Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #8 of Revelation chapter 19 and we are going to be reading Revelation 19:7-9:

Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

In our last couple of studies, we have been looking at the spiritual marriage between the Lord Jesus Christ and His bride, the body of the elect, all those that were saved by the grace of God.  We have seen how God pictures His entire salvation program in the sense of calling people to the marriage, as shown in the parable in Matthew, chapter 22.  We saw how the Lord pictures the bringing in of the elect to a “wedding,” in the parable of the 10 virgins, in Matthew, chapter 25.

Of course, we have seen here in Revelation, chapter 19, that the “marriage supper of the Lamb” is a way of referring to Judgment Day itself.

There is another reference to “marriage” in parabolic form in Luke, chapter 14.  Let us go there and look at Luke 14:7-8:

And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;

Again, this word “wedding” is Strong’s #1062, which can be translated as “marriage.”  Then it says in Luke 14:9-11:

And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

In this parable God is focused on the response to the “call” to the wedding.  He is emphasizing humility over pride.  Really, it is a focus on the proper way of responding to the Gospel.  For instance, in the day of salvation when we heard that Judgment Day was approaching and May 21, 2011 would be that day, we were “bidden” or called to the wedding.  How do you come to the marriage ceremony?  Do you come in pride and arrogance and enter in as though you are someone important, taking the chief seat?  Would you sit down in the highest room?  No, because God warns against that.  The “highest room” would represent someone puffed up in pride.  If you take the “highest room,” you may be brought down to the lowest room in shame.  This is a warning to people that think they can “accept Christ” and exalt themselves into the heavenlies.  They are lifting up “self” through making a decision or doing a work of some kind in response to the Gospel call.  They twist the truth and pervert the pure Gospel of the grace of God into a works gospel.  They have come to the wedding feast and they believe they are saved, so they take the highest room.  But God says, “No, you do not respond that way, but you respond humbly.”  When you hear the message of the Gospel that says you are a sinner under the wrath of God and you know there is nothing you can do to get yourself saved, you leave it completely in the hand of God: “I will have mercy on whom He will have mercy.”  He will make the determination whether, or not, you are one of His elect.  It was already decided before the foundation of the world.  So you approach God very humbly, meekly and lowly when it was the day of salvation: “Oh, heavenly Father, I pray you would have mercy upon me and that I might be one of those you have elected to salvation and that Christ might have paid for my sins from the foundation of the world.”  You would cry out for mercy and then you would wait on Him; you would wait that day and the next day and you would keep going to God to present your supplication: “Oh, Father, have mercy upon me.”  You would continue to lift up your eyes to God from the lowest position possible because we are in the lowest place we could be – we are in the “pit” and under His wrath.  We desperately need a Saviour and we wait upon the Lord.

That is the “lowest room” and if one were able to stay in that spiritual condition, they were, in all likelihood, one of God’s elect and in time they would be lifted up.

Notice one other thing in this parable in verse 10: “But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher.”  Remember, in Matthew 22 the king came in to see the guests and in Matthew 25 the bridegroom came.  Here, too, it says, “when he that bade thee cometh,” and that is when the guest that exalted himself is put down and the other guests are lifted up.  Again, that relates to both parties being in similar circumstances; they are both present at the wedding ceremony and that is where the lifting up of one and the putting down of another takes place and that relates to the fact that the elect are living on the earth in the Day of Judgment.  At the end of this period of time, God will lift up in the resurrection and the rapture all of His lowly elect people and He will destroy all those people that are not His elect.

Let us go back to chapter 19.  Again, it says in Revelation 19:9:

…Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb…

Further down, it says in Revelation 19:17-18:

And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

I am also going to Read Revelation 19:19-20-21:

And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

Here in this passage it is describing the “marriage supper of the Lamb” or the “supper of the great God.” (This is another proof that Christ is Eternal God, because in one place it says “supper of the Lamb” and here it says “supper of the great God.”)  During this supper, the fowls are eating the flesh of all the unsaved, the enemies of the kingdom of heaven. 

When we go back to the Old Testament, we do not find the word “supper” used in association with this marriage feast or supper we are reading about in Revelation, chapter 19.  Instead, God uses the word “sacrifice” in Ezekiel, chapter 39.  In that chapter, God describes the destruction of “Gog and Magog.”  It says in Revelation 20:7-8:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

This means when Satan was loosed and entered into the churches, he was in the full force of his power and he is typified by “Gog” and his forces are typified by “Magog,” as the corporate church is taken over by him.  Satan and his emissaries (Gog and Magog) are not destroyed until the end of the Great Tribulation.  To look at it another way, when Gog and Magog were a mighty army to be reckoned with, it was a similar picture to the king of Babylon and the Babylonians when they were in their might and destroyed Judah.  That typifies the Great Tribulation period and it is not until the end of the Great Tribulation that Babylon fell and Gog and Magog are slain and Ezekiel 39 describes the destruction of Gog and Magog and, therefore, it describes the end of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of the Day of Judgment.  It says in Ezekiel 39:17-21:

And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord JEHOVAH. And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them.

(The word “heathen” is another word for “nations.”) Here, God is speaking of the sacrifice He does “sacrifice for you” and it is the Old Testament equivalent of the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”  We find the fowls are in view and we find the same time period, but with the figure of Gog and Magog being devoured, which would come at the end of the Great Tribulation.  We find similar language regarding eating the “flesh of the mighty” and of horses, just as Revelation, chapter 19 describes, so it is synonymous with the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”  God does not call it a “supper,” even though they are eating, but He calls it a “sacrifice,” and it is the Hebrew word that would typically identify with a sacrifice.  It is used in Exodus concerning the Passover sacrifice.  It is also the Hebrew word that is translated as “offering.”  Therefore, when God says, “my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice,” we could understand it as “my offering that I do offer for you, even a great offering.”  It is the offering up of Satan and his forces (Gog and Magog) in the Day of Judgment and God is calling it a sacrifice.  I will try to explain why that is in a little while, but let us also look at Isaiah 34, where the Lord uses the same word “sacrifice” in regard to the Day of Judgment.  It says in Isaiah 34:1-2:

Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of JEHVOAH is upon all nations…

In other words, it is Judgment Day.  In later verses it is confirmed, such as Isaiah 34:8:

For it is  the day of JEHOVAH’S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.

Let us go back and read Isaiah 34:2-6:

For the indignation of JEHOVAH is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of JEHOVAH is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for JEHOVAH hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

In this passage God is clearly speaking of the day of His wrath, Judgment Day, and we are familiar with some of these terms, such as the “host of heaven shall be dissolved and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll.”  It reminds us of the language of Revelation, chapter 6, which ties that to the awesome event when the “sun is darkened,” which is immediately after the Tribulation.

But, at this point, we are interested in the language of “sacrifice” and that is what God is saying here.  He is using His “sword” and it says: “The sword of JEHOVAH is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams.”  It is as though God is killing the sacrifice because He “hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.”  The name Idumea is another word for “Edom” and, of course, Edom is “Esau.”  Remember, the Bible says, “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”   So Esau or Edom of Idumea can be used to represent the unsaved or those that are not the elect and, here, that is what is in view as God is offering up the unsaved people of the earth as a sacrifice.  It is His sword that is “filled with blood.”  In Revelation 19, it was the “sword” of Christ that came out of His mouth, in Revelation 19:15:

And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

And then it proceeds to describe the fowls of the heaven being filled at the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”  Also, here in Isaiah 34, the sword of the Lord is “bathed in heaven” and it is very active in making the sacrifice of Idumea or Edom and that is because it is the sacrifice of all the unsaved.

Let us go to one other verse that is set in the context of Judgment Day, where God uses the same word “sacrifice” in Zephaniah, chapter 1.  I would recommend that you read the entire chapter of Zephaniah, chapter 1.  It is an in depth discussion of the Day of Judgment and one of the more intense descriptions of God’s wrath at the end of the world.  It says in Zephaniah 1:7:

Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord JEHOVAH: for the day of JEHOVAH is at hand: for JEHOVAH hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bid his guests.

Now, here, the Lord is using the language of sacrifice, along with bidding his guests and that is what we saw in the parable in Matthew, chapter 22.  The guests were bidden.  We also read this in Revelation 19:9:

Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb…

Again, we are on the right track.  Our understanding has been proven correct that these Old Testament references to “sacrifice” are equivalent to the marriage feast or the marriage supper of the lamb.

It goes on to say in Zephaniah 1:8:

And it shall come to pass in the day of JEHOVAH’S sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.

This is further confirmation that the sacrifice in Judgment Day is the same thing as the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”  Remember, in Matthew 22, after bidding his guests, the king came in to inspect the guests.  Again, it said in Matthew 22:11-14:

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.

In a prefigure to Matthew 22, in the Old Testament Book of Zephaniah, God was prophesying of the end of the world thousands of years ago: “And it shall come to pass in the day of JEHOVAH’S sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.”  They did not have on the proper attire – they did not have on the wedding garment.  

So, yes, the “marriage supper of the Lamb” is the day of JEHOVAH’S wrath, Judgment Day, and in that time God has bidden His guests.  And it is at that time He will perform an inspection to find out whether we are “gold, silver, precious stones” or “wood, hay stubble.”  The day will declare it and the fire will reveal it – it will burn the one and not the other.  It will be seen whether we are built on the foundation of the Rock or the foundation of sand.  It will be discovered whether we are a true man “in whom is no guile” or if we still have a deceitful heart of unbelief.  God is going to find out during this period of time.   It is why He is trying all those that profess to be His people.  He will discover who is of the “third part” that will make it through the fire or who is of the “two thirds” (the “.666,” the number of man) that remain in their sins.

It is really interesting how God has tied these verses together and He is focused on this marriage supper that is presently taking place.  We have been “bidden.”  All the guests have arrived and we are there at the feast.