Revelation 19 // The Wife of The Lamb

this is the first time we've had an evening service in the amphitheater you guys very first time this is nice you guys you guys are gonna just where you sit next time aren't you you could still do it we're in Revelation chapter 19 this evening Revelation chapter 19 and chapter 19 is famously about the second coming of Jesus but before you have the second coming of Jesus you have the marriage supper of the Lamb I'm gonna get rid of this that goes down there and that's that's where we're at so Revelation chapter 19 if you got your Bibles and let's pray before we get started we'll get into it Lord again we thank you for your word thank you for the time that we get to gather together thank you for the worship Lord I like the songs that Zak picked and just drawing into your presence drawing close to you you said that where two or three are gathered you would be there in the midst and you said in the context of church discipline but still where two or three gathered that's what the church is about you're in the midst in the book of Revelation we saw in the first chapter that you walk up and down in the midst of the church you're you're constantly here when we gather in just a really special way and so Lord we expect that to be happening today to tonight father as we're getting into your word we pray that you would just be speaking to our hearts that you would show us what you have to say show us where our hearts need to be sure show us where our hearts aren't if that's the case and Lord that you would grant us repentance and just to walk with you that's loving and everything that you want it to be Lord we just want to be with you and so we just give you the study this evening and pray that you bless it and that you'd work in it in Jesus name Amen okay Revelation chapter 19 starting in verse 1 it says after these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying hallelujah salvation and glory and honor and power belonged to the Lord our God for true and righteous are his judgments because he's judge the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her again they said hallelujah 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 Alleluia the voice came from the throne saying praise our God all of you 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 is the sound of mighty thunderings saying hallelujah for the Lord God omnipotent reigns 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 to her it was granted to be in raid 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 am 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 we talked about this last week the first thing that we have in that section is this basically praise that erupts from the twenty-four elders and the believers in heaven all of the angels are praising God for what he did to Babylon specifically and so the last chapter is about the judgment on Babylon and the fact and this chapter begins with approval from heaven and we talked about having our having our mind set in a way that conforms with what scripture has to say I was on Facebook today and when I was looking on Facebook I saw a mean from a lady that is a friend of mine on Facebook I don't really know her but it was basically capping on Memorial Day and saying I don't want to glorify war I don't want to glorify soldiers I don't want to glorify soldiers who died in war I want to glorify the Prince of Peace and she made it a statement specifically against memorial day problem with that is that when you go through the Bible you know soldiers get saved in the Bible right and so you have for example Cornelius he's a Roman centurion he gets saved there's a situation with a Roman soldier who has a servant who's sick and that guy is a follower of God and he comes and he pleads with Jesus to heal his servant and it's really clear from the interaction between Jesus and this man that this man is a believer he's a follower of Christ you have the same thing with John the Baptist and soldiers Roman soldiers you realize how warfare went back that it wasn't a situation where you had a rifle an m4 or an m16 or you know the the other types of rifles that we have that we've had in warfare and you stand off and shoot at somebody warfare in in Roman times was with swords and they had arrows but it was with swords so it was up close and personal these are guys who when they went to war when they were fighting against somebody they were running a sword through somebody face to face pretty violent right and you don't have any passage in the New Testament that commands these guys to leave the Roman army what you have specifically with John the Baptist John the Baptist says that what they need to do is be satisfied with their wages and they not need not to extort people and so you know basically you don't have that kind of situation you realize that in the Old Testament God sent the people of Israel to war and one of the things that you need to realize about the New Testament specifically the book of Revelation and the chapter that we're in is Jesus comes back and there's a war and Jesus is fighting the war and the Bible talks about the fact that we are with him and so when we talk about the marriage supper of the Lamb we're talking about the the wife of the Lamb that's the church and we come back with Christ and were involved in the warfare that takes place when Jesus comes back to claim the earth and so Jesus came the first time as a sacrifice Jesus is coming this act actually you know one of the things that he said to Pilate was if this world was my kingdom then my servants would fight well guess what the second coming about is about the world becoming Jesus's kingdom and so his servants will fight is the is the deal there and so I you know I like it that Jesus is gracious I like it that Jesus is kind I like it that Jesus wants everybody to come in but there's coming a time when he's going to go it needs to stop this needs to end and I'm going to end it you started it I'm gonna finish it and that's what the second coming is specifically about Jesus coming and basically wreaking wrath on the people who have been opposed to him and who have been specifically killing believers and not only that but imposing his will on the planet and that is what the Second Coming is about know what's cool about that you know Jesus is gonna be an absolute dictator but the kind of dictator that Jesus is gonna be is an absolutely good that dictator never does anything wrong always does what's right by the people who are around him and that's what revelation 19 is about and so you know I came from a really rowdy background and so you guys I've been in in lots of fights before I was a believer and actually when I back slid I was in lots of fights I've been punched in the face and I've been done punching in the face and when I became a Christian that had to go it had to go you don't get to do that to people and so we're representatives of Jesus Christ this world is not our home if this King if this if this world was his kingdom then we would fight but I don't need to be fighting people in the sense of going up and threatening them and and that kind of thing and I'm not saying that I wouldn't defend my family because I would you know and all that stuff but what I'm talking about is in general you know as a Christian we don't have to act like we used to in the world and especially the times that we're living in you know obviously we're having services here and obviously I'm doing it in contradiction of what the governor says and I don't care when when when government is reasonable I think I think that is his first you know the first situation where he wanted to blunt the curve and all that stuff I think that's reasonable but the right to religious worship is the first one in the Bill of Rights you guys know your history right 10 the first 10 amendments were the Bill of Rights the these states the different states in the United States of America we're not going to ratify the Constitution unless those 10 amendments were in there and the very first one has to do with religious freedom and the ability to assemble there's a reason for that and it was because in the countries that a lot of the the people in the United States came from they did not have religious freedom and they did not have the right to assemble it's why the very whites the very first of the Bill of Rights and so the Bill of Rights is not abrogated because because there's a virus and so you know again I'm not I'm not afraid to stand up I'm not afraid to to do what the Bible says actually there was a newspaper article this last week that one of our parishioners was quoted in and he talked about the fact that I was courageous and bold I don't think that this is courageous and bold I think that this is normal and so I you know can you I just can't fathom the idea that meeting as a church is courageous in America you know this is just normal and and so you know I don't know anyway we're living in a weird world and it's gonna get weirder and that again is the point of the book of Revelation there's coming at a time when Jesus is gonna come back and he's gonna come back and he's hot about what's been going on and he's gonna take care of issues that's when we fight that's when when it takes place and up until that point we are ambassadors for Christ ok so again in this passage you have heaven glorifying God over the fact that judgment came and again that's kind of a weird thing because when I first became a Christian I kind of thought that Christians well all the Christians that I knew were kind of mild and and sweet and you know the guys that I knew that were Christians and I didn't know what to do I didn't know how to act and so I had I had a hard time when I was first a believer and then I read more and more I actually read my Bible and saw what Jesus said to people and he was pretty rowdy at times and so I like that about I mean straightforward you know just spoke the truth and if something was going south he let people know that that it was going south get behind me Satan he says to Peter how'd you like Jesus to call you Satan that's not good you don't want that to happen and obviously you know Jesus loved Peter but point being that Jesus was way different than how I expected him to be and I am called not to be like Christians I am to call I am called to be like Jesus so I want to be like Jesus now with Jesus he always does it perfectly and so when he gets rowdy he's got all the information he knows what's going on and I always keep in mind that when I want to get rowdy I don't necessarily have all the information I don't necessarily know everything that's going on and so I've made some big mistakes in you know letting letting my ire get away with me before I had all the facts and so nowadays what I would I when I get mad about something I wait a little while get some more information make sure I know what I'm talking about and then we take care of business but you know Jesus didn't have to do that he could take care of it right away what I'm saying is there are times that you need to stand up but you need to err on the side of grace either err on the side of grace if you're gonna make a mistake be too gracious right and so again we we have that when you get to 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 we talked about the fact that the the church is the Bride of Christ and right now we are the engaged Bride of Christ this is when we become the wife of the Lamb Jesus made a point in Matthew chapter 22 when he was talking to the Sadducees they didn't believe in the resurrection and they were they came up with this whole scenario where a lady had married seven different brothers and they wanted to know whose husband he was or whose wife she was in the resurrection and Jesus said you do err not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God and so he gets that in there you don't know what the Bible says you don't know anything about the power of God and then he goes through and he talks about her and he says there's no marriage in heaven there you know when believers go to heaven they're like the angels of God and so the point being I'm not still married to my wife when I go to heaven because marriage is a picture of my relationship with Christ when I go to heaven I'm not married to my wife I'm married to Jesus which is weird and so everybody is married to Christ and again that's what picture that what marriage was pictured at as and everybody's wearing a wedding dress verse 8 and to her it was granted to be arraigned in fine linen clean and bright I remember what my wife got married to me she was in fine linen clean and bright and so everybody and obviously we're talking about robes there and so you don't have to be weirded out about about that whole thing but again it's a it's a picture of a marriage and so this is the married church married to Christ and so when you go through the book of Revelation when you're looking for the church you see the church in Revelation chapter 2 you see the church in Revelation chapter 3 the church as the church the term church is not mentioned from Revelation chapter chapter 4 on it's never mentioned the church is pictured in Jewish terms and so when you look at the 24 elders that's a representative group of elders in heaven who are seated on Thrones crowned with crowns that are that are Victor's crowns who were worshipping and praising God for the fact that he redeemed them out of every tribe and tongue and nation and kindred kindred that's a that's a picture of the church representation represented there but when you get to what the church really is the Bride of Christ or the wife of Christ you see the church in Revelation chapter 19 this is what I'm saying to you before Jesus comes back the second time you are with him in heaven and the Bible is clear on this it's not half the church it's not three-quarters of the church it's not a quarter of the church the church is the Bride of Christ and the church is everyone who has given their life to Jesus from the time of the book of Acts all the way up until the time when Jesus comes back to steal his bride away and that's at the rapture of the church that is what the church is all believers down through the last couple of thousand years that have committed their life to Jesus Christ that's what the church is and all those people including you and including me are going to be in heaven in Revelation chapter 19 and again that's clear in the Bible okay last week after we after we talked about the the whole church being the bride I was talking to you about Jewish wedding feasts and Jewish wedding feasts had three parts and this is where we ended up last time number one there's a legal contract with the parents of the bride and payment for the bride okay and so if somebody in a village was gonna get married and they were Jewish the boy would go to his father and say hey you know I you know Miriam over there you know Miriam in the village I love her dad and so I want to go marry her and the dad would have a talk with him say sure no are you sure son dude do the whole dad thing and then he would tell him what the bride price would be and so he would give him you know a certain amount of money or he would give him a certain amount of animals that he could pay as a bride price you always paid for your bride I just did a wedding for my daughter this this last year actually was a year ago this last weekend did the wedding for her I did not get a bride price I'm a little irritated I think I should I think I should have been paid for this whole thing you know I think that's that's a that's a great picture and when the bride price was figured out then the Sun would go over to his prospective father-in-law's house they would have a meal and during the meal they would start bartering over the woman which is really weird and she would be sitting there at the table and so they would start talking that the father of the bride and the bridegroom and the prospective bridegroom would start talking about what he was willing to pay for his daughter can you imagine that conversation with a girl a girl's father that she wanted to marry you know there wasn't very many you know I grew up in the in the 70s and dated girls before I did it my wife unfortunately but there weren't many situations where I had to talk to the father of the girl that I was going to take out and whatever I did it was always an intimidating situation so you want to take my daughter out where you want to go who are you anyway you know and and the whole thing with cleaning a gun I never had a guy cleaning a gun but that whole intimidation factor was there can you imagine the intimidation factor when you're talking about how much you're willing to give for the woman that you love you know overwhelmingly and you want to marry and can you imagine what would happen is your if you're having that conversation and you go wow you know I can give three three oxen and and five sheep and ten goats and the father goes like seriously that's what you think my daughter is worth three ox and five sheep and ten go look at this woman you know and you can you can tell how that conversation will go well a conversation would get over and they would agree to a price and then at that point they were turning to the bride or the perspective bride and there would be a cup of wine in front of her and if she drank from the cup of wine that means she was okay with it she always had the last say that she was okay with it she drank it and then and then it's on and at that point they are in gate what we would call engage they are betrothed is what the Bible says and so generally a betrothal lasted for about one year and during that time a Jewish betrothal was more than an engagement it was less than a marriage and so to get out of a Jewish betrothal you've already made a contract you had to get a divorce that's where Mary and Joseph were when G when Mary was found to be pregnant with Jesus they were in that year period basically and so he he had paid the bride price and they were betrothed but the wedding hadn't taken place yet okay and so then you have the betrothal period at that point the the son goes back to the father's house and he builds a room addition on the father's house and that room addition was where they were going to have their honeymoon and so the father was the one who made the decision on whether or not the room was finished and it was time for the guy to go and pick up his bride okay so that's a second stage in the or actually that's the that's the second stage of the legal contract and so you have all of that stuff going on for that period of time then after the room addition was done and the father approved of it then he would send his son to go catch away his bride and generally speaking because it's guys and they haven't been trained yet what they tried to do is they tried to catch away their bride at the most inconvenient moment possible and so generally it was almost always in the middle of the night the guys would go get to go to get their bride and so they would have somebody who went out in front and horns were involved in this whole thing they would go through the village they would toot on horns and a guy would scream out the bridegroom comes and so that was the situation where the brides and the bridesmaids were to get ready for the coming of the bridegroom so that they could go to the father's house and they could have what was called the wedding feast so that's a second part and obviously that corresponds to the rapture of the church and so in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 16 through 17 it says for the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout with a voice of an archangel guess what the voices of the Archangel was probably saying the bridegroom comes with a voice of an archangel with the trumpet of God the dead in Christ will rise first 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 and so that's the catching away that's the snatching away of the bride and then you had the wedding feast and in the wedding feast it was a seven-day feast this is you know customary thing it was a seven-day feast when you started the wedding feast you invited basically the whole village if you didn't get in on the first day you weren't in and so you remember the ten virgins the parable of the ten virgins where jesus said in five were wise and five were foolish five already five were not and the ones who were not ready did not get to go into the wedding feast he's using the Jewish wedding feast in that whole illustration the point of the illustration is that we need to be ready for the coming of Christ we need to be ready for his return for us to take us home to be with him there's there's a repentance that needs to take place there's a heart that needs to be right with the Lord we need to have a real walk with Christ in the previous illustration that Jesus gave in Matthew chapter 24 he gave an illustration of two servants one was a wise servant who was faithful to the Lord faithfully doing the things that the Lord called him to when Jesus came for him there was a foolish servant who said My Lord is delaying his coming you need to remember this you ever get to the point where you're like My Lord is delaying his coming I don't think that he's coming I don't think he's coming for a long time you've stepped out of the realm of where cry wants you what Jesus said was that we need to be expecting him all the time I don't know when Jesus is coming for me I have no idea I can see signs around me that are indications that some of the stuff that we see in the book of Revelation or on the verge of coming to pass but I don't know when Jesus is gonna come I don't know if I'm gonna get the next sentence out of my mouth before Christ comes back and that was the point and so that servant began to beat his fellow servants I have never known anybody that turned away from Christ who didn't begin to beat his fellow servants begin to you know rip on people who are Christians begin to tear into them and that kind of thing most often when somebody turns away from Christ they immediately turn away from Christ people too and they have all kinds of garbage to say about him and then it's then he says and to eat and drink with the drunkards and obviously Jesus talked about the fact that going back into the world was not a good thing Peter in 2nd Peter said like a dog returns to his vomit like a wash pig returns to his to the mire like a fool returns to his folly a believer turns away from his righteousness and many times that's exactly the that situation that's what Jesus was talking about so wedding feast is again the next part and when we enter the wedding feast it was a seven day celebration really interesting that the whole Tribulation Period is seven years and at the end of the seven day celebration what would happen is the bride and the bridegroom would come out of their little honeymoon grotto they would come out and they would have the marriage feast and it was kind of the final shebang that would take place in the Jewish wedding ceremony and after that they would go and they would set up their own household okay so I would end the that would end the marriage feast they would go out and set up their own household it's exactly the same thing in the book of Revelation where we are is we have a legal contract with the bridegroom you entered into that contract when you became a Christian you know when we partake of communion one of the things that we do is drink from a cup of grape juice and Jesus said this is the new covenant in my blood a covenant is a contract Christ has a contract with us and we know again from Scripture it's a marriage contract we are the Bride of Christ and so what we are waiting for is the second step the catching away the the coming of Jesus to claim his bride and after he comes and claims his bride the next step that's gonna be taking place is this marriage feast that you see here Jesus talked about wedding feasts and he used that illustration why don't you turn with me to Matthew chapter 22 Matthew chapter 22 it's a cool passage this was this is something that happened in basically the four days before Jesus was crucified he came into Jerusalem on a Sunday and actually it was a Sunday when they picked the Lambs for the Passover sacrifice and Jesus proclaimed himself to be the Lamb that was going to be sacrificed and then for the next four days they were examining Jesus which is what was happening with those lambs during that period of time and then the lamb was sacrificed and that's what happened to Christ well during that time Jesus gave this parable in Matthew 22 it says in verse 1 and jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding and they were not willing to come again he sent other servants saying tell us who were invited see I have prepared my dinner my oxen and fatted cattle are killed and all things are ready we're gonna have a barbecue come to the wedding but they made light of it and went their ways one to his own farm another to his business and the rest seized his servants treated them spitefully and killed them but when the King heard about it he was furious he sent out his armies destroyed those murderers and burned up their city then he said to his servants the wedding is ready but those who were invited were not worthy therefore going to the highways and as many as you find invite to the wedding so those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found both bad and good and the wedding hall was filled with guests but when the king came in to see the guests he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment so he said to him friend how did you come in here without a wedding garment and he was speechless then the king said to the servants bind him hand and foot take him away and cast him into outer darkness there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for many are called but few were chosen and so he he goes through and he talks about the fact that there's this wedding feast that takes place with a king and obviously the king is the father the son is Jesus himself the wedding is something that the people of Israel were invited to he's talking to the Jews in Jerusalem at this time and the point that he's making with these guys is that you have been invited to the wedding and what they do is they make light of it they don't want to have anything to do with it you know when you're when you're looking at Revelation chapter 19 it says the Lambs wife is ready and it talks about the fact that she's been clothed in righteousness and so when you're looking at revelation 19 the wedding feast that's part three of the Jewish wedding when it says that she's clothed in righteousness that can be speaking about two things when we talk about the righteousness that we have as Christians there's a righteousness that's imputed is what it's called it's the idea of credited to your accounts it's a it's the idea that you know obviously I'm not a guy who's rich and if somebody came along and credited a million dollars to my accounts all of a sudden I would have bucks deluxe basically and none of it would be something that I earned it's a free gift that somebody put into my account and that's what the word imputed means romans 4 22 through 25 says this therefore it was accounted to him for righteousness now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but also for us it shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification let me read that to you in the NLT it says this and because of Abraham's faith God countered him as righteous and when God countered him as righteous it wasn't just for Abraham's benefit it was recorded for our benefit - assuring us that God will count us as righteous if we believe in him the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead he was handed over to die because of our sins and he was raised to life to make us right with God and so I have a righteousness that's been given to me it's a righteousness that I have that's not based on my works it's based on the one thing that I can do without working and that's believe God that whole passage in Romans chapter 5 starts with abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness and again the whole idea of belief is am i doing something when I believe yeah I'm trusting what God has said that's what belief is so I am doing something but I'm not actually doing anything all I'm doing is trusting in the fact that what God said is real and that's it and so it's the one thing that I can do without doing anything and that's where Christians stand as far as our righteousness goes you always need to remember this you guys because if you base your righteousness before God if you base your standing before God on your performance you are always gonna have a problem as a Christian because you're never gonna perform in the way that you should be performing no matter how old you are as a believer you know what Paul said when he first became a believed he said you know what I am among the notable apostles that's what he said about himself you know I'm not somebody who's not notable among the Apostles and then he he said at the end of his ministry you know what I am I'm the chief of sinners and so Paul had and I'm not I'm not saying that he was all arrogant when he first became a believer because he was one of the notable apostles right and so that's absolutely true but what you seen in Paul's life is the older he gets as a believer he doesn't become somebody who gets less and less dependent on Christ he he becomes somebody who is more and more dependent upon Christ and he recognizes more and more how awful his sin was and it's not that he didn't realize it at the beginning but it's the same thing with us I remember when I first gave my life to Jesus and I was a mess and I you know I told you a little bit about my background well there's a lot of other things that were going on that made me a huge mess and so when I came to Christ and I asked Jesus to forgive me and I realized that he absolutely did I was radically thankful I was so thankful that God would do that for me and so a lot of stuff you know just kind of disappeared from my life and so cussing and and fighting and and being rowdy and and you know just having an attitude towards people all those things started to change I didn't party anymore those kinds of things started to change and I realized you know what I'm doing pretty good I'm doing pretty well as a Christian Here I am and then guy goes oh yeah and he starts showing me attitudes that I never knew that I had he started showing me junk in my life that I never realized was there you know it's it's like when when when your life is dark and black you're not seeing grey at all right and when the dark and the black knows away you're starting to see some of the dingy parts of your life too and one of the you know again it's it's one of those things where I don't know it depends on where you are how good you look and so you get up in the and you go into your bathroom and you know you've got the you know you've got the the lights on in your bathroom and I don't know if they're if they're really bright or if they're you know if they're kind of muted and stuff like that you know I like it when I go into my bathroom and the lights muted because I look pretty good the older I get you know the the worst my my eyes get right and so I can go in the bathroom and I don't have my glasses on and I'm looking at myself and I look pretty good I look okay you know and so I don't I think I think I don't have have to do a whole lot until I put my glasses on and then all of a sudden I see my eyebrow hairs and they're doing you know this kind of stuff all over the place and I didn't notice it before and then I look at my ears and there's hang things hanging off my ears and and that kind of stuff and it all depends on on the perspective I was in a motel this one time and they had fluorescent lights over the bathroom mirror and I walked in flipped on the fluorescent lights with myself and I was like wow this is not good and that's like being an older believer the closer that you get to the light the closer that you get to being like Jesus the more light that's shown on you and the more you see your flaws and that's the way that it's supposed to be and so people on the outside may not see them but when you're looking at yourself you recognize exactly who you are I've had people accuse me of stuff that I never did and when people have done that with me I say you know what I never did that but if you want a list of my sins I can give you one because I know exactly what I've done and so you know you again Paul the Apostle was in that same position I don't have a standing before Christ because I do the right thing all the time I have a standing before Christ because he did the right thing all the time and he traded places with me he took my punishment upon himself and gave me his righteousness that's imputed righteousness but that doesn't leave out practical holiness and so I have imputed righteousness that's my standing before Jesus but I am NOT somebody that can go around doing whatever I stinkin please and claim to have a relationship with Jesus there there has to be a change that takes place in my life and so there's a passage in Hebrews 12:14 that says this pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord so I have to be holy now you guys know what holy knit holy is it's it's ha Geass and Greek it means to be set apart for God's use and so it doesn't mean mean to be perfect and doesn't mean to be snooty it needs to be it means to be somebody who is actually really set apart for the use of God somebody that really wants God to be at work in them that's holiness and when you have that kind of attitude when you can't have that kind of heart you're gonna become more and more like Christ Paul the Apostle in talking about our works specifically he talked about the rewards that we get and this is in 1st Corinthians 10 or uh 3 verses 10 through 15 you're probably familiar with this it says this according to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise masterbuilder I've laid the foundation and another builds on it but let each one take heed how he builds on it for no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold silver precious stones wood hay straw each one's work will become clear for the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is if anyone's work which is built on it endures he will receive a reward if anyone's work is burned he will suffer lost but he himself will be said yet so as through fire like by the skin of your teeth is what that last phrase is talking about and so you know when I'm when I'm looking at rewards in heaven the Bible talks about the fact that I get rewards in fact you know we we talked about the 24 elders a little bit and these guys who are seated on Thrones they have crowns on their heads they're literally really literally rewards that they've gotten being faithful to the Lord they take their crowns and they throw them before the Lord and apparently they pick him back up and put him back on and then take their crowns and throw him before the Lord it's like a cyclic Alang every time that the Lord is worshipped that's what they're doing with the rewards that they get but they have rewards and the reason that they have rewards is because they've again been faithful to the Lord if anyone builds on the foundation the foundation being Jesus if they build on that foundation with gold and silver and precious stones that's going to last through the fire gold and silver and precious stones don't burn up they just get purified when they're put into the fire but if it's wood hay and stubble that's the stuff that burns up when I look at my life and I look at the things that I'm going to be rewarded for the Bible is clear on the fact that what's supposed to be happening with me is I'm supposed to be yielding my life to Jesus Christ he is the one who's supposed to be living through me and so this isn't a big fat work strip even in this situation it's supposed to be Jesus who's doing the work in me so I've got people around me you do too who are hard to love right you get in situations where people are just irregular and you don't like being around them you wish they would kind of find other friends or whatever and that kind of thing and they can say snotty things they can say mean things and you're you're in a bad situation because you don't you don't want to be a bad witness right and so what I do in situations like that and I'm not actually I don't have a lot of people like that in my life but what I do when I get into situations like that is I just go Jesus you know what I'm supposed to love these people and I can't do this the way that you do it I can't love them the way that you've called me to love them and so you're gonna have to love them through me right and it's a it's the same thing when I'm tempted in certain areas Jesus this one is over the top this is something that I can't handle I don't know if I'm if I'm gonna be able to not fall in this kind of situation Lord will you give me help will you strengthen me will you give me the power of your Holy Spirit and as I'm moving in those kinds of arenas what's happening is God is crediting that crediting that to my account I'm building on my foundation gold and silver and precious stones this is not the kind of thing where I decide to go out and do something for God and he has to reward me for it it's the kind of thing where Jesus goes hey Steve what do you think why don't you go over and talk to that lady across the street why don't you tell her about me and I argue and I go I don't want to I'm afraid and he goes but I want you to would you like to go and do it well I don't know if I can do it right I'm probably gonna mess it up well I'm gonna be with you and then I go and do it and then cool things happen and I'm all blown away but what's happened is basically I've done the things that Jesus has called me to it's the same thing with this stuff you know I am NOT built to stand in front of a group of people and and give speeches this is this is you know I'm just like anybody else standing in front of people and talking to them has always been one of my major fears and yet Jesus called me to this whole thing and so what I do is I just man up and I go okay Lord you called me to it you better do something you better show up because if I get up there by myself this is not gonna be good and so that's what I pray every single time that I'm doing a Bible study that's what I pray every single time that I'm counseling that's what I pray every time that I'm doing anything that I'm doing for the Lord and what happens is God shows up and again I don't do this this stuff perfectly but God shows up cool things happen and it's the work of Christ that's that's taken place in me that is why when you get to heaven you see these guys taking crowns that they've gotten for all the stuff that they did you see them taking the crowns off their heads and throwing them at the feet of Jesus because they realize they're getting rewarded for things that they didn't do they're getting rewarded for things that Jesus did through them and so all of this stuff is increasing the glory of God in the sense that everything that I do is a Christian whether or not my my basic standing with Christ as him being the foundation of my life that's imputed righteousness but even the good things that I do on top of that though those things there's the things that Jesus is supposed to be doing through me and so it's never a work strip never a work strip it's always a Jesus trip it's always a Jesus situation and so that's what you want to do you want to have gold and and silver and precious stones you wake up in the morning you put your feet on the ground and you say Jesus the day is yours what do you want to do and as you're going through your day you get set up with situations and you have to make decisions and you have to do things and you have to talk to people and all the way through the Bible says that you're to pray without ceasing and when those things come up you go Jesus what do you want me to do where do you want me to go with this what do you want me to say to this guy what do you want me to do you do that kind of stuff gold silver precious stones you're gonna have a ton of it and you're not even gonna know it's happening basically Jesus says you give a cold-cut a cup of cold water to somebody who's thirsty you you get a reward for that he's watching everything that I do okay now having said that I don't do it perfectly right and so I come up and I do a Bible study and it's it's not gonna be the kind of situation where I am doing it exactly like Jesus because if I was doing it exactly like Jesus there would be a lot a lot more people here right don't you think yeah if I was doing it exactly like Jesus and so there's gonna be part of me in this whole thing there's gonna be part of Jesus in this whole thing and what's gonna end up happening is this whole this whole Bible study right here is going to go through the fire and all the stuff that said the Lord is going to last and all the stuff that's of Steve is gonna go up poof in a puff of smoke right and so I can be in the middle of something where I'm actually doing exactly what Jesus wants me to do and I can blow it in the middle of the whole thing and just get way too fleshy or something like that and so I can blow it in the middle of the whole thing that doesn't mean that everything in that act is going away what's gonna be happening is everything in that act everything in that situation is going to be placed before the Lord and it's going to be judged and the gold and silver and precious jewels are going to be coming out of that and everything that's a wooden stubble is going to be burnt up and so I think that a lot of times we think that just because we didn't do it perfectly that we're not going to get rewarded for it that is not what the Bible teaches you're never gonna do it perfectly and so anything that comes out of this whole thing is just the stuff that Jesus is doing through you and so that's where the focus needs to be I want Jesus to be the one who works in my life practical holiness is rewarded practical holiness is rewarded and that's again what we're talking about when you look at again revelation 19 it says to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen clean and bright for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints so you you have this this cleanness this brightness this whiteness that that's taking place here and it's again because of the work that Jesus has done in you here's the point of this you're the bride this is a this is a gown basically and you're supposed to be ready for the wedding and again with guys this is like you know it's it's kind of out there but I deal with Brides all the time because I do weddings all the time I've never seen a bride getting ready for a wedding putting on her wedding dress and eating a burrito they do not do this right and so they're very careful and many times when brides are getting ready for their wedding they're putting their makeup on before they put their dress on and the reason is because they don't want anything spilling on their dress they're really worried about what that dress looks like when they get into the ceremony and I think that that is a valid situation with believers I'm worried about what I look like when I get to heaven I'm worried about it I'm not worried in the sense that you know I'm thinking that I'm not going to go to heaven or something or that Jesus isn't gonna accept me I don't want to be embarrassed you know there have been times when you know I was talking about lighting there have been times when I got up and on a Sunday and a lot of times well actually it wouldn't be on a Sunday I don't know why it would be like this but anyway I've gotten up and the room has been dark and I've grabbed a pair of Levi's or a pair of pants and I put them on or I put it on a shirt and I didn't realize that there was something wrong with it I looked at it and I didn't see it and I walked up and I get down here and all of a sudden I'm in bright light in my in my office and my shirt has problems or I'm in bright light my pants have stains on them and I'm like what in the world and again we're gonna be standing before the Lord and everything's gonna be revealed jesus said to believers everything that you speak in secret is going to is going to be open all the things that you say in secret you're gonna be judged for and so it's it's the it's the kind of thing where God's looking at me all the time and I want you to be sitting there constantly afraid but you need to be ready you need to take heed you need to be paying attention to this stuff because it may not be important to you now but there's coming a time when it's gonna be absolutely important there are things that I don't want to hear in heaven and I'm gonna hear some of them I know I am I don't want rebukes in heaven I don't want a whole ton of them I know that I'm getting some at some point that's why I try to keep the list short the Bible says it if you'll confess your sins he's faithful and just he'll forgive you those things he'll forget them he'll never bring them up again so you wanna you want to keep your list short and do the right things as far as making things right but I know that I'm gonna stand before the Lord and I don't want to be embarrassed any more than a bride wants to be embarrassed Luke 21 34 through 36 jesus said this take heed to yourselves lest your heart be weighed down with carousing drunkenness and cares of this life and that day come on you unexpectedly for it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth watch therefore and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man there are things that will exclude you from the wedding feast is the point that Jesus is making there I cannot act like a heathen and expect to go to heaven I cannot act like an unbeliever and expect to be taken out with the believers and again Jesus makes those points really clear I understand that when people hear this stuff there is theology that comes up in their mind and they get intense about it and they get irritated about it all I'm telling you is what Jesus said and you need to pay attention to it I don't care about theology I care about what Jesus said and you know I care about theology but not more than what Jesus said so let me read it to you again take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing drunkenness and cares of this life and that day come on you unexpectedly for it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the earth watch therefore and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of man and again we had that example of the ten virgins in Matthew chapter 25 he talks about in this past in in the passage in Matthew chapter 22 or actually in this passage of Revelation 19 blessed are those who were invited and in Matthew 22 the ones who were invited were the people of Israel and what they did did was they made light of it in in the passage it talks about the the the groom or the father the king and he sent sends out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding they were not willing he sent other servants saying tell those who were invited see I have prepared my dinner oxen and fatted cattle are killed and so on you know in in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 it talks about the voice of the Archangel in another passage when he when John the Baptist was talking about his own relationship with Christ he talked about the fact that he was the friend of the bride that's the idea of the best man and in John 329 he said this he who has the bride is the bridegroom and he's talking about Jesus obviously but the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled and what John the Baptist was replying to was the fact that Jesus was making more disciples than John and his disciples were jealous about it and John goes you know what dudes I'm just the friend of the bridegroom the one who has the bride he's the bridegroom and the friend of the bridegroom rejoices over him and the bride and so you have John the Baptist and then there's you in me so Israel was invited they declined the invitation you and I are invited and what we do with that invitation is something that matters there's another passage in Luke chapter 14 where Jesus was talking again about a supper and he said he put it this way he said a certain man gave a great supper and invited many and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited come for all things are now ready but they all with one Accord began to make excuses the first said to him I bought a piece of ground and I must go and see it I asked you to have me excused another said I've bought five yoke of oxen and I'm going to test them I ask you to have me excused still another said I've married a wife and therefore I cannot come so that servant came and reported those things to his master than the master of the house being angry said to the servant go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bringing here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind and the servant said master it is done as you commanded him still there is room then the master said to the servant go out into the highways and the hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be filled for I say to you that none of those men who were invited she'll taste my supper every actions both in the first parable that Jesus gave him this one in Luke chapter 14 and all the original invitees made light of the feast whether it was the marriage feast or whether it's this great supper that you're talking about and I love these lame excuses in Luke chapter 14 I've got some I bought some land I have to go look at it who does that nobody does that you go look at the land and you figure out if it's worth the price and then you go and buy it that's the way that it works and you know I don't know I think that's that's just complete foolishness I just heard a story about a guy he went to Walmart and when he was at Walmart he had to go to the restroom so he goes into the restroom and he he goes into the stall and here's the guy in the stall next to him say hi how's it going and he's kind of embarrassed he goes well you know I mean it's going okay and he goes well what you've been doing lately and he goes well I'm just kind of here going to the restroom and then and then the guy goes wait a minute there's some guy in the stall next to me that thinks I'm talking to him and you know begins mocking him and so anyway apparently I can't tell if it was a real story or not but you know what came to mind with me was who in the world goes into a public restroom sits on a toilet and talks on his cell phone no guy on this planet does these things so that would be the if the guy started picking on me about that I go what in the world are you doing talking on the phone in the restroom for what are you doing you're sitting on the toilet what's going on with you and you know that kind of stuff anyway lame thing that is a lame thing to do same thing with going out and getting land before you have to look at it people just do not do that I've bought some oxen and I got to go test them I bought a bunch of oxen I got to see if they work that's like I bought a truck I got to see if it runs but that is not what you do I got a wife so I'm married now so I can't come so because I got married I can't do anything anymore and I realized that there are people who really think that I'm married now and now I can't do and and that's obviously not not true in the passage in Matthew 22 some of these guys had outright animosity and hatred and so they took the servants that were sent to invite them to the wedding and they killed them and then you have the whole situation with a master saying that there was judgment coming on these guys whether you're talking about Luke 14 or whether you're talking about Matthew 22 in Matthew 22 it says I that the father says I want you to go out into the highways and byways and I want you to invite the bad and the good and I like it that Jesus said it that way the bad and the good because a lot of you were bad and I was bad and Jesus wasn't excluding the bad there were people that he invited again to the wedding feast they didn't want to go and so what Jesus did was he went you know what I'm filling this thing up and I don't care where they come from and what Jesus does is he takes the bad and he turns them into the good some of you were good when you became believers I mean relatively good you know what I mean by that you grew up in a Christian home and you loved Jesus from the time that you were a little kid that's the way that it's actually supposed to go that's the way that it's supposed to be I don't think that you need to be ashamed of that I think that you need to glory in that but it's the bad and good the other thing that you see in Matthew 22 is that they all had wedding garments except for one guy there was a there was a custom back in those days that when you went to the to a wedding a lot of people had one set of clothing and so when you went to a wedding especially when you were going to the wedding of a king or a prince in the sense in this instance when you went to the wedding it was customary for the king to provide a wedding garment for you so that you weren't embarrassed and what happens in that situation is the guy shows up and he's offered the wedding garment and he goes nod don't want it and he ends up in the wedding the father comes up and says how'd you get in here where's your wedding garment how'd you get in here without a wedding garment and he doesn't have anything to say so he's thrown out that is a construct to show that no one's allowed in on their own merits we've already seen in Revelation chapter 19 that the white robes are the righteousness of the saints and that righteousness whether you're talking about imputed or whether you're talking about actual holiness is something that's been given to you it's something that Jesus is either imputed to you and hand it over to you as something that you never earned or it's something that he's done through you either way it's something that's provided for you by God no one goes to heaven and ends up in a right relationship with God without coming through Jesus Christ you have to have the wedding garment on you have to have the righteousness that comes from Jesus you need to have the robes that have been provided by the father and so that again is that whole thing and so that's you know that's the the whole situation with a wife the bride of the Lamb and the position that we're in we are in in position or actually in part number one of the Jewish wedding feast the price has been paid the bride has been engaged we're waiting for the coming of the groom and he's coming at a time that we don't expect and we're going to hear horns the trumpet of God we're gonna hear the voice of an archangel and then we're gonna go home to be with him and that begins the wedding feast and everybody needs to be prepared for that otherwise you're gonna be like the 10 virgins and he's gonna say I don't know you that's what he said to him no excuse me the five foolish virgins I don't know you and so you need to be right with the Lord and so we'll end it right there and pick it up next week and that cool yeah looking forward to this let's pray father thanks again for your word thank you Lord for the life that you give to us thank you for the changes that you make in us thank you for the fact that our righteousness is something that comes from you I love that I love I love the fact that we have a standing before you the it's not based on our own works it's not based on our own good even when we are good it's the good that you've done in us it's just such a cool thing to understand where we sit with you well you're constantly at work in our hearts constantly at work in our minds drawing us closer to you and where we just pray that you'd help us to yield to you god I pray that you bless these people as they're go that they go their way thank you for all those who are listening in online right now and father I just pray for those that may not know you that they would come into a relationship with you that they would finally say yes to you and ask you to take control of their life and that in fact that they would do that even now that they've hit their knees in prayer and say Jesus I'm sorry will you please forgive me will you please come into my life will you please make me part of the Bride of Christ I want to be with you so father we just give you the rest of the evening pray that you bless it and then you do this all in Jesus name Amen all right god bless you guys in this this is wonderful

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

Views: 1,988

Rating: 5 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: F2KCyyy46c4

Length: 63min 23sec (3803 seconds)

Published: Sun May 24 2020