In just a little while, we will
once again celebrate our redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ eating
the bread and drinking the wine of the Lord's table. Now this
is a highly symbolic ordinance of the gospel. It has absolutely
no saving merit or efficacy whatsoever. It has no spiritual or mystical
power. The table is just a table of
wood. Don't even know if it's real
wood. It might be pressed wood. The
bread is ordinary bread, unleavened bread, but ordinary unleavened
bread. The wine is ordinary Concord
grape wine. You can buy it about anywhere.
But the ordinance is highly significant. Turn over to the book of 1 Corinthians
for a minute. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Let me remind you of the significance
of this ordinance. First, it symbolizes our Savior's
death as our substitute. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians
11 and verse 25, or verse 26 rather, for as often as ye eat
this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till
he comes. The broken bread, the wine poured
out, symbolizes the accomplishment of redemption for us by the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ as our substitute. It symbolizes the
incarnation, the body of Jesus Christ our Savior. that he came
into this world as a real man, lived as a real man, and died
as a real man in our place under the wrath of God. As a matter
of fact, Paul speaks of those who eat and drink unworthily,
and that eating and drinking unworthily is failure to discern
the Lord's body. That is, failure to discern both
our need of a substitute and failure to discern what he accomplished
as our substitute. The Lord Jesus Christ came in
a body of real flesh. But he who is that man of Nazareth
is also the God of glory. And he laid down his life under
the wrath of God to put away our sins. So the ordinance first
is a symbol of our Savior's death. But it's also a declaration of
our faith. Look in first Corinthians 10
and verse 16. Paul says, the cup of blessing
which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is
it not the communion of the body of Christ? That is, this cup
symbolizes the communication of the blood of Christ to us
and our fellowship in that blood. It symbolizes the communication
of the righteousness of Christ to us and our fellowship in his
righteousness. By eating the bread and drinking
the wine, we profess to all men our faith in and our dependence
upon Jesus Christ alone and his finished work for the pardon
of our sins and for our righteousness before God. Some of you here
will watch us again eat the bread and drink the wine. And by the
bread and wine we symbolize before you what Christ has done. He
died in our stead, and by the bread and wine which we eat,
we're saying to you, this Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord, is all
our hope, all our righteousness, all our redemption, all our acceptance
before God. And there's no way to live before
God No way for sinners to be accepted before God, but by him. Receive him. As we eat the bread
and drink the wine, literally, receive Jesus Christ by faith,
you who believe not. Eat his flesh and drink his blood. That is, take his righteousness
for yourself and his atonement for yourself by faith. That's
what we're saying to you we have done. Jesus Christ is all our
hope. This act of eating the bread
and drinking the wine is also an act of grateful remembrance,
again in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 25. The Apostle Paul says
after the same manner also, he took the cup and when he had
sucked said, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye, as oft as you drink
it. in remembrance of me." As we
take the bread and the wine, let our hearts remember, remember
the price of our ransom, remember the cost of his love, remember
what Christ has done for us and is yet doing for us. And then
back in chapter 10 again, this ordinance is a symbol of our
union with one another in Jesus Christ. In verse 17, for we being
many are one bread and one body. For we are all partakers of that
one bread. The bread is broken into many
pieces or cut into many pieces. But it was baked as a loaf. It
is all one loaf, one piece. And we are all one in Jesus Christ
our Lord. That is we who believe. And I'm
not talking only about this local assembly. That's the reason we
do not endeavor in any way to prohibit any of God's children's
meeting at this table. This is not the table of Grace
Baptist Church. It's the Lord's table. And it
is for all of the Lord's children, for all who are members of that
one body. For we being in Christ Jesus
are one with him. and one with one another. Our
union is a union of blood, even the Savior's blood, and a union
of spirit, even the Spirit of God, and a union of heart, heart
of love for Jesus Christ our Lord. And so this ordinance is
highly symbolical, but it's also a prophetic ordinance. The Lord's
Supper is a type and a prophecy of the marriage supper of the
Lamb. Let me show it to you over in Matthew chapter 26. Matthew
26. When our Lord instituted this
ordinance, the Lord's Supper, when he gave it to be an ordinance
in his church, he said in verse 29, well, he said in verse 28,
let's read there. He says, this is my blood of
the New Testament or of the new covenant, which is shed for many
that is, shed for all who are represented by me, shed for all
who are in the covenant, not for all men, but for all who
are in the covenant, shed for many, for the remission of sins,
for the putting away of their sins. But I say unto you, I will
not henceforth drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until
that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."
His eye looked down through the ages of sorrow, oppression, and
blood, through which his church must pass to the day of our final
triumph by his grace. He saw here, as he anticipated
his going to the cross, as he anticipated his death as our
substitute, our Savior looked beyond the cross and he looked
beyond the ages of time to that day when he would see of the
prevail of his soul and be satisfied. He saw his disciples of every
age and of every people and of every nation and of every imaginable
condition in this world gathered in one body before his throne,
exulting in his presence. He saw that day when he would
be brought together with his beloved bride, his church, and
when his church would be brought together with him. the day of
the great marriage feast. Now, as we gather around the
table in a little while, I want us to look backward, ever look
backward. Look backward upon the cross
and see our Savior's agony and remember the price of our redemption. As these men come in a little
bit and pass out the bread and the wine to you, pause and cry
by the Spirit of God, to meditate upon the cost of your ransom.
Remember the Savior. But let us also look forward. Look forward to that glorious
day of glorious triumph. His triumph and ours at the marriage
supper of the Lamb. Now that's described for us here
in Revelation 19, and this will be my text this evening. Revelation
19, verses 7, 8, and 9. let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to him for the marriage of the lamb is come and his wife
he sometimes called his wife sometimes called his bride sometimes
called his daughter sometimes called his son for he is all
things to all his people his wife hath made herself ready
and 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. And he saith unto me, Right,
blessed 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, we have seen last week the processional
that took place, as described in chapter 19, verses 1 and the
destruction of Babylon, the destruction of all false religions, and we
have seen the meaning of the marriage itself. This marriage
supper of the Lamb shall be the glorious consummation of God's
purpose of grace in the everlasting covenant. It shall be the blessed
consummation of our heart's deliberate willful betrothal to Jesus Christ,
our Lord, and it shall be the perfecting of Christ's body,
the Church. Tonight, I want you to look just
at two things, the bridegroom and the bride. Try to get a picture
of the royal pair on their wedding day. Try to get that picture,
we read about it earlier in the Song of Solomon, chapter 3, of
that royal pair in their nuptial chariot. And now, the time has
come for the great wedding feast. Try to get a picture of them.
Let's look first at the bridegroom, the center of attention at this
wedding. will not be the bride but the
bridegroom, the Lord Jesus. Try to fix the eyes of your soul
on him. On that glorious day of glorious
days, Christ will appear in his most glorious, most honorable,
most dazzling character. What will it be? He is the creator
of all things. He's the sovereign ruler of the
universe. He's the sustainer of all things
and the governor of all things in providence. He is the one
who feeds and clothes all things and all things. He is the giver
of life and the taker of life. He is the one who has all things
in his hands and all things at his disposal. He's the God of
glory. And now he's going to appear
on this, the most glorious of all days. the day when his glory
shows forth most clearly and most brilliantly and most fully
unto all eternity as he goes to appear. I'd be interested
in seeing that. Look at what our text says. Let
us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him for the marriage
of the Lamb is come. That's how he appears. When our
Savior comes to show forth all the splendor and glory of his
being, when he comes to demonstrate all the wonder and majesty of
his person and of his work, he comes before us as the Lamb. We're talking here about the
marriage supper of the Lamb. This is our Savior's most splendorous,
most glorious character. He's the Lamb. Now, throughout
the book of Revelation, our Lord is worshipped as the Lamb. Almost
every time we see him or have him mentioned in this book, he's
called the Lamb. The Lamb is the sacrifice, the
sacrifice by whom justice has been satisfied and sin has been
put away. When John the Baptist saw him,
he said, Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin
of the world. He's the sacrifice. And whenever
we see Christ presented as the Lamb, it is to remind us of His
sufferings and death in our room and in our stead as our substitute
to put away our sins. Now, there are many, many mentions
of our Lord in this character as the Lamb through the book
of Revelation. Let me just remind you of a few. In Revelation 5-6,
we have the first picture of Him as the Lamb. Here He is the
Lamb as the center of God's decree. He is mentioned again in chapter
5 and verse 8 as the Lamb who is the object of worship in heaven.
In chapter 6, we see him as the Lamb who is the ruler of all
providence, opening up the seal of God's everlasting book of
decrees. In chapter 6 and verse 16, he's
the Lamb who is the executioner of justice. In chapter 7 and
verse 17, he's the Lamb upon the throne. In chapter 12 and
verse 11, He's the Lamb who's the source of victory. In chapter
13 and verse 8, He's the Lamb who's the source of life. In
chapter 14 and verse 1, we see the Lamb standing upon Mount
Zion, that is, standing guard over the walls of His church.
In chapter 14 and verse 4, He's the Lamb who is our leader. In
chapter 15, in verse 3, the Lamb is the song of heaven. In chapter
17, we see throughout the chapter how this Lamb is the preserver
of His people. And now we see Him, the Lamb,
come for His marriage feast. The Lamb comes together with
His bride for the great marriage feast. The Lamb of God. The Lamb of God. That's our Savior.
That's our God. That's the one we worship. That's
the one we love. The first time we look to Christ,
looking to him in faith. We look to him as the lamb with
his wounds, a lamb as it had been slain. We heard him say,
look unto me and be ye safe all the ends of the earth for I'm
God and there is none else. And we look to him, a lamb, a
lamb who bore our sin, a lamb who shed his blood, a lamb who
went to the cross and by his death put away our sin. And now
we look to him still just like that as the lamb. How do you
look upon the Savior? I look upon Him first and foremost
continually as the Lamb by whom my sins are put away. I look
to Him in faith, look to Him in confidence. When I have doubt
concerning myself, I look to the Lamb. There's no doubt about
Him. When I have inward struggles, I look to the Lamb. His struggles
are over. When I have personal trials,
I look to the Lamb. By Him I shall overcome. When
I have coldness of heart, I look to the Lamb. He's everything.
And I look to Him for everything. And when our days on this earth
are over, when we shall see Him as He is, in all the glory of
His eternal being, we will see Him as the Lamb. And what do
we know about Christ as the Lamb? I know this. He is the central
theme of Holy Scripture. This Lamb is mentioned all the
way through the Scriptures. Everything in the book of God
is designed and intended to point sinners to the Lamb by whom sin
is put away. In the Scriptures, we read of
this Lamb who was provided in the covenant. This Lamb was the
Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, Revelation 13a. He was slain in the mind and
purpose of God before the world began, before there was ever there was a Savior. Before there
was ever any transgression, there was a ransom. Before there was
a fall, there was a deliverer. Before we were sold into slavery,
there was a Redeemer, the Lamb, slain from the foundations of
the world. God, from eternity, set His eye and His heart on
the Lamb, and the Lamb is the central figure of everything.
That's what we saw in Revelation 5. You remember how that lamb
is seen standing in the midst of the throne of God, rising
up out of the throne of God. He's the center of God's purpose.
The center of God's decree, the center of everything, is the
Lamb of God. He was the lamb provided in the
covenant, but he is also the lamb who was promised. Go back
to the first promise. The very first promise God made.
The very first one. Turn back there if you will.
Genesis chapter 3. And our mother Eve had sinned
against God. And now God pronounces the curse
upon them, the curse that must follow sin, the curse that must
come because of the transgression. But at the heels of the curse,
he gives a word of promise. He says in verse 15, And I will
put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and
her seed. And it shall bruise thy head,
but thou shalt bruise his heel. And then after he made that promise,
he fixed it for them. Adam and his wife Eve, you remember,
tried to cover their sin with fig leaves. They threw some fig
leaves together and thought they could hide from God. And the
Lord God said, and I promised you one who would come, the seed
of the woman, who would crush the serpent's head by his heel
being crushed. He'll be put to death, but in
his death, he'll conquer Satan. Now, to show you exactly what
I mean, look at verse 21. And unto Adam and to his wife
did the Lord God make coats of skin and clothes them. The first
blood shed in the world was the blood of a lamb. Adam and his
wife were clothed in fig leaves of their own making, but God
stripped them of their fig leaves and replaced their fig leaves
with lamb skin. even the lamb that portrayed
the Lord Jesus Christ who must come into this world. So the
lamb was promised just at the gates of the garden and the lamb
was pictured in all the types of the Old Testament. That high
priest would come in once every year with the blood of the lamb.
He'd go into the holy of holies and he'd make atonement for himself
and for the sins of the people with the blood of the lamb. And
that lamb, that Passover lamb, was a picture of Christ. Paul
said, Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. The Paschal
Lamb on that night in Egypt when God brought Israel out of the
darkness and bondage and idolatry and superstition and sin of Egypt. He did it by the blood of a lamb.
And that Paschal Lamb is a picture of Jesus Christ, our Lord. This
lamb was presented when John the Baptist saw him. He looked
up. He was that one who was to come.
Like Elijah. Elijah coming to prepare the
way of the Lord. And he looked up one day while
he was baptizing in Jordan and he saw him coming. And he said,
Behold! The Lamb! This is the one that
they're looking for. This is the one God promised.
This is the one Isaiah wrote about. Behold! The Lamb of God! Which takes away the sin of the
world. And he sent his disciples to follow him. Then the Lamb
of God, in the fullness of time, according to God's purpose, was
punished upon the cross in the place of his people. The Lord
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was numbered with
the transgressors, and for the transgressions of his people
was he smitten. It is this Lamb that we proclaim
in the Gospel. Our Savior said, aye, aye, if
I be lifted up from the earth. I know He was talking about His
death, and this is what we do in preaching the gospel of Christ.
We lift Him up before men as the crucified Savior, like Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. We say, look, look
to the Lamb of God and live forever. Look to Him, weary sinner. Look
to the Lamb, His blood, His atonement, His righteousness. Trust Him
and you shall live. And all who trust Him live forever. This lamb is the lamb praised
before the throne of God. Those saints of God in heaven
gather around the throne, look up, they say, worthy is the lamb
that was slain. And here we see him as the lamb
pleased for all eternity. He shall see of the prevail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. What's that? He was looking to
this day. He was looking to this time.
when he would see all his elect, all his seed, all his ransomed
ones, all for whom he lived, all for whom he died, all for
whom he prayed. He would see them gathered before
his throne on this glorious wedding day. And now he's satisfied.
Now he's satisfied. All his ransomed ones are gathered
in. This is just but one of the reasons
we so tenaciously insist upon the doctrine of particular ineffectual
redemption, to declare that Jesus Christ shed his blood for the
ransom of any who are not with him in that day, is to rob Jesus
Christ of his sole surveil and make the cross of Jesus Christ
to be a miscarriage. Should he suffer and never be
satisfied? Should he prevail in vain? Should
the Lord Jesus Christ for eternity suffer the agony of knowing his
ransomed one perished in spite of all that he's done? What foolishness! Where is any glory in that? Where
is any honor for the Savior? There's none whatsoever. Our
Lord Jesus Christ was a joy that was set before him. That's what Paul said in Hebrews,
isn't it? Hebrews 12 was a joy that was
set before him. He endured the cross. He endured
the cross in anticipation of this day of joy, when he would
see before his wife that her clothes would finally be white. He saw his bride looking down
through the ages of time, and here is the time when he pleads,
pleads forever. And he brings his bride before
his father's throne and says, Lo, I and the children thou hast
given me. The Lamb of God is our Savior. I know this as well, not only
is this lamb the central theme of Scripture, but it was as the
lamb that our Lord Jesus proved his love for his people. Hereby perceive we the love of
God, because he laid down his life for us. In creation, we see the wisdom
and the power of God. In judgment we see the justice
and the righteousness of God. But we see the love of God only
here, when we see God sending His Son to lay down His life
in the place of guilt and sin. This is God's love. Herein is
love. Not that we loved God, we didn't.
We couldn't, we wouldn't. But that He loved us and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten Son that anybody in all the world
who believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life. It was as the Lamb that our Savior
won our hearts and caused us to first love him. We love him,
John wrote, because he first loved us. Oh, he loved us long
before we loved him, and his love for us is the cause of our
love for him. And our love for him is in no
way to be measured or compared with his love for us, but we
do love him because he's the Lamb by whom our sins have been
put away. It was as the Lamb that our Savior
came into closest possible union with us. I cried this morning to show
you as best I could how that he came into this union and closeness with his
people. Our Savior came into the world
in human flesh. That makes him a man. But he's not yet a man like me. He lived as a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief, but he's still not a man like me.
He was tried and hit in all points of life as we are, but he's still
not a man like me, for he's yet without sin. But when the lamb
hung upon the tree and was made to be sin, when God made to meet
on him all the sins of his Now, there's one just like me. The
Lamb comes in the closest possible union with us when he was made
to be sin for us, when he was numbered with the transgressors.
I know this as well. We never feel nearer. We never
know ourselves to be more closely one with and more perfectly one
with the Son of God than when we see him as the Lamb. You go through your trials and
your heartaches and your troubles and your seasons of depression
and discomfort and coldness and indifference. You think about
it, Ruth. And they're very real. But there's nothing on this earth
that will drive away your discomfort, and your despair, and your unbelief,
and your coldness of heart, and your indifference, like looking
to Christ the Lamb of God. Oh, children of God, spend all
your time, all the time you possibly can, Looking to Christ, the crucified
Savior. Looking to Christ, the Lamb slain. Don't ever get tired of that.
Don't ever weary of that. Don't ever stray from that. Oh,
I know people say, well, there are other things to be taught,
other things to be said, and other things to be done. Let
them do it. Let them do it. For my part,
I intend, every time you hear me preach, to lift up before
you the Lamb and say, look to the Lamb. Children of God, is
your heart heavy? Look to the Lamb and be eased.
Is your heart cold? Look to the Lamb and be revived.
Are you cast down? Look to the Lamb and be lifted
up. Look to Him. Look to the Lamb as the Lamb
of God. There we know ourselves to be
one with Him. See from His head, His hands,
His feet. Sorrow and love flow mingled
down. Did e'er such love and sorrow
meet? thorns compose, so lift your
crown. It is Christ the Lamb who conquers
the hearts of rebels and saves lost sinners. I can't preach them to you like
I would, but I know this. If ever you see this Lamb, you'll
follow Him. If ever God makes you to know
this Lamb, you'll trust Him. And I say to Him, dear dying
Lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power till all
the ransomed Church of God be saved to sin no more. And when
we see our Savior on His glorious wedding day and ours, we'll be
wed to Him, we'll worship Him, we'll adore Him, And we'll embrace
him as the Lamb. The marriage of the Lamb is coming. What's next? This is it. The marriage of the
Lamb. We'll embrace the Lamb and be
embraced by the Lamb. This will be an endless feast
of love. This will be the very glory of God made known to us
without any reservation. E'er since, by faith, I saw the
stream His flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die. And when this poor, list'ning,
standard song Lies silent in the grave, Then, in a nobler,
sweeter song, I'll sing His power to save. The Lamb loved us. The Lamb redeemed us. The Lamb
called us. The Lamb has kept us. and the
Lamb shall have it. Now, secondly, I want us to look
briefly at the Bride. Let me describe her beauty. I'm
talking now about the Church of God. You may say, well, who
is the Bride of Christ? My soul. Looks to me like any
imbecile ought to know that. Who is the Bride of Christ? Whoever
he loves from eternity, that's his Whoever he redeemed on the
cross, that's his bride. Whoever he called by his grace,
that's his bride. Whoever it is that he clothed
with his righteousness, that's his bride. Whoever it is that
he keeps by the power of his grace, that's his bride. Whoever
it is that he brings to glory, that's his bride. Does that make
good sense? This is the church of the living God. This bride
is God's elect scattered throughout the ages of time, from the beginning
of creation to the end of creation, in every age, in every condition,
in every circumstance, in every people, in every nation, in every
tribe, and in every tongue. This is that number 10,000 times
10,000, and thousands of thousands which no man could number but
God alone. That's the Bride of Christ. Anyone
who suggests that the Bride of Christ is somehow made up by
men and women who by some special deeds or by some special work
or by some special relationship with this church or with that
or some special ordinance that they have kept by those things
have distinguished themselves and made themselves accepted
to God in a higher degree of excellence and glory I'm afraid
do not know the gospel of God's free grace That's nothing but
works religion, nothing but works salvation, nothing but works
redemption, nothing but works for man's acceptance with God. Now with that out of the way,
I'm going to describe for you something of the beauty of this
bride. But I'll still be describing the beauty of the lamb and the
glory of the lamb because her beauty is his beauty which he
has put upon her. His wife hath made herself redhead,
and to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen,
clean and white. For the fine linen is the righteousnesses
of the saints." Now, if you didn't catch that,
I read it slightly different than it is in our King James.
The fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints. You might want
to jot it down. We'll come back to it in a minute.
This bride prepared herself for this glorious event. We're told
his wife has made herself ready. Well, what does that mean? How
do we make ourselves ready for heaven's glory? How do we make
ourselves ready for this marriage feast? How do we make ourselves
ready for acceptance with God and with his Christ? Well, here's
how. First, she willingly, of her
own accord, has given herself to Christ to be his forever. Sometimes people like to accuse
us of preaching things we don't preach. They try to make you
sound hideous so nobody's paying attention to you. And I'm not
answering them, but I said, for your sake. Somebody says, well,
you folks believe God saves sinners against their will, and God forces
folks to trust Christ whether they want to or not. Oh, no.
No. You never heard me say that,
did you, brother? No. No. Nothing could be further
from the truth. No. No, we don't believe God
saves sinners who don't want to be saved. We don't believe
God's faith in somebody against their will. Not at all. What
we do believe is that God, by His grace, makes people who did
not know and did not want Christ to want Him more than life itself. That's what we believe. We believe
that those whom God has chosen shall be willing in the day of
his power, and when they come to Christ and give themselves
to Christ, they do so with fullness of their hearts. They want Him
more than life itself. They want Him more than anything.
They're like Paul, they say, all that I've had in Christ,
all that I've experienced all my righteousness, all my religion,
all my deeds, all my good work that hath been but manure, that
I may win Christ, and that I may be found in him, not having mine
own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness
of God, which is by the faithful obedience of Jesus Christ our
Lord. Not only has she willingly given
herself to Christ, but she has come out of Babylon And she's
put away from her, according to his command, the corruptions
of the great horse. And it cost something to come
out of Babylon. My wife married me. And she took
my name, came and lived under my roof, and cut all other strings. Mother and father, brothers and
sisters, that's no longer her family. That's right. That's no longer her family.
Oh, there's still blood, Kim, but that's no longer her family.
This is her family out here. You follow what I'm saying? That's
what we do coming to Christ. We just cut the strings. We forsake
the gods of our fathers and the gods of our mothers, and we forsake
the gods of our society and the gods of the day in which we live.
And we say, no, that's Babylon. That's Babylon. We've given up
the ritualism, and we've given up the legalism, and we've given
up the freewillism, and we've given up the works religion.
That's Babylon. No, no, we've come out of her.
We've come out of her, and we cling to Christ, only to Christ,
only to Christ. And she has washed herself from
all unclean in the fountain of his blood. She's come and plunged
in by faith. She plunged in to that precious
fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and she
washed herself in his blood. Washed herself from guilt and
washed herself from the pollution and the corruption and the condemnation
that justly do her by faith in Christ Jesus. I said, but the
washing took place long ago. That's true. That's true. But
she comes and does it by faith. She plunges in herself into the
fountain of the Savior's blood. And she has by faith put on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Put on His righteous. Put Him
on. Keep on doing it. Keep on doing
it. We sin, and we go and confess
our sin, and He's faithful and just to give us our sin, and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And when we get done bathing
again, we get up and put on His righteousness again, and close
ourselves again by faith in Him. We continually, continually put
aside the old man, and put aside the flesh, and put aside our
sins, and put aside the accusations of Satan, and put aside our own
infirmities, and wash in his countenance, and robe ourselves
in his righteousness by faith. By faith. I'll tell you the difference
between God's people and Babylon. The difference between those
who know Christ and those who don't. Between those who are
saved by God's free grace and those who think they saved themselves. The self-righteous religionist,
whenever he feels himself smitten, whenever he feels himself defiled,
whenever he feels himself unclean, whenever he feels his sin and
his corruption, goes and does something. He'll do something. He'll do something. And when
he does something, he feels better. When he makes a significant contribution
to the missionary, he feels better. when he does some great work
that everybody can look at and pat him on the back before he
feels better. The children of God take their guilt and plunge
into the fountain and they take their uncleanness and put on
the robe of Christ's righteousness. That's what Paul says you do.
Put on Jesus Christ. Put him on. Put him on by faith. Every time. Every time your sin
accuses you, put on Christ. Every time, every time your heart
condemns you, put on Christ. Put him on. That's what this
bride does. She's made herself ready. But
notice this. Her gorgeous apparel has been
given to her, given to her as a free gift of God's sovereign
grace, as a royal grant from the King of Heaven. All that
she carries with her to heaven was given to her. All that she
wears was given to her. She brings nothing, underscore,
God helped you to underscore in your minds and in your hearts,
she brings nothing of her own. And she wears nothing of her
own, but only that which was given her. In fact, she's there
all together as a matter of free grace. Most people, if they don't teach
it or preach it, seem to think that God thinks somehow or another
some of them are going to enter into heaven with a great host
of experience and work and deeds and preachings and givings and
sacrifices, and so they'll enter incognito. They've been good
preachers, they've been good deacons, good Sunday school teachers,
so on. And they'll enter in with great
confidence, but then there are us here. You know, commonly second,
third, fourth class citizens in the kingdom. And when we enter
into heaven, and we approach Christ at his coming, and we
come to this marriage feast, we're kind of going to come with
our heads hanging down, and we're going to come in, as they say,
by the skin of your teeth, and we're just kind of going to barely
get into the door before it shuts. Oh, there's nothing further from
the truth. All of God's things come into heaven with a blaze
of glory. Come into heaven on the same
ground. Come into heaven with the same robe. Come into heaven
with the same righteousness and the same blood and the same cleansing. They come by free grace alone,
bringing nothing of their own. Oh, I wish that God would understand. The garment that she wears, is
the righteousnesses of the saints. I readily grant the word righteousness,
as we have it in our King James Version, should be written in
the plural to read righteousnesses. We discussed it a few weeks ago.
It is the word righteousnesses. It is in the plural. But I do
not grant for a moment that it should read the righteousness
deeds or the righteous works of the saints. Not on your life. Not on your life. All the righteousnesses
of God's saints is the righteousness of God in Christ freely given
his saints by free grace. Now this is important. Listen
to me for just a minute longer. What do we mean when we talk
about righteousnesses? the righteousnesses of the saints.
Well, in order for you and I to enter heaven's glory and be accepted
of God, three things gotta happen to us. Three things gotta happen. We must be completely without
sin. Totally, completely, absolutely,
perfectly free of sin. Period. free of sin. How can that be? Only by righteousness. Only by righteousness. And so the first matter of righteousness
is the righteousness of our pardon, the righteousness of our forgiveness,
the righteousness of our atonement by the sacrifice of Christ. As
we God took it off me. Here it is. He took it off me and put it
on his son. There it is. That's not two places. There it is. It's on his son. And it will never be put on me. Never! Not on your life. Not to eternity. Never! His son suffered the wrath of
God for it. His son put it away. His son
pardoned it. His son satisfied justice. And now his son comes out of
the grave without sin and is coming again without sin unto
salvation. What does that mean? That means
sin's gone. That means it's gone. It's gone. And God did it in righteousness.
He expunged sin from us. He removed sin from us. by the
satisfactory substitutionary death of Jesus Christ our Lord. But something else got to happen.
It's not enough that we be without sin. We must have a positive,
righteous obedience to God's law. God requires that we be
not only innocent, but holy. Perfectly holy. He that is holy,
let him be holy still. None shall enter in except those
who are holy, and righteous, and just, and good. After we
have that, St. Francis, here's the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. The Lord God put it on the book. Perfect, perfect, pure, clean,
and spotless. Say, well, take it off of his
son. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. His son's my head. I'm a member
of his body. The road covers the whole body.
He put it on us by the same imputation. Now, he did it exactly the same
way as he put our sin on his son. His son never committed
sin, but he was made to do sin. And you never commit righteousness. But it dirty, it ain't in you.
It just ain't, you can't do a righteous thing. I can't either. We don't
have the ability. Everything we do is sin. But
God has put righteousness over us and made us to be the very
righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Something else still
lacking. There's a third thing. We got
to have a righteous nature. A holy nature. A holy nature. Our nature is cruel. Our nature
is defiled. Our nature is sinful. Our nature
is sin and death and corruption. Oh, wretched man that I am! This
nature, this body, this flesh must go to the tombs and there
rot and decay and be eaten of loathsome creatures, dust to
dust and ashes to ashes. But we've got to have a righteous
nature. How does that come? We have been
made partakers of the divine nature. in regeneration. The
righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us in justification
and imparted to us in regeneration. And when these bodies have gone
to the grave, and this old carnal man has died, we shall arise
in new bodies, but these new bodies shall be eternal, immortal
houses for a new man, created in us in the new by Jesus Christ
our Lord. Do you see that? Here then is
the righteousnesses of the saints. It is a righteous pardon, a righteous
robe, and a righteous nature given to us by the free grace
of God in perfect consistency with his own righteous character. Today we wear this filthy robe
of sinful flesh. But when this day comes, we shall
wear the robe of his perfect righteousness, even in a body. And this is the righteousness
of the saints, without spot, without wrinkle. And this is
the free gift of his grace. This is the marriage supper of
the Lamb. Will you be there? I bid you come. Come and welcome.
The Spirit and the bride say come, him that is athirst, let
him come and take to the water of life freely. There's plenty
of room for you. But hear me, you dare not come
without this wedding garment, which is the righteousness of
the saints. Blood atonement, righteous justification,
and a holy nature, which only God by his free grace can give.
May he give it to you this very moment Well for now We'll have to content ourselves
With the bread and the wine But as we eat the bread and drink
the wine Let us do so in remembrance of our Savior but also in anticipation
of of this glorious day when he will sit with us in his kingdom
at the marriage feast of the Lamb.