THE WEDDING GARMENT
(1977)
And again Jesus spoke to them
in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave
a marriage feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who had been
invited to the marriage feast; but they would not come. Again
he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, Behold, I have
made ready my dinner, my oxen and fat calves are killed, and everything is
ready; come to the marriage feast. But they made light of it and went off, one
to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants,
treated them shamefully, and killed them.
The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
But when the king came in to look at
the guests, he saw there was a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to
him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was
speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and
cast him into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’
For many are called, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22: 1- 14
We’ve
all read books about revival which often describe it as a kind of
invisible cloud that comes in over a town and saturates everything with the
atmosphere of God’s presence.
Everybody
in town senses, with fear and trembling, that God is near.
Often it
begins in very simple way…
A man puts a little ad in the newspapers inviting anyone
interested to come to prayer
in a certain church at lunch hour on a certain day.
The first day a handful of people show up.
The next day the handful doubles.
The next day the number doubles again.
In a few days that
church is overflowing. Soon it’s happening all over the town.
A man
sitting on a bar stool half drunk comes to his senses, falls to his knees and
cries out to God in repentance. Women
pace the floor all night long trying to find peace with God.
Church
services that were dead for years come to life, as people fall, with fear and
trembling, before God’s presence. The
phenomenon spreads like wildfire, skips from village to village, town to town.
The
problem with these” epidemic revivals” is that they end as quickly as they
began.
They
evaporate like a spent storm, and soon everybody settles back to the way things
were before.
They
look back on their weeks or months of devotion to God as a kind of hysteria
which was never meant to last.
If you
were to ask the people who were shouting for Jesus’ blood on Good Friday, “How come you
are doing this, when just a few days before you were calling him the Son of
David?” they would answer, “We don’t know what came over us back then.”
But
there’s another kind of revival, which isn’t as flashy…doesn’t take in the town
by storm.
This
kind of revival seems to bring with it opposition, and disruption.
It
inspires criticism.
And yet,
this revival lasts in a way that the other kind never seems to.
This
revival has enemies, it has hecklers, things seem to keep going wrong.
Yet in
the middle of the confusion, the movement continues---not just for a few
months, but for years and years.
The
greatest revival that ever came to the nation of Israel,
was not when Moses swept them by the hundreds of thousands
out of their Egyptian bondage,
or when Elijah overcame the prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel.
The
greatest revival that ever came to nation of Israel took place with such
division,
and confusion,
and hostility
that the center of this revival was nailed to a cross.
But that
revival didn’t end at Calvary. It went right on.
For
fifty days after our Lord’s resurrection the revival remained hidden.
Then it
suddenly broke out on Pentecost. Thousands of people found the Lord.
This was
followed by more persecution.
But the
persecution was followed by more life. It went on and on and on.
This
second kind of revival is a fulfillment of the Parable of the Wedding Garment.
Folks
are not all suddenly overwhelmed by the presence of God.
Like the
people who refused their invitation to the wedding,
and treated
the servants of the Lord spitefully, and killed them,
so the Word in this kind of revival generates hatred as well
as faith.
But
notice, in spite of the indifference and hostility
that greeted the servants of the Master, the banquet table was soon filled. The
hall came alive with rejoicing---joy such as people had never experienced
before in their lives.
And
day-by-day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes,
they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having
favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those
who were being saved. Acts 2:46- 47
So we have two kinds of revival: one
called “the epidemic revival”,
and the
other called “continuous revival.”
The
difference is simple – epidemic revival is followed by almost total judgment:
i.e. how many of the people who came out of Egypt with
Moses’ “epidemic revival”
ever got into the promise land? Joshua and Caleb, two men
out of a million.
No doubt
there will soon be one final “epidemic revival” to sweep this earth.
Perhaps
it will begin in Africa, spread across the Middle East, bypassing Israel, and
sweep through Asia.
Maybe
the wildfire will dip into Australia and New Zealand,
picking up speed in Latin America, leaping over to
Europe.
“Christian” North America will suddenly feel the impact of
the Holy God as never before.
And finally this last revival will shower blazing life on the
land where it all began:
Israel, the sons and daughters of Abraham---people to whom Jesus himself
belongs.
That
revival will be followed by night - cataclysmic judgment.
In
Continuous Revival, on the other hand, judgment doesn’t follow.
Judgment
goes on in the middle of the revival.
When the
king comes into the banquet hall and finds a man who doesn’t have on the
wedding garment he was given to wear, he doesn’t stop the banquet. He simply
deals with that one man. The wedding feast goes on.
There
may be a few people reading these words who will remember what happened at
Messiah Church, Detroit on Palm Sunday of 1970.
On that
day a revival broke out and has been going on ever since.
It was the work of God’s sovereign mercy.
It was preserved by God’s sovereign mercy down through the
years,
and it brought into
the Messiah flock a variety of people no one ever dreamed would find their way
into that church. And with it came
changes in people’s live
beyond imagining.
Unstable men and women became strong in God.
Folks who were predisposed to gloom found lasting joy.
Of
course it has
not been all “peaches and cream.” There
have been casualties. People have
dropped away.
Men and women who for years were basking in the joy of the
Lord awakened one day to find it gone.
Dissipated. What happened?
“A month
ago, I knew the Lord. And now, I don’t even know if I ever knew him.”
“I had
such peace in my heart last year. Things were going so wonderfully. And now
it’s gone. What went wrong?”
And the
first thing we usually conclude is, “Yeah, well, I guess the revival
ended.
But did
it?
Over here are people who are still
rejoicing in the Lord, and
over there are people who
are still pouring into the banquet hall.
“So what’s wrong with me?”
“How
come I don’t have that sense of God’s presence, which once was mine?”
The
answer is very simple:
you’ve lost your sense of God’s presence because you are no
longer wearing your wedding garment.
When you came in to the marriage feast, you put on the garment that the
Lord gave you.
That
wedding garment is simply the garment of God’s nature, which his Spirit
imparted to you.
Those
who wear that garment receive the power to become more and more like Jesus,
to become sons and daughters of God,
who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God.
His
divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness
through the knowledge of Him who called us to his own glory and
excellence. By which He has granted to
us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape the
corruption that is in the world through lust and become partakers of the divine
nature.
That’s
the wedding garment.
We can
wear it if we will.
But we have to put it on. We have to put
off our old nature and put on the new.
Put off
your old nature, which belongs to your former life and is corrupt through
deceitful lusts.
And be
renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new nature created after the
likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness.
There is
no such thing as being incapable of putting on the wedding garment. Anybody can
put it on.
It
doesn’t matter what your IQ is,
or what your hang-ups are,
or how weak you feel.
You can
put on a wedding garment.
The wedding garment can be described in two words, which Jesus spoke and lived continuously –
lowliness and
mercy.
Look
back on your own experience.
Isn’t it
true that when you came into the kingdom of God, the first thing you did was
descend from your pedestal?
You gave up your pride.
You stopped pretending to be what you weren’t.
You humbled yourself before God, became poor in spirit, like
a child.
And as you emptied
yourself of your false glory, you began to experience the presence of God in
your life.
You found yourself a guest at the wedding feast, filled with
peace and joy –
feeling at home for the first time in
your life.
While you were
wearing this garment of lowliness, you were clothed in the very nature of
God.
Because
the God who holds the stars together is also lowly, as we see when we look at
Jesus, his Son.
The
proud can’t see God because God, the Lord of the universe is lowly.
And so
long as the scientist is caught up in the pride of his knowledge,
or the philosopher In the pride of his knowledge,
or the theologian in the
pride of his knowledge, he or she cannot see God.
So long
as our hearts are proud and lifted up, we cannot see
God.
So you became lowly.
You began to enjoy the comfort of God’s
presence and the reality of his kingdom.
Then one
day for some weird reason,
you laid aside the garment of lowliness
and put on, once again, the garment of pride.
Perhaps
somebody offended you.
Or
mistreated you.
Or took
advantage of you.
So you said to yourself, “ I’ve had enough!”
Quickly,
you put on your old garment of pride and begin to defend yourself. Your back
was up.
And as
soon as the lowliness was gone, not only did the pride come back, but all the lusts, and all the evil, ugly, vile, viscous things that
were part of your old way returned.
And
Satan tries to make you feel that you are locked into your old garments as in a
straight jacket.
But all
you have to do is lay aside again that crummy garment
of pride and put on the garment of lowliness, which is still within your reach.
If there
is anything the Spirit of God is saying to each reader right now it’s, “Put on
that garment of lowliness while you still have time. Before the king comes in
to check over the wedding guests.”
Take my
yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you will
find rest for your souls.
Secondly:
The Garment of Mercy
Look back at the day you first entered the kingdom, and remember how you were overwhelmed with a sense of God’s rich mercy toward you. “That of all things, he should receive me as I am! And make me his child, in the shape that I’m in! It’s beyond my understanding.”
Consequently,
you were filled with an attitude of generosity,
and kindness,
and forbearance,
toward people, which you knew was not natural to you.
You just
couldn’t do enough for people.
You put
up with all kinds of things you never put up with before. And you were filled
with peace.
You
began to realize that God requires, not sacrifice, but mercy.
And you
were learning to practice mercy.
Then one
day for some weird reason you decided to take off the garment of mercy, and,
once again, put on the garment of covetousness.
Maybe it
began when you asked yourself the question, “What have I gotten out of all
this? Here I’ve been trying to follow Jesus for all these years and where did
it get me?”
So you started measuring what you got.
And
suddenly you were right back in the pit of covetousness once again.
You left the Spirit of
mercy behind, and all your old ways came crashing down on you again.
Your
old lusts.
Your
old habits.
Your ugly thoughts.
And then came the
thought, “God forsook me. He walks with other people. He puts up with their
sins. But me, he abandoned.”
The
truth is, you did it.
God
didn’t forsake you, you took off your wedding garment.
All you have to do is put it back on again and you’ll be back in the wedding feast once more.
The
minute you put on the wedding garment, which God has provided for you, you are
back in the revival--- a revival, which will go on until the King returns.
Put
on
then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness,
meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint
against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you
also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in
perfect harmony.
Colossians
3:12-14
Having trouble putting on the wedding garment?
Cry out
to the Lord Jesus. Ask him to help
you. He will.