How can we be prepared for Christ's return?
Text: Matthew 25:1-13
Hosts:
J. Kent Edwards
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2025 CrossTalk Global
Brian: Sunday, June 2, 2024 is a day Ryan Blaney will never forget. In fact, I believe he would describe it as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Blaney is a race car driver of the renowned Penske race car organization and was competing that Sunday in a NASCAR Cup Series race at the Worldwide Technology raceway outside of St. Louis. The race is 300 miles long and is run on a 1.2 mile oval track, so cars must complete 240 laps at speeds that can exceed 200 mph. For almost all of that time, Blaney performed exceptionally well. He led for 20 of the final 23 laps and seemed to be cruising to a top five finish. The checkered flag was in sight, and the 57,000 people in the grandstand were cheering. Then the unthinkable happened. He ran out of gas with one lap to go. The crowd watched in horror as his car began to slow down and silently stop 100 yards from the finish line. Then the driver's door opened. Blaney got out and tried to push his car across the finish line. It was agonizing to watch. He finished the race dead last. What all 57,000 people realized is that it's not enough to bring a fast car to the track. You have to remember the gasoline. If you forget the essentials, you will lose the race. And what's true of car racing is also true of the Christian life. You can go to church, sing with the Praise Team, and tithe all your income. However, there is one critical element we all must possess if we are to cross the finish line and spend our eternity with our Savior. Want to know what that is? Join Vicki Hitchkiss, Kent Edwards, and Nathan Norman as they Explore Matthew, chapter 25, verses 1 to 13, and try to find the answer. Welcome to CrossTalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life, into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today, Dr. Kent Edwards, Vicki Hitskiss, and Nathan Norman continue their discussion through the Gospel of Matthew. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Matthew, chapter 25, verses 1 to 13, as we join their discussion.
Kent: Have you ever had a bad day like Ryan Blaney had?
Vicki: Boy, I don't know. You know, I was picturing him pushing his car. Bless his heart.
Nathan: Just brutal. Just brutal. Well, I can tell you, a couple of Christmases ago, Christmas in my wife's family is enormous. Right? You got to go to these family gatherings. If you don't go, it's like you are communicating. You don't like the family. So there is a high expectation for these things. So Christmas Eve was on a Sunday that year. We preached the message Sunday morning, and then we piled up in the car and went across the Tappan Zee bridge to go to my wife's family's house for Christmas Eve. And while we're there, all of a sudden the car makes this really weir sound and we pull over and I see this oil dripping. And I managed, thank God, to get it back across the bridge back home. And the entire front axle broke in half. So it must have been a work of God to get us across there. But now it's like we don't have any way to get to any of this family stuff. It was cataclysmic.
Kent: Well, I had a similar story, actually. We had a car, an old car. It was old because we kept using it from when it was new. We were church planting in north of Toronto, Canada, and I was on my way somewhere or other up a hill and suddenly the car just really began to scream and the tires started screeching and I pulled over and the axle didn't brake on my car, but the rear axle actually came off.
Nathan: Oh, how does that even happen?
Kent: So I called a guy in our church who was a mechanic, and he came and took a look. I said, I think the car is dead. What do you think? And he said, yep, it was so rusted that the mechanism that held it in place literally finally broke. And the worst part is that I had just put new tires on that stupid car. And when the wrecker came to tow it away, the gas I'd put in the tank was worth more than what he gave me. So that was. Yeah, that was my own version of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Nathan: I'll say.
Kent: But Brian's metaphor of running out of gas reminds me of a story that Jesus told about a group of young women who, like that race car driver, did almost everything right, but forgot to bring the most important thing. Let's take a look at it. In Matthew 25, how does the story begin?
Vicki: It says, at that time, the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
Kent: Okay, let's back up a little bit just to get the context. That verse begins at that time. Nathan, what time is Jesus referring to? Like, what's the context here?
Nathan: So the disciples back in 23 three were talking about the end of the age. When Jesus was coming back, they said, what will be the sign of your coming? And at the end of the age? Okay, And Jesus had told them in chapter 24, verse 36. But about that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know what day day your Lord will come. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
Kent: Okay, so this is part of Jesus instructions to the disciples how they are to be ready for his return in the end times, right? Yep.
Nathan: Be ready when he comes.
Kent: Be ready when he comes. So what does it mean to be ready? Well, in our last podcast, we discussed that as leaders, Jesus said we must nourish the people we lead and avoid spiritually abusing them. But today, Jesus has a second requirement for what I call rapture readiness. And what's that? Starting in verse 25, it says, @.
Vicki: That time, the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. That's an odd picture. 10 virgins. I mean, it is to go out and meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps, but did not take any oil with them. That sounds foolish. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all began to be drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight, the cry rang out, here's the bridegroom. Come out to meet him. And then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, give us some of your oil. Our lamps are going out.
Kent: Okay, so let's see if we can understand the metaphors of what Jesus is saying here.
Vicki: Yeah, good luck with that. Step up here, Nathan.
Kent: No, I really wrestled with this. I found this more challenging than I expected. In what ways are these 10 women similar?
Vicki: They're all virgins and they all have lamps.
Kent: Right, okay, so.
Vicki: And for some reason, all of them are going to meet the bridegroom. That makes no sense to me.
Kent: It does in the sense that it was standard at that time for the groom to go and get the bride and then be part of a large procession back to his house. So the procession is beginning, and the procession is what's open to the public. And so typically, because of the timing of the weddings and the length of the celebrations, it would be in the evening. And so as they're walking along, people from the town would join with the bridegroom and the groom, dancing and celebrating and they would bring lamps because it was dark.
Vicki: You said the bridegroom and the groom. Did you mean the bride and the groom?
Kent: The bride and the groom. So together they'd be going back to the groom's home.
Vicki: So were they like bridesmaids?
Kent: Yeah, in a sense they were like a bridesmaid. Although they were from the town, they came. They were unmarried young girls who wanted to help celebrate this wonderful marriage. And so they would be part of the celebration. But the people who joined would bring lamps. And I'm not talking about little table lamps the size of your hand, these would be much larger, filled with oil, with rags inside for wicks. And they'd actually be attached to poles that would be above their head. And they'd walk, carry like a parade like we would have. And they'd be walking behind, singing and lighting up the area, letting everyone know what was going on and being part of that celebration. And they're waiting and waiting for the bridegroom to come with his bride. And finally he comes and they wake up and they are, they've got everything they need. They all have lamps. They all wanted to escort the bridegroom to wedding festivities.
Nathan: They all want to enjoy the wedding. Right?
Kent: They all want to enjoy the wedding. They all fell asleep. They were all suddenly awakened. Surprisingly right.
Vicki: Uh huh.
Kent: So in many ways all the girls, all these virgins were similar, but in what way were they different? Only one significant way.
Vicki: Well, half of them were stupid.
Kent: Well yeah, because he says in verse three, they were foolish, they were stupid.
Vicki: Yeah, he just flat out says it and you have to be, I mean if you're going to take a lamp with the purpose of burning it and you don't take any fuel. Duh. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them.
Nathan: Well, in defense of the women though, right here they're saying, hey, we're going to do the procession and the bridegroom's probably going to come. So the oil that's in the lamp is sufficient, it's enough. How long do we have to wait?
Kent: And they lit.
Nathan: That's my excuse.
Vicki: Yeah.
Kent: And maybe they tried to light it and it sputtered for a few seconds, but there was not. They didn't bring any oil. They knew that bragroom was coming but were entirely unprepared. They didn't have what was most important, all the equipment, but they had no gas in the tank. It's like having a flashlight with no batteries, a coffee mug with no coffee, an oil lamp with no oil. I mean, how stupid could these girls be? That's why Jesus calls them foolish. They didn't have the essential ingredient necessary to join the celebration of the bridegroom's arrival. They thought they were ready, but discovered it too late. They were not. So what does a holy God require of those who would spend eternity with him? Because who is the bridegroom? Who is Jesus referring to?
Vicki: He's referring to Christ.
Kent: Yeah, Himself. I'm coming back, and it will be a surprise. And many of you will think you are ready, but you will not be ready because you will be missing the most important thing. So what does a holy God absolutely require of those who would spend eternity with him? I think he requires the holiness, right, to be holy and to have the forgiveness of sins that can come only through Christ. Right?
Nathan: Right.
Kent: That sounds harsh in a sense, that unless when Jesus comes back, you are living a life of holiness. You will see him come, but you will not participate. You will not enter heaven. I mean, that sounds harsh. We want God to lower his standards and let everyone in. Or if not everyone, at least us. But it's not that God doesn't want us to join him in heaven for eternity. He can't. That came clear to me a number of years ago at a funny setting, if you will. We were camping one summer as a family, and we had. Our boys were young at the time. And if you're a parent and you go camping with your kids, realize that's not a vacation. You're going to work the whole time looking after these kids, and they're going to run you ragged and you're exhausted. I was. Every day. But the one thing I wanted to do for myself was to read a newspaper. I bought the newspaper in the morning, had no time to read it all day. But at night, when the kids were finally exhausted and asleep, that was my time. So I sat out at the picnic table and lit this Coleman lantern. It was a gas lantern that has a little mantle inside. And you pump up the gas, and the gas comes out through this mantel, you light it on fire. And if you've ever gone camping, those things are bright. They really illuminate. And I'm sitting there trying to read my paper, and that light was so bright, it attracted moths from everywhere. These big ugly moths, little moths all over the place. They didn't bite or anything. They were just annoying. And they loved that light. And as I sat there watching these moths they bounced up against the glass that was surrounding the mantle, trying to get closer to the light, but they couldn't. But a few of them, some of the little ones who really wanted to be closer to the light, they discovered there were small little vent holes at the bottom and they could crawl right through those holes and enter the very presence of that burning gas. And guess what happened to those moths when they entered the presence of that flame? They're dead instantly. They were destroyed. They were destroyed not because the flame hated them, not because the flame was necessarily angry, but because bound up in the nature of the flame is a heat that destroys all that is combustible. In a sense, that's what heaven is like. When we enter the presence of God and we are as sinful creatures, the very nature of God's holiness will not allow him to tolerate sin in his presence. It is instantly consumed. We either deal with sin before we get to heaven, or it is dealt with us once we try to enter it. It's not a nature of God hating, it's that it cannot exist in his presence. We see God's hatred of sin and God's people. In the Old Testament, do you remember what Amos, the prophet Amos, said to the Northern Kingdom?
Vicki: Yeah, I do, because I'm cheating and reading it here. Let me read it for you. It's woe to you who long for the day of the Lord. Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear. As though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him away with the noise of your songs, I will not listen to the music of your harps, but let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream.
Kent: So don't look forward to the Lord's return unless you're morally ready. Right?
Nathan: Right.
Kent: And that's just not an Old Testament thing. I mean, didn't Matthew bring this to our attention way back in chapter three with the ministry of John the Baptist?
Vicki: Don't look forward to the return of the Lord unless you're morally ready.
Kent: Right?
Nathan: Yeah. In Matthew 3 it said in those days John the Baptist came preaching, repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan confessing their sins. They were baptized by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing. He said to them, you brood of vipers who warn you to flee from the coming wrath, produce fruit in keeping with repentance. After me comes one who is more powerful. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
Kent: Wow. So what's the fruit of repentance?
Nathan: It's a changed life.
Vicki: Yes, salvation, isn't it?
Kent: Well, it's a morally transformed life. He wants them to stop sinning, to be holy as he is holy.
Nathan: That image that Vicki has shared a number of times on this show of the preacher saying, repentance is this right where you're walking one way and then you stop and you literally turn around and walk the other way.
Kent: It's a moral transformation. It's our part of the sanctification process. What is the fate of those who don't produce that fruit? According to Jesus, what's their fate? Hell, yeah. He will be burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. What Jesus is saying to us is that when he returns, there will be a moral and spiritual spot check. Will we have what we need to join Jesus in eternity? Look how similar these women looked on the outside. And look what happened to them.
Vicki: Oh, wow, that's interesting. It says, then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. When I read that the first time, I thought, they're all trimming their lamps. They don't have any oil. But they probably didn't even realize that. The foolish ones said to the wise, give us some of your oil. Our lamps are going out. 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. But while they were on their way to buy oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. Later, the others also came. Lord, Lord, they said, open the door for us. But he replied, truly, I tell you, I don't know you.
Kent: Wow.
Vicki: Yeah.
Kent: That's scary, isn't it?
Vicki: It is.
Kent: Flashlights are useless without batteries. Coffee mugs are pointless without coffee. Racing cars can't cross the finish line without fuel. Religion is useless without holiness. Like the five foolish virgins, we will not be prepared for Christ's return unless we have prepared ourselves with personal holiness. Perhaps the most frightening thing about this parable is the percentage of those virgins who knew the bridegroom was coming, would look forward to his arrival, but were not prepared when he came. How many virgins were there?
Vicki: Ten.
Kent: How many were unprepared?
Vicki: Five. That's a lot.
Kent: So what? Yeah, what percentage found themselves on the.
Vicki: Wrong side of heaven's gate and they all thought they were on the right side?
Kent: Doesn't that scare you? There are going to be many people, many people who will look forward to Christ's return but will not be ready because they will not have the most important thing that they need for Christ's return. They will not have the holiness a holy God requires. And for them it will be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad eternity. When I read this passage, maybe we should all echo David's prayer in Psalm.
Vicki: 139, you have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You are familiar with all my ways. Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offense in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
Kent: Perhaps our prayer this evening should be forgive us Lord, and lead us in the way everlasting.
Brian: In the story Jesus told, 10 young women were certain they were on their way to meet the bridegroom. They were expectant. They thought they were ready, but to their surprise, half of them were not ready and did not get to join the bridegroom. The same thing can happen to us when Christ comes. We can think we're ready and in our mind be on our way to heaven. But Christ may tell us, as the groom in the story told, the unprepared bridesmaids, get away from me. I never knew you. Because like the bridesmaids with no oil, we may not really be ready to be ready. We need to ask God to reveal any sinfulness in our heart and turn away from it. Only then can we truly be ready to meet Christ when we go to meet him or when he comes again for us. I trust that today's discussion of God's Word has been helpful and served as an encouragement to not just be hearers of the Word, but doers together. Let's bring God's Word to life, to our lives. This week, the crosstalk podcast is a production of crosstalk Global equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more or to support the work of this ministry, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. our next crosstalk events are happening in Southern California and New England. Help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support this show by sharing it on social media and telling your friends. Tune in next Friday as we continue our discussion through the Gospel of Matthew. Be sure to join us.
Nathan: The checkered flag was in sight and the 57,000 people on the grandstand were cheering. Then the unthinkable happened. He ran out of gas with one lap to go. Oh, my gosh. No, no. And this. That's not metaphorically. He ran out of gas.
Kent: No, he ran out of gas.
Nathan: The crowd watched in horror as his car began to slow down and silently stop 1,000 yards from the finish line, 100 yards from the finish line. Then the driver's door opened. Blaney got out and tried to push his car across the finish line. It was agonizing to watch. He finished the race dead last. What, all 50, I'm hoping. Kent, you watch this live, right?
Kent: It's on YouTube.
Nathan: No, no, no. But that would just tell me a different side of you. I don't peg you as a. I would ask car enthusiasts. You can go to church, sing with the Praise team, Tithe all of your income. Yeah, I take some of those right now. However, there is one critical element we must all possess if we are.
Vicki: How come. How come David, me, you guys? Why ask the Lord to search? I mean, if I'm sinning, I know it, right?
Kent: Not necessarily, no. Because I think it's very easy for us to excuse our sin. I have never seen anyone who has committed a sin that did not have a good excuse, good reason to do that, to justify that, or at least to tolerate it. Some guy gets caught in adultery, you know? No, I am. If you knew my wife the way I know my wife, you'd understand why this was the only way, why I did what I did. It's her fault. It's not me. I don't feel morally responsible. When we decide to lie, we lie because we think that we'll avoid the consequences. Life will be better if we choose to tell them this truth. We justify that we feel comfortable with, that there is no sin we can commit, that we are not. It's not possible for us to find an excuse. And we need the Holy Spirit to raise our consciousness, to give us a realistic understanding of the consequences of the actions we've chosen. Because whether we feel self justified or not, we're still guilty of the punishment of that sin. Still sin.
Vicki: Oh, I don't like that.
Kent: No, we can sear our conscience. There's no problem with that. People, you know, mobsters have no problem selling dope that's going to kill people. It's their fault, not mine. They don't have to buy it. I'm not making them buy it. I'm providing a service for them.
Nathan: I heard one guy, he was selling it and he said, well, my generation's kind of messed themselves up with drugs, and I'm using this money to educate the people in my community who are younger so that they have hope. These guys are beyond hope. So I'm going to amass a fortune to help the next generation. Right. Like, oh, okay, that's some sort of twisted logic there.
Kent: There is no sin that we cannot justify.
Nathan: Well, and you look at what I think is the pastoral abuse crisis we're in the midst of. If you're following the right sources, there is not a week that goes by where there isn't a pastor indicted and arrested for horrible crimes against children and parishioners alike. And you look at this, and I think broader, it's part of God's purification process of his church. His patience is at an end and the pretenders are going to run out. But most of these people you, you talk with, and I've had encounters with abusive pastors before, maybe not. Well, no. Onto the level of some of these horrible, horrible abusers. And they can all justify it. I have been doing the Lord's work, and so he gives me a pass. You look at the Ravi Zacharias scandal, where it's almost like, yes, I. I've done so much for the Lord, he can forgive me.
Kent: I get this for myself.
Nathan: Yes, these abuses, and it's a terrible thing. There was one guy in the news recently, part of a multi international group that's under scrutiny right now. And according to him, another huge faith leader who's no longer with us had told him as long as he does not commit sexual intercourse with the women he was abusing, he would be forgiven by God and still be able to do ministry and empowered by God. Right. So you can do everything except for sexual intercourse to these women and you're good with God. Just how horrible. And, oh, but look at all the good things I've done for God and look at everything I've done.
Kent: So what's fascinating to me is that all these ten virgins looked the same. You couldn't tell from a distance the difference between them. And they all thought they were ready for the Lord's return. And they were not. And they did not enter in because they didn't have the most important thing they needed. They didn't have the holiness that was required.
Nathan: Yeah, that's crazy.
Kent: That's crazy.
Nathan: Well, and it's supposed to scare us because we need to consider ourselves.
Kent: We need to be scared. And isn't that what Jesus kept saying of the Pharisees? You know, you look good, but you're whitewashed tombs. You know, you look good to everybody, but in reality, you are far from me. It was often the religious people of the New Testament that opposed Jesus the most. Again, it's scary. A lot of people go to church. A lot of people sing in the choir and pay their tithes. Perhaps they look great like all those pastors you were mentioning. But in the end, if they are not living a life of holiness, then they will not be welcomed into glory. And John the Baptist was right. He's coming with a winnowing hook. Repent, stupid. Repent. Yeah, it was hard. I've really struggled with this. All four of the reasons Jesus says ways we need to be ready for the Lord's return, the ways that God is going to evaluate who gets in and who does not. Three of them seem really clear. And I thought this one was clear until I really looked closely and realized it wasn't that they didn't have enough oil to last until he came, which is what I've always been taught. But they didn't have whole oil.
Vicki: They didn't have what? Whole oil.
Kent: Oh, no, they didn't have oil. They didn't have. They didn't bring any oil. They didn't have oil. And if you're going to. If you're going to light the torch, stupid, you need oil. And they didn't have it. And they didn't realize that it was necessary. So it's not that they weren't prepared to wait. They were prepared to wait. But after they waited, they were still not ready. So they were very surprised when they could not get in. So it's not patience that God is saying here is important. It is the most essential ingredient you need to enter the presence of a holy God. And the reason there's no exception is because we're like Maaz, entering, coming close to a flame when we enter his presence. And if we are combustible, we will combust. That's bound up in his nature.