Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Ephesians chapter 5, which
is the portion that we read. And reading from our text, verses
26 and 27, we could include half of verse 25 for completeness. but reading verses 26 and 27,
that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. Ephesians chapter five, and verses
26 and 27. And you'll notice that in the
beginning of each of these verses are these words, that he might. And we have a picture of the
Church of God washed by the Word of God. The end picture is a
church that is presented perfect and holy before God. But, before that can be done,
there are other things, steps, that must take place. God cannot just take His Church,
and the Church, of course, is made up of individuals, and those
individuals are fallen, they are sinful, they are corrupt,
God cannot just take them and make them his church and bring
them straight to heaven. There are things that must be
done first, and that is emphasised in the verses of our text. Things that are done that he
might, that he might. We might think God can do anything,
God can do everything, but for him to do things that are consistent
With His holiness, His righteousness, there are things that must be
done first for them before they can be in heaven. God's people
are a prepared people for a prepared place. His church is a prepared
church for Him. His church is His bride. type of Christ and the Church
set forth before us here in this passage as a marriage. The Apostle begins with exhortations
to wives submitting unto husbands and the husband treating the
wife loving the wife even as Christ loved the Church and gave
himself for it. It is a beautiful time that runs
through the whole Word of God, beginning in Eden, when God created
Adam and Eve, and Paul refers to this here in verse 31. Going right back to that spoken
of in Genesis chapter 2. So then we have this followed
through in the Word of God. You have the beautiful type in
the Book of Ruth, where Ruth, a Moabiteess, is brought to come
into Bethlehem, and then she is united with Boaz. Ruth herself, not of Israel,
Ruth having no riches, nothing at all, she is a beggar, she
is a gleaner in Boaz's field. Boaz, he has great wealth and
he owns the field, he has many workers and she becomes his bride,
united to him and in that account she is in line to Christ. Boaz is a type of Christ Ruth
is a type of the Church, especially the Gentile Church, and she's
a type of one that then is married unto Christ, married to Boaz. And so we have that, a beautiful
type in the Word of God. Then we have the book of the
Song of Solomon, which is a love song between Christ and His Church. Again, Christ set forth as the
Bridegroom, the Heavenly Bridegroom, and the Church as the Spouse. It is, again, a theme, a beautiful
theme, setting forth Christ and His people, Christ and the Church. The Lord then saw fit that the
first miracle that he should perform was at a marriage ceremony
in Cana of Galilee. And he and his disciples went
to that marriage, and they said that there was no wine, there
was not enough wine. And the Lord performed a miracle
there, turning the water into wine, and that was the first
miracle that he performed, and this is recorded in the Word
of God, setting sanction to marriage itself in a right way between
one man and one woman. We must remember that every blessing
that God has instituted and formed, Satan will always have a counterpart,
an imitation of. God's love is a pure love. Satan will have a perverted and
a wrong love. Marriage, in the word of God,
is between one man and one woman to the exclusion of all other
for life. And that is what is based on
here and the beautiful picture of Christ and the Church. Satan
will imitate it and defile it. And as we have set forth in Romans
chapter 1, as they like not to retain God in their knowledge,
so he gave them up to vile affections. And that's how the Word of God
speaks of the marriages between a man and a man and a woman and
a woman. They are vile affections of those
who have cast off the Word of God and they do not show forth
the picture that we have here of Christ and his Church. Our God is the God of creation
and he has formed man and it is before him that we stand at
the last. We are either part of his Church
or not. We are either his bride or not. We shall either be united forever
with him or forever cast out into outer darkness and perish
eternally. Those who choose to make the
Word of God say what they want and to blacken the Lord as if
He was to be held accountable to what man thinks is right and
wrong, shall one day stand before their judge and stand before
God. If you and I value our souls
and desire to be saved, and desires to be with the Lord forever,
then may we fall under the Word, embrace the beauty of the Word
of God, and not Satan's maligning of it, blackening of it, and
imitations of it. We think of music again. The
Word of God sets forth the songs of Zion, But Satan has his own
music, his rock music, his worldly music, and everything that is
pure, Satan will have that which counters it and blackens it.
And so we have here the beautiful time of marriage. We have then
set forth the solemn, really, illustration in Matthew 25. where
we have a picture of the virgins or the Church of God waiting
for the bridegroom to come at midnight. And we find that they're
sleeping. And the Church of God, whether
it is the true church that has the true grace of God, or whether
it is just a professing church that just has a name to live
like we have in the Revelation and yet are dead, they all slumbered
and slept. But then when there was a cry,
the bridegroom cometh. Then they all awoke and trimmed
their lamps and to go out and to meet the bridegroom. But those
without the true grace of God, those who were not truly saved,
their lamps had gone out. Their profession was of no avail. And for you and I, it's not enough
just to be numbered in a church building or amongst a denomination,
or to have a name of a Christian, but it's to have the true work
of God in our hearts, and to have the true grace of God, so
that when death comes, however sudden, however unexpected it
comes, that we are prepared to stand before God. We are ready
to stand before Him. And this is emphasised in our
text with these words I've already highlighted before you, that
he might. Now, if it is said of God himself
that things need to be done, that he might and at last present
a people before him as his church spotless and holy, God forbid
that we should think that we should just blunder into his
presence, do what we like, and serve the Lord how we might,
and think that we will be accepted at last. The only way, and our
Lord was very clear on this, that no man cometh unto the Father
but by me. And if we are to be the bride
of Christ, it will be in the way that is described in the
verses of our text. So there are three things done.
Three things done that he might. And so we have the three points
that I bring before you in this text and that is joining those
points like a chain of these words that he might. So the first is in verse 25. Christ loved the church and gave
himself for it. So that's our first point. The Lord loved the church and
gave himself for it. And then the link, the join,
that he might. The second point. Without the
first, there won't be the second. And the second point is this
in verse 26. that he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the word. And then linking
that point to the third point, that he might. Without the second
point, there can be no third point. So that he might present
it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. And so we have the three points
joined together, vital, one point is attended to before the next
point can be proceeded to. So I bring these things before
you in this order. So the first point here, is Christ
loved the Church and gave himself for it. And before we look at
this point, we must think of what the condition of the Church
is. The Church is made up of individual
members. It is made up of men, of women,
those of the human race, the descendants of Adam and Eve,
that are fallen in Adam. Adam was given the commandment
and told that in the day that thou eatest thereof of that tree
that they were forbidden to eat of, thou shalt surely die. And
our first parents, they fell in that way. They broke the law,
they incurred the wrath of God, and the sentence of death. And
that sentence is in two parts, one in physical death, that no
one can deny, that all men have died. Our parents, our grandparents,
death is all around us. The word of God has an answer
for the presence of death and of suffering, of illness, an
imperfection in the world today. Nothing else has an answer for
that. Sin entered into the world and
death by sin. The second aspect is a spiritual
death. That Adam, in his innocency,
could have fellowship with the Lord and walk with the Lord. But now, spiritually, we have
died. So men, as we come into this
world, we come as enemies to God, haters of God, and incapable
of understanding or desiring even the things of God. We are
spiritually dead. The natural man knoweth not the
things of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. And that also is evident as well,
because the vast majority of mankind and, well, all by nature,
they do not want God. Men are lovers of pleasure more
than lovers of God. In our day, the churches are
empty. Men rather would be without God. They love the things of this
world and the pleasures of this world and have no thought of
the things of God. And the Word of God has the answer
for that as well. Because of the fall, we are fallen
from God. We are alienated from God. Our hearts are at enmity with
Him. We are lost, we are ruined in
the fall, and awaiting after death the judgment and then the
eternal death and separation from God in eternal banishment
from God in hellfire. These truths are taught in the
word of God. We are made in the image of God.
We have fallen. But God has a church. He has a people that he has loved
eternally, a people that were chosen in Christ before the foundation
of the world. A people that are described in
John 10, our Lord says, thine they were and thou gavest them
me. A people given by the Father
to the Son in a condition that was a lost condition and a condition
that he was to redeem them from. What would we think if we had
a very rich person and they had a son that they loved very greatly
and they desired a wife for that son and they gave to the son
a wife that was completely destitute. Not only that, but they had so
great a debts. So before that marriage could
take place, those debts had to be paid and that wife-to-be had
to be made fit to be united with him. It always struck me with the
marriage of Prince William and Kate, that Prince William did
not want the same mistakes made with his mother, who was, in
a sense, a commoner, and as Kate was, not brought up in the royal
household. There was many, many things that
she had to learn of the ways of the going on and I think they
courted for some eight years and during that time she had
to actually learn those ways and to get acquainted with them
and it is certainly paid off. She seems to have fitted in so
well in that way but there was a real preparation and there's
a real knowledge by Prince William of the need of that. You couldn't
just take someone I know for myself to go in amongst royal
circles, to use a common phrase, I'd be a fish out of water. I
wouldn't know how to act and the right things to say or right
things to do at all. And if that is so on a natural
level in that way, how much more is it to be a people that is
to be prepared not just for a natural prince on earth or for a wife
of a king, a future king, but to be the wife of the king of
kings and lord of lords, to be the church, Christ's bridegroom. And so it is important for us
to know what we are by nature, what the church is, and what
was needed. And so the first point here is
that there is love, there is an eternal love. Christ loved the church. I love thee with an everlasting
love and therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. The whole redemption of the church
of God and of bringing a people to be united to God and the Father
is of love, having loved his own, he loved them unto the end. We are told in John's epistles
that we love him because he first loved us and there was nothing
in us that he saw good to cause him to love us. He loved us sovereignly
because he would freely love us and love the Church of God. And so from that love then proceeded
the work of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Saviour. So we read, he
loved the Church and gave himself for it. The work of the Lord
Jesus Christ upon this earth is absolutely vital in the redemption
of the church. So our Lord must become man. He must be born of a woman. He
must be made under the law. He must be put in the very position
of the people that he is to redeem. And yet he himself, not be sinful,
but be pure and holy. And so our Lord came And he lived
a perfect life, a perfect life of obedience that his people
could not live. And then at the end of that life,
he laid down his life, taking the sins of his people upon him
as if they were his own sins, but not making himself sinful. And then going before judgment,
before Pilate, enduring the wrath of God upon himself at Calvary
as an offering unto God, a sacrifice, putting away the sins of his
people. We are told, without the shedding
of blood there is no remission. The sentence upon us, in the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. So for
us to be released from that sentence, Either we must die or one must
die in our place. And the Lord Jesus Christ died
in the place of his church, of his people. His death was a substitutionary
death. His death was a death that took
the wrath of God in our place. And that is a vital first step
before any blessing can be known to that actual church and that
people that was to be saved. You might say, well, how were
the Old Testament saints saved? How was Abraham saved or David? Our Lord said, Abraham saw my
day and he rejoiced at it. In Hebrews 11, we have a long
list of those from Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and those
that followed. that walked and lived and died
by faith, believing that the promised Christ, the seed of
the woman, would come and would redeem them and would, on Calvary,
put away their sin and redeem their souls. They died in faith
of that. They looked forward to that event. We look back to that event. And
that is what is set before us in this first point, that Christ
as the head of the church, he is the saviour of the body, in
verse 23, he is the saviour of the church, of his people. And
so, he loved the church, he gave himself for it. Our Lord said,
greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his
life for his friends. And then he said, yeah, my friends,
if you do whatsoever I command you. And there's a link then
to make known those for whom Christ died. We are not told
when everyone comes into this world that Christ died for this
one, or he died for that one, or he didn't die for this one.
We know that Christ only died for the people that were given
him as his church, is what we call election, and particular
redemption. A real love of the Lord for a
people, and in great love, he took their sins and he died in
their place. He suffered for them. God commends
his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. It is a particular redemption
with a very particular love for a particular people. But that
is known by what follows in the second point. The love of Christ and what he's
done at Calvary was done that he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the word. So what is done
at Calvary was vital first. The payment must be settled,
the debt paid, before blessing could flow to the Church of God. and how that blessing flows is
shown in our second point. So those that know the blessings
of our second point know that the reason why they know those
blessings are because Christ has loved them and he has suffered
for them. The second point is a vital Really
the second point is what is known on Earth. The last is what is
to happen after death and in eternity. Our first point is
what's happened before we were born. But it's the second point
that speaks of what will happen in our lives, what really must
take place in this life, And so our second point is the most
important point as it regards our experience. Yes, it is vital,
our first point. But if you and I are included
in the first point, then it will happen as to the second. And
so I want to look at this very carefully in our second point. What is the second point? that
he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word." Sanctify and cleanse it. What is meant by this? Here is the church, a church
made up of people, a church made up of sinners, and there is going
to be something done to that people and to that church. that links to the third point
that he might present it to himself. So what is this that is to be
done? Might sanctify and cleanse it
with the washing of water by the word. Now what is very prominent
in this second point is these words, by the word. Whatever is to be done, is by
the Word. It is by the Word of God. The Word of God is central. It is absolutely vital to what
is being done to this people and to this church. May we just really remember that. The Lord gave the Word, great
was the company of them that published it. The Word is the
Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. It is that which is from Genesis
to Revelation, the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of
God. And we must hold to this, must
hold to the inerrancy of Scripture and the Lord's use of the Word
of God. that He gave that word. Every word of God is pure, and
we must hold to Him that that which is written aforetime, that
was written for our learning, that we, through patience and
comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. At the end in the
Revelation there is a curse on everyone that shall take away
or add to the Word of God here. And so if you and I are to be
saved, if you and I are part of Christ's Church, the Word
of God will be central, crucial in our preparation to be Christ's
bride and united with Him forever. Now I want to set it before you
in Four ways that this word of our text, this second point,
is fulfilled, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing
of water by the word. The first way is through the
proclamation of the gospel. We have this in the Lord's Commission
in Matthew chapter 28. At the end of that chapter, we
have in verse 19, our Lord's Commission. Go ye therefore and
teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with
you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The Apostle, when
he writes to the Romans, he says in chapter 10, the vital necessity
of the preaching of the word, he says, whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, then How then can they
call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they
believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. And then, for faith cometh by
hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It is absolutely vital
that the word be preached, be proclaimed, authoritatively declared
throughout the world. And the Lord says that my word
shall not return unto me void. It shall accomplish the thing
whereto I sent it. It shall be effectual. It shall
be. And when the apostles went to
preach, the Lord said, tarry at Jerusalem until you be endued
with power from on high. When they preached, some believed
the word spoken and some believed not. And we read that as many
as were ordained unto eternal life believed. And it is in that
that is known who are the Lord's people. Who is the church? Who are those that Christ has
loved? Who are those that Christ has
suffered for on Calvary? It's those that hear the word
of God and believe, and those who have then the further effect
of another three points I'll bring before you under this heading.
The first is this, it is vital that the word is preached, we
hear it, and we believe. And the Lord said to those that
heard him and believed, He said, If ye continue in my word, then
shall ye be my disciples indeed, ye shall know the truth, and
the truth shall make you free. So having believed, one, the
first effect of this sanctifying and cleansing it with the washing
of water by the word, is in hearing the preached message and believing
it. The second is to be separated
by the word of God. In John chapter 17, there's a
beautiful word, it is really a prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ
in John 17. Lovely chapter, read the whole
chapter. But we have in verse 19, the
Lord speaking of himself. He says, for their sakes, that
is for believers, for the church's sake, I sanctify myself. that they also might be sanctified
through the truth. Now, our Lord doesn't mean that
he needs to be cleansed from sin. One meaning of sanctification
is to be cleansed, and certainly here in our text is washing of
water by the word. It's the idea of something has
been washed and cleansed. but sanctify also means separated,
separated unto God. Our Lord was separated for the
purpose of being a redeemer, a saviour, separated to be the
bridegroom, the head of the Church of God, and his people also are
to be separated unto himself. And so that's why we then read
in verse 17, the Lord's Prayer, In John 17, verse 17, sanctify
them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. Again, we
have the word emphasize. Verse 16, they are not of the
world even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through
thy truth. So they're separated and Paul
takes this and he writes to the Corinthians and he says, come
ye out from among them touch not the unclean thing and I will
receive you and you shall be my sons and my daughters, saith
the Lord Almighty. So it is a real separation unto
the Lord we have in Verse 14 in John 17, I have given them
thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are
not of the world, even as I am not of the world. So the very
word of God that they are embracing, that they are given, it separates. You might have never heard the
Word of God. You might have a group of friends
around you and you are given a Bible and you read the Bible.
You say, I believe that this is true and this is right. I'm
going to follow this. And the other friends say, if
you're going to follow the Word of God, we're not going to have
anything to do with you. If you're going to follow that
crackpot ideas and they blacken the word of God and they separate
you from their company. But the apostle says, I'm crucified
unto the world and the world unto me. What he means is, and
in crucifixion's a painful separation, it's painful death. He's saying,
I do not want the world, but the world doesn't want me either.
A true Christian does not want the world and the things of darkness,
but the world doesn't want them either. It's a two-way thing,
and it will be a two-way thing. So with the Word of our text,
that which is being done for the Church of God, they are being
separated by the Word of God to Christ as His Church, as His
Bride. So they're separated by the word. The third thing is that their
lives are changed. When the apostle wrote to the
Corinthians, his first letter to them, and in chapter 6, we
read this in verse 11. He gives the whole catalogue
of those things that they were doing. He says, and we have that
in the earlier part of Ephesians 5 as well, Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived,
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit
the kingdom of God." And then he says this, And such were some
of you. Some of them were walking in
these ways, openly, outwardly. But ye are washed, but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
and by the Spirit of our God. The Word of God had made a change
in their lives. And so what we have in Ephesians
in our text, in this second point, is that the Word of God brings
to believe the Gospel message, it separates by the Word from
the world that lieth in darkness, and it makes a change in that
person's life, in the things that they do. It might not be
immediate, it certainly wasn't in my case, it's gradual, that
you find that certain things we did and said and walked in
are not compatible with the Word of God. God, He sanctifies, He
changes that church and conforms it to His image. And this is
done as a vital evidence of what Christ has done for us at Calvary
and affected the true work of God in the heart and the blessing
in the soul. And so then we have in the fourth
place, the washing, you're clean through the word. We have this
in John's gospel again in chapter 15. And in chapter 15, we have
a beautiful picture of Christ as a vine and his people as the
branches of that vine. And in verse three, we have the
Lord saying this, now ye are clean through the word which
I have spoken unto you. And the whole context here is
that there is the Lord correcting and chastening his people. And I like to think of, with
our text, is the washing of water by the word. Every time we read
the Word, it's like the Word of God washes over us. Every
time we sit under the preaching of the Word, it's as the Word
washing over us. Now if we had something dirty,
say a boulder in a stream, and we put this boulder in the stream
and the stream water washed over it, If we left it there for a
few seconds and took it out, it would still be quite dirty.
If we left it in for an hour, if we left it in for a week or
a year, as the water washed over that, it would have an effect. It would gradually clean it and
wash it. And this is with the Word of
God. We might, as we sit under the Word and hear it, not think
that a particular service or particular chapter had made much
effect in our lives. But as that water washes over
us, it has a gradual, sanctifying, washing, cleansing effect. And this is what is set before
us here and is so vital. Those that believe in God, Those
that are separated unto him should put themselves under a faithful
ministry, should regularly read the Word of God, should regularly
have it preached, they should feed upon it, they should be
taught and instructed and corrected by that Word of God. Man shall
not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of God. And you and I need it. and we
need it as an evidence of being his church, and we need it that
we be constantly separated unto the Lord and delivered from the
effect of our old nature and our sinful ways and evil ways. And so these four points really
describe this sanctifying and separating of God But for his
church, his church had been made ready, a prepared people for
a prepared place. So then we have the next, that
he might. That he might present it to himself,
a glorious church. There is a blessed waiting for
that time when Christ shall take his people, take them at death,
and bring them to himself. Now I want to make something
very, very clear. When we stand before God, it's
not in our good works, however much a change might be, wrought
in our lives by God's grace and through the Word, we do not stand
before God and say, I left off this and I've done that and my
life has been changed and look at our lives as perfect. Sanctification
in that way is not perfect. Everyone that God has redeemed
and everyone whom he has saved he will make a real change in
their lives. But that perfectness or that
change in their lives is not the righteousness that they stand
before God in. They stand before God in an imputed
righteousness, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ which
is spotless, and it is important to know this, because all of
God's children will know that, look at their lives, even after
they believed, and they will see so much sin, so many failures. And we constantly confess our
sins, and we have this promise that if we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. Our righteousness, that we stand
before God, is Christ's righteousness. But really, the work that he
does in us in this life, though it is imperfect, it is a true
token and an evidence that Christ has died for us. It is impossible
to think that one, even if they say that they are Christian,
If they live a worldly, ungodly life and are still unseparated
from the world, remember the Lord says, whosoever will be
a friend of the world is an enemy of God. It's impossible that
one can be taken in such a way and brought to heaven. The Word
of God pictures those that came before God at the last and they
said, open to us. And the Lord said, I never knew
you. But they said, we've been called
by thy name. Thou has taught in our streets.
And the Lord shall say, depart from me, all you that work iniquity. I never knew you. And what he's
saying is, here is a people that had a name of Christ. But they
weren't sanctified, they weren't separated, they weren't a church
that sought and strove for holiness and uprightness. They just wanted
the name of Christ, hoping to get to heaven at last, but had
never the real work of God in their hearts. It is only that
which is vital and real that makes a real change. that will be accepted before
God, but those in whom that real change is wrought do not come
before God and plead their good works in this life. They plead
the righteousness of Christ, what he has done, and his perfect
life and obedience. Those that really know what they
are by nature as sinners are those that are the truly saved
ones. If you and I are truly convinced
in our soul that we are sinners, and all our plea is, mercy, God,
be merciful to me. It is because the Lord has opened
your eyes to see that, and it is only those like you that will
value the blood of Christ and value his righteousness and have
no works to plead, but Christ's work alone. And then we have
this, that they shall be presented faultless in Revelation chapter 19 verses
7 and 8 where we have this great multitude as the voice of many
waters and saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honour to him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his
wife hath made herself ready. To her was granted that she should
be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen
is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write letter
to they, which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.
And he saith unto me, These are the true saints of God. Paul, when he writes to the Thessalonians,
he speaks of when the Lord shall come from heaven at the last
day. And he shall bring his saints,
those that have died in the Lord, because absent from the body,
present with the Lord. And he shall bring them with
him, and those that are alive and remain on the earth of his
people shall be caught up with him in the air, and so shall
be forever with the Lord. If we have a hope beyond the
grave, it is because the Lord has blessed his word to us. We live upon that word, and it
has had a profound effect upon our lives, and we love the Lord
Jesus Christ. We desire to do that which pleases
Him. We cleave to Him. We long to
be with Him forever and to be with Him and His people here
below. And this is the effect upon the
Word of God. May we have that real evidence
then that we are part of this true Church of God and that the
points of our text are all joined together of God, a church of which the
Lord is the saviour, that he loved that church and gave himself
for it. And it is for this purpose that
he might God's work in us, sanctify and cleanse it with the washing
of water by the word. And where he has done that, where
that work is going on in this life, It is that he might present
it to himself, a glorious Church. Dear friends, if you have that
work in your heart and in your life, the Lord has already suffered
on Calvary for you. And the reason why he's worked
this in your life is that he will present you at last, faultless,
before his throne. May we then Be blessed with these
tokens, these true scriptural evidences of being the bride
of Christ, a prepared people for a prepared place and for
a heavenly bridegroom in heaven forever and ever. May the Lord
add his blessing. Amen.