Sermon: The Lord's Nourishing and Cherishing
#1642
Martin G. Collins
Given 12-Mar-22; 70 minutes
description: Today, God's marriage commands are ridiculed, forcing an out-of-control penchant for divorce and a rise in short-term shacking up, threatening to destroy the God-ordained family and the sanctity of the marriage covenant, which has been designed by Almighty God as a God-plane relationship. As the apostle Paul taught in Ephesians 5:22-27, the marriage covenant must be elevated to the stature of Christ and the Church. A caring husband is commanded to love his spouse as he nourishes his own physical body; no sane person ever hated his own body. A husbands must cherish his wife, letting her know she is special and worth infinitely more than precious gems, allowing plenty of time for intimacy. Not only did Christ sacrifice His life for His Bride, He is nourishing her, providing the Holy Scriptures for spiritual food, and a functioning ministry to collectively bring all spiritual siblings to the stature of Christ. God's people are fed and nourished by interaction with spiritual siblings. Christ has been guarding, clothing, and nourishing the collective Bride, loving her far before she had begun reciprocating. By giving His Holy Spirit, Christ has been smoothing out all her spots and wrinkles, making her ready for the glorious Marriage of the Lamb. Psalm 45 contains a prophetic description of future glories of the Messiah and His Bride, when the rigorous sanctification process has been completed, and we, as God's glorified saints (the collective bride of Christ) will see our Spouse as He is, by His side, sharing His splendiferous glory.
transcript:
Few Americans are married today to reap the many benefits associated with marriage. The new census data for that is that the US marriage rate hit an all-time low in 2019. Both the rate of divorce and the rate of marriage are falling and this pattern indicates that people are choosing more informal personal arrangements, to put it mildly, at the expense of the formally recognized unions.
In addition, "can't afford a wedding" and "not having a stable job" rank high on the reasons or excuses why today's singles are not married. Of course that is not the core of the problem, is it? Now people are 75% more likely to end their marriage if a friend is divorced. Choose your friends wisely! Having friends who are divorced can greatly increase your chances of becoming divorced yourself, according to a research team from Brown University. Whereas you are 33% more likely to get divorced if you have a friend of a friend who is divorced or who has formally ended their marriage.
The divorce rate for first marriages is 41%. The divorce rate for second marriages is 60% and for third marriages it is 73%. This sobering news about marriage puts a damper on our hope for the American dream and American families if there remains an ignorance of the sanctity of the marriage covenant, which apparently there will be that ignorance for quite a while yet to come, years anyway.
Of course there are various reasons for divorce, but one primary reason is that spouses are neglectful, often taking the other spouse for granted because of a self-serving attitude. Many marriage relationships are strained and damaged because the husband often rejects providing affection to his wife or if he does, it is often a self-centered pseudo affection that expects something in return or just short of a brush off. But it is not husbands alone who are guilty of this, although men may be more inclined to be this way.
The apostle Paul recognized this tendency in husbands and wives and addressed it to the Corinthian members and he instructs husbands and wives to render the affection that is owed by the marriage contract to one another.
I Corinthians 7:3-4 Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
Affection here in the new King James Version, which is what I am speaking out of, in verse 3 is translated benevolence in the King James Version from the Greek word eunoian, is its transliteration. This word also suggests kindness and goodwill, and although it does generally carry that meaning, its specific intent is affection. When Paul added the Greek word from which is translated "due" in verse 3, he reminds us of the requirements of our marriage vow and of the fact that in person, in property, and in every every respect they belong to each other. That is, the couple who was married.
Please turn with me to Ephesians 5. In verses 25-33 the apostle Paul's primary focus is to teach husbands their duties toward their wives. He does this in terms of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church, but marriage responsibilities are far more than just duties, because duties are something that are required, even demanded to do. But the responsibility of husbands to wives and vice versa goes beyond that. It also includes the love of God imparted through His Spirit. The same Spirit Christ has in loving the church.
Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
Then in verses 28-33, Paul reiterates her husband's calling to self-sacrificial love for his wife by comparing this love to the regard the husband has for his own body and then to Christ's love for His body, the church.
Ephesians 5:28-33 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones [Jesus Christ]. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
We see there that the marriage covenant—marriages between husband and wife—is raised above what the world's marriages are. It is raised to the stature of Christ and His love for the church. That is what we shoot for as husbands. Wives as well have to shoot for a similar thing.
As you know, the body mentioned here for which Christ sacrificed Himself was not His own person, but the body which is the church. Paul passes from one to the other, but to easily understand this teaching, we will take them separately. Now, initially we have considered what he says about the relationship of Christ to the church in order that we may then be able to apply to the husbands and their relationship to the wives and of course, vice versa. Christ died for the church, gave Himself for her, and having done that, He proceeds to separate her to Himself—to sanctify, to set apart, put on one side, set His personal affection on the church—so He can cleanse her and continue with this process of spiritual purification, which is the same as saying that He is sanctifying us. Sanctification is a process.
Paul appeals to a self-evident fact. In verse 29 it can hardly be denied that no sane person ever hates his own body. He devotes himself to looking after it in every way and he supplies it with food and promotes its development and maintains its health. He cares for it, and he cherishes it. This is how Christ loves His body—the church. Paul appeals to the same principle when addressing husbands as he did when addressing wives. Wives are to submit and respect their husbands as the church submits to Jesus Christ. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, and as we husbands and wives properly carry out our responsibilities, we gain a greater understanding and appreciation for Jesus Christ nourishing and cherishing of us as His bride/body. It is His.
There are still two expressions to consider in connection with this continuing treatment that Christ gives to the church. They are the two words found in verse 29, where we read that no man ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord does the church.
The first word translated nourish here means "to bring to maturity." Maturity develops in a variety of ways, and when we humble ourselves and we husbands put our wife first, we show the kind of maturity necessary for a successful marriage. Nourish also has the general meaning "to bring up as a parent would in caring for his children." The sense is that the parent provides for their needs and guards them from exposure, dangers, and neglect. A good husband puts his wife first, after God, in his priorities and provides abundantly for his wife's needs. His children, although important and needing special care, have a secondary place to the wife. If a father naturally will give his life for his children, he should be just as willing, if not more so, to give his life for his wife.
The second word translated cherish means "o soften with heat." Cherishing is something that every woman needs and desires. A wife needs specific personal attention, not vague, distracted awareness. She welcomes proper appreciation, not just casual acknowledgment. You must know that she is special and important to her husband. In addition to common principles of cherishing, the details of how a husband should cherish his wife may be somewhat different for varying personality types. It is important to set aside quality time for discussing common interests, concerns, and family issues. And it is essential to allow plenty of time for intimate conversing and delicate intimacy.
The problem with most men is that we are driven and motivated by a mental list of things we believe we must get done. I think every man can relate to that—you have a mental list of the things that we feel that has to be done. Whether it be maintaining your house or whether it be something on the job or whatever it might be, and it tends to block or interfere with our relationships with our family. Is that list of hobby, sports, or useless interests really more important than the love of your life? Is your Internet surfing and Facebook time essential to your marriage? Taking time for nourishing and cherishing probably is not normally on our list of priorities, we men, and we take for granted that our wives know that we love and cherish them.
Proverbs 31:10 Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies.
Would you take the time to gather up rubies that were there? Your wife is priceless! She makes rubies insignificant. She is far above the value of precious gems. And that is how Jesus Christ views His future bride, the church—far above rubies or any other precious earthly thing. We have to somehow arrive at that understanding. It has to be deeply felt in our hearts.
The idea of warmth that is associated with this word cherishes indicates that a husband should defend her from cold by properly clothing her, providing her with the money she needs for proper clothing. And the two expressions, nourishes and cherishes together, indicate that he provides food and clothing for the body, just in its general sense. The husband is to do this on a physical level for his wife, as Jesus Christ does on a spiritual level for God's church.
One of the ways Christ nourishes and provides for the church's spiritual necessities is through His ministers. And the physical necessities are provided through others who serve the church, not just deacons, but others who volunteer to help when they see others in need or just need help for any reason.
But this analogy should not be spiritualized too far. The general principle is that Christ has a tender concern for the needs of the church as a man for his own body and that the husband should show a similar consideration for his wife, that Jesus does for the church. We men can never reach that as human beings with human nature, but we have God's Holy Spirit to help us to attempt at that and let Jesus Christ build the character in us necessary to reach that.
Paul does not say that in the past He has nourished and cherished the church. The whole purpose is to show that He goes on doing that work continually. This is entirely in line with what we have been told about cleansing, which is clearly a continuing process of sanctification. This nourishing and cherishing is also something that continues and is not merely an action once and finally accomplished in the past. The death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection is once and for all, in the sense of being a sacrifice for the remission of sins, but all the rest of God's loving work is continued with this ultimate object in view: marriage of the church to Jesus Christ and life in God's Kingdom.
Let us look further at these two very interesting words, "He nourishes." This explains itself. Its essential meaning is that of feeding, providing food, and providing nourishment. Christ is concerned about the health and the growth and the development and the well being of His church. So he nourishes her. Paul has, in a way, been dealing with this theme in chapter 4, where he expresses it in these terms: "He gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers." And what for? He says they are for the perfecting of the saints, for this process that continues. It is something that keeps going on for the work of the ministry, for the edifying, the building up of the body of Christ until we all come, and you know the rest, the measure of the fullness of Christ. There is the ultimate object again, right there.
So here in Ephesians 5, we have another way of saying the same thing and it is encouraging for us to realize as members of God's church that Christ is nourishing the life of the church. He is not neglecting us, He is not leaving us alone, even though in trials we may feel that way—never, ever, ever leaves us. It is an expression of His love for us and of His care for us that He provides us with the spiritual food we need. The Bible is given by God and by Jesus Christ, as Spokesman and High Priest through the Spirit as food for the heart and mind. It is a part of His nourishing of us and all the ministry of the church as chapter 4 reminds us is designed for the same purpose. That means we have to have daily Bible study. We have to pray daily, multiple times, and we have to keep up our relationship with Jesus Christ if we can even attempt to be the husbands that we want to be physically and the bride that we want to be as the church spiritually.
In other words, there is no excuse for the church when she is ignorant or underdeveloped or weak. There is likewise no excuse for any individual Christian. Christ Himself is nourishing us.
The apostle Peter, in his second epistle, tells us that all things that are needful or necessary for life and godliness have been provided. That makes the position of the complaining Christian such a serious one.
II Peter 1:2-4 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that though these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
So we will never be able to plead the excuse that there is not sufficient food because we were in a wilderness. We are not in a spiritual wilderness. We have God's Spirit guiding us through it, and the food is available, and the heavenly Man has provided everything we need, has provided the inspired, written Word of God, His Spirit.
Here is nourishment, concentrated and unadulterated, as Peter again puts it in his first epistle in chapter 2. This is sincere, unadulterated milk of the word that we may grow thereby.
I Peter 2:1 Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking. . .
There are times, no doubt, that people in the church are guilty of these things. Maybe we all have committed at least one or many of them during our lifetimes and something that we should repent of as soon as possible. of course.
I Peter 2:2-3 . . . as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
At the beginning, as new members of God's church, we are still dealing with the milk of the Word. We have to grow in grace and knowledge with the help of the Holy Spirit so that we can thereby have more meaty spiritual food that we need as a mature Christian. God and Christ continually provide it. This is a wonderful thing for us to contemplate, that Christ is nourishing the church and the Word of God is dynamic and it is full of life and we need to use it every day.
The husband, in his care for his wife, works to provide food and all that she needs. Parents take care that their children have healthy nutrition and plenty of it in the right food and at the right time, which shows great concern. In that respect, Christ is doing that for us in an infinitely greater way through the Spirit. We just cannot even compare the two, in one way. But these analogies are helpful for us to visualize it as human beings. How are we responding to it?
We realize that He is constantly nourishing us. Part of His care is to provide opportunities of public worship. Congregational worship is not a human institution and people do not come to Sabbath services, at least they should not, only as a matter of duty, only as a matter of obligation. That is not the only reason to come to church. And if it is the only reason, then there is some severe character problems there. It is a matter of obedience and duty, but people should come because they realize that they cannot grow if they do not come, and they come to be fed, to find spiritual food for the heart and mind, nourishment—spiritual nourishment. The true Christians come because they are part of God's Family and look to grow with others in the church.
Fellowship is exceedingly important. People who are isolated out there throughout the world (and there are many), can get the fellowship in different ways than actually coming together. But if it is possible to come together, we need to come together whenever we can, where two or three are gathered in Christ's name. God has provided it. He provides it through His ministry and through Bible study and prayer and fasting.
Now, please turn over to Ephesians 5 once again. God calls people, He separates them, He gives them the message and His Spirit is present to give illumination, inspiration, in the preparation and delivery and the teaching. It inspires the speaking and the hearing. But we are required to prove all things and to ask Him for discernment, to avoid being deceived. Any of us who have any history in the church going back to Worldwide days or beyond that to the Radio Church of God and so on, you know these things happen. We have to be on our toes and on our guard to make sure that things are being proven by Scripture, because one thing I have seen over the last 50 plus years of attending God's church is that there is always someone and there is always at least one person, if not a group of people, who are always trying to erode the standards of the church doctrines. It is always happening. There are terrorists in the church and we have to be aware of that there were terrorists in the ministry in past times.
And so we have to be aware of that as well and ask God every day (most days) for discernment, so that we will not be fooled, as this mainstream media that we have today is deceiving the world, and others, governments, politicians and so on.
Ephesians 5:28-29 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.
So again, take the word "cherishes." Here is a word that is used only twice in the New Testament so that means it is exceedingly important. It is a word that conveys a very definite idea, generally that of clothing in a physical way. What the child needs physically above everything is food and clothing. What the bride, the wife, needs is similar. Those are the two things you think of—food and the clothing—the cherishing, but it conveys a further idea, namely that of caring for, looking after, and guarding. When you nourish and cherish someone you show by constant watchfulness, a care and a concern that he or she will thrive and develop and grow. Such are the ideas that are conveyed here by this term cherishes, which Paul adds to the term nourishes.
Our primary trouble is that we do not always have a true conception of our Lord and Master's interest in us and His concern about us. We fall into that trap that the world produces through its mainstream Christianity, that God is far out there somewhere and He may or may not be looking out for us. People are often concerned, and rightly so, about their love to Him. But you and I will never love Him as He loves us until we begin to know something of His love to us. We cannot work up love. In the case of the church, love is always a response, a reaction to His love. And we are to reflect His love to one another in our families and in the church setting.
I John 4:19 We love Him because He first loved us.
The world has its own definition of love which is the opposite of love, yet they follow it almost like a religion. Now when we are called, we come to realize that we are quite helpless in the area of true love, until God's love shines down on us, in other words, until His love is reflected in our thoughts and actions. And we come to realize it in this very practical way of understanding something of what He has done for us and what He has provided for us in the nourishing and cherishing, and we begin to be able to apply these things in a real and right way in our own families, with one another. The more we see that realize it, the more we are amazed by it, and the more we will love Him in return.
But that cannot happen until there is a change of heart in us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ's unique willing sacrifice of His life for us, the dear price He paid for our redemption means that we owe Him a debt that requires our complete devotion—absolute, unadulterated, perfect devotion. Of course, the perfect part we have to learn over a lifetime or a period of time that God Himself completes us to that point.
We must not stop at Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. We begin there, but we see that, having finished that work, that specific work of redemption, He goes on to make all this vast and ample provision for us and to take care of us by divine intervention, in things that happened to us and in leading and guiding us. In hundreds of ways He is nourishing and cherishing the life of the church for which He died. In addition, we must realize this ongoing work in us, because that would not be possible on our behalf unless He had given His life, shed His blood.
Why does Christ do all this? Why did He die for the church? Why this process of sanctification and of cleansing? Why the nourishing and cherishing? What is it all designed for? If you have been in the church any length of time you know the answer to that. The answer is found in the significant statement here:
Ephesians 5:27 That He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
Everything regarding the firstfruits is designed to that goal, and that is the purpose of what Christ has done and is continuing to do. That is the initial goal. But to get the full force of this expression, we must vary the translation a little. The true translation is this: "That He [and will add Himself] Himself might present her to Himself." The sentence begs for an additional Himself there and it is necessary to add it for clarification for this reason: So we are reminded that every analogy, even the analogies of Scripture, if they have taken too far become inadequate. Well, they are inadequate, but if they are taken too far, they begin to break down. An analogy only attempts to give us some glimmer of an understanding of what truth really is.
But no illustration is completely sufficient. The apostle Paul here is illustrating this relationship between Christ and the church in terms of husband and wife, and yet right away we meet with something that shows that the analogy is inadequate and does not go far enough. We all know that the normal procedure is that someone else presents the bride to a bridegroom, the father, a relative, or friend. He brings the bride to the bridegroom in the marriage ceremony. Having been helped in all her preparation by others, in her upbringing and education, and even in her clothing and so on, the bride is presented to the bridegroom by someone else.
But not so here" Here He will present His bride to Himself. "He [Himself] might present her to Himself" is the way it is worded. Albert Barnes suggests that this word "present" may be better translated as "prepared. "He Himself will prepare." Either way, I think it is sufficient or it gives an aspect of it.
This is just another way of emphasizing the great theme of the Bible throughout—that the whole of our salvation is of Christ, for the purpose of increasing God's Family. And it is His doing. He even presents or prepares His bride to Himself.
He has done everything for us from beginning to end. And as He follows the direction of God the Father in every detail, He even speaks what God the Father has told Him to speak.
John 12:49-50 "For I have not spoken of My own authority [Jesus speaking]; but the Father who sent Me gave me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak."
That is as definite as it gets.
Christ will present us to Himself in all His glory. And the picture before us therefore is that our Lord and Savior is looking forward to the moment, to the day when He will present the church to Himself.
What will she be like? She will be a glorious church, which means a church characterized by glory, the glory of righteousness. So here is a term with which we are familiar in the individual sense, since in the Scriptures the ultimate destiny of each of us, the ultimate issue of all our individual salvation is glorification. So you have justification, sanctification, and glorification.
Romans 8:30 Moreover whom he predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
This shows that there is a connection between justification and glorification. Justification is being declared right in God's eyes, and glorification is receiving resurrected bodies, that is, receiving eternal life. So the one does not exist without the other in its own proper time, as the calling does not subsist without the act of justification. This shows that the saints are to persevere during the process of sanctification as Christ works to prepare to be ready for God to glorify us. Again, we know that we have a lot of work to do.
When we realize our marriages, our relationships with one another are to be as much at the level of Jesus Christ for the church, we really feel inadequate. We can move that way because God's Holy Spirit powers us to be able to do that if we work with Jesus Christ and God the Father. If not, He is going to do it in a much more harsh way. He will get us there.
Paul speaks of glorification as if it were already completed since God will certainly finish the good work He started.
Philippians 1:6 being confident of this very thing [Paul speaking], that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ.
And Paul wrote at the close of Philippians 3,
Philippians 3:21 who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He [Christ] is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
So this is to happen to us individually, but the church is also to be glorified corporately, so to speak, as a group. Now, that is what is meant by the phrase "glorious church." She will be in a state of glory. And Paul helps us to understand it first by describing what she is like externally. He describes this in terms of two negatives. The church in her glory will have neither spot nor wrinkle upon her. There is the negatives—neither spot nor wrinkle upon her. There will be no stain, there will be no blemish.
It is very difficult for us to realize this. While the church is walking in this world of sin and shame, she gets splashed by mud and mire. There are, therefore, stains and spots on her, and it is very difficult to get rid of them. The world does have a negative influence on us. All the world's substances and techniques used in therapy, all the means of cleansing are inadequate to remove these spots and stains of the world. The church is not clean yet. Though she is being cleansed, there are still many spots upon her. But when she arrives in that state of glory and of glorification, she will be without a single spot. There will be not a stain on her when Christ presents her to Himself with all the spirit beings of heaven looking on at this awe-inspiring thing. There will not be a single spot or blemish on her. Perfect! That is what Christ wants, and He will be elated, so to speak, at her condition. And at the marriage, the most careful examination will not be able to detect the slightest speck of a unworthiness or of sin.
Now the bride and bridegroom will stand before the hosts of eternity, and they will not be able to find a single stain or a single spot or blemish on her—without spot. And thanks to God! Without wrinkle, not having spot or wrinkle. Wrinkles, as we know, are a sign of age or a sign of disease or a sign of some sort of constitutional trouble.
As we all get older, we develop wrinkles. Wrinkles are a sign of imperfection, or a process of dying. Taken all the way out to the end, the fat disappears from the skin and disease too can deprive us of this layer of fat. And so it can make us look prematurely old. It does not matter what the causes. Any kind of trouble or anxiety can lead to wrinkles. It is all a sign of strain and of decay, of advancing age.
The church in this world has many wrinkles upon her. Sin not only separates us from God, but also causes us to look old and aged, both physically and spiritually, and in a sense, that is what happened to our previous affiliation, that church where it was looking old, decayed, and weary. By the time we left that fellowship, we were all heartbroken.
When the anticipated day comes on which Christ will present the church to Himself in all her glory, not only will there not be a single spot, but there will also not be a wrinkle left. Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, will cleanse and heal us.
Psalm 51:6-7 Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts [speaking to God], and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Hyssop is not a word that we are very familiar with. It is plant or an herb. And the plant or herb that was commonly used by the ancient Israelites in their sacred purification and sprinkling was hyssop. And under this name, the Israelites seemed to have comprised not only the common hyssop of the shops, but also other aromatic plants as mint and marjoram and so on. I have taken some herbs in the past but I have never been able to conquer pronouncing all of them.
The idea of the psalmist here is not that the mere sprinkling with hyssop would make him clean, but he prays for that cleansing of which the sprinkling with hyssop was a symbol which was designated to be represented by that. Continuing on in verse 8,
Psalm 51:8-9 Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Of course, which cause spots and wrinkles.
Every time I read the word spots in the Bible, this a personal thing, kind of. We were in England, I do not remember whether it was for the feast or what, and there was a commercial that kept coming on TV, whether it be the news or a program or whatever. And this girl would look in the mirror and she would go, "I've got spots! I've got spots!" and she would go on and on about her spots. And of course in the mirror you could see dots and things like that. Anyway, the point is, it really does bother us to have spots, does it not? I mean especially you ladies, it is never ending and some of you ladies will get them until the day you die. And so you know, we have to live with those things, but we do realize that it is not something pleasant at all. That is a little bit different than the mood of the sermon here. But I could not resist because every time I read that word spot in the Bible that commercial comes to mind and now it is going to come to your mind.
Psalm 51:10-12 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the glory of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
So we do not only have a little bit, we have a lot, if we make use of it.
The whole structure of the psalm implies that he was seeking an internal change and that he did not depend on any mere outward ordinance or right. He recognized that the cleansing he needed had to be from the inside, a change of heart because of an internal righteous Spirit. For members of God's church and the church as a whole, everything will be smoothed out. Her skin will be perfect and whole. It is impossible to describe this perfection. The spiritual massaging of the church will have been so perfectly done that there will not be a single wrinkle left and she will remain like this eternally. This is the type of thing we cannot wait for but we have to wait for it. We would like it to happen sooner than later.
We are going to be glorified individually as well. No infirmities will remain, no vestige of disease or failure, or sign of age, and we will go on living in that eternity of perpetual good spiritual health, with neither decay nor disease nor any diminishing of that glory that belongs to us.
Please do not forget that the idea of the apostle Paul is anxious to convey this—the righteous pride of the bridegroom in his bride. He is preparing her for the big day. There is going to be this great celebration when He shows her to the whole universe and beyond. I do not think it is going to happen in one day, in the twinkling of an eye. It is going to be the greatest celebration that has ever happened and it is going to take some time. But not only will that be true of her externally, she will be the same internally. Psalm 45 is a perfect prophetic description of all of this.
Now, Psalm 45 has a caption in my Bible and it says "The Glories of the Messiah and of His Bride" To the chief musician. Set to "The lilies." A contemplation of the sons of Korah. A Song of love. So what we have here in the beginning of verse 2, is to the bride groom, and beginning in verse 10 is to the bride. Let me start with verse 1, and we will read down through verse 14.
Psalm 45:1-14 My heart is overflowing with a good theme; I recite my composition concerning the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. [and now to the bride groom] You are fairer than the sons of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed You forever.
Gird your sword upon your thigh, O Mighty One, with Your glory and Your majesty. And in Your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness; and Your right hand shall teach You awesome things. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies; the peoples fall under You.
Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions. All Your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, by which they have made You glad.
Kings' daughters are among Your honorable women; at Your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir. [and then to the bride] Listen, O daughter, consider and incline your ear; forget your own people also, and your father's house. So the King will greatly desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, worship Him.
And the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift; the rich among the people will seek your favor. The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace; her clothing is woven with gold. She shall be brought to the King and robes of many colors; the virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to You.
In verse 13, the psalmist emphasizes that she will be all glorious within the palace. The term "palace" is actually in italics here showing that it was added, but it was incorrectly added and should not be there. Young's Literal Translation of Psalm 45, verse 13 reads "All glory is the daughter of the King within; of golden embroidered work is her clothing."
This description shows her spiritually glorious and radiating refinement and beauty, not something we see anywhere on earth. The gold embroidered work for clothing is a mark of royalty and quality, and notice what the apostle Paul brings out in his epistle to the Ephesians in chapter 5, verse 27, which we read, which says, "but that she should be holy and without blemish." So Paul is positive that she will be positively holy.
The holiness and righteousness of the church is not the mere absence of sin. It is the sharing of Christ's own righteousness. And in contrast, this is where the merely moral person is left without an understanding at all of these things. They can have happy marriages, but it is on a lot lower level spiritually. It is just at the level of the spirit of man, not the level of the Spirit of the Lord. In contrast, this is where the mere more moral person is left.
God is holy, and the church becomes holy with this positive shining righteousness and this perfection. It is much more than a mere absence of evil. It is essentially positive uprightness, truth, beauty, and everything that is good and glorious in all its essence, as it is in God.
The church is immersed in that and she is clothed with the righteousness of Christ now, and we should thank God constantly that He sees that and not us in our human sense. But then there will be more than that. The church and her members will indeed be like Him, positively, entirely holy and righteous. And then to make sure that we understand this, Paul says, "without blemish," which means without blame. He has already said all of this in Ephesians 1.
Ephesians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
Here in chapter 1, Paul establishes the theme that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. He carries this theme through this epistle to the Ephesians, and then in chapter 5, he works it out more fully. The church then is going to be in this glorious state.
Let me sum it up in the following way. The terms used by Paul are designed to convey perfection of physical beauty, health, and symmetry—the absolute perfection of spiritual character. Think of the most beautiful bride you have ever seen, and for husbands of course, that is your own bride. Multiply that by infinity and still you do not begin to understand it, but that is what the church is going to be like.
There is never any perfect beauty in this world, a beautiful face perhaps, but ugly hands. There is always something, some sort of blemish, is there not? But there will be none with the church. It is absolute perfection in every aspect in the bride of Christ. This is the thing we should long for most of all.
We are all so lopsided in one sense. Some people are full of head knowledge and they never move any further. Looking at everything from a physical standpoint and they cannot get any further than that to understand the Spirit if God hasn't called them. Others have no doctrine, but they only talk about their activities or about their own lives, and they are equally defective spiritually. A person who has only a theoretical or philosophical understanding of these things and who does not produce good fruit is a very unworthy representative of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and so is the other. The so-called practical person has no time for doctrine. The other has nothing but doctrine and they both are equally at fault.
So we look forward to the day when we will be complete and whole with nothing lacking and proportionate—balanced.
Jesus Christ has loved us with an everlasting love and He has died for us in preparation for that great day when He will present us to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. We must be working with Christ's help to be holy and without blemish. Christ does the actual work, but we have to put forth great effort, which is the works part of faith. The apostle Paul expressed the guarantee in chapter 3 of his epistle to the Ephesians.
Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
That is the power that works in us and will continue to work. He did not stop at His death. He does not stop at justification. He is continuing to work within us and He does all that Paul has been describing. To him is glory in and through the church by Jesus Christ to all generations forever and ever.
Now, this body of Christ, God's church, is going to be made perfect and will be made perfect. And we must be careful not to resist Him, be careful not to resist the ointment, so to speak, the gentle teaching that He gives in His instruction in the Word in various other ways and not overlook the commands that He sets down. Because if we become deeply stained with sin, He has some very powerful detergents, so to speak, that He does use to get rid of sin. So let us touch on three series of three scriptures that apply here.
Hebrews 12:5-6 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives."
Paul expresses this principle in II Corinthians 13 as well.
II Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.
I am convinced that everything is a test in a Christian's life. Everything, every word we say. We have so many things that we have to be careful with. Everything is a test.
II Corinthians 13:5 Do you not know yourselves, that Christ Jesus is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.
The exhortation is this: That if we do examine ourselves and judge ourselves, we will not be judged. But if we fail to do so, He will do it to us. He will do it for us. And there is no question about this, it is this is quite definite.
I Corinthians 11:28-29 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
So how we treat our wives, how we treat our children, how we treat our families, how we treat each other in the church, all determines whether we are taking of the cup and the bread in a worthy manner.
I Corinthians 11:30-32 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
We are not to live our lives in a careless manner, not thinking about what we are doing and why. By not discerning the significance importance of the Lord's body, a person does not understand what he is doing. We must discern. We must take the time to discern. And the reason is because the person who does not discern does not realize that the church is the bride of Christ and that Christ is going to make her perfect and glorified. For this reason, because they do not examine themselves, many are physically mentally and spiritually weak and sick among you and many sleep spiritually. Many are weak means never feeling quite well. They do not understand why. Many are sickly. They are positively diseased for this reason. Because they do not examine themselves, Christ has that other not so pleasant way of taking care of those situations.
Read the biographies of the saints and you will find that many of them thank God as they look back, for an illness or other trial that came to them; and we have to make sure we do that as well. Thank God for the trials that we have gone through, maybe we have just gone through, because there is God's perspective, which is all positive in it. His will always ends in the positive good.
But we are judged now, as we know, the members of the church of God are now being judged.
Revelation 11:1-2 Then I was given a reed like a measuring rod. And the angel stood, saying, "Rise and measure the temple of God [that is the church], the altar, and those who worship there. But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, fore it has been given to the Gentiles. And they will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months.
We are being judged and chastened and disciplined accordingly by Christ, who is doing God's work to perfect us. Judging that we can prevent being judged eternally if we continually, throughout our lives, judge ourselves, meaning overcome the sins that we come across and the secret sins as well. And if we do not respond to Him and yield to His tender affections and to the manifestations of His tender love and encouragements, He will use any method of cleansing necessary to get us there. If we respond to Him, He may have to apply the acid of weakness or the alkali of sickness, so to speak. And although painful and agonizing, it will be for our ultimate good. And I am not saying that every time we are ill or injured, it is of necessity a chastisement. We do suffer from the sins of the world. But we sure have to analyze ourselves and evaluate ourselves as to whether we have any wrongdoing that may have caused it.
But because we belong to the body of which He is the head, He cleanses us, He perfects us. He does everything in His power to complete us. Jesus Christ is preparing a place for His bride in His Father's palace. So when He comes to gather God's church together, He will have an organized place to take us to.
John 14:2-3 [a very familiar passage] "In My Father's house are many mansions [or offices]; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also."
That is what you and I are, as Christians, going to see. Christ will is that the church may see the glory which He had with the Father before the foundation of the world, and we shall see Him as He is. He has the glory that He shared from eternity with the Father.
I John 3:1-2 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
When Christ ascended to heaven, the glory returned and He is in His glorified state. We will need to be glorified before we can withstand that sight as the bride of Christ. We will be there face-to-face and by His side sharing this glory? How does Jesus Christ accomplish this? You already know the answer. The answer is by way of the Holy Spirit of God. We are changed from the mind, from the inside out.
It is only through the power of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that we can walk in harmony as husbands and wives. The unity of people living God's way of life must be maintained daily if we are to enjoy the family harmony that reflects life as citizens of heaven. We can no longer fall back on our physical citizenship. Our spiritual citizenship in heaven must supersede our physical citizenship.
Husbands, according to the apostle Paul, we are being tested and judged according to how well we nourish and cherish our wives. And just as the Lord does the church, it is humanly impossible to do this unless we are filled with the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 3:14-19 [The caption in this section in my Bible says "Appreciation of the Mystery"] For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the width and the length and the depth and the pipe height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Here in Ephesians 3, verse 19 means the same thing as Ephesians 5, verse 18 where God commands us through Paul to be filled with the Spirit. This means that we have an obligation, a responsibility, to obey Him and to produce the fruit of the Spirit. This command is plural, so it applies to all Christians. And the verb "be" in "be filled with all the fullness of God" is in the present tense, so it means keep on being filled. It is something we should want to do constantly and not just on special occasions. And the verb is passive, we do not fill ourselves. It is the love of Christ that does it for the faithful, but we must use it diligently.
The verb "fill" in Ephesians 5, verse 18 has nothing to do with contents or quantity as though we were empty vessels that need need a required amount of spiritual fuel to keep on going. In Scripture filled means controlled by. In Luke 4:28, they were filled with wrath means that they were controlled by wrath and for that reason tried to kill Jesus. Acts 13:45 records that the Jews were filled with envy which means that the Jews were controlled by envy and opposed the ministry of Paul and Barnabas.
To be filled with all the fullness of God means to be constantly controlled by the Spirit in our mind, emotions, and will. It means to have total control of yourself, make sure that we are not out of control. Sometimes anger can bring us to that point. Be very careful about that. Alcohol usually brings out the real person's character. Some people when they are drunk, they get very nasty. Some are everybody's best friend. And just it is funny, in one sense, because people are out of their element, so to speak, when they have had too much to drink.
We will not fill ourselves, but by working to have peace in our marriage and family and fellowship, the Spirit produces fruit. The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Let us begin to wrap this up. We must make ourselves ready, which means getting rid of the spiritual spots and the stains and the wrinkles and every such thing, and being perfect and glorious in the Father's and Christ's presence.
Revelation 19:7-9 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. [So we do have a part in this. We must have a great part in it, making diligent and great effort.] And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me. "Write: 'Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the of the Lamb!" And he said to me, "These are the true sayings of God."
And now for a final scripture, please turn to Jude 24. What a privilege to be to be invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb! When He presents His bride to Himself, she will be clothed with this clothing of righteousness without and within she will be perfect. And what a great blessing to be at that spectacular wedding feast. It is not surprising that Jude ends his short epistle by saying,
Jude 24-25 Now to Him [that is, Jesus Christ] who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.
So how should we feel knowing this? We should feel like any woman who becomes engaged to be married feels. We should be excited, looking forward to the great wedding feast and longing for it and living for it. And we should be animated by this, stimulated and moved by it, and always looking forward to it—the wedding day, the ceremony, the angels who guard us looking on, the feasting, the wonder and the glory and the splendor of it all.
This is our Lord and Savior's objective for us. He died for us so that we might come to that! He has separated us so that we might come to that! He nourishes and cherishes us so that we might come to that!
May God help us to realize the privilege of being members of His church. May we also be given the knowledge and understanding so we may realize something of that glory that awaits us, and that we will set our affections on that and not on the things of the earth.
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