While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. It has been over 2000 years since the early Apostles declared that the Lord
Jesus is coming again, yet Jesus has not appeared as at yet. This has made a lot of Christians to be very careless and lackadaisical with their spiritual lives. However, there is a Divine reason why it seems the Lord Jesus has been delayed in His coming. According to the parable in Matthew chapter 25, Jesus told us that because the bridegroom will be delayed in His coming, so many Christians will sleep. Also, from the parable, Jesus seems to imply that His coming will be in a season of the day called “midnight”.
This is important for us to understand because the midnight season is a time of great darkness on the earth and also, a time of great coldness in the atmosphere. Thus, the midnight season is a time of great darkness and cold. This time frame Jesus gave is descriptive of the kind of season we will live in just before Jesus appears the second time. It will be a time of Great darkness and coldness, that is spiritual wickedness and insensitivity. However, from this great parable of the Kingdom, Jesus seems to say that will be the condition of the hour He will be coming. Why will Jesus want us to live in such a spiritual condition just before His second coming?
This is because the wife of the first Adam lived in the best of conditions and still fell. Remember that Eve who was the bride of Adam, lived in atmosphere of light and day, yet she rebelled. But the Church, which is to be the Bride of Christ must live in the darkest of times and overcome the greatest evil for the sake of their love for their Lord, the Bridegroom.
That is why after Jesus died and resurrected, He did not annihilate Satan from the Universe. In the garden of Eden where there was only good and righteousness, the bride of the first Adam fell. But our testimony will be that we lived in the worst of times where evil and selfishness was at its peak, yet we chose to prove our love and allegiance to our Eternal Lover, Jesus Christ, the last Adam.
This is the reason why you were not taken to heaven on the very day you got born again, so that you will live in this crooked and perverse world as a testimony that your love for God empowered you to choose Him over self and all evil. Your life in this hour is to bear a witness of this reality.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit, quicken my love for Jesus. Cause me to abound in labours for my Lord in Jesus Name! Amen.
Further Study:
Rev. 3:14-18; 2:1-5
