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A CHRISTIAN LOVE STORY
The Glorious Future of the Believer!
(Understanding the Rapture,
through the Jewish Wedding!)
By Zola Levitt
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Our Lord was Jewish and He did things like a
Jew. So often, if we consult the Jewish
law and custom, we find many of the motivations for particular actions of our
Lord.
In this book, we will consider the Jewish
custom of matrimony. Obviously, wedding
customs varied from nation to nation and from time to time. Even in today’s world we see different
additions of marriage taking place at the same time in different
countries. The Jews had their own
peculiar ways, based on the Old Covenant, and the Lord, as we shall see,
followed those traditions in choosing a bride.
We
should appreciate that the Jews had no dating or courtship as we now think of
those things. Marriage to them was a
practical legal matter, established by contract and carried through by exacting
procedure. These customs exist in a
form today in the Jewish wedding ceremony, and in Jesus’ time they were most
fascinating and complex.
When
the young man of Israel in Jesus’ time saw the girl he wanted (or the girl his
father said he wanted), he would approach her with a marriage contract. He would come to her house with a covenant –
a true legal agreement – giving the terms by which he would propose
marriage. The most important consideration
in the contract was the price the bridegroom would be willing to pay to marry
this particular bride.
Then
the groom would pay the price. It
should be said that this price was no modest token but was set so that the new
bride would be a costly item – that was the idea. The young man had no delusions that he was getting something for
nothing. He would pay dearly to marry
the girl of his choice.
When
that matter was settled the groom would depart. He would make a little speech to his bride, saying, “I go to
prepare a place for you,” and he would return to his father’s house. Back at his father’s house, he would build
her a bridal chamber, a little mansion, in which they would have their future
honeymoon.
We
should appreciate that this was a complex undertaking for the bridegroom. He would actually build a separate building
on his father’s house. The bridal chamber had to
be beautiful –one doesn’t honeymoon just anywhere; and it had to be stocked
with provisions since the bride and groom were going to remain inside for seven days (7 years for the
bride of Jesus!). This construction project would take the
better part of a year, ordinarily, and the father of the groom would be the
judge of when it was finished. (We can
see the logic there – obviously, if it were up to the young man, he would throw
up some kind of modest structure and go get the girl!). But the father of the groom who had been
through this previously and was less excited, would be the final judge on when
the chamber was ready and when the young man would go to claim his bride.
The
bride, for her part, was obliged to do a lot of waiting. She would take the time to gather her
trousseau and be ready when her bridegroom came. Custom provided that she had to have an oil lamp ready in case he
came late at night in the darkness, because she had to be ready to travel at a
moment’s notice. During this long
period of waiting, she was referred to as “consecrated”, “set apart”, “bought
with a price”. She was truly a
lady-in-waiting, but there was no doubt that her groom would return. Sometimes a young man would depart for a
very long time indeed, but of course he had paid a high price for his bride;
even though there were other young women available, he would surely return to
the one with whom he had made a covenant.
The
bride would wear her veil whenever she stepped out of her house so that other
young men would realize she was spoken for and would not try to approach her
with another contract. (Today, the
Bride of Christ wears a veil – those not understanding of our covenant try to
make other contracts with us that would violate the one we have with our
Bridegroom. We are to resist those
other offers and wait only for the One Who paid for us.)
As
the year went on, the bride would assemble her sisters and bridesmaids and
whoever would go with her to the wedding when the bridegroom came, and they
would each have their oil lamps ready.
They would wait at her house every night on the chance that the groom
would come, along with his groomsmen, and sweep them all away to a joyous and
sudden wedding ceremony.
Meanwhile, the
bridegroom would be building and decorating with all that he had. His father would inspect the chamber from
time to time to see if it were ready.
If we came along the road at this point and saw the young man working on
his bridal chamber, we might well ask, “When’s the big day?” But the bridegroom would answer, “Only my
father knows that”.
Finally,
the chamber would be ready and the bridegroom would assemble his young friends
to accompany him on the exciting trip to claim his bride. The big moment had arrived and the
bridegroom was more than ready, we can be sure. He and his young men would set out in the night, making every
attempt to completely surprise the bride.
And
that’s the romantic part – all the Jewish brides were “stolen”. The Jews had a special understanding of a
woman’s heart. What a thrill for her,
to be “abducted” and carried off into the night, not by a stranger but by one
who loved her so much that he had paid a high price for her.
Over
at the bride’s house, things had better be ready! To be sure, the bride would be surprised since the groom would
try to come at midnight while she was sleeping. But the oil lamps were ready and the bride had her veil. And while she might be sleeping in her
wedding dress, she was definitely surprised.
It’s a wonder she would sleep at all as the year went on!
Now
there were rules to be observed in consideration of a woman’s feelings. The groom couldn’t just rush in on her. After all, her hair might be in
rollers! Actually, as the excited party
of young men would get close to her house, they were obliged to give her a
warning. Someone in the wedding party
would shout. In a Jewish wedding, the groom always
picks up his bride on a late Tuesday evening! SEE the Video: The
Jewish Bride Awaits her Groom
When
the bride heard that shout, she knew her young man would be there
momentarily. She had only time to light
her lamp, grab her honeymoon clothing and go.
Her sisters and bridesmaids who wanted to attend also had to have their
lamps trimmed and ready, of course. No
one would try to walk through ancient Israel, with its rocky terrain, in the
dark of night without carrying a lamp.
And
so the groom and his men would charge in, grab the girls and make off with
them! The father of the bride and her
brothers would look the other way – perhaps just making one quick check to see
that this was the young man with the contract – and the wedding party would be
off. People in the village might be
awakened from their sleep by the happy voices of the young people carrying the
oil lamps through the streets, and that’s how they knew a wedding was going
on. Today, we hear car horns – back
then, they saw the lamps late at night.
Those looking on would not know who the bride was because she was still
wearing a veil, of course. But she
would be returning through these same streets a week later with her groom and
then her veil would be off. At the
return of the bride with her bridegroom, all the people would know just who got
married and they would realize the total significance of this wedding.
When
the wedding party reached the house of the groom’s father, the bride and groom
would go into their chamber and shut the door.
No one else would enter. The
groom’s father, meanwhile, would have assembled the wedding guests – his
friends – and they would be ready to celebrate the new marriage. Since
the wedding was actually going to take seven days (until the appearance of the bridge
and groom out of the chamber), it was hard to plan for. Occasionally, the
host would run out of wine, as we can well imagine. The Lord Himself graced a wedding at Cana with His presence and
replenished the wine for the celebrants as told in John 2.
But
the celebrating wouldn’t start right away.
First, the marriage had to actually be consummated. The Jews were a most law-abiding people and
the law provided that the bride and groom become one before their marriage was
recognized. Thus, the friend of the
bridegroom – the individual we might refer to as “the best man” – would stand
near the door of the bridal chamber, waiting to hear the bridegroom’s voice. When the marriage was consummated, the bridegroom
would tell his friend through the door and the friend would then go to the
wedding guests and announce the good news.
The celebration would then begin and it would continue for an entire
week!
At
the end of the week, the bride and groom would make their long awaited
appearance to the cheers of the crowd.
There would then be a joyous meal – a marriage supper, which we might
refer to as the wedding reception – to honor the new couple. At this point, the bride would have
discarded her veil, since she was now a married woman, and all would see
exactly who it was the bridegroom had chosen.
The new couple and the guests would enjoy a magnificent feast to
conclude the entire matrimonial week.
After
the marriage supper, the bride and groom would depart, not remaining any longer
at the home of the groom’s father. They
would go instead to their own house, which had been prepared by the
bridegroom. (The Bride of Christ will spend
seven years in heaven at the home of the groom’s Father, and then we shall
return with our Bridegroom to occupy the Kingdom He has prepared for us.)
As
the bride and groom would travel back through the village, it would be
appreciated by all onlookers just who the couple was and where their permanent
home would be.
And
that was a complete Jewish wedding in Jesus’ time, in all its glory. Readers of the Gospel can easily see the
beautiful analogies between this complex procedure and the manner in which the
Lord Himself called out His chosen Bride.
We will review below each of the elements of the Jewish wedding, along
with the Scriptures that explain them.
Perhaps
there is no happier Bible study than this one!
THE COVENANT
The
Church is called “the bride of Christ” in the New Testament for good
reason. It is we who have a covenant
relationship with the One Who forgives sins.
It is we who drink the cup with Him, and we for whom the price was
paid. We are the ones to whom He said,
“I go to prepare a place for you,” and we are the ones who now await His sudden
return.
Our
covenant, in all its fullness, was expressed by the prophet Jeremiah:
Behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of
Israel, and with the house of Judah:
Not according
to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake,
although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord:
But this shall
be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their
hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
And they shall
teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest
of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember
their sin no more (Jer. 31:31-34).
Paul
repeated the same covenant in Hebrews 8:8-12, for the benefit of the bride.
We
can see very plainly that these verses constitute a contract. Terms are given and the parties
identified. The Lord made His covenant
with “the house of Israel and with the house of Judah”, but it is continued to
all of those who are the spiritual seed of Abraham and follow the Jewish
Messiah. The New Covenant is written in
our hearts, in a very real sense. It is
not like the Old Covenant given to Moses, as explained in verse 32 above. That covenant was etched in stone and
totally inflexible and unbreakable – the punishment for breaking it was
death. The New Covenant comes out of a
love relationship – we obey the Lord today because we love Him, not because we
fear Him – and thus the New Covenant is a matter of the heart.
God
purposely contrasts the New Covenant with the Old in order to make the point
that He would forgive our iniquities and forget our sins under the new
arrangement.
This
is the most striking term of the New Covenant – that our sins are forgiven and
forgotten. That certainly wasn’t true
under the Mosaic law. The people might
in effect “file sacrifices” against their sins so that when the Messiah came He
would retroactively take that into consideration and forgive them (Romans
3:25). God went along with an
unregenerate people, knowing that forgiveness would be provided when the
Messiah paid the price as the final sacrifice.
But we are not in the same position.
The price has already been paid for our sins, so that every last one of
them is totally forgiven.
Some
believers don’t like this concept, and indeed much of the Church spends much of
its energy acting as if the Covenant read, “I will forgive you only if you’re
good.” There is a great deal of
pretense among the believers that each of us is sinless, or very nearly sinless. But the fact of the matter is, God knows
well the hearts of men and has provided a different system for us than He did
in the Old Covenant. We are not
responsible to be sinless; we are responsible only to believe in the Messiah,
Who was sinless in our place and paid for our sins.
We
might look at the New Covenant as a “gift certificate” for salvation. When one gives you a gift certificate, you
need only to take it to the store and present it; there will be no charge for
the merchandise. It’s not that the
merchandise is free, but that someone has been there ahead of you and paid for
it. When you get the merchandise home,
you may misuse it, if you wish. You may
take gifts provided for you by the one who bought your certificate and damage
them, or fail to appreciate them. That
would be a shame, of course, but it certainly wouldn’t cause the buyer of your
gift certificate to come to you demanding the return of the merchandise. In the case of the New Covenant, God, the
store owner, has agreed to provide you the merchandise of salvation in return
for the gift certificate purchased for you by His Son. It’s as simple as that!
Well,
then, you may ask, can I sin as much as I like and still be saved? Paul covered that case when he said, “Shall
I sin more that grace may abound?” He
made clear that we are not to take our salvation as a license – that would be
as bad as damaging the free gift we have received – but, in point of fact, our
salvation has been paid for in advance.
We can only thank God for this arrangement under which we common sinners
can achieve the glory reached by Christ Himself. We would certainly never make it on our own merits.
Verse
34 above will be fulfilled in the Kingdom of the Lord, when everyone will
certainly know the King. He will reside
in Jerusalem in the Tabernacle for 1,000 years and it will no longer be
necessary for people to teach “every man his neighbor and every man his
brother, saying ‘Know the Lord’ ”. When
this particular wedding is completed, it will be a happy marriage indeed!
The
New Covenant is like a contract also in the respect that it is signed and
dated. In the verse following those
quoted above, God presents His signature to this contract:
Thus saith the
Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon
and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves
thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is His name (Jer. 31:35).
There’s
no doubting whose signature that is!
Now
we find a date, as we do on all contracts:
If those
ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also
shall cease from being a nation before me forever (v. 36).
God
says plainly that His covenant will go out of date when Israel ceases to be a
nation. Clearly, our covenant is still
in force because Israel is a nation today and has really never ceased to be a
nation. If all the Jews would perish –
if those who wanted to exterminate the Jewish people ever had their wish – then
it is apparent that the New Covenant would go out of date and forgiveness would
not be available to anyone. The very
presence of the Jews among us is the sign of the New Covenant; it is still in
force and every sin of every person who believes is still forgiven.
The
Jews are, in this one way, a most special people. As God promised His friend Abraham:
And I make of
thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou
shalt be a blessing:
And I will
bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall
all families of the earth be blessed (Gen. 12: 2-3).
But
in case anyone would doubt that Israel will survive, the Lord adds a footnote
in the next verse:
Thus saith the
Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth
searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that
they have done, saith the Lord (Jer. 31:37).
Obviously,
Israel is as secure as the secrets of how the universe is put together. If anyone could tell God how He has set up
in heaven and earth, He would then cast off the seed of Israel, He says. It’s virtually the same argument God used
with Job when that worthy one came before Him with questions. God inquired, “Where was thou when I laid
the cornerstone of the earth?” as if to say, “Seeing that you ask such
intelligent questions, I am sure that you understand as much as God does.” That settled who Job was and who God was,
and the verse quoted above should settle once and for all any question about
the survival of Israel and the Jewish people.
And
thus we have our marriage contract and it is an advantageous contract for the
bride indeed. Note the language used in
Jeremiah 31:32: “Which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto
them, saith the Lord.” God could very
well have been angry enough with Israel that He would have chosen a different
bride for His Son. He says, in effect,
“I tried to marry them before, but they broke the marriage contract.” Nevertheless, in His forgiveness, God makes
this covenant again with Israel, sending His Son to that nation and the Holy
Spirit to that people. And Israel, in
turn, sent the Messiah to the world through Jewish missionaries who built the
churches of Asia. And the contract God
has made is a real stunner – He has agreed that should the Bride sin this time,
He will forget about it!
It
is as if the bridegroom came forward and said to his bride, “I’ll pay the price
for you and drink the cup with you, and go to prepare the place for you and if
you happen to stumble in the year that I am away, I’ll just forget it. If I hear, while I am building the bridal
chamber, that you were not waiting for me at home but had even gone out with
another man, I will just forget about it.
If you try to break my covenant, I will not allow it to be broken. I will pay for all your sins myself!”
Here,
we have a bridal contract unbreakable by the bride. How could God possibly make such a contract?
Well,
we might say this: The price was very
high.
THE CUP
And
so, Jesus came to His own, the people of Israel, prepared to pay that high
price. He came with the New Covenant,
to sign it with His blood. The
expression, “signed in blood”, is thoroughly biblical. When God made covenants in the past with
Abraham, Moses and so forth, He had animals sacrificed and the blood sprinkled
to ratify the covenant. Jeremiah had
only prophesied the advent of the New Covenant; Christ came to sign it and
present it.
We
see Him drinking the cup with His Bride in Matthew 26:27. It was the Passover table that the Lord did
this so appropriately. He was to die
that day (the next morning actually, but the Jewish day begins at
sundown). He took this last opportunity
to drink the cup with His Bride and seal the New Covenant:
And He took the
cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this
is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of
sins (Matt. 26: 27-28)
Looking
at verse 27, we might ask, “What did the Lord say when He gave thanks?” Any Jew can tell you – there is just one
Jewish blessing over the wine and it has been said for all time.
Blessed art
Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.
The
fruit of the vine, ultimately, is the Church.
Jesus said that He was the true vine, and the disciples were the
branches. Finally, we become the fruit
in this figure, and this brings out the toast aspect of this cup. Jesus praised the Creator for bringing forth
this Bride and He toasted the Bride for becoming the true fruit. Then He told all the believers to drink this
cup so that they would answer His proposal affirmatively and become His
promised Bride.
In
verse 28, He announced that the cup was His blood of the New Covenant
(“testament” and “covenant” are the same word), and that it is shed for the
remission of sins. Obviously, this
fulfilled Jeremiah’s announcement of the New Covenant – the covenant which
would forgive sins. It’s interesting to
consider that the New Testament itself is our copy of the contract. Should anyone accuse you of sin, you need
only show him your copy of the contract to prove that your sins are
forgiven. Should the devil himself
accuse you, and Satan is the “accuser of the saints”, quoting the terms of the
New Testament will settle the matter.
You are “bought with a price”.
Your next responsibility after receiving the Bridegroom is to go about,
in proper modesty with your veil, honoring the covenant you have made, in the
manner of a virgin bride awaiting her promised bridegroom. You are not to make further sacrifices to
impress God. Jesus made it very clear
that this one sacrifice – this one cup – would be sufficient to forgive
everyone’s sins, all the way up to the Kingdom of God:
But I say unto
you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when
I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom (v.29)
We are responsible to God for good
works. We are more than a bride; we are
also workers in a field. But insofar as
our salvation goes, it has been bought and paid for and we cannot lose it or
enhance it in any way according to this contract.
For by grace
are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast (Eph. 2:8-9).
THE PRICE
How
much did our Bridegroom pay? We all
realize that our Lord went to the cross for us and that this was painful,
humiliating and so insulting to the Son of God. But do we fully appreciate how much it cost Him?
After
all, it could be argued that Jesus was a strong young man, able to walk 75
miles from Galilee to Jerusalem. No one
would want to be crucified, but He suffered only six hours. People with cancer die slow, lingering
deaths; some of us are born with handicaps we must bear a lifetime. Did Jesus really pay that much?
To
find the real value of something, we must ask the purchaser. To people who are very rich, a Cadillac or a
fur coat is a small expenditure. To the
poor, those things are extremely expensive.
Jesus Himself commented on how much He was paying in the following
verses:
And He came
out, and went, as He was wont, to the Mount of Olives; and His disciples also
followed Him.
And when He was
at the place, He said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.
And He was
withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed.
Saying, Father,
if Thou are willing, remove this cup from Me:
nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done (Luke 22:39-42).
This
prayer took place right after the Passover supper, when the Lord retired to the
Mount of Olives near the Temple site.
He told His disciples, “Pray that ye enter not into temptation”, which
any bridegroom might well have said to his bride. “Be sure you wait for me, darling, I’ll be back before you know
it. Don’t get tempted!” many young
bridegrooms must have told their betrothed as they departed.
Then
Jesus held a private conversation with His Father, saying, “If Thou be willing,
remove this cup from Me.” This must
also have happened from time to time in the old Jewish wedding custom. Many a bridegroom probably returned to his
father after learning the price for a particular bride and asked his advice on
whether he should pay it. “Do you
realize how much they want for her?” must have been a question repeated often
in the old tradition. The Jewish
bridegroom was wise enough to know that his father’s judgments in these matters
were trustworthy, and he would consult his father about the amount to be paid.
And
here we see Jesus clearly expressing that if His Father were willing; the cup
should be removed from Him. Of course,
like the respectful Jewish bridegroom of old, He trusts His Father’s judgment
and said, “Nevertheless, not My will but Thine, be done.”
We
get some inkling of how high a price the purchaser was paying in this case from
this passage – but we’re to learn more further on.
In
this case, the Bridegroom’s Father’s will is very clear:
And there
appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him (v.43).
And
now we see the verse that expresses most plainly of all what the purchaser
thought of the price:
And being in an
agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it was great drops of
blood falling down to the ground (v. 44).
Now
when Jesus actually went to the cross, we might think His Father had special
mercy on Him. It normally took three
days for a person to die by crucifixion.
The condemned one would hang there morning and night as people passed
by, dying by inches. He would be naked,
suffering from a flogging and in total agony until his life seeped away. How was it that this Carpenter, in fine
physical condition, was dead in just six hours?
That
question has been asked from time immemorial, but a simple consultation of the
order of the Jewish feasts answers it perfectly. In Leviticus 23: 5-6, we have God’s placement of the first two
feasts of the Jewish year, Passover and Unleavened Bread:
In
the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord’s Passover.
And on the
fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord:
seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
The
symbol of Passover is the sacrifice of the lamb, and Jesus fulfilled it on the
cross. The symbol of Unleavened Bread
is the body of the Lord buried in the earth (“if a kernel of wheat fall into
the ground…”, “This bread is My body”).
Thus, to fulfill the second feast, the Lord had to be buried at the
beginning of Unleavened Bread, or at sundown on the day of Passover. He was placed on the cross at 9:00 in the
morning and taken down at 3:00. Sundown
in April in Israel is about 4:30 or 5:00, and thus the Lord was buried exactly
in time to commemorate the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
And
so the fulfillments progress through the rest of the feasts. First Fruits, which we now call “Easter”,
came on the following Sunday (Lev. 23: 10-12), and indeed the Lord rose as the
first fruits of those to be resurrected (I Cor. 15:22-23). The fourth feast is Pentecost, 50 days later
(Lev. 23:15-16), and the Lord sent the Holy Spirit in a great harvest. Three thousand people were saved that day,
just as 3,000 people were killed on the day the Law came. They had made a golden calf and the Lord was
infuriated:
And the
children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the
people that day about three thousand men (Exodus 32:28).
But
when the Lord sent the Holy Spirit, He returned to Israel exactly 3,000
souls. The Lord is a good bookkeeper,
and indeed, the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (II Cor. 3:6).
Thus
the Lord performed exactly in accordance with the first four feasts of
Israel. He will do the same in the
future, it is clear. We expect the
Rapture of the Church on the fifth feast, the Feast of Trumpets (I Thess. 4:
16-17). We expect the return of the
Lord to the earth for the start of the Kingdom on the Day of Atonement, when
“all Israel will be saved” (Zech. 12:10, 13:1; Romans 11:26). And finally, the Lord will setup His
Tabernacle in Jerusalem appropriately enough on the final feast, the Feast of
Tabernacles. The tabernacles hark back
to the shelters the Lord gave the children of Israel in the wilderness, and
indeed the Lord’s Tabernacle will shelter us on this earth for the duration of
the Kingdom. These final three feasts
are explained in Leviticus 23:24, 27 and 34, respectively.
We
say all of that above to show that the Lord, Who never omitted a Jewish feast,
fulfilled each one even in His crucifixion and burial, as well as in His
resurrection, His sending of the Holy Spirit, His return at the sound of the
trumpet, His second coming on the day when Israel atones, and His establishment
of His Kingdom on Tabernacles. Thus, it
is valid that the Lord had to come off the cross in six hours for the simple
reason that He was a law-abiding Jew and He had a feast to keep.
What
is significant is that Jesus paid the full price. He could have called a legion of angels to avoid the cross, or He
could have been brought down from the cross in even a shorter time than six
hours. His Father might have arranged
for Him to have a more merciful death than a flogging and a public
crucifixion. But the fact is, He
accepted His Father’s will, was crucified and remained on the cross as long as
was lawful for Him to do so.
A
full knowledge of the price paid for us must inspire us to live up to the
expectations of our Bridegroom. Any
time the Jewish bride felt tempted to break her contract, it is certain that a
mere reading through of the terms would remind her that her bridegroom had paid
a great deal and was trusting her to keep her side of the bargain. If we read our contract often and understand
it completely, we can more likely glorify our Bridegroom as we wait for Him.
THE DEPARTURE
We
saw in the Jewish wedding custom that the bridegroom would depart to his
father’s house after he made the covenant, drank the cup and paid the
price. Likewise, our Lord went on to
His Father’s house with an announcement to His disciples virtually in the same
words, as the Israeli bridegroom must have used:
Let
not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me.
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.
And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that
where I am, there ye may be also (John 14: 1-3).
Jesus
is in heaven now, preparing our place, and we are in the waiting period. True, we grow impatient for His return, but
then imagine how impatient that young bride must have been! People who plan to be married don’t like
waiting around, especially if they can’t even see each other! Probably, in the old days, there were a few
violations during the waiting period and people must have thought they had a
violation in the case of Joseph and Mary.
Those two were “espoused” (betrothed), not married, and Mary became with
child. It was not that serious a matter
to the onlookers, since undoubtedly this situation had occurred before, the
Jewish wedding being what it was. But
Joseph, at least at first thought Mary had violated their marriage contract in
a most grave manner, and he sought to “put her away”, or cancel the
contract. Or course, the angel revealed
the true situation and Joseph and Mary went on to be married.
In
our case, we have been waiting a long time.
But we must continue to wait in a manner that would gratify our
Bridegroom. The veil worn by the bride
is simply our good testimony before the world.
Our consecrated, set-apart ways speak to the unbelievers around of our
loyalty to God and our agreement to marry His Son. Paul put it very strongly when he said simply, “You are not your
own”.
We
must all fully realize, as we wait, that the Lord is coming. The bridegroom always returned. We hear many a sermon on the Lord’s return
but we falter in our walk, reasoning that if He didn’t come last year or last
week, He probably won’t come tonight.
But there will be a night when the Lord will come, and He requires that
we be ready and waiting. We can believe
that the Jewish bride waited at home every night and trusted constantly in that
marvelous night when she would at last hear the shout.
THE RETURN
The
return of the Lord for His Bride, the Church, is the most clear in the
Scriptures:
For the Lord
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which
are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to
meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord (I Thess.
4:16-17).
Here
we see the shout and also the sound of a trumpet.
We
have already discussed the trumpet in connection with the dramatic Feast of
Trumpets, which symbolizes the Rapture. But we might look further into that
peculiar biblical symbol to fully appreciate its significance. The Rapture of the Church will be a kind of
repeat performance. God had previously
delivered His Chosen People into their Promised Land when Joshua led the
Israelites against Jericho. The walls
of Jericho have been found: they were 11 feet thick! How were the weak and wandering tribes of Israel, with their old
men, women and children, going to assault this frontier city, so well prepared
for just such an attack? Well, we realize
what weapons they used and we realize a great truth thereby:
And it shall
come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye
hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout,
and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up
every man straight before him (Josh. 6:5).
What
a comparison that verse makes with the Rapture of the Church. Indeed, “the people shall ascend up”! The clincher of the type is the name of the
leader. We don’t often appreciate that
“Jesus” is a transliteration of the real name of our Lord. His name in Hebrew was “Yeshua”, which
translates in English to “Joshua”. In
both cases, then, God used the trumpet to deliver His people to their Promised
Land under the leadership of Joshua.
Other Scripture explaining the fact of the Rapture also mentions the
trumpet:
Behold, I show
you a mystery: We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed.
In a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
For this
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality
(I Cor. 15:51-53).
Indeed, as Paul exalted:
O
death, where is thy sting? O grave,
where is thy victory?
The
sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be
to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (vs. 55-57).
We
shall not die, it should be explained. We all received our eternal life the moment we were saved. We may die physically, but “the dead in
Christ will rise first”. We shall live
on with the Lord in His Kingdom and eternity.
Our Bridegroom has indeed prepared a wonderful place for us. How marvelous that “We shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be changed”.
Now
when the Lord comes for us, we are to have oil lamps ready and waiting. Oil in the Bible is the Holy Spirit, and we
are to have the oil and be ready to travel even in the dark of night. The parable of the ten virgins (Matt. 25:
1-13) is correctly applied to the Kingdom, but has marvelous application to
this wedding story. In that parable,
there were ten virgins “which took their lamps and went forth to meet the
bridegroom”.
And
five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
They
that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:
But
the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps (Matt. 25: 2-4).
The
bridegroom in this parable acted in accordance with the Jewish tradition of
totally surprising the bride and catching her asleep:
While
the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept (v. 5).
But then he comes with a shout:
And at midnight
there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him (v.
6).
We
will see by the ensuing verses that only those virgins with their lamps trimmed
with oil were able to go with the bridegroom.
The others, suddenly realizing that they were not properly prepared,
went out to purchase oil, but they were too late:
And while they
went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to
the marriage: and the door was shut.
Afterward
came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
But He answered
and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not (vs. 10-12).
The oil was
established as a very essential ingredient as far back as the building of the
Tabernacle in the wilderness:
And thou shalt
command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure olive oil beaten for
the light, to cause lamp to burn always (Exodus 27: 20).
We
can learn a great deal from the above Scripture. We are just like the lamp stand in the Tabernacle. We are set aflame once when we believe in the Messiah, but as we walk,
we must constantly take in the oil – the Holy Spirit – in order to keep our
flame burning brightly.
The flame is a beautiful symbol of the Christian faith. With one flame I can light all the candles
in the world and mine will not be diminished.
Understanding
the symbol of the oil and the symbol of the trumpet as well, we are in a
position to see how powerful we really are in this world. Gideon went forward with only 300 men and
attacked a force of Midianites totaling over 100,000! Gideon, like the U.S. Marines, came forward with “a few good
men”, but the Lord had armed these soldiers in a special way. Remarkably, they won that battle with their
peculiar attack:
And the three
companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in
their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and
they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon (Judges 7:20).
Armed
with God’s symbol of deliverance, the trumpet, and the symbol of the Holy
Spirit, the oil in the lamps, Gideon’s army prevailed over the pagans. God had chosen to have Gideon attack with
such a small force so that the glory would certainly go to Him. And likewise, we carry the Holy Spirit in
the same sort of pottery jars used by Gideon’s men:
But we have
this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of
God, and not of us (II Cor. 4:7).
When we break
the earthen vessels that are our earthly bodies, the light pours out of us and
the oil within convicts the unbeliever.
We are a small army, like Gideon’s but outfitted with God’s special
weaponry, we are invincible in this spiritual battle.
But we must be
absolutely certain that we have the oil –the virgins with the empty lamps could
not go into the bridal chamber with the Lord.
The Lord Himself concluded that parable:
Watch
therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man
cometh (Matt. 25:13).
There are a lot
of empty lamps around. There are huge
churches where the Holy Spirit is never mentioned nor the Word of the Lord
preached. They are lamps with no
oil. They shall hold services as usual
on the Sunday after the Rapture.
The
message is very clear: We must be filled and baptized with the
Holy Spirit – (we must
be true believers in the Lord Jesus) – to go with Him when He comes!
Watch the following videos:
THE BRIDAL
CHAMBER
How is our seven years in heaven with the Lord (while the Tribulation Period takes place on earth) like a
honeymoon?
Actually, what the Lord has prepared for us is called by a rather
fearsome name in the Scriptures:
For we must all
appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the thing
done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad (II
Cor. 5:10).
We
are going to appear before our Lord to review the things each of us did in his
earthly service. This judgment concerns
our works, of course, and not our sins, which were paid for in advance.
Paul
is very clear on what will happen in the judgment seat of Christ. He points out that the only reasonable
foundation one can lay in this life is that of Christ, and then he goes on to
give the particulars of how our works are judged:
For other
foundations can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if any man
build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
Every man’s
work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be
revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is
(Cor. 3: 11-13).
The
Lord will put a torch to our works.
Those that are of the precious metals will not be harmed, but the wood,
hay and stubble will be burned away. We
will be duly rewarded for our good works:
If any man’s
work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward (v. 14).
And
we will suffer losses of our rewards for the works that are burned up:
If any man’s
work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet
so as by fire (v.15).
Note
he last two phases in the above verse.
Even I we have a great many bad works and therefore few rewards, we
still shall be saved. We shall survive
this fire of judgment. God has fire
that does not consume, such as in the lake of fire or in the burning bush seen
by Moses. God’s purpose in this
judgment seat of Christ is not to burn us up, but merely the works unworthy of
the bride of Christ. We ourselves will
be saved.
How is this
like a honeymoon? Well, a honeymoon is
where the bridegroom removes his bride’s veils and knows all of her
secrets. We will be spiritual creatures
when we meet Christ, since “we shall all be changed”, and so our Bridegroom
will examine our spiritual secrets.
Some honeymoons indeed are not as joyful as we might have expected,
married people can tell you, but we’re there with someone we love and when all
is said and done, we become marriage partners through the experience.
Now
that peculiar moment when the bridegroom tells his friend that the wedding is
consummated is also in the Gospel. It
has to do with that great friend of Jesus, John the Baptist. It seems the Pharisees were approaching him
time and again and asking if he were the Messiah. From the passages, we can gather that they wished he were the
Messiah – they could get along better with a Messiah who lived by the Dead Sea
and ate locusts and honey than with the Carpenter of Galilee, who did so many
miracles. If John were the Messiah,
then they could muddle through. It was
that mild – mannered young preacher from rustic Nazareth they could not seem to
abide. In one of their dialogues, John,
seeming to almost lose patience with them, uses this very special moment in the
wedding ceremony to illustrate his point.
He told them:
Ye
yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am
sent before Him.
He
that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which
standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice:
this my joy therefore is fulfilled (John 3: 28-29).
Perhaps
John, an Old Testament saint killed before the cross, and a dear friend of our
Bridegroom’s Father, will serve this function in our wedding in heaven.
THE MARRIAGE
SUPPER
When
the wedding guests get the good news from the chamber, they celebrate. Who will be the wedding guests at our
marriage to the Lord?
Well,
in keeping with the tradition, they will be the friends of the Bridegroom’s
Father – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the prophets, and His many other friends from
the great days of the Old Covenant. How
magnificent it will be to greet all those saints when we come out of the
chamber and sit down to our marriage supper!
Perhaps
Daniel will sit by Jeremiah, and he will say “You know, I read your book!” Daniel indeed read the Book of Jeremiah and
gathered most important information from it (Dan. 9:2; Jer. 29:10). Perhaps it would be a good idea if we would
read the Book of Jeremiah and the other books of our wedding guests before we
go on to the reception!
Only
a little space is given in the Bible to the magnificent culminating event of
the marriage supper of the Lamb:
Let us be glad
and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and
His wife hath made herself ready.
And to her was
granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of
saints (Rev. 19: 7-8).
We
shall be arrayed in “fine linen, clean and white”, which the priests wore in
the Tabernacle of old as a sign of their consecration to God. Indeed, at this time we shall be perfect; we
shall be as perfect as Jesus Christ.
Our sins were forgiven at the cross, our bad works were done away with in
the judgment seat, and we are now presented spotless and without blemish to the
Lamb as a fitting wife. The Scripture
quoted above is so accurate, utilizing the term “wife” instead of “bride” at
this point, since we are then married to the Lord.
We
rejoice in being the Bride of Christ now, but imagine the joy we will have as
the Queen of the Kingdom to come!
After
our marriage supper, we shall depart with the Lord to return to this earth in
the manner that the bride went to the house prepared for her by the
bridegroom. We shall not dwell in His
Father’s house any longer, but will leave heaven to occupy our Kingdom.
When
we return we shall have our spiritual veils off, and the entire world will
fully realize who the Bride of Christ was and why we acted as we did.
THE RETURN
The
return of the Lord to the earth is given in glorious terms in the
Scriptures. John’s writing becomes
breathtaking:
And I saw
heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called
Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war.
His eyes were
as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name
written, that no man knew, but He Himself.
And He was
clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God.
And the armies
which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen,
white and clean.
And out of His
month goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations; and He
shall rule them with a rod of Iron: and He treadeth the winepress of the
fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
And He hath on
His vesture and His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
(Rev. 19: 11-16)
It
is the church that is viewed in verse 14 above. We temporarily come as an army in order to put a stop to the
battle of Armageddon, which will be in progress on earth at the moment we
return.
Once
Armageddon is taken care of, we shall see the judgment of those who lived
during the Tribulation Period, and the rewarding of those who refused to
receive the mark of the Antichrist, but instead were martyred for their faith
in Christ:
And I saw
thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw
the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word
of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had
received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and
reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Rev. 20:4)
The
unbelievers, however, will be bound 1,000 years, until the final judgment:
But the rest of
the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. (Rev. 20:5)
John
exults over the fact that we are blessed to take part in this first
resurrection and to reign with Christ through the Kingdom Age:
Blessed and
holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death
hath no power, but they shall be priest of God and of Christ, and shall reign
with him a thousand years. (Rev. 20:6)
More
details were given by the Lord during His earthly ministry about this judgment,
which serves as an immigration office into the Kingdom. He means to take care of every single soul
who existed during the seven years on earth, when the Tribulation Period was in
progress. The Lord is so perfectly
fair. All of the nations will be
gathered before Him, and He will separate the believers from the unbelievers
“as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats”:
When the Son of
man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He
sit upon the throne of His glory:
And before Him
shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as
a shepherd divideth this sheep from the goats:
And He shall
set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the
King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, Inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. (Matt. 25:
31-34)
In
reply, the believers will express surprise that they had so honored the Lord
during the Tribulation Period, but He will make the matter very clear to them:
And the King
shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matt.
25:40)
If
the people of the nations of the world, even during the Tribulation Period,
demonstrate faith in Christ by caring for his brethren (the 144,000 of Israel
who witness during that hard time), they will be saved.
But
the judgment is equal and devastating upon those who failed to honor the Lord
during the reign of the Antichrist:
Then shall He
answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of
the least of these, ye did it not to Me.
And these shall
go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
(Matt. 25: 45-46)
The
Old Testament saints will be regathered as well at the beginning of the Kingdom
Age, and so the kingdom will get under way with rather a mixed crowd, all
having in common a sincere belief in the Messiah and King. There will be the faithful of the Old
Testament, who waited so long for this grand age, the believers of the Church
Age, who went to heaven in the Rapture, and finally the believers of the
Tribulation Period, who will enter the Kingdom in their natural bodies. Since they did not come to faith before the
Rapture, they were not changed and they remain as they are, still marrying and
giving in marriage, unlike the believers of the Church Age. This latter group, the people in their
natural bodies, will give birth during the Kingdom to ordinary, fleshly
sinners, again “born of Adam.” It is
these few on earth, in the Kingdom, who will occasionally disobey the Lord’s
commands and make it necessary for Him to set penalties for failures of worship
or sanctity (e.g., Zech. 14:16-19).
These
mischief-makers in the Kingdom, having multiplied, will be rallied by Satan in
the very last battle at the end of the thousand years:
And when the
thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison.
And shall go
out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and
Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of
the sea.
And they went
up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and
the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
(Rev. 20: 7-9)
This
last rebellion of Satan is unsuccessful and the Great White Throne of Judgment
is set up for all those who were confined with him, and the unbelievers of all
ages:
And I saw a
great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the
heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
And I saw the
dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another
book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of
those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
And the sea
gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead
which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and
hell were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second death.
And whosoever
was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Rev.
20: 11-15)
This
second death, then, is that which is avoided by the believers in Christ.
THE KINGDOM
Of
course, there are a thousand great years between our return from heaven with
the Lord and that throne of judgment for the unbelievers. And this Kingdom Age, this great millennium,
is the true reward of the church. We
should go back and examine it.
The
Kingdom will be quite a different age than we have now. Things will be socially “upside down”. It will be sophisticated to be a Christian
then, and downright foolish to be an unbeliever. The King Himself shall reign in Jerusalem with us, the Queen.
We
must turn to the Old Testament for knowledge of the Kingdom, since that’s where
Jesus got His teaching. There was no
New Testament, of course, at the time the Lord taught the disciples “the things
pertaining to the Kingdom”, but the great passages of Isaiah and the other
prophets make clear this magnificent age of God’s triumph. The New Testament assumed that everyone
understood the Kingdom, since it had been already explained in the Old, and it
virtually began with the Sermon on the Mount – the explanation of how one gets
into the Kingdom and how the law of the Kingdom will be. The Beatitudes (Matt. 5, etc.) continue to
inspire us as to that idyllic age of God’s total sovereignty over the earth.
Isaiah’s
passages ring with beauty:
But with
righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of
the earth: and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His month, and with the
breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.
And
righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of
His reins.
The wolf also
shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the
calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead
them.
And the cow and
the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion
shall eat straw like the ox.
And the sucking
child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his
hand on the cockatrice’ den.
They shall not
hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the
knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11: 4-9)
Nowhere
in the Bible is the Kingdom ore concisely and more beautifully described than
in Isaiah’s very brief Chapter 12. We
quote it in full:
And in that day
thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me,
thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me.
Behold, God is
my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my
strength and my song; He also is become my salvation.
Therefore with
joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
And in that day
shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings among the
people, make mention that His name is exalted.
Sing unto the
Lord; for He hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth.
Cry out and
shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the
midst of thee.
Isaiah
9: 6-7 will be fully realized (“Unto us a child is born…”).
We
could go on and on in the other prophets with the marvelous descriptions of
life on earth in the presence of the King.
The theme of it will be the constant company of Jesus, the total triumph
of the saints, and absolute justice and mercy throughout all the earth. This, again, is the reward of the true
church.
ETERNITY
After the Kingdom and the White Throne of
Judgment, we are still not finished.
The believers go on in the mysterious period known as eternity, about
which little can be said since the Scriptures are very cryptic. God is going to change heaven, earth and
Jerusalem – there will be no more seas – no more water and therefore no more
life as we now know it. However, we
shall continue to live on with the Lord in eternity under those strange new
circumstances.
The
Biblical writing becomes symbolic, almost incomprehensible, at the very end of
the Scriptures as John describes his Revelation. We can sample the description of eternity as John saw it and
wrote it for us in Revelation 21:
And I saw a new
heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away; and there was no more sea.
And I John saw
the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a
bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a
great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and
He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be
with them, and be their God.
And God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things
are passed away.
And He that sat
upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto me, Write: for these words are true and
faithful.
And He said
unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the end. I
will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
He that
overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my
son. (Rev. 21: 1-7)
One notable feature is that eternity will
not have a Temple:
And I saw no
Temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it.
(Rev. 21:22)
We
might surmise that no Temple is needed because there certainly need be no
further sacrifice, and, in effect, no further worship. Everyone who then exists will be one with
God, or so closely in touch with God that there would be no point to them
having to contact Him through the medium of a Temple. The implication of the Scripture is that God Almighty and the
Lamb may be approached directly in eternity.
Another
interesting feature is that there will be a new kind of light. Light was virtually the first thing God made
in creation, but now there will be no further need of the sun nor the moon
because God and the Lamb provide all the light:
And the city
had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of
God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. (Rev. 21: 23)
The
most striking feature of eternity is that there will be not even the whisper of
evil about it. While there was a
certain amount of rebellion in the Kingdom, as we saw above, eternity will be
utterly free of “anything that
defileth”:
And
they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.
And there shall
be in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh
abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of
life. (Rev. 21: 26-27)
And
remember, this is only the beginning!
John,
after seeing all these things, made the most logical conclusion, and one that
all Christians might make. The thing to
do, he felt, was to pray immediately for the soon coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. John the Apostle, a New
Testament saint, a member of the church, awaited the Rapture fervently – as
fervently as we ought to. The
conclusion of the Bible is more than a fitting conclusion for this
discussion. John’s final prayer must be
our ultimate prayer. In view of all he
had seen in this stunning Revelation of Jesus Christ, John uttered simply:
He which testifieth
these things saith, Surely I come quickly.
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
The
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. (Rev. 22: 20-21)
Absolutely nothing is more
important in life than being born again of the Spirit of God, knowing Him
personally, being saved from eternal death and judgment, and knowing for sure
that you are going to heaven, experiencing God's pardon, purpose, peace, power.
These are all a blessing of grace (unmerited favor) provided by the sacrifice
of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ (Hebrew: Yeshua haMeschiah).
This is the
"gospel," which literally means "good news." It truly is
"the most joyful news ever announced," as the angels proclaimed at
His birth some 2,000 years ago.
Some say that this free gift
of grace offered by God is too good to be true. Well, it is good, and it is
true. Only an infinitely loving and all-powerful God could have conceived of
this! Others say that all this surely cannot be free, and we have to add
something to it. Cults and non-Christian religions always try to add to it, an
offense to God and what His Son did.
Why did God do it?
Because He loves you!
&
God wants YOU to spend eternity with Him in heaven!
Don't miss out!
PLEASE WATCH THE FOLLOWING VIDEOS:
Video: Are YOU Going to Heaven?
To view the film
in another 51 languages: CLICK
HERE!
Romans: Chapter 10 verse 9-10-13
That if thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the
Lord Jesus, and shalt
believe in thine heart that
God hath raised Him from the
dead, thou shall be
Saved. For with the heart man believeth unto
righteousness; and with the
mouth confession
is made unto Salvation. For whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord
shall be Saved…….
“Father, I know that I have broken your
laws and my sins have separated me
from you. I am truly sorry, and
now I want
to turn away from my past sinful life
toward You. Please forgive me,
and help
me avoid sinning again. I
believe that
Your Son, Jesus Christ died for my sins,
was resurrected from the dead, is alive,
and hears my prayer. I invite
Jesus to
become the Lord of my life, to rule and
reign in my heart from this day forward.
Please send your Holy Spirit to help me
obey You, and to do Your will for the rest
of my life. In Jesus’ name I
pray, Amen.”
If you have
received Christ into your heart, I
welcome you to the
Kingdom of God. All the
angels in Heaven
rejoice whenever one soul is
saved. Now, your job as a Christian is to learn
about God, and
obey Him. Read your Bible every
day, and you will
be like a tree planted by a spring,
never
thirsting. You will grow in knowledge
and
wisdom, and your
relationship and closeness with
your God will
become the meaning of your life.
Please, find a
good church, and get baptized in
the name of The
Father, The Son, and The Holy
Spirit
immediately. Learn the teachings of Christ,
and follow Him
everyday. Remember, loving God
and loving people
is a Christian’s role in this dark
and hurting
world. We are commanded to go into
all the world and
preach the gospel to save souls.
Do not delay, save today!
I’ve
accepted Jesus as my Savior;
WHAT’S NEXT?
WATCH THESE VIDEOS:
NEXT:
[Are YOU going to: Heaven or Hell?] [Join The Soul Winners Club & GET PAID TO WIN THE LOST!] [When is
the Rapture?] [Tour of Hell!] [Vision of
the Destruction of USA & Bush Assassination!] [Destruction
of Damascus Imminent!] [Dumitru Duduman Revelations] [More Prophecies Dreams and Visions 1][More Prophecies Dreams and Visions 2][More
Prophecies Dreams and Visions 3][More
Prophecies Dreams and Visions 4] [A CHRISTIAN
LOVE STORY!] [RESOURCES
(Videos, Books, Bibles, MP3, scripts, etc.)!]
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