Chapter 5 positively states that
the king will return. He is referred to as a bridegroom. He's married or single. A mystical union or relationship. In Chapter 5 of the Book of Ephesians, Giving thanks always for all
things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Submitting yourselves one to
another in the Spirit of God. Therefore, as the Church is subject
unto Christ, so let the wives be control of the husbands in
everything. Husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for her, that
he might sanctify and cleanse it with washing of water by the
Word, that he might present it himself a glorious church, not
having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. So men, but to love their wives
as grown fathers, We are members of his body, of
his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and
they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery. even as himself has the wife
see that she reverence her husband. I want to talk to you just a little
while here this morning in regards to the bridegroom. I believe that all of those that
have been redeemed throughout all ages rise to the
pride of Christ. It is all the same problem. Beginning of the human race until Bride of Christ. He's married
to them. Bridegroom is married to bride. Now, the bridegroom presupposes two
things. First, a person in a single capacity,
and as so considered, is a suitor or lover. Secondly, a person
in a married state, and as so considered, he is a head or husband. Now, in both of these respects,
Christ may be considered and held forth in the Word of God. He first acts as a lover or a
suitor. to engage the love and affection
of sinners unto himself. That's his first role. As a lover, he engages the attention
and the affection and the love of poor sinners unto himself. Then secondly, he joins himself
in a glorious, mystical marriage relationship. Now, the Lord Jesus
Christ, notwithstanding all the glory that he had to offer, in regard to the joys, the excellences,
and the perfections that he had as he dwelled in eternal bliss in eternity past yet thought upon a bride and judged
it right to enter into a marriage union with this bride. Over in the book of Proverbs
chapter 8 And verse 31 is the verse that
I want you to look at with me. Proverbs chapter 8 and verse
31. Now read this verse in light
of what I said. That Jesus Christ notwithstanding
all the glory and splendor and majesty that he had with the
Father, being the joy and excellences and perfections dwelling in the
eternal bliss of glory, yet caught upon a bride and judged it right
to enter into a marriage union." Now verse 31, "...speaking of
the Lord Jesus, rejoicing in the habitable part of the earth
and, now this is the part that I want you to see, and my delights
were with sons of men. That is, he fought upon a bride
and judged it right to enter in a marriage union with her. Now let's talk about the bridegroom. in the role of a suitor or a
lover. Now, a true lover respects his
intended bride more than wealth and beauty. That is, wealth and
beauty does not play a prominent role or a prominent part in his
choice of a bride. A true lover, I'm talking about
one that his heart has been engaged to the attention and the inward
qualities and moral duties of the opposite sex. A true lover
respects his intended bride more than wealth and beauty. It's
not in proportion. but it's in the person, that
is, I, the sinnable. Now, as we consider this in light
of the bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, we've got to say that
Jesus Christ loves for sinners, not for anybody he sees in man. Now, do you see what I'm trying
to say? I'm saying that the true lover that has respect for his
intended bride more than wealth and duty, that is he. It's the
portion, it's the person, it's not the outward adorning qualities
that attract him. The Lord Jesus Christ, Those
four senses. Not for anything he sees in them. Not for beauty in them. Because the natural man, the
natural man has nothing that renders him desirable unto God. Man in his first state. in his natural state, has nothing
in him, inwardly or outwardly, that would render him desirable
unto God. But a true lover respects his
intended bride more than wealth and beauty. It is not portion,
but person, his eye is set upon. Christ sees nothing in us because
there's nothing in us that would render us desirable or attractive
unto him. That means it will not come as
a surprise to you, most of you, but the majority of those in
the Christian world this morning, that would certainly be a surprise
to them if they believed it. I doubt seriously if they would
believe it. for most people believe that the reason that their attention
was engaged by Jesus Christ and he had made himself known to
them was because of something that he'd seen in them that attracted
him to them. Now it would come as a surprise
and a shock to them to know that man in his natural state has
nothing in him or outside of him or that has anything to do
with him that would render him attractive or desirable unto
God. Nothing whatsoever. In fact, it's just the opposite. Instead of the Lord Jesus Christ
seeing anything desirable to his eye in us, He might see enough
in us to cause Him to loathe us. Well, if we ever see these things,
the men and women who are Christians, if they ever see these things,
they're going to fall in love with the Lord Jesus. That's all
they are to us. If you ever see how despicable you are, if you
ever see how deformed and miserable you are, If you ever see the
truth about yourself, then I'll guarantee you're going to fall
in love with the Lord Jesus and you're going to serve Him in
the balance of your days. You're not going to have to beg and
kick and drag and cohort and threaten God and all of that
to get you to serve the Lord. You're going to do it because
you love Him. And you're going to do it because you understand
that the Lord If he acted according to our natural state, he would
have hated us rather than love us because there's nothing in
us that would attract his eye to us. Well, things about the
bride and groom. You know, a man in a single state the state,
that is, in the single capacity, will not set his heart upon or
court a leper. You know what a leper is. A leper is one that's full of
running sores. A leper is one that is not fit
for civilized society. That is because of his physical
condition. I'm not talking about his attitude. his thoughts or his makeup, and
I'm talking about his physical condition. It is so undesirable,
his disease is so contagious, that they must find a place that
would alienate him from the rest of society. So they have what's
known as a leopard colony. And they build walls around him
and No one is allowed in except those that would treat them,
the doctors and the nurses and so forth. And there they are. They lay there in this despicable
state full of misery and full of running sores and open sores
and putrefying sores and wounds. And they are a stench. by the nostrils of those that
would have to wait upon them. Now, what I'm saying is that
a man will not set his heart upon toward a leper. He won't do that. You wouldn't
do that, would you? Would you set your heart upon
towarding a leper if you was in single capacity? Would you
do that? Would you set your heart upon
or toward a blind preacher? One that's blind, would you do
that? Some do, some do, but very few
would deliberately set their heart upon and toward a blind
preacher, or a deformed preacher, or a preacher that is full of
running sores. You would do that, wouldn't you?
I wouldn't do it, and you wouldn't do it. You wouldn't set your heart upon
or force one that's full of old ulcers from the crown of their
head to the sole of their feet. You wouldn't do that, would you? You wouldn't do it. But God did. You wouldn't do
it, and I wouldn't do it, but He did. Now, what I'm saying
is, if we ever see these things, if we ever see We ever see the
role that the Lord Jesus Christ played in the bridegroom in a
single capacity as he sets out to prove and to engage the affection
of a poor sinner and understand what the poor sinner is and what
the poor sinner wants? We'll come to the truth. that
if we're ever saved, it's by the grace of God. Recall, the
Lord Jesus Christ set his mark upon the poor sinner. When cast out for the loathing
of his person, in his blood like a newborn baby, every sinner
is like a leper in a spiritual sin. defiled all over, wounded
and full of ulcers, lonesome as a filthy sacrifice, every
faculty of his soul is wounded and bruised and unclean and full
of running sores." You wouldn't quote one like that,
would you? Much less will a king leave his crown and
his kingdom, and deny himself all of his glory, and become poor and contemptible,
and be exposed to the miseries and pain and suffering like no
mortal ever was. And all for the sake and love
to a wretched creature, loathsome like a leopard, deformed, contemptible
and like a beggar, a notorious rebel. His enemy, one who ain't. Would you do that? Would you
seek out one who literally made it known to you in no uncertain
terms that you were a Democrat. And there could not be any reconciliation
between the two parties. That you were so opposed to him
that there was no grounds or there was no chance that there
could be any reconciliation between the two. In fact, would you set
your heart on one attitude like that? Would you leave, would
you give up? If you had all of the world's
victories at your command, if you had power, if you had beings
that would fall down before you every hour of every day and just
sing praises unto your name constantly, not just every hour of every
day, but there would not be a time that The heavens would not be
filled with praises unto your name. Now would you believe,
would you give up, would you deny yourself all of this kingly
glory and power and praise and honor and splendor and dignity? Would you deny yourself all of
this and set out to love and to engage the affections of a
deformed, a deformed one that's twisted in soul and mind and
sometimes body. Twisted! Would you set out, set
your love and support this particular person who was a leper, who was
full of running sores, would you do that? No, you wouldn't
do it, nor I wouldn't do it. We wouldn't set our hearts upon
one that was a notorious rebel. One that hated us. In fact, hating
us without a cause. We wouldn't set our, we wouldn't
set our affections upon him. But Christ did. He did. What do you think of that? He
did. I know we know these things. I know you've heard this before.
I've heard it before. I've read it many and many a
time. But I wanted to get a hold of
it. I wanted to see just what we
are. I wanted to see that He is the
bridegroom. He knew all of these things. He knew all of these things before
He sent His love upon us. In order that our hearts might
take a response to Him in love and affection. If you'll turn
with me this morning here to the book of 2 Corinthians, there's
a verse there that I want us to read together. 2 Corinthians
chapter 8 and verse number 9. Now I want
us to read this together. You've read it before. It's not
It's a passage that's been isolated. It's been there for a long time. It's very familiar. And I want
you to get the drift of it. I want you to see it. I want
you to feel this verse. I want you to let it speak to
you. Listen, for we know, for ye know, the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Amazing grace. We know what the
grace of God is, don't we? For ye know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, You see what I'm
talking about now, about leaving his kingly glory, denying himself
praise of these celestial beings. He was rich. Cattle on a thousand
hills belonged to him. He made the world. He framed
the world. There was not anybody that was
made, that was not made by him, and for him, and through him,
and unto his honor, Not anybody, not one particle of dust ever
came into existence apart from Him. Not one particle was made. It was made apart from His glory
and apart from His honor. For you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ that He was rich. He was rich. Yet, for your
sake, yet for your sake, for your sake, poor lepers who were
full of running souls, deformed and twisted in mind and soul. Notorious rebels, men that hated
him. He was rich, yet for your sakes,
yet for your sakes he became poor, that he, that he through
his poorness or his poverty might be rich. See? He left all for Jesus and became
poor. Scriptures depict him as a man
of sorrows acquainted with freedom, exposing himself to every pain
and misery of this world. All for the sake of poor, polluted,
defiled, corrupted, deformed sinners. Get amazed. Turn with
me to Colossians chapter 1. Another verse I want you to see. Colossians chapter 1 and verse
21. Let's read this together. Verse 21. And you, that you and I he's talking
about, And you that were sometimes alienated and enmeshed in your
mind by wicked words, you who were alienated from God, alienated
from Christ, alienated from hope, alienated from life, alienated
from peace, alienated from glory, what happened? alienated as enemies in your
mind. By wicked words, the enmity of
your mind evident itself by wicked words. What does he say? Yet now hath he reconciled. He left Paul and became Paul, exposing himself pain and misery
of this world, all for the sake of four polluted, deformed, wicked
sinners who were enemies, enemies to him, by wickedness. We may then, in prayerfulness,
what I see, how we work, and how we are, how the hope we are to God in
providing such a great and good match for us. beholden to the Ark of God, for
providing such a great one, a good match for us. All right, if he saw
this, if he saw this and bought this and entered into this relationship,
this mystical marriage, this union of heart and soul and body
and spirit and mind with us, entered into that relationship,
Oh, my soul, listen to this. Bridegroom to die. We talked
about that here the other night. Bridegroom to die. We have some
here. Widows, husbands to die. burned anybody here. Some bride
group died and left their poor widows, left their wives and
poor widows, left the children fatherless and orphaned. And
the widows, the wives, the children, the orphans. You'll never see
them again. Never see them again. There's
some bride groups who died and the widows and the children have
hope of a happy reunion. What I'm trying to say is this,
that bridegrooms die. They die. And they leave their
wives widows and their children fatherless. But this bridegroom,
this bridegroom who sought his path when we were full of running
sores, body ulcers, no sound in the sentence, like a leopard. Deformed, blind, innocent, he
sought us out, engaged our heart, and brought us unto himself as
his bride. And we are his bride, and he's
the bride for me. Now, he never died. He was dead
once. He died once. He died, he says,
Behold, I was dead, but I am alive, and alive forevermore. And scriptures say he ever lives
to make intercession for us. Now, some bridegrooms die. You
see what I'm talking about? Thieves, the wives, widows. Don't have anybody. Thieves and
widows. They don't have no inheritance.
Don't have anything. Thieves and children, fathers. Thieves
and orphans. Oh, I rejoiced this morning to
know that he'll never leave Zion a widow. He'll never leave Comfort Place. Our bridegroom. He'll never die. He marries. He marries. He sought
us out. And he marries. He sought us
out in the city of Manhattan. He had brought us unto himself.
And he marries. He marries. All right, but you were stayed
in Manhattan. You don't have it. You have no life. If you don't have Him, what happens? If you don't have the Lord Jesus
Christ, you tell me what you have. If you don't have anybody,
you don't have anything. If you don't have God, you don't
have anything. Nothing. You have no life, you
have no light, you have no peace, you have no God, you have no
glory. It's foolishness to prefer bondage
sin and Satan before a marriage, state, and union. That's foolishness. That's foolishness. Reason it out any way you want
to, that's foolishness, to desire bondage to sin and Satan over
and above a relationship with God in Christ that cannot be
divorced from. That's foolishness. This marriage that we're talking
about, that you know nothing about. You're still in this single
capacity. You have not submitted yourself
to Him. He has not become your bridegroom. You're in a sorry state. You
have nothing. You'll never be happy. You'll
never be happy in this life. You'll never be happy in this
life. And I'm certainly sure that you'll
never be happy in the life to come. You have nothing but misery
and ruin that awaits you. There's no other way of being happy except
in Christ. Blessed is the man who trusts
in the Lord. Happy is that man. Well then,
if he's rejected, as the rule, he must be damned
forever. way out of it. So it's foolishness to value
the lusts of the flesh and the pleasures of this world above
Christ. When you do that, you're saying
this, that you value the greatest evil over and above the cheapest
good. That's what a man says. A man
that continually abuts and rejects and tramples underneath his feet,
and spurns offers, and cares not for God, simply says, in
so many words, that he values sin above the cheapest of good. The cheapest of good, right through
the Lord Jesus Christ. And a man that's not wedded to
Him, Madwoman Barger is saying that they value sin and value
being a bondage to the devil and a bondage to sin over and
above liberty with the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, has he done all this? Big, big sin. Undergoing shame
and degradation. As he did all of this, and as
he come to our door, and we shut him out. No, He'll
not be for me. Is there no room? Scriptures
say there was no room for Him at the end. Is there no room
for Him in the end? Must He stay out in the stable? That's what we're saying. Men
that do not respond to the gospel as it's presented, what they're
saying is that If we shut the door, there's no room for him
in our hearts. There's no room for him in our
lives. There's no room whatsoever. He
must stay at the stable. He must stay outside of the world.
He cannot come in. He cannot tread our courts. We
will not let him in. There's no room for him. He must
lie at the stable. We're saying that Satan commands
the heart, but Christ only commands the lip in our lives. What we're saying is this. We're
saying in our hearts there is no beauty in Him that we should
desire. We're saying that there's nothing
about Him that attracts our hearts to Him, nothing whatsoever. There
is no form of humbleness or beauty in him that we should desire. He's like, as far as we're concerned,
he's like a root out of dry grass. We don't desire him. We don't
desire him. We desire the state that we're
in. We desire the pleasures of sin,
the luxuries of faith. We desire being in bondage to
the devil for the rest of our lives. That's what we desire.
That's the way we're going to go, and that's the way we're
going to end up, and that's the way you will end up. That's what
we're saying. You see, when we say there's
no room for him in our hearts and shut the door, we're not
even going to consider it. There's nothing about it. There's
nothing about it that we desire. Well, now listen, there's one
more thing I won't let you go. There in the book of Matthew,
it talks about It's also about the bridegroom coming. The bridegroom's
away. The bride's here. And one day there's going to
be what they call a consummation of the bridegroom and the bride.
They're going to come together. When they come together, there's
going to be a wedding supper, a wedding feast. The bridegroom is going to have
a marriage feast with the bride. And I want you to notice this.
Not only does the bridegroom take care of all the feasts,
but he also provides the garments. I talked about that a moment
ago. But anyhow, there was what? Five foolish virgins and five
wise virgins. And they were waiting on what?
Waiting on the bridegroom. Well, in light of their waiting
on the bridegroom, let me say that we ought to be prepared
because the bridegroom is coming. The midnight cry will soon be
heard. The bridegroom's coming. That's
going to be the midnight cry. The bridegroom's coming. Rhymes. Go ye out to him. If you're not
prepared, if you don't have the proper garments on, if you don't
have your lamps trimmed, And if you don't have oil in the
vessel, the door will be shut. That's what the scriptures say.
The door will be shut. That there was five wives, five
husbands. There's always room on the bride,
room to call. When the midnight cry came, it
said that the bride's coming, the five The wives first, who
had their lamps trimmed and oil in their petals, rose up and
went out to meet and had what was received by them. Now the
five foolish, they didn't have their lamps trimmed, and they
didn't have no oil in their petals, and they couldn't see. And it
was too late. And they said to the five foolish,
to the five wives, they didn't give up, some oil, to put in
IRAM so we might strip them and go out and leave the front. They
said, no, we'll not do that because we don't have no wall for the
front. So they went out and when they
come back, the door was closed. The door was closed. He said, what is your state this
morning? What is my state without Him,
the Lord Jesus Christ? It's nothing. It's nothing. bridegroom comes, goes out to
meet him. Is your lamb strewn? Do you have
oil in the vessel? Are you prepared? Huh? You answer
the question. I mean, I, there's nothing I
can do about it. I can tell you, I can tell you
and preach to you, but I can't do anything about it. I can't
do anything. That's you. You've got to, you've
got to answer that. That's one question you're going
to have to answer. You and I, we're not going to
be able to debate the reality of truth forever. I debate the
questions of what your preacher says to you, or what your neighbor
says to you, what your husband says to you, what your wife says
to you, what your children say to you. But this is one question
you're going to have to answer. You're going to have to answer.
Is my soul right with God? Is my relationship right with
God? Is it right? Do I know it's right? Is it right? The only way that
it can be right is to be in Christ, is to come to Christ as a poor,
helpless, deformed, wretched, blind, or notorious rebel, an
enemy of God, a poor, poor sinner, Come to Him and sue for mercy,
and make a plea for mercy. That's the only way you can go. It's a poor, empty-handed beggar
suing God for mercy in Christ. And every brother and sister
here this morning that's in Christ agrees with me in what I've said. What this world has, what this
world offers, won't amount to a snap of a finger. You know that which we fight
about right now? Which we fight about and we mark
and quarrel about and we work ourselves to the bone and deny
and deprive ourselves of in order to get, you know, that a minute
before we die, we're going to have a barbeque. I don't know how we, I don't
know how people read. When the scriptures say don't,
and people knows this. Everybody knows what's right
and what's wrong. Don't tell me that people don't
know what's right. They got a conscience. Man's
conscience tells him what's right and tells him what's wrong. God
has given him this conscience. It tells him. It tells him that
he's going to die. It tells him if he dies without
Christ, he's going to go to hell. Yet he's unconcerned. Well, God
help us all. If I'm unconcerned, if I'm indifferent,
if I'm careless, God forgive me of my indifference, forgive
me of my carelessness, and bring me to repentance, and bring me
to a relationship with God in Christ in a saving way, that
I might be saved. Bless God I don't look at me. Tell me to say well. I don't
want to be operated on if I can get out of it. I don't want to
have any pain in this life if I can get out of it. That's the reason I take aspirin. So people that like it are free.
I don't like it. I don't want it. I don't want it. I don't want to go to hell either. I don't want to go to hell because
it's difficult in hell. The hospital will be a pain in
the dick if you go to hell. I don't want to go there. I'll
just be honest with you. They say confession is good for
the soul. I'm just going to confess to
you this morning. I don't want to go to hell. I
don't want to go. If there's any way to avoid hell, I want
to avoid it. And the scriptures say that there is a way, and
that's Jesus Christ. That's where I've come. That's
how far I've come, I've come to Christ. It's all in me. Now I'm not going to go to heaven,
because the bridegroom paid all my debts. That's right, he paid
all my debts. I don't owe him anything. You see, he took my responsibility.
Everything. Every debt that I owed, when
I was in St. Sebastian, when Christ engaged
the attention, the affection of my heart and wooed me and
brought me to it, He took every one of my debts and discharged
them. I don't owe debts. He discharged
my debts. See, when you take a wife to
marry, you take everything that she's got, her bills, her responsibilities,
her trials, her troubles, her dangers, you take them all. You
take them all. You don't say after you get married,
well those are your bills, you pay them, you pay for them. You
don't say that. She said, you pay for them. The bills came with me. Is that
right? The bills came with me, you pay
for them. The price of the bride and groom is money. It pays all
the debts. Every debt. that God's law had
against the poor sinner, Christ satisfied. There's no death against
Satan. The slate's clean. The slate's
clean. If I die now, if I die now before
you come up here and see whether I'm dead or not, I'll be with
him. The slate's clean. I know where
I'm going. I'm not boasting. I'm bragging.
If I'm bragging, I'm bragging on him. He paid the tax. I didn't
do it. I didn't do it. He paid it. And
I just believe what he said. I just believe what God said
in the scriptures that the Lord Jesus Christ paid all of my debts. I was a poor sinner, a poor running
source, a wretched, blinded poor. He loved me in spite of all of
it. There wasn't a single solitary
thing about me that would render myself desirable.