Matthew 24:45-25:13 | "The Difficulty of Waiting"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Please take your Bibles and make your way to Matthew 24.

As we pick up again in our study of Matthew's gospel.

God is faithful, is He not?

Even when we don't acknowledge His faithfulness, He is always faithful.

Even when we are faithless, He is faithful.

And routinely we are reminded of how He is always working.

Everything is connected, working together for His good purpose.

Even when we don't see those connections.

I was reminded again, watching the video and hearing Peter Sofel talk of being here in 1995 and being an intern under Pastor Vick, that four years ago now, in 2019, Tim Bartell and I had the privilege of going to the Czech Republic and being there as that church dedicated that building for their worship service.

God connecting generations, working through in all of his faithfulness, even though we may not see that.

And now we have the privilege again of raising up a new generation of church leaders and pastors and missionaries, and what a privilege that is.

We see that God is always continually faithful, even though we may not recognize how he is faithful.

We might not recognize all the connected elements.

That ties in really well with our passage in Matthew 24 this morning, where the Lord Jesus reminds us that he's going to return.

He is faithful and he will be faithful to return.

But he's not here yet.

Take your Bible and look with me at Matthew 24.

We're going to pick up this morning in our study in verse 45, but to give us some context, I'd like to begin reading in verse 36.

Verse 36, Jesus says, But concerning that day and hour of his return, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven or the Son, but the Father only.

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the Ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left.

Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one left.

Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

But know this that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake, and would not have let his house be broken into.

Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Who then is the faithful and wise servant whom his master has set over his household to give them their food at the proper time?

Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.

Truly, amen, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

But if that wicked servant says to himself, My master is delayed, and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, and in an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.

Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.

For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept.

But at midnight there was a cry, Here is the bridegroom, come out to meet him.

Then all those who virgins rose 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, and they kept saying, Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves, at midnight no less.

And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.

Afterward the others came also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered, Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.

Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Amen.

Waiting is a common struggle to every human being, is it not?

We come and we sit in our pew on Sunday morning comfortable because we've made it ahead of time.

But then we have to wait, right?

Maybe it's waiting for everyone in your home to be ready to get in the car on Sunday morning.

Maybe if you're a lot younger, it's waiting for Christmas Day, or your birthday, or whatever special day there might be.

Waiting is a common struggle.

I'm even tempted to say that it's common in the animal world because our pets struggle waiting to be fed.

We have two cats that are waiting every morning and every night.

And if it doesn't happen, they pester you.

Waiting and the struggles accompanying waiting began when our first parents ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Perhaps waiting existed before the entrance of sin into the world, but we can safely say that if it did exist before they ate that fruit, it would not have entailed the kind of difficulties that we associate with waiting now.

Now, having to wait is not sinful.

How we wait, how we wait, can be righteous or wicked.

Generally, the more selfish and self-centered the attitude, the more sinful the waiting.

But waiting can be done righteously if we trust God's providence and if we secure our hope in his purpose rather than in our desires and intentions.

Waiting is the underlying topic of these two parables at the end of Matthew 24, in the beginning of 25.

In the middle of the Lord's speech to his disciples in the last few days before his crucifixion, death, and resurrection, he said the time of his return is unknown.

Disciples cannot know the timing.

But we must stay awake.

We must be ready.

Those are the instructions given in Matthew 24, verse 42, and verse 44.

Matthew 24:42

And those two parables represent opposite perspectives on a similar problem.

The problem is what appears to be the Lord's delay.

He's not here yet.

That's the problem.

Jesus told those first followers that there would be much history to be endured by Christians before the end of the age and the Lord's return.

Both of these stories at the end of 24 and the beginning of 25 relate to the last 2,000 years and now continuing of history all the way until Christ returns.

The Lord's followers long for his return.

There's a part of us innately that wants to see him, but it feels delayed because we cannot know the time.

Our only option is to wait, awake, ready for that moment, yet ignorant, unknowing about the time.

Now, in the first story, beginning in verse 45, the servants in charge of the household fulfill their duties righteously or wickedly, as they wait for their master's return.

In the second story, the bridesmaids wait for the bridegroom with anticipation, some prepared with oil, some without.

Both stories speak of waiting while the Lord's return feels delayed.

But it's not indeed delayed, is it?

The day and the hour is set, it's unmoving.

God the Father knows the day and the hour in verse 36.

Now, when he is resurrected and glorified position, God the Son exercises his prerogative of omniscience to know that day and hour.

And since God the Spirit knows the mind of Christ, he therefore knows when he will return.

The Lord's return is coming precisely as planned, without fail.

Earth's history is progressing exactly on schedule, precisely as determined before the foundation of the world, and that is our comfort while we wait.

But for those who wait, the Lord's return can feel delayed.

And therein lies the difficulty with waiting.

What do we do with our feelings when what we want and hope for isn't here yet?

Isn't that the problem?

We want something and it's not here.

It's not yet present.

These two stories give us two options for what to do with our feelings when we think about the Lord's return.

We can wait for the Lord by guiding our feelings to trust in his faithfulness and his wisdom, and therefore be faithful and wise, or we can wait wickedly and foolishly.

The options are the same in both parables.

But what is Jesus doing by telling these two stories?

What is he doing?

I know that might be like a strange question to you, but it's important.

We begin to see what Jesus is doing by asking a different question.

Why did Jesus tell these two stories?

The answer is simple, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

You see, in verse 42, Jesus commanded his followers to remain awake while they waited for his return.

Then in verse 44, the Lord asserted that his followers must always be ready, because he will come at a time not expected.

The parables then illustrate those two expectations of God's people, and they're laid out then in reverse order.

For example, in verse 42, it's stay awake.

In verse 44, it's be ready.

The parables are the flip of that.

They start with be ready and they end with stay awake.

The servants picture those who are and are not ready.

The story of the wise and foolish bridesmaids imagines those who sleep as prepared or unprepared people with vigilance or slothfulness.

Readiness and remaining awake or being vigilant are the primary lessons of these two parables.

So, what do we do with that?

I think it's best maybe to look at four principles about the Lord's return from these parables.

The first principle is this the Lord wants us to see the value of waiting well.

But there's also a cost of waiting foolishly.

You see, the results of both parables are stark.

They stand out against a bleak background.

The wise and faithful are rewarded and blessed in the first parable, while the unfaithful and foolish are rejected and punished in very dramatic language.

In the second parable, the wise and foolish are welcomed into the celebration party with the bride and the groom, while the foolish and unprepared are barred from entry and rejected by the groom.

The two ways of waiting parallel the two results of waiting.

The two ways of waiting, faithfully, wisely, being ready, or foolishly unprepared, parallel their results.

So there is immense value in enduring our time of waiting patiently, faithfully, and hopefully as we look for the Lord's return.

Yes, our reward is delayed.

Our blessing awaits his return, but the value of waiting well is massive, especially compared to the cost of waiting foolishly.

God's people must see waiting well as an investment for eternity.

Waiting well is an investment in your eternity.

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also, Jesus said.

When your heart is with Christ, he becomes your treasure, and your life of waiting conforms to his, and great will be your reward.

The return of investing in eternity will outweigh anything on this earth.

On the other hand, the cost of waiting foolishly is more than can be counted.

There is no investment return to be estimated for those who wait foolishly.

For their waiting is not really waiting.

Instead, the foolish and the unprepared live life for themselves in the present, not with an eye on eternity.

Instead, the foolish seek their best life now rather than in Christ's eternal kingdom.

And rather than reaping a reward at the end of the age, all they have accumulated in this life will be burned up and taken away.

Even more, they will pay the cost of missing the joy of the groom's wedding to the bride and enduring instead the torture of punishment they chose for themselves in rejecting Christ.

The results are stark.

Now, Jesus doesn't lay out a graduated set of standards or evaluations.

He doesn't say there are some who are kind of wise and kind of foolish, or at various stages.

He simply says there's two categories.

People are referred to either as wise, faithful, ready, or foolish, unfaithful, and unready.

One group receives the joy of blessing and reward with celebration, and the other gets the pain of rejection with the loss of all joy and punishment for their unreadiness.

The Lord wants us to see there is a value, a high value of waiting well.

There's a cost of waiting foolishly.

Now there's a second principle that follows from that, and that is the Lord wants us to see the finality of his return.

We must not forget that these parables follow the comparison of the Lord's return to the time of Noah.

Noah's preaching of the impending judgment and his ark building commanded people, both verbally and nonverbally, it commanded people to remain awake and to be ready, for it was too late when the rains came and the deep fountains broke open.

That moment came on a day they did not expect and an hour they did not know, and suddenly everything is swept away.

After a hundred and twenty years of preparation and preaching, only eight people on earth remained awake and prepared for the day of judgment.

Only eight.

When that day came, those eight who were ready and prepared entered the ark, and God shut the door.

In the second story, only the five bridesmaids were ready and prepared for the groom and entered the marriage feast.

And then what happened?

The groom shut the door.

The ancient rabbis, Jewish rabbis, employed that phrase of shutting a door to teach about a lost opportunity.

It was a lost opportunity in the days of Noah.

And it will be a lost opportunity when the Lord returns.

But since these stories are addressed to the disciples, it seems better to give greater strength to the idea of finality and a lesser strength to the concept of a lost opportunity.

Of course, Judas is still among the 12 at this point.

He may be already planning and processing how he's going to betray the Lord Jesus, but the door of opportunity is going to be quickly closing for him.

But since so much attention is paid in these stories to what occurs after the door is shut, it seems best to consider first not the time of opportunity left to people, but the finality of when the door is shut.

When the Lord comes.

Just as there was no more opportunity when the floods came, the Lord's return will shut the door on any chance to believe in Him and to be waiting and ready.

Now that ought to spur on at least two things.

Number one, our responsiveness to the message.

And number two, our urgency at declaring the message.

A third principle follows from the first two.

Having observed the value of faithful and wise readiness and the finality of his return, the Lord wants us to see both the suddenness and the delay of his coming.

These two elements are seen in Noah's account.

The skies above released a torrent of rain.

The ground beneath released its stores of water, and the judgment overtook those on the earth.

Yet the suddenness of that event is amplified by the delay.

Genesis says that there were 120 years of waiting.

There were 120 years from God's announcement of the coming judgment until the day the rains came.

And the indication is that Noah spent those 120 years constructing the ark.

For 120 years he endured the laughing and the mocking.

Around here, Noah, what's going on?

As each year concluded and a new year began, as each decade went by and another decade was endured, and decade and decade and decade turned into a century.

Noah's insanity would only appear to increase because of the delay of the coming flood.

Similar with the servant, is it not?

The servant says, My master is delayed.

What do I?

He's not here yet.

What do I do?

How do I deal with that apparent delay?

In that delay, the wise servants maintained their position and their faithfulness.

But the wicked servant used the delay for his selfishness.

One was prepared at the suddenness of the master's return.

The other was not prepared for the suddenness of the master's return.

The same holds for the bridesmaids.

Bridesmaids would typically know the week, maybe even the day of the groom's coming to get his bride and begin the wedding celebration, but they would not know precisely when he would be arriving.

His delay was such that they fell asleep.

No wonder he's not even getting there till midnight.

I'd fall asleep too.

Falling asleep as they waited was not the bad thing here.

Being unprepared was the bad thing.

They did not expect the delay.

And in not anticipating it, they were not ready for the evening to turn to night and their oil to run out.

Now we have to remember that all of these truths come from Jesus' assertion again and again and again that we cannot know when he will return.

That's how this section ends in verse 13.

Watch therefore, for you know not neither the day nor the hour.

Therefore, we must not be surprised by our Lord's delay, nor should we be surprised at the suddenness of his coming.

My friends, every generation of humanity stands in the same place.

Every day is like the days of Noah.

It feels like it's delayed.

Oh, but when it comes, it's going to feel sudden.

The Lord's faithful and wise servants proclaim his return, and with his return, the finality of any response to him.

We declare that his coming will be of great value to those who hope in him and trust in him and immense cost to those who shut their ears to that hope.

These faithful and wise and ready servants will be welcomed and blessed, but there will be many, like in Noah's day, who have no sense of urgency because, oh, he's just delayed.

Who knows when he'll come?

And they will be caught unprepared by the suddenness of his coming.

The most significant concern in these two parables is whether one is ready and prepared for the unexpected and apparent delay in the coming of Christ the King.

Are you ready?

Are you prepared?

And do you remain faithful?

One commentator wrote, The second coming may be farther away than we think.

Sometimes it feels hard to process that kind of a statement when the world around us is just fallen apart.

How many of us thought the Lord's return must be near in 2001, September 11th of 2001?

Yet here we are.

The Lord's return, he says, may be farther away than we think, and so it may require a supply of oil we might now think is wasted effort.

Why should I take oil along with me?

The bridegroom is going to come.

The Christian life, he goes on, is not just the initial thrill of a conversion.

Nor is it the series of thrills and praise services with their wonderful music.

The Christian life is often a dog day service to households.

Just doing my duty, whatever is in front of me for today and tomorrow, day after day, in season and out, with or without ecstasy, in the simple determination to give faithful and creative service to others, with the right sense, the correct sense, that one day we will give an account of our service to a Lord who will either be thrilled or repelled.

Are we ready?

Are we prepared?

Are we anticipating?

In the midst of a normal generation of people who says, Where's where's where's his coming?

There's not going to be a flood, Noah.

There's not a judgment, and here we arrive at the last principle, a pinnacle of sorts for these two parables.

The Lord wants us to see some distinguishing marks of genuine followers.

Now, Jesus isn't guiding us in and judging who is and isn't a Christian.

He isn't giving a complete list of characteristics of a Christian.

He is assuring everyone he is coming.

He is assuring everyone that his coming will be sudden.

He is assuring everyone that his arrival will feel delayed.

And he's describing how two different groups of people will deal with those feelings of having to wait for his appearance.

Jesus said, back in verse 14 of chapter 24, that the work of proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom to the whole world will continue until his return.

Everyone then will be fully without excuse when he comes.

As his return nears, the openness of sinful rebellion will increase, the world will fear his judgment, yet raise their fists in defiance of his lordship.

There will even be some that have a sense of closeness to Jesus.

They'll feel, yes, I'm close to Jesus.

Have you thought about the fact that all of the bridesmaids were invited to the wedding?

They were all waiting.

The wicked servant was already in a position to serve the master.

Yet five bridesmaids and a servant were rejected.

In a similar way, I like to think that Noah and his wife and his sons had some friends.

Why were those friends not on the boat?

Or surely, since the New Testament calls Lot a righteous man, did he not communicate righteousness to anybody?

Was there no impact?

My friends, there will be religious people who will no longer be able to rest their association, rest on their association with a particular church.

There will be those who will not be able to rely on a connection to faithful friends.

There will be those who will not be able to rely on their perceptions of their own goodness.

And when the door is shut, they will cry out, Lord, Lord, let us in.

And he will say, Leave me alone to celebrate.

I never knew you.

We can safely assume that Judas was not one of those that went in.

Instead, he was one of those who said, Lord, Lord, let me in.

There were at least 11 others present for this speech, however.

And all that we read in chapter 24 and 25 seems directed more towards those who are wisely faithful and ready.

But this highlights an essential characteristic of our doctrine of the church.

Here at Faith, we say, at least I say, that the gathering of the church is for believers, not unbelievers.

Those who follow Christ gather to be taught the word of God, to be built up, to be encouraged, to be strengthened, to pray, to praise and give thanksgiving, to fellowship together, and then we scatter to make disciples as we go about life.

Lord willingly bring back new disciples with us the next time we gather.

That was the Lord's pattern with the twelve, but one of those twelve was not a genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the same way, even though the gathering of the church is for believers, some of you may not be genuine believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You may be here because you have a faithful friend.

You may be here because of feeling as though an association with a Bible-believing church is a good thing, and it is.

Both now and for eternity, and so that you can begin investing for eternity.

Take note of the value of hoping in him so that you might join the rest of his people in joyful waiting for his coming.

You've also heard of the cost of not trusting in him.

Now is the time to believe.

Today is the day of salvation.

But beloved, all people of every people group are waiting for his coming, whether they realize it or not.

Some wait just like everyone in the days of Noah.

Some act wickedly and rebelliously like the servant.

Some act naively like the bridesmaids, the unprepared bridesmaids, and and such were all of us.

But we were ransomed from our feudal ways inherited from our forefathers.

We were ransomed not with perishable things like silver and gold, but with the precious, the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb, without blemish or spot.

Therefore, we are not in darkness for that day to surprise us like a thief.

So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

These are the distinguishing characteristics of those who wait wisely and faithfully for their Lord.

This isn't a particular category of super spiritual people.

He's preaching to Peter, the guy who would just in a matter of hours deny him three times.

This isn't talking about perfect people.

It's talking about those who have placed their faith in Christ, who have this innate wanting and waiting for Christ to come.

And our normal, regular pattern of life is to go about whatever God has given us to do with a sense of preparedness and readiness and waiting.

It's normal, Holy Spirit-filled people going about the duties of their days, faithfully serving their Lord, wisely prepared for his coming and ready at any moment.

These are the people who can wait righteously.

Would you pray with me?

Lord Jesus.

Make us wait wisely, righteously, preparedly with readiness.

Keep our times, our moments of sinful distraction to a minimum.

Keep us from the evil one, as John taught us to pray.

Keep our eyes focused on the clouds waiting for our deliverance.

Lord, may all who are here today place their trust in you for eternity.

To become ready, wisely waiting.

And may we be given by your grace and your mercy, by the power of your Holy Spirit in us, a sense of awe and joy and anticipation of your coming.

May that be continually before our eyes.

So that we as your people might be readied for your coming.

And even so come, Lord Jesus.

Until that day, we wait.

And we give you thanks that in our waiting you have provided a reminder for us of why we wait.

We wait because you hung upon that cross and you shed your blood, and you gave your life so that our sins might be nailed upon that cross.

And we might be purified by the blood of the Lamb.

And we have a reminder that we celebrate together.

And just some bread and a cup of juice to remind us this is why we wait.

In our waiting, in our reminder and our celebration, may you purify us of all sin because we trust in you.

We confess our sin to you, seeking your faithfulness to forgive us, so that we might celebrate before you with purity in all of our readiness and anticipation to your praise alone.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.