Mike Bickle emphasizes the necessity of cultivating intimacy with Jesus, particularly in the context of the end times as illustrated in Matthew 25:1-13. He warns that both great revival and great pressure will occur simultaneously, urging leaders to prioritize their heart connection with God over mere ministry activities. Bickle highlights that the wise virgins represent those who maintain their spiritual vitality through intimacy with the Bridegroom, while the foolish virgins neglect this connection, leading to spiritual emptiness. The sermon calls for a deep, personal relationship with Jesus, stressing that true wisdom lies in prioritizing this connection amidst the pressures of ministry and life. Ultimately, Bickle encourages believers to 'watch' and stay connected to receive the strength and insight needed for the challenges ahead.

Let's pray. Father, I ask you for the spirit of impartation. Oh, that we could love your son, Father, with the love wherewith you love him, like you said in John 17. That we could love him with the love that you love him with. You said you would impart that to us. We ask you for that. In these days and weeks and months ahead, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Matthew chapter 25, the theme is to cultivate oil or not to neglect to cultivate oil of intimacy with Jesus. Let's look at the context of this parable. The context is very important. Paragraph A, Jesus is connecting the preparation of the end-time church to intimacy with God. When you read Matthew 24 and 25, it's one passage. By the way, it's one passage, it's one teaching. Matthew 24, most of you know, that's the famous chapter on the end times. Matthew 25 is the parable we're looking at, but you can't separate those two chapters. You gotta bring them together because it's one teaching that Jesus is giving to the apostles in a private setting. It's leadership training. So if you're called to be a leader or you're called to train leaders, Matthew 24 and 25 is leadership training 101. This is what Jesus would say if he was speaking to leaders. Matthew 24 and 25, it is what he said, speaking to leaders. It was his final time before he went to the upper room for the last supper and then to the cross. Paragraph B, the greatest revival and the greatest pressure are going to happen simultaneously at the same time in the generation the Lord returns. Somebody asked, is it gonna get better or is it gonna get worse? The closer we get to the coming of the Lord and the answer from the Bible is both. The light will become lighter, the darkness will become darker. Jesus said the wheat, which is good, and the tares, that's bad, the wheat and the tares would grow together. They would mature together at the end of the age. So the answer is a great revival and a great falling away, a great outpouring of the Spirit and a great outpouring of darkness happening simultaneously across the globe. Now it's my personal opinion and conviction. I mean it's a strong opinion. I feel it strongly. I don't know it by revelation, but I believe it from the observation of what the Bible says that we are in the early days of the generation of the Lord's return. I believe there's people alive today on the earth right now that will actually see the Lord with their eyes. I mean, when the Lord comes in the sky at the time of the rapture, it may be the two-year-olds, it may be the 20-year-olds. I don't know. I don't know that I will see him in my time. I don't really care. One way or the other, I trust his leadership. He's really smart and he really likes me, so I'm going with however it works. But I believe there's people alive today. I may see it with my eyes. I may not, but I believe there's people alive who will. And if we're in that hour where it's two, three, four, five decades away, we don't know, maybe sooner, maybe a little further down the road. But the church must begin to be thinking about the things Jesus said about the uniqueness of that hour. And we're going to find in a moment, one of the unique, I mean, one of the issues he presses is the need for cultivating intimacy with Jesus as the Bridegroom God in the midst of that hour. Now, most of the church worldwide, that's not on their mind right now, but it's going to be before the Lord returns. The Spirit is, even in these days, beginning to emphasize the revelation of Jesus as a Bridegroom God. It's an old idea from the biblical point of view, but it's a new emphasis in terms of history, meaning the last generations, the Spirit has not emphasized it. But I say in the last 10 years or so, you can see the emphasis growing rapidly, this new insight into Jesus. He's not only a King, He is a Bridegroom King. He doesn't just have power, He has desire for His people when He manifests His power. Well, the parable that Jesus is going to teach, I mean, that we're going to focus on is the one that's focused on the need to get intimacy more, intimacy with God. The closer we get to the Lord's return, the more essential this will be. I mean, an issue of life and death. It'd be a matter of survival, spiritual survival. Paragraph C, and we won't look at the whole handout again. We'll skip parts of it. But I want to encourage you to study some of these notes so that they're a part of your understanding, especially this paragraph C. There are three different parables that Jesus gives in these two chapters. Remember, it's one teaching. It's not three teachings. He's talking into one setting, one leadership training time. He's talking about the end times, and then He gives three leadership parables talking about leadership. Because He said, you have to be faithful. I am coming. You must be faithful during the delay. That's the overall idea. I am coming. I'm coming back physically. You must be faithful to me. You must stay connected to me during the delay. So, the first parable, number one, when Jesus' delay is shorter than we expected, He warns them, don't work with wrong motives. My delay may be shorter than you think it is. Parable number two, which is the one we're looking at today, my delay may be longer than you think it is. And godly leaders don't work with the wrong motives. They work with the wrong spirit. And working with the wrong spirit, meaning they have good motives, but the wrong spirit is they work outside of cultivating intimacy with Jesus. They get focused on the mandate and they lose sight of connecting with His heart. He says, don't do that. You really don't want to do that ever through history, but particularly in that hour of history. Parable number three, the delay is harder than some people expect. And then, and the point that He warns them is that they have a wrong evaluation of their ministry labors. And because they evaluate it wrong, they draw back and quit. So, Jesus says, my delay may be shorter, it may be longer, and it may be harder. Three principles, three parables. I want to urge you that are leaders to take those three parables very, very seriously and to train people in them. We're going to look at the middle one, the middle parable, which is Matthew 20, 25. Paragraph D, in this passage, Matthew 24 and 25, Jesus emphasizes three aspects of His personality in His ministry. These three aspects will be emphasized worldwide by the Holy Spirit. They will be emphasized together. The closer we get to the Lord's return, the more these three facets of His personality and His ministry will come together. In this very passage, Jesus shows Himself as Bridegroom, King, and Judge. Jesus is the Bridegroom God. He has burning desire for His people. Jesus is the King. He has power. And Jesus is the Judge. He is going to remove everything that hinders love. His judgments do not contradict His passion and love as a Bridegroom. When Jesus shows His judgment, that's not a different side of Himself. He is showing love. He's removing the things that hinder love from the planet. Because some people think, well, the Judge, I'm not really into that. I'm into the Bridegroom. I go, the Bridegroom is the one doing the judging. Judging. Oh, they think of Judge, mean Jesus. Bridegroom, nice Jesus. King, powerful Jesus. It's one Jesus. Really powerful, really nice. He is so nice and so loving, He is gonna intervene to remove everything that hinders love. Bridegroom, King, and Judge. We cannot separate those three. The closer we get to the Lord's return, the more the Spirit will emphasize those three together but He's telling the leaders here 2,000 years ago, understand the face I'm gonna show to the globe in that time. And there's a number of passages in the Bible that bring these three facets of Jesus together. That's how the book of Revelation ends. The last four chapters, it brings Bridegroom, King, and Judge together as one picture of Jesus. Paragraph E, this teaching, Matthew 24 and 25, this final teaching Jesus gives is before He goes to the upper room. He's giving it only to leaders. It's a leadership teaching. He's preparing His people to walk in victory. He's preparing His people to walk in victory. But in the most dynamic hour of human history, the Great Tribulation. Now there's a popular teaching that's been around for a while that the church will not be here during the Great Tribulation. The Great Tribulation will be the church's finest hour of church history. The Great Tribulation is not an exalted Antichrist and a defeated church. It's a victorious church and a defeated Antichrist. It's a church in unity with Jesus, releasing the power of God against the great oppressor in the end times. It will be the context of the greatest revival, the greatest power, the greatest pressure. It all comes together. Beloved, it is our finest hour. And I realize that many have grown up in backgrounds, church backgrounds that said we won't be here. I want to say this humbly, but straightforward. Don't get your end time theology from your denominational headquarters. Get it from the Bible, from the teachings of Jesus. I don't mean that mean. I really don't mean that. Because I have so much respect for so many people who teach that. And maybe for a while it won't matter because I think we're still some decades out. But the sooner, the closer we get to that, it is essential. We are preparing to walk in victory, not to escape. Not to escape the conflict, but to be victorious in it. Well, that's what Matthew 24, 25 is all about. Top of page two. This is really interesting. Paragraph F. I find this so interesting. Jesus's main exhortation. I mean, you go wherever he teaches on the end times and even the apostles. It seems simplistic. That's why it's amazing to me. His main exhortation, when he's talking about the end of the age, the generation of his return. By the way, the end of the age is not the same thing as the end of the world. People talk to, and we're gonna talk about this a little bit in the next session. People talk to me, because I talk a lot about the end times. But it's a time of victory. It's our greatest hour. It will surpass the book of Acts in power. And they say, well, you know, I'll talk to somebody and they'll say, now, you believe the end of the world? Because on the TV programs, you know, when they interview some of the guys on the talk shows, well, you think the end of the world? The guy goes, yes, it could be any time. There is no such thing as the end of the world. The world does not end, the age ends. The end of the age is not the end of the world. Very, very different concepts. The end of the age means, or involves, the idea of how the world is governed. This evil age, the world is governed, and there's demonic influence in the government of the nations. The devil's gonna be thrown into prison, the age will change, and the earth will be governed without any demonic influence. That's the age to come. The world does not end, the age ends. Very big difference. But what I find very unusual here in paragraph eight is surprising is how simplistic, seemingly simplistic, Jesus's exhortation. So this dynamic power's gonna break out, this great conflict and opposition, this increase of evil and darkness and perversion and murder, the Antichrist, oppressor, the church in victory and power. What should we do, Jesus? The great pastor, you're very smart, you're a great pastor. What would you tell us to do in that hour? Store guns? No. Store food? That's not what the Bible says. I'm not making an opinion some people might be told to. Joseph was told to, that's, you know, if the Holy Spirit tells somebody to, that's between them and God. But Jesus never said it. I know, get a house up in the cave, chains, you know, nobody can get in, double thick doors, no. Jesus, what should we do? His answer is so simplistic, simplistic, it's almost offensive. He goes, watch. Like, what? He says, watch. Well, that's cool, but what should we do? He says it every time, I mean, 10 times. When the end times is the subject matter, Jesus and the apostles. 10 times, the answer is watch. That's it? No, it's not it. But if you watch, if you get a heart connect, all the wisdom that you will need in that hour will come to you if you're in a place of heart connect. If you get connected and you're not moving by fear, you get connected and you don't have confusion, you will know what to do. You'll see the scripture clearly, you'll receive direction clearly, but you gotta be connected. That's what it means to watch and pray, stay connected. Jesus, isn't there anything else you wanna add to it? Watch. You do that, you will be in the place of connectedness where all the insight you need and the courage you need and the power you need will come out of that connectedness of watching. That's the answer he gives in these parables. He says, watch therefore. In light of everything I just said, Jesus would say, therefore, watch, stay connected. Everybody knows we need to be connected, but Jesus is not saying it's one of 10 things. This is the primary point of preparation. It's not the only one, it's the primary one. To have a heart, I have in paragraph G, attentive to what the Spirit is speaking to our lives, but not only that, what he's doing in society. He wants us to be anointed observers to what he's doing in the nations. There are many biblical signs of the times. I have quite a few documents on the website. You go to it, again, you can get all the teaching, it's free and it's yours and you can run with it. Copyright's right to copy. But I don't have all my teaching on the website on this, but quite a bit of it on the signs of the times. You might be surprised how many signs the Bible gives that indicate the generation of his return. And those signs are increasing rapidly on a global level, I mean, in a staggering way if we are watching. And watching doesn't just mean have a prayer life, it means watching what the Word says, watch what the Spirit is doing with a heart of faith, with a heart of discernment. So watch what the Spirit's saying to you, watch what he's doing in society and respond in obedience and faith. That's what watching is about. Paragraph I, we watch to receive strength from the Holy Spirit. When we watch, we're connected, we get strength to love God and to love people. We get strength to be bold. It's the place we're empowered. We're empowered to obey, we're empowered to love. I believe it is presumptuous, people don't mean to do this, it is presumptuous to think we can walk in love for God, love to God or love to people without being connected to the Holy Spirit. And I don't mean just connected in the sense we're born again years ago so we're connected by faith. I mean without a dynamic connection to God, how are we going to have the power to walk in love, especially as times become more difficult? I talk to believers all the time and say, I wanna be out doing this and doing that, I don't have time to sit before the Lord, I got things to do, I mean, I live in a practical world. I go, there's nothing more practical than being connected with the great lover of the human race to be connected to him in power so that you could love God and love people. It's like the guy, the analogy I use, he's outside, he's pushing his car. You come along and say, why are you pushing your car? He says, well, I don't really have time to stop to get gas. I got so much going on, I'm gonna push my car. When people say, I don't really have time, I mean, you don't know how much I got on my plate to put gas in my car, it is wiser to push it. I mean, if you knew what I had before me, and that's really what they're doing, they're exerting significantly more energy and getting less done. I'm talking about whether they're raising their children, functioning in the church, functioning in the marketplace, you can achieve far more when your heart is connected in a greater way because you don't have near as much emotional traffic of fear and confusion and unbelief and self-promotion, occupation with failure and condemnation. That emotional traffic is like pushing your car in your own strength. I talk to moms and dads, like, do you really wanna be a good mom and dad? You wanna be the best mom you can be? Take some time away from your kids, get connected to God. You'll raise your kids without the same fear that you're raising them now. You'll see much more clearly. You'll have a whole different posture when you're imparting love to them. Everybody has time to watch and wait. It's like saying, I don't have time to breathe. I'm too busy, I can't do the thing. You have to, there is no option. The only other way is to just live on burning fumes and hopefully you'll do good in your ministry. There's so many people burnout in their marriages, their family, their marketplace assignment, their church, they're just burnout because they think they're too busy to slow down and stay connected because they think they can love without being connected. Now, if you ask them, they say, of course I can't. But the last five years of their life proves they think they can. Everybody would admit they can't, but their schedule testifies they think they can. Let's go to the parable itself. Roman numeral two, let's look at Matthew 25, verse one and two. This is the second parable of the three. It's the only one we're gonna look at today. Jesus said, then the kingdom of heaven will be likened to 10 virgins who took their lamps, they went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of these were wise virgins and five were foolish. A couple of points. Number one, all 10 of them were virgins before God. And what I mean in the spiritual sense, the day we're born again, no matter what you did, we are pure before God as a free gift. Now, all 10 of them were born again believers that were clean before God through the righteousness of Christ, every single one of them. And what we do after we're saved, we are still made clean day by day by day as we come to him and receive it. We can live with that confidence that the Lord receives us even as he's given us the gift of righteousness as a gift. So all 10, he's talking to 10 different leaders here. Because these are three parables talking to leaders. Now they apply to non-leaders, but so many of you have leadership. You may not lead on a stage with a microphone, but you may be leading five and 10 people. And maybe it's a home group. Maybe it's in a marketplace. Maybe it's with the children. Maybe it's in your neighborhood, you're influencing other people. It doesn't have to be a leadership role that's on the church org chart to be a leader. A lot of leadership happens and nobody calls it leadership, but it's still leadership. It's a place of influence. B, all 10 of them had lamps. They all had ministries. Lamps speak of ministries. They're bringing the light to other people. They all had functioning ministries. So they're born again, they got functioning ministries. This is the most remarkable. C, the bridegroom, they all went out to meet the bridegroom, it says in verse one. Look at verse one. They went out to meet the bridegroom. This means all 10 of them had a connection with the Messiah as the bridegroom God. These were not guys and gals that didn't care about intimacy with God. They all had prior connection with God as the bridegroom God. They understood the intimacy message. When the bridegroom conference was on, they were teaching the seminars in the bridegroom conference. These were all ministries who encountered Jesus in intimacy earlier in their ministry. That's the part that makes this parable really sober. These were not people that were unaware. These were people that had a history of connecting with God at the heart level. Then the final word I wanna look at in verse one is the word then. Jesus said, then the kingdom shall be likened to 10 virgins. When is then? Well, he's in the middle of a sermon. Matthew 25, verse one, throw away the chapter division. It's one message. Matthew 24 is all about the end times. He's talking about the end times. He goes, then, then my ministries will be virgins who go out to encounter the bridegroom. In the generation the Lord returns, it will be universally emphasized by the Spirit the need for intimacy with God, the heart connect with the bridegroom God. Jesus as the bridegroom speaks of his desire. As we said on the opening session of the conference, women are sons of God, men are the bride of Christ. Has nothing to do with gender. As sons of God, we have access to his power, his throne. Men and women, we all have access to his throne and his power. As the bride of Christ, we have access to his heart and his desire. So power and desire, throne, heart, that's the sons of God, the bride of Christ identity. It's not about, it has nothing to do with a woman and a man in the gender specific type roles. I tell some of the young ladies, they hear bridegroom God and they kind of get this idea, oh Jesus, my bridegroom God, and they have date night with Jesus and light the candles. And I say, you know, candles are cool, but Jesus is not your boyfriend. Just get that real clear. It's not about dating Jesus. He's not our boyfriend replacement. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the heart of God being made known to human beings. Just like the sons of God, it's not about getting, you know, wearing, you know, army fatigues and getting Boy Scout uniforms on. That's, I mean, that's cool if you want to wear those, but that's not the point. It's that we have access to his power. So you don't need the candles and you don't need the military fatigues, but if you like candles and fatigues, go ahead and wear them, but don't get confused as to what's really happening. Okay, the bride's going to wear army boots in that day. Okay. Okay. Paragraph E. In this parable, here, E is very important. Put a little star by E. The warning is, here's the warning. The wise can become foolish. Anointed intimacy-based ministries can lose their way in the pressures that mount up. That's the point of the parable. Now, the pressure doesn't mean the pressure against the Antichrist. I mean, the Antichrist. That's not the pressure I'm talking about. The pressure that mounts up is actually the outpouring of the Spirit and the increase of the revival and the greater workload on the saints. In the explosion of the end-time revival, we can get so busy that we overestimate our importance and we underestimate our weakness. We get a Messiah complex. If I don't go, who will? And the Lord says, you know, I love your heart to serve, but remember, you're a really weak little guy with no gas in your car unless we put gas in it. It's a warning not to buy into the Messiah complex that I am needed for everyone to make it and I have undue strength. Beloved, we have no strength. We have to get connected to receive strength, regularly in our walk with God, in our connection with the Holy Spirit. Top of page three, verse two to four. Now, five of these leaders were wise and five of them were foolish. Those that were foolish took their lamps, but they took no oil. Those that were wise took oil and they took their lamps. They took both. They took oil in their lamps. First of all, paragraph A, the oil speaks of the presence of the Holy Spirit, the connection, the heart connect with God. And I have several little points there about oil, but in essence, it's the heart connect. Now notice, paragraph B, you can see in verse three, the foolish took lamps, that's their ministry. They didn't take time for oil. The foolish said, I'm about my lamp is my first priority, getting oil. Yeah, that's not so important because I'm shining my lamp. My ministry is my main focus. My heart, we'll get around to that later. I am, my ministry's growing. The revival's happening. Everybody wants me. Doors are opening. I gotta go, I gotta go, I have to go. Now we do have to go, that's the truth. We have to go to our neighbors. We have to go to those in the marketplace. We have to travel sometimes. We have to go, but within the boundaries of the will of God, not any false Messiah complex. But look at verse four, it's exactly opposite. Even the wording indicates that. The wise took the oil. See, the foolish took their lamps and no oil. The wise, oil is mentioned first. That was their first priority. Their lamps were second. Now what is remarkable, this is almost like the simplicity of the word watch. When Jesus says watch, that's it? You're not gonna break it down more. No, you do that, you'll be in good shape if you get connected. Here, it's so simple. He takes these 10 ministries that all are virgins. They all have the gift of righteousness. They all have ministries, lamps. They all have the bridegroom revelation. But in the process of ministry and time, five of them became foolish. And the definition from Jesus's point of view of foolish and wise is so simple, we can just miss it. The foolish, ministry number one, they're connected with God number two. Jesus said foolish. Wise, heart connected with God number one, ministry number two, wise. That's it? I mean, isn't wisdom more than that? Yes, but you get that right, a whole lot of other things will come into line. So God tells the great man of God who's too busy in his global expanding ministry or his neighborhood ministry or whatever ministry you have, God says, you're too busy to connect with me. I love you. I know you love me, but you are foolish. And you will miss out on things I have for you. He tells the other guy, you take time to connect with me, your ministry will be far more effective over the months and years because the burnout factor will be very different. Again, I said this the other day, people don't burn out because of hard work, they burn out because they work with the wrong spirit. We don't burn out because we work hard, we burn out because of the way we work. We're working for success so that we get bigger and better in recognition instead of working from success, the fact that he loves us, his eyes are on us, we're already successful because he loves us and we love him. It's a very different spirit in the way that we do the work. And Jesus reduces wisdom and foolishness to this simple definition. The wise ones take time to connect and then do their ministry. They don't throw their ministry away, they just have it in order. The foolish ones, they love me, but they have more confidence in their own strength than they should. They think that their strength is ever-vesting, ever-replenishing, that it's them. They have no strength if I'm not helping them. Now they know that doctrinally, but their schedules prove they don't really believe that at the heart level. Roman numeral four. No, I gotta do paragraph D. I did this yesterday, but I gotta do it again. Paragraph D, our relationship to Jesus must be the most important dream of our heart. You know, I mentioned yesterday the idea that God spoke audibly 27 years ago and said, do 24-7 prayer. We put the sign on the wall for many years. Finally, after 16 years of waiting, we start 24-7. So 10 years have gone and lots of good things are happening and my friends from those early days, 20 and 25 years ago, you know, they come and visit and they say, wow, your dream is coming true. And I says, IHOP is not my dream. My heart with God, the anointing to love God and be loved by God, that is the dream of my heart. IHOP's my assignment. My life dream is not helped when IHOP gets big. And my heart dream is not hurt when IHOP gets small. That's my assignment. My dream is in a totally different place than what my ministry is. We must make our connection with God, who we are in His eyes and who He is to us, the dream of our heart. And then out of that, we can go do ministry. If I had to do IHOP with the idea this was my big dream, that this was my big time in life, this would wear me out beyond measure. I mean, I would be so stressed about everything. Well, this is my dream, my dream's in peril. We gotta do it different. I go, hey, I wanna do things better. But Lord, this is your deal. My dream is alive, you are my dream, Lord. The anointing to love you, to increase in that, that's what I dream about in my private life. I don't mean just dream at night, I'm just talking about daydream. Like I wanna be closer, I wanna feel you more, I wanna be more faithful. I want your heart fully pleased with what I'm doing. Oh yeah, and help IHOP too, Lord. I like IHOP, you like IHOP, help us. But oh Lord, my dream, back to my dream. That's the way you can do ministry without ministry destroying you. I've heard for 30 years of ministry, the stories of how, you know, I came from this church and I'm burnt out. I'm burnt out and bruised. Typically what it means is, they've been relating in ministry in the body of Christ without being deeply connected to God. So everybody that treated them wrong got to them. And so they come tell me how they're burnt out and beat up. They're normally accusing how bad the church is that they were at. But really what it means is, they've been living outside of a vibrant connect with God. And so the people that don't do what they think they should do, it gets to them and takes them out of the game, it takes them out of the race. It's a far bigger statement about how they've been living before God than how mean the body of Christ is where they were at. Good. Let's go to Roman number four. And I love them. If I got time, I'm talking to my old bro. I love it. I see your pain. You are your biggest enemy. Not that mean church, I promise you. That same old mean church, if you were connected, would feel way different on the inside. Get connected. Your biggest enemy is you, not them. Slow down, turn some stuff off, sell some stuff, give it away. Reduce your lifestyle. Get connected. I love you. That's just legalism. He has no compassion. No, I love you so much, I'll tell you the truth again. Anyway, let's go to verse five to seven. Now Jesus, now here's the point of all three parables. When the bridegroom delayed, verse five, that's the issue. Remember parable one, the delay is shorter than they thought. Parable two, the delay is longer. Parable three, the delay is harder. The whole issue is how do we respond in the delay? That's the key. Well, while the bridegroom delayed, they all slept and at midnight, a cry was heard. The bridegroom is coming. The bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet him. Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps and they went out to meet him. Well, there's several points here. Paragraph A, at the midnight hour of human history, God is gonna raise up these nameless, faceless voices that will cry out at the midnight hour of history. I call these the forerunners and there's millions of them across the earth. It's those that are connected to God's heart and what he's doing. They're crying out and here, look at their message. It's very simple, three-point message. Jesus is coming. He's coming. He's coming and there's so many implications to his coming. The victory, the manifest power, all the unique dynamics of that hour, it's happening. It's coming, he's breaking in with power. So there's a revival victory note, he's coming. Because when he comes, that means he's intervening. That means things change dynamically in the way they happen in the natural realm down here. But paragraph C, there's a second message. He isn't just coming, he's a God with desire. He's coming as the God of desire. He's coming with tenderness. He's coming with an abandonment of love to us and requiring an abandonment back to him. He wants abandonment. He's the God of desire. He's not just a God of power with an agenda. He's a God of desire with deep emotion and he wants to engage us at the heart level. Paragraph D, the third message, go out to meet him. Make the effort necessary to encounter him. Make the effort necessary to position yourself to encounter him. That's really what I'm doing right now. I am giving this message, verse six. I am telling you, I'm focusing on the third part. Go out to meet him. That's what I'm preaching right now, this teaching. Go out to meet him. Change your lifestyle, get your life in this position where you have time to encounter him. It's the call to prayer. And I don't mean just prayer as get together in a room and pray for revival. I like that, we do that. I'm really into that. I'm talking about you and him connecting, meeting, connecting at the heart level. Get up, out of bed, go out, meet him. Take the effort. Take the effort to engage with his heart. Well, when I get there, the Bible's boring and I feel dead and I just, everyone's mad at me and I just don't have any money anyway. My body hurts and okay, I get all that. I do all that, I get that. But take some effort. Put some things aside, turn some things off, take some time. Well, I don't feel much. Stay with it, put the effort in. It will connect, just stay with it. Well, Jesus is coming, he's coming in waves. His end time purpose, there's waves of the spirit that have been building these last couple of decades. Well, all through history, but there is, and I don't wanna go into that, but there's the spirits moving in the Western world and in Africa and Asia and Latin America and the islands, he's moving in different ways. There's strategic waves of the spirit. He imparts something, he imparts truth and then the wave kind of, there's an ebb and flow. He lifts his hand for a moment, then another wave comes through. And those waves are building and building in intensity until the coming of the Lord. Different dimensions of the spirit's activity. He doesn't just kind of do things business as usual and then suddenly he comes one day. No, there's waves, there's purpose in the spirit. The move of God is building in intensity and strategically leading up to the second coming of the Lord. We don't necessarily identify them all perfectly, but we understand the spirit's ways in this. Top of page four. Now, the foolish. Now, remember, all 10 of these guys, they had burning ministries. In verse one, they had ministries. A lot of people were enjoying their ministry. They had a connection with the bridegroom God. Their intimacy with God was growing and going strong. It's in the rigor of the work where they lost their way. That's what this parable's about. It's a warning that the wise can become foolish. They all started off wise, but five of them became foolish, but they can recover. Are you a former wise one that is now living in foolish ways? Or are you a never was a wise one and you've been foolish the whole time? Like, I love Jesus, he loves me, but I've never really got around to this connect with him in a personal way, in a day-by-day way. That's kind of never really been on my mind. You're sincere, you love him, your love's real, he loves you, but you still are foolish. And there's no way to massage the Bible verses around to somehow make that anything but foolish. If you do, you're denying the teaching of Jesus. When I'm foolish, because I've stumbled into that sometimes, I call it, I am being foolish, deliver me, I repent, I don't have enough confidence in my own strength, I'm changing things now, and the Lord says, that's good. That will save your life spiritually if you stay in that attitude. I go, Lord, I lost it again, because I've had the connect and I get busy and things are going, but typically it's when the ministry increases. That's when the peril comes, actually, and I've lost my way a few times for some weeks and months at a time, and then I, ah, I did it again, Lord. He says, that's okay, you can recover, just do it. Call it foolish, what you're doing. I go, I'm sincere, I love you, you love me, but it is foolish, and I'm lining back up again. The foolish said to the wise, verse eight, give us your relationship with Jesus. Doesn't work that way. Give us your connection with God. I can't lay hands on you and give you my connection with God. You can't lay hands on me and give me your connection. You can lay hands on people and God can impart something in a catalytic way to kind of help them get started, it's like a jumpstart. I can't give you my dialogue and connect with God and you can't give me yours, it's not transferable. It's personal. They said our lamps are going out, our ministries are going out. Beloved, I want to say this, many, many ministries that are thriving will go out because they won't have the spiritual vitality to meet the need of that hour. Where we're going in history with a deeper expression of power of the Spirit, a deeper hunger in the church for intimacy with God, greater pressures and sin in society, the Christian self-help kind of Christian pop, candy, I call it cotton candy Christianity, self-help type Christianity may fill megachurches today but nobody will care about that kind of presentation of the gospel when the needs are real and the nations are filled with power and crisis. It can't be the kind of man-pleasing, flattering, hey, if you do this, you'll get more money and more honor, you're going to be happy, everything's going to work. Those ministries, those lamps will go out. Nobody will pay attention to them. They will have no relevance in that hour. They said our ministries are going out and that's going to happen globally and a whole lot of other ministries are going to start up. And the wise, verse nine said, no, we can't give you. It doesn't work that way. I can't talk to God for myself and then jump over and talk to God for you and then you get the benefit of it, it doesn't work that way. I can't make that happen. Go do it yourself. Then he says at the end of verse nine, Jesus talking, go buy for yourself. Now, this is the very word where am I at in paragraph D. In Revelation three, Jesus told them this very thing again. This is Jesus here in Matthew 25, the passage we're on. But in Revelation three, he used the very same words when he appeared to John in the book of Revelation. He said, tell them, go buy gold. He doesn't mean earn it. He means go according to the God ordained process, invest yourself in a costly way and get that which is valuable and priceless. He doesn't mean earn it. Buying does not mean earn it. It means engage in the God ordained process in a way that's costly because you see it as valuable to you. So these wise leaders told the foolish leaders and they were all leaders, he says, we can't give it to you but go get it, invest yourself. Yeah, but if I take time for that, I can't network as much. If I take time for that, I'm gonna lose some of my hours where I could make some more money and I got this boat I've been dreaming about. Beloved, you may have to reduce and simplify and draw back some. Go buy, go invest yourself and get oil. The wise leaders said you have to. There is no really, there's no other way. There's no prayer line that's gonna give you a history in God. Verse 10 to 12, we'll just do this ever so fast and then you can kind of read the notes on your own. Well, verse 10, they went away to buy. They engaged in the process. The foolish one said, okay, beloved, you can recover from this. I've recovered from it a few times. I'm not prophesying against myself but I'll probably lose my way a few more times. I don't want to but I say, Holy Spirit, help me. Help me capture the sense of it quickly when I lose my way and I mean for a few weeks or a month. I get so involved in the work and the increase that I go, wait, wait, I'm too weak. I'm too frail to have an increasing ministry without a deeper heart connect. I'll get off. Well, they went to buy. They engaged in the process then suddenly the bridegroom came. Now, some will read this as the second coming. I don't believe it's the second coming. That's the whole point of it right here. The bridegroom came because in the Jewish context and he's talking to the Jewish leaders here. When a couple got married, they would have ideally a feast for seven nights. Now, some of you think, man, our wedding, just having that one reception just about broke the bank. Can you imagine a feast seven nights in a row? And those that were closest to the bridegroom, the couple, they came the first night, small number. Then the second night, they enlarged. The people invited, the list. The third night, even more. Now, the people that went the first night went all seven nights. I mean, it was quite an event and night by night, they had another celebration and the spirit is building in purpose and intensity in wave after wave of the spirit. If you missed the first night, it doesn't mean you're out of the game. It doesn't mean you're out of the race. When Jesus tells them, I never knew you, he's not saying, he's not warning them that they've lost their salvation. They've lost their place of usefulness in that hour, in that first night, in that first wave. When he's saying, I don't know you, he's not saying, I never knew you, like he said in Matthew seven. He's not calling them wicked and lazy and cursed, like he does a few verses later. He's saying, I don't have intimacy with you. I don't know you as the bridegroom and bride. You are a servant, but we don't connect at this level and this is what I'm pouring my spirit out to establish this truth. We don't know each other along these truths. Go connect with me and then I'll anoint you to use you maybe the next wave. So there's many people, the Lord says, I wanna establish the intimacy with God message. And they say, I wanna be used. The Lord says, well, I love you, but we don't know each other that way. Remember, we haven't talked much at that level in your personal heart. Do you remember? Yeah, now that I think about it, we don't really talk much about heart to heart stuff. Well, you take some time and go get it and maybe the next wave I can use you to impart that message to other people. So it's an issue about preparedness. We don't, we can lose opportunities in God, but there's wave after wave that's being built here. I mean, the Holy Spirit's building to the return of the Lord. Now look at paragraph D, verse 13. He ends the parable with, watch, go get your heart connect. That's the moral of the story. Go get your heart connect with God and you'll be ready every single wave and every season. You will have a connection with me where you will understand the things I'm wanting to impart through you. Amen. Let's stand.