The time to be prepared for any event is always now. Whether that future event is a blessed thing like marriage and children, or preparing for a career through education and experience, or even preparing for a doomed day like a wartime invasion, the time for preparation is now. Yet so many in our culture live day to day, paycheck to paycheck, maxing out debt, with no stockpile of food or the savings to weather a harsh future destined to eventually come. The same lax attitude plagues the Church in that Christ promised in his Olivet Discourse that HE would leave for a time but would return “on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” [Matthew 24:30–31]. We have seen that the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24 & 25 is our LORD’s own instruction and sermon concerning his parousia, his second coming. Most of chapter 24 contained Jesus’ instruction about the signs of his coming to watch for. Now, the transition from 24:36–50 concerning the day and hour and the days of Noah into the illustration of the wise and foolish slaves takes us to the series of parables in chapter 25. The Olivet Discourse now goes from watching for signs of HIS second coming to warning of preparation for when the parousia occurs. Let’s dig into the first parable of Matthew 25, The Parable of the Ten Virgins.
