Raj leads a Bible study through Revelation 19, exploring heaven's celebration of Babylon's fall, the marriage supper of the Lamb, and what it means for the church as Christ's bride. The fine linen represents the righteous acts of saints, and the passage calls for repentance and daily attentiveness to God.
Chapters
You're more than a. For ain't no problem to her for strong and mighty God it's you I.
The.
You'Re more than able Ain't no problem that's too high For a strong and mighty God I.
Means so very much to me.
The.
You'Re more than able Ain't no.
Well, that kind of was abrupt.
Sorry about that.
I was trying to minimize and it.
Just shut it down. So.
All good. Thank you, Raj, as always. Good morning, everybody. Happy Wednesday to you. Hope everybody's doing well. We just got out of a. Another phenomenal time of prayer and it's just a joy to spend time with you on these Wednesday mornings. It really is. It's such a blessing. See Leslie on here. Hey, Leslie, how are you doing?
Hey.
I'm good.
I'm going to cut out early, though.
It's first day of school, so I got to wake up my kids about halfway through this call, so. Okay, Happy to be here.
We'll try to get to the good stuff early. Good stuff. Okay. I'm a little fatigued this morning. A little sleep deprived. Riley and I were up in Walker, Minnesota. I. I think that might be up your way a little bit, Jonathan, doing seminars. It was an intense, like 36 hours from like Monday evening. We didn't get home last night till well after midnight and got a few hours of sleep. But I feel good, man. Physical rest is important, but I will. I will spare physical rest for an opportunity to rest in the arms of the Lord and just be with him. Be with y' all.
Any.
Any given day. So today we are in Revelation chapter 19. So we are wrap. I don't want to say rapidly we. We are approaching the conclusion of our study In Revelation, Revelation 19, one of the the most thrilling, uplifting, encouraging chapters in all of scripture. And that's even before verse 11, where Jesus returns, cracks the sky, returns on his white horse. And I hope all of you guys know how to ride a horse because all of us, the church, we're going to be on white horses behind him. And I always knew there was a reason why. I'm not really big on pets, you know, allergic to most pets, but I always had just an affection for horses for some reason. And little did I know when an unbeliever that it would be because I'd be riding a white horse behind Jesus one day. We're going to get to that next week where I plan on just tackling the first 10 verses today in chapter 19. Last week I did something that no one thought could be done. And we, we went through two chapters in one week. So last week, if you're with us, you remember chapter 17, 17 and 18 all have to do with Babylon and not just Babylon and most likely the, the literal city of Babylon that will be the headquarters for the, the revived one world religion and one world economic system, but the, the spirit of Babylon. And we talked about the harlots who, and the fornication of the harlot. And we touched on, as it's often mentioned in particular in the Old Testament, that harlotry or the prostitution or you know, we see in the King James version, even that woman, that harlot, that great harlot, is the great whore. This world one day will be a place during the great tribulation where the entire world is committing spiritual fornication, spiritual adultery against the Lord. And they'll be doing it in the name of religion, they'll be doing it in the name of one world government. But the good news is, is Babylon falls. Babylon falls. And we're going to open chapter 19 with the rejoicing in heaven because of Babylon falling. And when we, when we say Babylon falls, Babylon represents worldliness, represents idolatry, represents an anti God and anti Jesus sentiment. So we, we know that that will fall. And there's going to be a time when everybody, and this is kind of a sobering passage right here, one, because yes, we're, we're going to rejoice and we see a loud party in heaven when, when Jesus comes back, when he returns, evil is conquered, right? All of evil is defeated. But what's sobering about it is yes, the, the, the, the good news is, you know, the, the good guys win in the end. The sobering part is that we have loved ones that may not be on the side of the, the good guys quite yet. Right? And it, it's a real thing. It's something that we have to face, that of a literal tribulation period, a literal return of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if one of our loved ones passes away today, tomorrow, and they don't know the Lord, that that's, that's their last opportunity, right? So we don't look at this saying, hey, I'm, I'm good, I'm just going to live my life, I'm going to sin, I'm going to take advantage of God's grace, knowing that he's forgiving, he'll forgive me of all this. And you know, if the church gets raptured, I'm not a part of it. It's okay, I just turn my heart to the Lord at that time, and, you know, I'm willing to face martyrdom at that time. It's unrealistic and folly to think that you're just going to wait. Scripture is clear on urgency, on expectation of his coming, being ready when he comes. So have all that in the forefront of your minds as we I'm just going to read the first ten verses of chapter 19 of Revelation, and then we'll we'll dive in, we'll dissect a little bit, we'll open this up and hear your thoughts. Verse 1 After these things I heard a loud voice. I of course, being John, where he's on the isle of Patmos, and starting back in verse one, he has this supernatural vision of heaven, and God is revealing all this to him to share with us. So after these things, I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, alleluia. Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his judgments, because he is judged 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 say, alleluia. Her smoke rises up forever and ever. And the 24 elders and the 4 living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who sat on the throne, saying, amen, Alleluia. 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 a sound of mighty thundering, saying, alleluia. 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. Who's his wife? His wife is us. His wife is us, the church. 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. Then he said to me, right blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Yes, we are. We're going to talk about this, how we've been called to this 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. Lord God, give us revelation today of your words. Speak to us. Speak to us today in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, so like I said, we're gonna save the, the even better stuff for next week when chapter 11 is Christ coming on that, that white horse. And in this chapter there's two suppers that are mentioned. There's the, this great marriage supper that we're going to get to experience. And for all those who don't experience this great marriage supper between the bridegroom Jesus and his.
Us.
Us his wife. The, the other supper that's mentioned in this chapter, and we'll get into that next week, is going to be the supper where if we're not at the great supper, marriage supper of Christ, we're actually going to be supper. We're going to be part of the, the world, this fallen Babylon, all unbelievers who are actually going to be supper for the vultures, right? Our dead carcasses are going to be supper for vultures. So we have a choice. Supper is inevitable for all of us. Which supper do you want to take part in? Do you want to be part of this great marriage supper with Jesus? And we'll get into it a bit here and I believe I'll make a pretty strong case as to why we would all want to be a part of that supper. Especially when the alternative is we are the supper where we're dead, our spirits are in a place of torments and ultimately, yeah, we're lunch or dinner for, for the vultures. So as, as we kind of unpack this, we see the word alleluia, right? Which, this, this is the only time in the New Testament that we see alleluia and in the Old Testament we see hallelujah with an H. Alleluia is just the, the same word, but the Greek transliteration of that word. It's mentioned four times in the New Testament and all four here in this chapter. And it' because hallelujah. You probably are are all mostly familiar with this. It's, it's the words hallel which means praise and yah, yahweh, Praise Yahweh. Praise the Lord. And it's in the, the imperative sense. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. We're to always praise the Lord at all times. When things are good, we praise the Lord. When things are bad, we praise the Lord. Our heart should always be of. Our posture should be that of Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I'm going through this trial but hallelujah, I'm going to praise you. If you have this trial set before me, I know it's for a reason. It's for a purpose. There's something to be learned. My faith is going to increase. I'm going to grow in my endurance. So praise the Lord because he's worthy of our praise. He's worthy of our praise. I've mentioned a few times throughout the study that of all the titles of Jesus as King, as Prince of Peace, as line of the tribe of Judah, all the. The titles that he has as simply Lord, Lamb is what he is, his preferred title in the book of Revelation. Because when we fell in love with Jesus, we didn't necessarily fall in love with. With the lion. We didn't necessarily fall in love with him as Lord over everything. Matter of fact, sometimes it's hard for us to. To really lord over our life. We fell in love with the Lamb. The Lamb who's the propitiation for our sins, the Lamb who died for us. The Lamb that. That goes all the way back to the Old Testament, that, that land, that offering for. For our sin. We fell in love with the Lamb. And although he's the Lamb, he is still the. The lion of the tribe of Judah. And we're gonna see he's not to be messed with when he does crack the sky on that white horse. And so this great multitude in heaven, now, we saw back in Revelation, chapter seven, we saw a great multitude that was saved out of the great tribulation, and they had been martyred. And we know the 24 elders, going all the way back to the beginning of Revelation, represent the entirety of the church. And those four living creatures, those are the four cherubim, those guardian angels of the throne in. In heaven. Just to give you a little context, I. I know we. We've covered a lot over these past eight months in Revelation, so just to remind you of the context of who the 24 elders are and who they represent. And the. These four, your translation may say, say beasts. It's not the beast. The Antichrist is these. These four created beings, these cherubim, and says that they're screaming hallelujah. And. And glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God. Salvation and glory and honor and power. Now, the. The. In our. Our translation of this, it just says salvation and glory and honor and power. But the. There in its original Greek, there's a definite article before each of those. So it's literally the salvation, the glory, the honor, the power belong to the Lord our God, when you read it like that, and if you're one to make notes in your Bible, highlight it the whole nine yards like I do, write that in there because it just kind of gives it that, that little extra oomph. Not that Jesus needs any extra oomph. But when we read it, it's not just salvation belongs to the Lord. It's the salvation. He is the only salvation. He is the only way to the Father. He's the only one that is to be glorified. He's the only one to receive the honor that we bestow upon Him. And power, it's not just power. It's the power, the power of Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit. It belongs to the Lord our God. And as we see again, consistent theme throughout the book of Revelation, is there a consistent theme of mercy for all those and, and chance after chance for unbelievers to, to place their faith in Jesus and receive salvation and escape eternal punishment? Yes. But whenever in Revelation that the angels are, are declaring their praises for Jesus, they're always declaring praises for him being true and righteous, and they're praising his judgments. And it, it may seem harsh because those who aren't walking with the Lord, they are going to receive judgment, right? There's going to be an eternal punishment. If you, if you don't say yes to the Lord now, your no is going to be a forever no until you take your last dying breath. But our God wouldn't be the God that He is if he wasn't just. And in all of his ways, he's righteous and true. So He's a loving God. Yes, but he's a righteous God. He's a, He's a just, just God. Now when it talks about the, this, the smoke that, that will rise up forever, the, the smoke of Babylon, meaning every thing, every, every body, every. Everything of this world that is opposed to God. Everything that's not eternal. Our, our spirits are eternal because it's the Holy Spirit that lives in us, so that's eternal. But everything that's not eternal is going to be destroyed. And this is the picture of it here. And, and this. It's smoke will rise up forever. It's permanent. It's forever again. It's sobering. It, it makes you so joyous and giddy and grateful to, to know that you're on the winning side of this. But it's sobering because there's those. We, we all know people. We all have people in our lives. Some, some may be close family members, maybe some may Be close friends. But when this judgment comes, that's it. There's no more chances, no more chances at salvation. But again, God in His merciful character, his merciful ways, He. He's. He's constantly drawing us near. Constantly. And I. I had a fun conversation with my kids, my older kids last week, and they're talking about humbling yourself, right? Like, humbling yourself. So I said, how do you actually humble yourself if you're walking in pride, if you're walking in arrogance? You know, one of the flaws or the symptoms of pride is that you don't know you're prideful, right? If you're walking in any other sin, you could pretty much recognize that sin. You may not be convicted of that sin, but you know you. You're sinning, right? When you're prideful, unfortunately, it blinds your eyes to the fact that you're prideful. So how do you humble yourselves yourself? And we had this conversation about, well, is it you that humbles yourself, or is it God just, you know, forcing the direction of your life to circumstances in your life for you to be humbled? Is it God who will humble us? If we're not at a place of repentance, of turning from our sins, turning from our wicked ways, how do we actually humble ourselves? Or is it just God in his. In his grace and mercy and love that he has for us, allows things to happen in our lives that from the outside looking in from a carnal worldview may say, oh, wow, that. That's tough. That, you know, that person. If it weren't for bad luck, that person would have no luck at all. I believe that God humbles us. I believe that God, in his attempt, as it says in Luke 19, that. That Jesus, the Son, Son of man, he didn't just come to save the lost, he came to seek and save the lost. And all of us are. Are lost spiritually even. You know, you could grow up in the holiest of households. You could go to Sunday school, be at church seven days a week, not be on any screens. Just know nothing but the Bible, Jesus, his word, have some sort of prayer life. But you still, at some point in your life, it's got to be your decision. You have to be the one to place your faith in Jesus Christ. Have that moment, that encounter with him, where you surrender it all and you're his. You become that son or daughter of Jesus. Now, there's a few psalms in Scripture, in particular, Psalm 73. It's a Psalm of Asaph where he's struggling with the Prosperity of the wicked. And I think we've probably all been there at some point in our lives where it's like, why, why, why did that one get the new job? Why, why does that one have the big house? Why does that one look at the vacation they're on? Or why does it seem like things are going their way and it seems like the wicked are, are, are walking in this prosperity? And Asaph, I, I love the Psalms. And there's a couple Psalms of David where it's like he's, he's pissed off. He's like, hey, hey, God, what, what are you going to do about this? Right? And not just in the Psalms of David, but the Psalm of Asaph. I love the Psalms because they're so, they're so familiar oftentimes with our own prayers that are. And maybe our talks or just conversations with the Lord. It's like, God, why are they, why are they walking and why are they winning? And it seems like God's people are losing. And ultimately by the end of The Psal Psalm 73, it's, yeah, in the end, don't worry, Vengeance is mine. They're gonna get what, what's due them, right? And that this is it. This is when this is going to take place in, in world history. It's going to be this event here in chapter 19 where all the wicked, all the unjust, where they're. There's no more opportunity for them to become righteous. There's no more opportunity for them to be cle and be teamed righteous by the Lord. Now when I was first reading this, it just reminded me of Philippians 2, 10, 11, where it says that at the name of Jesus, every niche about those in heaven, of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, all of us. Right? You may know somebody in your life right now that is just the, the, the greatest atheist on planet earth, or maybe somebody who believes in God and absolutely hates and despises God, blasphemes God. Every single person who walks this earth says even the people under the earth are going to come to the realization at some points that, that like I got it wrong. Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord. He was in control. All those things I heard about this, this guy Jesus, all the things I, I heard from the, these weirdo Christians that are, you know, that they're just always saying things like hallelujah and Praise the Lord. They're always asking if people want prayer. All these Weirdos. Turns out that, that they were right. And it, they'll. They'll have that acknowledgment. The thing for them is it's too late. It's too late. Their eternal dwelling place is going to be forever. It's going to be permanent, just as ours is going to be forever and permanent. And this universal acknowledgment, universal acknowledgment that Jesus is Lord is absolutely certain it's going to happen. It's declared in Scripture. It all lies in the timing. If you declare that, if you acknowledge, not just acknowledge Jesus, but declare him as Lord over your life, if you believe in your heart, confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. It's a timing issue. Our lives are but a vapor. James says, right, we're here one day, we're gone the next. We don't know when our time is up here on this earth, but we do know that our, our days on this earth, they're numbered. They're numbered. And urgency, being ready is, Is riddled throughout Scripture. And it. I always found it quite remarkable that you're not going to read much of the Bible and read something as if it's written today. And you could speak this to somebody because it literally says today. And what it is, is Second Corinthians 6, 2. And it's quoted from Isaiah 48. And it says, well, then his workers together with him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, in an acceptable time, I have heard you. And in the day of salvation, I have helped you. So. So that's quoted from Isaiah. And then Paul says, behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Or your translation may say, today is the day of salvation. Today is the day of salvation. If you're not saved and you hear those words that's applicable to you today, on this day, when you hear the gospel, and now you have no excuse to not turn to Jesus. Your ears have heard, your mind is contemplated. The things of the Lord, the Gospel, the everlasting Gospel, as it's called in, in chapter. Gosh, what was that? 16, I believe the everlasting Gospel, today is the day of salvation. And Hebrews, chapter 3, verses 7 through 11. It's quoted from Psalm 95. And it says, therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial, in the wilderness where your fathers tested me, tried me, and saw works 40 years. Therefore, I was angry with that generation and said they always go astray in their heart and they have not known my ways. So I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest again today. If you hear his voice today, act upon it today. And I, I'm confident I'm speaking to a screen of believers. And you already had that day, that acceptable day, the day of salvation. But today, if you hear his voice, it's not just about acting upon that prick in your heart to receive Jesus as king and Savior. It's today, if you hear his voice, act upon what he's saying. If you hear his voice. We're reading Scripture. The Word is God, right? So we're hearing the voice of God. Every time we lay our eyes on Scripture, when we hear his voice, act upon it. It don't just let, like James be like somebody who, who keeps looking in the mirror and nothing's changing, right? Act upon it. Act upon His Word. God didn't create us to, to be stagnant. He didn't create us to, to just, just sit and receive once we, once we have Him. He created us to, to. To go and do the, the verb tense of these words, agape, right? That agape love, agapeo, that's love in action. We're not just to like, walk in God's love, that agape love. We're to, to dispense that love. It's a. In the verb sense. Right now I just want to make mention of this and we'll continue on, open this up for a bit. That one of the things that, that's clear in Scripture is that God gives us an opportunity to repent. He gives us an opportunity at redemption, restoration. First John 1:9, he's faithful when we confess our sins to him, that he's going to cleanse us of that unrighteousness, right? He's going to wash us anew. He's going to forgive our sins. But there's plenty of examples in Scripture if we want to take advantage of that grace that he bestows upon us. There's plenty of examples in Scripture where there was sin, there was repentance, there was restoration, but there were still consequences of sin that were left, right? We can't just go around thinking that.
That.
I have license to sin, because I know, hey, or. And even if I mentioned this last week or two weeks ago, I believe maybe on the prayer call in Matthew 6, when, when the Bible, when Jesus is telling us he's talking to us about generosity, about fasting, about praying, right? And he says, regarding all three, he says, when you do these things. So it's not even like, hey, I have to command you to do these things. Because if you said yes to me, you're walking with me. These things, these are just implied things. I expect you to do these things. I expect you to be generous. I expect you to fast, I expect you to pray. That's a part of what you signed up for, right? So he says, when you do these things, but in all three of these things, he talks about doing them in secret. When you give, when you're generous, do it in secret. Don't let your left hand know what your right hand's doing. When you fast, do it in secret. When you pray, go into that. That. That closet, that prayer closet, that prayer room. Go in by yourself, lock the door behind you, and spend that time in secret. Oftentimes when we're alone, that's when the enemy attacks, right? When we're isolated, oftentimes when we're in a secret place, let's face it, like, darkness is secretive, right? When we're trying to walk in darkness, when we. We're doing our dirt, when we think, oh, I could do this, nobody will see it if we think, hey, I. You know, nobody will know about this. Well, in that secret place where we find ourselves doing our dirt, where we're like, willfully sinning because we feel like, oh, nobody will find out about this. In that secret place is exactly where Jesus dwells. In that secret place, and he desires to meet us in that secret place. That's where. In that secret place is where we're to have the most intimate fellowship with him. So when we. When we think we could just get away with something, because, hey, nobody will know I'm in a secret place. That secret place is exactly where God wants us to be. He just wants us to be there with him in that secret place. So just a couple of examples. King David, we know that he messed up. He saw Bathsheba bathing on a rooftop, wound up getting with Bathsheba, sending her husband Uriah to the front lines to get killed in war. And David was just kind of walking in this pride and arrogance and unrealization, an unacknowledgement of this sin until God sent the prophet Nathan over to. To tell him this. This little parable where. Where the eyes of David's heart were open. He's like, oh, my gosh, that. That's me, right? And he repented. And we know that, you know, King David, he. He's a Monumental figure in scripture. And he was restored, he was redeemed, he was forgiven. But what happened? The. The child that was born after his affair died as a direct consequence of the sin. David's family life. After that, there was just havoc all throughout his family, right? One of his sons, Ammon, raped his daughter, Tamar. There was just consequences of this sin. Samson, right? Now, Samson, he repeatedly violated the Nazarite vow by engaging in sinful relationships. And the one that we know most of is the one with Delia, Delilah, who ultimately betrayed him. So he disobeyed God's commands and despite his sin, right. His final prayer shows a repentant heart and his desire to be used by God one last time. But what happened when. When Samson sinned, he lost his strength. He also lost his sight, right? So, you know, it wasn't a very long time from when Samson repented and God used him that one last time. But he regained his strength, but he didn't regain his sight. And that's one that sticks with me because it's like, okay, to me, being able to see is pretty important. I value that, right? So if a consequence of what my sin is, I'm no longer able to see. Even though God, if I truly repent and God redeems me, he restores me, I'm forgiven. Like that sin is washed clean. Yes, the sin is washed clean. Cast as far as the east is from the West. He doesn't choose to hold us, hold it against us anymore. However, the consequence of that sin still, still can remain. So do I want to be now walking blind the rest of my life unable to see because of that sin? It's like I'm forgiven, but the consequence is there. Lucy and I taught our children this all the time because it's easy for a kid or somebody who, and not just a kid as far as their earthly years, somebody who's a kid in their walk with the Lord, who, who's a spiritual babe. And then, you know, as you, you mature in your walk with the Lord, spiritual adolescence into spiritual adulthood. Eventually it's like, you have to pay attention to those things because we may, when we're in that secret place, we may, we find ourselves saying, it's okay, God knows I'm a screw up. God knows that, you know, he's the one who says it, My heart's wicked, right? Paul says, you know, I. The things I. I want to do, I don't do. The things I don't want to do, I do do. God knows that. We got this battle against the flesh. And we kind of give ourselves license to willfully sin. And it could be something big, a big sin, it could be an itty bitty sin. But ultimately, what's the consequence going to be from that sin? Think about this all the time. That when a believing man or woman, it's a godly marriage and they, they cheat, right? And it could be a circumstance where, hey, that person truly knows they messed up, they got caught up in the moment, they give into their flesh in that moment and they repent. God forgives them. But what's the consequence that that marriage most likely will, will be undone? That now that that trust that was in that marriage may forever be undone, Even if, if, if there's reconciliation in the marriage? Now you have that hurdle of untrust, there's a consequence there, or the consequence of simply losing your spouse. It's like, okay, like God will forgive me, I'll still be in heaven. But I, I can't, I have no wife now and I can't see my kids. That's a grave consequence. So think about those things. And I'm mentioning all this because there's going to come a point in time for all of humanity where there's just no more opportunity left to repent. There's no more opportunity left for forgiveness. And that's what we're reading here in, in Revelation 19. And ultimately it's something to praise the Lord about, right? We walk on this side of righteousness. We, we walk on this side of salvation. And we are to praise the Lord and celebrate and cheer that in the end, spoiler alert. The good guys win. All the wicked will, will ultimately be destroyed, and not just the wicked, but when Babylon is destroyed. We talked about this last week a bit. Think about the things in your life that'll last forever as opposed to the things that will burn up one day. And that, that's even money, right? Your possessions, they're all going to burn up one day. Do we, do we, do we strive to, you know, to have comfortable lives as far as the houses we live in? Yes, but is that more important than our relationship with the Lord? No, because our relationship with the Lord is permanent. It's forever lasting. But even the things that we have, the luxuries of this earth, they're all going to, to burn away. Now these, these second five verses here talks about this, this great marriage supper, right? And this great multitude that the sound coming from heaven here now, now the sound increases there. There's a sound and a praise in heaven. And if, hey, you're one to go to a church. You're not big on worship, you're not big on the loud music. A lot of people lifting their voices as one. Then I got news for you. Heaven's gonna probably be loud. It's, you know, I don't want to depict heaven as this big party, but it's going to be hat. It's going to be loud because it says as the sound of many waters and has the sound of mighty thunderings. So think about how loud thunder could be that those nights where you're sleeping, you don't know, a storm rolls into town and all of a sudden that, that thunder cracks and it's just startling, right? And the, the sound of many waters. Think of if you're standing by a waterfall. Think about, you could stay, you know, a few blocks from the Jersey shore and I'm sure any beach, but you can still hear the waves coming in, the sound of water, the sound of thunders. It's loud. And what, what's this enthusiastic praise? What's the reason for it? It's this, this marriage supper celebration, right? Went to Niagara last year. Yeah, right. I've never been in Niagara Falls. I've been to a couple much smaller waterfalls and it's just unbelievable how loud it is. Or even if you go to one of those, a lot of theme parks have it now, but the, the log flume things where it goes down into the water and then everybody stands on the bridge and they get splashed with the water as the thing comes down. But just, just that water, when that water lands, it's like it's loud, right? That water is loud. But John says here the marriage of the lamb has come. So the, the. There's a Jewish wedding parallel here. Now Jesus is the bridegroom, the church is the bride. God the father is the father of the bridegroom who pays this dowry, right? In Jewish weddings, the father of the groom will pay a dowry and this dowry is paid. And ultimately the dowry serves as alimony in advance. If that couple were to ever split, it's kind of alimony in advance. You put it away. And if they ever get divorced, that money is there, right? Salary is paid. And oftentimes especially what in the times of John here, in biblical times, the weddings will be arranged. Oftentimes two kids, when they were very young, they, they would be. There would be an arranged marriage. And when they got to be the time of, of being able to get married and at that time it would be in the teenage years. Keep in mind Mary and Joseph. She was betrothed to Joseph, right? So when you're betrothed, you're engaged and you're. That's essentially your wife, that's your husband, you're betrothed. However, you haven't consummated that marriage yet. So where we are and this metaphor of, of Christ being the bridegroom in us, the church being his bride, and where we are in this process of the Jewish weddings and the way it goes down, this betrothal process, so the dowry is paid, and what happens? The man will leave the woman's house, go back to his own house and build an additional room onto the house so he and his wife could live so oftentimes three, four generations in the same household, because every time one of the men got married, they would just build an addition onto the home and that would be. Be where this Jewish couple lived. Now, if you think about this, this parallel that we're talking about here, what does Jesus say in John 14? He says that, well, I'm. I'm going. I'm leaving you now and I'm going to prepare a place for you, right? I'm going to prepare a mansion for you. So our everlasting home, he's going to. To prepare it very similar to how a dowry is paid. You're now betrothed. And the husband goes, he goes to prepare that place where you can live forever. That we, we are in that place right now, us as believers, as the bride of Christ, as his church. We are in that betrothal period right now. Now I'm very grateful that God is preparing a place for me that in heaven where I'm going to live forever and ever. But then also with the Jewish weddings, what happens after about a year's time that that husband to be that bridegroom, he returns to the wife, to his spouse. And the, the bridesmaids, those whom the. The bride chooses, they will, they will kind of be on the lookout out for when the bridegroom returns. And in Matthew 25, there's a parable of the, of the ten virgins, right? And ignore the word virgins here, but they're the 10 bridesmaids. And it says that there's 10 bridesmaids. And when the, the bridegroom came, there were. And what the bridesmaids would do is they would go out and stand out there with lanterns for when the bridegroom came. And when the bridegroom came, the, the lanterns would illuminate him and the party would start, the, the celebration would start. And that's what we're talking about, this marriage supper with Christ. And look back at John 2, that, that wedding in Cana, right? It's a celebration. These celebrations last days. It's a big celebration to celebrate a wedding. And in Matthew 25, that parable of the. The 10 virgins, there was five that had oil in their lamps and five that did not. Now, the five that had oil in their lamps, those lanterns would light, and they would fulfill their purpose in illuminating the way for the bridegroom to return to the bride. And one of the five. Five virgins who didn't have the oil, what'd they say? They asked the other five, hey, can we borrow some oil? And what were they told? No, you can't borrow somebody else's oil. Can't. You can't borrow somebody else's oil. You could be best friends. You could have the holiest of parents. You can't borrow their oil.
Oil.
You can't borrow their Holy Spirit. You need your own oil. You need your own Holy Spirit to be a part of this wedding celebration. And again, we're ultimately in the. The betrothal period. And we're waiting. We're waiting on the return of our bridegroom. Now the rapture happens. We meet him in the sky, right? But at the. The end of tribulation, this is the. The wedding celebration. And the celebration, it lasted in Jewish culture for many days. For us, it's going to last for all of eternity. The celebration that this oneness, this. This fulfillment of. And we've talked about it quite a bit. The, the. The metaphors of like, fornication. We la. I read about the great harlot and what the harlot represented. We are all, all in God's eyes. We're all harlots, we're all whores, we're all prostitutes when we're cheating on him. When, when anything in our heart takes the. Takes precedence over Jesus, we're committing spiritual adultery. We are. So in this betrothal process, what's supposed to happen? Like Mary, right? Remember Joseph, you want to up and leave her. He's like, this chick got pregnant. The angel had to come speak to him like, no, that. That was the Holy Spirit that did that. She's still pure. She's still a virgin. Now in. Let me find it. Here it is. In Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 2, Paul says, For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. So Paul's saying is, hey, you're a believer. You're, you're betrothed to Jesus now. And now when I present you to your bride, to your bridegroom, when he comes for you for this great marriage, I'm going to present you as a chaste virgin, right? What does that mean? A pure virgin. Meaning you haven't been committing fornication with anyone else. Meaning you haven't been committing that spiritual adultery, meaning that there's no idolatry in your life, that you are that chase virgin and you've just been waiting, walking a, a seamless, righteous life, waiting upon the bridegroom to return. And it's the, what we take from this, the practical application is this is literally where we are in our relationship with Jesus. We're in this betrothal phase and the bridegroom is returning and there's an urgency. And, and ultimately we're, we're waiting. And as we're waiting, you know, if it's not till Jesus comes back, then by all means, but if we take our last breath today, for us, that, that's when we're going to be in the presence of the Lord, right? Each of us will, will experience that, that oneness with the Lord. And ultimately the day of the Rapture will be the biggest, the, the big wedding in the sky. But I need to return. I need to remain blameless. I need to remain pure. I need to remain righteous. And what it says is in verse eight, and to hurt, it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright. For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. So when I, I'm pretty sure all of you got married on here. It may not have been a big wedding, may not have been a fancy wedding, but you had something decent on. You had some, some dress, probably a white one to indicate purity, right? And what it says is that when Christ returns, he wants to return to his bridegroom. That's pure right? And this again, it's hard to read any, any passage in Scripture without being convicting if, if that, that marriage celebration was today, that that marriage supper would. It's like, man, am I, am I worthy to be wearing these white clothes? Now again, every time we confess our sins and, and God forgives us, he cleanses us, right? What we are without a blemish. But is there any unconfessed sin in our lives right now? Is there anything we need to repent of right now? Because I want to be deemed worthy to be wearing these white garments and the White garments, it says, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And in the actual Greek, the word is righteousnesses. Right? You're gonna be. We're garbed in our righteousnesses, so what's our righteousnesses? How can you, how can we walk in righteousness? Like, if I made a list of all of my righteousnesses tonight, of all my acts of righteousness, you know, what would I say? My acts of righteousness, what are they? What am I doing to be ready for when Jesus comes? And then finally I'll open it up. I'm gonna, I'm gonna call on you, Jonathan, to make sure you, we, we could be blessed by your input before you hop off at 7:59 and a half. Okay? It says that now, now John sees all this, he falls down at the feet of the angel. And I don't think he was like trying to betray Jesus and just worship the angel. I think he was just so overwhelmed and he was overtaken by what he was seeing, that it was just an act of worship. And this angel says, hey, look up, buddy. You're not to worship me. I'm a creative being like you. I worship Jesus just like you do. And there's plenty of verses in scripture. I have them in notes where, where Jesus was worshiped. And he. He never batted an eye, right? Only God is worthy of worship. And when Jesus was worshiped in the Gospels, he never blinked an eye, never said, hey, don't do that. I'm not worthy of it because he was God. And I'm going to read to you verse 10, but I'm going to read it to you in the nlt, because it kind of hits a little different in the nlt. So the angel says, no, don't worship me. I am a servant of God, just like you and your brothers and sisters who testify about their faith of Jesus. Worship only God. For the essence of prophecy is to give a clear witness for Jesus. The essence of prophecy. All prophecy, all prophetic words that, that go forth. It's all about Jesus, right? If it ain't backed up in scripture, then it's not a real prophetic word. It's got to be backed up in prophecy. But prophecy isn't just about, you know, your, your friend who walks with a prophetic gifting to tell you, hey, you're going to get that job, right? That's not what it's about. I mean, it could be, it could be a prophetic word that goes for it, that says, hey, you should walk through that Door right there. But it's all about giving a. A clear witness for Jesus. Elizabeth, we love you. Thank you for blessing us this morning. If you have a second and you want to share anything, I'll give you the floor for as long as you want it. They all are good.
I just hope you guys all have a blessed week. Okay.
Stay positive.
Amen. You as well. You as well. So, Jonathan and anybody else who wants to chime in if anybody wants to put on their cameras. Feel like I haven't seen Zack Gross's real face in quite a while on Zoom. I know he's been busy with seminars and appointments, and I've seen Lawrence. I've seen Lawrence and glimpses like you just saw.
Hey.
I'm babysitting, so.
Okay. Hey, what's up? How you doing?
Good.
Good to see you guys. I'm gonna start accusing Zach of just logging on and then just putting his phone somewhere else, just making sure he's there.
Hey, I'm here.
I'm here.
All right.
Oh, he's there today. Oh, he's at his friend's house. Look at him. He.
What's up? What's up, man?
During prayer, or was it prayer at the beginning of Bible study? He had his phone out in the living room, and he was in the bathroom. So you called it Christian.
I'm not taking you guys in the bathroom with me.
That's weird.
Okay.
I'm sorry if you're muted. It's all good. Some muted. There's some people who are on these calls with us where they don't even mute. And it's not a Zoom call. It's just a regular call. They don't mute. I'm like, okay, I know.
It's the holy of holies.
The holy of holies. That's right. That's right. The great throne room. Yeah, it is. It is. Jonathan, you got anything on this?
No, this is good. I appreciate this, Christian. Yeah, like, just. Just super good. I was. It reminded me. I forgot which week we were on, but just how the. Talking about the. The singing praise and how much God. Like, how much we, you know, should adore God and how much he is worthy of praise and reminded me of Psalms 48 again. And Psalms 48, for some reason, just, like, been blowing my mind recently, because it just talks about, I mean, fire and snowflakes and clouds, like, praising the name of God. Like, every meticulous thing praising the name of God. And, you know, there's going to be a time where, like, that's all. That's left and Babylon will just be nothing but a remembrance of smoke forever. And all of. All of creation is going to be able to praise God. And so that's. That's. That's a. That's kind of what came to mind as we were talking today. But appreciate you guys. Love you guys.
Amen. Love you too, Brother Sean.
I don't get a chance to see you later, John. Have a good day, brother. I was in Esther this morning reading in chapter three, and the accusation that Haman brought before Xerxes was in verse 8. He said, their customs are different from those of all other people. He's talking about the Jews. And I started sitting in that a little bit, and I was like, he meant that as an insult. He meant that as a way to show how dangerous the lovers of the Lord are. I started thinking, I was like, man, their customs are different from those of other people. I like that. I want people to say that about me. Yeah, you were in prayer this morning talking about Travis's little boy, Colton, and just praying that he stand out. Like, how good is it for us and for our children to stand out for it to be said about us that our customs are different from those of other people.
People.
And that's. That's sanctification. That's us being. Preparing ourselves during this betrothal period. Like our Lord, our. Our bride's groom is. Is away right now preparing a place for us. Let's do our part and be ready for him to. To usher us back to that.
Amen. I love it. Yeah, those little nuggets like that. And I love. You're an Esther, and it doesn't matter what book of the Bible you're in, you're going to find a nugget like that, that. That speaks to you.
Yeah.
And heck, yeah, I want to stand out. John tells us, do not love the world. Right. If you love the world, it means you don't love me. And we're reading how everything in the world is going to be consumed with fire. It's going to be gone. It's going to be judged. It's going to go away forever. Why in the world would any of us want to conform to the world when all of it's going to be judged? Why would any of us want to appease the world? Why. Why do we want our. Why do we want to be vindicated by the approvals of the world? Why do we seek the approval of man? Right. Why do we fear man? Jesus says, hey, you could fear man, he could kill you right but if, fear me, I'm the one who could take your life and determine where you're going to be for all of eternity, that that's the one to fear, right? Obviously I'm paraphrasing the words of Jesus, but sometimes when I read Scripture, that's the way I kind of interpret it in my head of how Jesus is speaking to us. I want to leave us with this. Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 25 through 27, says, Husbands, love your wives. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, right? And so this is powerful. I mean, this goes two ways. It's powerful to see that we're called as husbands to be like Christ in the way that we love our wives, right? But also I love how it's so practical for us because we're all familiar, whether we. We grew up in households with good marriages, bad marriages, whether we're married ourselves. We understand this imagery of marriage and what it represents. But it says that he. That God might sanctify and cleanse her, right? So God, we're to sanctify and cleanse our wives, right? We're our wives coverings. But God is going to sanctify and cleanse us as his bride with the washing of water by the Word that He might present to himself self, a glorious church. I don't have to do all the cleaning up, right? I can know he's coming. I don't have to scrub. I don't have to go find my best outfit. He's the one that allows us to become this glorious church. And when he sees us with no spot, no wrinkle, any such thing, that we could be holy without blemish. So the urgency is to. To walk in and perform these righteous acts, to just have lists upon lists if we wanted to. Not so we could boast in them, or not so we could just come up with our own tally and our own scorecard. But all these righteousnesses that we have, we. We all should have long lists of our righteousnesses. Maybe our righteousness, our righteous act, is simply abstaining from something. There's a temptation, there's a draw, there's a pull to sin. Our flesh is gnawing at us in one, in one way or another. But we abstain. We resist the devil, he flees. We know that we have the. The Holy Spirit that gives us a way out from all these temptations. Sean, will put. What else did you have?
So I've been listening to a pastor down in Jacksonville who was talking about the ten Commandments as, not, not as if it was some sort of a midterm that the Israelites had to pass this exam. You know, like all 10 of them. I can, I've broken every one of them. They didn't have to clean themselves up before they were given freedom. Like the law was given to them as gift. Like, this is the perfect standard and you're not going to hit it. So it's okay. I'm giving it to you to show you how wonderful I am and what I'm raising you to. And that's, I mean, acknowledging how much of a black hearted, wretched sinner that I am while also seeing how much God loves me is the gospel. And it's beautiful. I don't want to see it for anything less than what it is.
Yeah.
And how glorious it is it. Now I, I commend those who are walking before Christ because we have a different perspective of Jesus. Right. Like before the cross and after the cross. So you're telling me now with this new covenant, I could hit the nail on the head, not just on the Ten Commandments, but all 700 plus Levitical laws by simply loving God and loving people. That's it. That's ultimately how I fulfill and I achieve all this. I check off all these boxes by loving God and loving people. Yeah, sign me up for that. And guess what? It, it's important. It's not just, yeah, I love God. Okay, you, you love your spouse, you love your dog. Some people who say they love Jesus and they love their dogs, not the same type of love, but they, they make sure that, hey, every time that dog needs to eat, I'm there for him. Every time he has to go out, I'm there for Him. I love spending time with them. It's like, are you even spending that much time with the Lord? Right. The love for, for God, it's not just about us receiving his love. It's about bestowing our love back on him and others. And all we are is a vessel. Like when we receive the love of God, the love, grace, peace, mercy, all that we get, first of all, it's a boomerang, goes in through us and back to Him. All the love we get yet, it's like, yeah, it's going right back to you, Lord, but also a conduit, it all goes back to him, but it all goes out. Right. It's almost like it doubles in portion. And so we could give the same amount of love back to God and the same amount of love to others. So, Lauren, I'm Glad you're convicted. Spend more time with your dog than the Lord. Lord, I find that hard to believe. Your dog may be physically present in front of you, but I find it hard to believe that, you know, you may be physically, physically present, but I'm sure you're. You're mentally absent from the presence of the dog and you're with the Lord. So if you're convicted, though, God bless you, and I'm glad you're convicted. But it's something to think about, you know, in the future when we walk through scripture, it's not just about, like, what I'm in right now. It's making sure we're armed and we're prepared where, hey, next week from now, next year from now. These things are on my mind, right? So I don't fall into the snares of the enemy. One of the biggest tactics of the enemy and something he's very successful at is just simply diverting our attention. Attention period. That's it. Diverting our attention. And I was thinking when I was up there in Walker, Minnesota, went where? You know, there ain't a lot going on up there in Walker, Minnesota, and Riley and I were talking because I really enjoy the show, the. The Deadliest Catch. You guys watch that show? Okay, so the Deadliest Catch is one of my favorite shows. It's 21 seasons in. I can't get enough of it. It's the same stuff season in, season out, right? However, they were in this town. They were this little island that had a population of like, 27 people. I was like, 27 people. It looked like a ghost town. I guess it would be 27 people. And part of me was like, oh, man. Man, how much simpler would it be to just simply be in a place like that where there's no. No distractions, nothing to gain the affection of our heart. But at the same time, it's like, I'm pretty sure that you would still find a way to get distracted from the Lord, right? It's just the enemy would find a way to. To divert our attention. That's all it takes is just this diversion of our attention, get our eyes off of Jesus, and he's got us right where he wants us. Alan, did you have anything, brother?
Yeah, Good morning, brother. Yeah, I was out getting the kids off to school, but one day.
Yeah, hop on.
And. Yeah, and.
And show my mug a little bit. But more importantly. Yeah, no, I was. I was reading yesterday, and, uh, you know, God kind of spoke to me. The fact that as far as, like, abiding in the Lord goes like, you know, there's the. These transitions that we have throughout the day where, you know, as busy, whether it be parents, as business entrepreneurs, whatever we're doing, it's like we have these little mini transitions where we're going from one task to the next. And, you know, he kind of spoke it into, like, a journal. I was doing it just about, hey, you know, in those transitions, refocus your attention on me throughout the day. Not just in the morning or just at night, but just. Even if it's just for 15, 30 seconds a minute. You know, all the little things where working out to, then eating to, then going to those calls that, you know, it's like, there's a little transitional periods. I feel like God was speaking to me about that. Just like, hey, you know, turn your attention back to me throughout those periods so you don't get distracted. You know, we're talking about, you know, the enemy can get us so wound up and busy doing all the things that it's like, oh, man, you know, you for you. You look back, you look up, and there's hours that went by that you didn't. You didn't think about God, and you didn't. You know, you didn't focus your attention on his power, his love, his grace. So just that. That idea of just being filled, you know, throughout the day and using those little. Just being aware, I think, of those little transitional periods that we're going from different things, because if not, we can just get so busy, like you said, of, like, we don't even think about it. It's like we're just on, you know, on all the time. And. Yeah, so that was kind of one of the things that he. He was leading me to. To focus on.
Yeah, good word, man. That's great. Amen. Great job, too.
Ah, dude, back at you, brother. Look forward to being in person soon.
Yeah. Yeah.
Love you, dude, too.
Gita, you want to close this out?
Yeah. Thank you. I just want to say, you know, God's really been calling me to repentance for a lot of stuff. Like. And it's. It's really cool how you talked about that. And one of the big breakthroughs I had, even at church last night was just that it's not my righteousness, you know, like, there's nothing I can't offer. And it's like, if we're gonna. If we commit a sin and we come back to God, say, okay, Lord, you know, I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Or, you Know what? I'm gonna try not to do it again. That too, is self righteousness, and that's a sin. We can't do it in our own strength. And that's one of the things that I'm finally learning in my Christian walk, that it's his righteousness. And I'm reading the book of Romans, you know, and we know that everything I'm saying, like, you know, we've heard it. Hey, it's his righteousness. But when you actually know it and understand it, it's a different thing, right? And when you live it. So it's really, I am the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus. And it's so powerful when you repent, how God will show you that it's literally that we have no righteousness to offer. But then he does it through us, and we are forgiven. Our sins are forgiven as far as east is from the west. And we have to receive that righteousness. We have to accept his forgiveness and walk it out. So. So it's really neat. Like what, what the Lord's leading me through. Thank you for being.
Yes, amen. Amen. We can overachieve. We can outperform everybody around us. And our righteousness is compared to freaking bloody menstrual pads in scripture, all right? Our righteousness is. Is filthy rags, as righteous as we could be ourselves. That's. That's our righteousness. So it's like, okay, cheat code. I could just surrender to the Lord, repent, turn to him, keep my eyes on him, and I could be that. This, this perfect bride for him, right? And this perfect bride dressed in all white linen. Perfect, Right, Everybody, when you. You say your ideas, you're looking at your. Your wife across the little aisle there. You know, this is the most beautiful picture ever. That's how God sees us. By simply, hey, when you screw up, and I commend you, Gita, for saying that God's been convicting you, there's a lot of things you have to repent of. A lot of people wouldn't even say that because we all want to walk around thinking our crap don't stink. And, you know, I, you know, I, I've been walking with the Lord this long, and I, I've dealt with that in the past. I, you know, I'm sure a Christian, it's like we all, every single day, as holy as we are, as long as we've been walking to Lord, there's things we. We mess up, we screw up.
Up.
I, I dare anybody to, to stand before the Lord and say Yep. On November 30, 2004. I was perfect that day. I was perfect. I was wretched. I did. I did all on my own strength. No, no. None of us. None of us. So with that said, we're quarter past the hour. I love you guys. Next week, we're going to start with Revelation 19:11. I saw heaven open and behold a white horse. I love it. Jesus is coming back and he's coming back soon, guys. He's coming back soon. Love you guys. God bless you, Sean. Send pictures.
Oh, yeah. Get ready for a lot of pictures. Love you.
Yeah, yeah. Clear up some memory on your phone.
I need to do that now.
Yeah.
Take care.
Take care.
Have a great week, guys.
Bye.
