Four Hallelujahs
The Conquering Lamb • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Hallelujah.
It is a biblical word used all over the Western world.
It is not just used by Christians.
It is a word used by unbelievers to express joy over even the most silly things.
“The buzzer just went off. Our table is ready!”
Hallelujah!
“The Commanders win on a last second field goal!”
Hallelujah!
It is the title of one of the most covered songs of all time—Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
It has been recorded by over 300 artists since it was released in 1991.
But at the end of the day, Hallelujah is a word that belongs to heaven.
It is one of God’s words.
It literally means, “Praise the Lord!”
It is used in the Psalter
Most famously in the Hallelujah Psalms of 146-150, where the refrain of “Praise the Lord!” sounds out again and again.
The Hebrew word is transliterated and used in the New Testament four different times.
And all four are in this passage we are looking at tonight.
These Hallelujahs are praises launched toward God’s throne by the people of God and the heavenly hosts.
As Babylon is destroyed and is reduced to smoldering ashes on the horizon, praises are going up to the Lord.
As the evil network of humanity is reduced to rubble, the saints and the angels and the elders are all raising their voices in exaltation.
As the harlot is laid to rest in the sea, the bride is prepared for her wedding day.
So tonight, we pick it up here in the midst of the 6th Cycle.
Babylon has been judged.
She has been mourned by her lovers.
And now, we see the last glimpse of the Great Prostitute
And the first glimpse of her foil—The Bride of the Lamb
I’ll read the text and we will see Four Hallelujahs—four causes for praise
1. Praise the Lord, for He is a redeeming Judge. (Revelation 19:1-2; 18:20-24)
2. Praise the Lord, for He has overcome the world (Revelation 19:3)
3. Praise the Lord, for He is the Savior of all who fear and serve Him (Revelation 19:4-5)
4. Praise the Lord, for the marriage of the Lamb has come (Revelation 19:6-10)
Rejoice over her, O heaven,
and you saints and apostles and prophets,
for God has given judgment for you against her!”
Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying,
“So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence,
and will be found no more;
and the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters,
will be heard in you no more,
and a craftsman of any craft
will be found in you no more,
and the sound of the mill
will be heard in you no more,
and the light of a lamp
will shine in you no more,
and the voice of bridegroom and bride
will be heard in you no more,
for your merchants were the great ones of the earth,
and all nations were deceived by your sorcery.
And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints,
and of all who have been slain on earth.”
After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
for his judgments are true and just;
for he has judged the great prostitute
who corrupted the earth with her immorality,
and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”
Once more they cried out,
“Hallelujah!
The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”
And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!” And from the throne came a voice saying,
“Praise our God,
all you his servants,
you who fear him,
small and great.”
Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“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”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
FIRST HALLELUJAH (v. 1-2; 18:20-24)
FIRST HALLELUJAH (v. 1-2; 18:20-24)
Let’s begin by looking at the first hallelujah. It comes in 19:1.
John hears what seems to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out...
He will hear them again in verse 3 and again in verse 6. Two of the four hallelujahs that we are looking at are coming from this multitude—possibly three.
Who are they? Have we seen them before?
Certainly, we have.
It is the church triumphant.
They were the church militant on the earth.
The 144,000.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
One of the elders addresses John and tells him the identity of this multitude:
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
But when we saw them again in chapter 14, they were on Mount Zion with the Lamb. The church militant had become the church triumphant.
Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.
And now, in Revelation 19, they are roaring with jubilation over the defeat of Babylon. They cry out, “Hallelujah!”
And their praise is aimed at God’s redemption and justice. The two go hand-in-hand.
“Salvation and glory and power belong to our God...”
This speaks to God’s redeeming nature.
He exercises his power for the sake of His glory in the salvation of His people.
He has redeemed them their sin, so they would not be swept away with the wicked.
But on the other hand, the great Redeemer is a Judge.
He has judged Babylon for corrupting His creation with immorality and for spilling the blood of the prophets and the martyrs (v. 2).
1. Praise the Lord, for He is a redeeming Judge (v. 1-2; 18:20-24).
1. Praise the Lord, for He is a redeeming Judge (v. 1-2; 18:20-24).
We will see more the redemption in the fourth Hallelujah.
But to understand the justice that God has poured out, we need to go back and look at the end of chapter 18.
You’ve got the shipmasters and seafaring man calling on heaven, filled with the saints, prophets and apostles, to rejoice because even they recognize that God has won.
And then in verse 21, this mighty angel takes up a stone like a great millstone and throws it into the sea and says that Babylon will disappear in judgment, just as the millstone disappears beneath the waters.
The image, like so many of the pictures and symbols of Revelation, is a direct allusion to the Old Testament.
When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, and say, ‘Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted.’ ”
Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
What took place in part in the days of the Babylonian Empire, when God judged them and gave their power over the Persians, is now happening in full.
All the empires---the entire network of evil set up by humanity, it will all sink and rise no more.
And we can read what that will be like in verses 21-24.
As Babylon is thrown down with violence, it will be found “no more.”
Those words “no more” are important—they are repeated 6 different times in the passage.
Babylon will be no more (v. 21)
Music will be no more (v. 22)
Craftsmen will be no more (v. 22)
The mill will be no more (v. 22)
All the vain man-centered culture and human craftsmanship and industry will be gone for good.
All these songs celebrating the wickedness of humanity will never be heard again
All these buildings and things made for the glory of wicked man will never be seen again
But that is not all.
There will be no more light for the wicked(v. 23)
In God’s common grace, He gives light to all people.
The light to live and move and breathe
The light to have intelligence and use that intelligence to build and create
And He gives the actual physical light of the sun
But this common grace will end and common judgment will take its place for all that oppose Him
There will be no more love for the wicked (v. 23)
Again, in God’s common grace, the Lord allows people who despise Him in their hearts to experience tastes and aspects of love in the world
Christians aren’t the only people getting married, right?
Well that is going to end.
Those who have cast their lot with Babylon will never know love again.
The voice of the bridegroom and the bride will disappear and be heard no more.
And the reason that God’s judgment is poured out in this way is because the nations, from the merchants to the greatest rulers, were deceived by the evil magic of Babylon.
The nations drank from her cup of sexual immorality.
For all nations have drunk
the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality,
and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her,
and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.”
They bought the lie that Babylon, with her harlot clothes and make-up and jewelry, could offer them more than God could.
They rejected His love and were deceived into loving the Great Prostitute.
They rejected God and they went with the world.
And then, as if this spiritual adultery is not bad enough, they murdered the prophets and the martyrs.
Every prophet and martyr slain on the earth was slain by Babylon.
They were slain by those who were in bed with her.
We’ve seen the injustice committed against God’s people throughout the book of Revelation.
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
The cry of the martyrs has been answered in Babylon’s fall.
We also saw Babylon staggering around drunk on the blood of the saints.
And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
When I saw her, I marveled greatly.
John’s marveling was over her brashness.
And his marveling was right.
He has seen Jesus. He knows the power of Jesus.
He knew His power on earth and through the visions of Revelation, He has seen His power as the right hand of the Father.
He knows that justice must eventually come for the harlot, and now it has arrived.
And this avenging justice for His people is evident in 19:2.
The Prostitute has been judged.
The blood of the servants of God has been avenged.
From the blood of Isaiah and John the Baptist, to the blood of Stephen and James in Acts, to the blood of John Rogers and the Marian Martyrs, to the blood of Bonhoeffer—it will all be avenged in the end.
Not one unjust death of God’s saints will go unpunished.
So you see that God is not only just in His vengeance and judgment, but He is powerful in His redemption of His people.
They go hand in hand.
The wicked, rebellious, idolatrous, murderous world will be brought down low.
The saints made righteous by the blood of Christ, who persevered for the witness of the Kingdom, even to the point of death, they will be exalted.
They will be avenged and they will cry out Hallelujah as their killers are quieted in Final Judgment.
SECOND HALLELUJAH (v. 3)
SECOND HALLELUJAH (v. 3)
The second hallelujah is found in verse 3.
The multitude rejoices that the smoke of Babylon goes up forever.
They see her destruction and they say, “Praise the Lord!”
They are giving God glory for being their champion.
He has won. The world has been defeated.
2. Praise the Lord, for He has overcome the world (19:3).
2. Praise the Lord, for He has overcome the world (19:3).
The juxtaposition of this Hallelujah with the fourth is really something.
In the fourth Hallelujah, we will see the people of God as a Bride, being married to their Bridegroom.
We will see the Bride of Christ on her wedding day.
But as she stands at her wedding feast, she looks off to the horizon and sees the world that tried to kill her smoldering from the fire of God’s judgment.
This is another Old Testament allusion—this time to the words of the prophet Isaiah who was speaking about what would come of the Babylonian Empire.
Night and day it shall not be quenched;
its smoke shall go up forever.
From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
none shall pass through it forever and ever.
WHAT WILL WE KNOW
WHAT WILL WE KNOW
I think this speaks to a knowledge of the world that we will have in eternal glory.
There are some who assume that we will have no memory of sin or the world that was.
And to an extent, it is true that our memory will be limited.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
Before the New Jerusalem comes down as a bride adorned for Christ, her Husband, the first heaven and the first earth will pass away.
And any memory that would cause us pain and sorrow will go with it.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
But clearly we will not forget everything.
Our memories will not cause us pain, but we will know an enemy was defeated.
We will certainly know that our sin was defeated by the One who still bears the scars.
And we will know that Christ is our Champion, who has won the day and overcome the world.
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
That will be proven fully and finally in the end and we will know it.
Our memories of the world will not cause us pain, but they will cause us to praise.
THIRD HALLELUJAH (v. 4-5)
THIRD HALLELUJAH (v. 4-5)
The third hallelujah comes in verse 4.
We have familiar characters offering up this statement of praise to God.
It is not the multitude now. Now it’s the heavenly hosts that we saw in Revelation 4.
The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders.
The four living creatures reflect aspects of God’s character and glory.
The 24 elders are representatives of the full people of God.
Just as they are worshipful in the heavenly scene in Revelation 4 and 5, they are falling down before the throne of God and saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!”
“So be it. Praise God!”
And then, in verse 5, just as it happened in chapters 16 and 17, a voice comes from the throne.
The same thing will happen in chapter 21.
The voice says, “Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.”
This leads us to our third point tonight:
3. Praise the Lord, for He is the Savior of all who fear Him (v. 4-5).
3. Praise the Lord, for He is the Savior of all who fear Him (v. 4-5).
The powerful acts of God that we have seen in this text—both in judging evil and in saving His people—they are not just done for an elite class of believers.
They are not done for a special group of Christians.
We are not like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who wrongly believe a literal 144,000 will get to reign with Jesus in the new heaven and then a lower class of people will live on the new earth.
Instead, God saves and redeems and acts for ALL of His people, both great and small.
This is who our God reveals Himself to be. He desires to save all types of people.
Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country,
Anyone—great or small—from the east to the west—the Lord desires that they would fear Him and serve Him.
This is different from fallen and unjust leaders in the world.
ILLUSTRATION: When the Titanic sank, the Captain, Edward Smith, famously allowed better access to lifeboats for the upper class on the ship and many that died were people in lower classes who had no access to the boats.
Our God is not this way.
In the eyes of God, there are the proud who oppose Him and the contrite who have confessed their sin and pleaded the blood of Christ for depravity.
You are humble or haughty.
You are for Him or against Him.
He dwells in you, or you dwell in the world.
Praise God that He has seen fit to take those that the world does not count as wise or noteworthy and He uses them for His glory.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
People the world counted as insignificant will do the most significant thing possible for all of eternity—serve the Lord their God in reverent and worshipful fear.
For these are those who, by God’s grace, were not vexed by Babylon’s sorcery.
Dismissed by the world, but delivered by King Jesus.
What can these servants of the Lord do but join with the creatures and the elders in offering hallelujahs to God.
FOURTH HALLELUJAH (v. 6-10)
FOURTH HALLELUJAH (v. 6-10)
Now we come to the fourth and final hallelujah in our passage tonight.
In verse 6, John hears what seems to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder.
This may be the same multitude from the beginning of the chapter. This praise may be coming from the same source as the first two hallelujahs.
But the way that the Bride is spoken of is like she is being observed and not speaking herself.
The great multitude in 19:1 is the Bride of Christ.
It is the people of God. The church triumphant, prepared as a Bride for her Bridegroom.
This leads some to think that this is not the people of God, but the angel in v. 9.
It seems odd to have his one voice described as being as powerful as a multitude, but we remember that Jesus’ voice was described as sounding like many waters back in chapter 1.
his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.
I tend to think that the multitude is the same multitude from the beginning of the chapter and she is crying out in the third person. That is the most natural reading to me.
I believe the angel in verse 9 is the angel from the end of chapter 18, who violently threw the millstone into the sea.
Regardless, we have an incredibly important picture sketched for us of the marriage of the Lamb to His Bride.
We have the culmination of all of history coming to pass.
You see in verse 6 that the hallelujah is first and foremost over the fact that the Lord Almighty has begun to reign.
The Kingdom has come.
Remember in Acts 1 when the disciples have this desire for Jesus to restore the kingdom to Israel and toss out the Romans?
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Well now the Kingdom has come.
And the Romans, along with every other member of Babylon that stands in opposition to God, has been defeated.
And then in verses 7-8, the people of God say, “Let us rejoice exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come.”
The Bride has made herself ready.
It has been granted to her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure.
4. Praise the Lord, for the marriage of the Lamb has come (v. 6-10).
4. Praise the Lord, for the marriage of the Lamb has come (v. 6-10).
This is the first we hear of the Bride in Revelation.
We hear of her in chapter 19, before we see her in chapter 21.
In the same way, we heard of The Great Prostitute in chapter 17 before we saw her.
These two women, the Great Prostitute and the Bride of Christ, are meant to be contrasted.
The same could be said of the two cities—Babylon and the New Jerusalem.
Each of these women will come to very different ends.
One is faithful to Christ and seeks to lead others to Him.
The other is unfaithful and seeks to get others to drink her sexual immorality from her cup of abominations.
One is dressed in fine linen, bright and pure, prepared for her wedding
One is dressed in the clothes of a harlot, prepared for her funeral
One is called “Blessed” by the angel in verse 9.
One is called “Fallen, Fallen,” by an angel in chapter 18
One is the eternal Bride
One is the woman who is no more.
JEWISH WEDDINGS
JEWISH WEDDINGS
Now, to really understand what is happening here with the Bride of the Lamb, we need to check out Western ideas about romance and how marriages start at the door.
The Jewish world knew nothing of our system of dating and having an engagement that can broken off with no legal ramifications.
They know nothing of this fairly new, Western idea, where you go off and find some other lover and enter into a relationship based on mutual attraction and interest.
We are familiar with the story of Joseph and Mary and how even when they were betrothed, they were considered husband and wife.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
Betrothals were obviously not like engagements.
Joseph is already called her husband and to end the betrothal, a legal divorce would be required.
Here is why:
Betrothals took place in front of witnesses.
The witnesses would watch the man and woman accept the terms of marriage and a blessing would be spoken over the couple
From that day on, the couple was seen as husband and wife.
But here is the thing, they would not live together right away.
The bride would go back to her home, while the husband went to earn money to pay a brideprice, or a dowry, to her father.
Once he had all the money needed, he would come and buy the woman from her father.
Then, the husband would put on his best clothes. And he and his friends would come to where the bride was and announce himself and whisk her away to their new home.
And then, there would be a 1-2 week long feast, celebrating the betrothal’s end and the consummation of the marriage.
With that in mind, it is not hard to make the connections to the church’s relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
All believers are betrothed to Christ.
He is our Bridegroom and as the church, we are His Bride.
He paid the bride-price for us with His life’s blood on the Cross.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
He died for His people. We are legally bound to Him.
And one day, He will come down the lane for His Bride.
He will return with trumpet sound and let all creation know that it is time for the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.
In verse 7, the text says that “his Bride has made herself ready.”
Lest we be duped into thinking that we can work and labor our way to the marriage supper table, it must be taken in conjunction with verse 8:
“it was granted her to clothe herself...”
The Church has not earned her way to the table.
She comes in her wedding dress by the granting grace of God.
The fine linen, bright and pure, is not her own righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ that shows itself in her works (v. 8).
For no one can be righteous on their own. All have fallen short of the glory of God.
And her old, filthy rags she once wore have been taken away through Christ’s atoning death.
If not for her dress, she would not be able to be in the Lord’s presence forever, eating from the tree of life and serving Him forever.
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.
And now He is sanctifying her with His Word and preparing her for the big day.
that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
TRINITARIAN EFFORT
TRINITARIAN EFFORT
In fact, the prepared Bride is the result of the saving work of the entire Godhead.
The Father has given a Bride—a people—to the Son.
And those people will come to the Son and they will never be cast out.
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
Who are these people who will come to the Son? Who are the people who make up the Bride of Christ?
Well it is the great multitude. It is the church triumphant.
It is those who names were etched into the Book of Life with God’s purposeful ink.
They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Who will be in the New Jerusalem, which is described as coming down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her Husband?
Those whose names are in the book of life.
And those names were written down before the foundation of the world—ie—eternity past.
and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.
So the Father gives the Son a Bride.
The Son dies for the Bride and sanctifies the Bride.
But what about the Holy Spirit?
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
When a betrothal took place in the ancient world, there would often be a down payment or a guarantee made to show the earnest intention of the Husband to follow through.
We use engagement rings for this purpose in our culture.
Well what Paul is showing us in Ephesians 1 is that the Holy Spirit is the down payment for our wedding day.
The Holy Spirit is given to us as the guarantee of what is to come in eternal glory.
So you can see—truly all three Persons of the Trinity have worked to bring this wedding day to pass in Revelation 19.
THE ANGEL’S WORDS (v. 8-10)
THE ANGEL’S WORDS (v. 8-10)
The angel’s words in verse 9 stand in contrast to Babylon.
She is cursed by God.
The names written in the book of life, who have received invitations to the Supper, are blessed.
And you can count on that because these not deceptive words like those offered up by Babylon and or the Second Beast who looks like a lamb and speaks like a dragon.
Instead, these are the true words of God.
John’s response to the whole scene is to fall at the angel’s feet and worship him, but the angel won’t have it.
“You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.”
In some way, the angel has spoken the entire message of Revelation in his correction of John.
Worship God.
Reject the Dragon.
Reject the Beast.
Reject the False Prophet.
Reject Babylon.
Worship God, through His worthy Son, Jesus Christ.
The final words of verse 10 are a bit confusing.
Here is Thom Schreiner, who is smarter than me:
Hebrews–Revelation Comment
The saying is tantalizingly ambiguous and has provoked a number of different interpretations. John probably means that Spirit-inspired prophecy focuses on the testimony given by and about Jesus Christ. Christians are to worship God and be God-centered, but prophecy also points us to the centrality of Jesus and his majesty and greatness.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
The four hallelujahs are truly the tale of two women.
One will never be seen again.
One is in plain view, shining the brilliance of her righteous, blood-washed garments.
One chose to drink the blood of God’s saints.
One was chosen from the foundation of the world to be washed in the blood of the Lamb.
One had her funeral announced by her old lovers who will also perish.
One has her wedding announced by the very Word of God, which will never pass away.
Are you in bed with the world, or are you in the Bride of Christ?
If Jesus were to return tomorrow, would you be filled with horrible sorrow or hallelujahs?
We can’t just ask these questions and answer them according to what is in our head. We have to ask according to what is in our heart.
For the state of your heart will ultimately inform your hands and feet in terms of obedience.
If you love the Groom, you will live like a betrothed Bride.
If you do not love the Groom, you will not wait for Him, but take matters into your own hands, seeking your reward in the here and now, doubting whether He will actually come through on His promises.
If you love the Groom, you will submit to Him as your Head and your Authority.
If you love the world, you will reject the Groom and take on a lover you were never designed for. A harlot who will never love you back.
Imagine a man coming back from earning the dowry, paying the Bride-price to the father and then he finds that his bride has taken on many lovers.
Will he call that woman his own flesh?
Of course not—He depart from her and divorce her.
He will not count her unfaithfulness as love, no matter what she claims with her mouth.
Remember your ultimate purpose, and when you set yourself to your day’s work or approach any activity in the world, let HOLINESS TO THE LORD be written upon your hearts in all that you do.
Richard Baxter
When the Groom returns, He will find holiness on the heart of His bride.
Does this describe you?
Are you a man of holiness or harlotry?
Are you a woman of holiness or haughtiness?
If you are concerned that you are the latter, do not despair.
The Lord Jesus bids you to come and humble yourself and confess your sin and receive the gift of His life and death.
Do this tonight. Do not wait.
For we do not know when the Groom will return and you don’t want to miss another day of living in His love as the Bride awaiting her Husband.
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