Mm. The word hallelujah only appears a handful of times in the New Testament and only as part of a celebration in heaven. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah invites us into that celebration described in the 19th chapter of Revelation. The seven years of tribulation are over and Christ's return is imminent.
Let's join David now for his message, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
Well, the Bible tells us that there is a marriage that takes place when a person becomes a Christian. We become a part of the Bride of Christ. He is the groom, we are the bride. And one day the groom is coming for his bride. And the bride will go to heaven.
And the Bible says when we get to heaven, there's going to be a great marriage supper. And we want to tell you all about it in these next two days. You can read about it in the 19th chapter of the book of Revelation in the first few verses. And you can follow us as we teach from that section in this series called Escape the Coming Night. During the month of July, we're making available a brand new first-ever fiction book from Turning Point.
I went into partnership with a friend of mine by the name of Sam O'Neill, who is a fiction writer, and we together imagined a period of time in the future when one man struggles with his. Outward pressures while he's trying to deal with the inward pressures of being unhinged. The book is called Vanished because that's what happens to the people at the end of the book. You want to read this. It's really fun to read.
It's a page turner and People who have read it have told me they start out reading it and think they'll just read a couple of chapters, and before they know it, they're halfway through the book. I hope you'll get it. It's a wonderful way to capture some of the excitement of the future. And it's available to you during the month of July only as a resource, which means if you send a gift of any size to Turning Point, all you have to do is ask for it, and your copy will be sent to your home as a way of our saying thank you for your investment.
Well, let's get back now to our discussion of the book of Revelation. We're beginning part one of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, Revelation chapter 19. If you could know, That Jesus would appear before another morn should give its light? Or would your heart be filled with joy or fear if you could know that He would come? tonight.
The things you'd do, the words you would say. Perchance the letter you had thought to write. How many plans would you have to change today? If you were sure that Christ would come tonight. How many acts would then remain undone?
How many wrongs would have to be made right? If you should meet him ere another sun, And knew for sure that he would come to night? How many things would you find time for then, not crowded out or else forgotten quite? The kindly deed, the hour of prayer again, would ought be different should he come to-night.
Some day that dawns will make all time as past. Then may we keep our lamps all trimmed and bright. O may we live each day as if it were the last and ready be if Christ should come Tonight. It is one thing for us to preach the second coming of Christ. It is quite another thing to believe it.
As we begin the 19th chapter of the book of Revelation, We come to a chapter that is filled with great contrast to everything that we have studied up to this point. The 19th chapter marks a dramatic change in the tone of the book of Revelation. The destruction of Babylon, the capital of the Beast Kingdom, marks the end of the Great Tribulation. All of the horrors of that time are past. The sober is now about to give way to song.
And the transfer is from darkness to light, and from black to white, and from dreary days of judgment to bright days of rejoicing and blessing. This chapter makes a definite change in Revelation. And it ushers in the greatest event for this earth, the second coming of Jesus Christ. It is the bridge between the Great Tribulation And the great millennium, or the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, in the chapter and in these first 10 verses, there are two things that we need to look at briefly. First of all, there is a celebration in heaven. And secondly, there is a ceremony in heaven. And I want you to note, first of all, the celebration in heaven as it is given to us in the first few verses. We read in the first part of the chapter: After these things, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying, Alleluia.
Now, the first time that the word hallelujah is used in the Bible. is in connection with the installation of the Ark of God in the life of David. As you remember, David decided to have a choir in the midst of the worship of God, and we read that he appointed certain Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord and to celebrate, and literally the text says, and to hallelujah, the God of Israel.
Now the word hallelujah is a very important word. It appears only in the New Testament, here in this chapter. Only four times in the New Testament will you find it. If you read it carefully, you probably have discovered that they left the H off of the front of it. The reason they do that is because there is no such letter to use in a transliteration of it, and we give to the alleluia the hard sound when we say hallelujah.
Literally, the word means praise ye the Lord. And it is found often in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms. Here in this chapter, there are four hallelujahs. And I want you to notice them individually. First of all, there is the hallelujah for the salvation of God.
In the first verse. After these things, I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying, Alleluia, salvation, and glory and honor. and power unto the Lord our God. Several New Testament writers have pointed out that Revelation 19:1 through 6 is the New Testament's hallelujah chorus. And some of the lyrics for the Hallelujah Chorus written by Handel come from this text.
Now, the hallelujah for the salvation of God is a very important hallelujah because it is a reminder to us and to all who will sing it in heaven that they are there for one simple reason, that God has provided their redemption, their salvation, and so they sing hallelujah to the Lord for the salvation of our God. The second hallelujah in verses 2 and 3 is the hallelujah for the severity of God. It seems rather strange that they are rejoicing, but if you have been here for the last two messages from the book of Revelation, you know that the destruction of Babylon as an ecclesiastical world religion system has taken place. You know that Babylon, the city, and its economic system has been destroyed. And now in heaven, They look down upon the destruction of these anti-God systems, and the scripture says that they rejoice.
For true and righteous are his judgments, for he hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia, and her smoke rose up forever and forever.
Now some folks don't understand how it is that Christians in heaven can rejoice over the punishment of sinners, that it is a matter of praise in the heavenly choir that God has finally dealt with the rebellion on this earth. But the Bible says that all of God's judgments are true and righteous. And as we have learned in our study of the last two messages, God has now vindicated Himself upon the false systems of this earth, which were the tools of the Antichrist, which is everything that God hates and that Christ hates. The psalmist wrote on one occasion, Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Blessed thou the Lord, O my soul, praise ye the Lord, or hallelujah, Psalm 104, 35.
Dr. John Walvert, who was one of my teachers in seminary and has written probably more books on prophecy than I will ever have a chance to read. On one occasion, explained the importance of the statement: Her smoke rose up forever and ever. Notice that statement at the end of the third verse. Listen to what he says.
So long as the Godhead is to endure, and so long as the believers are to reign with him in glory, so must the wrath of God be poured upon those who know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says, There is not a shadow of evidence in the Bible that the lake of fire will ever turn one heart toward God or cause one guilty sinner to relax in the slightest the enmity against God that characterizes the carnal mind. In other words, the smoke goes up to heaven forever and ever because no matter how long people are in the eternal judgment of God, it never changes them from their hardness toward Him.
Now, the book of Revelation has been a real documentation of that thought, has it not? As we have followed through the book, I have been surprised, I must admit, at the hardness of the hearts of the impenitent sinner. that no matter what God does or what judgment he brings against them, They never seem to repent. And what Dr. Walvert has simply said is that if it were a possibility, that because of the flames of hell, And the fires of eternal judgment.
If it were a possibility that in that judgment someone could repent, the fact of the matter is they would not. They would not.
So there is not only the hallelujah of the salvation of our God. But the second hallelujah is for the severity of our God, because God has judged his enemies, and the chorus in heaven rejoices. Thirdly, there is the hallelujah of the sovereignty of our God, verse 4. Notice. And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen.
Alleluia.
Now, the word amen is added to the chorus. And the word amen is found in the Old Testament for the first time in the book of Numbers. If you know that word, apart from it being used casually in a conversation, you know that the word amen is the special word of sacred ratification. It is the heavenly word of sealing. It is a word that affirms.
It is a word that binds.
Somebody has said that it is the highest word of praise that human speech can speak. Here in this text, The 24 elders and the four cherubim express their consent to the destruction of wicked Babylon. They say, Amen, hallelujah.
Now, this is the last mention in the book of Revelation of the elders. You won't find them here again, but they join in the chorus of worship as the volume of praise continues to grow. And the third hallelujah is a hallelujah for the greatness of God. The two words alleluia and amen Are two words found in the Bible that are not translated. They are simply transliterated.
By that I mean when we write them in the English, we just phonetically pronounce what is written in the language of the New Testament. Which means that wherever you go, You will find those words. In almost every language, recognizable. If you have traveled in foreign countries, You may not understand anything of Spanish, but you can be listening to the Spanish people speaking and to hear them speaking, and then all of a sudden you recognize an alleluia. Or an amen.
I heard a story about two men who were on board a luxury liner. One of them was a missionary. heading for the foreign field. and the other was a young national believer. Both of these men felt very strangely out of place on board that luxury liner with its parties and its pleasures and its drinking and its dancing.
Both of the men paced the deck at night, not knowing what to do with themselves. Each man carried a Bible. They met. And they tried to exchange a conversation. but they were from different countries and they could not understand each other.
They shook hands, they pointed to the other's Bible. And then the national believer had a great idea. He said, Hallelujah. And the missionary smiled and said, Amen. And they carried on a spiritual conversation.
Now, you don't have to know many words to travel in a foreign country. If you meet another believer, all you have to do is say alleluia, and he'll probably say amen, and you can have some fellowship together. Isn't that wonderful? All right, the hallelujah for the sovereignty of God. Notice, fourthly, the hallelujah for the supremacy of God, verses five and six.
And a voice came out of the throne saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia. For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. The final shout of praise in the preliminary chorus of the hallelujah group comes from the whole host of the redeemed. The psalmist once wrote, The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice, let the multitude of the islands be glad thereof.
Psalm 97, verse 1. This final chorus, this crescendo, if you will, is the moment that all of the redeemed of the earth have waited for. It is the moment when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess and everyone who knows God all over the world will shout together, hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. and he shall reign forever and forever. This celebration in heaven is almost like A premarital musical concert.
It is like Coming to church, if you will. And while you are waiting for a very important marriage ceremony to take place, A gigantic choir comes in and for one hour They sing praises to God. The celebration, you see, is preliminary to the ceremony. For as a part of the celebration, an invitation is extended. Verses seven through nine.
Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come. And his wife hath made herself ready. and to her it was granted. that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Now, I want to spend these moments explaining to you what this is. You know, in the Bible, there are a number of figures that are used to describe the church and its relationship with the Lord. For instance, there are seven that I know about: there is the shepherd and the sheep, John 10. We know about that one. There is the vine and the branches, John 15.
There is the cornerstone and the building stones, Ephesians chapter 2. There is the high priest and the kingdom of priests in 1 Peter chapter 2. There is the head and the body. In Ephesians and in 1 Corinthians. There is the last Adam and the new creation in Romans 5.
But the one that we think about most when we come to the book of Revelation is the figure of the bride and the bridegroom. It is the last of the seven figures, and it is mentioned many times. In fact, in Revelation 21 and 22, it is a prominent figure in both of those key chapters: the bride and the bridegroom.
Now, in order to understand the significance of the marriage supper of the Lamb and the wedding and the ceremony. I need to give you just a little bit of background on a Jewish wedding. And in order to understand what's going on here, it is very instructive to learn how the people of Israel got married. I doubt if we'll be tempted to change our way of doing it. The use of the figure of a bride to represent the church and her relationship to Jesus Christ has in mind the pattern.
In which is contemplated three major steps. Step one was the legal marriage. The legal marriage was often consummated by the parents of the bride and the bridegroom during a time when a dowry was paid and the young couple were formally married in a legal sense. Get this, they may not even have met each other yet. Don't knock it.
They have a better retention rate than we do.
So, the legal marriage took place long before any of the formality happened. Secondly, subsequent to the legal marriage, the bridegroom, according to the custom, Would go with his companions to the house of the bride, and he would claim the bride for himself. And he would take her back to his own home. That was the second stage of the wedding. The third stage of the wedding was the bridal procession.
Which would be followed by the marriage feast, which would often last for many days. If you remember John chapter 2 and the marriage feast at Cana, it lasted for seven days, it was a long feast. Many of the Jewish wedding feasts would go on for weeks. And there was no ceremony such as is common in our civilization today, but the legal marriage was consummated by the parents in the absence of the bride and the bridegroom. Following this picture, think about what's going on now in the book of Revelation and think carefully.
It is a picture that Truly does give us understanding about our relationship with Jesus Christ and his coming again to this earth. For instance, It is evident That the legal marriage between us and the Lord has already taken place. It took place at the time of our conversion. When we were saved, the first part of the marriage took place. The bride is now awaiting the time when the bridegroom will come and take us to his house.
That's part number two. And the mansion is being prepared where the marriage of the Lamb will take place. This is the second step in the marriage ceremony. The third part of the marriage ceremony, the feast or the supper, will follow the marriage proper.
Now, in order to follow this through in the text, there is one other factor that I need to make clear about an Oriental marriage. that is a bit strange to those of us who have grown up in our Western culture. And that is in the Oriental marriage, with apologies to all of our women. The importance of the groom in the ceremony far outweighed the importance of the bride. In today's weddings, the groom is like an added attraction.
The bride is the center. The groom is just there because you can't have a wedding without him. But I want you to know that in the Oriental culture, it wasn't like that at all. Just the reverse was true. And so it is in the marriage of the Lamb.
If you don't understand that, you won't contemplate what's going on in this imagery here. The bride must take a second place to the blessed Lamb of Calvary, who stands above all others in this great event.
Now, with those thoughts in mind, let's notice quickly in the text there are two parts of this marriage ceremony: there is the sacred wedding. And there is the supper meal. Notice the sacred wedding. That which we call the marriage ceremony is the second step in the pattern mentioned at the beginning of my discussion. It is the bridegroom's coming to the house of his bride, claiming her for himself, and returning to his own house.
Let me ask you a question: what prophetic event fulfills the second part of the ceremony? We all know what that is. One of these days, watch this now. The Lord Jesus Christ is going to do what? He's going to come back and get his bride, and we're going to be caught up together, and he's not going to let us go to his house without an escort.
What does the scripture say? We are going to meet him in the air, and he's going to take us personally to the Father's house. That's the right way to conduct this whole marriage ceremony. And Jesus is going to do it right. We are going to be caught up together to be with him, and we're going to be ushered into the Father's house.
At the translation of the church, Christ is appearing as the bridegroom to take his bride unto himself, and that relationship that was pledged when we were converted will be consummated, and we will become one with Christ in a truer sense than we can ever imagine. It is necessary to remember in all of this that the relationship of the bride to the bridegroom up to this time has been a relationship of engagement. We are engaged to Christ, but we haven't been married yet. In fact, in 2 Corinthians 11, 2, let me just read it to you. In the King James Version, this is what it says: I am jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you, I have engaged you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
In that passage of Scripture, we're told very clearly that we're engaged to the Lord. We're engaged as his bride to the bridegroom. You know, I think about this a lot when I see the carnage that's happening in marriages today. And especially among Christians, I don't ever hear anybody say, you know, your marriage is special. It's so special that God Almighty uses marriage as an illustration of the relationship between Christ and His Church.
So, marriage isn't just something you do if you feel like it, and stay in it if you want to, get out of it if you don't. It is a very serious relationship, as is the relationship with the Lord Jesus and the Church of Christ. More about the Married Supper of the Lamb tomorrow here on Turning Point on the Wednesday edition. I hope you'll be with us then. You know, Turning Point has a magazine and devotional that is well received around the country.
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That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Escape the Coming Night on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
