In this busy world it’s so easy to drop our gaze. What I mean by that is that the day to day struggles of life, the pressures of this world attract our attention and draw us away from seeing the ultimate reality. The here and now distracts us from the hereafter.
Of course, that is what this world would have us do. I know that we all have to live, work, deal face to face with life here and now, but, just like Brother Lawrence did, we can live here and now with our eyes on the hereafter.
One of the most exciting, encouraging and hope filled passages in Scripture is found in the book of Revelation. It describes what the Apostle John saw of that final consummation of Christ and his Church. It’s found in Revelation chapter 19.
We know that when the Lord Jesus Christ returns he will do so in power and glory, and that every eye will see him and all will bow the knee. But after that, after the judgement, after the ‘come inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’, after this comes the Marriage Supper of the Lamb!
I recently had the opportunity to meet my MP in the Central Lobby of the Palace of Westminster. I had to ask to see him, I then had to negotiate my way to the Palace of Westminster, through security, proving that I had an invitation, and then into the Central Lobby to await the minister. After jumping through hoops I was on the inside, ready for the meeting, I could relax. The Marriage Supper of the Lamb is on the inside. It’s for the redeemed, the saved, the loved ones, the people of God – the Bride of Christ!
Just pause for a moment from the things that demand your attention, the hoops we must jump through, and dwell on the hope that we have. We’re told in Jude that Jesus himself will present us before the presence of God’s glory with great joy. Imagine that! Not only faultless, but Jesus taking joy in presenting you and I before his Father’s glorious throne!
Now, consider the picture that John saw of that marriage supper. First of all there is the heavenly host, a multitude crying out: Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God! Then the Church, the Bride of Christ joins in the song and the sound of it is so powerful that the voices blend as one into what sounds like the roar of many waters. A wall of sound in worship and adoration of their Lord and Saviour, their Redeemer and King!
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
Consider this, hope in this, hold on to this, and, if you know that you have been saved from your sin, redeemed to the Lord Jesus Christ, then, take to yourself this assurance:
“Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb!”
