Keeping the Bride’s Dress Pure

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth asks you to imagine a very unusual wedding.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I want you to imagine, if you would, a great, spectacular, royal wedding. All the preparations have been made; all the announcements have been sent out; the invitations have gone out; the people have responded; they've come to the wedding, and they have found a beautiful building filled with flowers of every description.

The sanctuary is fragrant. There are bows and beautiful decorations everywhere. There is gorgeous music playing. The groom-to-be and his groomsmen come and take their places at the front of the auditorium.

And now all the guests have been seated and the wedding is ready to start. The candles have been lit—they are everywhere. And then with the familiar strains of the wedding march. What happens? Everyone stands up. All the necks turn and crane in one direction. What are they looking for? The bride.

We're in that wedding. We're in that auditorium, that sanctuary. We are eager to see the bride. We're turning with everyone else. We're standing in a place that is not real easy to see. We are trying to look around the people who are between us and that bride that is coming down the aisle on the arm of her dad. Finally, we get a little glimpse of her.

Every bride is beautiful, as you know, but as we see that bride it looks like something is out of place. There first look we get is of her veil. As she approaches the aisle where we're standing, it looks like her veil is, well, it's askew. It's off. And then the bride gets closer to us and we see that the veil is torn. It looks like it has been stuffed in a box; it's all wrinkled.

Then  we realize it's not just her veil . . . it's the bride herself. Her face is dirty. She's not fixed her hair. I mean, she looks like she just rolled out of bed. I can't imagine this. Have you ever seen such a thing?

And then she gets closer and you can see it's her dress, too. The dress is torn, it's ripped, it's disheveled, it's got grass stains on it and grape juice stains on it. It doesn't fit her properly. She looks awful. Well, this is unimaginable.

But then comes the most astounding sight of all. That is when the bride who is walking toward her groom gets to the front of the auditorium and we see that amazed, grieved look in the eyes of her bridegroom as he realizes his bride did not care enough to get ready for the wedding.

She's not ready. What a sense of hurt that groom must feel as he realizes this is a reflection of him. She didn't care enough to get ready for the wedding.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Holiness: The Heart God Purifies, for July 19, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

All this week, we’ve been hearing a timeless message from Nancy called “Here Comes the Bridegroom.” If you missed any of the series so far, you can hear it at ReviveOurHearts.com. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: We’ve been talking about weddings. And any girl who's engaged to be married knows there is a lot preparation involved in getting ready for the wedding. We've said that we need to be getting ready for the wedding that we will one day have with the Lord Jesus.

We talked in the last session about some of the ways that young women get prepared for their weddings and there were a couple things I didn't mention there.

One is that in a healthy relationship, they want to make sure that this young man and woman are dealing with any breaches in the relationship. When conflicts arise, as they likely will, that they're learning how to resolve those conflicts in a biblical and a godly way, that they're not just wiping things under the carpet and saying, "Oh, it doesn't really matter." That they're dealing with these issues that could threaten their oneness as husband and wife down the road.

As we think about our relationship with Christ, it's so important that we commit ourselves to dealing with every breach in our relationship with Him.

Now, if there's conflict in our relationship with the Lord Jesus, it's not His fault. It's because of things that need to be changed in us. But where there are things that come between, where there are clouds that stand between us and our Bridegroom, we shouldn't just let those things go.

If it's going to be a healthy relationship, if we're going to be ready for the wedding, we've got to deal with those things.

The Song of Solomon, we've been looking at that love story over this series, talks about little foxes that spoil the vines.

See, what little foxes do, they're more deadly actually to the plants than the bigger foxes. The bigger foxes just get at the fruit. But the little foxes get down on their knees and they chew away at the vine. They get at the root system.

And in your relationship with the Lord, there may be things that you think, Well, it's not that big a deal. It is a big deal.

And it's amazing how those little foxes of bitterness, selfishness . . . I mean, not the "big sins." Unforgiveness can get down at the roots of your relationship with the Lord and eat away at it until you find that there's no intimacy, there's no oneness of heart, and you're not ready to meet Jesus.

Now, speaking of getting ready, there's another thing that all girls go through if they're getting ready for their wedding, and that is the selection of "the dress." And isn't it true that since she was six years old, she's had a picture in her mind of what the dress is going to look like?

Of course, there is no such dress on the planet like what this girl has been envisioning since she was six! But she's going to find it. So, she takes her mother with her and they go and scout out every bridal shop in this county. And not finding what she's looking for, they go to the next three counties. And finally, they find a dress. Well, it's not exactly the one she always had in mind, but it'll do. And they decide this is the dress that she wants to have for her wedding.

So, what do they do with that dress? I know, the bride takes the dress and she stuffs it into a brown paper sack that she brought for the occasion and then sticks it in the trunk of her car and takes it home and hides it in the basement and doesn't look at it again until the wedding day. And then, on her wedding day, she pulls it out and it's just all . . .

Is that what she does with her dress? No way! You're looking at me like I'm really strange. No way!

I'll tell you what she does with that dress! She hires a u-haul to get it home from the dress shop, and she just has all kinds of room around it. And then she gets it to her house and she puts it on a form in the bedroom. She puts barbed wire around it so that none of her little brothers and sisters can get their grubby hands on it.

She puts it under lock and key and makes sure that no one can hurt it, and then every week or so, she takes it out and makes sure it's clean and pressed, makes sure she can still fit into it. She guards this dress! She wants this dress to be just right for the wedding.

Well, you know, the Scripture talks about the Bride of Christ having a wedding dress. And in the Book of Revelation, we read about the bride being dressed in fine linen, clean and white.

Revelation 21 says that she's beautifully dressed for her husband—the Bride, the Church, dressed to meet Christ, her heavenly Bridegroom.

And this is the picture we have in Ephesians 5, where the apostle Paul says, "I'm speaking about Christ and the church when I talk about marriage." He says, "Christ loved the church and He gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word and to present her to Himself as a radiant bride, a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless" (Eph. 5:25–27 paraphrased).

If the bride is going to be ready for the wedding, her clothing has to be ready. And that's where we read in the Scripture in James 1, for example, that we are to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. We don't want stains to get on our wedding dress, as we prepare to meet Christ.

Jude tells us that we should hate the clothing that is stained by corrupted flesh. He's saying don't even get close to letting your wedding dress get tainted. Don't see how close you can walk to the world and get away with it. See how closely you can walk to God and His holiness, as you prepare to meet Christ.

So, what are some of the things that stain our wedding dress, as we prepare to meet Christ? Well, we talked about those little foxes:

• bitterness
• unforgiveness
• anger
• a critical spirit, a judgmental spirit 

Those will put stains on our wedding dress.They'll make it so we're not ready to meet Him.

• lack of love
• worldliness—wanting to fit into the world and loving this world and its system and what it has to offer
• temporal values
• materialism
• besetting sins—sins that we just let control our lives and we didn't deal with them this side of eternity

On day when we stand before Christ, I think there will have to be regret that we didn't deal with these issues. While God was giving us grace and His Holy Spirit and His Word to wash us and cleanse us to get us ready.

• worry 
• fear
• unbelief
• immorality—in mind, in attitude, in dress, in thought, in action

These are the things that stain our wedding dress. And I'll tell you, when you get the stains of sin on your wedding dress,as you prepare to meet Jesus Christ, there is no drycleaner in the world that can get those stains out. But I know "a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains."

You want to get clean? You want to be ready for the wedding? You want to have a dress that's ready? You want to be appropriately attired when He comes to claim you as His bride?

Then, you need daily, consistently to be being washed in the blood of Jesus; to be washed in His Word. It's His Word that cleanses us, that washes our hearts.

And so, Jesus says to His Church, His Bride in Revelation 3, "I counsel you to buy from me white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness" (v. 18 paraphrased).

Listen, the wedding dress you need to get ready for the wedding is not one you can make. You can't find, you can't buy the one that you need to meet Him. You have to get it from Him. He's the only One who can clothe us in His righteousness, in His love and His humility and His Spirit. That's what we need to be clothed in, as we prepare to meet the Lord Jesus.

And so, as we get ready for the wedding, I want you to just picture what it's going to be like. I go back to the Book of Revelation, where the apostle John says that he heard a great noise.

[It] sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting,

"Hallelujah!
   For our Lord God Almighty 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.
Fine linen, bright and clean,
   was given her to wear."

(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) (Rev. 19:6)

And then, the Lord Jesus says,

"Behold, I am coming soon! . . . I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Blessed are those who wash their robes." (Rev. 22:12–14)

Blessed are those who have their dress ready. Blessed are those who've been cleansed by the blood of Christ. Blessed are those whose hearts have been purified by His Spirit and His Word.

"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates of the city." (Rev. 22:14)

And what's in that city? The home He's been preparing for us. We have no right to enter into that holy city, unless we've been clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Then in Revelation 21:9–11:

One of the seven angels . . . came and said to me, "Come and I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God." (Rev. 21:9–11)

The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. (Rev. 22:17)

He who testifies to these things says "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. (Rev. 22:20)

Then the writer closes the book by saying:

Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen. (Rev. 22:20–21)

Did you get the word "come"? There's an invitation. There's a wedding supper coming. There are invitations that have been sent out. There's an invitation to come.

Now that invitation goes two ways. First, we're inviting Him to come. We're appealing to Him to come. Come! Lord Jesus. Come quickly. Come and take your Bride. Take us to be with You.

The heart that belongs to the Lord Jesus has deep down that longing for the Lord Jesus to return. We say, we cry out, "Lord Jesus, come! Take your Bride to be with Yourself."

But there's another invitation to come. That's His invitation to us. He says to us "come." You read this invitation throughout the Word of God.

In the Song of Solomon (the story that we've looked at several times in this series) the bridegroom says to his bride, "Rise up my love, my fair one and come away."

You see, once you belong to Jesus, you have a heart to come away with Him, to spend time with Him, to be intimate with Him. You want to respond to that invitation.

Now, as we've just read the invitation in Revelation 22, "Whoever is thirsty, let him come" (v. 17). Come and drink. Come and take of the free gift of the water of life." 

I think of Isaiah 55:1 that says:

"Come, all you who are thirsty,
   come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without cost. . . .
Give ear, [God says] and come to me." (vv. 1, 3)

He issues a call to us to come. Jesus says in Matthew chapter 11:28 (paraphrased), "Are you heavy-laden and weary and weighed down with the cares of this world and with trying to be righteous yourself?"MHe says, "If you are, come to Me and find rest for your souls."

You know our churches in our world are loaded with people who are struggling and striving to be more spiritual, to be more godly, to perform, to please God, to come to faith in Christ.

They're trying to be good Christians or trying to become a Christian. But Jesus says, "That'll wear you out. Instead, come to me. Come by faith. Come and lean. Come and rest on Me."

You see, the Bride relationship with Christ is not something we do. It's not something we perform. It's not something we prove to be. It's coming by faith and resting and leaning and trusting that He who has given His life for us truly will save us for all of eternity.

So, as we close this series, I want to ask a very important question. We've asked those who know they're a part of the Bride of Christ "Are you ready for the wedding?" But I want to ask you an even more basic question.

"Are you part of His Bride? Do you have a relationship with the Lord Jesus? If He were to come back today or next week or next year, do you know that you'd be part of that Bride that would be taken to live with Him forever in heaven?"

He's extended the invitation. And now He's wanting you to say, "I'll come."

You know, becoming a part of the Bride of Christ is really, in a sense, very similar to what a bride and groom do when they come to the altar. What do they say to each other as they exchange their vows?

"I do. I take him to be my bridegroom." Jesus has given Himself for you, and now He wants you to say, simply, "I do. I take You, Lord Jesus, my heavenly Bridegroom. You've paid the bride price and given Your life so that I could belong to You. Now by faith I receive You. I trust You. I come to You and I say, 'I do.'"

Lord Jesus, you have declared Your love for us in unmistakable terms. Thank You for that love and thank You for the invitation You've extended to us to come to You.

Thank You that You have given Yourself—all of Yourself—to us. And, Lord, I just want to thank You for that day when my heart heard Your invitation and You gave me the faith to say to You, "I do."

And, Lord, I just want to say today to You, "I still do." I love You, my Lord. You are my heavenly Bridegroom, and I delight to belong to You. I want to live as Your Bride. I live in anticipation of that day when I'll see You face to face and we will be forever united.

Lord, I do want to pray for those who may be listening who have never said "I do" to You, who've never surrendered their own will and their own way and their own righteousness and their own religious works.

They've never trusted in You and You alone to be their Savior. I pray that even at this moment that You will grant faith to that woman's heart, that You'll grant her the gift of repentance and that even at this moment she will say to you from her heart, "I do."

Thank You, Lord, that You are calling out a Bride. And with joy, we thank You for the wedding that is coming, for the eternal love relationship that we will share with You. We pray in the name of Jesus, our beloved Bridegroom. Amen.

Dannah: Have you ever felt jaded by happy endings? Tired of fairy tales? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been reminding you that there really is a love story that will never fail you, no matter how many times you may have been burned by human relationships. 

That teaching series is called “Here Comes the Bridegroom.” If you missed any of the episodes you can hear the entire thing at ReviveOurHearts.com. Maybe you know a friend who would love hearing about the relationship of Christ to His Bride. You can send them a link by visiting the “podcasts” section of ReviveOurHearts.com.

And why don’t you send a note to a friend as well? We’d like to send you a notepad you can only get from Revive Our Hearts. It’s beautiful enough to use for notes to friends. But you can also just use it to write yourself reminders around the house.

Either way, you or your friends will be encouraged by the quote from Nancy on each page of the notepad. It says, “Anything that makes me need God is a blessing.”

We’ll send you the notepad when you encourage Revive Our Hearts by making a donation of any amount to help us continue providing the program. Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call 1-800-569-5959. 

Have you ever felt like you were stuck in your walk with God? Maybe you knew you needed to change in some way, but you just couldn’t? Well, the answer is not “Try harder!”

Brian Hedges: It is possible for people to go through the motions and to spend time with the habit and not really meet the Lord. So that’s the problem. If we make the habits or the disciplines an end in and of themselves, then a certain kind of rigidity and legalism can come into a person’s life. I think this is common that we see sometimes.

People who are naturally pretty structured and disciplined, they can take on spiritual disciplines pretty easily in the same way that they work out every day and they count their calories and they’re great with finances. But they can be lacking in some of the fruit of the Spirit. It may be that what we’re seeing in their habits is not actually spiritual transformation, it’s just a leaning into things that come naturally for them. But they’re not really meeting with Jesus.

We can’t make habits the only thing, the only component. We also have to go back again and again to the desire component. What do we really love? If we love Jesus and we love what Jesus brings, we love the fruit of the Spirit, we love the kingdom of God; that’s going to impact the way we approach these habits. We’re not viewing the habits as a self-improvement program. That’s not what they are.

The habits are rather means for us to meet with the Lord so that we can imitate Him, so that we can follow Him, so that we can become more like Him. If we’re walking out of our habits more selfish or less joyful or less peaceful or less long-suffering, less patient with other people, we’ve mistaken the means for the end.

Dannah: Tomorrow, pastor and author Brian Hedges joins us to talk about spiritual transformation and how it comes about. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the NIV84 unless otherwise noted.

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