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45B. Praise and the Ten Virgins (“Well done, thou good and faithful servant” or “I never knew you”)

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  speaker icon   1. Magnify the Lord with Me   (2:10)
  speaker icon   2. Praise and the Ten Virgins   (25:51)
            speaker icon   a. Comments on praise   (2:42)
            speaker icon   b. Congregational praise; Tongues and interpretation   (2:52)
            speaker icon   c. Message on the Ten Virgins   (20:16)
  speaker icon   3. Make Me a Channel of Blessing   (1:05)

Selected Verses:

Psalm 40:3.  And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

Matthew 25:1-2.  Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. 2And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

Hebrews 11:24-26.  By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; 25Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; 26Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.

Matthew 25:21.  His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

Opening:

What did He put that “new song” there for?  Well, to be sung.  We’re supposed to sing.  We got a canary bird, and he forgot how to sing, so we named him Moody.  And then we got another one, and that fellow sang, and we called him Sankey.  So Sankey got Moody jealous, and Moody started singing again, praise the Lord. 

Now, I’m not Moody.  “He’s put a new song in my mouth.”  I’m so glad it makes my mouth feel good, glory to God!  It really does.  It feels very good, this wonderful song.  It has a wonderful taste; it has a heavenly taste.  The Bible says, “I will praise Thee with joyful lips.”  Are your lips ever happy—I mean, in the Lord?  Well, you can make them very happy by singing that new song.  That’s what God gave you that new song for.  And just think how wonderful that is.  “The birds upon the treetops sing their song.  The angels chant their chorus all day long,” and only man is vile.  Only men and women are vile.  They’ve got poison in their mouth.

[Congregational praise]

[Tongues and interpretation]

The Bible talks about five wise virgins who went into the marriage supper of the Lamb.  Who are they?  Well, they must be here in this meeting, some of them.  They must be.  Jesus Christ says, “Then,”—talking about the very age in which we live—“shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins.”  And five of them—thank God—took no chance at all.  They “went in”!  The door opened into that blazing marriage supper of the Lamb—but not only to a banquet, but to eternal glory. Oh, Paul says, “the glory that shall be revealed in us…”!

Selected Quotes:

speaker icon He says He’s seeking such who worship Him in the Holy Ghost.  Oh, hallelujah!  Beloved, we ought to sing more than we do; we ought to praise Him more than we do; we ought to speak in tongues more than we do.  You know, your tongues become stifled if you don’t use them in the Holy Spirit.

speaker icon And [Moses] chose “rather to suffer affliction”.  What a choice he made: “affliction with the people of God”!  Oh, for that affliction!  Oh, for that distinction of the children of God!  Oh, for that mark of God’s favor—to be despised, to be cursed by the world, to be hated by men and women round about us because we’ve chosen that “narrow way”—“following the Lamb whithersoever He goeth”!  We “suffer rather with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin.”

But we don’t!  We have found out how we can be Pentecostal people and still dip our nose into the lust of the flesh, and the waters of Babylon, and the sewerage of Sodom, and everything goes along fine.

speaker icon And when you find out how utterly useless you are—either to God or man, or to the world or to eternity—without the Holy Spirit, then you will treasure a call to serve “the living and the true God” in the power of the Holy Ghost.  And you’ll say like the Apostle Paul, “according to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that at all times Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.”

speaker icon “Nay, world!  I turn away, though…”  But no, that world is occupying half of your being—or more than half.  You’ll never be rid of it until Jesus Christ makes you “wise”—until He wakes you up.  And why doesn’t He?  You don’t get close enough to Him.  You don’t give Him time.  You don’t call on God, “O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”  I cried like that.

And there was a time when a fellow examined me, and he wanted to know about my personal life.  I said, “Nothing has ever happened in my personal life that I wouldn’t gladly let my mother and my sister know.”  But there are things in my heart by birth that God alone was able to cleanse me from.

speaker icon I get so tired sometimes, so fat.  I’ve no business doing that.  I walk in the strength of the Son of God.  He’ll give me strength for every job He gives me to do.  He says, “Ye shall bring forth much fruit.”  And when God see you bearing fruit, what does He do?  He doesn’t pat you on the back and say, “You’re pretty wonderful.  I’ll make an apostle or a prophet out of you.”  No.  He’ll take that pruning knife and cut back that proud flesh.  He’ll operate on you—it’ll hurt!—so that you might “bring forth more fruit”.

Illustrations:

The story of a brother to whom Christian service meant being “a sucker.”    (from 14:09)

Comments on America.  “America was not born in a saloon, or in a gambling hall, but in a prayer meeting.”    (from 18:48)

References: 

The Hidden Line
by J. Addison Alexander (1809-1860)

There is a time, we know not when,
A point we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men
To glory or despair.

There is a line by us unseen,
That crosses every path;
The hidden boundary between
God’s patience and His wrath.

To pass that limit is to die,
To die as if by stealth;
It does not quench the beaming eye
Or pale the glow of health.

The conscience may be still at ease,
The spirit lithe and gay;
That which pleases still may please,
And care be thrust away.

But on that forehead God has set,
Indelibly a mark
Unseen by men, for men as yet
Are blind and in the dark.

Indeed the doomed one’s path may
Bloom as Eden bloomed
He does not, will not feel that
He is doomed.

He feels perhaps that all is well
And every fear is calm
He lives, he dies, he wakes in Hell
Not only doomed, but damned.

Oh! where is that mysterious bourne
By which our path is crossed,
Beyond which God himself hath sworn
That he who goes is lost?

How long may we go on in sin?
How long will God forbear?
Where does hope end, and where begin
The confines of despair?

An answer from the skies is sent;
“Ye that from God depart,
While it is called today, repent,
And harden not your heart.”

Around 16:48, HRW makes reference to The Young Christian by Margaret Mauro.  See 55B for the full text of the poem.

Date: Sunday, February 1, 1959.

Audio Quality: Poor

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