Preparing for the Wedding of Messiah!

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Pastor Ellen Mumper, Canada

 

 

A beautiful hymn I have come to love is called "The Sands of Time are Sinking" .   The words of this hymn speak of a wedding, a bride and a Groom.   Most of us have been to a wedding and in these days all eyes seem to be on the beautiful bride as she makes her way down that aisle-  many times she is in stunning white, with her hair arranged beautifully and flowers in her arms.   However in this hymn I refer to the eyes are not on the bride but on the Groom.  And her eyes are on HIM also!  

 

The bride eyes not her garments but her dear Bridegroom's face

I will not gaze at Glory but on my King of Grace!

Not on the crown He giveth, but on His pierced hand

For the Lamb is all the glory of Immanuel's land!

 

What a day that will be when Yeshua comes to take us to be with Him forever.   Gone will be the days when we lamented over our sinfulness and the world's hopelessness.   There will be no more opportunities to invite others to be part of this wedding.   There will be tears aplenty but HE will wipe them all from our eyes when He comes in Glory.

 

When I was engaged to my husband we were both living in the Caribbean and as missionaries there was very little money.   I was preparing to be a missionary's wife.   And I made my own wedding gown.   I remember cutting it out, with trembling lest I make a mistake.   There would be no going back to the US for more fabric!   I hand sewed all the lace on the hem, on the sleeves, the bodice and the train.   I crocheted tiny loops for the pearly buttons... dozens of them!   And I dreamed.   At the age of 30 I was all in white because I was a virgin bride and had looked forward to wearing this floor length train and veil some day!

 

When we are saved we are covered with the righteousness of Messiah.   In one sense I see righteousness in Scripture as something that is imputed to us by God Himself.   We know that Avraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.   Galatians 3:6 and Romans 4 explain this process.   In many places righteousness is also described as armour, such as in 2 Corinthians 6:7- the armour of righteousness, in Ephesians 6:14- a breastplate of righteousness and in 2 Timothy 4:8- a crown of righteousness.   While I don't want to negate this powerful and wonderful gift of God to us for our belief and trust in Him, I don't know too many brides who get married in armour.  

 

An interesting Scripture, then, is in Revelation 19:7 and 8-  "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready.    And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints."   Where does this purity, this whiteness come from?    After the believer is redeemed by trusting in the salvation of Yeshua,  righteousness of Messiah is imputed to him or her.  But after this the Bride, the true Church, the redeemed ones, must make herself ready.   Philippians 2:12 admonishes us to 'work out our own salvation with fear and trembling."   That is, we work out what He has begun in us, by our lives and actions.   Ephesians 2:10 says that we are HIS workmanship and this is so but we have to work it out ourselves; that is we must be obedient to the work of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) in our lives.   He has ordained good works that "we should walk in them."

 

In the ancient Jewish wedding, to which  Yeshua so beautifully refers in John 14, there is first of all a betrothal.   This was considered actually a part of being married, not a "test" engagement period.   The prospective groom came to his intended's house with his father to make the proposal.   He brought with him fine wine, goblets, and a contract, or ketubah.   They sat down to discuss the proposal.   The bride-price was settled.   It is a fascinating study and not one for this article today, except to refer to it briefly.   When these things were decided upon, the bride to be was offered the cup.   If she took the cup and drank the wine, she was accepting the proposal and the marriage was set.   Then the groom went away to his father's house to prepare a place for his beloved.   That is what Yeshua was doing when He said "I go to prepare a place for you, and will come again for you."   The children of Israel at Sinai accepted a Ketubah, the Torah.   Today all of us who are part of Israel, those Jewish born belivers in Messiah and the grafted in church of born again believers are all Israel.  We are preparing for this magnificent Bridegroom to split the skies coming back with a SHOUT to take us to Himself!    While the Bridegroom is preparing this place for us... what should the BRIDE be doing?   Of course!   making our wedding gown white.  

 

The Bride prepares.    Oh what a shame if a Bride were to walk down the aisle in a costly gown stained with something spilled on it, or torn, or not sewn correctly!  

 

We are in last days and He is coming soon.   It is a fact that the true Church is not always living as Scripture asks us to.   The righteousness of saints-  what is that?   We are not saved by works but we are to walk in them.  Do we even know what they are?   Which instructions in Holy Scripture are for us?  do we know?   Yeshua said "IF you love ME keep My commandments!"   I know it is not true of all churches but I have been in many which say "oh, we are not under the Law now, we don't need to keep commandments, we are saved by faith."   I agree that we are saved by faith and faith alone in the shed blood of our Messiah!   Only blood atones!   But IF we love this coming Bridegroom we are to WALK in His commandments.  

 

Many in the church today are heeding the warning of Malachi 4.   "Remember  the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments....Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.   And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."     Many Christians today are discovering the Hebraic roots of their faith and learning to walk in commandments of the fathers, to be pleasing to Him, not to be saved.   So many we cannot do, without a Temple or sacrifices!   But we need to be in the Word of God daily to study, to see what we CAN obey and apply to ourselves, not in the oldness of the letter, but in the LIFE of the Spirit. 

O I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved’s mine!
He brings a poor vile sinner into His “house of wine.”
I stand upon His merit—I know no other stand,
Not even where glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land!

Here comes the .... GROOM!