The
Wedding Invitation
Revelation 19:1
The Bible begins with a wedding. Actually
it is a small garden wedding. There is no best man or maid of honor. No one
comes but the bride and the groom. There are no tuxes and there is no wedding
gown. The groom does not know the bride, has never met his bride until the day
of the wedding. She is hand selected by his father while he is asleep. When he
sees her, however, he understands that she is a perfect match. This is a
wedding made in heaven. Everything goes perfectly. The new couple appears to be
headed for the happily-ever-after
world that all newlyweds dream of.
Not even three full chapters into the
Bible, however, things come unraveled. There is unfaithfulness, deception and
shame. The newlyweds are found doing something God never intended for mankind
to do … they went clothes shopping together. Actually what they did that God
never intended them to do was that they hid themselves
from God. The perfect wedding turned into a matrimonial nightmare. Their joy of
God’s presence turned into fear and shame.
This is the first of three very important weddings
in the Bible. The second one appears in the second chapter of John’s gospel.
Jesus is there with His family. This is where John chooses to introduce us to
the powers He possessed in His incarnate state. This is the famous account of
Jesus turning the water into wine. The “punch line” in the miracle is that at
most weddings as the quantity of supplies diminish so, normally, does the
quality. At this wedding, however, the last glass of wine is better than the
first. This is because that is the way God always works through His Son.
The importance of this wedding is not in
the wine or the miracle but rather in the fact that Jesus is brought out into
public ministry at this point. This is the first of seven miracles that John
selects from Jesus’ ministry to reveal His power. Through this wedding a
transition is made from Jesus’ personal and private earthly life to His public
ministry. Through the last wedding in the Bible a transition is made from our
finite and limited earthly life of faith to the eternal realm and a world of
sight.
The third wedding of critical significance
appears three chapters from the end of the Bible. Unlike the first one, which
was small, this one is huge. The whole world comes! Unlike the simple garden ceremony in
As we open the nineteenth chapter of
Revelation, we are opening a wedding invitation. And just as Adam woke up to
the surprise of a lifetime at that moment we he first
looked into the eyes of his wife, as we open this wedding invitation we are in
for an even bigger surprise. We are being invited to attend our own wedding. We
discover that we are the bride.
The Wedding Invitation
Revelation
19:1
The Study
1. The text
2. The interpretation
3. The application
The Setting
1. The battle
2. The peace
3. The wedding
The Song
1. His salvation
2. His glory
3. His power