Ask Pastor Mike Live

Mike Fabarez: Let's talk to Ken. Ken, you're on the air with Mike Fabarez. How can I help you?

Ken: I was checking about the ten virgins. Five were ready and five weren't. There are a lot of people in that situation. What happens to those that are not ready? They're believers, but they weren't prepared. They weren't looking for him. Do they go through the Tribulation because they're not going to be raptured up?

Mike Fabarez: I don't think that's the picture of the ten virgins. The parable of the ten virgins is trying to make a statement about those included in the kingdom and those not included in the kingdom. This is an issue of salvation, which is one of the principles of hermeneutics. If we're going to go and interpret a text, we've got to know that it's got one simple point. And the point here is you need to be ready. You need to be thinking beyond the scope of this life, which ultimately is what kingdom people do.

Now, you could say in the book of Hebrews, this is a different concept. We should be waiting so that we don't shrink back when he appears in shame. We want to be thinking, "Do I want to be caught doing this when the Lord comes?" A lot of his parables speak to the vigilance of thinking about that so that we don't start beating our fellow servant, as it says, or getting drunk. So, it is a motivation for my sanctification to live with an expectation of the coming of Christ.

But I think the Matthew 25 parable of the ten virgins has to do with whether or not you're even thinking beyond the next life, which is the whole point of the Christian life. I'm not living for the here and now; I'm living for the then and there. Therefore, I have to make sacrifices now to follow Christ so that I can be included when the bridegroom returns. Christ knew this would be a long period of time. As Second Peter says, people are going to mock that he's not coming back.

I think we need to simplify what's going on in the parable of the virgins and we need to understand that the issue that you're thinking of is addressed in scripture. It's addressed in scripture when we start thinking about how we are supposed to be motivated in our holy living by the return of Christ. It looks like here they're shut out. And of course, they are shut out. Everyone's going to be shut out of the kingdom that doesn't start thinking about what happens after you die.

That's why my dad's favorite one-line opener for evangelism with a cold contact was, "What do you think happens when you die?" That's a great question. It gets a man thinking about the afterlife, and that's the whole point of the ten virgins, ultimately. You've got to know that Christ is coming. There's more to this life than this life. If you don't prepare now, there won't be a time, because it's appointed unto man once to die and then face the judgment.

It doesn't mean that principle is not found in scripture, because of course it is. We don't want to shrink in shame when Christ returns, as Hebrews 10:39 says. That's my take on it, Ken. Does that help?

Ken: What about people that do not believe in the Rapture? They believe in Jesus and they've committed themselves to him, but for some reason, the Rapture issue is just something they don't comprehend or grasp. What's the status of them?

Mike Fabarez: You don't have to have the right eschatology to be a part of God's eschatological plan. None of us can sit down and accurately put every piece in place, like when the Bema seat judgment is going to take place, when the marriage supper of the Lamb is, or when it starts. There's a lot of eschatological questions that we don't know the details of. If you say, "Here's someone who doesn't even believe that the Rapture of the church takes place as a pre-event before his feet touch the Mount of Olives," you're going to ask, "What if my eschatology is not right about the Rapture? Am I going to miss it?"

No, your being found in Christ and being a part of Christ's plan for his righteous people in the eschatological plan of heaven is not contingent on your eschatology. It's contingent on your faith in Christ. Think about the last person to become a Christian. If all of this, based on Second Peter 3, is that he's delaying his coming not because he's slow to keep his promise, but he's wanting all to come to repentance. There is a list of people that God is going to bring to faith in Christ. So that last person gets saved. They know hardly anything.

They don't even know verses of assurance or verses of a lot of things, but their faith was saving faith. If God's eschatological plan happens a second after that person's real faith, they don't know anything about eschatology, but they're going. Everyone's going. Let's just say you and I are wrong about the Rapture, that it's going to happen at the end of the Tribulation instead of the beginning. Or let's just say there was no Tribulation and the preterists were right that it all happened in 70 AD. I think they're wrong, but they think I'm wrong.

What does that mean? It means that all of us, if we trust in Christ, are going to go exactly when and where God has designed and planned this to be. So, I don't worry about the fact that I've got a brother in Christ who has a different eschatology than I do, and I've got plenty of those. Whatever's going to happen, God is going to do. He's going to do it with his children and you're his child, not if you pass the eschatology test, but whether or not you pass the test of faith.

Ken: Very good. Thank you.

Mike Fabarez: That was a great question, Ken. Really, really good. I think a lot of people are so focused on their eschatology that they think, "This is my eschatology, so this is going to happen for me, but that's not your eschatology, so that's not going to happen for you." I can see where a reading of Matthew 25 would lead you to that conclusion, but I hope that I have addressed that well enough. Thanks for the question, Ken.