Let's open our Bibles to the
book of Revelation, chapter 19. This chapter is the close of
the sixth vision of Revelation. And it speaks of the marriage
of the Lamb and His bride. And I've entitled this message,
The Lamb and His Bride. And it's such a precious passage
of scripture where we see the glory of Christ in the salvation
of his people by God's grace. There's just no replacement,
no rival for that gospel message, is there? This is the comfort,
the assurance, the inspiration of God's people. And I'm going
to incorporate the reading of the scripture in with the message
today. And then we'll, following the message, we'll partake of
the Lord's Supper. But this chapter opens with a
word of praise and worship to the sovereign God of all grace.
Listen to the words of verse one. And after these things,
after all these things of concerning the victory of the church, the
people of God, and the defeat of Babylon, the great harlot,
false religion, After these things, John says, I heard a great voice
of much people in heaven saying, hallelujah, praise the Lord,
salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. And all this is simply saying
is salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is not of you and not
of me. It's not conditioned on you,
not conditioned on me. It's conditioned on Christ who
fulfilled all those conditions, securing the salvation of every
sinner that he redeemed by his death on the cross. Not one of
them shall be lost. They shall all come to know the
Lord. He said that. He said, they shall
all know me from the least of them to the greatest. And so
all glory. All honor, all power belongs
to Him. And we need to understand that
every day of our lives. We need to understand, if we
are saved, it's all of grace. It's all of the power of God,
all of the goodness of God. None of it can be attributed
to us, our works, our efforts. And that doesn't mean that we
should not strive to be Christ-like in our lives. But that's not
the cause of salvation. That's not the ground of salvation.
That is the fruit, the result of salvation by God's grace based
upon the blood and the righteousness of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. That's the issue, you see. That
gives us the motive for obedience. And you know, when we preach
God's grace in the gospel to everyone who will listen, Many
times, the lost legalist will come to us and say, well, then
you all preach that you can sin as much as you want to, or just
go out and live like you want. And the problem that they're
having is, in preaching the gospel, the motive of grace and gratitude
and love is established, but that's not what's within their
hearts. See, legalism, mercenary, that's what's in their hearts.
obedience under the threats of the law or on the promise of
earned reward. And that's not the gospel. That's
not the grace of God. That's not how Christ saves his
people. He brings us to a saving knowledge
that we're blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ because of who he is and because of what he has done.
And that's the issue. It's all for his glory. This
is worship, verse two. He says, for true and righteous
are his judgments. Whatever God does in his judgments
is true, righteous. God always judges according to
truth. He never gets it wrong. You know,
you see a lot of times people who are on death row and they
find out through some DNA evidence that they didn't commit the crime
and they'll try to get them off the hook right at the last minute.
That's nothing like that in the Bible, in God's judgment. God always judges according to
truth. Whether He saves a person or
He damns a person, it's always according to truth. For true
and righteous are His judgments. For He hath judged the great
whore. That's Babylon. That's false religion. The religion
of man by works and by will. It says, which did corrupt the
earth with her fornication. Spiritual fornication. That's
what false religion is, do you realize that? The great whore,
the great harlot, dons herself in things that appeal to the
flesh. And whenever the gospel is preached
to expose that, the world gets offended. They hate the light. And so he calls it spiritual
fornication. and hath avenged the blood of
his servants at her hand." False religion has attacked and martyred
more of God's people than any other entity. That's the truth. But God has avenged her. And
remember that now. God says vengeance belongs to
him, not to us. He'll do it. And so he says in
verse three, and again they said, hallelujah. Praise the Lord. for all his judgment. Shall not
the judge of the earth do right? Well, he will. And her smoke
rose up forever and ever. That's the glory of God. And
whatever he does. So look at verse four. The four
and 20 elders and the four beasts. And these beasts here are the
preachers of the gospel. The four and 20 elders represent
the complete entity of the church. Not one seat is made, there won't
be any vacant seats. We've got some vacant seats here
today. When glory in the true church of the Lord Jesus Christ,
there are no vacancies. Christ saves all his people.
He said, for all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and
him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. He said,
this is the will of him that sent me, that of all which he
hath given me I should lose, what? Nothing. but raise it up
again at the last day. They shall all know me from the
least of them to the greatest. And that's what the four and
20 elders represent. It's a multiple of 12, like 12
patriarchs in the Old Testament, the 12 apostles in the New Testament.
That's symbolic of the fullness and completeness of the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the redeemed ones. who God chose
before the foundation of the world. Their names were written
in the Lamb's Book of Life. Well, we're gonna see that lamb
again. How important is an understanding of the symbolic picture and type
of the Lamb of God? That's who Christ is and his
people. And these four beasts, they're
not like the wild beast that follow the great whore. The tamed
beast, these are the servants of the Lord that preach north,
south, east, west, all over the world because God has a people
out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. And here's
what they do. They fall down and worship God
that sat on the throne saying amen and hallelujah. So be it. Praise the Lord. We're all in
agreement on this, aren't we? Because if we're not, what does
that say about us? This is the unified praise and
worship of the true church redeemed by the blood of Christ. Bought
and paid for by him. And then he says, and a voice,
verse five, a voice came out of the throne, the sovereign
God. That's what the throne represents.
He's sovereign in all things. saying, praise our God and all
ye his servants, and you that fear him, both small and great. Doesn't matter who you are, your
stature, your position in this world, whatever, we're all together
in looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, in
praising God, and verse six, and I heard as it were the voice
of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and
as the voice of mighty thunderings saying hallelujah for the Lord
God omnipotent reigneth. Aren't you glad of that? The
Lord God omnipotent. What does that mean? That means
he's all powerful. That means he does whatever he wants to,
whatever he determines to do. As the prophet Isaiah said it,
God says, I declare the end from the beginning. I will do all
my pleasure, all that he wants. The God of the Bible is not a
God of unfulfilled desires. He's not the God that this world
preaches. He wants to save you, but he
either can't or he won't because you won't let him or he won't
step on your dignity or whatever they say. Whatever God has determined,
God does. The Bible says in 2 Peter chapter
three that he desires, he will bring all of his people to repentance. He's not willing that any of
them should perish, but that all should come to repentance
and he'll bring it so. So there's the praise and the
worship of the God of all grace by everyone whom he brings into
the kingdom And here's the great multitude, that's the elect of
God, that's the justified. What is it to be justified before
God? It's to be forgiven of all our
sins on a just ground. And what is that just ground?
The blood of Jesus Christ. That's what we're going to be
speaking of and symbolic through the symbols in drinking the wine
and eating the unleavened bread. It's the blood of Christ. That's
the only just ground upon which God forgives sin. And he forgives
all our sins on that just ground. And then it is to be declared
righteous in the sight of God, based upon a just ground. And
what is that just ground? The righteousness of God. The
imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not something
we do. It's not even something done
in us. And let me say this. When God brings a sinner, under
the preaching of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit,
he does a great, marvelous, miraculous work within that person. And
it's necessary for salvation. But my friend, that's not the
ground or the cause of our salvation. The grounding cause of our salvation
is the love of God before the foundation of the world in the
death of Christ on the cross of Calvary. The voice of many
waters. I love that type there. Because here we in complete harmony
with Christ in every way, we've been made perfectly conformed
to his image and his voice is like a cool drink of water in
a dry land. That's what the gospel is. And
the mighty thunderings, that's his power. That's his authority. The Lord God omnipotent is on
the throne. He reigns. Well, with that in
mind, he comes to this point. It's an announcement of a marriage.
It's almost like a wedding invitation, you might say, or a wedding announcement,
rather. The announcement of the marriage
of the Lamb of God and his bride. The Lamb and his bride. Think
about it. The type, the symbol of the Lamb
is so important all the way through Scripture. Even back in the book
of Genesis, you remember when the Lord, after Adam and Eve
fell, and they made coats of fig leaves, and they tried to
cover their shame, tried to cover their nakedness. And you remember
what the Lord did. It's recorded in Genesis chapter
3. how he removed those fig leaf aprons which represented man's
works, man's efforts to hide his shame, to hide his sinfulness. And in Genesis 3, 21 it says,
the Lord God made coats of skin and clothed them. Now what do
you have to do to make coats of skin? You've got to shed some
blood. You've got to kill an animal. And what that was is
a symbol or a type of the Lamb of God. I believe it was a lamb.
It doesn't say there in Genesis 3.21, but I believe it was a
lamb that he killed. And then later on in Genesis
chapter four, we see Abel bringing a lamb. Abel was a keeper of
the flock. And that symbol is just so precious
throughout the scriptures. That it's by the blood of the
lamb that sins are forgiven and righteousness is established
and covers us. in the sense of imputation. That's
what imputation is about. It's put to our account. It's
not a literal covering like a coat that I'm wearing. It's not something
that's just on the outside of us, but it's the settling of
an account, the debt of our sins charged to Christ and his righteousness
charged to us. And that's a beautiful picture.
That's the great exchange for God made him sin, Christ who
knew no sin, for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. And that's what this thing about
the lamb is all about. You see that in Abel's lamb.
You see that later on in the Passover lamb. God said, when
I see the blood, I'll pass over you. When I see justice satisfied,
When I see righteousness, when I see a propitiation, you know
what a propitiation is? It's a sacrifice that brings
satisfaction. The death of a substitute. Well
listen to what he says in verse seven here. Let us be glad and
rejoice and give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb
is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. Rejoice, he says. This is not a doctrine that would
cause us to frown and to grovel. It humbles us. It humbles us,
it puts us in the dirt where we belong. But it's a matter
of rejoicing for the marriage of the lamb has come and his
wife has made herself ready. Now who is his wife? The lamb
is Christ, the bridegroom. His wife is his church. This
is the same lamb that we've been reading about all the way through
the Bible. Revelation has really brought it forth. Worthy is the
lamb that was slain. And he's the one by whose blood
the children of God turned back the attacks of Satan. You remember
when Satan attacked in Revelation 12? And they turned him back
by the blood of the lamb. And his wife has made herself
ready, his wife is the church, which he purchased with his own
blood. They're known by many names in the scripture, the elect
of God, the redeemed of the Lord. They were betrothed to Christ
before the foundation of the world when the Father chose them
in sovereign electing grace and gave them completely to his Son. But all of the responsibility,
of our salvation upon the shoulders of Christ. That's what I believe
Isaiah was referring to when he spoke of the government shall
be upon his shoulder in Isaiah 9, 6. That's the government of
His grace. That's the government of the
covenant. In other words, the fulfillment
of the covenant of salvation for the people of God, His wife,
was placed squarely upon the shoulders of the Lamb. The Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
Lamb of God. You know, he's also called the
Lion of the tribe of Judah. He's a lamb, he's a lion, he's
everything. Just because he's a lamb doesn't
mean he's not powerful enough to save us. He's a lamb that
he should die. He's a lion that he should have
victory. All of that. Christ paid the dowry for his
wife. when he redeemed us with his
own precious blood. And you know what he did there?
He removed all obstacles in the way of this marriage, this marriage
union with Christ, which is our salvation, cleansing her of all
her sins and establishing righteousness whereby God is just to justify. Again, that's his righteousness
imputed. We're espoused to Christ. at our conversion when God the
Holy Spirit in time applies all the blessings of salvation and
eternal life that Christ secured for us at Calvary within us in
the new birth. Think about it. And here's the
wedding feast. Open public marriage of Christ
and his church before the whole universe. Not hidden. This is
not a secret thing, say. And it says here in verse eight
that his wife, or in verse seven, his wife hath made herself ready. Now what does that mean, made
herself ready? Does that mean that we get ready
by our works and our efforts? Trying to make ourselves work?
No. What is our readiness? It's our faith in Christ. It's
our submission to Him as the Lord our righteousness, realizing
that we have none of our own. We have nothing to plead, but
Christ died for me. If we stand before God, if I
stand before God as a preacher, and I say, well, haven't I preached
in your name? Haven't I done many wonderful
works? Where would that get me? Well, what did he say in Matthew
7? Depart from me you that work iniquity. I never knew you. I never loved you. You know why that is called works of iniquity?
Because when I stand before God or you stand before God, you
and I, we have to have a perfect righteousness that can only be
found in Christ. And even our preaching and our
works and our efforts cannot measure up to that perfection. Our only hope, my hope is built
on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. The Lord inspired Paul to preach
it on Mars Hill in Acts 1731. When he said, God has appointed
a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained, in that he hath given assurance
unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. That's
Christ. We're gonna be judged in righteousness.
Well, does that mean I better get busy and trying to make my,
no. It's the righteousness of Christ.
And so we make ourselves ready by God-given faith whereby we
put on Christ by God-given faith, just like a bride putting on
a wedding garment. And it's by the power of His
grace. Our readiness is not our works. Our readiness is our standing
before God and our state as justified sinners pleading the blood and
righteousness of Christ. Look at verse eight. It says,
to her was granted. You know what the word granted
means? It means it was given. Now this is something we don't
earn or don't deserve. It's granted that she should
be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen
is the righteousness of saints. I heard a false preacher on TV.
He was asked by a lady, what is that? righteousness of the
saints. And he said plainly, he said,
it's the works of saints on here on earth. No, it's not. It's
the works of our savior. It's the merit of his obedience
unto death. How do you know that? Well, it's
granted to us. It's given freely. It's not earned
by us. It's not deserved by us. It's
not something we do. And let me tell you something
else. It's clean and white. Clean and white. Now does that
describe our works? I heard a man say on a message
one time he was talking about doing righteousness. That's a
phrase that you'll find in 1 John 2, 29. He that doeth righteousness. And he said this, he said, doing
righteousness is the works of the new nature. And I thought,
wait a minute, doing righteousness is believing in and following
and pleading the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what doing righteousness
is, living right. You want to live right? Well,
somebody said, well, I want to be a good person. Well, I do
too. I want to be a good pastor. I want to be a good brother.
I want to be a good husband to my wife, a good father to my
children and grandfather. I want to be good. But that's
not the linen that I wear before God. That's not the perfection. No matter how hard I try, even
if I make some improvements in those areas. I mean, we can say
sometimes that we make improvements. I hope that I'm a better man
today than I was before this. But that's not my righteousness
before God. Do you understand that? That's not what I'm going to
plead when I stand before God. And here's the fact of the matter
as far as judgment goes. My judgment has already been.
It's already passed. My judgment was at the cross.
When Christ died for my sins, I was judged in him. When he
died, I died. When he was buried, I was buried.
When he arose again, I arose again. That's true of his bride.
That's true of every believer that makes up collectively the
bride of Christ. Now isn't that comforting to
you? Comfort you, comfort you, my people. Doesn't that give
you the assurance of faith? That's what it means, living
right, doing righteousness is described in passages like Hebrews
12 and verse two. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. He began it, he'll complete it,
and he's everything in between. Oh my soul, arrayed in, you know,
over in chapter 18, If you look at verse 11, listen to this.
This is talking about the merchants of the world who follow the great
harlot. And that would include false
preachers, because they got merchandise to sell now. They want to get
you in, they want big crowds, they want money, all of this
stuff. It's like making merchandise of men's souls. And listen to
what it says, and the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn
over her, the death of the great whore. For no man buyeth their
merchandise any more. When Christ comes again, it's
all gonna be out in the open that what she has to sell, what
they have to sell, is death. And nobody will want it. Verse
12 says, and the merchandise of gold and silver, precious
stones and of pearls, and fine linen. Now the linen that she
sells may appear to be clean. But what is it? It's the works
of men and women. And it's called in the book of
Isaiah, filthy rags. Just like old Zachariah found
out in that vision that God gave him, we need a change of raiment. We need a righteousness that
equals the demands of God's law and justice. And that's not what
the great whore sells. Oh no, that's what the Lamb of
God gives to His bride. The Lamb and His bride. Nothing
else will do. Nothing else will fit. And then, all of this, look at
verse nine. So in verse eight, let me emphasize.
That's what the righteousness of saints is. A saint is a sinner
saved by grace, sanctified by the Father, the Son, and the
Spirit in Christ. In verse nine, he says, and he
saith unto me, write, blessed are they which are called unto
the marriage supper of the Lamb, and he saith unto me, these are
the true saints of God. Now, some people claim that this
describes other believers distinct from the bride. That's not so. I don't know if you've heard
this at all or not. There's some people who think,
well, there's the bride, that's a special elite group, and then
there's everybody else. That's not, no. The Bible says,
well, look at Galatians with me, Galatians chapter three. And this is so clear in the scriptures.
But it's the pride of man who comes up with such awful things.
Talk about, you mean there's an elite group and then there's
the little peons out here, you know? Listen to this in verse
26 of Galatians 3. For you are all the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Now that's equally. There's no
big I and little you. I'm not gonna have a big mansion
in heaven because I preach and you live out in the slums or
something like that. That's not the case. And the
reason is, is we're all saved by grace. I have not earned, listen to
me now. I have not earned one blessing
from God because I preach. Now I am blessed of God. in my
preaching, because I tell the truth. But I mean this from the
bottom of my heart, and I tell people this all the, if God were
to judge me right now, based upon my works, I'd be in hell
today. It is truly all of grace. But listen to this. Verse 27
of Galatians 3, for as many of you as have been baptized into
Christ, now the baptism there is not water baptism, the ordinance. That's another matter, we're
to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. But the word baptized
means placed into. Some people say it means immersed.
Well, that's okay, immersed into. And what he's talking about,
you're in union with Christ by the power of God. You've been
baptized into Christ, Well, you've put on Christ. Now what does
that mean? You believe in him, that's what putting him on is.
It's a metaphor. Doesn't mean you wear Christ
on the outside of yourself. No, it means you believe in him,
you rest in him, you trust him, you follow him. You've put him
on, and that's by God-given faith. And so he says in verse 28, listen,
there's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither bond nor free,
There's neither male nor female, for you're all one, united equally
in Christ Jesus. The thief on the cross was no less blessed and glorified
in the person of Christ than the apostle Paul. Now that goes
against our grain naturally. That offends us naturally. But
boy, when we see how God saves sinners, we thank God. And look at verse 29. And if
you be Christ, that's a possessive. It means if you belong to Christ,
just like His bride, the Lamb and His bride, Then are you Abraham's
seed, spiritually speaking, believers, sinners saved by grace, and heirs
according to the promise, equally heirs. It doesn't mean I get
50% and you get 10%. No, equally heirs of God's kingdom
and grace. We'll go back to chapter 19 and
I'll close with this now. In verse 10. He says, and I fell at his feet
to worship him. That's what God's people do.
That's what the bride of the Lamb does. And he said unto me,
see thou, thou do it not. Now here's the problem here.
John, in his ecstasy, fell down to worship the angel that was
bringing the message. We fall down before the feet
of Christ, not the messenger. You don't fall down before my
feet. You don't fall down before any preacher's feet. You don't
follow a preacher. You follow Christ. You worship
Christ. And so the angel said, don't
do this. I'm thy fellow servant. I'm just a fellow servant like
you. Now some people say that this is not an angel by nature. It's just a messenger, like a
sinner saved by grace. I don't know. There's nothing
in the text that tells us one way or the other. But here's
what I do know. This verse is teaching us that
we don't worship anyone but God in Christ. And he said, I am thy fellow
servant and of thy brethren, that's why I kind of believe
it refers to a messenger, that have the testimony of Jesus.
Worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is
the spirit of prophecy. Worship God. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me, that's what he said. None other name given among men
whereby we must be saved. Worship God. Let's bow our heads. Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for your message of grace, that we who are saved by your grace
are members of his body. washed in his blood, clothed
in his righteousness, that clean and fine white linen. His bride
united to him as one. And we pray that you will bless
us in this message and in our fellowship. We pray it in his
name, amen.