All Ten Were Asleep

There are signs everywhere. And most of us are not paying attention.

The earth itself is shifting. The magnetic north pole is migrating faster than scientists expected. Weather patterns are breaking records year after year. Earthquakes are increasing in frequency and intensity across the globe. The seas are raging. The climate is destabilizing in ways that defy prediction.

Meanwhile, nations are at war. Economies are fracturing. Food systems are under stress. Diseases are emerging faster than medicine can respond. Political deception has become so sophisticated that most people cannot tell what is real anymore.

And in the church? Entire denominations are abandoning what Scripture plainly teaches. False teachers are celebrated. Truth is called hate. Love is redefined to mean approval. People who call themselves Christians are trading God’s design for the culture’s version of reality — exactly the exchange Romans 1 warned about.

Jesus told us what to look for. He was specific.

False prophets. Wars. Famines. Earthquakes. Pestilence. Persecution of believers. The love of many growing cold. Sin celebrated and enforced. The gospel reaching every nation.

Check. Check. Check. Check. Every single one is active. Not one is dormant. And they are not happening one at a time. They are converging. Accelerating. Getting closer together like birth pains before a delivery.

He also said something people forget. “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away” (Matthew 24:37-39).

The world is not bracing for anything. It is scrolling. It is streaming. It is partying. It is buying and selling and planning vacations. Just like Noah’s neighbors.

But here is the part that should shake every believer awake.

Jesus told the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. Ten women waiting for the bridegroom. Five were wise — they brought extra oil for their lamps. Five were foolish — they did not.

When the bridegroom finally came, the five foolish virgins had no oil. Their lamps had gone out. They begged the wise for some, but there was not enough to share. They ran to buy more, and while they were gone, the door was shut. When they came back and knocked, the bridegroom said: “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.”

That is terrifying enough. But here is what most people miss.

All ten were asleep when he came.

Not just the foolish ones. All of them. The wise and the foolish. Every single one had drifted off. The difference was not that the wise were standing at the door with their eyes wide open. The difference was that when the call came — “Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!” — the wise were ready even though they had been sleeping. They had prepared before they dozed off.

The foolish had not.

That is the warning for us right now. Being a Christian does not make you immune to falling asleep. Life lulls you. Comfort sedates you. The daily grind numbs you. Even believers who love Jesus get drowsy when the signs pile up year after year and He still has not come.

But there is a difference between falling asleep with oil in your lamp and falling asleep with an empty one.

The oil is your relationship with God. Not your church attendance. Not your theological knowledge. Not your social media posts about faith. The oil is the real, living, daily connection between you and your Creator. Prayer. Scripture. Repentance. Obedience. The things that keep the flame alive even when your eyes are heavy.

You cannot borrow that. The five foolish virgins tried. It does not transfer. Nobody else’s faith fills your lamp. Nobody else’s prayer life keeps your flame burning. This is between you and God, and it has to be settled before you fall asleep — because you will fall asleep. We all do.

The question is not whether you are awake right now. The question is whether your lamp has oil in it.

The signs are here. All of them. Converging. Accelerating. The birth pains are getting closer together. The magnetic poles are shifting. The seas are roaring. The nations are in turmoil. The church is compromised. The world is asleep.

And the bridegroom is coming.

When the call comes — and it will — will your lamp be ready?

Or will you be running to the store?