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,
which lasted a year. They would not see each other for a year. But before the groom left, he would give his soon to
be wife a token of his love, telling her, I love you and I will be back for you. Often times something that was very
near and dear to his heart, something very personal to him.
Now here comes the very beautiful part. The first responsibility of the Groom was to provide a place for them to
live. In the movies, we see the Jewish men building new homes, but this was not the case. In most every case,
the Groom returned home and added on to his parents existing home.
Then the local Rabai would have to determine that the place that the bride was moving to had to be better than the
place where she had been living.
And lastly, it was not the Groom's duty to determine when the place he was preparing for his bride was ready, his
father would make that determination and then give the go ahead to receive his bride.
And during this One Year Betrothal , the bride was to keep herself busy in preparation for the wedding day.
So is Jesus fulfilling His part during this Betrothal process. Believer you are betrothed to Jesus, One day you
will be presented to Him as His bride. He is your Bridegrooom.
So is He fulfilling His duty? Here in John 14:1-3, The first thing Jesus said He is going to do when He returns
back to heaven is what? In vs. 2 Jesus says, I AM GOING TO PREPARE A PLACE FOR YOU.
So Jesus is fulfilling His duty. And remember what we said in Jewish Custom, The place to which the bride was
going to, had to be better than her current living conditions. Jesus is fulfilling that obligation as well. Where is
our new home going to be? In heaven, undoubtedly better than we are now.
But I want you to notice vs.2 closely with me. Jesus says in MY FATHER"S HOUSE are many mansions, which
simply means dwelling places. As I said earlier, In most every case, the Jewish man would go back and add onto
his father's house. That is exactly what Jesus is doing. IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE ARE MANY DWELLING
PLACES. I don't mean to burst your bubble here, if you were expecting a Mansion on 100 acres of land, you're not
going to get that. I believe, Jesus, following the Jewish custom of marriage and betrothal, is adding on to His Father's
house because notice, He says, I go to prepare a place for you.
Jesus , the BrideGroom, during our betrothal process, that we are in now, because we are separated currently
from Him, is busy preparing a special place for every believer that accepted Him as Savior from the time of His
Resurrection to the day He returns for His bride.
As I said earlier, The Groom would also give something very special to the Bride to assure her of his love and of
his return for her. Did Jesus fulfill that part of the ceremony.
He certainly did. In Ephesians 1:13-14 Paul tells us that gift or pledge , is the Holy Spirit. A promise of love and
that one day Jesus will return for us. This event was clearly demonstrated when Abraham's Servant gave gifts to
Rebekkah before she was to marry Isaac. The gifts were a pledge of more to come after the wedding ceremony.
Jesus gave us His pledge of Love by Giving us the Holy Spirit, which is simply a pledge of much more to come
after our wedding ceremony with Him in heaven. We will receive so much more.
So Jesus is fulfilling His end of the betrothal process perfectly according to Jewish Custom and according to
God's Holy Word.
But how about the Bride? What is the bride's part during the betrothal process. If you're saved here this morning,
you have a duty as the future bride of Jesus. The bride's duty was to consecrate herself. She was to be preparing
holy garments for the upcoming ceremony.
Today, Our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, is getting ready to return for His bride, And we need to ask ourselves as
His bride, are we as His betrothed, keeping our garments clean? Are we arrayed in holy attire, keeping our covenant
and vows to Him, while we are separated? Are you being faithful to Him and Him alone during this time apart.
Now the final step in the betrothal process is the Jewish word Nissiun, which means to carry.
This is when the bride would be anxiously awaiting her Groom's return to come and carry her off to her new home.
This was a time of great anticipation. But one very interesting aspect of the Groom's return during this Betrothal
process was that His return was to be a surprise. Yes, it was a year long, but not to the day. The bride knew about
the time of His return but not the exact day.
But in Jewish custom, it was always the FATHER of the GROOM that would give the final approval for the marriage
to begin.
And since, the Groom's time of return was not exactly known, the Bride was to always be ready and waiting.
Also, in Jewish customs, the Groom would have a person in front of him shouting of his return, He would yell,
Behold, the Bridegroom Comes.
Then they would sound the Shofar and the wedding ceremony would go through the streets as a party atmosphere.
They would finalize their vows and then have a celebration called the marriage supper. The marriage supper
included 7 days of food, dancing , music and celebration. And then the bridegroom was allowed to bring his bride
back to their new home and live their lives together as husband and wife.
Now, we wait for Jesus' return. We anxiously await the return of our betrothed Bridegroom. But remember, the
bridegroom cannot return for his bride until His Father determines that it's time. Jesus said, concerning His return,
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, not the angels of heaven, but MY FATHER. See not even Jesus knows
the time of His return, because in Jewish custom, it was ALWAYS up to the Father.
In Jewish custom, the groom has someone announcing His return. How about Jesus. In 1 Thes. 4:16-18
says For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, WITH THE VOICE OF THE ARCHANGEL, AND
WITH THE TRUMP OF GOD. Who hear doesn't now believe that the shout we will hear from that Archangel will be,
"BEHOLD THE BRIDEGROOM COMES"
But , Not only is there a shout when Jesus returns, we also read in 1 Thes. that there will be the TRUMP of GOD.
Remember in a Jewish wedding ceremony, we just said, after the announcement of the Groom's return, they would
blow the Shofar, that would signify the start of the joyous 7 day celebration.
So we see here, at the return of Jesus, the Groom, coming for His bride, First an announcement of His return,
then we see there will be a horn blown, which will start the joyous 7 year celebration with him in heaven before we
return with Him to rule on earth for 1000 years.
Daniel refers to that 7 years in heaven as 1 week.
And as in Jewish custom, the pinnacle of the wedding ceremony is that week, which the marriage supper is held.
Revelation 19:7-9 says this as I close, Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him, for the marriage of the
Lamb is come, and his wife hath 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 the saints.
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he
saith to me, These are the true sayings of God.
Folks, this is beautiful. Are you saved here this morning? If you are, That means you are betrothed to Jesus.
He is fulfilling and will fulfill every duty of His, He's working hard, He remains faithful during this time, How about
you? When He returns, How will He find You? Anxiously awaiting His return or acting like you could care less?
He's in heaven preparing you a place to live as we speak. Do you believe that? Are you thankful?
Jesus is coming back. With the shout of the archangel and the Trump of God, He's coming back for His Bride.
And OH What a Glorious Day That will Be.
