HERE COMES THE BRIDEGROOM! This is no fairytale... ~ A Study in Jeremiah

Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number. (Jeremiah 2:32)

 A year and ten days after my husband and I were married, the wedding widely billed as a “fairytale wedding” and “the wedding of the century” was watched by an estimated global TV audience of 750 million people. I am, of course, talking about the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Sadly, the fairytale wedding did not have a fairytale ending—they did not live happily ever after. Just 15 years later, the Prince and Princess were divorced. This was a most troubling event for anyone who wants to believe that fairytales do come true.  

 

On July 29, 1981, the eyes of the world were on Lady Diana Spencer. According to Wikipedia, there were an estimated 3,500 guests at the wedding which cost approximately $48 million when it was all said and done. No doubt any of us who witnessed the wedding via television, and certainly no one who witnessed it live, will ever forget many of the details of that day. The wedding dress worn by the Princess was made of ivory silk taffeta, decorated with lace, hand embroidery, sequins, and 10,000 pearls. It was designed by Elizabeth and David Emanuel and had a 25-foot train of ivory taffeta and antique lace. Diana wanted to have the longest train in the royal wedding history. The bride wore her family’s heirloom tiara over an ivory silk tulle veil. She wore a pair of low-heeled shoes with C and D initials hand-painted on her arches. Diana wore the Spencer family tiara, her mother’s earrings, and a blue bow sewn into the waistband. Her ornaments and attire were grand, fit for royalty.

 

The definition of ornaments is finery, generally an outfit, specifically, a headstall. To the best of my understanding, I have come to believe that quite possibly this is referring to jewelry or the things that accent the attire. Did you ever stop to think about what God thinks about jewelry? He makes many references in His Word regarding jewelry, gemstones, and hard metals.

 

As early as Genesis 2, we read about the gold of Havilah. Abram had riches of gold and silver. The treasures of Solomon were legendary. The ark of the covenant and other items in the tabernacle were lavished with gold, as well as the temple of Solomon’s day. Aaron’s breastplate, attached to fine cloth and mounted on gold, had twelve precious and semi-precious stones each representing a tribe of Israel. It was inlaid with sardius, topaz, emerald, turquoise, sapphire, diamond, jacinth, agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, and jasper. The New Jerusalem spoken about in Revelation 21 has walls of jasper and the very city is made of pure gold. The walls have twelve foundations, each decorated with a precious stone with twelve gates made from a pearl. John saw jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, and amethyst. Lastly, in eternity, the saints will walk on streets of gold.

 

In Genesis 24:22, when Abraham’s servant chose Rebekah to be the bride for Isaac, he presented her with a gold ring weighing a half-shekel and two bracelets for her wrists weighing ten shekels in gold. God, speaking of Israel, in Ezekiel 16, says that when she was at the age for fine ornaments, He covered her nakedness and entered into a covenant with her so that she would become His. Ezekiel 16:9-14 says: “Then I bathed you with water, washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. I also clothed you with embroidered cloth and put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet; and I wrapped you with find linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace around your neck. I also put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey, and oil; so you were exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of My splendor which I bestowed on you,” declares the Lord God.

 

God adorned His bride with that which would glorify Himself. In our day we would say she was living the ultimate fairytale dream. But what did she do?

 

Ezekiel 16:17-22—"You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them. Then you took your embroidered cloth and covered them and offered My oil and My incense before them. Also My bread which I gave you, fine flour, oil, and honey with which I fed you, you would offer before them for a soothing aroma; so it happened,” declares the Lord God. “Moreover, you took your sons and daughters whom you had borne to Me and sacrificed them to idols to be devoured. Were your harlotries so small a matter? You slaughtered My children and offered them up to idols by causing them to pass through the fire. Besides all your abominations and harlotries, you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare and squirming in your blood.”

 

No bride can forget her wedding dress or the ornaments the groom had given to her. God is far better to His bride than any earthly groom imaginable.

 

In the world we sing: Here Comes the Bride! The world should be watching for the Bridegroom! Psalm 45 is entitled, A Song Celebrating the King’s Marriage. Here, the focus is on the royal Bridegroom. Verses 10-15 speak about the bride. The King’s daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is interwoven with gold. (Verse 13)

 

When it is time for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb to begin, several other things have already taken place as we understand the wedding customs in the time of Christ. The first thing that would have happened was that a marriage contract had been signed by the parents of the bride and the bridegroom. The dowry had been paid, and the betrothal period had ensued (the engagement). Sometime later, usually a year, the bridegroom, along with his male friends, had gone to the house of the bride at midnight, carrying their lamps through the street in a sort of parade. The bride, along with her maidens with her, expecting he would come any time, always had their lamps ready to go. After the bridegroom had snatched the bride from her parents’ home, they—along with the wedding party—would end up at the bridegroom’s home. It was at this point that the marriage supper would take place and last for days.

 

So, several things will have happened preceding the Marriage Supper of the Lamb spoken about by John in Revelation 19. The believer (the Bride of Christ) has placed his or her faith in Christ on earth. The dowry paid to the bridegroom’s parent (God the Father) would be the blood of Christ shed on the Bride’s behalf. (The Church on earth, right now, is engaged or betrothed to Christ. The Holy Spirit has been given to us as an engagement ring or His pledge to us.) We are currently watching and waiting for the appearance of our Bridegroom. When Christ’s Bride is complete, He claims His bride in the rapture, taking her back to the Father’s house. While this joyous event is taking place in heaven, all hell is breaking loose on earth during the Tribulation period. The guests who will also attend the wedding are the Old Testament saints. John speaks of these who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19:9. While the nation Israel, as a whole, was not saved, God did save for Himself a remnant in Old Testament times. He will, again, after the rapture of the Church, turn to Israel for their salvation.

 

In contrast to Israel in Jeremiah’s day, the Bride of Christ has not forgotten her betrothed. She is watching and waiting for Him eager to spend eternity with Him, when her eyes of faith will become sight. All the promises she has held onto for so long will be gloriously and wholly fulfilled on that day.

 

Ephesians 5:25-27—Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

 

It is He who makes His bride glorious for Himself. He has clothed her with righteousness—His robe of righteousness. He gave Himself up for her, sanctified her, cleansed her…why? Ultimately, that she would be a Bride fit for Him, holy and blameless. From an earthly perspective, how shameful would it have been for a woman off the streets to walk down the aisle towards Prince Charles on his wedding day? He, as the prince, would not have been glorified by the bride he chose, but embarrassed. Even the people watching knew what they expected to see.

 

Revelation 3:4-5—But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

 

Revelation 19:7-8—"Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Isaiah 61:10—I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

 

The gifts of the Bridegroom to the Bride are eternal. Her attire is white linen washed in the blood of the Lamb. His robe of righteousness put on us is what puts us in right standing with God. We could never forget that! There will be no surprises on that day. The Bride will be made pure inside and outside.

 

Revelation 21:1-2—Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

 

And they will live happily ever after!!!