The Night The Lights Went Out

Bu John Stallings


You know the story. It’s the story in Matthew 25:1-13, of a nighttime wedding where everything seems to go wrong. The facts are very straightforward. Ten young virgins wait for a wedding banquet. The groom will come by & they will run out to join the party as it continues to the wedding feast.

But the groom shows up late & it gets dark. The young girls are sleepy & soon nod off by the side of the road. Five of the girls refill their lamps before they fall asleep, so they’ll we ready to join the wedding party as it comes through the street. But the other five let the oil in their lamps run out.

At midnight the groom comes by. The five who’re prepared simply light their lamps & run out to meet him. The five who’re not prepared ask the first five girls to share their oil but they say, “No, if we loan you our oil, there won’t be enough for our own lamps.”

Imagine the shock that overtook the foolish virgins when they discovered their lamps had flickered out. Sleepy eyes, unkempt hair, ruffled dresses, all these things paled into insignificance when compared to the tragedy of their lights going out.

The five foolish virgins run out to buy oil & arrive late to the feast. As the story concludes the rejected bridesmaids are standing outside the door asking for admission but to no avail. They are banned from the celebration. “The door was shut.”

This is one of the most solemn parables that the Lord Jesus ever told; partly because of the time at which it was spoken & partly because of the important implications for the Christian. The story was told but a few days before our Lord’s death & was spoken within view of Gethsemane, Calvary, the cross & the grave. Not only is there a wooing call of devotion to God, this parable contains a strong prophetic significance, & stands as a beacon to the Church in all ages. It warns against carelessness, slothfulness, apathy & indifference. It cries to sinners, “Awake” & it cries to saints, “Watch.” The overriding message of the story is that when Jesus returns to the earth, some will be ready & others won’t.

THE TEN VIRGINS WERE SIMILAR IN MANY WAYS

All had been invited to the banquet & all had responded positively.
All ten had gone out to wait for the bridegroom.
All of them had their lamps with them.
All the virgins wanted to see the bridegroom.
All were in the right place at the right time for the right reason.
All of them wanted to go to the wedding banquet.
All had some oil in their lamps in the beginning.
All fell asleep while waiting for the bridegroom.
All were awakened by the midnight cry.
All ten virgins got up to prepare their lamps.
All appeared to be equally prepared for the bridegroom’s coming.

If these ten girls had stood in front of us, we couldn’t have seen any difference between the wise ones & the foolish ones. One might have been chewing gum & a few might have looked bored but to the untrained eye, they would all look the same.

Before you feel sorry for the five foolish virgins, please consider this; they knew as much as the wise virgins knew about the coming celebration. It wasn’t a lack of information or wrong information that caused them to miss the celebration. The foolish virgins had everything they needed to know & still they weren’t ready.


As the night wore on, all the virgins came close to burn-out. There was nothing wrong with that. It was a common experience. If the bridegroom had come on time, there would have been no problem but he delayed his coming. However, due to the lateness of the hour, having an extra supply would be crucial. The wise virgins carried an extra supply of oil but the foolish virgins didn’t.

Note that the oil the wise virgins carried in their lamps was no greater than the oil the foolish virgins carried in their lamps. Obviously, the extra resource, the extra supply of oil was separate from the oil they had in their lamps. All ten of them were seeing their lamps beginning to burn out as the midnight hour approached. The oil the wise virgins had wasn’t already poured inside their lamps; it was separate from & subsequent to the residual oil.

We know that God is trying to tell us something here but what is it? He’s telling us that one thing separates the wise girls from the foolish girls. Whatever could it be?

OIL, A SYMBOL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

In scripture, oil is symbolic of The Holy Spirit. This being true, the extra oil could only represent the Divine Paraclete, The Comforter/ Strengthener, our Eternal Supply, even the fullness of the Holy Spirit. This issue of the extra provision that’s beyond ourselves is hugely important. I believe this is God in His loving way giving us a warning, a call to spiritual preparation.

Lately I’ve been quickened in my spirit that time is running out. I’m sure many of you feel the same. Heaven is going into her last hour operations. The prophetic clock on the mantel of the ages is trembling toward the midnight hour & many Christians are asleep.

Political winds are blowing in our beloved country in a direction they’ve never blown & if we slumber through the next weeks & months in America, we could very well see the subtle undoing of all our forefathers laid down their lives for.

Biblical Christians know there is certainly darkness up ahead & understand that God is desiring to get His people ready for that journey through darkness that comes at the end of this age. If this parable is a prophecy & I believe it is, the answer is all too apparent. Through this parable God is giving us a “heads-up.” The question is will we take the warning to heart, seek the face of God & make the needful preparation?

RUINING LOW ON OIL—RISKING BURNOUT

All the ten virgins were in the same condition to a point. They had all come to a moment of crisis & all were running out of oil. Spiritual attentiveness seems to be a critical issue here. What was really the difference in the wise girls & the foolish girls in this story? The wise ones had made deliberate plans & preparations for the coming night. They weren’t trusting in just the oil they had in their lamps, they came with extra oil.

They made it a priority to have spiritual reserves outside themselves. It was “midnight oil.” With this extra oil the virgins were ready for the midnight drama that was to come. When the hour of burnout came they could recharge their lamps with fresh oil. The foolish virgins weren’t prepared for any midnight emergency. They couldn’t continue after midnight. The lights went out for them.

OUR HEAVENLY BRIDEGROOM HAS PROMISED US EXTRA OIL.

Jesus promised his followers He wouldn’t leave them desperate & alone but would send more power on the Day of Pentecost.

Listen to John 14:16,--And I will pray the Father & He shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever.

He kept His promise 50 days after His resurrection when the Holy Spirit walked a dusty stairway & fell on the 120 faithful who’d waited in an upper room for the promise to be fulfilled.

Jesus spoke of His Holy Spirit as a light. He said;

When he the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall he speak. And he will show you things to come. John 16:13.

I’ve said it many times but it’s strange to me that some folk believe the days of miracles along with the out poured Holy Spirit are past & the gifts given to the Apostles have all been revoked. However the gifts were never called- the gifts of the Apostles, -but rather “the gifts of the Spirit.” Surely the Spirit hasn’t passed away.

THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST HAUNTING PARABLE CHRIST TOLD.

There were ten girls who were going into this dark night & all of them had lights that were burning brightly but they were in for a long night. At the stroke of midnight things would change & become very different & very difficult. A long dark night will take them completely out of their comfort zone. It will be a journey of wonder & it will take them well beyond their present structures they’ve come to rely on.

SOME FOLK MOCKINGLY CALL RAPTURE BELIEVERS “FLY-AWAY CHRISTIANS.”

I believe the Word of God makes it crystal clear that Christ Himself will leap from the battlements of the sky with a shout to take the waiting saints to be with Him forever. I believe according to His Word that the trumpet sound will topple tomb-stones, graves will open & the sainted dead will rise first. Then millions of Christians will be missing.

I personally don’t believe Christians will go through the Great Tribulation but we’ll definitely go through a tribulation & it’s already begun.

Somehow a word of wisdom came to the wise virgins & they paid attention to it & made sure they were prepared. Are we prepared for our journey through darkness just ahead? They set their face toward the Coming One & made sure they had all that was available to them. They dressed themselves in the garments of praise & righteousness. They were prepared to go bravely into this epic night. They will meet the Bridegroom at his coming & be given glorified bodies & come into their spiritual consummation at the marriage Supper of the lamb.

Are you & I allowing our five senses to dictate reality to us? Are we just ignoring the realities of the times we’re living in? Are we even stopping to consider the fact that we’re also going to be called to face unfamiliar events just ahead of us? This parable teaches us that we, the Bride of Christ are also going to face a time of real darkness as we approach the foothills of the Great Tribulation. Are we going to be prepared for it, or have we as Westernized Christians become so narcissistic & self-absorbed that we’ve allowed the comforts of the flesh to lull us into complacency?

Some people get confused when we speak of a great falling away in the last days, because we simultaneously speak of a great end-time revival. There will be both. We’re presently experiencing a falling away but we’re also seeing a great worldwide revival. All the Old Testament prophets saw this latter-day outpouring of God’s Spirit.

CAN YOU SEE THE DIVINE ROMANCE IN THIS PARABLE?

God has a people, a bride who in these last days are preparing themselves to rise & shine for the bridegroom in the face of the utter darkness that’s settling upon this world. God has a remnant that “gets the message.” They can discern the spiritual skies. They have the revelation that we’re going to have to walk almost all the way into the coming Apocalypse, but they have no fear of it. Their lamps are fueled with a personal supply of oil as well as the external yet also personal supply of oil. Their lamps don’t waver even in the valley of the shadow of death. They are prepared to go out into the midnight darkness & go beyond.

Friend, what will you do when things turn black in this world? Will that be-“The night the lights go out” for you? Do you have that extra reserve of unction, power, brightness of spirit & good cheer to go on? Do we have that extra jar of oil to refill our failing lamps?

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF “BORROWED POWER”

A striking aspect of this story is the refusal of the wise virgins to loan oil to the foolish virgins. This might seem selfish on their part but to loan out their oil would mean that no one would have oil. The more overarching point is; no one can borrow another person’s faith. We can’t borrow faith from our parents.

We can’t borrow faith from the Bible College we attended.
We can’t go to heaven by holding to someone else’s coattails.
We must believe on Jesus on our own, not relying on the faith of someone around us.

At some point in our future the midnight cry will be heard. The comforts we’ve become so accustomed to will fall away. Forces will begin to press in on us & we’ll start to stir & awake from our dreamy state. The “dark night of the soul” will finally have come. If we think looking up for our heavenly bridegroom is being too “heavenly minded” we won’t think that much longer. It will be a time to “rise & shine” for God’s covenant people. The time Isaiah saw will have finally arrived;

Arise, shine for your light has come. And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Isa.60:1-5

OIL SIGNIFIES A PLACE OF CRUSHING

Oil is obtained by the crushing of olives. There is an aspect of crushing when it comes to Christians who want to walk in an anointing, especially in these last days.

I’ve been in ministry for more than half a century but I can tell you that I’ve never seen a time when God’s people are experiencing more oppression than at the present moment. There’s a price to be paid to walk in the anointing.

Having been to the Holy Land several times I realize that right across from Jerusalem’s eastern gate is the Mount of Olives. This is the grand entrance into the Holy City, the entrance Jesus took at His first coming. It will also be where He comes in at His second coming when His feet touch the Mount of Olives & the whole mountain cleaves in two. Not far away is the place called Gethsemane, which means “oil press.” Here is where oil is pressed out.

This is the place where Jesus was handed the cup of suffering. This is the place where He knelt down & prayed, sweating as it were drops of blood. It was here that “The anointed one” faced the powers of darkness in His dark night & faced the prospect of the cross & for the first time being cut of from His father. There at the “oil press” Jesus defeated the powers of darkness so that you & I will never have to see defeat.

The wise virgins knew this place for it was here that they found the oil & purchased it with the surrender of their own self-life to God.

The virgins get up as they hear the midnight cry. Their lamps are about to go out. The five wise girls proceed to fill their lamps with the extra oil.

The Bible is replete with cases of people slumbering. The disciples slumbered in the garden on the night of Jesus’ betrayal. Like the disciples the ten virgins also slumber as their lamps burned low.

At midnight all the virgins awaken. They have all heard the shout of the Bridegroom. The wise virgins fill their lamps & they are burning bright to light their way as they head out into the darkness. The hour has come.

MIDNIGHT IS BOTH AN AGONIZING & ECSTATIC MOMENT IN TIME.

It was at midnight when Samson awakens from slumber & finds himself in the bonds of Delilah’s seduction & betrayal.

It was at midnight when Boaz discovers the maiden Ruth lying at his feet. As he slept on the floor she had nestled herself there seeking covering.

It was at midnight when Jesus was betrayed & sent up before Caiaphas.

It was at midnight that Paul & Silas are praising God in prison. They weren’t low on oil were they? Their praises went through the prison roof & skipped out through the Milky Way & didn’t stop until they reached heaven & then came back down to earth in the form of an earthquake, shaking open the doors & locks of the prison & causing the jailer, now under a death sentence to ask, “What must I do to be saved?.

The ten virgins are now awaking from sleep. The midnight drama is starting to unfold. The shout of the Bridegroom has been heard off in the distance. The Bridegroom is coming. The ten virgins are up. Their lamps are burning low & about to go out. But the wise virgins are prepared for this. Excitedly they pour oil from their vessels to fill their lamps.

But for the foolish virgins the story is different. In the light of their dim & failing lamps the awful truth hits them. They have no oil to re-fill their lamps. They must remain behind to find the oil. But the hour is late; too late in fact. This is an awful situation. They have heard the midnight cry. They know the he is near, yet they’re unable to go out to meet Him.

Think of these solemn words in the story; And the door was shut.

The foolish virgins went out to buy oil, but by the time they returned the door was shut. Today the door of salvation is open but at death it closes & when Christ comes back to earth the door will close. What will you do then?

Some folk act like they’re going to live forever. Did you know that three people who survived the World Trade Center attack on September 11-01 died in the plane crash in Queens New York a short time later? James tells us that our lives are like a vapor that appears for a time then vanishes away. [James 4:13-17]

One thing that strikes me in this story is that the five foolish virgins are never called rank sinners, if they were we could understand their being shut out of the banquet. They truly wanted to see the bridegroom & that's part of the tragedy. Seemingly these women did nothing--& that was their real problem. If you & I miss heaven we can't blame our parents or friends -or ex-husband -or ex-wife.

If you miss heaven & wonder why, look in the mirror & you'll have your answer.

Today the door of salvation is open wide. Someday it will be shut forever. Make sure you’re on the right side of that door when that day comes.

The time for preparation is now.
The time for the procuring of extra oil is now.

Let us seek the oil of the fullness of His Spirit now.
Let us trim our lamps for the coming night.


Every Blessing,


John