“The Marriage of the Lamb” (s2096)

0:00Greetings friends and welcome to another podcast from the Heart of Spurgeon. Today's sermon is The Marriage of the Land. It was delivered on a Lord's Day morning, 21 July in 1889 by Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in Newington, in London. His text on the occasion was Revelation 19, 7 and 8. Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be a raid in fine linen, clean and bright for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Spurgeon begins by setting this sermon, both in the broader context of the time and in the immediate context of his ministry. He is not as some seem to suggest some kind of random sermon production machine. He is very conscious of the context and the balance of his ministry over time.

1:03And so this sermon begins with a reference to the previous Lord's Day ministry. When quote, we saw clearly from God's word that our Lord is worshipped in heaven under the character of a lamb. Now by a lamb was meant sacrifice, sacrifice for the putting away of sin according to the text, behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. It is against the great doctrine of atonement and substitutionary death that the attacks of the present unbelieving age are constantly being made. And therefore says Spurgeon, I set before you the truth that substitution and sacrifice were not a temporary expedient, not a passing response, but that they continue all through the whole history of salvation and remain in the very highest place, even in heaven itself and will continue evermore. But that was the previous Lord's Day, emphasizing that we shall always consider Christ as the Lamb's slain from the foundation of the world.

2:05But this morning he says, my principal aim shall be to show you that the blessed and glorious union which is to be celebrated between the church and her Lord will be the marriage of the Lamb. The ever-blessed and eternal union of hearts with Christ will be in reference to his sacrifice specially and emphatically. The perfected union of the entire church of God with her divine husband is here described by the beloved apostle who laid his head upon his master's bosom and knew most about him and who was under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost in these words, the marriage of the Lamb is come and his wife have made herself ready. And so Spurgeon's trying to make sure that he brings to light these different aspects of the truth that he's reinforcing and developing things he's already said, that he's got a congregation that needs not only to have that sacrifice in itself held before them but clearly, but also needs to understand how that sacrifice relates to them in terms

3:12of their eternal prospects. So whatever else we think of at this time he says, my discourse will aim at this as the white of the target, namely that Jesus Christ as the Lamb, the sacrifice, is not only the beginning but the end, not only the foundation, but the top stone of the whole sacred edifice of the Temple of Grace. The consummation of the whole work of redemption is the marriage of the church to Christ and according to the true sayings of God, this is the marriage of the Lamb. And so our featured sermon this week focuses on this particular element. If you want to read the daily snippets, the quotes that we get from each day's sermon, you can find us on X at Reading Spurgeon and we usually try and post the week's readings day by day there. We can go to mediagratii.org slash podcasts where you can find out more about this podcast and its subject, Spurgeon. You can also sign up there for a newsletter where you'll get those daily readings and

4:16an introduction to the weekly featured sermon with a link to its text so that you can keep up very readily. And if you're new here, then my name is Jeremy Walker. I'm the pastor of Maidenbauer Baptist Church in a town called Crawley in the southeast of England. And I hope that you will join us from time to time. Week by week, we try and post these as we work our way through the output of this prodigious and much blessed man Charles Spurgeon, a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So Spurgeon's aim then in this featured sermon, representative of that output is to set forth this marriage of the Lamb. He says it's divinely veiled as well as revealed in this revelation and he doesn't want to intrude where the Holy Spirit shuts us out. And so with a prayer to the Spirit to make it profitable and again that's typically Spurgeonic, very conscious of his dependence on the Holy Ghost, he invites our attention

5:20first to the antecedents of this marriage. What happens before the public marriage is celebrated? One great event he says will be the destruction of the Harlot Church. Now Spurgeon is part of a tradition and lives in an environment where there would have been a degree of absolutism about identifying that anti-Christian church, that Harlot church with the Roman Catholic communion. That would be in keeping with the great confessions, for example, the British confessions of the 17th century, those three sister confessions, the Westminster, the Savoy and the Second London Baptist Confession. It's something that is still held. Spurgeon is emphatic that Rome is Babylon in that sense. But the way he describes it is interesting because it actually opens the scope up a little bit.

6:21Any church which puts in the place of justification by faith in Christ, another method of salvation is a Harlot church. The doctrine of justification by faith in Christ is the article of a standing or a falling church that's going all the way back to those great reformation statements. Where the blood is precious, there is life. Where atonement by the sacrifices preached and loved. There will the Spirit of God, their effectual testimony. Where human priests are put in the place of Jesus, where pardons can be purchased. Where there's an unbloody sacrifice, instead of the great propitiation, and sacraments are exalted as the means of regeneration, there the church is no longer a chaste virgin under Christ, but she has turned aside from her purity. And Spurgeon has right in his crosshairs there, the Roman Catholic communion. But I think he'd be including, perhaps, some of the congregations of his own time,

7:22and we've seen a proliferation of it in hours, where those descriptions would map over not just Roman Catholicism, but other congregations and communions as well. And so you've got the destruction of the Harlot church. You've got the casting down of those who stand against Christ. And again, as we work through this, you'll see one or two of Spurgeon's eschatological distinctives, if we're going to call them those, that is his particular views about the end times and the coming of Jesus Christ. But even if you differ from Spurgeon, I think you'll probably find value in thinking through the principles, even if you might interpret them in a slightly different way. Then he says there's something else that we need to consider. We've got a peculiar or distinctive voice. The voice came from out of the throne. It was not the voice of the eternal God, for it calls on all his servants to praise our God.

8:22So whose voice could it be? If it comes from the throne, but it is not the voice of, we might say, God the Father, who must that be? It is the Lamb who is God. Surely, then it's he who says praise our God. The mediator, so Spurgeon, remember, isn't saying, well, the Father is God, but the Son really isn't. The mediator, God and man in one person, was on the throne as a Lamb, and he announced the day of his own marriage, and so Spurgeon, who better? He speaks the Word which calls on all the servants of God to praise God, because his complete victory has come. Longing to see the travail of his soul, earnest to gather in all his elect, he speaks. The fullness of time has come, when his voice shall be full, and he shall rejoice over the whole company of his redeemed as forever one with himself. Then he emphasizes that this voice from the throne is truly remarkable.

9:24It's quite distinctive. Now, he's already said it's a peculiar voice, it's a distinctive voice, but he says it shows us, he's pressing home, how near akin the exalted Christ is to his people. He says to all the redeemed, praise our God, all you, his servants. He is not ashamed to associate his people with himself in the high possession of his Father and his God. So again, there's that sweet distinction. My God and your God, my Father and your Father, he does not in any way diminish the distinctive relationship of the only begotten Son to the Father, but he also draws us into that relationship through him. Spurgeon says it forcibly sets forth to me, his love, his condescension, his fraternization, his embrothering of us, I suppose we could say, his union with his people. So you've got to think about this, that God, the Son, the incarnate Redeemer, the Lamb

10:28of God can still say to us, while he sits on the divine throne with his Father, praise our God, all you, his servants. It's wonderful how these threads of divine truth bind together. Then next notice the response to this voice. This also comes before the marriage. This one or gust voice summons all the servants of God to praise, and immediately I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude. John hears the mingled sound as of an innumerable host all joining in the song for the Redeem of the Lord are not a few, no man can count them. This mingled voice sounds like many waters, like cataracts in their roar, like the oceans in their fullness, as though all the billows of the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Northern and Southern oceans lifted up their voices and deep answered unto deep. Yes, it's like the voice of many waters.

11:29Yes, it's like the voice of mighty thunderings. We are, we're now preaching the gospel as it were in a corner, few applaud the King of Kings, but though Christ now makes his way through the world as an unknown or forgotten man, in that day when her Lord is seen as King of Kings and openly acknowledged as his spouse, what welcomes will be heard, what bursts of adoring praise unto the Lord God omnipotent. And then this tremendous volume of sound will be full of rejoicing and devout homage. The joy of joys will be the delight of Christ in his perfectly gathered church. There is joy in heaven in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents, but when all these repenting sinners are gathered into one perfected body and married to the Lamb, what will be the infinite gladness? Heaven is always heaven, says Spurgeon, and unspeakably full of blessedness, but even heaven has its holidays, even bliss has its overflowing, and on that day when the spring tide of the

12:32infinite ocean of joy shall have come, what a measureless flood of delight shall overflow the souls of all glorified spirits as they perceive that the consummation of love's great design is come. The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready. Oh, we don't know yet, beloved of what happiness we are capable. We have sometimes wished that we could sit and sing ourselves away to everlasting bliss, but then we were only feeling the spray of the ocean of blessedness. What must it be to bathe in it? Here we drink from cups of consolation, but what drafts we shall have when we lie down at the wellhead and drink in our joy immediately from God? So there's more and there's more to come. And so he says, and he's good at this, when he's given these different threads under one point, he typically draws them together in a concluding and summarizing paragraph, good reminder for preachers, especially if we're saying a number of different things under one

13:36particular point or heading, will I summarize them in order that those who are hearing me can remember what we're saying? So, Suspergian, I've given you a hint of what will proceed the marriage of the Lamb in all of which you may observe that Jesus wears his character of the Lamb. This is that emphasis in the sermon. The harlot church has fought against the Lamb and the Lamb has overcome her forces. Then he it is that on the throne speaks to his people as his brothers. It is to him that the response is given for the joy and the delight all spring from the fact that the marriage is that of the Lamb whom the Father glorifies and who glorifies the Father, the voice said, let us rejoice and give honor to him. Was not that his prayer of old Father glorify your Son that your Son also may glorify you? To glorify the Father Jesus died as a sacrifice and to glorify Jesus the Father gives him his church which is redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

14:40So, the emphasis here, it's the Lamb who has overcome, it is the Lamb who's on the throne, it is the Lamb who is speaking, it is the Lamb who is drawing out this great burst of acclamation and affirmation, this wonderful praise that resounds through the heavens. And so Suspergian, those are the antecedents, that's the build up to the marriage and now you come to the marriage itself. This is his second point and this is one of those sermons where rather than just announcing up ahead here are my points and we're just going to work through them, he's allowing the logic, the rhythm, the momentum of the sermon to carry us forward step by step, not clogging us up with things that we're not ready to engage with but almost temporarily stepping through. So, you've got the antecedents to the marriage, the preparatory staff, the build up and now the marriage itself. And Dean Alford says, this commentator, this figure of a marriage between the Lord and

15:45His people is too frequent and familiar to need explanation. Suspergian says, will I defer to the excellent divine? That was a very sufficient reason why he should have carefully explained it, since that which is often noted in Holy Scripture must be of first importance and should be well understood. What's he trying to say? Well, with a bit of snarkiness, a little bit of sarcasm, he says, look, all deference to Dean Alford, but the reason why something gets mentioned often is because it's important. Now I think Alford would have recognized that himself, but Spurgian's emphasising that where the Bible repeats something over and over or draws attention to something over and over, we should give it all the more attention and emphasis and not assume that it's obvious and easy and we don't need to deal with it. So we need to come back to this and he says, just because it's prominent and repeated doesn't mean it's simple.

16:46He says, I know very little of this. Personally, I need to dive into this. So what do we dive into with regard to this marriage itself? Well, the marriage of the Lamb is the result of the eternal gift of the Father. Our Lord says, you were yours and you gave them to me, speaking to His Father. Beloved, that which was arranged in the councils of eternity and settled there between the high contracting parties is brought to its ultimate end in that day when the Lamb takes under Himself an everlasting union the whole of those whom His Father gave Him from of old. So this marriage is the result of an eternal gift. It has its roots before the foundation of the earth. And now next, this is the completion of the betrothal which took place with each of them in time. And so aspergians here using that imagery of a betrothal, something more perhaps than an engagement, but the Lord Jesus betrothed each one of us under Himself in righteousness

17:51when first we believed on Him. There's been a commitment. There's been a contracting of kinds. It's the essence of the marriage that Paul talks about, the Lord already married to the church in the Ephesian epistle, but then looking forward to the time when the bride comes into her husband's house. And so aspergians says, there's this two stage experience of marriage, that first commitment, that first betrothal, and now this wonderful consummation. Well, then you and I are betrothed to our Lord today, and He is joined to us by inseparable bonds. He does not wish to part with us nor could we part from Him. He is the delight of our souls, and He rejoices over us with singing. Rejoice that He has chosen you and called you, and through the betrothal look forward to the marriage. Our home is on high, and that's where we're traveling. My heart is with Him on His throne, and Il can brook delay each moment, listening

18:52for the voice, rise up, and come away. So you've got something that is a consequent upon the Father's gift of these people to the Lamb. You've got the completion or consummation of the betrothal. You've got a marriage day which indicates the perfecting of the body of the church. That's when the church will be completed. Now it's in the forming, and therefore not entirely visible. Many churches, but as to the one church of Christ, we do not see it here or there. He says, unless you and I get there, if we're true believers, there cannot be a perfect church in glory. Every individual saint has to be present for the church to be fully gathered. The music of the heavenly harmonies, as yet lacks certain voices. Some of its needful notes are too base for those already, and others are too high for them, till the singers come, who are ordained to give the choir its fullest range.

19:52So in the day of the marriage of the Lamb, the chosen shall all be there, the great and the small, even all the believers who are wrestling hard this day with sins and doubts and fears. Every living member of the living church shall be there to be married to the Lamb. And then he throws out these other little sparky insights. By this marriage is meant more than I have told you. There's the home-bringing. There's the coronal avowl, and there's the entering into a bliss which shall never end. What's a home-bringing? Well, all the faithful shall soon be away to your land, O Emmanuel. We shall dwell in the land that flows with milk and honey, the land of the unclouded and unsettinged son, the home of the blessed of the Lord. He indeed will be the home-bringing of the perfect church. And then you've got the coronal avowl. You've got this great crowning, consumating ceremony. The church is the bride of the great king. He's setting the crown upon her head and making her to be known as his true spouse forever.

20:57Brothers, we must be with our Lord in the fight if we would be with him in the victory. We must be with him in wearing the crown of thorns if we are to be with him in wearing the crown of glory. We must be faithful by his grace, even unto death, if we are to share the glory of his endless life. And he says, I still can't tell you all it means, but it does signify that all who believed in him shall then enter into a bliss which shall never end, a bliss which no fear approaches, no doubt be clouds. They shall be forever with the Lord, forever glorified with him. He confesses his weakness, expect not lips of clay, fitly to speak on such a theme. Tunges of fire are needed and words that fall like fire flakes on the soul. And so here again is the summary of this particular part. A day will come, the day of days, times crown and glory when all conflict, ricks, risk and judgment ended forever, the saints, arrayed in the righteousness of Christ, shall be

21:59eternally one with him in living, loving, lasting union, partaking together of the same glory, the glory of the most high. Ah, this is, this is spurge and as the, the poetry starts to pour out the joy of his soul under the influence of the Holy Spirit. It's good for preachers to do a little holy gushing if you like from time to time. What must it be to be there? He says, dear here as will you be there? Make your calling an election sure. If you're not trusting in the Lamb on earth, you will not reign with the Lamb in his glory. He that does not love the Lamb as the atoning sacrifice shall never be the bride of the Lamb. Notice again that connection. We talked about the, the Lamb as the sacrifice who must be trusted. We did that last week. But do you want to come to the marriage of the Lamb? You need to rest upon him as the one who was slain. Now can you hope to be glorified with him if you neglect him in the day of his scorning?

23:01Oh Lamb of God, my sacrifice, I must be one with thee for this is my very life. I could not live apart from thee. If my hearer you can thus speak, there is good hope that you shall be a participator in the marriage of the Lamb. So he presses on third point. The character under which the bridegroom appears is that of the Lamb. Now pushing this one home, the marriage of the Lamb is come. It must be so because our Savior was the Lamb in the eternal covenant when the whole matter was planned, arranged and settled by the foresight and decree of eternity. He is that Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The covenant was with him as one who was to be the surety, the substitute, the sacrifice for guilty men. So are not otherwise was it of old. He's reiterating and developing things he's already tried to bring to light. Next, it's as the Lamb that he loved us and proved his love.

24:03The bridegroom is the Lamb and as the Lamb he's proved his affection. So if you would prove the love of Jesus, you wouldn't mention first the transfiguration but the crucifixion, the Lamb led to the slaughter. This guest, Semane and Golgotha, that would rise to your lips. Here to demonstration beyond all possibility of doubt by any true heart, the well-beloved proved his love to us. That's the evidence. That's how we know that this man loves his bride. This Christ loves his church because he loved us and gave himself for each one of us. Go further, says Spurgeon. Love in marriage must be on both sides and it is as the Lamb that we first came to love him. I had no love to Christ. How could I have till I saw his wounds and blood? We love him because he first loved us. His perfect life was a condemnation to me, much as I was compelled to admire it.

25:06But the love that drew me to him was shown in his substitutionary character when he bore my sins in his own body on the tree. Is it not so with you, beloved? I have heard a great deal about conversions through admiration of the character of Christ, but I have never met with one. All I have ever met with have been conversions through a sense of need of salvation and a consciousness of guilt which could never be satisfied, saved by his agony and death, through which sin is justly pardoned and evil is subdued. This is the great heart-winning doctrine. First loves us as the Lamb and we love him as the Lamb. What is Christ to you, Spurgeon's asking? Is he just someone admirable or is he truly your savior from sin and death and hell? Furthermore he says, marriage is the most perfect union. I cannot conceive of closer union than that of Christ and souls redeemed by blood.

26:09As I look at him in death, I feel forced to cry, surely a husband by blood are you to me, O Jesus? You are joined to me by something closer than the one fact that you are of my nature. For that nature of yours has borne my sin and suffered the penalty of wrath on my behalf. Now you are one with me in all things by a union like to that which links you with your father. So Christ hasn't only taken our nature, but in our nature he has suffered for us. And this only underscores and emphasizes again the depth and the sweetness of the union between Christ and his people. And then again we never feel so one with Jesus as when we see him as the Lamb. That's the sweetest fellowship. Oh, how sweet to view the flowing of his soul redeeming blood with divine assurance knowing he has made my peace with God. If I had my choice today, says our preacher, he's drawing us into his own affection while

27:10abiding in this present state to see my Lord in his glory or on his cross, I should choose the latter. Of course I would prefer to see his glory and be away with him, but while dwelling here surrounded with sin and sorrow, a sight of his griefs has the most effect upon me. Think of that. What we need most now on our pilgrim path is not so much a sight of Christ in his glory as Christ in his gore, Christ in his sufferings. Oh, sacred head once wounded, I long to behold you, he says, I never feel so close to my Lord as when I survey his wondrous cross and see him pouring out his blood for me. I've been melted down and we've sung together those sweet lines, see from his head his hands his feet sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did air such love and sorrow meet or thorns compose so richer crown? I've almost felt myself in his arms and like John I've leaned on his bosom when I've

28:14beheld his passion. I do not wonder therefore that since he comes closest to us as the Lamb and since we come closest to him when we behold him in that character, he is pleased to call his highest eternal union with his church, the marriage of the Lamb. And oh, he says, beloved, when you come to think of it, to be married to him, to be one with him, to have no thought, no object, no desire, no glory but that which dwells in him that lives and was dead, will not this be heaven indeed where the Lamb is the light there of, forever to contemplate and adore him who offered up himself without spot under God as our sacrifice and propitiation, this shall be an endless feast of grateful love, we shall never weary of this subject. He wants to go on singing, worthy is the Lamb that was slain throughout all eternity. The theme has an inexhaustible interest about it, there is everything in it justice, mercy, power, patience, love, condescension, grace and glory.

29:18All over glorious is my Lord, when I behold him as a Lamb, and this shall make heaven's seven times heaven to me to think that even then I shall be joined to him in everlasting bonds as the Lamb. Lovely little human touch here. The scribe puts down, here a voice from the gallery cried, praise the Lord, spurge and answers, yes, my friend, we will praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord is the command which was heard coming out of the throne. Praise our God, all you his servants and you that fear him, both small and great, for the marriage of the Lamb is come and his wife has made herself ready. It's almost the closest thing you get in the nineteenth century to real time, isn't it? The almost immediacy of reading something that captures something of the moment. And now we come to the last point, the preparedness of the bride, for his wife has made herself ready. Up until now the church has always been spoken of as his bride, something more promissory.

30:24Now she is his wife, that is a deeper, dearer, more matured word than bride, his wife has made herself ready. The church has now come to the fullness of her joy, and has taken possession of her status and dour as his wife. So what does it mean she's made herself ready? Well first of all she willingly and have her own accord comes to her Lord. Free will to an unknown thing, he says, unless it's wrought in us by grace, grace is the great liberating force. The will is a slave to evil till grace comes and makes it free to choose that which is good. Now action of the soul is more free than that by which it quits or leaves sin and closes with Christ. When the man comes to himself, this is the bondage of the will removed. Now the heart is free from compulsion when its love goes forth towards the Lord Jesus. So you've got this desire, this eager panting to behold the face of him who has loved

31:27you and given himself for you. But it means further she's put away from herself all evil and all connection with the corruptions of the harlot church which has been destroyed. She struggled against error, she's fought against infidelity, both have been put down by her holy watchfulness and earnest testimony and so she's ready for her Lord. Then there's this one wife, the church, will be one, alas for the divisions among us. You do not know what denomination my friend belonged to who prayed just now. We didn't even know that a friend had prayed just now and it's said I'm not going to tell you. You couldn't judge it from his prayer. The saints in prayer appear as one denomination, a plague upon denominationalism. There should be but one denomination. We should be denominated by the name of Christ as the wife is named by her husband's name. So he's saying when you get to heaven, you won't be saying when my right arms are piscopalian, my left is Wesleyan, my right foot's Baptist, my left is Presbyterian or congregational. When the bride is ready, she'll be washed of those stains.

32:30When all her members have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, unity is a main part of the readiness he has spoken of. Now, if you know anything about Spurgeon, if you've heard any of these sermons, you know that Spurgeon is a thine in the world Baptist, but he recognizes that in heaven all of us will know all that is true and all those distinctions will be collapsed, collapsed into one great union of united love. He says, I want you to notice now what this preparation is. It is granted. He says, I just want to pause there. Whatever preparation it was that she made, whatever apparel she was arraiding, it was granted to her. Yes, the harlot church where it's fine linen and then all the muck and gourdiness, but no, the bride to her it is granted to wear a true wedding dress. It's a gift of sovereign grace. It's the free gift of her own beloved. So look at it.

33:30We'll find linen, clean and white. How simple her raiment, only find linen, clean and white. The more simple our worship, the better. The true church of Christ is content with white linen and no more. Not all the fuss and the bother and the paraphernalia of carnal worship. No, when in worship you cannot hear the voices of the people beyond the noise which might be made by the twitter of half a dozen of sparrows because a flood of noise from some huge organ is drowning all the praise, I think we've lost our way. The simpler the worship, the better, whether in prayer or praise or anything else. It's the harlot church that bedexes herself with her architecture and her millenery and a perfumery and her oratory and her music. But those who follow the lamb wherever he goes will keep their worship, their practice, their doctrine, pure and simple, avoiding all the blandishments of carnal policy and human wisdom, content with the truth as it is in Jesus. It's beautiful simplicity.

34:31And then in the Greek, fine linen, clean and white for fine linen is the righteousness, the righteousness of the saints. That's the point. This is the revised version, gives us not a translation, but an explanation that contracts the sense. It's the righteousness. We shall have a complete array of righteousness in Christ's righteousness, active and passive, a garment for the head and a garment for the feet and for the loins. What righteousness we have, righteousness is imparted by the power of the spirit, righteousness imputed by the decree of God. Every form of righteousness will go to make up the believers outfit. Only all of it is granted and none of it is of our own purchasing. We shall not have Christ's righteousness to cover up our sins, as some blasphemously say, for we shall have no sin to cover. We shall not want Christ's righteousness to make an evil heart seem pure, we shall be as perfect as our Father in heaven as perfect. Washed in the blood of the Lamb, we shall have no spot upon us or within us.

35:34We shall have a complete righteousness, and in this arrayed we shall be covered with the beauty of holiness. This garment is most befitting for it is the righteousness of saints. Saints ought to have righteousness. They are themselves made holy, and therefore they ought to be adorned in visible holiness, and so they shall be. And best of all, we shall be arrayed in that day, with that which pleases the blight, bridegroom. Do I not remember how he said I counsel you to buy of me white raiment? Yes, and she's remembered his bidding. She has nothing else but that fine linen which is the righteousness of the saints, and this Christ delights in. She comes to the Lamb, bearing about her the result of his own passion and of his own spirit, and she is well pleasing in his eyes. The Lord sees in her of the travail of his soul, and he is satisfied. And so he puts the question in closing, do you trust the Lamb? I warn you, if you have a religion which has no blood of Christ in it, it is not worth

36:39a thought. You would better be rid of it, it will be of no use to you. I warn you also that unless you love the Lamb, you cannot be married to the Lamb, for he will never be married to those who have no love to him. You must take Jesus as a sacrifice or not at all. It is useless to say, I will follow Christ's example, he'll do nothing of the sort. It's idle to say, he shall be my teacher, he'll not own you for a disciple unless you will own him as a sacrifice. You must take him as the Lamb or have done with him. If you do despite to the blood of Christ, you do despite to the whole person of Christ. Christ is nothing to you if he is not your atonement. As many of you as hope to be saved by the works of the law or by anything else apart from his blood and righteousness, you have un-Christianized yourselves. You have no part in Jesus here and you shall have no part in him hereafter when he shall take to himself his own redeemed church to be his spouse forever and ever.

37:40And so the sermon on the marriage of the Lamb ends with the Lamb in all his beauty and majesty as the salvation of sinners, as the redeemer of God's elect. I hope that this has helped you to fix your eyes on the Lamb, both as the sacrifice for your sins, but also as that heavenly bridegroom who will soon take us to himself. Please join us again next time for our next featured sermon which will be sermon 2,108 Perseverance in Holiness. This week then we are reading from 2,103 to 2,109. And if you are able, please come back and listen again as this man holds up and holds out Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God in the bridegroom of the church in all his beauty and glory.