The Ten Virgins and the Midnight Cry

The Wedding Parable Reveals the Kingdom

Jesus did not use parables merely to decorate moral lessons with memorable stories. He said that His parables revealed “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” and made known things that had been hidden (Matthew 13:11, 35). The earthly pattern gives form to a heavenly reality so that those who have ears to hear can understand something about the order of the Kingdom that would otherwise remain unseen.

The parable of the ten virgins must be read with that same seriousness. Jesus said, “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom” (Matthew 25:1). The wedding is therefore not an incidental setting that could be exchanged for any other scene.

Christ places His people in the position of those waiting for a Bridegroom because His Kingdom is preparing for a marriage, and the condition of those who wait determines whether they are ready to enter when He comes.

This teaching follows naturally from the work described in the preceding chapter. The time of the Gentiles carried the restored gospel among the nations, and the work of the Jews gathers those who actually become Christ’s covenant people and prepares them for Zion. The ten virgins show what happens among people who have already received the invitation and are waiting for the Bridegroom whose coming will bring that preparation to its appointed end.

All Ten Were Waiting for the Bridegroom

The first thing the parable establishes is what the ten virgins share. All ten know that a Bridegroom is coming. All ten possess lamps. All ten go forth to meet Him, and all ten remain with the waiting company during the delay (Matthew 25:1–5). They are not divided between people who have heard of Christ and people who have never known that a wedding was coming.

The virgins therefore portray people to whom the invitation of the gospel has already come. They know Jesus Christ, have received light concerning Him, and understand that they are supposed to prepare for His arrival. In this covenant position the image includes faithful men and women alike. The feminine imagery describes the relationship of Christ’s covenant people to the Bridegroom rather than the biological sex of those represented.

The difference between the wise and foolish is present from the beginning. Five take oil in their vessels with their lamps, while five take their lamps without the supply that will be required if the Bridegroom delays (Matthew 25:2–4). Before the midnight cry ever sounds, the condition that will later be exposed has already been formed.

All Ten Slept

Jesus then says that while the Bridegroom tarried, “they all slumbered and slept” (Matthew 25:5). This detail matters because the wise virgins slept just as the foolish did. The parable cannot therefore mean that the wise are those who maintain uninterrupted awareness of the timetable while the foolish become inattentive for a season.

The sleep instead belongs to the long delay. Generations of believers have known that Christ will return, yet the immediate expectation of His coming has often receded as ordinary life continued. People have been born, lived, worshiped, married, raised families, labored, suffered, and died while the Bridegroom tarried. The delay does not prove that the promise failed; it reveals why preparation had to become something deeper than momentary excitement.

The wise were not ready because they never slept. They were ready because what they had received before the sleep remained with them when the cry awakened them. Their preparation endured the delay.

The Oil Was Obtained Before Midnight

At midnight the cry is made: “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him” (Matthew 25:6). All ten arise, and all ten trim their lamps. The warning awakens both groups and causes both to examine what they possess, but the warning itself does not create the preparation that the hour requires.

The foolish discover that their lamps are going out. They possessed enough light to begin the journey, but not enough inward preparation to endure through the delay and remain burning when the Bridegroom finally approached. Their problem is not that they had never heard the invitation. Their problem is that the invitation did not become a sufficiently deep life of covenant faithfulness.

The central point of this part of the parable is timing. Whatever the wise possessed had been obtained before midnight. The cry exposed the difference between them, but it did not create that difference. By the time the Bridegroom was at the door, the preparation required to receive Him could not be improvised.

The Midnight Cry Comes Before the Bridegroom

Matthew records the cry without identifying the mortal voice that carries it: “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.” Modern revelation joins the same language to a latter-day commission. Doctrine and Covenants 133 commands the servants of God to go forth, first among the Gentiles and then among the Jews, declaring, “Awake and arise and go forth to meet the Bridegroom; behold and lo, the Bridegroom cometh” (Doctrine and Covenants 133:8–11).

The cry therefore comes before the appearing. Its purpose is to awaken people who already know that the Bridegroom will come and call their attention to the season of final preparation. Those who have received the gospel invitation are commanded to arise, examine their lamps, leave what cannot remain, and prepare to meet the King.

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Kingdom of Zion understands its present commission within this latter-day work. It does not create the invitation first given through the gospel, choose the elect for Jesus Christ, or substitute institutional membership for the guiding power of the Holy Ghost. Its responsibility is to carry the message entrusted to it, call covenant people to awaken, teach the law Christ has revealed for Zion, and receive those whom the Lord Himself calls and prepares.

This is why the midnight cry belongs immediately after the time of the Jews. The work now going forward is not another beginning of Christianity among people who have never heard of Christ. It is a gathering and awakening among people the Lord has already been teaching, calling them to receive the fulness He requires and become the covenant people who can meet Him.

Those Who Have Slept Will Rise to Meet Him

The long delay of the Bridegroom does not mean that generations of faithful Saints have waited in vain. Since the Lord commanded His servants to cry, “Awake and arise and go forth to meet the Bridegroom; behold and lo, the Bridegroom cometh” (Doctrine and Covenants 133:10), many faithful disciples have lived their entire mortal lives preparing for the return of Jesus Christ and have died without seeing that day. Their death does not remove them from the fulfillment of the promise.

The scriptures teach that when the Lord comes, the faithful dead will rise. Paul declared that “the dead in Christ shall rise first,” after which the faithful who remain alive will be caught up together with them “to meet the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). The Lord revealed the same order in the latter days: the graves of the Saints will be opened, they will come forth, and they will be caught up to meet Him (Doctrine and Covenants 88:96–98).

Therefore, those who faithfully prepared for Christ and then died have not missed the coming of the Bridegroom. They have only entered the sleep of death while they wait for the appointed hour. Before the faithful are gathered to receive the Lord in His glory, they will rise from their graves and stand among those who are prepared to meet Him.

This means that the command to prepare for the Second Coming applies equally to every generation. A faithful disciple does not need to know whether Christ will return during his or her mortal lifetime. If He comes while they are living, they must be ready to receive Him. If they die before He comes, they must die faithful to Him, knowing that they will rise and meet Him when the appointed day arrives.

Whether the Bridegroom tarried one hundred years, two hundred years, or longer does not change the promise. Time does not defeat the covenant, and death does not prevent its fulfillment. Every faithful Saint who has waited upon Christ, kept the faith, and died prepared will be brought forth to meet Him.

This is the hope contained within the warning of the ten virgins. The question is not whether a person will remain mortal long enough to see the Bridegroom approaching. The question is whether that person will be ready when the Bridegroom comes. Those who are living must prepare now, and those who have died faithful will rise prepared. In either case, the faithful will meet Jesus Christ at His coming and enter with Him into the marriage feast.

The Wise Took the Holy Spirit for Their Guide

Doctrine and Covenants 45 identifies the wise virgins with unusual clarity. Speaking of those who will abide the day of the Lord’s coming, the revelation says that they are those who “have received the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived” (Doctrine and Covenants 45:56–57). The oil therefore cannot be reduced to one isolated virtue, one ordinance, one spiritual experience, or one moment of enthusiasm. It represents the inward spiritual life formed as truth is received and the Holy Ghost becomes an actual guide.

A person develops that life through repeated repentance, obedience, correction, sacrifice, and communion with Jesus Christ. The oil is accumulated as the disciple learns to recognize His voice and follow it, not merely when following Him is easy or socially supported, but when His direction contradicts fear, preference, tradition, pride, or personal desire.

When the cry sounds, the wise discover that the preparation formed during the delay is still sufficient. They have not merely preserved an outward religious identity. They have learned to live by truth and by the Holy Spirit, and that inward life continues to give light when the hour becomes dark.

This helps explain why Christ’s latter-day work requires more than possession of ordinances, scripture, priesthood language, or confidence in an earlier spiritual experience. Those things can be genuine gifts from God and necessary parts of preparation, but none of them replaces the living relationship for which they were given. The lamp must actually burn.

To take the Holy Spirit for a guide means that the disciple becomes increasingly governable by Jesus Christ. Truth is not merely admired but obeyed. Correction is not merely acknowledged but received. Revelation is not treated as a subject belonging only to the past, because the disciple has learned to seek the Lord, recognize His voice within proper stewardship, and follow Him as He continues to prepare the soul.

That is the preparation the wise possess before the crisis arrives. The midnight cry reveals it; it does not manufacture it.

Oil Cannot Be Borrowed

When the foolish recognize that their lamps are failing, they ask the wise to give them oil. The wise answer that there is not enough to supply both groups and direct them to obtain what they need (Matthew 25:8–9). The refusal is not selfishness. It reveals the nature of the oil.

One person cannot transfer a lifetime of hearing and following Christ into another person at the final hour. A spouse cannot repent for a spouse, a parent cannot surrender for a child, a prophet cannot make another person hear the Holy Ghost, and a Church cannot create covenant faithfulness inside a member who refuses to receive it.

The faithful can teach, warn, testify, forgive, minister, sacrifice, and bear one another’s burdens, but every soul must personally receive Jesus Christ and allow His Spirit to make the covenant real within that life.

This is also why Zion cannot be created merely by placing people together under the same name. The Lord can gather His people into one body, but each person must come willing to be governed by Him. Unity that depends upon borrowed conviction will fail when tested, while unity formed among people who have each learned to yield to the same Christ can endure because their light comes from the same source.

The Bridegroom Comes and the Door Is Shut

While the foolish go to obtain what they had neglected, the Bridegroom comes. Jesus says, “they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut” (Matthew 25:10). The issue at the door is readiness.

The closing of the door marks the end of the period in which preparation could still be formed before the Bridegroom’s arrival. The invitation had been real, the delay had been merciful, and the midnight cry had been given, but the hour did not remain open forever. Christ will not postpone His coming until every person who once intended to prepare finally decides to do so.

The other virgins later return and plead, “Lord, Lord, open to us,” but He answers, “I know you not” (Matthew 25:11–12). They know His title and know that the marriage belongs to Him, yet knowledge about the Bridegroom has not become the relationship for which the invitation was given. The Shepherd knows His sheep, and His sheep hear His voice and follow Him (John 10:14, 27). The words at the door expose the absence of that lived covenant relationship.

This is a sobering warning precisely because the foolish were not strangers to the expectation of Christ. Their failure occurred among people who knew that He was coming.

Watch Therefore

Jesus concludes, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 25:13). Because all ten virgins slept, watching cannot mean literal sleeplessness or constant calculation of the date. It means living so that delay does not empty the lamp.

The disciple watches by receiving truth when Christ gives it, taking the Holy Spirit for a guide, repenting when corrected, preserving covenant loyalty when obedience becomes costly, and responding when the Lord sends the cry to awaken His people. Such a person does not need to know the exact hour because the life has already been ordered toward the Bridegroom.

The parable therefore moves through invitation, preparation, delay, sleep, awakening, examination, arrival, entrance, and judgment. Together those movements reveal the condition of the people Christ will gather at the end of the latter-day work. The midnight cry announces that the Bridegroom is coming, but the question exposed by that cry is whether those who have waited for Him have become the people who are ready to enter His marriage.