5 But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. (Matt. 25:5)
In the last few chapters, we began to look at the delay of Christ’s return. Since Jesus’ ascension, His people have been longing for Him to come back! Every day apart from Him feels like an eternity. Our hearts are lovesick for our Bridegroom to return! But in the Wise & Foolish Virgins parable, Jesus warns us that our longing for Him is not simply because of our lovesick hearts crying out for Him – it is because the days will grow so dark that his not coming sooner will almost be a stumbling block to our faith. This is why Jesus stresses the seriousness of watching for Him and, because He is so good & faithful, He warned us beforehand.
Before we look at any symbolism in the text, let me state plainly that the slumbering of the virgins in Matthew 25 is because of the delay of Christ’s return. It says this very plainly in verse 5. I don’t want to read too much into the passage because the passage speaks for itself: a long wait makes everyone exhausted. Most scholars will agree, sleep in this passage isn’t a negative thing; it’s not indicative of a “sluggish, lazy church,” but contextually shows Christ emphatically proclaiming there will be a long wait for His return. But what is happening during that wait? By pondering this question, we can apply more of this passage to our lives and better prepare for the delay.
So, now let us discuss what we see in this text based on comparable passages of scripture. First, in context with all Jesus just taught in Matthew 24, we can understand that the long delay in darkness directly impacts the faithful ones. A time of darkness is continually compared to night in scripture. And night is often and understandably seen as the time of spiritual slumber and a time when the enemy is active. We see this is John 9:4 when Jesus said,
“I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.”
Paul also said, very similarly in Romans 13:11-12,
“11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is far spent, the Day (of the Lord) is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.”
Paul also says:
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep,Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.”
If we put ourselves into the story of the wise & foolish, we are confronted with the question: how do we keep faithfully serving Jesus during one of the hardest times in history when there is no immediate “pay-off” for serving? This isn’t a question that applies only to the end-time; this is a reality that each of us will face many times in our walk with Him: how do we stay faithful when we see little return? When we must wait incredibly long to see fruit, it makes the serving all the more arduous. Will we be prepared to keep doing the next thing in faithfulness - day after day, choice after choice, yes after yes - when it seems the end will never come? Jesus has already warned in this section that many would grow cold in their love and devotion (24:12). Notice he said “grow” cold. This is not an immediate snuffing out of the light of love in our hearts – this is the neglect of continually and intentionally adding oil to our lamp. This is the, “I’ll worry about that tomorrow” thought process that turns into carelessness. Many, Jesus warns, will have their lamps slowly grow cold because the need to be diligent will be greater than ever before because the temptation to give in will be so terrible. Matthew 25 screams out the warning to us: will you keep serving and keep adding oil to your lamp though you may never see the very things you for which you pray - the very things for which you spend your energy and even your life on? The mundane will lure us all to sleep, Beloveds – it’s what we keep doing in the mundane that sustains us to the end.
In the preface of this book/blog, I shared my own experience of having to faithfully keep choosing to serve the body of Christ after 20 years of not seeing all I know is available for us. It’s difficult. It’s disheartening. It’s exhausting at times. And the truth is that the long delay of serving without seeing fruit leads us all to face varying levels of disillusionment. Disillusionment is defined as, “A feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be; the condition of being dissatisfied or defeated in expectation or hope.” As a believer who has served in the Charismatic church for many years, I can say there is a contributing factor to disillusionment that is perpetuated among us and it is this: the staunch belief that revival is coming and will fix it all. When I was a young bible school student, I was a part of a genuine revival; honestly and truly – it was a remarkable moment in time. Many of my fellow students entered ministry stateside and many went as missionaries abroad, believing that the revival we had known would spread like wild-fire and soon, the world would be aflame for Jesus. But that didn’t happen. Instead, we were met with the reality that revival doesn’t naturally follow those who believe for it. We expected the fire to fall. We expected the tangible awareness of God to accompany our preaching, our teaching, our worship – but even when it did, many unbelievers took no notice. So, disillusionment settled into our hearts and today, only a very small handful of us remain serving in ministry, and way too many no longer even serve the Lord. I know my Bible College is not alone in raising up a young generation to believe they would change the world only to find the world didn’t want to be changed nearly as often as we thought it would.
But it wasn’t just Bible College that perpetuated this disillusionment; there is not a season that goes by that I don’t hear someone in the circles I run in refer to “a billion soul harvest,” or “the great end-time revival,” or “a coming move of God.” While I genuinely pray to see such an outpouring, I believe that those moments of heaven touching earth are the exception and not the rule. They are rare gifts from God that we should delicately hold and treasure. Before you fellow revival lovers throw stones at me, please understand - I long for a great move of God and pray for His Sovereign Spirit to be poured out! But when we are constantly looking for heaven to do a massive work, we can grow disillusioned with the mundane serving that scripture truly prepares us to expect. Before you think I am “anti-revival,” just hold on: I will have a chapter that is all about preparing for a move of God. But, church - “revival” cannot be our success marker and I’m afraid for far too long, it has been. I personally know the feeling of looking for “that breakthrough” week after week in worship. In other words, we are looking for “the payoff of revival” for our serving Him. But this makes our hearts slumber all the more in the long delay. This burdens us in a way the Lord never intended. The Lord never called us to be successful servants, but faithful servants; and faithful servants have nothing to do with numbers or revival or money or “glory realms” – faithfulness is about obeying in the next step and obeying in the step after. It’s about loving and serving and listening and giving and trying and hoping in the face of darkness again and again. God is looking for faithful servants, not successful megastars.
Hear my heart, Beloveds: while the New Testament is filled with accounts of healings, miracles, and souls being added to the Kingdom, it is filled with many accounts of rejection of the message, persecution, few converts and few miracles in certain areas, and much martyrdom for preaching the message. While we love the accounts of witches burning occult books and handkerchiefs healing the sick in Acts 19, that same chapter ends with a such a severe rejection of the message that a dangerous riot takes over and Paul ends up leaving the city (Acts 20). This very same Paul who flowed in power and might is the same man who also said,
“25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; 26 in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27 in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— 28 besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:25-28).
This very same Paul who saw revival in Ephesus and Corinth said, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life” (2 Cor. 1:8).
If you have ever despaired your own life, you are not alone! Paul, the great Revivalist, had more “unsuccessful” days by modern standards than he did “successful” days. Overall, it was wearisome, it was perplexing, and it certainly was not glamourous. Paul said, “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” (2 Cor. 4:8-10).
Paul understood this truth that many of us in American have forgotten: we did not sign up for a revival when we said “Yes” to Jesus – we signed up for our own death. If we would embrace the narrow path that requires us to take up our cross, the disillusionment of long seasons without fruit would not impact our journeys nearly as much. We would actually be far better equipped to faithfully put oil in our lamps no matter the “lack of success” we see. Far more than our cry for breakthrough, healings, and miracles, may our cry be, “I want to be found faithful and steady to the end.” We still may sleep from the mundane duty of this life, but our sleep will be sweet because our eyes our fixed on our eternal prize and not on the fleeting frailty of this life. May we allow the Father to be the one who judges our fruit and live, not for pay-offs of success in this life - but may the Father Himself be our one and only great reward.
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