Marriage Supper of the Lamb

… We have been singing and praying about the Lord's coming back, and I would like to have a few words on the marriage of the Lamb, as we find it in Revelation, so would you please turn with me to Revelation chapter 19. Revelation chapter 19 verse 7. Let us rejoice and exalt and give Him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His wife has made herself ready. And it was given to her that she should be clothed in fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. And He says to me, write, blessed are they who are called to the supper of the marriage of the Lamb. And He says to me, these are the true words of God. And chapter 21 verse 2. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And verse 9. And there came one of the seven angels, which had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, and spoke with me saying, come here, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. I suppose, dear friends, most of us have already been to marriage, to a wedding. Maybe our own wedding, maybe being invited to the wedding of somebody else. Unfortunately, so far I have never attended a wedding in New Zealand. I have never been invited to one so far. But as far as I learned, the marriages, the wedding parties in New Zealand are not entirely different from those in Germany. And maybe everywhere in the world, the weddings follow certain rules and have certain similarities. Now if we compare an earthly marriage or wedding with the one we have here in Revelation 19, we will find, indeed, certain similarities. But we will also find important differences. As with every marriage, with every wedding, there is a bridegroom and a bride. We have found them here. There is a wedding party, it is called the supper of the marriage. There is a wonderful wedding dress the bride is wearing. And also in our chapter, in this few verses, we read about that wonderful wedding dress, the marriage dress of the bride. But consider two very important differences. If we have an earthly marriage, who plays the most important role? Have you ever heard somebody on a marriage saying, look that wonderful bridegroom? What do people say? Look that wonderful bride, isn't it? The number one is the bride and the bridegroom is a little bit in the background when you have an earthly marriage party. But look to this wedding, the marriage party, how is it called? It is called the marriage of the Lamb, that is the Lord Jesus, of course. So He is the number one, the bridegroom in all His glory and brightness. Of course, you will find the bride, but the number one is the Lamb, the bridegroom, and the number two is the bride. This is a difference, isn't it? And there is another difference. We read in chapter 21, and here we have, no, here we are at the end of the millennium, thousand years after the marriage of the Lamb, and still the wife is called the bride. That is a difference, isn't it? My wife is my wife. She was my bride when we got married. Now she is my wife. But here, you still have the relationship, thousand years later, and even in the eternity after time, the assembly still is the bride of the Lamb. Yes, she is the wife, but she will always remain the bride of the Lamb. We will maybe see later on what that means. Now what is a character, and that would be my first point tonight, what is the character of this marriage? Marriage is something that has been given by the Creator God right in the beginning. The first couple were Adam and Eve, and the thought, the principal thought when it comes to marriage is the unity between a man and a woman. The two become one when they get married. So the general thought of marriage is unification. Now our relationship to the Lord Jesus as assembly now is that of a chaste virgin. You will get this expression in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. That is a relationship not yet married, but it is like being engaged. In the German translation you will find the word engagement in 2 Corinthians 11 verse 2. The moment of the unification of Christ in glory between the bride, the assembly, and the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, the bridegroom, is still something to come. When we will be with Him and this marriage of the Lamb will take place, then we will be 100% united with Him in heaven in glory. That is the principal character of this marriage of the Lamb. There are certain requirements that have to be fulfilled, certain conditions that have to be met before this marriage of the Lamb can take place. That is my second point. What are the requirements? What are the conditions? The first one is the rapture. Without rapture there is no marriage of the Lamb. Without rapture the Lord Jesus will come back and He will take us to be with Him. That is the first event that has to take place before the marriage of the Lamb will be possible in the heavens. The second condition is that we will have appeared before the judgment seat of Christ. Not to be judged, of course, but to be manifested. Our lives will be brought in accordance, in harmony, with God when we appear before the judgment seat of Christ. That is 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We will see our lives, our motives, our thoughts with the eyes of the Lord Jesus. When it says in our text that the bride made herself ready, then I think that this at least includes the appearing before the judgment seat of Christ. The third condition you will find in Revelation chapter 18 and 19. That is the judgment and the putting away of the false bride, the great Babylon. When these three conditions are fulfilled, the rapture, the appearing, the manifestation before the judgment seat of Christ, and the judgment, the final judgment of the false bride, then the marriage of the Lamb will take place. Now let us consider for a moment, and this is my third point, who is the Bridegroom? We don't start with the Bride, we start with the Bridegroom. Who is the Bridegroom? Well, we all can give the answer, can't we? It is the Lord Jesus. It is our Savior, our Redeemer. But here He is called the Lamb. It is the marriage of the Lamb. It does not say the marriage of Christ, although this is true. It does not say the marriage of the Lord Jesus, although this won't be wrong. But here it is said, the marriage of the Lamb. Dear friends, the Lamb is the Lord Jesus Christ, nobody else. And if we trace back the story of the Lamb in the Bible, then it goes right from the beginning, from Genesis through to Revelation. In the Old Testament, in the New Testament, you will find the Lamb of God, the wondrous story of the Lamb of God. We do not have time enough, that would be a subject alone, to consider this, the Lamb of God, foreseen in the eternity before time and revealed in the time. Remember when Adam and Eve fall in sin, the first Lamb was slain in order to clothe them. Remember Abel, the first worshipper in the Bible, he came with the Lamb. Remember Genesis 22, we had them some days before in a totally different way, but there you find the Lamb of God foreseen. Go to Exodus 12, the Passover Lamb, substitution. Go to the manifold offerings in the book of Leviticus. They all speak of the one offering, the one sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Go to Isaiah 53, that wonderful chapter about the Lamb of God. And then we arrive in the New Testament, John 1, 29. Behold the Lamb of God. Go through the epistles. Stop for example in 1 Peter 1 verse 19, I think, the precious blood of the Lamb, the Lamb of God. And you arrive in the revelation, you find the Lamb in the middle of the throne. Yes, you also find the wrath of the Lamb, but then you find the marriage of the Lamb. Dear friends, what does this Lamb mean for us? It's our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior who died for us on the cross of Calvary. And even when this marriage will take place, it is the marriage of the Lamb. We will never forget, we can never forget that He gave His life for us on that shameful tree on the cross of Calvary. What He did for me, for you personally, and what He did for His assembly to present Himself, this assembly, spotless, without wrinkle or anything like that, the Lamb. Then we consider the Bride. That is my fourth point. Who is the Bride? I already said, who is the Bride? It is not the earthly Bride, Israel, that we find in the Old Testament. Yes, there is a Bride in the Old Testament. That is Israel. A divorce had taken place because of the sin of Israel. And in the future, Israel will be restored, will be again a Bride, a wife for the Messiah in the Millennium. But here, you have the Heavenly Bride. You have the Assembly. You remember the three wonderful pictures that, or the most important pictures, there are more than three, the three most important pictures of the Assembly in the New Testament? There is one body that speaks of unity, the House of God, and the key thought is holiness, 1st Timothy, also a little bit 2nd Timothy. And then we have thirdly the Bride that speaks of a relationship of love. You won't find the Bride, the Assembly, fully revealed in the Old Testament. But you will find wonderful typological pictures in the Old Testament of this relationship between Christ and His Assembly. I would just mention some of them that you find in the book of Genesis, in the first book of the Bible. The first couple is Adam and Eve, and that speaks of the devotion of Christ for His Assembly. Adam had to die, to sleep or to die, in order to obtain Eve. That is the devotion of Christ to gain this Assembly. Think of Jacob and Rachel. You have that wonderful thought of love. He loved his Bride, and he served for her so many years. Think of Isaac and Rebekah. There you find the waiting of the Bridegroom for his Bride. And think of Joseph and Asnut, and you will have the wonderful reward that the Bride is for Christ. How was it possible that the Assembly could be the Bride of Christ? Oh, we know it. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 25, I think. Christ loved the Assembly and gave Himself for the Assembly. It had cost Him His life to obtain this Bride. I would just mention a fifth point in relation to that wonderful marriage. That is the preparation of the Bride and the wedding dress. It was given to her, verse 8, that she should be clothed in fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. First of all, it was given to her. Who gave the wedding dress to the Bride? It was given to her by pure grace. That is the side of God. If there is this wonderful wedding dress at the marriage of the Lamb, for the satisfaction of the Bridegroom and His joy, this is something which has been given to us. It was given to her, that is the side of God. He did everything to make us fit to be there that very day. We have been made fit. That is an expression you will find in Colossians chapter 1. He has perfected us by His offering. That is an expression we get in Hebrews chapter 10. He made us fit and He perfected us. But still there is also the side of our responsibility in that wonderful wedding dress. Fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. This is not a positional righteousness as you will find it in Romans, but this is a practical righteousness. The literal translation would be, these are the righteous deeds of the saints. All that is done on earth for the glory of Christ, here on earth, will find its wonderful result in the wedding dress of the Heavenly Bride. And this, dear friends, shows us the practical impact of this subject. The wedding dress is for the satisfaction of the Bridegroom. What a great moment at a wedding day when the Bridegroom first sees His wife, His Bride in that wonderful white wedding dress. I think many of us still remember that wonderful day. I do so, although it is more than 30 years ago. I still remember when I first saw my wonderful wife in her white wedding dress. She is still wonderful, but she is no longer wearing a wedding dress. Now, this wedding dress is woven here on earth. Every righteousness that you and I have done here on earth for Christ's sake, to His honor and glory, will be found in the wonderful wedding dress. That we wear when the marriage of the Lamb will take place. So, you see, this matter is a very practical matter. Dates of righteousness. The wedding dress is woven in the circumstances here on earth. In difficult circumstances sometimes. In deep troubles that we might go through in our family life, in our professional life. In relationship with our neighbors and friends and our surroundings. There the wedding dress is woven to the glory of the Bridegroom at the moment of the marriage of the Lamb. That is the fifth point. The wedding dress. We all wear this wedding dress. Then we read, and this is my sixth point, of the joy of the blessedness of those who are invited. Blessed they who are called to the supper of the marriage of the Lamb. I don't want to speculate tonight on who are these who are invited. I would like to speak about the joy, the blessedness of the Bride, and the blessedness, the joy of the Bridegroom. And now I start with the joy of the Bride. It will be a wonderful moment, dear friends, when we see the Lord Jesus as our Bridegroom in all His perfectness, in all His glory. We will see Him. What a moment for us. What a joy for us. What an unspeakable joy to see the Lord Jesus. And we are longing for Him. We are waiting for Him to come. And that is another practical impact of this subject, that we might be more waiting for the Lord Jesus to come. Come Lord Jesus. That should be the desire of our hearts when we study this wonderful subject. But it is not only, dear friends, something for our joy and satisfaction. Let us think a little bit about the joy and the satisfaction of the Lord Jesus Christ. And let us turn for a brief moment, I don't want to be too long, to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5 gives us, by the way, a seven-fold description of what Christ is doing for His assembly. I don't have the time to stay on that. But just in verse 27 it is said that He, the Lord Jesus Christ, might present the assembly to Himself, glorious, having no spot or wrinkle or any of such thing. I would underline the two words, to Himself. What Christ is doing for His assembly is not only for our blessing and benefit. Yes, it is. But it is for Himself. He would like to present the assembly to Himself, glorious, having no spot or wrinkle or any of such thing. How many spots today? How many wrinkles today? When we look to our practical presentation of the assembly, what we have done with what God has given us, we are considering 2 Timothy, everything in ruins when it comes to our responsibility. But then Christ will present to Himself the assembly, glorious, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing. What a wonderful moment for Christ. In Isaiah 53, we got that wonderful expression. Isaiah 53, and we read in verse 11, I know that prophetically this refers to Israel, but I would apply it also to us, to the assembly. He will be satisfied. What a wonderful, what a glorious moment will that be. And thousand years later, and this is the conclusion, the Holy Spirit says, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. Bride and wife at the same time. How is that possible? Well, it is a typological teaching, isn't it? It is a picture to give us to understand this heavenly unification. The assembly in the millennium and even afterwards in the eternity after time is the bride and the wife. How comes? The wife speaks of the deepness of the relationship of love, the deepness. The bride speaks of the freshness of the relationship of love between Christ and His assembly. There is this eternal relationship of love in all its depth and forever in all its freshness. What a wonderful bridegroom is our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's wait for Him to come and let's be eagerly looking forward to that moment and at the same time let's continue to wave this wedding dress of the bride. …