♪ And make me to see thee ♪ ♪ Show
me thy goodness in every manner ♪ ♪ And in thy company guide
me to my goal ♪ All right, back to Revelation
19. Let's read verse 9 again. Revelation
19, verse 9, is what this is all about. And
He saith unto me, are they which are called unto
the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are
the true sayings of God. Now, everyone in here enjoys
sitting down to a big supper or dinner friends and family,
don't you? I know you do. You don't look
like you do, or not even. We don't look like we do. We all enjoy It's one of the
most enjoyable things we do, sitting down at a big table with
all our friends or family and feasting. Thanksgiving's coming
up soon. You get together with your family.
Good time, enjoyable time. And Ecclesiastes chapter 10,
verse 19 says this, a feast is made for lack. Feast is made
for laughter. It's a time of good fellowship,
good food, laughter, great joy and enjoyment. And the Scriptures speak much
of feasts, as many mentions of feasts in the Scripture. Did
you know that every single designated or sanctified time of worship. Every special event or worship
time was named a feast. Every single one. Feast of the
tabernacles, a feast of the specialists. You know what the main feast
would have been? It represents Calvary, the feast
of the lamb. I'll give you a little hint.
It was first partaken of in Egypt, right before they went out of
Egypt. Right. A feast of the Passover,
it's called. Feasts, feasts, feasts. And here
in our text, here in Revelation 9, 10, the Lord tells us of a
feast. to outdo all of the feasts and
outlast all of the feasts. As a matter of fact, it's an
eternal feast. It will never end. It's called
the marriage supper of the Lamb, like a supper Supper is really
a country or southern term. Supper is the meal you eat in
the evening, late in the evening. Dinner is lunch up north. But supper now is the last meal,
the last meal of the day. So this is called the married
supper. of the land last meal we'll leave and we'll never quit
eating. After hearing this message if
it doesn't make you want to cook or eat or something. You had
you didn't hear anything tonight. More importantly if this doesn't
whet your appetite for this one great supper. Make you want to
be there. Something's wrong. Verse nine
he says write write this down for all eternity to read, blessed. Blessed are they which are called.
And this call is not an invite, it's a subpoena, it's a drawing,
it's a fetching. Like old Mephibosheth, you know,
he wasn't asked if he wanted to come sit at the king's table.
Was he? The king sent the order, go fetch
him. And when he was brought, he was sure glad he was fetched.
Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper. And
he adds this line. He said, these are the true sayings
of God. This is all true. What we're
going to look at tonight, this marriage supper, it's true. It's absolutely true. It's more
true than you and I are sitting here. It's so. As a matter of fact, they're
eating right now. They're true, like Peter said.
Now we haven't made up some cunningly devised fable. This is true. So he adds that line. All right,
let's look at this marriage supper. Let's look at who will be there.
Who's going to be there? If you're taking notes under
that, who will be there, we're going to see how many and why. All right, so we'll look at who's
going to be at this supper. Will you be there? You can know. You can know. John said it. These things are written that
you might know. You can know for certain you're going to be
at this supper. All right? And the next thing we'll look
at is the supper itself, what all those are. All right, who
will be at the supper? Who's going to be? First question
is, how many are going to be there? Look at verse one. After these
things, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven. Verse 6, I heard, as it were,
the voice of a great multitude. It sounded like many waters,
many voices. Back in chapter 7, you don't
have to turn, but chapter 7, verse 9 says there's a number
which no man can number. A number which no man can number
out of all nations. Out of all nations. Another place
says as many as the stars in the sky and the sands in the
seashore. That's a lot of people in it.
The reason I brought that up is that there's a vast throng
of people, a great multitude at this marriage supper. out
of all nations. Now, they're going to be Egyptians,
they're going to be Israelites, they're going to be Russians,
Mexicans, Americans, Chinese, Japanese, all nations. They're
going to be out of every single nation on earth. There's going
to be somebody, male and female, rich and poor, or formerly rich
and poor, they ought to be rich at this time. Old, young, they'll all be young
at this time. But black and white, and they'll
all be, well, I don't know the color of their skin, but they'll
look like crap. Yellow, red, brown, pink, blue. I read an article that said there
used to be some blue people in eastern Kentucky. That's what
the Blue Ribs magazine said. At any rate, I brought this all
up to ask this question. Since there are going to be so
many people there, out of every nation on the earth,
male and female, old and young, why not me? Why not me? And now, listen to this. Salvation
is according to God's mercy. 100%. Sovereign mercy. In other words,
nobody deserves it. Salvation is 100% by God's grace. It's a gift. Nobody earns it.
It's absolute. Every part of it, from start
to finish, is given. Every single person that has
it is given. Scripture says, is none good?
No, not one. Out of all these people, out
of all these people, as the sand to the sea and the stars to the
sky, there's not one good person. There was not one person that
lived on this planet that God said, you're a good person, not
one. None righteous, not one. Out
of all these people, there's none. Every one of them had mercy
shown to them. Every one of them had grace given
to them, all grace. Even the chief of sinners, ask
the thief on the cross. He never did anything. In his dying hour, he was saved.
Christ's blood purchased the salvation of every single person
there. And why not me? I told you, you can know you're
going to be at this salvation. Why not me? Spurgeon used to
say, if God only elected one person, why couldn't it be me? Whoever elected would have to
be, it'd be by mercy, by grace, Christ shed His blood, it'd be
undeserved, unearned, but why not me? The fact is, now these sayings
are true, that there's more people than you can run by. You've never seen the crowd this
big. Christ has a number. All right? So that's how many. That's how
many. And why not me? All right? Why
are they there? I've really already answered
the question. Why are they there? I've already answered that. But
the answer here is in verse 9. I know religion, you know what
religion says, that, well, That's what religion says, first thing,
whosoever calls. No, that's not how it goes. Right
here in verse nine tells us, write, blessed are they which
are called to the marriage of the Lord. the day that are called. I believe Brother Fortner probably
dealt with verse fourteen of chapter seventeen. It says they
that are with the Lamb are called, chosen, and faithful. I'm just
sure he didn't pass over that verse. Called, those that are
with him. Everybody with the lamb at the
marriage supper was called, chosen, and given faith. God elected,
chose, and called them by the gospel. Now, my pastor, your
assistant pastor, preached on this one time. How we may know
our election, how we may know our election is by the call. You remember that? We don't try
to figure out whether or not we're elect. We just try to figure
out if we've heard the call. Because everybody he called was
predestined, chosen. All right? And how he calls is
by the gospel. And bless God, I've heard that
gospel. Have you? Time and again, not
once, not twice, but over and over again. And Paul called it, to be more
specific, Paul called it our gospel, our gospel, this gospel. And it's found in the confession
of these people at this supper, all right? These people right
here at this supper, they're all saying the same thing. And
we're going to see the gospel in it. Their confession is proof
of their call. All right? Their confession is proof of
their call, and so is yours. All right, let's look at it.
Look at what they're saying. Verse 1, chapter 19, verse 1,
After these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven
saying, Hallelujah! Did it strike you how many times
they said that here? Huh? They just kept saying that.
Everybody that had something to say said this. Hallelujah. The 4 in 1 here. Hallelujah.
Hallelujah. That means praise God. Praise means all credit, honor,
glory, strength, power, all, do everything, do everything
belongs to Him. Praise. All worship, all adoration,
fear, reverence. to him. Praise the Lord. And
they were all with one voice, one mind, had just one confession. Praise the Lord, they said, and
salvation and glory and honor and power unto the Lord our God. That's their confession, and
that's the gospel right here. The gospel call, salvation. This is the first thing that God says to us in the preaching
of the gospel, the gospel call. The first thing in the gospel
call is not, God loves you. That's not what you heard, was
it, John, when you first heard our gospel, the gospel, the gospel
of God, concerning God's Son. who was declared to be the son
of God with power. It wasn't God loves you, it's
God brings. Salvations of the Lord. Where
is that? Where is that person? Everybody
in here, I know it by heart. I'll give you a hint. There's
a fella that was in a fish's stomach. OK, you know the book
now. It was between Chapter 1 and
Chapter 3. Chapter 2, right. Jonah, Chapter
2, all right. And the verse is between verse
8 and verse 10. Commit that to memory, OK? Shame on you if you don't know
that. That's the cry of all true believers. Jonah 2 now, salvation is up
and over. Salvation is swale-bellied theology. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
from election to glorification, from the call to the crown, chosen
by God, redeemed by the Son, and sanctified by the Spirit.
Salvation of the Lord our God. Salvation. The justification,
the sanctification, the glorification of every sinner is one hundred
percent of the Lord. Now where is that found? What Mary? Two nine. Good. I'll be calling on you
again. All right, at the end of this,
it's His work, it's God's work, 100%. Christ's righteousness
imputed, Christ's blood shed to pay for their sin, the Holy
Spirit's work of bringing the gospel, calling them, convincing
them of sin, righteousness, and judgment, giving them repentance,
faith, perseverance, fruit, keeping them by His grace, all according
to God's covenant. Salvation is of the Lord. Jonah
2, 9. That's what they're all saying.
Everybody at this supper is quoting Jonah 2, 9. All right? You, I want you to know
it. You're going to have to learn
it now. All right, look at the next thing they say. Salvation
and glory. Glory. is my, I learned to pronounce
it, glory. Glory belongs under the Lord,
all glory. We know, we found out in Ezekiel
36 that that's exactly why God saved him, that that's why God
created this whole ball of dirt. That's why he puts up with all
he puts up with for his glory. Right? We all know that. Salvation is of the Lord and
is for his glory. You know that, don't you, Heaven?
Everybody in Heaven that's suffered knows it, and that's what they're
saying. All glory. All glory. Not part of the glory, but all
the glory belongs unto Him. And all honor. All honor. This is why. When the church meets together,
we don't talk about anybody but the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
not thanking anybody for Jesus Christ. We're not acknowledging
or bringing up any names but that name which is above everything
else. Right? All honor. The church in heaven's
doing that right now. you won't hear any of you won't
hear anybody's name in the whole book of revelation mention. Think about it. Think back over
what we've studied. Talk about the angel, or the
elder, or the prophet, or, you know, it starts out with John.
I said, I, John, was there. That's the last you hear. Every
other name is but one name. Yeah, all on it. Crown him with,
not many crowns, all the crowns. All power. Look at this. This
is what they're saying. All power. Power. Because he's omnipotent. And
this is the summary saying and The cry of all believers. Look
at verse 6. I heard, as it were, the voice
of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters, the voice
of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth. Amen. The Lord God omnipotent
reigneth. Now these people that are saying
this in the glory of the supper right now, they learned that
here on earth. They learned that here on earth.
They believed and confessed God's absolute sovereignty and salvation
while they were on earth. And now that's the call. That's
the call. And power, it's all by the power
of Christ's blood. He is righteous. All belongs
under the Lord our God. Salvation is of the Lord. Where's that man? Jonah 2.9. Let's look at their character.
Go back to Luke chapter 14. Luke chapter 14. I started to
read this for a scripture reading, Luke chapter fourteen, now that's
their confession, that's the gospel they heard,
and this is what they were like, or are like. Luke fourteen, look
at verse twelve, Christ is talking here,
he said, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends,
nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbor, unless they do something for
you, see? Here's who you call. If you really want praise, and
you really want thanks, and you really want people to appreciate
what you're cooking, here's who you call, all right? Don't call
the rich and the famous. When you make a feast, call the
poor, the lame, the lame, and the blind. And they'll appreciate
it. And they'll give you all the
glory. And they won't bring anything, because they don't have anything. Do you see your calling, brethren? Do you? Huh? Do you? The Philbishop Parks, do you
see your calling? by the fall, lame by the fall,
blind till he gave you sight. That's who the Lord calls. That's
their character. A verse in that same chapter,
this is good. He said up in verses 10 and 11,
he said, when you're bidding to a feast, when you go and sit
down in the lowest room, and he said, when you're bidding,
go sit down in the lowest room. In other words, take the last
seat, the lowest seat, that therefore when he that bathed thee cometh,
he may say unto you, Let's go up a little higher. Verse eleven,
Whosoever exalted themselves shall be abased, he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted. So don't take the chief seat
unless you're demoted. Take the low seat and you'll
be promoted. somebody said there's going to
be one argument in heaven. Just one. Just one argument. Who gets the lowest seat? Everybody
is going to be the chief of senate. Everybody's going to be arguing,
no, no, no, no, I'm the chief of senate. No, you go up, no,
no, no, I get the last seat. I don't even deserve a seat.
Let me have the last seat. One argument. Well, that's a character. This man received with sinners
and eat it with sinners, not the righteous. All right, let's
look at the supper. Back to the text, Revelation 19. And where
is that verse found? Salvation supper, Lord? Good. All right, the supper. Verse
9 calls it a marriage separate. That's the occasion. It's a marriage.
A marriage made in heaven. A true marriage made in heaven. This will last. Not one single bride of Christ
has ever been granted a divorce or even a separation. This is true, a marriage made
in heaven. All right, let's look at this
marriage. It's made, it's fashioned, this marriage is fashioned after
a Hebrew marriage, or rather, I should say the Hebrew marriage
was fashioned after this. All right, a Hebrew marriage,
you've heard this before. A Hebrew marriage began with
a betrothal, or betrothal, however you say it. Betrothed, betrothed,
betrothed, your son and your daughter, betrothal of the bride
and groom. You know what that means? Well,
it means that the parents pick out, the parents, you listen
to this young people, the parents pick out your husband. It's a prearranged thing between
the parents, both sides, and you couldn't say anything You know that? A pre-arranged
marriage. All right? We kid Hannah. You might embarrass her, but
it's a very old trick. Austin Grover. Let me tell you
something. Boys, you know, generally act
like boys. And they kind of get on my nerves. his smile, everything about him.
Well, he's like his daddy. He's just like his daddy, isn't
he? Don't they just sweet? Both of
them, Austin and Kay, both of them. And if Austin turns out
like his daddy, I keep telling Hannah, we're going to betroth
you to him. I wish it could be done. Well,
the fact is, in God's family, that's just the way it happened.
And I'm sure glad God picked out our husband. For us, the Lord Jesus Christ
picked out his bride. Betrothal. Now listen to this.
In Hebrew times, and in this, our story, a betrothal was more
binding than an engagement. If the parents said, you're betrothed,
you're betrothed. You're not going to break up.
I don't care what you do. I don't care where you go. You're
bound to that person. Ain't that good news? Huh? A covenant. And in the presence
it was done, this betrothal was done in the presence of many
witnesses and God's blessing was pronounced upon it. And you
know from the day they were betrothed, they were considered legally
husband and wife. You know that? It doesn't matter
how old they were. They could have been three years
old or just born. If they were betrothed, stand
in the eyes of the Hebrews, they were legally married. Do you
see the picture? I was married to Christ before
I even existed. He said, You're mine. In time
I was born. Well, then after the betrothal, and Christ said this many times
concerning this betrothal. He said, the Father's given me
power over all flesh that I should give eternal life to how many? As many as thou hast given me. He said, all that the Father
given me, betrothed to me. shall come to me, and I will
know I. Just imagine, know I. I give
unto them eternal life. They're betrothed to me. All
right? The next thing that happens after
betrothal is there's an interval between them. An interval between
the betrothal and the actual wedding feast itself. Especially
if it's a real young child, you know? There's a long interval. Many times during this interval,
the groom, at that time the groom was paying the dowry for the right to marry this bride.
During this interval, the groom, you see, if the father of the
bride demanded a large sum of money, which I will do, you see. Hannah may never get married
because the sum that I will require to marry her shall be billions. Just kidding. But at any rate,
you see what that's about, the dowry. You understand what a
dowry was? That the groom had to pay whatever
was demanded for the right to marry that woman. You see the picture? That's exactly
what the Lord Jesus Christ did for 33 and a third year. Paid
the dowry. Paid the price. Redemption's
price. That wasn't silver and gold.
It was his own precious blood. That's what it's called. So it's
a huge sum. A sum we couldn't pay. No man
could pay. But the kinsmen. The kinsmen
redeemed. He was the only one that could
have a date, the only one that would have a date, the only one
that would marry a... And you know sometimes it says
that sometimes a dowry was in the form of service rendered.
that he would render servant. Do you remember Jacob? Do you remember what he did?
He worked seven years for that no good woman. What he did, he
worked for seven years for the right to marry. And that's what
our Lord did. for the right to marry them.
Then after the after that interval and see there's a trouble and
there's this interval in which the dowry was paid then there
comes a procession. A wedding present procession
is high time to get married. All right. The bride prepares
and adorns herself. Look at verse 8, or verse 7. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his
wife hath made herself ready. And to her, now this is how she's
made ready. Actually, she didn't do it. Somebody gave her this wedding
garment, this wedding dress, and she was so anxious to marry
him, she latched on to it. She really didn't, she didn't
make it, her mama didn't make it. She didn't do this, it was
given to her. Look at verse 8, it says, To
her was granted that she should be arrayed. This dress was given
to her, fine linen, clean and white. That's part of the dowry,
you see. It's not like now, you see. Now,
oh man, the father of the bride pays exorbitant costs to get
rid of it, I mean to have his wife or his daughter married.
He pays. But the dowry, you see, was the
husband paying a great price for the right. The father of
the bride just sat back and got rich. Boy, he got a good bargain. So she didn't do anything. The
groom did it all. He provided it all. And that's
what Christ did. This clean and white linen. This
righteousness of saints is the righteousness of Christ, that she's arrayed in, that is
imputed to her, that she's covered in, to make her holy, unblameable,
unreprovable, represented faultless before the presence of His glory.
This is the—got to have this on. And nobody had a hand in
making this garment but Christ, with God the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. All right? All right, so this, the groom
is arrayed, the bride's arrayed. Now here's the procession. It
comes time to marry. And the bride is arrayed in this
white garment, and the groom arrays himself in his best attire,
and accompanied by his friends. who sing and bear torches, and
they proceed to the home of the matron, or to the bride. They
proceed to her house. And then he receives the bride.
What he does is he picks her up in his arms and carries her all
the way to his house. to his house, just like Rebecca,
remember, riled on the back of Isaac's camel, or whatever, all
the way to Isaac's house. And do you see that? See, it
takes about time for us to go to the wedding. We've been betrothed, you see.
We're as good as married, and nothing can break it. Nothing
we do, and no wife's got to say, You'll not find it. We're betrothed,
all right. There's an interval that's going
on in Christ. During that time, the fullness of time, you pay
the debt that we owe, and want that righteousness, and we're
now clothed with this garment. We don't see it. God sees it. He said, when I see it, bloody. He said, I say, you're justified.
We say, I'm a seeer. He said, I say, you're black.
I say, I'm black. I say, I say, you're clean. We
say, oh, please. He says, I say, please. All right? But then it's about time. Christ
said He's at the door. We've been looking at that. Time
for Him to carry us. It says in the Thessalonians,
He'll come to get us. We'll meet Him in the air, and
He'll take us home. Take us home. And then comes time for the feast.
Then you have this feast, this marriage supper. All right? It's a wedding feast. It's a
marriage supper. And you know how long it lasts? The Hebrew wedding feast, it doesn't last this long now.
Seven days. Seven? I wonder how he came up
with that, how they came up with that. Seven days. He's laughed
and laughed and laughed. Ah, seven days. Seven days of
nothing but feasting and laughter, no tears allowed. A feast is
made for laughter. No story. Nobody's going to tell
their sad tale this way. Only laughter. Only laughter. Verse 7 says,
Let us be glad and rejoice. Rejoice. Be glad. Rejoice. Paul
kept saying that. Rejoice, I say. Rejoice. And
again I say, Rejoice in the Lord. I said, you can know that you're
going to be that. Do you rejoice in what you just
heard? Do you? Does the gospel make you glad? Do you like to feast? You like
to eat. I ain't talking about chicken.
I'm talking about this. Do you? Look at verse 8. Verse
8 says, Granted that she should be arrayed in this linen, do
you see your need of Christ's righteousness? Well, what about the bridegroom? Do you see anything in this bridegroom
that you love? Anything make you want to marry
him? I'll ask you like Abraham's servant
asked Rebekah, will you go marry this man you've never seen before? The land and the home that he
has, you don't know much about it, but look the way you go.
Do you see enough beauty in him to desire him? Do you? Sounds
good. Verse 9, he said, Right, blessed
are they which are called. Do you feel unworthy of this
privilege? Would you feel supremely blessed
if you were a part of this marriage? I just believe you might be there.
Huh? You reckon? That's what everybody
here is saying. Huh? You hear the call? Well,
get ready to eat. Get ready to feast. Huh? And, you know, he said, this
is true science. That's the last thing he said
on birth night. Apparently now, I say, this is the true saying
of God. It's true. This is going to last forever.
It's true. There's going to be a married
supper of the Lamb. There's going to be people. Why not me? That's true. Well, if you're
hungry and you need Christ, why not you? All right, let's stand. Our Father, we thank You for
the gospel, the gospel call. We consider ourselves the most privileged
people on earth to hear this call over and over and over again.
And we do, we have heard it and we do hear it. To whom coming? We keep coming
to Christ every time. We do feel our need in Him. We
do see in Him all that we need. We do. There is beauty and comeliness
in Him that we should desire Him. We do. We want to be a part of this
sacred throng. and add his feet to bow, to sit
at this marriage supper, even if it's the last, the lowest
seat. We want to feast with our King,
like Mephibosheth of old, to sit us anywhere at this table,
we pray. And we plead your sovereign mercy
and your sovereign grace. May this be the cry and the prayer
of every heart in here tonight. You save many, you will save
many more. We ask for your glory and your
honor that you'd save every soul in this room tonight. For your
glory and honor, we've met together. Amen.