Revelation 19 // The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

at Revelation chapter 19 and I'm titling this the marriage supper of the lamb we got through revelation 18 last time and that was the destruction of the city of Babylon and we'll talk a little bit more about that because we're the beginning of Revelation 19 has some of that in there before we get started let's let's pray and ask the Lord to bless the time in the word father thank you again Lord for the blessing of actually a relationship with you thank you Lord for the fact that you've taken us out of the world you brought us into an awesome place where we have this relationship with you where our sin is forgiven everything's cleansed we're made right with you and actually right with each other it's a it's a pretty cool thing where as we're going through and we're talking about the marriage supper of the Lamb and our relationship with you God we just pray that you'd be speaking to our hearts that you'd be drawing us closer Lord you compared our relationship with you with a husband wife relationship and it's supposed to be closed it's supposed to be tight it's supposed to be loving and Lord that's what we want with you so we just give you the study of your word and pray that you'd be the teacher here and that you'd work in us and do this all in Jesus name Amen all right Revelation chapter 19 let's start in verse 1 it says after these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying Alleluia salvation and glory and honor and power belonged to the Lord our God for true and righteous are his judgments because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication and he's avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her again they said Alleluia her smoke rises up forever and ever and the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne saying amen hallelujah that 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 saying Alleluia for the Lord God omnipotent reigns it says after these things and this places specifically the destruction of Babylon just prior to the second coming because chapter 19 is all about the second coming of Christ and so it goes through this anthem of praise for the destruction of Babylon then it gets into the marriage supper of the Lamb talking about the fact that his wife the church has made herself ready and then you have the second coming of Christ and so as you go through the through the Bible specifically the book of Revelation you have the destruction of Babylon taking place just before the second coming and so that's that's kind of a cool thing it's one of those one of those things that we've been talking about when when I talk about the interpretation of the book of Revelation one of the mistakes that I think that people make and again this is my opinion but one of the mistakes I think people make when they're reading the book of Revelation is they take it chronologically in the sense that you start at the beginning of the book of Revelation you go straight through and each thing follows each thing and it doesn't look like it happens that way so for example when you're talking about the destruction of Babylon won't you turn back with me to chapter 14 real quick Revelation chapter 14 and if you look at verse 8 in chapter 14 it says and another angel followed saying Babylon is fallen is fallen that great city because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication and the context there is you have the 144,000 sitting on standing on Mount Zion then you have these three announcements by three different angels the first announcement has to do with the everlasting gospel the second announcement is about the destruction of Babylon the third announcement is the judgment on people who take the mark of the beast and then you have an angel that reaps the reaps judgment on the earth in verses 14 through 20 and so that's all the way back in chapter 14 so in chapter 14 they're talking about things that are going to be happening in 17 and 18 as far as as far as Babylon goes if you look over at chapter 16 up in verse 19 it says now the great city was divided into three parts and the cities of the nation's fell and great Babylon was remembered before God to give her the cup give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath then every island fled away the mountains were not found and great hail from heaven fell upon men each hail stone about the weight of a talent men blaspheme God because of the plague of the hail since that plague was exceedingly great lots of seventh Bowl it's the it's the Last Judgement that takes place before Jesus comes back and so you all the way back in chapter 14 you have Babylon being mentioned and being destroyed and then when you get to chapter 16 it places it right at the end of the Tribulation Period so right before Jesus comes back Babylon is taken out and you know it's one again one of those things that is emphasized in Scripture I was talking about this for the last couple of studies I don't put as much emphasis on Babylon as God does when I when I think of Babylonian stuff I think of compromise and I think of people turning away from the Lord and apostasy and and that kind of thing but that gods into Babylon he's into I'm taking out Babylon his is the deal and so again you see this history between Babylon and Jerusalem Babylon and heaven basically all through the Bible and here you see this destruction as a culmination of God's plan again you have all this praise that's taken place you see it as the righteous retribution for the evil of the world if again again look at verse 2 it says for true and righteous are his judgments because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication and he's avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her and so he looks at the at the whole history of Babylon is something that's corrupted the whole world and this judgment on Babylon as the ultimate judgment on an evil world specifically pointed at them also he places within the realm of judgment actually the the the responsibility of the blood of those who've been shed on the earth he's judged the harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication and he's avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her and so that's the death of the martyrs the the death of the believers and we saw that again back in chapter 18 and so Babylon includes religious babylon babylon includes monetary babylon or financial babylon and each each participant in that as far as financially and religiously it's a combination wrapped up in a city is accountable for the blood that shed these these people are bloodthirsty and they go after believers and it's one of those things that you see in the book of Revelation that has to come to pass before Jesus comes the second time the Bible teaches that people are going to get more and more anti Jesus specifically more and more anti God and they're going to be going after believers and it's one of those things that in the span of my lifetime has actually been pretty impressive as far as how quickly it's come about when I was a when I was a kid in high school you talked about the Bible and people had an immediate respect for what the Bible had to say it wasn't something that you had to talk people into you say the Bible says and people would listen up at that time you say the Bible says nowadays and people go what's the Bible book written by men men or evil or whatever they're gonna go off on you know and and that kind of thing Bible is just a bunch of stories Bible is a bunch of myths and you get people with that kind of attitude totally foreign to where I was in high school and even in college totally foreign and that's how quickly the cultures turned around how quickly the cultures changed and it's going to end up in a place where Christians and Jews specifically are being persecuted and God doesn't let that go he judges the persecution he judges the persecutors and then all of heaven glories over that one of the things that we need to remember is that we always need to be on the right side of these issues when you're when you're again what you have here is heaven you know last week we were talking about this and it's the destruction of the city the city it looks like is destroyed I mean it's catastrophic Lee destroyed no matter no matter how you take this as far as how its destroyed it could be fire that comes down from heaven in the sense of God just destroying the place it looks to me like it could be nuclear but what you have is the destruction of the capital city of the Antichrist on the planet and all heaven rejoices that's pretty rowdy that's pretty rowdy you know when you when you think you know it's it's kind of like we don't live in the in that world I mean we know about nuclear destruction you have Hiroshi um and Nagasaki those are the only two cities that ever have ever been destroyed by nukes and we know about that in the sense that it's history but as far as you know as far as the actual destruction of a place like this we don't experience these things and the horrific consequences of mankind's ability to exert power on others and again I think it's nuclear and so I think that that totally applies God's using it as judgment but I think it's nuclear and so we have the ability to do these kinds of things and that kind of destruction is horrific and yet all of heaven is rejoicing and again it's because of the corruption of the culture it's because of the corruption in these people it's because of where they have gone with with what they have and what they have done to the people around them and all heaven rejoices which brings up another thing you have heaven seeing this they've seen it and so you you you have a situation where in the book of Revelation you have people in heaven looking down on the earth and when God does certain things whether it's angels or in this case it's angels and the 24 elders you see it in verse 4 the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne saying Amen hallelujah right and so there are there an agreement with this whole thing and so obviously they've seen it so can you see things on earth from heaven and it looks like at least in these cases you can and I don't know if that's you know God inviting you into his family room and flipping off flipping on the TV you know so that you can you can see what's going on on earth but on in some way God's allowing these people to see what's taking place on earth and so I think I think that that's kind of cool too again when you look at this the book of Revelation is way rowdy this is something that my grandma would be foreign to my grandma was this nice lady who thought everybody was wonderful and everybody was kind and everybody was nice and everybody believed the right things about Jesus and that kind of thing I remember had a conversation with her one time about some friends of hers who were Mormon and you know I'm talking with her and I happened to work for Mormons and I know something about Mormonism and and she thought that Mormons were Christians and grandma these people believe they can be gods they they they believe that they they believe that they're going to have planets that they rule over just that's what Joseph Smith taught it's what Brigham Young taught she goes no Steven she always called me Steven no Steve that can't be right now go no grandma it's really true you can ask him and she goes well if that's how it is these people need to know Jesus and so you know she turned no quick but you know she had this this heart towards people were you know everybody's nice and everybody has it together and everybody you know and that is you know I I don't I don't know what she did when she read the book of Revelation because you have cities being destroyed my grandma would go something like that and you have cities being destroyed know if Heaven's going yeah wipe them out for what they've done and again that's that's that's pretty rowdy and so when I you know I look at my walk with God one of the things I have to remember is that I have to be on the right side of these issues there are things that you run into in the Bible where God does things at certain points that look pretty intense they look pretty harsh but one of the things that you need to know about God is that when he does those things it's because judgement time has come in fact they're ripe for judgment we reference back to Revelation chapter 14 and I didn't read the passage but it talks about an angel taking a scythe it's it's what you would reap wheat with you know like the death you know whenever you see death pictured he's standing there with a side that's what else is and they take a side and they reap the grapes of the earth and when it talks about them being ripe in the in the Greek it says that they're overly right it means withered it means God has waited beyond the prime time to reap the Grapes of Wrath basically and so not only does God wait because he's gracious he waits longer than he actually should because he's so gracious but then he reaps and he takes care of things and so again you have these kinds of things in the Bible God is my friend he does it right and he does it right every single time and so I'm on God's side I'm not on anybody else's side if God has has deemed it time for a group of people to be judged he knows why he's doing it he knows everything that's taken place he knows exactly what he's doing and so I've never thought of God as being harsh he does it right and he does it right every time God was more than fair at the time of the flood and that's a time when he when he judged the whole world he was more than fair at that time in fact he waited until the last family the the last family that was uncorrupted was still around that's how long he waited everybody else on the earth was absolutely corrupted and then God chose the last family and saved them he waited he waited in the situation with sodom and gomorrah he waited and he waited until the family that was uncorrupted was there and in fact not all of that family made it out the Bible says that lot had sons and daughters and sons in law his sons in law did not go with him his daughters that were married to his sons in law did not go with him his sons did not go with him and although all that came out of sodom and gomorrah with him was two daughters and his wife and his wife didn't make it out because of turning back and looking back and so again when God waits when God brings judgment he waits until the last possible moment and then he does it and again he always does it right you have the same thing with the with the people of canaan and we've been going through the book of numbers and talking about that the people of canaan had over 600 years to repent and this was a group of people that were some of the most over-the-top as far as their paganism went you know the Canaanites are basically equate with the Phoenicians they were they were Phoenician colonies and when you look at the Phoenician colonies that are spread throughout the Mediterranean we find the bones of burned babies all over the place they would take babies they would sacrifice them they would burn them alive they would take the bones and they would bury them in their foundations of their houses sometimes of the walls of their cities but there is all kinds of evidence of child sacrifice with the Phoenician culture and specifically with the Canaanites and God put up with that for 600 years and then he said that's enough and he sent in the Israelis and they drove them out there's a passage in Ezekiel chapter 16 verses 49 through 50 that that talks about specifically the situation was sodom and gomorrah and it says this look this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom she and her daughter had pride fullness of food and abundance of idleness neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy and they were haughty and committed abomination before me therefore I took them away I saw fit that's God's statement on sodom and gomorrah one of the things I'd like to point out when I read through that passage is what the what the sins are pride she and her daughter had pride do we have that in America yep fullness of food do we have that in America yeah we don't we don't have to we don't have to go out and work all all year to make sure that our families are fed we have fullness of food and abundance of idleness do we have that in America lots of downtime and what then what it got them was a situation where they became selfish she neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor in the needy they become became selfish do we have that in America yep selfishness and they were haughty and that's the idea of I can do anything i stinking please doesn't matter what God has to say and committed abomination before me and we know what the abomination was it was homosexuality and so every single one of those sins is something that's rampant in our culture right now and those are the sins that got Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed and if if God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for those things he owes it to the United States to and to Europe and to any any nation that would do these things and committing abomination before God is not something that you you do for long periods of time and think that your net you're never going to have to reap judgment for it and again it's something that is in the hands of God but when God brings it it's right and every every time that I've studied these things specifically with the Canaanites 600 years is way that's a way long time that's a way long time for God to be sitting there looking at that kind of abomination and allowing it and so when I look at the judgment on the Canaanites I'm not like wow god you're being pretty harsh I'm like wow God why'd you wait why didn't you do it earlier and so you know I even in God's judgment the grace of God is all over the place but when God judges it's something that again heaven glorifies you're gonna be in then when this takes place you're gonna be part of the Alleluia when you see it you're going to see everything as God sees these things the Bible talks about now we know in part but then we're going to know just like we're known that's out of first Corinthians 13 and so I have incomplete knowledge now but when I get to heaven I'm gonna know God the way that he knows me and I'm gonna know know about things in the same way that God knows about things and I'm going to see that all his judgments are holy and righteous and true and again what I'm saying to you is you got to be on the right side of all these kinds of issues so you read something in the Bible and it's like whoa that's intense you need to go back and do some studying and what you're gonna find out is that God probably waited way longer than you ever would to bring down judgment on these people and so kind of cool again verse 2 true and righteous are his judgments because he's judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication and he's avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her and they said hallelujah her smoke rises up forever and ever and so in verse 4 it says in the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne saying amen hallelujah and once again when you look at the situation that you have in this passage you see the 24 elders again as separate from the martyrs in the tribulation Saints they're not the same group of people and so when we were in Revelation chapter 4 in Revelation chapter 5 we saw that the 24 elders most likely are talking about the church being represented there that's the church the 24 elders and so if you want more on that you can go back and look at those passages again you have praise in heaven the word Alleluia means praise to Yahweh or praise to yah aleluia is the idea behind it and so it means praise God is exactly what the word means this is a new it's called a transliteration in the Old Testament it's hallelujah in the New Testament when you when you transliterated in the Greek it's like the idea of word coming straight from Hebrew into Greek they write that out Alleluia and they're giving the same letters or excuse excuse me the the same sounds there is no H in Greek and so you see these guys praising it says verse five then 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 saying Alleluia for the Lord God omnipotent reigns one of the things that you have about praise in heaven is that it's thunderous and so every once in a while and you know when we get everybody like in the building and we're all singing that that kind of that kind of situation praise can be thunderous in the in the in the sense that it's just loud but it's not going to compare anything that we do here is not going to compare when we get to heaven it talks about the the sound of many waters and again you're there places that I go to when I go camping that that kind of thing I like to go to places where there's water around if you've ever been to large waterfalls you know what the sound of thunderous water sounds like right and there are times when we have thunderstorms that go through here and you have the Thunder cracking loudly around you and and so again we know the eye we have the idea of what Thunder sounds like and so anytime that I'm sitting in a thunderstorm or any time that I buy a place where there's thunderous water and you know down at the beach with the waves or around a waterfall that kind of thing these are the things I'm thinking about I'm thinking about what heaven sounds like how loud it is how over the top you know sometimes when we have church here we have people who complain about the the volume and the speakers and I don't know if God's gonna change your ears when you get to heaven or what but it's gonna be loud God likes it loud and so maybe we'll have perfect eardrums and it won't hurt anymore whatever but anything in any case it's it's a it's a huge thing here's another thing there's no embarrassment there's no shyness one of the things my wife likes to do she likes it loud she likes it when music is loud in here I'm kind of the other way around I like it I like it when the music is kind of muted and I can hear all the people singing because that's kind of what I grew up with when I would go to church it was one dude up front with a guitar miked and that was all that there was and everybody in the room was singing at the top of their voice sounds really cool he said you know we used to do these rounds where you'd have the guys sing one part of the round you guys know what around is right you guys would sing one the guys would sing one part of the round the girls would sing the second part of the round and I was a brand-new Christian never gone to church and when I first heard this I was like when the girls would sing I didn't care about when the guys sang but when the girls would sing I'd be like that's like heaven it sounds like they sound like angels you know it felt like to me and so I would go to church and you know I would get a taste of heaven again one of the things that my wife likes is to have the music up loud and that's so she can sing as loud as she wants and you know she's not bothering anybody and so again you have that sometimes when we sing we're shy about it and you can be shy about it because you don't know the words and you know if you don't know the words you just sing watermelon watermelon watermelon water sometimes I do that up here you know I'll be up here and we're doing communion and the the worship leader decides to do a brand new song that nobody in the building knows including me and so I'm sitting here we're doing communion I don't know the song and so I'll try to pick it up I'm used to that you know I'll try to pick it up and stuff but you know every once in a while I'll flub up and so if I know I'm flubbing up in the mics on I'll just do watermelon I'll just move my lips and stuff so I'm not disturbing anybody sometimes I'll turn around and look at the screen and in that kind of thing worship leaders you need to give me the music what's wrong with you people you know or the or the words in any case you know that so there's no embarrassment there's no shyness and probably the reason that there's no embarrassment and there's no shyness is because you have perfect pitch when you get to heaven when you get to heaven doesn't matter how you're singing now when you get to heaven perfect pitch you're gonna be perfect in every way and so you're gonna be able to belt it out like like like your favorite singer whoever that might be and so no embarrassment again no shyness by the way God doesn't care about your pitch right now he doesn't care about the way you sing the Bible says that praise is beautiful Oh King James praise is comely it's beautiful God is not looking for a for perfect pitch he's not looking for a good sound what he's looking for is a right heart that's what he's looking for and so the Bible talks about the the fact that we need to make a joyful noise to the Lord not a beautiful one a joyful one and so God God loves your he loves your voice he likes to hear it that's a that's actually out of the book of Song of Solomon that he loves your voice I heard a commercial a long time ago where the guy was singing an old hymn and he was singing it off-key and the whole point I I can't even remember what the commercial was about it was probably talking about something or other that was on a Christian station he's singing this this song off-key I think it was I think it was a mighty fortress is our God and so he's just belting it out off-key totally and then it's switched it was like they made the point that he's singing off-key and then they switched to what God was hearing and it was just this voice that was beautiful and Premo and you know didn't didn't didn't miss a key at all just perfect and I think that's how God hears you so praising heaven get ready for it because it's gonna be thunderous it's gonna be loud and again they were saying hallelujah for the Lord God omnipotent reigns the point being that Jesus is coming back in the next few verses and that's exactly what he's gonna do he's gonna rule and he's not only do you have praise for judgment in this passage the judgment of Babylon but you have praise for the judgment of the church in verses 7 through 10 it says in verse 7 let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory for the marriage of the lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready and her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen clean and bright for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints then he said to me write blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb and he said to me these are the true sayings of God and I fell at his feet to worship Him but he said to me see that you do not do that I'm your fellow servant and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy and so you have this this situation with a marriage Feast of the Lamb the marriage supper of the Lamb and they the people say give God glory because the marriage is come and so again you have marriage in heaven in this passage and this is one of those things that Jesus dealt with back in the book of Matthew in Matthew chapter 22 there were some Sadducees who came to him they don't believe in the resurrection or they didn't believe in the resurrection because they're not around anymore but they didn't believe in the resurrection and so they posed a question to Jesus that they thought was going to get him and they they said they used a a tradition out of the Old Testament tradition the Old Testament was if I was married and I died and my wife didn't have any children that my brother would marry my wife and give her children so that she could inherit the inheritance it was basically a situation where she would be taken care of by her boys by her by her son and you know making sure that she wasn't you know just a widow who ended up with nothing and so it was called levirate marriage and so that's foreign to us really interesting would you ever want to marry my brother no you want you don't want to okay yeah I understand this in any case it was some it's something that you see a couple of different times in the Old Testament and so the Sadducees came up to Jesus and they said there was a guy who was married to a wife and he died she didn't have any children and so he had seven brothers and so the next brother married her and he died oh yeah he died still no children next one married her until all seven had married her whose wife therefore will she be in the resurrection and Jesus said basically to them you don't know the scripture you don't know you don't know the Bible and you don't know the power of God and then he says there is no marriage in heaven but you but people become like the angels okay so no marriage in heaven and yet here we have marriage in heaven and what's this talking about and what it's talking about is the fact the marriages that we have here on the earth are representations of our relationship with Jesus Jesus is the one we're actually married to and so this is the culmination of that this is the point where we are where the whole fulfillment of marriage takes place in the sense that we become not the Bride of Christ anymore the Bride of Christ is a picture of a woman who's engaged in the New Testament we become the wife of the Lamb and so at this point were married to Christ up in heaven and so you see this all through the Bible in the Old Testament Israel was the wife of Jehovah in the New Testament the church is the Bride of Christ the virgin bride of Christ waiting to get married and so here we have the marriage supper that took place so marriage is something that takes place between the Lord and his people and again this is something that you run into in the cult specifically Mormonism they talk about having marriage here on earth and marriage being something that lasts in heaven in fact Mormons back in the 1800s would marry multiple wives sometimes they married other people's wives spiritually speaking so that when they got to heaven they'd have a bunch of wives so they could populate a planet and that was the thinking behind that and all that is nonsense because marriage is something that is a is a small picture of the of the reality that we're going to have in heaven and it's not with each other and so I'm not gonna be married to my wife when I get to heaven both my wife and I are gonna be married to Jesus and that doesn't mean that you know I'm not gonna be around her I expect to be hanging out with my wife for the next you know ten thousand years or so and then she might want to take a break from me I don't know no sure she'll be perfect I'll be perfect and so we'll be fine together but it doesn't mean that that we're not going to know each other and it doesn't mean that we're not going to love each other but it does mean that we're gonna have something different CS Lewis talked about this issue at one point where somebody had asked him is there going to be sex in heaven and he he he basically if you've ever read Louis he's very kind and he's very articulate and he kindly and articulately said that's like a child asking if sex is like chocolate because the best thing to a child on the planet is chocolate and so they find out about sex and they go as sex like chocolate and anybody who knows about real sex would look at that and go well no it's better than chocolate how can anything be better than chocolate and when you're looking at the thing that things that God does for us when we get to heaven people ask you know somebody saying is there sex in heaven is there marriage in heaven is that you know is that something that's gonna go on and God goes well no no you're gonna have something that's better than that well what's better than that yeah and again it's like a it's like a child not understanding that whole issue so when we get to heaven we're gonna have something better it's not gonna be the same but it is gonna be better and you need to think that way on everything as you're going through the as we get through the end of the book of Revelation they're gonna be things that are missing so like when God creates the new heaven and the new earth there's no more sea no more see that means no trips to the beach I'm a scuba diver you know it's so the only place you get you get to go scuba diving is is in the river of life you know it's that all that there is and I don't even know that we're gonna need to need scuba gear to do that but there's no more sea so no more fish in the sea no more whales no more animals like that and God does something different but it's going to be better than what we have and that's one of the things that I always keep in mind when I'm going through the Bible I don't know everything that heavens gonna be but I do know this it's gonna be better than anything that I've got here okay so heaven and marriage marriage is fulfilled in heaven and again the church is the bride and you guys know this there's a passage in 2nd Corinthians 11:2 where Paul was talking to the church at Corinth and he said I'm jealous for you with godly jealousy for I betrothed you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ and the point that he was making is you guys church at Corinth you're like the the engaged bride of Jesus and I'm jealous about you and what he was jealous about was the fact that these people were turning away from Christ they were turning to false teachers and he said I'm jealous for you I told you to one husband and that's the one that you're supposed to be following something that we always need to remember we don't follow a church you're not calvary chapel lights you're followers of jesus we follow jesus himself and nothing else he's he's the one that you're supposed to have the ultimate accountability to the ultimate heart for the the one that you care about the most and you keep that straight and church is gonna be just fine there's another passage of romans 7 4 it says therefore my brethren you also have become dead to the law through the body of christ that you may be married to another to him who was raised from the dead that we should bear fruit to god and so when when Paul is talking about the Old Testament law you know the commandments and all that stuff he said that have become dead to the law it's the idea of you used to be married to the law now you've died so you're no longer married sometimes Paul would flip that around and say that the laws died to you and so you're no longer married you're married until your husband or your wife dies and then that marriage is ended and you're free to remarry and what Paul is saying in that passage is you were married to the law but that relationship has died it's not there anymore you're dead to the law so that you can be married to a new husband to Christ and so it's not that the law doesn't exist it's not the law isn't good it's just not I'm not bound to the law anymore I'm bound to the fulfillment of the law which is Jesus himself and again you get that picture of married turn over to Ephesians 5 and you guys probably knew I was going to go there Ephesians chapter 5 and this is the passage that again talks specifically about marriage and if you look in verse 23 it talks about the husband being like Jesus and it says for the husband is head of the wife as also Christ as the head of the church and he's the savior of the body and then if you look down at verse 25 it says husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her and then if you look again down at verse 32 he says this is a great mystery but I speak concerning Christ in the church and again what he's talking about is in marriage and so again the wife is like the church and so the wife is supposed to be treating her husband like the church is supposed to be treating Jesus not like the church treats Jesus like the church is supposed to be treating Jesus and the husband is supposed to be treating his wife like Jesus treats you and Jesus always does it right right and so that's the picture and so when I when I look at my marriage relationship with my wife I'm like Jesus in the marriage relationship need to buck up and start acting that way and my wife is like the church and so she's supposed to be treating me in the way that we would treat the Lord and it's something that that keeps you in check it's something that makes you pay attention to how that you're treating your husband or your wife because when my wife tells me you're not treating me like Jesus treats me I'll pay attention to that and I try not to say well you're not acting like the church is supposed to act towards Jesus and you know point the finger at each other in any case that's the picture that we have and again when we get to Matthew or Revelation chapter 19 we have again the fulfillment of that when we become the actual wife of the Lamb now with this I want to talk to you about Jewish weddings and so in Jewish weddings they had three parts and this is kind of cool it goes along with this whole thing this whole idea of a marriage supper is something that you find in Jewish tradition it's in the Bible - but Jewish tradition and Jewish tradition Jewish weddings had three parts the first part was a legal contract with the parents of the bride okay and so basically when you're talking about the culture most people they didn't have dating because most people lived with lived within you know in a small village with a bunch of people it's like it's like the only people that you knew in in these small villages would be like your your class and in elementary school if you went to a small school those are the people that you know and so most times when people would get married they're getting married in the context of their small village and there would be there would come a point where a guy would go I want to be married to this girl and he would talk to his father and after he talked to his father he would go and have a meeting with the father of the prospective bride and what he's talking to his own father about is how much he's gonna pay for his bride you always had to pay for your bride and so the father would go okay this is what I got for you Bucky I've got five oxen and I've got six donkeys and I've got ten sheep and that's what you can pay for your bride and then you have a little talk with them and say don't start out with that start out low and move high this is something that you see in the Middle East all the time when we go to when we go to Israel one of the things that I have to do with people is talk to them before they go to the marketplace you go to the marketplace and everything is barter at that place you don't walk up to anybody and give them the price that they've told you that that they want usually you start a little lower than half on and and that's pretty safe you're probably giving them more than they need if you if you if you start out a little lower than half and then you go back and forth until you you until you reach a price and that's what you pay right and so that's for stuff that you see in a marketplace they did exactly the same thing with brides and so the boy would come over he has a bright price and he knows how many he's got and so he would start out you know basically they would have a meal and the bride would be sitting there or the prospective bride because she's not the bride yet and her dad would be their mom's son they're somewhere they're also also the brothers the brothers were a big deal in this we're gonna see this as we're going through Genesis and so they would sit there and then the boy would go you know what I want to marry your daughter I mean you know she's so beautiful I'm so in love with her and then the father would you know politely say well how much are you willing to pay for her and he come up with a price you know two oxen three three donkeys and five sheep and the father would look at him and go seriously are you offering that little for this girl look at her and there would be this back and forth look at her how dare you even bring that up and then there'd be this back and forth well I okay well how about for oxen and seven donkeys and and and seven sheep how about that how about if we do that and the father go hog now and probably because he was a boy he would end up getting taken by the by the dad of the bride and he'd have to pay the full bride price and the father on the other hand wouldn't know that and so anyway they would get done with this whole bargaining type of situation and then there'd be a cup of wine that's in front of the woman and if she took that took from that cup of wine and she drank from it she's agreeing to the fact that she wants to marry this guy and at that point they had a contract that was the sealing of the contract and so they would get all done everybody's happy bride prey bride price is all figured out and then all eyes would turn to the woman and she would drink from that cup of wine or not you know in the New Testament Jesus said this is a new contract in my blood a new covenant in my blood and that's what he was talking about when we partake of communion one of the things that were stating is that we want to be with Christ that we want to be one with him that we are good with the price that he's paid for us and the price that he paid for us was his blood there's a passage in 1st Peter 3:18 through 19 that says this but knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver silver or gold redeemed means bought you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your father's but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot and so to get a bride for his son the father was willing to pay the price for that to get a bride the son was willing to pay a price for that and when you again per take of communion you're symbolically saying yes I agree I want you you want me I want to be with you and I'm thinking you for the price that you made or that you paid then the second part of a Jewish wedding feast was the catching away there was this coming to claim the bride which is a just a really cool thing turn with me over to Matthew chapter 25 Matthew chapter 25 and this is the parable of the ten virgins we're gonna read verses 1 through 13 it says then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom now five of them were wise and five were foolish those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps but while the bridegroom was delayed they all slumbered and slept and at midnight a cry was heard behold the bridegroom is coming go out to meet him then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps and the foolish said to the wise give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out but the wise answered saying no unless there should not be enough for us and you but go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves and while I went to buy the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding and the door was shut afterward the other virgins came also saying Lord Lord open to us but he answered and said assuredly I say to you I do not know you watch therefore for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming and so he takes this whole picture of ten virgins and obviously what we're talking about is a wedding party we're not talking about the bride herself we're talking about the the ten bridesmaids basically that would go with the bride and there's a reason that Jesus does this and the reason that he does it is because he has to separate the true followers of Christ from those who only look like they're followers of Christ and he can't do that with the bride you know you can't have a situation where half the bride goes with the bridegroom and the other half you know you'd get split in half and the other half stays and so what he does is he goes to the bridesmaids and again it's in that context of a Jewish wedding it's when you have this whole catching away that takes place what's happened is the bridegroom has gone after the the bride drinks from the cup of wine he goes back to his father's house and when he's at his father's house he begins preparing the bridal chamber and so not not only does the bride or the father of the bride get a price for his daughter which by the way I think is a very cool thing I think somebody should have paid me for my daughter okay and so not only does he get a price for his daughter but the father of the groom gets a room addition and so what happens is he goes back to his father's house and he begins building a bridal chamber and that's the room addition so it's a part that's built on to his house and usually this whole process took about a year and that was again a customary thing and the only one who knew when the bridegroom was going to go back to get his bride was the father because he's having a room addition built and I know whenever I talk about this you know I talked about what most guys are like it's like I just want to get married I want to just get married right now and so you know it's like I find a girl that I want to get married to I want to get married to her next month maybe this week maybe maybe tomorrow you know that kind of thing and if you got if you got that that hasn't changed over time and so you got a son who's all hot to get married and he's got to build a room addition on your house what he's gonna do is go out and get a you know a sheet of osv that's 4x8 plywood and put two nails up at the top of it and make a ling two against your house and go done I'm off to get my bride and that's not good enough and so what the what the father would do is go you're gonna build a place it's gonna be a nice place this is where you're gonna have your honeymoon and so it needs to be good and so he would make him build a nice addition on to his house and so kind of a double thing he knows what a bride wants and then on top of it he he gets to have the room after the bride and the bridegroom go away right and so he would tell the son when it was time to go get his bride Jesus in Matthew chapter 24 in verse 36 said but of that day and hour no one knows not even the angels of heaven but my father only in another passage Jesus said I don't know when it's going to take place only only the Father Knows and then immediately after he does this whole parable the ten virgins and so in the first place the disciples would be going what do you mean you don't know when you're coming back what are you talking about you know I thought you knew everything and then immediately after he does this whole thing with the ten virgins and they're they being Jews would go oh I get it you're the bridegroom you don't know when you're coming back the father is the one who sends you so very cool thing that explains what Jesus is doing there obviously Jesus knows now he's in heaven he knows when he's coming back for us but he was letting him know this is this is the exact same ceremony that you guys go through when you get married and so it's kind of a cool thing and so the bridegroom got to the father would tell him when to go he's a guy and he goes son it's time for you to go and the bridegroom himself is a guy and so he's gonna go at the most inconvenient time for the bride because he's young and inexperienced and has not been trained yet and he's gonna take off when when he thinks that she's gonna be the most surprised and so consequently almost always when a bride was taken away from her father's house it was at night almost always and so they would come walking up and they would snatch away their bride and so in this passage it says at midnight a cry was heard behold the bridegroom is coming go out to meet him and that was their cue that they needed to get up get dressed real quick you know and have their makeup on and all of that stuff and be ready to go out the door and obviously some of them were prepared and some of them were not and the ones who were not prepared did not go and when they got prepared they weren't allowed in because what would happen is the whole village would be invited to the marriage supper and that would last upwards of a week usually was one week and so the whole village got to go to the father's house where they're having this feast for the next week the bride and the bridegroom would go into the into the marriage room or they basically go into the honeymoon suite and they would close the door and there were things that would have you know there were cultural things that would take place they would bring sheets out you know for you that are older they would bring sheets out and that was to prove that she was pure and that kind of thing but there were they would bring their food to them and and that kind of stuff it's the ultimate bed and breakfast the worst I hate bed and breakfast places you know because when people go to bed and breakfast places they're going on way with their wife and you know it's in this place at somebody's house and they give you a room they know what's happening there and then you have to get up in the morning and you have to go down you have to eat breakfast with them and everybody's awkward and they're trying to be as nice as as anything and every time that I've ever gone to one of those places I've been embarrassed whether anything happened or not I'm completely embarrassed because I know what they think and so bed and breakfast not of God just just kind of messed up this is the ultimate bed and breakfast everybody's out partying outside while the bride and groom are inside this place and everybody knows exactly what's going on that's weird so this is a a cultural thing that's kind of weird to me and so I have lots of hang-ups in any case they're in there for seven days and at the end of seven days when they come out they have the marriage feast marriage feast doesn't start at the beginning it starts at the end so that whole time they're celebrating the bride in the bridegroom's marriage but it's not until they come out at the end of seven days that they have the marriage supper and that's where we're at in Revelation chapter 19 it's the marriage supper it's at the end of the seven days and obviously you can you can see where I'm going with this the bride has been with Jesus for seven years by the time you get to the end of the Tribulation Period and it's at the end of the seven years right before Jesus comes back that they have the marriage supper of the Lamb and so in Revelation 19 the church is specifically mentioned actually it's pointed out that the church is in heaven with Christ and married to you so the marriage has already taken place the marriage takes place at the beginning of the marriage feast or at the beginning of that whole seven-day feast that's when the marriage takes place but the marriage supper doesn't take place until the end so married for seven days at the end you have the marriage supper and that ends the feast and then the bride and bridegroom go off and set up household on their own which is exactly what you have in Revelation chapter 20 Jesus actually comes back with his bride and he sets up his household on the earth for a thousand years and so again you you have that picture there's a passage in 1st Thessalonians oh by the way being prepared Jesus has already talked about what it means to be prepared in the in the previous illustration he gives the illustration of two servants he says one is wise and faithful and the other one is evil and the wise and faithful faithful one is found doing what his master said when he comes and basically obedient to the Lord the evil one says in his heart my master is delaying his coming and begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunkards and it says the master of that servant will come on a day when he's not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of them and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth then the parable of the ten virgins be ready and don't be backing off on your relationship with the Lord you know this is one of the times in history actually I you know I've always thought this the whole time that I've been a Christian but especially now we've just had this whole thing with kovat 19 where the whole world gets turned upside down by a virus that actually isn't as lethal as we thought it was at the very beginning I do these I do these things with numbers and science and that kind of thing and if the numbers we're not even close to having you you know I'm going off on this you know when you have the death rate and I've talked about this before but when you have the death rate what they're comparing the death rate to is known cases so you have a certain amount of people who have died and then you have a certain amount of people where we know for sure that they've had kovat 19 okay the problem with that comparison is we don't know how many people have had Kovac 19 and so the denominator on that is too small it should be much larger at least it's probably at least twice as large and it may be multiples of that so for example in Washington State of the people who've been tested 6.8 percent of the people in Washington State that have been tested have had kovat 19 and not well they've had it when you're talking about Benton County its 15.2% when you're talking about Franklin County I just looked this up this morning it's twenty two point two percent of people who've been tested have had kovat 19 and when you look at it nationally and you look at the areas where they've actually done extensive testing what what they've come up with any is anywhere from about 17 percent to 21 percent of people who are tested have had this you start taking those numbers there's seven point eight million people in Washington State and you multiply that number by anywhere from you know 17 to 22 percent you you start having a death rate that is on the level of hundredths of a percent of the pot of the people who have it hundredths of a percent and so we're not talking about 2% we're not talking about 4% you put a couple of zeroes in front of that and that's what you actually get and this is what we've gotten from that so we've got in this situation where you're not allowed to do churches you're not allowed to you know have business you're not allowed to go to restaurants and we've taken the whole world and flipped it upside down on the basis of this disease right now and again I'm not I'm not saying that to pick on people I understand the panic in pandemic I understand that whole thing but this is what happens with the disease like this that most people actually a lot of people actually the the vast majority of people who get it don't even know they have it and this is what we do with this there are no there are other pandemics that are coming Jesus said they are he said there's gonna be pestilences in various places and so what about what the one the next one comes and we're not talking about hundreds of percents death rate we're talking about 5% like a real 5% or 10% or like the with the plague the black plague in Europe 30% what about when that happens what's the world gonna do with this and so you can see it coming to a situation where money goes out the door I never thought of this before you know what other things that they're talking about is that that people don't want to do cash anymore because it's filthy right and so if you got a disease it's on your cash who wants to touch this stuff right maybe that's why they go to a cashless society there's all these scenarios that that can come out of this thing that's really cool in any case we've got a we've got a situation where the world is turning into a place that's becoming more and more authoritative so in our state we have the governor making all kinds of proclamations that haven't necessarily gone through the legislature and he's making us do certain things and again I understand he's making us do certain things but this is over a disease that's not all that scary when you fight when you finally get down to the facts on this whole thing and all of a sudden he's got ultimate control well there's coming a time when a guy's gonna come up and he is gonna have ultimate control and so again we're sitting in a world that that is that is going quickly towards the society that the book of Revelation talks about and it's over comparatively piddly things when you're talking about the comparison of kovat 19 to the plagues that come in the book of Revelation and even the wars that come in the in the book of Revelation all over this everything flips out and so there's coming a coming of time again when it's gonna get more and more intense and so the point that I'm making is the whole last day's thing every year we go through this like are you kidding me yeah and so a couple of years the the u.s. loses its Triple A rating and I'm like are you kidding me never thought that that would ever happen turkey goes to goes to Russia's side near Ron's side and I knew that was coming because the Bible said so but again are you kidding me how could that happen so quickly and all of this stuff that you see going on is happening quickly this is not the time to turn away from Christ this is not the time to start messing around with the world this is not to ton the time to begin to beat your fellow servants everybody that I've ever known that has backslidden and tried to justify their backslide beats their fellow servants they always have something to say about Christians they always have something to say about what was done to them they are always tearing people down and sometimes they are the most vociferous in the sense of of persecuting believers and it's because they have to live with themselves they begin to beat their fellow servants and eat and drink with the drunkards and you know when I back slid I back slid out of shame and so I never did the beat my fellow-servant thing but I did begin to eat and drink with the drunkards again and I went back into partying lifestyle and and that kind of thing and Jesus said you go there and that he's coming on a day that you don't expect and he's going to appoint you your portion with the hypocrites and so being prepared for the coming of Christ is having a walk with God where you're serious about the walk where you look where you're in love with him where you care about the things of God and you're not willing to give those things up or you don't compromise on any level one of the scary things about the 10 virgins and we'll end with this because I just looked at the clock but one of the scary things about the ten virgins is they're virgins they look like bridesmaids they act like bridesmaids they have all the stuff that bridesmaids have they have lamps right like bridesmaids I expect that they had the you know the dresses that the bride decided that they were gonna wear their dress like bridesmaids they look like them they talk like them they act like them but they're missing something and it's something that they're missing is the oil and in the bible oil is a picture of the Holy Spirit usually it's a it's a picture of the work of the Spirit in your life and so there are people who go to church they look like Christians they talk like Christians they act like Christians but they've never really committed their hearts to the Lord they've never really given their life to them they kind of think that going to church is what makes you a Christian and we all know that that's not true that is not what makes you a Christian committing your life to Jesus is what makes you a Christian repenting of your sin is what makes you a Christian I'm asking God to come into your life and to make you something new from the inside out is what makes you a Christian receiving Christ as Lord and Savior is what makes you a Christian and nothing less than that and all you guys in the in the room I know most of you and I know that you've made that commitment but some of you guys online that are watching you may not have done this there there is a cultural Christianity in the United States and also in Europe and in other places some of you guys are watching from the Middle East and I know that there's a cultural Christianity you grew up in a Christian home you have gone to a Christian Church and you think that you're Christian because you grew up that way you are not Christian because you grew up in a church you are not Christian because you grew up in a Christian family you become a Christian when you give your life specifically to Jesus Christ repent of your sins and ask them to come inside and take control and so the question is have you done that and again it's not how you look it's not how you talk it's not what accouterments you've got with you whether whether or not you're dressed like a believer you have a Bible that's big and black like mine the fact that I have a big black Bible does not does not mean that I'm going to heaven you know what it means it means I have a big black Bible that's all it means and so you need to have a real relationship with Christ and you get that by asking Jesus to come inside and so again for you guys I don't know everybody some somebody may need to commit their life to the Lord here but for people online you guys online if you've never committed your life to Christ you need to do something about this is something that's important and you don't want to be left behind here last verse for you it says in 1st Thessalonians 4:16 for the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout with a voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first and then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the lord in the air and thus we shall always be with the Lord that's the catching away that's the coming to claim the bride and so we're in a situation where the legal contract has been made the price has been paid and what we're waiting for now is for the bridegroom to come and get his bride and that's what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 24 and it's what he's talking about in Matthew chapter 25 and what I'm gonna ask you is are you ready for that and if you don't know that's not good that's not good that's something that you need to take care of and again the way you take care of that is by asking Christ to come inside so I'm gonna lead you in a prayer if you've never committed your life to Jesus if you've never asked God to forgive you for your sin if you don't know if you died tonight if you would go to heaven if you don't know if Jesus came tonight if you would go with him and you kind of think that you might be left behind again not a place that you want to be not a place that you want to be and it's so easy to take care of the price has been paid all you have to do is say yes we compared this whole thing to a marriage and when you get married what happens at least in America is I come to my prospective bride and I say will you marry me I love you I want you to be mine forever will you marry me and what she has to say is yes or no or maybe or why don't you wait a while and if she says no I know it's no if she says maybe I know it's no if she says why don't you wait a while I know it's no but if she says yes that's what my bride did she said yes I know that we're in and we're gonna be married and what you need to do is say yes not maybe now why don't you wait awhile not let me think about it you need to say yes today is the day of salvation so I'm going to lead you in a prayer that says yes to Jesus and if you would if you want to commit your life to Jesus why don't you pray this with me and it goes like that's prayed us out loud wherever you're on say that's Lord Jesus come into my life I know that I'm a sinner and I've sinned against you I'm sorry please forgive me please write my name in your book of life and make me a believer I think you that you love me and you died for me that you rose again from the dead I think you cut thank you that you're coming back for me please fill me with your spirit give me the oil give me your power so that I can live my whole life for you I came in my life to you now in Jesus name Amen if you prayed that prayer we want to give you a Bible and Bible studies we want to help you out and so all that's free it's something that you can get for free we have a Bible we have a series of Bible studies that tell you about what it means to follow Jesus and we also have what's called a new believers handbook that we've put together to give you some clues as to what is what the next steps are what do you need to do as a Christian what's it look like to be a follower of Christ and we want to give that to you free again we don't want anything from you but if you will write in the comments section either on Facebook or on YouTube we'd love to get in touch with you and give you those things we'll send them to you for free if you're in town we can have you come down to the office and we'd love to meet you and same thing here I don't know if anybody committed their life to the Lord but if you did we want to get those things to you too and that's it let's pray for this for the end of the service and get you out of here thanks Jesus for your word thank you Lord for the fact that you're coming for us thank you actually we're living in exciting times and every time that I see more of the you know kind of the precursors to the things that we see in the book of Revelation I just look up I just start getting excited about the fact that you could come today and Lord we want to be ready for you help us to have right hearts help us to have true hearts help us to be focused on you help us not to turn away we want to walk with you for the rest of our lives Lord we just ask that you do this all in Jesus name Amen god bless you guys

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

Views: 2,297

Rating: 4.9058824 out of 5

Keywords: The End of the World in the bible, Truth, Jesus' Return, The rapture, the second coming, The book of Revelation, The Revelation Of Jesus Christ, The last book in the bible, The Bible, Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities, Steve Whinery, Gosphel, God, Biblical Prophecy, The End Times, End Of The World, The Millennial Kingdom, Revelation's meaning, Jesus

Id: 7XhtENLD9sQ

Length: 70min 37sec (4237 seconds)

Published: Sun May 17 2020