Session (4 of 4) Hell Shane Willard 17.04.2008 pm
[Shane Willard] [Laughter] Okay. I was glad that God was doing some things around the tassels up here for us and hopefully that gives you some imagery that will change the way you look at God forever. Hopefully you'll never forget the tassels as long as you live - hopefully. Hopefully. So I want to talk to you for the rest of the night about being a bride, being a bride. This applies to men too, because we're called the bride of Christ. I want you to realise that our whole life with God is about one big wedding. The whole of the Bible ends with one event called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Everything is leading us to a wedding and a Hebrew wedding had five steps to it. The first step was called lakah, the second step was called segullah, the third step was called mikveh, the fourth step was called ketubah and the fifth step was called chuppah alright, so you had lakah, segullah, mikveh, ketubah and chuppah. Let's say those together okay? Everybody say lakah. [Lakah] Segullah. [Segullah] Mikveh. [Mikveh] Ketubah. [Ketubah] Chuppah. [Chuppah]. Everybody say chuppah! Chuppah! [Eeba! Eeba! 00.01.24] [Laughter]
So when God's biggest idea started He was talking to a group of people who were marginalised, oppressed slaves. He gets them out of slavery into freedom and He says this is the light part of it. Now that sounds like the heavy part of it. Jesus says no, no, no, this is the light part of it. The big plan is coming next and what's going to happen, now that you were slaves and you've been made free, what I'm going to call you to do is to set people free. I'm going to empower you to do that by marrying you. I'm going to give you power of attorney on My name by marrying you. And so the Book of Exodus, if you turn in your Bible to the Book of Exodus and I'm going to take you through a tract, because the whole Book of Exodus is just one big marriage proposal. It's God taking a group of people from slavery to freedom by marrying them. Now for the purposes of this I need a girlfriend alright, so I need a girlfriend. Cecilia? Cecilia will be my girlfriend - who doesn't mind being my girlfriend. I guess Cecilia will do, Cecilia you be my girlfriend. You are fine! You are just a fine young thing. [Laughter] Alright, so... [Alright if I sit here?] Yeah, you can sit.
So this is my girlfriend and so we're dating now. We're dating now and how many of you remember dating? You remember dating is horrible? It's quite horrible actually because there are all these awkward moments in dating and it starts out with asking them out, like that's really awkward. One of the axioms - and I have a whole message around this if you want to hear it. It's in my message series on the cross, about love is risky, that love is risky; that one of the messages of the cross was not about us going to heaven and hell. One of the messages of the cross is everyone who's been hurt is free to love again, because you're free to risk again, because Jesus took all the risk in love. He commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us; that whoever says I love you first is taking all the risk aren't they? Because what if you say I love you and they say I know? [Laughter] What if you say I love you and they say thanks? [Laughter] Eee! Like you're taking all the risk, so we're past all that now. I've taken the risk to ask her out. What if I ask her out and she says no?
Every step along the way in a love relationship is risk and by the way, just as an aside, this is not what this is about tonight but if you're here tonight and you're married and there's been some hurt between the two of you and both of you are now protecting yourself and you're refusing to risk, you'll convince yourself that you've fallen out of love. But you haven't fallen out of love; you've just convinced yourself that you're not going to risk any more. As soon as you quit risking you quit loving, so the answer is if somehow you can get the courage to risk again, because if you can risk again you can love again okay? Alright, so we're dating and things get past all the normal dating stuff. It gets into chemistry and now like we've really got something. We really want to spend the rest of our life together, so once that happens she would be longing to hear a word from me called lakah, lakah. This is the first step in the Hebrew marriage process. It's called lakah - and so one night we went on a date and we were comfortable with each other.