THE PURPOSE OF PARABLES:
Parables are a Judgment on unbelieving Israel. Withholding mysteries. The same with tongues which are also a judgment but only on unbelievers, words they cannot understand.

Matthew 25:1 “Then the kingdom of heaven …

Identification: The Kingdom of Heaven (ouranos g3772 root meaning “a mountain”)

• It’s the rock that grew into a mountain (kingdom) and covered the world when it hit Nebuchadnezzar’s statue on its feet. (Daniel 2:35)
• The Kingdom of Heaven is the one that comes to earth. It is the one John the Baptist proclaimed “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
• The Kingdom of Heaven is the kingdom Jesus taught His disciples to pray for: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
• The kingdom of Heaven is the Millennium when Jesus reigns on in Jerusalem for 1,000 years.

The kingdom of heaven refers to and focuses mainly on the five foolish virgins who did not go in the rapture.

The Kingdom of heaven is different from God’s all encompassing kingdom (Revelation 20:4) which includes all kingdoms: the principalities of the air, the angels, the bride of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven.

... shall be likened to ten virgins

• Ten is the number of a whole. Ten is also the number for accountability and judgment.

• Virgins are those who have never committed idolatry as opposed to “a harlot” whom God likens to an “idolater”.

who took their lamps

The Lamps are the Word of God.

• Psalm 119:105 Your Word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
• John 1:14 The Word Becomes Flesh – And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,

and went out

These are those who will “go out” to meet the bridegroom, instead of the bridegroom coming to them. An argument for a Pre-Tribulation Rapture.

to meet the bridegroom.

The bridegroom is Jesus, and the bride is the city “Jerusalem”; the place God chose as His dwelling place from the beginning and where Jesus will reign during the Millennium. The bridesmaids are friends of Jerusalem.

Matthew 25:² Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

• The number “ten” is to be “whole”; healthy. (The opposite is to be deficient, not “whole” is compared to being withered “unwhole”.)
  • Jesus healed a Jewish man (symbolic of the nation Israel) who had a withered hand in Mark 3:5. Five fingers were healthy and five fingers were withered. When Jesus healed his withered hand, all ten fingers were whole. Jesus literally and metaphorically made him “whole”.

• One of the meanings of the number five means to make a choice (passing or failing).
• Five of the virgins were wise (healthy-whole-making a good decision) and five of the virgins were foolish (making a bad decision – deficient of wisdom-deficient of the Holy Spirit).

All “ten” have the Word of God, have never committed idolatry, and are awaiting the bridegroom. However; five have a problem.

Light is produced by oil which is the Holy Spirit. The “Light” is the testimony of Jesus, the Gospel.

Five have the Word of God, that have never committed adultery, but have no oil.

Matthew 25:³ Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them.

• Those who were foolish had the scripture, but were lacking the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 25:⁴ but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

• Those who were wise had the scripture and were filled with the Holy Spirit.

• The anointing oil of the Holy Spirit: The wise are those who live by faith; those who are sealed with the Holy Spirit of grace. They are the children of the father of faith, Abraham (Romans 4:2).

The story of the Ten Virgins is the description of the Rapture just prior to seven years of tribulation that will come upon the earth. Five will go out to meet the bridegroom and five will be left behind.

To fully understand this parable one must understand how God interacts with Jews under the old covenant and Gentiles under the new covenant. Under the old covenant it was for Jews only with Gentile exceptions such as Rahab and Ruth. Under the new covenant, because the Jews are blinded in part, it ends up being Gentiles with Jewish exceptions.

Under the old covenant God called the Jews His wife. Under the new covenant the Gentiles are called the Bride of Christ. Like Jacob, God has two wives. A must read is Topic: God’s two agendas and Jacob’s two wives. Without this understanding nothing else makes sense.

Rachel is symbolic of the Jewish wife while Leah is symbolic of the Gentile wife. Rachel is Jacob’s 1st love but his 2nd wife. Leah is Jacob’s 2nd love but his 1st wife. Likewise, when the Gentile Bride of Christ is taken in the rapture, the one who was given the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, there will be a seven year wedding feast…As Laban told Jacob – Finish Leah’s wedding “week” and then I will give you this one “Rachel” also.

If the Jews are called God’s wife in the Old Testament, then why do they have a wedding feast after the Gentiles represented by Leah, like Rachel?

When God met Moses on Mount Sinai, the wedding document was made by God’s laws, but it is an “espoused” marriage, like Mary and Joseph. The wedding does not take place until the bridegroom appears.

The Jewish wedding will take place on earth after the tribulation when every last Jew is saved, after the Gentile wedding in heaven of seven years.

The Parable begins on earth with the friends of the bride (Jerusalem) but two types of virgins (pure from idolatry),

• The bride is unmentioned but she is the holy city Jerusalem: Jerusalem is the place of faith for Jews and Gentiles.
  
  • Note: Abraham was the anointed father of faith, Isaac was offered as a sacrifice to God on the mount where Jerusalem was built and where the temple will be once again. Isaac was offered on the same day as when the Jews left Egypt, although many years earlier. The day the Jews left Egypt was Passover. Abraham offered Isaac on “Passover” but a RAM (male sheep) was his substitute. This male sheep had a crown of thorns because his head was caught in the thorns. Isaac was offered on Mount Mariah, the same mountain as the place where the temple would be built.
  • The Passover lamb was inspected for spot or blemish between the first Jewish month Nisan 10 and Nisan 14, or three days. It took three days for Abraham and Isaac to travel to Mount Mariah; Isaac had been chosen as the sacrifice on Nisan 10, the two traveled for three days, and Isaac was offered on Nisan 14 in the same place as temple would come to be built.
  • Furthermore; it took three days for Abraham and Isaac to return to their home. It took three days for Jesus to rise from the dead, to return to His “home”.
    
• Five bridesmaids are Jewish and five are Gentiles. Both waiting for the bridegroom. Both have lamps – the Word of God. Neither are idolaters.

• The five virgin bridesmaids with the Light “went out” to meet the bridegroom (Jesus), a type of Rapture, as opposed to the five virgin bridesmaids who “went out” to get oil.
  
• Five have oil (the Holy Spirit) and Five brought no oil (the Holy Spirit).
  • On Pentecost the law was given to Moses.
  • On Pentecost the spirit (Holy Spirit) was given to the “Bride of Christ”.

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!’

• When the bridegroom comes, it is a time of darkness. Only those who have oil are able to enter into the wedding hall. Five are left behind.
• Notice the virgins “GO OUT” to meet Him which is the Rapture. But: when Jesus returns at His 2^nd advent, He will “COME” to earth. The foolish virgins are left behind and go through the tribulation until Jesus “returns”. then, at that point, they enter the thousand year reign of Jesus on earth.
• The thousand year reign is called “THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN” in which Jesus reigns on earth in Jerusalem. Jesus began the parable with “The kingdom of heaven is like…”

⁷ Then all those (wise) virgins arose and trimmed their lamps.

• There is care involved in trimming the wick (our hearts), which draws the oil up from the storage reservoir, so that the flame will be clean and bright. … A properly trimmed wick when lit, the wick should burn cleanly all the way up to the highest flame it can make.

⁸ And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’

• Each person is responsible for their own relationship with God. If there is no oil, there is no Light.

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.’

• Each person must be prepared. “I can’t give it to you because you are responsible for your own preparedness.”
• The Holy Spirit can only be “purchased” with God’s currency “Faith”.

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.

• There is always a “cost”. Jesus said to take up the cross and do as He does. The baptism of believers is to be baptized as a death to self so that one may be resurrected to life.
• The door to the age of grace is shut at the rapture. It is as slammed shut and sealed as Noah’s ark. Once shut, the Age of Grace is over. Now the flood of the tribulation is inevitable. Now the cost for salvation is not taking the mark of the beast and either being a “remnant” who survives or being beheaded as a martyr.
  • Hebrews 2:3 how shall we escape (the tribulation) if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him,

¹¹ “Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’

• At the time of Noah, when the rains came, everyone nearby would have beat on the door of Noah’s ark begging “Let us in!” But the ark was “lifted up” by the rain. (One of the Jewish meanings of the word rain is “teacher”, or faithful teacher, meaning the Messiah. Hosea 6:3 Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, Like the latter and former rain to the earth.)

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.

• To “watch” is to be prepared.