The importance of staying close to the Lord.

Clifford Denton continues his series on the end times by looking at Jesus' illustrative teaching.

In an earlier article we made the point that Scripture must be read in a meditative way, allowing the Holy Spirit to interpret what we read, rather than over-analysing it in our own strength. There is a stark contrast between the Hebraic faith-motivated life and the Greek philosophical mind-set that is of this world. Which way of thinking we adopt has a bearing on how we approach Scripture, including the end time scriptures and the illustrative language used by God.

Our God teaches us through visions, figurative language, parables, etc, speaking to our hearts through familiar images. Difficult though some of these are to understand, we must not consider them as puzzles to unravel - but illustrations that God uses on our walk with him.

Our Walk with God

Because the Western mindset can be over-analytical, it has led some to seek cut-and-dried formulae for the end times. This is not God's way. He speaks to us heart to heart to encourage us on a walk with him. Our God is near to us, and looks for our fellowship. Indeed, he abides in his people by the presence and power of his Holy Spirit. He is not a distant God who gives us formulae to live by independent of him.

Our New Covenant relationship is for the purpose of securing our walk with him. It is on this walk that we prayerfully study the scriptures pointing to the way ahead with sufficient clarity for today.

Our God is not a distant God who gives us formulae to live by independent of him – he is near to us and wants to walk with us.

Prophetic Insights Along the Way

The visions and dreams along the way sometimes seem to be engulfed in strange mystery that is hard to unravel. Some aspects might be revealed for the time in which the mystery is given, with other applications becoming clear later on. Kept in balance with our daily walk with him, however, we always have enough insight to encourage us for the present, warn us about where we might slip off track, and set a vision and a hope before us for the future.

If there is mystery to be unravelled, it will be unravelled by the Lord on our walk with him. If he revealed everything fully to us ahead of time, our walk would all too quickly become independent of him.

The Parables

As for all Scripture, in reading the parables we must resist the temptation of over-analysis and simply let the Lord speak, within the limits he intends. This too is part of the walk. Though parables are mysteries to those who are not given insight (Matt 13:11) the Holy Spirit gives understanding to Jesus' disciples. Parables bring a clear teaching on a certain theme for immediate application and also have ongoing relevance.

Each portion of Jesus' teaching through the parables is for a specific purpose, within intended limits and one aspect of the whole truth. On the one hand, his pictures are so carefully and appropriately chosen that it is good to read and re-read the same passages to deepen our understanding. On the other hand, if we try and push too hard we may add to what the Lord is saying, or create bias or even error.

Jesus' parables each had a specific purpose when they were told – but they also have ongoing relevance today as the Holy Spirit reveals understanding to us.

Multi-faceted Truth in Visions, Pictures and Parables

The end time teaching of the Bible contains a multitude of illustrations from God. Here are some of them by way of example:

• Horses among myrtle trees (Zech 1:8)
• Joshua the High Priest (Zech 3)
• Lampstand and olive trees (Zech 4)
• Flying scroll (Zech 5)
• Woman in a basket (Zech 5)
• Four chariots (Zech 6)
• A burning oven (Mal 4:1)
• Valley of dry bones (Ezek 37)
• Gog and Magog (Ezek 38)
• A sacrificial meal (Ezek 39:17-20)
• Nebuchadezzar's dream of a statue (Dan 2)
• Vision of a ram and goat (Dan 8)
• A sealed scroll (Dan 12:4)
• Seals, trumpets, bowls, woman and dragon, Babylon etc (Revelation)

There is much more we could add to this list, but it is sufficient to remind us that God uses a wide variety of images to speak to his people. Any individual illustration is a study of just one aspect of the whole truth. We must read everything in context of the whole and, in our walk with God into the future, allow him to bring further clarity at the right time.

The Wise and Foolish Virgins

Jesus' parables are among the clearest of Bible teaching and each have a particular emphasis. They include the parables of the unforgiving servant (Matt 18:21-35), the workers in the vineyard (Matt 20:1-16), the withered fig tree (Matt 21:18-22), the vinedressers (Matt 21:33-46), the growing fig tree (Matt 24:32-35), the wise and foolish virgins (Matt 25:1-13) and the talents (Matt 25:14-30). Like all illustrations in Scripture, however, they must not be taken beyond the point of his teaching, and must be kept within the context of the whole.

The parable of the wise and foolish virgins is especially important to us in these days. So let us be clear about what Jesus is teaching us through it - since it is a wonderful illustration for a particular purpose, but no more. Some modern Bible teachers have forced it to say more than was ever intended.

Because of its importance there has rightly been much attention drawn to it. Yet it is such a wonderful picture, pointing to the return of Jesus, that some have gone too far and extracted a formula for the end times from it.

Jesus' parables draw on familiar experiences of mankind, especially familiar in the days when they were first spoken. He draws our attention to what he wants to say by stirring our hearts and minds on matters that are meaningful and important to us – in this case the preparations that precede a wedding in ordinary human life. Jesus stirred the hearts of his listeners through a story of a bridegroom who had delayed his coming. Some of those waiting retained their watchfulness and expectation of his coming and some drifted away into apathy and sleepiness.

Jesus' parables draw on experiences that are familiar to us – he emphasises his message by stirring our hearts with matters that are meaningful to us.

The story prompts us to the context of his coming. It will be as wonderful as the best of human marriages, but the emphasis is not so much on the wedding as on how we should wait for him. The message to us is to "watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming" (Matt 25:13). This is our great teacher at work, emphasising his message and giving us a picture to emphasise the importance of it.

This could not be more important for the days in which we live, because we all can be prone to giving up and misinterpreting what we heard about his return. We are encouraged to watch and wait prayerfully for the wonderful final point of the end times.

Yet, for all its importance, this is not a formula for the end times. It is one of a number of images likened to his coming: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like..." not "The Kingdom of heaven is...". Some have pushed this parable so far as to make it a formula. Because the picture is in the context of a coming wedding and because the imagery of a wedding is used elsewhere (for example, the picture of Jesus preparing a place for us likened to many mansions (John 14:2)), some have used it to construct a detailed picture of the end times based on the order of events in a Middle Eastern marriage of Jesus' day, even to the extent of predicting the time of Jesus' return and supporting certain rapture theories. This fascinates those who are drawn in but perhaps extracts from the parable more than Jesus intended.

Even though there is plenty of teaching on aspects of the end times, we must be careful not to use a parable given for a specific purpose to draw more from it than was intended. This is true of every other aspect of Jesus' illustrations preparing us for his coming - whether spoken plainly or in mysteries.

Learning to Read End Time Scripture for Ourselves

Even through mysteries, God does not send us a puzzle to solve when he speaks to us through symbolic or visionary means. He often relates what he wants us to know with something familiar like a marriage, a fig tree, a sealed message, etc, as an anchor for his teaching. He wants us to understand – not to be confused!

Whether it be the symbol of a bridegroom returning, an owner returning to his vineyard, an investor returning to retrieve his investment or a fig tree blossoming, let us read the scriptures through the Spirit and let the key truth achieve the Lord's purposes, within the limits he intends.

Our Lord is coming. Let us watch and pray both individually and together as for a wonderful event like a wedding. Let us walk into the future in the Spirit of God, prayerfully considering all aspects of what the Bible says as we go, dependent on him, not according to a formula that we have sought to extract, or one passed on to us by others.

Next time: Some personal perspectives.