Hello Everyone,

The Array of the Bride. Revelation 19:7-8

⁷ Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
⁸ Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)

The Bride will be Beautiful.

I’ve done a number of weddings, but I’ve never done one where the bride was not beautiful.

We, the church, are the bride of Christ.

Eph. 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

We need to prepare for this marriage, and go thru four beauty treatments before the BIG DAY

· Justification: inner beauty (salvation).

· Sanctification by:

Ø Scriptures= “washing of water by the Word”

Ø Supplication= “prayers of repentance”

Ø Suffering= “we don’t like this one, but He uses it to knock off the rough edges sometimes/ conform us to the image of Christ/ it is on the fires of suffering that the dross (scum/worthless) is removed!

Examples:

Moses on backside of desert / David running for his life from king Saul like an animal / Peter being sifted like wheat / Paul being beaten, stoned, imprisoned…anyone used greatly of God has been sanctified by God, partly thru suffering.

3^rd treatment: glorification a New Body (at rapture).

4^th: Then there’s the actual consummation at the “judgment seat of Christ” our one on one interview with Jesus Christ, where we will be judged / rewarded, but most will be burnt up by fire!

[on the positive side: all our faults and failures will also go up in smoke! The final beauty treatment is over, and we will be presented to the bridegroom without spot or blemish!]

Greater Things Are Still To Come’

Pastor Phil