Matthew 25:1-13
“Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, but the other five were wise enough to take along extra oil. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
“At midnight they were roused by the shout, ‘Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!’
“All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. Then the five foolish ones asked the others, ‘Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.’
“But the others replied, ‘We don’t have enough for all of us. Go to a shop and buy some for yourselves.’
“But while they were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came. Then those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was locked. Later, when the other five bridesmaids returned, they stood outside, calling, ‘Lord! Lord! Open the door for us!’ “But he called back, ‘Believe me, I don’t know you!’
“So you, too, must keep watch! For you do not know the day or hour of my return.
Continuing from the last post, at the direction of the Lord, I have been studying and also listening to the teachings of some anointed men of God. As expected, although I know they have not conferred with each other, the Lord was speaking a similar message through them about the condition of the Church in this hour. Then, while listening to one of the messages, the Lord revealed to me something that was not being taught, but literally brought me to my knees and also to a deeper understanding of the mercy of our God when we do things that are illegal in the spirit. Not in vain does Hosea 4:6 say that God’s people perish for lack of knowledge.
This Scripture is saying that without our knowledge and understanding of God and the ways of His Kingdom, we live our lives unaware that we could be doing things that are illegal by His standards and could’ve cost us our lives. But Jesus paid that price and took our place. He died on the Cross for us knowing that we would do things that deserved death, and instead, the King is extending His scepter of grace and mercy to those of us who come seeking to be reconciled to Him.
So to explain the Scripture at the beginning of this post, Matthew 25:1 talks about ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. That sounds good until we realize that half of them we’re not prepared to meet Him. You see, those lamps represent the anointing of the Lord for our lives that is cultivated through the oil of our watching in prayer and seeking His presence. In other words, according to the Bible and as Pastor Juan Carlos Harrigan shared, our anointing to do His will and fulfill our calling comes from His presence. That is the only way.
The world cannot anoint us for our calling or preserve us in our anointing. The Scripture also says that the five foolish bridesmaids had their lamp, but what they didn’t have enough of was oil. This tells us that they were once anointed by the Lord and were given a lamp for which they were commanded to keep the fire burning. However, they must’ve neglected this fire and the oil that kept it burning. Exodus 27:20-21 shows us the only source that was valid in God’s eyes for this oil to come.
“‘Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to keep the lamps burning continually. The lampstand will stand in the Tabernacle, in front of the inner curtain that shields the Ark of the Covenant. Aaron and his sons must keep the lamps burning in the Lord’s presence all night. This is a permanent law for the people of Israel, and it must be observed from generation to generation.”
As the Scripture describes, this oil could only come from pressed olives. This talks about our sacrificial giving to our God as we seek Him as our first and foremost necessity when we start our day, and also as He prompts us to increase our time in His presence with prayer, fasting, worship, reading, and studying His Word, along with every step of faith He leads us to take. This also includes our financial giving and service to others as He directs us. What God wants us to understand is that our offerings must be acceptable in His eyes. (See Romans 12:1).
The above paragraph lists some of the ways the Lord assigned for us to keep our lamps burning continually which summed up, help us hear with clarity, and follow His voice by His Spirit. The lampstand in the Tabernacle which is us represents our relationship with the Holy Spirit that helps us have access to God’s supernatural power to accomplish what only God can give us and is acceptable to Him for our lives.
Even our ability to stand in His presence (the Ark of the Covenant) from where we receive everything we need for life and godliness comes from our relationship and obedience to the Spirit of the Lord. Everything else that we would try to conjure up without God’s leading or approval is considered illegal in His sight. Zechariah 4:2-6 tells us,
“‘What do you see now?’ he asked. I answered, ‘I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl of oil on top of it. Around the bowl are seven lamps, each having seven spouts with wicks. And I see two olive trees, one on each side of the bowl.’ Then I asked the angel, ‘What are these, my lord? What do they mean?’ ‘Don’t you know?’ the angel asked. ‘No, my lord,’ I replied. Then he said to me, ‘This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”
But going back to Matthew 25, verse 8 says that the five foolish virgins asked the five wise ones to give them some of their oil because their lamps were going out. This is what brought me to my knees to ask the Lord to forgive His Church for our foolishness and to thank Him for His goodness and mercy towards us for the abominable things in His sight that we all have done at one time or another.
Matthew 25:13 says that the oil, which came from pressed olives, means that we must watch for the coming of the groom with prayer and all those other things mentioned above. Therefore, asking or expecting someone else to do the watching for us while we remain asleep, not preparing for the move of the Spirit that He has promised will come could’ve killed those five foolish virgins because their “borrowed” oil for the fire of their lamps was considered strange or illegal fire in God’s eyes.
In the times of the Old Testament, this caused two newly ordained priests their lives because only God reserves for Himself the right to provide the fire of His glory for the lamp of the anointing for our lives and to provide the answer to our prayers in His supernatural way. But most of all, maintaining the fire of His presence in our lives prepares us to become the answer to the prayers of others. This was the case for Jesus. Isaiah 61 gives us the wonderful promises of God of what Jesus Christ (Christ is not a name but a description of what God did through Jesus by the Holy Spirit and His obedience and it means “the Anointed”). Verse 1 says,
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed and commissioned me To bring good news to the humble and afflicted; He has sent me to bind up [the wounds of] the brokenhearted, To proclaim release [from confinement and condemnation] to the [physical and spiritual] captives And freedom to prisoners,” AMP
Luke 4:17-21 shows the fulfillment of this prophecy,
“ The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me (the Messiah), Because He has anointed Me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent Me to announce release (pardon, forgiveness) to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed (downtrodden, bruised, crushed by tragedy), to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the favor of God abound greatly].’ Then He rolled up the scroll [having stopped in the middle of the verse], gave it back to the attendant and sat down [to teach]; and the eyes of all those in the synagogue were [attentively] fixed on Him. He began speaking to them: ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing and in your presence.’” AMP
We know by the Scriptures that Jesus kept the oil of anointing flowing through His intimacy with the fire and by maintaining the fire burning through daily prayer. For this, He separated Himself to a solitary place, to spend precious time with the Father. And from this time in the presence of the Father, He new what He was anointed to do and how to carry it out, where, and with whom. In the same way, when we separate time to spend in the presence of the Lord, our oil is pressed out of us, but the lamp continues to burn because we have that fire going and not neglected. Then, He will lead us by His Spirit into how to position ourselves to receive the things He asks us to do and for which He anointed us.
But when we continually try to come up with our own fire by doing things He never told us to do to “help things along” or to try to give birth to His promises in our own authority and power, this ignites His wrath because, by this, we’re telling Him that He’s not God enough or powerful enough to do what He promised or to supply our needs. Trying to come up with our own fire opens doors to the enemy to influence us away from God’s will for us. The more we do this, the harder our heart gets and as we continually reject God’s will for us, we begin to call evil good, and what is evil in God’s eyes we call good.
What follows is the need for us to face the consequences of following the wrong voice and doing the wrong things. We see this in Leviticus 9:1-24, after the ordination in the priesthood of Aaron and his two sons, Nadab and Abihu, the Lord concluded the seven-day ceremony by sending His own fire. This was a fire that they were mandated to keep burning day and night and all the priests were to follow the same command in every generation. This mandate continues for our generations to keep the fire God placed in our hearts for Him, His presence, and His ways.
But Leviticus 10:1 says that Aaron’s sons fabricated their own fire from coals from somewhere other than the fire of glory God had provided, and put incense on top of the coals to create an aroma. Sadly, they were burned to death by the fiery wrath of the Lord. After this happened, the Lord spoke to Aaron through Moses to let him know why his sons died. By His act, God demonstrated to whom He reveals Himself and shows His glory through in the side of others. Leviticus 10:3 says,
“Then Moses said to Aaron, ‘This is what the Lord meant when he said, ‘I will display my holiness through those who come near me. I will display my glory before all the people.’” And Aaron was silent.”
But in His mercy and grace, Jesus died for us and as shown by the outcome of the five foolish virgins, instead of dying on the spot for being willing to provoke strange fire in God’s eyes, the groom shut the door and told them they needed to go and watch for His coming again. This is the only way to keep the fire burning in a way that is pleasing to the Lord because the groom responded to them that He didn’t know them. Clearly, this shows that they didn’t spend time seeking His presence or doing His will. In addition, the wise virgins told them in verse nine that they needed to buy (pay the price) for the oil (of anointing) they were lacking. Revelation 3:14-17 says,
“Write this letter to the angel of the church in Laodicea. This is the message from the one who is the Amen—the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s new creation: ‘I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.”
Unfortunately, this is the condition of many people who are more preoccupied with following the ways of the world and its lust. They do not realize that they are constantly trying to conjure up their own fire because it takes choosing as a lifestyle to live sacrificially from the presence of the Lord (dependent on Him), rather than seeking the quick fixes the world offers that in the end, leave us having to go around the mountain of testing for neglecting to do His true will for us. The Western Church is mostly guilty of this.
Many of them are blind like the priest Eli and ignore their spiritual condition and that of those around them (See 1 Samuel 3:2-3). Their lamp is verily burning until God raises others to keep the charge of their assignment from dying by watching and praying for the coming of the Lord and to be rightly positioned for His move. But in His goodness and mercy, our Lord shuts the door on our wrongdoing, and at the same time knocks on the door of our heart hoping for us to answer and allow Him to enter in. Remember that He doesn’t force Himself on us because He gave us free will.
Instead, He expects us to answer and choose to eat a meal with Him. This also stands for our seeking His presence with prayer and watching as we seek first His Kingdom and all His righteousness (See Matthew 6:33). Revelation 3:18-20 continues with this admonition and also shows His grace and mercy for us and not the death we deserve from sending to Him the strange fire of our own accomplishments and for causing the oil in our lamps to be nearly quenched. Rather, He asks us to choose death to self by seeking and obeying His will for us.
“So I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich. Also buy white garments from me so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see. I correct and discipline everyone I love. So be diligent and turn from your indifference. ‘Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.”
To God alone be all the glory. *
Image by Google Images
Scriptures in this post were taken from the New Living Translation NLT unless otherwise noted.
