The Parable of the Wise and the Foolish (Matthew  25: 1-15)

One of the wise things that we do in life is we prepare for the future. For some that means stacking up on food, water, and batteries and don’t forget the torch. Whether it’s for floods like we sometimes experience in the UK or hurricanes in some other parts of the world, it is wise to prepare for the future. But the illustration of preparing for those sorts of things is mild by comparison to what Jesus teaches we ought to be preparing for the future. Things that we know for certain will happen from his word and that you can either be wise about what he says, or you can be foolish. So what I want to do today is talk to you about being wise or being foolish concerning the future as revealed to us by God.

Over the last couple of days, we’ve been looking at that extended passage from Matthew chapter 24 and now we have bridged over into chapter 25. Today I want us to look at the first 15 verses of Matthew chapter 25 beginning at verse one.

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins

1 “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 3 Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, 4 but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. 5 But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. 6 “And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’ 7 Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. 8 And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ 10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. 11 “Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ 12 But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ 13 “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.  (Matthew 25: 1-13)

In order to really understand what’s going on here you need to understand something about a 1st century a middle eastern wedding. Obviously, the metaphor being used here is that of a bridegroom and his bride, and these 10 virgins. In ancient times a wedding celebration was radically different than a wedding in our time, and that’s why we need to understand the three stages of an ancient wedding celebration.

In the first phase the parents of the bride and the parents of the bridegroom got together and decided that their son and their daughter were going to get married. At that point they entered into a legal agreement that was binding. As a matter of fact, though they had not yet consummated the marriage they were considered legally married and in order to break it they would have had to have what was called in that time a divorce, a term we still use to this day. But the whole process of the engagement and the marriage was radically different from the way we do things today. The way we usually do it today is a couple date, then usually he proposes, and then they say they are engaged and then they set a date and then later they have a wedding day and finally they live together and consummate the marriage.

This is radically different from the days being described here. At that time the first phase was just a legal agreement between the parents, but that legal agreement was binding, and it took a divorce to break it. They’re not yet married in the physical sense, but to all intense and purposes they were now a couple. Then after a period of time, sometimes many, many years, sometimes, the second phase of this marriage took place.  The bridegroom would leave his house and he would go to the home of the parents of his new bride. The he got her and took her back through the streets to his parents’ house.  So, in phase two the bridegroom goes to get his bride and brings her home and then phase three begins, but only when they get back to the parents of the bridegroom’s home.

That’s the backdrop of what’s going on here, and it is obviously being used here as an illustration of the second coming of Christ, because verse 13 of this passage says, “Therefore watch but you know neither the day nor the hour in which the son of man is coming”.

As I just explained at that time the bridegroom left his home and went to get his bride and when that happened everybody gathered at the parents of the groom’s house so they could greet the couple, as they came back. So, the bridegroom has gone to get the bride and all the people re gathering together to celebrate.  Now, these 10 virgins are described as having lamps, but notice first group of five of them were wise, and five of them were foolish, and it goes on to say those who were foolish took their lamps but took no oil with them. That certainly sounds odd doesn’t it, that you would take a lamp and not take any oil with you, but many point out this could be referring to the little additional oil canisters people use to carry with their lamps in those days.

Verse 8 says the foolish ones said give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. So, it’s not that they had no oil at all, it’s they didn’t have enough to last for what they were supposed to do. In other words, they had oil in their lamp, but they didn’t bring along that extra container of oil, so they were not prepared for what they were supposed to do. So, we have 5 wise virgins, and we have 5 foolish virgins, all ten had lamps, but some also had an extra container of oil so they could make it through whatever it was they were going to need to do. The foolish brought the lamps but they didn’t bring extra oil.

I have to pause before we go on and say that there is a huge debate over this parable among Bible teachers and Bible interpreters, I would dare say that most suggest that the five virgins that had the extra oil represent genuine believers, and the five that were foolish are unbelievers, that is probably the majority opinion in interpreting this passage. They argue that first of all the foolish didn’t have oil and they say oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, so they didn’t have the Holy Spirit. Secondly verse 11 says that the door was shut, and they were not allowed to get into the banquet, but the most serious thing that adds weight to that argument is that it says is verse 12, he said to the foolish virgins, I do not know you. So, for all those reasons, most say that the foolish virgins represent unbelievers.

However, there is another point of view, admittedly it’s the minority report but there is some evidence in the passage that they might, like in the previous paragraph, be believers who are not spiritually where they are meant to be. But either way, what is clear here is that the Lord want to talk about these two groups of people and let me also suggest that all ten were waiting for the Lord to return. 

The idea of being foolish here refers to some of them being unprepared they are said to have a spiritual sluggishness, spiritual stupidity, if you like, which led them to not being prepared. As well as the oil representing the Holy Spirit, the oil represents preparedness. Holy Spirit is declared to do that, the Old Bible translators of yesteryear used to call it the quickening of the Holy Spirit.

So, five were prepared and five were unprepared. Some were prepared, they weren’t sluggish or dull, or foolish, they were wise and because they had sense enough to discern that the bridegroom was coming at an unspecified time, they brought extra oil. So, their wisdom led to their being prepared. Whereas the foolishness of the others led to them being unprepared.

Now the issue is, are we going to be thy wise or foolish. Are we going to be prepared or unprepared? The text tells us that the bridegroom was delayed, and they all slept. It would be very tempting at this juncture to say that they’re slumbering and they’re sleeping was a bad thing but note they all did it. You will notice the text says they slumbered and slept (2 words) that is because the way this is written in the original text it indicates perhaps that they dozed a little and then they nodded, and they finally fell asleep, and they woke up again and the dozed off again. It’s getting late and they all fell asleep. But in verse six it says at midnight a cry was heard, “Behold the bridegroom is coming”, so they get up and all go out to meet him. This was custom, when the bridegroom was coming back with his bride an announcer would precede them and say, “Behold, he's coming”. The announcer would alert everybody to wake up and get ready because he is coming. In fact, I am told that the couple would deliberately take the longest way round to allow as many people as possible to hear the announcement and rise up and come to the wedding celebration.

So, the cry goes out, ‘they’re coming’,  and they all get up, and those wise virgins prepare their lamps and the foolish ones say to the wise ones, ‘Hey wait a minute we’ve run out of oil for our lamps can you give us some oil for our lamps’, and they wise ones say, ‘No, if we do that there will not be not enough for us, go and buy your own’. I know that sounds rather harsh, but this is not a matter of selfishness, because it says we don’t have any extra to spare, if they give away, they wouldn’t have any for themselves and they would miss out. I couldn’t find a single important commentary  that was willing to condemn them because they didn’t give them oil and no one suggests that they should be blamed for their slumbering either. In fact, you could say that it was only because the wise ones were prepared that they were able to go to bed.

I guess the point is and there’s an sub text here that says you shouldn’t wait till the last minute before setting your house in order. Anyway it’s midnight and the bride groom comes and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding party and then the door was shut. We then see these other foolish virgins came along saying open the door to us, but verse 10 says the door was shut to them. They had an opportunity to go to the wedding, but because they were unprepared, they have now lost their opportunity. 

Some say this parable is talking about entry to heaven itself, but I’m not so sure about that, however at the very least the door being shut represents the loss of your opportunity to be honoured and appreciated and recognized and maybe even serve in the kingdom to come. One commentator I read said that “This represents the Lord saying I do not know you, means the Lord is saying I do not approve or see no evidence of your record as a Christian. Therefore, this has nothing to do with salvation, but in fact is about missing out on the celebration and the rewards awaiting us in heaven”. End of quote. So, I don’t think this is about the Lord excluding them from salvation, but they lost their opportunity to win rewards in the kingdom to come.

In First Corinthians chapter 3, Paul says that all of our works are going to be judged by fire that everything we’ve done of the flesh is going to be put in a pile and a match is going to be stuck to it and the only things are going to survive the fire, are the precious works like gold silver and precious stones. All other works which were in reality done out of self-interest, so they are going to be consumed in the fire like hay and straw. Don’t misunderstand this passage, remember the Bible clearly teaches that going to heaven is by grace through faith and it’s a free gift. Ephesians 2: 8 tells us, “For it is by grace are you saved, through faith, and it is not of yourselves”.  

It also teaches us that when you understand that Jesus Christ died for you and arose from the dead and you trust in Jesus Christ for the gift of eternal life heaven is yours, and it’s freely given. We are justified freely by his grace, and gain heaven as a free gift, but also make no mistake about it, the rewards we shall receive in heaven and in the coming kingdom are based on how we have lived out our Christian life, and that I believe is what this passage is teaching about. Therefore, in order to be and rewarded by the Lord you’ve got to be prepared. This parable, as I read it, does not have as a primary purpose much to say about salvation, and neither do the other parables either side of it, in this section of scripture. But it is talking about being prepared by being clothed with the Holy Spirit, and inspired to action, by holy Spirit and by doing so we are then going to receive honour and blessing at the wedding banquet and rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. So, what is the conclusion? It’s in the final verse, 13.

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming”.  (Matthew 25: 13)

In other words, just like yesterday’s parable, it is reminding us that you don’t know the time, you won’t know the day,  and you won’t know the hour, therefore, watch. I’m told that in Strasbourg France there is a clock and around the dial are etched these words, one of these hours the Lord will come. You and I don’t know which one of those hours he might return, so be prepared. Don’t fall asleep, keep watch the Lord is coming back. The sum of this is simple, the wise believers prepare for the coming of the Lord and they get rewarded. On the other hand, the foolish do not prepare and they will suffer from a lack of more spiritual opportunities in this life, and they suffer the loss of rewards in the life to come.

We already saw the same thing in chapter 24, with the wise and foolish servants. So, twice now we have been told that we need to get prepared to receive the Lord upon his return, and we also need to get prepared to serve the Lord while we wait with that expectation. Walking with the Lord is obviously the positive side of this, the negative is being foolish means not being prepared. 

May I make a final observation. This is the second of three parables. The second in a trilogy. In the first one, there was a servant who said the Lord has delayed his coming, and because of that he took the opportunity to go out and live a selfish, self-indulgent life, including mistreating other people. In this parable half of these 10 virgins weren’t prepared, but they didn’t necessarily live a selfish self-indulgent life, they just neglected their spiritual life. Their problem was neglect, not overt sin, but it still had disastrous consequences for them. 

The other important point in this passage is it shows that when you don’t prepare you cannot grasp a last-minute opportunity to serve the Lord or even just enjoy what the Lord wants to give you. If you miss the opportunity, it is then usually gone and that’s what many believers are doing with their lives. Sometimes you don’t get a second chance to learn something you should have learned in the past. 

Let me close this with an illustration. 

Once there were two couples, they were friends and neighbours they both bought their house in the same street at nearly the same time.  The house was what we in the UK called semi-detached two house that share a single wall down the middle. They both were told that they should have smoke detectors, so they both put in smoke detectors. But one couple was wise and decided to replace the batteries every six months whether they needed them or not. The knew that those batteries ran out and that you should replace them before they died. At the same time very year they would buy new batteries for their smoke detectors when the clocks changed in the spring, they put them. The old batteries weren’t worn out, but they kept them and used them in the TV remote.

The second couple said oh we’re going to as much juice out of these batteries as we can .One night both houses caught on fire and the couple that didn’t prepare their house, it nearly burned down. The wise couple had a smoke detector that worked, they had prepared for that moment and when they heard the smoke detector woke up able to put out the fire and call the fire brigade. The other couple didn’t wake up till they heard the first couple shouting them and ringing their bell. They got out alright and the fire brigade came and put out the fire, but there was much more damage on the foolish side of the property.

That’s the kind of thing Jesus is teaching in this passage and many, many Christians are  neglecting to recharge or switch up their spiritual batteries. As in life, spiritually speaking, when the fire hits it’s going to be too late to buy new batteries.

One day you’re going to stand before the Lord and be judged for the way you spent your life and at that moment it’s going to be too late to go back and change things. People who live in earthquake zones, the wise one anyway, have back up water and food and torches and batteries in their home just in case an earthquake hit. In a similar fashion let me tell you the ultimate in being wise and preparing for the future in both the hard time and the best of time is about being prepared. 

How as a Christian you prepare is by daily walking with him, daily speaking with him, and daily digesting his word. And daily serving him, by serving others, because at any hour you saviour may return, and you want to celebrate, not just have regret about what you haven’t done.

Alfred Lloyd Tennyson one of the great English in one of his poems he took this parable and put it into poetry saying.

There is nothing so laden with regret as the sound of the words. too late.

Alfred Lord Tennyson caught the message that Jesus intended to communicate with this parable. It is true indeed there is nothing said that is so laden with regret as the sound of the words, I was too late….. Don’t let that be true of you.