August 25, 2013
Scripture:
Scripture:
Ministry:
Hymn 41 - The Heavenly bridegroom soon will come
Prayer
Matthew 25:1-13
Our parable today is another one about the kingdom of heaven. I’m not sure what the wedding customs were back then, but at this wedding, the guests waited for the bridegroom to come before they went into the wedding. In the parable, there were ten people waiting for the bridegroom to come.
Just looking at these virgins, you probably couldn’t tell the difference between the two groups. Today there are those that call themselves Christians, but aren’t. They think that you become a Christian by going to a Christian church or by doing good works. These people aren’t Christians, because they have not taken the Lord as their Saviour. These people are like the five virgins who had no oil in their lamps. Jesus called those virgins foolish. The oil in the lamp is a picture of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. When we are saved, we born again by the Spirit.
In verse 5, we find out that everyone had fallen asleep. After the time of the apostles, the Gospel went out as a message that “judgment is coming,” instead of “the Lord is coming.” It wasn’t until about 200 years ago that this changed. The bridegroom arrived and the foolish realized they needed oil; they asked the other virgins, but they told them to buy their own oil. By the time they got back, it was too late; they were shut out of the wedding.
It is so important to be ready for the coming of the Lord, because if you are not ready you will be shut out. It important to be saved, because you don’t know when the Lord coming back. I trust each one here is saved.
Acts 2:1-13
This passage is very important. The sending of the Holy Spirit is the most marvellous event in scripture after the death and resurrection of our Lord. And after salvation, the most important truth in scripture is the truth that these believers were baptized with the Holy Spirit.
The day of Pentecost had fully come. God had given all of the Jewish feasts to Moses back in Leviticus, among which was the feast of Pentecost. The Lord—our Passover—was crucified at the feast of Passover, despite efforts to the contrary. The day of Passover had fully come that day. Now here in Acts they weren’t just celebrating the type of the feast of Pentecost; it had fully come, right on time. Suddenly—while all these believers were together in one accord—the Holy Spirit came upon them.
This coming of the Spirit caused new things to happen: the disciples spoke in languages that they had never learned, they had a new boldness, and people were getting saved (which didn’t even happen in the gospels). This was the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It only happened once, here on the day of Pentecost. John 1:29-34. John the Baptist said that Jesus would baptize people with the Holy Spirit, but it wasn’t until Jesus was in Heaven that this full baptism happened and He sent the third person of the Trinity down to fill the believers.
We don’t get the doctrine of what happened here until Paul explains it in the epistles. All the believers that day were baptized into one body by the Holy Spirit, and connected to their Head (the Lord Jesus Christ) in Heaven, and to each other. We are one with every other believer in the world. It is said that Christ got a body and God got a house that day. That body was totally visible in one spot at first, for it was only 120 persons. Those 120 people were Christ’s body. Now there are too many members of that body to see all at once. We may not be in one accord, but all believers are part of the Lord’s body. The 3,000 people that were saved that day were added to the Lord and His body.
This fact of the One Body is one of the “mysteries” (things not shown before the church age) that were revealed to the apostles.1 Corinthians 10:15-17. The emblems of the Lord’s supper represent His physical body and blood, but they also represent the one body; they show that we are connected with each and every saint in the world.
Hymn 341 – Jesus bids us shine
Prayer