2022-04-03 – The Midnight Cry – Parable of the 10 Virgins – Pastor Ken Roth And Lauren
Matthew 25:1-13 – The Midnight Cry The Parable of the 10 Virgins
I want to be one of the midnight criers. But if not, then I want to be one of the 5 virgins who ARE READY, who have enough oil, who have a living relationship with Jesus Christ, so that He can use me in the great outpouring of the Next Great Revival, and stand true to Him even in the face of persecution. How do I do that?
Don’t be a foolish virgin, and risk being shut out of the Kingdom of God – for eternity – because Jesus never knew you!
Prepare Your Heart For the Midnight Cry – Book by R.T. Kendal – a book about the Parable of the 10 Virgins
Jesus said that at that time the Kingdom of Heaven will be like: 10 virgins…
5 foolish virgins – had some oil – but did not have enough oil
5 wise virgins – had brought extra oil with them
So, what made them different? What was this oil?
They *all* fell asleep – including the wise virgins too!
At Midnight the cry rang out, “Here comes the Bridegroom – come out to meet Him!”
All the virgins woke up, and trimmed their lamps.
The foolish ones said to the wise, give us some of your oil – our lamps are going out (they realized then that they did not have enough!)
The wise ones said there is not enough oil for both of us – go buy some more oil from the oil merchants.
But! while the foolish ones were gone looking for oil, the Bridegroom came!
When persecution comes, how do we not just survive, but also thrive?
When the Lord came to the Garden of Gethsemane, facing the cross, He started praying – so much so that His sweat was mixed with blood – extreme stress – so much stress that His capillaries are leaking blood into His sweat glands and coming out onto His body.
He was pressing into His Father, asking God I want to do Your will, have I got this right? I don’t want to go there. But, if its Your will, I will go.
Do we press into God for that? For His will. Like that?
He turned to his disciples & warned them, you need to pray so that you will not fall into temptation. Do and pray like I am doing.
What did they do? They fell asleep!
Three times Jesus went to pray like that, but when He came back to His disciples He had to wake them up, because they had fallen asleep! He was all alone in prayer.
God has put it upon Pastor Ken Roth’s heart to call the Church to Prayer, to call us all to prayer.
Because if we want to be able to stand up to the enemy of our souls, then we are going to have to be people of Prayer! People of the Oil. The oil is used predominantly to represent God’s holiness and the Holy Spirit.
Prayer keeps us close to the Heart of God. It gives us the ability to discern right from wrong and gives us the power to do what’s right.
But, prayer is not easy. (Neither is bible reading!) but it is the most valuable thing you can do!
1 Peter 4:7 – Be clear minded and self-controlled – so that you can *PRAY*
1 Peter 5:8 – be self controlled and awake – Stay Alert! and watch out for the enemy!
Ask the Lord to show you your heart.
God wants us to be holy as He is Holy! What does that look like? It looks like every single area of our life in surrender to HIM.
Where we are full of the Holy Spirit – Not “kinda”, but fully!
It is so easy to slip and slide into sin. Even some of our (Christian) leaders have recently fallen – What happened? its happens that way, from not guarding our heart.
It may look like we are successful on the outside, but the foundation is crumbling.
Ephesians 6:12 We are not fighting a flesh & blood war – its a spiritual battle.
So we need spiritual weapons.
2 Corinthians 10:3-6 – Our weapons are not carnal – but mighty through the Holy Ghost!
Eg Dig & Delve conference (should be on YouTube) – they’ve clearly explained what the Bible says about Human sexuality. It is well worth the time to find it and listen!
Ephesians 6:10-18 This details the Armor of God that we need to put on! Begins with the Belt of Truth – This first piece of armor is so important. Jesus is the Truth!
R.T. Kendal makes a point that this next great revival with depend on, and bring together, both the Bible (His Word & His Truth) and the Spirit (His Holy Spirit)
SO if we want to be ready for this next revival, we need to make a discipline of reading His word every day and spending time in prayer. And if Jesus was ready to sweat blood over resisting the temptation not to do the Father’s will, we need to be willing to sweat some blood, perhaps, to spend some time with the Lord.
Prayer comes first, without prayer, revival will never come.
Revelation 3:1-3
The Church of Sardis – seems to stand out – is this like the North American Evangelical church? Do we only have a good reputation of being alive, and are we really dying inside, within the Church? (& just haven’t fallen over yet?)
Are we fully surrendered to the will of God?
Jesus says, Wake UP!! & strengthen what remains and is about to die! Remember what you have seen & heard – obey it and repent!
IF you DO NOT WAKE UP, I will come as a thief & you will not know at what time I will come to you.
“Your deeds are not complete” – These are the very words of warning of Jesus. Are you only ~99% surrendered to Jesus? God says, “Be holy as I AM Holy!”
If we are going to re-dig the wells of revival, perhaps the Lord is saying to you that “You need to take time to seek Me.” So go to the ‘Garden’ and let God search your heart and show you, is there something there that He is putting His finger on?
I want to be one of those midnight criers, and if not, then I want to be one of the 5 virgins who ARE READY, who have enough oil, who have a living relationship with Him so that He can use me in the great outpouring of the Next Great Revival and stand true to Him even in the face of persecution!