[Gary Petty] It is so good to be here. The last time my wife and I were here for the feast, it was 20 years ago. Because we were adding it up, "When was the last time we were here in Florida?" and it was 20 years ago. We didn't realize how fast the time goes. I couldn't help but think about Mr. Preston when he was talking about the wristbands and admitted to everyone that he was a Cincinnati Bengals fan. Because a couple of weeks ago I had called him, we were talking about the feast, and he started sort of gloating that he wanted to see me wear a Cincinnati Bengals band. You know, I don't always watch the NFL, but when I do, it's never the Cincinnati Bengals. And as he went on and on, I just kept thinking, "What a sad man. What a sad man." You do know they're 0-2 in 1. I didn't mean to do that. That was cruel. I'm sorry, my carnality came out right there, so...

For those of you who are married here, do you remember what it was like to get engaged? And everybody has their engagement stories, right? And how exciting that was for the both of you to realize you were going to start a life together and you had found the perfect person. You had found the person that you wanted to spend a lifetime with, have children with, grow old with. And then you started to prepare for that. You told your friends, and you told your family. Remember what it was like getting ready for the wedding day?

Actually, getting ready for the wedding day for me and my wife was quite different. I was in Pennsylvania, trying to get a job. I got a job at a small radio station, which was my chosen field at the time, and started to, you know, try to find housing and get things ready. She was up in Michigan, trying to prepare for a wedding. You know, her and her family were working hard to make sure we got a hall and had the food and, you know, just the dresses, all the things that go along with that. It was a huge job. And for about three months, I'm in one place, preparing for a life, she's in another place, preparing for the time we would come together to create that life.

It's interesting that in the book of Revelation, it talks about the return of Jesus Christ that set up God's kingdom on this earth. We just celebrated not too long ago the Feast of Trumpets, where we realized that pictures when Christ returns. And then we're here to celebrate the time when He is on this earth, establishing God's kingdom, with a humanity that will have been absolutely devastated. The death rate will be unbelievable, and those who are left will be on the verge of insanity because of what has happened. The earth will have been destroyed. Human life will almost be...in fact, if Christ doesn't return when He does, human life can't even survive. And He's coming back to that world. And it's interesting because Revelation, it says…

Revelation 19:7 "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."

"His wife has made herself ready." When Jesus Christ returns, He comes to establish God's kingdom, but there's something else that happens that ties together the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and what we're going to be celebrating here over the next eight days. Because it also goes over into the eighth day, the Last Great Day. And that is that Jesus Christ is returning to marry a bride.

Now, we're going to talk about some things today that may be a little difficult to wrap our minds around because we're going to talk about ancient marriage customs in the Bible, that are totally different than the customs we have today. And we may look at them as very strange. We may look at them and think, "Wow, how different that was." But I want you to think about something as we go through this.

The courting and marriage customs we have in our country, through much of history, in most cultures, would be considered quite barbaric. They had a different way of looking at marriage and how marriages happened. And we're going to look at how they did that in the scripture, how they did that in the Bible. Because Jesus Christ is coming back to marry His bride, and His bride are all the collective saints, Old Testament saints, New Testament church. That when He comes back, that group of people create a body called the Bride of Christ.

Some of the things we're going to talk about today are going to be easier maybe for some of you women to connect with than us guys. I've never been a bride before. But, you know, guys, we need to think about something. If we're going to be there when Christ returns, we're going to have to learn to be a good bride. We're going to have to learn what it means in this analogy that's used in the scripture because it's used over and over again. Jesus Christ is called the bridegroom. He calls Himself the bridegroom. You'll find it in numerous places in the gospels. The Apostle Paul refers to Jesus Christ as the bridegroom, coming to marry a certain group of people. We're going to talk about that today.

Now, in the Bible, we don't have an exact wedding ceremony. You know, the ceremony we use today is a custom that we've put together in order to have a wedding ceremony. There's no exact wedding ceremony in the scripture, although there are customs, and many of those customs we will find at the time of Abraham to the time of Jesus. So, for many, many centuries, there are certain marriage customs that you and I need to understand if we're going to understand really and tie it into your calling, what God has called you to prepare for.

You and I are called to be the children of God. We are called to come into that relationship with God as our Father. But you have been called also for a very special relationship with Jesus Christ. And that relationship is very, very important if we're going to truly understand what it is to participate in the reality of the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. What that really, really means. So, once again, the customs are going to be different, but we have to understand them in their context. We have to understand what it teaches us about the Feast of Tabernacles.

First thing, when you start at the time of Abraham all the way up to the time of Jesus and during that first century, the New Testament, marriages weren't arranged the way that we arrange marriages today. The idea of a couple going off together alone to date would be considered almost unbelievable. "Well, if they do that, they might get pregnant." "Oh, yeah." We have that problem today, don't we? Marriages were arranged, and marriages were too important to consider that two really young people should figure out this for themselves. Now, they participated in it, we'll see that, but they were arranged. The parents got together and figured out, "Who should our children marry?"

And, usually, men did not marry young because men were considered mature enough to marry. They didn't have their life together enough to marry until they got older. A lot of times in the Bible, a girl in her mid to late teens, she was ready to get married. A man had to go out and prove himself. I've told many young girls, "If he hasn't proved himself, don't marry him." If he can't go out and hold down a job, don't marry him.

So, in the Old Testament, "No, before you get my daughter, you've had to prove what kind of man you're going to be." And then the daughter had to prepare for it. Let's go to Genesis 24. Here, we have a perfect example of this custom. And we have to understand this in terms of a tribal life. You know, I don't live in a tribal life. We live in a national society. Nations as we know them, you know, today that we're used to, that's only a few hundred years old. You had empires and you had tribes in the past. And then you had nations, but their forms of government or even economic forms weren't anything like what we know today. Quite different.

Genesis 24:1 "Now, Abraham was old, well advanced in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. So, Abraham said to the oldest servant of his house who ruled over all that he had."

Now, let me stop here. And you got to think about this. What does that mean? Well, we think, "Well, does that mean he was his butler?" Was his head slave?" No, this is a tribe. Abraham is the chief of a tribe. He's a tribal leader. Remember, when Abraham went into the nation of Egypt, which was an empire at the time, it came to Pharaoh, a tribe had just come in.

You know, if Abraham had been walking in with a handful of people, coming into Egypt, why would anybody take notice? This bustling place in the world, an epicenter of what goes on in the Middle East. And yet when Abraham comes in, they notice. Why? There are hundreds and hundreds of people with him, it's a tribe. When this talks about servants, these are people who have given themselves to the tribe, and they follow the tribal leader. And everybody works together in this community. And there are families within this community. It's very family based, and they all work together. And the chief over the tribe, he is the chieftain. And he's supposed to supply an heir to be the chief when he dies.

Remember what Abraham said to God at one point, "My heir is going to be my chief servant. I don't have a son, so I'm going to have to make him in charge of the tribe." And God said, "No, I told you I'm going to give you a son. You're just going to have to wait." This is a tribal system. And now Abraham goes to his chief servant, the man that he uses to manage this tribe, which numbers in the hundreds of people. And the reason I say in the hundreds, maybe in the thousands, is because Abraham, to save Lot, took his armed servants, and there were hundreds of them, and went and fought a bunch of kings.

So, you start to get the understanding of this is a tribe. He's considered the king of a tribe. He's royalty in a way, in this tribal system, a chief. And he says, "The whole tribe, its survival depends upon, first, me having a son." Because who knows what happens to the tribe? Do people start fighting over who's going to be in charge? And then we've got to have the right woman to be with the chief of the tribe. So, we have to arrange this. Isaac couldn't just go pick a woman. He was waiting for a long time. He was 40 years old, and he wasn't married yet. Why? Because dad and mom hadn't found the person yet. Well, Sarah had died at this point. Abraham hadn't picked anybody yet.

It's really important to understand that the father picks who marries the son.

Genesis 24:2-4 He says, "Put your hand under my thigh." This is an ancient custom, and no one's quite sure where it came from, but I don't know, if I had to make an agreement and put my hand under a man's thigh, you better believe I'd keep it, okay? And I mean that's... If I have to do that, I'm going to be real serious about what I do here. "Please put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but you shall go to my country and to my family and take a wife for my son, Isaac."

He said, "You know, these people here are all ranked pagans. They don't believe in God. You've got to go to my family, where there's going to be some understanding of God." Now, we know where he went. He went to the people of Laban, who were relatives. They had some understanding of God. They also had some paganism. If you read through the book of Genesis, you'll see that they believed in God, the God of Abraham. They believed in the Lord, but they also had some other beliefs, but they were closer than the Canaanites were. And he says, "You got to go to them and get somebody who's going to be like us and somebody who has some understanding of God. You got to bring them here." And so, his chief servant goes to the family of Laban.

Understand that, looking at this example, you know, if we're supposed to marry Jesus Christ, the only way we can understand what that means is to go through the scripture and see what it meant from the time of Abraham to the time of Jesus, okay? What did it mean then? And first of all, marrying Jesus Christ isn't by accident. Every person, every person in the Church, from the time of Abraham, because he selected him, he selected Isaac, God was involved in the selection of Isaac's wife. Why? Because He's creating a bride for His son.

We talk about how we realize everybody gets a chance for salvation. That's one of our most remarkable understandings of the Bible. That's what the eighth day is all about. That's what it's all about. But at the same time, we understand that God has different times in which He's doing things. And, you know, what He's doing right now? He's creating the Bride of Christ and preaching the gospel to the world. He's telling them about what's coming and come join the body if you're selected, that's what the calling means. You and I weren't just called to come here and keep the feast. You and I weren't just called to keep the Sabbath. You and I just weren't called so we could understand that you don't have an immortal soul. Those are important, but there's a purpose for it. And the purpose is that there's a bride being created for Jesus Christ. A group of people that will serve Him in a special relationship.

I mean, the relationship between a husband and wife is special, isn't it? There's nothing quite like it. There's nothing quite that bonding, that no matter what you go through, you're sticking together. Good times, hard times, bad times, it doesn't matter, right? You stick together. There's a special relationship. God says, "If you want to understand the relationship we have to have with Jesus Christ when He returns, it's the relationship, in a spiritual sense, obviously not in a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense, like a woman who's been prepared for the wedding for the man that she wants to spend eternity with, in submission to him and serving him." A whole different concept, once again, of marriage that we have today. But we're just looking at a biblical concept of marriage I would've met at that time.

So, Abraham's servant, he goes to Laban, he meets with him, and he arranges the marriage. You don't get to marry Jesus Christ because you decided to. Understand, I don't get to marry Jesus Christ because I decided to. If we are there to be part of the Bride of Christ, it's because it was an arranged marriage by the Father. It's because the Father said, "You get to marry Him." I want you to understand the enormity of that because we take this for granted so many times. We're so caught up in such mundane, unimportant things. We fight over, we fret over, we spend our lives absorbed in... When you have received the greatest calling a human being on the face of the earth can receive, you've already received it. The marriage was already arranged. Have you received that calling?

Now, we're here to celebrate the time when we get to be with Jesus Christ. I don't know about you, but the older I get, the more I look forward to meeting Him. I really look forward to that. I want to meet Him. I want to meet the Father. But I know what I'm supposed to do for 1000 years, and that's, I'm supposed to serve Jesus Christ. Because there's a lot of work to do. You and I have been called for salvation, but it's more than that. You and I have a job, and we're being prepared for that. And the description of that is that we're a bride being prepared for her husband.

This is very personal between God and you. I want you to understand, if God calls someone personally... I mean, I had two daughters. And believe me, you had better reach a pretty high standard if you want to marry my daughters. Because that's the way a father is, right? I knew they were going to get married, I wanted them to get married, but you better be the right guy, or I'll hunt you down. I'll hunt you down. So, just understand that. God is personally involved. Do not underestimate the importance of God saying, "You get called now to serve Him." And that's what this is about.

The second thing is, after you have this arranged marriage, is that you have to pay a price for her. Now, I've seen people really ridicule this, like, "Well, the woman was just, you know, property." Now, understand, what we're looking at here are two chieftains over tribes. That marriage was going to bind these two peoples together forever. That marriage was going to determine, especially in Abraham's case, whether his tribe survived or not. So, he goes to Laban's family, and he gets together with them.

Genesis 24:51 It says, "Here is Rebecca..."

So, Rebecca's the woman that he's come to ask. Now, I want you to remember something. Abraham, his servant, nor Isaac has ever seen Rebecca, and Rebecca has never seen them. And they live a long distance apart from each other. And the servant of Abraham sits down with her father and her brother, and they make a deal. "This is good for our tribes." This wasn't just about two people that said, "But we're in love." This is what's good for thousands of people and for generations to come. But you know, Rebecca's still a person. So, she's going to have to make a choice here.

Genesis 24:51 It says, "Here is Rebecca before you. Take her and go, and let her be your master's son's wife, as the Lord has spoken." So, he gives him, verse 53, "The servant brought out jewelry of silver, jewelry of gold, and clothing and gave them to Rebecca. He also gave precious things to her brother and to her mother."

They had to work out a price. She's worth something, and you better come tell this family and tell her she's worth something. Now, that doesn't work so well in our society. I mean, guys, I have to tell you, if you got a girl you want to impress, I can just tell you this from being married for 40 years, I've told my wife, she's a 40-camel, 40-goat woman. And every time I think I'm going to get a different reaction, she stands there, and she gets sort of a grin. And I know she's being nice, but what's going on in her head is, "He's so weird." It doesn't work.

I'll tell you something else, guys, just a little sidebar here. Don't use the Song of Solomon to try to impress a woman today. The culture's too different, okay? You say, "Your hair is like a flock of goats skipping upon the hills." You're going to be standing outside the bedroom, knocking. You can hear sobbing inside, and you're going to be knocking, and she's going to be saying, "You think my hair smells like goats?" "No. No." You know, you can only take this culture so far in the world we live in, okay?

But understand, he showed up to say, "This woman, who I've never met, is worth this much because of your family and who you are and what this means to these families and what it means to God. God sent me here." And they agreed God had sent him there. This was God's will. If you and I have been called to be part of the Bride of Christ, it's because it's God's will, and there was a price paid. I don't know, I mean, what greater price could you pay? When I got married, I had nothing to give, you know, barely a job and not much money in the bank. And, man, if I'd have been living in this day, I'd have never got my wife. You know, I had nothing to give.

But, you know, you think about this and these two families and the thousands of people they have to take care of, and they're working this out. What's the price that Jesus Christ paid for you? Everything. I don't know what more He could do. What more could God do to say, "I want you?" What more can Jesus Christ do to say, "I want you," than to die for you? The price is beyond anything any man has ever given for a woman. And that's the price that was given for you. Do you understand it? Or is this so simple for us? We've done it for so long, we just go through the motions. There's nothing more important in your life than to get up every day of your life and say, "Jesus Christ died for me. The Father selected me. I am being prepared for Jesus Christ." There's nothing more important in your life than that every day.

What's amazing here, if we skip down to verse 54, verse 54... I got new glasses because I had reading glasses, so when I'd look out over everybody, their faces were all, you know, "Who are you?" So, I got new glasses so I can read and look up, but now I read and, like, look up, and I'm all confused. I don't know what's going on. So, here's the servant, he's with her family, Rebecca's family.

Genesis 24:54-56 “And he and his men who were with him ate and drank and stayed all night. And they arose in the morning and said, ‘Send me away to my master.’ But her brother and her mother said, ‘Let the young woman stay with us a few days, at least 10, and after that, she may go.’”

And the servant says, "No, I need to get back to Abraham. This is important. Sarah has died. Abraham's getting old. Isaac's going to have to take over the tribe. I've got to get him his wife back because this is the one God wants him to marry."

Genesis 24:57-8 "So, they said, 'We will call the young woman and ask her personally.'"

Yeah, she gets a say in this. We'll ask her, does she want to go with you? Or, you know, will she want to stay here for a while, 10 days, then maybe 10 days more? Then, you know, maybe she'll never leave."

Genesis 24:59 “So, they called Rebecca and said to her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ And she said, ‘I will go.’”

I can't imagine what it's like to be, you know, maybe a 17-year-old girl and be told you're about to go become the wife of a man who's over a tribe of thousands of people. And you're going to leave here and maybe never see us again. You don't know who he is, you don't know what he looks like, you don't know what kind of man he is, you don't know what the tribe's like, you don't know where they live, and you don't know Abraham, except you've heard of him. Because they were family. They all heard of each other. You know he's a great man of God. And she said, "I will go. This is what's right to do."

Is there a woman here that would say, "Under those conditions, I would've said I will go?" I'm thinking of Isaac, "What if she's ugly?" Right? But if they bring her, he's got to marry her, okay? This isn't questioned, this is arranged. This is you and I before God. We know of Jesus Christ, but we haven't met him face to face yet. But will you go? Will you go? Rebecca had to get in a wagon. Her sister went with her, and a nurse went with her. And they stuffed a wagon full of things, everything she owned, and off she went, never to see her parents again, as far as we know, or her family. To go across how many days to get there, we don't know. To show up at a place to meet her husband. Because even though they hadn't gone through a ceremony, they were betrothed. She was now legally, morally bound to a man she had never met.

And Rebecca's here as an example of faith, "I will go." You and I decide we will go. So, they arranged the marriage. The woman says she'll go. Now, they're betrothed. Now, this is an interesting concept, too, because in a betrothal, you're not married, you can't live together. You're not allowed to have a sexual relationship together. But you can't divorce. So, your responsibilities in the betrothal time is to prepare for someone you've already given your life to but you're not with. Or even if you're with, you're not living together.

I mean, think of Mary and Joseph. Remember, Mary and Joseph, Mary, the mother of Jesus, they were betrothed. And so, they were going to get married. It was legal, but they couldn't live in the same house. And believe me, they couldn't be alone together. And that society, men and women who were betrothed, men and women couldn't be alone together, period. Except you were married. To protect everybody. So, here they are and, it appears, very much in love with each other. There's lots of love stories in the Bible. People seem to find ways to fall in love with each other and get married, even in arranged marriages, okay?

I mean, come on. You can imagine if you know your daughter and this man, and he's the right man, and, you know, they just look at each other all the time, can't talk. It's like, "You know, okay, they grew up together. It's probably time they get married," right? I remember that with my older daughter. She's about 16, and she had her best friend, who was an 18-year-old guy. And I told my wife, "They're going to get married someday. They just don't know it yet." And they did. You know, they just didn't know it yet.

So, they were betrothed. And that's why it says that he decided that when he found out she was pregnant, he was going to put her away privately. In other words, by putting her away privately, he was going to take the blame, but she wasn't going to be his wife. You know, I don't know exactly what he would've done in that, but "I'm going to put her away. I can't marry her, but I'm going to do it privately. I'm not going to make a public spectacle out of her." Of course, the angel comes along and says, "No, you have to marry her. She's pregnant through the Holy Spirit." And he willingly married her.

Let's go to 2 Corinthians 11. Look at something the Apostle Paul says to the Church. He writes here to the church in Corinth, 2 Corinthians 11. Once again, as Paul does in some of his letters, he gets sort of personal here in the way he talks to these people.

2 Corinthians 11:1-2 He says, "Oh that you would bear with me," verse 1, "in a little folly, and indeed you do bear with me. For I am jealous for you with Godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."

Paul says, "My job is to prepare you to be the right and perfect Bride of Christ." That's how he saw Corinth. Now, read 1 and 2 Corinthians. If you and I would've walked into that church, we'd have walked out. That was the most dysfunctional, crazy church you can imagine. And what is Paul's approach to them? "My job is to help you become the Bride of Christ. Because you're going to have a function when He returns, and you're going to be presented to Him, and you're going to help Him change the world." That's what we've been called to do, change the world. We're going to help Jesus Christ change everything because that's what it takes for Him to take over this earth and rule over it. Nothing you and I live in today will ever function. No government, no business model, no social model, nothing will really function. Only God's way functions. And the bride has to be prepared to understand that and submit to our husband, which is a very special relationship.

2 Corinthians 11:3 Paul was worried, though. Verse 3 says, "But I fear, lest someone, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

That's interesting. He looks at the Church, and he says...you know, and he's talking to the man, too, here. He says, "I'm worried that you're too much like Eve and you're going to get deceived by Satan." Paul understood what he was doing in working with those people. You and I have said, "I will go." When you were baptized, and if you haven't been baptized yet, as you prepare for baptism, as you think about baptism, as you wonder about baptism, understand, one of the things you're saying is, "I will go." When you're baptized, you're betrothed to Jesus Christ. You're already married. You just don't get to be with your husband yet. Now, once again, I know it's...well, we think of this in its physical terms. No, He's trying to give us an understanding of a relationship of absolute dedication to each other. Absolute love towards each other. Absolute "We work together to fulfill what my husband wants done."

Sometimes I've heard people say, "Well, I can't wait, you know, when Christ returns and I get to be king someplace. I'm going to make them toe the line." No, that's not exactly the attitude. The attitude is, "Christ, what do you want me to do? How do I serve them? How do you serve them through me? I am submissive to you to take care of these people. Boss, what do you want? What do you want?"

Now, I have found great comfort at times in difficulties in the Church by just, I'm praying about it to God. And then I say, "And, Boss, what do you want me to do?" I find a great comfort in that. Because it's not my Church. It's not your Church. We're part of it. We're all bits and pieces of this body, this group of people, that the way He wants us to understand we're being created and formed to come together. That's why strife in the Church is so terrible. We're coming together to do what? Serve Jesus Christ in establishing God's kingdom on this earth. And you were selected personally by the Father to be arraigned in arranged marriage with His son.

Boy, wrap your mind around that. Wrap your mind around that. So, what does this mean then? Well, okay, we're being prepared. If we're betrothed, we're in a preparation process. We have to learn what it means to be a wife in this sense of spiritual wife. How do we work with our husband? How do we submit to our husband? How do we trust our husband? Of course, He says, "I already paid the price for you." We understand Christ's dedication to us because He died for us. Okay, that's a pretty big price. You don't make that kind of price to be frivolous about it, right? You just don't pay that kind of price to be frivolous. You pay that kind of price because you mean it.

Now, how do we respond to that? How do we respond to that? Ephesians 5. You know, it's very interesting. Once the couple were betrothed, many times they had to spend some time apart. And the reason why is the man had to go prepare the place for them, a house. How he was going to take care of them. I think back, you know, when Kim and I went through, it was pretty miserable for me for, you know, a 22-year-old, just desperately in love with this woman. I had to be separated for three months from her. Why? I went and found a job and got a place to live in. And she was doing all this other stuff on her own, and we didn't have cell phones then, we had to call over landlines, which cost lots of money because it was long distance.

But, you know, that's exactly what Christ does. What did He tell His disciples on the night He was betrayed? "I go to prepare a place for you, and I shall return." He says, "Hey, I have to go get this ready. I got to go get ready for the time when the resurrection takes place. And I have my people, my bride. My bride who will follow me, and submit to me, and help me," as we have an entire humanity to convert. Oh, and just a little job, we have to convert humanity. And then there's the great white throne judgment, where the numbers swell into...we can't even imagine how many numbers. Yeah, then we have to work with them and try to convert those people. It's just a big job. And He says, "I got to have this bride here that does her job and does it well."

Sometimes we worry about this life. "Well, God wants me to have a great job," or, "God wants me to have great money." You know, "I'm a plumber. God can't use plumbers in the kingdom. No, God wants a bride." And, you know what? I don't care what you do as a living. You learn the character that God wants you to have, and that job won't matter. We have the wrong concepts of status. We think, "Well, if you have more money, that means you must have more value to God." I don't know, I read the book of James, and in the Church, he tells rich people, "Be very careful, you may have left status with God because you trust too much in your wealth."

And by the way, in the context of the world, you and I are the wealthy. Even the poorest of us here have more than most of the people in much of the world. We have to be very careful how we think about status and wealth. I'm not saying it's wrong. Abraham had status and wealth. But at the same time, we're warned to be careful about that. Ephesians 5, we read this all the time. We quote this in our marriage ceremonies. We read it in marriage seminars and at marriage sermons. Ephesians 5:23. And, of course, some people cringe, you know, some women cringe at this statement. Some men say, "Yes," and they abuse this statement. Because this is all about marriage, husband and wife relationship. But I really want to zero in here today, not on your relationship with your husband and wife, but what this means about you and my relationship with Jesus Christ, okay?

Ephesians 5:23-24 "For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the Church, and He's the savior of the body. Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."

Now, of course, it's nice to stop there when you're the man, "You have to submit to me." Well, there is a certain submission that's supposed to take place in marriage. That's not popular to say today, but it is the truth. It's what the scripture says. It's how marriage is supposed to work. And you and I didn't make up marriage, God did. We didn't make marriage, God did. But then let's see the rest of it.

Ephesians 5:25 "Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave herself for her."

He said, "Now, men, no matter what it takes, you die taking care of her and doing what's right and being a good man to her. That's what you do." What's the example? Jesus Christ. So, as husbands, we should always be looking at Christ and saying, "How do I love my wife?" Well, the same way Christ loved you. You love your wife the same way He loves you because without Christ, well, we have nothing, right? So, you give everything you have. Why? Verse 26.

This is what we're doing now. This is what Christ is doing right now. He's resurrected, doing work on this earth, and here we are, the Church.

Ephesians 5:26-27 He says “That He might sanctify and cleanse her.” This is what He's doing with us, “with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she should be holy and without blemish.”

This is what He is doing right now in your life. You are being prepared to be a bride, specifically shaped and formed for Him so that we can do our work that we're supposed to do, that we've been called to do during the millennium and great white throne judgment. After that, I have no idea what we're going to do, but it's better than anything you and I could come up with. I can guarantee you that. But we know what we're supposed to do during the millennium. We know what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to be the Bride of Christ. Look what he says in verse 32.

Ephesians 5:32 "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church."

He's talking about marriage here, but actually, that's a secondary issue. He's talking about the husband and wife relationship here as a secondary issue. The primary issue that Paul is talking about is "This is what the Church is all about." This is what it's all about. An arranged marriage by the Almighty God to be prepared to serve Jesus Christ. Now, that's not always easy, is it? I keep thinking of Rebecca getting on in a wagon, waving and crying, and saying, "I may never see them again, but I have to go where I'm supposed to go because my husband is waiting for me. A man I've never met."

But see, marriage had a different concept then. I mean, people wanted romance. People wanted to be attracted to each other. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that the idea that marriage was something greater than that. Marriage wasn't just about feelings, it wasn't just about attraction, it just wasn't about making each other happy. Marriage was about God's will, God's will, and how He created society. And so you had a great responsibility to be married, a great responsibility. You had a responsibility as a husband to your wife, as a wife to your husband. You had a responsibility to your greater family. You had a responsibility to society, and you had a responsibility to God.

I believe one reason we have so many marriage problems in the Church at times is because we are not being a good wife to our husband. And I mean men and women together. We're not being a good wife to our betrothed. Because if we were a good wife to our betrothed, we would treat each other differently. That's how important this is. Why would Paul say, "I'm showing you a great mystery, but I'm actually talking about the Church here. I'm talking about the Church and Christ." How amazing is it to be in an arranged marriage by God in which Jesus Christ has already paid for you? And we're on the road. We are in the wagon, like Rebecca.

Getting to my wedding wasn't easy. I had an AMC Javelin. Anybody remember what an AMC Javelin was? Anybody? It was the poor man's Corvette. It really wasn't that great of a car, but it sort of looked like a Corvette, sat on the ground, and went 160 miles an hour, you know. And I had one, an old one, but I was cool. I left Pennsylvania at 5:00 in the morning because that was a Friday, it was only eight hours up to where I was supposed to be. No problem. Get there before sundown. We were going to have a little rehearsal and then spend the Sabbath, you know, with my wife's family at Church. And then, you know, that night after sunset, we were going to get married. It was wonderful. It was perfect.

And I got in my wagon, and I started off. Well, I hadn't gone very far, and it started to rain. And I turned on the windshield wipers, and they wouldn't work. So, I'm driving through the rain, and I'm on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and I pull over, and... I don't have a cold. I have allergies. Fall and spring are terrible for me. So, you don't have to worry. So, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do. I pull off into this station, and they said, "Well, we're sorry, none of our mechanics will be here till 7:00." So, I waited around until 7:00. You know, I went to start my car, and it wouldn't start.

So, I pushed it into the garage, and they looked at it and said, "Your starter's gone. We don't have a starter here." So, I called, you know, a mechanic that wasn't too far away. And he said, "We'll send a tow truck." So, now I'm really starting to worry, man. I'm 2 hours down the road, 3 hours down the road, and I'm, like, 40 miles from my house, right? So, the tow truck comes, hooks up my car, and off it goes. And I look behind me, and I can see all these people in the car, waving at me. And it's half the wedding party. They'd left hours after I did, and they'd caught up to me, and one of them said, "Hey, look, there's Gary's car behind that tow truck." And so, they're all waving, and they're following me around.

Well, I get into the shop, and it's like, "We don't have a starter." So, they had to go get a starter. And I keep looking, and it's like, "Wow, the hours are going by. I'm not going to make it." And now to make matters worse, all the mechanics...you know how mechanics can be. You know, they're sort of gruff guys. And it's like, "You're going to get married? Hey, it is a sign from God. You're not supposed to go. Get out now, man, while you can, okay?" They're just doing this over and over and over again. So, they're all laughing and everything, and finally, they get the starter in.

So, we get back. We get back out on it. We get into Ohio because now I get across all of Ohio, and suddenly, there's an explosion, and the car fills up with smoke, and there is a noise that is so loud. And what had happened with the manifold, I won't go through it. Let’s just say there's a problem with the manifold and it's just pumping the smoke directly into the car. And, I mean, the sound is just roaring, right? Well, we can't do anything about it, and I got to have the car to get my wife back home. So, we drive, and drive, and drive. And after about an hour of me driving, I couldn't hear, I said, "I got to stop." And my cousin said, "I'll drive."

So, he's driving, and I'm asleep. I finally fall asleep. I get about 10 minutes of sleep, and we pull over to the side of the road, and I wake up, and there I look, I can see my car up there, and it's on fire. And Faith, my other cousin, she's running out, filling up a coke can with water, and going and throwing it inside the car. So, I get out, and, "What happened?" "Well, I don't know, the carpet just exploded into flames." So, we got enough ditch water just to soak down the carpet, and we took off again. And I'm thinking, "I'm never going to make it. I'm never going to make it."

I keep calling Kim. You know, we keep stopping because we don't have cell phones. I get calling in a, you know, phone booth, putting in the last bit of change I have. "When are you going to be here?" "Well, I'm, like, 100 miles down the road." "You've been on the road for six hours." "I know, but we're doing okay. Okay, we're doing okay." Well, we can't hear. I mean, all that exhaust, we're taking turns driving, but everybody's sick from all the exhaust, and we're going on. But I got to get to my wedding. I have to be there. I mean, I just have to. I mean, this girl, I'll never find another woman like this. And she said, "Yes." That'll never happen in the rest of my life.

So, I'm driving, and we're doing okay, and it starts to rain. And we remember the windshield wipers don't work. So, we stopped under a bridge, and we got the driver's side, it would do this just a little bit. So, now the fiance of my cousin gets in, and he says, "Let me have a turn." And he's driving along, and it got so bad, he had his head out the window. And I'll never forget, because the rain is just coming down, and a semi went by, and, you know, it was like a tsunami. And he looked at me, and his face was just covered with about that much, just water, I mean, and just sludge, I mean all dirt and stuff from the road. So, we're trying to clean his face off so he won't wreck.

I get to the end of the Ohio Turnpike to go into Michigan. And, literally, the guy said, "You are not allowed to ever come into Ohio again." I'm afraid when I drive through Ohio now that I'm going to get pulled over, and they're going to pull up in the computer and say, "I'm sorry, sir, you can't be here." He said, "Don't you ever come back in this state again." So, we went on, we got in Michigan, "Okay, we're going to make it," and then the brakes went out. Let's just say I drove 30 miles an hour and had to downshift and pump the brakes constantly. And I finally got there, like, 10:00 at night, 14 hours.

And I'll never forget walking in, I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't talk because of all the exhaust. I reeked of oil and gasoline and exhaust. My hair was messed up. I mean, I was filthy, and I just walked in, and there's her and her family. I could have given them 1000 goats, I wasn't good enough at this point, okay? There was just nothing I could bring. And I'm just standing there like, "I made it." I would've walked, right? Remember, guys? You'd have crawled to be there for that wedding.

Now, we'll do that physically. What do you feel about Jesus Christ? What will you go through to be at that wedding? Because you're already betrothed. It's more than an engagement. It's already a done deal. You're betrothed. What will you go through? Let's end in 1 Corinthians 1. Because that's the question. You are getting asked the question, the baptism that Rebecca got. "Will you go with this man, to go marry this man?" Now, it's not a man, I mean, but will you go to marry this husband? And she said, "I will go." But she had no idea what it would take to get there. I love the story. It just says they arrive, and of all the people in their tribe, the first thing she asked is, "Who is that man?" They said, "Well, that's Isaac. That's the guy you're going to marry." She didn't seem disappointed. She didn't seem disappointed. And it just says that she comforted him because of the death of her mother. She brought something to him that he did not have, which is what a wife does.

1 Corinthians 1:4, get to 1 Corinthians here. Paul, he's talking about...once again to the Corinthian church, he's very personal in what he says to these people. He struggled with this Corinthian church. And they were hard on him, so hard that you can tell in writing, especially in 2 Corinthians, you can tell, he's actually emotionally hurt by how the Church had treated him.

1 Corinthians 1:4-6 He says, "I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God, which was given to you by Christ Jesus. That you were enriched in everything by Him, in all utterance, in all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you."

In other words, the testimony of Christ becomes real in you. Understand, we're only halfway through a sentence. Understand what it means. Paul looks at the Corinthian church and says, "God has given you His grace. He's given you something you can't do yourself." That's what God's grace is. He gives us something we can't do ourselves. He's given us something we can't do. He's given us His spirit. He's given us forgiveness. He's given us power to be completed, to be finished, to be that bride. You have it. He's already given it. The question is, will you go? The question isn't, is God holding back? The question isn't, can God do it? The question is, will you go?

1 Corinthians 1:7 "So, that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Eagerly waiting. I find that difficult. I don't eagerly wait for anything. I eagerly do something, that's just my personality. But then you realize eagerly waiting is doing something in this case. You're anticipating when these days actually happen. You are anticipating when Jesus Christ is here and we get to meet Him, and we are spiritual, we're no longer physical. And He says, "Look what we're going to do."

God always says, "Look what I'm going to do. Come here, you want to join me? "That's the way God is with everything. "Look what I can do." And you and I are the proof of what God can do. You and I aren't the proof of how good we can be, and how righteous we can be, and how much we can obey. We are the proof of what God can do. Because, without God, we wouldn't even know this way of life. We would not have received anything. Now, we have to do with what He gives us. And he says here He's given you everything you need. Either He has or He hasn't. Either that's true or it's not true. Will we go?

1 Corinthians 1:8 He says, "Who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."

We will be that bride without a spot. We will be that perfect bride. And being a bride sort of, like I said in the beginning, is foreign to me. But all I know is I want to be the right person for when Christ comes back. That He says, "Yes, you're part of the group I'm marrying." Now, there's, "You're part of the group I have a special relationship with. Now, we're going to go do something. We're going to go change the world."

1 Corinthians 1:9 Remember this, "God is faithful." God arranged the marriage. God doesn't throw us away easily. That God never throws anybody away. We walk away, we refuse to go. God is faithful. God is faithful. He says, "By whom you were called into the fellowship of His son, Jesus Christ, our Lord."

Understand what he just said here. You were called to be in fellowship with Jesus Christ. What does that mean? This special relationship that's supposed to happen. That's why Jesus Christ asked His disciples, "Do you love me more than mother, and brother, and sister, your own life also? Because if you don't, you cannot be my disciple." He didn't say you don't love God with all your heart and all your might and all your soul. What He's saying is you have to understand the special relationship we have with Him because of the job He's going to do with us. What He's going to accomplish in this world, and we get to participate. Isn't that amazing? You and I get to participate with Almighty God and being with Jesus Christ. And what happens if this Feast of Tabernacles actually pictures? We get to participate. It's a whole lot more than a nice beach, and a nice condo, and nice food. It's a whole lot more than that. A whole lot greater than that.

These holy days picture the time when Jesus Christ is going to return. And you're going to hear that over and over and over again in this feast. You can hear some of the same scriptures, some of the same messages, as it is driven home to us why we are here. It isn't just to have a good time, that's just the icing on the cake. Rejoice. We've already heard two messages about rejoicing. Rejoice, right? That's the icing on the cake. But remember both messages, it was rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord.

So, spend time this feast with your Father, who has arranged this marriage. Honor Him, show Him glory. Spend time this feast thinking about Jesus Christ as your betrothed. You want to know more about Him? Read the Bible. You want to know more about Him? Read the gospels. Because you have a job. It's serving Him in the job that the Father's given Him to do. And ask God to pour out His spirit on you because that's the only way this happens. Because it is time to prepare for the wedding feast. That's what it's called in the scripture. It is time to prepare for the wedding feast, and it is time for the bride to make herself ready.