The ten women in this parable all expect the bridegroom to arrive. They carry lamps, wait through the delay, and get up when his arrival is announced. Yet five enter the wedding and five are shut outside. When I read that, I have to consider more than whether I look like someone waiting for Christ. It is possible to know Christian language and share in church life without having personally trusted the Savior everyone is talking about.
Matthew 24 Leads into the Wedding Scene
Jesus gave this parable in Matthew 25:1-13 while teaching His disciples on the Mount of Olives. They had asked about the temple’s destruction, His coming, and the end of the age. We commonly call this teaching the Olivet Discourse because of where He delivered it.
In Matthew 24, Jesus warned of deception and persecution, described the coming Tribulation, and spoke of His bodily return in glory. He assured the disciples that His words would be fulfilled without telling them the exact hour. Immediately before the wedding parable, He describes a faithful servant who continues his master’s work and an evil servant who uses the apparent delay as an excuse for cruelty and self-indulgence. Jesus continues to address readiness during the wait in the parable of the ten virgins.
I believe Christ will gather His church before the seven-year Tribulation and later return bodily in glory to reign. The study on the rapture explains the wider biblical grounds for that understanding. This parable does not, by itself, identify every prophetic group or establish every step in that sequence. It does warn us about real preparation for His coming. We could explain a prophetic chart correctly and still evade the question of whether we belong to Him.
The virgins are unmarried young women serving as wedding attendants. They go out to welcome the bridegroom, with lamps for the procession at night. Jesus does not describe them as enemies trying to disrupt the wedding. All ten have a place among those expecting him, and anyone watching them wait might assume they were equally prepared.
The call, “Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!” uses the Greek word apantesis for “meet.” It describes a meeting, and here the attendants are going out to welcome the bridegroom.
We do not need to reconstruct every detail of an ancient wedding to follow what Jesus says. The bridegroom’s arrival takes longer than expected, the attendants need light when he comes, and the door to the feast eventually closes. The promised joy of Christ’s people is considered further in the study on the marriage supper of the Lamb. Here, the celebration makes the exclusion especially dreadful: these women expected to enter, but their expectation alone did not admit them.
The Lamps Look Alike, but the Oil Reveals the Difference
Jesus calls five attendants wise and five foolish. Although all ten carry lamps, only the wise bring oil in vessels along with them. Before any midnight announcement, Jesus has already told us what will separate the two groups.
But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.
Matthew 25:4-5
All ten grow drowsy and sleep, so physical sleep cannot be the failure that excludes the foolish women. The wise sleep too, without becoming unprepared, because they have already brought what they will need. Jesus is not asking us to live in constant agitation, afraid to grow tired or rest.
In Matthew 7:24, Jesus calls the person who hears His words and acts on them wise. He is speaking about obedience, not merely intelligence. The wise attendants had considered what welcoming the bridegroom would require and brought the oil their lamps needed. They had done more than assume that carrying a lamp would be enough.
I understand the lamps as picturing the profession other people can see. Two people may sit beside each other in church, sing the same words, and both speak comfortably about Christ’s return. That tells us what they profess, but it does not establish that both have been born again. We need to distinguish what someone says about belonging to Christ from the new life God actually gives.
The oil represents the readiness the foolish lack. Some interpreters identify it with prayer, good works, Bible knowledge, or church involvement. Those things have their proper place, but none can produce regeneration, which means being born again. A person can pray often while trusting his own religious effort, or learn Scripture while refusing to trust the Christ it reveals. Doing another religious task cannot substitute for receiving life from Him.
Elsewhere in Scripture, oil is associated with consecration, or being set apart for God, and with His enabling work. Zechariah’s lampstand vision includes this message for Zerubbabel: “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the LORD of hosts. Zerubbabel had laid the temple’s foundation, and God promised that he would finish the rebuilding. That promise of the Spirit’s help is one reason I connect the oil here with the spiritual life God supplies, though Jesus does not explicitly say that the oil is the Holy Spirit. Ephesians gives us a direct statement about the Spirit’s work in those who believe.
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
Ephesians 1:13-14
The believer hears the gospel, believes in Christ, and is sealed with the Holy Spirit. This is something God does within a person, not something supplied by his place in a religious gathering. I therefore understand the parable to expose a profession that lacks genuine new life, rather than describe a born-again person losing the Spirit. We should read the imagery alongside these clear statements about salvation, without turning every detail of a lamp into a separate doctrine.
The study on lamps being filled with oil examines that wider imagery. In this parable, the practical failure is already plain: the foolish have not brought what they will need when the bridegroom arrives.
The Delay Tests What the Attendants Possess
The bridegroom is delayed from the attendants’ point of view. Jesus is not suggesting that Christ has missed an appointment or lost control of His return. We are the ones who do not know how long the wait will be. The apparent delay gives no one permission to assume His promise has failed.
Someone may continue attending church because his family expects it or because his friends are there, without personally trusting Christ. Another person may point to a powerful past experience whenever the question of faith comes up. Those associations and experiences may persuade others that a person belongs to Christ, but neither a familiar routine nor a vivid memory proves that he has been made new. The delay does not create the lack Jesus is exposing; the foolish attendants were unprepared before the wait began.
At midnight, the waiting attendants are awakened by a cry. That hour brings surprise into the parable; it does not predict a date for Christ’s return or a coded stage of the Tribulation. They cannot choose a more convenient moment to get ready.
And at midnight a cry was heard: “Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!” Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps.
Matthew 25:6-7
When the announcement wakes them, all ten begin preparing their lamps. The foolish ask for oil because their lamps are going out, as Matthew 25:8 says. Unlike the wise, they have no supply to replenish their lamps.
Borrowed Oil Cannot Open a Shut Door
The wise women answer that dividing their oil could leave both groups without enough. We cannot use their refusal as permission to be selfish toward someone in need. Jesus is showing that the foolish have reached a moment when another person’s preparation cannot make up for their own neglect.
The foolish women leave to buy oil, but the bridegroom arrives while they are away. Those who are ready enter the wedding with him, and the door is shut before their companions return.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us!” But he answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.”
Matthew 25:10-12
The foolish know whom to address, call him “Lord,” and ask to enter. His answer, “I do not know you,” does not mean he is confused about who is standing outside. They expect him to welcome them as part of his company, but he refuses to recognize that claim. Knowing about the wedding and addressing him correctly cannot make them belong to him.
Matthew 7 contains a similar warning. People say, “Lord, Lord,” and point to impressive religious activity, yet Christ answers, “I never knew you.” His words do not describe people He once knew and then forgot. Luke 13 likewise describes people shut outside who appeal to having eaten and drunk in His presence and heard Him teach. In each passage, being near the Lord’s works and words has been mistaken for belonging to Him.
A Christian parent can teach a child Scripture and pray for him for years, but that parent cannot believe in Christ on the child’s behalf. A faithful husband or wife can be a strong witness without being able to give the other spouse new life. The church can proclaim the gospel, open Scripture with people, and urge them to respond. These are valuable gifts from God, but each person must personally trust the Savior to whom they point.
The wise attendants’ advice to go and buy oil does not mean that salvation can be purchased. Paul states plainly how we receive it.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
Isaiah 55 also invites the thirsty to buy without money and without price. God supplies what sinners cannot earn. The foolish attendants are trying to obtain oil after the arrival has been announced. Jesus is not teaching us to purchase the Holy Spirit or earn a place at the feast through last-minute religious effort.
I find the closed door sobering because Jesus leaves no promise of another opportunity after it shuts. God’s patience must not be mistaken for permission to postpone repentance indefinitely. But we are hearing the warning before that final exclusion. Jesus tells us now so that we will come to Him, rather than rely on a religious reputation until it is too late.
Watchfulness Rests on Christ, Not Panic
Jesus ends with an instruction to watch because we do not know the day or hour.
Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
Matthew 25:13
The Greek verb gregoreo means to watch or remain alert. Since the wise attendants slept along with the foolish, the command cannot require literal sleeplessness. Jesus calls us to be prepared for His coming. Guessing dates or panicking at each alarming headline does not accomplish that.
The faithful servant in Matthew 24 keeps doing his master’s work. The wise attendants in Matthew 25 have brought their oil before the announcement comes. Neither example requires constant emotional intensity or sinless performance, but both challenge the assumption that a delay lets us disregard the Master. I am responsible for how I live today even when His return does not feel immediate.
That responsibility includes telling the truth and keeping my promises when it would be convenient not to. It includes forgiving someone instead of preserving my resentment, and serving the people God has already put before me. We keep listening to Scripture, confessing sin instead of hiding it, and gathering with believers who help us obey the Lord. These are expressions of genuine faith; they neither purchase salvation nor keep us saved.
Some readers worry that this parable means a true believer may lose salvation at the last moment. I do not understand it that way. The foolish attendants failed to bring the needed supply from the outset; the bridegroom is not described as taking it away from them. More directly, Jesus promises to keep those who truly belong to Him.
And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.
John 10:28
His sheep receive eternal life, and He promises that they will never perish. In 1 Peter 1:5, Peter also says believers are kept by God’s power through faith, while Paul describes them as sealed with the Holy Spirit. My assurance rests on Christ and His promises, not on whether I can sustain a feeling of readiness every hour.
At the same time, Scripture warns about people whose place among believers concealed their rejection of Christ. John describes such a departure in his first letter.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.
1 John 2:19
John is speaking about antichrists who deny Jesus as the Christ, not declaring that anyone who leaves a particular congregation was never saved. Their departure exposed a rejection of the Son that their former association had concealed. The warning applies to religious profession without genuine faith; it gives us no excuse to question someone’s salvation merely because he no longer attends our church.
So I need to examine what I am depending on. A Christian family, a moral reputation, and years of ministry cannot give us the new life Christ provides. Neither can a powerful emotion from the past. We should look for the fruit of new life in our conduct, but that fruit is evidence of His work, not the price of acceptance. A believer who grieves over sin and turns to Christ should not read this parable as a command to despair.
If the parable exposes an empty profession, come to the Savior now. Jesus is the eternal Son, fully God and fully man, who lived without sin. Wicked people tortured Him and put Him to death, but He willingly gave Himself to be slain as the sinless, perfect sacrifice for our sins. He completed that saving work through His shed blood and death before His burial and bodily resurrection. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Father and Son acted in unity to save us.
Christ died for the whole world, and God’s offer of salvation is genuine for every person. His grace can be resisted, and people can finally reject Him. But everyone who repents and trusts in Jesus is forgiven and born again as a new creation. The Holy Spirit lives within that believer and seals him, and his salvation is eternally secure in Christ. That assurance never gives permission for lawlessness, and merely claiming it does not prove a person has been converted.
The answer to false assurance is to trust Christ Himself. He receives those who come to Him, and His warning calls us to respond while the opportunity remains.
My Final Thoughts
I do not want to become so familiar with Christian life that I stop considering whether my confidence is actually in Christ. The foolish attendants were near the wedding and expected to enter, but expectation did not supply what they had neglected. Jesus gives this warning while we can still respond to Him. Those who belong to Him can rest in His promise to keep them, without using that assurance to excuse disobedience. We do not know when He will come, but we can trust Him and take seriously what He has given us to do today.
Revelation 11 calls God’s two witnesses olive trees and lampstands, using a picture that first appears in Zechariah 4. I understand these witnesses to be two real men who will prophesy during the future Tribulation. To understand why John describes them this way, we need to begin with the earlier vision and the people God was encouraging through it.
Zechariah’s Lampstand and God’s Supply
Zechariah ministered after the Babylonian exile. Babylon had conquered Jerusalem and destroyed Solomon’s temple, but after Persia defeated Babylon, Cyrus permitted Jewish exiles to return and rebuild. Ezra 1-6 records that return and the opposition the builders encountered. They laid the temple’s foundation, yet years of resistance and discouragement left the work unfinished.
The returned community remained under Persian rule, with little of the wealth and strength Judah had known in Solomon’s day. Zerubbabel served as governor, while Joshua the son of Jehozadak was high priest. Haggai rebuked the people for attending to their own houses while the Lord’s house remained in ruins. He and Zechariah called them back to the work God had given them.
Zechariah saw a vision concerning the supply they needed: a gold lampstand with seven lamps, a bowl, and two olive trees standing beside it.
Now the angel who talked with me came back and wakened me, as a man who is wakened out of his sleep. And he said to me, “What do you see?” So I said, “I am looking, and there is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left.”
Zechariah 4:1-3
Ordinarily, olives had to be harvested and pressed, and someone had to replenish the oil in the lamps. In this vision, oil flowed from the olive branches through golden pipes, providing the lampstand with a continuing supply.
Through this vision, the Lord was teaching Zerubbabel that His Spirit would enable the returned exiles to complete work they could not accomplish through their own strength.
This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” Says the LORD of hosts.
Zechariah 4:6
The Hebrew word ruach can mean wind or breath in other settings, but here the Lord says, “My Spirit.” He is promising the help of His own Spirit, who is God Himself, rather than an impersonal force or a mood the builders needed to cultivate. Military might or political influence could not accomplish this work in place of Him.
That did not excuse them from working. Zerubbabel still had to lead, and the builders still had to use their resources and obey God’s instructions. If they had simply waited for the temple to build itself, they would have neglected the task He had given them. Depending on the Spirit meant doing the work with His help, rather than assuming they could succeed apart from Him.
God also promised that Zerubbabel, whose hands had laid the foundation, would finish the temple. The small beginnings did not justify dismissing what the Lord had commanded.
For who has despised the day of small things? For these seven rejoice to see The plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.
Zechariah 4:10
The plumb line was a builder’s tool for checking that a wall stood upright. Seeing it in Zerubbabel’s hand meant seeing the work proceed. The rest of verse 10 identifies the seven with the eyes of the Lord ranging throughout the earth. He was fully aware of this weakened community and had promised its governor that the temple would be completed.
I need to keep that assignment in view when applying God’s promise to Zerubbabel. Quoting it over a project I have chosen does not establish that God commanded that project or promised its success. Zerubbabel had a specific word from the Lord about the temple. I can depend on God’s help without turning my own ambitions into promises He must fulfill.
The Two Anointed Ones and Public Witness
Zechariah asked about the two olive trees and the branches supplying oil. The angel identified them as servants standing beside the Lord.
So he said, “These are the two anointed ones, who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth.”
Zechariah 4:14
In that historical setting, I understand the two servants most naturally as Zerubbabel and Joshua. Zerubbabel was a descendant of David, though he governed under Persian authority rather than reigning as king. Joshua carried the responsibilities of the high priest. Together they served in the civil and priestly leadership of the restored community. Their offices pointed forward to Christ, in whom kingship and priesthood meet perfectly, but neither of these men was the Messiah.
The Hebrew expression translated “anointed ones” refers literally to sons of fresh oil, fitting the vision of consecrated servants supplied by God. They stood beside the Lord of the whole earth. Persian rule over Judah had not reduced His authority to the boundaries of a struggling province.
The lampstand also describes testimony that can be seen. Jesus used it when explaining how His disciples were to live before others.
You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
Matthew 5:14-15
A lamp is put on a stand so its light reaches the people in the house. If I conceal the truth about Christ whenever someone might disapprove, I am allowing that person’s opinion to decide what I am willing to make known. We are called to bear witness to Christ, the true Light, rather than produce God’s truth from within ourselves.
In Revelation 1, Jesus identifies the seven lampstands as seven churches. He walks among them, and they remain accountable to Him for their testimony.
The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.
Revelation 1:20
The Two Witnesses in Revelation
Before introducing the witnesses in Revelation 11, John describes the measuring of the temple and the trampling of the holy city for forty-two months. He then draws on Zechariah’s imagery, calling the witnesses olive trees and lampstands standing before the God of the earth. Here there are two lampstands, whereas Zechariah saw one.
And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth.
Revelation 11:3-4
I read this within a futurist, pre-Tribulation, premillennial framework. The church will be gathered to Christ before the coming worldwide hour of trial; she is not appointed to wrath. These witnesses serve during the future Tribulation, before Christ’s public return and earthly thousand-year reign. John is describing two men with a particular assignment, rather than the whole history of Christian testimony.
The Greek word martys means a witness, someone who gives testimony. Its association with people who die for their testimony fits the fate of these men, but their calling begins with speaking God’s message. Their sackcloth suits that message: Scripture associates it with mourning and the humility of repentance. They are confronting a rebellious world at a grievous hour, and their work will not be religious entertainment.
Sending two witnesses also fits the biblical principle that a matter is established by two or three witnesses.
One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.
Deuteronomy 19:15
I see this as a public testimony consistent with the standard God gave Israel for establishing a matter. The world cannot honestly claim it was never warned. The two men stand before God and deliver His warning publicly.
The 1,260 days amount to three and a half years when reckoned in thirty-day months. The forty-two months in Revelation 11:2 give an equivalent length. Revelation 12:6 also gives 1,260 days, while Revelation 12:14 describes the woman’s protection as “a time and times and half a time.” Revelation 13:5 gives the beast forty-two months of authority. These are related prophetic measurements, not a reason to replace the witnesses’ stated days with an indefinite span of church history.
Daniel supplies the earlier framework. In Daniel 9:24-27, seventy prophetic weeks are appointed for his people and Jerusalem. I understand the final week as a future seven-year period, with the covenant broken midway when sacrifice and offering are stopped. Daniel 7:25 and 12:7 also use the expression “a time and times and half a time.” Reading these passages together, I understand the Tribulation as seven literal years, with an especially severe final half often called the Great Tribulation. The witnesses’ ministry belongs within that future sequence.
God protects these prophets from their enemies and gives them authority to bring judgments upon the earth.
And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy; and they have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire.
Revelation 11:5-6
The drought recalls Elijah’s ministry, when he announced that Israel would have no rain except at his word. His ministry also included fire from heaven.
And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word.”
1 Kings 17:1
The witnesses’ authority to turn water into blood also recalls the plague God brought on Egypt through Moses and Aaron.
And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. The fish that were in the river died, the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river.
Exodus 7:20-21
The witnesses will not merely offer an opinion their enemies can dismiss without consequence. God backs their testimony with authority that includes deadly judgment. Yet that authority belongs to the work He gives them. It is not an opportunity to display their own importance or turn miraculous power into a spectacle.
Their Identity, Death, and Public Vindication
Moses and Elijah also appeared together with Jesus at the Transfiguration.
And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.
Matthew 17:3
I think Moses and Elijah are the strongest candidates. They represent the Law and the Prophets, and the signs in Revelation 11 closely resemble their ministries. Their appearance together with Christ adds to that connection. John does not give the witnesses’ names, however, so the parallels support a reasonable identification without making it a certainty the chapter expressly teaches.
Enoch and Elijah are also proposed because neither experienced death in the ordinary way. Some readers connect that with Hebrews 9:27, which speaks of people being appointed to die once and then face judgment. The passage is explaining the ordinary human prospect of death and judgment alongside Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice. It does not predict that Enoch and Elijah must return to earth to die.
Revelation 11:7 does state plainly when the beast will be permitted to kill them. Notice the opening words, “When they finish their testimony.”
When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them.
Revelation 11:7
The beast cannot cut their ministry short, because God preserves them until the testimony He assigned is complete. Once that work is finished, the beast overcomes and kills them. God’s protection is not a promise that they will escape death altogether. Their deaths give us no reason to conclude that they failed or that He lost control of their work.
Their bodies remain in the street of “the great city,” which verse 8 spiritually compares to Sodom and Egypt. John identifies it as the place “where also our Lord was crucified.” That points to Jerusalem. The comparisons expose the city’s condition during this rebellious hour: the corruption associated with Sodom and the oppression and defiance associated with Egypt. They do not change its geographical identity.
People from many nations look at the bodies for three and a half days and refuse them burial. Those who dwell on the earth celebrate and exchange gifts because the prophets had tormented them. They resent the testimony and judgments that confronted their rebellion, and they welcome the prophets’ deaths as relief from that confrontation. Their celebration shows how bitterly the truth can be hated.
After three and a half days, God overturns the result their enemies are celebrating.
Now after the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them.
Revelation 11:11-12
The men stand on their feet, and the spectators are terrified. Their enemies then see them ascend to heaven in a cloud. God publicly vindicates the servants whose bodies had been left in the street. The world cannot explain their testimony away as the opinion of two men it successfully silenced, because the God who sent them has given them life again.
The breath of life also recalls our dependence on God for life itself. The witnesses do not regain it through some hidden strength of their own. They stand because life comes from Him, just as their ministry depended on His supply from the beginning.
Reading the Witnesses Carefully
Revelation identifies whom its lampstands represent in each passage. In chapter 1 they are churches; in chapter 11 they are these two witnesses. The shared image explains visible testimony under God’s authority, but it does not make the people represented identical. Their stated ministry, physical deaths, resurrection, and ascension give us reasons to understand them as real men while recognizing the meaning of the symbols.
Nor does recognizing the resemblance to Moses and Elijah authorize us to identify two people living today as these prophets. John has not supplied their names. I can explain why one identification seems more likely without presenting a prediction about modern people as though Scripture had named them. Confidence in the passage should make me more careful about what I attribute to it.
Faithful Witness Now
The church is not these two witnesses, and their commission does not promise us the same signs or an appointed 1,260-day ministry. We are still called to bear witness to Christ. Before His ascension, Jesus told His disciples where the power for their work would come from.
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Acts 1:8
The witnesses in Revelation will have extraordinary signs, yet the world will hate their testimony. I should not assume that rejection proves God’s message has failed or that I must change it to gain someone’s approval. My responsibility is to explain the truth faithfully. Raising my voice or pressuring a listener cannot accomplish the Holy Spirit’s work, and relying on my personality is a poor substitute for depending on Him.
I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
John 15:5
Abiding in Christ requires continued dependence on Him. I need to pray and attend to His Word while carrying out what He has commanded, just as Zerubbabel had to lead the builders rather than leave the temple unfinished. Neither an impressive public presence nor the absence of opposition establishes whether I am serving faithfully. Christ supplies what I need to obey, including courage when telling the truth could cost me someone’s approval.
Scripture often shows God sending servants together, as He does with these two men. We should value the help of fellow believers with whom we can pray and serve. Trying to do everything alone out of pride is a poor way to depend on the Lord who has given us that help.
Christian witness must tell people what the Savior has accomplished. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son who became fully man without ceasing to be fully God and lived without sin. He willingly gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured and crucified Him, but the Father did not punish or abandon Him. Father and Son remained united in this saving work. His shed blood and death accomplished our redemption before His burial and bodily resurrection.
Christ died for the whole world, and God genuinely offers salvation to every person, although people can resist His grace and reject the Savior. Neither religious activity nor moral improvement earns or keeps salvation; we receive His mercy through repentance and faith. When someone is genuinely born again, he becomes a new creation, and the Holy Spirit indwells and seals him. He is eternally secure in Christ, but that assurance gives him no permission to continue in lawlessness. A profession of faith with no evidence of new life should not be confused with regeneration. Our testimony should direct people to the Savior who gives that life, rather than encourage them to admire us.
My Final Thoughts
I believe the two witnesses are real men whom God will send to prophesy during the future Tribulation. Their ministry will depend on Him, just as the work in Zechariah’s day depended on His Spirit. I need to remember that when I am tempted to measure faithfulness by public approval or visible strength. The world will celebrate these men’s deaths, but their enemies will also see God raise them. Opposition cannot make His testimony false or prevent Him from vindicating His servants.
At the third trumpet in Revelation 8, John sees a blazing star strike rivers and springs, making the water so bitter that many people die from drinking it. He calls the star Wormwood. I understand this as a real future judgment, and the name takes us back to warnings God had already given about the consequences of rejecting Him.
Wormwood in the Trumpet Sequence
Wormwood belongs within a sequence of judgments that begins with the Lamb opening the scroll. In Revelation 5, Jesus Christ is the only One worthy to open it. He opens its seals in chapters 6 through 8, and the opening of the seventh seal introduces seven angels who receive trumpets before God’s throne. These judgments unfold under His authority. I understand them to take place during the future seven-year Tribulation.
The first trumpet burns a third of the trees and all the green grass. At the second, a third of the sea becomes blood, a third of its creatures die, and a third of its ships are destroyed. After Wormwood strikes freshwater at the third trumpet, the fourth strikes a third of the sun, moon, and stars, leaving a third of the day and night without light. Each judgment damages something people depend on for ordinary life. The repeated references to a third also show that these judgments have not yet brought the whole creation to its end.
We should not mistake that limit for mildness. Many people die, and the survivors face devastation on an enormous scale. God has acted decisively against a rebellious world while still leaving people alive who can hear His warning and repent. The announcement of further woes at the end of Revelation 8 makes clear that judgment is not yet finished.
John describes what happens to the rivers and springs when the third angel sounds.
Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter.
Revelation 8:10-11
When the NKJV says that “many men died,” men means human beings, not only adult males. These people die from drinking the water. The word bitter therefore describes more than an objectionable taste; the changed water is lethal. I take that physical consequence seriously when interpreting the passage, rather than making Wormwood only an image of spiritual confusion or distress.
John describes the star as burning like a torch, but that comparison does not identify it as a particular kind of object in modern astronomy. A meteor or some other physical mechanism could be involved. We are told what John sees and what happens to the water, without being given the information needed to classify the star confidently as an asteroid or comet.
Some readers understand the star as an angelic being because Revelation uses stars that way elsewhere. In Revelation 9:1-2, for example, a fallen star receives a key and opens the bottomless pit. That description involves someone acting, whereas Revelation 8 describes the blazing star falling on waters and making them deadly. I understand the third trumpet as a judgment on actual freshwater, while leaving the precise means God uses unresolved.
John also leaves the affected rivers unnamed and does not identify a modern country. The judgment reaches rivers and springs, with a third of the waters made bitter; it is not described as contamination confined to one named lake.
Wormwood translates the Greek word apsinthos, the name of a bitter plant. The Old Testament Hebrew word commonly translated wormwood is la’anah. Scripture had already used this plant’s bitterness to describe the consequences of rebellion and the sorrow of judgment. That background explains why the star bears this name without supplying a chemical explanation for the event.
Wormwood’s Old Testament Background
In Deuteronomy 29, Moses warned Israel about people turning from the Lord to serve the gods of surrounding nations. He described that departure through the image of a root producing bitterness.
so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood;
Deuteronomy 29:18
The warning begins with a heart turning away from God. Moses goes on to describe someone who hears the covenant warning yet assures himself that he will have peace while following his own desires. He wants to disregard the Lord’s command without facing its consequences. A place among God’s covenant people did not make that presumption safe.
The image of a root also describes rebellion developing before its harm is fully apparent. A father may excuse idolatry as his own private choice, but his children see the worship he practices and hear him defend his conduct. If he teaches them to disregard God’s command, the harm has spread beyond his own disobedience. Moses was warning the whole community because turning from the Lord could influence a family or tribe, not just the person who first made that choice.
Centuries later, Jeremiah addressed Judah’s refusal to obey the Lord. The people had abandoned His instruction and followed the Baals, including the idolatry their fathers had taught them. God explained why judgment was coming.
And the LORD said, “Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, nor walked according to it, but they have walked according to the dictates of their own hearts and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them,” therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.”
Jeremiah 9:13-15
They were following desires and customs they preferred to God’s Word. Having inherited those customs did not make them right. The Lord who had sustained His people would make them taste the bitterness of the rebellion they had chosen. Jeremiah’s reference to wormwood and poisonous water belongs to that announced judgment, rather than an unexplained misfortune.
Lamentations speaks from within the grief of Jerusalem’s devastation after judgment had fallen. The speaker describes affliction through the same bitter image.
He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drink wormwood.
Lamentations 3:15
These passages do not treat sin’s consequences as a minor disappointment. The sorrow is devastating, and wormwood gives a name to its bitterness. By the time we reach Revelation 8, the word has already appeared in warnings about idolatry and in the grief that followed judgment. Its use for the star fits the world’s continued rejection of the Lord.
I need to be careful about applying that connection to an individual who is suffering now. A person’s illness or bereavement does not give me grounds to announce that God is punishing him for rebellion. Scripture records faithful people enduring terrible affliction too. The Old Testament passages identify the covenant unfaithfulness God was judging, and Revelation describes a particular judgment still to come.
In Revelation 8, people are dying because water they need has been made bitter. The rivers and springs have not simply dried up; water is still there, yet drinking it brings death instead of sustaining life.
Elsewhere in Scripture, God supplies water as an act of mercy. He opened Hagar’s eyes to a well in the wilderness and gave Israel water from the rock. The prophets also described restoration through flowing water, and Jesus offers living water to those who come to Him. Revelation itself ends with the river of the water of life. The third trumpet shows the severity of rejecting the Giver: He has authority to make the water on which people depend a means of judgment.
Exodus 7 records a judgment on water after Pharaoh refused God’s command to release Israel. The Lord told Moses to instruct Aaron to take his rod and stretch out his hand over Egypt’s waters, which would become blood.
And Moses and Aaron did so, just as the LORD commanded. So he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants. And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. The fish that were in the river died, the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river. So there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.
Exodus 7:20-21
The Nile had sustained Egypt, but its water became blood, the fish died, and the river stank. God had commanded that judgment while delivering Israel from slavery. Revelation describes future judgments during the Tribulation, so the two events belong to different settings. Yet both show the Lord confronting defiance by striking the water people need, with false gods unable to protect those who worship them.
Our ability to study water and build systems to supply it does not make us independent of Him either. Testing water and constructing treatment plants are worthwhile uses of human knowledge, but we still depend on a supply we did not create. A wealthy, technologically capable nation depends on water just as surely as a poor one. Understanding a physical process does not place creation beyond its Maker’s authority.
Warning, Repentance, and Careful Interpretation
A disaster involving water is not enough to establish that the third trumpet has sounded. Earlier events can remind us of biblical patterns without fulfilling this prophecy. Revelation places Wormwood within an ordered sequence, and a resemblance to one detail does not establish that it has occurred. Jesus warned about deception and called His disciples to watch faithfully; He did not authorize us to set dates for His return.
I hold a pre-Tribulation and premillennial view: the Lord will gather His church before the coming Tribulation and later return publicly to establish His earthly thousand-year reign. Paul describes believers being caught up to meet Him in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 and says in 1 Thessalonians 5:9 that God has not appointed us to wrath. Jesus also promised the church in Philadelphia that He would keep them from the coming worldwide hour of trial in Revelation 3:10. I read these promises together as grounds for expecting the church to be gathered before the trumpet judgments.
That does not mean no one will turn to Christ during the Tribulation; Revelation describes saints in that period. Nor does our hope excuse indifference toward those who still need salvation. Knowing that judgment is coming should make us eager to bring people the gospel now, while there is an opportunity to respond. Every warning remains under Christ’s authority, and no rebellion will prevent His promised return and reign.
I might expect people who survive such judgments to be eager to turn from their idols. Revelation 9 records a different response after further trumpet plagues.
But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
Revelation 9:20-21
These survivors continue worshiping idols that cannot see, hear, or walk, even after the world around them has been devastated. They also refuse to turn from the sins John names, including murder and theft. Suffering has not compelled them to repent, and witnessing judgment has not made them willing to obey God. They remain responsible for what they choose to defend.
That should correct the assumption that someone can safely put off repentance until the warnings become impossible to ignore. Repeatedly dismissing the truth can make a person more stubborn about the sin he has been excusing. Being frightened by a catastrophe is not the same as turning to Christ. The survivors are still alive to respond to the Lord, yet they persist in idolatry and the conduct He condemns.
God offers mercy through Jesus Christ, His eternal Son, who became fully man without ceasing to be fully God and lived without sin. He willingly gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured and crucified Him, but the Father did not punish or abandon Him. Father and Son remained united in this saving work. His shed blood and death accomplished our redemption before His burial and bodily resurrection. Forgiveness is genuinely offered to every person, although people can resist His grace and reject Him. Everyone who repents and believes in Christ is forgiven and receives everlasting life.
From Bitter Water to Living Water
The Savior who will judge the world is also the One who offers living water. In John 4, Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman who had come to draw from Jacob’s well.
Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
John 4:13-14
She needed ordinary water, but Jesus offered life that the well could never supply. A better bucket might have made her work easier; it could not reconcile her to God. Nor could a more respectable reputation or less complicated circumstances give her everlasting life. She needed what Jesus was offering as a gift.
In John 7, Jesus made a public invitation for thirsty people to come to Him and drink. John explains that Jesus was speaking about the Holy Spirit.
On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
John 7:37-39
The living water is connected with the Holy Spirit whom believers would receive after Jesus was glorified. The Spirit was already at work before then, but Christ’s promise looked ahead to His New Covenant ministry following Jesus’ death, bodily resurrection, and ascension. The life He gives is received through faith, with the Spirit Himself coming to dwell in the believer.
When someone is genuinely born again, he becomes a new creation and is indwelt and sealed by the Spirit for the day of redemption. That salvation is eternally secure, but a Christian label with no evidence of new life should not be confused with regeneration. Obedience does not earn or keep salvation, and being born again does not mean the believer never sins. His conduct should provide evidence that the Spirit has changed him, and assurance in Christ gives him no permission to continue in lawlessness.
John’s visions reach as far as God’s final victory over evil and the revelation of the holy city. At the close of the book, the invitation is addressed to those who hear its words now.
And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
Revelation 22:17
The word freely tells me that I cannot buy what Christ gives. He bore the cost of redemption, and the thirsty person comes to receive His mercy. Wormwood warns us about the bitterness of persisting in rebellion, while this invitation calls us to the living Savior in repentance and faith. We should bring that invitation to people rather than leave them with fearful curiosity about the disaster.
My Final Thoughts
I believe Wormwood describes a real future judgment in which people will die from water made bitter. Its name also recalls the bitter consequences of turning from the Lord, so I need to take the warning seriously instead of treating it as a puzzle about a star. Knowing more about the prediction cannot make me right with God. Christ offers the mercy we need, and we should respond in repentance and faith while we still have the opportunity.
When Jesus said the temple would be demolished, His disciples wanted to know when it would happen. They also asked about His coming and the end of the age, questions that take the conversation far beyond the buildings they had been admiring. I want to follow His answer carefully, because we can confuse Jerusalem’s destruction with His future return if we assume every part describes the same event.
The Temple and the Mountain
As Jesus left the temple, the disciples drew His attention to its buildings. This was the center of Israel’s worship, where priests offered sacrifices and the people gathered before God. The temple’s imposing construction gave them plenty to admire, but Jesus told them those buildings would be destroyed.
And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
Matthew 24:2
He later sat on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. From that ridge, the disciples could look across the Kidron Valley toward the temple complex. The buildings Jesus had just condemned were still standing when they came to Him privately for an explanation.
Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
Matthew 24:3
Their question joins the temple’s destruction with Christ’s coming and the end of the age. We should not assume they already understood how those events would relate to one another. Jesus’ answer requires us to distinguish them instead of forcing everything into the same moment.
Roman armies devastated Jerusalem and destroyed the temple in AD 70, fulfilling His warning about the buildings. Yet the rest of this discourse includes unparalleled tribulation and cosmic signs, followed by the Son of Man visibly coming in glory. I understand Jerusalem’s fall as a real historical judgment that also foreshadows the final crisis. It did not exhaust what Jesus was describing.
The Greek word parousia, translated coming in verse 3, can describe a presence or arrival. The context here concerns the Son of Man returning openly as King. Later in the chapter, Jesus will explain why His people must reject reports that He has appeared privately in some secluded place.
He began His answer with this warning: “Take heed that no one deceives you.” People would come in His name and claim to be the Christ. If someone claims Christ’s authority while contradicting His words, I have no reason to trust him, however convincing he may sound.
Wars would also bring fear and speculation. Jesus told His hearers not to mistake reports of conflict for an announcement that the end had arrived.
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
Matthew 24:6
He went on to describe suffering that would reach beyond the battlefield.
For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Matthew 24:7-8
The beginning of sorrows carries the image of birth pains, which intensify as birth approaches. Jesus is describing trouble moving toward an end God has determined, but He expressly says that the end has not yet arrived. I cannot turn the latest war or earthquake into proof that I have worked out His timetable.
Nor should we dismiss His warning because wars and disasters have occurred throughout history. People suffering through them need more than our argument about where an event fits on a chart. We can take their affliction seriously while refusing to panic or claim knowledge Jesus has not given us.
For those who belong to Christ, the danger will also include persecution because of His name.
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.”
Matthew 24:9-10
Jesus goes on to describe false prophets deceiving many and lawlessness causing love to grow cold. He is preparing His people for hostility that can reach into their closest relationships. Belonging to Him will not spare them betrayal or death.
But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
Matthew 24:13-14
Here I understand Jesus to be encouraging His people to remain faithful through this terrible period until God brings deliverance. Their endurance reveals faith under pressure; it does not earn or keep eternal life. He has already warned that some will be killed, so I cannot read this promise as a guarantee that every faithful believer will survive.
Even amid that persecution, the gospel of the kingdom will reach the nations. The King we await is Jesus Christ, God’s eternal Son, who became fully man without ceasing to be fully God. He lived without sin, yet wicked men tortured and crucified Him within God’s foreknown saving purpose. He willingly gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. His shed blood and death accomplished our redemption before His burial and bodily resurrection.
The Father and Son were united in this work of salvation. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Christ died for the whole world, and God’s offer of salvation is genuine, although people can resist and reject it. God gives new life to those who repent and believe. The Holy Spirit indwells and seals them, and they are eternally secure in Christ. A shallow claim to believe does not establish that new birth, and eternal security gives no permission for lawlessness. People still need to hear about this Savior as judgment approaches.
The Turning Point Sign
In Matthew 24:15, Jesus gives His hearers a specific sign that calls for immediate action. He directs the reader to Daniel’s prophecy, so we need to understand that passage rather than invent an explanation from current events.
“Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.”
Matthew 24:15-16
An abomination is something detestable to God, especially an idolatrous act that desecrates what is holy. Desolation is the ruin that follows. Daniel connects this defilement with the sanctuary and the interruption of sacrifice, and Jesus still speaks of it as future during His earthly ministry.
I understand the final prophetic week in Daniel 9:27 as seven years. A coming ruler confirms a covenant for that period, but halfway through he stops sacrifice and offering. Daniel 12:7 and Revelation 12 describe the final half as a time, times, and half a time. Revelation 12 also gives its length as 1,260 days, while the beast’s forty-two months of authority in Revelation 13:5 correspond to the same three and a half years. These corresponding periods provide the grounds for a literal seven-year Tribulation, with its most severe suffering in the final half.
Paul’s warning about the man of sin helps explain why this defilement is so abhorrent to God.
Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
The man of sin tries to usurp God’s place by presenting himself as God in the temple. Jesus has told those in Judea how to respond to such a defilement: flee to the mountains without turning back. Someone on a housetop must leave without going down for possessions, and someone working in a field must not return for clothes. The danger is too urgent to allow for gathering belongings. Jesus singles out women who are pregnant or nursing, whose circumstances will make escape especially difficult. He also tells His hearers to pray that they will not have to flee in winter or on a Sabbath.
The references to Judea and the Sabbath place this warning in a Jewish setting, where people will need to escape a real threat to their lives. Jerusalem suffered appallingly in AD 70, but the full sequence Jesus describes reaches beyond that catastrophe to His public return. I therefore understand this final defilement and the crisis that follows as still ahead.
Great Tribulation
Jesus calls the period following the abomination great tribulation. The Greek phrase thlipsis megale means great distress or affliction, and He goes on to describe suffering without precedent.
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.
Matthew 24:21-22
God limits this devastation for the sake of His elect, the people who belong to Him. The Antichrist can persecute them, but he cannot prolong the crisis beyond the end God has appointed.
I believe Christ gathers His church before this worldwide hour of trial, which is what I mean by a pre-Tribulation rapture. Premillennial means that He returns before establishing His literal thousand-year reign. Matthew describes His public appearing after the Tribulation, with Israel and the nations in view. To understand the church’s gathering, we also need Paul’s teaching.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, Paul describes the dead in Christ rising and living believers being caught up with them to meet the Lord in the air. He then says that God has not appointed us to wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:9). Christ’s promise to the church in Philadelphia also speaks of keeping them from the hour of trial coming upon the whole world (Revelation 3:10). Taken together, these promises lead me to expect the church’s gathering before the Tribulation.
We therefore do not have to wait for every sign in Matthew 24 before Christ can gather His church. He can come for us at any time. That gives me reason to pursue holiness and keep sharing the gospel, rather than wait for frightening events to convince me to take Him seriously.
The Public Coming
For those facing the Tribulation, Jesus gives a direct warning about false christs and prophets. They will perform persuasive signs and claim that Christ can be found in a particular place. He tells His people not to believe them.
“Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”
Matthew 24:26-27
If someone has to escort a select group to an inner room to meet the supposed Christ, that claim contradicts what Jesus said. His coming will be public, like lightning flashing across the sky. An extraordinary sign cannot make a false claim true, so I must measure even the most convincing experience against His words.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven.
Matthew 24:29-30
This appearing is expressly placed after the Tribulation. The Son of Man comes on heaven’s clouds with power and great glory, accompanied by signs in the heavens. He also sends His angels to gather His elect (Matthew 24:31). In this sequence, that gathering belongs with His public return after the crisis. I distinguish it from the church’s pre-Tribulation gathering described in 1 Thessalonians 4.
Jesus then uses the fig tree to explain how those seeing the appointed signs will recognize that His coming is near.
“Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near – at the doors!”
Matthew 24:32-33
Seeing these signs will give people reason to expect Christ’s public return, but Jesus does not tell them to use the fig tree to calculate a date. His warning about the unknown day and hour must be heard alongside this illustration.
He also says, “This generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.” Some who were alive when Jesus spoke lived to see His temple warning fulfilled in AD 70. Yet the discourse also reaches to His future return, so I understand the generation that witnesses the final signs as seeing those events reach their completion. Jerusalem’s destruction fulfilled His warning about the buildings; it did not turn His public return into a past event.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.
Matthew 24:35
The temple’s buildings could be torn down, and even heaven and earth will pass away, but His words will not fail. I can trust what He has said without pretending that I can explain every development in the day’s news.
That confidence in His words must include accepting the limit He places on our knowledge.
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”
Matthew 24:36-37
In Noah’s day, people carried on eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the flood came. Jesus was not condemning those ordinary activities. They were living as though God’s warning could be disregarded, and judgment overtook them while they continued making their plans.
This comparison also helps us approach the saying about one person being taken and another left. The flood took the unprepared away in judgment, while Noah and his family survived. Many readers therefore understand the people taken in Matthew 24 as taken in judgment. Others understand the language as a gathering. In either reading, the separation is sudden and personal, and working beside someone in a field or at a mill cannot give me his relationship with Christ.
Jesus therefore commands His hearers to watch. The Greek verb gregoreo means to stay awake or remain alert, and the servants He describes next show how that attentiveness should shape our conduct.
In the first example, a master puts a servant in charge of feeding his household. The faithful servant keeps providing food at the proper time while his master is away, because the absence has not ended his responsibility.
Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing.
Matthew 24:46
The evil servant treats the delay very differently. He begins beating the other servants and eating and drinking with drunkards. He still occupies a servant’s place, but his conduct shows contempt for the master whose return he has stopped taking seriously.
If I am responsible for people in Christ’s church, I need to care for them instead of using my position to gratify myself. An interest in prophecy will not excuse mistreating someone in my care. The servant Jesus commends is doing the work he was given when the master arrives.
Matthew 25 continues with ten virgins waiting to meet a bridegroom. All have lamps and appear to belong to the same company, but only five have brought the oil they will need.
Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
Matthew 25:3-4
All ten grow drowsy and fall asleep during the bridegroom’s delay, so staying physically awake is not what makes the wise ready. At the midnight announcement, all ten rise to prepare their lamps. Only then do the foolish ask the others for oil because their own lamps are going out. The wise answer that dividing their supply would leave too little for everyone, and the foolish go to buy some.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut.
Matthew 25:10
When the foolish virgins return and ask to be admitted, the bridegroom says he does not know them (Matthew 25:11-12). Jesus does not assign the oil a detailed doctrinal meaning, so I would not make every wedding detail stand for a separate teaching. He uses their failure to prepare as a warning to watch, because His hearers do not know when He will come.
Having Christian relatives or spending years around church does not establish that I have been born again. Each of us needs to trust Christ personally. Watchfulness does not purchase salvation, but genuine faith responds to the Lord instead of relying on the appearance of belonging. The shut door warns us to respond to His invitation while it is before us.
In the next parable, a man entrusts money to his servants before leaving for a far country. He gives five talents to one, two to another, and one to a third, according to their ability. These men are stewards, responsible for property that still belongs to their master. The first two put the money to work and double what they received, while the third buries his in the ground. When the master returns to settle accounts, he first addresses the servant who had received five.
His lord said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.”
Matthew 25:21
The servant with two talents receives the same commendation as the servant with five. His smaller total brings no rebuke because he has been faithful with what he received. I should be faithful with what the Lord gives me, rather than neglect it while comparing my assignment with someone else’s.
The third servant calls the master hard and claims he was afraid. The master answers him on his own terms: if the servant believed his master demanded a return, he should at least have deposited the money with bankers to earn interest. This was not a man who tried faithfully and failed at business. He refused to act, then made an accusation against his master to defend himself.
And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 25:30
The severity of this judgment does not make productivity the price of eternal life. It exposes a man who is called a servant but refuses the master’s authority. Christ is not rejecting someone for having less ability or producing a smaller return; His genuine servants regard what He entrusts to them as a responsibility before Him.
Those responsibilities include our spiritual gifts as well as our time and material resources. If I have an opportunity to teach a small group, I should study the passage and teach it honestly instead of resenting the size of the audience. Waiting for more influence cannot excuse neglecting what the Lord has already given me to do.
The Sheep and the Goats
Jesus then describes His arrival in glory and His judgment of the nations. He uses a shepherd’s separation of sheep and goats to explain the division, but the scene concerns the King’s actual return and the people who will answer to Him.
When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.
Matthew 25:31-32
The sheep inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. The King recalls how they fed the hungry and gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed strangers, and clothed those who needed clothing. They also cared for the sick and visited people in prison. They ask when they had done these things for Him.
And the King will answer and say to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”
Matthew 25:40
I understand “these My brethren” to mean those who belong to Christ, especially His persecuted people during the Tribulation Jesus has been describing. In such a time, feeding or sheltering them may bring danger to the person who helps. The nations’ response to those needs reveals whether they honor the King who identifies with His people. Settled indifference or cruelty toward them exposes rebellion against Him.
Charitable work has not replaced faith as the means of receiving salvation. These actions reveal whom the people serve. Christ counts kindness toward His own as kindness toward Himself, and holds people accountable for cruelty toward them. I cannot profess devotion to Jesus while despising His people or using prophecy as a reason to neglect their suffering.
And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Matthew 25:46
The righteous enter eternal life, while the wicked face everlasting punishment. I understand Scripture’s wider teaching to mean that lost human beings will finally be destroyed, both body and soul, in the lake of fire. This is the second death, a punishment everlasting in its result with no return from it. No one should assume he can reject Christ now and arrange to put it right after judgment.
My Final Thoughts
I believe Christ will gather His church before the Tribulation and later return openly to judge and reign. In the meantime, I need to be truthful about what He has actually promised and faithful with what He has already entrusted to me. Knowing a prophetic outline will not excuse neglecting people or refusing His correction. We can trust Him with the future while obeying Him in the work before us.
Zechariah saw a woman confined inside a measuring basket, then watched two winged women carry it away. The angel identified the woman as Wickedness and named the destination as Shinar. To understand why God showed him such an unusual vision, we need to begin with the Jewish people rebuilding Jerusalem after their return from exile.
Zechariah’s Setting
Zechariah ministered among Jews who had returned from the Babylonian exile. Babylon had conquered Judah, destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple, and carried many people into captivity. After Persia defeated Babylon, Cyrus permitted exiles to return and rebuild the Lord’s house. Calling Zechariah a post-exilic prophet simply places his ministry after the exile, among the remnant who had come home.
The people who returned faced opposition and limited resources, and the temple remained unfinished. Their circumstances were far removed from the prosperous kingdom David and Solomon had ruled. Ezra 4:24-5:2 records how Haggai and Zechariah prophesied among them before the building work resumed under Zerubbabel and Jeshua. The prophets then helped the people as they rebuilt the Lord’s house.
Zechariah’s connected night visions brought encouragement to that community while also confronting its sin. God comforted Jerusalem, addressed the powers opposing her, and spoke about the priesthood and temple work. His concern for the returned people included how they lived before Him. They needed to rebuild His house and obey Him in their own homes and dealings with one another.
In Zechariah 5, the prophet first sees a flying scroll. The angel explains that it carries a curse against thieves and people who swear falsely by the Lord’s name.
Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole earth: Every thief shall be expelled, according to this side of the scroll; and, Every perjurer shall be expelled, according to that side of it.”
Zechariah 5:3
The Lord says this curse will enter an offender’s house and consume its timber and stones. Theft injured a neighbor, and a false oath used God’s own name to support a lie. These were not minor private flaws that He would overlook because the offenders belonged to the returned remnant. Public worship gave them no exemption from His concern about what they did at home or how they treated other people.
The vision that follows carries the judgment further by showing Wickedness confined and removed. Reading it after the scroll keeps us from treating the chapter only as a condemnation of the nations around Israel. God was dealing with the sin of His own covenant people.
The Ephah
The angel calls Zechariah’s attention to something going forth. When the prophet asks what he is seeing, the answer names a familiar object:
Then the angel who talked with me came out and said to me, “Lift your eyes now, and see what this is that goes forth.” So I asked, “What is it?” And he said, “It is a basket that is going forth.”
Zechariah 5:5-6
The Hebrew word translated basket is ephah. It names a dry measure for grain and can also refer to a container of that capacity. People used such measures in buying and selling, so I believe the choice of an ephah directs our attention to ordinary economic life. Wickedness could be at work in a transaction that looked perfectly routine.
The wording in the rest of verse 6 is difficult. The NKJV’s reference to the people’s resemblance reflects the Masoretic Hebrew wording. Some translations use iniquity instead, following a different reading found in the ancient Greek and Syriac versions. I understand the image as representing wickedness spread through the community, rather than one person’s isolated wrongdoing. The angel’s identification of the woman as Wickedness also prevents us from limiting the vision to dishonest commerce alone.
The Woman Named Wickedness
Here is a lead disc lifted up, and this is a woman sitting inside the basket; then he said, “This is Wickedness!” And he thrust her down into the basket, and threw the lead cover over its mouth.
Zechariah 5:7-8
The woman personifies wickedness: moral evil is represented as a person so that Zechariah can see it exposed and confined. Proverbs uses comparable imagery when Wisdom and Folly appear as women calling to people in public. The angel identifies what the figure represents, so I have no reason to make her a particular woman from history or use her to accuse women in general. Using this passage to vilify a woman I resent would disregard the explanation already given.
The angel thrusts Wickedness back into the basket and shuts it with the heavy lead cover, confining her so she can be carried away. I therefore understand the lid as restraint. The preceding scroll has already shown that sin hidden in someone’s house cannot escape God’s judgment. In this vision, the angel has exposed Wickedness before putting on the cover; the emphasis is on removing her from the land, rather than a sinner’s attempt to conceal wrongdoing.
Zechariah raises his eyes again and sees two women lifting the basket. They have the wind in their wings, which resemble those of a stork.
Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were two women, coming with the wind in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven.
Zechariah 5:9
Leviticus 11:19 includes the stork among the birds Israel was forbidden to eat. That ceremonial uncleanness gives the wings an association with impurity, but it does not make the bird morally evil. Nor does the resemblance establish that these carriers are demons. Zechariah does not call them demons or ordinary angels; he describes their appearance and the work they do. I would leave their precise identity unexplained, as the passage does.
Why Shinar Is Important
The destination receives a much more definite answer. Zechariah asks where the women are taking the basket:
So I said to the angel who talked with me, “Where are they carrying the basket?” And he said to me, “To build a house for it in the land of Shinar; when it is ready, the basket will be set there on its base.”
Zechariah 5:10-11
Shinar is the Mesopotamian land associated with Babel and later Babylon. Genesis 11 places the builders of the city and tower on a plain there. They stated that they wanted to avoid being scattered and make a name for themselves.
And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves.”
Genesis 11:4
Their determination to avoid scattering ran against God’s command to fill the earth. By naming Shinar as the basket’s destination, the angel directs us to a place already associated with people organizing themselves in defiance of God.
The house to be prepared in Shinar will give the basket a settled place on its base. Wickedness is removed from the land in this vision, but it has not ceased to exist. For the remnant rebuilding the Lord’s house, the vision gave reason to trust His power to remove evil from among them. It also confronted them with the need to reject the wickedness they might otherwise tolerate in their own homes.
Shinar connects the vision with organized rebellion, while the grain measure brings us back to the ordinary dealings in which wickedness can take hold. Other passages explicitly condemn dishonest measures. A merchant could appear respectable while arranging a transaction to defraud his neighbor, but God knew both what the seller had done and what it had cost the person buying from him.
Dishonest scales are an abomination to the LORD, But a just weight is His delight.
Proverbs 11:1
Amos describes merchants impatient for the New Moon and Sabbath to end so they can resume selling grain. They planned to make the grain measure smaller and demand a larger weight of silver, then use falsified scales to carry out the fraud:
Making the ephah small and the shekel large, Falsifying the scales by deceit, That we may buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of sandals.
Amos 8:5-6
Those merchants observed the religious calendar while resenting the interruption to their business. They intended to cheat their customers and exploit the poor as soon as trading resumed. Keeping a religious occasion could not excuse what they planned to do when it ended.
The angel’s plain identification of Wickedness also challenges the milder terms we can use when we do not want to confront sin. Pressure may explain why someone was tempted to cheat, but it cannot make the cheating honest. I can acknowledge a person’s hardship and still call him to repent of a clear wrong. If I insist on calling deliberate wrongdoing a misunderstanding, I am helping him defend it instead of helping him turn from it.
I need to examine my own dealings before applying this passage to a distant institution. If I conceal a costly fee in paperwork because I expect a customer to miss it, I should not congratulate myself merely because the transaction is technically legal. I am using his failure to notice the fee to get his agreement before he understands the cost. Nor does a dishonest practice become acceptable because an entire industry uses it or an institution has made it policy.
The house prepared in Shinar points beyond an individual merchant’s fraud. At an earlier stage of Judah’s defeat, long before Zechariah’s ministry, Nebuchadnezzar had carried articles from God’s temple to the house of his god in that same land.
And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the articles of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god.
Daniel 1:2
Daniel records sacred vessels placed in the house of a pagan god in Shinar; Zechariah sees a house being prepared there for Wickedness. Their common setting connects the vision with the region’s earlier rebellion. The land associated with Babel had become the seat of the empire that conquered Judah and carried away the temple vessels.
Revelation develops that Babylon theme further. Chapter 17 depicts a corrupt woman associated with blasphemy and abomination, while chapter 18 exposes the luxury enjoyed by kings and merchants and the violence and deception beneath it. I understand Babylon there as a final world system in which false religion and the appeal of wealth work together with hostility toward God’s people. We can recognize that connection without making every feature of Revelation’s Babylon interchangeable with Zechariah’s basket.
And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.”
Revelation 18:4
God’s people are called to separate from Babylon’s sins. If I benefit from a system, I may be reluctant to examine how it operates or what it encourages. I could begin defending the arrangement because refusing it would cost me money, influence, or the approval of people I want to please. We need to judge what it offers by God’s Word, even when it is profitable or culturally admired.
The biblical warnings about Babylon do not give me permission to use its name as an insult for a nation, church, or political movement I dislike. Scripture exposes rebellion against God, idolatry, deception, exploitation, and violence. If I apply its warnings to an institution around me, I need to show how its actual conduct fits what the passages condemn.
Some readers turn from the basket’s destination to its flying carriers and associate them with UFOs or alien theories. I do not find that identification in Zechariah’s description or the angel’s explanation. The passage says nothing about beings from another planet, modern aircraft, or secret programs. Those ideas do not explain the action the angel does describe: Wickedness is confined and taken to Shinar.
We do not have to invent that identification to take spiritual deception seriously. Paul describes a conflict involving powers beyond the human beings who oppose us:
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age.
Ephesians 6:12
Paul directs believers to stand in the armor God provides, holding to His truth as they face spiritual opposition. Scripture gives us the standard for testing spiritual claims; pursuing occult knowledge cannot give us the protection we need. Recognizing demonic deception should lead us to depend on God’s provision, rather than chase every report that claims to explain the unseen world.
Paul also warns about the coming lawless one, whose impressive signs will serve a lie. The power behind those signs is satanic:
The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-10
In the surrounding verses, Paul connects this deception with refusing the love of the truth and taking pleasure in unrighteousness. A lie can appeal to us because it accommodates what we want to believe. We cannot therefore judge a spiritual claim merely by how dramatic the experience appears. John gives believers a responsibility to examine such claims:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God.
1 John 4:1
In the next two verses, John identifies the confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh as a test of the spirits. A message denying His genuine humanity fails that test. The apostles’ teaching also rules out a message denying His deity or a substitute gospel that sets aside His shed blood and bodily resurrection. A teacher who excuses sin or offers secret knowledge as the way of salvation does not become trustworthy because something impressive accompanies his teaching.
I can apply that test even when I cannot explain an experience someone reports. If the message draws people away from the biblical Christ, I have a reason to refuse it without solving the phenomenon first. We should not let our curiosity about an unusual event make us disregard what we already know about the Lord.
The spiritual powers Scripture warns us about remain creatures. Zechariah saw Wickedness confined and carried away; the New Testament identifies the Lord whose authority extends over the whole unseen realm:
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible.
Colossians 1:16
Every rank of power was created through Christ and for Him. Fallen powers have rebelled against their Creator, but they have neither become His equals nor escaped His judgment. Money and political influence can make corruption difficult for us to oppose. Yet no institution or evil spirit can place itself beyond Christ’s reach, and we should not give it the authority that belongs only to Him.
The Lord who rules over those powers has also provided the salvation we need. Jesus is the eternal Son, fully God and fully man. He lived without sin and voluntarily gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured and crucified Him. The Father did not punish or abandon the Son; Father and Son acted in unity to provide our salvation. Christ’s shed blood and death completed His saving sacrifice before His burial and bodily resurrection. Exposing corruption or improving a law may be right, but neither can cleanse me of my own sin.
I could discuss Babylon at length while rationalizing dishonesty in my work or refusing to repent of something I do in private. Understanding the vision would not make that conduct any more acceptable. I need to confess the wrongdoing plainly and turn from it, whether it concerns my dealings with another person, what I do online, or the thoughts I choose to entertain. The Lord who exposes sin is merciful to those who repent and trust His shed blood.
Christ died for the whole world, so God’s offer of salvation is genuine for every person. People can resist His grace and finally reject Him, but everyone who repents and believes in Christ is forgiven and born again. No religious performance or personal improvement can earn what He gives by grace.
When I speak of regeneration, I mean that God has genuinely made someone a new creation. The Holy Spirit lives in and seals that person, who is eternally secure in Christ. His conduct should show evidence of that new life, although obedience neither earns nor keeps his salvation. If he claims to be a Christian while defending a settled life of lawlessness, the claim alone gives us no grounds to assume he has been born again.
My Final Thoughts
I do not need to identify the winged carriers to understand the angel’s name for what is inside the basket. He calls it Wickedness, confines it, and announces its removal to Shinar. I want to carry that same honesty into the way I examine my own conduct, because knowing how to explain Babylon will be of little use if I refuse to repent of dishonesty in my own life. Christ will judge every rebellious system, and He calls us to follow Him now while we wait for His righteous kingdom.
