SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/21/2015
9:57 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2
Marriage of the Lamb
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation 19:7-10
Message of the verses: “7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the
glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made
herself ready." 8 It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen,
bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. 9
Then he said to me, "Write, ’Blessed are those who are invited to the
marriage supper of the Lamb.’" And he said to me, "These are true
words of God." 10 Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to
me, "Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who
hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the
spirit of prophecy.’”
While listening to John MacArthur’s sermons on these
verses he went into a long talk about how many people have tried to take the marriage
parables in the different gospels, (mostly from Matthew) and combine them with
what we read here in Revelation 19. I
only want to quote one paragraph from his commentary to go along with this
thought: “Because the New Testament uses
marriage to illustrate such a variety of spiritual principles, those
illustrations cannot be used to interpret Revelation 19. Each parable or illustration must be
interpreted in its own context. To blend
together details from such unconnected illustrations with a common theme is not
the way to interpret this text (or any text).”
We have spoken about how marriage was done in the past as
far as a Jewish wedding and how long it could take for the whole thing to take
place and now I want to think a bit about how long that God has planned what we
are reading about in this section from Revelation chapter 19 verses 7-10. We can go back to eternity past when God put
all of these plans together, plans that were about His Son who would take a
bride, who would come to planet earth and die for the salvation of His bride
and then go back to heaven and prepare a place for His bride to live in, so
when we get to these verses in chapter nineteen of Revelation we understand
that it has been a very long time since all of this planning had taken place. I realize that where God is in heaven that
time is completely different than what we experience on planet earth, for on
planet earth God invented and created time so the world turns in a circle and
one day is gone, and the world goes around the sun and one year is gone, but it
is different in heaven as Peter explained that a day in heaven is like a
thousand years. Another thing that has
gone through my mind as I have studied about this marriage supper of the Lamb
and that is just how sacred marriage is to the Lord, for it was the Lord who
designed marriage and it is now wonder that what our Supreme Court has done
will break the heart of God so much that we will see His wrath on this country
because of this action along with other actions that we as a country have gone
against what is His written will.
Marriage is special to the Lord and we can see a bit of how special it
is to Him as we study these verses.
John MacArthur writes “Betrothed in eternity past, presented
in the Father’s house since the Rapture, the church is now read for the wedding
ceremony to begin. That ceremony will
coincide with the establishment of the millennial kingdom, and stretch
throughout that thousand-year period to be finally consummated in the new
heavens and the new earth (cf. 21:1-2).
The idea of a thousand-year-long ceremony may seem farfetched; yet it is
no more difficult than several thousand years of betrothal. And it must be remembered that ‘a thousand
years in [God’s} sight are like yesterday when it passes by’ (Ps. 90:4), and
that ‘with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like
one day’ (2 Peter 3:8). In the new
heavens and the new earth, the bride concept will be expanded to include not
only the church, but also all the redeemed of all ages as the New Jerusalem
become the bridal city (21:1-2). It
should be noted that in the Old Testament, God is the bridegroom of Israel
(Isa. 54:5-6; 62:5; Jer. 31:32; Ezek. 16:7-14; Hos. 2:16, 19).”
We will continue looking at these verses in more detail
in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Marriage is very
important to the Lord and I know it should be just as important to me and the marriage
that my wife and I have been involved in for over 42 years.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to help me to better
understand the great importance of being married.
Answer to our last Bible
question: “Land of the Philistines” (1
Samuel 17:4).
Today’s Bible question: “Who were the only two grown men that left
Egypt and later entered into Canaan?”
Answer in our next SD.
9/21/2015 10:42 AM
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