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White Horse Media

Steve Wohlberg

Fools Before Earth’s Final Crisis

Let's open our Bibles to Matthew chapter 25.

Matthew chapter 25, I am gonna give this talk a title, and the title is Fools Before Earth's final crisis.

We're gonna study Matthew chapter 25, verses 1 to 13.

We're going to look at the foolish virgins and at the wise virgins, and I am very deeply convicted that it won't be long until we see the details of this parable fulfilled right in front of our eyes.

Let's talk to Jesus and ask him to help us talk to God, pray for the Holy Spirit to open our eyes and help us as we take a close look at his word.

Dear Father in Heaven, Father, thank you for loving us.

Thank you for giving us a quiet church to come together here on a Sabbath afternoon to study the Bible.

Here we are in Albany, Oregon, and we pray, please, speak to us, talk to us.

Help us to hear your voice as we look at the words of Jesus that surely are about to come to pass.

Lord, please Bless us and those who hear this message.

Okay, Matthew chapter 25, verses 1 to 13, contain a parable that Jesus told about his church.

And Matthew chapter 24 is a chapter that deals with the signs of the times, right?

It's a long talk that Jesus gave dealing with what's gonna be happening down throughout history and especially right before Jesus comes.

And chapter 25 follows right on the heels of that.

So that's the context, is the signs of the times are taking place.

And in fact, in Matthew 24, verse 44, Jesus says, therefore you also be ready, for in such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man is coming." So he says, be ready, get ready.

It's very obvious to me, as I look around, that the signs are fulfilling all around us.

I mean, there have been signs down throughout history, but I've never in my lifetime ever seen anything like what's happening right now.

And hopefully you can see the same things.

I mean, I know different generations have believed that they were it, this is it, this is it, but I can't help but think that this really is it.

And we have seen tremendous things happen in just the last few months that have not happened in the past.

The United States Supreme Court voted approving same-sex marriage in June of this year.

In July, we had a big general conference session that was dealing with some very significant, serious issues.

In September, Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope ever, landed on American soil and spoke to our United States Congress.

He spoke at a large gathering in Philadelphia.

At the same time that these things are happening, we see now a resurgence of Islamic terrorism.

What just happened just a couple days ago in San Bernardino, California, Just prior to that, what happened in France, what's been happening, what happened in Belgium, and the whole issue of terrorism and religious liberty is now being discussed on the table.

There's also a whole host of news reports, news articles, headlines dealing with Sunday, Sunday closing laws, Sunday agitation.

I have a whole other talk on this topic where I can quote to you from headlines of Time Magazine, Associated Press, The Guardian, CNN.

There's a whole host of articles that I've got in my files dealing with Sunday agitation, and the list just goes on and on.

The immorality that we're seeing around us is just phenomenal.

The heart-sickening immorality that we see, the violence, the disasters, the earthquakes, the fires, the record heats, the record colds, the tornadoes.

I mean, the list just goes on and on and on and on and on, and I don't know how much do we need to see before we realize that really time is running out.

And the parable of Matthew 25 follows right on the heels of Jesus' sermon on the signs of the times, and I have a quote here from the book Christ Object Lessons.

Christ Object Lessons, page 406, says that this parable of the wise and the foolish virgins, quote, illustrates the experience of the church just before Jesus Christ's second coming.

So in that light, let's have a Bible study.

Starting in verse 1, Matthew chapter 25 verse 1, Jesus said, then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened or compared to 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet who?

Virgins in the New Testament represent God's people.

It doesn't mean literal virgins who have never, it's not talking about women who have never married men.

We know that from 2 Corinthians 11, verse 2, where Paul is talking to the Corinthian church, and he wrote, he said, I want to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

So the church is to be a virgin to Jesus.

So this is talking about God's church, 10 virgins.

10 is a complete number just like the 10 commandments.

And these virgins, it says, they took their lamps.

Now what does the lamp symbolize in the Bible?

Okay, I'm hearing a couple different things.

I'm thinking of a text in Psalm 119 verse 105, that says your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

So I'm just gonna interpret the word lamp to refer to the Bible, God's Word.

So here we have a group of church members who have their Bibles, their lamps, And they're going out to meet the bridegroom who represents who?

So this tells me that this group of virgins, that they are Adventists.

Now they may not all be Seventh-day Adventists.

I'm not gonna apply this exclusively to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but they are Adventists in the sense that they are waiting for the advent of Christ.

And these people believe that Jesus is coming.

They go out to meet Him as He's coming, or getting ready to come.

We have the church in the end times, they all have their Bibles, and they're going out to get ready to meet Jesus.

But then verse 2 says that Jesus says, 5 of them were wise and 5 of them were what?

So Jesus, what he does is he divides the church.

Half of them are wise and half of them are foolish.

Now, The difference between the wise and the foolish is described and defined in verse 3.

Verse 3 says, those who were foolish took their lamps, they had their Bibles, but They took no, and what's that next word?

With them, verse 4 says, but the wise, they took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

What does the oil represent in the New Testament?

Okay, I hear a number of people saying the Holy Spirit, and I agree with that.

Anybody have any texts that can support that?

How about Zechariah chapter 4 where God said, not by might nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts.

And the context of that has to do with the golden oil coming out through the lampstands that were burning in the sanctuary.

There's other passages that tell us that the oil represents the Holy Spirit.

David, as he wrote his shepherd's psalm and he eventually became king of Israel, and David said in his famous shepherd's psalm, he said to God, you anoint my head with oil.

And when you compare that verse to Acts chapter 10, verse 38, when Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water, and what came down upon him?

That's right, the Father was in heaven, the Son was coming out of the water, and the Holy Spirit came down in the middle and lighted upon him.

And it's very clear that that was the Holy Spirit.

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Fools Before Earth’s Final Crisis

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