Going to Jesus

Gospel Tracts

 Select a tract to read:

• Tracts 1-50

  1. How I Received the Holy Ghost 2. Jesus Is Coming Again 3. You Must Be Born Again 4. Stir Up the Gift of God 5. The World’s Most Dreaded Hour 6. What is Salvation? 7. Stand Still in Jordan 9. Grieved Hearts 10. The Second Death 11. The Father and the Son 12. Suffering and the Saints 13. Cancer Conquered 14. The Church? 15. How Shall They Preach, Except They Be Sent? 16. Have You Received the Holy Ghost Since You Believed? 17. Patience 18. Alone With God 19. Tithes and Offerings 20. Prayer 21. The True Sabbath 22. The Besetting Sin 23. The Cry of the Righteous 24. What Will the Harvest Be? 25. Marriage and Divorce 26. Taking the Name of the Lord 27. The Keys of the Kingdom 28. Works 29. Politics and Believers 30. Unequally Yoked in Marriage 31. Coming Out of Babylon 32. The Forgiven Woman 33. The New Earth 34. The Sin of Silence 35. Freedom 36. Gods of the Gentiles 37. Why Some Are Not Healed 38. The Seven Pillars 39. Life, More Abundantly 40. Fear 41. The Comforter’s Testimony 42. This is My Friend 43. Conversion 44. The Time Is Drawing Near? 45. Songs in the Night 46. The Master’s Net 47. Trials are Opportunities 48. Receiving the Messenger 49. Seven Messages to the Seven Pastors 50. Keep Yourself Pure

• Tracts 51-100

  51. The New Birth 52. John the Baptist and Jesus 53. Denying Jesus 54. Bruised Reeds 56. The Wise and the Foolish 57. Holiness 58. Is Jesus God? 59. Christ or Christianity 60. Have Faith In God 61. Worthy to Suffer 63. Four Kinds of Soil 64. Communion 65. The Fullness of Time 66. Baptism 68. No Room 69. Crucified With Christ 70. Homosexuality and the Bible 71. The Kingdom of God 72. The Gospel of Christ 74. Perseverance 75. The Resurrection 76. Salvation 77. Sanctification 78. New Commandments 79. The Sacrifice of Christ 81. The Sound of the Spirit 82. The Wrath of God 84. God’s Compass 85. Perfection 86. The Abomination of Desolation 87. Antichrist 88. The Way of Grace 90. Relationships 91. The Vineyard of God 93. Subdued 94. The Spirit of Christ 95. The Blood of Christ 96. Spirit of a Serpent, Spirit of a Dove 97. Gluttony 98. The Lost Lamb 99. Scripture Burners 100. Bleating and Lowing

 

“The kingdom of heaven at that time will be like ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were wise, and the other five, foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps without taking oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. But in the middle of the night, a loud cry was made: ‘Behold! The bridegroom is coming! Go out to meet him!’ At that, all those virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. Then the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out!’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there not be enough for us and you. Go instead to those who sell, and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast, and the door was shut. Later, the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord! Lord! Open up for us!’ But he answered and said, ‘Truly, I tell you, I do not know you.’ Watch, therefore, for you don’t know the day or the hour.”

The only difference between the Wise and the Foolish was that the five Wise Virgins took with them an extra vessel filled with oil. If you had been looking on at this scene, you would not have seen two groups; you would only have seen one group of ten virgins, and you might not even have noticed that some carried an extra vessel while others did not.

Consider how similar the Wise and Foolish were. They all knew (1) the bridegroom was coming, (2) when he would arrive, (3) where to meet him (4) lamps would be needed, and (5) they all grew tired and fell asleep.

The fact that the Wise Virgins took an extra vessel filled with oil along with their lamps shows that they were thinking something that the Foolish were not thinking – and their thinking had to do with the bridegroom.

The truth which the Wise recognized about the bridegroom was his absolute freedom to do whatever he pleased to do, in every situation. The Wise acknowledged the bridegroom’s liberty to do whatever he pleased to do, even to do other than what he had said he would do, if that pleased him. They spent money on extra oil which the Foolish did not spend, and they made the extra effort, which the Foolish did not make, to carry the additional load of oil to the place where the bridegroom told them to meet him because they knew him. The extra vessels were an expression of submission to him; by taking those vessels on their journey to meet the bridegroom, they were saying to him, “We are your slaves, and you are our master. We do only what pleases you; and you do only what pleases you, too.”

The Foolish Virgins acknowledged the bridegroom’s authority to give them commandments. They submitted completely to his command to meet him at that certain time and place. They did exactly what he told them to do – but they did nothing else because they did not see him as sovereign and free to do only what pleased him but as obligated to do as he said he would do. If he said it, they thought, then he had to do it. Both the Foolish and the Wise were obedient. They all came to the place where the bridegroom had commanded them to meet him, at the time he commanded them to be there. But the Foolish did not acknowledge the bridegroom’s liberty to alter his plans; had they acknowledged that, they would have brought some extra oil.

The Foolish Virgins would have described the bridegroom as faithful to them. The Wise would have described him as being faithful to himself. The Foolish pinned all their hope on what he had said. The Wise pinned all their hope on him. The Foolish trusted his words completely. They would have claimed, as a popular phrase goes, that they were “standing on the word”. But the Wise trusted him completely. They were standing on knowledge of the Word himself. The Foolish knew what he had said, but the Wise knew him who said it. The Foolish knew his words, trusted his words, and staked their lives on his words, but the Wise knew him, trusted him, and staked their lives on him. The Foolish trusted the bridegroom to do whatever he said he would do. The Wise trusted him to do whatever he wanted to do.

The Foolish knew and trusted the what, and the Wise knew and trusted the who. In reality, then, the Wise Virgins were going out to meet a different master from the one the Foolish were going out to meet. The Foolish were going out to meet a master of their own imagination. The Wise were going out to meet the master who really was.

With one exception, everything that the Foolish did, the Wise did also. But Jesus called them Foolish because of what they did not do. They did not bring extra oil. And they did not bring extra oil because they did not know the bridegroom. In John 17:3, Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” May God grant us all the grace to truly know Him and His Son, and to live with them forever in peace.