Readiness
For The Lord’s Coming
by Octavius Winslow
And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps
are gone out—Matthew
25:8.
The fall of man has not utterly annihilated all that was originally lovely
in our nature. Among the instincts of our humanity which still exert a
powerful influence within us is, the abhorrence which we feel of what
is false and fraudulent. A forged cheque, a counterfeit will, a false
deed, awakens in our minds a feeling of abhorrence; an instinct of honor
and integrity rises up in opposition to the fraud. But those is something
yet more appalling in the thought of a man obtaining his religion by fraud—stealing
his religion—coming into the possession of what he terms a religion,
not properly, nor justly, nor truly.
Now there is this remarkable feature in the Word of God, that while all
its delineations and descriptions carry us back to remote ages, yet they
vividly and indelibly depict characters that exist at the present moment.
They present our nature possessing the same features, the same principles,
which it ever did. Here we have a description of a certain class of individuals
that were possessors of religion; but when the grand moment arrived which
tested its reality, it was found that they possessed none—and that,
following the instincts of their fallen humanity, they thought of borrowing
their hope, their plea for entrance into heaven, from others.
Now it is the solemn conviction of our minds that this constitutes a large
class in the present day; that there are numbers who have professed Christ,
but who have taken their religion on hearsay; who have it, so to speak,
second hand; who have not themselves passed from death unto life; have
not become regenerated by the Spirit; have not become personally acquainted
with the Lord Jesus; and who have not, in the lamp of their religious
profession, one particle of that sacred oil, that divine grace; which
will be found to burn, and to burn brightly, and to burn forever, when
the summons shall come to call them hence.
Our prayer, dearly beloved, is, that the truth of God which we are about
to illustrate to you may be heart searching; that we may unfold it with
all earnestness and fidelity; that you may be led to ascertain whether
your religion is a heartfelt and experimental religion; whether your hope
is a scriptural and well founded hope; or whether you are not now in the
state of the virgins who said, “Give us of your oil, for our lamps
are gone out.” I wish to direct your attention to—CHRIST’S
SOLEMN SURPRISE—MAN’S BORROWED LIGHT—and, THE SOUL’S
ETERNAL DARKNESS.
CHRIST’S SOLEMN SURPRISE
The text evidently refers to a surprise on the part of Jesus Christ; and
we wish to illustrate this striking fact, by reference to two or three
stages of the Christian’s experience. There are many cases in the
believer’s history when Christ, as it were, takes him by surprise.
Take, for example, conversion. Real conversion is a surprise of Christ.
Who among us—probably there are but few, if any who, reverting to
their conversion, can say that it was preceded by any very striking indication
that the Lord Jesus was about to bring them to Himself. In the majority
of cases, conversion is a work of surprise; it is preceded by nothing
that indicates the approach of such a moral revolution of the soul. In
most instances it is rapid, as was the case of Saul of Tarsus on his way
to Damascus. Christ surprised him on his way.
Was it not so with you, my reader? Did not Jesus surprise you, when first
your heart was touched? when first your conscience was—roused when
first your spirit was humbled? when first your will was bent to the will
of God? Was not that a gracious surprise, when Jesus drew near, dried
your tears, and bound up your broken heart? O yes, we must testify that
that was a gracious surprise, when Jesus, in the sovereignty of His grace,
approached and spoke peace to our hearts, light to our minds, enkindled
joy and gladness within.
There are gracious surprises of Christ in the experience of the believer
in subsequent stages of his history, when Christ draws near, and manifests
Himself to his soul. And I trust, beloved, that you are not a stranger
to these. Oh, let not your religion be a religion unmarked by the gracious
manifestations of Christ! What a gracious surprise was it when Christ
joined the two disciples on their journey to Emmaus! Their hearts were
filled with grief and gloom; they were ruminating on scenes which had
just been transacted at Jerusalem; and as in sadness they were wending
their way, Jesus drew near, and walked and talked with them. They found
His company so pleasant, so sweet, that when they reached their homes
they constrained Him that He should abide with them. Ah, how often, believer,
when sad and lonely, Jesus has drawn near, and spoken to you!
What a gracious surprise of the Lord Jesus was it when Mary met Him at
the tomb! While looking for her absent Lord, her heart bursting with grief,
Jesus drew near, and manifested Himself. We might illustrate this blessed
truth by many such examples, all concurring to show that the child of
God is privileged to look for these blessed manifestations, these gracious
surprisals. Let none for a moment suppose that there might not be that
same close communion between Christ and our hearts now that there was
of old.
Then there comes a solemn time when the man of God experiences surprise
in Death—that solemn moment when the Lord Jesus sends for His dear
servant, and bids him come home. I suppose that, let Death come when he
may, he takes us by surprise. There may be previous premonition, there
may be the slow decay, the gradual taking down of the earthly tabernacle—the
pain, the fever, the convulsion, all indicating that life is ebbing—yet
when Death comes to a man, with a slow, stealthy footstep, unseen, unheard,
it surprises him. Oh, see that he does not surprise you in your sins,
in your rebellion against God! Better never to have been born than to
have been surprised by Death in enmity against Jehovah.
But death to the believer is the surprise of Christ. It is Christ that
comes for him—Death’s victim, and yet Death’s conqueror.
Oh, what a gracious surprise of Christ, then, will that be, when your
Savior stands by your dying bed, speaks words of comfort to your heart,
lights up hope in your soul, strengthens you by His grace, and assures
you that in treading that lonely valley, He is by your side. Believer,
are you fettered by the thoughts of death? Learn to look at it as the
blessed moment when Christ will come down to His garden, pluck the fair
flower, and, placing it in His bosom, bear it to His paradise on high.
Then comes the great and solemn event, the closing drama in the world’s
history. The Lord Jesus Christ is to come again—the Bridegroom is
to appear, and publicly espouse His beloved Church. It is written that
Jesus Christ shall presently cleave the heavens and appear again, surrounded
by all those who sleep in Him. I speak not of this event with a view of
unfolding the details of that day. With regard to the mode of Christ’s
coming, there may be diversity of opinion; but that Christ will come publicly
to espouse His beloved Church is a fact which, I suppose, those who differ
as to the mode of His appearing are all united in. And what a glorious,
what a sublime, what an awesome fact is this! Christ is to appear personally;
the very Person that was impaled on Calvary’s cross will be seen
cleaving the clouds of heaven. “Every eye shall see Him.” The
eyes that are now fixed upon this page will look on the face of the coming
Savior—the coming Judge. Every individual shall stand around the
great white throne, in the center of which sits the Lamb of God. What
a sublime fact is that!
Do you make the subject of the coming of the Lord one of meditation, and
prayer, and hope? Or, are you found dismissing it from your mind—perchance
from your creed? To us who have gone to the burial place, and laid our
departed ones there, in hope that they slept with Jesus, that their disembodied
spirits were nestling in the bosom of the Lamb, how precious is this truth!
You who weep, and weep in hope that the coming of Christ will restore
them to you again, you shall behold them in glory, shall rush into their
warm embrace, and gaze once more on the loved ones from whom you parted
on Jordan’s bank.
Oh, treasure in your believing heart this blessed hope, and when next
you go and shed the tears of sacred memory over the turf that covers them,
blend with your grief the fond thought, that Jesus will come again in
person; and that those who sleep in Him, He will bring with Him. Comfort
your bereaved hearts with these words.
MAN’S BORROWED LIGHT
And, then, when the Lord Jesus Christ shall thus appear, we are told that
the human race will be divided into two classes—represented by the
five wise and the five foolish virgins. Let us for a few moments look
at one of these classes. We are all agreed as to the “wise virgins.”
They are the true sons of God; they are sincere believers in Christ; they
are those who have been wise unto salvation; who have been truly born
again of the Spirit; who have seen the worthlessness of their own righteousness,
and have accepted the righteousness of Christ. In a word, they are those
who have not only confessed Christ, and loved Christ in the world, but
they have received into their hearts the grace of God, which has renewed
them, sanctified, and kept them to the end. These are the “wise.”
They are the “foolish” who had in their hands the lamp of the
Christian professor, without the golden oil of Divine grace; who, when
the hour came that brought their hope to the test, found themselves deficient:
“And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our
lamps are gone out.” A religious professor may have much apparent
spiritual life and intelligence—he may be well acquainted with the
Bible—he may be well up in the evidences of Christianity—his
intellect may be illumined—his judgment informed with regard to truth,
and yet may be found to have—borrowed his religion from another.
He has derived it from the reading of religious books, or from the fellowship
of Christians: He has a taste for religious literature, and his mind is
interested and elevated, and yet an hour may come which shall prove that
that man borrowed his spiritual light and knowledge—derived it, not
from the direct teaching and enlightening of the Word and Spirit of God,
but from another’s lamp! He can master the most subtle points of
truth, he can explain difficulties, harmonize discrepancies, silence skepticism—and
yet he does not know this truth experimentally, “I am a lost sinner,
and Christ is a gracious and loving Savior.”
He has received his spiritual knowledge from others, and not from the
experimental teaching of God the Holy Spirit. Beware that you have not
your religion from books, from sermons, from fellowship with others. Search
yourself, and see whether the Divine Spirit has instructed you– whether
Christ has been formed in your heart the hope of glory. “And the
foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil”—give us of
your experimental communion with the Savior—”for our lamps are
gone out.” The light which is only in the intellect, the truth which
only informs the judgment, is like the expiring lamp that fails when its
bright shining luster is most needed in the dark valley of the shadow
of death.
Oh, how many a man can speak of Christian experience fluently—can
quote the language of pious Christians—seems to have traveled the
various stages of the believer’s life—takes his place at the
Table of the Lord; but when the hour of trial comes, it will be found
that that man has transferred to himself the Christian experience of others,
and has been building himself up with the spurious hope that he was experimentally
acquainted with Christ; whereas the awful discovery bursts upon him—that
he never experienced in his own heart those spiritual exercises of which
he could so glibly speak. Oh, it is an appalling thought, my reader, how
far a man may go in acquaintance with Christian experience, and yet be
destitute of one particle of vital religion!
Now we reach a very solemn conclusion—”Our lamps are gone out,”
or, as the marginal reading is, “our lamps are going out.” Just
at the moment, the solemn crisis of Jesus’ coming, they found their
lamp began to wane, and its light to expire. The light of intelligence,
the light of sacraments, the light of a religious profession; began to
grow dim, until the last spark went out. “Our lamps are going out.”
This often transpires before death. In the day of dark adversity, the
day which tries a man, brings him into trouble, touches him, perhaps;
in his health, perhaps in his property, or yet more deeply touches him
in the feelings of his nature—takes from him a lovely child, a beloved
wife, a dear parent and the man, thus smarting under the rod of God, disputes
His right to take away his health or property—to come into his garden
and pluck that blooming flower, and break that beauteous stem; his heart
rises in rebellion; and in the dark hour of adversity his lamp fails and
goes out, and the man finds that his religion was not a religion for the
stern, solemn hour of affliction.
Many a man’s lamp, too, goes out in the hour of temptation. It did
well for him when no temptations beset him; but when they present themselves,
he finds his religious principles and hope to fail. The past few years
have presented many examples of men who stood high in religious profession,
but who have come into contact with erroneous doctrine, false worship,
and the temptations to fraud, and the lamp which burned so brightly has
been extinguished; proving that their light was not derived from real
conversion, from a heartfelt experience of the truth as it is in Jesus.
But if a man’s hope proves itself spurious, a borrowed thing only,
it will most assuredly prove so when life is fast ebbing, and death comes
in its wake. A deathbed is a great and solemn test of our religious profession
and hope. We are fast speeding to that point. In a little while it will
not be what the Church thinks of you; or what the world thinks of you.
The great question will be, “Am I in Christ?” In that hour—that
precious hour to the child of God—how delightful to have the reality,
and not a mere profession; then the light that burned, perhaps, so dimly
and obscurely in your religious life, so faintly indeed that few were
attracted by its beauty, then will that light blaze up and brighten with
increased luster; and the grace that renewed you, the grace that kept
you, the grace that followed you to the last stage of life will then be
your happy experience in strengthening and supporting you, when heart
and flesh are failing.
Learn from this subject that if there are multitudes that have borrowed
their religion, this but proves the genuineness of the religion of others.
There are those, and multitudes too, who, thanks be to God, possess the
reality therefore let not the skeptic, let not the libeler fling in the
face of God’s saints the cruel taunt of the irregularities that mark
the life of some professors. Remember that if there are some who walk
in the light of others, this but proves that others have the real light;
so that you gain nothing by holding up the religious inconsistencies of
those who profess the Savior.
We derive from this subject a most important and instructive inference,
that there is no such thing in the Christian Church as works of supererogation.
It is the doctrine of a false Church, the Church of Rome, that a man may
have grace enough for himself and a little to spare for another. Our subject
teaches, that the Church of God is scarcely saved, is just saved, and
that no believer has any measure of grace over and above what he needs
for himself, in order to impart it to others, be they ever so dear.
In conclusion, see that your light is not borrowed; let it not be a reflected
but a solar light; not taken from hearsay, but a light beaming down from
Jesus, streaming from His cross. And let it be a serious matter with you,
not how you are judged by human opinion, but that you are walking with
Jesus, and that your light is burning brighter and brighter.
THE SOUL’S ETERNAL DARKNESS
One word more. Jesus waits to pour this precious oil of saving grace abundantly
into your heart. He welcomes all. Come, then, you who feel your need;
approach in your emptiness and poverty, there is grace enough in Christ
for you, fulness of renewing grace, fulness of sanctifying grace, fulness
of preserving grace, and of that grace that will keep your hearts loyal
to Jesus, and bring you at last to glory.
Believer in Jesus! keep well trimmed, brightly burning, and uplifted high,
the lamp of a true, holy, undimmed profession of Christ. He, whose appearing
you love, will anoint you with fresh oil day by day. We have need of watchfulness,
lest the supplies slack and the light grow dim. Our Lord has set you upon
this holy work of watchfulness: “What I say unto you, I say unto
all, WATCH.” Watch against the world, it is seductive; watch against
the creature, it is ensnaring; watch against Satan, he is subtle; watch
even against lawful things, they may be unnecessary; watch against your
own heart; for it is more sinful, treacherous, and dangerous than all.
Look for the first signal and sign of His approach, who has said, “Behold,
I come quickly!” O precious thought! O blessed hope! The certain,
speedy coming of our Lord. He comes to end our sorrows, to annihilate
the last remains of sin, to reunite us with the saints in glory, and to
have us with Himself forever. “He that has this hope in him purifies
himself, even as He is pure.” Walk only in the light of Jesus. Live
not upon the grace, or faith, or strength of another. Let your grace,
or your faith, or your love be ever so small, yet, if it be but real,
if it be but true, it will land you in glory. It may be but as the “smoking
flax,” yet there is the divine spark there, and it shall never be
extinguished; while the graceless lamp of Christian profession, which
blazed before men, will expire in eternal darkness when the Lord comes.
Oh to be a real, humble follower of Christ! Lord, let our love be divine,
our grace real, our profession true, our hope a good hope, a living hope,
shining more and more unto the perfect day!
“Could Christians watch ten thousand years
Before their Lord Himself appears,
Yet, as He then shall come at last,
It was wise, through all such ages past,
To have watched and waited, and to have borne
The scoffer’s jest, the worldling’s scorn.
But those who watch not in the day,
Will surely sleep the night away.”
“Lord, make me at all hours awake,
And, self denied, Your cross to take,
Robed for Your nuptial feast in white,
With lamp in hand, and burning bright;
Nor lack of precious oil be mine
When the loud cry, Arise and shine!
Proclaims You come in bridal state,
And when preparing is too late!”
—German Poet