Sunday, November 9, 2008

Rejoice, be abundantly glad and give glory to Him, because The Wedding Of The Lamb Has Come and his wife has made herself ready. And it was given to her to be Dressed In Fine Linen, Bright ANd Clean (for the fine linen is the righteous actions of the saints). Rev. 19:7, 8.

This text brings us to a much-anticipated point in history. Jesus Christ comes face to face with His people! John portrays the encounter as a wedding. Everybody loves a wedding, and this will be the greatest one of all time. When we understand a few characteristics of ancient biblical weddings, the description in Revelation will mean even more to us.

Ancient Hebrew marriage began with a betrothal, something like our concept of engagement. The prospective groom and his father would come to the house of the bride and her father for an engagement ceremony. In biblical culture the engagement was more than just a promise. People treated it as seriously as a marriage itself, even though the couple did not yet set up a joint household.

Then the groom would return to his father's house and prepare the palce where the couple would reside. It was usually somewhere on the father's property. In a rural setting the couple would receive a piece of land on which the groom and his bride would live and farm. The groom would work with other members of his family to build a suitable house for the new family on that land. But in more urban areas they might construct an extentsion onto the family home.While this went on, the betrothed woman remained at her father's house, preparing herself to be a fit and honorable bride. She would also be shopping and packing things that would go with her to her husband's house.

On the wedding day itself, the groom collected his bride at her father's house and took her to the wedding celebration at his father's house. John 14:1-3 describes the second coming of Jesus in terms of this third stage of the biblical wedding sequence. The first advent of Jesus was like a betrothal. He left His Father's house in heaven, came to earth, and became engaged to His bride, the church. Then He returned to heaven to prepare a place for His bride while she remained on the earth, preparing herself. At the Second Coming Jesus will return to earth for His bride and escort her back to His Father's house.

In the ancient tradition the wedding occurs when the place and the bride are both ready. The bride is dressed in the righteousness of Christ and the righteous acts that she has done. Its brightness and cleanliness distinguishes her dress from that of Lady Babylon.

Lord, I want nothing more than to be pure and clean when You come. Take me and mold me to that end.

If you cling to self, refusing to yield your will to God, you are choosing death. To sin, wherever found, God is a consuming fire. If you choose sin, and refuse to separate from it, the presence of God, which consumes sin, must consume you(TFMB 62).