Sandra Jean (11
July 2013)
"ZOLA LEVITT:
RAPTURE and THE 10 VIRGINS"
THE RETURN
The return of the Lord for His Bride, the
Church, is the most clear in the Scriptures:
For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in
Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive
and remain shall be caught up together with them in
the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall
we ever be with the Lord (I
Thess. 4:16-17).
Here we see the shout and also the sound of a trumpet.
We have already discussed
the trumpet in connection with the dramatic Feast
of Trumpets, which symbolizes the Rapture.
But we might look further into that peculiar biblical
symbol to fully appreciate its significance. The
Rapture of the Church will be a kind of repeat
performance. God had previously delivered His Chosen
People into their Promised Land when Joshua led the
Israelites against Jericho. The walls of Jericho have
been found: they were 11 feet thick! How were the weak
and wandering tribes of Israel, with their old men,
women and children, going to assault this frontier
city, so well prepared for just such an attack? Well,
we realize what weapons they used and we realize a
great truth thereby:
And it shall come to pass, that
when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and
when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the
people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall
of the city shall fall down flat, and the people
shall ascend up every man straight before him
(Josh.
6:5).
What a comparison that verse makes with the Rapture of
the Church. Indeed, "the people shall ascend up"! The
clincher of the type is the name of the leader. We
don't often appreciate that "Jesus" is a
transliteration of the real name of our Lord. His name
in Hebrew was "Yeshua", which translates in English to
"Joshua". In both cases, then, God used the trumpet to
deliver His people to their Promised Land under the
leadership of Joshua. Other Scripture explaining the
fact of the Rapture also mentions the trumpet:
Behold, I show you a
mystery: We shall not all sleep but we shall all be
changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed. For this corruptible must put
on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality (I
Cor. 15:51-53).
Indeed, as Paul exalted:
O death, where
is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is
the law.
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ (vs. 55-57).
We shall not die, it should be explained. We all
received our eternal life the moment we were saved. We
may die physically, but "the dead in Christ will rise
first". We shall live on with the Lord in His Kingdom
and eternity. Our Bridegroom has indeed prepared a
wonderful place for us. How marvelous that "We shall not
all sleep, but we shall all be changed".
Now when the Lord comes for us, we are to have oil lamps
ready and waiting. Oil in the Bible is the Holy Spirit,
and we are to have the oil and be ready to travel even
in the dark of night. The parable of the ten virgins (Matt.
25: 1-13) is correctly
applied to the Kingdom, but has marvelous application to
this wedding story. In that parable, there were ten
virgins "which took their lamps and went forth to meet
the bridegroom".
And five of them were wise, and
five were foolish. They that were foolish took
their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the
wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps (Matt.
25: 2-4).
The bridegroom in this parable acted in accordance with
the Jewish tradition of totally surprising the bride and
catching her asleep:
While the bridegroom tarried, they
all slumbered and slept (v. 5).
But then he comes with a shout:
And at midnight there was a cry
made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet
him (v. 6).
We will see by the ensuing verses that only those
virgins with their lamps trimmed with oil were able to
go with the bridegroom. The others, suddenly realizing
that they were not properly prepared, went out to
purchase oil, but they were too late:
And while they went to buy, the
bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with
him to the marriage: and the door was shut.
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 (vs.
10-12).
The message is very clear: We must be filled and
baptized with the Holy Spirit - (we must be true
believers in the Lord Jesus) - to go with Him when He
comes!
The oil was established as a very essential ingredient
as far back as the building of the Tabernacle in the
wilderness:
And thou shalt command the
children of Israel, that they bring thee pure olive
oil beaten for the light, to cause lamp to burn always
(Exodus
27: 20).
We can learn a great deal from the above Scripture. We
are just like the lamp stand in the Tabernacle. We are
set aflame once when we believe in the Messiah, but as
we walk, we must constantly take in the oil - the Holy
Spirit - in order to keep our flame burning brightly.
The flame is a beautiful symbol of the Christian faith.
With one flame I can light all the candles in the world
and mine will not be diminished.
Understanding the symbol of the oil and the symbol of
the trumpet as well, we are in a position to see how
powerful we really are in this world. Gideon went
forward with only 300 men and attacked a force of
Midianites totaling over 100,000! Gideon, like the U.S.
Marines, came forward with "a few good men", but the
Lord had armed these soldiers in a special way.
Remarkably, they won that battle with their peculiar
attack:
And the three companies blew the
trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps
in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right
hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the
Lord, and of Gideon (Judges
7:20).
Armed with God's symbol of deliverance, the trumpet, and
the symbol of the Holy Spirit, the oil in the lamps,
Gideon's army prevailed over the pagans. God had chosen
to have Gideon attack with such a small force so that
the glory would certainly go to Him. And likewise, we
carry the Holy Spirit in the same sort of pottery jars
used by Gideon's men:
But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may
be of God, and not of us (II
Cor. 4:7).
When we break the earthen vessels that are our earthly
bodies, the light pours out of us and the oil within
convicts the unbeliever. We are a small army, like
Gideon's but outfitted with God's special weaponry, we
are invincible in this spiritual battle.
But we must be absolutely certain that we have the oil
-the virgins with the empty lamps could not go into the
bridal chamber with the Lord. The Lord Himself concluded
that parable:
Watch therefore, for ye know
neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man
cometh (Matt.
25:13).
There are a lot of empty lamps around. There are
huge churches where the Holy Spirit is never mentioned
nor the Word of the Lord preached. They are lamps with
no oil. They shall hold services as usual on the
Sunday after the Rapture.