Jesus spoke a parable of ten young girls who were probably bridesmaids holding their burning lamps, waiting for the bridegroom to come for the wedding. So far, so good. But unexpectedly the bridegroom came late, and these girls had all dozed off. Finally when he came, five girls got up to greet him and go with him to the wedding. But the other girls noticed that the oil in their lamps was almost dry. They were not able to be in the bridal march!
If we leave all the details aside and look at the core message in the parable, it is a warning for us about not being ready for unexpected situations in life. Let us look at ourselves to see how we fare on that count. Let us broadly classify ourselves into two groups.
Group 1. We rejoice in knowing that God has graciously forgiven our sins and promised us a place in heaven. He has credited the righteousness of Jesus into our account so that this robe of righteousness covers all our nakedness. He forgives us our sins and heals all our diseases. He watches over us, protects us and provides us all we need. His plans are only for our welfare, and He makes everything to work for our good. He has prepared mansions for us in heaven where even the roads are laid with gold.
We meet every Sunday to clap and raise our hands and sing songs of praise and worship, and we keep a regular daily time for reading the Bible and praying. After all this, we live our life here just like everyone else, making money, reaching for positions, enjoying ourselves, etc. We are shocked when small or big calamities come our way and we even get disappointed with God!
Group 2. (Same as above except for the last two sentences!) But we realise how God has been gracious with us, how He has not treated us the way we deserve. We now want to live our entire life for Him, getting to know Him more, doing His will and sharing this good news with others. We want to become like Him in every way we think and behave.
Of course, this grouping is not absolute and many may fall somewhere in between. But the point is, are we growing in our closeness with the Lord? Are we becoming transformed from faith to faith and glory to glory? Then we will also be become more able to face the troubles that come our way. That is like having more oil in our lamps to deal with unexpected delays.
How sad it will be if we pat ourselves saying we are believers and then finally get rejected! The reason for this in some cases may be that we were only imagining that we were believers. Another reason could be that as believers we took things for granted and did nothing to work out our salvation. In both cases, there was no endurance.
In the parable of the sower, the seed was the same but the grounds were different. The same Saviour and Master, but different approaches we take with regards to our salvation. Let us stand before God now and see where we are, instead of getting a shock at the end. The takeaway passage is in 2Cor.5:14,15.