The gospel story revealed in the context of a Jewish wedding.
I want you to open your Bible with me in Revelations, Chapter 19. We just started a series last week called Who is Jesus? This is a good question: Who is Jesus, because a lot of people have got a lot of ideas. Jesus was talking with Peter, and He said to Peter: who do people say I am? They all come up with different ideas, and today it's the same. People come up with different ideas about who Jesus is, and if you don't really know who He is, how can you connect and relate with Him? How can you enjoy the relationship if you don't really know who He is, and out of who he is, how to connect with Him?
So the Bible talks about the riches of His glory. In other words, there's a great dimension. He's unsearchable. You could spend all your life trying to get to know Him but there's still more, so we've got to find some way that we can see what He is like. Jesus said to Peter: well who do you say I am? You will live out of who you say Jesus is, that's the reality. You will live out of the revelation you have of Jesus, so if your revelation is very light and superficial, your Christian life will be fairly superficial as well, so we want to grow in the knowledge of Jesus. Our relationship, or our walk with God, is about a relationship with the person, Jesus Christ. It's not about all the things we do. They are the fruit, and the flow of the connection to a person, and so we look in the Book of Revelation, and we are reading now in Revelations, Chapter 19 and in Verse 7.
This is yet to come, and John's got this vision. He hears the voice of a great multitude, and this is what they're all saying. Oh! A great multitude, I love that. Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb - that's Jesus Christ - has come, and His wife or His bride - that's the church - has made herself ready. And to her it was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And he said: Blessed are those called to the marriage supper of the Lamb! Then when you go on, you find in this passage, in Revelations 19, there are three pictures given of Jesus Christ. This one presents Him as a bridegroom, a passionate bridegroom. The next one presents Him as a sovereign king, coming to conquer and subdue the earth, then the third one presents Him as a judge, calling every man and woman and child to account for their actions.
Now which is the right picture? The answer is they're all part of the picture, and there are many other pictures in the Bible, for example in Psalm 23 there's a picture of Jesus being a shepherd. So there are many facets to Him, so we're looking now in the Book of Revelation, where three distinct aspects of Him will be revealed. The Book of Revelation is about the revealing of Jesus Christ in the end times, and so these three aspects are quite important. So we're going to look today at Jesus, the passionate bridegroom, the passionate bridegroom, and there are in the New Testament about 23 different references to this, so it's not just something that appears in Revelation. There's about 23 distinct references to Jesus being a bridegroom. Now for a guy that's not so easy to handle. You know, Jesus the bridegroom, and the bride, give me a break! That's not - give me the king stuff next, I'll come along next week and get the king stuff. That's my thing there. So for men this is not such an easy thing to do, but it'll help you if you understand this, that each of these represent - it's just a picture. It's a way of representing someone, and an aspect of what He's like, see?
So each of these is a picture. It's a representation to help you understand invisible things, which you can't understand just easily see naturally, so if I try to relate to Jesus, what am I going to think of? Am I going to think of sort of, someone tall, blue eyes, long hair, long robes? What am I going to think of Him? I need to know what He's like, and so the word of God reveals Him, and the different aspects of Him. The Bible tells us concerning this particular Book, you are blessed if you read it and do what it says, so for us to understand Jesus the bridegroom, and to understand how to respond to Him, what that means to us if He's a bridegroom, and how should I respond? How should I respond? How should I live out my life, in the light of that revelation - that's what we'll look at. So to do that, you've got to understand a little bit about the Jewish wedding, because if you and I think of a bridegroom and a wedding, we think immediately from our western mind set. So immediately you think of a church setting, there's three guys up here in black suits, the bride comes down, and we do some things and so on, so that's what we think of.