The Matthew 25 Pattern

Recently when I asked the Lord what we should be doing with ourselves he answered this way:

1. we should be ready for his return and watching for it
2. we should be doing what we can, with what we have, according to what he has given us.

That struck me like resonating strings, I thought "man, that sounds familiar" when I finally realized that is already laid out for us in Matt 25. First in Matt 25 we have the parable of the virgins (readiness and watching), then we have the parable of the "talents" (doing something with what we've been given).

In addition, today the Lord shed a bit more light on the parable of the virgins when he tells us about the foolish virgins:

Matt 25:7"Then 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.'

Notice the key phrase there at the end. Their lamps are "going out." What does that mean? Well, a lamp that is "going out" is not producing ANY LIGHT. As we look around at this world we see darkness encroaching everywhere and the ONLY WAY darkness can advance is for light to be absent.

This absence of light IS the evidence that what calls itself christianity today (churches and "pastors" on every street corner) has something terribly wrong with it. How can there be churches on every street corner and darkness is still advancing in this world? How and WHY? Because lamps are going out. Where there is no light, darkness advances, its just that simple.

The Lord doesn't stop there with this idea of lights and lamps, we see it again in Rev 2 when our Lord is speaking to the churches:

Rev 2:4Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. 6But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

What happens if your lampstand is removed from its place? Again, no light. We know from the parable of the virgins in Matt 25 that running out of oil, leading to lamps going out, leading to no light will put you in the "foolish virgins" category if you are found in this condition when the Lord shows up, which could be tonight or 10 years from now.

The lesson here is, we do not want to be caught in dark institutions, without oil, without light when our Lord returns. The lights in this world are fading fast, and that is not my opionion, that is empitically based fact derived from observation of the world around us.

The Lord has spoken to us in his word about what we can and should be doing today. We should be ready and watching, our lamps should be filled with oil, producing LIGHT and we should have jars of oil to spare sitting beside our lights so we can make SURE our LIGHT is not dimming when the Lord shows up. We should be doing something, anything with our "talents" today so when the Lord returns we have SOMETHING to show him as a return on investment in us. Read the parable of the virgins and the talents again. They were written to us for a reason.

May the Lord bless you and keep you and prosper you even as your soul prospers. Grace and peace.