Ten Virgins, Four Horsemen and the Hermit from Innaminka

by a local contributor.

Matthew 25: 1-13, Revelation 5

Today’s sermon is about a warning included in one of the parables that was part of the sermon that Jesus gave to his followers when they gathered together on the Mount of Olives, a short time before he was arrested and crucified.
A discussion had turned to Jesus’ earlier statement that although he was soon to die, he would at some future time return to this earthly life among mankind. He refused to say when it would occur, but he warned those present that they should keep themselves in readiness because only God knew when he would reappear and it would be at a time when he was least expected.
To explain the circumstances of his arrival he told the following parable:

(Matthew 25: 1-13)
The Parable of the Ten Virgins
1 At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
6At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!'
7Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.'
9 'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'
10But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11Later the others also came. 'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the door for us!'
12But he replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.'
13Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

So there it is! And there is no indication of the time or the place. It was Paul who told the Thessalonians that in God’s view a thousand years is but a day. If that is the case it could be a few more thousands of years before Jesus’ arrival.
Perhaps we might get a clearer understanding of Jesus’ parable if we rewrite it so that we can bring it up to date.
Let us assume that there are not ten girls but that there are ten million people and they all claim to be Christians. Every time the census forms come around they are quite decisive in ticking the appropriate space on the form. Yes! There is no doubt they are followers of Jesus. Mind you, some of them think that Jesus went a bit over the top at times. I mean that business about the meek and lowly inheriting the Earth looks good on paper, but every one knows that in this dog eat dog world you are a mug if you don’t look after Number One. There are no prizes for coming last.
So let us make an assessment of these ten million Christians. Let us say that five million are committed to Jesus Christ. Their life style is centred around compassion for the less fortunate. Their day to day activities contribute to a just and truthful society and above all they acknowledge that Jesus’ message has been and will always be mankind’s hope of salvation.
Now let us look at the other five million. Well they don’t look any different to the first lot really. Like I said, they claim to be Christians and they can prove it. They got married in the church, and at funerals they hope that when their turn comes they will be let into heaven with all the other departed souls, and they make sure that the kids go to Sunday School, and on special occasions the whole family attends Church. That is provided it’s on early enough so that they can watch the footy afterwards. These Sunday games are the best thing since sliced bread.
So there they are. Five million with spiritual credits to spare that prove beyond doubt that they have been faithful to the Lord, and five million who have not quite made the grade.
Ah well! Life goes on. One millennium passes and then another and this business of Jesus’ reappearance gets more and more remote, and as the Sentimental Bloke said, “Life mooches on.” If it was not for a few wars and the odd plague or two we might as well, figuratively speaking, snooze our way through life.
But then something happens. When everyone lease expects it, Jesus Christ appears and he has set up his ministry here on Earth. There is a mad scramble by millions people to bring their spiritual credits up to speed, but unfortunately for them while they are attending the crash course, Jesus Christ opens the door to his Kingdom and admits only those who can prove that they have completed their spiritual A levels.
By the time that the crash course graduates arrive the door is shut and they are on the outer. When they try to break the door down, Jesus appears and says, “Go away! I don’t know you. You have left your run too late.”
So the moral of this story is stay awake. And you had better have some spiritual oil on hand, otherwise you will be left behind.
And that is the title of a book that a few years ago swept through America – Left Behind. In fact, it is the first of a series of books all based on the Bible’s Book of Revelation, and on Jesus’ parable we are studying today.
Since 1995, Dr Timothy Lahaye and Jerry B Jenkins have in partnerships, written sixteen “best seller” novels based on a fictional version of the Book of Revelation. So far, sixty five million copies of their books have been sold. Their first book, Left Behind, sold over seven million copies and on the assumption that more than one person reads a particular book, it can be surmised that fourteen million people read that book.
The story line of Left Behind creates a situation in which millions of people, in an instant, just disappeared from where ever they happened to be at that time. They are the ones who found favour with God, and just as Jesus’ parable has the wise girls admitted to the wedding, so the missing millions of people were found worthy of being admitted into God’s Kingdom.
All that remained of them were their clothes, shoes, spectacles, dentures, hearing aids and wallets. Their bodies have gone and those less regarded by God are left behind. The door of God’s Kingdom is closed to them.
Lahaye and Jenkins are still churning out religious fiction and during the last decade they have created a multi-million dollar industry that produces books, films, videos, DVDs, merchandise and children’s literature. Over the years they have built up a cult following, the members of which are concerned that the end of this world is almost here and Jesus Christ’s arrival is about to happen.
A survey taken among the American population a few months after the destruction of the World Trade Centre twin towers and a section of the Pentagon office complex reveals that 59% of Americans believed that the prophecies in the Book of Revelations will come true, and 35% admitted that they were paying closer attention to news events in anticipation of the soon to happen end of their world.
They have become impatient with the Iraq war situation and disillusioned by the fact that their superior war machine is unable to control the chaos that prevails in the Middle East. The spectre of misguided religious fervor is affecting most of the world’s nations including ours. The Bali bombings were a chilling revelation that we in Australia are as vulnerable as anyone else.
Assuming that terrorism and religious intolerance will be suppressed, if not controlled, some time in the distant future, will mankind acknowledge the universally yearned for world peace? Will the nations of the world agree that God’s grace is the right of all people in all nations or are the events depicted in the Book of Revelation mankind’s future destiny? Are we on the brink of the abyss that contains the great suffering as predicted by those who take the prophesies in the Book of Revelation seriously?
What is it about Revelation that has so many people fearful of the future? Well! To begin, Revelation is a dream sequence much of which has confounded preachers in their attempts to interpret it.
It was written by John when he was an old man, when, in looking back over his life, he contemplated the divinity of Jesus. The first five chapters set the scene in the most abstract of terms for what is a major interest to modern mankind, the end of the world as we know it.
The scene for mankind’s destruction is expressed in a scroll with seven seals and each seal exposes an element in the progress toward Jesus’ reappearance. The scroll is of the apocalypse, a Greek word meaning “the lifting of the veil”. And this is where the action begins.
The scroll is passed to the only one worthy of breaking the seals, the Lamb of God, the Christ, and as he holds the scroll aloft he breaks the first seal. The scroll releases a being clothed in white and wearing a crown. He is mounted on a white horse and in his hand he carries a bow. He is the first scourge of this world, he is the deceiver, the confuser of people’s thinking. He is Satan disguised as Innocence.
The second seal is broken and another being appears carrying a sword. He is mounted on a red horse and he has the power to turn mankind against itself. He is warfare.
The breaking of the third seal revealed a being clothed in black and in his hand he carries a set of scales. His is mounted on a black horse and his mission is to spread famine in all of the land.
Breaking the fourth seal revealed the most horrific sight of all. A skeleton figure mounted on a sickly green emaciated horse and its role was to spread plague, pestilence and death across the whole world. And the four terrible horsemen of the apocalypse went forth and laid waste to the earth.
The fifth seal revealed the martyrs who had suffered and died in God’s name, and they cried out to the Lord, “How much longer before our suffering is vindicated?” And the Lord said, “Not long now. Many more will be slaughtered in my name and they will be added to your number, and you will all join me in my Kingdom.”
Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions followed the breaking of the sixth seal and famine, pestilence and plague were on the land but one hundred and forty four thousand souls were saved and that great multitude were in white robes, and they witnessed the Lamb of God break the seventh and last seal. Among the chosen all hunger and thirst disappeared. The scorching sun no longer beat upon the chosen ones, but the unbelievers continued to suffer the torment of the four horsemen. And then, after much blowing of trumpets and activities by groups of seven angels, Christ defeated Satan and then established his thousand year reign over the world, and sin and suffering were no more.
Revelation has many more chapters that get harder to decipher as the story progresses toward the triumph of Lord Jesus, however the chapters that we have studied support Jesus’ prediction in his sermon on the Mount of Olives, that people will experience great suffering before he reappears on Earth.
Lahaye and Jenkins have converted the Biblical version of the Book of Revelation into a fictional account of good versus evil, and in their first book, Left Behind, they tell of the United Nations appointing a charming diplomat to the role of Secretary General, a very popular appointment. But little do they know that he is the Anti Christ, Satan himself, the first horseman, the deceiver.
The task of saving the world and God’s faithful is left to two super heroes, apparently modeled on James Bond. Each book is written around chapters and verses from Revelation and follows the progress of events very accurately, right through to Jesus’ reappearance on Earth.
And if a hoarding that I once saw as my train passed through a suburban station is correct, Jesus Christ is here on Earth already. The sign stated, “In California six drivers licences have been issued to persons named Jesus Christ.” Who am I to argue with that? Not only is he here, he has been cloned five times. I don’t know the purpose of the sign. I did not have time to read the smaller print.
After all of that, I wonder will Jesus really reappear on Earth? We won’t have any trouble recognizing him, after all we have seen pictures and statues of him many times. He will of course be Caucasian in appearance. He will be six feet tall with brown shoulder length hair and a carefully trimmed short beard. His facial features will be similar to those of the hunks in the TV soapies or may be Gregory Peck at his prime.
Mind you a large number of American African Christians know that he will be black with close cropped curly hair and if a reconstruction of a typical Aramaian face that appeared in the National Geographic Society magazine is accurate, then it is highly likely that a dark complexion version of Jesus is the correct one.
The point is that his physical presence is long gone and his spiritual form is what gives hope to millions of people. But having given hope to all those lives, is that all that God expects faith to achieve? Does hope discharge our obligation to the world that Jesus envisaged? I think not.
There was once a hermit who lived in a hut beside Coopers Creek, a few miles from Innaminka, and one year unseasonal weather gave the Central Australian desert torrential rain. The Diamantina River rose to become a huge inland lake that drained through Coopers Creek to Lake Eyre.
Someone from Innaminka drove a four wheel drive ute out to the hermit’s hit and told him that flooding was on the way and he had better get on board for a trip to higher ground. The hermit said, “No! I have faith in God and I have always relied on the hope that God will protect me.” So they left him.
Later when he was sloshing around in water above his knees a boat with an outboard motor arrived. The hermit was told that the water was going to rise higher and he would have to move out. Again he said no. He intended to rely on the hope that his faith gave him, the hope that God would protect him.
When he was sitting on the roof with water lapping his backside, a helicopter arrived overhead with a winch sling dangling. A loud hailer told him that the flood was still rising and he would have to leave. Again the same refusal, “I know that God will protect me. I have always relied on the hope that my faith gives me.”
After they left him, he fell into the water and drowned. Next thing, his soul arrived in heaven and he was furious. He demanded to see God. God’s undersecretary explained that God did not, as a rule, grant interviews to new arrivals but because the hermit’s rage was sending objectionable vibrations through heaven, God would talk with him.
When he stood before God he said, “How dare you fail me. I have relied on the hope that because of my faith in you, you would protect me. Instead you let me drown.” And God replied, “What have you got to complain about? Didn’t I send a four wheel drive ute and the an outboard motor boat. And then in spite of your refusals I finally sent a helicopter and still you did not take the opportunity to save yourself. I give people opportunities and I can’t be responsible for those who refuse to take them.”
And that is the message to all mankind. While God’s love is infinite, if it is rebuffed and unrecognized there is not much that he can do about it until the foolish person seeks God and his forgiveness. Jesus, in his parable, did not change the bridegroom’s program. He did not give the unprepared girls a second opportunity. They got left behind.
But mankind has a long history of missed opportunities to achieve God’s Kingdom here on Earth. And the evidence is becoming more and more obvious. The fact that in modern times, every day there has been a war being fought somewhere. There has not been a day without some nation’s people dying of starvation or preventable disease.
Every day somewhere there has been a cruel authoritarian ruler forcing people to live in the misery of squalor and deprivation.
Perhaps when mankind has smashed the last city, has sucked the last barrel of oil out of the ground, has burned the last gas deposit, has fouled the air and water and has turned the land into a desert of sand and salt, in other words, when mankind has allowed the four horsemen of the apocalypse to rampage across the land, then, and only then, the Bible states, will a Christ figure appear and establish God’s Kingdom here in Earth.
If the carnage of the Biblical prophecy is to be avoided a more compassionate attitude towards the deprived nations of this world will have to prevail, otherwise the rich nations will not be able to suppress the pent up anger among people denied what are regarded as basic human rights.
Six years ago an official projection stated that in the year 2010, because of war and the AIDS epidemic, there would be 20 million orphan children in Africa. I don’t know if the forecast is proving true, but the fact that the projection did not make a head line in the daily newspapers is an indication of the disinterested attitude in developed countries.
Its not enough to just rely on God’s love of mankind and its not enough to just think that our insignificance within our social system allows us to do nothing.
In 1979 Mother Teresa, the Saint of the Gutter, was awarded the Nobel Prize for her mission to India’s dying destitute untouchables and during her acceptance lecture she said, “It is not enough for us to say ‘I love God but I do not love my neighbour’. Since dying on the cross, Jesus made himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one and Jesus’ hunger is what you and I must find and alleviate.”
It’s not enough to await Jesus’ reappearance here on Earth with the expectation that he will sort out mankind’s mess or that he will prevent the destruction caused by the four apocalyptic horsemen. It’s about the acceptance that he gave us the formulae for a harmonious, loving world, and we have been able to read it in the Bible for almost two thousand years. But God is still waiting for mankind to act on the basic tenets of Jesus’ teachings and our spiritual lamps are fast running out of oil.
It’s not up to Jesus Christ’s arrival back here on Earth. It’s up to the billions of people who are God’s faithful. Those who believe that Jesus’ message will save mankind. It’s up to the likes of us. It’s up to you and me.