God's Love Story for You

I must say thanks very much for that beautiful, beautiful special music.

The second piece, in particular, was very appropriate for what I want to talk about today, which is part of our relationship with God the Father and our Lord and Savior and husband, Jesus Christ. How many times in your personal Bible study have you come across things in the Scriptures that sounded unusual, sounded a bit odd? Maybe you were puzzled by these things and realized there has to be something more to the story that I'm just not seeing. And the Bible writers left out the details there and left you wondering about that. I know that's happened to me many, many times and probably has happened to all of us at one point or another because, after all, the Bible writers were writing primarily for the people of their day. And I seriously doubt that many of them, or any of them, imagine that people would be reading their letters, their memoirs 2,000 years later in the future as we are today. And today I want to talk about some things that people have been able to piece together over recent years that help us better understand some aspects of the Bible. And what's interesting is that the things I'm going to talk about today is how they apply to us. I'm going to talk mostly about the words of Jesus Christ, some of the things he said about us, about our role, about our future, and about one aspect of what the Feast of Tabernacles represents and pictures for us. If you would like a title for today's message, it is God's Love Story for You. God's Love Story for You.

And that's what we'll be talking about today because we'll be talking about some of Christ's words, about His role as the bridegroom, about our role as His bride, and about the wedding feast to take place when He returns to earth to establish God's kingdom. So first of all, let's turn over to Revelation 19 and verse 6 and let's here establish what is going to happen at Christ's return. Revelation 19 and verse 6. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of mighty thundering, saying, Hallelujah, 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. And to her it was granted to be a raid and fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

Then He said to me, to John, Right, blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. So this is talking about us as the bride of Jesus Christ and about being part of the wedding feast to take place at His return. And what are some of the lessons that we should learn from what the Bible tells us about this coming marriage of Jesus Christ to His bride, the church? Oh, and we understand some of the background to this. We find scattered throughout the Bible a number of references to wedding and engagement practices and about our role and responsibility as the bride of Christ. What I'd like to do to begin with here in an introduction is to go through a quick rundown of the engagement and wedding practices of biblical times and then see what we find in the scriptures that applies to us about this, that gives us a deeper understanding of these things and of our role. So in our society today, let's do a quick rundown of how engagement and wedding practices works. Basically, we work something like this. A boy meets girl, and boy likes girl, and girl likes boy, and boy decides he would like to marry girl, and vice versa. And boy and girl then become engaged for a period of several months to several weeks, maybe even several years, while they prepare for the wedding. And then boy and girl get married.

And girl's parents spend years paying off the debt and coming from the wedding, and they tell next girl in line, a lope!

So that's a quick breakdown of the way it works today.

In Bible times, it was quite different. So how did it work 2,000 years ago in the time of Jesus Christ? Well, for starters, many of the marriages were arranged marriages. We do find reference to that a number of times in the scriptures. For instance, all the way back to Genesis 24, where Abraham is looking for a son, a bride rather, for his son Isaac, and he sends his servant to find a bride for him. And the servant finds Rebekah. That was an arranged marriage there. And you still find this kind of thing practiced in the Middle East among the Arab cultures to somewhat lesser extent among the Jewish culture, but it still takes place there as well.

So when a couple was going to marry this arranged marriage, the groom or the groom's family was expected to provide the bride's family with a certain amount of money or wealth for that. And in a sense, it wasn't really buying the bride. The thinking there was it was to repay the bride's family for all the money, the wealth that had been spent, and bringing her up from childhood, from infancy, clothing her, feeding her, and so on. Because now she was going to leave her family and become legally a part of the groom's family.

So this was kind of to compensate for that expense that had been incurred over those years. And this type of thing is also still practiced in the Middle East today. As a matter of fact, first time I went on one of our feast trips to Israel, about 22 years ago, one Arab man offered 50 camels to buy one of the young ladies in our feast tour group.

Now that was a very high compliment because 50 camels is a lot of money. The young lady, for whatever reason, just did not appreciate it at all. But some women are just like that. So this practice is also found in the Bible and in several situations as well. Probably the most notable. And again, this goes all the way back to Genesis. And that's with the story of Jacob. And if you remember what happened with Jacob, he worked seven years for his uncle Laban to be able to marry Rachel.

And what happens? The old swag is switcheroo there. Wakes up after his wedding night, realizes he's married to Rachel's sister. Not Rachel. So he works another seven years to marry Rachel. So he obviously loved Rachel very deeply and provided 14 years of labor for the woman that he loved to be able to marry Rachel. So he paid a very high price for that. And there's several places in the scripture where you'll find a term or something similar.

It's called bride price. The bride price. And that's what this is referring to. And these things were practiced as far back as Abraham's time 4,000 years ago. And they're still being practiced today as well. So what about the engagement period? How did a couple become engaged in Bible times? Or specifically in Jesus Christ time? Well, in our day when a couple, when the man proposes, he will generally offer a ring, an engagement ring there. And if the woman accepts the ring, then they are engaged. In Jesus Christ, there was a different symbol there. There was an engagement, but a different symbol was involved. And that day, it involved the symbol of a cup of wine.

A cup of wine. And the young man would offer his bride to be a cup of wine. And if she refused it, she was rejecting the marriage invitation. On the other hand, if she took the cup, and excuse me, just fast forward it a bit too quickly here. If she accepted the cup of wine and drank it, then she was accepting the proposal and agreeing to be married to him. So, if once that acceptance was made, then the young man had a responsibility to go and prepare a place for them to live.

And they would not see each other again until the time for the wedding, which would be typically about a year in that period. And once she had accepted that offer of marriage, and the details were worked out again between the parents as an arranged marriage, they were considered then to have entered into a binding agreement. It was a legally binding agreement that could only be broken by divorce. They remember the story of Joseph and Mary. They are betrothed, engaged is what that means, but they had not been officially married but they were engaged.

And Joseph finds out that Mary is expecting a baby and she knows it's not his. And the scriptures tells us that he is minded to quote put her away, which is a term meaning put her away and divorce, to divorce her, to break this binding marriage agreement there.

And an angel appears to Joseph and tells Joseph to marry her, the child that is conceived is and her is conceived by the Holy Spirit. So he goes ahead and marries her. So during this engagement period, and again there is a legal contract that has been agreed to there, the groom to be would then return to his father's house or his father's household there and begin preparing a place for them to live.

And at that time, and this is illustrated here on screen, a house might become more like a small apartment building because what would happen as each son married and brought his bride back, they would add on an extension of the house, a room onto the house. And the sons would come and live in the father's household and with his bride, and they would become both part of the father's household. The daughter is a different story. They married off and they became legally a part of another family, a different family there. But this is the way it worked. And if you look at this illustration you have on screen, up at the far right edge, you'll see a pile of construction materials there in the courtyard of this household. And they are starting work on an extension on the house. You can see some of the pillars to go up where the door will be placed and the stones gathered to start building the walls there. And this type of construction, if you go to Israel, specifically in Galilee, and you know what you're looking at, you'll see this type of construction all over the place. This particular photo I'm showing right here is right in front of the famous synagogue in Capernaum. Step out the front door of the synagogue, and this is what you see is a series of houses like this that have been built on and added on with these rooms that were added as the sons married and brought the daughter, the wife, the bride, back to become the daughter-in-law there in the household. So this is very common. And when that room was constructed and finished, and the father pronounced the room ready, then the marriage could take place. Specifically, the wedding could take place. And the next step is considerably different from the way we do weddings today. Today we set a specific date, months in advance, maybe a year in advance, but that was not the case then. Once the groom had started preparing the place for his bride, once the room was finished, the wedding could then take place at any time once the father pronounced the place ready. And typically, and this is what is very different, typically the groom and his groomsmen would come for the bride at night as though they were going to steal the bride away. It's kind of a charade, a library charade type thing that is working out. And as the time grew nearer for the wedding, the bride and her bridesmaids would stay together, anticipating the time when the groom and the groomsmen are going to take them away for the wedding.

And there were, however, it wouldn't come totally suddenly. There would be signs that this is drawing nearer. For instance, she could look at the construction project where her groom is and know how the room is coming along and know that when that structure is nearing completion, the wedding would be coming soon. And also, as the time drew nearer, one of the responsibilities of the groomsmen was to go through the street shouting, the groom is coming! Get ready for the wedding to take place. And then the bridesmaids and the bride would be dressed and ready for when the time for the wedding took place. And the weddings then were a huge celebration that often lasted about a week. And you find reference to this in Christ First Miracle there at Kanaa in Galilee, where he turns water to wine. And you may remember how the water ran out, and Jesus turned approximately 120 gallons of water into fine wine. And why did the wine run out?

Well, it ran out because obviously the wedding celebration had gone on for several days, and there were a lot of very happy guests there. They drank all the wine. There's no more left, and the celebration is still going to go on another several days. So Jesus miraculously turns 120 gallons of water to wine. And it's interesting that the Bible compares the beginning of the kingdom of God to a huge party, to a wonderful, joyous celebration, which was the most joyous type of celebration in the communities at that time. It's not something that is sober, very somber, very straight-laced. No, it's a big party. It's what Christ returned, and the marriage celebration is compared to. The Bible compares it to the most happy and joyous celebration that people could relate to, which is a huge wedding feast. It won't have time to turn there, but it's referred to several times in the Gospels. So with this background in mind, this understanding of some of the wedding customs of that time, let's go back through the scriptures and pick up on a few references to the engagement and the marriage of the Lamb that we otherwise might not understand or might miss out on what we're being told there about that. So first of all, let's understand who is in which roles. Jesus very clearly says that he is the bridegroom.

Let's take a look at Matthew 9 and beginning in verse 14. To get the context for this, John the Baptist has been imprisoned, and he's wondering what's going to happen. So he sends some of his disciples to Jesus Christ, and they're puzzled by the fact that Jesus is eating with tax collectors and people like that. And they're obviously reading between the lines. They're somewhat irritated at Jesus Christ's behavior of eating with sinners and tax collectors. So verse 14, then the disciples of John came to him, to Jesus Christ, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?

And Jesus gives a response that they could all understand. Jesus said to them, Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

So Jesus essentially tells them, I'm the bridegroom, and my friends, my disciples, are like the friends of the groom, and they're celebrating with me while I'm here. We're enjoying our time together, but the time is coming when I will be taken away from them, and then they will fast, like you want them to. So you find here very clearly, Christ refers to himself as the bridegroom. Over in Ephesians 5 and verse 32, Ephesians 5, you may recognize the chapter. It's a very long chapter where Paul gives very detailed instructions to husbands and wives about their roles in marriage. Very, very detailed. We refer to it a lot from the pulpit here. But then, well, he goes through, describes their roles, their responsibilities, and how they are to love and respect and honor one another. And then in conclusion, the end of this long discussion about roles of husbands and wives, he says something profound. He says, This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. So he says that the roles of husbands and wives and the love and respect that husbands and wives are to have for one another mirrors that of Jesus Christ and the church. It's a model of that. And he says that Jesus Christ will present the church to himself as a glorious and perfect bride, and that marriage should help us to understand that deep, loving relationship between Jesus Christ and the church. And that marriage should help us better understand that relationship.

And we should exemplify that relationship in our marriages. And Paul continues with that theme in 2 Corinthians 11 and verse 2. Let's take a look at that. 2 Corinthians 11 and verse 2.

And here Paul is talking about his role as a minister and discusses an aspect of his role as a minister. Notice what he says here, For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Jesus Christ. In other words, Paul says he saw his role as a minister as one of preparing the church for its wedding to Jesus Christ. So all these references we've seen here are pretty obvious. We see that Christ refers to himself as the groom, and other passages point out that the church is the bride. But what about some of the references to this process of engagement in marriage that may not be quite as obvious? Well, earlier we talked about the custom of a bride price, that the groom or his family paid a price for the groom to be able to marry his bride.

Did Jesus Christ pay a price to marry his bride, the church? Let's notice 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 20. 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 20. The context is interesting here. Paul talks about the sins and the temptations that were common in Corinth. Corinth was a port city known for its licentiousness, for its paganism, for its sexual vices and problems and perversions. And then in verse 20, Paul is talking about some of that, and then he says to the church members there in Corinth, he says, For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are gods. So Paul tells him, he says, Look people, someone else paid a price for you.

He paid a price for you, so don't go and join your body in a sexual relationship with some slut or some temple prostitute. What are you thinking? What are you thinking?

And some commentary state that this phrase, bought at a price, was used of a, was a term that was used of a woman who was engaged.

In other words, that after the families had agreed on the contract, had agreed on the bride price, and that contract had been signed and sealed, that the woman who was betrothed or engaged to her husband to be, was then referred to by this phrase as having been bought at a price.

That it was a euphemism for a woman who was engaged. The contract had been agreed to. The engagement was on. So this was a synonym for someone who was engaged to be married. Now, I don't know for sure whether Paul is using that phrase here in that way, but it is interesting because in the very next verse in chapter 7, verse 1 of chapter 7, Paul goes on into a discussion about marriage that runs the entire next chapter. So it stands to reason that Paul talks about those who were engaged to be married, the last verse of this chapter, and then spends the next chapter talking about marriage there. So it does seem to me that Paul is really telling them, look, you are engaged to someone else, to Jesus Christ, who gave his life for you so that he can marry you. So how then could you even possibly think of having sexual relations with a prostitute or a slut or something like that here in the city of Corinth? So this context of a discussion about sex and marriage and temptation out of marriage may well indicate that is exactly what Paul is saying here. But there is no question that we have certainly been bought at a price. Someone paid a very dear price to marry us.

The example of Jacob that I mentioned earlier paid a very high price for his beloved Rachel. He worked 14 years of his life to marry the woman that he loved. But Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price for his bride. He gave his life not because he had to, but because he wanted to, because he wanted to spend all of eternity in God's kingdom with you and with me.

Let's notice what Peter tells us. 1 Peter 1 and verse 18. He says, You were not redeemed or bought, is what the word can mean, with corruptible things like silver and gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as a Lamb without blemish and without spot.

So what Peter tells us here is Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price for us. Because he loved us.

Because he wants to marry us. Because he wants us to be our bride forever.

Now with that background in mind that we've discussed, let's take a look now at a parable in Matthew 25. We're all familiar with Matthew 24, the Olivet prophecy, but Matthew 25 is just a continuation of that same discussion. Jesus Christ talks in Matthew 24 about the events that are going to happen at the time of the end. And then he gives his followers some very pointed warnings and lessons and instructions about those who are living at the end time before Christ's return. So let's notice here Matthew 25 beginning in verse 1. He says, Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. So here's an explicit warning and here he's speaking of his bride and the bridesmaids and says, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was heard, Behold, the bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet him. And I described earlier how the wedding would happen suddenly when the bridegroom was laid. When the bridegroom had finished the place he had prepared for his bride to be. And he and his friends would come at night for the bride. And how the groomsman would call out, the bride, the groom is coming. Get ready for the wedding that is about to take place. And that is what is being described here in this parable from Jesus Christ. And he used this parable because his disciples would know exactly what he's talking about because who were his disciples, they are young men, some of whom had probably done this exact thing with their friends and relatives and so on. So they know exactly what Jesus Christ is describing here. Continuing in verse 7, Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. And I brought with me a reproduction of the kind of lamp that Jesus Christ is talking about here in this parable. This is your basic first century flashlight. And unfortunately my first century lighter isn't working. But I'll show you a photo of what it looks like here. And it holds olive oil. It's the fuel for it. And a wick made out of plant fiber or piece of cloth or something like that. And without oil, which is symbolic of God's Holy Spirit, the lamp was of no use. It wouldn't light anything up there. It wouldn't give off any light or wouldn't stay lit. And the oil again is symbolic of God's Spirit. So his point here is that we have to have God's Spirit working within us, giving off light and showing us the way like a first century flashlight in the rocky and hilly past here around Judea. So we need to keep our lamps ready and always working. So continuing with the parable here, verse 9, but the wise answered, saying, no, lest there should not be enough for us and you. This is the response to the foolish virgins who don't have oil in their lamps. Or their lighter is not working like this. But go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves. And wildly went to buy the bridegroom king. And those who were ready went in with him to the wedding and the door was shut.

Afterward, the other virgins came also, saying, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, assuredly I say to you, I do not know you. I do not know you. How tragic!

Can you imagine coming before Jesus Christ at his return and he says, who are you? I don't know you. I never had a relationship with you. You never built a relationship with me.

There's no place for you in my kingdom. How utterly tragic!

And then he says, in conclusion, he says, watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. So we don't know exactly when Jesus Christ, the bridegroom, is coming. So he tells us we have to be ready all the time. And he uses the same analogy that I mentioned earlier of the bridegroom and the bridegroom's, his groomsmen, his friends, suddenly coming to take the bride and the bridesmaids off to the wedding feast. And in this parable, the church is not just the bride alone, but all 10 bridesmaids.

And as we see in the parable, only half of them are prepared.

And there's a very obvious warning in there for us, a very obvious implication that only half the church is prepared had Jesus Christ returned. And the other half are unprepared and are shut out of God's kingdom. There are all kinds of lessons we could draw from this that we don't have time to cover. But I would encourage you to read through this and read the rest of this chapter because it is a series of strong lessons and warnings to God's people shortly before Jesus Christ's death. Now, not long after this, less than a week later, this is the last week of Jesus Christ's life when this takes place that we just covered. But not long after this, He gives some other symbolism for marriage to leave us another important lesson. And it's found in something that we do every year in the Passover service. Now, remember how the groom proposed to his bride to be. At that time, He offered her a cup of wine. He offered her a cup of wine, and if she did not drink from it, she was refusing his marriage proposal. But if she did accept it and drink from it, she was accepting the marriage proposal. And you have to understand what that represented in that life, because what it represented is the groom was offering his life to her, to his bride, and by taking the cup and drinking from it, she was offering him her life in return. So, notice what happens that last evening Jesus Christ spends on earth with His disciples. Read about this in Matthew 26 and verse 27.

So then He took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, drink from it, all of you. Now, apparently they're keeping a traditional Passover meal there that evening, during which there are four different cups of wine that represent different things associated with the Exodus story that we don't have time to cover in the message today.

But what is going on here is definitely different. Differently different because each of the men around the table there would have had their own cup of wine with the meal that would have been normal at any meal in that day and age.

They would not have shared one cup among 13 men there for that meal. So, there's obviously something unique, something different that is going on here, something symbolic in what Jesus Christ is doing. He passes around one cup, apparently His own cup, and what does He tell them? He says, drink from it, all of you. Drink from it, all of you.

What is He doing symbolically? What He's telling them symbolically is, I want to spend all eternity with you. I want to spend my life with you. I love you.

Will you be my spiritual bride? Do you love me enough to accept my proposal?

I'm offering my life to you. Will you give me your life in return?

This is the marriage contract I'm offering.

Did the disciples understand that? The significance of what He was saying and what He was doing? Well, I doubt it. They didn't have God's Spirit. You wouldn't receive that until Pentecost.

They weren't converted. They obviously missed the point of the foot washing that night, because later that same evening Luke records how they're arguing after the foot washing, arguing among one another as to who's going to be the greatest in God's kingdom. They were unconverted. They didn't have God's Spirit yet. So I doubt they understood and realized the significance of what Jesus Christ is doing here either. I think they're probably puzzled and just righted off as one of those strange things that Jesus did and said from time to time.

Now, this may sound far-fetched to you that this is a marriage proposal.

Sounded far-fetched to me the first time I came across this. But let's notice what happens next that night. And from that, we have to turn from Matthew's account to John's account. Now, let's take a look at John 14. And here John records, goes into great detail about what is taking place that evening.

So here John records some more details. In the latter part of John 13, he talks about how he's going away and where he is going, they cannot follow. And then in verse 1 of chapter 14, he says, Let not your heart be troubled. You 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.

Now, this may be one of the worst mistranslations in the whole Bible, because how do you get many mansions inside a house? Well, you don't. It doesn't work. The King James translators were trying to create the concept of heavenly mansions, so they deliberately mistranslated this word. The word translated mansions here simply means rooms. Rooms. A place to live. So what Jesus is simply saying here is, in my father's house are many rooms, many places for you to live. What's he talking about? He's talking about what we talked about earlier here. Again, in that day, the house of a father became like a small apartment complex as the sons went off, married their bride, and brought their bride back to become a part of the father's household. And again, you can see this in the archaeological excavations all over Galilee.

So a house might have many rooms that were added on over time as each son married and brought the daughter-in-law there. So Jesus Christ says he's going to do the exact same thing that any groom does with his bride. In the culture of that day, he says, in my father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, I would have told you. I'm going to prepare a place for you so that you, too, may become a part of my father's household, a part of the family of God, a part of the family of God. And then he says, next verse here.

Sorry here. There is a next verse here, and I skipped past it. Yeah, here we go. And if I go and prepare a place for you, again, that's what the groom would do. He would go back to his father's house, prepare a place for them to live from that point forward. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. So like a groom, Jesus says that he's going away to prepare this dwelling place in the household of his father. And then when that room, that place was prepared, like any other groom, then he would come back, come for his bride, and make her a part of the household of his father.

And then he goes on, and we don't have time to cover it, but he goes on to talk about God the Father, and how this is the way they would come to know and come to the Father. So the imagery that Jesus Christ uses that evening is right out of the culture of his day. He extended to them a marriage invitation, a contract, and he tells them that he's going away to prepare a place for them, so that they could live as part of the family of God forever. And this is the same symbolism that we take part in every year at the Passover, too. Like his disciples, Jesus Christ offers us a marriage contract. He wants to live with us forever as a part of his father's family. And when we take that cup every year at the Passover, we are acknowledging the bride price, represented by the wine, representing Christ's blood that he shed, to be able to marry us as his bride. And to take that cup and to drink it as his bride is to say, I accept your payment of your life, and I offer you my life in return. So in God's plan of the Holy Days, Passover gives us the imagery of Jesus Christ. Not only is the Lamb who gives his life for the world, but also is the groom who pays a very high bride price to marry his bride. And he extends an invitation to us, the offer of marriage, in that he says, in my father's house are many rooms. I'm going to prepare one for you so that you can be a part of my father's family forever. I'm going away, but I'll come back for you. I've given my life for you, and you have promised to give me your life in return. I love you, and I'll come back for you, and I'll take you to the wedding feast being prepared in my father's kingdom.