It's the moment that humiliates many a man at some point in his life. Ladies - how about your husband or boyfriend? Ever been in the car with them, gas gauge buried down in the red zone. "Honey, don't you think we should get some gas?" "Ah, naw. We've gots lots. Could go the next 50 km with what's in the tank. It's never empty when it says......."
Cough.
Sputter.
Stall.
And there you sit at the side of the highway. Out of gas. Late. Pushed it just too far.

Pushed it too far.
There's an experience that an awful lot of students go through for years after graduation - they wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat, coming out of a nightmare about being faced with an exam for which they're not ready, or getting up thinking that a paper was due that day which they've not even begun to type.
They become victims of their own "why study today for what ain't due till tomorrow" approach.

Because, you see, tomorrow eventually does come.
The tank eventually does run dry.
And when it does....... oh, boy.

Any of this sound familiar? I've got a story about some of your friends - people just like you. People who pushed the envelope just too far; started out with the best of intentions, but let tomorrow catch up to them.

I want to read a parable with you, one spoken by Jesus.
And tied in with that parable, let's hear some straight forward teaching from the lips of our Lord.
 

In it's most general form the message is one that any good leader will tell you:
Good beginnings are OK. But good endings are crucial.
It may be wonderful to have a flashy, whiz bang beginning. But if all you've got left at the end is a little poof of smoke - well, what's the point?
You may as well have never begun in the first place!

It's true in the world of business - you can have wonderful logos, staff, and sales projections. But come in under target and.... well, just look at the beating that Newbridge stock took in recent weeks.

Finishing well - any Sens' fan can tell you how important it is in the world of sports. Big flashy numbers in the regular season are heart warming.... but.....
Pat Quinn, Leafs' coach, was quoted recently as saying:
"There's not much to take between the teams. It comes down to mental toughness."
Do you have what it takes to finish well?

Think of raising a family - beyond making the baby and the days of cute infancy. Making it through the years of schooling and puberty and relationships and finding independence. Can you finish well as a parent? What do they say - you can tell how well you did as a parent by how your grandchildren turn out.
Finishing well.

Finishing well -
Nowhere is it as important as in the world of faith. We can make the initial commitment. Come out with words that sound great. Go through motions that seem impressive.
But how does it all pan out in the end?
When the moment arrives that we stand on the threshold of eternity what will be left?
To use a picture from another part of the bible - will it be a faith worth its weight in gold, or just some dried out, brittle hay-like stubble?
Will we finish our pilgrimage through life with a faith that counts in the eternal scheme of things. or not?

Not a very complicated question - but some of the most important issues in life aren't the complicated ones. They are the very simple ones.

Consider carefully the words of Jesus. In the verses we read the basic theme is punched home three times. You find it in 24.36, 24.42 and 25.13 of Matthew.
"Be ready for the end, because you're never sure when it's going to come."

Don't be caught with your spiritual tank empty, your assignment incomplete.
Don't be found distracted and wandering, sidetracked from the goal at hand.

The parable presents 10 virgins - we'd call them bridesmaids. Their task was very similar to that of bridesmaids today. They'd be over at the home of the bride, getting her ready for meeting the groom at the wedding ceremony. Meanwhile, Palestinian culture would see the groom negotiating with the family of the bride to settle on appropriate dowry arrangements. When that was done he'd come over in a procession, and together with the bride head off to the ceremony.
If the ceremony was to take place in the evening, or if the dowry negotiations took a while torches would be lit to guide the way. They were large sticks with rags soaked in oil wrapped around the end. They burned quickly, though, and every 15 minutes or so needed to be re-soaked from a jar of oil.
The bridesmaids got the bride ready, and the group sat down to wait. Perhaps negotiations took a while, or the groom had a glass of wine with the bride's family to seal the deal. Whatever the case, it took longer than expected. Must have been evening, and the girls became sleepy and nodded off.
They all have torches. But only 5 of them were really ready. The other 5 expected that things would move a long somewhat quicker, and didn't think they needed to bother with extra oil. "Ah, we won't really need these torches anyway." Awkward things to carry and hang on to at a wedding. Extra jars. Extra bother. Not really necessary. Let's not. So they don't.
Tragically they're caught short.
No oil.
No flame.
No wedding celebration.
And no one to blame except themselves.
The prophet Jeremiah in 2.32 asks, "Does a maiden forget her jewellery, a bride her wedding ornaments?" Well, apparently, these bridesmaids left behind the essentials.
And couldn't finish well..... Couldn't finish at all!

We're gathered at the Communion table.
What are we to make of this?
If you a bit of study, you'd find the symbolism very explicit.
The Church is known throughout the Bible as the Bride. Christ is the Groom. Those 10 girls working in the home of the bride, making her ready, would be people like you and I who work in the setting of the church - busy with church things, religious matters, exercises of faith and spiritual routines. We do what is expected. And we do it knowing that somewhere the Groom is making things ready. He's preparing to come and call His bride to the Great Wedding Banquet. That's the day of final judgement.
Jesus is coming - He's coming again.
Even now making things ready - "Behold I go to prepare a place for you" he says in John 14. "And if I go and prepare a place, I will come again and take you to be with me, that where I am you may be also."

Blunt message is that just because we're hanging around and fussin' with the Bride, just because we're busy in Church stuff - maybe even flashy, glitzy church stuff -- that's no guarantee of how we'll finish.
No room for complacency or laziness or cutting corners.
No room for leaving out essentials that the Lord points us towards.
For leaving the extra jar of oil at home.

So ---what is that oil?
And what is the fire?
What are these elements in our lives?

Cruise through the Bible and you'll discover that both oil and fire are bible symbols that point to the Holy Spirit:
- the oil of anointing used throughout the Old Testament
- the fire that descends on the Tabernacle and Temple in the Old Testament; the tongues of fire that descend on the Temples of the Holy Spirit, the bodies of believers in the New Testament at Pentecost, an event we'll celebrate in 10 days.

The 5 wise girls show a CAREFULNESS about their lamp light.
The 5 foolish girls show a CARELESSNESS about their lamp light - the "whatever" syndrome.
The challenge for us is to be careful, to be diligent, awake and alert about the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Scripture speaks of that in several places. It speaks of:
- Grieving the Spirit (Eph 4.30)
- Putting out the Spirit's fire (1 Thes 5.19)
The context of these statements is doing the "grunt" work of faith - hanging in there with the practising of what we preach, the doing of what we say, the following through on what we promise, carrying faith out to its full conclusion.
Ephesians says we can grieve the Spirit when we don't work hard to make our faith shine and show in our daily life - in things like the language we use, and how we treat others, and behave at work.
1 Thessalonians talks about putting out the Spirit's fire when we shortchange our prayer life, neglect to take time to say "thank you" to Him from whom all blessings flow, when we look down with contempt on the experiences and contact with the Lord that others have.

Spiritually lax is what we're talking about.
You know, if there one thing that makes me cringe, that leaves me feeling sad as a pastor, that hurts to hear -
it's when people say, "Ah, we don't need to go that far. Such and so is not really necessary. This much is good enough."

And I worry when I meet people and come to talk about working through on their Christian commitment --
perhaps in basic things like building their spiritual knowledge base by attending a class, or deepening their time with Christ by developing a daily routine of personal prayer, or challenging them on the attitudes they hold towards others or the language they use, or their rhythm (or lack of it) of taking time to praise the Lord in communal worship --
and I get back, "Yeah, yeah - I know. Maybe later. I haven't got the time for all that now."

I tell you - that makes me worry.
We vent and spew a lot about Y2K. Millions and millions of dollars are spent getting computer programs up and running. People plan way ahead and buy food supplies, generators and the like. All these resources and energy. At the end of which, the calendar will flip a page and we'll keep going.

But what about the return of Christ?
There will be no more calendar flipping and carrying on after that.
And we can't be sure when that will be. Could well happen before Dec 31, 1999.

For Harry Van Mansum it came on May 6 when his earthly life came to an end.
For some Christian young people in Littleton it came abruptly to an end while they were in class.
Our life, friends, hangs on a very delicate thread!
You don't know the day or the hour when it will snap.
Are you ready?
If not - what do you need to do?
And why are you waiting?
Some of us are given warnings.
We encounter a pothole in the road of life - perhaps a significant relationship comes to an end, or we become ill or get into trouble at work. And we reach for the lifeline of faith, only to find the space where it once was to be empty. Our faith has disappeared. Perhaps there's still the shell of religious activity. But the personal, Holy Spirit- based, dependence on Jesus Christ is gone.
The tank is empty.
And we end up back at church meeting with a pastor or elder or prayer partner, renewing our commitment.
We've been given a second chance by the grace of God.

One day the second chances will run out.
We're heading to the communion table in a moment. It's the time and the place for refuelling of faith. It's the time to recharge the batteries. It's the place of commitments.

We're going to invite you to come to receive the elements. Literally to come.
As you do, I'd encourage you to consider the parable. And consider your life.
We're here in the house of the Bride - the church.
Each one of you serves as a bridesmaid to great or lesser extent.
You're here, after all.
Which is well and good.

But stop and consider:
Is the flame of faith still burning?
And if it is, what provision have you got in place to keep it going?
You can't leave that till later - oil torches go out quickly. Faith can grow cold and weak very quickly.

We're on the threshold of the summer season where faith can very easily slip.
Please remember - the Devil takes no vacation.
Make this evening a time of commitment to the ongoing refuelling of your soul.