THEY TOOK NO OIL WITH THEM.
By Uriah Smith
OUR Lord uses these words in describing the five foolish virgins, in the parable of the ten virgins, in Matt. 25 : 1–12. Of them all, he says that ten virgins went forth to meet their Lord, or “to meet the Bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.” These two classes represent all who have any experience in the movement shadowed forth by the parable: Five wise virgins, and five foolish ones. And the language intimates that it will be easier to be among the foolish ones than among the wise; for the cases of the foolish are first taken up, and their failures described, “They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them.” That was their failure. The wise are next described; and the only difference between the wise and the foolish, is that the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. Here were the two classes of wise and foolish: one class with oil, the other without oil, or at least, any extra supply. There was no apparent difference between them, in outward appearance and outward profession. They looked alike, and they were both engaged in the same work; but with one class there was an inward work of grace in the heart, which the other did not have. With the wise there was real genuine heart work; a real entrance into the cause of God; a fixed determination to believe the promises of God, act upon them, and secure what he had to offer in them. With the foolish, it was all pretense and sham, a spasmodic grasping of a passing emotion, a momentary yielding to present conditions. Hence the wise anticipated contingencies to come, and prepared to meet them, determined to follow their Lord all the way, and to see the come-out of the whole matter. And when finally the issue was reached, and the conclusion was manifest, the same two classes again appear, described now in a different manner to show a different destiny; namely, “And they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.” One class is admitted, and the other is shut out. The wise virgins are received to the marriage, and the foolish are excluded therefrom. Here is the solemn lesson of the parable, for all. What was the difference between the two classes?—One was “ready,” the other was not. What is this readiness?—It is not a condition of nature. None are, or will be, ready to enter to the marriage supper of the Lamb, while they are in an unregenerate condition. It must be a work of grace, since we can not any of us make ourselves fit for the glorious presence of Christ, or the unspeakable majesty of the Father. Without holiness, which none of us can generate, no man shall see God. But with this preparation we are ready for anything; ready to live and work for the Lord, or to die, and wait in hope for the resurrection; and without this we are not ready for anything; we are living an utterly bankrupt, hopeless life. But when we have the inward work of transformation wrought in our hearts; when we are reconciled to God, by the blood of his Son; when we are regenerated and made meet for glory; when we have been anointed by the Spirit, and fitted for holy service; when we have been quickened into high and holy fellowship with God, when we delight in him more than in all else,—then we feel that we are ready to enter into his presence and enjoy his glory, in his kingdom. So, the ever-present inquiry in our minds should be, “Am I ready? or, if I have not already attained, am I pressing forward to reach the heavenly standard?” Some seem to be making no efforts at all; they make no profession; never pray, nor offer praise. Others make a profession, and go through the forms of worship; but they neither love nor trust; they have lamps, but no oil with which to keep them supplied and burning. “They that were ready went in.” Into what?—Into glory, to be forever with the Lord. 1 Thess. 4:17. And when the time comes for this move, there is no delay about it. No sooner does the Bridegroom enter upon the marriage ceremony, than those who are ready go with him in to the marriage. Love brooks no delay. The Lord has left on record his wish that his saints may be with him, to behold his glory; and to our unaccustomed eyes no scene will appear more glorious than when he takes his kingdom. It is the perfection of divine intimacy; they enter in with him. This is the glory of heaven, the crowning of its joys. We go in with Jesus, and are no more separated from him. He says himself, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.” And again, “These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.” It is an occasion of exuberant joy. They do not go in to any of the ordinary scenes even of heaven, but to the marriage of the Lamb; and a marriage is a scene of festivity and good will. No clouds of depression or sadness are allowed to overshadow such a scene. And it is an occasion not only of general joy, but of personal and individual ecstasy. It does not say that their friends and acquaintances went in; but they went in, each one for himself, into his own individual rapture. And the condition into which they enter is one which is safeguarded for eternity. The door was shut; not only shutting the wicked out, but shutting the saints in. He shutteth, and no man openeth. We do not read that this door is ever, at any time afterward, opened again. When once that door is shut, there is no second probation for any man. There is a world of meaning, little comprehended, in Peter’s declaration, “So an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:11. The unready are excluded. What is the cause of their unreadiness?—They had no heart-work in their service. They had the name and appearance of true virgins; they had lamps or torches, such as the true virgins had; they were the companions of true virgins for a while; they, like them, at the midnight cry, arose and trimmed their lamps; they seemed to be desirous of having as good a light as the rest; but the lack of oil soon began to show itself. They were shocked at a startling discovery: “Our lamps are going out.” Matt. 25:8, margin. They even resorted to a kind of prayer, but it was not directed to the right source; it was directed to the wise virgins: “Give us of your oil.” When told that the grace of God could not be distributed10pro rata, but that they must go and buy for themselves, they started off in haste to buy. They were not indifferent. They were not inactive. No doubt they hastened, with all their power, to reach the merchant, and procure the oil which they lacked; and the narrative would seem to indicate that they succeeded in procuring the oil, or at least in supposing that they had, for they returned with haste and great confidence, and knocked, saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” And the Lord does not meet them as if their situation was the result of an ordinary piece of ill luck, or mishap; he does not treat them as if they had been all right through most of their experience, but had just then made a little mistake in coming late to the marriage. No; but he treats them as strangers; he says, “I know you not.” Their whole course in reference to Christ’s great marriage feast, with which, says one writer, “they had played the fool,” not deeming it important enough to procure a supply of oil, but going to it with empty lamps, which must inevitably go out in smoke, their lack of heart in it, and preparation for it, had so estranged them from the whole occasion and its spirit, as to render them wholly unfit for the provisions which had been made for the sincere and faithful. In Christ’s own instruction to his disciples, on the mountain, he speaks of many who will come to him in the great day, hoping to enter into the kingdom, and say, “Lord, Lord.” “Then,” he says, “will I profess unto them, I never knew you.” The trouble is, not some single contingent or fortuitous lapse from right, at the close of a long religious experience; but the vital error, the determining factor of failure, is a whole life characterized by a lack of fervor, and by insincerity. Another way in which this disposition manifested itself was that the foolish virgins put off till in the night, what should have been attended to at once and in the light of day. Think of this, you who mean to be Christians sometime, but are putting it off, and putting it off, till a more convenient season. If you have to go for oil at the close of the day, will that be a more convenient season?—No; it will be too late. Get it now. The foolish virgins were excluded. How many?—All of them; all who were not “ready.” It is no abrupt and arbitrary decision on the part of God that certain ones can not come in. It is no election or predestination that keeps them out; but they did not go in, simply because they were not “ready.” It was their own doing, their own fault. The door was shut. The righteous were shut in, as well as the wicked shut out. This separation of the two classes is final. They never are brought together again in common association; for the door is never again to be opened in such a way that the two kinds of characters can intermingle. The tares and the wheat are never again to grow together in this world. The poet Cowper tells us that when he was under conviction of sin, he dreamed that he was walking in Westminster Abbey, waiting for prayers to begin. “Presently,” he says, “I heard the minister’s voice, and hastened toward the choir. But just as I was entering, the iron gate under the organ was shut in my face, with a jar that made the Abbey ring. The noise awakened me; and a sentence of excommunication from all the churches upon earth could not have been so dreadful to me, as the interpretation which I could not avoid putting upon this dream.” The following incident shows how many try to turn aside the solemnity of this subject: A lady heard Whitefield preach on one occasion, in Scotland, upon the subject, “The Door Was Shut.” She was placed near two dashing young men, and witnessed their mirthfulness. She overheard one say to the other, in a low voice, “Well, if the door be shut, another will open.” Mr. Whitefield had not proceeded far, when he said, “It is possible that there may be some careless, trifling person here to-day, who may ward off the force of this impressive subject, by lightly saying, What matter if the door be shut, another will open.” The two young men were paralyzed, and looked at each other. Mr. Whitefield proceeded, “Yes, another will open; and I will tell you what that door will be. It will be the door of the bottomless pit; the door of hell; the door which conceals from the eyes of angels the horrors of damnation.” There is a great deal said to-day in this country, about “the open door.” There must be maintained an open door, say the leaders of the nation, if we have to fight for it. An open door to what?—Why, to China, and to every place where we wish to dispose of our merchandise; an open door for trade, that the few millionaires in this country may become billionaires. But what is this compared with the “open door” to everlasting life?—a door which will soon be shut. Who concerns himself about this greater matter? “Why do we waste on trifling cares
That life which God’s compassion spares,
While in the various range of thought,
The one thing needful is forgot?”
The door is not yet shut. Those in the parable who were unready, and did not go in, were those who took no oil with them. “Have salt in yourselves,” said Christ. Have oil in your vessels, says this parable. The only open door which should concern the people of the world to-day, is the open door to endless life in the kingdom of God; and before it is shut all who are ready will enter in. Let us be ready. U. S.