Flasks of oil!
Mathew 25:4” the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.”
Christian faith is disconcertingly shallow, as shallow as a puddle of water on a sidewalk these days! People daringly confess, “ I have no time for prayer, fasting or Bible reading! I’m just busy, I have work to catch up!” These are the replies that I have got firsthand from people who I speak with! If at all I speak a bit forcefully, they are ready to throw me out of the window!
Let me show you something today from the Bible; there were ten virgins, five were wise and five were foolish. Observe, all of them were Christians or believers but mark it, not all would go to the Kingdom of God as mentioned here; the foolish ones were not prepared and did not carry oil with them but the wise ones carried ‘flasks of oil!’ Observe not just few teaspoons of oil but flasks of oil! The words ‘flasks of oil’ caught my attention and I hope it would come to your observation also today and put some fear of God in your life!
Now, when 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.' Now watch this, the wise replied,‘ I’m sorry friends, we just got enough for us go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.' I wonder how many of you take the words of the Bible seriously! Alas, at the last minute the foolish ones ran out of stock and thus they missed the bridegroom and the marriage feast, and the door was shut!
The foolish ones are the careless ones! They know the truth yet they neglect, rebel and forfeit the Kingdom of God! When massive boulders obstruct your way, storms scare you and an avalanche of other problems try to bury you down; how do you survive? Teaspoons of oil would do no good – you need flasks of oil to survive! Oil is your spiritual investments that you have made for the Kingdom of God! Are you listening?
Plan how you would face the crisis in your life – no escape , everybody has to face some issue or the other in life – let us be prepared! A FBI agent reviewing a top-secret file approached an assistant who was standing by a paper shredder. He asked, “How do you operate this machine, can you show me?” “ Sure turn on the switch and stick the paper in” The agent did it and said, “Now, how do I tell it how many copies I want to make?”
Dear friend, beware the consequences of carelessness is disastrous! You can never undo certain things which has been committed out of sheer carelessness. Can you get your examination paper back and rectify that mistake which you did out of negligence? Can you make up for the lost years which you have wasted when you could have done valuable things? You could have made rich investments of praying, fasting and reading the Bible. Think!
Click FIRE BONES to hear my short video sermon.
