Scariest Chapter in the Bible
I believe hands down that this is the scariest chapter in the
Bible. This chapter is filled with three
parables that are going to push us and pull us.
I love this chapter because no matter how much I feel like I’ve gotten
this God-following lifestyle down, this chapter can speak into my life some
more. But be warned. This chapter will make you think, question,
and pause in your life.
Ten Virgins
Jesus begins with a seemingly innocent parable. Since this is going to be a long post, I’ll
jump right in without doing a summary. Obviously,
this is a parable about being prepared.
Jesus’ message is clear. When He
returns to take His followers into the feast of eternal life before God, only
ones who have diligently made themselves ready will go. If a person doesn’t have a relationship with
God before that point, it will be too late.
That’s the overarching message, simply put. So the challenging question is: are you
actively preparing yourself by being in a true relationship with God?
But there’s more here.
Notice that the lamps of all ten virgins go out. We cannot perfectly follow God on our
own. We all have moments of darkness in
our life. We all have places we
stumble. Our own light – remember, Jesus
told us to be the light of the world – will go out. We need to find a way to replenish that
light. This is the purpose of the Holy
Spirit. He replenishes us when our spiritual
oil is expended. He restores us when our
lamp goes out. As Ephesians 1:13-14
says, He is the guarantor of salvation.
Want to be one of the five virgins who are prepared? Know the Holy Spirit and receive Him into
your life. Allow your life to be guided
by Him. {After I wrote this and was going back through my commentaries, I
discovered that oil is a spiritual symbol for the Spirit of God. That’s cool!}
But that’s still not all.
In fact, we haven’t even come to the scariest part. Surely the light from a lamp would have been
good enough for two people to follow, right?
Have you ever thought about why each virgin who was prepared didn’t
offer to share their light so all ten could come in?
The point Jesus is making is that you cannot enter into eternal
life on someone else’s merit. I won’t be
acceptable to God because my parents loved Him and have the Holy Spirit within
them. I won’t be acceptable to God
because my spouse loved Him and knows the Holy Spirit. The only way that I will enter into eternal
life is if I know Him personally and have the Holy Spirit within me. It must be personal. Only I can prepare myself with the help of
the Holy Spirit. I will not be able to
ride anyone else’s coattails in. Nor
will anyone be able to ride in on my coattails.
That’s the scary part. It’s my
relationship with God. Am I making the
most of it?
But even there we haven’t reach the depths of the scariness. What’s the really scary part of this
parable? Clearly all of the virgins knew
about the bridegroom. Clearly all of the
virgins wanted to go in with the bridegroom.
But not everyone did. I think the
scariest part of this parable is this fact.
I truly believe that Jesus is telling us this parable to get us to realize
that there are going to be some people who outwardly seem to have a
relationship with God but inwardly there is nothing there. I believe this parable is preparing us for
the fact that not all who “appear” to have received the salvation that comes
through Jesus Christ have actually received it.
As we heard back in Matthew 7, “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord,’
shall be saved.” Not everyone who believes
in God is doing anything about the gift of faith within them.
Talents
This is another scary parable, although admittedly it is probably
the least scary of the three. As with
the prior parable, I’ll skip the summary and dive straight into theology. The overarching message of this parable is
that God expects us to do work for His kingdom using the resources – time,
talent, treasure – that He gave to us.
For the record, a talent was a sum of money. It was equal to about twenty years worth of
wages. Given the lifespan of the typical
worker in those days, it is about a lifetime’s worth of work. Therefore, none of these servants receive a
small gift. Even the guy who only gets
one talent has received a lifetime’s worth of resources! God is generous when He hands out resources
for us to use.
Also notice that the amount of increase is not as important as the
fact that the increase happened. One’s resources
increase by five. Another’s resources
increase by two. Even the servant who is
chastised is told that an “increase of interest” would have been better than
nothing! We are not in control of how
much increase happens through our ministry.
That is between God and the people to whom we are ministering. We cannot control the scope of the
harvest. We are simply responsible for
putting ourselves in a position to experience an increase in the Kingdom of
God.
Third, notice that there is joy.
When we use our resources to grow the Kingdom of God, we experience the
joy of the master! God desires to be
joyful over the work of His servants.
Again, it doesn’t matter how much of a harvest we encounter. God celebrates growth regardless of the
quantity of growth.
You are probably wondering where the scary part is. So let’s look at this last servant. Remember, this is a servant of the
master. This is one who is in
relationship with the master. We’re not
talking about someone outside; we’re talking about one who has been given their
share of the resources of the master’s kingdom.
That right there should cause us a little pause.
The servant does nothing.
The servant simply preserves what the master gave. Is not the master powerful enough to preserve
His own kingdom? So we see that there is
no growth. There is no effort. Here is the result of that laziness. The master takes what had at one point been
given to the servant and boots him out of the kingdom. The servant wasn’t really a part of the
kingdom, and his laziness proves it.
In a sense, this parable supplements the parable of the ten
virgins. People who belong in the
kingdom act like they belong in the kingdom.
Sure, we might not always get things right. Sometimes our growth might be miniscule. But the point is that the people who are in
the kingdom remain in the kingdom and work in the kingdom and act like a
citizen of the kingdom should act. Those
who do not are booted out and what had once been given to them is instead given
to another. Here’s the challenging
question: Am I acting like a citizen of the kingdom of God?
Sheep and Goats
This is the scariest of the three parables in my opinion. In fact, this parable comprises what I believe
to be the scariest set of verses in the entire Bible. This passage has haunted me since I was a
young child. Yet at the same time, no
passage has caused me to pursue God more than this parable. This is an awesome set of verses.
Here’s the overarching theme: Those who are obedient to God and
submit to His will are kept for eternal life.
Those who call upon His name but do not submit are sorted out from among
those who are kept and instead of eternal life they will experience eternal
punishment. Note that in the case of the
sheep, they don’t even always see God in the midst of what they are doing! When we are humble and submit before God,
then we will do His will whether we see Him or not. Those who are not humble and who do not
submit to God will never see Him.
This parable takes the points of the prior two parables and builds
upon them. We must be active about
preparing ourselves for the Kingdom of God with the help of the Holy
Spirit. As we prepare, we are to be
about God’s work in the world. Those who
do these things will receive life. Those
who do not will receive judgment – even if they understand why these things are
important!
I think that is the scariest part of this parable. Clearly the goats in the story are in
relationship with God. Clearly they
value the name of the Lord. But they
were not active in seeing the Lord. They
were not active in hearing His voice.
They were not active in following His lead. They were not active in submitting to God,
humbling themselves to His will, and obediently following. They receive condemnation.
Putting It All Together
Here’s what I love about this chapter. It leads us through a progression of faith
and gives us questions to ask along the way.
- Am I allowing the Holy Spirit within me to prepare me for eternal life with God?
- Am I responding to the call of the master and working towards fruit in His kingdom?
- Am I being aligned with God’s will so that I may be sorted as a sheep, entering into eternal life and the joy of God?
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