<p>25:8&nbsp;<em>And the foolish said to the wise: Give us some of your oil</em>- Those who thought they knew the day and hour of the Lord&rsquo;s coming are revealed here as actually having no personal spirituality. They could have just gone to meet their Lord for joy of wanting to see Him, throwing themselves upon His grace. A bridegroom wants to see His bride and would rather see her without some piece of jewellery, than find she turns up very late. Their request for oil from others indicates they have no personal love of Him, no personal relationship with Him, and a group mentality whereby they thought others&rsquo; spirituality could count for theirs. All they had was their conviction that they knew the day and hour of His coming. So it&rsquo;s no surprise when finally the Lord tells them &ldquo;I know you not&rdquo; (:12). This puts all obsession about figuring out Bible prophecy into correct perspective.&nbsp;</p><p><em>For our lamps are going out-&nbsp;</em>Apparently the &quot;lamps&quot; which the parable is based upon had to be replenished every 15 minutes or else they went out.&nbsp;&nbsp; The &quot;wise&quot; (relative to the foolish, anyway) can therefore be pictured as dozing for five or 10 minutes, then jolting back into consciousness and refilling their lamps, while the foolish snored on. This presents a powerful picture of the frail spirituality which will characterise the faithful remnant just prior to the second coming. The Lord asks the faithful remnant to &quot;look up, and lift up your heads&quot; (Lk. 21:28) when the signs of the last days just&nbsp;<em>begin</em>&nbsp;to come to pass. There seems a designed connection with this parable of the virgins, spoken only minutes later: in actual fact, he foresaw that&nbsp;<em>even at His coming</em>, even the faithful would be sleeping.&nbsp; Even now our real faith is but as candles in the wind.&nbsp;There is an urgent need for us each to analyse and appreciate what real spirituality is, to spotlight the few times and ways in which we show it, and to work on these.&nbsp;Such self-knowledge and realisation will be worth its weight in diamonds during the delay period. This said, it will ultimately be the midnight cry which reveals our true spiritual state to us.&nbsp;Each virgin arose and with heightened awareness analysed the state of their oil.&nbsp;The wise will have the faith to quickly prepare themselves to meet Christ- they &quot;trimmed their lamps&quot;, pulling out the burnt strands in the wick and adding oil.&nbsp;The foolish panic- &quot;Give us of your oil&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; In that moment it will be evident to all in the ecclesia who has been wise and who foolish. Those who are spiritually empty will then realize their folly;&nbsp;the parable even suggests that they desperately try to associate themselves with those they know to be spiritually stronger, somehow hoping that they might be covered by their spirituality.&nbsp;&quot;Our lamps are going out&quot; (Mt. 25:8 R.V.) shows that they are not totally without oil, but they feel the oil- what faith they had- ebbing away as the reality of Christ's return and the judgment dawns upon them.</p>