Hope is to the soul as air is to our lungs. Neither lasts long without hope and air. Hope can be either mere wishfulness or trusted steel girders on which life choices rest securely. Wishes are egocentric; trusted steel girders are theocentric.

When we look at end-time events, we can wish that the Advent is yet many years into the future or that God has his own timing unrelated to the character of his people. Or we can listen to Jesus give us his understanding of end-time events—steel girders we can rest out hope on.

Jesus is always the realist—not the optimist who sees only the bright side of life and not the pessimist who sees only the worst side of humanity. The optimist’s hope is intoxicating; the pessimist’s hope is dreary and self-fulfilling.

In Matthew 25, Jesus is giving the world his insights regarding the kind of people who are ready for his return, the people who will finish the gospel commission of Matthew 24:14. He denies the optimist’s hope that his church gets better and better—that his coming has nothing to do with the quality of church members. And he denies the hope of the pessimist that his coming depends on how bad everything becomes.

In Matthew 25 (the last half of his answer to his disciples’ questions in Matthew 24), Jesus gives us three snapshots of his last-day church. Each one fills out the whole picture of the kind of people ready for Jesus to return. In the parable of the Bridegroom and Ten Bridesmaids, several key concepts clearly describe the end-time church members who call themselves Adventists—they believe in the Second Advent.

• Both the wise and foolish bridesmaids share common doctrines.
• The "delay" is a built-in concept that Seventh-day Adventists are privileged to understand—Jesus could have come "ere this."
• The difference between the two groups lies in what the shared doctrines have done for them personally.
• The lamp exists for one purpose—to make light happen. The light is neither the lamp nor the oil.
• The light is the witness of the Christlike life, transformed by the Holy Spirit, molded by biblical principles.
• Foolish bridesmaids are lost because they made biblical information an end, instead of a means to an end. Faith became an intellectual exercise instead of a personal relationship of joyful, trusting obedience. They know what the Bible says about God but did not know him as their personal Friend.
• Wise bridesmaids are ready for the Advent because the Bible became the instrument by which they listen to God personally, leading them to say "Yes" to whatever God says.
• The difference between the two groups may not be easily distinguished in times of ease. But the wise woke up, sensing the emptiness of their spiritual experience and determined to change by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit.
• Just as no one can breathe for another, so no one can trust for another.
• When the Bridegroom comes, doctrinal awareness will not substitute for character that shines as a reflection of Jesus. "Character is not transferable" (Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, 412).
• Somewhere in the lives of the foolish they were saying "No" to known duty. They were rebels at heart; they did not act on what they knew.
• How sad that the foolish church members "are shut out from heaven by their own unfitness for its companionship" (ibid., 413).

The hope of end-time Adventists is not a collection of wishes. Nor is it a reflection of generally accepted theological reflections. Their hope is built on the clarity of revelation, wherever God has spoken. One can bet the farm on the reliability of his revelations.

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