Prepare for the Looming Catastrophes

The greatest tragedy to ever strike the United States of America before 9-11 took place at 4-07 on May 31st, in 1889. At that moment, a 60-foot wall of water screamed down a canyon and into the city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The residents of that city were totally unaware.

Not everyone was unaware. Some people had full knowledge in advance, fully knowing for years that this was inevitable. Even that day, hours before, people were fully aware of what was going to take place, even to the town that laid down river 14 miles from the dam.

But the people, the thousands of people who lived in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, glanced up in that afternoon to see 60 feet of water churning with buildings and houses, miles of barbed wire wrapped around trees and bushes, and even a train that came tumbling into town that would kill some 2,200 people.

This is not unlike other events that have happened in the past in the Bible and are prophesied for the future in the Bible.

It's interesting that the 2,209 people who perished that day, along with the many families, along with the steel mill that was destroyed, along with many, many, if not most of the buildings in the city, could have had their lives spared had they been aware.

Had they known what was common knowledge among some people? Had they been preparing? Had they been ready when that event took place?

We back up in time. There's quite a story that goes behind that.

Some decades before, it was the US government that built a dam 14 miles upriver from Johnstown, back in the heyday of transportation in canals, like the Erie Canal and other canals, were forming transportation lanes whereby shipping could take place, shipping of goods and people.

And so this dam was formed and it made a lake that was part of that configuration, but very shortly thereafter, railroads took off.

And the railroads were the big thing, challenging people coast to coast to pound down those rails and to connect.

And new arteries and new ways of moving people and goods began to take place.

The canal soon fell into disrepair along with that particular lake and its dam.

And so the US government sold the lake, sold the dam in particular, to a private investor.

The private investor saw it as an opportunity to make some money.

The government had built a big earthen dam to plug the river that came down through the mountains, through the pass.

This earthen dam was built in a responsible fashion with three huge tubes for discharging extra water out the bottom.

If too much rainfall was behind there, they could open these discharge tubes.

Those tubes were made of steel.

Steel was worth money. The new owner removed the tubes.

He took those iron, big old iron pipes out and he sold them for scrap, patched it up.

Later on, as the railroads roared across with Rockefeller creating a big unified rail system, not paying employees, not caring really about their safety, he became very, very wealthy.

At the same time, another man, Andrew Carnegie, was pulling together the steel industry into what would eventually become U.S. Steel.

These were done really without paying people and without safety for people.

So it was that the wealthy got very, very wealthy and the people became very, very disenchanted.

In time, that dam was sold to Andrew Carnegie and some of the individuals who had become very wealthy, and they made a fishing club out of the lake.

It was private property. It was out of bounds. It was out of the reach of anybody else, including the dam.

The people 14 miles down river didn't really know what was going on up there.

But for the beautification of the lake and the dam, the dam level was lowered.

Instead of it being high and retaining a lot of water during rainfall, they cut the top of it off, shortened it down.

They put a little bitty spillway at the top, and then they covered the spillway with wire mesh so the fish wouldn't swim out.

After all, it was a fishing club.

Occasionally, when rains came that were heavier than normal, the dam started to get cracks in it.

Well, the wealthy people at the top would send teams of men out with wagons full of dirt and mud, and they would patch the cracks on the face of the dam as it would begin to split and weep.

They would pack more dirt in it. They would go plow fields and bring in more dirt, and they would pack it in.

If it looked like it was going to fail, they'd send somebody to the telegraph office nearby, and they would telegraph Johnstown.

The dam looks like it's going to fail. Evacuate the dam.

The dam never failed.

Year after year, rainfall after rainfall, lorry wagons full of mud would go out, and they'd patch up the dam, and they'd telegraph the town. I think the dam's going to go...

The telegraph operator got many, many, many of these messages through the years.

Nothing ever happened to the dam.

One day, it started raining, and it rained for 24 hours.

It rained between 8 and 10 inches in that region.

It rained so much that the town of Johnstown itself was dealing with some flooding in the streets.

It saturated all the hills and the valleys for miles around.

And that lake, when the sun rose that morning, was starting to crest over the top of the dam.

Remember they had shortened the dam? The top of it? They cut it off?

And if water starts going over an earthen dam, it'll quickly erode it, fracture it, and away it goes.

They sent teams out with plows to try to cut a new channel, because, well, debris from all the rainfall had washed in and had plugged the only vent that they had put screen over to keep the fish in.

There was no way any water was coming out of that dam. Now it was starting over the top.

They tried to cut a channel in the top, a little spillway. They couldn't do it.

They sent more and more people over the side with more mud, more stones, more sticks, anything to plug the holes that were now starting to crack and crack.

And by 12 noon, it was hopeless. It was certain that the dam was going to fail, and all the workers and all the people at the lake and everybody was in serious trouble.

So the powers that be, the wealthy, called all the workers back off and said, send a telegraph to Johnstown.

A person rode a horse to the nearest telegraph office and telegraph, urgent.

Dam is failing. Evacuate Johnstown.

Telegraph operator in Johnstown said, oh, another message. And he simply set it aside.

He said, they get these all the time. The dam's never going to fail.

Meanwhile, at 3.07 that afternoon, the dam finally let go.

In a total collapse, the entire lake now was free to rush down that canyon.

It first encountered two towns. The first town totally caught by surprise. It wasn't a town, it was a village, a little village, just right there in the canyon.

It took it, all its houses, all the buildings, all the people, just boom, took them.

As it was rolling down, it started picking up trees, started picking up barbed wires from farms. It picked up all kinds of things.

As it approached the second town, there was a train that was going along the tracks.

The engineer on the train saw it coming. In order to warn the little village ahead, he just leaned on the horn.

He just pulled the steam engine horn and just leaned on it, and he didn't let it go.

People in the little town, they were just down in little ways. They heard that and they thought, something's up. Something doesn't sound right.

Many of them fled to safety. They got up to higher ground quickly, even as the flood caught the train and the engine in the vortex, and it continued to hurdle towards town.

Fifty-seven minutes after 3-10, a 60-foot wall of water and debris came into Johnstown, and everybody, including the operator, were caught by surprise.

There's quite a lesson in this. If we go over to 2 Peter 3, verse 3, we can find that there have been warnings of catastrophes much greater than this, that have come, that God has given, that people got tired of hearing.

2 Peter 3, verse 3, says, knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? That's not going to happen. We've heard that Jesus is coming. We've seen people with signs saying, Repent! The end is near! This isn't going to happen. We must have evolved. We're going to fix our own problems. We're moving ahead. All things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. For this, they willfully forget, that by the Word of God, the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water, and in the water, by which the world then existed, perished, being flooded with water.

Today, I'd like to take you on a little journey through Scripture to show that there are looming tragedies that are about to happen, that you need to prepare for. Looming catastrophes that we are warned about, that we should be fully aware about, even as others scoff at them and do not make any attempt to prepare. The title of the sermon today is, Prepare for the Looming Catastrophes. They are looming. They are on the horizon. They are coming. They are looming. And you and I need to be busy preparing for them.

It's no good after the fact to have said, oh, I wasn't really aware. I really didn't know. Andrew Carnegie suddenly became one of the most hated people in America, not just for the way that some of the monopolies were treating labor, but at the same time, it was considered to be his fishing lake, his dam.

In order to try to repair his reputation, he began building libraries, the Carnegie Foundation, Carnegie Libraries, Carnegie Hall, things around the United States where people would have something of benefit in their community that would reflect wealth. And yet it was a stain that would last all the way for the next hundred or so years, even as we hear about it today. In Genesis 7, verse 11, we hear of a catastrophe that I think most everybody has heard about in their lifetime. It was called the Great Flood. In Genesis 7, verse 11, in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, at 4.07 pm, well, it doesn't give the time, but it's interesting, it gives the day. There was a certain day when people were unaware. And notice what happened. All the fountains of the great deep were broken up. Imagine going out to feed your cow, to go downtown or whatever, and all of a sudden, everywhere you look, boom, the earth is opening, and water is blasting up out of the earth. And then the heavens are open, and rain starts falling. The rain, the water was on the earth 40 days. A catastrophe that caught everybody off guard. What a terrible thing to take place. Notice verse 23.

So he destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground, both man and cattle, creeping things, and birds of the air. They were destroyed from the earth. That is huge. That still rocks us today. People still look for the traces and discuss that catastrophe that wiped out humanity. However, it was no surprise to Noah. Notice in chapter 6 and verse 13.

Genesis 6 verse 13, God said to Noah, Noah knew all about this. He says, Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark. You get prepared. Noah had known for a hundred years. Noah had even warned others for a hundred years. But we keep hearing about this from the boatman. We're getting dull of hearing about this.

But not Noah. He prepared. It took him a long time to prepare a very complex ship and have it all ready for the day when that catastrophe struck. It was no surprise to him.

In Abraham's day, there was another catastrophe. People were going about their daily business. And of all things from the sky came hot, sticky, big balls of fire that fell on everything and everyone and began to pile up and burn them. It destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

In Genesis 19 and 24, notice the surprise and the shock. Genesis 19 and 24. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. There's no way to get away from it. There's no way you could do anything about it at that point. It just came down and it took everything.

But it was no surprise to Lot. Let's look in verse 14. So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, Get up! Get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city. But to his sons-in-law, he seemed to be joking.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're always telling us that something bad's going to happen. They seem to be joking.

Let's go to Luke 17 and hear from the one that caused both of those events. The one who caused the flood and the one who just said right there that he caused the fire to rain down from heaven.

Luke 17 and verse 26.

And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will also be in the days of the Son of Man. Ah, we're talking about another catastrophe. There is a big, bigger catastrophe coming than either of those combined.

In the days of the Son of Man, the day of the Lord, they ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, they were going about life until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Boom!

Likewise, verse 28, as it was in the days of Lot, they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built, they went about life. And suddenly, but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so it will be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

There is catastrophe looming ahead. When we pray, your kingdom come, we are praying that these events are ushered in soon. We will see, as we go along, that there are signs of things that are looming, that many are unaware of, some are choosing not to see, but you and I are to be busy preparing. Jesus gives us a lesson about this in Luke 21, verse 34.

The Lord is on the way to the earth, and he is on the way to the earth. He will be going along like a rabbit, or a deer, or a goat, or a sheep. I think I have a little bite of this. I think I'll walk over there. I think I'll go to the barn. Bam! The snare slams shut. It happens that fast. The earth opened up. The wall of water was there.

The fire was raining down. So it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the earth.

We are to be aware, to watch to the state, our spiritual state, watch to the preparedness that we have been called to be making, the life that we have been called to be living. Not as some urgent thing, like, oh, I better do this because I've got to get ready. God doesn't want that. He wants us to be genuine children in the daily growth process of developing his agape nature. If we're doing that, we will be in the right place at the right time. He will take care of it. We don't have to worry about our skin. We don't have to worry about the events in the future. But we do have to be preparing. And by preparing, I mean by repenting, overcoming, growing, developing that nature that God wants us to, becoming like our Father in heaven and his Son, Jesus Christ.

If we look in verse 29, he spoke to them a parable saying, look at the fig tree and all the trees. Not just the fig tree, all the trees. Look at all the trees. When they are already budding, you see and know for yourselves that summer is now near. Do you check the news lately? Do you see some buds? Have you seen the... check the prophecies in the Bible? Do you see some budding taking place? Have you noticed that Germany has already said that there needs to be a United States of Europe that needs to form and needs to get out from what is there currently? That this whole world and all of its systems are in perilous financial and perilous political states? You know, the buds are there. I don't know when the trapdoor is going to fall, but definitely, he says, summer is near when you see the buds. Verse 31, so you also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near. It means you and I should be preparing. We should be focused on the things that God wants us to be focused on and not caught off guard, mixing in with those to whom the catastrophe is coming. God is bringing the catastrophe as punishment on an evil world. If we are mixing in with the evil world and participating in the society around us, we will get caught unawares because we're wanting that society to go forward and we'll be mixed up in it hopeful. It'll catch us unawares. If we're mixed up in that society, we're also going to be part of the punishment, as we'll see from the lips of God himself.

So it's important for us to get away from those upon whom the catastrophe is coming. Noah said a good example of that. He withdrew, built an ark. He was not part of society. Lot withdrew when outside the city. He was not part of that society.

If we look in Revelation chapter 8, 18, verse 4. Remember what Jesus says here before he comes in and punishes some. I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, unless you receive of her plagues.

We must be more like Abraham, Lot, and Noah than society. Notice verse 8. Therefore, her plagues will come in one day. Boom! It'll come as a total surprise to society. One day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord who judges her. Yes, catastrophe is looming. It's going to be sudden. It's going to be huge. But you know about it. You can be preparing to miss all of that.

The world is about to experience a staccato of surprises. Revelation chapter 8, beginning in verse 7, we see the seven trumpets begin to sound. The first angels sounded. Nice day. We're working. The society. Things are going. Having a few wars. Having a few things. Normal stuff. First angels sounded and hail and fire followed, mixed with blood. Thrown into the earth. Third of the trees died. All the green grass is burned up. Boom! What was that? That'll catch society off guard, won't it? And trumpet by trumpet. A third of the sea became blood. A third of the ships were destroyed. Boom! Third trumpet. The rivers killed people because of the bitterness of the water. The fourth trumpet. Third of the sun, the moon, the stars. All of a sudden, it's not only our food supply, and then our water supply, but now our light supply, causing people great grief. Fifth angel, chapter 9. Sixth angel, verse 13. And it just keeps going. It gets worse. It gets bad. It's shocking. But should you and I be shocked? Let's go to Revelation chapter 3, verse 10 and 11. Revelation 3, verse 10, here in red letters, Jesus says, Because you have kept my command to persevere. Persevere in what? Loving God with all your heart, soul, and might. Love your neighbor as yourself. Persevering in repentance. Developing godliness. The Agape mindset of God. Because you have kept my command, those are my commands, and you've persevered in that, I also will keep you from the hour that trial which shall come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth. Behold, I am coming quickly. Those who are preparing don't have a problem. They don't have to worry about it. We know that the church will have persecution. Revelation chapter 12 says, The church will be taken to a place of safety where God takes her to a place prepared for her. Not by her. You don't have to be some survivalist. No, she's taken to a place prepared for her. Let's notice this over in Isaiah chapter 26, verses 20 and 21. I love this passage because there's not much said about the place of safety except right here you get two details. Two very specific details, in my opinion. Isaiah chapter 26, verse 20.

Come, my people. Oh, it's not, go run, my people. No, it's a come, my people. Enter your chambers. Oh, there are chambers. And shut your doors behind you. Oh, there are doors. It sounds like tents, does it? Hide yourselves, as it were, for a little moment until the indignation is passed. Or, behold, the Lord comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. Is he coming to punish you? It depends. Are you mixed up with the earth? Are you mixed up with society? Are you sinning with them, you see? Or are we preparing? Are we doing that work that God has given us? The Lord comes out of his place, out of heaven, to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will also disclose her blood and will no more cover her slain. Huge catastrophe, because, you see, man has sinned so much that God will come, and this is a time when he is going to punish the earth. Those who are following Satan, those who are going that way wholesale and trying to even kill Jesus Christ and the saints when they arrive. We see in Matthew chapter 25, though, even though this is very warming to us, that's great. A place of safety is certainly available to many, if not most, of those who are really faithful and they're working hard. Jesus says, well, don't get complacent. Don't assume that you will automatically be in that group just because you're in some corporate entity, or you have some thing or some person or some feeling or some knowledge, because he kind of says it's half. Matthew 25 and verse 1, Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now, let's pause here and look very carefully at the elements of this parable. I know it's a parable, it's an analogy, but if we look carefully, we can see some things here that are important for you and me to learn.

First of all, there are lamps that they each have, and they need to go out. They're not going to stay in the house, and he's going to show up. They actually have to travel somewhere, and they take their lamps and order travel, which means it's going to be nighttime. Now, five of them were wise and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. Now, a lamp, you might say, is kind of like an Aladdin lamp. These are little, small, flat ceramic clay lamps. You have a big hole, a little shallow base, and a little hole. You stick a wick, a string down, and a little hole, and you pour oil in the big hole. It doesn't hold very much. But if you set that on a table and you light the wick, you have one candle power. It's not a lot, but it's something.

And that's your sole source of light back in those days. So this was an important thing to have. Light around the house, or if you had to go out to the outhouse or maybe take a trip, you're going to need your lamp. And it didn't hold very much, so you needed to take a container with oil that had enough to cover the trip, the distance that you were going to take.

So these had lamps, but the foolish ones didn't take an extra container with them. Now that's part of the analogy. We find in verse 4, the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. They had a storage vessel, enough oil to get them to where the bridegroom would be, this journey at night.

But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. Now that falls right to a statement that's made repeatedly in Scripture, that we do not know the day or the hour when Christ will come. That He will come as a thief in the night. That He will come at a time when no one expects. And that's stated over and over and over.

So in this parable, it's simple. You just have everybody doing what they normally do in the middle of the night. Sleep. Now when you're asleep, you don't know what's going on. You don't know what time it is. You're asleep. Everybody's asleep. And sleep's a good thing. No problem with everybody sleeping. You notice the wise were asleep, the foolish were asleep. That's what we do at night as humans.

We were sleeping. So they slumbered and slept, which just means they were unaware of what was about to happen. And at midnight, oh, it just so happened, at midnight when people sleep, a cry was heard, behold, the bridegroom was coming, go out to meet him. It happened. Boom, now! It's time.

Go out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. Now notice, they all had lamps, they all had oil, they all had fire. In that sense, they're all the same. The thing was, the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.

We don't have a reserve. We don't have enough to make the trip. We don't have what it takes to go meet the bridegroom. We're short of that which we should have. And the wise answered, saying, no less there should not be enough for us and you, but go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves. This is a big surprise to five of the virgins. Just a shocker, as it were. But was it a shock to the others? Not at all. They knew he was coming. They had oil. You know, part of it may have something to do with the process of making oil.

In 2011, after the feast, I took my wife to Israel and rented a car and we drove around the Holy Land. We went to Jerusalem, saw the sites of the Temple Mount, Mount of Olives, some of the things to do with the temple. We drove over to the Sea of Galilee. We saw the town of Capernaum where Peter lived. And some of the places probably out there where Jesus did some of the remarkable things that took place in the Bible.

We went to Megiddo, Armageddon. We went to Caesarea out on the coast where Paul sailed for Rome. One of the places we went was Nazareth where Jesus grew up. Nazareth has a little colony there that they have created from archaeological studies to recreate a village, a Nazarian village, with the exact things that the villages in Christ day had. They go to various archaeology sites, work with the archaeologists, and they'll duplicate that exact thing, bring it, and recreate it in the village.

And one of those things that they recreated was the olive oil processing. Most farms in the day, it said, had their own olive oil processing. Now, when we're talking about lamps and oil here, it's a little different thing than today.

Not having enough oil didn't just mean, well, let's run down to the store and get some more. Run down to Walmart and grab a jug. It begins with, first of all, having an olive grove, having planted trees on your farm. Olive trees don't have that many olives on them, so you'd want to plant quite a few olives if you're going to have olive oil for a year's supply. The other thing is, the olives ripen after the Feast of Tabernacles. They were ripe when we were there. And that's the only time of the year when you produce olive oil. It's about, you might say, the month of November, late October, early November.

That's when the olives get soft and dark and kind of nasty, but they almost ooze with oil. But in order to harvest olives, you first of all have to make claws and put them under the trees. Then you have to somehow get up into the trees, make a ladder or something, and make something, some kind of stick, and start banging on the branches. And make those olives release. They don't want to release. And so maybe your stick has a bunch of branches sticking out the end, and you pound and pound and pound and pound every tree and every branch until you get all the olives on the ground.

It's a lot of work. Then you can roll up those claws, tarps, and dump the olives into buckets and transport them. The next thing you do with an olive is wash it. You have to wash it with water because it's out there. It's not clean.

It's got dirt. It's got various things that birds and all put on it. You have to clean those olives. The next thing you have to do is you have to build an olive press. An olive crusher is the first aspect. An olive crusher is done by finding maybe a slab of stone and then carving down into that slab of stone, say about that deep, maybe a little shallow bowl, as it were. And then in the middle you dig a hole, you chop a hole in the middle of that stone, and you put a board, a pole, a wooden pole that comes up.

You attach that pole to something. Then sideways through the pole you put an axle, is what it turns out to be. And on the end of the axle you cut a stone, a round stone. Maybe for your house it might be about that big, doesn't have to be real big. The stone is the axle going through it, stuck through the pole, extension on the other end, and you turn the pole and that rolling stone goes around and round and round on top of this little stone base that you've made.

And then you take one of those buckets of olives and drop it in, and the stone rolls around and crushes the olives. It crushes the seed, which also contains oil, and it goes around and you have to push it, and you push it around and around, and you scoop it in front of the wheel, and you keep going and scoop it a little more, and make sure they all get crushed. And this takes a long, long, long, long time until it turns into kind of a brown mud. The whole thing disintegrates into kind of a gooey mud.

And this is just one bucket. Then you take the gooey mud and you put it in something else you've made, which is straw baskets, baskets that don't have very high sides, but they're about this big around that high side. Nice, clean straw baskets. And you put the mud in, put the basket over there, another basket. Six or seven baskets you stick on top of each other, and then you wait. And you wait. And you wait maybe a few days. Gradually from that mud, pure olive oil will begin to seep out through the sides of your baskets, and you collect that olive oil. It's coming out by itself. It's not pressed. It's not pushed. This is what we might call extra virgin olive oil. And that batch does not produce olive oil. This will be used for your tithes for the year, your offerings at the temple. It'll be used at the altar. It'll be used by the priests. It'll be the flame that burns nonstop in the Holy of Holies, or the sanctuary. This is a very special oil that you'll keep. Take to the feast days, the holy days, that you'll give offerings from. It's not something you'll use yourself.

The next thing you'll do is you'll take that stack of six or so baskets, run a pole on top of them, put a disc on top of the baskets, and then push down on the whole pile of them. You put all your weight on it, maybe hang on it. Of course, eventually you'll realize, I need to get a big stone to hang off of this big arm. And then we can wait and let the pressing bring out olive oil. We might call this virgin olive oil. There's a lot of oil that comes out of that. That's what you'll use throughout the year for your cooking. All your oil needs, including making perfume. Olive oil is the base for perfume. You put very aromatic spices in there, be your perfume. Also, some soaps could be made out of that. Various things, whatever you'd use olive oil for. And all of that goes into storage, along with your tithe type oil. When all of that is done, you take this mashed mess and you scoop it out and you put it in whatever you've got. Maybe it's a burlap bag, whatever you can get it into. Maybe some old rags or cloths or something. Lay it in there, roll it up, and hook it onto something and start twisting it. Twist, twist, twist, twist, twist. It doesn't matter if the cloths are clean or anything else. This is, you might call, bulk oil. You're going to get all you can. This is the stuff that is actually useful because this is your lamp oil for the year. And once you're done with the harvest, you're done for the entire year. Now, it's interesting in this story here in Matthew 25 that in verse 6, At midnight a cry was heard, behold the bridegroom is coming. When does the bridegroom come? What feast would be associated with that?

Feast of trumpets. Feast of trumpets is pretty much the end of the year, the cycle of olive oil. You've already been using your oil and burning your lamps all year long, and now you're coming up to the fall festivals. Your lamp oil, which was kind of hard to get, you don't have a lot left. So you can see right here that the wise are saying, we, in verse 9, there might not be enough for us. You go to those who sell and buy for yourselves. Now, in this process, something's out of line, isn't it?

Lamp oil is actually a normal byproduct of just living the life on the farm, of putting God first with the first oil, of loving God with your heart, soul, and mind, loving your neighbor as yourself. And having the byproduct of lamp oil is just a normal part of the course. But here we have other virgins who apparently have not been part of this process. They haven't been engaged in this oil production, and now they need to get it some other way. Some other way.

I think that if you notice, if we are preparing by living the way we should, having oil for our lamps when the time is right to go meet the bridegroom, it's just an automatic part of life. It's being in the right place at the right time. It's unknowingly prepared. If you go further in this chapter to, in verse 37, the righteous, the lancer, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry? To them, this wasn't something they did for getting something. It wasn't some special, extreme thing that they reached out and did. When did we see that? We're just living the life here. He said, oh, great, welcome into the kingdom. He said to the sheep and to the goats, you go somewhere else. Now, when they tell them this, and they say, you rather go to those and buy for yourselves, consider this is midnight in a rural city, a rural town. At midnight, how do you go? If you don't have oil in your lamp, how do you go in the dark to even find the shop, let alone a shop that's open at midnight? And there are none. How would you go find the shop owner at midnight? And if you could bang on his door and say, hey, would you get up and go sell me the cheapest oil that you own? Would you do that at midnight for me? It's kind of ridiculous, isn't it? It's all skewed here. It's out of the realm of what is expected in something that is normal. It's some alternate way of obtaining the byproduct that comes normally from living God's way. It's a typical human response to say, well, I'll buy my way in. You know that term? I don't belong there, but I'll buy my way in. I haven't paid my dues, but I'll somehow get in. You think of the things in the Bible that go along that way. Sometimes my wife and I will bump into some historic churches. And invariably you're met with, oh, you can buy forgiveness here. It doesn't cost too much. A few candles and some money, a donation.

You can buy an indulgence over here. Maybe you can pay in advance for a sin. You can do something over here in this corner, and you'll be able to bypass having to live the way God says, but you'll still get the end result. You see what I'm saying? One who is ascribed as being one of the founders of that theology is mentioned in Acts 8 and verse 18. Let's notice Acts 8 and verse 18 about an individual that's known as Simon Magus or Simon the Magician.

Acts 8, verse 17, they laid hands on these individuals who had been baptized and they received the Holy Spirit. In verse 18, Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands, the Holy Spirit was given. He offered them money. I'll take the Holy Spirit too. Through an alternate means, I'll buy it. How do you get the Holy Spirit? Well, it's through the process of repentance. From a calling from God, you repent and you have faith. And then you're baptized for the remission of sins, and then you receive the Holy Spirit.

Simon didn't want to do that. He just wanted an alternate way of getting that. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, notice some other alternate ways that we humans will perhaps try to come up with in order to shortcut and have an alternative method other than doing the work of becoming a child of God, of developing the Holy Righteous Character that comes through the Holy Spirit and develops that agape mindset.

That's what God wants. He doesn't want somebody to show up and artificially say, Oh, love is giving? Okay, here, let me give. Love is serving? Oh, I'll do this one act of service. Love is sacrifice? Okay, I'll take the bullet for the group. I'll take the bullet for the... I'm not part of the church. I have nothing to do with this way of life, but I'll take the bullet, and then, see, that'll pay my way in.

Notice what Paul says, Though I speak with the tongue of men and angels, even though, okay, I know what I'll do, I will get up and preach the gospel in a very persuasive way. But if I have not a gape, if I haven't developed that mindset, I've become sounding brass and a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy, oh, that's what I'll do. Instead of being a loving, serving, humble person who's repenting and overcoming, I will get to understand prophecies. In fact, I will declare prophecies, and they'll come true, and that will make me move to the head of the line, and I'll get in that way. But he says, If I understand all mysteries and knowledge and have all faith so that I can remove... Oh, there it is. I could throw that mountain into the sea. Look at me! Now I can get in the kingdom, but if I have not a gape, I'm nothing. And so Peter and John told Simon Magus, Your money, perish with you.

It's nothing. Well, okay. God's love is about giving. Fine. I will go to every homeless shelter, and I will serve soup. Paul says in verse 3, And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor. You know, humans are very crafty about being greedy and selfish and piling up a great pile and then becoming benevolent. You know, people who are great givers of things.

Though I give my body to be burned, I'll take it for the church. You know, burn me. No, if I do not have love, it profits me nothing. Ten virgins showed up later. Guess what they had? Well, we're not sure. But let's notice here in Matthew chapter 25 what takes place in this parable. Jesus designed, devised this parable with an important lesson for us.

Chapter 25 in verse 10, While they went to buy, whatever that was, and however they got there, and who knows, they might have had to wait till sun up in order for there to be light. The bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding. They were ready. Notice the word ready. We are to live our lives going in a certain process, developing this process of converting into the divine children of God through His mindset.

And they were ready. They went in with Him to the wedding, and the door was shut. Now that's not all. In verse 11, afterward the other virgins came also. They showed up. Alright, we got some...we don't know. They showed up, it just says. Maybe it was light now. Or maybe they got some oil from another... Maybe what they did is they went over and got some motor oil. Who knows? But they showed up. He doesn't even tell us.

They just showed up. And they said, Lord, open to us. Now let's assume they had gotten some lamp oil. Let's assume they had gotten some good olive oil. And put it in their lamps, and now they showed up. Is this oil from an alternate... An alternate means, an alternate way, some special, unique thing that they went and did and got oil and showed up with it. Is that acceptable? Jesus answered and said, Assuredly I say to you, I do not know you. I do not know you. It's like John said in 1 John, He who says I know Him and doesn't keep His commandments as a liar, and the truth is not in Him.

So from this parable, we begin to find here an important thing that we have to be part of a genuine walk, a genuine way of life. You and I need to be preparing so that whenever God comes, we're the real deal. We've been in the process. We have the things that God is looking for, for the harvest. Let's notice in 2 Peter 3 and verse 10. 2 Peter 3 and verse 10, I began this talking about a group of people in Johnstown who saw a 60-foot wall of water and debris coming right at them, who probably just stared at it and said, What is that?

I don't know if you've ever seen a flood that comes on dry land before, but it's odd. It is eerie. It is not what you think. It is not really water. It is debris that is slowly tumbling in an odd way. As it comes down a channel, the things in the front are odd. It's sort of getting larger and you wonder what it is. It's eerily quiet and strange.

It makes you almost stop and pause and think, What is that? Notice here in 2 Peter 3 and verse 10, But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. To whom? To you? To me? Do you not know that Jesus Christ is coming? Do you not know that when he comes, the first resurrection takes place? And many will be welcomed in, and unfortunately many will undergo weeping and gnashing of teeth. Do we not know that? Do we not know what happens at the seventh trump?

Do we not know that at the third resurrection there is a lake of fire that burns up all who do not reach that goal, the attributes that God wants us to obtain in this life? We need to remember Jesus' words. When you see the tender buds, you know that spring is near. Let's look in verse 14 here in 2 Peter 3.

Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things... Oh, it's not even about unawareness or a question. No, we look forward to that. We pray. Our Father in Heaven, your kingdom come.

Help our flight to not be on the Sabbath or in the winter. We are looking forward to that. We are to be preparing for that. That's what Jesus told us to pray. Be diligent to be found by Him in peace or in harmony without spot and blameless. Be a person who is a byproduct of God living in you.

The Holy Spirit developing the fruits of the Spirit. The child of God growing and developing and maturing. Be that individual. That's all. You don't have to be, Oh, I'm worried now. He's going to come any minute. Now I've got to go do something special. No. Just do the work that He has asked you to do. It was a message of repentance and forgiveness that we were to teach. It's a message of teaching them to observe all things I command you after baptism.

It's a daily, forgive us of our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. It's a daily, looking for the bread of life to develop us and grow us.

If we're in that process, verse 14, then we will be in harmony with God, with His laws, with His kingdom, without spot and blameless. That's what the bride is. She's without spot and blameless. In Ephesians 5, Jesus said, He washes the bride so that she is without spot and wrinkle. That's what we're to be involved in.

Verse 17, then, You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, we know all these things. Beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked. We can get mixed back up with the wicked, with the world, with the evil age.

Verse 18, But grow in the grace, the cherith, if you look at Strong's dictionary, you'll find this word includes the entire process of conversion. Grow in this process of conversion, where God calls, He leads us to repentance, His Holy Spirit begins to convert us.

We are compelled to do the good works that spring from the agape mind of God. Be involved. Grow in those things. And the knowledge of our Lord Jesus. Grow up into Him. Know what God is. To Him be the glory, both now and forever.

In conclusion, I'd like to cover a couple of passages with you.

You and I are not to be like the world in the day of Noah. And surprised when the heavens and the earth opened up and various things take place. We're not even supposed to be there. We're supposed to be in a place where God is protecting us, feeding us. Our food will be sure. Where we will be safe, away from Satan. That's His intention. In 1 Thessalonians 5, let's begin in verse 1. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 1.

But concerning the times and seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write you. See, we're not unawares. We're more like the people up at the top of the dam. We're related to the owner, the people of the property. We're related to the one who caused the flood, who planned the flood, the one who caused the fire to come down from heaven, and certainly the one who is coming back to correct the world and to chastise the sinning people on earth. We are connected with Him. For you know yourselves perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

For when they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them. Remember that snare? Bam! Sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. You know how that is, guys. You know, one night you're sleeping in bed and then, bam, she wakes you up, time to go! Like, what? We knew it was coming. I saw this bump. We didn't know when. But you know, we're prepared. Car's ready. We've got stuff, got blankets, got the clothes, all set out. Yep, we're prepared. That's what it's like. But they shall not escape. But you, verse 4, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this day should overtake you as a thief. Ah! See, a thief comes and you don't know a thief is coming. Christ is coming and we know He's coming. We just don't know exactly when. So it shouldn't overtake us as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as others do. This is different than the parable of people who work in the day and normally sleep at night. This is talking about being people of the day and being focused on the job that we're to do during the daytime. Let us be watchful and sober for those who sleep, sleep at night, those who get drunk or drunk at night, but let us, verse 8, who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and agape love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. That's what we're to be about, while the world is about those other things. For God did not appoint us to wrath. Wrath means the corrective destruction that God brought in the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, that he's bringing at the end time, the wrath of God in the day of the Lord, the lake of fire, all of those are the wrath of God. And we were not appointed to wrath, but we are appointed to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 11, therefore comfort each other and edify one another, build each other up, encourage one another. We're in this together. It's not every person for themselves. What I'm doing here today is I'm encouraging you, edifying you. Let's really be busy about this, which we've been given to do. In conclusion, let's go to Revelation 19.6. Revelation chapter 19.6 is a time when midnight happens. This is midnight. This is, boom, the time when no one expects. Revelation chapter 19.6.6. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude. Boom! The voice of many waters, Niagara Falls, the voice of many thunders. Boom! Suddenly! What did they say? Alleluia for the Lord God, omnipotent reigns. There's your direct correlation to the 10 virgin prophecy. And verse 7, Let us be glad and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. She's ready. She's there. She's got the oil. She's been doing what she's supposed to have done. And she's ready. She's been preparing. No sudden antics at the end, no special exceptions, no jumping through hoops. She's ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. We need to be about the righteousness, about living the life that God is trying to encourage us to live through His Holy Spirit. When we do that, brethren, we will be preparing for the looming catastrophes.