1. "Weddings are the way you get to know a culture. If you want to get to know a friend's culture, whether it's Vietnamese or Venezuelan, go to a wedding and you'll understand so much more as you see brought out this and that custom."

2. "Families are like the training wheels of selflessness. And the real adult job is when you take the relatives off and now it's just everybody you gotta treat like that. You gotta be loving and kind to people you're not related to."

3. "Sometimes when people ask me how I've gotten through this or that trial, an image I often use is I just kind of pull the camera out. Instead of focusing in right on the hard thing right now, I want to pull the camera angle wide enough that I can see the sovereign God reigning eternally and me there with him."

4. "There should always be an eternal note in our praise. We absolutely deny you can understand this week correctly if you don't understand eternity. This week will only be understood correctly if you have eternity clearly in view."

5. "Our lives as Christians are to make you doubt your unbelief. There should be things about the way we even deal with our own mistakes, the ways we reach out in love to others and give ourselves, that should mark us, that should honestly confuse you."

6. "Our fundamental righteousness comes from Christ. We are only in His presence because of His righteousness. But part of what He does in us, He gives us His Holy Spirit so that how He's accounted us as righteous increasingly becomes what we actually are."

7. "The Bible is a strange book. Even the leaders of the Bible who write it write down stuff they did wrong. They show their mistakes honestly. They're not trying to come up with a publicity piece."

8. "This blessing, this happiness will not be the lot merely of those who hear this gospel invitation and turn a deaf ear to it. No, this happiness will be for those who are called to the wedding supper of the Lamb and who come."

Observation Questions

1. In Revelation 19:6, how does John describe the sound of the great multitude praising God, and what specific words do they cry out?

2. According to verses 7-8, what has the bride done to prepare herself, and what does the fine linen she wears represent?

3. In verse 9, what does the angel command John to write, and how does the angel describe these words?

4. What happens in verse 10 when John falls down at the angel's feet, and what reason does the angel give for refusing John's worship?

5. According to verse 10, what is the angel's relationship to John and his brothers, and what final command does the angel give?

6. What phrase at the end of verse 10 describes the connection between the testimony of Jesus and prophecy?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is the image of a wedding feast particularly fitting to describe the culmination of Christ's relationship with His church, and how does the first-century betrothal custom help us understand our current experience as Christians?

2. The passage states that "the Lord our God the Almighty reigns" (v. 6). How does this declaration serve as a summary of the entire book of Revelation, and why would this truth be especially comforting to persecuted believers like John?

3. Verse 8 says the bride's fine linen represents "the righteous deeds of the saints," yet it was "granted her" to clothe herself this way. How do these two ideas—human deeds and divine granting—work together theologically?

4. Why does the angel so strongly reject John's worship, and what does this incident teach us about the distinction between the Creator and creatures, even the most glorious ones?

5. What does the phrase "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (v. 10) mean, and how does this explain why Jesus must be the central focus of all Scripture and all worship?

Application Questions

1. The sermon described Christians as currently "betrothed" to Christ, living in a period of waiting and anticipation. In what specific area of your life do you need to cultivate a greater sense of expectation for Christ's return this week, and how might that change your priorities or attitudes?

2. The bride is clothed in righteous deeds that were "granted" to her by God. How does understanding that your good works are both your responsibility and God's gift change how you approach serving others or pursuing holiness when you feel spiritually weak or unmotivated?

3. The sermon suggested that pulling the camera back to see God's sovereign reign helps us endure trials. What current challenge, disappointment, or anxiety in your life needs to be viewed in light of the truth that "the Lord our God the Almighty reigns"? How would that perspective practically change how you respond this week?

4. The angel corrected John for worshiping a creature instead of the Creator. Are there any created things—success, relationships, security, approval, comfort—that you are tempted to give the devotion and trust that belongs to God alone? What concrete step could you take to redirect that worship to God?

5. The sermon emphasized that the lives of Christians should "make unbelievers doubt their unbelief." Is there a specific relationship with a non-Christian where you could more intentionally demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness—in a way that points them toward Christ?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Ephesians 5:25-32 — Paul explicitly teaches that marriage is an image of Christ's sacrificial love for the church and the union believers will share with Him.

2. Matthew 22:1-14 — Jesus tells a parable about a wedding feast where some invited guests refuse to come, illustrating the importance of responding to God's invitation with appropriate readiness.

3. Isaiah 61:10-62:5 — This Old Testament passage, referenced in the sermon, celebrates God clothing His people in garments of salvation and rejoicing over them as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride.

4. Luke 24:25-27, 44-47 — Jesus explains to His disciples that all the Scriptures—the Law, Prophets, and Psalms—testify about Him, reinforcing that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

5. 2 Corinthians 11:2-3 — Paul describes his concern to present the church as a pure virgin betrothed to Christ, showing the apostolic understanding of the church's current engagement to the Lamb.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Introduction: Theodore Roosevelt and the Significance of Weddings

II. What This Ceremony Is: The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

III. Who Is There: The Father

IV. Who Is There: The Bride

V. Who Is There: The Bridegroom (Jesus)

VI. Application: Will You Be There?

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Detailed Sermon Outline

One of legendary President Theodore Roosevelt's sons was trying to describe his father once to someone who asked him what he was like. And he said, My dad wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.

You know what he means.

Funerals, we understand, solemn times, focused on our thanksgiving for the one who's passed. Weddings, perhaps a time of greatest joy in a family's life. When we get together and we celebrate, weddings are such an important part of our culture in this time of year. How many Saturdays in June go by without a wedding at this very church? How many people are away from us right now because they've been in a wedding this weekend?

I mean, this is the wedding time of year. Weddings are the way you get to know a culture. If you want to know, get to know a friend's culture, let's say, whether it's Vietnamese or Venezuelan. Go to a wedding and you'll understand so much more as you see brought out this and that custom. Well, Zambian pastor Conrad Mbewe, who's preached here before, dear man, pastor in Lusaka, Zambia, he summarized very well the wedding practices of first century Judea in a way that I think is going to be helpful and illuminating for our passage in the Bible this morning.

Conrad said, There's a meal of betrothal, used to be eaten in Palestine in the days of the Lord Jesus. Today we call it an engagement party. When a young man wanted to marry in those days, they would go through the normal negotiating process that we go through here in Africa, a little bit different than here in the States. When the negotiations were over, the young man would come into town to the home of the lady he wanted to marry. There together they would eat an appropriate meal and drink wine together.

From there, that young man would go away to prepare the marital home. So while the bridegroom was away, Preparing the matrimonial home, every sight or scent of wine would remind the bride of her man and his love for her. Whenever she was visiting friends or neighbors and they put wine on the table, she would say to them while looking at the cup, this reminds me of my man who is coming back for me one day. I can hardly wait for his return. So the cup would always be pointing, not so much to what happened before in the betrothal party, but to the future event.

The wedding, everything that happened before was pointing forward. That's a perfect image for us to have in mind to understand our passage in Revelation chapter 19 today. So if you're turning your Bibles to Revelation chapter 19, verses 6 to 10, the wedding supper of the Lamb. So if you just take your Bible, turn to the very back and then go in a few pages. You'll find it beginning on page 1039 in the Bible's provided.

As Luke already said, if you don't have a Bible of your very own, feel free to take this one as a gift from our congregation to you. So as you turn there, let me just remind you of what we've seen in the book of Revelation. John, who was once a youthful disciple of Jesus now is an elderly pastor. He's an apostle. He had been exiled to the Greek island of Patmos, almost certainly for not worshiping the Roman emperor.

While on the island, Christ appeared to John, dictated seven letters to seven churches, gave him visions about God and His plans of judgment and redemption. And in the chapters immediately before this one, in chapters 17 and 18, we've seen God's judgment on the godless world system, including the religion and government that's set up against God, that's persecuted Christians.

Like John's being persecuted. And now here in chapter 19 at the beginning, the heavenly multitude praises God for these judgments. And there in chapter 19 verse 5, if you're not used to looking at a Bible, the chapter numbers are the large numbers, the verse numbers are the small numbers afterwards. So there in verse 5 the command comes, Praise our God, all you His servants, you who fear Him, small and great, and in response to that command we come to our passage this morning. Revelation 19 beginning at verse 6.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters, and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and the bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, 'Write this, 'Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.' and he said to me, 'These are the true words of God.' Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, 'You must not do that.

I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus, worship God.

For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Friends, today I want us to consider two simple things. What this ceremony is and who's there. What this ceremony is and who is there. And by the end of it, I want you to consider whether you've been invited to this ceremony and whether you intend to be there.

Well first, what is this celebration? Well it's called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. You see there or the marriage of the Lamb in verse 7, and the marriage supper there in verse 9. So what is this marriage of the Lamb that heaven so loudly exclaims there in verses 6 and 7? As I said a moment ago, many of us have been at weddings in the last few weeks.

I had the great joy to see Christian and Chloe wed here just a few weeks ago, wonderful time, all the family in. I had the unusual joy here of actually marrying a Chloe parents when they met here in the 90s, and the joy also of marrying Michael and Adrian, Christian's parents, back in Connecticut in 1990. So what an unusual joy that was. But that's typical of the kind of joys we experience at weddings where families get together, where new identities are begun. It's a joyful occasion in life, and it's a natural image for God to grab, to use, to show what it means for us to be reunited to him.

So John here is being shown in this image the time when the church begins to dwell with the Lamb. Now, Revelation is difficult and easy, but it's difficult because as a preacher, you want to come to, oh, the marriage supper of the Lamb, da-da-da-da, and big exclamation points. And that's wonderful and good, and we'll do that. But Revelation is going to keep having these climaxes. It's going to keep representing the ultimate beginning of our time with God by the heavenly city coming in a chapter and then by our coming in to dwell with him.

And in chapter 22 verse 6, Labor Day weekend, Lord willing, they shall see God. What I think is really the climax of the entire Bible. So this is yet another image we're given to represent the same reality. It's not there all these stages and we need to carefully follow. Okay, so is this a marriage supper of the Lamb or is this the heavenly city coming?

No, these are all images of the same reality. Helping us to understand different facets of what it is that we'll experience in that eternal union with God. God made us, in fact, as he did back in Genesis chapter 1, male and female, exactly in order to plant in humanity an analogy, a way to understand our relationship with him. Sometimes we think churches are here to strengthen families. And while churches may sometimes strengthen families, and that's a good thing to do, it's actually the other way around.

Families are put there by God in his design to strengthen churches. Families are like the training wheels of selflessness. And the real adult job is when you take the relatives off and now it's just everybody you gotta treat like that. You gotta be loving and kind to people you're not related to. They're not in your family.

And in Christ the Lord doubles down and calls us to be with people and committed to people. He gives us the same spirit. We literally have the same spirit. Leo and I literally have the same spirit in us. Something that I don't share even with members of my own family who aren't Christians.

So we begin to understand more of what this spiritual union means by these baby steps of families that he gives us. And marriage is one of the beautiful examples of that, an image and analogy of what it means to be united to Christ. So as I mentioned in the introduction just a moment ago, weddings in biblical times were very similar to now in that there was an engagement and then there was a wedding later. The main difference from our practice is that the legal binding happens at the engagement. So in traditional culture there and still today in many places, and the way we do it here, the legal binding comes at the marriage.

It is, we will use the verb sometimes, contracted. But what's similar, what's the same really, is the anticipation during that betrothed period for the wedding. Again, a congregation full of young people. We know what it's like to hear somebody talk about how difficult their engagement is, how they can't wait for this time of engagement to be over, how they're looking forward to the wedding and to being married. Friends, you see how that's an analogy of our experience as Christians?

In this world, if we're Christians, we're engaged. We're betrothed. We have that future coming. And yet we don't have the full reality of it. We don't have the full experience of it.

That is still in front of us. It's not in doubt, but yet we don't yet experience it. But what we have now points forward. Well, that's exactly what we see, and that's why John here has shown this image of the marriage supper of the Lamb. This is when this period of waiting will now end.

This is being announced here when the betrothal period that we are in which we each entered personally when we came to Christ, this period of waiting now will end. And John is being shown here this joy that there will be when the marriage actually begins. So on this day, all of Christ's promises to the church are fulfilled. As the church is perfected and completed and purified from all hypocrites, all false teachers, and as she exchanges the crown of thorns and sufferings in this world for the crown of glory in the next. And begins to be filled with a happiness and a joy that will never end.

No more conflicts, no more threats of judgment and dangers, toils, snares. Now instead there's only joy forevermore. Brothers and sisters, I exhort you to read this passage of Scripture and to believe it, to meditate on it. Luke led us just a few moments ago in praying for the Iranian people. Friends, we should pray for them, that God will give them a good and just government.

You realize governments are gifts of God. They're kind mediators of His goodness. And we should pray for them that our many brothers and sisters, as we just prayed, would come to see what it means that this period of suffering that we know in this world will end. And all of us alike, whether we are in China or El Salvador or New York City, all of us will have that same future in Christ as we trust in Him and receive the fullness of the Father's love of His Son. That's what we, every one of us, have to look forward to on that day when all of Christ's promises to the church are fulfilled.

And so this meal here, this feast, stands for our close fellowship with God, our dwelling with Him again. So praise God for the culmination of His reign and the judgment of sin and sinners as the time for the full fellowship with God and His people comes. As the sin of man's fall is finally dealt with, and so too the curse excluding man from God's presence is finally revoked for those who are part of His bride.

The church. What a great hope to live towards. That's a hope bigger than any chasm you will ever face in your life. Any personal challenge, any national tragedy, anything going on at work or in your family, as tremendous and titanic as those can seem, friend, all of them are put in perspective against the love of God in eternity. For his saints.

Sometimes when people ask me how I've gotten through this or that trial, an image I often use is I just kind of pull the camera out. You know, instead of focusing in right on the hard thing right now, which is true, I'm not trying to obscure it, it's there, but I want to pull the camera back so the angle is wide enough that I can see the sovereign God reigning eternally and me there with him. And I trust that on that day all will be made right, all that's dark will be understood, that he will be fully glorified as we know the full joy of the Lord. Friends, that's what's been communicated to us through this image of the wedding, the marriage supper of the Lamb. It's the culmination of his relationship with his people.

So we see the living God being with him forever is the ground of our great rejoicing and glorifying God. That's why there should always be an eternal note in our praise. Do you notice how much of this church we sing about heaven and the afterlife? We do that deliberately because we absolutely deny you can understand this week correctly if you don't understand eternity. This week will only be understood correctly if you have eternity clearly in view.

That's why we're so excited about the Lord's Supper in a couple of weeks. We'll be having the Lord's Supper in the morning service and there we will see a reminder given to us by Jesus himself of this great hope. So we praise God for his gospel of love which will forgive us for our sins, cleanse us from them, unite us to him, our substitute forever. In this wedding to come, the longings of the faithful devotion are finally fulfilled. And I think through some meditation, we can see this in both directions, both the saints' devotion to the Lamb and the Lamb's devotion to the saints.

That's what's fulfilled. If you think of it just for a moment, the saint's unique devotion to the Lamb is fulfilled. You and I sincerely intend to be fully devoted to the Lamb, to walk in the light of the Lord every step of our lives if we're here as Christians. But which one of us can say we've done that perfectly this week?

Just think, if you were to get into an earnest conversation with the person next to you, another Christian, I'll just say, looking at my own heart this week, I think I've been wrongly calloused. I've wrongly been fearful. I've wrongly loved. I've wrongly ignored loving. I've not feared Him as I should.

I've not walked in all His ways. I've not served Him with all my heart and all my soul. I've not spent enough time knowing God's Word.

I should do it for my own soul's good, let alone for yours. And yet in all of this, I have sincerely loved him. I have basically desired to serve him and observe all of his commands and decrees, all of which he has mercifully given for our own good. So in reading this, I can see that there is a time to come when all my frustrations and fumblings, all my sins and stumbling, all those things which would separate me, however temporarily and partially, from this Lamb of God all of them will be taken away. Praise God.

All of them will be removed and there will be nothing to hinder my true, entire devotion to the Lamb of God. Theologians have called this glorification. You know, that time when that work of sanctification, the Holy Spirit has begun in us, is completed. And we are made as actually righteous as we've been counted in Christ. And to be so successfully devoted to the Lamb forever, praise God.

That's the devotion that's coming to culmination in this image of the marriage supper of the Lamb. But there's also the Lamb's unique devotion to the saints, because brothers and sisters, the Lamb has devoted himself to us. None of us would be there on that final day if the Lamb had not come and borne our sins.

This marriage couldn't have happened without the incarnation of the Son of God and Him taking upon Him our flesh. More than that, it required the humiliation of the Son of God fully, His substitution in bearing our sins. That's why He's called the Lamb of God. This is the basic message of Christianity, that He bore the sins, that is, He took the punishment. That a good God rightly requires from all of us who have sinned, but who will turn and repent of our sins and trust in Christ.

He bore that for us. And he bore it to use the language of the Scriptures away successfully. Spurgeon said, I never feel so close to my Lord as when I survey his wondrous cross and see him pouring out his blood for me. The very use of the word lamb reminds us, John saying, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So in this marriage supper, we see both the saints devotion to the Lamb coming to full ripeness and the Lamb's devotion to the saints, bringing about the fruit of his labors, his death.

So that's what this is. That's what the marriage supper of the Lamb is. If you have any other questions for me at the door about that, I've given you pretty much everything I know.

So that's the marriage supper of the Lamb, that's what it is. Now the question, who's there? And that's what I want us to notice to get through the rest of this passage. Who will be at this wedding? Well, the Father is there.

That's really what you see in verses 6 and 7. Look at verses 6 and 7, Revelation 19, verses 6 and 7.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters, like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and the bride has made herself ready. We see that it's God's sovereign rule that has brought his people gladness and himself glory. God's sovereignty brings his people gladness. You see there in verse 7 we read, Let us rejoice and exult, who is the us?

Well, that's a good question. And it brings out a wrong way to read the book of Revelation. A wrong, confusing, fun way to read the book of Revelation is to try to fix the meaning of each image as if that's the way that person is always represented throughout the book. To read it more like an allegory. And you can get incredibly complex readings of the book of Revelation that way, and it's just not accurate at all.

You need to realize this is not an allegory. Rather, God uses shifting images to make the same point with John, and it's evident when you're reading, that's what he's doing. We've seen this throughout the book with the lion of Judah, he's the lamb who was slain. The 144,000 being the great multitude from the nations. You see this again and again.

And here you see at the place At the marriage supper of the Lamb, we see that God is present in the sense that He is the one who has sovereignly brought this about. He is the one who is bringing about the salvation of these Christians. That's His work. The bride is us, but also the guests are us. We are both, both these images are images of us, of the Christians.

It's interesting that us that's exulting there in this great language there in verses 6 and 7, it certainly, I think, includes the redeemed. It may also include the 24 elders, the four living creatures that are mentioned at the beginning of chapter 19, and maybe the hosts of angels. But the difference is, even if they're joining in singing this, they won't know what it means like we do. Like those of us who've been saved. Have you ever thought about that?

That our experience of the truth of God's salvation is different than even that of the most majestic heavenly being? I know there's that one place in Peter, in 1 Peter 1, when he says it was revealed to them they were serving not themselves but you, talking about the Old Testament prophets, and the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into into which angels long to look. Friends, that into which angels long to look is the salvation that we as Christians have experienced. That we have come to know what it means to be loved by God like this, to be indwelt by God's own Spirit. In fact, the level of joy here could almost be measured in decibels it seems.

Look back at the beginning of chapter 19 at the beginning. By the way, this was the section of the Bible that inspired Handel to write his Hallelujah Chorus. It's these hymns right here at the beginning of Revelation 19. The first one praising God for the judgment on the world on Babylon, represented there in 19 verse 1 is the loud voice of a great multitude. And then the words are given in verses 1 and 2 and 3.

But after the praise for the just judgment is given, there seems to be, if possible, even louder praise for the marriage of the Lamb to His bride.

Notice there in verse 6 he says he heard the voice of a great multitude. Now that's similar to what he said up in verse 1, only where in verse 1 it's just modified by loud. Here John triples the description of the volume of the great multitude. Not only is there the initial loud voice, but it's magnified. So look down in verse 6.

He says, Like the roar of many waters, kind of from below. Like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, he says, from above. So, friend, if you want to know how John experienced that, go stand in your summer break at the beach. Listen to the roar of the waves of the ocean, especially during a storm. Or stand by rapids.

Go up to Great Falls and stand by there when they're at flood stage and listen to that sound. Or stand at the foot of a great waterfall and hear the crashing sounds of tons tons of water. And now add to that the storm with the greatest rumbling and striking thunders coming from the clouds above. And yet here in Revelation 19, these are not inchoate sounds. They are actually praising the God of heaven for the salvation He has worked by His Son for His people.

Heaven and earth together resound, echoing and emphasizing and increasing and magnifying the praises of God for His wonderful salvation of His people by the Lamb of God.

All creation is coming together to see this greatest work in all creation, in all of history, lifted up and completed. Friends, there are times for awed contemplative silence in the presence of God. You'll notice in our own service we have several times that we intend you to use in silence. They're brief. They're there to help you reflect, to pick up your kind of shopping for the day before you go, as it were.

To get ready. But there are also times for loud celebration where depending on the kind of church you're in, you should turn those speakers up where the loud organ booms, where the choir is hitting all the high notes, or my favorite, where the congregation just sings really loudly. I think all of those bring praise and glory to the Lord. Praise and glory, like the kind of thing we're seeing here, where God's people exult and are glad and they are loud about it.

One of the things that encourages my soul about this church. We don't sing all of my favorite hymns. You probably think we do, we don't. We sing, I admit we sing some odd ones, but we sing hymns that are liked, suggested sometimes by you, that we think are appropriate for the theme. But whether or not I'm a huge fan of the particular hymn we're singing, I am blessed by hearing you guys just sing out.

It hurts my heart sometimes to be in places where these magnificent words are then faintly sung. You know, it's like telling your wife in a mopey, distracted way, oh, honey, I really love you. I mean, really? That's not gonna be helpful, you know? I think when we're talking to the Lord about our response to him, how we feel about him, we wanna put our hearts into it.

Now, I know if you're not a good singer, thank you so much for whatever you're doing during that time. You can just be encouraged by listening to others. You know, or maybe you can learn this song, but you can use this time as a way to put your heart in praising God for the most important thing there is in this world. That's the salvation he gives us in Christ. Well, God's sovereignty here in verses 6 and 7 is not only a cause for our exulting, for God's people to be glad, but it also brings God glory.

You see that here in verse 6.

The underlying point of our passage really there is the end of verse 6. So take your eyes and put them on the page of your Bible. You will be helped. Look at verse 6.

I encouraged one of you younger people here this week, write in your Bible, because you'll have a physical memory. You'll be able to remember, I was up on the upper right. You'll just know it when you look. Just do that. If you mess it up, buy another one.

But I think that phrase, the end of verse 6, is a summary of our passage, really. Look at that phrase. You want to get it? Burn it in your mind's eye. The Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.

What's more, from the judgment of Babylon to the rider of the white horse that we come to next week, that's really the message of all of chapter 19. More than that, really, the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. In fact, the entire book of Revelation is really summarized here in this verse. The Lord our God, the Almighty, I don't know how many of you asked me when I began the series in Revelation, like, Mark, didn't Bobby just preach on this? Like, let's call it generously two years ago.

Yeah, but I didn't. And while Bobby's sermons were excellent, I encourage you to go listen to them, I hadn't preached on Revelation to you guys for like 17 years. And this book is one of the best books in the Bible, if you can say things like that. And particularly when you're Capitol Hill Baptist Church in the nation's capital, this book is so helpful for our souls. What most of you guys do during the week, you're constantly told, it's like, this is the most important thing in the world.

I promise you it's not. No, that's just, no way that's the case. No, here is the most important stuff. And you will actually do your job better as a lawyer, as an engineer, as a public servant, as a mom and dad, Dad, if you know this truth, you will actually be able to carry the burdens that people around you will say, how can you deal with all those employees? How can you make those kind of decisions?

Friends, because they're much bigger ones that have been made that are certain. And you can know that the Lord our God Almighty reigns. I love the fact John is an old man. He's maybe in his 80s, maybe even in his 90s. He won't worship the Roman emperor.

He's taken from Ephesus to Patmos in exile. He's in a cave, we think. I've been in the cave, the tour guide show you. I don't know if that's the real cave, but, you know, I've been in the cave, the tour guide show you. And there he's given this revelation by God.

And what is the revelation the old exiled pastor gets? That he's not cowering before the might of Rome, but rather that the Lord God Almighty rules and reigns. He is sovereign over the world. He's sovereign over the universe. Rome is merely one of the many temporary powers that are in this world, and all of them will bow the knee ultimately to God and his sovereignty.

Friends, that's what the book of Revelation is about. That's why I love it for my own life. It's good for me to know that. That? That's why I love it for you, so that you will be well supplied in the ways God has called you to serve Him.

Praise the Lord, for the Lord God the Almighty reigns. Therefore God is glorified and His saints are made glad. So that's all about the Father. Let's just look at the bride for a moment. The bride is there.

See that in verses 7 to 9. The bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

When he says there, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb, blessed are those, that's the fourth one of those in the book of Revelation. Now again, if we would write in our Bibles, we could write in the margin where number one is, back in chapter one, where number two is, number three, and this is number four. You can make little notes like that that you see then very quickly when you're reading through your Bibles. Well, if you look back through what these blessings are, it's very interesting.

To note what these beatitudes are in the book of Revelation. Chapter 1, verse 3, Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy. Blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

Don't write the Pew Bible, but I mean, if you're writing it in your own Bible, it's a good thing to write. Number two is in chapter 14, verse 13, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. That they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them. And we find number three in chapter 16, verse 15. Chapter 16, verse 15.

Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeps his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen and exposed. And now in our passage here in chapter 19, verse 9, we come to the Beatitude number four. Blessed, which simply means happy, happy are in a good state because of God's good gifts. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

You see how those blessings actually all flow together. So those who hear the words of this book and keep them will persevere. They will die in the Lord. They will stay awake to that point, keeping their garments on, ready for Christ's return. And those are the ones who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb because they have the appropriate garments on.

All these blessings things are simply building up the composite of really a mature persevering Christian. And the bride here is composed of such Christians. This is what it means for them to be Christians. Back in chapter 7 a great multitude from every nation is crying out, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And one of the elders tells John there that those are those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

We'll hear more of this kind of image in the passage Justin Tanner has for us tonight from Isaiah 61:10, a great Old Testament image. What we see here in our passage is the church is beautified by the righteous deeds of the saints. That means the things that you and I have done which are not the kind of beauty that the harlot had, say back in chapter 17. The harlot was arrayed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and jewels and pearls. Jesus taught the lives of his followers would be different.

We would be living the kind of lives that, well, if you're here as a non-Christian, friend, our lives as Christians are to make you doubt your unbelief. There should be things about the way we even deal with our own mistakes, the ways we reach out in love to others and give ourselves. That should mark us, that should honestly, and I say this in love, confuse you. You should look at us as imperfect as we are and find consistently, not just in one, oh, that's my Christian cousin, he's like that, but this is the goodness of a local church. A whole bunch of people, different ages, different races, they're not all alike, but man, they're all are all marked by these kind of characteristics, these, what Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit.

So if you're here as a non-Christian, I just want to lay our lives out there as some sort of evidence. And I do it trembling because I realize none of us are perfect. But I do think if what we're saying is real, there is a real difference in our lives. So the bride here is marked by these righteous deeds. We're told that Ephesians and Christians are created by God to do good works.

So believer, what does it mean for you to live like this? To live this kind of expectant life, you know, with the end in view, always ready to be thinking of that consummation to come. To live like the engaged person who's always thinking about the wedding coming up. That's to be us if we're here as Christians today. And our good works are gifts of God.

And have the purpose of appropriately redounding to God's glory. Our fundamental righteousness comes from Christ. We are only in His presence because of His righteousness. But part of what He does in us, He gives us His Holy Spirit so that how He's accounted us as righteous increasingly becomes what we actually are. We're more and more until we're made perfect in His presence, finally.

Family. So we've noticed at the wedding is the father and the bride, but we should also notice, of course, at the wedding is the bridegroom. You have to have that. So verse 9, he's called just the lamb. Verse 10, he's named, he's Jesus.

Look at the last two verses of our passage, verses 9 and 10. And the angel said to me, Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, these are the true words of God. Then I fell down at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, you must not do that.

I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Well, it seems that, so trying to understand why John did what he did, I looked up that verb for right. Write that command, graph it on. Just looked it up. Every time write is given in the imperative in Revelation, very interesting. Twice in chapter 1, John is told to write when he begins writing down the book of Revelation.

And that's the risen Christ who's telling him that. Then seven times in a row in chapters 2 and 3, that's the seven letters to the churches at Revelation. The Spirit of Jesus says, you know, write this, write this, write this, so. And then the only other time we see that is in chapter 14, verse 13, when it simply says, A voice from heaven who said, Write this, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. So that makes me say, let's cut John a little slack for worshiping the angel, because when the angel says, Write this, I think the only one he's heard that from so far in the book is from God or Christ.

So that's my best defense I can give of this particular sin.

You know, he shouldn't have done it. The angel quickly corrects him. Maybe he was confused who he was. How glorious must angels look? What amazing beings must they be if somebody as well discipled as the man who wrote the fourth gospel and the three letters of John and the Revelation falls down to worship this being?

Anyway, whatever was going on there, the words of the angel are clear and they're true. We are to worship God alone. Well, we see here in that last sentence, For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. What does that mean? The testimony of Jesus, testimony of Jesus, that's bearing witness to Jesus, that the truth about Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Well, by spirit here, he doesn't mean like the Holy Spirit. He's not talking about being. When he says spirit here, he's meaning the purpose and essence of those who are witnessing to the truth. This is what they are about. This is their priority.

Their joint testimony is about Jesus, because Jesus is the point of all the true prophets and preachers of the Old and New Testament. So the spirit, the point of the prophecy is the testimony about Jesus. Now, what is the prophecy then? Ah, well here also we have a word that's used a number of different ways in the New Testament. I don't think he's talking about predicting something in the future.

I think here he's just talking about a word from God, particularly this is the word of God. Of God. What I think we're basically being told here is that Jesus Christ is the point of the Old and the New Testaments. He is the point of the Scriptures. God is revealing himself in Jesus.

So Jesus said to his disciples, Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. So, friend, again, if you're here and you're not a Christian, I would encourage you to just stop and think about who it is you think Jesus actually is.

We have a book on the bookstall called who is Jesus? Great little trilogy by Greg Gilbert. Why Trust the Bible? What is the Gospel? Who is Jesus?

The best one of those three is who is Jesus? And I would encourage you to get that if you're not a Christian or if you're a Christian here who has a non-Christian friend. It's a short book, well written, well illustrated, and it really gets to the point, which is Jesus. Who is Jesus? Jesus.

That's what we see here. Jesus is the one who is the point of all the scripture. And that's what we mean here, or we is meant in this last for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. So we give ourselves to understand all that the Bible has taught in the light of Jesus Christ. It's like Jesus himself does with his disciples when he's resurrected.

Luke 24, he gives them a seminar in re-understanding all the Old Testament, the Psalms, the prophets Isaiah in light of himself.

You could read Luke 24 in that this afternoon if you want to think more about that. But here in these last couple of verses, we not only see that Jesus is the point of all the Bible, but Jesus is also to be the focus of all of our worship. We're to worship God alone, never a creature, only the Creator. Now we were thinking about this last week when we were on the Council of Nicaea, which met 1700 years ago this week. And one of the things that pastors did there was figure out very clearly that Jesus is recognized in the Bible as being truly man and truly God.

We looked at examples of people who worshiped Jesus from the magi who came when he was an infant to the man born blind in John 9. And none of them are rebuked for worshiping Jesus. But here when John turns and sincerely falls before this angel It's absolutely rejected there in verse 10. You must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers.

Worship God. Friends, worship is not to be offered to any creature, only to God alone. Even angels are not to be worshiped, only the Creator. Well, this may be the most basic, the most fundamental, the most striking thing to many people when they first read the passage. It just sort of blunt.

And I think again, if you're here and you're not a Christian, you should realize this passage is a little shocking to us who are Christians. If you're, if you're a new Christian, you're reading your Bible, if your first time, you come to this, it's a little uncomfortable. I mean, here's John who's been given this revelation and he makes such a basic mistake, is turning and worshiping an angel. I mean, shouldn't he know just from the Ten Commandments not to do that? And yet I got to tell you, as I reflect on that that's one of the things that makes me trust this book.

The Bible is a strange book. Even the leaders of the Bible who write it, write down stuff they did wrong. They show their mistakes, honestly. They're not trying to come up with a publicity piece. John, who's writing this says, and then I turned and I worshiped an angel.

The guy had been a pastor for decades. He had written about 25% of the New Testament. And he said, Ah, then I turned and I worshiped an angel. Friends, we can trust this witness. We know that angels are just ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation.

So we are made to praise God and to praise God only.

Much more I could say, but it's a brief passage. And therefore it should not beget the longest sermon. The father's there, the son is there, the Spirit is there, and of course, we're there. The bride is there. Now, if you press this too much like an allegory, there's a real problem with the father and the son.

Wait, wait, the father's at this marriage supper and this, are they two separate, what's going on here? Yeah, be careful, don't do that. You're treating it more like an allegory. These are images meant to convey the reality of our eternal union. With God.

That word in verse 9 that's invited, it's a great word, it's also translated called. It's the idea of an effective call. This beatitude, this fourth in the book of Revelation is not being pronounced simply upon everyone who hears the gospel. Everyone sitting here, a thousand people now, just this morning have heard the gospel. But that doesn't mean every single one of you is blessed like this.

No, this blessing, this happiness will not be the lot merely of those who hear this gospel invitation and turn a deaf ear to it. No, this happiness will be for those who are called to the wedding supper of the Lamb and who come. Friends, you come to the wedding supper of the Lamb. By repenting of your sins and by trusting in the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world. The righteous deeds are those He's given you to do, but it's been granted to us to have these deeds.

Even our good works are worked by God's Spirit working in us. Friend, do you know yourself to believe in this Jesus?

My last question for you to consider in this marriage supper of the Lamb is simply this: you:'ve heard the invitation.

Will you be there? Will you be there?

Why?

Or why not?

Let's pray.

Lord God, the thought of our fellowship with youh becoming physically real and visible, finally eliminating all of our sins, not merely before youe in youn merciful provision in Christ, but actually eliminating our own own tendencies to sin. Oh Lord, this is a thought that beggars our imagination. It staggers us. God, we pray that you would give us faith in you. Give us faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Help us to trust you so that we will be with you at this marriage supper of the Lamb. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.