Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 1)
So, Jesus speaks to us today in His Ultimate Gospel and
says,
“And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who
were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.”
This is how the Last Day is going down. You will be tempted
to your maximum, because the devil doesn’t care if you have a way of escape or
not, unlike what God promises in 1 Cor. 10:13. However, they’re not going to be
the obvious temptations. There’s not going to be an apparent enemy who is
coming to make us all speak a different language with guns. There’s not going
to be combat boots knocking on doors. No one is going to force you to do
anything. You will have to choose it.
The evil of the Last Day will look fair and feel foul, if
you catch my meaning. You will be presented with angels of light as described
in 2 Cor. 11:14. There will be an offer you can’t refuse, that you won’t want
to refuse, and you will be led to darkness.
For this is how the Last Day is going down. You will be
holed up in the comfort of your home. You will hear your battle cry and you
will hear your “brothers” shouting for you to hold the line and you will rush
out to their side.
Your “movement” will send for you pleading that they are in
need for you to write papers and give a speech for the cause, because this time
we have “them” on the run and you can make all the difference. People just need
to know what you know, so get out there and make a difference.
All of the loves of your life will come and beg for
attention and will appeal to every fiber of your being. And you will go to
them, because they are your loves and love makes the world go round. Your sins
and your lusts will be on display as you’ve never experienced them before,
because they will have such power “as has not been since the beginning of
the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Mt 24:21).
But they will not be your “brothers”, your “comrades”, or
anything Good. They will be demons, demons of light pretending to be the things
you love and the people you love. They will be pulling you away with lies,
because during all this there will be another pull: the Church’s bells will
also be ringing.
This is the temptation that the five “foolish” virgins place
upon the five wise. We hear it and pass it off as just a weird thing. Why
couldn’t they spare some oil? What is the big deal? That’s not very Christian
of them.
You also say things like: Adam and Eve just ate some fruit,
so what? Moses only hit a Rock, why not let him into the Promised Land. All the
inhabitants of the land of Israel just want Israel wiped off the earth. At this
point, what difference does it make?
Well, it makes a difference to God. Why? Because its not
about fruit, or domination, or oil. Its about fear, love, and trust. Yes the
Church bells will be ringing and the choice will be yours. To stay or to leave.
The virgins faced the same choice. To stay or to leave. 5 stayed. 5 left.
What I have so far been describing is the havoc your sins
wreak upon the Faith God has given you. This is the danger you are in, not just
on the Last Day which is coming soon, but each day until then. Everyday God’s
Church bells are ringing. Everyday your false idols and secret sins turn you
against God and place you on the wrong side of the “shut door”.
For there is a false church on that wrong side, of which
your sins and idols are a part. It calls out, has its own service times, and
its own bells. It is a church of unthinking and adultery (Pro 7, 9:13-18). It
is an exact mirror of God’s Church, just as your temptations seem to be
harmless, so too do the doctrines of this Anti-church.
She calls out. She has a “gospel”. She has her “sacraments”.
You hear and see and are tempted. In your sin, your “falling away from the
faith” is nearer to you now than when you first believed. Romans 13:11
But because the Bridegroom is coming and not delaying, “now
it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than
when we first believed” (Rom 13:11). We have fallen asleep. All ten virgins
fell asleep. The cry that wakes everyone up, the trumpet call, is the
proclamation of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Sin and death put us to sleep, both spiritually and
physically. They so corrupt and wear out our bodies that they finally succumb
to sickness and death. Physically, you have lost the battle against your sin
and your death will be proof of that.
On the spiritual side, there should be no question of your
loss, for that fight is “against principalities, against powers, against the
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places” (Eph 6:12). All things we not only can’t see, but can’t reach as
well.
Thus, the Bridegroom comes. But He comes in darkness, because
we are in darkness. He comes in the night because we are asleep. He comes to a cemetery
as the life of the party and the lamps follow Him. Why? Because He is the Lamp
and the Light.
He must come, because we cannot. He must set up, He must
hand out, and He must give Light because we are dead on arrival. We cannot
choose to wake up. We cannot choose to hear. We cannot choose to have lamps,
full or empty.
The Anti-Church and the one, true Church cry out
“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here” (Pro 9:4, 16). The Church calls them
not simple as in stupid, but simple as in can not think, as in something is
jamming your brain signals, such that you are unable to choose the good you
want to do and instead choose the bad you don’t want to do (Rom 7:19).
The Anti-Church means it as one who practices the evil and
premeditates it. “Whoever numbers himself with those who can not think and
loves it and embraces it”. Such that the difference between the two becomes
glaring. For when the one, true Church speaks, she says with Her Lord, “Come,
eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Forsake
foolishness and live, And go in the way of understanding” (Pro 9:5-6).
But the Anti-Church says “Stolen water is sweet,
And bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Pro 9:17).
Christ’s one true religion, found in His Church, offers
everything to the Hearer of the Gospel. It is already purchased, already
prepared. there is no “line to hold”, no “scathing review to write”, and no
“what if”.
The Lamps that were handed out needed no refills and no maintenance.
They were good enough for the job at hand, which was to sit and wait. In other
words, stay and see what the Lord God will accomplish.
Sin, death, and the devil have nothing original or prepared
to offer. You must bring it on your own. You must pull yourself up by your
bootstraps and do your best. Everything in the false church camp has been
stolen and corrupted to suit the needs and lies of him who was a liar from the
beginning.
In the one, true Church, God has promised! Christ prepares
it! there on high our welcome waits (LSB 671). It does not wait for us to
choose it, but it waits for us to get there. It is kept and preserved so that
no matter which path our life takes us, that heavenly welcome remains fixed.
We are saved the last trip to the dealers to prepare for the
coming disaster. Our food is purchased in Body and Blood. Our garments are
purchased in water and Word. Our lamps are fully furnished for our Lamb is our
Lamp (Rev 21:23).
Jesus is the Lamp that shines in the darkness among those
who dwell in the darkness of sin’s graveyard. The Lamp was never in danger of
going out, but satan has so tricked us that we think it will, because
everything of this world goes out, and if Jesus has a Body then it too will wear
out on us, so he lies.
But this is not so. this is the importance of the trumpet
call being a resurrection call. For it is in the Resurrection that we see just
what a body from God can do. It can not only bear all the suffering of the
world, paying for sin and death for all time, but it can rise again to new life,
in Christ.
Christ’s is a Lamp, a Body that does not wear out, does not
need soldiers to fight for it, and does not need a movement to advance it.
God’s Kingdom comes without our prayers. God’s will is done without our
prayers. God’s Name is hallowed without us. Not because we are worthless, but
because we are dead in sin.
So the resurrection trumpet raises, not just the Bridegroom,
but all flesh as well. it blows such a note that all flesh obeys and those who
were asleep awake again. And the note it blows is not B-flat, but “Christ
Crucified for sinners”.
Come, the Crucified Bridegroom says, come all who are unable
to think because of sin corrupting you to death and I will give you the Truth
and the Light. Come all who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death and I
will give you the Way of Life. For free. Already prepared. Already installed.
No payments or subscription required, standard rules apply, see terms of service
for details.
No, not that. None of that. that is the lie. The lie that
you have your end of the deal to uphold. That you have one last push to give,
so dig deep.
The Truth is that salvation is not only nearer to you now
than it was yesterday, but it is at your ear drums, at your fingertips, on the
tip of your nose, the tip of your tongue, right in front of your face. This is
how easy the Last Day will be for the Christian. He has only to come to Church,
as usual, wait for God in his seat, as usual, and believe that Christ is here
to serve him His salvation.
That’s it. That is how carefully and fully and wonderfully prepared
your Crucified God has made you (Ps 139:14). He has paid for front row seats,
not to the darkness, but to His glorious light of the forgiveness of sins. And
that is the point of Faith. That you believe your sins are forgiven. Both what
you have done and what you have left undone.
For the Christian with the Wisdom of God, the world has
nothing to offer beyond what God places in front of him. And at the end, what
God places in front of you will be the same thing He puts in front of you this
day: the Body and Blood of His Son, given and shed for you. There is no other
place to be and no other party to attend.
The Table and the Stage is set. Jesus is coming soon. Christ
has been raised from the dead. You have been baptized into His death and
resurrection, such that you may consider yourself dead to sin, the Law, and any
unfinished business and alive towards God in Christ Jesus, present and
accounted for today, for you.
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