Scripture: Revelation 19:1-10
Sermon Series:
A young couple were driving to a church to get married. On the way, they were in a car accident and died. When they arrive in heaven, they see Peter at the gate. They ask him if he could arrange it so they could marry in heaven, so Peter tells them that he’ll do his best to work on it for them. Three months pass by and the couple hear nothing. They bump into Peter and ask him about the marriage. He says, “I’m still working on it.” Two years pass and no marriage. Peter again assures them he’s working on it.
Finally, after five long years, Peter comes running with a minister and tells the couple it’s time for their wedding. The couple marry and live happily for a while. But after a few months the couple go and find Peter and tell him things aren’t working out and they want to get a divorce. “Can you arrange it for us?” they ask. Peter replies, “Are you kidding?!! It took me five years to find a minister up here. How am I gonna find a lawyer?”
Someone said, “Marriage may be made in heaven but so are thunder and lightning.” This morning as we prepare for Communion and because it’s also Jane and my 40th Anniversary, we want to look at A Marriage Made in Heaven from our passage in Revelation 19:1-10 (p. 1059).
The Book of Revelation is divided into three simple parts. 1) Jesus said to John, write the things which you have seen. That was the vision of Jesus in chapter one. 2) Then He said, write the things which are, that was the letters to the seven churches because those churches are today in 2023 as they were in the time of John. 3) Finally, He said, write the things which shall be. That’s from chapter four all the way to the end of the book.
From Revelation six, all the way through chapter 18, the focus is on the time of the terrible tribulation, where God’s wrath is poured out upon the earth. But from this point forward, chapter 19, in Revelation, the focus is on what’s taking place in heaven where every born-again Christian is. This heavenly marriage is described in Revelation 19:1-10. Let me suggest three parts of this marriage made in heaven.
1.The worship in heaven, vs. 1-3. This is a tremendous scene of worship in heaven. Worshiping God is going to be our full-time occupation when we get Home. Maybe someone taught you this but you may believe that when you get to heaven, there’s a holding room before you enter heaven to purify you. The Bible doesn’t teach that. We don’t need some future purifying. Jesus took care of that on the cross for us.
Right now on earth we’re growing in grace and preparing ourselves to worship God in heaven for all eternity. It’s why we need to be worshiping the Lord now, so we’ll be better prepared to worship Him in heaven.
What are they worshiping in this passage? They’re giving praise for two characteristics of God mentioned in verses 1 through 3.
Praise God for His salvation (19:1). First, they’re praising God for his salvation. There is a great chorus in heaven who says, “Hallelujah!” This is the real Hallelujah Chorus. George Frederick Handel (picture) composed the entire Messiah in only 21 days. Most of us have never heard the entire Messiah because it is a massive composition. It was performed for the first time on March the 23rd, 1743, in the presence of the king of England. The king was seated during the whole first part, but when it came to the climax and the Hallelujah Chorus, the king of England was so moved by those words (that come right out of this passage of Scripture), that he stood to his feet. And when the king stood, everybody else stood to their feet. That’s why to this day, when the Hallelujah Chorus is sung, people stand.
This heavenly chorus in Revelation is in honor of the King of Kings. In heaven their chorus is as stirring as the Hallelujah Chorus is on earth. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like in heaven when the real King of Kings and Lord of Lords is the one who’s receiving this praise? We will be praising God for salvation and saying, “Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul.” On that day you’ll get to tell King Jesus “Thank You” personally.
Praise God for His supremacy (19:2-3). In verse two, it speaks of God’s supremacy. It says God has condemned the great prostitute. But what’s the great prostitute? That’s the Babylonian system, the world’s system. In the end, God wins.
Many have a faulty theology. Some have the idea that there’s a cosmic struggle going on between God and Satan, and it’s a real close match, as if it’s tied with two minutes left. It’s nothing like that. It’s not even close. Jesus defeated Satan at Calvary. He won it once for all. It’s not a question of how close Satan came to winning. All throughout the Bible, God’s Word promised that He’d be victorious in the end.
In Genesis 3, God predicted what would happen. He said Eve’s seed, which was a prophecy of Jesus, would crush the head of the serpent or Satan. Many people today go around moaning about the devil. You don’t need to fear the devil. He is like a roaring lion, but ever since Calvary, he’s been a toothless and clawless lion. All he has left is his roar, but he can’t harm you in the end. So regardless of all the trials and struggles that you go through, we need to look on the last page of the Bible and realize that God has already won from the beginning.
2. The worshippers in heaven, vs. 4-6. Who are those worshiping at this scene? Verses 4-7 tells us that they’re basically two groups. One group is the 24 elders. We were introduced to these 24 elders earlier in Revelation. Many scholars believe the 24 elders represent the saints, all the redeemed of all the ages gathered around the throne.
The four living creatures, the other group, surround the throne of God, constantly doing his beck and call and worshiping Him for all eternity.
What are we going to be doing? There are two words that we’re going to be using. The two words that stand out are the words “hallelujah” and “amen.” They are the same in every language on earth.
Hallelujah. The word “hallelujah” appears 24 times in the Old Testament and 4 times in the New Testament—all in Revelation 19. The word comes from two Hebrew word. “Halle” is Hebrew for “praise.” “Lu” is an article. “Jah” is the syllable used in the name God – Yahweh. It literally means, “Praise to the Lord.” That’s what we’re going to be saying in heaven.
Amen. Then we’ll be saying, “Amen.” It appears in the form of “amen” several times in the Bible, but is translated in another form over 200 times in the New Testament. When you read in the King James Version “verily, verily…” it also means Amen. The ESV translates it, “Truly, Truly.” Amen means “That’s right. I agree.”
There’s a great worship scene that we can’t even begin to imagine that’s going to take place. Verse six says it sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters. It’s like a hundred Niagara Falls. It was so loud, like loud peals of thunder, as this multitude is shouting, “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns!” I can’t wait. How about you?
3. The wedding in heaven, vs. 7-10. The whole purpose of all this worship and celebration is the celebration of a wedding found in verse 7. It’s going to be a marriage made in heaven. You and I are not only going to be there, but we will be part of the wedding. The focus of a wedding on earth is the Bride. What’s going to be different about this wedding in heaven is that the focus in on the Bridegroom, Jesus, as found in places like Matthew 25.
When asked why He and His disciples didn’t fast, Jesus said, “While the bridegroom is here, there won’t be any fasting. But after the bridegroom has gone, then they will fast” (Luke 5:34-35). Jesus is the bridegroom in this wedding scene.
The bride is the Church. In 2 Corinthians 11:2 Paul says, “ For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” Paul is talking about the Church. The Church are all those who have trusted Christ from the cross onward. They’re the bride of Christ. That’s what it says in this passage in Revelation. Verse seven says the bride has “made herself ready.”
Let me explain to you a traditional Jewish wedding. First, the engagement is not between the husband and wife but between the parents. The father of the bride and the father of the groom get together to make a financial arrangement. The father of the groom pays a dowery (money) to the father of the bride so that when the time comes, his daughter can be the wife of the father of the son that he wants to have marry her. He had already made the payment. The unique component of a Jewish wedding versus a Western wedding is the betrothal stage when the couple is espoused.
Espousal is not like being engaged. It’s equal to being legally married, like Joseph and Mary were before Mary gave birth to Jesus. If the couple wants to break the betrothal, it requires a divorce just like a marriage. They do not live together and the marriage is not physically consummated. It is an in-between time, a time of anticipation, a time of waiting before the third step: the wedding celebration.
After the betrothal, the groom would go back to his father’s house to prepare a place for him and his bride to live. Then when he got it ready, he would come back to get his bride. It almost became a game among Jewish young people for the groom to sneak up on the bride to surprise her and take her when she wasn’t expecting it. So the bride had to stay ready all the time, and her “bridesmaids” (the maidens in Matthew 25) would help her be ready. Then the groomsmen would one day announce, “Behold! The bridegroom comes!” Then he’d sweep up his bride and take her back with him to his father’s house where the wedding celebration would begin.
There’s a tremendous spiritual truth here below the surface. From the foundation of the world, our heavenly Father paid the price for our salvation with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. That’s what Paul says in Acts 20. Jesus bought the Church with His own blood.
From the time of Calvary to now, we, the Church, the Bride of Christ, are betrothed to Christ. We are espoused to the Lord. Paul says, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I espoused you. I have promised you to one husband to Christ so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Him” (2 Corinthians 11:2). It’s what Matthew 25 is all about.
The Bible says that when Jesus comes back, there’s going to be a shout of the Archangel. What’s that Archangel going to shout? We don’t know for sure, but don’t be a bit surprised if it’s, “Behold! The bridegroom comes for His Bride, the Church!” This event is what we call the rapture of the Church. What has Jesus been doing all this time that He’s been ascended back into heaven? The same thing a groom does.
He says, “In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also” (Luke 14:2-3). It’s beautiful that right now we are the Bride of Christ, waiting for Him to come for us.
But the bride is not ready now. The bride is not in pure and spotless linen right now. Why? The Church isn’t perfect. The Church has problems and He must clean us up. What’s going to be happening for the seven years of tribulation? Jesus is going to be getting the Church, His Bride, cleaned up.
That’s the Judgment Seat of Christ that we read about in 1 Corinthians 3. The Bible says our good works will be judged and tried by fire like gold. It’s a bit like a graduation. Everyone graduates yet there are levels of rewards. Jesus is getting His Bride ready by burning away the dross. It’s how Jesus purifies His Church with “fine linen” given to her to wear.
The linen is the righteous acts of the saints. The next two chapters of Revelation reveal that this is basically an outer garment. There is an inner garment of righteousness, which is the righteousness of Jesus that we receive at the moment of salvation. That’s our true righteousness, but this outer garment is our practical righteousness—those righteous acts we’ve committed for the Lord with the right motive and for the right reason. That’s the linen we’ll be wearing so the bride will have made herself ready.
The banquet is for celebration. New Testament believers will be the bride, but there will be other people invited to the wedding feast.
Remember that Jesus said about John the Baptist that he was a friend of the bridegroom. I don’t believe John the Baptist or Abraham will be part of the “bride.” I don’t think Moses or Elijah will be a part of the bride or any Old Testament believers. They’re Old Testament saints and part of Israel. They’ll be at the wedding feast as friends of the bridegroom. By the time of Revelation 19, Jesus will present the Church to Himself as a beautiful bride without blemish. What a time of celebration there’s going to be.
Verse 9 says “blessed” are they who are invited to the wedding supper. I don’t know what’s going to be on the menu, but I do know there will be “new wine.” Jesus said to the disciples, “I will not drink this fruit of the vine with you until I drink it new with you in the kingdom.” It’s going to be beyond our imagination. It’s truly A Marriage Made in Heaven.
Conclusion: C. S. Lewis (picture) once provided a powerful image of the difference between heaven and hell. He described hungry people sitting at a huge banquet loaded with delicious food. Every person had a long fork and knife attached to their hands (about three feet long). The scene in hell was one of anger, frustration, and fighting as people scrambled to feed themselves. They could reach the food with their long knives and forks, but they were too long to feed themselves. The conflict, screaming, and unfulfilled hunger continued for eternity–that is hell.
But the scene in heaven was quite different. The same tables were loaded with food, and the people had the same long forks and knives attached to their hands. But instead of chaos and conflict, there was joy, laughter, and pleasant conversation. The difference? In heaven, the diners weren’t trying to feed themselves. Each person was patiently taking the food and feeding the person seated across the table.
Lewis concluded that people who spend all their lives trying to fulfill their own selfish desires are already experiencing a kind of hell. But those who live a life of service to others will find themselves at home in heaven. They had learned the joy of service on earth, and now they had eternity to enjoy it, only more so.
That’s basically the difference between those who are going to be in heaven and hell, those who are selfish and those who are unselfish. Those who are unforgiven sinners and those who are forgiven sinners. They’re changed. They’re serving because they have been changed from the inside out by committing their lives to Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
As John sees this vision of this wedding and heaven, he falls down at the feet of this angel and begins to worship the angel. The angel says not to do it! Verse 10 says, “Worship God only.”
Then the angel notes one of the keys to the whole Book of Revelation. He says the testimony of Jesus is the “spirit of prophecy.” Revelation is all about prophecy. There are many people who are really into prophecy. But if you get anything out of prophecy, except the preaching and testimony of Jesus Christ, you’ve missed the message of the whole book of Revelation. This book is not the revelation of the future. It’s the revelation of Jesus Christ. As you read the book of Revelation, if you don’t fall more in love with Jesus, you need to read it again because you missed the whole point of it. It’s about Jesus the Lamb of God who died for us at Calvary!