Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Read Time: 12 min and 8 seconds
“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of the virgins were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish ones took their lamps, they did not take extra olive oil with them. But the wise ones took flasks of olive oil with their lamps. When the bridegroom was delayed a long time, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look, the bridegroom is here! Come out to meet him.’ Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, because our lamps are going out.’ ‘No,’ they replied. ‘There won’t be enough for you and for us. Go instead to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ But while they had gone to buy it, the bridegroom arrived, and those who were ready went inside with him to the wedding banquet. Then the door was shut. Later, the other virgins came too, saying, ‘Lord, Lord! Let us in!’ But he replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I do not know you!’ Therefore stay alert, because you do not know the day or the hour.”
Matthew 25:1-13 NET
I’ve been going through the book of Acts, and it has been very inspiring. I see it as the sequel to a good movie. If Luke and the gospels are a movie about Jesus’ love, life and leadership on earth, the book of Acts is about the legacy He left behind. It’s a movie about the aftermath of the last film. Luke is about what Jesus did while Acts is about what His followers did in response to it.
In that view, the book of Acts should be seen as a template for your reaction to the action of Christ in your life. The book of Acts shows how the apostles reacted after the resurrection and gives us a template for how we should respond after Jesus resurrects our lives. It shows the mission we should focus on and the message we should rally behind. It shows how our churches and communities should function. It shows how we should live out the gospel. And it shows how the Spirit should be the driving force behind what God wants to do through us.
The book doesn’t just show what we should do and what our lives should look like; it shows what core priorities, principles, and pursuits should be powering it. The emphasis of the book isn’t just what the first followers of Jesus did after their encounter with Him and what we should do after our own personal encounter. The emphasis is that none of this reactionary call is possible without the outpouring of the promised Holy Spirit. While the book of Acts is titled based on the actions of the apostles after the resurrection, it should really be called Acts of the Holy Spirit through the apostles.
While we see stories of the exponential growth of the church, the commitment to the message and the crazy miracles God was able to do through the apostles, the star of the book is really the Holy Spirit. The focus of the book is the Holy Spirit. And the priority it should prompt in us is a push for us too to receive the Holy Spirit's power.
This is why the beginning of the book of Acts starts with Jesus telling them to prioritise Pentecost. This is why life after the resurrection, Acts, starts with an emphasis on the same thing that was emphasised before Jesus’ death in the gospels, the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The followers of Jesus were called to great things, but it wouldn’t happen without power. This revolutionary response to the resurrection wouldn’t happen without Pentecost. The Spirit was the priority. The Spirit was the power source. Nothing was possible without the Spirit, so it had to be a prioritised prerequisite to what was prophesied. Nothing else mattered without the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
At the beginning of Acts, when the disciples begin to look for details regarding His coming, Jesus tells them to instead focus on the Spirit. Even in the book of John, when Jesus prophesies about His coming and the time of the end, the emphasis isn’t fear but the comfort and peace that would come when the Holy Spirit came. As we await the second coming, our priority should be the same. We see the same emphasis in our text today.
The Bride & Groom
In Matthew 25, right after speaking about the future and His coming, Jesus tells a story about the importance of the Holy Spirit. Just like He did a few chapters before, He tells a story about His kingdom and coming in the context of a wedding. Ten women are seen waiting for the groom to appear.
Remember, all throughout the Bible, God describes Himself as a groom and His church as a bride, and that is good news for us. God uses Hosea and Gomer to depict how He still loved His wayward bride, and He pushes our modern marriages to model the gospel in the same way. Jesus is a good husband who made the decision to claim His bride before she made the decision to choose Him back. He’s a good husband who lavishes His bride with goodness and mercy even while she runs from Him. He’s a good husband who shows Himself fully even while His bride hides from Him. He’s a good husband who pours out an excess of love on those He knows don’t have the emotional capacity to give it back. He’s a good husband who spends all His energy proving He is good even when the one He loves seems to always forget. The groom obviously represents Jesus and His coming to receive His bride.
To add depth to this story, you must also recognise that in the time of Jesus, after a groom would make his intentions to marry known, he would literally go build a room or house for his bride to live in with him after they got married. So the betrothed bride or fiancée would be tasked with being ready while waiting for the groom to appear and take her home after he was finished.
This is why it’s significant that Jesus said He must go and prepare a place for us so that He can then come back and take us home with Him. The wedding parables we see in the Bible are pointing to the moment when Jesus, as the groom, comes to receive and publicly declare His commitment to and pleasure with the bride. He has made His intentions known, and assuming we accept His proposal, He is now preparing a place for us. He is playing the role of a husband-to-be and telling His bride, the church, to get ready for His return. All we have to do is accept His invitation.
Wedding Ready
Now in this story, like the one in Matthew 22, we get a wedding parable depicting Jesus inviting His church to be a part of His coming, but we don’t get a specific bride. Instead, all of those invited represent the church or flock of God. The virgins here represent those who have been invited to accompany the groom, Jesus, when He comes. Like in the parable in Matthew 22, all have been invited, but only some will actually accept the invitation, wear the robe of righteousness provided for them by the King, and come into the marriage feast, heaven. God desires that not one of us should perish, but some of us will fail to accept the invitation into our eternity.
So what’s the difference between those who accept their invite and those who don’t? What’s the difference between those who have the robe of righteousness and those who don’t? How can we be sure that when our heavenly husband returns to rescue us, we will be able to go with Him and enter into the joy of the Lord? In this parable, the difference is oil, and oil represents the Holy Spirit.
In this parable, five wise women have oil. That’s the difference. They had the Holy Spirit, but the ones who missed the train didn’t. Again, just like in the other places where the end of time and the Second Coming is discussed, the Spirit is the focus. Hear me. There is a reason why Jesus seems to emphasise the covering of the Holy Spirit whenever the idea of being ready for His coming is brought up. Why? Because the Spirit is the key card. The Spirit is the covering. The Spirit is the comforter, and the Spirit is the proof that you belong. Let’s talk a little about how the Spirit covers you, comforts you and confirms that you belong in this heavenly wedding.
Covered
I keep bringing up the parable in Matthew 22, so I may as well explain some of it. Jesus tells the story of a King preparing a wedding banquet for His son. The king invites all of His nobles as the first choice, but they reject the message and kill the messengers as the Jews did. The king then responds by rejecting His first choice and opening the invitation to everyone in all corners of the world, both good and bad. God first invited the Children of Israel, but they rejected Him and rebelled, so now He has opened it up to Gentiles, which means anyone that isn’t a Jew, like many of us, and grafted us into His family. Isn't that good news? But when the king came to the feast and saw that someone didn’t have wedding clothes, He kicked him out. Why? Sounds unnecessary or even unfair until you catch the meaning. In those days, kings would provide the necessary covering for events like weddings. They’d offer clothes for their guests, and these gifted garments almost functioned like a key card to show that you belonged, not based on your own merit but on what was gifted to you.
The Bible says that when we accept Christ, we put on His robe of righteousness and not our own. Our righteousness is filthy rags, but Jesus has covered us in something we couldn’t produce on our own. So that now when judgement comes, we are not judged by our own merit or mistakes but by the covering. When judged, we will look like Him. We’ll look like the Savior and not sinners. When we’re looked at, our filthiness will be covered, and instead Jesus’s righteousness will be seen. The Spirit is that covering. Even in Psalm 23, David talks about how oil was used to cover, heal and protect helpless sheep. The oil is our covering. You don’t get into the wedding feast without the covering. You don’t get in without oil.
Confirmed
Ok, so Jesus tells me to focus on the Spirit because the Spirit covers me so that I can make it into heaven and comforts me so that I’ll have peace while waiting, but how do I know I'll be safe? How do I know I’m saved? How do I know I’m sealed? Again, the Spirit is your answer.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 1, after reminding us of the comfort God brings, tells us that we have been sealed and given the Spirit as a guarantee, down payment, pledge, or deposit for everything He promised us. Again, when speaking of the promise of heaven and the resurrection in chapter 5, Paul reminds us that God gave the Spirit as a guarantee that He will do all He said He would do.
Still not getting it? Go to Ephesians. Paul says, “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:13-14 NKJV).” The Spirit is the covering. The Spirit is the comforter. And the Spirit is the confirmation. The Spirit is the seal we see that protects the servants of God from tribulation in Revelation 7. The Spirit is the covering that is needed to enter the wedding feast. The Spirit is the oil that is necessary to accompany the groom.
Comforted
Many of us aren’t as afraid of not making it into heaven as we are afraid of dealing with what may happen before Jesus comes. In John 16:33, Jesus promises that in this life we will have trials. That’s true. But we often overlook the fact that the next thing He says in the verse is to be of good cheer because He is in control. He only tells us about what will happen in the future so that we will have peace. Peace is one of the purposes of prophecy. Jesus, in the same conversation about His coming again, emphasised the coming comforter, the Holy Spirit. There may be storms. Actually, there will be storms. But you’ll have peace in the midst of them.
Go to Revelation 7. We see four angels holding back the winds of strife, ready to release them, when another angel rushes in to tell them to wait until he has sealed the servants of God. These angels are ready to allow the measured tribulations our God warned us about, but they’re warned not to harm anyone or anything until those who have chosen God have been pointed out, sealed and covered. Harm isn’t allowed until the people of God are protected. The chapter goes on to show a multitude that no man can count, covered in white robes. John then asks who those people are, and he is told that they are the ones who have made it through the great tribulation and washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. The blood is what purified their robes and made them white robes of righteousness they couldn’t produce on their own.
Are you catching this? So often we’re afraid of prophecy and anything from Daniel and Revelation, and I get it. But remember that the full title in Greek is a Revelation of Jesus Christ from Jesus Christ. If God is love and good and any good and perfect gift comes from God, the gift of a new view of Jesus from Jesus can’t be anything less than dripping in love and goodness. The core message of Revelation is that Jesus wins and we’re on His team. So Revelation 7 is showing us that we’re sealed and saved and don’t have to fear tribulation. We’re covered and sealed when we accept God's finished work and process through the Holy Spirit. This is why Revelation in multiple places says that you’re blessed for reading, hearing and speaking this prophecy. It’s all good news. If we have washed our robes in His blood, allowing them to be purified in His righteousness and been sealed with the Spirit, we too will make it through any tribulation. You don’t have to worry. The Spirit brings comfort.
Prioritise the Outpouring
Jesus says that in the last days He will pour out His Spirit on all flesh. My question is, have we been prioritising it? Have we been asking for it? Or have we been grieving it? Ephesians 4:30 says Do not grieve the Spirit by whom you have been sealed for the day of redemption. Don’t throw away your ticket. Don't forget the oil. You can not accompany the groom without it.
The ladies who made it into the wedding had the anointing, and you need it too. They had the covering. They had the power source, and it is the driving force behind their ability to shine. Remember, God designed us to be the light of the world. We are to be like these ladies with lamps, but we cannot shine or produce anything of value without the Holy Spirit powering it. Like a driver prioritising gas, you need to prioritise the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the only way you can have the power and desire to do what pleases God. If the Spirit is this important, do you think we’re prioritising it enough? If it’s the key to all we’ve been praying for, have we been asking enough? If it’s this serious that Jesus said it’s best for Him to go away so that the Spirit could come, are we sharing the same emphasis and priority Jesus had? Or is the Spirit an afterthought?
You can't produce the fruit of God without the Spirit. The way you walk and talk cannot look more like Jesus without the Spirit. You will not have the power to do anything that God has called you to do without the Spirit. Are you prioritising it? Or are you running out of oil?
Jesus says that if earthly fathers give good gifts to their children, how much more will our Heavenly Father pour out the Spirit on those who ask. Are you asking? Are you pleading? Like the disciples at Pentecost, have you been praying and preparing for the promised power?
Questions to Consider:
Jesus kept turning our attention to the Spirit when talking about the second coming. Have we done the same, or is our attention on something else?
Have we pointed to the need for, importance of and role of the Spirit like Jesus did?
Have we seen the Spirit as our covering, comfort and confirmation of what God promised us?
Has the outpouring Spirit been your focus in the last days or something else?
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