““Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
Typically, I’m quiet around issues I know little about. I’ll enter a discussion if I have training or experience enough to have something to contribute. But here, concerning the Ten Virgins, I’m coming up a little short! A dilemma? Well, maybe not …
Five foolish virgins are shut out of the marriage feast because they are short oil in their lamps, Matt. 25:1-13. Their problem is two fold. 1. They are outside, not inside. 2. They don’t understanding why they are not with their friends who were waiting with them.
My dilemma is seeing a problem but not a solution. Some will say it is not my problem. Others may say, it is not a problem at all because the five foolish maidens did not meet the standard of being ready, i.e., having enough oil since our God practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness. They hadn’t fully responded. Tell that to the five maidens who are on the outside banging on the doors! I identify with Elihu here. He was angry with both Job’s three friends and Job himself. The five maidens being shut out of from the banquet reflects on you and me! They were in fellowship with us and we are inside and they are not. We are now separated from friends because they weren’t prepared with “enough oil in their lamp.” The separation is just but why did we allow it to happen?
The question falls back on us. We had enough oil, we were prepared! Why didn’t our “friends” understand their lack? Didn’t we share adequately with our “friends” the truth we possessed? Didn’t they see in our lives the adequacy they were missing? Didn’t we convey God’s truth with a genuine heart of conviction? God’s grace was certainly adequate; it has to be us! Where was our faith?
There is a chorus we used to sing in high school called: “Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning … give me oil in my lamp I pray … keep me burning till the break of day.” I suspect all ten virgins sang this chorus together but it was merely a surface activity just as it was in high school.
This story of the ten virgins is a parable in a trilogy about what heaven is like. Many expositors use this as the church being ready for the rapture. But McGee makes several good points concluding that this is not about the church at all, but our King’s second return to the earth. He argues it is taking place on earth after the conclusion of our wedding in heaven. The Bridegroom is now arriving with His bride, the church, and the virgins, he argues, are those who have accepted the Lord as Savior during the tribulation.
Whether we accept the virgins are of the church or out from the tribulation period, a principle applies in either case. We are to minister and share the burdens of others. So if it is about those saved during the tribulation and not the church, it still speaks to us in our church age because we are called to minister to those who are both saved and unsaved. Lets think in practical terms about how this lesson is viable to us as we anticipate our rapture and then the wedding.
Everybody agrees the oil represents the Holy Spirit. The foolish virgins have received enough oil to know and understand they have a Spiritual need but they have not actually received God’s reconciliation in their heart. Our Lord provides us with enough Light/faith to accept God’s reconciliation so we can personally enter into Jesus’ fleshly ministry of death, burial and resurrection, receiving the thirst quenching water of Life Jesus provides. We than can become a spring of water welling up within us into eternal life. This is what the 5 foolish virgins didn’t have. Faith is a gift but requires a recipient.
The foolish virgins are those who believe in their mind but have not made a heart commitment to be created new in Christ Jesus. They are not born again but do believe the Bible is true while at the same time holding on to a deceptive self who will send them into total separation as soon as the door closes. Consider our Lord’s parable of the wheat and the tares.
There is the obvious lesson in this parable about the lost needing to face the truth and accept God’s grace before time expires, shutting the door. But isn’t there another message for us who are still in our spiritual boot camp. Are we sitting on what God has done? We have grace and truth within us. It is a well of “Living Water” springing up and providing eternal life. Are we drinking? Or are we living in the Spirit while walking in flesh? Or are we consuming grace, growing our faith and watching fruit grow on our branch?
I lost my wife Helen five years ago last December. A major lesson I am learning while walking alone is the investment she made in me which yields fruit in my solo journey. She gave up her self, investing in me, the father of her three girls. She faithfully and painfully poured into me her Phi Beta Kappa disciplined life so I am better equipped to deal with life’s issues with or without her. Now I have the opportunity to send up to her the benefit of her investment by God’s grace. In other words, the treasures of God’s righteousness in me are released in her name because I am deeply enabled by her pouring herself into me. This same principle applies spiritually, and to a greater degree, to all of us in Christ Jesus.
God not only delivered me from myself but continues to pour His grace into me conforming me to the image of Jesus in my flesh. He enables me to focus His Light in my darkness so that I can nail on His cross my soul’s depravity while filling my soul with His Life. This working of His grace increases my capacity because of His investment in me. Paul tells the Galatians, He gave Himself for my sins. He continues to pour “so much more” into me, as my faith allows, so I can glorify His name. His grace is constant through either blessing or discipline but He never leaves nor forsakes me. Grace is the manifestation of His love, which is endless truth. His grace is constant, grace upon grace. Remember our GN principle, “everything from God, nothing from us.”
Grace is God’s culture of Life connecting His creatures to Himself. Here is where Romans 8 opens spiritual doors for us. It begins with no condemnation in Christ Jesus and ends with no separation from His love. In between is where we consume His grace. We learn to live in the Spirit putting to death, in this process, the deeds of the flesh while at the same time putting on our Lord Jesus Himself. It is not just a metaphor, we literally are putting on, in the outward mantel of our soul, what God is growing into us Spiritually! His Life is lived through us, i.e., springs of water bubbling up within us.
Part of our growing is instructing our heart and mind not just with knowledge of God’s word (truth), crucial as that is, but we actually learn by teaching. We actually instruct others when they observe the power of God’s Spirit radiating through our flesh for others to see.
Last week I had to take my car in for some serious work at some distance from my house. While waiting for my car, I walked to a nearby eatery to spend a little time on my laptop. “Julie” greeted me at my table and I saw in her something I immediately recognized. I asked her, “Is that a Christian smile you are wearing?” “Yes,” she responding as the glow became more intense. Julie puts on the Lord Jesus Christ and nails to His cross the self that used to be her master. Sometimes it just shines!
I don’t know Julie’s personal story but I do know the One who knows her! This is a key element of this discussion. It’s not just that we know Him, it is also that He knows us! Ours is a grace relationship!
Once we are reborn as a new creation spiritually, we are now known by Him. We have not only entered into His grace but we have become a sheep in His flock. He has become our shepherd. Listen to what Jesus tells us in John 10, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” Later speaking to Jews in the Temple, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
Julie is a sheep and her Shepherd is Jesus. They know each other and when I see that smile on Julie’s face I know we are in the same flock! No, its not automatic; it’s a sign of God’s love building her (us) up in Him because she (we) chooses to love Him after we have entered into His flock. Take a look at 1Corinthians 8:3, “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.” Julie has a personal grace relationship with her shepherd and it is built on love, agape love!
We are all standing in God’s grace. But Romans 5 says we have access to the grace in which we stand. In other words, yes, we are standing in grace but that actually gives us access to more grace. Grace is our spiritual milieu to grow and grow and grow, grace upon grace. This is the Life of God John is talking about in our John 20:30 verse. This is our pathway for loving God and receiving His love compounded back to us some 30, some 60, some 100 fold. When the word speaks about grace, it is agape LOVE flowing out of God to make us like Him so that we know Him and He can enjoy fellowship in us. He gave Himself for us. This is what Love is all about! It is us giving ourselves back to God and trusting not in our self, but our Creator God who loves us and takes possession of us when we love Him. This is how the unseen becomes visible; this is what agape Love is about.
The parable of the ten virgins speaks to me about my faithfulness to all the riches in glory God allocates to me based upon how much I love Him. Do I consume the grace He provides? Are the “foolish virgins” being shut out because I have not been a faithful steward of God’s grace to me?
Paul tells Timothy the same things we have been looking at: Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
In 2Cor. 4:7 we are described as vessels of clay containing a treasure which is Jesus Christ our Savior. Placed in the above context, I would suggest this is where we start in our born again journey, a vessel of clay. It is reasonable to correlate this with the passage speaking of using wood, hay and stubble v. gold, silver, precious stones while building upon our foundation of Jesus Himself. In other words, what we do with God’s grace determines what our building looks like in heaven. This is a double whammy!!
Whammy No. 1.
We are talking about our own spiritual maturity as the rapture occurs. If we have been consuming grace with our faith, we will be building a building out of gold, silver and precious stones. Or to put it another way, we are the clay and God is the potter. If we submit to the potter’s hand, we will have the shape intended for us to be.
When we don’t build with grace and truth by faith, we produce wood, hay and stubble which is tested by God’s eternal fire. Or if we decide what kind of vessel we want to be and do not yield to the potter’s hand, we will not be a vessel of honor made for the master’s use.
Whammy No.2.
We are not in isolation. We have family and maybe a friend or two. If we are building with wood, hay and stubble then we are in concert with the world and complicit in their choices. If we have God’s grace but choose to enjoy sin for a season, our friends loose the opportunity to see Truth and we rob them of grace they could have seen in us if our building was made out of gold, silver and precious stones. Or they could have seen the beauty of a vessel shaped by God’s hand instead of our own.
We have contributed to the choices of the five foolish virgins and robbed ourselves of the glory of sharing grace and truth we possess. This is a huge cost simply because we chose not to not to trust God and consume His grace God.
Turn back to 2Timothy 2:24-26: “and the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
There it is! If we are willing, ready and able, God may use us to bring light to a foolish virgin who could then make the decision to be ready with more oil in her lamp so she can go in with us into the banquet … and the door closes with her inside, not separated from us!
My dilemma disappears when we walk in the light as He is in the light. We have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.