Simple Faith

Bill Henry: Why is Jesus coming back? Ever wondered? Here's Pastor Bill Henry.

How many of us here can't wait and think about, "Jesus, when are you coming for us?" We talk all the time, "When's Jesus coming? When's Jesus coming?" And we're talking mainly right now about the rapture of the church. But let me ask you a question this morning: Do you know why Jesus is coming in the rapture?

Why is Jesus coming? Because we are His bride. He is coming to get His bride. That's you and I this morning.

Guest (Male): Every November we sit around the Thanksgiving dinner table. It's fun to celebrate with a feast, remembering the good things God has done. Well, today on Simple Faith, we're going to look forward to a beautiful gathering with Jesus.

It's a glorious celebration and you can be part of it. We'll hear all about it and what we can expect at this wedding feast as we join Pastor Bill Henry for another message in his series through Revelation. Our scripture reference today is Revelation chapter 19, verse six.

Bill Henry: Revelation 19, starting in verse six. "I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of mighty thunderings saying, 'Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.'

"And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, 'Write: "Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!"' And he said to me, 'These are the true sayings of God.'

"And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, 'See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.'"

Now as we come here to verse six of chapter 19 of the book of Revelation, it's interesting because you'll notice that we've come to a wonderful ceremony. We've come to a time, if you look there in verse seven, it says, "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready."

Guys and gals, you and I are the bride of Christ. A lot of times this is not focused upon within our relationship with Jesus Christ. We'll talk a lot about that He's our Father which art in heaven, so we're His sons and daughters. We'll talk even a lot about the church and other things, but we forget sometimes that we are the bride of Christ and that relationship.

And so here there's going to come a time right at the end of the tribulation when the rejoicing is happening and they're celebrating the marriage of the Lamb. And so this morning I wanted to focus in just on the marriage of the Lamb. What does this mean? Believe it or not, prophetically, the marriage that we're seeing here ties in so prophetically to the last days.

And so we're going to be looking at this this morning. Next week we're going to come back to these same scriptures and dig even further in verse by verse as we go. But I wanted to take a moment this morning and just look at the marriage that we are already entered into with Jesus Christ and what this means, even what this would have meant back when the scripture was written.

You see, our marriage to Jesus is something quite unique. It is a fathomless honor for all of us to think about, to study and to behold. I sadly think that so many within the church, we forget this. How many of us here can't wait and think about, "Jesus, when are you coming for us?"

We talk all the time, "When's Jesus coming? When's Jesus coming?" And we're talking mainly right now about the rapture of the church. But let me ask you a question this morning: Do you know why Jesus is coming in the rapture? Why is Jesus coming? Because we are His bride. He is coming to get His bride. That's you and I this morning.

And again, we rarely talk about this, but we're going to take a look at it this morning. Now, much of the information that I have was taken from commentaries by guys like John Walvoord and others. Also, as well as there's a documentary, a lot of you here have probably seen it, called Before the Wrath. Very good documentary to see.

It has guys like Jack Hibbs, Amir Tsarfati, Jan Markell and others just giving a documentary about the bride, about how it ties in with the rapture of the church and things of the last days. And it's interesting to note that our marriage to Jesus actually ties in a lot more to the rapture than we may be aware of, and again, things of the last days.

Lifeway Research did a poll just a few years ago of professing Christians and asked them when they thought the rapture would happen, and these are the results: 36% said before the tribulation, 4% said mid-tribulation, 18% said post-tribulation, 13% said other views, 4% were not sure, 25% said they did not believe in a literal rapture at all.

And so if you look at that, the vast majority of Christians do not believe in a pretribulational rapture. And so even this morning we're going to talk about why again we believe it's going to be pre-tribulation, and not exactly for the reasons that we might think, but it also includes those reasons, I'm sure.

So again, we're going to take some time this morning about what it means about being His bride. But as we just read, there are so many today. I'll be honest, even with those numbers we just read, I think the numbers are probably even lower now because that was a few years ago, three or four years ago.

And today we see so many, not just within the world as they attack Christians for this view. "Oh, this is silliness that you're going to be caught up into the air and go to heaven. Oh, wow, like that could ever happen." And yet even more and more professing Christians are attacking us for taking this view.

It's really weird. It used to be where you could just disagree. "Well, we disagree on that." But now it's like they go the extra step and they're calling you names or they're doing other things. But it's interesting because Peter said these times would come. Turn with me please to Second Peter chapter three.

Turn in your Bibles please to Second Peter chapter three. You just go left a few chapters from Revelation and look at verses one through four with me. Peter said these times would come. Second Peter chapter three, starting in verse one. "Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder, that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming?'" Anybody hear that one?

"For since the fathers fell asleep," they'll say, "all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." Now, the New Living Translation translates verse four like this: "What happened, they will say, to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created."

It's interesting. Remember that to the Lord, a thousand years is as a day, and a day is a thousand years. I remember when I first started attending Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa back in the early '80s and I had never heard... I came out of the Catholic church, I hadn't heard of the second coming. It was a vague thing, but never about a rapture or anything like this.

But it's interesting because the last 10 years, I've been hearing more and more people sounding just like Second Peter. "Oh, guys like Hal Lindsey and John Walvoord and Chuck Smith, they all said that He's coming and look, it's been another 30, 40 years." And it's like, "Oh yeah, a couple more seconds according to God's watch."

We're so... what is the word? We just want everything now. We go back to that gal from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. "I want it and I want it now, Daddy!" And sometimes we'll say that to the Lord. "Lord, I want it and I want you to come and I want it now."

There's a beautiful song out today. I can't even think about it. "Come, Jesus, Come." But I won't play it because unless we rewrite it because it almost sounds like a little kid singing a tantrum. "Come, Jesus, come, we need you right now. We've waited so long." And it's like, that's not to be our hearts, even though we can't wait. Amen? Anybody else? Can't wait.

But bringing this all back to the wedding of the Lamb, we need to remember a few things, again, as even as we're coming into chapter 19. Things about us being the bride, things about the wedding celebration, things about basically what it meant back in the time the Bible was written.

You see, so many times we look at these things through our own Western eyes, and including marriage. Today when somebody gets married, it's a lot different than when Tolea and I got married almost 30 years ago. Even the engagement has to be something extraordinary or you have to have a photographer there to capture every moment and all these things.

And there's so many things that we for some reason project upon the Bible. And that's why I wanted to talk about this. We have to go back. We're going to go back 2,000 years now and we're going to go back to ancient Israel. We're going to go back even to another place called Galilee.

You see, even within Israel, even within the Eastern area, Middle East there, there were all different customs. There were some main customs, but there was even different customs within their own little areas. And in Galilee... we may not know this, but Jesus was not only a Jew, but he was also from where? Galilee.

Do you know that all the disciples were from where? Galilee. So we're going to look back and say, "Hey," because Galileans had their own customs and were different in ways even from the rest of Israel and way different from today. Now, as the Jews would hear Jesus teaching, and especially His disciples, His apostles, and He would teach about various things.

They would know exactly what He was talking about. He would talk about fishers and fishing of men because there was a lot of fishermen there, it was how they made their living. Or if they talked about planting and sowing because they were a farming community.

When He talked about other things, like when He would talk about a Galilean wedding and how they did them, we may not pick up on it and that's what I'm going to talk about this morning, but they would have known, "Oh, He's talking about a wedding right now."

But we today, it's like, "What? No, He's not talking about a wedding. That's not like any wedding we know." But again, that's the point. So as we're looking at this today, I want to help us to understand that the wedding in this culture, the weddings in Galilee, in any of the cities there, they would have been a very special event, one of the most important events that could take place in a village or a city.

And so basically, it's a very important event and also the wedding in Galilee by tradition would start with what's called a betrothal. Now, we might think it's the same as an engagement, but it's not the same as an engagement. Basically, it would take place at what's called the main gate in whatever town they were in.

And basically the main gate, the city gate, was the main thoroughfare in and out of the city, but it was also a place where the elders of the city would gather together most days. And they'd come together and talk about the problems of the city, they'd kind of help protect the city. It was a place of importance.

And so as the people would gather with them, basically what a couple would do is take their families and they would go to these elders at the gate to make their betrothal to one another before the elders of the city. And basically the bride and groom would also be inviting people or they'd hear, and so a crowd would usually gather and they wanted this because they needed witnesses.

Because they knew that even then they were going to enter into a covenant with God and with each other. And so that's kind of the backstory. So they would come and they'd come to these elders at the gates and they would have these terms written down that both the man and woman would agree to.

And the written agreement was read then aloud to everyone so that the elders could hear and the public who was present could hear. And then after they read those aloud, they would exchange gifts. The couple would exchange gifts, with the most extravagant gifts going to the bride.

Now, it's interesting, these gifts would also have included what's called a dowry. A lot of us have heard of this before. It was money given from the father of the groom to the father of the bride. Now, this was not to buy the bride from the father. As a lot of other places in the Middle East, that's what it was, to buy the bride from the father.

But in Galilee, this money would actually be taken by the bride's father and then set aside, never to be spent. And it was kept kind of what we'd call an insurance policy. So if anything ever happened to that bridegroom, that husband, the bride would have money to be taken care of. Again, today we'd call it a form of insurance.

So they would be handing each other this and then comes the most important part. The bridegroom is then handed a pitcher of wine and a special ceremonial cup that is called the cup of joy. And so the groom then would fill the cup up with wine and he would present this cup, he would take a drink and present this cup to his bride-to-be.

Now, she has a choice at this time. She can receive the cup or she can reject the cup. If she receives it, then they're going to get married. If she rejects it, it's a no. Now, what's interesting, this is what made the Galilean custom different than many of the other marriage traditions in Israel and the Middle East: it gave the bride the final decision.

So here it is, the groom's holding out the cup, but again, if she accepts the proposal, she takes the cup and she drinks. Then the groom would say something like, "You are now consecrated to me by the laws of Moses, and I will not drink of this cup again unless I drink it anew with you in my Father's house."

Does that sound familiar to anybody? Hey, wait a minute! Let's go back to Matthew 26, verse 29, at what we call the Last Supper. What did Jesus say to His apostles as they're partaking of the Last Supper? He said this: "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until the day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom."

Now, they would have gone right to, "Hey, He's talking about a wedding." But I don't think they would have fully understood yet. They knew He was talking about a wedding, this is what a bridegroom says to the bride at a wedding, but I don't think they knew exactly, "What does that mean, were the bride?" They would know that later as the Holy Spirit taught them and would continue to give them the scriptures.

But this is a beautiful thing. So He was talking about the bride, the church, His bride. Now, it's interesting. Remember, we call this the Last Supper, we call this the time of communion. The word communion means common union. Communion. Now, in the Eastern culture, even today, most people when they share a meal... again, we sit at a big table and, "Hey, can you pass the ketchup? Can you pass the salt? And hey, have you used your Hand San today?"

They weren't like that. Basically they would sit on the floor, they would have pillows thrown down, they would have a table that was a low table and then they'd set the food and drink out. And everybody would be like, "Hey, I'm going to have some of that chicken," and they'd tear part of the chicken off and put it back down.

Lick their fingers and go grab some bread, tear off some bread and throw it back down. Take a big old gulp of the wine, put it back down. The next guy takes another big old gulp, puts it back down. You're just hoping nobody's backwashing, I guess.

It's funny because back then you see the culture would think they would... dining together like that was a special honor. You see, they would say that because we're partaking of the same food and it's going through and we're doing this, that we're becoming one in a way.

And so back then again, as we look at the Last Supper, we see the picture in Galilean culture that it represented the betrothal of Jesus Christ to His church. And again, since His disciples were Galilean, they would have understood at least the picture very clearly.

Now, back to the gate. After the betrothal at the city gate with all the witnesses, the bride and the groom would then separate. They don't go and live together, they don't go on their honeymoon. They separate and basically go and prepare for roughly a year to get ready to be together, to live together.

Now, but here's the point. Technically, they've already now entered into a covenant with one another before God. And so the covenant is made, they are done. They cannot marry anyone else, they'd have to go through a divorce and all these different things. So they are married at this point, this betrothal.

But again, they'll separate, they'll live apart until their wedding feast comes roughly a year later. So imagine, it's taken a year, you get married and you have to wait a year for your reception in today's thought, right? So it's roughly a year later. Now, it's interesting as they go, the groom would now go away and he begins overseeing the preparations for the day that he can receive his bride.

So by custom, basically what he would do is he'd spend most of his time building on a room to his father's house. He would build it. And you know, today it's more we go out, especially here in America. Well, if you go to Japan, if you go to a lot of even Middle Eastern, they still live together as family units.

Great-grandma, great-grandpa, grandma, grandpa, mom and dad, kids, they're all together, but they have their own places. And they would just add on to the house that they had. So the groom was to go and he'd to build this house. He would also be making furniture or hiring people to do these different things, purchase different things for eating on, utensils and different things needed for the house.

And it could take up to a year, maybe a little more sometimes because it's not like they had these huge savings accounts. They were very poor usually. And so it would take time. They'd either have to build it themselves or work and then pay somebody to do it. And it took a lot of time. But they would go and they would prepare this room in their father's house for to take their bride to come live there.

Now, it's interesting to note, if you'll turn in your Bibles to John chapter 14, we see something again, it's very interesting how coinkidinky it is. In John chapter 14, Jesus, remember again, a Galilean speaking to Galileans, at least His disciples who were around Him at this point were.

This is what He says to them in John 14 verses one through three: "Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also."

Guest (Male): This has been Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today we brought you a message from Pastor Bill's series in Revelation. It's our sincere hope and prayer that you've been blessed by the words you heard from Pastor Bill today.

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To donate go to simplefaith.org and click the give tab. Here at Simple Faith Calvary Chapel, we have two services every Sunday morning at 9:00 and 10:45, and a great time of study in God's Word Wednesday nights at 7:00 PM. For more information and directions, go to simplefaith.org and you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, and be sure to join us next time as our series in Revelation continues here on Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry, brought to you by Simple Faith Calvary Chapel.