The contrast between the military leadership of General George Washington and General Benedict Arnold can be visualized, I believe, like an X.
Washington started out rough with a lot of military failures, but over time, he experienced many victories and eventually became one of America’s greatest generals and the father of our country.
Arnold, however, started out great. He exhibited remarkable courage and military genius. In many ways, he saved our country at the beginning of the war. However, through personal offenses and eventual betrayal, he became known as our nation’s notorious traitor.
Two generals, two very different outcomes. Obviously, there are many factors that influenced the trajectory of these two careers. But one of the primary factors, I believe, is what they did in delay. Both men experienced significant delays and disappointments.
For example, Washington was perpetually waiting on Congress to provide him the men and the means to conduct the war that they had commissioned him to fight. In 1776, Washington lamented to John Hancock,
“To have the eyes of the whole continent fixed with anxious expectation of hearing of some great event and to be constrained in every military operation for want of the necessary means of carrying it on.”
Nowhere was this more pronounced than in the winter at Valley Forge, where Washington’s men were freezing to death without proper clothing, eating soup made up of — in their words — “burnt leaves and dirt” while they waited for supplies. And yet, Washington’s resolve and character seemed to grow stronger through these disappointments and delays.
Arnold, however, processed delay very differently. Dr. James Thacher, a military surgeon who treated Arnold after he was shot at the Battle of Bemis Heights, wrote of Arnold in his journal the day after he treated Arnold,
“He is very…impatient under his misfortunes.”
I think someone could write that about me, many of us. He is very impatient under his misfortunes.
When Arnold offended his superiors and was waiting to be restored as a major general, he did not hear news for many months. Nathaniel Philbrick describes what happened in Arnold’s heart during the delay:
“As anyone who has waited for a long-anticipated letter knows, delays of this kind are not good for the soul. The anger and outrage that once fueled Arnold’s bravery in battle turned inward as his hatred of Gates…became an all-consuming passion.”
Gates was his senior officer. This is when one man described Arnold as a candle burning in on itself. Eventually, he would burn in on the nation he once loved.
Delay makes room for faithlessness or faithfulness to grow. One or the other will always increase in delay. So let’s pray that we would hear what Jesus has to say to us today about delay.
Father, you know my heart better than I know my heart. I hate delays. I don’t like to wait. I think, as Americans, impatience is in the air we breathe. We love fast food and same-day delivery. We love microwave miracles. Crockpot miracles, not so much. Yet delay seems to be one of your favorite tools to work your will, to expose and transform our hearts. So help us today as we listen to the words of Jesus to know how to prepare for delay, and then what to do in delay. We’re trusting you. We’re looking to you. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.
If you’re just jumping in today, we are journeying through the Gospel of Matthew. We just finished Matthew 24 last week, and we start Matthew 25 this week.
Matthew 24 and 25 together form Jesus’s last major sermon. The whole book of Matthew alternates between show and tell, sermon and lifestyle/actions. We’re in the middle of this sermon that Jesus is preaching to his disciples on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem.
The teaching is prompted by the disciples’ two questions: First, in 24:3,
“When will these things be?”
These things meaning the destruction of the temple that Jesus just predicted. The second question is,
“What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Jesus answered these two questions in Matthew 24.
Now in Matthew 25, he is pressing home the application with three parables explaining what we are to do to prepare for and live in a season of delay, prior to his coming. His application today, you will notice, is similar to what he said at the end of chapter 24, but could be summarized in these three parables this way:
1. Prepare wisely.
In delay, we are called to prepare wisely.
That’s the message we’re going to look at today: the parable of the ten virgins in verses one through 13.
2. Invest courageously.
Second, in delay, we are called to invest courageously (the parable of the talents, next week).
3. Love sacrificially.
Then (3), in delay, we are called to love sacrificially: the parable of the sheep and the goats, which is often called a parable, but is really a simile. We’re going to call it a parable because we’re talking about three parables, even though we’re really only talking about two parables and a simile.
Let’s focus first on the parable of the 10 virgins. Here, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a wedding procession. 10 virgins (think young women, not married) are planning to escort the bride from her father’s house to the bridegroom’s house in a procession at night when the bridegroom arrives. Five of the virgins are described as wise because they bring extra oil. Five of the virgins are described as foolish, no extra oil.
Maybe today’s correlation would be five came with their phones charged, extra battery, lights shining as they go down the street. Five came having watched a lot of YouTube videos with their battery drained. I don’t know, something like that.
The crisis comes in the form of delay. You’ll see it in verse 5:
“As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept” (Matthew 25:5).
So they’re waiting. Their lamps are burning. They’re using up oil. At midnight, the cry can be heard that the bridegroom has arrived. Time to step up. Verse 7,
“Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you’” (Matthew 25:7-12).
The characters in this parable are pretty easy to identify. The bridegroom is Jesus. The ten virgins are professing Christians. Five foolish virgins are unprepared: nominal Christians, cultural Christians, fake Christians. The five wise are prepared (actual Christians).
Jesus issues a clear command in verse 13 to drive home his point:
“Watch therefore, [like he’s calling us to an alertness. Why?] for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13).
The uncertainty of the delay (“you know neither the day nor the hour”) demands a certain readiness, a preparedness. It also implies that when you have delay, you have space to fill, and something is going to fill that space.
Delay makes room for faithlessness or faithfulness to grow. One or the other will fill that space. So if we’re going to prepare wisely for delay, if we’re going to hear Jesus’s command to watch/to be ready, we must understand what happens in delay.
Okay, so let’s start with the negative: faithlessness. How does faithlessness grow in delay? Couple suggestions:
1. Delay makes space for presumption.
We saw this last week at the end of the message, 24:48.
“But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards…” (Matthew 24:48-49).
The point there is delay made space, and that servant filled that space with his own agenda. Like, “I want to satisfy my sensual cravings. I want to take advantage of my fellow servants.” That’s presumption. “If he’s going to delay, I’m taking charge. If he is going to give me a desire, I am going to satisfy it. It’s his fault for delaying, so I’m going to do what I want to do.” That’s the presumption that can fill the space of delay.
Peter, in 2 Peter, gives this exact scenario when he warns of people who follow their own sinful desires, and then he directly connects it (verse 4, next verse, 2 Peter 3:4):
“They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation’” (2 Peter 3:4).
“He’s not coming, so I’m taking over. I’m going to do what I want to do with my life as if it’s my life.”
Delay makes space for presumption.
2. Delay makes space for codependency.
When I say codependency, I’m not referring to anything technical here. I simply mean an unhealthy dependence on people. Delay makes space for an unhealthy dependence on people.
Now, some people, when they read this parable, accuse the five wise virgins of being selfish. “Why didn’t they share their oil with the unprepared virgins?” It’s a good question. And Jesus, in two weeks, is going to talk about selflessness and sacrificially loving people. But here, the point is different.
His point here is that salvation is non-transferable. You can’t borrow saving grace. You can’t go through your life during this time of delay and assume, “Hey, I have other things to focus on. I’m going to have some fun. But you know Mary, she’s super spiritual. She’s got us covered.” It just doesn’t work that way. “Have you seen her big purse full of grace? We’ll just leech off of her.” No, salvation doesn’t work that way.
I think this is a real danger for those of you who have grown up in a Christian home, because it’s very easy for a husband to try to leech off his wife’s godliness. Or a wife to kind of hook up an IV to her husband’s rock-solid faith. Or kids to assume, “My mom is so spiritual, she’s got us all covered with spirituality. We can just feed on her spirituality. I don’t need to personally repent and seek God with all my heart. She’s got it covered.”
Jesus, in this illustration, is warning us that this is not wise preparation, even though there is some truth to that lie. Most lies have a bit of truth.
Think of the people who brought their friend to Jesus and lowered him through the roof, right? Jesus looked at them and saw their faith. That’s a beautiful story about how there are times when you and I need, desperately need help. We are not in this alone.
This is why we gather as a church. This is why we know that biblical Christians cannot imagine going through the Christian life alone. That’s not real Christianity. There is a truth that we need each other. Christianity is not private, but it is personal. It is personal.
Paul illustrates where a heart should be in this in Romans 9:1-3 when he says,
“I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:1-3).
He’s saying there that “I love my fellow Jews so much that if I could personally go to hell to ensure that they go to heaven, I would do it.” Whoo, that’s love! But here’s the point— By the way, I think every parent here who has a wayward child understands that prayer: “If I could go to hell to ensure my child would go to heaven, I would do it.”
But Paul also, in saying that, is illustrating the fact that he can’t. There’s only one savior, and he’s not it. He can’t save his fellow Jewish people by his sincere desire or willingness to lose something for their gain. He can’t. We all need to be ready to bring anyone to Jesus, but we ultimately have to acknowledge, as Paul says in Romans 14:12,
“So then each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12).
It’s not private. It is personal. Look at verse 12 at the end: “I do not know you.” That’s very personal. Does he know you? Not your mom, not your praying grandmother. Does he know you? Don’t let delay breed unhealthy dependence on other people.
Then finally, delay can make space for self-reliance. Self-reliance. Like King Saul, who waited so patiently for seven days for Samuel to arrive to offer up a sacrifice before they went into battle. When Samuel didn’t come after seven days, King Saul offered the sacrifice himself (which he was not qualified to do), and immediately Samuel arrived.
He basically made this point: delay reveals your heart. He calls Saul’s actions foolish in 1 Samuel 13, and then verse 14:
“But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you” (1 Samuel 13:14).
Delay is a magnifying glass revealing our hearts.
I know I’ve shared this with you in the past, and I’m going to keep sharing it with you because I keep going back to it and the Lord speaks to me every time. Jack Miller talked about delay in a letter to a missionary:
“Actually, delays are great, because they often reveal the power of indwelling sin. We are flying high, then comes a postponement of our hopes, and we end up with an irritable spirit which shows an alarming degree of self-independence and reliance on human capacities. What we fail to see is that reliance on people, their capabilities, their keeping their promises, is a demonic faith, a cooperation in heart with the powers of darkness. We join the enemy, Satan, when we fail to rely on the promises of God to move on our behalf. In brief, our impatience often has a Devilish earthly side to it, which reveals that we have unconsciously forgotten that trusting Christ is more important than doing things for Christ.”
He is not saying that we shouldn’t keep our promises or that we should in no way rely on people. But he is saying that when we feel that surge of impatience and frustration and resentment toward people who did not come through for us, we are revealing that we are depending on them more than we are depending on him. That is not where we place our faith, so delay will reveal our reliance on human capacity.
That’s the negative. Let’s talk about the positive.
How does faithfulness grow in delay? A couple suggestions.
1. Keep transferring our trust from self to our Father.
In his great book, Waiting Isn’t a Waste, Mark Vroegop offers this definition of waiting on God:
“Waiting on God is living on what I know to be true about God when I don’t know what’s true about my life.”
Waiting on God is living on what I know to be true about God (his promises through Jesus) when I don’t know what’s true about my life. It does seem like God delights to take us through seasons of uncertainty, inviting us to transfer our trust from ourselves to him.
This has been a big part of our journey the last five years. He’s saying to us, “Will you trust me before you know the answer, before you have all your questions answered, before this situation is resolved, in the middle of the uncertainty, in the middle of the delay?” That is a faith-stretching experience. Frustrating, yes. Faith-stretching.
Earlier this year in my Bible reading, I was captivated by Isaiah 28. Isaiah warns us not to make lies our refuge. Then he says in verse 16, Isaiah 28:16,
“…therefore thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste’” (Isaiah 28:16).
That Hebrew word “haste” is panic or reckless reactivity. Think about the unprepared virgins, in the night, frantically knocking on house after house, trying to wake people up. “We need oil!” Their lack of preparation is creating a frenzy.
Some people live their whole lives this way. Jesus is saying, “No, no, no. When I am your cornerstone, your foundation, you will not be in haste.” It doesn’t mean we’re slugs. It does mean we are not frantic. We’re not panicking. Often we, like King Saul, do things we would never have done if we didn’t panic.
Keep transferring our trust from self to our Father, and then
2. We keep transferring our trust from people to our Father.
Remember, delay breeds codependency, and as time goes on, this unhealthy dependence will invariably disappoint us. We will begin to question even those who are closest to us, and we might even begin to think things like, or say, “She tries my patience.” But as the women in women’s Bible study are learning, look at James 1:2,
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of [your what? What is being tried? Yeah, it’s] your faith produces [patience] steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).
God is making you a whole person through that testing of your faith. But if you’re so focused on the person— “She’s pushing my buttons!” “He’s trying my patience!” No, no, no.
Do you believe God is using your friend, spouse, roommate, sister, or brother to increase your confidence in your Father and respond accordingly? Or have you made it all about them? Delay is an invitation to stop putting your faith in people, but in your Father.
3. We keep embracing the purifying benefits of delay.
This is counterintuitive, because when you’re in the middle of a lull, a delay, it feels like a waste, right? Like, I’m wasting time. I’m wasting resources. I could be far more productive, God. Why have you put me in this season of sickness? Or why have you put me in the waiting room for answers to know how to move forward? It can breed frustration and impatience and feel completely like a waste. But what if our Father is doing more than we can imagine during this season of delay? Some of you are in that right now.
This is a lesson Job learned in his waiting. Job 23:8. He said,
“Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him” (Job 23:8-9).
So God is at work, but I don’t have a clue what he’s doing during this season of delay. But here’s the point, verse 10:
“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold” (Job 23:10).
Isn’t that beautiful? Right out of this season of uncertainty. When you read the book of Job, I just want to scream, “Tell him, God! Tell them about the angel conversation and the devil conversation. Tell them about the test. Let them know exactly what you’re doing.” He doesn’t, and he doesn’t with us. 1 John 3:2,
“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared [there’s the delay]; but we know [something. We know] that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3).
So what are we doing in the delay? We’re like, “Okay, God, I don’t know everything you’re doing, but I know one thing: that when you appear, I’m going to be like you, and so let’s begin that transformative experience today. I don’t want to be like the wicked servant who is satisfying his sinful cravings, mistreating his fellow servants. Today, I want to die to that and to begin. I know I’m not going to be fully like you until I’m with you, but begin that today as you transform me into your image.”
It’s very interesting to me that this is near the end of Jesus’s last sermon in Matthew. He’s contrasting the wise and the foolish. If you remember, what was Jesus’s first sermon in Matthew? The Sermon on the Mount. Do you remember, right at the end of that sermon, he contrasted the wise and the foolish? We’ll put it up on the screen. Matthew 7:24,
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:24-27).
Today, if you don’t know Jesus, if your life is not built on the rock, this delay before the storm that Jesus is referring to is an opportunity for you to prepare wisely, to humble your heart today, to stop trying to build your future security on sand. “Have I done enough? Have I been sincere enough? Have I been good enough?” No, run to Jesus. Repent and believe in Jesus. He died for you so that you can build your life on something more solid than good intentions, which will not stand up in the storm of judgment. If you’re not a follower of Jesus, preparing wisely today in this delay is an invitation from Jesus. Come. Come.
If you are a follower of Jesus, as 1 John pointed out, you’re embracing this ongoing process of transformation. What is God using right now—it might be this sermon, it might be a passage, it might be some hardship you are currently experiencing—to invite you into a purifying, transforming relationship? Christians never stop experiencing that. I never want to stop experiencing it. “Lord, there are parts of me that I still can’t see that you can see that you are kind enough to expose and transform, by your Spirit, through your word.” Is he doing that now?
To help us with that, I’m going to invite Sarah and the worship team to come back up, and they’re going to sing a prayer over us. If we can think of this— the words are a little unusual: “take my heart with altar fire.”
It’s the idea of, I think of Romans 12:1. You’re presenting yourself as a living sacrifice, saying, “Lord, I don’t want to be a foolish virgin or a foolish builder who is completely unprepared because I’m not looking to you. So take my heart, my life, as a living sacrifice offered up to you.”
Let’s ask the Spirit right now: Is there something I’m turning to in delay that is shutting down the work that you desire to do in my heart? For some of us, it might be anger, bitterness, lust, greed . . . . Whatever it is, let’s pray this prayer together as we respond to his work in our hearts.
