lesson here, too. And this is a side lesson, but not all of us have the same talents.

Right? Have you ever done this? I've looked at somebody and saw some spiritual talent and thought, oh, I wish I had that. But I think, no, I don't. I'm glad I had the ones I have. But sometimes it's, oh, I wish I had that talent or this talent. Now, we have what we have. And God expects us to do with what he gives us. And you know what? You're happy when you do with what God gives you. You're never happy looking like wishing you had somebody else's talent. You're never happy. That's another side point. And here's what he tells these servants. Verse 23, as Lord said to him, well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful over a few things that will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord. Come into this relationship with me, and I'm going to use you now to do what I do. This relationship with me, and I'm going to use you now to do more things for me.

Then he would receive, verse 24, the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew that you were a hard man, where you think you were not sown and gathered where you're not scattered. And I was afraid that when you hid your talent in the ground, look, there is, there, you have, what is yours. In other words, this individual looks at God and says, it's never fair. Now, I only got one, he got five. It's never fair. You're not fair with the way you treat me. You're not fair with what you gave me. And I was afraid. And all, I would fail, bad things would happen, people would like me. I would get persecuted. So I took what you gave me, and I just hid away. Didn't do anything with it, but here I am. I'm still your servant. You called, I came. But you're just so unfair. The victim mentality of life is not a Christian viewpoint. The truth is we're all victims. And the truth is, we've all hurt other people, too. Other people have been victimized by us. Satan's more victims of Satan. God doesn't accept that, because he, through Christ, releases us from that. It's one of the reasons he died, was he wouldn't be victims anymore. As I said, there's all these other lessons I can't get into here. Then the Lord said to him, verse 26, You wicked and lazy servant. You knew that I reap, or I have not sown, and gather, or I have not scattered. See, as you know, I used other people to do my work. You knew that. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers. Now, my coming, I want to receive back my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the man who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance. But from him who does not have, even that he will be taken away. And he cast the unprofitable servant into what? Elder, darkness, with a beweeping and gnashing of teeth. We have another judgment, an eternal judgment here.

Another eternal judgment. These good servants come enter into the joy of the Lord. They are happy, and they are in a relationship with God. And there is this one, he says, Now, you do not come into my kingdom because of your approach. So now we can add some more things to our list.

The bad trades call them. Motivated by fear of failure. Now, this is spiritual failure. I cannot overcome. I cannot grow. I cannot achieve. God cannot work in me. I am too weak. I am too wicked for God to ever work in me. God can't forgive me. I've heard those things a hundred times. And there's one of them I've even said to myself.

That fear of failure is saying that God is too small to do with me because He will do fear of failure. He's motivated by a wrong perception of God. I know you're unfair, and I know you wouldn't help me, and I know that you really don't care about me, and I know I didn't get as many talents as the other guys. So here, you get my talent back.

Totally wrong perception of God. You know, we had our five grandkids with us here last week, and then this week we have two of them with us, and they are all remarkably different, and all have remarkably different talents. And you don't look at each one's, oh, yours are better than yours. I mean, you look at each one and say, wow! You're an individual person! That's how God looks at each one of us.

No sense of personal responsibility. I'm not responsible. I'm not responsible for what God gave me. I'm not responsible for what God does in my life. I mean, He's not fair. And He's lazy. Lazy-ness, spiritual lazy-ness, is a serious issue once our lamps are lit. Now, if God doesn't give you His Holy Spirit, you can't light your lamp. Well, you can be spiritually lazy because you don't have any power in you. When God lights the lamp and gives us the oil, we have power.

So now let's look at the good trade side.

The talents here, the men who had the talents. And a proper perspective, how God wants us to develop our abilities to serve Him and others. They saw themselves and said, what God has given to me is so that I may serve Him and that I may serve others.

So they took whatever God gave them, and they spend their lives, and there's no better way to spend life than taking whatever God gave them. And using it to serve Him and others. You'll be happy. Secondly, they're motivated by a proper perception of God. Life isn't fair. God, fortunately, is. That means He fixes things eventually. But His life isn't fair. Never will be. They possess a strong sense of personal responsibility. Look, Lord, You gave me this. I became responsible for it, and I give it back to You, and I did something with it.

And the fourth point, there are good stewards of resources. They are not lazy. They're not lazy. They're good stewards of resources. But we're starting to get quite a long list, aren't we? And all we're doing is looking at the differences. Why does He have a good and bad here in each of these? Faithful servant, unfaithful servant. Wise virgins, unwise virgins. People use the talents God gives them, people who don't use the talents of God. Look at the fourth of these parables. This strictly is not a parable, but I don't know what the list it is, so we'll list it as a parable. Because this one is pretty apparent in its meaning. When the Son of Man comes in His glory. So now He just says, okay, we're not talking about virgins, we're not talking about sermons and lords. We're talking specifically. He's ending up the sermon on the Olivet prophecy. He's ending His prophecy, and at the end of it, He gets very specific. Now, guys, let me tell you when I come back. Because remember, this is the question. How will we know when you come back and what will we like? Well, here, when I come back, I will do this crisis. When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, He will sit on the throne of His glory. And all the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another as a shepherd devises sheep from the goats. This is interesting. This expands out, not only to the Church, but He's actually now separating and judging the nations. So He's judging the Church, but He's also judging the nations. And He will set the sheep on His right hand and the goats on His left. So this is specifically His followers. I'm going to give my personal interpretation here. I think this... He uses this parable to extend not just to His immediate coming with the Church. And now He's going to... This is the whole millennium of great white throne judgment. He's standing out saying, I want to be spending time judging when I come. And you want to be in the list that says, come into the Kingdom. Not the list that says, don't come into the Kingdom. So this whole thing is about judgment, and it seems to be expanded out. Because now He's not just talking about the Church, it's all the nations. So He says, I want to be judging when I come. You, my people, and then I'll be judging people all through the Church. So that's my personal opinion of why He suddenly seems to mix His metaphors here. I think He's expanding this out and saying, I'm coming to judge everybody. Almost always start with the House of God. That's where we always start. That's my personal opinion. So I always try to tell you what I'm using a personal opinion. He says, then the King will come, and He'll say, bless those who come in. And here's why, verse 35, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me, and I was sick and you visited me, and I was in prison and you gave me. Then the righteous will answer and say, when did I ever do that to you? I never knew you were in jail. Why would you be in jail? I mean, you were in heaven, right? I won't get sick. You were never sick.

Verse 37, then the righteous will answer Him saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You a drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? When did we see You sicker in prison and come to You? And the King will answer and say to them, but surely He'll say to You, as much as You did it to one of the least of my brethren, You did it to me.

And the under-upture say, well, we never saw You that way. We would have been there. If we would have known that was You, I would have gone. See, that's their argument. I would have done this if I would have known it was You. Because that's what they say to them. When did we, just like the righteous, it's very interesting. The righteous did not know they were doing it to Christ. They were just doing it to other people.

And when Christ talks about His brethren, He's not always just talking about the Church. Because He says, He's not ashamed to call them brethren in Hebrews when He's talking about how He died for the world. So this just isn't the Church. We can say, well, I cheat everyone in the Church fine, but my neighbor, he's not converted. I don't have to be nice to Him. He says, this is the way you were. The interesting thing is that those who are doing it don't know they're doing it. It's not like, oh, good. I'm going to... And I'm not saying this is wrong. I'm saying we should do these kinds of things. But what if, once a year, we went out... You know, every Thanksgiving, we as a group went down here and served food at the... Food for Thanksgiving. That'd be a good thing. I'd be happy to do that. But what if that's all we did? We'd walk away saying, well, good. I did something good. Look, God, I did my deed. Then you received your reward. This is a character trait of... We just sort of help people. We're just open to help people. And it really doesn't... I mean, it's first to the household of faith that says that. But it extends out to anybody in the way that we treat people. And, of course, what Jesus says to the unrighteous in verse 45... Then he will answer and say to them, Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. He says you didn't see people as potential children of God. You only saw them as lesser than you because God gave you the privilege of being able to be called now.

So we didn't see everybody else as potential children of God. We just see them as lesser. God called me. He didn't call you. And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Once again, what makes each of these parables so profound is that they each end with a pronouncement of eternal judgment. So they have to be geared towards the church.

Because the eternal judgment is now not on the world, it's on the church. And that's what makes them so profound when you put them together. So what do we get from this parable? Something simple.

We learn from the unrighteous, they are not interested in service to the others in need. They're just not interested in service to others in need. Now what we get for the good trades is concern for the needs of others. Just simple service, a life of service, a concept of service.

All of a sudden these parables all take a different sort of track, don't they? Because they were all said together. So they are meant to be pulled out and studied. But they're also to be studied together, and the context creates something remarkable. A list of bad traits that Christians are supposed to be looking at in themselves. Because why are we supposed to be watching ourselves? He says, watch in these parables. The first one specifically. Watch. Oh good, I've got to watch the news. Who's going to be the next president? Well, okay, that's important. But specifically, in all of that prophecy, most of the emphasis is you better be making sure you are headed in the right direction. Watch yourself. And now we have a list of what God says to watch for. But Jesus specifically told his disciples, watch for these things. These are things you're going to have to work on, not to have in your life, and these are the things you're going to be working towards.

I encourage all of you to look over this list on a regular basis. Keep this list and look at it. Post it up.

Someplace.

And look at them. Pray over this list. Pray over it. I've given this sermon years and years ago, but I have to admit, as I prepared for this sermon, it took extra time because I kept going back and saying, Man, I'm on the bad side of this list. Some areas really on the bad side of this list. It was a little disconcerting.

But that's why we have to do it. That's why we're supposed to do this. We're supposed to look at this and say, What did Christ tell His Church? What are we supposed to be working towards? And you have to take action. If you're a conflict-oriented person, it's time to find peace with God and change the way you treat others. If you're the type of person who just doesn't do service to others, you're going to have to actually do it. You're going to have to say, Okay, this week I'm going to do this, this, and this, and service towards others. Or you have to ask God, Show me where I can serve somebody. You know what? He'll probably bring somebody into your life that, you know, some bum off the street. And He'll say, Serve this guy. That's pretty... I wanted to serve somebody. Important. No, you asked me to serve me, to serve Christ. This person has the potential to be my child. So, serve this person. The answer to what we ask for is not going to always be what we expect it to be. Pray over these things. I want to conclude with a positive prophecy, okay? Revelation 19. There's, Oh, wow! Actually, you know, this isn't totally negative. We should be able to look at this list and say, Oh, okay, I'm making progress in these areas. These areas of my life, you know, I am following God. We need to find ourselves on the positive side. If you find you're totally on the negative side, then I would suggest some real fasting and prayer.

But we find ourselves on both sides of this.

Revelation 19. Here is what...

We can know actually happens. Not everybody ends up a foolish virgin. That's why he said, well, half the church will end up that way. I think we have to be really careful of putting numbers onto these things. Because I guess if we use the virgins, half the church ends up in the lake of fire. And if we use the parable of the talents, one-third of them end up in the... right? They're different numbers. They're not supposed to be taken down literal. They're supposed to be saying... Look, here's an example of one... I guess if he would have said, nine virgins end up good and one bad, we'd all say, well, I'm glad I'm not the bad one. He said, I mean, that's not the point. To try to figure out, okay, you're one of the half. Or you're the one of the one-third, okay, that doesn't make it. That's not the purpose. The purpose is to look at ourselves and say, where am I in this? How far is my growth in this?

Verse 1, Revelation 19. After these things, John says, I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God. For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot, okay, so the great false religious system at the end time is called a harlot, the opposite of the virgin, who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her. Again, they said, Alleluia, her smoke rises up forever and ever, and the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures, these are angels at the throne of God, fell down and worshiped God, who sat on the throne saying, Amen, Alleluia. Then a voice came from the throne saying, Praise our God, all you His servants, and all those who fear Him, both small and great. And they heard as they were written the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of mighty thunder is saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God of impotent reigns, let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. To her was granted to be a reign and find linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Now, there's various meanings of this marriage in the Bible, but this is the specific one here, talking about Christ marrying those at His coming, which would not only be the church, but all the Christians who had ever lived are being resurrected. That's to marry Him. Then He said to me, Right, blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

You see, there are... You know, God didn't call everybody to fail. People can decide to fail. He called us to succeed. This is His purpose. This is what He wants. This is what we can have. This is what He will do in us. But Jesus made sure when asked what will be like the time before your coming, to tell His followers, Be careful and be prepared to be that bright. Don't take this lightly, and He will prepare us for the marriage supper with Jesus Christ.