Now we need to see how to be watchful, which means we need to see how to buy the oil. To be watchful is to take care of the oil. When I was a young Christian, I considered that to be watchful was to look to the heavens for His coming, and even to figure out when He would come. Later I began to realize that this understanding was altogether not practical. By reading 25:1-13 again and again I discovered that to be watchful is to take care of your oil. A careless driver is not watchful about the gasoline in his tank. He may be driving to a certain destination and then suddenly run out of gas because he did not watch the gas gauge. Because of his carelessness, he suffers. Today since you are driving your “Christian car,” do you care for your “gasoline?” The gasoline in your car is the Spirit, the oil. All the time you have to buy the oil.
Some young Christians indicated to me that they wanted to have some enjoyment in the world, especially since the Lord was not coming back immediately. They also said that the Lord gave us the time to be joyful, which to them meant to enjoy the worldly pleasures. Perhaps when they were over forty-five then they would begin to love Him because they were not so sure that He would come back within twenty years. Even if the Lord does delay His coming back, though, do we know when we will die? Probably none of those dear ones who lost their lives when the space shuttle Challenger exploded had any inkling that they would lose their lives that day. Does anyone know when he will die?
You may not believe that the Lord will come back in the next twenty-five years or that you will die within this time. Therefore, you may desire to live carelessly as a Christian, loving whatever you like and doing whatever is a pleasure to you. Even if your figuration is right, sooner or later you will die, and you will die in a situation in which you will have never accumulated enough oil in your vessel.
To accumulate a deposit of the extra portion of the Holy Spirit in your being is not an overnight job. In order to grow and develop properly, a human being should be exercised for at least eighteen years to take in the nourishing life supply and to study, learn, and be educated. The more one lives in a loose, unrestricted way, the more he loses the chance and the time to accumulate the proper education in every way, not only in school. To be a proper person you need to learn things every day. As a man over eighty, I am still learning and acquiring new knowledge. I use my dictionary frequently to pick up new words. I told some of the young saints that I would hate to see that after ten years they are still the same. To pick up things that become a constitution of your proper being is not a matter of one day or even one year. It is a matter of daily business for a lifetime.
I am still concerned that when the Lord comes back or when I die that by that time I will have had a sufficient amount of oil deposited in my vessel. If I die before His coming back, I will go to Paradise in Hades to see Abraham, David, Paul and to be happy with these brothers, and yet some day I will rise up and go to the air to stand before the Lord. Whether or not I will be raptured early remains to be seen. If we are raptured late, we will miss the wedding feast (Matt. 25:10). In so many things I have the assurance, but in the matter of attending the wedding feast I do not have the assurance.
To be watchful does not only mean to watch for His coming. To be watchful is to prepare yourself every day by buying the oil. Every day we need to buy some oil. Our spiritual transformation is a daily and lifelong matter. Every day there should be some accumulation, some deposit of oil added to our being. We have not been that much in the proper exercise every day to exercise ourselves even every minute to buy the oil. A baby becomes a big boy by his daily eating. This boy is an accumulation, a constitution, of the food that he has eaten and assimilated. For us to be qualified to be raptured to enter into the Bridegroom’s marriage feast requires our passing through a long period of accumulating the spiritual oil. From the time you become a Christian, you should buy the oil to be deposited in your vessel every day.
I went to a meeting of one particular group of Pentecostal Christians. During their meeting there was much so-called speaking in tongues and prayer, but after their meeting probably no one was watchful. In every way you could see their looseness. I exercised to be with them in my spirit, and our spirit always would restrict us in what we say and do. I believe that even in that meeting with them I gained more of the Spirit, because by His mercy I was watching by praying to be filled with the Spirit.
The Christian life is not a matter of legalities concerning watching television, reading the newspaper, going to sporting events, or indulging in worldly pleasures. It is not a matter of merely whether or not something is scriptural. The Christian life is a matter that concerns our buying of the oil. You may not pray, and yet you will watch television. You may not pray, and yet you will read the newspaper. You may not pray, yet you will play sports. There are a lot of “yets” in your daily life. You just do not pray. You may not do anything sinful, but this parable of the virgins does not indicate that the Lord will judge us according to how much sin we have committed, but according to how much oil we have in our vessel. To receive the Holy Spirit into our spirit, our lamp, is free. But to have the Spirit saturating our soul is not free. If you are going to get the Holy Spirit to saturate your soul, you must pay the price in dealing with your soul.
I have had to deal with my soul in many ways to buy the oil. When it seemed like it was a good time for me to joke with a person and I joked a few sentences, I got condemned. I am not a piece of marble, but a living person. Every living person has his opinion, but many times when I tried to express my opinion, I was stopped by the buying of the oil. Many times this view has affected my daily living. Could I get more Spirit by exchanging words with my wife? Could I get more Spirit by going to a certain place? I may want to go to a certain place, but I do not have the peace within me. The point is this—every day should be a day for us to pick up the oil in every way. We need to pray from the time that we wake up every morning, “Lord, I do not like to do anything that is not under my being watchful, that is not under my buying of the oil. I like to buy the oil at any time and in any instance. Otherwise, that will be a waste of my time.” This should be our prayer and even our prayerful attitude. Many nights I regretted that I did not spend all of my time to be in the spirit.