Do You Have Enough Oil?

I have always been very hesitant to speak or write about Jesus’ second coming. Of course, I believe with all my heart that He will come back, but the whole prospect was (and sometimes still is) connected with fear.

My longing for heaven is not fully developed, my heart hasn’t grasped where my true home really is. My soul is way too intertwined with earthly affairs. And on top of that, I never wanted to fall into the trap of making wrong predictions and looking silly.

I still don’t want to predict anything. We can’t anyway. The Bible is so clear: Not even Jesus knows the exact time of His return. But we can recognize the season we are living in, and the signs of our age seem to tell us: It won’t be much longer.

I haven’t quite found the language to describe what exactly it is that I am sensing. It has nothing to do with fear. It’s more like a timid joy, a fragile hope that is starting to grow inside of me when I think about Jesus’ second coming. I feel the urge to get prepared, to be ready.

Scripture gives us this beautiful picture of a bride waiting for her bridegroom. If you are married, you know exactly what that feels like. Longing. Tension. Romance. Joy. Belonging. The kind of nervous excitement you feel before a wedding, when you know something you have been waiting for is finally about to happen. And yes, there is an urgency to it. But in the best kind of way. Not fear-driven, but joy-driven, mingled with a good amount of impatience.

I love the tension in the often-quoted thought: Live as though Jesus were coming today, but plan and work as though His coming were still generations away.

We can be expectant without becoming escapist. We can prepare for His return while faithfully building what He has asked us to build here. We can think about His second coming and still have questions and even a sense of uneasiness.

I think that’s fair—our world will collide with the supernatural in a way we have never experienced before. I think Jesus knows that we have a hard time comprehending what is about to happen, and I believe that is why He gives us pictures and stories to help us wrap our minds around it.

Today, I want to think about the parable Jesus tells in Matthew 25:1–13: the story of the ten virgins and their oil lamps. Five wise virgins are prepared, and the other five are not.

(By the way, there will be a second and third part to this article coming over the next two weeks.

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Extra Oil

I am sure you are familiar with the parable. All ten virgins were invited to a wedding feast and by the time the bridegroom comes (very late at night) 5 virgins have run out of oil, while the other 5 were well prepared and had brought extra oil. The extra oil. The more-than-enough oil. This is what makes all the difference. Once the wedding was about to start, it was too late to get any more oil, so the five virgins without the extra oil were not allowed to take part in the wedding celebration. I believe, in preparation for Jesus’ second coming we need to ask ourselves this question:

Do I have extra oil?

I may have enough for today, tomorrow, even next week or the next decade. But is that enough? What is going to happen when the night gets longer? When I get weary and exhausted and tired?

A good way to check whether we have an overflow of oil is to reflect on how we go through hard seasons. Do I quickly lose energy, faith, and hope? Or am I able to go days, weeks, even years without losing heart? Is my faith even strengthened in seasons of wilderness?

Wisdom Prepares Before the Crisis Comes

I did some digging and looked at the original words Jesus used for the foolish virgins and the wise virgins. The Greek word translated as foolish is moros. It carries the idea of being foolish, thoughtless, or lacking good judgment. The issue wasn’t simply a lack of information. It’s not like they didn’t receive the wedding invitation. They knew the bridegroom was coming. I mean, they were all dressed up and ready for the procession that would kick off the wedding celebration.

Here’s what happened: They simply failed to live in accordance with what they knew.

The word translated as wise, on the other hand, phronimos, carries the sense of being prudent, sensible, and practically wise.

Wisdom turned truth and information into action.

The wise virgins didn’t know any more about the Bridegroom than the others. They had no advantage. But they prepared differently. They had brought more oil—oil they had already stocked up on in advance, long before the wedding was about to take place.

This is quite uncomfortable to think about, because it means it is possible to know all the right things and still live unprepared. Jesus’ warning confronts those who assume that simply knowing He is coming is the same as being ready for Him. He makes it clear that there is more to readiness than simply showing up.

He basically says: You can own a lamp. You can be waiting in the right place. You can know all the right words in prayer. You can look exactly like everyone else on Sunday in church. You can do all the right ‘Christian’ things —and still not have enough oil.

There is a kind of preparation that goes far deeper than outward appearances. I don’t know about you, but the warning this parable holds makes me feel uncomfortable. And I think Jesus intended it to. We need to be shaken out of our spiritual laziness and lifeless traditions and ushered into an all-in commitment to what is to come.

Again: Not out of fear, but out of hopeful expectancy.

We can sense that something is shifting. We watch the news and see with our own eyes what Jesus described in Matthew 24: deception and people being led astray. Wars and rumors of wars. Earthquakes and famines. We see these things unfolding around us with an intensity that is difficult to ignore.

We can’t afford to be spiritually deaf and blind when so much seems to be pointing toward His return. I don’t know the hour. But I do see the signs. And I want to make sure I gather the extra oil.

Next week, I will write about what the oil could represent in our own lives. That is crucial for knowing how to prepare ourselves and make sure we have the extra oil.

I hope this series encourages you and helps you find language for what you might be spiritually sensing. It is new territory for all of us. May we realize that we are walking on holy ground…

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For today, I would like to invite you to think about these questions:

• When you think about Jesus’ second coming, what do you feel? Are you excited, joyful, or scared?

• What would have to change in your everyday life to cultivate an expectant heart posture for Jesus’ coming?

• How do you respond to the uncomfortable possibility that someone can know Jesus is coming and still not be prepared for His return?