Introduction: Heaven is Calling
bride and bridegroom teacing
“You Must Be Ready”
(Matthew 24:44)
“The Almighty is urging us to come up higher into the “secret place of the Most High” where His redeemed beloved are grounded and established in the Holy Spirit”
“Realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power…” “And because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will become cold” (2 Timothy 3:1-5, Matthew 24:12). The Almighty is urging us to come up higher into the “secret place of the Most High” where His redeemed beloved are grounded and established in the Holy Spirit in order to grow up established in holiness (Psalm 91:1). The world drags us down, it has a gravitational pull. As we obey Yahshua’s (Jesus’s) requirement to “deny our flesh” and it’s cravings for the things of this earth, we learn to “live and have our being in the Spirit", ascending upward with Him out of this temporal world, headed towards His eternal kingdom, prepared for the righteous (Matthew 16:24, Acts 17:28).
“It is important to understand that the love that caused our Savior to die for us, is the passion of the eternal Bridegroom coming to earth, to redeem His bride out of the captivity to sin, Satan, and the world”
To many this sounds like a storybook place, however it truly exists in the Spirit, but the barrier that separates us is our fleshy sin nature. As it is written, “your sins have made a separation between you and your God” (Isaiah 59:1-2). Our Heavenly Father infinitely loves us and longs for us to be with Him in His holy kingdom. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who sent His only begotten Son to the Jew first and then to the Gentile, to die for us to cover our repentant sins with His blood. He purchased us as His own “treasured possession” as the Scripture says, “we are not our own we have been bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20, 1Peter 2:9). Yahshua (Jesus) died to purchase a people from “every tribe and nation” who would surrender their lives to Him (Revelation 7:9). It is important to understand that the love that caused our Savior to die for us, is the passion of the eternal Bridegroom coming to earth, to redeem His bride out of the captivity to sin, Satan, and the world. Messiah lived for a short time on earth to announce “the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 3:2), giving invitation to all who would respond. Then He sacrificially laid down His life, dying for sinners, shedding His blood to cover our inherited sin nature. He died to free us from eternal death in Hell that we might spend eternity with Him, in His Father’s presence in the kingdom of heaven. Our response to such passionate love must be nothing less than 100% reciprocal love that seeks Him with all of our heart to please Him, through obedience to His Word and His Father’s Commandments. We are to be pure, spotless, blameless, and holy, as a bride waiting for her Bridegroom. Yahshua (Jesus) is coming at an hour we don’t expect Him the bride must get herself ready (Revelation 19:7). 2:33 April 9
The Apostles understood and taught this. As Apostle Paul said, "For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin [undefiled by sin and the flesh’s desires for the world] to Messiah [Christ]” (2 Corinthians 11:2). A pure virgin means we are “putting to death the deeds of the flesh” (Romans 8:13) that separate us from Him and defile us. We are continually being covered in His blood, which clothes us in fine white linen (bridal garments) (See Revelation 19:8). We are to spend our whole lives on earth making every effort, “working out our salvation with fear and trembling” to be ready for Yahshua (Jesus), our Bridegroom (2 Peter 3:14, Philippians 2:12). The first and foremost commandment is, ‘You shall love Yahveh [the LORD] your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (Matthew 22:37), anything else means that we have competing affections and other loves, then He rebukes us and says, “I have this against you, you have fallen from your first love” (Revelation 2:4).
“You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4). This is why it is such an appalling thing when we still live in the world to gratify our self nature. We do not understand the love of the Bridegroom and the sacrifice of His life to purchase and redeem His beloved bride out of the hands of Satan and out of the darkness of this temporary world whose inhabitants are doomed to eternal judgment. Let us look at this reality: Our beloved Savior is calling us to leave the world behind and to come up higher in the Spirit to be with Him in that secret place. But when we fall from our first love, we fall backwards to the flesh and to the earth. The two are diametrically opposed. To rise we have to get rid of sin and stay in the Spirit and leave everyone and everything behind to cultivate that relationship with Him. If not, we fall backwards again by the pulls of the world, people, circumstances, and the flesh.
“We must go to the altar of repentance first. Only Yahshua’s blood covering our sins frees us to ascend higher and higher - high above the heads of our enemies, where we meet prayerfully spirit to spirit with our Savior/Bridegroom, loving, worshipping, adoring and following Him”
In reality we can only go to the “secret place”, suspended invisibly between earth and heaven in the Spirit, through the blood of Yahshua (Jesus) covering our sins (Psalm 91:1). His death tore the veil (Matthew 27:51). We must go to the altar of repentance first. Only His blood covering our sins frees us to ascend higher and higher on that “Highway of Holiness” (Isaiah 35:8), that secret place high above the heads of our enemies. There we meet prayerfully spirit to spirit with our Savior Bridegroom, loving, worshipping, adoring and following Yahshua (Jesus). So the Spirit draws us upward into His holy presence where we belong. In Him we are to “live and breath and have our being” (Acts 17:28), but “without holiness no one can see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). “Blessed are the pure in heart”, their sins are covered in the blood, they will see God in “the secret place of the Most High” now and forever (Matthew 5:8, Psalm 91:1)
Yahshua (Jesus) said, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate [esteem lightly compared to Him] his own father, mother, wife [husband], children, brothers, sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” because we are betrothed to Him (Luke 14:26). Speaking to His Jewish disciples they understood that “He and His Father who are one”, were Israel’s husband (John 10:30). It is written, “For your Maker is your husband, Yahveh of hosts is His name; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth” (Isaiah 54:5). In the Jewish biblical custom the bride and the bridegroom are married upon betrothal. Yahshua (Jesus) is that ultimate Bridegroom that came in the flesh to redeem us out of the flesh so that we could be one with Him in bonds of eternal love, consummated at “the wedding feast of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:6-9).
