Are You Dressed Yet?
By Pastor Jim May
Jesus taught very often through the use of parables, or stories that made a point, because we are often too earthly-minded to grasp the spiritual truths that He tried to present. Though we might look at the Jews and think of them as a rebellious people who rejected the Messiah, let us never forget that they are still God’s chosen nation on the earth. The fact is that while the Jews are guilty of rejecting Jesus as their Messiah, are we, the Gentile world, and even many who claim to be followers of Jesus any different?
I hope that before this message is over, none of us, sitting here today, will be left out when the wedding of the Son of God and His Bride take place. I hope that all of us will have on our wedding garments when that time comes.
But the only way to be sure that you will be ready is to stay dressed all of the time. You can’t afford to relax. You can’t take the chance of missing out just because it’s a little uncomfortable to stay prepared.
I have performed a few wedding ceremonies in recent days and I began to think of the people who were involved in those weddings, especially the bride and groom.
I can just imagine how many times the question was asked while the wedding party was preparing for the ceremony, “Are you ready yet?”
I think that all of us have heard, and asked that question, many times. We started out our wedding with that question, and I know, from experience, that it still rings out just about every time we are trying to be on time for any event right now. It seems we are always trying to get ready for something, whether its to attend church, go to work, go on vacation or even going to sleep. There’s always a preparation time before we do anything or go anywhere.
That’s what we are in right now; a preparation time. We are preparing for the soon coming wedding of the Bride and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. We can’t wait until the ceremony begins. The time for getting ready is before the wedding, not at the wedding.
We will see, later in Jesus’ parable, that there are some who will still trying to get ready even after the wedding has taken place.
I’ve seen some of these folks in the church, have you? I can recall a number of times, when I attended a large church, when we would be coming out of the church after the service had ended, and there would be a few people just getting there for church. I don’t know why they bothered to come that late. They missed the worship. They missed the message. They missed the call to the altar. But I suppose they could ease their conscience by saying that they did make it to church on Sunday. I am convinced that that’s the way a lot of people will be when Jesus comes; just in time to see that the Lord is there and that there was a great reception, but too late to get a bite of the cake.
Is it uncomfortable to stay prepared for a wedding all the time. I think it all depends upon whether you get used to wearing the wedding garments or not. For some of us the thought of wearing a Tuxedo, or a dress suit, all the time is something that we can’t imagine. All we can think about is the heavy coat, the cumber bun, the long sleeve shirt, the uncomfortable shoes and that most treasured of all possessions, the bow tie that chokes you the whole time you have it on.
In a day and age when people are all about being comfortable and dressing down, the thought of having to wear a tuxedo all the time, is out of the question. In fact, in many of our churches today, you won’t even find the preacher without asking, because many of them don’t even dress their best to stand in the pulpit. I wonder what kind of message we are sending to the Lord, and to our congregations, when we don’t even reverence God’s House, or have enough respect for the calling of God, and the presence of God, to make ourselves as presentable as we can be. After all, when I stand in this pulpit, I am representing my King and Lord to you, His people, and I am representing you, the Princes and Princesses of Heaven, to the King of Heaven.
Would I go to the White House in Washington D. C. with a T-Shirt that says, “Leave Me Alone. I Don’t Associate with Stupid People”? Would I walk into those hallowed halls, on my way to meet the President, as a representative of the people of the State of Louisiana, with flip-flop shoes, cut-offs, uncombed hair, and looking like I was drug behind the pumpkin truck all the way there? I doubt seriously if anyone, other than his own family, ever gets near our President in the Oval Office without dressing to the 9’s for the occasion.
I’m not saying all of this just to say that we should dress our best to come to church, even though I think that should be the way we are. I know that I’m of old school, but don’t ever forget that it was the “old school” that brought us to where we are today and I don’t think we need to abandon everything from the past. Some things need to be kept as they are.
The point is that we need to be preparing right now for the wedding that’s about to take place.
I wonder what the Groom would have thought at one of those weddings, if the woman of his dreams had shown up to walk down the aisle with uncombed hair, a wrinkled up old work shirt and clothes that looked like she had just swam the Mississippi River and let the mud dry in place? I wonder what that Bride would have thought if the man of her dreams was waiting at the altar, still dressed in his grass mowing clothes, or with oil and grease from the car still all over his shirt, arms, hands and face? Somehow I don’t think that altar scene would have been a happy occasion. It would probably have been a real “scene”.
But the fact is, that is the way that much of the church world, the very Bride of Christ, looks right now. If the call was to go forth, at this very instant, I wonder how many would have on their wedding garment? How many would be scrambling about, at the last moment, trying to find all the pieces to their “righteous garments”? If you aren’t ready when the trumpet sounds, don’t even bother to look around then, because it will all be over before you can even pick up your bow tie!
Getting back to that Tuxedo, or that wedding dress, let’s think about something for a moment. Do you think you could get used to wearing it all the time, and being ready every moment of every day for the wedding? Suppose that wedding is in an hour? Could you wear it for an hour? Suppose it’s tonight, could you wear it for a day? Not many of us would consider wearing it for all day, and all night, when the wedding is tomorrow, would we? In the natural sense, that just wouldn’t make sense to most of us. Yet there are those who are forced to get used to it and who don’t think anything of wearing a tuxedo or huge gowns all the time because their jobs require it of them.
In the spiritual sense, that’s the way it has to be! When is the Bridegroom coming? We don’t know for sure do we? No man knows the day, or the hour, and we never will, until it happens suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, and it will all be over. In a spiritual sense, we have to be ready all the time.
Some of you might say, “That’s impossible. I can’t be ready all the time. There’s just too many distractions, and too much of life that I want to enjoy, to be ready all the time. I’ll just make sure I’m ready most of the time. I’ll be ready on Sunday morning. I’ll be ready on Wednesday evenings. I’ll even be ready on Saturday night, Friday night, or Monday at the job. But I can’t be ready all the time.” The question I have for you is, “When do you think that Jesus is coming for His Bride? Will it be only when you are ready? Or will He come when He is ready, whether you are ready or not?
Matthew 24:44 and Luke 12:40 both give us a warning, right from the lips of the Bridegroom, “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
One of Jesus’ parables found in the 22nd Chapter of Matthew is what I want to look at this morning for a few minutes.
Matthew 22:1,2 And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,
The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,
First, let never forget that there would never be a marriage between Jesus and the Bride, the Body of Christ, the church, if our Father in Heaven had not decided to choose a Bride in the first place. It is only by the grace of God that we have a chance to be a part of His family. We can only know the Son of God because He chose to know us first.
We would never have chosen Jesus if we had not been given a vision of His true nature, and an understanding of what He has done for us. Even if we had looked his way, we would have quickly turned away to find someone else to fulfill our dreams. It certainly would not have been Jesus that we would have chosen.
Isaiah 53:2-4 says, "For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted."
When you look at Jesus, in the natural, he is not someone we would choose. He is beaten, bloody, with nails in his hands and feet, gasping for breath, dying upon a cross like a common criminal, condemned by the law of man, rejected by the crowds and spurned by most of those who were looked upon as the great religious leaders.
But what do we see, when our spiritual eyes behold Him? We see a man of pure love, desiring only the best for all Men. We see a man of sorrows who has taken upon Him all of the punishment for everything we have ever done or will do. We see a man of compassion for those who are suffering and dying without hope. We see a man willing to empty his life for our sake. We see a man who will give up the wealth, power, beauty and glory of his kingdom, just so He can be with us. It’s no wonder then that we fall in love with Jesus. He is the only completely unselfish Bridegroom that we will ever meet, and the more we know Him, the more beautiful he becomes. It is love at first sight and love that grows deeper, stronger and more beautiful with every passing day. I want to spend eternity with the groom. I want to know Him more. I want to experience all that He has in mind for me because I know that Jesus cares enough to give me only the very best of all things, all the time.
Why would I choose anyone over Him? No one else has the wedding gift of eternal life. No one else has perfect love that casts out all fear. No one else can give me perfect peace all the time. No one else cares for me like Jesus.
Matthew 22:3, "And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come."
Can you imagine getting a wedding invitation to be the honored guest of Almighty God at the wedding of His only Son and the Bride, and turning that invitation down? That’s exactly what most of the world does. That’s what Israel did too. They were chosen, called and given an invitation written by the Hand of God personally, to be at the Wedding Feast, but they chose not to go.
Israel rejected God, choosing another lover time and again in the form of idolatry with the gods of this world. Israel spurned the love of God, who had called them His own Chosen Nation. They rejected Jesus, the Bridegroom, when He came to them, trying to win their love, trust and affection. They would not choose Jesus because they could only see through the natural eyes. Only a few of them allowed their spiritual vision to develop so that they could see Jesus for who He truly was.
The Great God of Heaven sent His servants, in the form of angels, pre-incarnate appearances of the Bridegroom, prophets, judges, priests and kings, who did their best to tell the world about the Lord who would come to make them His own if they would only hear. But Israel would not hear the message. They killed the prophets, spurned the judges, rejected the angels and didn’t recognize God in their midst.
Matthew 22:4-6, "Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them."
Israel would not hear the first messengers, so God sent more to them. He sent John the Baptist, preaching repentance. He sent His only Begotten Son, Jesus, to walk this earth as a man, to let men see first hand, the Love that God has for them. After the crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection, Jesus was still here, but still they rejected him. Then Jesus sent forth His disciples. First there were only 12, then 70, then the many thousands down through the last 2000 years – all of them presenting the same gospel, good news, of the coming wedding of the Son of God and the Bridegroom.
The message from the King of Glory says, “Everything is ready right now, so come. Be ready for the call. It could come at any moment. The feast is prepared, the Groom is ready, the time has been set, and the day is at hand, So come, all that will, come to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.”
But are men hearing the call? Is the Bride making herself ready? I believe that the “True Bride of Christ” will always be ready. But there will be many, who think that they are part of the Bride, who claim to be part of the Bride and who believe that they are ready, but they are not.
Most of the church world today rejects the idea of a rapture, doesn’t believe in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and certainly isn’t ready for the coming of the Bridegroom. Those of the True Bride of Christ, trying to preach the coming of the Lord, are laughed at as being “Old Fashioned”. Those who attempt to bring the Bride into a time of preparation and making herself ready for the Rapture through holiness and sanctified living, are called “out of step” or “unwilling to change”.
The Bride is listening to the voices that tell her that she can take the time to enjoy the things of the world and get ready later. The Bride is hearing the voices in her ear that are saying, “Eat, drink and be merry. The Lord is delayed in traffic. He has been saying that He will be here for hundreds of years and hasn’t come yet, so don’t worry, be happy. Enjoy life, sow your wild oats, there’s time for repentance later on. You still have all the time in the world to make yourself ready for His coming.”
When the Bridegroom comes, will the Bride still be listening to the voice of the adulterous devil?
Matthew 22:7-10, "But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests."
God was angry with Israel. He sees all that the world does to those that are loved, chosen and called to be the Bride of Christ.
When Stephen was stoned, he looked up and saw Jesus standing at the Father’s Right hand. I can imagine the wrath of God that rose in the face of Jesus as he watched the Jews kill the one that He loves so much. I can imagine the anger and wrath that arose in the face of God upon His throne, but the time for judgment was not yet. God’s anger was stayed, but there would be a price to pay.
Because of Israel’s rejection of Christ, God sent His servants in the form of the Roman Army, as instruments to burn Jerusalem, kill those who had destroyed His people and force them into slavery, because the nation that God had chosen as His own simply was not worthy to be called God’s Chosen Nation any longer. But even in His great wrath, God still remembered His promises to Israel and would not utterly destroy them.
That’s when God called more servants, beginning with the Apostle Paul. He is still calling them today, to preach the gospel to the whole world, calling whosoever will, to make themselves ready and come to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. God wants the wedding and the reception to be filled with people. There would be nothing worse than to have a wedding and no Bride, and no guests to show up.
The Wedding in Heaven will be filled with Guests. God will see to it that His only Son, Jesus Christ, has a Bride and a wedding filled with guests. I won’t go into who those guests will be. That’s another message for another time.
The important thing to note is that there will be some among those guests who will not be allowed to take part. They will get so very close, but will not be allowed to enter there.
Matthew 22:11-14, "And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen."
What is that Wedding Garment? How can we be ready all the time? Let me tell you that the garment is not good works, nor a holy life and holy conversation, nor any fruit of the Spirit, such as faith, charity, humility, or any other thing that you can do in the flesh. It is nothing more, and nothing less, than the righteousness of Christ alone. And that Righteousness of Christ can only be obtained at the cross of Christ by accepting Him as your Lord and Savior. Your life must become His life, lived through you, by your own will.
We must be clothed in Righteousness and we can’t count on anything else. And that Righteousness only comes in Jesus, no other way.
When the King saw the man who wasn’t clothed in righteousness, but tried to enter in some other way, he called him out of the crowd to make it right.
The man was muzzled; it was as though his mouth was stopped up and he could say nothing for himself. A hypocrite will have nothing to claim as the reason for his failure to serve the Lord then. Those whose preaching and prophesying in Christ’s name; or who only served God outwardly in appearance only and not from the heart, won’t be able to say a thing. All of our good works won’t matter then, unless we are clothed in righteousness. There will be no excuses accepted and no reasons worth giving. Those who aren’t ready will be speechless in the face of God, knowing that they are going to get exactly what they deserve.
To be so close, only to be cast into outer darkness! To be so close to Heaven and still have to spend eternity in the fire! What a terrible day that will be for those who aren’t ready yet.
God has called all men to come to Jesus in repentance. It is His will that all men should be saved and part of that Marriage in Heaven. God calls every man to be a part of the Bride of Christ, but most reject that call.
Only a few are chosen to enter there. Only those who have on the garments of Righteousness, having been made righteous by the Blood of the Lamb.
Are you ready yet? Will you keep yourself ready? Jesus is coming soon!
