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Are You Going to the Banquet?

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In Revelation 19 we read about the marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus the bridegroom will be the focus, and we,  the church, will be the bride. This will be a glorious celebration that includes all the followers of Jesus around the world. People from every nation, tribe, and language. This is the bride of Christ.

However, this banquet requires an invitation.  Are you going to the banquet?

In Revelation 19:6 we read about the sound of a great multitude of angels singing praise to God. A sound unlike any choir we have ever heard; it will make Arrowhead Stadium sound dull in comparison. It is a cry of victory, Babylon is destroyed, our lord God reigns. The heavenly hosts saw all that God has done and they burst into praise.

And then the attention turns to this unusual bride, made up of people from every nation on the earth. How has the bride made herself ready? If you look at the church today, would you say the church globally is ready? The church, this perfect bride will be made up of the followers of Jesus, but it wont look like anything we have seen before.

The direction that God has for the global church is unchartered territory, we have never been this way before. God is constantly refining, transforming, and preparing the church.

What does the bride wear? Verse 8 tells us that the Lamb’s bride is dressed “in the righteous deeds (acts) of the saints.”  We must remember that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9). The bride goes to heaven by God’s grace, and not by good works. But once in heaven, believers will be judged at Christ’s judgment seat for their faithfulness in life and in service. Christ will reward us according to our faithfulness, and the rewards we receive will make up the “wedding gown.”

Dr. Lehman Strauss writes, “Has it ever occurred to you … that at the marriage of the Bride to the Lamb, each of us will be wearing the wedding garment of our own making?” What a solemn thought!

Jesus tells a parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22 and speaks about a man who is not dressed in the wedding garments (Matthew 22:11-14). Here is a man who thinks he is in, but he is not. A man who thinks he is part of the bride of Christ, but he is not wearing the garments of the bride. There are no deeds and no fruit in his life.

If we boil it down to the very basics, there are only two kinds of people. Those in the Kingdom and those outside of the Kingdom. And just because we sit in church every week, it does not mean we are part of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is possible to be members of the visible church and not actually part of the Body of Christ. A person is not saved by being a long-time member of any church. You personally must make a decision regarding the Gospel of Jesus Christ in order to become a member of the invisible church, or the true body of Christ.

Sometimes we see so little evidence of people being a part of the bride of Christ. Why there is such a lack of people who are clothing themselves in the righteous deeds of saints? Sadly, there are many people in the church who prefer the stench of grave clothes (Ephesians 2:1). Many people in churches today are barely on life support, you see no evidence of their new life outside of Sunday morning attendance.

Jesus indicated that even in the visible church there would be those who are not true believers, and thus not members of the invisible Church (Matthew 25:31-46).

In verse 9, the angel says, “…Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” There is a private invitation, are you invited? Have you made Jesus Christ your lord and savior? Are you part of the family? Do you have your invitation to the marriage supper of the lamb?

Before we become Christians, we are blind to the glory of God, we are deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we have no love for God, we have no sense of a personal relationship with the creator God.

If you don’t have a sense of the presence of God, if you don’t know him as your heavenly father, if you don’t hear the voice of the Holy Spirit guiding your life, you may very well be dead in your spirit.

If you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you may be a registered member of the church, but you are not a member of the invisible church, and you are not going to spend eternity with Jesus Christ, the head of the church (Matthew 7:21).

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” God saved us, and prepared works for us to do that become the linens that we will wear at the Marriage supper of the lamb.

We don’t work to be saved, but we joyfully serve because we are saved.  

Our motivation for serving the Lord is to bring glory to the name of Jesus, to serve him out of love and gratitude. That earns us the fine linens.

The church is going to the marriage supper of the lamb, will you be attending?

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Sermon Sunday April 25, 2021 – Mountain Top Experiences part 1

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Throughout the Bible God encountered people on the tops of mountains. He revealed Himself to them and changed the course of human history. Over the next several weeks we will be looking at some of those encounters and the lessons we can learn from them.

One of the most significant mountain top experiences took place on Mt Moriah as God tested the faith of Abraham. We read about this in Genesis 22, and it is well known to Christians, Jews and Muslims1.

For Christians, the story is traditionally viewed in light of Abraham’s tremendous faith in response to the unthinkable request from God to sacrifice his only beloved son. However, there is so much we can learn from this mountain top experience.

  • What does this account reveal about Abraham?

The first sentence in chapter 22 simply states, “After these things God tested Abraham…”.  

Here is where we must remove our 21st century “Sunday School” lenses and see that this is a truly horrifying account in history. God asks Abraham to kill his own son. A human sacrifice is counter to everything we know about God. It offends us and challenges our sense of decency and understanding of God. Yet we are told that this was Abraham’s finest hour and his most glorious victory.

We have the advantage of knowing how the story unfolds, but for Abraham it must have been the most difficult few days of his entire life.

Amazingly, we see that Abraham remained silent and seemed passive. Abraham must have been going through tremendous inner turmoil as he scoured through hundreds of scenarios in his mind. Verse 4 of chapter 22 says that; “On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.” It appears that he had been walking for three days with his eyes on the ground before him, deep in thought and anguish. Abraham’s quick response and silence seems to indicate resigned numbness to God’s will, steeling himself against the emotions tearing through his heart.

After passing the test, God pronounces an incredible blessing over Abraham, but life doesn’t go back to the way it was. Most scholars agree that Isaac didn’t return with him to Beersheba (Gen 22:19), and shortly thereafter his wife, Sarah dies. There was an understandable strain in the relationships in the house of Abraham.

  • What does the Account reveal about God?

In verse 2 God says, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah…” From this it is evident that God does not recognize that Ishmael was even a child of Abraham. In verse 11 we see that God stopped the sacrifice of Isaac right at the point when there was no doubt that Abraham was going to go through with the killing of his son. God showed that He never intended to allow Abraham to kill Isaac and went on to explain the test to him.

This picture of God is not the soft and amicable Heavenly Father that our modern-day “Christianity” likes to portray. On the contrary, the picture of Abraham lowering the knife was, in God’s eyes, the passing grade of the test. I doubt that this display of the nature of God would be palatable to the masses in our post-modern society (Isaiah 55:8). But we must come to grips with the fact that the God of the Old Testament has not changed. What has changed is our relationship with him because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.  

  • What about Isaac?

Traditionally the focus is on Abraham, but what about Isaac?

According to Jewish historians, Isaac was between 25 and 37 years old and not an unsuspecting child. As mentioned earlier, Isaac left Abraham and the next time we see him is in the Negev in chapter 24.  This event must have been incredibly traumatic for Isaac; his own father betrayed him and tried to kill him.

In contrast, according to a few ancient rabbinical documents, we read of Isaac as a willing sacrifice, actually asking his father to bind him tightly so that he would not move out of the way of the knife. This gives us a totally different picture of Isaac, one of a willing sacrifice and one who understood the importance of obeying his father and God.

  • Jesus and Isaac

There are many parallels between the life of Isaac and that of Jesus.

Both Isaac and Jesus were foretold, and their names were given to their parents by God. They were both conceived miraculously, and both were called “beloved son”.

Leading up to Mt Moriah, Abraham was silent. So too, God the Father was silent in Gethsemane leading up to the crucifixion of His beloved Son.

The fact that the wood for the offering was laid on the back of Isaac is a symbol of the cross that Jesus would one day carry on his shoulders.

Leading up to his crucifixion, Jesus was unwavering in his path to the cross and he was silent during his trial.  In the same way, Isaac walked silently alongside his father.

This account in essence is the salvation of Israel.  Even though Isaac was not killed, the intervention by the angel saved the nation that was to come. So too, Jesus was sacrificed in order to save all nations.

Like Isaac, Jesus’ walk to the cross was not simply passive resignation to his fate, but rather there was a determination to obey his Father’s will (Luke 22:42).

By his resurrection, Jesus provided for the salvation for all who would believe in him. The staying of the sacrifice of Isaac, was his “resurrection”, and that provided for the continuation and fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham (Hebrews 11:17-19)

What makes this account so horrifying is that God instructed Abraham to slaughter his own son, but if we really think about the crucifixion on Calvary we should be even more offended.

Because of our sins, God the Father required a perfect sacrifice. The only way we could be saved was by the perfect sacrifice of the spotless lamb of God (Isaiah 53:6, 2 Corinthians 5:21).

But here is the amazing truth that we miss, Abraham – the father had to raise his hand against his son.

Jesus knew that he would bear the incredible pain of the cross while bearing our sins. God the Father knew that he would have to inflict this pain on his own beloved son Jesus (Isaiah 53:10).

We must never miss the horror and the offense of the cross. God the Father inflicted His perfect wrath on God the Son.

Thank God today for the amazing gift of salvation.

1Muslim accounts of this event replace Isaac with Ishmael.