Foolish Five of Modern Church — E.A. Johnston

Conviction During the Lewis Revival

In the midst of the Lewis revival in Scotland, Duncan Campbell preached a sermon on the foolish virgins and God used that message to bring conviction to some worldly teenagers of the church and it awakened them to their lost condition and showed them their need of a savior from sin.

Exposing False Profession in the Modern Church

I'm going to preach out of that passage tonight, friends, in the hope that some church worldling will have their mask pulled off so they can look at themselves in the mirror of God's Word and be alarmed to their lost condition.

The title of my message this evening, friends, is the foolish five of the modern church because I fear these five unconverted virgins represent at least 50 of our church membership today who look good on the outside, but there's no inward transformation of a changed life.

Reading Matthew 25: The Ten Virgins

We are going to read our text from Matthew's gospel in chapter 25. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends. I'm going to go ahead and read verses 1 through 12 and may God's Spirit attend the reading of His Holy Word.

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them.

But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps 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 and the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered saying, Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you.

But go ye rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy the bridegroom came and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you're not. There are several aspects from our text today, friends, that stand out enough to take notice of in regard to the difference between a false professor and a sincere convert.

Public Professors Without Conversion

Although a couple of thousand years have passed since Jesus preached his sermon, these foolish five share a common denominator with all lost church members. They were, number one, public professors who at some point in their life made a public profession of faith.

They responded to an emotional appeal by either raising their hand or walking an aisle or repeating the so-called sinner's prayer. But the trouble is they never considered themselves sinners to begin with.

They just put out their hand to receive the free ticket to heaven. They were, number two, careless church members who cared little for things of eternal worth. They joined church for social reasons and they're there to have fun and a good time.

Careless Church Membership and Neglect of Prayer

I wonder how many men there are in church right now who are in church just to get up a golf game. You can talk to these church folks all day long and they will tell you all about themselves and what they have and what they've done and they're full of a good opinion of themselves.

They don't need to take time to pray or to trim their lamps because they are full of the world and void of the oil of the Holy Spirit. They would rather hear a good joke and laugh than spend time in intercessory prayer for the lost around them.

They'd rather sit in front of your TV set on your couch watching the ball game and shouting their faces off for their team instead of evangelizing the community in which they live. They have no burden for lost souls.

They have no desire to spend time with God in prayer. They will tell you with their lips how much they love Jesus but they don't spend any time with him because they don't know him and he doesn't know them.

He says to them like he did the foolish five, Verily I say unto you, I know you're not. Number three, they were blind to their own condition. The foolish five in our text believed themselves to be as good as the wise five.

Blindness to Spiritual Condition and False Assurance

After all, they did what the rabbi told them to do and he told them they were saved. We have a lot of religious rabbis in pulpits today who tell folks they are saved just because they do what they ask them to do.

Close your eyes and raise your hand friend if you want Jesus. Repeat this prayer and you will know for sure that when you die you go to heaven. And folks do that nonsense thinking it's salvation when all they've done is monkey a man who's nothing more than a religious baboon.

Hell is a terrible place to go friend. There's not a man on this earth who can accurately paint a vivid picture of hell because they've never been there. But I can tell you what Jesus said about it. Jesus said hell is so dark that he referred to it as outer darkness, kind of like outer space dark, a big black vacuum that goes on and on.

Jesus said it's a place of burning, burning fire that burns forever where the worm doth not. He said it's a bottomless pit. He said it's a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Weeping speaks of great loss and grief.

Gnashing of teeth signifies great anger and regret. He said hell is full of demons. Believe me when I say friend, you don't want to go to hell and be locked up in that prison, that chamber of horrors.

The Foolish Five and the Church's Responsibility

The foolish five went to hell and stayed there. They were careless individuals who considered their religion more of a game than a lifestyle. They lived unto themselves rather than living for others. They wanted to take what wasn't theirs without working for it by taking the oil from the wise five so they could crowd their way into God's kingdom, but God had other plans for them in a much hotter place.

Our churches are full of the foolish five because we've made them that way.