04.06 The exhausted oil

VI. THE EXHAUSTED OIL But these calls when they come are searching tests. “The foolish said unto the wise, ’Give us of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ “ Surely these most pathetic! words find an echo in many hearts at the; present time. The foolish virgins were there in real desire to meet the bridegroom, only at the critical moment when they were asked to go forth the oil which they had allowed to exhaust itself failed them, and they found that their lamps were going out. Our aspirations in this generation are set Christ-wards, but there is little correspondence between them and our honest spiritual grasp or self-discipline. In the day of dullness we have allowed the inner spiritual life to get stale. It has become exhausted, and we have taken no pains to replenish it; and, as Richard Holt Hutton said, “if men come to Christ with exhausted natures they will never know what there is in Him. A generation of which the most impressive characteristic is its spiritual fatigue will never be truly Christian till it can husband its energy better, and consent to forego many petty interests that it may not forego the religion of the Cross.” Or, again, there are many men warmly, perhaps enthusiastically, Christian in sentiment, who are vaguely unsettled in their faith, who are ever asking questions and never taking time to answer them, in whose minds the old phrases of the Creed at once arouse a mist of qualifications, evasions, explanations. But a faith so diluted has no spiritual strength: it creates no power of spiritual venture: it is incapable of meeting great calls. When the Bridegroom’s coming is announced it can only cry to stronger, simpler natures: “Give us of your oil, for our lamps are going out.”

TAGS: [Parables]