Last week we started a new short series focusing on Jesus’ second coming. And we’re going to do that but just looking at three sermons on the topic, and I’m not delving into a whole lot of interpretation and end times theories, just focusing on individual chunks of scripture rather than trying to piece together the whole.
When our kids were little, we had a VHS tape, yes our kids remember VHS tapes, we even still have a few sitting around. We had one that had old Sunday School songs on it, and I think it might have had a few other traditional children’s songs on there too. I remember my mom saying she was glad they still had these old songs around for kids.
I kind of shrugged my shoulders at the time, but now I find the value in passing those things down from generation to generation. Like the hymns we sing each week, it’s nice to be reminded of these hymns and have given our kids exposure to the depth and richness of these hymns and traditions of a church like this one.
But you know, one of the reasons why so many of those songs don’t last is because, to a child, they often don’t make sense. In older children’s songs, there are references that children and even the parents don’t get.
For example, there was one called, “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning.” And the kids never really questioned the meaning of that song, but here I was as an adult thinking, “What is this song saying? What is my lamp and what am I burning it for? I mean, I know it has to have some kind of religious meaning, but what is it? The song never explains it.”
Last week, we looked at Matthew 24. This week, if you have your Bible, you can turn with me to Matthew 25, and we’ll read the first 13 verses together. We’ll also look at Acts 12:1-17 later, so you might want to turn there now and put a bookmark there for later. But first, we’ll read Matthew 25.
This goes along with what we read last week, in fact, it’s very much the same in a lot of ways, Jesus is speaking about being ready for His return.
I mentioned some of the old songs don’t give an explanation as to what they mean, but it’s interesting that Jesus didn’t always give an explanation to his parables. The people often scratched their heads, and even Jesus’ disciples asked for an explanation sometimes. And Jesus seemed a bit perturbed at having to explain it to them as if you could just hear him sigh and see him roll his eyes. But this is a tough one. What does it mean? Well, let’s take a look at what it says first. By the way, like last week’s sermon, this is one we looked at before, about six months ago.
Scripture: “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4 The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5 The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’
7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’
9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’
10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
13 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”
So what does this mean? Well, from the last verse, we can see that this references what Jesus was speaking about in the previous chapter. It’s kind of odd how some of the chapters of the Bible are separated. Sometimes they change in the middle of a thought, and we can see here that these beginning verses segue from the previous chapter where Jesus is telling his disciples about his return. Then he goes into this parable to illustrate what he just said. So you see how this fits in with what we talked about last week.
Last week in chapter 24, verse 36, we read, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Then a few verses down, we also read, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
Jesus wants us to keep watch, he wants us to understand the season of his coming. But with the parable of the ten virgins, there’s something more. And it’s said in verse 44: “So you also must be ready.” What does it mean to be ready? That’s what I want to talk about today. Last week we talked about understanding the season of his return, today we’ll talk about the next step––to not only understand the season but to make sure we’re ready for his return.
So now we go back to the question, what is the oil in our lamps supposed to represent? After all, Jesus never says. And what about these ten maidens, I mean that’s kind of weird, right? At least in today’s society. Well, before we get into that, let’s look at a couple of other things.
First, remember the audience Jesus was talking to. Last week, we touched on the people Jesus was speaking about. Here, let’s think about the people Jesus is speaking to. He never said it was right or wrong to have more than one wife, it was just a reference point that the audience could understand. There was polygamy in those days, it was part of the culture. The point was not to talk about whether or not it was right or wrong, the point was something different. And in Eastern tradition, a wedding was a different ceremony than today. Instead of meeting the bride at the altar, the groom came for his wife or wives.
The bridegroom represents Christ at his coming.
Revelation 19:7-9 says 7 Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. 8 Fine linen, bright and clean, was given to her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) 9 Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”
And then Revelation 21 verse 2 says, “2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”
But in this parable, Jesus calls half of the young women foolish because they brought lamps but not oil for their lamps. Back then their lamps were like the lamps in Aladdin, and the wick for the lamp was in oil, which fueled the wick and kept it burning. When I was a kid we had a table lamp like that. We also had a kerosene heater. So I can kind of picture this in my head.
Nowadays, instead of lamps, we often use the flashlight on our cell phone. So it would be carrying a cellphone with a dead battery. It’s not very smart.
Now, we all do dumb things like forget to check how much battery life is left on our phone. But the implication here is that they didn’t forget, they just thought it wasn’t important.
I remember kids in school always wanting to borrow a pen or a sheet of paper. And after a while, you realize they have no intention of bringing their own paper or pen. They’re too lazy to stop at their locker. I think they thought it was cool back then to borrow pen and paper and not have their own. Their way of being rebellious or something.
So you could imagine someone unprepared saying, ‘Let me borrow your charger so I can charge my cell phone.’ But the others who were prepared said, ‘Sorry, there’s no place to plug in a charger here. You should have remembered to charge it before you left.’
So expectation was not enough. Ray Stedman puts it this way, “Though this group is united in its expectation, it is quite divided in the way it conducts its waiting. Five maidens have brought along extra oil, and five have not. This does not represent a division between good and bad, but, as Jesus says, between the wise and the foolish.”
So these maidens were believers. Perhaps not saved, though. You can be a believer and not be saved. You can believe in Jesus in your mind, but not have Jesus in your heart. And that’s where we learn about what the oil represents.
It’s become rather trendy now, unfortunately, for Christians to deconstruct their faith. This is from an article a few years ago with the headline, “DC Talk’s Kevin Max says he’s an ‘evangelical’: ‘Deconstructing’ and ‘progressing’”
Here’s what he said, “The total totalitarian fear that’s constant, in my opinion, in a lot of evangelical churches have made people regress over time. I feel like anybody out there going through it, they should just embrace it,” he added. “If they’re a believer, they should have these deep conversations with the God they believe in and really struggle with it, talk to Him about it.
“I believe in a God of the universe, and I believe that He can hear me. And that, in itself, is just plain kind of crazy. But if I believe that, then I truly believe that He cares about my progression and asking questions and wanting to know what is real and what isn’t real,” he ended. “I don’t think the God that I believe in is going to just all of a sudden ignore me because I don’t believe every single thing that’s written down somewhere. [meaning The Bible]”
You notice how there is some truth to what he says, and then it becomes twisted? He mentioned also that he follows The Universal Christ. What is The Universal Christ? Well, Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar who literally wrote the book on it, put it this way on The Universal Christ website:
Christ is more than Jesus’ last name. Jesus is a person whose example we can follow. Christ is a cosmic life principle in which all beings participate. The incarnation is an ongoing revelation of Christ, uniting matter and spirit, operating as one and everywhere. Together—Jesus and Christ—show us “the way, the truth, and the life” of death and resurrection.
If Christ is the kite, Jesus is the person flying the kite and keeping it from escaping away into invisibility.
If Jesus is the person holding the string, Christ is the great banner in the sky, from whom all can draw life—even if they do not recognize the one flying the kite.
Jesus does not hold the kite to himself as much as he flies it aloft, for all to see and enjoy.
And, by the way, the true definition of the word ‘Christ’ is the Greek word for the Hebrew ‘Messiah’ which means ‘anointed one’ or ‘chosen one.’ God’s chosen one to save the world. Jesus is The Messiah and The Only Messiah.
Now, I could go on and on about that subject alone, but do you see what I’m saying? Richard Rohr is the type of person who might (and I emphasize might) await Jesus’ coming, but not have brought oil for his lamp. In fact, after reading that, he might not even bring a lamp to begin with!
Now, we’ll get back to that in a few minutes, but something I want to point out is that the maidens also fell asleep because their wait was so long. Now, that’s just an indication that Jesus’ return would be a long time. Even the wise women slept, and there was no reprimand from the groom, so there’s nothing about that part of the story other than his coming will be a long wait, so it’s okay to go about doing normal activities and living a natural life. Our readiness isn’t about stopping life or not making plans for the near or distant future just in case he returns, it’s about how we’ve prepared our lamps.
Going to verse 6, we read, “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ 7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’
9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’
10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.”
In the delay, the foolish maidens ran out of oil. They didn’t have enough to begin with. They didn’t prepare for the long haul. They didn’t think it was necessary to refill until it was too late. And what happened? Well, they were at least wise enough to care about getting more. They were at least wise enough to have a sense of fear that if they didn’t have oil in their lamps when the groom came, he might dismiss them as his bride. There was something about this event where waiting and being present was not enough. They needed to have their lanterns lit or else the groom would not take them as his bride. They knew that, so they rushed to get some more.
Unfortunately, the groom came and did not wait for them. They missed their chance. They had good intentions, they tried. But they missed his coming. But that did not stop them. They tried again. They went to his home and knocked on the door, and the Lord of the manor said, “I do not know you.”
Wait a minute. Shouldn’t he have said, “Oh, what took you so long? Come on in! I’ve been expecting you!” I mean, better late than never, right? That’s how some churches preach the gospel now. Everyone is not just invited, but everyone gets to be part of the wedding banquet regardless of how much oil you have in your lamp, regardless of whether you’re ready for the Lord’s return or not.
Don’t worry, Jesus will let you in so long as we practice being The Universal Christ. By the way, when that book was released a few years ago, it debuted at #4 in Publisher’s Weekly religion nonfiction bestsellers. Just so you’re aware of what kinds of things people are reading now.
But Jesus doesn’t say to them, “I’ve been expecting you,” instead he says, “I never knew you.” There’s a big difference. There’s a big difference between those who have some kind of knowledge of who Jesus is in their minds but don’t have Jesus in their hearts. Having some kind of knowledge of who someone is, is not enough for them to welcome you into their home, let alone have you marry them.
How many of you wanted to marry your celebrity crush when you were younger? Could you imagine just knocking on their door expecting them to invite you in? At best, they’d meet you at the door and sign an autograph. They don’t know you and you don’t know them, either, other than what you’ve seen on TV or heard on the radio or read in an interview.
Like the Universal Christ, many people think they know Jesus but all they know is that he’s some historical religious figure who taught about feeding the poor and being kind to everyone. A sort of male Mother Teresa. Some people would categorize Jesus as a political figure.
According to a study conducted by LifeWay Research: 52 percent of Americans say they believe Jesus was a “good teacher, but he was not God,” according to the survey. Although the poll’s finding about the general population may not be shocking, Ligonier said it is surprising that nearly a third of evangelicals (30 percent) affirm the statement and believe Jesus was a good teacher and nothing more…Meanwhile, 65 percent of evangelicals believe “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God” – a statement that [obviously] conflicts with the Bible.
The survey was based on interviews in March 2020 with 3,002 U.S. adults.
So it isn’t having a knowledge or belief in Jesus or waiting for his return that is the key. And we assume that if we know him, he knows us. I mean, after all, God is all-knowing, right? But it’s something about this oil that relates to Him knowing us. And we have to make sure that we’re prepared to have this oil when he returns because he’ll pass us by if we’re the least bit late having it. And the least bit late is too late, and we need to be prepared because we don’t know when he’s returning.
According to Ray Stedman, Oil, in the Old Testament, is frequently used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Kings and priests were anointed with oil as a sign of their consecrated and Spirit-filled lives. Zechariah, the prophet, was shown a vision of a great golden lampstand with two olive trees standing beside it. The trees dripped oil into the bowls of the lampstand, and Zechariah was told: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). The oil symbolized the Spirit of God by which the light of testimony could be maintained in the hour of darkness.
I remember when the kids were younger, and in order to keep their ponies’ saddles soft and pliable and from drying out and cracking they used oil to preserve them. I’m sure somewhere you can find leather in a museum that is from the Middle Ages or even at the time of Jesus and The Roman Empire. Just for fun, I Googled “What is the oldest piece of leather in the world” and I came up with a 5,500-year-old leather shoe that was found in 2008 in excellent condition in the Areni-1 cave located in Armenia. It is a one-piece leather-hide shoe. According to the BBC, the well-preserved cow-hide shoe predates Stonehenge by 400 years and the Pyramids of Giza [the famous pyramids in Egypt] by 1,000 years.
And if you were a cowboy, you’d have to oil your saddle and other leathery components like the reins, your leather boots, your holster, all of that. A cowboy’s gotta keep those things oiled. Of course his gun.
Not only do you use oils to help preserve leather, but people who are furniture restorers use oils to help restore the wood and make it like new. People who live in arid places like Arizona and New Mexico have to continually use oils to preserve their dining room tables and other wooden furniture from cracking due to the dryness. The oils seep into the cracks and cover over and in and through the wood, preserving it, and keeping it from cracking anymore.
It is the same with the Holy Spirit that dwells in us and through us to preserve us, fill in the cracks, refinish us, make us new, and preserve us. We sometimes see someone who is a preacher or musician or writer and we hear someone say, “So and so sure is anointed.”
I came across a devotional about oil being used to anoint sheep. In the famous Psalm 23, David said, “You anoint my head with oil.”
What does that mean? What was he referring to? If you remember Psalm 23 it begins with “The Lord is my shepherd”
Here’s what the devotional said: The shepherd anoints his sheep with oil for two purposes. First, to repel insects. If allowed to deposit their eggs into the soft membrane of a sheep’s nose they can drive the sheep insane; the ewes stop giving milk and the lambs stop growing. So the shepherd anoints his sheep with an oil-like repellent that keeps the enemy at bay and the flock at peace. Second, to heal wounds. Most wounds result from living with the flock. So the shepherd regularly inspects his sheep because he doesn’t want today’s wound to become tomorrow’s infection.
Whether circumstances are driving you crazy, or you have just been wounded as a result of living with the flock, always go to the Shepherd. Before you go to anybody else, go to God because ‘He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds’ (Psalm 147:3 NIV). Then, bow before Him.
In order to be anointed the sheep must lower their heads and let the shepherd apply the oil. Humble yourself, call on the Lord. ‘God will always give what is right to his people who cry to him, he will not be slow to answer them’ (Luke 18:7 NCV). David writes, ‘I shall be anointed with fresh oil’ (Psalm 92:10). Yesterday’s oil is quickly contaminated by the dirt and grime of the journey, so you must go to God daily and ask Him to empower you with His Spirit. A sheep doesn’t understand how the oil works, but it doesn’t have to. It is enough to know that something happens in the presence of its shepherd that happens nowhere else.
You see, we can share our testimonies and pray for one another and demonstrate God’s love for one another, but how can we share The Holy Spirit? People have to receive The Holy Spirit. Like the maidens, it just isn’t something they could share. People have to be filled with The Holy Spirit for themselves.
Having a familiarity with Jesus as nothing more than a historical figure whose teachings we should follow isn’t enough. Deconstructing things that may have been wrong about the Church, like hypocrisy and legalism, and throwing the baby out with the bathwater and believing in a ‘new’ definition of Christ certainly isn’t enough. Even believing he’s God or the Son of God isn’t enough. Even going to church isn’t enough. Your lamp must have oil in it.
I mentioned Ray Stedman a few minutes ago. Here’s a story he told of someone whose life had been filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit.
I called on a man in the hospital once, a Christian of many years’ standing. I found him unable to talk, sitting up in bed, his body wasted away to a skeleton. He was unable to move a muscle, even to lift his arms or turn his head. The best he could do in the way of talking was to utter a few guttural sounds. I asked him if he would like me to read the Scripture to him and he nodded his head. As I read, I watched his eyes. As the marvelous words from passages in Isaiah began to sink into his ears, there came a flame into his eyes, a light such as never shone on land or sea. Before we finished, I could see in that emaciated body the glory of a flame burning, unquenchable, inexhaustible, fed by the oil of the Spirit, a flame that could never be put out.
You see, The Lord was about to come for that man in the hospital bed. It wasn’t just at the Return of Christ, it’s any time the Lord is to come for us. We must be ready. We must have oil in our lamps. We don’t know the day or the hour of the Lord’s return. We don’t know the day or the hour of our passing.
When he comes for us, we need to have oil in our lamps. We need to be ready. The door is shut, both to the unbeliever who never tried to get in and to the foolish person who tried to live on their own without the Holy Spirit.
God tells us we need to be renewed. We need the renewing of our minds. We get dry and cracked like leather or wood. We need a fresh coating of that oil, and we need the shepherd to anoint that oil over our heads.
Let’s take a moment today to do just that.
Dear Lord, we come before you today to ask you to refresh us and renew us. To anoint our heads with the oil of your Holy Spirit. To pour not just over our heads, Lord, but to pour in us and through us. To fill up those cracks that have been made through spiritual dryness. To restore us and refresh us and to make us like new. To keep us and preserve us and to protect us.
Lord, I pray that you will fill our lamps with oil. Lord, we wait for you. We are eager for you to come and take us to be with you. You call your Church your Bride. And Lord, I know that everyone here is a member of your Church, a member of your Bride. And Lord, I just ask that you would fill our lamps with oil as we wait for you to come. May our lanterns be lit for your arrival to take us home. In Jesus name, amen.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
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