In the New Testament watchfulness is wrapped up with prayer. Ephesians 6:18 tells us that we should be those watching unto prayer. We need to be watchful, on the alert for our prayer life. “Watching unto this” in verse 18 refers back to prayer and petition. There is no other way to get the oil except by praying. If you do not pray, that means you do not pay the price to buy the oil. Through prayer we receive more Spirit. Every time we pray we have the deep sensation that some amount of the Spirit has been gained by us in our prayer. To spend our time for prayer rather than for so many other things means to pay the price to get the oil.
All ten virgins were raised up from the dead, but their rapture after their resurrection was according to how much oil they had in their vessels. Our initial receiving of the Spirit at regeneration is not a ticket for us to enter into the wedding feast. The sufficient oil, the adequate oil, will become our entry, our ticket, to the wedding feast. The foolish virgins discovered that they did not have the adequate supply of oil, so they wanted to borrow from the wise ones (25:8). Then the wise virgins indicated that what they had was only sufficient for them (25:9). Here is a principle—we can never borrow others’ spirituality. One’s spirituality can only qualify himself. You cannot borrow another’s eating, and another person cannot eat for you. It is impossible. You cannot even borrow another person’s study. You cannot ask someone to go to school for you and borrow whatever he learns. The wise virgins told the foolish ones they had to buy the oil for themselves. When they were going to buy, the ready ones who had the sufficient oil were raptured. No doubt, that was before the tribulation.
The foolish ones were charged to go to those who sell the oil. According to Zechariah 4:11-14 and Revelation 11:3-4, the two witnesses during the great tribulation, the two olive trees and the two sons of oil, will be the oil sellers. That means they will give people more Spirit. The foolish virgins have to go to these oil sellers in the great tribulation to buy the oil. At that time the entire world will be a place of tribulation. As long as you are there, you are suffering; you are passing through the tribulation. If the foolish ones do not go to these oil sellers in the tribulation, they could never get the oil. This shows us that the foolish virgins will have to pay some price in suffering to get the oil, a price which they had never paid in their entire Christian lives. Even after the resurrection, they will still have to go through the suffering to pay the price for the oil. Finally, the foolish ones came (25:11), but their coming, their rapture, was too late. The point again is this—since the time we were saved, every day should be redeemed by us to buy the oil. We all need to rise up from today to buy the oil.
Ephesians 4:30 tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Do not make Him unhappy. The Holy Spirit who is now sealing us unto the redemption of our body is in us. We must make Him happy. Because He has really joined us with Him as one (1 Cor. 6:17), when we are unhappy, this indicates that He is unhappy. If you do not come to the meeting, or if you come and do not function, this makes the Spirit unhappy. At the end of the day you may not feel so good, but when you come to the meeting and function in it, you feel so happy. This means the Holy Spirit is happy within you. If you do not feel happy, this is an indication that you have grieved Him. Why have you grieved Him? Because you did not buy Him. You did not pay the price for Him. He is the oil.
First Thessalonians 5:19 says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” Sometimes we even go farther not only to grieve Him but also to quench Him. Sometimes we may tell the Lord to tolerate us for a certain time and not to inspire us. We may know the Spirit is moving within us, but we may not like it. To quench the Spirit is to reject the buying of the oil. In many things we do not buy the Spirit, so we miss the chance to accumulate more and more of the Spirit in our being.
Nearly the last charge in the entire New Testament is to walk according to spirit (Rom. 8:4), which is our human spirit mingled with God’s Holy Spirit (cf. Rom. 8:16), our mingled spirit. To walk means to live, to act, to behave, to do things, to have our being. We have to have our being according to spirit and this is to buy the Spirit. Our thinking, our speaking, the expression of our attitude should be according to spirit. If you are having your being according to spirit, this is to buy the Spirit. But to walk, to have your being according to spirit needs us to pay a great price. You may need to stop your excessive talking on the telephone and stop your further reading of the newspaper from the first page to the next.