Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Today is the last study in this series, and I am going to talk about the sublime woman. I thought, "What am I going to say about the Church of Jesus Christ that could possibly be interesting?" As I began to study, dig, look, and get excited, I found things that I had no conception were there—things that came to my attention that I had never seen before.

Of course, that is what the Bible is like. The more you dig into it, open it, and look at it, you see things that you have never seen before. I hope I am going to be able to get some of those exciting things over to you today. Let me start and tell you first of all the purpose of God or the purpose of the bridegroom. Remember, Jesus talked about himself often as the bridegroom.

He said to his disciples, "You can rejoice now because the bridegroom, which is me, is with you. You are part of the bride. You are part of a bigger group of people that will make up my bride." He said nobody cries when the bridegroom is around. He said one day the bridegroom will go away for a little bit, and then you will cry and mourn. Then the bridegroom will come back again, and then you will enter into the joy of the wedding.

He talked a lot in this symbolism, in this picture of wedding, of engagement, of bridal party, of wedding joy, and of marriage suppers because this was very much at the heart of the culture of which he was a part. That is why marriage is so desperately important. We are spoiling God's picture all over the place. God does not have a picture anymore to say to the human race, "I want to give you a picture of fidelity, of the bridegroom being absolutely totally faithful to the bride. I want to give you a picture because that's like a picture of me being faithful to mankind."

That picture has been spoiled, and that is why it is very important that we work hard on our marriages, that we spoil not the picture that God has given to us. But there is a purpose of the bridegroom, and I want to talk about that for a moment. G.N. Clark, who is a very brilliant, famous modern historian, gave an inaugural address at Cambridge in England. He said, "There is no secret, no plan in history to be discerned."

He sums up what every modern historian believes: there is no secret plan. There is nothing in history that we can discern that is not there, that is not something we can pick up and look at. Andre Malraux, who is a Frenchman, a critic, a biographer, and a novelist, said, "The universe is indifferent. Who created it? Why are we here on this puny mudheap spinning in infinite space? I haven't the slightest idea, and I am quite convinced no one else has."

In our world today, there are many brilliant men—writers, historians, novelists, anthropologists, and scientists—who would echo this belief: that history is simply what has happened. One man said we are lurching from crisis to crisis. That is all history is. Somebody has written down the crises. The ancient Greeks said history was like a circle. It was an impenetrable mystery—one senseless crisis after another.

You cannot help feeling, as you open your paper day after day, that we are lurching from one crisis to another. If we really believed that is all history was, that this is history in the making and all that purposeless life meant, then I can quite envisage people committing suicide all over the place because the hopelessness of that point of view is obvious.

In modern times, this whole idea has been popularized by the Frenchman Jean-Paul Sartre. He is the father of existentialism. He said each man is in a watertight compartment. He is an isolated individual in a purposeless universe. Therefore, only the present moment matters. You have to capture it. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Even though Jean-Paul Sartre did not live in Bible days, he would agree with that philosophy that was around from the beginning of time. If only the present moment matters because history has no significance, nobody knows where we came from, and nobody knows where we are going or what we are doing here, then the obvious thing is to capture the moment and enjoy today.

If the past does not matter and the future does not matter, then I am part of the "now" generation, and what I do today is all that I have. If we do not plan for the future, if we do not hope for the future, and if we do not build principles into our children for the future, then what is there? What is the point of even disciplining your children or training them if there is no point to the future? If all we have is now, then that lends to a narcissistic society, which is what I believe we have on our hands at the moment.

Now, there is another theory, and it is the biblical theory. I believe the Bible is the only infallible sourcebook for a biblical theory of history. Compared to the unregenerate man who says that history is merely political, military, or financial, the man that does not know God or Christ says, "History, after all, is simply who happens to be in charge. It's political. It happens. It's military. It's who's taken over who. It's financial. It's who is slave to who in the financial realm."

Man is the central force, and whichever man is strong enough, is king, and is running all over the place conquering other peoples, that's history. It is man-centered. On the other hand, the biblical view of history says history is God-centered and, more than that, bridegroom-centered. There is romance at the heart of the universe. That's history.

There is a tiny land which some have called the navel of the earth—the geographical center of the world. It is called Israel. In Israel is a tiny hill upon which, 2,000 years ago, men raised a cross upon which God died. That is history. That is His story—what God was doing. It had a purpose, and history indeed has a purpose, as the Bible tells us.

The interesting thing to me as I have prepared this study is verses like Hebrews 1:3: "He regulates this universe by the mighty power of His command." He is in charge. He is doing something. God is active. He has a purpose in mind. In fact, the Bible says He has a single purpose in view. The human race was created in the image and likeness of God for one purpose, and this is it: to provide an eternal companion for His Son. That is the eternal purpose of God.

That is why I can say romance is at the heart of the universe. The eternal purpose of God, which pivots on Calvary and goes out from there into a future of hope, is to do with romance. For God is love. He has a Son who called Himself the bridegroom when He walked this earth. He came, the Messiah, for one intent: to give birth to His church and thus to obtain His bride.

What is His bride? This church, this called-out body of redeemed mankind. You and me, men and women. That is what His church is: people that have acknowledged God is God and Christ is God, and submitted to Him and called out to Him as Savior. They make up the bride. This church, this collective body of people that worship in many places, in many denominations, at many times, in many ways—this church is the central object of all that God is doing and all that God has been doing from eternity to eternity.

That is why there is no such thing as secular history. It is all sacred. If the entire universe in its totality is cooperating with God in this purpose to select and train His church as His eternal companion, then we have to start asking some very exciting questions. It means that there is an enthronement of us with His Son in the future, and that is the whole purpose of this life.

That is why we are here. We are not here to simply serve Jesus now and be a member of a church. This is the preparation time. We are in training for a time when the bride will take her place at the side of the bridegroom in heaven forever to begin the purpose of the ages. We are thinking this is the purpose of the age when we are here and now. The purpose of the ages begins in eternity. When we would say it is all over, God would say it is all beginning.

You and I are caught up in this future purpose of God. There is an enthronement in mind. That is what Romans 8:28 is all all about: "We know that all things"—the entire cosmos—"is working together or is cooperating for good to them that love God," who is the church, "to them who are the called according to His purpose," the bride.

When you read Romans 8:28, do not bring it into the "now" generation and say that is for me, that all things are working together for my little good now, and God is somehow working my hard circumstances out so I will be happy. That is to diminish the verse. This verse of Scripture, which is so misquoted in so many ways, says that all things in the entire cosmos are working together for the church's good.

The bride is being called out according to His purpose. His purpose begins in eternity. It begins the moment everything is over, and we take our place by His side to rule what, who knows? How can little tiny puny minds like yours and mine conceive of what is ahead in our married life in heaven? There is no way. But oh, what a wedding that will be.

There will be in that time universal provision. There will be a celestial wedding. Remember when God looked down and said to Adam, "It is not good that man should live alone," and He gave him a wife? Then the second Adam came, and God said in essence, "It is not good that man should live alone," and He gave him a wife, the church, to share in His eternal kingdom, to sit by His side.

There is a precious little book I discovered, *Destined for the Throne* by Paul E. Billheimer. Let me just read you a couple of sentences from it:

"It was for them, for us, for the bride, that the inhabitants of outer space, the unseen world, were brought into being. It was for them that the earth and the world were formed. For their sake, the Adamic race was born. To possess them, God Himself entered the stream of history in the incarnation, and this small group is called the church, the bride, the Lamb's wife.

Thus, the church, and only the church, is the key to and the explanation of history. Creation has no other aim. History has no other goal. From before the foundation of the world until the dawn of eternal ages, God has been working towards one grand event, one supreme end: the glorious wedding of His Son, the marriage supper of the Lamb. Only thereafter will God's program for the eternal ages begin to unfold. God will not be ready, so to speak, to enter upon His ultimate and supreme enterprise for the ages until the bride is on the throne with her divine lover and Lord. Up until then, the entire universe under the Son's regulation and control is being manipulated by God for one purpose: to prepare and train the bride."

Truly, God is the Lord of history. Now, that's exciting and awesome and frightening. So, the purpose of the bridegroom is to obtain His bride. Now let's look at the response of the bride. First of all, I want to talk about the engagement. Turn to Ephesians 1:13 for a moment. I have to explain that there were three stages to marriage as Jesus was using it in His pictures in the New Testament.

The first was the betrothal, and we know a little bit about that because of the Christmas story. Mary was betrothed. Gifts had been given. A ceremony had been performed, and many times there was never anything else; that was counted as the ceremony. The young people were regarded as married in every sense except sexually.

It was very important that once the betrothal ceremony had taken place, no unfaithfulness took place. That's why when Mary was found with child, Joseph thought of divorcing her. It would have required a bill of divorcement to be given to Mary because she had been betrothed. In Eastern thought, betrothal was almost, and sometimes more, important in their minds than the actual wedding ceremony itself.

The engagement period was that we might be prepared and trained to be a bride. That we might adjust to each other. That we might learn to be friends. That we might learn to cook and to bake and to do all the things that the guy is going to need us to do as we get married to him. That is what the engagement period in the past in Europe was meant to be.

But even so, it wasn't as binding as I'm talking about in the East. But let's think about the engagement period for a minute. God considers us engaged. The marriage is going to happen in heaven, the wedding ceremony. I just sometimes wonder about our behavior. What would you do if somebody that was engaged was flirting around with every man on the scene? You'd think that was awful. You'd think she is engaged; she's wearing his ring. How can she behave like this? She must not love him very much, and that's such an inappropriate behavior.

We wouldn't like it, and certainly, the young man wouldn't like it. And yet, that is what the Church of Jesus Christ is doing in the world today—flirting around with the world, flirting around with anybody else in sight. We are not practicing this commitment, this faithfulness to the bridegroom that should be.

When we became a Christian, He gave us the Holy Spirit. He gave us the deposit, the guarantee, the dowry, if you like, the gift. The Holy Spirit should enhance our life and remind us that we belong to another, that we must not be unfaithful to Jesus Christ by un-Christlike behavior, by messing around with another lover, by messing around with worldliness, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Fidelity, the engagement, requires fidelity. Also, engagement is a time when the response of the bride ought to be, "Well, I am engaged. I have received the Holy Spirit. This wedding is going to happen in heaven." I am in training. When I think that I am part of the bride of Christ, what I am supposed to be doing now is training my gift so that He may use me in some worlds unknown.

The Bible says that eye hasn't seen, ear hasn't heard, and it hasn't even entered into our heart what's prepared for the bride for our new life with our bridegroom in heaven. What we will be doing, we will not be sitting on pink damp clouds playing harps; that is for sure. And the Bible very definitely teaches that the spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit brings with us when He gives us Himself as His engagement ring, as His deposit, He gifts us spiritually that we might be ministering because apparently in heaven in a bigger context as the bride's wife and outside of heaven, who knows where, we will be ministering. We will be serving. The Bible teaches that.

And somehow what we do for Him here is going to be somehow translated there. So it's very important we discover our gift and we get on with it. Not so that we might simply minister and be part of a church, but so that when we take our throne, we might know what we're supposed to be doing and we might have been in training and practice.

God is training His bride. That's the point of the church. We don't understand all He has in mind, but He wants every member of His church—this body of Christ, this bride—to be fully trained by the time we take our seat at His side. What bridegroom wants a wife who can't do the things that a wife should do?

I always think of getting married to Stuart. I'd no right to marry that poor man at all. I really hadn't. I couldn't cook. I couldn't clean. I'd always had everything done for me. And he was very patient. He had a mother that was a marvelous cook and a marvelous cleaner. Have you ever married a man like that? It's very embarrassing. My mother-in-law used to polish the pebbles on the path. She was a marvelous housekeeper.

Then I married her son. He never complained. He never has. He's always eaten everything I've given him, and he's been very patient with me. But you know, I did not prepare properly for that wedding. I took a couple of cookery lessons; that was all. And I learned in a hurry as soon as I got married. Nowadays, there is so much to prepare the bride. I wish it had been in my days. I wish there had been premarital classes and microwave cooking classes and all these things that you guys can do. I think it's wonderful, absolutely marvelous.

I see the American woman preparing for her marriage in a greater way than we ever thought of preparing in my generation, and I think that's a marvelous thing. I was at a party not long ago, and I had taken a lot of trouble to make a rather unusual English shortbread. English shortbread doesn't look anything. You don't decorate it up. It doesn't look very appetizing, but it tastes delicious.

So I took my English shortbread along, and everybody else took their lovely American cookies and whatnot. We all put it on the table. After the meal was halfway through, I noticed that nobody had taken any of my English shortbread. At the end of the evening, it was complete. Everything else was half-eaten, and there wasn't one piece of my English shortbread that had gone.

Now, I am far too old and wise to be hurt by that. In fact, I was rather glad; I knew I could feed it to other people at home. So I gathered it to my bosom and rushed off with it happily into the night. But you know, I thought about that. I could have really been hurt about that. Nobody wanted to taste my cake.

Just as I was gathering it up, somebody came along and obviously recognized what it was and said, "Oh, is that English shortbread?" I said, "Yes." "Oh, how did I miss that? Can I have a piece?" So I gave him a piece of English shortbread, and I felt so good about this. He ate my English shortbread and he smiled and he said thank you.

Now, this is a stupid illustration, but let me try and apply it. I don't know how well you cook. I don't know how well you exercise your spiritual gifts. Maybe nobody appreciates them. Maybe nobody thanks you for them. Maybe nobody enjoys them down here. But there is one in heaven that leans out of heaven and takes a piece of your shortbread, looks at what you're doing, however badly you're trying to do it for Jesus, and He says, "That's lovely. I appreciate you for doing that, for trying, for learning to be a cook, for learning to be a Sunday school teacher, for learning to sing in the choir, for trying to do something for me."

Maybe on the table that is laid with all this beautiful food, all these other gifts around you, it's not been noticed or it's been left unasked for. But I see it. I see the trouble you went to, to try and do that for me. Go on, little lady, because I love you and I have gifted you, and you are meant to practice your skills and your spiritual gifts because one day you're going to be cooking in heaven.

I mean, there is going to be a marriage supper. I hate to tell those of you that thought you were through with it once you get to heaven. Who do you think's going to cook it? I'm certainly not being irreverent. I really believe there are going to be practical and spiritual things in another realm, in another dimension that we do not understand. I really believe that what we do down here for Jesus matters and that we should practice and hone our spiritual skills because we are being trained for a job in heaven.

So there's fidelity in the engagement and betrothal time. There should be training. God is training His bride. He wants us to try, even though we make something that mightn't look very appetizing to other people. He wants us to try and do those things that we feel we've been gifted and talented for.

Then we have to watch our health if we're in preparation for a wedding. We all have a medical checkup if we're going to get married. Well, you need a spiritual checkup. You need to keep healthy, you need to be disciplined, you need to be exercised witnessing. You need to be breathing if you're going to be a bride—prayer, spiritual health. Make sure that you are having a constant checkup because at any moment the bridegroom might come. You might be surprised; the wedding might be moved forward. You might have thought it was a long way off, and suddenly for reasons only the bridegroom understands, the wedding might be today. Before we have lunch, or coffee, or in two minutes.

That brings me to expectation. For what bride doesn't expect and doesn't get excited when she thinks of her wedding? The sublime woman, the church, should be excited. We should be so excited. And if we are not excited about our eternal life in heaven as the bride of the bridegroom, then we are not very scripturally knowledgeable, and we need to get into the Scriptures. Then you will begin to expect and be excited about your wedding.

Excitement and expectation should be part of the response of the bride now as we look forward to that day when that eternal ceremony will take place and we will be the eternal companion of the bridegroom that the whole purpose of the ages is moving towards. And of course, I believe that that leads to evangelism.

Just look at Revelation 22. Here you see the bride making her wedding list. Everybody has to make a wedding list when they have a wedding. Verse 17: "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.' And let him who hears say, 'Come.' Whoever is thirsty, let him come. Whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life."

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." The wedding is open. It's an open list, and you can have your name added to it. And that's what we should be telling everybody. When Judy, our daughter, got married, we invited people on a list. It was the hardest list I've ever made in my life, as you can imagine. And then we said anybody that would like to come and just share in the ceremony, anybody, just come. The bride says come to my wedding ceremony. The most important part, the ceremony itself, come.

And that's what we are to say to the world. We are to say come. Now if you're making a list for a wedding, what you do, you start off with the people that are nearest to you, don't you? You put them on the list and you say come. Can you imagine having a wedding without the people that are nearest to you invited? Have you invited the people that are nearest to you to the wedding supper of the Lamb? I hope they're on your list. I hope the bride has said come to the wedding.

So evangelism is part of it. The list is part of it. What a wedding it would be if we had nobody familiar around us when it eventually took place. And then, of course, the wedding itself. We talked a little bit about that. There are two parts to an Eastern wedding: the betrothal and then the wedding procession and the party, which is all part of the procession.

In the Scriptures, the writers of the Bible take this picture and apply it to a spiritual sense. First of all, the parousia, the second coming of Christ. Behold, the bridegroom cometh. Now what does this mean? Let me tell you what happens. The bride is to be prepared and adorned, and so her friends come to her house. They take the bride to the bridegroom's house. He has gone to his friend's house, and he is surrounded by his friends, and he stays there all day.

So the bride's friends come and get her from her house to take her to the bridegroom's house where the supper traditionally was prepared. The supper is being got ready. The bride is being got ready by some of her friends. Some wait outside the door, those closest to her go in and help to get her ready and get the supper ready. She helps the women of the bridegroom's family to get the supper ready. This goes on all day. Meanwhile, the bridegroom is with his friends at a friend's house.

Night falls. All weddings in the East took place in the evening. And then the procession begins. And when the bridegroom gives the signal, the lamps are lit and the torches are lit. Everybody comes out onto the flat roofs of their houses along those little rows, and they all look down as the procession begins. The bridegroom says, "Time." He's the one that has to say it's time. Sometimes it can be at midnight, as in the story we read in Matthew 25. Sometimes it's at midnight, and the bride and everybody else is getting weary by now. They've been waiting all day, and sometimes they fall asleep waiting. They don't know when the bridegroom's coming.

But suddenly they hear the sound. And all the people that are watching as the procession goes along begin to pass the word along from house to house. "Behold, the bridegroom cometh! Behold, the bridegroom cometh!" And it's taken from one voice to the next. And suddenly the bride hears the voice. "Behold, the bridegroom cometh." And the lamps are lit and everything gets ready to receive the bridegroom.

She's listening. She's waiting. And it's time for the wedding, time for the party. The bridegroom comes, and as we heard, some were not prepared. They didn't have oil in their lamps. They were sleepy. They didn't understand what it meant to be prepared to be part of the bride. Jesus the bridegroom comes and goes into the wedding supper, the party, the rejoicing, the gladness, all of that. And the door is shut. And it's too late to be part of the bride.

The Bible teaches that that is horribly, dreadfully true. What we need to do is to make sure that we are part of the bride of Christ, part of his mystical body, which is the church.

And then lastly, I want us to look at the perfect marriage, which you see in Ephesians 5. The perfect marriage in heaven. Think about this for a minute. Expand your mind. We see here a perfect man, and we see here a perfect woman, and we see here a perfect marriage. We often hear about perfect marriages, don't we? Here in the Scriptures is the only one I can find.

Ephesians 5:25: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church."

We always take this passage for marriage, don't we? And in a sense, that's quite legitimate. Again, marriage is a picture of Christ and his bride. But here Paul, lifted out of himself using the illustration, says, "Actually, this whole thing I'm talking about, I'm really talking about the perfect man and the perfect woman and the perfect marriage. I'm talking about Christ and his bride, his eternal companion, the purpose of the ages."

He gives us a picture of the perfect man—loving and giving. One day, if you are part of the bride of Christ, you will be married to a man who died for you, who is loving and giving—divinely loving and giving. Not only is he loving and giving, he is nourishing and cherishing. "Nourishing" means making sure you come forth to your full perfection. Making sure that your gift, you as you, uniquely you, are you in heaven. That all that is the best in you is best in heaven.

That is why it has to start here. That is why we have to begin to change now, to be prepared. But one day, as his bride, we will be the perfect woman, without spot and wrinkle. I like that. And we will be beautiful. I watched a program on the morning show two days ago, "The Beauty Trap." A girl has written a book saying the whole of American society, from the moment a woman is born as a baby, she has to be pretty. She has to be beautiful, or she cannot be accepted. She cannot do anything, go anywhere, achieve anything, or get a job. She said it's a beauty trap. Very interesting.

But all of us want to be beautiful. Maybe God has put that in our heart. One day we will be, without spot or wrinkle or any such blemish—perfect. It is talking about perfection, the beauty of holiness, the beauty of your person as it can be without sin. So there will be a nourishing and cherishing of us by our eternal husband. Some of you perhaps have not been cared for by a husband; he has not found out who you are and helped you to be yourself as God intended you to be. One day, as part of the bride of Christ, you will be treated like that. Nourishing and cherishing, loving and giving. The perfect man.

This is part of our inheritance that is laid up for us, the deposit of which is the Holy Spirit. And what about the perfect woman? Radiant and beautiful, perfect and satisfied. When we see him, we shall be like him. When we awake, we shall awake with his likeness. We will be the perfect bride.

And what about the perfect marriage? Revelation 19:5-9: "Then a voice came from the throne, saying: 'Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both small and great!' 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, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.'"

Then the angel said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!'" The perfect marriage will begin with a wedding. We do not need to go out and buy our wedding dress. We couldn't buy it; we haven't got enough money. It will be given us. It is the righteousness of the saints. White linen is the righteousness of the saints. The Scriptures tell us that. It's the dress that he will dress us with. It's his own righteousness. It's accepting Jesus. He is our wedding dress. He is our righteousness. Our wedding dress is laid up for us in heaven against that day.

Then over in Revelation 21:1: "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'"

Then it talks about the marriage of the Lamb. Verse 9: "One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.' And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God." And he gives a picture there of unbelievable splendor and joy. Symbolic, but there it all is.

So there will be a perfect marriage. When you think about being a sublime woman, think of the highest thing you could possibly want. It is for us, in our inheritance in Christ, as his bride. And to be a sublime woman means that we need to be part of the bride.

How do we become part of the bride? We thank the bridegroom for dying for us on that little tiny hill in Israel. For being born at Bethlehem at Christmas, growing up and dying and rising again, so that he might give us his own Spirit as his engagement ring, that we might be betrothed and be being trained and prepared for the time when the God of romance in the truest sense brings us together with his bridegroom.

There is a mighty eternal marriage in the heavens, of which you and I will have a part. And then, and only then, will begin the purpose of the ages locked up in the heart of God. You and I have the opportunity to be part of it. The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." I'm part of the bride, and I am saying to somebody here today, "Come. You're on my list."

"How do I come?" you say. "How do I get this bridegroom to be part of me?" You invite him to. I'd like you to bow your heads now, and we'll say that prayer, inviting the bridegroom to be part of you.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this study. Thank you for the marvelous things you show us in the Scriptures. I thank you for the depth and the richness of all that I have learned as I have looked into your Word and found that the purpose of the ages comes to a point in eternity when there will be a marriage. You will place your eternal companion, the bride of Christ, next to your Son. Enthroned, they will rule and reign together forever.

God, it is so difficult to understand, so beyond our imaginings, and yet we praise you and we thank you and we bow in adoration before you. Perhaps there is one here or one there that is not quite sure if they are part of the bride. Oh, how they long to be treated in a loving and giving way. Somebody to love them and nourish them and care for them and train them. Jesus can do that for you. All you need to do now is to open your heart and say, "Oh God, by your Spirit, come within. Be my Savior. Forgive my sin. Help me begin to be faithful and committed to you, part of your bride."

Thank you, Lord, for coming in as you promised. Amen.