Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service in the spiral hymnal, 23, Pass Me Not. Let's all stand
together, please. Pass me not, O gracious Father,
sinful, wretched though I be. Though you might in truth condemn
me, let your mercy fall on me. ? Love of God so everlasting
? ? Blood of Christ so rich and free ? ? Grace of God so strong
and saving ? ? Magnify them all in me ? Pass me not, O blessed
Savior, let me hear your gracious call. I'm a guilty, helpless
sinner, Savior, at your feet I fall. Love of Christ so everlasting,
Blood of Christ so rich and free, Grace of God so strong and saving,
Magnify them all in me. Pass me not, O mighty Spirit. You can cause the dead to live. Speak the word of saving power. Give me faith and make me live. Love of God so everlasting, Blood
of Christ so rich and free, Grace of God so strong and saving,
Magnify them all in me. Pass me not, O poor lost sinner. If you will, you can save me. Reach down with your hand of
mercy, saving others, Lord, save me. Love of God so everlasting,
Blood of Christ so rich and free, Grace of God so strong and saving,
Magnify them all in me. Thank you. Please be seated. Good evening, brothers. We're going to be looking at
tonight at the honoring the bridegroom. Can you hear me? Honoring the
bridegroom. We're going to go to the Father in prayer that
he may be with us and teach us what
he has in store for us. Father God, we come before you
tonight in the name of Christ, Lord, by his merits and his merits
alone, we dare not to come to you in any other way, Lord. We come to thank you that you
brought us here together, that you gather us together and we
are asking for your help, Father. We are in great need of your
Holy Spirit to teach us, to fill us, to learn from Christ, Father
God. We are in great need because
we recognize that you have written your word, Father. And these
are spiritual things, and we need your revelation to us tonight. We need to see the Lord Jesus
Christ a little closer, a little clearer. We need to see His honor,
His glory, and His person, Father. May His face shine upon us tonight,
Father, as we look at Your Word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, we're going to be looking
at a few passages. We're going to go looking through
the scriptures. And the topic is the bridegroom,
Christ the bridegroom. And we're going to start in the
Old Testament to see how the Old Testament spoke about the
bridegroom or the husband. We're going to be looking, starting
at Ezekiel. We're going to go to Ezekiel. Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel chapter 16. And we're going to be seeing
this theme about the bridegroom and also about the bride. Ezekiel
16 verse 8 through 14. I'm going to read this and this
is a wonderful passage. When it says, when I passed by
you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was a time of
love. So I spread my wing over and
cover your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and
enter into a covenant with you. and you became mine, says the
Lord God. Verse 9, then I washed you in
water. Yes, I thoroughly washed you
off, washed off your blood and I anointed you with oil. I clothed
you in embroiled cloth and gave you sandals of badger skin. I clothed you with fine linen
and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments,
put bracelets on your wrists. and a chain on your neck, and
put a jewel in your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful
crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold
and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen silk, and embroiled
cloth. You ate pastries of fine flour,
honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful
and succeeded to royalty. Your fame went out among the
nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through my
splendor, which I bestowed on you, says the Lord God." This
is a beautiful passage, isn't it? This is what the Lord has
done to the church, to us. It says that when the day he
passed by you, this hymn that we just sang, right? We asked
Lord not to pass us by, right? That he might be gracious to
us. Because the worst thing that could happen to us is that the
God would just pass us by. Just leave us to ourselves. Leave us to our sin. This is
the worst, but it says, when I pass you again, I looked upon
you indeed, your time, it was time of love. It was time that
God had predestined to love us, right? Of course, he loved us
from before the foundations of the world, but this is the time
that he chose to reveal himself upon us. He says, so I spread
my wing over you and cover your nakedness. This is our sin. This is the same nakedness that
Adam and Eve were when they sinned, right? And we became naked. We have no righteousness. All
we have is sin. He needs to cover our nakedness. So he says, yes, I swore an oath
to you and enter into a covenant with you. and you became mine. How comforting that is. That
gives me comfort, doesn't it? That he tells us that we became
his. He says, you became mine, says
God. I washed you with water. Many
times the water signifies God's word in the scriptures about
the washing of water. He washed us. Yes, I thoroughly
washed off the blood and I anointed you with oil. The blood, of course, is
our main problem, our sinful blood. We have a blood issue. We have a problem that we inherited
from Adam and that we cannot fix. Our blood was sinful and
he fixed it. He said he washed us, washed
off that blood. I clothed you in embroiled cloth,
that's fancy embroiled cloth, very, very comforting, very expensive
clothing, and gave you sandals of badger skin. That, of course,
embroiled is signifying to his righteousness in Christ. I call you with fine linen and
cover you with silk. We're going to see that a lot
tonight about his covering, about his covering of silk. The silk
means pureness. This means sinlessness that he
covers us with. I adorn you with ornaments. Notice
how many eyes there are in this passage. He's doing it all. It doesn't say that you did this
and I responded with this, right? Nowhere does it say that. All
it says that we were laying there, right? And he did not pass us. That's all it says about us.
But everything here is I, I, I. I clothed you, I adorned you
with ornaments, put the bracelets in your wrist, and the chain
in your neck. That's talking about the bride.
That's what the bridegroom does to the bride. He dresses her
up. He's preparing her. I put her jewels. I put the jewel
in your nose, earrings in your ears, beautiful crown in your
head. Thus you were adorned with gold
and silver and your clothing was a fine linen again." This
fine linen representing the the righteousness of Christ that
he provides to us. It says, you ate pastries of
fine flour, honey, oil. He provided everything to her,
meaning to us. You were exceedingly beautiful
and succeeded to royalty. It says we are princes, no? We're in Christ Jesus. It says,
your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty,
for it was perfect. How was it perfect? It was perfect
through my splendor, is what God says. Through his splendor,
his glory, which I bestowed on you, not which you earn, not
which you got some other way. No, he bestowed it upon us. And
that's the only way we can receive anything from God, if he bestows
it upon us. And there we see beautiful picture
of the bridegroom. And we're gonna look at another
passage. We're gonna look at Hosea now. We're gonna go to
Hosea. We're gonna go to Hosea 2. Hosea chapter 2. And I'm gonna
read verse 16 and 19 through 20. This is what Josiah says, and
I shall be in that day, says the Lord, that you will call
me my husband. This is a prediction, this is
a promise. It says, you will call me my
husband, and no longer call me my master, right? But a husband,
a husband is a lot closer relationship than a master. He, of course,
is our master, but the Lord Jesus Christ is our husband. And in
verses 19 through 20 of the same chapter, I will betroth you to
me forever. This is God's action towards
us, God's action towards the church. He's going to betroth
us. He betrothed us in the past forever,
and this is a promise. Yes, I will betroth you to me
in righteousness and in justice, meaning that without the righteousness,
without the justice, he does not do that. He cannot deny himself.
This has to be there. The righteousness and justice
has to be dealt with. We need the righteousness and
we need the justice of Christ. The righteousness and his righteousness
in us and the justice on the cross where God was a just judge
and punish all our sin in the Lord Jesus, laid it upon him.
So that is necessary as well. So he's betraying us, but he's
not denying himself by doing so. He's not denying his attributes
of justice. So in loving kindness and mercy,
I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know God." This
is how we should know God. This is the way to know God.
This is how God brings us to himself, is to marry us to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the next passage in the Old
Testament that we're going to see, the topic of the bridegroom,
is going to be Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54. We're going to go
to Isaiah 54. In verse five, Isaiah 54, five,
it tells us, for your maker, who's our maker, our creator,
this is God the Father, for our maker is your husband. For your maker is your husband.
The Lord of hosts is his name. And your redeemer as well, right?
And your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. He is called God. of the whole earth. He's talking
about the Holy One of Israel, of course, is the Lord Jesus
Christ. So your Maker, which remember in John, gives us more
revelation than Genesis does, right? Genesis tells us that
God created us. And we go to the book of John,
and in the New Testament it says that the Lord Jesus Christ was
the creator that he was the agent of creation sorry creators so
it says and your redeemer and the holy one in israel he's called
the god of the whole earth this is the lord jesus christ but
he says that your maker is your husband he's going to be your
husband now we're going to go to the new testament to the gospels
and we're going to see uh john the baptist how john the baptist
identifies the lord jesus christ us as a bridegroom In John chapter
3, of course, the first portion
is very known with Nicodemus, but the second half talks about
John the Baptist. And in verse 29, The context, I think the context,
of course, during the conference, there was a beautiful message
regarding John the Baptist, and it covered the context, I'm sure
you know it, where the disciples of John the Baptist say, hey,
Jesus is baptizing, they're all following him, you know, and
they, of course, the expectantly human reaction to that is, wait
a minute, you know, he's taking my people, he's competition,
but of course, John the Baptist says here in verse 29, he who
is the bride, he has the bride. This is talking
about Jesus Christ. He has the bride, is the bridegroom. He who has the bride is the bridegroom,
meaning the bride doesn't belong to me. You guys do not belong
to me. You're not my followers. The
bride does not belong to me. It belongs to the bridegroom,
which is the Lord Jesus Christ. But the friend of the bridegroom,
who stands and hears, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's
voice. Why does it say the bridegroom's
voice? Because weddings back then were different than today,
right? Today they're the total opposite, and we're going to
see that in a little bit. We're going to talk about the
differences between a wedding nowadays and a wedding back then
in the Jewish culture. But he says he rejoices when
he hears the bridegroom's voice, therefore the joy of mine is
fulfilled. Meaning, again, this is John
the Baptist identifying the Lord Jesus Christ as the bridegroom. Then we're going to see the Lord
himself calling himself the bridegroom. You're going to go to Matthew,
Matthew 9, Gospel of Matthew, chapter 9. verses 14 and 15. Matthew 9 verses 14 and 15. Then these disciples of John
came to him saying, why do we And the Pharisees fast often,
but your disciples do not fast. This is John's disciples asking
Jesus, why did they do this practice? And the Lord Jesus Christ said
to them, can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the
bridegroom is with them? Who's the bridegroom? The Lord
Jesus Christ himself is the bridegroom. So he's saying they do not mourn
because he's there present with them. But the days will come
when the bridegroom will be taken away. This is when the Lord Jesus
Christ ascends to the Father, and then they will fast. So he
himself is calling himself the bridegroom. And the church is
the bride, of course. Now we're going to go to the
main text that we're going to be looking at. which is Matthew
22, Matthew 22. There's a wonderful parable in
the gospel of Matthew chapter 22. And it says the following,
beginning verse one, and Jesus answered and spoke to them again
by parables. And he said, the kingdom of heaven
is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son. Okay,
this is a parable. Many of the parables are explained,
help us explain the kingdom of God. They are wonderful stories,
earthly stories that have spiritual meaning. And no one parable explains
it all. No one parable is going to teach
you everything there is about that subject. However, this is
a very good parable because it has a lot of areas of teaching
for us here. And he's talking about the kingdom
of heaven is like king who arranged a marriage for his son. This
king is representing God the Father. God the Father has arranged
a marriage for his son. He has done this for his glory. He has done this to honor the
Son. And this is the gist, this is
the reason, this is the purpose for everything that happens here. In earth, it's God's plan. God's plan on honoring the son. And he's honoring the son by
arranging a marriage. And God the Father arranged this
marriage. And back in Jewish times, marriages were not like
today's, right? Back there in that time, the
parents, a lot of times, or a king arranges marriage for the son.
and nowadays we have what we have this the courtship and so
forth to get to know the person but back then it was not it was
the king who decided who was going to marry their son and
same with it with the females with their daughters it was as
arranged it was predetermined and such such it is with us with
him the father giving the names of those to the son uh for him
to redeem them and and to be his bride so here the father
does this to honor the son he arranges this marriage and uh
we go to the next verse and sent out his servants to
call those who were invited to the wedding and they were not
willing to come okay this he's speaking obviously he's talking
about the jewish people the israelites uh he sent out the servants servants
will be uh prophets of god of the old testament uh to call
those who were invited to the wedding. Notice that they're
not inviting these people. They were already invited. They
were God's chosen people, right? They were already given the prophets. They were given the word. They
were given all the benefits that God gave to Israel. So they were
already invited. They weren't being invited. They
were telling them, come, come, it is time. But they were not
willing to come. Obviously, this is an obvious
demonstration of our sinfulness, isn't it? Of a depraved mind
or a depraved heart. They were not willing to come.
It doesn't say they weren't able to come. It says they weren't
willing. And that's the problem with us. We're a sin. We don't
want to seek God in our nature. And Adam, we don't want it. Man
does not want to come. They don't want to seek God.
So they weren't willing to come. And again, he sent out his other
servants. So he sent out already, for the
first time, he sent out these prophets to Israel, and they
were not willing to come. They don't want to come. There's
no desire in their heart to come. They're rejecting. them and again
he sends out a second time he sent out the other servants saying
tell those who were invited again their emphasis in those who were
invited they were invited already had received this invitation
prior to this tell them see that I have prepared my dinner my
oxen and fatted cattle are killed and all things are ready come
to the wedding So he's telling them more now than he was telling
me before. Before, he was telling them,
come to the wedding that you were invited. They didn't want
to come. Now, the message is different.
It looks like disgrace in this message now, right? He's telling
them, come. This is not going to cost you.
I have provided everything. I have provided the dinner. I prepared the dinner, the oxen
and the fatted cattle. I'll kill those that that's the
sacrifice pointing the Lord Jesus Christ. He's he sacrificed He
gave up the son the father gave up the son and all things are
ready There's nothing that's not ready. There's nothing that
you need to bring all these all set up. I've done it all Come. There's nothing that you have
to contribute. I love the Sundays where we meet and we gather and
it's potluck. I'd rather have potluck than
when it's catered because I like the food better. But that's different,
right? We all bring something. That's
not like this was. You were only told to come. You
were only told to come and that's it. Don't bring anything. Don't
bring any food, right? That's our custom when we get
invited to a party or to a gathering somewhere. We ask, you know,
what can I bring, right? But here it's saying it's all
done. All things are ready. Come to the wedding. So everything,
those invitees did not have to bring anything. And we already
said those are the Jewish people. This second message could be
talking about John the Baptist, could be talking about the apostles,
because this message is more of a gracious message. It's telling
them, it all has been done, okay? You don't have to obey the law.
We're not looking for you to obey the Ten Commandments. No,
everything is done. I have prepared it all. they
made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm and
the other one to his own business. Basically, they had contempt
towards this invitation, contempt towards the king. They thought
that they had more important things to do than to come to
this wedding. and this is how man responds
to the gospel don't say this is how men respond sometimes
uh when they're invited they make light of it they do not
understand their condition they do not understand their sin they
do not understand their need of salvation their need of a
redeemer And this is what's taking place here. They made a lot of
it. They didn't care. And the rest seized the servants. Now it's worse, right? There's
three different types of rejections or reactions to this invitation. The first one is that they made
a lot of it. They didn't care. The second one is a little bit
more aggressive. The rest seized his servants
and treated them spitefully and killed them. This is what the
Israelites did with the Old Testament prophets and messengers, and
also as well as the apostles. Most of the apostles were martyred,
were killed for the gospel. Well, they noticed how they had
even more hate now that grace was introduced, right? The second
message was, it's all been done. You don't have to do anything.
Now they hated that even more than the first one. And they
come and they killed them, right? But when the king heard about
it, he was furious. He was furious. And this is. Righteous fury. This is holy
fury because that's the only fury that comes from God. It's
righteous fury. It is right when God is upset
and when he's furious. God the Father is furious every
day with the reparate, with everyone that's not in Christ. He's not
happy with them. He's not smiling at them and
he does not love them. He cannot love outside of Christ
because he loves righteousness. And there we find that it says
that he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers and
burned up the city. Perhaps a reference to what happened
to Jerusalem 70 years after, right? The destruction of Jerusalem. Then he said to his servants,
The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Of course, they weren't worthy.
They, no one is worthy, basically. And he's saying they're not worthy.
The ones that were invited. The first ones that were invited,
it was Israelites. They did not follow Christ. They
did not follow God. They did not care for God, really,
in general. That's what happened. And he's
saying they weren't worthy. But the wedding is ready. The
wedding is gonna happen. The wedding is going to take
place regardless of the reaction of these people. Therefore, go
into the highways and as many as you find, invite to the wedding. So this is a third calling now,
right? This is the first two callings
were more like the general call of God that he calls everyone
to repent. And this is a command. to repent. But this one here now, he's going
into the highways, referring to the Gentiles, to us, right? Mostly us, we're Gentiles. To
the highways, byways, and many as you find invite to the wedding.
Notice that he's inviting these people. Before he was calling
them, they were already invited. They already had invitations.
But these are new. These weren't invited at the
beginning. But they are being invited now. So those servants
went out into the highways and gathered them together. All who
they found, both bad and good, this reference to us, the way
man sees people, right? Man sees people, irreligious
people may see them as bad and religious people may see them
as good. But not that, they're all bad, but this is from man's
point of view. And this is what's taking place
right now in this age. In these last days, this is what's
taking place now. Both bad and good are being called
and the wedding hall was filled with guests. God is successful
at what he does. He doesn't try anything. He does
it. And his wedding, his gathering is going to be full of every
single one that he calls, that particular call of God. Every
single elect is going to be there. There's not going to be anyone
missing. So he filled it with guests. But when the king came,
now up to now, in this um parable uh any preacher
could have preached this so far right even the armenians could
preach this about them calling but israelis uh not wanting to
come and now it's gentiles up to now if you were to stop now
it will be incomplete of course it will be incomplete the whole
truth will not be out there the message of the of of this parable
would not be complete if you just stop right there But it
continues. It continues, it says, but the
king came to see the guests, right? He came into the room
where the guests were. He saw a man who did not have
a wedding garment. What is a wedding garment? Wedding
garment was what the father or the king or the person who's
running the wedding has provided to everyone. Back then, you didn't
wear what you wanted to the wedding, to this party or to this gathering. You wore the wedding garment.
It was all the same. kind of like a uniform in school,
remember? When we were children, we all
wore one uniform. That way, the rich cannot look
at the poor and say, look what I'm wearing, you know, I'm showing
off and doing that. But that didn't happen as a wedding. The person running the wedding
will provide garments for everyone. Everyone wear those garments
when they come in. That was giving honor to the
bridegroom by wearing what they have provided. You're supposed
to wear this. this wedding garment, of course.
And this wedding garment, of course, was not used by this
one. This one snuck in. Somehow he
came out without the wedding garment. This was dishonoring
to the bridegroom. This was saying, my garment is
better than you can provide me. Your garment is not good enough.
Mine is better. I'd rather wear mine. No thank
you, I don't want your garment. So this is very dishonoring to
the bridegroom. This garment, of course, is talking
about Christ's righteousness that he provides to us. He provides
us his perfect righteousness. It is needed, it is necessary,
and without it we cannot be in front of God. So this is the
Christ righteousness which he provides. This is key. He provided
everything, right? He said he had killed the ox,
and he provided the food, he provided everything for this
gathering. and he provided that garment
was key because that garment was Christ's righteousness. That
garment was like Adam and Eve when God covered them with the
slain animal instead of their own leaves, right? So this man
had his own leaves. He did not have the garment and
he was stopped right there. He said, wait a minute, friend,
He said to him, friend, how did you come in here without a wedding
garment? This is serious business. This
was not a slight mistake. This was dishonoring to the bridegroom
and to everyone. And he was speechless. Why was
he speechless? There is no excuse before God.
Who can give excuses to God? God sees your heart. God sees
everything. When you're in front of God, People are not going
to be giving excuses that you have to be speechless because
there's nothing to say. There's no excuse. There's no
reason not to be there without this garment. So that's the third,
obviously, the third reaction, right? We saw the first reaction
was not caring about giving light to the invitation. The second
one was to become hostile to it. And the third one here is
to come on your own. call them your own efforts, approach
God without Christ. And this is serious business.
He was speechless because there was nothing to say. There's no
excuse, okay. Then the king said to his servants,
bind him hand and foot, take him away and cast them into out
of darkness. And there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth. So he's taking action against
this person. This is not a light manner, just
like it's not a light manner not to respond to his call. It's not a light manner to come
to God without Christ. without looking to Christ for
everything, without looking for him as your provider, without
looking to him as your husband. It is not right, but it's way
beyond not right. This is dishonoring, this is
sinful, and this is pure rebellion. And this just dealt in a just
matter. We, in our lifetimes, we haven't
seen really justice. We've seen governments and we've
seen judges being somewhat just, right? We've seen injustice and
we see what we think we might think is justice. But we really
haven't seen justice. Until God, the only time there
was a true justice in the past was with Christ. We were punished. Totally punished. Completely
punished. rightly punished and entirely
punished. We receive justice in Christ. Christ received that justice
for us and it was finished, meaning it was complete. God the Father
was satisfied and that's the only time there has been justice
so far. There will be justice in the
future with all the reprobates, with everyone who's not following
Christ, there will be justice. But there was already justice.
In Christ, there was justice. Christ paid for our sins. So
that's the only justice. But in this lifetime, we have
not seen justice, really. We've seen shadows and we've
seen attempts of justice, but not really. Because when somebody
goes to jail, for life, sentenced, capital
punishment, they get killed. That's still not justice. That's
still not justice. So here we find that the king
said to the servants, bind them. These servants obviously is a
is a picture of the angels when they do this in the future as
well, they're buying them hand and foot and take them away and
cast them in the utter darkness and they will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth. These words obviously, these
are just words here that convey meanings, but they don't go,
they don't come close to describing what that suffering will be or
what that utter darkness. We never have experience this,
this out of darkness. We never have experience in weeping
and gnashing of teeth. This is a terrible outcome. We
never have experienced it, and in Christ we never will. but
this is a terrible, terrible punishment. And this, but this
is justice, justice. God says that this is just. And
then he says, for many are called, a few are chosen. Many of them,
this person was called like the other people were called, but
this person was not chosen. He did not have Christ as his
righteousness. He presented himself. He thought
that himself was good enough. but he was not chosen. Again,
this parable is a wonderful illustration. of that bridegroom of the wedding
and how you approach, how you approach that call is just like
this is telling you to come, come to the wedding. Everything
is done. All things are already ready.
This is how the gospel is preached. The gospel is preached this way,
meaning the Lord Jesus Christ did it all. and we are to come
to him in faith and come to the Lord Jesus Christ and put on
that garment of righteousness, of his righteousness. Now we're
going to go see another place where it talks about the bridegroom
and bride, to make it more complete, to get an aspect that we didn't
see here. We go to the pistols. And when
we go to... I wanted to talk about... We're going to go to Ephesians.
We're going to see Ephesians chapter 5. And again, this righteousness,
this garment is Christ's righteousness. It's the new birth. We get Christ's
righteousness and a new birth. This is the birth from above.
This is what that garment is. The new nature, the new man.
Those are different terms that the Lord uses in his scriptures
to describe this garment that we get. Absolutely free from
his grace. And now, how does the bride honor
the bridegroom? This is now after the wedding,
and we see in Ephesians 5, this is a passage that is used a lot
to talk about how marriage, how husbands or wives ought to behave,
and this is used a lot in it. We're gonna look to see beyond
the commandments, beyond the instructions regarding wives
and husbands, which is fitting. But here, it talks about the
bride. In verse 22, we start in verse
22. It says, why submit to your husbands
as unto the Lord? Okay, that's just one of the
commandments that the Lord Jesus Christ gives to the wives. It
says, for the husband is the head of the wife. But why? Because the marriage is a picture
of Christ and his church, right? We are a picture of his Christ
and his church. Marriage, the Lord is a good
picture of the gospel, right? It's a very good picture of this
relationship. For the husband is the head of
wife, and it says in the rest of the verse, as Christ is the
head of the church. He's the head of the church. He's the savior of the body.
The body is us. The body is the church. Therefore,
Just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wise be
to their own husbands and everything. So this, now the church, of course,
is man and woman, it's us. And we are the church. And it
says we are, the wife and the husband is the Lord Jesus Christ,
and says that the church is subject to Christ in everything. we are subject to Christ in everything
and that's uh just like the wife says to be subject to to the
husband just like the church is subject to Christ in everything
and that's how the the church that's how the bride honors the
husband that's how the bride honors the bridegroom and and
by by being obedient and by following Christ and uh this is uh a wonderful
picture there, how that is. In conclusion, we're going to
go to Revelations 19. Revelations 19, we're going to
see the conclusion of this wedding, the conclusion of what all these
scriptures is pointing to. And this is what has not happened
in our time. In verse 19, chapter 19, Verses seven through nine, this
is the marriage supper of the lamb. Again, another picture
of what it actually is of Christ being our husband and we being
his bride. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give him glory for the marriage of the lamb has come. I wonder
what a wonderful time that will be. What a wonderful time that
will be. and his wife has made herself
ready and in her and her it is granted and to her it is granted
again all Our blessings are granted to us. All our blessings are
in Christ and they are always granted to us. To be a ray in
fine linen, this is the linen that we read about earlier. This
is a picture of Christ's righteousness and him taking away all our sins,
all our sins. Clean and bright, for fine linen
is the righteous acts of the saints. then he said to me write
and bless it at those who are called to the marriage supper
of the lamb this is a great great blessing to be called to this
marriage of the supper of the lamb and this is why the Lord
is sovereign. This is why he predicts everything
that happens, and he controls, he predestines everything that
happens in this world. It's all to honor Christ. It's all to honor the bride.
And this is the purpose of why we're here. This is the purpose,
is always to honor the bride, always to honor Christ. And it
says, the marriage of the supper of the Lamb, he said, And he
finishes and says, these are true sayings of God. This is
true. This will happen. So from the
Old Testament to the New Testament to this period here where we
are his wife or bride, if you will, and to the final glorification
where we're going to experience the marriage of the Lamb. This
is wonderful and it's been a blessing for me to study this topic, how
Christ is our bridegroom. He's our bridegroom and he says
that he will control us forever. He will marry us forever. And
that is a wonderful blessing. Let us go to the Father in prayer.
Father God, we come before you in the name of our husband, the
Lord Jesus Christ. To thank you, Father, we are
short in thanking you. We cannot thank you enough. We
cannot glorify you enough for all that you have done for your
bride, Father. Thank you because it's all done.
You have prepared it all. You have provided it all. You
have called us. You have blessed us. You have
saved us. And now we look to Christ as
our husband, Father God. We will spend eternity, Father,
blessing you and thanking you and praising you for what you
have done for us, Father. And it will not be enough, Father. Thank you. And may you bless
us. May we understand more of Christ. May we love Christ more and follow
Him as well. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
355. so ? From every stormy wind that blows
? ? From every swelling tide of woes ? ? There is a calm,
a sure retreat ? ? Tis found beneath the mercy seat ? There
is a place where Jesus sheds the oil of gladness on our heads,
a place then all beside more sweet. It is the blood-bought
mercy seat. ? There is a scene where spirit's
been ? ? Where friend holds fellowship with friend ? ? Though sundered
far by faith they meet ? ? Around one common mercy see ? Ah, whither could we flee, for
aid, When tempted, desolate, dismayed, Or how the hosts of
hell defeated, Had suffering saints, though mercy seen? Ah, there on eagles' wings we
soar, And sin and since molest no more, And hem come down our
souls to greed, While glory crowns the mercy seat. so