“Are you ready for the wedding?” As you think of all the people involved with a typical wedding consider the different ways that they might answer that question. The bride would have one answer and the groom another. Friends of the bride and groom would answer differently depending on their part in the upcoming wedding. Everyone from the parents of the bride and groom to the pastor conducting the service would answer that question in a slightly different way. Even the guests invited to a particular wedding might answer the question, “Are you ready for the wedding?” in a variety of ways.
If you asked a bride-to-be shortly before her wedding if she was ready she might give you a whole list of things that still needed to be done. The groom on the other hand might say, “I’ve been ready for the wedding since the day she said ‘yes’ to my proposal.” If you asked a pastor, “Are you ready for the wedding of so and so to so and so,” he might say, “Well we have a few details to work out in the next couple of weeks and then we will be ready to go.” Some of those who have been invited to the wedding might say, “Yes, we are ready. We have cleared our schedule so we can attend. We purchased a gift and we have made our travel plans.” Obviously, the things that people do to get ready for a wedding vary depending on what part they have in the wedding.
In the Word of God for our sermon this evening John invites us to take what we know about getting ready for a wedding and connect it to the wedding that will end all weddings. These verses from Revelation chapter 19 help us look at our preparation for the wedding of Christ to his Church and the eternal celebration that will follow. As we spend time in this Word of God I want each of you to answer this question:
ARE YOU READY FOR THE WEDDING OF THE LAMB?
I. Are you ready to be His guest?
II. Are you ready to be His bride?
If you ask a Bible class which book of the Bible they would most like to study you can bet that a high number of people will say, “Let’s study Revelation.” Why do you suppose that is often the case? Revelation is hard to understand, it uses many symbols, metaphors, and numbers. There are many other books of the Bible that are easier to read and study. So why are so many Christians drawn to Revelation? I think one reason is the fact that in it believers finally find their faith fulfilled. In Revelation we see the goal of our faith and we see Christ’s final victory over evil. The message of Revelation is “Jesus wins!” And so it also reminds us that in the end we will win. That’s exciting stuff! It is meant to lift our spirits and restore our hope in what is yet unseen.
I.
As you begin to answer the question, “Are you ready for the wedding of the Lamb?” I want you to first think about being ready to be a guest. What do guests at the Lamb’s wedding have to do to get ready? On one hand we don’t have to do anything. We don’t have to buy the Lamb a gift. (After all what would you get the groom who literally has everything?!?!) And we don’t have to offer to help with the preparation process for the wedding supper. The groom will take care of every detail. He won’t need our advice or encouragement. We only need to have our hearts set on celebrating his wedding. That sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? The invitation to the wedding supper of the Lamb comes to us without cost. There are no expectations of us. All we have to do is be ready to enjoy the celebration prepared by the bridegroom.
But we can lose the invitation through unbelief. We can let the cares and concerns of life cause us to miss out on the wedding celebration at the end of time. How might that happen? Perhaps we become so discouraged over the things going on in our lives that we take our eyes off the goal of our faith. Serving the LORD seems like a losing battle. In time we grow cold to the whole idea of attending the Lamb’s wedding celebration. The hardships of life, the effects of sin that attack our body and mind, and the assaults of Satan start to steal our excitement over the wedding supper of the Lamb. In time it begins to seem so far off. Or it begins to look like so much foolishness. Could that really happen to us? The Scriptures provide us with examples of believers who let their love for a better life with Jesus slip away. That is why we go back to verses like these from Revelation again and again. If your mouth isn’t watering to eat at the Lamb’s high feast and if your heart isn’t longing for the appearing of Jesus then let this Gospel lift you up. When I ask you, “Are you ready for the wedding?” may the Holy Spirit prompt you to answer. “Yes, come Lord Jesus, I am ready to be your guest.”
It was and is to the church militant that these words are written. The Christians who first received this Revelation were having a hard time in life. They were being persecuted and put to death because they followed Jesus. Treated like pond scum by the rest of the world many of them had been flushed down the sewers of society. They had every reason to be discouraged and depressed and to walk around with a long face. But they had one reason to smile. That reason outweighed all the bad things they were experiencing. They were invited to the wedding of the Lamb! That would enable them to “rejoice and be glad” and give God glory no matter what they faced in life. They could always be excited over being invited to the great wedding at which the reception will never end.
We can also be unprepared for the wedding if money, things, and our own selfish interests distract us from it. In that way too we can let the invitation slip away. We can be like the rich man who took his brand new Mercedes for a drive. He went around a corner too quickly and lost control of the vehicle. It rolled over several times. But before the Mercedes fell thousands of feet off a cliff the man was ejected from it. When the paramedics arrived they saw that the man was severely injured. Part of his arm had been severed in the accident. But the man didn’t even seem to notice. He stood looking down at his ruined car. “My Mercedes, my new Mercedes is gone.” The EMT said, “Mister, I am sure you are upset about your car…but have noticed that you lost part of your arm.” The man looked down and said, “My Rolex, my new Rolex is gone.” How could someone be so engrossed in material things? It can happen easily. Again and again Jesus warned his listeners about letting money, things, and the good life turn them away from loving him and his kingdom. Again ask yourself, “Are you ready for the wedding?” If Jesus came back now would part of your heart be torn—still attracted to the “bling-bling” that the world offers? Is your invitation to the Lamb’s wedding reception your most precious possession? May this revelation from Jesus to John refocus our thoughts on being ready to be a guest when Jesus returns to claim his bride. Nothing is more valuable or important than being with Jesus forever.
It is God Himself who gets the celebration rolling in these verses. John tells us, “Then a voice came from the throne, saying: ‘Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both small and great!’” The LORD God is the one who sits on the throne in Revelation. He calls on all those who serve him to give him praise for the great and gracious things he has done. In his vision John witnesses the response that God’s servants give. “Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: ‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come.’” The culmination of redemption history is a reason to rejoice. And the servants of God make their joy evident. They are witnessing the fact that the LORD God almighty keeps his promises. His will cannot be broken. No plan of his can be thwarted.
Couldn’t we use this joy in our lives every day? The world still hates the followers of Jesus. Satan still attacks the Church from the outside and the inside. Yes, we need this rejoicing and this gladness over the wedding of the Lamb. It will uplift us as pastors, teachers, and lay leaders. We should always be excited that we are invited to be a guest of the Lamb. That is what an angel told John. “Then the angel said to me, "Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’” And he added, ‘These are the true words of God.’” The word “blessed” means happy. Whenever we raise our eyes from the pain of this world to the pure pleasure of the Lamb’s wedding feast it will put a smile in our heart if not on our face.
Are you ready for the wedding of the Lamb? Are you ready to be His guest? Oh, dear friends of the Bridegroom, may our hearts not be weighed down by discouragement or despair. May we never be distracted by other things. May the words of the Psalm writer describe our longing for the wedding supper of the Lamb, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” (Psalm 73:25) With childlike faith in our bridegroom that looks to him alone for salvation we are ready for the wedding of the Lamb. We are ready to be His guest.
II.
“Are you ready for the wedding of the Lamb?” So far we have looked at being ready for that wedding as a guest. Now let’s consider being ready for the wedding of the Lamb as his bride. One of the main concerns that any bride has on her wedding day is her dress. In fact some wedding planners say that a bride should select her dress first and then begin the rest of the planning. But what do you wear when you are to be wed to Jesus? In our “anything goes” age it may be hard to accept the fact that only one dress is appropriate for the bride of the Lamb. With that thought in mind listen again to John’s description of the wedding of the Lamb. “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) When we consider if we are prepared for the wedding of the Lamb we must also ask if we are dressed to be the bride of the Lamb.
It has been said that there is no such thing as an ugly bride. If we look at ourselves in the mirror of God’s law we will see a hideous bride. Our dress is drenched in the stench of sin. Every thought, word, and action that is contrary to God’s will adds another stain to our dress. Because of our love of our self, our lust for what God forbids, and our secret desires for sinful pleasure, we look like a whore not a virgin bride. Someone might say, “Is it really that bad? Don’t I make a better bride than many other people?” Others might say, “But I have done many good things certainly those help to cover up my sins.” I read a story about the history of brides carrying flowers on their wedding day. This writer said that in ancient times brides carried flowers to cover up their body odor at a time when bathing was rare. We could try to carry our goodness to cover up the body odor of our sinful flesh but we would still stink.
Thankfully our bridegroom has once again taken care of everything. Isaiah 61:10 tells us, “I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” We are ready to be the bride of the Lamb when we by faith wear the robe of righteousness he offers. The Apostle Paul describes the clothes the Lamb has prepared for his bride in Ephesians 5:26-27. He has prepared his bride by, “cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” Covered in the white dress of Jesus’ holiness we are ready for the wedding.
So if our bridegroom has taken care of our dress what do we have to do to be ready for the wedding? We are to keep our clothes with us and keep them clean. In other parts of Revelation the bridegroom made this clear. To the church in Sardis Jesus said, “Yet you have a few people…who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.” (Revelation 3:4) In Revelation 16:15 Jesus said, “Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed.” But isn’t it impossible to keep our spiritual clothes clean? Don’t we all sin every day? Yes, each sin no matter how small threatens to stain our white wedding dress. But as we live a life of sorrow and repentance over sin Jesus continually cleans those spots. Through the Word and Sacrament we stand under the shower of his cleansing love and forgiveness. But when we harden our hearts and try to hide away some secret sins we stain our wedding dress. So today we have another chance to set all our sins in front of Jesus and ask him to make us ready for the wedding by cleansing our clothes.
A while ago I was having a discussion with my neighbor who is an Assembly of God pastor. We were talking about a believer’s relationship to his or her Savior. This was part of our preparation for a radio program dealing with predestination and whether a believer can fall from grace. He approached the topic using the marriage between Christ and the Church. He began with his own marriage. “Every day I choose to be married to my wife,” he said. He then connected that to the spiritual life of a believer. He agreed that a person can’t decide to be the bride of Christ. Jesus must bring a person into a relationship through the working of the Holy Spirit in the Word. Christ clothes that person in the white wedding dress of his perfect life and sacrificial death. But a believer can decide to break the relationship and leave Jesus, the bridegroom. Every day when you and I wake up we can choose to be married to Christ or to be unfaithful to him. May the preparations that he has made for us to be his bride motivate us to constantly renew our vows to forsake all others and love him only.
It was a dress that almost caused a delay at my wedding. Teresa forgot her dress when she left for her apartment to go to the church where we were married. Although I suppose we could have had the wedding without her dress I don’t think she would have allowed it. A bride wants to be dressed for her wedding. May we always have the same desire. May we never let the holiness of our wedding clothes become stained with unrepentant sin and may we never set them aside for the rags of our righteousness.
“Are you ready for the wedding of the Lamb?” Answer that question right now in two ways. Are you ready to be His guest? And are you ready to be His bride? As I look at you I see guests who have been invited to attend the wedding. May the cares of life not cloud your view of the wedding so that you let your invitation slip away. And may the distractions of the world not cause you to toss aside your invitation. Instead let the words that John heard always be in your heart, “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come…” As you long to be there with every fiber of your being you are ready to be a guest. And may you also be ready for the wedding of the Lamb as his bride. As John saw, “and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” Friends, you and I are ready for the wedding because Jesus has prepared us. Through his power and by his grace stay ready and I’ll see you at the feast when our groom comes to claim us. Amen.
