Alright, brethren, before we
get started, let's all stand up real quick. Shake it out. Stretch your arms
up like this. Wake up. Make sure everybody's
good and awake. Alright, you can be seated. Alright, let's turn to Matthew
chapter 25. The relationship of the bride
and the groom portrays the marriage between Christ and the church.
Now we're looking at how God worked things in the hearts of
men to create these traditions having to do with marriage that
glorify Christ. Now let's review just a minute.
We first of all saw the betrothal, also called the espousal. In
this, this took place in eternity whenever the Lord agreed to marry
the bride, the church, God's elect, and come forth and redeem
her. He agreed to the betrothal terms,
to pay the dowry for the bride. And as far as our experience
of it, this takes place in the next step which is called the
interval. The interval is from the beginning
of time to the end of time. Christ came and paid all the
debt that His bride owed to the Father. He came and honored the
Father in everything He did with His precious blood. He justified
His people, He made us righteous, and now He began Then He began
calling us to Himself. And that's where we experience
this petrophal. That's where we become betrothed
and espoused to Him. And He's going to keep doing
this work, keep calling out His people until He's called them
all, and then the interval will end. The interval is the period
between when the husband and the bride become betrothed to
each other and she's preparing herself and he's preparing all
that work for her to get ready. And then the next thing that's
going to happen is the third part is the marriage of the marriage
is the procession. The procession. Now, let's go
to Matthew 25. Now you get this picture. The
bride is waiting. She's waiting. She's legally
betrothed to the husband. Just like you as a believer know
that you're legally right now married to Christ. But we're
waiting the wedding. And we're waiting. And we don't
know when He's coming. We're waiting. And she would
be waiting. She don't know when the bridegroom's going to come.
But she's preparing herself. She's watching. She's waiting
for Him to come. And the bridegroom decks himself
and he gets his friends and here he comes with his grand procession
and a lot of pomp and rejoicing and singing and he comes at this
unexpected time and the word goes through the house, the bridegroom
is coming, the bridegroom is coming. And they run out to meet
him and he takes his bride then and he returns with her and takes
her to the wedding. Now this is what our Lord Jesus
here gives us an illustration of in the parable of the five
wise virgins. These are betrothed brides is
what they are. The five wise virgins and the
five foolish virgins. Matthew 25.1 says, Then shall
the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins which took their
lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them
were wise and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their
lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their
vessels with their lamps. And while the bridegroom tarried,
that is in the interval in which we are now in. The bridegroom
is tarrying now. We don't know when he is coming
back. While he tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And
at midnight, the time unexpected, at midnight there was a cry made,
Behold, the bridegroom cometh. Go ye out to meet him. Then all
those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish
said unto the wise, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone
out. But the wise answered saying,
Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you. But go ye rather
to them that sell and buy for yourselves. And while they went
to buy, the bridegroom came. And they that were ready went
in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. And afterward
came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
But he answered and he said, Verily I say unto you, I know
you not." Now here's the lesson. Watch therefore. For you know
not the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh." There's
coming a day. And none of us knows that day.
But there is coming a day when the Lord Jesus Christ shall return
again for His bride. That is for certain. There's
coming a day. He says there, look at verse
31. He's coming with a great heavenly host. Verse 31 says,
When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy
angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.
And before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate
them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats
on the left. Then shall the king say unto
them on his right hand, Come ye, blessed of my Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. So Christ says to us, Now watch
ye therefore. Christ is going to come. He's
returning. Watch ye therefore. Make yourself
ready. Make yourself ready. Don't be
like these foolish brides. They slept. They slumbered. And when the bridegroom came,
they didn't have oil. Their lamps went out. They didn't
have any light. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ,
we saw this morning how it behooved Him to be made like unto His
brethren. In all ways, He was made like
unto His brethren. When He did that, He made His
bride like unto Him. You see, this is such a matter
of rejoicing to believers because as true as Christ was made like
unto us, we are now made like unto Him. Our Lord Jesus Christ
came forth and He finished the transgression. Just think of
that. The transgression is finished. He made an end of sins. His bride has no more sin. He
made an end of sin. Before the judgment seat of the
all-knowing God, get this now, no sin can be found to charge
to Christ's bride. Not one sin can be found to be
charged to one for whom Christ died because He made an end of
sins. There's no record. No record. Nowhere to be found. And so doing
this, He made reconciliation for iniquity. He made reconciliation
for iniquity. We were not the friend of God. We were enemies of God. He made
us to be reconciled friends now. See, God can be the friend of
this bride. In fact, there's Scripture where
He calls her His daughter. She's His. And because Christ
has made us one, there's no sin to keep us apart anymore. There's
no transgression to keep us apart. No iniquity to keep us apart.
He made us one. And He has brought in and made
us everlastingly righteous. When God looks upon this bride,
every single chosen child of God for whom Christ died, those
that He's called to cast their care on Christ and believe on
Him through faith, when God beholds this bride, you know how He beholds
us? As righteous as God is righteous. Christ is the righteousness of
God. The righteousness of God. And His bribe is the righteousness
of God. That's why He uses such emphatic
terms in Romans 6. And He says, So because Christ
died unto sin once, likewise you reckon you impute yourself
to be dead indeed unto sin. And because he arose and lives
under God, you impute yourself indeed to be alive under God. And nothing will change about
that. Nothing. Isn't that a blessing, brethren?
He sealed up the vision and prophecy, fulfilled everything that was
written of Him. And this whole book is all about
Him. He's fulfilled everything. And
He's anointed the most holy place. He's entered into God's presence.
And there through him, used to, you had to pick up this big thick
veil and the high priest alone could go under it and go into
the most holy place. And the most holy place was a
physical place and there was a physical ark with the broken
law in it and there was a physical mercy seat and he took the blood
of a physical lamb and he sprinkled that on there and it went down
over that ark and it covered that broken law. And for one
year. God was appeased for one year.
But that blood and that high priest never put away sin by
anything he did. A blood of a physical lamb could
never put away sin because it could never be made like unto
his brethren. But Christ came and He was made
like His brethren. And now He's made His brethren
like Him. And that veil rent from the top to the bottom. Not
from the bottom to the top. If it had ripped from the bottom
to the top, they could have said, well, it just wore out over time.
It ripped from the top to the bottom declaring, it is finished. He's done away with it. He fulfilled
it. And now, we have a high priest. And it's through His flesh. His
flesh is the veil. And we enter in through Christ
into that holy place, into God's presence, and God will accept
us. Because His blood covers the broken law for us. Made perfect
atonement. and accomplished all this for
us. So what I'm saying to you sinner is, if you're going to
be like the foolish bride, you're going to be just sitting here
like these foolish virgins. You're just going to sit here
and go through this life and slumber. And ignore all this. And then when you hear the call
that Christ is coming, just like it was for the foolish virgins,
it will be too late. Seeing all this is done, the
wise virgin rested, but their rest was pleasant. They knew
when the call comes, we got oil, we are ready. And you reckon
which one slept better? Why not rest with the wise virgins
and know it's done? I've got the oil in my lamp that
Christ has provided. I know He is going to come and
take me home. And you who are otherwise, by
the grace of God, do what Christ said. Watch, watch ye. Spurgeon used to say we ought
to get up every morning and look out the east window and see if
Christ is coming. And be disappointed that it's
not so. Watch ye, watch ye. Christ is coming. He's coming. One of these days, watch ye,
and He's coming when we least expect it. Go to Song of Solomon
chapter 3 and verse 6 and look at this. Song of Solomon chapter
3. You know Song of Solomon is all
about Christ and the bride. It's the love story of Christ
and the bride. Now look here, Solomon is a picture of Christ.
Look here. Verse 6, Who is this that cometh
out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh
and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant? Behold his bed. He's made a bed. His bride's
not even going to have to walk to the wedding. He's going to
carry her to the wedding. Behold his bed, which is Solomon's. Three score valiant men are all
about it, of the valiant of Israel. They all hold swords, being expert
in war. Every man hath his sword upon
his thigh because of fear in the night. Meaning, he's got
his bride surrounded, he's not going to let anything happen
to her. Nothing's going to happen to her. She's protected. He says,
King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. He made
the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof gold, the
covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with
love for the daughters of Jerusalem. for this bride, for this elect
bride. He says, Go forth, O ye daughters
of Zion, and behold King Solomon with the crown wherewith his
mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, in the day
that he was betrothed to this bride. That's the day of the
gladness of his heart. So watch, brethren. Be always
on watch. The procession is going to happen.
He's coming and He's going to take all, He's going to take
every member of this bride, He's going to take us to the wedding.
Now let's come to the wedding. Let's get to the wedding. Alright,
Revelation 19. Revelation 19. So we've seen the betrothal. We've
seen the interval. We've seen the procession. Now
we come to the wedding. Revelation 19. Now this is the
glorious day when the marriage of Christ and His chosen bride,
the church, shall be consummated. This is the day when what Scripture
says will happen is those who are asleep in our Lord Jesus,
those believers who have died before us, that have been buried
long ago, Their bodies shall be raised first when Christ returns. And then us who remain, who are
still alive, who are believers, we'll be caught up with them,
to arise with them. And we'll be translated, the
Scripture says. And in that day there's going
to be a great general judgment of all who ever lived upon the
earth. A great judgment of all who ever
lived upon the earth. Let me tell you something about
this judgment. When God judges those who are outside of Christ,
He is not going to be judging you against other sinners. He
is not even going to judge you against the Ten Commandments.
He is going to judge you against His Son. And His Son is the only
one He is pleased with. Because His Son is perfect righteousness,
perfect holiness, perfect faithfulness to God and to His bride. And
if we don't measure up to that perfection, He'll cast us out. So at the point that we come
to here now in this passage, that's what's happened. The harlot
church, the harlot church, trusting in her will and her works and
her wisdom, at this point, she'll be cast out. She'll be cast out
into outer darkness by the power of God's just judgment. And God's elect shall be gathered
together to what is called in Scripture the great marriage
supper of the Lamb. This is the wedding. This will
be the last wedding ever, right here. We saw the first time we
started this, I started preaching on these messages concerning
marriage, we saw the first marriage. This right here is the last marriage.
It's the last one. This is when we'll be publicly
united to Christ our husband, right here, just like a husband
and a bride do at a wedding. Now Christ our husband, get this
now, He'll be the one honored at this wedding. We honor the
bride, but we're always backwards in everything. Christ will be
the one honored. The husband will be the one honored.
Look here, Revelation 19, 7. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His
wife hath made herself ready. It's not called her wedding.
It's called the marriage of the Lamb. The marriage of the Lamb. He's the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. The first message I ever preached
was, Behold the Lamb of God. in 1999. And this was my outline. He's the Lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world. When He agreed to those betrothal
terms for His bride, right then, as surety for His people, He
said, whatever is owed to them, put that on My account and I
will pay it when the time comes. And from that day forward, God
never looked anywhere else. He was slain right then. He was
slain. And then He is the Lamb typified
in all the Old Testament Scriptures. This is what God was showing
in all the Old Testament Scriptures. Abraham took Isaac up to that
mountain and God said, sacrifice your only son, the son you love,
your only son, the son God promised that all the seed was going to
be born in him, through him. And that just didn't make sense
to Abraham, but he didn't second guess God. You know, it pictured
Christ. Christ was slain, and yet He's
the Son through whom all the seeds are going to be born. So
Abraham takes Him up there, and Abraham put that boy on the altar,
and Abraham was fixing to slay Him. And he told Isaac on the way
up there, he said, Isaac said, well, here's the wood, here's
the fire, where's the lamb? We don't have a lamb. And Abraham
said, God will provide Himself a lamb. Not just God's going
to one day provide a lamb, God is Himself going to be the lamb
that He provides. And he put that boy on that altar
and he reared back the knife and there God showed a ram caught
in a thicket and some thorns. And you look years and years
and years and years later and you see that lamb with thorns
upon his brow going to the cross. God providing Himself a lamb.
That's what was pictured through all the Old Testament Scriptures.
And He's the Lamb who walked this earth and went to the cross.
John said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
His people all over the world. That's what He meant, because
His name is Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sin.
He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of His people scattered
throughout every part of the world, no matter who they are,
no matter what their station in life, no matter what class
of person they are, or race of person they are, no matter...
He don't look on persons. He looks to Christ. And Christ
has paid the price for His people. And He's the Lamb right now upon
the throne, ruling and reigning and working this work, calling
out His sheep, and He'll be the Lamb that we'll be married to
one day. The Lamb. You see, the Lamb is
who you fell in love with. That's who we fell in love with. You know, I know Christ is a
perfect man and He's a righteous man and all that, but we first
fell in love with Christ the Lamb. That's how God does it. He makes you see that sacrifice,
that substitute, and makes you mourn for Him. And so it's appropriate
that the one we have here being married to is the Lamb. The marriage
of the Lamb. Christ the Lamb. Now how does
His wife make herself ready? It says there the bride's made
herself ready. She's a wise virgin. She didn't
waste time during that interval. She made herself ready. How do
you do that? How does a sinner do that? Verse
8. And to her was granted." Revelation
19, verse 8. To her was granted. It was given
to her. That she should be arrayed in
fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness
of saints. In the previous chapter, the
harlot church is cast down. And you can go back there and
read it sometime, but this is what she's dressed in. She's
arrayed in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and
precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full
of abomination and filthiness of her fornication. You know
what she's dressed like? A prostitute. What are all those
things? They're things to attract. That's
what they are. And you look around at 90% of
religion in this world, 99% of religion in this world has all
these gaudy attractions to try to get folks in. To try to get
folks in. I saw a sign up here on the street
coming in on Father's Day and it said, all fathers today will
get a prize. Secret prize. Just to get them
in there. That's a gaudy prostitute's jewelry
is what that is. What do we use to attract people? The preaching of Christ and Him
crucified, that's it. The righteousness of God, Christ
and Him crucified, that's all. That's all. And so, Christ grants
to His bride that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean
and white, and that fine linen is the righteousness of Christ
that's been granted freely to His saints. That's what that
fine linen pictures, clean and white, the righteousness of Christ,
granted through faith to the believer. Now, go back to Hosea
again. Hosea chapter 3. We were the
poor, bankrupt, shameful harlot is what we were. This is sad. You know, God created Adam upright
and he was beautiful. When sin entered in, this is
what we became right here. And you know, Gomer, she was
married to Hosea. Hosea is a picture of Christ.
She was married to Hosea, and then she went after her whoredoms. And while she was young, she
had a few children through these relationships, and she was a
pretty woman. But then, She got older and she
became poor. And nobody wanted her anymore.
Nobody wanted to have anything to do with her anymore. She's
just an old, used up, broke harlot. That's a picture of me and you
in sin. That's a picture of Christ's
bride. And when nobody wanted us, What did Christ do? Hosea 3.1, Then said the Lord
unto me, Go yet, love a woman, beloved of a friend, yet an adulteress,
according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel
who look to other gods and love flagons of wine. That's the picture. He's picturing the Lord's love
toward the true elect children of Israel. So I bought her to
me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and
a half homer of barley. And I said unto her, Thou shalt
abide for me many days, thou shalt not play the harlot, thou
shalt not be for another man, so will I also be for thee. And since Christ paid it all
for us, now go to Isaiah 54. Isaiah 54, since Christ paid
all this for us now and made us righteous in Him, this is
what He says now. You saw there He bought her,
He paid the price to buy her, and then He came to her and He
taught her inwardly and said, now you'll abide with Me. That's
a picture of Christ paying the price at Calvary and then creating
us anew in our heart and bringing us to faith in Him. And because
He's done this, look at Isaiah 54.4. He says, fear not, For thou shalt not be ashamed,
neither be thou confounded, for thou shalt not be put to shame.
For thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember
the reproach of thy widowhood anymore. He doesn't even call
it the reproach of our adultery. He just calls it the reproach
of widowhood, as if our husband had just died. He says, for thy
maker, this is why all this is so, for thy maker is thine husband. The Lord of hosts is his name,
and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole
earth, shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee
as a woman forsaken, and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth
when thou wast refused, saith thy God. Just like Gomer, when
nobody would have us, he came and called us. And look at verse
17 now, this is what he says, No weapon that is formed against
thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against
thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the inheritance of the
servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith
the Lord. So when he says that this is
the righteousness of the saints, he's not talking about some righteousness
we worked out. He's talking about the righteousness
Christ worked out for us. That fine linen is the righteousness
of Christ. If you've never cast your care
on Christ, if you've never believed on Him, I'll tell you how you'll
show up. You'll show up naked. Like Gomer on that slave block.
in front of everybody, totally naked. That's how you'll appear
in the Judgment Day. Naked and ashamed. And all those
shameful sins of your youth will be brought up. And you'll be
judged. But if you believe on the Lord
Jesus, those who rest entirely in Christ, They'll be found robed
in the righteousness of Christ in the fine linen, clean and
white. Now in that day of the great
wedding, when we finally are publicly married to Christ, there's
going to be a whole host of people at that wedding. But none will
be there but the family of God. There won't be any strangers
that don't know Christ and aren't wearing this wedding garment.
None but His family will be there. All of them decked in the garment
that Christ has provided for us to wear. Every one of them. Revelation 19.9 says, And He
saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto
the marriage supper of the Lamb. This is not just a supper like
you sit down and eat supper. This involves the wedding too,
the marriage ceremony. And then there's a feast. And
He says, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage
supper of the Lamb. And He said unto me, These are
true sayings of God. Now Christ illustrated this as
well. Let's go to Matthew 22 and I'll show you this. Matthew
22. The Lord said in Matthew 22.1, Jesus answered, and spake
unto them again by parables, and He said, The kingdom of heaven
is like unto a certain king which made a marriage for his son,
and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to
the wedding, and they would not come. Again, he sent forth other
servants, saying, Tell them which are bitten, behold, I have prepared
my dinner, my oxen and my fatlings are killed, all things are ready. Come unto the marriage. But they
made light of it, and went their ways, plural. One to his farm,
another to his merchandise, and the remnant took his servants,
and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king
heard, he was wroth. And he sent forth his armies,
and he destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. You can read Revelation 18 and
you'll hear that take place against the harlot. Now watch this. Then saith he to his servants,
The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.
Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as you shall find,
bid them to the marriage. And so those servants went out
into the highways and gathered together all as many as they
found, both bad and good, and the wedding was furnished with
guests. And when the king came in to
see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding
garment. And he said unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither
not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said
the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him
away, and cast him into outer darkness. There shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth. Now here's the point. For many
are called, but few are chosen. Many are called. In fact, all
are called. The Gospel is going forth right
now and everybody here is called. Come to the supper. Come to the
marriage feast of the Lamb. Come! Everything is ready. Let some make light of it and
go their ways to things they consider more important, their
merchandise and their farms and their, their, their, their, their,
their stuff. And others mock me the servant
and treat me spitefully. See, the general call doesn't
have the blessing in it. The Lord shows us what we are
in ourselves. The call is going forth. Every
day that I preach the gospel and men walk out of here without
professing Christ, without bowing to Christ, you know what they
do? They support everything God says about us by nature. They
back it up 100%. They were just depraved sinners
unable to believe God, without a will to believe God. That's
right. I told you the story about my
young friend who was trying to bear witness to a fellow. The
Lord just really taught him the gospel. He was trying to bear
witness to this fellow. You tell him, God's got to give you a
heart to believe, or you can't believe the gospel unless God
gives you a new heart. And he got through, you know,
telling him that, and this older fellow, he goes, I'm sorry, I
just can't believe that. The young friend said, see there,
you agree with me completely. You just can't, until God gives
you a new heart. So God has to come and make the
call effectual. See, many are called, but few
are chosen. The ones to whom He makes it
effectual are the chosen, the bride and all her friends. He makes it effectual and He
calls her and He compels her and He makes her effectually
come to the marriage. And back in Revelation 19, He
said, those who are called are blessed. Blessed by sovereign
grace that chose us freely. Blessed by grace that sent Christ
forth to redeem us. Blessed by grace that whose blood
was shed and wove that wedding garment for us. Blessed by grace
who came and put that wedding garment on us. Blessed by grace
who kept us and wouldn't let anything happen to that wedding
garment so that He brings us to that wedding feast willingly. Willingly. It's not law that's
going to make you willing. It's not do and don't that's
going to make you willing. It's beholding the love of God
in Christ and it being a righteous and holy love, an everlasting
love by which it required Christ to lay down His life and now
everything is done. That's what melts the heart and
brings you to Him. And with His spotless garments
on, we are as holy as God's own Son. Isn't that something? The reason now that these steps
are all taken before the wedding, the reason that these steps are
necessary is because, now get this carefully, Christ is so
holy and so righteous and so faithful and so in love with
God His Father and His Bride that He would not take her to
Himself until first of all, He had honored the will of God His
Father. Have you honored the will of
God? I tell you the one way we honor the will of God is to believe
on His Son. If I haven't done that, I haven't
honored the will of God, my father. Christ honored it for us as far
as keeping the law and honoring the law and justifying us from
all our sin. We honor it simply by believing
on Him. And then secondly, He will only
take a bride when He's done all the work to make all things ready
for her and make her ready for all things. He will not have
an unbelieving bride. He will not have a harlot bride. She's going to be spotless. She's
going to be perfect. She's going to be faithful. She's
going to be true. Because you see, a believer and an unbeliever
can't have any fellowship. In fact, God says in the Scriptures
that it's unrighteous, it's self-love, it's unfaithful lust, and God
doesn't even regard the marriage as legitimate. And He doesn't
regard the children as legitimate. That's if we know, going into
it, and we marry an unbeliever. It's not legitimate. The children
aren't legitimate. That's why God said He put this
one man, Christ, with this one bride, His elect, so that He
might have what? A legitimate seed. Look it up. A legitimate seed. Now go with
me to Ephesians 5.25. So we take all this that we've
seen and here's how we apply it. Ephesians 5.25. Rob, I preached this whole thing
at the wedding if I could, but I can't. It's going to be the
Cliff Notes version of it. Ephesians 5. Verse 22, Wives, submit yourselves
to your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is
the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church,
and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject
unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. In everything. I tell you what
now, you believing men, you have an unbelieving wife, She won't
do that. She can't do that. Because she
don't know the Lord. How is she going to submit to
you as unto the Lord? She don't know Him. She can't do that.
Alright men, husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved
the church and gave Himself for it. I said that He wouldn't take
her in that publicly consummate that marriage until he had everything
ready. Watch this. "...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." Christ made everything ready. Everything
ready. He didn't leave anything in the
hands of his bride. He didn't bring her home to a
cardboard box. He didn't require somebody else
to pay. He paid it all. He did it all. He provided for her. Everything. So ought men, watch this, to
love their wives as their own bodies. You know why? Because the bride is the body
of the groom. Look at this. He that loveth
his wife, loveth himself. You get what he's saying? By
loving his wife. By loving Melinda, you know who
I'm loving? I'm loving myself. Because I'm
one with her. Look, for no man ever yet hated
his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherishes it, even as the
Lord the church. This is what it's patterned after.
This is what the man and the woman's patterned after. We're
members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones for this cause. This is why a man shall leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and
they too shall be one flesh. Do you ever wonder why a man
leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife and
they too become one? Because that's so of Christ and
His church. We're one with Him. This is a
great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless,
let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself,
and the wife see that she reverence her husband. You see brethren,
this thing that they're speaking about today, about equal and
all that, and they hate this word submit, they don't understand
it. It's not about walking over, it's not about putting her down
or anything like that, it's not that at all. It's providing for
her. Do you see that? The way the husband is a husband
is by loving his wife. He don't beat her with his tongue
or anything else. He loves her. That's how Christ
loves us. And He provides everything for
her by laying down His life. He loves her because she's His
own flesh and bones. That's how we're to love our
bride. Lay down your life for your bride. That's how you love her. You
lay down your life for her. You protect her. You provide
for her. And the wife, I guarantee you
this, that's what a woman wants. A woman may act like she don't. Gloria Stein may act like they
don't want that, but that's what they want. I can't tell you how
many times I've heard women say, I wish we'd have kept it like
it was. Men will abuse that, but not
God's man. God's man and God's woman have
the best relationship they can have because they see who it's
modeled after, Christ and His bride. Now, let me give you this
last thing and I'll be done. This wedding supper, after the
wedding, you know, you have a reception. Well, this wedding feast lasted.
I know, you know, it's the same down south. We do have some long
receptions sometimes. And up here you all have some
real humdingers, but this wedding feast right here lasted at least
seven days. At least seven days. And that
seven is the number of perfection. When this wedding is done, Christ
our Husband will have made us perfect in Him. And we will enjoy
from that day forward for all eternity The honeymoon bliss
of being with Christ perfectly new, perfectly in love, with
no sin forever. Won't that be good? Won't that
be good? Alright.