{"id":4825,"date":"2021-11-10T21:13:57","date_gmt":"2021-11-10T21:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/?p=4825"},"modified":"2021-11-10T21:23:23","modified_gmt":"2021-11-10T21:23:23","slug":"wisdom-and-folly-in-light-of-gods-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/2021\/11\/10\/wisdom-and-folly-in-light-of-gods-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Wisdom and Folly in Light of God\u2019s Word"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio alignleft\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/cfus-120218.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption><strong>The Last Sunday of the Church Year| Rev. Rolf Preus| November 26, 2017| St. Matthew 25:1-13<br><\/strong>\u00a0<br>&#8220;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: &#8216;Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!&#8217; Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, &#8216;Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.&#8217; But the wise answered, saying, &#8216;No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.&#8217; 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, &#8216;Lord, Lord, open to us!&#8217; But he answered and said, &#8216;Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.&#8217; Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.&#8221; St. Matthew 25:1-13<br>\u00a0<br>The hymn we just sang is known as the king of the chorales.\u00a0 The melody was written for the hymn.\u00a0 Both hymn and melody were written by Philip Nicolai \u2013 a great poet and composer of the 16<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0and early 17<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0centuries.\u00a0 To this day, this piece of music is considered to be among the greatest ever composed.<br>\u00a0<br>That is a bit of an irony, when you consider the topic of this hymn: Wake, awake!\u00a0 It\u2019s about Judgment Day.\u00a0 Today, Judgment Day sounds like a relic of the past.\u00a0 Anyone who calls attention to it is inviting scorn and mockery.\u00a0 It has become a joke.\u00a0 How long has it been since Jesus told this parable?\u00a0 Nearly two thousand years!\u00a0 If Jesus hasn\u2019t come in the last two thousand years, why should we believe that he will come in the next two thousand years?<br>\u00a0<br>Jesus anticipated this attitude.\u00a0 Speaking of his second coming, he said, as recorded in Matthew 24:<br>\u00a0<br>But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,\u00a0but My Father only.\u00a0But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.\u00a0For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. (Matthew 24:36-39)<br>\u00a0<br>Nobody knows when Jesus will come.\u00a0 Since we don\u2019t know, should we put his return out of our minds, assuming that it won\u2019t be anytime soon?\u00a0 Or, since we do not know, should we prepare to meet him whenever he comes?\u00a0 Is our ignorance of the date of his return a reason to live as if he isn\u2019t coming or is it reason to live as if he will return tomorrow?<br>\u00a0<br>Three things are obvious from this parable.\u00a0 The first is that nobody knows when Jesus will come.\u00a0 The second is that when Jesus comes some will be ready and some will not be ready.\u00a0 The third is that those who are not ready when Jesus comes will not have the time to get ready.\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>First, nobody knows when Jesus will come.\u00a0 All ten virgins were sound asleep.\u00a0 None of them knew when the bridegroom would come.\u00a0 Every generation produces its date-setting prophets who find foolish and gullible people willing to buy into the con that the world will surely end on such and such a date.\u00a0 Packed away in a box somewhere in the basement of the parsonage is a book I received from Hal Lindsay in 1988 with the title,\u00a088 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988!\u00a0 Here it is, nearly thirty years later, and we\u2019re still here.\u00a0 Things are going along as they always have been.<br>\u00a0<br>There is always a market for theories about the end of the world.\u00a0 A religious group arose in England about 190 years ago known as the Plymouth Brethren.\u00a0 Their leader, a fellow by the name of John Nelson Darby, came up with a theory about the end times that is known today as Dispensationalism.\u00a0 While the Plymouth Brethren was a small sect, today there are millions and millions of adherents of Dispensationalism.\u00a0 Dispensationalism weaves together religion and politics in such a way that political events in the Middle East, Europe, or America become \u201cproof\u201d that the end times are upon us.\u00a0 It sells books.\u00a0 But it\u2019s manufactured out of whole cloth.\u00a0 The Bible is clear.\u00a0 Jesus said, \u201cBut of that day and hour, no one knows.\u201d\u00a0 In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, Jesus said, \u201cBut while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.\u201d\u00a0 They all slept.\u00a0 The wise and the foolish were equally unaware of when the bridegroom would come.<br>\u00a0<br>Second, when Jesus comes, some will be ready and some will not be ready.\u00a0 This parable is not addressed to people who have no connection to the church.\u00a0 The wise virgins and the foolish virgins represent all nominal Christians, that is, people who call themselves Christian.\u00a0 They are baptized, they go to church, and they profess the Christian religion.\u00a0 You can\u2019t tell the difference between the wise and the foolish virgins.\u00a0 They all have lamps.\u00a0 They hang out together.\u00a0 They look alike.\u00a0 They act alike.\u00a0 As far as the eye can see, they are indistinguishable from each other.\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>The critical difference is that the wise virgins have oil for their lamps and the foolish virgins don\u2019t.\u00a0 What is the oil?\u00a0 It is the living and abiding word of God that lasts forever.\u00a0 It is the gospel of Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation.\u00a0 It is the voice of the Holy Spirit, who leads you into the truth.\u00a0 It is the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit that sets you before God as a spotless bride before her husband.\u00a0 It is the Sacrament of Christ\u2019s body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.\u00a0 The oil is the gospel and sacraments of Christ.\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>The foolish virgins were in church.\u00a0 They received the sacraments.\u00a0 They heard the gospel.\u00a0 But they didn\u2019t treasure these means of grace.\u00a0 They figured they knew all they needed to know.\u00a0 They neglected the means by which the Holy Spirit keeps us in the true faith.\u00a0 So when they needed faith, its source had run dry.\u00a0 The wick was dry and useless.<br>\u00a0<br>People talk about faith.\u00a0 They talk about their faith.\u00a0 They talk about how deep it is, how important it is, and how much they rely on it.\u00a0 Then you ask them to put it into words and they don\u2019t know what to say.\u00a0 You ask them about Christian teaching, and their eyes glaze over.\u00a0 Oh what is doctrine to me?\u00a0 Doctrine is dead.\u00a0 My faith is alive!\u00a0 Doctrine is dry and boring.\u00a0 My faith is vibrant and meaningful!<br>\u00a0<br>Is that so?\u00a0 What faith?\u00a0 What is your faith?\u00a0 There is no fire in the wick without oil in the lamp.\u00a0 There is no faith in the heart without the teaching of God\u2019s word.\u00a0 Faith isn\u2019t something we come up with.\u00a0 It is God\u2019s work in us.\u00a0 God works faith as he chooses, not as we choose.\u00a0 It is by his word that faith is born and sustained.\u00a0 St. Peter writes about the power of God\u2019s word to bring us to faith and to keep us in the faith in his first general Epistle, chapter one where he says: \u201chaving been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.\u201d\u00a0 It is only through the living and abiding word of God that the wick in our lamps is saturated with oil and can light our way into the wedding banquet.<br>\u00a0<br>Third, those who are not ready when Jesus comes will not have the time to get ready.\u00a0 The foolish virgins neglected God\u2019s word.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t think much of it.\u00a0 When they needed it the most they didn\u2019t have it and they couldn\u2019t get it.\u00a0 Now is the time to listen.\u00a0 Now is the time to take God\u2019s word to heart.\u00a0 Now is the time to get the oil that keeps faith alive for the hour when Jesus comes to take his church to heaven.<br>\u00a0<br>In this parable of Jesus, the wedding is heaven.\u00a0 The coming of the bridegroom is Christ coming to judge the living and the dead and to bring his saints to heaven and to condemn all unbelievers to hell.\u00a0 Among the unbelievers will be people who were attached to the church but didn\u2019t actually belong to it.\u00a0 They had lamps.\u00a0 They were with those who went into the wedding feast.\u00a0 But when they tried to enter, they heard the words:\u00a0 \u201cAssuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.\u201d<br>\u00a0<br>Jesus concludes with a warning: \u201cWatch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.\u201d\u00a0 There will be no time when Jesus comes to get ready.\u00a0 You must be ready all the time.\u00a0 You cannot put it off.<br>\u00a0<br>Christians who are taught the faith in their childhood and neglect God\u2019s word after they are grown will often claim that, while they may not be regular church goers, they know what they believe.\u00a0 They know the gospel.\u00a0 They know what it means to believe in Jesus.\u00a0 They were taught as children and they believe what they believed and so they are fine.\u00a0 No need to secure any oil for the lamp.\u00a0 The wick is ready to light.<br>\u00a0<br>What these Christians don\u2019t reckon with is that the gospel is not something that we can believe by our own natural powers.\u00a0 St. Paul writes about the preaching of the cross that it is foolishness to those who are perishing.\u00a0 The suffering and death of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins isn\u2019t something that our flesh wants to hear.\u00a0 The flesh cannot believe.\u00a0 He can only be put to death.\u00a0 It is the gospel, the blood of Jesus shed for us, the blood of Jesus washing away our sin that kills the sinful flesh.\u00a0 The flesh is aided by the devil.\u00a0 He loves to lie.\u00a0 He knows a million ways to deceive gullible Christians.\u00a0 He always twists the gospel into something we do.\u00a0 There is something unsettling, something contradictory, about these two images of the same person: he is suffering and dying on a cross, crying out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?, and he is standing on the clouds in majesty and great glory judging the living and the dead.\u00a0 The devil, the world, and our flesh will set aside the suffering and dying Jesus every time.\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>But he is the one that faith needs.\u00a0 The gospel that makes faith burn is the gospel of Christ\u2019s humble obedience, suffering, and death whereby he paid to God what we owed him.\u00a0 The oil that burns into the fire of faith is Christ.\u00a0 It is his righteous living, his innocent dying, and his resurrection from the dead.\u00a0 It gives us forgiveness of all our sins.\u00a0 This oil is the substance of the preaching, the liturgy, the hymns, and the Sacraments.<br>\u00a0<br>Jesus will come to bring his church home.\u00a0 The wedding feast of the Lamb lasts forever.\u00a0 Nothing dims the joy.\u00a0 Nothing disturbs the peace.\u00a0 The word that fueled our faith here on earth will be finally and permanently fulfilled, as every promise God ever gave will be realized.\u00a0 Every wrong will be righted.\u00a0 Every disappointment will be forgotten.\u00a0 For that day we pray, \u201cCome Lord Jesus, come quickly.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17,4,90],"tags":[596,238,236],"class_list":["post-4825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-sermons","category-sermons-by-historical-lectionary","category-sermons-by-rolf-preus","category-trinity-27","tag-matthew-25","tag-rolf-preus","tag-trinity-27"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4825"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4830,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions\/4830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}