Revelation 19:7-10 - God Seeks a Bride for His Son

In Revelation 19-20, John has recorded five key events that will take place before God "wraps up" human history and ushers in His new heavens and earth. The first event is heaven is rejoicing. There is rejoicing because Babylon has fallen (Rev. 19:1-4).  Heaven is also rejoicing because, “The Lord God omnipotent has begun to reign” (Rev. 19:5-6). Then, there is rejoicing because of a wedding in heaven: “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." (Rev. 19:6-7) In this marriage ceremony that takes place in heaven near the end of the Tribulation, the “Lamb” is the Lord Jesus Christ who is the “bridegroom”. The “bride” is the church that was raptured up to heaven before the Tribulation began. The church was born in Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down on the 120 disciples in the upper room there in Jerusalem. They received the promised “gift of the Holy Spirit” and He “indwelt” them, and the “bride” of Christ began to form. They immediately began to proclaim the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and 3,000 more people became believers and joined the “bride”. And the “bride has been growing ever since then! Yesterday we mentioned how there is a beautiful picture of this in the Book of Genesis chapter 24. The church is not mentioned in the Old Testament but there are some wonderful “types” of it there that are interesting to study. In Genesis 12:1-3, Abraham was told by God to go to a foreign country where He would bless him and make him the father of a great nation and through his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed. Abraham was also promised a son through his wife Sarah. Isaac was finally born when Abraham was 100 years old. In many ways Isaac is a picture and type of Jesus Christ.  In Genesis 22, Isaac was the son who was to be sacrificed, a picture of Jesus Christ who was to come and be sacrificed. In Genesis 24, Abraham commissions his servant Eliezer to go back to where he came from and find a bride for his son Isaac. This is a picture of how God has commission us as His servants to find a bride for His Son Jesus Christ. We have been sent to a “foreign” land to ask people to be the “bride” of Jesus. The servant was concerned that when he found a young girl and ask her to trust him and then commit to marry a man, she had never seen, that she would say something like, “I need to see and meet him first” (v. 5).  But Abraham told the servant twice not to take his son “down” to her and if she didn’t want to come, he would be clear of the oath he made (vv. 6-8). Isaac was beyond imagination wealthy, powerful and no doubt handsome. So the servant goes and finds Rebekah and tells her about his master’s son who is so wonderful and very wealthy and then asked her to leave everything and come and be his bride. What an awesome picture of us today telling lost sinners around us to believe in a Jesus, whom they have never seen, that loves them and died for them and wants to give them everything they really have ever been looking for, if only they will enter into a relationship with Him and be His bride! They have to believe by faith, trust that the Bible is true, and be willing to give up their old life and be willing to live in a totally different way! Genesis 24 tells how God led this servant to Rebekah in a miraculous way and how she made the decision to go to be the bride of Isaac! My friend, we are God’s servants today that should be looking for a bride for our wonderful Lord. Jesus is waiting for His bride to be completely formed before He comes again! Will you be there on the wedding day? You have been invited!!!!! God bless!