The wedding supper of the Lamb: Jesus is the Lamb. And he’s the bridegroom. We (the church—his church, the saints) are the bride. So how important can this eating together, this wedding supper, be. It’s what we look forward to more than anything else (what we should be looking forward to, anyway). Are you looking forward to it?
Well, that’s about all I’m going to say about eating. More than anything else, what we have to be thankful for and to celebrate is that we are able to look forward to the wedding supper of the Lamb. That will be the greatest celebration of all time. (And, by the way, Jesus is the “Lamb” because he is the innocent, sinless, perfect lamb of God who was sacrificed for our sin. “The next day he (John the Baptist) saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John~1:29 –~ESV) Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
The rest of what I’m going to say is about why we should be thankful. I’m going to review what God has done.
Who is God? The very first verse of the Bible tells us: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1) This is possibly the most profound statement that can be made. This statement establishes the fact everything we can see around us, and many things that we can’t see but know they are there, are not the result of random chance, but rather exists as the result of the decision of a Creator.
Initially, the earth was formless and empty, but as you go on in Genesis, you can see that God created everything in an orderly way—and he did so by merely speaking: “Let there be light,” “Let there be land,” “Let the land produce vegetation,” and so forth. By speaking, God brought order out of formlessness. Also, after each step in his creation, God observed that what he had done was good. Everything had turned out just as he had planned. He was pleased with it.
Finally, as the crown of his creation, God created man in his own image. He created them male and female. And he created a garden for them to live in and provided everything they needed—both things that were beautiful for them to look at and food that they needed to sustain them. Then God’s creation was finished. After finishing his creation, he declared that it was not just good, but very good.
So what can we conclude from all of this? By observing the physical universe which God has created, we can see that it is wonderfully intricate and marvelous beyond our ability to comprehend. God’s power and knowledge must be incredibly great. And surely what he says is good must, by definition, be good. He has made everything, including us, with loving care.
So how does this knowledge affect us? How should it affect us? How important is it to know what God wants from us and to find out what pleases him?
If you go on in Genesis, you will find out that the first man and the first woman did not do what pleased God. A tempter—actually, Satan, the devil—came and tempted the woman. The man and the woman disobeyed God. As a result, God cursed the ground so that the man and the woman would have to labor hard to provide for themselves. They would suffer and they would die. God put them out of the garden. Sin had come into the world, and with it, suffering and death.
Later, God gave commandments and laws through one nation that he had chosen for that purpose: “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not covet,” and so forth. The people of the nation that God had prepared and chosen to receive his commandments and laws promised they would obey everything, but they didn’t. Have you ever broken any of God’s commandments or laws? Have you ever stolen anything? Have you ever coveted something that someone else has? (That’s something you can do without anyone else finding out about it. But God knows. He knows everything.) Violating God’s law is called “sin”. The wages of sin is death. (All that I am saying here is the very highly condensed version, by the way. To get the whole thing, you have to read the whole Bible—something I highly recommend. Do it as a matter of life and death!)
God has promised that he will punish everyone who sins—and not just with death where you simply go out of existence. No, it’s not like that. God says, “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Dan~12:2) That’s everlasting shame and contempt. It doesn’t end! It keeps going on.
Do you think God’s unfair in the way he judges and punishes? If you’ve even coveted in your heart something that belongs to someone else, you are guilty. Do you think that’s excessively harsh? God demands perfection! He’s perfect; he wants us to be perfect.
Have you ever heard the saying—really, the excuse, “Nobody’s perfect?” You know, a lot of us want to think we’re not so bad because there are people who are a lot worse than we are. And we can look around us and see that there are some that seem to be pretty good, too. But, still, the saying is true. Nobody’s perfect. And God himself says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) Furthermore, God’s standard is not relative. We want to make it relative. We really do. I do it and you do it, too. But, in fact, God’s standard is absolute. He is perfect. He wants us to be like him. He wants us to be perfect, too.
Then there’s another complaint. Most of us in this country have at least heard of the Ten Commandments and have some idea of what sin is. But what about people in some remote area that have never heard of any of these things? Is it fair to judge them according to laws that they have never heard? God says that they are without excuse:
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans~1:18-20)
We can observe God creation, how marvelously and intricately it all fits together, and know that there is a Creator who lovingly made it. God says that he has made himself and his nature plain. But the fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” (Psalm 14:1) (You know, all this fuss about evolution, intelligent design and creation has nothing to do with science and everything to do with whether or not there is a God. If there is a God, we are held accountable to him. If there is no God, we can do whatever we think is right. But real science says that evolution is impossible.)
“To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.” (Rom.~2:7, 8) “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory...” But no one has done good. All have fallen short of the glory of God. There will be wrath and anger! What wrath and anger? Jesus talked about Hades, a place of torment (Luke 16:23) and about hell “where their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:47, 48) There will be wrath and anger. We need mercy. All the world needs mercy!
But, now let’s look at what God says about himself. This is what God proclaimed about himself to Moses:
6And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation." (Exodus~34:6-7)
There is forgiveness. He says, “...maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” God has absolutely strict standards. He demands perfection, but he is also a loving and forgiving God. Yet, he doesn’t let the guilty go unpunished.
Who are the guilty? Aren’t we all guilty? Haven’t all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? Yes, all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God. But the ones who are guilty are the ones who haven’t been forgiven.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John~3:16, 17) Most of us have heard at least the first verse. In fact, I know a man who, when someone would come to his door and ask for money or when someone would come up to him on the street, would ask that person to recite John 3:16. Most of them could do it! Then he would make them learn the second verse, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him,” before he would give them any money.
Who are those who are forgiven? It’s those who believe in him—those who believe in Jesus! “Believe in” means to trust. Those who trust Jesus are the ones who are forgiven. When you have entrusted yourself to Jesus, you have crossed over from death to life. Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” (John~5:24)
So how do you entrust yourself to Jesus? How do you trust him? I’m going to read from Luke 23:39-43:
39One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
40But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke~23:39-43)
It’s amazingly simple. Yet, it’s incredible what this man did. The first man ridiculed Jesus: “If you’re who you say you are, why don’t you get us off these crosses?” The second man recognized that the first man, in speaking to Jesus the way he did, was blaspheming God—“Don’t you fear God?” He also knew that both he and the other man were guilty and deserved to die, but that Jesus was completely innocent.
Now this man’s final request is pretty amazing. All three of them were in agony nailed through their bodies to three crosses. They were all dying. Yet the second man was able to say to Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” There was no elaborate prayer. But, in his heart he believed that Jesus would rise from the dead and that he would receive a kingdom to rule over and that it was a place where he wanted to be, even though he was dying, too. Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
What keeps people from this forgiveness and salvation that God has paid for but that we have to trust him in order to receive? I believe it’s pride. People don’t want to admit that someone else has to save them. It’s either, “I’m not so bad. There are a lot of people that are much worse than I am,” or “I’ve tried to live a good life.” Neither of those things will do it. The second criminal didn’t say, “Jesus, I’m not so bad. There are a lot of people who are worse than I am. “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he didn’t say, “Jesus, I’ve tried to live a good life. “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He said that he was being punished justly, because he was getting what his deeds deserved.
Jesus told this story. This is what he said:
10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke~18:10-14)
But, you know, there are people who know that they are sinners and know that it is hopeless to think that they can somehow save themselves by being good. There are people who know that God has salvation for those who ask, but still are not willing to ask. Don’t you think that’s pride, too? In any case, if you haven’t crossed over from death to life, don’t wait any longer.
Anyway, the point I really want to make is that we tend to take God’s sacrifice and gift of eternal life for granted. You know there will be no more sorrow or pain or death. We will have imperishable bodies. And we will be like Jesus. Jesus is God who came in the flesh. We’ll be like him. He says so in his word. We have to think about all that he has done and be thankful. He has paid for our salvation by his being tortured and killed. I routinely say, “Thank you for Jesus,” when I pray. But we have to really mean that we are thankful. There’s a song: Give Thanks.
Give Thanks2