Revelation 19 • Here Comes the Bride
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Transcript
(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Revelation, it may be unfamiliar to us in many ways, looking way out into the future. Now, I know Rodney loves to preach on Revelation, but for most people, it may be a bit unfamiliar.
Maybe I can set its context a little bit just by telling you about where some of us were on Friday night. On Friday night, some of us in this room were at a wedding, a beautiful, beautiful wedding. Some of you, lots of you, even even Barb Mojano came to that wedding.
In some ways, made more beautiful because some of us who were there knew that there had been some pain preceding it, some difficulty in people's lives. And as we saw some healing and bonding and the beauty of lives coming together for a new future, it was made more special by that previous pain.
Revelation 19 follows other pain. It is the account of a wedding, but a wedding following the fall of Babylon,
that force of evil in the world, of apostasy that the Bible and the preceding chapel will call the great prostitute, that which leads the people of God away from faithfulness. God has condemned it and destroyed it. And now He announces His ultimate and final wedding to His bride, the church, in these glorious terms.
Revelation 19.
After this, I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting,
"Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are His judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of His servants." And again they shouted, "Hallelujah! The spoke from her goes up forever and ever. The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God who was seated on the throne, and they cried, "Amen! Hallelujah!"
Then a voice came from the throne saying, "Praise our God, all you His servants, you who fear Him, both small and great." Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters, like loud peals of thunder shouting, "Hallelujah! For our Lord God, all mighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory, for the wedding of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready." Finelan, bright and clean, was given her to wear. Finelan stands for the righteous acts of the saints. Then the angel said to me, "Right, blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb." And he added, "These are the true words of God."
It's beautiful, isn't it? To think about what that future may hold and be like, the absolute glory of the wedding of the Lamb and His bride, the church.
And so glorious is it that when you think of what Rodney just mentioned a moment ago, I wonder if it just doesn't pass into insignificance. I mean, that fact that the PCA is coming to town.
The Presbyterian Church in America will meet here down at the Adam's Mark. And while we may make a lot of it, you recognize it's a rather small event compared to this event.
And so I must ask you if you care at all.
After all, if we look at the people who survey us, the Gallups and the Barnas, they will say that we really don't care. That most people in the church today are concerned for their immediate church and their immediate experience in it, but why most of us, the surveyors will say, are in church is because of our own personal satisfaction, our emotional uplift or spiritual uplift that we typically look at our own local church as something of a spiritual vending machine that we want to put a few nickels in and get some benefits. And beyond that, we don't have much loyalty or concern for the broader church of Jesus Christ. And the evidence of that is some extent expressed in the fact that if we don't get enough benefits from our local church, we'll shop for another one. We don't really sense what the church is in biblical terms.
And so the Bible, I think, perhaps anticipating that familiar complaint that you've heard before, tries to help us, not by presenting the church as a vending machine there to serve us, but as something else, as a bride,
something beautiful and glorious to please God, of which we are a part.
And as you think of that, if you can just kind of put yourself in the mode of thinking of the church as a bride, maybe think of a wedding that you have been to recently. You know the moment at which the organ will play. Here comes the bride, and we all stand in honor, and the groom turns in love.
Look at her glory.
And you must ask yourself, why does he look at herself? Why does he think of that being so special, that bride?
It may be what we should think about is we would think, should we care that at least a segment of the bride of Christ, a portion of Christ's church is coming to town this week. One of the reasons, of course, that we honor brides is because of their background. Where do they come from? What do they like? I mean, I must tell you, the lot of us were at that wedding on Friday because it was a very significant family in the history of this church and this denomination. It was part of the extended Rayburn family that was there for the wedding. And some of us were there in part because of that background of the bride.
We sometimes are attracted to brides because of their background. I know that's not the most romantic thing to say, but it's true. I made the mistake when I was dating my wife one time of answering her question, why are you attracted to me by saying, well, I just really like your family?
And she said, oh, all you seminary boys are the same. You just want me because of my family. And, you know, there was a part of it was true. Her dad was an elder in the church. I came from a troubled family background and I looked at her mom and dad and their long term love. I looked at a family that was knit together, even though it had difficulties of time that could seem to get over them in ways that my family could not. I looked at the love that was expressed. I looked at the unity. The way they did things together and I, you know, just her background meant a lot. She was what the German family that she was from called of good stock. You know, she was of good stock and that meant something to me. And the stock that we are from is somewhat in evidence here as we understand the nature of Christ's bride. What is this church that we are a part of? Its ancestry we identify at least in part as being apostolic. It's part of the background.
When I ask you to think about the church, I ask you to open up Revelation 19 to look in the Bible.
And the reason for that Rodney already expressed to you today that Ephesians 2 20 tells us that the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. We believe that the church of which we are a part is established by the words of Scripture that it's part of our ancestry that God by his apostles has said what we are to be. We didn't decide.
God decided and in his word he framed and formed and gave the operating procedures for what we are a part of. We are apostolic continuing along the guidelines and the words of the men who wrote Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. For the word of God itself tells us that those men of God did not speak of their own will but they spake carried along by the Holy Spirit giving to us the very words of God to make us what we are. We're apostolic.
Our background is also that we are Catholic.
Now by that I don't mean Roman Catholic but we are Catholic. You say it in the Apostles Creed that you recite here from time to time. I believe in the Holy Spirit and I believe in the holy Catholic Church and then there's that asterisk that goes with it and we look down at the bottom and it says universal.
Now what's that about? Well you can see here in this passage look at verse five of Revelation 19 a voice came from the throne saying praise our God all you his servants you who fear him both small and great. Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder shouting hallelujah. It's this simple message. We believe that we are not alone that we are a part of a vast multitude. This church of Jesus Christ of which we are part not is it only not founded on the word of men. It is not limited to these people.
Revelation 5 9 tells us that at this great gathering there will be men and women who come from every tribe and language and people and nation. That the church universal gathers to be a part of the glory of the worship of God and we are a part of that. We are not all of it in our pride and our arrogance. We should never believe that that we are the end all but we are a part of what God is doing throughout generations and throughout the world.
We're part of a church universal and the reason that's important is because we must remember that what God is doing is grander. We are grander than us and we're a part of that.
We are part of the church universal Catholic that is universal in our expression of God's worship. We're also reformed. That's part of our ancestry now reformed refers in part to our history that we're a Presbyterian church and we come out of the Reformation when this church for what it viewed to be apostolic and Catholic reasons separated from the Roman Catholic Church that it believed was not preaching a pure gospel now almost 400 years ago. But there is something more than history involved. There are truths that we are committed to and perhaps those are captured best at the end of verse 6 when this great multitude is singing hallelujah. It says for our Lord God Almighty reigns.
It is this idea of the reign of God of his sovereignty over all things that is part of what it means to be reformed that we believe that God rules that he is in charge. The world is not at loose ends. The world is not unplanned and what is happening. God is in charge not just in a macro level but at the most intimate levels. What God's sovereignty does is perhaps even better explained in the opening verse of Revelation 19. The great multitude sings hallelujah there saying salvation and glory and power belong to our God.
There's the expression first of what happens internally inside of us.
Salvation belongs to God.
God's in charge and one of the things that God has done is he has enabled us to know him. It's his work that makes us his own not ours. He is in charge of our salvation. I can't accomplish it and you can't. I must turn to another for the hope that I have.
Also power is God's and in this expression of praise we understand that it is world enveloping power. We sometimes talk about God's power not merely his sovereignty not merely in salvation but in Providence.
The control of all things that not a hair falls from your head or a sparrow to the ground without God's say so.
We don't understand all the works of Providence.
Sometimes it doesn't make sense to us in ways that disturb us.
But God has said salvation is mine and I am controlling all events all things in this world.
So that glory will one day be mine in the praise of these saints that I am making my own. Because all of our salvation and all of our world and all events in them are oriented toward the glorifying of our great God.
Ultimately those of the Reformation put it together saying solely Deo glory to God alone be the glory. Salvation and glory and power are his.
The Reformers tried to put it together for us by saying how does this sovereign rule work. And they identified it by three basic solas. Words that talked about alone what God is doing. Scripture alone. Sola Scriptura. We are ruled by God's word alone. Not by the opinions and traditions of men but by God's word. We're going to look there to see what we should do and be and believe.
Sola Fide.
Faith alone. That we believe it's not our works but faith in something else that makes us God's. Sola Gratia. Grace alone. God by his grace not by any work in me makes me his own. He is sovereign. He is good. He is powerful. And we sing hallelujah as a Reform Church. The glory is his. Because he alone is in charge.
The last thing we are historically is we're Presbyterian.
Now I'm not going to try to defend Presbyterianism from this passage. I don't think you can but you understand some of this passage by what being Presbyterian is. Do you remember that in this passage there is the, in verse 4, the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne. Now I'm going to guess if you're in a Presbyterian church there's part of that verse that's familiar to you and part of it that doesn't seem very familiar. The 24 elders fall down and worship God. What are elders?
Whether in the Old Testament or the New Testament, elders are those leaders in the church elected by the people of the church. You know what the Greek word for elder is?
Presbyter.
That's where we're Presbyterian church. We are ruled, governed as it were by those that we elect.
But there's another image here that has to go with that. Not only in verse 4 do we learn that the elders fall down but the four living creatures fall down. Now that's not going to seem very familiar to you but it's actually a reference to something that's happened earlier in the book of Revelation. A description of those four living creatures that gather around the throne of God is in Revelation 4 in verses 9 and 10. And they're those four living creatures, those beings that represent God's authority over all the realms.
Human, animal, material, and spiritual are represented.
And those things, those beings that represent the authority of God sing God's praise. They set the tune and it's only when they have praised God that the elders follow suit. In other words, it is the heavenly authority that establishes what the elders are to do. Now this is an important Presbyterian principle.
Our leaders are elected by the people but they are accountable to heaven.
Ultimately they are not accountable to the people. It's strictly not a democratic system. You just do whatever we say.
We elect those people who will do whatever God says.
And they are to be accountable to heaven more than to the people for the sake of the glory of God. It doesn't mean that they can work apart from the people. They are still elected by the people. But they are to listen to the voice of heaven once the people have put them in a place of authority.
And that's part of what it means to be Presbyterian. That we are going to listen to the voice of God through the leaders that we have elected.
One other thing, part of the way that we are listening is by submission.
What does it mean to be an Presbyterian church? It means that we believe a church is established by the preaching of the Word, by the right administration of the sacraments, and by church discipline. That what the leaders of the church are to do is to make sure that the Word is preached right here. That they are to make sure that the sacraments which visually show what Jesus has done for us, whether it be in the Lord's Supper providing His body and blood for our life, or in baptism, the washing away of our sin being signified. The leaders of the church are to make sure that that Word spoken or demonstrated is clear
and true and maintained.
But they are also to make clear that we honor it. And so we talk about discipline in the church that is Presbyterian. That the elders are responsible to help the people mind what the Word of God says. And when we have strayed and when we have erred, lovingly but with authority, encourage,
rebuke and restore those who may have wandered from God. The reason is because we believe, as I think you do, that no one is to be a Lord unto themselves.
We also believe no church is to be a Lord unto itself. Part of what it means to be Presbyterian is that we're connected to one another. Presbyterian Church in America meets together because we know that some churches will just go their own way and they may go very far astray from Scripture.
And so what we have said is that we will unite together as the believers did in the New Testament
and we'll hold each other accountable not just individually but corporately and collectively to do what the Word of God says.
That's our history. That's our ancestry. That's our stock. We are the bride of Christ, at least that portion of this church of Jesus Christ, which is apostolic and Catholic and reformed and Presbyterian.
Now that's our past.
I will tell you when that groom the other night looked at his bride coming down the aisle, he did not smile and fix his eyes upon her just because of her past.
He wanted to know something about her. There was honor in him because of her characters. Well, what is she now?
And that too is something you should know if you were going to care about the bride of Christ.
We are part of a church that is evangelical, evangelical. Maybe the essence of that you could see in verse 9. The angel said to John, "Write, blessed are those who were invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb." And he added, "These are the true words of God. Blessing comes from those who were invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb."
Blessing comes to those who were united with the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain.
Revelation chapter 5 and verse 9 tells us, "The Lamb is worthy to unroll the scrolls that lead to the end of the whole consummation because with His blood He purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people nation." It's the sacrifice of Jesus that makes us right with God.
And this is true.
The Bible that attests it is true. It's those two things that have marked us as being evangelical that we, not just as the Presbyterian Church in America, but with a host of other denominations and churches believe and continue to affirm these things.
Salvation is through the blood of Jesus Christ and the Word of God that attests it is true.
Now, that may sound so familiar to you. But you must understand that part of our history resulted from much more recent events than the Apostolic Age.
Much of what this church is today was formed in the early part of the century in what was called the modernist fundamentalistic controversy. Now, some of you know what that is and some of you may be far away from understanding. Let me just give you an example of what that was about. Early part of the century, as science and psychology was sweeping the educational and academic world, began to affect our culture. And people began to doubt and question whether the supernaturalism, the fact that God would work in time and history needed to be believed anymore. Even in 1923, there was what was signed by hundreds of ministers in what was then the mainline Presbyterian Church, what came to be known to most of you as the United Presbyterian Church in 1923, a document was signed by hundreds of ministers called the Auburn Affirmation.
And it said this, "There were five things that you no longer had to believe anymore in order to be a minister in that church." Now let me say that again. These are five things you do not have to believe anymore.
The inerrancy of Scripture that the Bible is entirely true.
That Christ was born of a virgin.
That Christ died as a substitutionary atonement, a sacrifice perfect for your sins and mine.
That the miracles of the Bible are true as presented. That Christ physically rose from the dead and is coming back in power and glory.
Those five things were said did not have to be believed anymore.
We are an evangelical church.
We say they have to be believed because the Bible attests them. And knowing that may explain for some of you why in this Presbyterian Church you seem to find an affinity at times with other evangelicals in Baptist churches and Methodist churches and Anglican churches more so than you may find in Presbyterian churches where people do not identify themselves as evangelical because where you say you are an evangelical,
you believe those five things. And where you don't believe those five things, whether you're Presbyterian or Methodist or whatever you are, you are a long distance from the biblical faith that we have historically united ourselves to. We are evangelical.
One other thing I will tell you just so you are present, we are united confessionally. It sometimes is a difficulty for this broad evangelical church of what we are part to recognize that we are confessional. We Presbyterians have said this. We know that while we say the Bible is true, there are many ways that people may choose to look at it.
And so we are going to do this. We are going to agree to what we believe is a faithful exposition of the Word of God. And we are going to unite in saying that's what we think the Bible teaches lest we begin to have leaders in our church who say they believe that the Bible is true but lead a different direction.
We hold to what's called the Westminster Confession of Faith. That's an ancient document for some of us out of the Reformation times, 1640s. But again and again we say, is that what the Bible says? People struggle with the notion of a confession because at times they think, you know, you're making your confession your Bible. We do not.
We say that our confession we believe is a faithful exposition of what the Scripture teaches but it's always to be informed by Scripture and subordinate to Scripture.
Where Scripture corrects the confession, it must be obeyed rather than the confession.
Now we do that as a church, not as individuals. We look and see what does the Bible say. But we hold each other accountable by saying this is what we have agreed. We confess together these things.
So what?
I wonder if knowing our history and even our present character makes you care one with.
Oh, it may be interesting but it doesn't make you love the bride of Christ.
As that groom and as all of us in the room, that church on Friday night, watched the bride coming down, it was not just because of her past that we honored her nor even just because of her present character. We recognize that she was walking down the aisle. She was walking into a future. There were things being indicated ahead and what we have in this chapter of Scripture is some indication, just a glimpse of what that future will be for our church, any church. There's a true church of Jesus Christ so that we will know whether we really should care and love and be committed to her. Now, not all the picture of what the future holds is pretty.
After all, consider what is in this bride's future. She is subject to corruption. In verse 2 we read that true and gestured God's judgments for He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of His servants. It is so interesting that you see that this great Babylon, the wrong evil, the apostasy of the world has corrupted the church, identified as a, excuse me, has corrupted Babylon, identified as a prostitute, but by adultery there is that which is married to God, which has also been led astray.
That's the bride. That's us. Looking down the scope of history we recognize that that which is evil and wrong in the world does at times corrupt us.
We are subject to corruption.
Listen, we know it.
There are things that we say we will be faithful to and we're not.
There is hypocrisy that always characterizes the churches as we must confess. There are leaders who do not really hold to what they say are their convictions. There are people who do not live consistent with their faith. I mean, if you were to go even to our General Assembly this week, I will tell you it is sometimes hard for the people of church to be part of those assemblies because, you know, there's such wrangling at times and political maneuvering and harsh words and behind the scenes activity and, you know, I wish it weren't that way, but we're fallen creatures and it happens. It just does. I remember when I was installed as the President of Covenant Seminary at an assembly in Dallas and there were some really hot issues at the time and my family was there for that installation and my wife wanted my children to go to some of the floor activities and I said, "I don't want my children to go."
I mean, I don't want, I mean, fine if they come to the installation. I mean, that's good, but I really don't want my children to have in their minds what I knew would be said at some of those debates. I don't want them to think of their church that way because sometimes it's not pretty.
I agree for that, but I must tell you we are subject to corruption and there is hurt.
I mean, we are told here about the hurt that will occur, the blood of the servants. God will one day avenge, but that blood is sometimes shed by the adulterers, the things that should be wed to God, but hurt. Sometimes the embrace of the church just hurts people.
My wife and I celebrated a 20th anniversary a couple of weeks ago and it was really neat. We had an open house and we had lots of people coming through and we just kind of got in the mode of hugging everybody. We hadn't seen for you, just hug this one, hug that one, hug the next one and we both in recounting afterwards recognized that we had done something, that there was a woman that we have known for 25 years and when she came to the door we both gave her a big hug and as we hugged her we felt her kind of stiffen and hurt her kind of grimace a bit. And then of course we backed away and we noticed her arm was in a sling. She just had rotator cuff surgery and we're going, "Oh no, what did we do? Oh, do you have to go to the doctor now again? What did we do to you?"
We meant well, but in our embrace there was pain and that happens in the church, doesn't it? That we mean to embrace people with the love of God, but so often we hurt people by doing their, "I've never been hurt worse than by people in the church, the ones I'm closest to doing things that have hurt me. I've never been hurt worse than by the church."
But what I have to confess is there are people in the church who think, "I have hurt them. I didn't mean to, didn't want to.
Sometimes I felt I was just doing my job, but there is hurt here as well as hypocrisy."
We're fallen creatures. God knows it.
And there's all kinds of harlotry, adultery.
Oh, I don't just mean the pleasures that we seek apart from God. I mean the search for power. We're a young church. We're going to have a 25th anniversary celebration here this week.
But because we're still kind of a young church, there's all sorts of adolescent things going on. We're still playing the game power, power, who's got the power?
And sometimes our churches, as well as we are doing in this day and age, now that we recognize we're in the day of the great evangelical victory where so many of our churches are doing so well, we recognize that now prestige can be just the great thing that we are pursuing more than the gospel.
We sometimes forget that it's not the sweet perfume of success that marks the church of Jesus Christ, but the aroma of death.
We are dying to ourselves daily that the message of Jesus Christ might be known through us, not that we would be known. We sang it already. How many times today instead of over to us? Not unto us, not unto us, but to your name may thee be glory, may I decrease and he increase.
It is our goal and we forget it at times as we want to increase, not just in numbers, but in people's estimation.
All these things mark us and trouble us. You say, "Well, if we look down the future and see that that's what the church is going to be with all those problems and ills and mistakes and flaws, why should you care?"
Because the church is not only subject to corruption, it is the object of God's compassion.
He loves it. He knows its wrongs. He knows its ills and he still wants to get married.
It's because he loves it that we should. Why would he love it? Because as this groom would look at his bride, he would say, "You know, part of the reason I love you is I see the haven to my own children."
There is this wonderful recognize that those who will come who are both small and great and they will join the great multitude singing the praise of God. And we recognize that what they are clothed with at the end of verse 8 is the fine linen that stands for the righteous acts of the saints.
In the church are the righteous acts of the saints, that which benefits and helps the children of God. You know, when this church was built, you all were still learning some of the ins and outs. And at least I heard one account of a hallway being locked one night and a six-year-old being locked in. You remember this, Rodney? And a six-year-old was locked inside, you know, and you know, isn't that typical of the church? We do something we think is great and it just causes distress.
But do you remember what the six-year-old did? You know, what do you do? Break out a window, cry, scream, whatever? No, he remembered a story about Paul and Silas being in prison and what they did there, that they prayed and they sang him. So you know what he did? He sat down and he prayed and he sang hymns until an adult named Bow White heard and came and got him out.
How did he notice sing hymns? Here was the time of distress, of great fear, but the church had helped him. He knew about a God and he knew about help and he knew about hope and he knew about the hymns of the church and the strength of it for his moment of distress came from the church.
Oh, I recognize it in my own life. I've mentioned to you already the difficulty of my own family and how neat to be here today when you're honoring Barbara Gerstin because the Gerstins know some of those difficulties in my family. Part of the reason I know is I spent lots of time in her house growing up, you know, with her daughters and my brothers and her daughters doing lots of things together because there was a family that I needed at that time. And I recognize the people of my life like a Gertrude Bryce. You know, I had to ask Rodney and the hymn, "What was Mrs. Bryce's first name?" I only knew her as Mrs. Bryce. But remember she taught us the books of the Bible and she didn't just teach me, she taught my children.
And you think, "Here is the haven of the church teaching the people of God, the wonders of his word, all that he has done." I think of a Jean Mintz, somebody from my own childhood who had me when I was in fifth grade and wrote, even though I moved away from Memphis when I was in high school, wrote me for the rest of my life to this very day to encourage me in my walk as a Christian. He's a wonderful Gideon.
And he nurtured me. He was part of the haven of the church.
We can cause all kinds of pain, but when we do the righteous things, it's a wonder and it's a beauty. And part of the reason that you should care about the church is that what the church is doing is providing the haven of God for your children. And if we are not building her up and helping her and committing ourselves to her, that haven that is so necessary in the times of distress and hurt is not strong.
The church needs you so that it can be what it needs to be to all of God's children.
It's not merely the haven because when it's doing the right thing, it's heaven. It's heaven on earth.
We meet here each fall for our Reformation Day service. And you know, I find that just exhilarating. Part of it is I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of this heavenly event that there are these great multitudes gathering, but I know something about the multitude. I go to all the different churches and I've been in this community for 30 plus years and I know the people who are angry at one another and the people who've hurt one another and the churches that have separated and you know, all the differences between us. And I see us come here together.
And we praise God with one voice and we sing of the wonders of the love of Jesus. And we're able to put aside differences and I think, you know, this isn't going to last forever, but one day it will be forever.
And when the church sees it and experiences, we get just a taste of what heaven is going to like. The things that so hurt us and separate us. Yes, they're here. They're true. We acknowledge them. We confess them.
It's not always going to be this way.
We get heaven from the church understanding what it's going to be like. It's not just a haven in this church. It's not just heaven on earth. Ultimately, it is our hope. I've said all the things that are wrong in our church, this particular church, this town, the PCA, but ultimately God loves it.
Still God loves it. What's the message in that?
If God can love such a flawed, weak, ugly bride, He can love me in my flaws, in my weakness, in my ugliness and sin. Oh, remember it says here, "The linen in which the church is clothed, the bride is the righteous acts of the saints." But that's not the end of the story.
Do you remember we are told in Revelation, the seventh chapter, "How are the robes made white?" Oh, yeah, the robes are the righteous acts of the saint, but what makes them pure?
They wash them in the blood of the Lamb.
It's God's work, not ours. It's the message of grace ultimately that God can know all about our weaknesses and flaws, this church and all of its wrong, and love it still as He can you and me. It's the message the church is about. We are dispensers of grace.
That's why we care for the church. It is God's mechanism on this earth till heaven itself comes that the world will know of the glories of the grace of God by the church of Jesus Christ, proclaiming His word, proclaiming His love, making clear our own sin, and the fact that God loves us anyway and always. That message when it goes forth is the grace that will claim this world. The reason I love being a part of the PCA is not because I think it's the only church or the end all church, but because this message is clear. I want to encourage you with that. Listen, we have the largest missionary force of any Presbyterian entity in the world. We are committed to this truth and God is using us even though we're still kind of a dinky little denomination to do wondrous things. PCA professors are training more students right now who are Bible believing and reformed in their commitments than at any time in the history of the world.
It's happening right now as God I think is preparing a great army for His purposes of this next century if He tarries.
And it's not just that. We're growing. We continue to be one of the most rapidly growing churches in the world.
We're not just growing, I trust, in terms of numbers. I think we're maturing as well. And part of the evidence of that is we give so much. We, at least by per capita giving, are one of the churches that give the most to the work of God. Our commitments seem to be in place. And that's my ultimate hope that here in the PCA, while it's not the only church, it's at least a church where I think there is a genuine gospel where your children and mine and the work of Jesus can really be nurtured and prosper because the gospel here is genuine. That's why you should care because it doesn't have to be that way.
You know, this past week I was out of town and I called and made my nightly call into my wife and she told me, "I'm going to make your day."
Listen, this is what happened. I was walking by the computer and Jordan was there where he always is. And he was talking to his friends, but as I went by, he jumped out of the chair and he said, "Mom, look at the screen and see what's happening." And she said while he ran to his room, she looked at the screen and there, you know, were the various comments of his friends and a new friend in the group.
And the friends were trying to explain the gospel to this young woman. Jordan ran. He got his Bible and he came back. He said, "Mom, it's amazing. He doesn't understand anything."
He said, "She doesn't know what the Bible says. She doesn't know it's true. She doesn't even know about grace." And he and his friends on the computer began then for an hour to go through the book of Romans and Galatians to explain the grace of God to her.
Where did they learn to do that?
In the church, in this church, this body of Christ, to know about the grace of God, the reality of losses that people have to know of Jesus Christ and they wanted to share it with her. Isn't that wonderful?
And then when he hung up or signed off, he said, "Mom, you know what was even more wonderful and kind of amazing?
She was going to join a church this week and she didn't know a thing.
Why should you care about the church?
Because it's possible to be a church that doesn't know a thing.
I hope you do care that the PCA is in town and you know all about her flaws, but you'll know more than that. God loves his bride because she is the messenger of his grace.
When you make her strong by your support of this effort and this church, the gospel flourishes. May God so enable you to love his bride that you're not looking for a vending machine. You are looking for that to which you can commit yourself that our children and children's children may know of the blessings of God that are in Jesus Christ, his son and our Savior.
Amen.
Let's pray.
Father, give us a love for your bride that commits us to your purposes and to the church to which you have...