“Amazing Prophecies of the End Times”
Lesson
# 4
“The
Marriage Supper of the Lamb”
Rev. 19: 7-9
One
day there is going to be a marriage in heaven and you and I are going to be there, in fact
we are going to be a part of the wedding. Here on earth the bride is always the center of
attention in any wedding. The wedding march begins to play and the whole congregation
turns to look as the bride makes her entrance. But the wedding in heaven is going to be
different. In heaven the focus of attention is not going to be on the bride but on the
bridegroom. When the bridegroom sweeps in and claims his bride all eyes will be upon Him!
We know according to 1 Thess 4:16, “Behold the Lord
Himself will descend from heaven with a shout.” Have you ever wondered what
that shout will be? I think it is very possible that shout will be a fulfillment of Matt.
25:6 it may well be “Behold
the bridegroom is coming!” It is hard to over estimate the importance of the marriage supper of the Lamb
because believe it will be the most magnificent event in all of human history. After all
it is the consum-mation of all the hopes and desires of God the Father for His Son.
In the last two lessons in our series “Amazing Prophecies
of the End Times” we have been looking at where
the Church will be and what the Church will be doing
during the Tribulation is taking place on the earth. In Lesson two we saw how the church
will be taken up in the Rapture (1
Thess. 4:13-18) and in Lesson three we learned that we will then stand before the Lord at
the Bema Seat Judgment to receive
rewards (1 Cor. 3:12-15). The question before us is, “Now that the rewards have
been handed out: What is the next thing on the prophetic calendar?”
The marriage Supper of the Lamb was one of the themes on which the Lord Jesus
often taught, it is often the subject of his parables (The Parable of the Ten Virgins
- Matt. 25:1-13 and the Parable of the Wedding Banquet -Matt 22:1-14). And yet the
marriage supper of the Lamb is a subject that is greatly misunderstood, not because of
false teaching, but because it is almost completely neglected in preaching and teaching
today. The main source of inform-ation concerning this coming event is found in Revelation
19:7-9. “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." (8) And
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. (9) Then he said to me, "Write: "Blessed are
those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb! ...”
Tonight as we turn our attention to what the
Bible has to say about the Marriage Supper of the Lamb I want us to ask and answer five
critical questions.
First,
WHO ARE THE BRIDE AND THE GROOM?
The identity of the groom is very straight
forward, in Matthew 22:2 Jesus said, “The kingdom of
heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son.” The bridegroom can only be the king’s
son, this is of course Jesus.
But there is some difference of opinion as to
“Who is the bride?” Some say that that bride is Israel, because she is called the wife of
God in the Old Testament (Isaiah 54:5).
Several scriptures show us that the bride in
this wedding is the church. In Ephesians
5:25-27 we read, “Husbands, love your wives, just as
Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, (26) that He might sanctify and
cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, (27) that He might present her to
Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she
should be holy and without blemish.” Paul sums up this teaching in verse
thirty-two by saying, “This is a great mystery, but I
speak concerning Christ and the church.”
We read in (Jude 24) “Now
to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless
before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.”
It seems rather obvious then that Jesus is the
bridegroom and the church is his bride.
Secondly,
WHERE AND WHEN WILL THE MARRIAGE TAKE PLACE?
There are two major positions concerning the
time and location of the marriage supper.
Some believe that the marriage supper will be
held on earth after Christ returns with his bride prior to the beginning of the
Millennium.
Rapture -> Bema Seat Judgment -> 2nd
Coming
Marriage Supper -
Millennium
______________________________________________________________________________________________
(Seven Years of Tribulation)
Others believe that the marriage supper will
be held in heaven while events of the Tribulation are unfolding on earth. In support of
this position is that it agrees with the requirements of Jewish marriage customs in the
Bible that the marriage supper be held in the bridegroom’s
home.
Rapture -> Judgment Seat - Marriage Supper -> 2nd Coming
______________________________________________________________________________________________
(Seven Years of Tribulation)
Third,
WHAT ARE THE CHARACTER-ISTICS OF THE WEDDING
If we assume that the marriage of Christ to
the church will follow the pattern of marriage as described for us in the New Testament
then it will then consist of several separate stages.
First there is the betrothal stage. This stage
consisted of two steps: the selection or
arrangement stage and the payment of the dowry. First of all in the Biblical times the
father of the groom arranged a match, and selected the bride for his son. We are told in Ephesians
1:3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
places in Christ, (4) just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”
After the selection was made the “bride
price” or the dowry was paid. The
bride price for God the father was the blood of His Son. (1 Cor. 6:19-20) “Or do you not know that your body
is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not
your own? (20) For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in
your spirit, which are God's.”
The price paid for the bride of Christ is
explained in (1 Peter 1:18-19), “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like
silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, (19)
but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
The betrothal
stage lasted as long as it took for the groom to prepare a home for his bride. In the same manner
Jesus has told us that he has gone to prepare a place for his bride the church (John
14:1-3) "Let not your heart be
troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. (2) In My Father's house are many
mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (3)
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that
where I am, there you may be also.”
The second stage of a wedding in the Bible
was the presentation stage. On the wedding
day, the groom would leave his father’s house and to and get his bride. After taking
her from her home, the groom would lead the bridal procession back to the home he had
prepared. This is a beautiful picture of the Rapture of the church as seen in 1 Thess.
4:13-18.
The final stage of a wedding in Bible times
was the celebration stage or marriage feast. As we have already noted
the great wedding banquet is set out in Revelation 19:7-8, “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." (8) And 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.”
This wedding feast is to be a time of great
gladness that is full of joy and delight. There will be rejoicing and shouts of joy. The
reality of the joyousness of this time are beyond our present imagination.
After a period of feasting the couple would
settle into their new home which had been prepared by the groom.
Fourth,
HOW DOES THE BRIDE MAKE HERSELF READY?
In Revelation 19:7 we read, “…and His wife has made herself ready…” When the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is
ready the “wife” has already made herself ready. This brings out the aspect of personal respon-sibility of
individuals.
There is first the responsibility in relation
to salvation. To be a part of the bride,
one must have believed in Christ as his or her personal Savior from sin. But the primary
emphasis here relates to the issue of true spirituality which results in rewards or
preparation for eternity.
Secondly men must not only personally and
responsibly believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior, but then, as believers, as part of
the bride of Christ, they must choose to walk by the Spirit of God according to the Word,
by faith, so they can bear fruit or reproduce good
works (Eph 2:10). This is what is meant by the statement, “makes
herself ready.”
The beautiful wedding garment is described in
verse eight as “… fine linen, clean and bright”
or (white, bright, and clean) symbolizes the
righteous deeds, produced in the life of the believer as walk by the power of the
indwelling Holy Spirit (Rom. 6:4, Gal. 5:5, 16, 22-23). This is represented by the Greek
word used in 19:8; the word is (dikaiomata) and is translated “righteous-ness.”
This word, refers to a concrete
expression of righteousness, the result is the use of the gifts that the Lord Jesus has
give us to produce acts of faith. In essence
then, the church age is not only the betrothal stage, but a time where the bride is
preparing her trousseau for the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Fifth,
WHO ARE THE WEDDING GUESTS?
In Revelation 19:9 we read, “Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!” Who are the guests who have been invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb? It is obvious that it is not the bride nor the bridegroom that are being spoken about, for the bride and groom never have to be invited to their own. It is the friends of the bride and groom that are invited. It could not be the church for she is the bride. John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament Prophets, indicated that he was a friend of the Bridegroom (John 3:29) when he said, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bride-groom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled.” From this I think we can conclude that the friends of the Bride and Groom will include all those who those faithful believers who lived and died prior to the church age (Old Testament Saints). In addition to them will appear all those who have received the Lord as their Savior during the Tribulation period, (both Jews and Gentiles) many if not all will have given their lives as a testimony for their faith.