Matthew Chapter 25 Verse 11: “Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.” This event will take place AFTER the door is shut—and after the foolish virgins realize it is shut. However, the pleading “Lord, open to us” means they want the door to be opened, which is quite different from those in the Johnsonite movement, who blithely accepted the supposed fact that the door is shut and had no desire for it to be opened….
Matthew Chapter 25 Verse 9: The foolish virgins were told to go to the marketplace of experience to buy the extra oil. “The wise answered… go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.” Verse 9 refers to the difficult experience at the end of the age where some will sell the truth. Their actions will shock the foolish virgins into a realization of their need for more of the Holy Spirit so that they themselves will not…
Matthew Chapter 25 VERSE 11-12 “Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” The door is still open. To date Jesus has not made the announcement “I know you not.” Therefore, we are still in the period between the midnight announcement and the closing of the door and going into the marriage. The lamp trimming takes place during this entire time, and…
Matthew Chapter 25 VERSE 6 “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.” What is “midnight”? It is the end of one day and the BEGINNING of the next. Specifically, “midnight” is October 1874, the beginning of the seventh 1,000-year period. An announcement occurred at midnight with regard to the beginning of Jesus’ Second Advent, the parousia—an announcement that the Bridegroom was present. (The word “cometh” is spurious.) But, nevertheless,…
Matthew Chapter 25 VERSE 1 “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.” This chapter, Matthew 25, is still a part of “Our Lord’s Great Prophecy,” as begun in Chapter 24. It is a continuation of the long discourse Jesus gave on the Mount of Olives when the disciples were looking at the Temple and asked him the questions of Matt 24:3. Therefore, just by reasoning…
God’s Service is Its Own Reward Is not the service of God its own reward that we should be unduly concerned about how we are to be paid for it? or that we should spend any time comparing our wage with our brother’s, or grudge that he should have as much as or more than we? If we recall the greatest happiness we have ever known, the purest and deepest, do we not find that it came in connection with…
The Last-called Gentiles became First Compare with the Jews the case of the Gentiles. They were not even permitted to enter into the vineyard until the seventy weeks of special covenant favor which God had made with the Jews had expired. They stood idle in the market-place. If any should ask them why they remained unemployed so long they might truthfully reply: “Because no man hath hired us”, we were there in the market-place, at least a good many of…
“Out of many possible applications which the parable may have there are three which especially appeal to us as having merit. In the first place, there is one possible, and even likely, application of this warning and parable which cannot fail to be very welcome to us all. We are thinking now of the young man whom Jesus loved. We love him, too, do we not? A rich man, yet not spoiled by his wealth; a zealot for the law,…
The Rich Young Man Whom Jesus Loved “To properly understand the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard it must be studied, like all Scripture, with reference to its context. And to do this in the present instance it is necessary to go back to the previous chapter. (The division is at an unfortunate point; the passage from Verse 16 of Chapter 19, to Verse 16 of Chapter 20, is all one account and should have constituted a chapter by…
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Again he…