Let's turn our sword open to Revelation 21. And let's look at verse 9. This is lesson 189. This is the Lamb's Bride. You say, well, we've already looked at that, haven't we, at one point before? Well, it may be a little bit familiar. because we're actually going to go back and look at some of the things that we've already observed about the teaching about the wife of God. So I think this may be interesting to y'all here. This also helps prove why Israel and the church are not the same thing. All right, Revelation 21 verse 9, if you have your place there, please say amen. Amen. All right, very good. All right, you don't have to stand, you don't have to read out loud, just follow along with me. All right, the Bible says, and there came unto me one of the seven angels, which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, come hither, and I, there is no and, come hither, I will show thee the bride, the lamb's wife. Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you today for your precious and holy word. Lord, we thank you for those that were able to attend this morning. and our services that you are very much a part of. Lord, I have to say thank you here for letting me be a vessel, I pray, Father, unto honor. As we was able to rear back and preach the word of God this morning, Lord, with freedom and liberty, and there was a good spirit here, Father, I felt, and I just pray, Lord, that it will have had some impact upon the lives of the people that were here and of those that were able to listen. Father, we thank you now for this time we have to assemble in your house. Lord, our numbers physically may be few, but we know that with you here, we are in a majority. And Father, sadly, we know that the hearts and minds of many of your people, they are focused on things that really don't matter. And Lord, things that we should put in second, third, or last place. But Lord, I thank you, Father, for these that are here tonight, Lord, our faithful few, as Rex used to say, our same old crowd. Father, we pray tonight that you will open our hearts and mind to your truth. Even as inconvenient as sometimes these truths may be, Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to look inside of the pages of your word and receive enlightenment. Now, Father, go with us into the furtherance of our services. Have your will and your way be done. May I decrease and you increase in all that's said and done. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. All right, so last time we looked at the inheritance of the overcomer, and tonight we're going to look at the lamb's wife. Now, having said that, you'll notice what lesson we are on. We are on lesson 189. That means we are 10 lessons away from concluding our look at the book of Revelation. I am excited about some of the upcoming lessons. One of them that you want to make sure you're here for is the abolition of the lesser lights. And that's going to be when we learn about in the new heaven and the new earth where there will be no sun, there will be no moon, there will be no star. And that's kind of sad to me because I love looking at the sun and the moon and the planets and the various stars out there. I've often told my family that I hope that before I go to heaven, perhaps, maybe the Lord will let me run around on the rings of Saturn. But I don't know because I know that in the future all that's going to be gone. So we must take in the beauty of God's creation now while we can. So, if you like the beach, you better enjoy the beach now. It will not be in the new heaven. If you like the ocean, you better get as much of them waves as you can in the hang ten while you can, because it ain't going to be there in the new Jerusalem and the new heaven and the new earth. Amen. What was that? Paul Perrin, right? Amen. Well, you never know what we're going to get into tonight, so we'll see. We'll just jump on in. I tell you, I don't know what, and I'll say this and we'll move. Some of our family, they just don't know what they're missing in Revelation. So anyway, all right. It says here in our first point, and there came unto me, So what this deals with is that John says now that where he was, now someone's coming over to where he is. So this involves an actual movement. This is another reason why I have to conclude that this is not a vision. This is an actual happening. This is an occurrence that is actually going down. So he's saying, and there came unto me, and who is coming to him? Our next point, one of the seven angels. Well, I can't really elaborate on it, guys. It's just one of the seven angels. That wasn't really hard. Next point, you say, man, you've got to slow down. We're going to be out of here in five minutes. Brian, tell them you know better than that. Which had the seven vials full of the seven last plague. So which one of the seven angels was it? Was it the one that had bow number four or vial number five or the first vial? We don't know. We just don't know which one he is. But these are the one of these angels which held the seven vials. Now, when you think of a vial, you need to think of a container. And when you study out the word vial in the Greek, it has the idea of a bowl. That's why, sadly to say, in many of your modern translations and your modern Bibles, they're gonna come out usually with a container or the word bowl. Now we understand that back then this word vial had, it points back to the closer meaning of the actual Greek word. But our understanding is that it is a container likened unto a bowl. It's like a vessel. But these vials or bowls, they held the seven last plagues. Now when you think about that, these are the last plagues ever. So once these last plagues were over, there's no more. So once that happened, that's all she wrote, or rather all he wrote. So one of these angels comes over, and so what does he do? Next point. And talked with me, saying, so we see now the angel, whether he was angel number one, or number five, 6, whichever one, he's speaking, he's talking with John now. So he's come to where John is and he's talking to him. So what does he say? He says, next point, come hither. Come hither. Hither means to come toward this direction. Now if he's come to where John is, why is he telling him to come hither? I thought he was already where John is. Well, this implies that they being together are going to move together in one direction. And what direction is that? He says, I will show thee. So he's saying, you come with me this way to where now we can see someone or something. Was he going to show him? Next point. The bride, the lamb's wife. He said, look at that. We're on the last point. Verse nine. We're almost done. Hallelujah. Don't get too excited now, just hold on. Back in lesson 160, you said 160, yeah, we're on lesson 189 tonight. Way back in lesson 160, we were in Revelation 19, verses 7 through 8. So what I want you to do, I want you to hold your place here, go back now to chapter 19, don't deflate on me now, and I want you to look at the middle of verse 7. He says here, for the marriage of the lamb is come and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saint. But what I want to do is I want to go back over a couple of points out of that passage right there. Because this is going to help remind us who the bride is, who the lamb's wife is. And that's what this lesson is all about, the lamb's bride. So back in chapter 19, in the middle of verse 7, we find the phrase, for the marriage of the Lamb is come. Now, I like what J. Vernon McGee says here. He says, this will be the most thrilling experience that believers will ever have. The church, that is, the body of believers, all the way from Pentecost to the rapture, will be presented now to Christ as a bride for marriage. The marriage will take place in heaven, and this is a heavenly scene throughout. this passage of scripture. So this marriage of Christ and the church now has come together. Remember that while the church is on the earth, we are called the body of Christ. But when we move into heaven, we will become known as the bride of Christ. Or the next section there in verse 7, it says, and his wife. So now we come to the understanding of wife. Now the Greek term there is guna. Guna is the Greek word for wife. Wife is what we have in our King James Bible, and wife suggests that the wedding is completed. However, in Jewish marriage custom, the betrothed virgin was bonded to her husband. The marriage ceremony then was a consummation of the legal process that had been begun months and sometimes years before, bless you. This is why when Mary and Joseph were betrothed together, they were married, yet in the marriage ceremony and the wedding ceremony had not yet happened. When they were betrothed together, they were considered legally, in the eyes of the law, married, although he hadn't been with her yet in any way, shape, or form. Now some have popped up and said, well, what about Israel? Marriage is a marvelous picture of the joining together of Christ and the church, not Christ and Israel. Notice that the Old Testament saints here are not included. Only believers during the church age are included. Even John the Baptist himself called himself only a friend of the bridegroom. The bridegroom would be Christ. It says, then hath made herself ready. Now, the bride has been made ready by the judgment seat of Christ. Now, that is seen in 1 Corinthians 3, verses 9 through 15. We won't take time to build upon all of that because we've already studied that, but the understanding there is that the judgment seat of Christ, remember, is not the same thing as the great white throne judgment. The judgment seat of Christ is where we believers will be judged, every one of us, according to our works. And this is not for salvation. Remember, salvation is decided upon the earth, not in heaven. You don't get a second chance. And so what happens then is that our works will be judged by Jesus during the tribulation period while we're in heaven. Part of that time, if we can call it time up there, will be the fact that our works are being judged in fire. And a lot of preachers say, well, that will be determined whether they remain or not about your motive. I don't buy that because remember in heaven everything is about God, everything is about Jesus. It all points to him. So here's the understanding I have. That God teaches us that we should do good works. We are created, we are his workmanship created unto good work. Now remember what the young man told Jesus. He said, good master. Jesus said, why callest thou me good? There is one good and that is God. So in that wise, we have to understand that the only good that can come out of us has to be connected to God. So when we look at our good works, then that understanding is that the only good works I or you ever make are those works produced while we are filled or led by the Holy Ghost. That's the proper understanding, I believe. And so when we're judged, then what's going to happen is all the works that we've done in our body, in our flesh, from the moment of our salvation or right after until our death or the rapture, all those works are going to be burned in that fire. And the only works that will last are those works that we did while we were filled with the Holy Ghost. And those will either be based on God's system of judgment. It'll either be gold, it'll either be silver or precious stone. You say, well, what do we do with all them things? There is a viewpoint that says those could be used by God to make our crown. Otherwise, I see no reason why we should have anything because we're not going to be buying, selling, or trading. We don't need trophies. But the only thing I see that we will wear that would have gold or silver or jewels or precious stones could be crown. Yes, ma'am. Yep, yep, we will cast our crown at his feet, absolutely. So that is a, I think that viewpoint has a validity to it. And so what we understand is that that's going to take place. And when that is happening, that means that this is also going to go to affect the wedding ceremony of Christ and the church together. And that's what we see if you look there in verse 8. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen. The her is the church. Was granted means it's given to her by the Lord, it was allowed by the Lord. That she should be arrayed, that means she should put on, and what does she put on? Fine linen, clean and white. In other words, this is what we understand. This is the church's wedding dress, if you will. And it's worn for this occasion. It says right here, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. How could that righteousness come out? It comes out because after the works have been judged. So again we see this as the wedding dress, comprised of which was done on earth through the power of the Holy Ghost and after having been tried was found to remain. Now don't think we'll all be wearing all of that around in heaven, for once the elders had their crowns, they laid them at Jesus' feet. McGee says, after the wedding, the wedding dress is laid aside. We've already seen that the elders placed their crowns at the feet of Jesus, proclaiming that he alone is worthy. The church will reveal his glory. that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2, 7. We will be on display, sinners saved from hell, if you please, in heaven now. We have no right to heaven and would not go there except for the rightness of Christ and the fact that we belong to him. The relationship of Christ and the church is intimate, it is different, and it is delightful. No other creatures will enjoy that sweetness that we have with our Savior. So remember, when we conclude the understanding about this heavenly marriage, when you look back in the Old Testament, you find that God, the Father, is said to have married Israel. But what happened to Israel? Israel forsook God and broke their vows. God then, according to the Old Testament, issued them a Bill of Divorcement, and Israel went whoring after idols and other nations. Then God sent Jesus, and as such, he became the Lamb. Since he is also a priest, what do we understand under the law? A priest could not marry a whore or an adulteress, but had to marry a virgin. And that's what the Bible described the church as, a chaste virgin. Leviticus 21, seven, they shall not take a wife that is a whore or profane, neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband, for he is holy unto his God. And Leviticus 21, 13 through 14, and he shall take a wife in her virginity, a widow or a divorced woman or profane or inharmonic, these shall he not take, but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife. Thus Christ cannot marry Israel at all. And that is said because some people say the church became Israel. We don't become Israel because if we were, we would be defiled before the Lord. So in Christ, we see that in John 10, 30, I and my father are one. We have the biblical concept of the three in one. Yet we find that when Christ died, what happened? God died. And when God died, what happened to the old marriage covenant between him and Israel? It was annulled, it was put away, it was done away with. Why? Because you are married unto what? Until death do us part. Right? So now, since God died, he is freed from his marriage contract to Israel that he had put away because of her adultery. So the Jews were then freed from the old covenant of their marriage with God the Father. Then in 70 AD, what happened? The Jews were destroyed as a nation, which is what God married in the Old Testament, God the Father. And thus the wife of God the Father died as a nation. Now they will become a nation again, and this is what has got so many people in Christianity so vexed, if I may say that word. They are so confused because in 1948 Israel became a nation. Well, they say, well, that's the Jews. That's the fulfillment of prophecy. No, it's not the fulfillment of prophecy. If it were, that would see Jeremiah 33 in place, the New Covenant. And the New Covenant says that no more will they say unto their brother, know ye the Lord, for all of them will know the Lord. Well, you know as well as I do today that 99% of the nation of Israel is Not Jewish. They are atheists. They are not orthodox Jews. They are atheistic Jews, racially. So that means that these don't know the Lord Jesus as their Savior. That nation and those people are still under God's judgment. How did they get there? They got there because of what they told God back in the gospel when they cried out, let the blood of Christ be upon us and upon our children and children. But that does not mean God is done with the Jews. See, that's where you have this idea about the church becoming Israel, replacing Israel. That's replacement theology. Let me put it this way. I'll move over just a hair. In my opinion, this is what I see. I see that we should treat the Jews in one way. And what way is that? Evangelize. They need to get born again. They need to get saved. That means I've got to what doing to them as I would have them doing to me. That means what? Treat them decent. Don't kick them around and kick them under the carpet or whatever. But does that mean I need to go and do everything I can to praise the nation of Israel? No, because if I did, what would I be doing? I would be praising that which is wicked and which is an abomination. What is the gay capital of the world? Tel Aviv. I could go on and on with a list of statistics, but see, that's where people have got confused. They think since Israel has been reborn, that's the Jews and that's fulfillment of prophecy, so the rapture is going to happen within 40 years. It's done past 40 years, guys. That means one thing, Israel had to become a political nation. Why? Because in the covenant that Daniel described, the peace treaty, the Antichrist will sign a treaty with the many, that is he will sign a peace treaty with the Jew for one week, that is seven years. Well, what do they gotta be? They gotta be a political entity to do a peace treaty with a governmental power. So that part of the Bible has been fulfilled. Not that they got a peace treaty signed, but the fact that now, after almost 2,000 years of being not a people, they now are a people yet again. But there's still more people in America, in New York City just about, than in the whole of the nation of Israel. I mean, think about it. What does the Bible describe that's going to happen to the new temple that's going to be built? Who's going to go inside that temple? The Antichrist. But you know what? You've got some precious Christians out there sitting in Baptist churches, and you've got some of these Kufi people. What? What is it? Christian Friends United for Israel or something like that. And they go in there and say, oh, please help us rebuild the temple. I ain't going to give a red cent to that fund. Because you know why? I don't want to help build that temple that is not going to be for God's glory, that God ain't going to occupy, but the Antichrist is going to occupy. I don't want to fund that. I don't want to have any part of that. But you know what, you've got some little old ladies out there that have been listening to people like John Hagee, people out there that have been listening to all these other preachers out there saying, oh, you need to bless Israel so you'll be blessed. Okay, well tell me something. You say, you sound anti-Semitic. I am not anti-Semitic. I got a good friend who's a Jew, and I want him to get saved. But if, okay, try it out. Who's the only nation that first recognized the nation of Israel? Tell me who. Come on, y'all know this. Tell me. No, no, no. The United States. The first nation to recognize the state of Israel, 1948, was the United States of America. Well, yeah, and there was one man that told Harry Truman he shouldn't do it, George C. Marshall. He didn't like Jews, but he prayed about it, and he said, well, I reckon I need to do it, and he did. Okay, now, since we have blessed the Jews, go from 1948, when a certain man sitting here was born, happy late birthday, by the way, All right, now trace that forward. Now tell me the blessings of America since 1948. Let's see, we've got legalized abortion. We lost prayer in school. We lost the Bible in school. The divorce rate quadrupled in quintrillion almost. Marriage began to plummet in divorce rate. I'm telling you facts. We got integration. We lost more freedom than we can shake a stick at. We got into Quagmire, Vietnam, a war we never should have been involved with, but thank God for the men that served, because they did their duty, even though the politicians had to, anyway. You see where I'm standing, I'm over here, but I gotta have a microphone to speak at, okay? And now look, we've lost all biblical sense of gender, The whole country now is supporting sodomy. Our state's rights of defending for ourselves what marriage is has been yanked away by federal court. But yet you keep hearing, bless Israel and you'll be blessed. We blessed the socks off of Israel, the nation, by giving, pumping them millions and millions of dollars. We've given them tons and millions worth of men and weaponry and missiles and bombs and nuclear bombs and tanks and planes and everything else. We have been the best friend Israel has ever had. And if that concept of bless Israel and you'll be blessed, we should be the most shining nation in the whole of the entire world. but we're not. America is a cesspool of degeneracy and deserve to be judged by God Almighty and judgment day is coming. But I say that, but to say this, I am NOT anti-Semitic. I love the Jewish people and I want them to come to Christ. But to blindly say, oh, they're Jewish, they're automatically going to heaven, is a lie out of hell. To blindly bless whatever they do is wrong. If they are going to be blessed, there is one reason why they'll be blessed. Because they come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And you want to be blessed? That's how you're blessed. You bless God by that. You become a Savior and you live for Jesus and God will bless you. That don't mean you're going to be the richest cow in the pasture, but it means you'll be blessed. You might make a lot of cow patties, but I don't know beyond that. Moo, amen, me too. So see, this thing that we're not Israel and Israel is not the church and all that. The Jews right now are under judgment and they need to get saved. Now the whole nation will get saved, but it will be about three days before Jesus comes back in the second coming. That's how. And what I have just told you, if I said that in a Southern Baptist, any one of these Southern Baptist churches in Rutherford County, they would have run me out on a rail and I wouldn't even get to be done preaching. Because almost the whole of that congregation would have called me and billed me an anti-Semite and they'd say, oh, you're crazy, you're off your rocker. I got news for you. I am a student of the Bible and I am a student of history. There is a reason I know so much history. It's because I take history and I take the Bible together and I see the hand of God running through it. where many of these preachers out there, they don't know gobbledygook from whatever else. I'm not putting myself above them, I'm just telling you. They become parrots and whatever they learned at Gardner's Stinking Web, or some other cemetery out there, or whatever they hear Charles Stanley, or they hear John MacArthur, or somebody out there, or Joel Osteen even, or Rick Warren say, they're going to get up, and that's all these lemmings are going to hear. And I'm tired of it. But see, look around you. The vast majority of people, they don't want to hear truth because what happens when you know truth? You become responsible and accountable to do something with that truth. So what do people do? They go to Sunday morning service and they get their little ears tickled. I know how them dogs do. I love dogs. I like cats too, don't get me wrong. I got a cat. Let me tell you about my cat. I know, I'm chasing rabbits. I'm almost done. I got this much to go and I'm done. For two days, we couldn't find Zip. I didn't know where he was. I'm not that worried about him because he's outside. I mean, he's probably out chasing in the house or something. But this dumb cat, and I'm going to call him dumb because he ain't got a lick of sense. There's a reason the cat, the curiosity killed the cat. One time, Daddy and me was up here cutting grass, and we shut the lawnmower and everything, and for what, a week? A week! I didn't know where Zip was. I went, kitty, kitty! You know, all that stuff. Didn't see him nowhere. So one day I'm coming up here walking, and I hear, meow! In the building. What in the world? I locked the iron lock. There he goes. I said, you idiot. Why? So anyway, he ate like a whole bag. If there was a mouse in that building, it's dead now. But the other day, before I went to an SCV meeting, I went to the building to get something. And I went in and ran out, and I said, you better stay out of here, you dummy. But anyway, and Heather said, he's in the building. I said, he ain't in no building. He can't be in the building, because he knows better. He better know better. Well, what did I do before we come to church? I said, Bill, you heard me. I said, kitty, kitty. I said, all right, I'll go to the building. And sure enough, that dummy was in there. I said, it's your own fault. You got in the building. Yeah. Whatever food he had is gone by now. But anyway, pray for him. He needs to come to Jesus. Meow. That's right. Anyway, that's no extra charge. That's your fun right there. So moving on. We're about done. Anyway, when Christ marries the church, he still is under the understanding of being married to the husband of one wife, as seen inside the Bible. because he is different from God the Father, but yet in his character, they are one, in his essence, they are one. So what do we see now in lesson 189? We can go back now to chapter 21. We see now that God and the saved are together. When John first saw the church, he saw that she had made herself ready, and that is done by the church's works being judged. But now God has brought His bride, His wife, His people into the Father's house, that is, the estate or dwelling, and that both are together now in one place, and such fellowship and relationship we know from the Scripture will never be ended. And won't that be wonderful? Won't that be a happy, sweet day? We will go no more out. We will have to go nowhere else. We and the Lord will be there together. God said that they will be with me and I will be their God. They will be my people, I will be their God. We will finally, finally be at home in heaven, in a place of all peace, joy, and happiness. Nothing evil will ever enter there again. And I don't know about y'all, but sometimes I look at my computer, sometimes I turn the TV on and my eyes boil out of their sockets. because of what I see, the filth and the wickedness and the evil, even in their own county. You go out to Walmart or somewhere and you look and you see two girls holding hands. I've seen two men holding hands before, but not much around the county. But it's evil. It's an abomination. It's wicked. But one day, even when I see all that stuff, and I stand up and I preach and I teach about what God said, even though I see all that, I look above that, I look beyond that, down through the corridors of time, and I know that one day the trumpet will sound. One day we will be home, and one day all that is evil and wicked and despicable will be taken away by our Lord. And one day I know that I'll never have to look at any of that, any of that ever, ever, ever again. Ever. Or hear it. But until then, let's watch where our eyeballs wander. Let's watch what we allow in our ears. Let's watch what we say. Because I'm an ambassador for Jesus. And I want to lead as many of them as I can to him. So we can get a whole load up before we go home. Well, Jack needs to say, I'm through now. So let's, hallelujah, finally. So anyway, let's bow our heads, we'll close our eyes.