Saturday, February 11, 2012

PERSECUTION COMES TO AMERICA, Part 2

TEN VIRGINS - FIVE WISE, FIVE FOOLISH
Where do YOU fall in?


There is a quote I heard years ago from the saints in the underground persecuted Chinese church. Apparently, some American believers had gone to China to pay them a visit and encourage them. One of us Yanks asked a persecuted Chinese brother "How can we pray for you?" This is a fair enough....to which the Chinese Christian (who daily has to hide or run for his life so he can worship/evangelize) said to the American Christian "Pray that we DON'T BECOME LIKE YOU!" Ouch!

THAT is a sad commentary on the state of American Christianity today! Days are coming, declares the Lord when the rubber of preparation will meet the road of execution. Days are coming when we will be called upon to say if we are truly a son or daughter of God in Christ - or one of the foolish five virgins!



Jesus tells the Parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25 as a warning for today's believer to act! It is prophetic and scary because many will fail to understand what Jesus really says here. Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. 


And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Matthew 25:1-13 ESV)


These are not just EVIL times, but END Times! Yesterday, in Part 1, I listed some of the instances of persecution against the very men and women who lay their lives on the line to defend the same Religious Freedom, now denied them. It is worse than those recent examples. In the past month, the New York City mayor and his sidekicks have banned the use of school buildings, for Sunday worship. All across America, high school gyms, which are not used on Sunday mornings, make extra-money and help hundreds of struggling smaller and poor churches, by allowing the use of their gyms or auditoriums for a fee as churches. Why shouldn't they? It is the property taxes of these same church-going citizens which pay for these schools!


The anti-Christian Mayor Bloomberg, himself a secular billionaire, has now taken to arresting New York bible believing pastors who are praying in front of city hall to protest this unconstitutional travesty. The Pastor of Manhattan Bible Church has been arrested twice for praying. This man is not even an activist or a troublemaker!


Last September, Bloomberg had even banned all Clergy at the site of the 9/11 Attacks 10th Anniversary Commemoration, only because he could. This is the same mayor, who wanted to allow the moslems to set up a mosque just blocks away from the Twin Tower ruins! The issue is shutting down Christians and no one else. There are more and more frequent examples of this kind of trials and tribulations for believers in Christ. It is coming down to the wire and down to us versus them. As the day for the Return of Christ draws closer, more and more of this kind of thing will have you full of righteous indignation - as it should. By the way, one word of caution - do not hate as they do. Praying for them is rewarding as the burden is OFF YOU and ON them, because the Wrath of God is NOT with us!


All  well and good...The question is, if or when called upon, are we as a people known as the Body of Christ, ready?! And by ready, I mean, ready to preach the Word boldly, pray righteously or even be beaten or sent to jail by pagans and secular humanists...or will we sell out and compromise with the world systems?  People are already doing that while calling themselves "christians" or "clergy"!  Again, we do NOT want to be like them, because they are using the Name of Christ for unholy, ungodly secular purposes.


Let us look at again at our passage from Matthew 25. At first, we all scratch our heads as to the meaning of this Ten Virgin story. However, the explanation is very simple.

The actual word used by Jesus is not 'virgin' but "PARTHENOS". This literally means "believers who are  pure, chaste and holy or who have kept ourselves apart from the world, until the Return of Jesus Christ"!!!! Jesus is NOT talking about people who have had no sexual relations, but those who have been saved....those who know they are saved....and those who have been set apart from the world and live that way, because ...think of it, friends....do we really want to be like them??!!


So we have established the literal meaning of what Jesus meant. Now here is where it looks a little tricky. All ten "virgins" are in the story and all ten have lamps. This is symbolic of those who say they believe in Christ...because the verse does say they "went to meet the bridegroom - who is Christ!

So again, there were/are five wise 'virgins' and five foolish ones and all have lamps. The lamp is their spirit. Every human being is Body, Soul and Spirit. These ten virgins appear to be like most in the modern American church today. All ten will appear on the surface, to be the same, and will be thought of as Christ followers,  since all ten apparently have a lamp of the Spirit with them!

Now here is the rub - something was missing - OIL! In the Bible, oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit! The actual word for oil in this passage is ELAION! The prefix is EL - the Prefix of the Name of God which means Mighty or Powerful as in El Elyon (Most High God) or El Shaddai (All Sufficient God). The oil that Jesus is talking about is the Oil of the Spirit of God Who empowers and indwells the true Believer!!! This is Biblical Truth and a Rhema Word of Revelation!

Five of these "virgins" had "flasks" of oil or had their own oil of the Spirit of God and the others did not! The reason they could not share their flasks of pure extra-virgin olive oil with the five foolish "believers" in this message from Christ, is that each person who claims Christ as their Savior, has to have their own "oil" in them....their own special seal of Holy Spirit in our lives...and be claimed and marked for redemption on that day when the Trumpet sounds and Jesus comes and says "this one's mine...that one's mine...and THAT one ain't!" These five virgins could not share their oil even if they wanted to! Their "oil" was custom designed for them alone - literally, and by Father God Himself!

Of the ten people in that church example, only a certain number (5) will be saved! This may not seem fair, but God has given us ALL enough time, while it is still today, to get right with him. He has given us every opportunity, time after time after time, to come back to Him and surrender ourselves to Him. But the majority of the American church...nay - the entire Western church from the UK/Europe to North America lives like we have all the time in the world. 

Jesus said He will come unexpectedly. We also know that Life is fleeting and we can go to Him right now and be in a literal eternity of Hurt and separation from Heaven - if our lamps are not full of oil...meaning, if we are NOT really saved, but are walking around with a lamp in some church, kidding ourselves that we're okay because 'man, we're christians...we're Americans'!!! 

All of this political mumbo jumbo and getting excited by who is more conservative, or who is pro-life, or who is the better candidate to defend the Constitution means NOTHING if when Tribulation, Persecution or sudden death comes, you and I have NO OIL or no Seal of Approval from God, that you and I belong to Him! I know I do...are you sure you do??!!! Pray right now, with me....

Father in the Name of Jesus, I ask You now to give me the ability to search my own heart to see if I am really in the Faith or if I have been fooling myself, like those five foolish virgins.

Lord it is all good to have righteous anger at how your people are being persecuted around the world for Christ, but Lord where is the anger at my own sin? Where are the eyes to see, as You see, that I need to view the way I have been living as an abomination in Your Eyes?

Where is the knowledge that I am the one walking around pretending when my own lamp is completely empty of the Holy and Empowering Spirit of God and I need Him to fill me with that oil of Joy, Peace, Hope, Love, Grace and more?

So have access to all of me. I acknowledge right now, in the Name of Jesus that I need to repent and confess all my sins and seek complete and total forgiveness from You, and ask You to be the Lord of my life right now...so that when the "Bridegroom", the Lord Jesus, does come back, I will be with the Wise and have my own lamp glowing with Holy Fire, so He can see me and know that I am His, in Jesus' Name, amen!

(image by google image)

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