Are You Sleeping, Are You Sleeping… Brother John, Brother John

When I was young, a little ditty we used to sing went a little like this, “Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John, Brother John.” These words came to my mind as I was reading the parable of the Ten Virgins, in that the whole of the True Israel world seems to have shut their eyes to God’s Word about the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some pay lip service to it but for the most part Christian leaders and theologians tend to go about their business without giving the matter any thought or credence. And so, as Jesus told us in Matthew 25:5, all ten virgins, which represent the Israel nations and people, slumbered and slept.

I like the way “Man Thinking” described the ten virgins. The writer demonstrated the analogy between the “Ten Servants” of the “Nobleman who went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.” (Luke 19:12,13) Or the description by Hosea of ten-tribed nation of Israel who was divorced (unlike Judah who like the Potter’s Bottle was broken into many pieces “that cannot be made whole again.”) (Jer. 19:11) Or Jesus’ words, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The writer showed how these descriptions represented the woman He loved, and whom He was wooing to return to Him. That He died for her, and during the Christian Age has been preparing for the day when He will come back to her.”

This is a pretty powerful promise that He will come back to us. Yet our churches have gone to sleep and if you or I initiate a conversation with anyone concerning the Second Coming, it is usually met with an air of indifference. Talk about the signs and try to incorporate the chronological evidence of numerical patterns in Scripture and what they may mean, and the numbers are greeted with skepticism, or polite dismissal, or with statements like, “Look, the Bible tells us that no one knows the day or hour.”