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This is June which is the most popular month for weddings. More people will get married this month than any other month. It's been that way for a long time, in fact, we get our name of the month from the Roman goddess "Juno" who they said ruled over all weddings. The reason that it is such a traditional time of the year to get married goes back to the 1500s. Back then, everyone took their yearly bath at the end of May, and so a good time to get married was June! Of course, by the time their wedding came a few weeks later, they were starting to stink again, so to hide her smell, the bride would carry a bouquet of flowers....

Have you ever heard about the most expensive wedding ever? The marriage of Sheik Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum's son to Princess Salama in Dubai in May 1981 cost $44 million. They built their own "church"/stadium so that all of their 20,000 guests could attend and see the ceremony!!! That had to be some wedding bash!

My father-in-law spent a ton of money on our personal wedding. About half way through the decorating, I went up to him and said "wow, this looks great! Thanks for paying for the wedding!" He patted me on the back and said "that's all right son, this is the cheap way out: you'll be paying for her for the rest of your life!"

In the Old Testament Scripture, there is no wedding like Solomon's wedding to his first wife, Shulamith. The Song of Solomon says that he had a special "moveable couch with a roof" constructed of the finest of linens and woods. He then covered this with flowers and sent some of his finest and strongest soldiers to fetch her from her hometown in the northern countryside. The catch was that Shulamith was riding on the couch and the men had to carry the couch and her! The Bible doesn't say how big Shulamith was but that would be interesting to know! They carried her hundreds of miles, and when they got to the city, the entire country came to see the procession. Shulamith was ushered into a banquet with the finest of goldware and food and then they spent the honeymoon in a special bedroom constructed out of cedar and fine linens! We don't hear much about the other 699 weddings of Solomon. I guess after a few dozen they all start to run together!

Jesus likes weddings. He attended weddings. In fact, His first miracle was performed at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. When they ran out of wine, Jesus turned water into it! It is interesting to note that in His short 33-34 year life on earth, Jesus achieved a lot of milestones of life. He grew in stature and wisdom, the Bible says. As crazy as it sounds, the One who was to walk on water, had a day where He took His first step. He learned to talk and to throw a ball. He learned to ride a donkey. He worked a job for 18 years in the carpenter's shop following in His earthly father's footsteps. He left home to pursue His "career." He learned to be friendly and to lead others. He learned to obey the will of God in His life despite the will of flesh that didn't want to submit. In a spiritual way, He even has children, because every person that is born again is born as "sons of God." Jesus had a lot of milestones to have lived on earth for such a short time.

Yet, there is one milestone of life that the Miracle Worker from Galilee never crossed: Jesus never married. There is a book that has come out recently on the New York Times Bestseller list that has revived an old heresy that Jesus had a romantic interest in Mary Magdalene. There is absolutely NO scriptural proof for that belief. It's not even inferred. It's an old lie from hell that parading in a new dress trying to sway the faith of the weak. This world doesn't understand true, Godly love. They read about how the Bible says that David loved Jonathan and they think homosexuality. They try to pervert good, Godly love. Jesus loved Mary Magdalene but no more or no less as an individual than He loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus and you and I! His love was pure with no romantic interest in one person.

But here's the catch: Jesus will get married. In fact, He's already engaged. And He loves His future bride very, very much so much so that He has gone into the heavenlies to prepare a feast and a celebration and a home for her. Jesus is not engaged to one individual. He's not engaged to a bunch of nuns in a convent. Jesus is engaged to the Apostolic Church. Those who become a part of this Apostolic Church become a part of the bride of Christ! Paul told the church in Corinth this:

As their pastor, Paul knew that the church in Corinth was the bride of Christ and so his job was to get them ready for their big day. If the church is the future bride, then there must be a wedding day set and planned and coming up soon! And sure enough, there is! Because in Revelation we read about the planned celebration of this wedding of Jesus Christ to the church. We don't know a whole lot of the details about the ceremony itself except that the One who is greater than Solomon is going to pay for it! If you thought Solomon's wedding was something, then you ought to be there when the church shows up in the heavenlies! If you thought Mr. Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum threw a big bash for his son's wedding, then just wait until the Marriage Supper of the Lamb! It's going to be the parties of parties, and I wouldn't miss it for the world! Hell, you see, is not going to be a party but will be a place of torments and pain. But Heaven, will be the parties of parties. It will be the church services of church services. If you like your church services quiet and a little dry, then you will not be too comfortable in heaven because the only silence I can find is the thirty minutes of silence while the angels of Heaven stand breathless awaiting the arrival of the Lamb's bride, the Apostolic Church! Our church services down here are just the rehearsal for the real thing one day! Our worship and our singing and our rejoicing here in this place should be a rehearsal to teach us how to enter into heaven properly! You'd better get your practice in dancing in church down here, or in heaven you'll have two left feet! (You might step on an angel's toe or something...)

I know what some of ya'll are thinking: if we are the bride, and the weddings up there, then how do we get from here to there! Like Solomon's bride, we are going to go riding in style! There's going to be a herald blow a trumpet and God's going to send His angels for us. And then we will fly through the air to meet Him there in the clouds to make our grand entrance. But we will be riding on a cushion of the Holy Ghost! And our bodies will be instantly changed to be able to live forever with Him throughout eternity! After all, it wouldn't do to have the parties of parties planned with all the time in the world and yet have the bride and the guests get tired would it!?

It sounds crazy and fanciful but everything that I've preached to you is a Biblical fact! Maybe I'm presenting it to you in a slightly whimsical way, but one day the eastern sky is going to part and Jesus Christ is coming back for His bride, and those who are a part of that chosen number are going to fly away! That parts already settled. And so now maybe you know why that in scripture, we find that Jesus was always talking about weddings. In His teaching, He referred to weddings and brides and grooms at least a dozen times. Why did He talk about it constantly? To remind us of it's certainty for sure, but the focus of all His teaching was always to make sure that you are ready for the wedding! We know everything except the exact date of this celebration, therefore there is no time to delay, you've got to get ready now, and you've got to stay ready!

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In our other text, Jesus used a wedding story to represent His coming back for His bride, and in the story the bridegroom has told the wedding party to be ready at night fall, but didn't give them an exact time. They had to be ready to go whenever the groom arrived. If you were engaged to a rich prince, and he told you that "we are going to be married soon." "I'm going to prepare the place that we are going to live together, and your job is to get ready." Then your focus of life would be to make sure that everything was in order. You wouldn't go out and get caught up in the things of this world and possessions and such because you'd be getting ready to leave. You'd get a dress. You'd tell everybody that you could about your soon to happen wedding. You'd also tell them how great your prince was! If you were leaving at night, you'd make sure that you had light and batteries in that light. And you would be at the house that he told you to wait, patiently and faithfully. You'd probably rehearse that day in your mind and spirit a hundred times and you might even practice how you're going to walk down the aisle when at last the call comes! You'd stop eating chocolate and caffeine so that you wouldn't have zits on your big day. You'd make sure your dress was clean. You'd make sure that your shoes matched and everything was just so for the wedding. Why? Because you are a future bride, and so you must be ready for the moment, for your once in a lifetime event!

I'm preaching to you and I because I'm afraid that no one can tell by some of our lives that we are the bride of Christ! There's no excitement about Him in some of our lives. There's no preparations that indicate that some of you are planning to meet Him in the sky one day! In our text in Revelation, the announcement was given in heaven:

Angels get ready! Heavenly creatures stand at attention, because the marriage of the Lamb is come! And the wife of Christ that shows up is going to be the bride that "hath made herself ready!" If you are not ready when He comes, then you won't be going! Whether or not you are prepared now determines whether or not you are going to make it then!

So let me give you a primer course on being ready for the Weddings of Weddings. After all if it fell Paul's lot as pastor of Corinth to make sure that they were ready for their wedding day, then it certainly is my responsibility today to ensure that you are ready!

Whether guest or bride, in the Biblical days no one was allowed to attend a wedding celebration without the proper wedding garment. If someone was rich like a king or a wealthy business man, they would often provide garments for everybody attending and your wedding garment was your ticket to be a part of the celebration! Jesus used a story of a king throwing a wedding feast to teach us the importance of the proper wedding garment. In the story the king began to mingle among the guests and then:

The man was invited and even known by the king because he called the man "friend." But even with the relationship and being a "friend of the king" without the proper wedding garment, the man was kicked out of the festivities! For the man to have gotten past the doorkeepers, his garment must have looked similar to the ones provided by the king. But when the king came, he could instantly tell that it was different than the one that he had provided. And "close" obviously doesn't count in wedding garments!

So what's the proper wedding garment? The proper wedding garment is found in Revelation 7 where John saw a vision of what it would be like when the church arrived in heaven. Everybody was dressed in white robes, and then:

So the proper wedding attire to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is to have your robe made white by washing it in the blood of the lamb! Isaiah said:

How do we wash our sins away like that? Go to Acts 2 and Peter tells us how:

I'm condensing a bunch of scriptures into a small space, but water baptism in Jesus' name is more than just a show of your faith. It is a washing away of your sins by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ! It's putting on the proper spiritual garment for the Marriage to come! And every time someone was baptized in scripture (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:46; 19:1-6; 22:16 etc...) they were ALWAYS baptized in the name of JESUS! Why? Because it's His blood that is doing the cleansing! Some people want to baptize another way without calling out that name. They say "it's close enough, and there really isn't that much difference." Maybe not to human eyes, but when the King of Kings comes in and looks He will immediately notice a difference! And if you don't have the proper wedding garment, you are not welcome at the Marriage Supper, even if He knows you as friend!

In our text, Jesus said:

If a marriage was held at night, it was the custom for the bridegroom to provide oil burning lamps for the bridal party. They would then wait at a certain house for him, and when he came, they would have light for their short journey to the wedding feast. Their lamp was their ticket to get where they wanted to go. Without it, they would lose their way and fall in a ditch.

The lamp represents the Word of God. The psalmist said:

You must know and have the Word of God in your life to have a ticket out of here! And in scripture, oil is always a symbol of the Holy Ghost! Your knowledge of the Word of God will do you no good unless you have received the oil, the Holy Spirit within your life! You can have the lamp, but without the Holy Ghost, you will lose your way in trying to serve Jesus and follow Him! And it is the oil that is going to be your ticket out of here when Jesus come back for His church. You need the proper wedding garment and a lamp, but you also need the oil! He's coming back for a bride that hath made herself ready! A bride that has a proper wedding garment and a lamp, but no oil is an unready bride!

Not only did the virgins have to have their dress, lamp, and oil, but they also had to be at the house where the bridegroom had told them to be. It didn't matter how much preparation that they had done, if they were not at the house when the groom had said to be, then they would have been left behind.

When people are getting ready for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, you can always tell because going to church is a priority. I know some of you are thinking "oh, preacher where does it say that we have to come to church services; where did the groom say that?" Let me read it to you:

We are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together! Even more as we "see the day approaching!" See what day? The day of Christ's return! The groom is coming back for people that are found assembling together in services! And yet, so many people think that their relationship with God is beyond needing to be faithful to services. I understand that sometimes we have to miss a service because of sickness or whatever, but what about when you are just too tired? When you are just not going. When it's not priority. I hope for your sakes, that Jesus doesn't come back on the day that you decide to "not go tonight." But He did say that He would come back "when ye think not..." A Christian that doesn't make church attendance a priority is an unready bride!

It' not enough that you were baptized and all of your past sins were forgiven, but what does your spiritual garment look like now!? If you go on in Revelation chapter 19 and read the rest of the chapter you will find what the clean, white wedding garments of the bride of Christ represent:

It is the "righteousness of saints." It's not enough to get a new garment, if you dirty it up before the day! When you choose to live in willful sin, you are mudding up your wedding garment. We've got to turn from willful sin and from doing things that we know are against God's will. "But what about accidental sin, preacher?" Yes, we all do it don't we? Do we need to get rebaptized again in water? No, we've already got the wedding garment. But God has a dry cleaning plan in place for your garment. He said:

Repentance and the altar of God is your friend! We must make daily repentance and searching of ourselves a priority and a habit! A Christian who does not daily repent and spend time in prayer asking God to cleanse them is a bride unready!

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There's power and peace in knowing that you are ready for the wedding day. But let me finish this sermon by returning to our text story of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. All of the ten were ready for the big day. They all had their wedding garments on. They all had lamps with oil in it. They were all in the house where the groom had told them to be. They all grew weary when the bridegroom took a little longer getting there than they had first supposed. They all went through a period of slumber. And yet, when the herald call finally came "Behold, the bridegroom cometh!" there were five that made it and five that did not. Of the ten, five ended up being foolish and five wise.

If I can, let me apply it today to us in the Apostolic Church. When you do so, if you have any spiritual sensitivity, you cannot help but be bothered by the numbers that Jesus chose to use in this story. There were ten that were in church and faithful to the house of God. There were ten Christians who had answered the call to be a part of the wedding party and that had put on the proper garments. All ten had received the lamp of instruction and knowledge of the Word of God and all ten had received the oil of the Holy Ghost. All ten grew weary when Jesus waited a little longer than they expected to return, but then when the trumpet sounded and the declaration was made that "Jesus is here ready to receive you." Yet only half of them made it. 50%. That's not too good odds to me. That bothers me. That tells me that it is possible for a born-again, baptized in His name, filled with the Holy Ghost believer to be lost even from off of the pew in the house of God. And the fact that it was half, well that really bothers me. Especially when I realize that it is my job to get you ready for the big day!

So I'm preaching to everybody today, not just the sinner and not just the saint. I've preached to those without the house. But let me finish by preaching to everyone. You don't want to be a bride unready. And you certainly don't want to be in the house waiting and still lose out. I can't think of anything more tragic. If that is true, then you don't want to make the same mistake that the five foolish virgins did. What mistake did they make? According to the story, there are five simple reasons why the five foolish virgins were not ready. Any one of these could have been the reason why they didn't make it:

If they would have just checked their lamps in the day time, they would have realized that they needed to top off their oil supply. Their lamps would hold exactly the same amount of oil as the five wise. The problem was that they didn't realize that they were low on oil until the last minute.

What's the reading on your Holy Ghost gauge this morning? Is it like David's when he said "my cup runneth over?" Or are you on about half-empty? I've driven cars long enough to know that the gauge goes down when I've been going for a while without stopping long enough for a "fill up." Jesus said that He would give the Holy Ghost to anyone that asks Him with faith believing. Now's the time to check your Holy Ghost, not when the trumpet sounds. The night is coming. If God's Spirit is not flowing and billowing out of you so that it is affecting those around you, then you are a bride unready!

Why is it that some people get baptized in Jesus' name and then filled with the Holy Ghost, and then they suddenly think that they are set and finished and don't need any more teaching and any more experience in God? It's human nature to try to get by with the least that you think you need. But if you try to live for God that way, the results will be disastrous. I'm preaching to Holy Ghost filled Christians today. You can't just do the bare minimum and make it. Because it will always end up taking a little bit more than you counted on. All ten lamps were burning bright when they arrived, but because the return of the groom took a little longer than they had expected only the five wise had made provisions for having a little extra.

If your attitude toward living for God is "what's the least that I have to do" I can tell you now that you are going to be in that 50% of foolish Christians. It will only be those who do everything that they can and want to obey God's Word in every area no matter how big or small it seems that will make it to heaven. You'll either make heaven by a mile, or you'll miss it by inches: the choice is up to you.

The five foolish just assumed that they could do at the last minute what they had always done, and that was lean on someone else's relationship and experience to make it. But the five wise said "go get your own!" Cruel? No, it's representative that you are not going to make it to heaven leaning on other's spiritual experiences. How many of you pray and fast for our services throughout the week? Or do you just show up expecting God to move and trust that someone else has prayed for it? How much praise have you put into the service before the sermon goes forth? Or are you just expecting someone else to worship and usher us into the presence and anointing of God? When in trouble, are you strong enough to pray the prayer of faith? Or do you rely on someone else's ability to touch heaven? We need to pray for each other and bear each other's burdens, but can you touch heaven yourself with fervent, effectual prayer? Or is prayer just something that "momma does?" or "sis. so and so does?" If you are relying on someone's spiritual blessing to make it today, you'd better realize that it will not work when the Rapture comes. If you, like the ten in the story, sleep before the Rapture comes and you happen to die before the Rapture takes place, other people's relationship won't help you then either. You will stand before God on your own merit and your own obedience. Other people's lives won't have anything to do with it!

They were willing to go seek out merchants and buy oil at night, but they were too busy during the day to really give it the thought that they needed. I don't know what in your life is such a priority that you can't be faithful living for God, and there are some pretty good excuses available. But whatever your logic and excuse, it won't be a too high price to pay when Jesus come back! If you miss the Rapture, then your attitude toward whatever is priority in your life will be totally different. You'll be willing to pay the price then, but by then it will be too late! Don't make that mistake!

In the parable, the five foolish virgins got oil from the merchants and then went to where the wedding feast was being held and beat on the door until the bridegroom said "who's there?" They cried out to him:

It's interesting to note that He didn't say "the door has already been shut, you're too late" even though that was certainly true. He didn't say "you should have been at the house ready when I came" which was also certainly true. But the Lord's rejection was "I know you not." He didn't recognize their voice through the door. He was not familiar enough with them to recognize them that night!

How much time do you spend in His presence? How much time do you spend talking to Him and listening to His voice? What is priority in your life? Is spending time with the One to whom you are engaged and who is coming back for you, or is it other things? Do you spend much time reading the love letter (Bible) that He wrote to you? Do you talk of Him often? If so, do you talk to Him often? It's possible to have the garment and the lamp and the oil and yet have live so distanced from His presence that He does not "know us!" To serve God without that closeness and that intimacy everyday is to be a bride unready!

There is a Marriage Supper of Marriage Suppers coming soon! When the announcement goes out in heaven:

I want to be in that number of the bride that "hath made herself ready." When Jesus comes, I don't want to be a bride unready!