Matthew 25:1-2. Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, And five were foolish.
What a division this makes in the visible Church of God! Let as hope that we are not to gather from this that as many as half the professors of Christianity at any time are like these foolish virgins; yet our Lord would not have mentioned so high a proportion if there were not a very large admixture of foolish with the wise: «Five of them were wise, and five were foolish.»
Matthew 25:3. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:
They thought that, if they had the external, it would be quite enough. The secret store of oil, they judged to be unnecessary, because it would be unseen. They would employ one hand in carrying the lamp, but to occupy the other hand by holding the oil-flask seemed to them to be doing too much, giving themselves up too thoroughly to the work; so they «took their lamps, and took no oil with them.» They might just as well have had no lamps at all.
Matthew 25:4. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
Oil in their lamps, and oil with their lamps. Lamps are of no use without oil; yet the oil needs the lamp, or else it cannot be rightly used. The light of profession cannot be truly sustained without the oil of grace. Grace, wherever it exists, ought to show itself, as the oil is made to burn by means of the lamp; but it is no use to attempt to make a show unless there is that secret store somewhere by which the external part of religion may be maintained.
Matthew 25:5. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
Both the wise and the foolish fell into a state which seemed alike in them both. In the case of good men, Christ's delaying his coming often causes disappointment, weariness, and then lethargy, and even the true Church falls into a deep slumber. In the foolish, the mere professors, this condition goes much further. There being in them no true life, the very name to live becomes abandoned, and before long, they give up even the profession of religion when there is no secret oil of grace to sustain it.
Matthew 25:6. And at midnight
When things had come to the worst, at midnight» the coldest and. darkest hour, when everybody was asleep.
Matthew 25:6. There was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
That was a cry which startled everybody; none of the virgins could sleep when once it was announced that the bridegroom was coming. I wish, dear friends, that we thought more of the great truth of the Second Advent. The oftener it is preached, in due proportion with other truths, the better. We need still to hear that midnight cry, «Go ye out to meet him.»
Matthew 25:7. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.
They could not sleep any longer; they were fairly startled and aroused.
Matthew 25:8. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil;
Ah, me! now they began to value what they had aforetime despised. They were foolish enough to think that oil was unnecessary; but now they saw that it was the one essential thing, so they cried to the wise virgins, «Give us of your oil.» And hear the dreadful reason:
Matthew 25:8. For our lamps are gone out.
I do not know any more terrible words than those, «Our lamps are gone out.» It is worse to have a lamp that has gone out than never to have had a lamp at all. «'Our lamps are gone out.' We once rejoiced in them. We promised ourselves a bright future. We said, ‘All is well for the marriage supper.' But ‘our lamps are gone out,' and we have no oil with which to replenish them.» O sirs, may none of us ever have to lift up that mournful cry! On a dying bed, in the extremity of pain, in the depth of human weakness, it is an awful thing to find one's profession burning low, one's hope of heaven going out, like the snuff of a candle.
Matthew 25:9. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.
It is no easy matter to go and rouse up the seller of oil when the midnight hour has struck. O you who are putting off repentance to a dying bed, you are foolish virgins indeed! Your folly has reached the utmost height. You will have more than enough to do, when you lie there with the death-sweat cold upon your brow, without then having to seek the grace which you are neglecting to obtain today, but which you will value then.
Matthew 25:10. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came;
While they were going.
Matthew 25:10-11. And they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
Too late, so that they could not enter.
Matthew 25:12. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
«I never knew you,» says Christ in another place; and this knowledge of his is always bound up with affection. He loves no heart that he knows not in this sense. Those whom he knows, he loves. Will he ever say to me or to you, dear friend, «I know you not»? God grant that he never may have cause to do so I
Matthew 25:13. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.