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Bible covenants were linked to sevens, and the book
of Revelation shows how God will keep His covenant. The 1st seal is about
His name.
We are entering that time of judgment and must repent
(change our minds and ways of doing things) so that our lives are shaped
by God’s laws--principles of self-government.
It is coming down to a choice of big government that
will tell everyone what to do, how and when to do it (bondage), or freedom
in God’s kingdom to live in harmony with His laws that mean true equality
and the worth of every person...
“What nation is there so great, that has statutes and
judgments so righteous as all this law?” Deut 4:8.
How surprised a heathen spy might have been if he
could have crept into the Most Holy Place of Israel’s temple in the time
of Solomon to discover the secret of Israel’s success and prosperity was
not an idol studded with gems, but a law that has principles of wisdom for
every situation in life!
In a world going crazy with lawlessness, these
principles promote health, happiness and success in life.
The wedding invitation is a call to be part of God’s
kingdom.
“In the days of these kings the God of
heaven shall set up a kingdom,” Daniel 2:44. This kingdom
is at the end of the world, in the toes of time--a stone is cut out of a
mountain. In Daniel, "mountain" represents God’s people, and God is going
to cut a stone out of these groups to be His special kingdom.
Kingdom means the dominion of a King by His laws.
Based on our wise choices, “the Bridegroom comes” for
us and we may marry Him in a covenant relationship as explained in the
third column.
The times ahead will test us and our faithfulness to
the covenant and we will learn more, but we also learn by sharing, even as
light gets greater by sharing what we have.
The King “sent his servants to call them that were
bidden to the wedding.” We become His servants by inviting others to
consider the invitation.
May God bless and guide us as we seek to conform our
lives to His principles in these troublous times when the kingdoms of this
world are falling apart and have nothing to offer us except empty
promises, and a New World Order that will soon force everyone against
God’s will as shown in Revelation 13:17.
Please share your thoughts about this on my blog
at http://TheBridegroomComes.wordpress.com
Welcome!
Welcome!
The wedding parables include the richest promise in
the Bible, that "He will make [us] ruler over all that He has," Luke
12:44.
It is vital to
destiny to understand the wedding parables. They imply a time of judgment
(Matthew 22:11) and crisis (cry at midnight, Matthew 25:6) or a “knock,”
Luke 12:36. The church of Laodicea where Christ “knocked” ended in an
earthquake.
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Are We Ready to Marry
the
Bridegroom?
A Fresh Look at the Wedding Parables
Article submitted: Ministry Magazine
Summary: The wedding parables focus in the end-time when wise
and foolish believers will be suddenly sorted by their readiness in a
calamity (midnight cry as in Egypt when God took His people to a covenant
relationship (marriage) that included the Promised (covenanted) Land that
in the end-time is for Christians as well as Jews, Gal 3:29. When the
world can’t buy or sell without the mark of false worship, God has pledged
Himself to fulfill His word. Readiness to seek a covenant in the face of
calamity is key to “open unto Him immediately” and the promise that “He
will make [us] ruler over all that He has.” This is a call to light our
lamps--“the Bridegroom comes!”
Christ’s parables of the wedding garment and ten
virgins in Matthew 22 and 25 are so different. They don’t seem to fit
together and many believers conclude they are just a metaphor about
readiness for Christ’s 2nd coming.
The Bible explains its meaning; the oil comes from
two olive trees in Zechariah 4 that represent the Old and New Testaments.
Christians focusing on the New Testament could lack an important source of
oil because Christ said, “Search the Scriptures,” and the only Scriptures
in existence then were the Old Testament.
The Old Testament offers insight to an impending
wedding. Speaking to Israel, God said, “Turn, O backsliding children…for I
am married unto you.” They got married at Sinai when they made a covenant
with God.
At the end of a prophetic time, God attacked the gods
of Egypt (the Nile, cattle and frogs were subjects of the plagues) and He
took His people from calamity to Sinai where they covenanted to become His
kingdom and His bride. The apostle Paul refers to the Exodus and reminds
us, “All these things happened to them as examples [types in the KJV margin]…for our admonition, upon whom the
ends of the ages have come.”
In the end-time, the bondage to Babylon will be more
serious than in Egypt. No one will be able to buy or sell without
conformity to false worship. In a time of judgment [krisis is the Greek word], God is going to afflict our gods
and a call will be given to come out of Babylon. Babylon (confusion) will
be worldwide, but in that crisis, God is not taken by surprise. He says,
“There is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning.”
In the book of beginnings, God covenanted with
Abraham to give him land for his seed. The promise is bigger than Jews.
“If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to
the promise”--that land is our land, and after an end-time calamity when Jerusalem
will be taken, “then shall the Lord go forth to fight against those
nations.”
In the “latter day,” God says, I will bring them from
the north country [Babylon] and gather them from the ends of the earth…the
blind and the lame, the woman with child…a great throng shall return
there…He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd
does his flock…Your children shall come back to their own
border.”
This is not optional because it’s the context of the
New Covenant Promise to put God’s law in our hearts, a promise without
which we cannot see God and live. Ezekiel has similar support. “I will
take you from among the heathen and gather you out of all countries and
bring you into your own land. Then [New Covenant Promise to write His law
in our hearts] and “you shall dwell in the land that I gave your
fathers.”
This is not just Jews. In the following chapter God
tells Ezekiel to take two sticks, one stick for Judah and another stick
for Israel “and they will become one stick in your hand.” Who are
they?
Israel is the 10 tribes that were scattered; many
intermarried and became Christians. “If ye be Christ’s, then are you
Abraham’s seed.” In the end-time, Christians who accept the torah, a word translated as “law” over 200 times, will blend
with Judah (Jews who accept the Messiah) and they will be united in one
kingdom.
The signal for Ezekiel 37 will be “a shaking” that
fits the “midnight cry” imagery of Matthew 25. The Rule of 1st Use offers insight. It states that where a word or
phrase is first found, it often has a context or meaning for the end-time
because Christ is the Word… “the First and the Last.”
The first place we find a midnight cry is when
calamity fell on the Egyptians. This supports a calamity as the source of
the midnight cry. The apostle Paul says, “The day of the Lord” comes with
“sudden destruction.” The phrase, “the day of the Lord” is the Old
Testament apocalyptic period, often with an earthquake in the context as
the “shaking” above.
The thought of sudden destruction could startle us,
but “surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His
servants, the prophets.” Yet few read the next phrase or understand it:
“The lion has roared, who will not fear?” Christ is the Lion of Judah and
His “roar” is an earthquake—“The Lord also will roar…the earth will
shake.”
Different passages use different imagery. A
well-known text is, “I stand at the door and knock.” We understand that
Christ wants to be part of all that we do, but it’s also an apocalyptic
message. We are lukewarm with materialism and He may help us refocus as He
did with the ancient church of Laodicea that ended in an
earthquake.
The only other place where Christ “knocks” is Luke
12:36 where we must “open unto Him immediately.” This is a wedding parable
and “He will make [us] ruler over all that He has” if we are “so doing
when He comes” which includes “watching” as a
protection…
Just as God spared His people when they put blood on
the doorpost, we may also be spared if we will “watch and pray.” Christ
said, “If the goodman had known…he would have watched and would not have
suffered his house to be broken.” “If you will not watch, I will come upon
you as a thief” (and break your house?)
Some people think watching means to be spiritually
aware, but everyone thinks they are aware. “Watch” is translated from the
Greek word, gregoreo, and it means to be awake. We can’t be awake every
night, but there was only one night in the year that Israel was to
watch—on the eve of Passover. “That same night is a vigil to be kept for
the Lord by all the Israelites throughout their generations.”
Christ altered the observance of Passover by
instituting unleavened bread and wine, and He also enjoined watching and
prayer that night, but we gloss over it. Passover is a memorial to the
greatest event in the Old and New Testaments--deliverance from physical
and spiritual bondage, first from Egypt, and then from sin.
Judgment was executed on the Egyptians and the Bible supports similar for
us —“In the day of the Lord’s sacrifice [Passover] I will punish the
princes and king’s children…” Zephaniah 1:8.
The disciples were probably thinking of Passover when
Christ said, You don’t know the day or hour! The Greek word, eido, means be aware or understand. Each time He said they
didn’t understand, He gave an example that fit a provision in their law
for Passover a month later, “as in the days of Noah,” when the Flood came
with Passover timing, but in the second spring month.
Again after five virgins missed the wedding He said,
“Watch…for the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling into a far
country.” Long journeys were often taken in the spring by people who kept
Passover a month later after returning. Christ was going on a long
journey. His clues suggest His return in judgment at 2nd Passover as the
law prescribes, because “till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or
tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is
fulfilled.” This year 2nd Passover falls on Sunday evening, May
6. Let's watch and pray as Christ says in Matthew 26:38-41.
We forget that Paul kept those annual feasts with
early believers and said, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” He also said
they were “a shadow of things to come” which means they weren’t all
fulfilled.
No doubt Paul was familiar with Zephaniah’s “day of
the Lord’s sacrifice [when God] will punish…the king’s children clothed in
strange apparel.” The day of the Lord’s sacrifice is Passover and those
who are unprepared for a covenant relationship with the Bridegroom may be
those in “strange apparel.”
These passages suggest that pastors are at high risk
because the True Witness tells them as messengers [aggelos is the Greek word] to the church of Laodicea that
they are “naked.” As such, they don’t have the wedding garment required in
Matthew 22:11.
Some would say this is taking “naked” in Revelation 3
out of context and applying it to the wedding parable, but Luke’s wedding
parable has six similarities to the Laodicean message. This means
Revelation 3:14-21 is a wedding invitation and those who don’t see an
opportunity for a covenant could be “naked,”—unable to answer the door
when Christ knocks.
Everyone today has a full plate. Calamity is not on
our wish list, but unless we see this imagery connected with “the day of
the Lord” and the wedding parables, we could miss our high destiny.
Watching and prayer on the eve of Passover would be a great help, but this
need has been obscured by customs and traditions, like Easter v
Passover.
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Matthew 25:1-13, KJV unless otherwise
stated
John 5:38
Jeremiah 3:14
Exodus 19:5,6
1
Corinthians 10:1,11, NKJV
Revelation 13:15-17
Revelation 14:7
Revelation 14:8; 18:2-4
Isaiah 46:10
Genesis 15:18
Galatians 3:29
Zechariah 14:3
Jeremiah 30:24
Ezekiel 26:7
Jeremiah 31:1,8,10,17
Matthew 5:8
Ezekiel 36:24-28
Ezekiel 37:15-17
Galatians 3:29
Revelation 1:11
1Thessalonians 5:2,3
Joel 2:10,11; Zeph 1:7-10; Zech 14:1-5
Amos 3:7, NKJV
Revelation 5:5
Joel 3:16, NKJV
Revelation 3:20
Luke 12:43,44
Matthew 24:43
Revelation 3:3
Exodus 12:42, NRSV
Matthew 26:38-41
Exodus 12:12
Zephaniah 1:8
Numbers 9:10,11
Matthew 25:13,14
Matthew 5:18, NKJV
Acts 20:6,16; 27:9; 1Corinthians 5:8
1Corinthians 11:1
Colossians 2:17
Matthew 22:11
Luke 12:35-44