Five Foolish Virgins and Two Became Wise

(Message delivered by Pastor at the True Life Church 10.30 am Service, Oct 24, 04)

Text: Matt. 25:1-13
Whenever Jesus’ Second Coming is mentioned He always requires of us utmost vigilance, but on our part we are careless and irresponsible. In II Peter 3, Peter shows we are blameworthy for Jesus does not come because He is longsuffering for our sakes, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (v.9).

In this passage of Scripture according to Matt. 25:1-13 where 10 virgins are mentioned, 5 are wise and 5 are foolish. Will that be the sorry condition of our Church?

Let me discuss from my observations of the 5 foolish virgins.

1. The first foolish virgin is made up of two atheist university students boarding in the hostel run by a Filipino lady pastor. When a big earthquake struck Manila and the house seemed toppling over, the two atheist students fell on their knees and cried, “O God save us.” This was no different from us including me during the last days of the Japanese war when the Japanese were about to conquer the city. Their mortar shells fell thick and fast in my second Uncle’s country hideout which was in Toa Payoh and two of his friends staying there with us were seriously hit. We called on God to spare us but when Singapore fell the next day and there was no more shelling our cries to God also stopped. There was no difference between us and the Filipino atheist university students.

2. The second foolish virgin was a man. Although he claimed to be an agnostic, my father gave him the Gospel, i.e. Jesus was the Son of God who died to pay the penalty of our sins. My father’s friend was also an enthusiast in “feng shui” that is geomancy. This resulted in his grotesque arrangement of furniture for his office.

As he grew older he was gripped by the fear of death. He called me to his bedside asking me to baptise him. He confessed his sins to God and when he died he died peacefully. I had the honour to bury him. He was a foolish virgin who had become a wise virgin.

3. The third foolish virgin was another man, a distant relative of mine. He boasted he was a free thinker and kept hopping from church to church. Someone remarked when he died no pastor would bury him.

It happened there was one who joined the Methodist Church in Kuala Lumpur like my distant relative. There was a massacre of the Chinese in Malaysia which caused him to take shelter in Singapore. It happened this Methodist Church hopper died in Singapore. No Methodist pastor would bury him. Somehow they came to my house to seek my help. When I came to the Chinese Undertaker the open coffin with the stinking corpse was immediately shut up and I said in my heart who could stand a rotten fish any longer. Instead I seemed to be the foolish virgin!

4. The fourth foolish virgin was a Communist officer in the University in Guangzhou. He later became a wise virgin. He came as a tourist to Singapore but he was looking for a job. I gave him a place to stay in Beulah House. As he could get no job I gave him a Bible which he read for 40 days. One night he came to see me that he wanted to be a Christian. He even said he was now born again. Later I baptised him. When he returned to Guangzhou he joined an open church.

But he came to Singapore again, this time with his wife. His wife found a temporary job in our Bookroom. The time came when they had to return to China by a noonday flight. His wife requested baptism the very morning. Elder Mahadevan rushed to my help when I got both husband and wife to join the College worship. When the couple got home they brought the gospel to their mother in Harbin who believed. Many who believed in Singapore got their loved ones converted. That is why there are 60 million Christians in China.

5. The fifth foolish virgin are two Christian politicians. The first one had to visit Hindu and Sikh temples and had to allow their foreheads be marked by a dot. This pricked his conscience and he resigned but God gave him a big job elsewhere. Another Christian politician succeeded him but he did not mind those religious submissions.

As for the wise virgins I Thess. 4:13-18 tells us of our happy rapture (caught up to heaven) with Him when He comes again to save us from this burning earth. Where will you be?

**********

THE GOSPEL OF LIFE: Chapter VII

John 7:25-39
“Never Man Spake Like This Man”

What a testimony by those officers sent by the chief priests and Pharisees to arrest our Lord. As we’ve noted, He taught not like one of the sterile one-trackmind Jewish lawyers. He taught with power and authority. When He spoke He stirred the heart strings, either to opposition, or submission. He spoke the Truth which He said would make a man free.

No prophet or philosopher spoke like Jesus Christ. On one hand the prophet spoke according to the Spirit of prophecy given him, nothing more. On the other, the philosopher gave whatever findings he had from long meditation. Christ spoke as the Word of God. He was God, speaking on behalf of the Father. Repeatedly he declared He did not come of His own, but the Father had sent Him. When threatened by His enemy He spoke enigmatically of His return to Him that sent Him. Herein lies the authority and power of His speech.

Not only did Christ declare His Heavenly credentials, He offered salvation to those who were lost, water to the thirsty that would well up from within the believer rivers of living water. Christ offered life to a dying world, but the condition was submission to the Son. He foretold the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost who would hereafter energise the Church. The philosopher, West or East, has never offered life to a dying world.

Neither could the Jews, who went about to establish their own righteousness in a vain keeping of the law. But Christ had come to do what Moses could not. O that the Jews today would come to Jesus Christ their Messiah. In our witnessing let us not forget that the Gospel should be given, in fact, first to the Jews. Tell your Jewish friend about Jesus.

John 7: 40-53
“And ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free” (Jn. 8:32)

Jesus is the Truth. Our knowledge of Him determines our welfare. The types of people that come in contact with our Lord may be seen in that great crowd of people who gathered in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles.

1. There are the bigots – the Pharisees and chief priests, scribes and lawyers, members of the Sanhedrin, so set in their prejudices that they are sworn to killing Jesus. Are you also against Christ with that hatred?

2. There are those with a head knowledge of Scripture who could give a right answer in prophecy. They could identify the Christ to be of the seed of David and to come out of David’s city – Bethlehem, but they did not take the trouble to find out from where Jesus of Nazareth actually came. Like a former professor of history at the University of Singapore who mistakenly wrote Christ was born in Nazareth (discovered by a deacon of Life Church who kindly wrote him, and for which he was ever grateful) these Jews arbitrarily concluded Jesus was a Galilean (by birth). Theoretical knowledge without verification can be heretical knowledge. Do you know of Christ in theory only?

3. There were those who were temporarily impressed, like the stony ground into which the seed was sown brought forth, but with shallow results. These were those Jews impressed by Jesus’ learning, those officers who were sent to arrest Jesus but were thrown back by His charisma. Are you of this type?

4. There are those who are born again like Nicodemus (v. 50), who believed through the miracles Jesus had done that He was come from God. Many devout Jews who came from other parts of the world to the Feast (v. 31), like Nicodemus, recognised the Truth, that Jesus was indeed the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. These were believing Jews who said, “Of a truth this is the Prophet” meaning to say, the one Moses had foretold in Deut. 18:15,18. If you so believe, then the Truth will make you free, free from the bondage of the sin of wilful ignorance. Those who know Christ walk in the light. Those who believe not are bound in darkness.

Filipino & Indonesian Bible Study Groups