Turn with me this morning to
the book of Revelation and the 21st chapter. Revelation 21,
and I'll read the first four verses. John says, And I saw
a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And
I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from
God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out
of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
and He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people,
and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former
things are passed away." Recently I heard this text read, and much
was said about a place, a place. But this passage is about a person. You see, this very book begins
telling us that this is the revelation of Jesus Christ. But it is not only a passage
about a person, it is also about a people. A people that are in
union with Him solely because of God's grace and God's purpose. I want you to note in that second
verse how that people is described, prepared, as a bride adorned
for her husband." Those words are used by the Spirit of God
to place even in our natural minds a picture, and that is
a picture of a bride. And I've always said, you can
take the most, as we say here, homely of girls, but when she's
dressed for her wedding, when she is adorned in her wedding
garments, she becomes somehow strangely beautiful. She is a bride. And this is a description given
to the Lord's people, of the Lord's elect. I don't notice
if you notice in the singing of that hymn by John Newton,
in one of the verses he asks, if you ask me what I think of
Jesus, One of the things that he says about him, he calls him,
my husband, my husband. Why? Because he's part of the
bride. And the people of God are often
described as this bride, this lamb's wife. Look back over in
chapter 19. Chapter 19 and verse 7, where
he says, "...let us be glad, and rejoice, and give honor to
Him." You see, all the honor goes really to the bridegroom. But he says, "...give honor to
him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath
made herself ready." If it hadn't been for him, if it hadn't been
for his doing, if it hadn't been for his will and purpose, There
would be no marriage of the Lamb. There would be no Lamb's wife
such as these. And if you notice, she is contrasted. Look back in Revelation chapter
17 and verse 1. She is contrasted with another
woman. Verse 1 of Revelation 17, says,
And there came one of the seven angels, which had the seven vows,
and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither, I will show
unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon
many waters." Here is all of false religion. Here is every
deceptive thing, every deceptive false prophet, every false professor,
all pictured as this mystery Babylon, the great mother of
harlots and abominations of the earth. But compare that to chapter
21 and the 9th verse where he says, "...and there came unto
me one of the seven angels, which had the seven vows, full of the
seven lath plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither,
I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife." And there is a
great difference between the great whore and the Lamb's wife,
the Bride of Jesus Christ. And what we read here is in this
second verse of chapter 21, that we are shown this one who is
prepared as a bride adorned. That word is cosmeo. And I believe it's the same word
that we get our word cosmetic from. And it means to put in
proper order. or to decorate, or to garnish,
or trim, or to dress, or to extol and furnish, to make beautiful,
to make beautiful, or to add beauty by dress, or to deck with
external ornaments. She is as a bride adorned. And if you notice here in this
verse, it says that it is for her husband. All her adornment,
all her beauty, everything that has been made hers, given to
her, decorated her, is for her husband. You see, this bride's
adorning is for Christ. And everything is to be to the
praise of the glory of His grace. You see, one thing this bride
finds out is that all her adorning, she herself, is for the bridegroom. Listen to Paul's words in Colossians. He says, "...for by Him were
all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him."
Speaking of Christ. and for Him. We are not for ourselves. And most especially as His bride,
we are for Him. We are adorned for Him. But this bride can be no ordinary
bride because this is no ordinary bridegroom. He is, as this very
book says, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. He is the
mighty God. He is the spotless Lamb of God. That is His character revealed. That is His glory revealed. He's the Lamb of God. And He,
being who He is, has made her to be what He requires, spotless,
pure, holy, without blemish, righteous. That's how she must
be if she is to be the Lamb's wife. And not only that, but
the glory and the good news of this book, of this gospel, is
that this is exactly how she is. That's what I want us to
see this morning. that because of who He is and
what He's done as the Bridegroom, she now is everything that He
requires and everything He delights in. This is how she is to Him
because He has made her to be one with Him. This is exactly
what Paul is describing in Ephesians chapter 5 concerning the very
marriage union. Look over in Ephesians 5. There is a reason why we have
this language in Scripture, these instructions and commands in
Scripture. Verse 22 of Ephesians 5 says,
"...wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands." And
the very first thing that always happens is rebel flesh refuses
to submit to anybody. But look at that next phrase,
"...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." You see, the church is called His
body. He's the head. Then He says,
therefore, Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ,
so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it." Who
did he love? He loved the church. Who did
he die for? He died for the church. He shed his blood for the church
that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the Word. We have to be cleansed, not simply
in ourselves, but especially in our minds, of those thoughts
that are against the bridegroom. What does he use? The Word? The Truth? And then he says that
he might present it to himself. He does all that He does. He
acts in love. He gives Himself. He dies on
that cross. He sacrifices as the one sacrifice
for her sins forever 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." All that is there in the marriage union is
a picture of Christ and His bride, the church. Listen. So ought
men to love their wives as they love as their own bodies. He
that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his
own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it, even as the
Lord the church. For we are members of his body,
of his flesh, and of his bones. Now listen to this. For this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother. That means as far
as priority. That means as far as placing
anybody in any place above the other. That means by way of importance
or value. Doesn't mean we don't value parents. But he says, "...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." One flesh. Why is that important? Why are
they to be this one flesh? united together as a head and
a body. He says, this is a great mystery,
but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. This is all about
Christ and the Church. That's why I remind those who
I would perform the wedding ceremony for, this above everything else,
the importance of it, and the solemnity of it, because of what
it represents, Christ and the Church. They are inseparably
joined, and they are one together. He says, 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, all through
this book is this picture of Christ and His church, of the
Lamb and His wife, of the Bridegroom and His bride. And here she is described as
absolutely beautiful. Here she is with a radiant glory. that even the Spirit of God in
describing her uses the language that will impress us the most
and reveal to us the most how she is in Christ. She is prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband. But how did his bride become
so beautiful? I've heard people speak of the
beauty of women as being divinely beautiful, but I'm afraid that's
not really the case. But this bride can be said to
be, and actually is, divinely beautiful. And I'm talking about individual
sinners who as a whole make up this bride, but tell me, how
did anybody in our race, how did anybody who is a sinner like
I am or like you are, how were they ever come to be viewed by
God as a bride adorned for her husband? Well, what this book
reveals is that she was betrothed, and that's an old word, or espoused
to him before the foundation of the world. Now, this book
is telling here about a marriage supper, a marriage ceremony of
the Lamb of God. But in days past, when a woman
was betrothed or espoused to a man, in the eyes of society
and even in the eyes of the law, before the ceremony actually
took place, they were viewed as betrothed or espoused to the
other as if they were already married. And that's the way God
viewed this people in Christ. That's the way He viewed them
with Christ. He looked upon them and He saw
them because He chose them in Christ. And He looked upon them
as one with Christ and He blessed them accordingly. You say, how could that be? No,
this is the question. How could this holy God bless
them any other way? How could He set His approval
on them? How could He, as the Holy One,
love them, or choose them, or do anything that it says that
He did there in Ephesians 1 toward them? How could He do that unless
He viewed them as righteous in the Righteous One, the Lamb of
God? They were betrothed to Christ. They were, as Christ says in
John 17, given unto Him. He says, I pray not for the world,
but I pray for these that you have given me out of the world. And they were given to the Lord
Jesus Christ by an act of God, by an act of His grace, before
the world began. And so we have here with him
and with her a prearranged marriage. And Hosea is used of God to record
this thought, where God using Hosea and Gomer Hosea, this upright
man, Gomorrah, this wild and godless woman, he says, and I
will betroth thee unto me forever. You say, you don't know what
you'll do, Hosea. Well, this is God talking really
here. Well, you don't know what they'll be. You never know what
they'll be. God does. It says that the Lord knows them
that are His. He knows them not simply with
foreknowledge, as far as knowing ahead of time what they're going
to do, but He loves them with this foreordained love so that
He will never let them go no matter what. They're betrothed
to His Son. They are betrothed to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says, "...I will betroth thee
unto Me forever, yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness,
and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies." What a combination
of words! "...I will betroth thee unto
Me in righteousness, and in judgment," but then He says, in loving kindness
and in mercies." And what he's saying there is that whatever
it takes, and he's the only one who knows what it would take,
but whatever it took, to bring this wife, to bring this bride
unto His Son, taking into consideration all that the family is, that
is, all that God is, all that His Son is, whatever it takes,
I'll betroth thee unto Me forever. And this is why she's spoken
of so often in the prophecies of the Old Testament and described
in her glorious beauty. She is a beauty because she's
adorned by God. All her beauty, all her adornment
is in her husband. It's in the bridegroom. Because in and of ourselves,
we have no beauty. Now what would you think if we
were having a wedding this morning and down the aisle when the sound
of the piano sounds for that bridal procession to start coming
in, and all of a sudden you saw coming down that aisle a gal
that was dressed in filthy, dirty rags. And yet that is exactly
how God describes us as sinners. He says that all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. When He describes us in our cells,
He describes us as Gomer, that wretched woman, or as Rahab,
the harlot of Jericho, or as those incestuous daughters of
the patriarch. in ourselves none such as God
would have us. And yet, here is this bride who
in herself is nothing but filthy rags. But it says here in one
of those texts we read that she had made herself ready. Well, I guess there's something
that this bride had to do to get herself all prettied up.
There's not enough cosmetics of any kind, of any amount that
would be sufficient for us to apply to ourselves to make ourselves
acceptable to this bridegroom. I'm sorry. I hear people talking
about the cosmetics that they've rubbed on themselves all the
time to make them fit for heaven, make them acceptable to God. They quit things, they do things,
they give things. You constantly hear about this.
They go to places, they go to service, they feel things, but
none of these things would adorn us, make us acceptable to this
bride, bridegroom. As a matter of fact, The words
that are used, such as made herself ready, or prepared, or adorned,
they are the most of them in what is called the perfect passive
participle. They're in a state, not because
they've done something, but because something has been done to them. They're passive in it. They're
passive in it. And it's the same situation such
as a verse like Ephesians 2 and verse 8, "...for by grace are
ye saved." You could translate that something like this, you
are now in a saved state which has resulted from being saved
in the past. You are adorned. You are all
these things beautiful as this bride because of something that
has been done in the past. And that's the way with everyone
in the Lord's church at this hour. Their beauty, their glory. is not in anything that they
put on themselves, did to themselves, did by themselves, did for God
or anything else, but it's because of something that was done for
them in the past. They're beautiful because of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And all this is, All this adornment
and preparation, all it is, is a description and a telling of
how God has imputed to them the very righteousness of Christ. Imputed to them. Did you know
that's a Bible word? Did you know it's real? I hear
people speaking of it as if it was a theological term or something. Well, it is in the true theology
of God. But what it means is to have
charged to, or reckoned to, or accounted to you by somebody
else, something that you didn't have before. That's the picture
here. You see, they are righteous because
of this union of God having joined them to the Righteous One. Reminds me of something I heard
one time, and I told it to another fellow, and he didn't appreciate
it much. He was bragging on an old truck he had. He really thought
he had a truck. It looked terrible, I'll tell
you. So I told him, I said, well, if you were to take a $100 bill
and tape it to the hood of that truck, that truck would be worth
$100. And that's the way we are. We're not worth anything in ourselves. And the marvel of grace is that
here, God has taken people who weren't worth anything, less
than nothing, altogether vanity. Nothing but ugliness in sin and
vileness, totally unacceptable to the thrice holy God, and He
has lifted them up and made them in Jesus Christ to be a bride. You see, God has clothed this
bride with the gown of righteousness, and this she must have to be
married to Christ. Because to be married to Christ
is to be married to God. Isaiah 54, For thy maker is thy
husband, the Lord of hosts is his name, thy Redeemer, the Holy
One of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall he be called. We're not talking about you marrying
a millionaire or even a billionaire. or to speak in the U.S. economic
terms, a trillionaire. We're talking about being married
to the Son of God. Joined to Him. Look down in Revelation
chapter 19 at this 8th verse, talking about the Lamb's wife,
talking about The lamb's wife who has made herself ready, verse
8 says, and to her was granted, given, graced. To her was granted that she should
be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For the fine linen. is the righteousness
of the saints." What is the righteousness of the saints? Do you know what
the righteousness of the saints is? It's pictured here as a garment
of fine linen. It's the righteousness of the
saints. What is the righteousness of the saints? It's Christ. It is Christ Himself. It is that
work of righteousness that He accomplished. It's granted to
her that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white,
for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. It's something
that God put on her. Turn over to Ezekiel 16. This is the most amazing thing,
because here's a picture of an aborted female child. just cast out, left in a field,
bloody, dirty, dead, everybody just leaving it because of the
putrefying smell and look. But listen to what it says. Verse
8, Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold,
thy time was the time of love. Now there's a lot of talk about
love in our day. I call it soap opera love. It's
as phony as anything could be. Because love, true love, does
not center itself on the lover, on the one loved. Those people
who get married in our day, they love me better than thee. My son told me once, he said,
I'll probably never get married. I said, well, that may be true.
You don't have to. But make sure if you do marry,
that you marry somebody that you love better than you love
yourself. Do you love anybody better than
you love yourself? He says, when I passed by you,
it was a time of love, and I spread my skirt over thee. Now he passed
by his people in old eternity. He said, I spread my skirt over
thee. And all you have to do to see
what that really means is go over there to the book of Ruth
and find out when Naomi sends Ruth down there to the threshing
floor where Boaz is and tells her what to do, she said, you
just go there, lay down at his feet, fully skirt over you. That was an act of betrothal. I spread my skirt over thee,
and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest
mine. Then washed I thee with water,
yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered
work, and shod thee with badger skin. and I girded thee about
with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee
also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and
a chain on thy neck, and I put a jewel on thy forehead, and
earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head." And thus
was thou decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment was of
fine linen and silk embroidered work. Thou didst eat fine flour
and honey and oil, and thou wast exceeding beautiful." Do you
see that? That is how the Lord's church
is, the Lord's people are. individual believers are because
of what he did in grace and mercy. He said, you're exceedingly beautiful. You say, well, preacher, you
don't look so beautiful to me. My granddaughter, she's on the
kick of calling me bald here, bald head. Said, I can't be a
prince because I'm bald head and such. I'm beautiful to Christ. Ugly me. Beautiful to Christ. Because of what? Thou wast exceeding
beautiful. Why? Because you have no sin
on you. Because He's clothed you, imputed
to you, given to you the righteousness of Christ, and thou didst prosper
into a kingdom, and thy renown went forth among the heathen
for thy beauty. Look at this. For it was perfect. Perfect. Now ladies, you're all
pretty, but perfect? You know? I don't think so. But
this bride's perfect. Perfect in the eyes of God. Her
beauty is renowned. He says, For it was perfect through
my through my comeliness, through
my beauty, through my righteousness, which I had put upon thee, saith
the Lord, which I had put upon thee, charged to thee, on the
same principle that He charged her sins to Christ. He charges
His righteousness to her. Well, Roger read there in Psalm
45, she's this queen who's decked in wrought gold. Gold. Perfection. You see, all these descriptions
are her wedding pictures. Now, often times a gal falls
on hard times, or she marries kind of a bum, or things get
tough, trying to raise a family and all, and so she'll feel low
one day. And while nobody's looking, she'll
sit down and she'll thumb through that old wedding photo. Look
at those pictures. There she was in her prime. There
she was in her beauty. And that's the way the Lord's
people are. We get to feeling so wretched and sinful in ourselves,
so full of trial and trouble, so despondent over our weakness,
just feel so ugly and dirty because of our sins. We have to open
this book. And read again, see again the
wedding pictures. Let me read you a verse out of
Isaiah 61. He says, "...I will greatly rejoice
in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath
clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered
me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself
with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels."
Our jewels are the glories of Christ, the many-faceted glories
of Christ as God in flesh, as the sovereign ruler of the universe,
as our Savior, as our Redeemer, the rose of Sharon, the lily
of the valley, all these descriptive terms concerning our Savior. You think of old Gomer, And yet,
because she was his wife, Hosea redeemed her. He went right down
in the public humiliation of that slave market where she had
sold herself into slavery, and he paid the price and redeemed
her. That's our Savior. Paul writes
to those at Corinth and he said, When he talked about all that
would never enter heaven, he said, and such were some of you,
but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Paul again in 2 Corinthians,
talking about Christ and those in Him, he says, for He hath
made Him to be sin for us. who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him." He made us to be
one with Christ. And married people, they have
the same name. It's not that... That's why I
don't like all this holding on the name. because it's all got
to do with what it represents, like Sally Joan Smith, instead
of just Sally Smith. You see, as rebel sinners, as
those who are self-righteous and try to find an acceptance
with God based on partly Christ and partly them, or partly grace
and partly their works, or partly law and partly gospel, they're
the Sally Jones Smiths. Those who are married to Christ,
they don't even want their old name. They're just Sally Smith. They're His bride. That's what
the bridegroom says. That's what the bride says. In
the Song of Solomon, which is just a whole book about this
very picture, she says, I am my Beloved's and He is mine. I am my Beloved's and He is mine. If you never get to know that
on a human level, I'm sorry for you, but to love one, and them
love you, and you to think of yourselves as one, that's amazing. They have the same name. Jeremiah
says, in his days, Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell
safely, and this is his name whereby he shall be called. the
Lord our righteousness." Then ten chapters later in Jeremiah,
in chapter 33, "...in those days shall Judah be saved..." Must
be talking about the same days, hadn't it? "...in those days
Judah shall be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely, and this
is the name whereby she shall be called..." Guess what it is? "...the Lord our righteousness."
They've got the same name. Oh, when the Apostle Jude writes,
he says, Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling
and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior be glory
and majesty and dominion and power both now and forever. Amen. You go home and you read the
song of Solomon chapter 4. when the bridegroom says of the
bride, you are all fair. There is no spot in you, not
a blemish, not a fault, not a flaw. Clothed in that righteousness
which is the gift of God in His Son, he says, you are all fair. There's not a spot in you. The picture here in Revelation
21 is not just of a bride, but also of her waiting for the bridegroom. She's waiting for that consummation
marriage supper of the Lamb. When it will all be public, when
everything will be out, as we say, in the open, that he is
her husband and she is married to him by the grace of God. She expectantly waits for the
bridegroom. He will come. This bride will
not be, never be left standing at the altar. She looks for Him,
and she longs for Him. He says, Behold, I come quickly. She says, Even so, come, Lord
Jesus. He says, I'm coming. And the
Spirit and the Bride say, Come, come. She looks for the One who
will appear. She hears the instruction that
she is to keep the commandment without spot, unrebukable, until
the appearing of our Lord Jesus. She looks with prospect and she
hears the apostle Talk about things that have been made manifest
and shall be made manifest. He says, "...but is now made
manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who
hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel." He waits for that public hour,
that promised hour. She says with Paul, "...henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous Judge, shall give me in that day, and not to me
only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." And
she lives looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing
of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. And though clothed
as she is, robed as she is, she hears the instruction, knowing
her weakness and frailty, to put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof."
Turn back, I want to show you one more verse, and that's in
Revelation 19, and it is the ninth verse. We looked at the
seventh verse, looked at the eighth verse, look at the ninth
verse. "'And he saith unto me, Right. In other words, this evidently
was not just for John, was it? It wasn't just for Jews, was
it? Why right if you're exiled on
an island like John was? So he says, right, blessed are
they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb."
Blessed, happy, are they which are called unto the marriage
supper of the Lamb. They're the bride. And He saith
unto me, these are the true sayings of God. Now, what kind of effect
did this have on John? He said, I fell at his feet to
worship. He said, wait a minute. All worship goes to the Lamb.
All worship goes to the Bridegroom, because He is the One who has
adorned His Bride. She is glorious because of His
glory. She is acceptable in God's sight. Oh, more than that, He finds
no fault in her. Because as John said, as He is,
so are we in this world. You look forward to His appearing?
He says, I'm coming quickly. By His grace I say, even so come
quickly, Lord Jesus. I found nothing here that even
comes close to You. Father, this day we thank You
for Your Word. for your grace, for your salvation,
for this picture that you give us of that grace and of that
mercy to your people in Christ Jesus. May we look to Him. May we love Him as He is. May we be thankful. May we believe
your promises. May we have understanding of
these pictures. And may our hearts rejoice and
be full of anticipation to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
We have no worthiness in ourselves, but we seek to stand before you
and be accepted through that comeliness which is your own,
which you put on us. We thank you and we pray that
you would take your word Teach your people, comfort their hearts,
and call them out of themselves to Christ. For we pray in His
name, Amen.