A minister told how one Sunday night when he was quarantined in his house because his child had diphtheria, he watched the church next door; the church that he could not now enter. He saw the lights shining through the windows. He watched the people going in. Then the service started, and he listened to the singing. At last he couldn’t stand it any longer. Silently, like a thief, he snuck out his back door, and crept up close to a window and listened. Within all was bright; outside he stood in the chill of the dark night. “I realized for the first time in my life,” he said, “what It meant to be shut out, what a terrible thing it meant to be shut out.
Jesus told the parable of the ten virgins, five wise, and five foolish. The ten were waiting for the bridegroom to come, and while waiting, fell asleep. At midnight there was a cry, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh.” The lamps of the five foolish virgins had gone out and there was no more oil. The five foolish virgins, having left to purchase more oil, were shut out of the marriage when the bridegroom came. Matthew 25:10-12 reads “…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 not.”
As Jesus was concluding the sermon on the mount he said, “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven … and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:21, 23).
Don’t be shut out of heaven! God is “not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9). “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men” (Titus 2:11). “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;” “Repent and be baptized everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins.” “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; Revelation 2:10). Don’t be shut out of heaven!
– Steve Housley
Steve Housley has been the pulpit minister of the Eastern Meadows Church of Christ since November, 1987.
