He is Coming (Part 1)

Take your Bibles this morning and open them to 1 Thessalonians.

! Yeah, that's where we're going to be. Chapter 4. Yeah. I think I've burned up a few brain cells.

Permanently. I don't think my body's making anymore. And I'm going to read here in just a minute, starting with verse 13, a very familiar passage, especially on the subject of the second coming of Christ.

And He is coming, by the way. Lawana, you're right. The song is at least right on that point. And when He's coming, we don't know, but He is coming.

And He's coming for me. And many of you, I'm sure, have the same testimony as Lawana gave in song a moment ago.

That's your testimony. He's coming for you. And I'm glad that He's coming. And He may be coming at any moment. But the point is, the truth is, He is coming.

Before we get to the text, I might remind you of a couple of other passages in the Bible. In John chapter 14, Jesus was speaking to His disciples, and it was just hours, mere hours, before His death, before the cross.

And He said to His disciples, I go. I'm going. He said, I'm going to prepare a place for you.

And I will come again. I will come again. That's a pretty definitive statement. I think we can take that to the bank. If you're a born-again believer, you have taken that to the bank.

You can count on it. In fact, it's more sure than the bank. He's coming. He says, I'm coming again. Later, after Jesus' death and His resurrection and His disciples were standing there with Him, just before Jesus was to be caught up in the air, His ascension, and He was giving to them, restating for them, the Great Commission that He had already given to them earlier.

Great Commission that was not just to them, but to His church, a commission that we have today. And the Bible tells us in Acts chapter 1 verse 9, He was taken up and a cloud received Him out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, two angels, which also said, you men of Galilee, why stand gazing up into heaven?

This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner. And so He is coming again.

And then our text for this morning, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, starting with verse 13. Paul said to the Thessalonian Christians, I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, that is, those who have died, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep, those who have died in Christ, in Jesus.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore comfort one another with these words. Amazing passage of Scripture. And a lot to be unpacked or revealed or exposed in that particular passage.

The second coming of Jesus Christ, I think you would agree, is a major theme of the New Testament. In fact, I would suggest to you or say to you that it is a bigger theme than possibly you have suspected.

As a matter of fact, 318 times the second coming is referenced in the New Testament, in the Bible. 318 times.

More times than references to His first coming. As a matter of fact, eight times more.

You can take the references to the first coming, as important as that is, and I assure you it's crucial. You can take those references and you can multiply it by eight, and that's how many times the second coming is referenced in the Bible.

And so, the second coming of Jesus Christ is a very significant, very important event on God's eschatological timetable.

And it's going to happen one of these days. And you and I ought not to be ignorant of this particular doctrine. It's an important doctrine to be taught and to be understood and also to be proclaimed by the church.

As a matter of fact, I would say that the second coming, the events of the second coming, are part of our gospel. A part of the good news that we're to share, not only to encourage one another with, but to share with those who have yet to believe.

And so, the church is to teach the doctrine of the second coming. It is to know, and before it can teach it, it must know the doctrine of the second coming.

And the church is to live in anticipation of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, the church is to be ready. To be ready for His coming, which may come at any moment.

I read a story some years ago told by Jerry Falwell, the late Jerry Falwell. And he told a story about a certain janitor who worked for the church there. His name was Robert King Creasy.

And this janitor actually lived there in the church building. And he knew everything that was going on in the church, every single thing, and he kept it spotlessly clean, Falwell testified.

And Mr. Creasy, he said, had a key ring with almost a hundred keys on it. And, of course, the keys fit to every single room, every door, everything that was locked in the entire building.

And he said every once in a while when Robert Creasy would sneak up on some kids who might be where they ought not to be or maybe doing what they should not be doing, before he revealed himself, he would take out his key ring and jingle it so they would know he was coming.

And so that they might might straighten up, you know, before Mr. Creasy got there. Now, there are a lot of scholars today and a lot of maybe we would even call armchair scholars today who are suggesting that Jesus is jingling the keys, that the signs seem to be falling in line and certain prophecies of Scripture have taken place and everything is seemingly pointing to the soon return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, I don't know about that. They may be right. And yeah, maybe Jesus is, in a sense, like Mr. Creasy, jingling the keys.

And there do seem to be a number of things taking place in the world that point to or maybe reveal to us that Jesus may be coming soon.

We could probably name some of those. And so Jesus is jingling the keys. He may be coming at any moment. And so I wonder, does that, just that possibility, just that thought that He may be coming very, very soon, does that want to make you straighten up a little?

Does it make us want to be sure that no matter what we're doing in our day, day in, day out, in private, in public, that we are conducting ourselves in a way where we would not be ashamed if He were to come at that very moment?

And so He's jingling the keys, we might say. And really, this, I think, is the theme of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. And I mentioned this, I think, a couple of weeks ago. The theme that runs throughout both of these letters is the second coming.

But it is woven through Paul's instructions to the church on how they ought to live and how they ought to conduct themselves.

We got into that subject last week, into the kind of the hardcore issue of living morally pure lives in light of, in expectation for, the second coming of Jesus Christ.

And so that's the subject of these two letters, the church and the second coming. And so therefore, since I'm preaching out of the letter, that's my subject, the church and the second coming.

Now we have already covered a couple of kind of preliminary issues, issues that are connected in some way to the second coming. And now we're going to really launch out into the actual instructions given in the book pertaining to the second coming.

And I've divided this, I'm going to divide this into two parts. And one of those we will cover this morning. And the second one we'll have to wait a couple of weeks because Sherry and I have to go meet with our son Matthew before he's deployed.

So we will not be here next Sunday. But I want to give you the first part. And the focus here is on what the coming ought to mean to us. Not just his coming, but the whole doctrine of it.

And when I say the doctrine of the second coming, I am connecting that or lumping that in with the true meaning of our salvation. Because the second coming is part of that gospel, part of the good news, part of our salvation.

And so what does it mean to us? What ought it to mean to us? And then second, what should we be looking for? What should we look for as he is coming or as his coming draws closer?

We'll look at that in a couple of weeks. This morning, what does the second coming mean to us? It is an exciting subject.

Wouldn't you agree? Surely. I mean, I could feel kind of the atmosphere in this room as Luana was singing about his coming.

And whenever we read things about it or maybe we read the Bible concerning certain aspects of his coming or we pick up a book, one of many books that have been written out there, some terrible.

Most of them, I think, are terrible. A couple of them may be pretty good. And so when we read on the subject, even if the particular writer has some little quirks in his view, we still think about his coming and we get excited about it.

It's a subject that is exciting and ought to be exciting for believers. believers. But what is it all about? To get a better understanding of the second coming, we need to understand the kind of relationship that we have, the church has, with the one who is coming.

And that's why I begin here this morning. And I'm, of course, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who is coming and going to be coming one of these days. And so we need to understand better that relationship we have with Him.

And the Bible, of course, relates that in a number of different methods or allegories or, I'm trying to find the word, metaphors that reveal that kind of relationship we have.

For example, master to servant. servant. That's one that you'll find in Scripture in a number of places that describes the relationship that the believer has with their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Or the shepherd and the sheep. That's a beloved analogy of that relationship. Beautiful one. One that we are drawn to and adore. Or maybe the king to his kingdom.

or a father to his children. Or even a farmer to his crop is another analogy that we'll find in Scripture.

I think you would agree that the most beautiful description of the kind of relationship we have with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the relationship of a bride to her groom.

That marriage relationship. And you'll find that particular analogy presented in a number of places in the Bible. In Revelation 21.2 it speaks of the church as a bride adorned for her husband.

What a beautiful picture. In Matthew 25.6 Jesus points us to the day when the church will hear that shout.

And what is the shout? Behold the bridegroom cometh. What a beautiful picture. Revelation 19.9 invites us to the marriage supper or the marriage feast of the Lamb.

An event that's going to take place one day on God's timetable and I'm looking forward to that day. I plan to be there for that feast. And so we might say that our understanding of the divine doctrine of the second coming would be more complete if we had a better understanding of the elements that make up a marriage.

Now we think we already know that. Know what's involved in that. All the various features aspects of a marriage relationship but I'm not just talking about the kinds of weddings just any wedding or engagements that preceded certainly not many of the shallow and I'm afraid to say often meaningless engagements and weddings of our day but I'm talking about the Jewish wedding.

You know the Bible was written by Jews and they were inspired and they wrote they wrote as God moved them bore them along by His Spirit and so God didn't just simply dictate His words to these Jewish writers and so as He's dictating them they wrote it down.

They wrote out of their lives and culture and their understanding of things and the Holy Spirit inspired them to write in relation to those things as well and so since we have Jewish writers writing the Bible and a Jew writing the book that we're looking at here this morning then we need to understand something about the Jewish culture and it would be good for us to know something about the traditional Jewish wedding that Jesus certainly knew about as he walked this planet and Paul certainly understood when he wrote this letter the Jewish wedding and so let me just describe that for you and then we'll describe the Jewish wedding and I think even as I describe it you're going to be able to make some mental connections with some biblical principles concerning the second coming when a

Jewish young man would court and eventually marry a young Jewish girl in this culture in the Jewish culture and still even today with most still the cultural norm of our day it would be that Jewish young man who would take the initiative and he would leave his father's house and he would journey to the house of his bride to be his wife to be and there he would sit down with her father and they would talk things over in essence they would negotiate a price he would negotiate a price for the father's daughter it was a purchase price yes it was I'm sorry if that you know offends some of our sensitivities in this culture but that's what they did negotiate a price and then that price would be paid and then after the price was paid she would then officially be set aside for him set apart for him she would be quote sanctified sanctified for him and for him alone or to put it another way she would be betrothed that would be the technical term she would be betrothed to this young Jewish boy betrothed and this was as binding as if it were the full-fledged marriage as you might remember you know every Christmas time when we talk about and preach about and think about

Joseph and Mary and you know they were betrothed and so forth so you understand that to the Jewish mind Jewish culture to their tradition the betrothal period was just as binding as the marriage itself now after the price had been negotiated and paid and the bride then the bride to be was sanctified after that they would take a cup and fill it with wine and they would drink from it he would drink first and then she would drink and it was symbolic of their oneness and spirit their union with one another in this betrothal period and after that the young man would leave then and go back to his father's house and this would be then or it would start a time of testing for both of them but primarily for the bride the groom would go back to his father's house and he would then begin to prepare a place for him and for his new bride to one day live she would remain at her father's house and prepare the wedding prepare herself for the wedding and she would sew her wedding dress because every bride has to have a true sew and she would prepare everything for that glorious time when the groom would return he would come back and get her and then one day it would happen one day he would return from the father's house his father's house and he would come in a procession usually this was kind of the custom and his friends and his family his closest friends and family members would be coming with him and generally it would be at night and so it would be a torch lit procession and how exciting that would be makes you kind of wish that we could incorporate some of those things in our customs of our day and she you see had been waiting for him she had been anticipating his coming she had been dreaming of this day when he would come and she had been busy during this time doing what sewing her wedding dress preparing for the day and then suddenly without any real lengthy advanced warning he comes he comes now

I say lengthy advanced warning they did give a warning because you know it just wouldn't do would be fair to just pop in totally unannounced and so they would send a runner out ahead of the procession and that runner would come to the house and he would shout and what do you suppose he would shout behold the bridegroom cometh and so they would all be ready and know and be alerted he's here now can you imagine the excitement of all of that I mean it really just kind of gives you chills in your body when you think about it what that would be like and this is the time that she has been waiting for and anticipating and then they would go into the house and they would take the young bride to be they would in effect snatch her out of the house and then they would take her back to the home of the father of the groom and then there would be a feast they called it the marriage feast the marriage supper it would be a great celebration and after the feast the groom and his bride would retreat into the bridal chamber and there of course the marriage would be consummated fully and then they would stay there in the bridal chamber for seven days seven days and after the seven days they would then come out for everyone to see and the bridal veil that she had been wearing during the celebration and during the feast and all of that and during the ceremony that veil would now have been removed and they then all the guests all that have come would see her in all of her beauty the beauty of the bride and you see what a beautiful type of tradition and what do you suppose the Jews got that tradition well it developed over time but I would suggest to you that that God gave that to them gradually and developed that in their lives for what for what purpose for what end to stand as a a beautiful illustration a representation of not only our salvation but in a sense the way things will unfold at his coming his second coming now then taking this beautiful description of the Jewish courtship and the marriage ceremony let's then for the rest of our time compare it to the relationship of the church the bride with

Jesus Christ our bridegroom and compare that and in the end I think we're going to understand a lot better the wonder of the second coming and then the next time we gather together next time I'm here we gather together we'll get into the details of this second coming let's begin where the Jewish wedding begins it begins with a proposal that's number one first of all there's the proposal every marriage begins with a proposal now traditionally as I've said Jewish tradition as well as our own by and large the proposal comes from the man I think it still ought to all right ladies young ladies he takes the initiative he's the one who does that now listen it was the

Lord Jesus Christ who took the initiative yes he did it was the son God the son who left his father's house God the father's house and came to this earth it was the Lord Jesus Christ who chose me before the foundation of the world he took the initiative now it's not hard to understand how a Jewish boy could fall in love with a Jewish girl is it not hard to understand that and see that and conceptualize that I mean she's a beautiful young lady beautiful to his eyes if to no one else and she is chaste and pure and lovely and I can understand how a Jewish boy could fall in love with a Jewish girl you can understand that but dear people I cannot understand cannot begin to comprehend in my own mind how

Jesus could love me I mean listen I love him yes but I love him because he first loved me and I love him because he loved me and he loved me while I was still a sinner while I was still rejecting him while I had no desire for him and not only was my desire for him and love for him and devotion to him totally absent in me but quite the contrary the activity of my life was in a direction away from him and not just was it away from him but it was in contradiction to him and to his word and it was offensive to him and his holiness and he loved me then he loved me then while I was a sinner and while

I was a sinner he did what he died for me and for you Christ died for the ungodly and yet there's the proposal and Jesus says I love you Don I love you and I've chosen you I take you to be my holy bride this is the proposal I take you to be my holy bride and I want you to be mine forever and ever and I want you to have me forever and ever and ever that's the proposal now just as that Jewish boy would negotiate with the father the price of the bride for the bride he would do that remember in eternity past the price was settled in heaven for my marriage to Jesus it was settled in heaven and the purchase price was agreed upon within the

Godhead the Trinity God the Father Son and Holy Spirit in eternity past the price was settled upon and so after the proposal then then comes the purchase the purchase and 1st Corinthians 619 says you were bought with a price very clear what was the price the life of the bridegroom his death and his blood one of my favorite hymns old old hymns is the church's one foundation it's familiar to you but let me just quote the first stanza it says the church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord she is his new creation by spirit and the word from heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride with his own blood he bought her and for her life he died the purchase so we have the proposal we have the purchase and then third there is the parting the parting the Jewish boy as I have already said would then leave after the purchase had been paid he would leave the home of his bride to be and then he would return to his father's house and he would go back there and why would he go back there well to prepare a new home to prepare a place for him and for his new bride to live now

Jesus when he was near the time of his death and I referenced this passage early on in John chapter 14 he said to his disciples don't let your hearts be troubled their hearts were troubled because they knew Jesus was leaving just how he was leaving I'm not sure they knew that certainly not all the particulars but they knew he was leaving and they were troubled and he said don't let your heart be troubled he said believe in God believe in me and then he said I'm going going to do what to prepare a place for you perfectly in line with the traditional Jewish wedding ceremony or marriage ceremony now listen in a Jewish wedding while the groom was preparing a place and I mentioned this a moment ago too in my description of the Jewish wedding the bride stays there in her home and she's preparing herself the groom is preparing a place and the bride is preparing a person likewise in our relationship with Christ while Jesus is preparing a place for us we're to be about the business of preparing ourselves and someone has said heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people for a prepared person and we're to be involved in that now see listen if you have been born again through faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ then you have been prepared alright been regenerated by the spirit made alive given spiritual life and eternal life you've been justified and you have been sanctified that is set apart for the Lord Jesus and for him alone all that has taken place and believe me that must take place for you to go to heaven that's the preparation but I would quickly remind you that that preparation is not complete yet it's not finished yet it's not completed at the moment when you're saved you see every bride must have a trousseau did you know that we're in the business of preparing our trousseau did you know that I want you to look real quickly at Revelation chapter 19 Revelation 19 and find verse 7 the Bible is describing that time that we call the marriage supper of the

Lamb and it's that time out there in the future when Jesus will come for his church and catch us rapture us out of this place and it's the marriage supper of the Lamb and in verse 7 it says let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his wife has done what made herself ready that's what we're to be doing right now making ourselves ready now who makes the bride of Christ ready does Jesus do that does he do that or do we make ourselves ready well based upon this passage and put that next to many other passages in the Bible the answer is both both both look at verse 8 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 righteous acts see listen our trousseau is made up of works of righteousness don't misunderstand we're not saved we're not granted eternal life because of our works of righteousness we are saved to do these good works you know a whole lot of people say that they're ready for

Jesus to come and they may even get a little excited about even the notion that Jesus is going to return but their lives have never been really changed since their so-called conversion and they're still living in sin or still living in immorality or still living dishonestly!

they are living lives that seem in absolute contradiction to the righteous life of Christ and if that's you dear dear friend and I I don't want to offend you but if that's you nothing really substantive has ever really changed in your life since you were quote saved then when Jesus comes again for his church you may be left behind literally because you have never really met Jesus never really been saved the Bible says if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things have passed away behold all things are new and if your religion hasn't changed anything in your life then you need to change your religion okay because you don't have the right one you don't have the

Bible kind the Bible says faith without works is dead you know that verse don't you it's dead worthless meaningless and so listen don't tell me that you believe in Jesus Christ if that fact has not made any change in the way you're conducting your life if knowing him has not changed anything in your life if I were to shout out this morning this building is on fire and you just sat there and said amen preacher I believe I have to conclude that you don't really believe see because nothing changed nothing nothing moved in your life or moved your life see the word believe comes from an old English compound word by live and so it's pretty easy to see whatever you believe you live by you live by it it's not just a belief up here in the intellect or some sign you carry around or some badge you wear or some testimony that you give in certain places to certain people it's something real and substantive!

and life changing! What you believe you live by and everything else is just talk that's all it is and so there is the parting he's going to prepare place and we are here preparing a person and by the way this parting is a time of testing it really is it's time test have you realized that your life right now our life between the first coming and the second coming that is when that first coming became a reality in your life at your point of conversion at that time between conversion and the coming of Christ did you know this is a time of testing a time of growing a time of developing our commitment to Christ certainly by his grace by his power but we participate in that this is what sanctification is it's lifelong process that's taking place in our lives and it's not a let go and let

God kind of proposition we are participating with God as we yield ourselves to the very power and control of God upon our lives and we are building we are sowing our true so it's a time of testing!

Can you imagine a Jewish girl Jewish boy her groom her betrothed and then after that can you imagine she's out there you know flirting with some other Jewish boy I mean her groom her husband to be he's left to go back to his father's house and now in the meantime before he comes she's out there having some kind of relationship with another boy can you imagine that happening of course we can can you imagine her being unfaithful to him committing some act of immorality or adultery in the betrothal period it is adultery and I wonder when Jesus comes will he find you flirting carrying on an adulterous affair with this wicked and perverse world whether it's seated in your comfortable chair in front of the

TV or in some other context are you staying true to your beloved Jesus your groom remember you're not your own you belong to him you have been bought with a price bought with a price so there's the proposal the purchase the parting and then next the proclamation I think by now you can imagine this Jewish girl this bride to be waiting for her betrothed to come and and maybe even kind of get caught up in the kind of the atmosphere of that and the emotion of that imagine her contemplation her anticipation imagine her thinking of anything else than her bride groom coming and her lover is coming at any moment and she's listening for something isn't she listening for the shout behold the bride groom cometh and you know what is the church the bride groom waiting for the coming of the

Lord Jesus we're waiting for him coming now you know I admit to you and I'm concerned that too many of God's people are looking for signs I cannot tell you how many times I've had this kind of conversation with church members and we'll get on the subject second coming and the first thing our conversation moves toward are the so called signs that he may be coming at any moment dear people we can and do understand from scripture that there are birth pangs that begin to manifest themselves of course in direct relation to the coming of Christ but these are not signs we're not to be looking for signs this and this and this and this do not have to line up we don't look to those things for Jesus to come he can come at any moment in fact Jesus scolded well I'd say was stronger than scolded the

Pharisees and Jews of his day he said it's a wicked and adulterous generation that looks for signs we're not to be looking for signs we're to be listening for the shout and we're to be ready for that shout that's what Paul said here in our text I know this has been a topical sermon so I haven't been looking at the text much but we'll get to it I guarantee you the next time but in verse 16 for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice there'll be a shout and a voice and a trump trumpet sound these are sounds we're listening for they're not signs that must line up with our particular brand of end time theology we're waiting for the shout and it may come before I'm finished with this sentence right now no it didn't come but it could we're not waiting for anything it's the imminent return of

Jesus Christ imminent means he will come but it also means he may come at any moment and it's a sure thing we don't know the moment we don't know the time so don't listen to those people who think they do he's coming at any moment and we're to be listening for the shout we're to be prepared sowing our true so preparing ourselves with righteous works for his kingdom and for his glory and then when he comes he comes and we're gone praise God then comes the partnership this then would be the official marriage okay that is you know the marriage even in our day and this is why Satan is attacking it so vehemently why the marriage today is such it's such a picture of our salvation in its fullest sense Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 31 just listen to it and some of you will recognize that this particular passage is

Paul's instructions to husbands and wives and his instructions related to marriage and so forth and he said in verse 31 of chapter 5 for this reason a man and he's quoting of course from the Old Testament for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh that's that's partnership not partners in the way the word is used in our day I get so sick of hearing about so and so's partner the two shall be one one plus one equals one that's God's mathematics but now I want you to notice though what this illustrates he says in verse 32 the very next verse this is a great mystery this one plus one equals one this is a great mystery but I speak concerning

Christ and the church he's speaking of that great mystery the partnership the oneness between the two you see how beautiful that is and so there's the proposal the purchase the parting the proclamation the partnership and then finally the presentation and this is out there in the future the presentation after the marriage supper the groom and his new bride would then retreat as I already shared with you they would retreat into the bridal chamber where the marriage would be consummated and this lovely bride would be kept there in seclusion out of sight for seven days not everybody agrees with this but not everybody's here so I'll just tell you what I think about this this is symbolic I believe of the seven years of tribulation on the earth when the bride of Christ will be secluded caught up taken out of here in the bridal chamber as it were having the marriage feast to the lamb and for seven years be with the Lord

I think it's indicative of that Jesus is coming for his bride the church we're going to be swept up away up to heaven join him for the supper and for seven years we're going to be with him in heaven in a place that he's prepared for us but on the earth the horrors of the tribulation indescribable even though the Bible does describe it in graphic terms it's bound and limited by human language we cannot begin to comprehend what it will be like on this earth during the great tribulation the bride though is going to be out of sight hidden in the bridal chambers until the

Lord is finished with his business here his purposes here on the earth and then then then the bridal veil will be removed and the Christians who have been maligned despised by the world the Christians who have been lied about scoffed at and worse persecuted those Christians then will be presented the true bride of Christ the visible church of the living Lord Jesus Christ will be presented Colossians 3 4 when Christ who is our life shall appear then we shall also appear with him in glory now what should all this say to you this morning to some to some of you here today

Jesus has been proposing to you I really believe that I mean right here this morning he's been doing that been proposing every time you pick up a copy of God's word and read any part of it or have it read to you or listen to it quoted or receive hear a message preached from it it is Jesus proposing it's a proposal indeed I would even go so far as to say that even the creation itself as you behold it look at it consider it it's awesome nature is in one sense to some degree a proposal a proposal from the infinitely glorious and beautiful awesome bridegroom a proposal

I Jesus this proposal is I Jesus take you sinner to be my bride and I do promise before God the Father to be your loving and faithful bridegroom this is the proposal in sickness as in health in poverty as in wealth in joy as in sorrow in faithfulness as in waywardness I Jesus take you sinner that's his proposal his proposal Thank you.