Words of Jesus Podcast - Prepare for the Long Run the Bridegroom Comes In Darkness

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

The trying of our faith is difficult and uncomfortable. The exemplars of our faith used the trials in the days of of light (or plenty) to build their confidence in YHVH and their relationship to him. There is a striving to gain the skills needed to enter the narrow path. We call it exercise in the physical realm. It is also true in the spiritual realm. The small experiences build our confidence in the love and care of our Father; so when the dark times come we are not afraid. We remember. We hope. We endure. "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." James 1***103: The Parable Of The Ten VirginsMatthew 25:1-13JESUS TOLD another parable, saying:            “Then shall the kingdom of Heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that 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 tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, ‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.’Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, ‘Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you; but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to marriage, and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’ But he answered and said, ‘Verily I say unto you, “I know you not.”’Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello friends and welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I appreciate you being a part of this show each time. And we have really been moving on here. It's hard to believe we're already in chapter 103. And we're going to be talking about Jesus' parable of the ten virgins. And we're talking about end times.

These kind of things are kind of, well, they can be confusing. They need not be confusing, but they certainly can be. It is a time of mystery. We don't know much about a lot of what we're reading here because it's hard to put it in proper chronological order. It's hard to understand. Sometimes Jesus is speaking very symbolically. Sometimes he's preaching very, very naturally. And so we're just going to have to rely upon the Spirit of God to tell us, how should we approach this? Is there any way to be so educated in these areas that none of this stuff takes us by surprise?

No. No, that's not going to happen. You're not going to educate yourself into a place of safety where you don't have to worry about being deceived. Jesus tells the story of the ten virgins, and I think at this particular point, we're going to learn what the most important thing actually is. Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were wives and five foolish. They that 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 tarried they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out.

But the wise answered, saying, Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you. But go rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgin, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour

wherein the Son of Man cometh. I'm sorry to say that a parable of this sort that was written for a specific reason that it became, I mean, for all intents and purposes, useless. There are people I know, I mean, I can see how somebody might think that it's a good idea or perhaps an idea anyway, in some way or another, that when he's talking about five wise and five foolish, he's talking about those who were saved

and those who weren't saved. Okay, the simplistic Sunday school version of this, I think you're missing whatesus is trying to tell us here um there's a group of people who have uh you know dedicated their life to christ or they got saved or they asked jesus to be their savior or whatever else that you figure is is the you know the key that unlocks his door and five of them just didn't do that. But, you know, there's some serious theological problems when you start making the oil into the Holy Spirit, because, you know, essentially that's where that conversation goes. You see, these five, they were saved. They had the Holy Spirit

and, you know, they had plenty or whatever. these people ran out well first of all i mean i understand you know when you're talking about metaphor uh you know what makes the metaphor very very valuable and what makes it very very powerful is how long it lasts as you continue to apply it in certain areas, all metaphor breaks down somewhere along the line. The sooner it breaks down, the worse the parable, the example, the simile, whatever it is you're trying to teach, the quicker that your metaphor breaks down, the worse choice you've made as far as, or in some cases, even authoring some of the metaphor.

I speak in metaphor a lot and sometimes I think that was a pitiful metaphor. Well what made it pitiful, as I'm reconsidering what I said at another time, what made it pitiful was that it broke down so quickly. Well, when you want to take the symbology of a particular metaphor, in this case let's take the lamps and the oil. Most people feel like the lamp is the light of God within our soul.

Okay. Alright. I get it. Well, what does that run on? Well, it runs on oil. Well, what does oil symbolize? Oil always symbolizes the Holy Spirit is what you hear. Well, not in this case, it doesn't. Not in this case at all first of all uh the light that is in you is made bright and um and is is there first of all because you came into the world the bible says that god lights every light that comes into the world lights every there's a heart a light in the heart of every man that comes into the world. So there is a light in there, and if that light is followed, honesty and consistency, responsibility, that light will lead you to Christ.

It will do that. That's why people say, can you be saved and be a Muslim? Sure, you can. If you don't quit, if a person is a Muslim because they're seeking God, you know where the problem comes? When they stop. When they feel like they found them. Can you be a Buddhist and be saved? Well, sure you can. If you don't stop, if you feel like that you found all the answers and you're on your way to Nirvana or whatever else,

if you don't quit on this journey, all of this will lead to Christ. Are you saying all denominations, all religions lead to Christ? Well, they do if you don't stop. That's the problem is you feel like you've arrived. Look, you want to know something really nuts? I think you can be a Baptist and be saved. If you don't stop, if you don't get the idea in your head that you know everything there is to know

and that everything's just fine because you understand everything now. No, of course you don't. So am I saying all roads lead to God? All roads lead to Christ, and Christ will lead you to God. But in all the efforts, all your educating efforts and all your efforts to be a good whatever, those kind of things are, they can, if you're honest, if you're honest, they can lead you to eventually to Christ.

You'll find, I mean, there's no promises in a lot of these religions to be, you know, to enter a kingdom of heaven with a holy God. They don't even think of such a thing. I mean, nirvana is not heaven. It doesn't even claim to be. There's a lot of these things that if you'll just look at them honestly, then you'll see that there is more. I've learned some things here.

Time to move on. It's a smorgasb things here. Time to move on. It's a smorgasbord world. That's the truth. Everybody's got a little bit of truth. Nothing wrong with truth, no matter where it comes from. I don't care if a Buddhist tells me something that's true. That doesn't affect me.

I don't worry that I'm becoming a Buddhist or that I feel like Buddhism is the way to go. Truth can be spoken by the most foolish of men. I'm certainly not saying Buddhists are foolish. I'm just saying truth can be everywhere. It can be anywhere. You just have to be the person inside to recognize it when you see it. That's really what it means when the Bible says that the law came by Moses,

but Jesus, when he came, he brought grace and truth. Grace and truth. You mean there was no truth before Jesus got here? Yeah, it was here, but you didn't recognize it. Children of Israel didn't recognize it. I mean, if you look at a chart of them uh you know living a life pleasing to god and then drop into the depths of uh of pagan idol worship worshiping other gods of stone and and wood and then you plot that on a on a

on a scale and read through the book of Judges, for example, you'll see it goes just like this. Up and down, up and down. Why? They didn't have the capability of understanding truth. Man, when Jesus Christ is inside you, the Holy Spirit is inside you, you hear truth and you know it's true.

You just know it's so. And you know when things are wrong too you think I'm mad at the at the prosperity movement and the healers and the miracle workers and you think I'm mad at them I'm not mad at them I just want you to win it when it when you pray and nothing happens or when you pray and nothing happens that would be any different if you didn't pray all i want you to do is be honest about that if it doesn't work you need to find out why not just act like it did and tell people it did praise the lord hallelujah

thank you jesus that doesn't do anything for. There is a truth out there that makes perfect sense. Christianity can make perfect sense if you think red ink. That's what this is all about. Here we have this particular parable Jesus is telling about the ten virgins. Let me ask you something. Do you think this bridegroom was going to marry these women? Really? That's what most people teach. Well, five of them made it to the wedding and five of them didn't. So what does that say?

That you're talking about salvation, you're talking about being wed to Christ? Is that what what you're saying do you think he was going to marry ten he wasn't these women aren't being married these women are invited to the wedding to be a part of the wedding party that's one of the things that drives me nuts about uh some of the things that are said about the marriage supper of the lamb that that we're going to go up there and be the bride of Christ. You're not the bride of Christ. The scriptures say that the city of God is the bride of Christ. Come, let me show you, the angel says to John, let me show you the Lamb's wife.

And he took me up on a mountain and he showed me that city of Jerusalem, that new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as what? A bride adorned for her husband. Where did you get the idea you're the bride of Christ? Where did you get that idea? Who stuck that in your head well okay i know paul used marriage as an example one time and he said you know this this is a great mystery and i but i'm speaking about christ in the church um and i understand the metaphor but as i

say metaphors break down. If we are the body of Christ, is Jesus going to marry himself? What in the world? Where did we get this idea? I guess we just want to believe that we're better than we actually are, that we're more important than we actually are, and that God is just probably tickled pink that we have accepted him. And nothing could be further from the truth. So was he going to marry these ten women?

No. They were just part of the wedding party. The bridegroom came to pick them all up and take them to the wedding. Some of them were ready. Some of them weren't. The ones that were ready, on time. He does like I do my meetings okay time to start shut the door lock it i i can't stand people who are so self-important that they can walk into a meeting

and disturb it because uh they had to feed their cat or so i don't know what their excuses are it really aggravates me. It's just as easy to be on time as it is not to be. Nevertheless, these people were tossed out of the wedding because they were late. Why were they late? Well, the Bible says that he came at nighttime. And at nighttime, a person needs a lamp.

They need to be able to see. And what fueled these lamps? It wasn't the Holy Spirit. Can we just dispense with that idea altogether? Look, friend, you don't run out of the Spirit of God. You don't run dry. I was raised in a Pentecostal church. I know what they say.

You know, they got to go back to church every Sunday or every Wednesday night or whatever. Does anybody go to church during the middle of the week anymore? Boy, we sure did. Anyway, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Why? Because I need my batteries charged. Well, what in the world is wrong with your batteries that you can't go a week without hooping and hollering and making noise, really? Golly! Well, that's a pretty pitiful existence. You need to look into NICADs, perhaps even lead-acid batteries. I got a better idea. Why don't you just unwind the extension cord and plug into God? That power doesn't run out. Jesus says, if you ever eat this bread, you'll never hunger again. You ever drink this water? You'll have a wellspring of water springing

up from inside into eternal life. What a great promise. Gee whiz. Why are you so thirsty? Why do you need to go to church to be fed? Why are you so hungry? We've never tasted the bread, friend. That's all there is to it. You don't need your batteries charged and you're not running out of the Holy Spirit. It doesn't run out. So can we dispense with this metaphor that it's the holy spirit well you're still not convinced all right tell me okay you do run out go to them that sell and buy well that might have some validity because i understand there's a lot of preachers that are selling that now maybe so i. I don't know. You can get little bottles of oil, little bottles of water,

little pieces of hankies, and all, you know, dirt. Holy dirt. You know, there's all kinds of stuff like that. But in Jesus' day, those people would have been killed for witchcraft, so it wasn't as popular then. So let me ask you. those people would have been killed for witchcraft, so it wasn't as popular then. So let me ask you, how is it that we'd be instructed to go to them that buy,

go to them that sell, and buy for yourselves if it's the Holy Spirit? How do you go get more Holy Spirit? You convinced yet? This is not the Holy Spirit. Well, Don, if it's not the Holy Spirit, what is it? Let's look at what Jesus said, how he ended this.

He says that, he says, Watch ye therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh. He's talking about enduring to the end. That's what those gals who had oil, they were able to light their lamps, they were able to be ready.

Why? Because they had something that the other gals didn't. Patience. It's patience. It's enduring. There is such a thing as not having enough patience just to be impatient to be impetuous to expect everything to happen right now and if you feel that way you're going to get very very discouraged especially in these end times you're going to get very discouraged so what do we do we go to where patience is offered where's patience offered doesn't the bible teach us that

if we will exercise faith if faith has its perfect work doesn't it give us patience you see this is where you you can run out of patience you could just like they could run out of oil and there is such a thing as recharging our patience uh you know this is this is a practice in my life i'm i'm i am an impatient man i have trouble in this area because you know my attitude is it's wrong it perhaps it's selfish narcissistic i don't know you you're gonna have trouble with me saying this, but I just look around sometimes and think, why isn't everybody working as hard as I am? And what that is, is just, I want things to happen. Let's move on to the next thing. We've got to go.

We've got things to do. And so I may aggravate the people that work with me, but sometimes I just don't have patience enough but you know what when I when I go to the scriptures or or I I sit before the Lord and I and I hear what he has to say to me and I can see this thing like it needs to be seen to back away get a different perspective and take a look at it and I think wow I can see god working there and i can see him here and i can see him there and oh my goodness look look at the situation that i averted here god is he really is involved in my life and he is he's doing some wonderful things and all of a sudden faith arises in my

heart and all of a sudden i got a full barrel of oil man i could just burn forever i won't i'll be there again i know you just never seem to get enough oil i mean the more oil we got the brighter flame right well the brighter the flame the faster the oil goes. And so patience is what we have to have. Patience to endure to the end. Think about this. For some reason, when Wycliffe translated the scripture about Job, he used the word patience.

And, you know, if you think about about job you know the story of job you know the guy with the boils and the dead children and the dead animals and the burned up crops and all that stuff if you were going to describe job to somebody i mean would patience really be the word you would use to describe job a patient man a patient man i would say a tolerant man i would say a man who is who is humble who doesn't have to have everything his way i'd say a worshipful man i'm thinking what's the patient thing and so you find in the apostle wrote in there you have heard of the patience of job the patience of job and i'm thinking patience is it patience? I'll tell you why it's patience. You know the difference in tolerating, just putting up with,

and having an attitude like, well, I can just bear up under anything, and just being determined to have the grit to put up with something, and patience? You know, patience has an ingredient to it that you need to know about it's hope in the future see that's where I'm going I may not be getting there fast enough but I got patience doesn't even make sense to say I'm not I'm not progressing toward my goal fast enough, but I have tolerance.

Now, if I said everybody's persecuting me and treating me badly, and everything I touch just turns into a pile of refuse, but you know what? I can tolerate that. I can put up with that. That makes sense. But when you add hope in the future like that's where i'm going and this is a hindrance i have patience enough to endure

do you see what i mean job had something you know what it was he says i know my Redeemer lives and he'll stand at the latter day on the earth. I'll wait forever until my change comes. Now see, there's patience. That's patience. You know what he's doing? Doing exactly what Jesus said to do to do endure to the end endure to the end my friend that's the endurance is a decision on your part

but when you see hope out there when you do see that light way out there in the future you know what that can That can take your endurance. It can take your faith. Faith starts having its perfect work, its completed work. And as faith has its complete work,

all of a sudden, endurance turns into patience. Listen, these gals that are running out of oil, five of them were impatient. Five of them believed that this should happen a lot quicker than it's happening. We don't need so much oil here. What's in the lamp will be fine. There's no need to bring extra. This is all going to happen right now. Well, it didn't. It didn't

happen now. It happened way later. Way into the night. When all the candles burned out. All of them, by the way, burned out. All ten of them. But, there was five of them that could be refilled

five of them couldn't be now you want to know how jesus separated these two women these two kinds of women the five and five five foolish and wise you know what the wisdom of God is things aren't gonna happen on your time schedule you need to know that things may last a little longer than you think things are things are going to be difficult, but you need to know that I'm not taking orders from you. Things aren't going to happen as quick as you might like them to. And if they don't, you need to have patience. You need to be ready. You need to be ready to endure to the end.

You need to be ready to endure as long as is necessary. And I'll wait forever, Job says, till my change come. You know what? Me too. I'll wait forever till my change comes. And I don't want to just live in this place of endurance and tolerance and just putting up with whatever's miserable in my life.

I want to turn that into patience. You see, with patience, he doth wait for it. Wait for your ministry. Wait for what God's called you to do. Wait, wait, wait. It's what the Feast of Pentecost was all about. What did he call us to do? Wait.

Wait. Wow. Could it be that simple? That simple? Do you know how difficult that is? Our time is gone now. I've enjoyed going through these scriptures with you. And there's more to come,

so you be sure to be a part of the next few shows. And thank you so much for being a part of this one. If you'd like to write to me, I'd love to hear from you. Write to me, Don, at thinkredink.com. Until I see you again, do just that. Think Red Ink. Bye-bye, my friend. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredink.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. I love you.