Sermon On Ten Virgins

Ready When He Arrives: A Sermon On The Ten Virgins

Matthew 25:1-13 (Csb)

Opening: The Question That Presses On Every Heart

There is a question that quietly presses itself against every human life, whether we acknowledge it or not. It is not a question about what we have accomplished, or how many people know our name, or even how many years we have lived. The question is simply this: Are you ready?

Jesus asked it through a story. He asked it with urgency, with tenderness, and with the kind of honesty that only a true friend will offer. He told a parable about ten young women waiting for a wedding, and before the story is finished, the reader understands that the real subject is not a wedding in ancient Palestine. The real subject is the return of Jesus Christ, and whether those who bear the name of his people will be found ready when he comes.

Open your Bible to Matthew 25, beginning at verse 1. This is the word of God.

"At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the groom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they didn't take any oil with them; but the wise ones took oil in their flasks with their lamps. When the groom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight there was a shout: 'Here's the groom! Come out to meet him.' Then all the virgins got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, because our lamps are going out.' The wise ones answered, 'No, there won't be enough for us and you. Go instead to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.' When they had gone to buy some, the groom arrived. Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. Later the rest of the virgins also came and said, 'Master, master, open the door for us!' He answered, 'Truly I tell you, I don't know you!' Therefore be alert, because you don't know either the day or the hour."

This is the word of the Lord.

Setting The Scene: What The Parable Is Doing

Before we press into the meaning, we need to understand where this parable sits in the larger story of Matthew's Gospel. Jesus is in the final week of his earthly ministry. He has entered Jerusalem, cleansed the temple, and engaged the religious leaders in a series of confrontations. He has just delivered the Olivet Discourse in chapters 24 and 25, a sustained teaching about the end of the age and his own return. The parable of the ten virgins is not a standalone curiosity. It is the second of three parables Jesus tells in rapid succession, each one pressing the same urgent point: his return is certain, its timing is unknown, and the only wise response is faithful readiness.

The setting of the parable would have been immediately recognizable to Jesus's original audience. Wedding celebrations in the ancient world often stretched across multiple days. The bridegroom would come to escort the bride and her attendants to the wedding feast, and the bridesmaids, here called virgins, were expected to be ready to join the procession whenever he arrived. Their lamps were not decorative. They were necessary for the procession, and without them, a bridesmaid could not participate in the celebration.

Ten young women are waiting. They all have lamps. They all intend to meet the groom. They all fall asleep when the night grows long. On the surface, they look identical. But when the midnight cry comes and the lamps must be trimmed and lit, a difference that was invisible before becomes decisive.

The Central Claim: Readiness Is Not Pretense, It Is Substance

Here is what the parable is teaching us. Readiness for the coming of Christ is not a matter of outward appearance or religious association. It is a matter of genuine, inward, sustaining faith. The five foolish virgins were not wicked women. They were not enemies of the groom. They wanted to be at the wedding. They had lamps. They showed up. But they had no oil, and when the moment of reckoning came, their lamps went out.

The oil in this parable has been interpreted in many ways across the centuries of Christian preaching. We should be careful not to press the details of a parable beyond what the parable itself will bear. What is clear from the text is that the oil represents something that cannot be borrowed, cannot be transferred at the last moment, and must be prepared for in advance. It is the difference between those who were ready and those who were not. Whether we understand it as saving faith, the indwelling Holy Spirit, or the genuine spiritual life that sustains a soul over time, the point is the same. There is a reality of relationship with Christ that either is present or is not, and no amount of last-minute scrambling can substitute for it.

The five wise virgins were not selfish when they refused to share their oil. They were honest. Some things cannot be shared. A person cannot give another person their faith. A parent cannot transfer their relationship with Christ to a child. A church cannot deposit its spiritual life into a member who has never genuinely surrendered to the Lord. Each person must come to the groom on their own terms, with their own oil, prepared in their own heart.

The Delay And The Danger Of Presumption

Notice carefully what the parable says about the delay. The groom was delayed, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. This is not a condemnation of sleep. The wise virgins also slept. The parable is not teaching us that we must maintain a state of anxious, sleepless vigilance. It is teaching us something far more practical. The danger is not in resting during the long wait. The danger is in presuming that the wait will never end, that the groom will never come, and that we can always prepare later.

The foolish virgins did not plan to be unprepared. They simply did not plan at all. They assumed the situation would somehow resolve itself. When the midnight cry came, they discovered that assumption was fatal.

This is the pastoral warning that runs through the entire parable. The long delay of Christ's return is not evidence that he is not coming. It is not permission to live as though this world is all there is. The apostle Peter addressed this directly in his second letter, writing that the Lord is not slow about his promise, as some understand slowness, but is patient toward us, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance. The delay is grace. But grace presumed upon becomes a snare.

The Shut Door: Sobering, Not Cruel

When the groom arrives and the five wise virgins enter the feast, the door is shut. When the five foolish virgins return from their errand and knock, the groom says something that should stop every casual reader cold. He says, "I don't know you."

This is not cruelty. This is the most serious statement in the parable, and it deserves to be heard without softening. The groom does not say, "You were too late." He says, "I don't know you." The issue is not merely timing. The issue is relationship. The five foolish virgins did not lack a lamp. They lacked a genuine connection to the one they claimed to be waiting for.

Jesus has said similar things elsewhere in Matthew's Gospel. In chapter 7 he warns that not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven. The question is not whether we use the right words or attend the right gatherings or carry the right lamp. The question is whether we know him, and whether he knows us.

This is not a word of despair for the seeker. It is a word of clarity. The door that is shut at the end is shut because the feast has begun, and those who prepared have entered. The invitation to prepare is still open today. The groom has not yet arrived. The midnight cry has not yet sounded. This is the moment of preparation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the oil that fills the lamp.

Application: What Watchful Readiness Looks Like

So what does it mean to be ready? The parable does not leave us with a vague spiritual feeling. It leaves us with a command. "Be alert," Jesus says, "because you don't know either the day or the hour."

Being alert does not mean living in anxious dread. It means living with intentional, daily attention to the state of your soul and the direction of your life. It means asking honestly whether your faith is genuine or merely habitual. It means not postponing the surrender that you know the Spirit has been calling you toward. It means nurturing your relationship with Christ through prayer, through the word, through the fellowship of the church, and through the practice of obedience, not because these things earn your way into the feast, but because they are the evidence of a lamp that is genuinely burning.

For the believer who has walked with Christ for years, this parable is a call to persevere. The night is long. The wait has been longer than many expected. Do not let the length of the wait convince you to set down your lamp. Keep the oil replenished. Stay close to the one you are waiting for.

For the person who has been near the church, who has carried the lamp of religious association without the oil of genuine faith, this parable is a gracious warning delivered while the door is still open. The groom has not yet come. Today is the day to seek him, to repent of sin, and to place your trust not in your own preparation but in the one who died and rose again so that you could enter the feast.

Conclusion: The Groom Is Coming

The parable ends with a command, not a comfort. But the command itself is a form of grace. Jesus does not tell this story to frighten us into despair. He tells it because he wants us to be ready. He tells it because he is coming, and he wants us to be among those who go in with him to the wedding banquet.

The groom is coming. The night is long, but it will not last forever. The question is not whether he will arrive. The question is whether, when the midnight cry sounds and the lamps are trimmed and the procession begins, you will be found among those who are ready.

May God grant us the grace to be ready. Not because we have earned our place at the table, but because we have trusted the one who prepared a place for us.

Sources Consulted

France, R. T. The Gospel of Matthew. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Eerdmans, 2007.

Blomberg, Craig L. Interpreting the Parables. Second edition. InterVarsity Press, 2012.

Keener, Craig S. A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Eerdmans, 1999.

Hagner, Donald A. Matthew 14-28. Word Biblical Commentary. Word Books, 1995.

Carson, D. A. "Matthew." The Expositor's Bible Commentary. Volume 9. Zondervan, 2010.