Behold, The Bride Groom Comes!

Behold, The Bridegroom Comes

Pray.

In the OT , God chose the Jewish nation to be His own special people. In a world full of idolatry, in a world full of

multi god worship or polytheism, in an adulturous world, God looked down and said to the Jews, You will be mine and I

will be your God.

And the OT chronicles the struggle between the two. The hot and cold relationship that Israel had with God

because of their sin and inability to remain faithful to Him and Him only.

But that did not change God's love towards them and when the time came for Jesus to be born, God chose for

Him to be born a Jew. Therefore, Jesus followed the Jewish laws and customs, so when Jesus spoke, we have to

understand, in many instances, Jesus was referring to Jewish customs.

So, saying that, open your Bible's to John 14:1-3.

In this text , Jesus is speaking specifically to a group of believers, So in essence, He is speaking to every person

that accepted Him as their personal Savior, including you and me here today.

When you accept Jesus as your Savior, the Bible says, you are now part of the Body of Christ, that ONE day, will

be presented to Jesus as His bride.

Flip your Bible's over to Ephesians 5:23-27 and Read.

Do you see the relationship that Paul is describing between a husband and a wife and how he compares that

relationship to the church and Jesus.

And in vs. 27 Paul says, One Glorious Day, God will present the church body to Jesus as a bride without spot

wrinkle or blemish, which will be when we are in heaven, When the sanctification process has been completed and

we have received our new glorified bodies, When we have NO MORE sin nature.

So very clearly taught here, this marriage ceremony cannot and will not take place until the Rapture of the church

and every believer is in heaven with Jesus.

Now back to our text here in John 14.

Jesus says, I will be leaving you soon. But don't worry, I will be back for you.

This is Jesus clearly saying , I am married to the believer and I will be back for my bride.

And this is what I was speaking about earlier, concerning the Jewish customs. Remember Jesus was Jewish.

I want us to look at these three verses here in John 14:1-3 and compare them to an actual Jewish marriage and

come away here today clearly understanding what Jesus meant in these three verses.

The First step in any Jewish marriage is the arraingements. Which, the Father of the Groom selects a bride for

his Son. We are told in Ephesians 1:4 this , According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world

that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

There fore, it is God that is calling lost sinners to salvation, the Holy Spirit draws sinners to the point of

conviction, thus preparing the bride for His Son, Jesus.

Next, In the Jewish marriage, there is a marriage contract, where the groom promises to support his soon to be bride.

And The Groom pays the Bride's Family a Gift, but it ultimately belongs to the bride.

Jesus paid that price to his bride, by giving His life. We are told in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, What? know ye not that

your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, And YE ARE NOT YOUR OWN?

FOR YE ARE BOUGHT WITH A PRICE, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which ARE GOD'S.

Believer here today, God's called you to His son, He's paid a dowry, with His life and your life is not yours anymore

it belongs to God.

The next step in the Jewish marriage ceremony is the Betrothal, which means to be separated or set apart. This is

the time that the Jewish man and woman would use to prepare themselves to enter into the covenant of marriage.

Today we call this an engagement, but A Jewish Betrothal and our engagement today are not at all the same and

remember Jesus was a Jewish man and He followed Jewish customs, not ours today. The Jewish Betrothal, is

binding. To break a betrothal between a Jewish man and woman, it literally requires a legal contract to be drawn and

can only be issued by the Groom, never the bride.

During this process, The Jewish man and woman would publically display their pledge to marriage in a short

ceremony where they would exchange valuables, often rings, similiar to our wedding ceremony.

And after the ceremony, the Groom would return back home to fulfill His obligations during the betrothal time,