OIL FOR OUR LAMPS
HOLY SPIRIT and OIL
Tuesday Morning Bible Study
May 26, 2020, the Year of Our Lord
After the Corona-virus battle, we need to refill the “Oil” in our lamps. In the battle, the Lord gave us grace to fight the good fight of Faith by His Spirit. Now, O’ Lord from your Holy Place, fill us with a fresh supply of manna and oil from your well and from your river.
In the time of Ezekiel, God complained that the prophets were not preparing the people for the day of battle, nor making up the hedge of defense so the people would be able to stand in the day of the LORD (Ez. 13:5).
The Holy Spirit is saying to this Church, “well done, good and faithful servants.”
Ex. 27:20: You shall command the children of Israel, that they bring you pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always.
Matt. 25:13: Then shall the Kingdom of Heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
I am not going to get into the mechanics of the parable. Are these virgins’ part of the brides-maids, or part of the bride? God forbid that our walking with God should degenerate into a system of theology where we pigeon-hole truth and then fight over doctrine.
Theology takes the teeth out of truth. Man debating theology degrades truth to the doctrines of men and devils. Truth is devastating to the natural man. Until we come to the places of total devastation as far as the natural man is concerned, we are not going to experience the beauty of true spiritual life.
Preachers we must prepare the “Bride” with oil for the days of darkness that are upon the earth. It is “now” days of testing and trial for God’s people. Those days are not coming. The global Corona-virus was a trial run. Yes, for the antichrist to test his power over the nations; but also, a test for the Bride.
The Lord has warned us that there was an hour of trial to come upon the world, “to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev. 3:10). God has shown us the way to overcome in the day of persecution, flood, famine, darkness, gloominess and in the day when he sends fire on the earth (911). It is a day of the unveiling of the spiritual worth or bankruptcy of the Church.
We as a church body went before God and declared ourselves “guilty,” “helpless,” and “bankrupt,” except for His Grace. We asked him to “buy gold tried in the fire,” “white raiment” to clothe ourselves, and “eye salve to anoint our eyes” that we may see in the Spirit what God is doing on the earth.
The wise and foolish were all virgins. They all had lamps---they took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. If they were the “brides-maids,” you can be sure the bride would require even greater diligence for her preparation than would the brides-maids themselves. All their lamps were burning with oil; for at the midnight hour they did not arise and light their lamps---they rose up and “trimmed” them. They came to this place of waiting and of sleeping, with lamps that were burning; but as they slept their lamps grew dim. The light from the lamps of the foolish appeared to be equally illuminating as the light from the lamps of the wise. But there was one difference, and this was only revealed in the midnight hour. The wise had brought along with them a supply of oil “in their vessels” --while the foolish were trusting that the lamp they had would keep burning, without any extra supply.
The oil in our lamp will burn out except we have a total abiding union with the LORD. There is no blessing, no experience, no gift, no ministry, no Church structure, that will keep your lamp burning in the hour of trial. Having the right arrangement, the proper New Testament pattern, the right kind of structure or covering, the right order—these will not suffice. Having His gifts, His blessings, His ministries—these in themselves will not do. They have their purpose, a very needful purpose, and that is to bring us into relationship with Christ unto the fulness of God.
But if this is not the vision and the hope, and if this is not the objective of our gatherings together in HIS NAME—sooner or later the lamp will run dry, and the light will grow dim and go out.
There is only one way that we can maintain the oil that will maintain the light that will maintain the vision of His appearing, and prepare us for that appearing—and that is by coming into union with Him who is the Source. It is not some new doctrine or revelation that you can take or leave. It is God’s provision for His people in the hour of famine and of darkness. You must walk in identification and union with Christ, in His Cross as well as in His life. Only in Christ is there an unfailing supply.
The oil is not something we automatically have when we receive of His Spirit and partake of His gifts and blessings. These gifts and blessings are intended to help us along the Way as we seek to follow on to appropriate the death of the Cross and the resurrection life that these enabling gifts and ministries would lead us into. The precious gifts of His Spirit are a means and not the end. Only in Christ is there an unfailing supply of the “oil.”
In Zech 4:2-3, God showed Zechariah the vision of the candlestick, with a bowl upon the top and seven lamps, with seven pipes to the seven lamps. And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and other upon the left side.
The candlestick was in union with an exhaustless supply of oil---oil from the olive-trees---oil from the fountain-head and source.
God showed Zechariah that the “olive trees” were the sons of oil, the anointed ones. It was Christ, but it was Christ in union with His many brethren. They were the sons of oil, sons of the anointing---and through them there was an exhaustless supply of oil for the lamp of God.
There is an exhaustless supply of oil—but you must buy it for yourself. You cannot borrow it. When you find it (or rather Him), you cannot sell it to anyone else. You cannot delegate it to others. You cannot give it away, much as you would like to share it with others. One must walk with Him and learn His ways---hearing His voice an doing His will.
Association with God’s anointed ones is not sufficient. As they minister out from the heart of God, they will seek to bring you into union with Christ; for they know that you will not be prepared to forth in this midnight hour to meet the Bridegroom except as you come into vital union with Him who is the Source.
We have to buy this oil for ourselves. If we are going to have it, we have to buy it now. At the midnight hour, you will not have the opportunity to buy it.
What is the Price? If you truly want to pay the price, the Lord will show you. The price-tag is not according to the value of the oil. This unfailing supply is really without money and without price. But there is a cost, and each one of us will have to discover that for ourselves. It can be some paltry earthly thing that has blinded your eyes to the true riches. It could also be some degree of spiritual attainment that you are loathe to relinquish in order to have His fulness.
The price-tag merely reveals the smallness of our own hearts, and the struggle one has to go through in order that we might receive the riches of His grace.
The cost could be anything---but it has to be everything. For it is only in forsaking all that we have that we might receive all of Him. Our blessings, gifts and enablement’s are manifestations of Him. They are good, but they lead us unto Him, unto His fulness, unto the Fountain-head and Source.
O’ Lord continue to send forth your Word and Holy Spirit that your people may hastily sell all and buy this precious, exhaustless supply of oil. For truly the midnight hour is near at hand for the choosing of your Bride for the harvest of the earth. We must go forth to meet the Bridegroom under the illumination, anointing and guidance of Your Spirit.
When Jesus came the first time, it was those who had an abundance of scriptural knowledge of His coming who missed Him---whereas the humble and the lowly whose hearts were prepared saw Him.
1. Midnight Cry
I hear the sound
Of a mighty rushing wind
And it's closer now
Than it's ever been
I can almost hear the trumpet
As Gabriel sounds the call
I look around me
I see prophecies fulfilled everywhere
The signs of the times
They're appearing everywhere
Oh, I can almost see the father
As He says, son, go get my children
At the midnight cry
The bride of Christ will rise.
This is a beautiful song. The midnight call can be a time of visitation that we are in now and it can be the second coming. Whether it is visitation or the return of Jesus Christ, “we the church” are to be ready and prepare others.
It is clear there will be some very dramatic, sudden, outward manifestations at His second coming. But it is also evident there will be aspects of His appearing that only those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, will recognize.
Paul saw the Lord in such a brightness of His glory that it blinded his eyes. But his companions who travelled with him saw nothing, and only heard meaningless sounds. Yet it all happened at the same moment and in the same place. This was not at Christ’s first coming or His second coming. But Paul saw Him!. It was an appearing of the LORD that was just as real as His appearing to Peter, James, John and the other disciples.
I believe all who are called to be apostles will have a visitation of the LORD, Himself. The five virgins saw Him, and walked into His presence---while the foolish virgins saw him not. He comes as “a thief in the night” to those who are not walking in the light---but in the brightness of His glory to those who are (1 Thess. 5:2,4).
In all of the parables, in all of the exhortations in the epistles, there is both encouragement and warning to God’s people that Jesus may appear any moment, and those who see Him when He appears are those who are looking for Him, waiting for Him, and expecting Him.
But it does not mean that everything pertaining to the second coming must take place in that single moment of time. It took 33 years for the prophecies related to His first coming to be fulfilled; and we have no way of knowing how many years it may take for all aspects of his second coming to be fully revealed.
Those who earnestly looked for Him, and whose hearts were prepared, saw Him early in the day of His appearing, simply because they were walking with God, and had eyes to see what they could not see.
We cannot miss Him if we are constantly looking for Him. And God forbid that any of us should be found in the company of those who are going about lecturing from beautiful charts of the second coming, while the Bride of Christ is feasting with her LORD at “the marriage supper of the Lamb.”
Of Christ it is said, “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows. All your garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces” (Ps. 45: 7-8).
The anointing oil confines us to His will. We are not free to use substitute anointings---if we think it will attract more people. We cannot use strange fire like Nadab and Abihu, or like our modern entertainers who use smoke-machines to imitate the glory of God. We cannot offer strange incense in order to get the applause of men.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
I entered into the labors of Crowned with Oil, George H. Warnock.