In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding the Word of God in its balanced context. They explain that when we are born into this world, we are born with the nature of Satan, which is contrary to God's nature. The speaker highlights various negative traits that are inherent in this cursed nature, such as jealousy, pride, greed, and hatred. They then reference Matthew 25, where Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to ten virgins who took their lamps (representing the Word of God) to meet the bridegroom. The sermon suggests that this passage is a reminder of the judgment that awaits the world and the need for individuals to align themselves with God's law and reject the nature of Satan.

Hi, I'm Joyce Green. My husband was Milton Green, who is now with the Lord, but Milt was a humble carpet cleaner whom God raised up in 1982 to bring a message to the lost backslidden church of today. God used him in this way until 1987 when he took him home, but the word God gave Milt still lives on. If you have questions about what's going on today, I believe you'll have those questions answered and be mightily blessed as you listen to Milt in the following half hour. God bless you. The bridegroom's the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't that right? And five of them were foolish and five of them were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil, which is a spirit with them. But the prudent, now this is the wise virgins, they took oil in their flask along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, has the Lord been delaying? He's been delaying. They all got drowsy and began to sleep. Does your Bible say everyone who got drowsy and went again to sleep? I believe that's where ever last one of us have been asleep. Now the wise virgins are the ones who have a heart for the Lord. Any reference made to the foolish is divided hearts throughout the word. Foolish virgins, of course, you know, are never going to, the door is going to be shut to them, the heart, and they're not going to be able to get in because they're not going to come. Well, let's just continue right here just a minute. But they all, while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep, but at midnight, now midnight is the greatest time of spiritual darkness. Midnight is spiritual darkness. You know, like one of the curses, and you see it throughout the word, like in Deuteronomy 28, is that you're going to stumble at noonday. Noonday is the most light part of the day, but when it says you're going to stumble at noonday, it's not talking about physically something, you're going to stumble in spiritual darkness. So this is at midnight. But at midnight, there's midnights today right now, the spiritual darkness. But at midnight, there was a shout, behold, the bridegroom, come out to meet him. Now I'll tell you something, folks, the shout's here, and the Lord's saying, wake up and come out to meet him. And they're going to be wise virgins. That's through the Lord. They've come to the Lord with the whole heart. The world's not going to have their hearts, the things of the world's not going to have a heart, traditions are not going to have their hearts, men are not going to have their heart, theology is going to have, anything that you love more than you love the Lord is idolatry. The foolish virgins can't hear it, and only the wise will come to light. And they're the bride that's going to get ready to meet the bridegroom. And they're going to hear the shout. Today, there are over 400 denominations and teachings in this country alone. And I think it's interesting to say that since the time of Reformation, when Luther got some light, he didn't get all the light. Some people, and then he died, and they gathered around this light, they're still gathered there. And that's just an example of what's happened. People have taken good truths, but they're partial truths. They get more revelation and they gather around it, and they call it it. Then they get some more revelation, they gather around it and call it it. They get some more revelation, they gather around it and they call it it. And then when they, this is it, and this is it, and this is it, and then they gather around and it, every one of them, it'll capture their hearts. Then when this it captures your heart, then you're offended if somebody brings up another part of the Word. See, today we have over 400 denominations teaching, and everybody is going to the same place and they're speaking a different language. All of them have a set of rules how to be saved. Now, once you get ready for this, somebody's wrong. The Book of Acts with their pattern, they're people jumping up, getting a little light, and they always want to be the pattern. They get a little revelation, and they want to incorporate it. And once again, here we go, build a thing, most of the time around men. When it's built around Jesus, you decide that no one has all the light but Jesus. He's standing in the center of it. And then you get a pattern over here, and then you get a pattern over here, and then when the ones get a little light, they build this pattern right here, and then they start looking off. Instead of keeping their eyes on Jesus, they start looking off on those that don't know what they do. And then they're right where, they're back to square one. And that's the reason the Lord hasn't been able to lead us in things. I'm going to show you what it is. It really is. Now, this is exactly what happened to the Pharisees. Jesus came to a people in spiritual darkness, as we're talking at midnight for the first time. He came to a congregation that were going to hell. You forget about this thing about the law and everything, because they were not a people of God. They had taken a Bible and taken parts of the Bible. They carried the Bible, memorized the first five books of the Bible, but they made up one, two, three, four rules. And then Jesus came. If they had been a people of God, they would recognize Jesus. They did not recognize Jesus. If God had had their heart instead of the religious structure they had built, then Jesus could have let them receive every jot and tittle that Jesus spoke. They could have heard it. But as he said, Jesus told them, said, I speak the things I hear from my father. You're speaking your acts, your deeds and everything you hear from your father, which is the devil. And he asked him, why can't you hear what I'm understanding? Because you can't hear my word. They couldn't hear the word. And this is always necessary for me to explain and get into some of these basics when I start ever meeting. To share some of these things because of all the new people that come. When Jesus read the word of God, or he has the word, he spoke the word of God, they were offended. And he wouldn't say, why were they offended? He said, why can't you understand what I'm saying? Because you can't hear my word. The words Jesus spoke wouldn't fit into the structure which had their hearts. They couldn't be led on a spiritual vector. You know what Jesus said to him? He who is of God can hear the words of God. God doesn't have your heart because you can't be led in all truth. Jesus becomes a rock of offense and a stumbling stone to people who are offended by the word of God. He said, he is of God can hear the words of God. You're not a God because you can't even, you can't hear. See a reason a person can't hear the word of God is because something else has his heart. I just finished writing a book called The Great Falling Away that we just got back. And scripturally build the basis of this. And this is something you're going to see these three days very clearly. You're going to see it in Bible. And you know something folks, I don't want you to receive one thing from me. That's not in balanced context that you see yourself in the word of God. I'm not your source. Amen. Unless the Lord confirms you in your heart, everything is said here. You don't receive it. I often mention people. I have a big shelf. I don't receive anything from anybody until the Lord. See there's only one teacher's name of Jesus. It's what the problem today is letting men be the teacher instead of Jesus being a teacher. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice and they're not going to follow strangers. And people are taught and proven today to hear the voice of men, bow to men, follow men, and they don't hear the voice of Jesus. So that's how the blind lead the blind to the pit. This is what we've been brought up in. So the message I have is in the word of God and it's in balance and context. And it's going to upset people who love traditions more than they do the Lord. The Pharisees who's supposed to be the ones who keep the law, they want to kill Jesus. They're going to try to kill anyone that comes along with any kind of thing that tears down traditions and kingdoms. It's built where men rule. That's where the chief priest was. They had people come to them and in their deceived heart, they felt they were bringing people on. They were taking part of the word of God and they thought they'd bring them home. The same thing's happening today. And the Lord, I mean, the shout, the Lord is saying, come out to meet the bridegroom. Now, if you can hear his voice and hear his word, you're going to come out. If you don't have ears to hear, you're going to pick up, you know, someone like myself. I mean, I don't care what it's me or you or anyone else. When you start saying things contrary to traditions and everything, you're going to get a reputation. You really are. And in people are proven with these controversial questions. He, he believes Christians can have demons. He believes that he doesn't believe this. He'll put you on the law. He doesn't understand grace. He doesn't, uh, uh, he said Jesus became a curse for us at Calvary and, and, uh, on and on, we got these controversial questions. And when these things are thrown out, we have programmed them. Uh, then you learn to reject truth without even examining it. And you learn to hate the one. You don't even know if these controversial questions that we've programmed and they're used to attack these controversial questions are used to attack any new truth that the Lord might bring in this way. When the controversial question comes up, fear comes on people. They probably fear fearful, and then they reject truth without even examining. And then, you know, there goes Jim Jones or whoever it is, you know, that's trying to share anything contrary tradition. So that's the way it was when Jesus was trying to lead them out of darkness. When he came the first time, that's the way it is today. Now let me just share something with you. God's doing a work today and he's saying things and it's absolutely passing the traditional church up. They're not even hearing it, not even seeing it. They're asleep. And I don't slay that with any kind of joy. I don't like that. As a matter of fact, I wish there's something I could do about it. And I tried to do some things about it and I'm getting out of it. I'm getting, letting the Lord work these things out. Now, where are you out helping God out? You know it. I'm going to say it again. They're sleeping people. It's passing them right on by. They hear something. They don't go by what they know. They go by what they hear. This is how people are controlled. Bondage. They don't even know, understand, expose or understand the powers of darkness. And they don't even understand how they work. And then that's, that's how the powers of darkness keep people in bondage. They can't get out. They boxed in. They'll break your heart. God didn't live, give a folks, don't share something with you. So you'll know in any truth you get here. And it'll just be very little of what the Lord wants to show us. I want to tell you, the Lord wants to show us a munch today. But see, when we get truth, we're stewards of truth. We're stewards to represent God. And I watch people get a thimble full of truth and they go and condemn people. Spiritual pride. They start judging and they jump out of one ditch and run over and get in the other one. So I want to tell you before we start here, you're going to get a little truth. If you have a repentant heart, your life is tremendously going to change right here. And what the Lord uses me for is a foundation. Now, what I want you to be willing to do and what I want to ask you to do is when you see the word of God in balance and context, and it's contrary to some idol or sin or traditions or anything else, let the word of God tear it down. Now, if you won't let the word of God tear it down, let me get down here to say this. If you won't let the word of God tear down traditions and sin and idols in your heart, Jesus Christ is not your Lord. I don't care if you've got a 35 year pen. I'm telling you, if you see the word of God in balance and context, what the powers that are, now see, what they do, they have you to choose between nice folks. They have you choose between family, smart folks, you know, and things like that. You make a choice and you'll be like the Pharisees. He's got to hear the word of God. You won't be able to hear because you love traditions and everything more. Or if you're going to be a people of God, folks, if there's any spiritual darkness that we're in, we can only be led out one way. God is not going to lead us anywhere that's not in that Bible in balance and context. Is that plain? The spirit and the word agree. And this is the problem today. The spirit's saying all kinds of things. It's not in balance and context of the word. So what I'm going to say to you, it's good news to be led out of spiritual darkness. That's good. But if you don't love Jesus, if you don't love Jesus more than you love anything else, you don't have ears to hear. And you can sit here and think you heard and you didn't hear nothing because you don't have, no one has spiritual ears unless the Lord has his heart. So forget about it. I don't care how many works and how many things you've been trying to help him out. Why don't you just relax and enter into rest from these works and get in on what Jesus is up to. Now, any time that I'm sharing here and it comes across something wrong, he thinks he knows it all. Let me just deal with that first. I know just enough to know that I don't know what I ought to know. Amen. I know just enough, you know, really to know how much more there is to learn. And I'm not starting anything new. There's enough things going right now to prove that people don't love one another. Amen. And the only thing, only my part is only to build up the body of Christ. When you walk out of here, it's between you and Jesus, what you do. We're not building to nothing. And the only thing we're doing is just going to the word of God and find out what we know, tear down what we haven't known. Amen. And so if you're sitting there and being condemned, which the powers of night say, I'll tell you, when you first start hearing truth, they tell you how impossible it is. Anytime they ever, you're being chastised, they tell you the Lord doesn't love you, not saved, all these kind of things. But anytime you're being condemned, when you're going through the word of God in context of night, it's a stronghold talking to you. You know what they're trying to do? Get you to back off. See, when you're at ease in Zion, let me say that again. When you're at ease in Zion, it's a cultural shock to get woke up. It really is. Now, it's an exciting thing that the Lord is doing today, folks. They're hurting people. See, I'm just looking at places all across here. They're hurting people here. I'm going to tell you what's the truth. You're going to leave here a different person. Many of you are going to know freedom that you've never known in your life. And it's going to come because of the word of God. So what you do when you leave here, you're going to stay in the word of God. Amen? Now, if you want to leave the word of God because you love something over here in the world, family, you want to please family more than you do the Lord, you want to please traditions more than you do the Lord, any of these kind of things, you'll just lose it. I'll tell you that before we start. But you're fixing to see some things. You're bound. Amen? All right, now, here's the thing about it, folks. Why did Jesus come in the first place? It's interesting to know. Jesus came to a people who are sitting in darkness in the shadow of death. You know what the shadow of death, everyone in this world is being destroyed by the fires of darkness because, and I'll explain it to you a little later. We know the sin of Adam. Adam was the tree of life and the tree of death. Adam was in the image and likeness and nature of God, holy, righteous. And he was in the garden and the Lord tests the heart of everyone he creates. And you're going to see before we finish this meeting, it's your heart's testing the same way Adam and Eve's testing. And in this garden, the Lord had the tree of knowledge of good and evil, lust of flesh, lust of the eye, and the boast of pride of life, lust of flesh, lust of pride of life, both is all the rebellion there is to God, toward God. And he put it in the garden. And he told this is a tree of knowledge and good and evil and tree of death. And he told Adam, when you eat from this, the day you eat from it, you shall surely die. Now that comes from God. Satan later on brought Miss Eve over to the tree and said, you can eat from that tree, you surely shall not die. And Satan's still saying the same thing today. Hadn't changed. And so Eve ate off the tree. And because Adam obviously loved Eve more than he did God, he ate also. And then that's how the curse came into you, through one man's sin and entered into the world and death through sin because of sin. Why is it sin? Why is it death? You know, today we have a law. This law of God, Jesus said, I didn't come to abolish the law. It still stands today. He said, I came to fulfill the law. This law brings a curse. Galatians 3.13, this is what Jesus redeems us from, the curse of law. You know who carries out this curse? Can I just go ahead and tell you? The powers of darkness. See, because anyone that's under the law or under the judgmental law do not have any protection from God and the powers of darkness. See, in a person's born in this world, he has a certain amount of strongholds that the sins of his mother and father that come on him. And as he speaks and defrauds his neighbor, which you're going to see later on in the Word, more and more curses and strongholds, the powers of darkness, Satan will get chained, chained, chained, chained, chained. And then he builds in the strongholds, the strongholds build in the fortresses, and then the fortresses, diseases and everything come through, and this is how everyone is destroyed. We're protected by God when we're walking in covenant, not a form of godliness. And so Jesus came to redeem from the curse of law. The law brings wrath, Romans 4.15. The law is a ministry of death, 2 Corinthians 3.7. The law is a ministry of condemnation, 2 Corinthians 3.9. And the law is not written for a righteous man, 1 Timothy 1.9. The law is written for the unrighteous, unholy, sinners. It's written for lawbreakers. The law stands in judgment. You know why? This is why. This judgment is on the whole world. God created this world. He created the people in it. And his message to this whole world is that there's smoke on you. There's fire on you. Every person in this world is walking in the image and likeness of Satan. Do you want to see what Satan looks like? Pick your average person in the world and stand him right there. You're looking at him. Everything that's contrary to God and his nature you find in this world. Because the curse that came on all mankind was the nature of Satan. Flip that on there, will you please? I hope everyone can see this. When you come into this world, you love this nature of Satan. You're in darkness, spiritual darkness. The powers of darkness are destroying you even when you're born. Death is on you. Death is working in you. And your heart, that's not your pumper, that's the inner man. That's the real you that lives in this carton, this body. Your heart loved this cursed nature. In the world, we compare ourselves among ourselves and measure ourselves by ourselves. And when you do that, you're without understanding because you're not really lining up with the law and God, which Jesus came to fulfill. But your heart loved jealousy. Your heart loved pride, greed, envy, unforgiveness, hatred, criticism, greed, malice. You know what you're looking at up here? The nature and character of Satan. Your heart loves the nature of Satan. See, we learn in the world how to speak peace to your neighbor. Smile, shake his hand, put your hand on his shoulder. You can speak peace to your neighbor while in your heart you're setting an ambush for him, using him. Pride, people that love pride show fragility. They're going to get with the ones that can fulfill pride. Pride wants to lord it over other people. Pride, see, that's the nature of Satan. If you love pride and greed, greed's going to hang around the ones that can fulfill greed because that's what his heart loves. It's a root in his heart. The opposite of that is the root of Jesus. Root is your motive. Your motive's why you do the things that you do. Now, this is and so what your heart loves, if you love pride, greed, can you hear pride come out of someone's mouth? Let me ask them over here. Can you hear pride come out of someone's mouth? Right, you can. You know what that's called? Root. What your heart loves comes out your mouth. See, the heart's the issue. Either your heart believes in the righteous or your heart believes in the unrighteous. This is what you repent from. Do you repent from something when you come to Jesus? Shake your head. Is the word of God supposed to wash something from you? Huh? Wonder what it's supposed to wash your heart from. Why is it supposed to wash your heart? So you can continue walking like Satan? Or so you have a pure heart? Amen? So, let me put it this way. When I see, when I'm dealing with someone in bondage, I talk to them and I write down, I hear what comes out of their mouth. And when I hear these things come out of their mouth, I know they're walking in sin or abatement. How many here knows? Now, I want you to lift up your hand because the old and new units always do this in every meeting. How many know there are demons of pride? Hold up your hand. Because if people, you know, it's not even dealing with these things right here and they thought, well, you know, you know. How many know there are demons of anger? There are demons of greed? There are demons of lust? How many know there are demons of jealousy? How many know there are demons of envy? How many know that there are demons, the powers of darkness, of every fruit they are of the flesh? Do you understand the fruit of the flesh, the nature of the flesh and the nature of Satan are the same? If you are interested in other teachings by Milton Green or his book, The Great Falling Away, today, please write to us at Be Fruitful and Multiply, P.O. Box 3459, Palestine, Texas 75802. That's Be Fruitful and Multiply, P.O. Box 3459, Palestine, Texas 75802.