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Come on, everybody say, Jesus is coming back soon. Last week we left off on Matthew 24. And I want to look at Matthew 24, verse 30, Matthew 24, verse 30. Yeah, you could shout if you want to. Whoo. Boomer. Come on, Jesus. Here we go. And at that time, the sign of the Son of Man coming in his glory. By the way, last week we gave 10 signs of the end times. And then he gets to this verse right here. He says, the Son of Man will appear in the sky. In other words, everybody's going to see him. Everybody's going to see Him. And then all the tribes of the earth, and especially Israel, will mourn, regretting the rebellion and rejection of the Messiah. So there's going to be this grief, like, oh, my goodness, why didn't I listen to the warnings? Why didn't I listen to the word of God? Why didn't I care about end times? Why didn't I care that Jesus was coming back soon? Why was I checked out during this message? And let me pause for a moment. Last night after church, I got a text from a friend, and he said, bro, I was sitting in your Saturday night service. And he said that word was so for me. But he said, I was grieved while I was listening to your message. He said, because there was someone near me, that the entire message was. Was on Zillow, on their app, searching for a house. And he said they didn't realize I could see it. The whole time. I was like, okay, creeper, you know, just looking at the other person's phone. But he said they couldn't tell that I was watching them and they were checked out. And he said it was such a picture of what you were talking about in your message that there will be people who listen in church and people who are checked out on Instagram, checked out on Zillow, sleeping during the message. And Jesus is talking about believers who are actually going to miss it, who weren't ready. That's what we're gonna get into today, who weren't ready for his return. In fact, I wanna title the message today. Ready or not, here I come. Look at the person next to you. Ready or not, here he comes. Jesus is coming back soon. I play this game with my kids at our house. Hide and Go Seek. Or we call. We play certain games, like, what's the one with the wolf? Where did Ashley go? She just walked out with Gianna. She just dropped Gianna. But we play a game where, like, it's like a wolf game. And basically they have time to go hide. And they'll ask me, dad, what are you gonna count to? And I'll say, sometimes I'll tell them I'm count to 30 or I'm gonna count to 60. And then sometimes I won't tell them what I'm count to. I'm saying, you'll just know. Because I'll shout these words out, ready or not. Ready or not. And once I say those words, the kids know movement has to stop. Time has run out. Wherever you're going to hide, you need to stay there, because I'm coming for you, right? And I'll go through the house, I'll turn off all the lights and kind of make it a little scary. I'll walk past, I'll see their feet hiding underneath a blanket or behind a couch, and I'll pretend like I don't see it. I'll be like, I wonder where Liam is. And I'll walk out of the room. And then I'll quietly slip back in and just grab his feet. He's like, ah, I didn't know you were gonna find me. And I said, you should have been listen to those words. Ready or not, here I come. So Jesus is saying this here. He's saying, there's going to come a time they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory and brilliance and splendor. Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24, he will come back, and the world won't fully be ready. There will be some ready, and there will be some not ready. Which leads me to Matthew 25, and we will go back to Matthew 24 in the next week or two. But today I really felt my spirit to share a parable that Jesus shared. In Matthew 25, verse 1, Jesus gives us kind of a story of what this is going to look like. And this is what he says. The kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Now, I'm going to read from the amplified version. So it's going to give us a couple extra points here. But watch what he says next in verse two, he says five of them were foolish. And here's kind of the definition of foolish, thoughtless, silly, and careless. There's 10 virgins. And by the way, in ancient Israel, this kind of a parable would make sense to his listeners. And by the way, Jesus is giving this parable in the same sermon where he's responding to the questions of what will the end look like? How will the end Times play out. When will there be an Antichrist? When will we see your Rapture happen? When is all of this going to take place? And Jesus is giving an answer. In fact, he gives the longest answer to any question, to the question about end times. Any other question in the Bible, he answers pretty short. But the end times question, he gives, like two and a half chapters worth of answers where he's talking from the Mount of Olives and he's telling them what's going to happen. And he gives them the story, and he says, it's going to be like this wedding, and it's going to be like this preparation. And in ancient Israel, when a groom was dedic or getting engaged to a bride, what he would do is the groom would make all of the arrangements, get everything ready, have the engagement. The engagement was so binding, so strong. It was almost like a marriage. Even though they weren't married yet, the engagement, it would be like a divorce to break off the engagement. In our society, engagement is not yet there. There's not been a certificate signed. But in that society, an engagement was basically like a marriage. Okay? So Jesus is telling this parable, and he says, it's like this groom who's engaged, and he's left to go and prepare a place for them. In that society, a groom would leave after the engagement, go back to a house, get a room ready, get all the resources ready, get all the supplies ready, get ready for the marriage. While the bride was preparing herself. You guys hear what I'm saying here? So the bride would be at her place preparing herself. And then like a wedding celebration in ancient Israel, Judea. It was a big deal. I mean, Jesus, first miracle happened at a wedding. Their wedding celebrations lasted long, and everybody was invited. It was kind of like Ashley and I's wedding. We just celebrated 16 years this last week being married. Come on, Jesus. And I remember our wedding was right here in this room. Ashley walked down the aisle, and I remember my dad did our wedding. It was a big celebration. 2000 people at our wedding. And then we went into the gymnasium and we partied like a good Christian church. We had sprites, we had water. We, you know, we sang. We didn't sing. I forget what we did. It was, you know, we were in there and my brother gave a speech. And then Ashley and I left, and we went and celebrated our marriage without y'. All. But I think about how in ancient Israel, the bride would get ready at her house and she wouldn't know when the groom was gonna show up. It wasn't like, on October 17th, at 1pm the wedding's happening. That's not how it was. All the bride knew is that she needed to get ready. And then what they would do is they would have lamps. They would have some kind of a. Let me get this. How do I do this? I might need some help. They didn't help me figure this out. There it is. Okay, we got that. They would have, like, a fire lantern. There we go. Nice. Got it. Come on. Yeah. Thank you, guys. Y' all are like, he's getting better at stuff. We gotta make sure we turn off the fire alarms. Cause this thing is smoking. Okay, all right, all right, all right. Here we go. There we go. Okay. Got it. All right. There we go. Thank you, guys. Y' all are like, he's gonna get it. All right. In Jesus name, anything could happen at. At our church. All right. So they would get their lamps ready. Now, this was actual. Like, Jesus is giving a parable, but he's telling them stuff that they would already know. When they had a wedding, the bride would have a lamp ready, and they would have a procession from their house to his house, from the bride's house to the groom's house, and they would carry a lamp. Once the groom would come to their house, he would say, okay, I'm here. Ready or not, here I am. Right? And then the bride would walk with him. In this case, there's 10 virgins, there's 10 that. That are supposed to be going. And the bride would walk with him. And there would be a procession in the streets. And the bride would have to carry her lamp through the streets in the dark, right? And usually the groom would come back at evening time, around 5 or 6pm, 7pm but in this case, we're going to find out that he comes much later than they expected. Then he came at an hour. They weren't ready. But usually he would come right as it was getting dark. And the brides would walk with their lantern down the streets of Israel, down the street of Jerusalem, preparing to go to his house, to go into the new place that he had prepared for them. They were leaving their old house, never to return, going into a new house with their groom. And people would be in the street celebrating as the bride would be carrying her lamp, her torch. Now, here's the only thing is usually the oil could only keep their lamp burning for about 30 or 40 minutes. So they always had to have extra oil. Everybody say extra oil. They had to have backup oil, because otherwise they would run out. And if you ran out you couldn't just take somebody else's lamp. You had to have your own lamp and you had to have your own oil. Now Jesus is going to tie this all together for us. So watch this. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. Now he is actually connecting these ten virgins. Ten in Israel is the number of completion. Ten represents, basically like the number of a quorum. Ten would be enough to have a congregation. Ten would be enough to have a church service. You could say he's talking about a church here. He's not talking about five Christians and five atheists. He's not talking about five believers and five unbelievers. He's talking about 10 churchgoers, that there's going to be 10 people in church. Pick any 10 of us in this room. Jesus is saying 10 of you are going to be invited to this wedding. Now, I believe he's talking about all of us, but let's just say 10 for a second. 5 will be ready. 50% of the church will be ready and 50% won't be ready. That's really what he's saying. He's not saying 50% of the world will be ready and 50% of not the world. You know, the other side of the world would be. He's talking about the church. He's talking about Christians. Everybody say he's talking about us. So five churchgoers were thoughtless, careless, they approached end times. Just joking around like this doesn't matter. I'm checking out on social media. Paul's not preaching a sermon that I really care to hear. It's not for me, it's for other people. I'll wait till he's preaching about something funny that relates to me. And so they're shorts and Christians, shallow 5 were wise, far sighted, practical, sensible, leaning in. And watch what happens next in verse three. For when the foolish took their lamps, they did not take any extra oil with them. Everybody say extra oil, extra oil. In other words, they weren't prepared. Go to verse four. But the wise took flasks of oil along with their lamps. In other words, they were anticipating the this might take longer than we expected. He might come at an hour. We weren't ready and we don't want our lamps to burn out. And their anticipation led to their preparation. And go to verse five. Now, while the bridegroom was delayed, and that's an important word right there, delayed, they all began to nod off and they all fell asleep. Everybody say delayed. All of us in this room at times have gotten tired in our Journey of following Jesus. By the way, the ones who fall asleep here, who wake up ready, they still get to go into the wedding. But the ones who wake up and they're not ready, they miss out on it. Jesus was coming back at an hour that they weren't expecting. Usually in ancient Israel, the groom would show up early evening, like dark 5, 6, 7pm and then they would walk through the streets. But in this moment, go to the next verse. In this moment, it says, while the bridegroom came, it was midnight. Midnight. Now, there is an actual group of people here in the United States. They have a doomsday clock. It's a group of scientists and engineers, and they actually determine when the end of the world is going to come. These are not Christian people. They just study, like, wars and nuclear bombs and all the different countries and all the stuff that's going on, earthquakes. And they said we are closer to midnight, closer to the end of the world than we've ever been before. 89 seconds to midnight is what they've recently said in the start of 2025. In other words, they said, there is a stirring in our earth. There's a stirring in our earth. Now, these are people that don't know Bible prophecy. But for us as Christians, we can sense there is a stirring not just in the earth, but even amongst humanity, even what the Bible has prophesied. There's 2,500 prophecies in the Bible, and 2,000 of them have already been fulfilled. There's 500 left to go. And once they start happening in these end times, I'm telling you, it's gonna happen one after another. Jesus said he will come at an hour that nobody knows. In fact, if you back up, go to Matthew 24, verse 30, Matthew 24:30. In this verse, Matthew 24, verse 30, he tells you, he says, at that time, the sign of the Son of Man coming in his glory will appear in the sky. In other words, everybody's gonna see it. All the tribes of the earth, especially Israel, will mourn, regretting the rebellion. That word regretting. They're going to have this sense of, why didn't I listen? Why wasn't I paying attention? Why was I checked out in this moment, Jesus says, when I come back, there's going to be a regretfulness. There's going to be this sense of why didn't we listen? They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, brilliance and splendor. And now skip down to verse 44. Watch what he Says here, therefore you who follow me must also. Everybody say, be ready, because the Son of man is coming at an hour that you do not expect him. Now this is what he's talking about here in Matthew 25. He's saying that the groom was delayed. The groom didn't come when they thought he was going to come. And because he didn't come when they thought he was going to come, they fell asleep, they got tired, they got weary. And then all of a sudden. Go back to Matthew 25, and let's go to verse seven. All of those virgins got up. No, go to verse six. Go to verse six. At midnight there was a shout. Look, the bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet him. In other words, there was this announcement, he's here, he's here. The king has come back, the groom has come back. And so the virgins begin to get ready. In verse seven, all the bridesmaids, they begin to get ready. They got up, they put on their own lamps in order to trimmed their wicks, added oil and lit them. In verse 8. But the foolish virgin said to the wise, give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out. Let me give a quick analogy of what this looks like. I was in an airport not too long ago, and we were headed to go meet up with a group of pastors for this ministry conference. And I saw this family running through the airport. They had all their bags and they're like. I could tell they were stressed. I think there were some bad words coming out of their mouths at each other. They were mad. And I felt for them because I've been in that place before where I'm running to get to my flight. So they're running towards this gate, and it happened to be right near the gate that I was going to. And I can just see them, they're running towards this gate. And they got all their bags and they get to the door and they're trying to talk to the person who's at the gate. And they're saying, please, please let us in. Our flight was delayed. Please let us in. And she said, the door has been shut. And I literally am watching them bang on the door. Please, please let us in. And they were stressed. I was like, calm down, someone calls security. But I got this picture. I was like, that's it. Let us in, Noah let us in. We should have listened to you. You remember when Noah was building the ark and he was preaching righteousness? The Bible says Noah preached and he built. He preached and he built. He preached and he built. And while he was preaching and building, people were laughing at him. They were like, noah, you're a crazy man. You're a madman. Why are you preaching on end times? It hasn't rained in 500 years, Noah. It's not going to happen. And there's people in church scrolling on Instagram as I preach, scrolling on Zillow as I preach. Checked out from church. You're here, but you're not here. And one day, you will get to the gate. Please, please let us in. Please. Can I have your ticket? Can I have your ticket? What if someone walked over to me? I'm at the other gate. And then what if they said, can I have your ticket? I'm like, I'm going to Chicago. This is my name. My name is on my ticket. How are you going to take my ticket with my name going to Chicago to get to your destination? Detroit. In other words, my salvation is not transferable to my son. Jason Nussbaum's salvation is not transferable to Drew. I can't write off of the salvation of other church members in this church. I can't live off of Ty's discipleship thinking, well, as long as Ty's a good man, I can slip up, I can screw up, I can do whatever I want. But as long as I'm close to Ty, who's really close to God, his closeness to God is going to get me closer to God. No, no, no. It is your personal responsibility. Jesus is coming back soon. Ready or not, here I come. And my question is, do you have your lamp? And do you have the extra oil? Jesus is telling this story, and I can just see people listening to him. As it's getting darker outside, the wise said, no, if we share our oil with you, we'll run out for ourselves. Go and buy oil for yourself. Go and buy oil for yourself. But while they were going away to buy oil, the bridegroom came. And those who were ready, everybody say ready. Those who were ready to meet him went in with him to the wedding feast, and the door was shut and locked. Later, the others also came and said, lord, Lord, open the door. We finally got our oil. And here's my question. While the groom was delayed, did they not have time to get their oil? They had time. He was delayed. He was giving them a window of time to get right. He was giving America a window of time to repent of sexual sin, to repent of idolatry. You go, I'll get my oil. When he shows up, you better get your oil right Now I'll get my ticket once I get to the airport and the plane is sitting on. I'll never forget y'. All. I got left behind on a flight like, what. What made me really break for this family that was locked outside their gate is I saw this picture in my head of what happened to me. When I first graduated from college, I had my first ministry opportunity to go and preach and lead worship in Australia. And I was so excited for it. And I was bringing my band with me, and we were going to Sydney, Australia, to minister. And this church had paid for us to come, and it was such an honor and a privilege. And so we got there early to the airport, like three hours early. Got our bags checked in. We're going through the Tulsa airport. We had to fly Tulsa to Dallas, Dallas to la, and LA to Sydney. It was a whole route. So we made our flight. Tulsa to Dallas, from Dallas to la. Our pilot was late to our flight. And so then we end up leaving later than we were supposed to. And so we land in la and I hear over the intercom when we're getting off our plane, we're walking into the LA airport. Final boarding call for Sydney, Australia. Final boarding call. You have two minutes to get to gate B49 or you will be left behind. Behind, behind, behind. Behind. Behind. Final boarding call. Everybody say, final boarding call. It's kind of a scary thought. In other words, everyone else is on. You have very little time left. You have very little time. So we were rushing, and we got to that gate, our band were all running to get there, and they shut the door right when we walked up. I watched them shut the door. I tried everything. I was like, I will give you an extra $10 because that's all I had. I will give you my laptop. I will give you. Please. Because they said the next flight won't be for two more days. They said, we canceled the flight for tomorrow, so the next flight's in two days. Our conference we were supposed to minister at was that next day. In other words, we had to land, and we had two hours to minister. And then their conference was by the time we were going to get there, if we missed this flight, by the time we would get there, the conference would be over. And I could feel it. I could feel the regretfulness, the sadness, the anger at the pilot that made us late. I was like, it's not our fault. And I remember standing at the gate just trying to get in. We never got in. We missed the conference. It was so sad. The pastor, he decided he was going to wait to invite us back. He just invited me to come back literally next year in 2026. It's been 16 years. Finally get to redeem myself. I'm not missing my flight. Go to that last verse of this passage. He replied, I assure you and most solemnly say to you, I do not know you. This is important right here. We have no relationship right there. No relationship. Don't you just like the writing on the TV screen? Isn't that fun? I like writing on that screen. Everybody say, no relationship. Now, this is crazy, because they were engaged to him. Like, this wasn't five foolish. This wasn't five people who had never met the groom. This wasn't five people who had never had any interaction with the groom. This wasn't five people who weren't invited to the wedding. These were five that were actually on the invitation list. We gotta listen to this parable and recognize Jesus isn't talking about people who are outside the church. He's talking about people that were in the church. They went down to an altar call, they said a prayer, but somewhere along the way, they stopped lighting their lamp. Somewhere along the way, they stopped following the word of God. They stopped heeding the Holy Spirit. They ignored the correction and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And they settled for whatever their itching ears craved to hear. And that's why at victory, when you come here, we're always going to preach the truth, even if it offends all of us in the room. Because we need the truth. In a world with artificial intelligence everywhere, truth has never been more necessary and never been more dangerous. This is why people are getting killed for speaking the truth. On college campuses. We have to recognize the hour we live in. Truth is so necessary and truth is so offensive at the same time. It's like that is so offensive. Paul, the cross is offensive. Jesus came preaching an offensive message, even to religious people. It was the religious people that killed Jesus. But his message was offensive to people that wanted to stay in sin, people that wanted to keep on sinning, stay in darkness. Jesus kept sharing the truth. And he said five were ready and five were foolish. All 10 had the same invitation. All 10 had the same initial response to the groom. They all got ready at first. All 10 got ready at first. All 10 were invited at first. All 10 were preparing for this wedding. But five along the way stopped preparing. In other words, it's a continual process. This is a continual thing. It's not just once a year or once a week. It's got to be daily I want to give us five principles, five lessons we can learn from these five wise virgins with oil. If we could take each of these virgins that we learn from in this passage in Matthew 25 and go, what does this represent to you and I as believers? Number one. Stay filled with the Holy Spirit. Stay filled with the Holy Spirit. Did you know when the. When the early church was birthed? In Acts chapter two, the Holy Spirit was poured out on them, and they began speaking in other tongues. They began praying and making disciples and ministering and baptizing others. And others receive the Holy Spirit. But receiving the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter two doesn't mean you are continually, daily, always filled with the Holy Spirit. If you continue to live in sin. Sin separates us from God. Well, I think God forces us to always have the filling of the Holy Spirit every single day of our life. No, God is a gentleman. God doesn't force himself on anybody that doesn't want Him. What does darkness have to do with light? What does light have to do with darkness? The Holy Spirit will fill you if you receive them, if you're open to it, if you're hungry for it. But if you refuse, if you reject and you go. How can a believer who's filled with the Holy Spirit reject the Holy Spirit? I've seen it happen throughout my whole lifetime. I grew up in this church. I watched people who were born again, spirit filled, had an encounter with God at the altar, and then within, like, months or even a year, do things that were totally against the Holy Spirit. You go, well, what happened? Did they lose the Holy Spirit? No, they rejected the Holy Spirit. They rejected the heatings and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And if we're honest with ourselves, we've all missed it in this room. How many of y' all have ever missed it in your life? Even after you accepted Jesus in your heart? Have you ever said something you shouldn't have said? Thought something you shouldn't? Yeah, we've all done that before. And if you do it enough, you become calloused, you become lukewarm, you become lethargic, you become foolish. What separated the wise from the foolish? The wise were filled on a daily basis with the Holy Spirit. Doesn't mean that they never missed it. It means that they were constantly going back to the source of the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. This last week, we got to spend time with Pastor Bill Johnson, one of our mentors, and he was pouring into me and Ashley and a couple other pastors, and he was talking to us about how he stays filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, I think Pastor Bill is 75. He's been pastoring for 50 years, and he's written a lot of books on the Holy Spirit. He's come and preached here at our conference. And so he was telling us that every single day he takes communion. He said, I don't wait for a church service to take communion every day. I want to have communion with the Holy Spirit. So he said, I'll have a piece of bread in my kitchen. Doesn't have to be any special bread, but I'll have a piece of bread reminding me this is the body of Christ. I'll have a juice. I'll have a drink of juice reminding me of the blood that Jesus poured out for me. And I'll pray, lord, forgive me of any sins I've committed, knowingly or unknowingly. You go, well, what did Pastor Bill do? That doesn't matter. What did you do? We're always trying to figure out what other pastors sinned in when we should be looking at what did we sin in. We need to check our own hearts and go, God, where do I need to ask for repent, forgiveness? What keeps me on fire is repentance, humility, hunger, communion. Why does Pastor Bill have such a good relationship with God? Not because he's perfect, but because he stays humble. He stays in communion. He stays filled with the Holy Spirit. And then within that same prayer, he says, and lord, help me forgive whoever has offended me recently. Now, I'll tell you one thing. If you want to lose your fire fast, get offended. Get offended. How many? All have been offended by some people in your lifetime? Yeah, I have, too. And when you nurture that offense, it just puts that fire right out, like getting offended. I gotta make sure I do this right so I don't burn this place up. Here we go. How do I do this? How do I do this, guys? What do I do here? Somebody help me. Oh, there we go. Y' all are like, he's gonna get it in Jesus name. That's what offense does. Offense just blows your fire right out. You want to lose your fire? Get offended at people. Get offended at everything. I'm so offended at this person. I'm offended at that person. I'm so bitter. No wonder you lost your fire. When's the last time you went to the cross and said, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Lord, forgive me as I forgive those who've trespassed against me. Staying filled with the Holy Spirit is staying in A place of constant forgiveness, constant communion, y'. All. Jesus is coming back soon. We're so focused on the calendar, we should be focused on our character. Come on. I'm dropping some bombs today on y'. All. We're so focused on the dates. Did you know there's been 250 predictions when Jesus is coming back? Two hundred and fifty predictions. We got it. There we go. Fire's back. 250 predictions since 33 AD of when Jesus come back. Let me give you a couple of them real fast, because end times is serious, but there is a little bit of humor connected to human flesh doing this. In 1988, there was a book that came out called 88 Reasons Jesus is Coming back in 1988. How many all remember that? Okay, I was three years old, so I didn't read it, but I remember hearing my dad talk about it. And obviously Jesus didn't come back in 1988. Then there was a guy named Harold Camping who said Jesus was coming back in 1994, September 6th. Well, he didn't come back, so he changed the date. He said he's actually coming back in September 29th. Jesus didn't come back on that date. So then he changed it. He's actually coming back on October 2nd. Somebody needs to get the guy's microphone and just pull it away from him for a second. He didn't come back on October 2nd. Same guy predicted he's coming back March 31st, 1995. Didn't come back. Y', all. This dude had five predictions then he waited 15 years. He said, okay, 2011, May 21st. He is coming back. Didn't come back. All right, we need to stop trying to figure out the calendar of when Jesus is coming back. All these predictions came from people who saw in their lifetime great chaos, wars, signs in the sky, natural disasters, blood moons, all of these things. These are things Jesus said would prepare the way. But nobody knows the day or the hour, Jesus said. Not even the angels in heaven. Not even the son of man himself. Matthew 24, verse 36. Jesus says, I don't even know when I'm coming back. Only the Father knows. Ready or not, here I come. Ready or not, Jesus says, I don't even know, but God will tell me in the twinkling of an eye, like a thief in the night. Now, in Oklahoma, if a thief shows up at our door, how many y' all have been packing? How many all got the heat in your house? You got some shotguns, you got some guns? Y' all like, I ain't raising my hand. People know I got. If a thief shows up, y'. All. If I knew a thief was coming to our house, I'd be calling all my friends with guns. I'd be like, y' all come. He's coming tonight at 11pm we would all be out in front of my house with guns, hiding in the bush and just ready to shoot that thief, right? But Jesus said, no one will know. No one will know. No one will be prepared. Now, that can either scare you or. Or it can stir you with faith to get filled with the Holy Spirit. Since we don't know the day on the calendar, we should be less focused on the calendar and more focused on our character. Our character. Everybody say our character. Not other people's character. Not what they're sinning in or what they're doing. Getting online to figure out who's got the latest sin. We need to be focused on our character. Stay filled with the Holy Spirit. Number two. All right, five lessons we can learn. Number two, Spiritual preparedness and vigilance. This is just spiritually staying prepared. Keeping the extra oil. The wise virgin's actions demonstrate forethought. In other words, they were thinking ahead of time. They were anticipating he might be delayed. And because he might be delayed, they prepared in connection to their anticipation. Their forethought, their intentionality got them to have extra oil. And this is a reminder to keep watch and to stay vigilant, because the truth is, Jesus may come back at a time we don't expect. So that means we need to constantly be keeping extra oil in our life. Number three. The five wise virgins remind us of active and ongoing faith. The extra oil is not just a reminder of the symbol of the Holy Spirit. There's a lot of fire going there. But that extra oil is not just. You know, in the Bible, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, oil represents the Holy Spirit. The fire represents being filled with the Holy Spirit. But it also represents an act of faith. Jesus said, you are the light of the world. You now have that light living inside you. This little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine. I started too high on that. This little light, I'm high, gonna let it shine. This little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine Let it shine. That's active faith. Everybody say active faith. That means on a daily basis, I'm looking for ways to show the Jesus inside of me. I'm cultivating a relationship with God. I'm not just waiting for Sunday to open my Bible. I'm opening my Bible on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I'm reading my Bible. I'm having early morning Bible time. I'm having late night Bible study. I'm having. I'm turning my car rides into worship services. Instead of listening to talk radio and more, you know, news, divisive back and forth debates, I'm gonna listen to the word of God. I'm gonna play worship music. I'm gonna spend some time praying. And I'm not saying that you can't be up to date with the news. I'm just saying have an active faith on a daily basis. Take some time every single day to pray. Take some time every single day to get in the word of God. Take some time every single day to give thanks to God. That's an active daily faith. Take time every single day to ask the Holy Spirit, who do you want me to minister to today? Who do you want me to pray for today? How can I encourage somebody? Who should I text? Holy Spirit? God will drop names on my heart, and I'm like, why did I just have a thought about someone I haven't thought about in 10 years? And then the Holy Spirit will say, because you need to pray for them. Because you need to send a text of encouragement. Because you need to let them know, hey, God's not finished with you yet. What is that? That's an act of ongoing faith. I'm looking for ways to let my light shine. Number four. These five virgins teach us individual responsibility, individual responsibility for salvation. Everybody say, it's my job. The buck stops with me. Notice that the five foolish virgins, they came to, the five wise virgins. They said, give us some of your oil. Give us some of your preparation. Give us some of your salvation. Give us some of your relationship with God. Give us some of your fire. Give us some of your oil. And the five wise men said, we can't transfer what we have built personally between us and God. It would be like someone coming to me at the airport saying, give me your ticket with your name on it. It won't work. It doesn't have. I'm going to use an example, but everyone's saved here. Okay? I believe that. And if you're not saved, you have an opportunity at the end of this service to get saved. But I'm going to just say for a moment, Drew Bontrager. Let's say I run into Drew in the airport and his flight takes off, and he's left at the gate. The door has shut, he can't get on. And he comes to me and I'm getting on another flight. He says, can I have your ticket? That's foolish, right? Because number one, it's got my name on it. Number two, I'm going somewhere he's not going. Let's say we're going on the same flight and he loses his ticket. And he doesn't have a ticket on his phone and he doesn't have. For some reason, he didn't prepare. He lost it. He didn't have it ready. He didn't have the app with. Downloaded with this American Airlines ticket comes to me, can I have your ticket? It won't work. Even though we're going to the same place, we're on the same plane, we've both. He even bought a ticket. But somewhere along the way, he lost the ticket. Somewhere along the way, he wasn't holding on to it. Somewhere along the way, he didn't prepare when he got to the airport. My ticket won't work for him. In other words, this is personal responsibility. Now, there's a lot of people in church that want to ride off of other people's relationship with God. Even as a pastor's kid, I oftentimes wanted to live off of my mom and dad's fire, my mom and dad's relationship with God. This is a great reminder for kids. Teenagers, develop your own personal relationship with Jesus. Your parents can't get you into heaven. They love you, they want you to go to heaven, but ultimately it is your personal responsibility. We want the kids pastor to, you know, save our children, disciple our children. We have to have a personal commitment to be discipled. It is not Pastor Amy's job to save my kids. My kids have to make a personal decision that they are going to receive Jesus in their heart. They have to make a. I have to make a personal decision that I'm going to follow Jesus. It's not Pastor Larry Stockstill's job to make sure that I'm following Jesus all the days of my life. He's going to call me, he's going to check up on me, but he's not with me every single day of my life. He's not with me when no one else is around. I've got to make a personal decision. Jesus stands at the door and he knocks. Jesus won't force anyone to be saved. He won't force anyone to be discipled. He won't force anyone to get free from sin or be humble or repent or treat your wife right or treat your husband right or treat your kids right or Treat yourself right. Jesus stands at the door and he's like, every single day, I want to help you. I want to help you, but you got to let me in every day. You gotta put down the screen, you gotta turn off the apps, and you gotta let Jesus disciple you, and you can't wait for someone else to do it for you. I want the band to come out. Number five. These five wise virgins remind us of perseverance through trial. All ten grew drowsy. The Bible says all ten fell asleep. But when the bridegroom showed up, ready or not, here I come. Five got up and they were immediately ready because they had extra oil. They were walking around like this, this extra oil. This is oil, by the way. We gotta be very careful here. You're like, yep, somebody take it from them in Jesus name. But this extra oil represents perseverance. Perseverance. We build up perseverance in the good times so that we can handle the adversity, so that we can handle the hard times. We prepare while we're here on Sundays. We prepare while we're in this place and we're studying together and we're worshiping together. We're in our Bible and we're praying, and then we go out into the week and we need that extra oil in your quiet time, in your prayer time, when you haven't been offended yet, when you haven't left your house yet, when you haven't gotten those emails and text messages, when you haven't seen what's on the news, when you haven't gotten that emergency phone call that could just stop you in your tracks and throw you into a panic attack before you've opened up your phone. We prepare with extra oil. We get that extra oil in our quiet time with God, and we're saying, okay, God, I'm probably going to walk into some hard things this week. I'm probably going to walk through some trials. I believe that the Rapture will happen, but I also want to be prepared because the reality is hard times are already here. We're not necessarily escaping all the difficulties of life. Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble. But take heart. I have overcome the world. Greater is he that lives in me than he that's in this world. So I prepare to persevere. Every say, persevere. How many have walked through some trials in the last month, in the last year? Yeah, I think this is a word. I really feel to close this here. I have 10 more pages of notes. We'll get into it in the future weeks. How many all appreciate that we're taking time to talk about end times. Okay? If you don't, you're not going to like the next few weeks. But I'm telling you, don't miss it. Because even if you're not a fan of hearing this, we need this. We need this. My dad every year used to do an end time series. And I realized I haven't done an end time series in the last four years. And it's not that I ignored it, it's that I was preaching other things and I was convicted by the Holy Spirit. I need to be preaching end times at least once a year. And we need to take not just one week, but a few or more than a few weeks to really study what did Jesus have to say? Because he preaches about end times throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And then what does the book of Revelation have to say? That's a whole book dedicated to end times. What do we do? And then you got Daniel the prophet in the Old Testament. You've got.