This has been a very blessed
weekend for my wife and me. We have enjoyed the hospitality
of our longtime friend David Wright and his family, Elizabeth
and Levi. They have proven to be very generous
and hospitable. We've enjoyed the fellowship.
We enjoyed immensely meeting so many of you yesterday and
spending time with you. It was delightful for us. I just
do not know how it is we never met before. But we are indeed blessed. Brother appreciated your words
earlier this morning. I appreciate your remembrance
of my wife on her birthday yesterday. She's 39 years old again. But we're just so grateful. I invite your attention to the
last book in the Bible. The name of this book is The
Revelation of Jesus Christ. This book is designed to give
comfort to you and me who are God's children. It was designed
to give comfort to those in John's day as well when he wrote. It
lets us know that Hard times are in store for God's children. Lets them know they're going
to be persecuted, hated and despised. But it lets them know that King
Jesus will be victorious. That their enemies will be destroyed. Among the foremost of these enemies
is Babylon. anti-Christian seduction, false
religion. The fall of Babylon is described
in chapter 18, but I'm taking your attention to verse number
19. Chapter 19, Revelation chapter
19. After these things, John writes,
After what things? Well, especially the fall of
Babylon. That's going to be a glorious day when Babylon falls. She is
drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. She has seduced the
world away from Christ, tried to seduce God's people away from
Him. Christ has repeatedly warned
His people, come out of her, come out of her. I'm going to
destroy her and he has done so in chapter 18. John says, After
these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven
saying, Alleluia. Alleluia appears only three times
in God's word as that word Alleluia. In the Old Testament, you're
going to find the phrase, Praise the Lord, means the same thing.
That's what the word Alleluia or Hallelujah means. Praise Jehovah. But the word Alleluia or Hallelujah
appears only three times in the New Testament and all three of
them are right here in this 19th chapter of the revelation of
Jesus Christ. Alleluia! Praise our God. salvation and glory and honor
and power to the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his
judgments. There is no falseness in his
judgments. There is no unrighteousness in
them. Everything he does is right and
true. Because he has judged the great
harlot, Babylon, who corrupted the earth with her fornication. And he has avenged on her the
blood of his servants shed by her. And so many of his servants
had been martyred by Babylon. So many of them. It is true and
righteous that she should be judged. And who better to judge
her than the Lord whose servants she hated and despised. And again
they said, Alleluia! And her smoke rises up forever
and ever. And they praise God for that
as well. Her destruction never ends. And the 24 elders. This is the
aggregate church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You
can find them in the fourth chapter of the Revelation. The 24 elders
seated around God's throne. This is the church of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. And the 24 elders and the four
living creatures, these four living creatures are an order
of angels and they are around God's throne, attendance at His
throne, doing His will at His throne. The 24 elders and the
four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on
the throne and they said, Amen, so be it, hallelujah, praise
our God. Then a voice, we're not told
whose voice is it, a voice came from the throne saying, praise
our God, all you his servants and those who fear him both small
and great. And I heard as it were the voice
of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the
sound of mighty thunderings. I know not how to describe that
except to say I have been to Niagara. I heard Niagara before I saw
it. And you hear it when you're approaching
it. And the closer you get, the louder
it is in your ear. And when you look at it, and
you're finally looking at it, and you see that water cascading,
it is a thunderous noise. And I just imagine a thousand
of them. And this might give you some
idea as to the sound of praise in heaven. A thousand of Niagara's,
and they say, Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent,
the Almighty, He reigns. I'm so glad of that. I'm so glad
of that. I know some people hate the sovereignty
of God, but I'm so glad it is an omnipotent God who reigns
and rules. I'm so glad. I'm so glad he has
all power and all authority. And I'm so glad he exercises
it for me and for his people and for his church. And they continue singing. Let
us be glad and give him honor or glory for the marriage of
the Lamb has come. The Lamb is a name given to Christ
throughout this book. The Lamb. The marriage of the Lamb has
come and his wife has made herself ready and to her It was granted, this is my text,
and to her, the bride of the Lamb, it was granted, not earned,
not merited, to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white,
actually that word white means bright, she shines in her garment. For the fine linen is the righteousness,
naturally it is righteousness is, of the saints. Some have
said these are the righteous acts of the saint. Okay. The saints do have righteous
acts but they never performed them. In and of themselves they are
incapable of them. But they do have righteousnesses.
They do have righteousnesses. I want to look at that subject
today of the wedding garment of Christ's bride. His bride
is his church. He loved her from all eternity. This morning we heard her earlier
described as the Shulamite. She will be married to Christ
on the last day after the fall of Babylon. Babylon is the harlot. She is not called an adulteress. She never had any relationship
to Christ. She never committed adultery
against Him. She is, from her beginning to
her end, a harlot, a whore, not an adulteress. Christ's wife
is never an adulteress. She's faithful to Him. He holds
her to Him. And the event of this marriage
will be much rejoicing in Heaven. It's all the angels and the entire
church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They all will be
encouraged to praise our God, all you His servants. And Christ's
bride will be presented to Him on that day. And here she comes. She is arrayed in fine linen,
clean and bright. Fine linen. clean and bright,
and her garment is her righteousnesses. Consider first of all that the
wedding garment of Christ's bride is comprised of her righteousnesses. As we said, some say, well, these
are righteous acts. OK, but she didn't perform them.
They were performed by her husband and imputed to her if they are
righteous acts at all. But she does have righteousnesses
in which she is clothed. She has an imputed righteousness
and she has an imparted righteousness, a righteous nature that is given
to her so that when you look upon the bride of Christ on that
day, there is no unrighteousness in her. Yes, she has it on this
earth. Yes, she does, but there in that
day, that old corrupt nature is gone. It's gone. And now you
see her as she is in Christ Jesus and in him alone. She's pure. She's holy. She's righteous. She's clothed in righteousnesses. And what are they? Well, these
righteousnesses did not come from her, nary a single solitary
one of them. Every deed we have ever performed,
every deed we will ever perform, is unrighteous. For there is
not a just man on the earth who does good and does not sin. There
is none who does good, no not one. We try to do good. We who try to do good are the
only ones who truly realize that we are incapable of it. Incapable
of it. You have never performed a righteous
deed in all your life. All of us together have never
done anything. If we could put all our deeds
together, there would not be a single righteous deed in all
of us together. Every word we utter is unrighteous. This is true because With regard
to our Adamic nature, their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues
they have practiced deceit. The poison of Asp is under their
lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." How
can a righteous word come from such a mouth as that? Not a word. We have never uttered a righteous
word. We have never imagined a righteous
thought. Never. We read that the Lord
saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that
every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The imagination of man's heart
is evil from his youth. Even in our thoughts. Even in
our thoughts. Think about it folks. Every deed
we've ever done, every word we ever uttered, every thought we
ever imagined, and furthermore, every act of worship we have
rendered to God is unrighteous. You say, well, I'm worshiping
God. Yes, you are. But there's an old Adamic nature
still in you. It's incapable of doing anything
righteous. We never fully repent of our
sins. We are incapable of doing so.
Our faith in Christ is mixed with unbelief. We question His
providence. We do not fully believe His promises. We do not adequately appreciate
His blessings. There is lack of sincerity, manifestation
of pride, and wandering of thoughts even when we sing hymns to His
praise. when we utter our prayers, when we observe his ordinances,
and I venture to say that the biggest center in the building
today is behind your pulpit. Even our acts of worship, our
acts of worship. Paul rightly says, I know that
in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells. Some of us considered
yesterday that hymn, there is a point I long to know, oft it
causes anxious thought, do I love the Lord or no? Am I His or am
I not? And later in the hymn it reads,
if I pray or hear or read, sin is mixed in all I do. Think about it, folks. There's
pride in our singing. Pride in our prayers. We hope
this doesn't sound too bad when I pray. Pride in our pulpits
and pride in our pews. Nothing we've ever done is righteous. Furthermore, if we repent of
our unrighteousness, we find it necessary to repent of our
repentance. We do not even get repentance
right. Saints agree with Isaiah the
prophet when he says, all our righteousnesses are like filthy
rags. Notice the plural. All our righteousnesses
are like filthy rags. Filthy rags. Literally, they are menstrual
cloths. And that's what we're dressed
in. I was born to a teenage mother. Shortly after I was born, she
gave birth to five other children, including my three sisters. And I lived with my mother and
my three sisters until our adulthood. I married a young woman. We have lived together now for
as husband and wife 42 years. The Lord blessed our marriage
with a son and also a daughter. Our daughter lived with us until
her adulthood. Now the point that I would stress
to you here by mentioning all these ladies is that in my lifetime
I have been in the vicinity of thousands of these filthy rags,
these menstrual clothes. And I have never seen one. Never
seen one. The gentile woman ascertains
that they are not seen. And if a man has any gentility
about him, he does not go looking for them. Menstrual cloths, filthy
rags. These are not the kind of cloths that you hang
on the line for everyone to see. You discard of them discreetly. You want no one to see them. And yet here's a man who is proud of his filthy rags. He's proud of his menstrual cloths. You say, well, preacher, that's
a disgusting subject. I agree, it is disgusting. But
if you think me speaking to you about these physical menstrual
cloths is disgusting, let me tell you something that's more
disgusting to God. And that is the man who goes into the table of works
in the shop of free will And he takes everything he thinks
is righteous, which in reality is a filthy rag, a menstruous
cloth. He takes these bloody garments
and lays them on the table of works. He sews them together,
these filthy rags, these menstrual cloths. He sews them together. He puts them on himself and parades
himself before God and says, how do I look? dripping in the
blood of his depravity. How do I look? That's what a self-righteous
man is. And that is disgusting. That is disgusting. If you understand
anything at all about true righteousness, that is disgusting. A man daring
to approach God dressed in his self-righteousness. Well, I think
God He caused me to abhor it. I once took pride in it. I did. I once took pride in it, but
I abhor it. My filthy rags. I want to stand
before God clothed in a garment that is white and pure, bright
and shining. I want that one. I want that
one. The righteousnesses of the saints
are those of Christ alone. And observe, they were granted
to her. They were given to her. She did not earn them. She did
not merit them. These are the righteousnesses
that come from him whom we call Jehovah, our righteousness. Jehovah
says that's his name. in Jeremiah 23 verse 6. Righteousness is that which completely
and thoroughly, perfectly satisfies God's law. And Christ came to
perform that righteousness. He says, I did not come to destroy
the law, I came to fulfill it. And in fulfilling it, He wrought
a perfect righteousness. He did so in both his preceptive
and his penal obedience before God. In his preceptive obedience,
he said, your law was written in my heart and I desire to do
it. And all through his life, what
was he doing? He was performing a perfect righteousness. He never violated God's law. He never did what was forbidden,
and he never failed to do what God required. for thirty-three
and one-half years with God's law in his heart and walking
in God's law. He perfectly fulfilled it so
that on the night that he was betrayed, he could pray in the
garden, Father, I have finished the work you have given me to
do. I have wrought a perfect righteousness. But he had also to perform another
kind of righteousness because he represented God's elect and
they're all sinful, dressed in their unrighteousness. He must
perform a righteousness for them as well. These who are to be
clothed in the righteousnesses of the saints, he must die for
their sins. He must suffer the consequences
of their rebellion against God, and therefore on that cross of
Calvary, he suffers and dies. He never opens his mouth to complain. He's led as a lamb to the slaughter,
and he keeps his mouth shut even as he suffers the wrath of God. For three hours, from high noon
till 3 p.m., He suffers as He is stricken and smitten of God
and afflicted. Why? Because He just became sin
for you. He's got your sins upon Him.
You deserve to die. He's in your place instead. He
will die. And you too. You sinner. Well, He's in your place instead,
and He suffers for you. And all of you who are of God's
elect, what's He done for three hours there on that cross of
Calvary? At high noon, he begins to suffer. The sun refuses to shine so that
you cannot see it. But for three hours, he suffers
the everlasting hell and wrath and judgment that all God's elect
deserve. Until finally, for the second
time in his life, he says, it is finished! That was the second
time. He now has performed a righteousness
in suffering the penalty that all God's elect deserve. So therefore,
he has wrought a perfect righteousness. And in that perfect righteousness,
he has made a garment that in both its warp and its woof has
his righteousness going all the way through it, up and down and
across. He has wrought a perfect righteousness. And he says Give it to my wife. I Give it to my wife She removes
that filthy rag she wears and now he gives her this garment
This is the theme throughout the scriptures Go to the prophecy of Isaiah
chapter 54 Isaiah chapter 54 Let me show you something about
being clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and being clothed
in Him who is our righteousness. Isaiah chapter 54. Verse 5. For your maker is your
husband. Jehovah of hosts is His name, and your Redeemer is the Holy
One of Israel. He is called the God of the whole
earth. If you're married to Christ,
that's your husband. That's your husband. This is
the husband of the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For the Lord has called you like
a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife
when you were refused, says your God. For a mere moment I have
forsaken you, He says. For a mere moment. But with great
mercies I will gather you. Did you know something about
what it was to be deserted when you finally were under conviction
and you found yourself without God and knew yourself to be without
Him? And oh, He let you sit there
in your conviction until you could realize how unrighteous
you are and how much you needed Him. For a mere moment, I let
you suffer there in your conviction. But with loving kindness, I then
drew you to me. With a little wrath, I hid my
face from you for a moment. But with everlasting kindness
I will have mercy on you, says Jehovah your Redeemer. That's my husband. That's the
husband of the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now look in verse number 17. No weapon formed against you
shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment
you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants
of Jehovah, and watch this, watch this, and their righteousness
is from whom? From me, he says, says the Lord. I have a righteousness, it's
not from me. It's from Him. It is from Him
alone. Go to Ezekiel chapter 16. Ezekiel
chapter 16. Their righteousness is for me,
he says. It's Ezekiel 16. Again, the word of Jehovah came
to me saying, Son of man, call Jerusalem, that's his bride,
that's his wife, to know her abominations. She's not merely
a sinful woman, she is abominable. She is abominable in and of herself. And say, thus says the Lord God
to Jerusalem, your birth and your nativity are from the land
of Canaan. What was Canaan? A land of great
idolatry. All the Canaanites were idolaters.
Your father was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite. That's
where you're born, folks. Who were the Amorites? Among
the most sinful of people. The Lord told Israel, I will
not let you go back to the land until the iniquity of the Amorites
is full. Leave them alone. They'll show
you what sin is. So spiritually speaking, you
were born in the land of Canaan, the land of idolatry. Your father
was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite. You can't expect
anything good from that birth, can you? As for your nativity,
on the day you were born, your navel cord was not cut, nor were
you washed in water to cleanse you. You know how that when that
baby is born, the first thing you do, clean that baby, put
the drops in the eyes, get this little infant as clean as you
can. In those days, they rubbed it
with salt. in order to purify that baby,
you know, to get the skin clean. No one, no one wrapped you in
swaddling cloths on the day you were born. No one pitted you
to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. You were thrown, you were cast
out into the open field when you yourself were loathed, abominated,
abhorred on the day that you were born. That's the way the
world treats you, folks. That's the way the devil's going
to treat you. You're worth nothing to him.
He'll cast you out. Idolatry will cast you out. And
when I passed by you, I loved that him passed me not, oh, gentle
savior. Hear my humble cry. Oh, that
he would pass by. Here he did. And when I passed
by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, your own blood,
it's yours. I said to you in your blood,
live! Yes, I said to you in your blood,
live! Do you suppose you did? Oh, yes. I made you thrive like a
plant in the field and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful. Your breasts were formed, your
hair grew, but you were naked and bare. What does that mean?
Devoid of righteousness. Naked and bare, had no righteousness. So I passed by you again and
looked upon you and indeed your time was the time of love. Meaning
this time I came by and I fell in love with you. Christ was
smitten with His wife. And she's smitten with Him. And
I spread my garment, my wing over you. I covered your nakedness.
What is that garment that He put over her? That's His righteousness. And I swore an oath to you and
entered into a covenant with you, a covenant of grace, a covenant
of redemption, a new and everlasting covenant. And you became mine. I'm so glad I'm his. Verse 9, I washed you in water. Yes, I thoroughly washed off
your blood. I anointed you with oil. I clothed
you in embroidered cloth. I gave you sandals of badger
skin. I clothed you with fine linen.
I covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments.
I put bracelets on your wrist. I put a chain on your neck. I
put a jewel in your nose. I put earrings in your ears. I put a beautiful crown on your
head. And thus you were adorned with
gold and silver. and your clothing was of fine
linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of fine
flour, honey, and oil, because the king's wife, the queen, eats
nothing but the best. You were exceedingly beautiful
and succeeded the royalty, because you become the queen when you
marry the king. Now watch this. Your fame went
out among the nations because of your beauty, your beauty. For your beauty was perfect,
perfect how? Through my splendor, which I
had bestowed on you, says the Lord your God. Christ has the most beautiful
wife the world has ever known. And all her beauty comes from
Him. These are her righteousnesses. Look in Isaiah chapter 61. Isaiah
61. 61st chapter, Isaiah's prophecy. Here she sings, verse 10. I will greatly rejoice in Jehovah. My soul shall be joyful in my
God, for He has clothed me with the garments, garments, garments,
plural, the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe
of righteousness. as a bridegroom decks himself
with ornaments and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. Now that is my confession. That is my confession. This is
the confession of the bride of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We who know the Lord can pray
with Paul the Apostle when we say we desire to be found in
him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that
righteousness which is through the faith of Jesus Christ, the
righteousness which is from God by faith. We do not boast of
our righteousness. We say with the psalmist in Psalm
71 verse 16, I will make mention of thy righteousness and thine
only. Thine only. Well, I am glad to be rid of
that garment of filthy rags that one time I was so proud of. I'm
glad to be rid. I hope no one here today is clothed
in it. It is our garment by nature. And if you're boasting of anything
that you are, boasting of anything you have done, boasting of anything,
there you stand before God as an unclean thing and all our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags. I exhort you right now,
get rid of them. Get rid of them. I exhort you,
come to Christ. I exhort you to trust in Him.
And I assure you that if you do, that on that day, all heaven
is going to see you clothed in His righteousness. Beautiful,
radiant, and glorying in Christ alone. Oh God, our father clothed
us in your son, we pray in his name. Amen. Thank you, my brother. That was the gospel, was it not?
Amen. That was the gospel. See, that
is the message and the only message that really gives a believer
hope. That's the only thing that gives.
That's where the new man is renewed right there. That's where he's
renewed.