Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #11 of Revelation chapter 19 and we are going to be reading Revelation 19:9:

And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

Here, God is moving a prophet (as He does throughout the Bible) to record divine revelation.  We can see this through the statement, “And he saith unto me, Write.”  God is directing the Apostle John to write the revelation God is revealing to him.  This is really a concise illustration of how God wrote the entire Bible as He moved holy men of old to record those words He wanted recorded, precisely and exactly as He wanted them written.  That is our Bible – it is the Word of God and it is from His mouth.  He used prophets as “secretaries” or “scribes” to record His revelation. 

It goes on to say in Revelation 19:9:

And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb…

Again the “marriage supper of the Lamb” is, first of all, the Gospel call throughout time.  We saw that in Matthew, chapter 22.  Let us turn there again.  It says in Matthew 22:2-3:

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.

The word “bidden” is the same Greek word translated as “call.”  Then it says in Matthew 22:4:

Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.

This typifies the Gospel call that went out into all the world throughout the church age and the second part of the Great Tribulation period.  God has both periods of time in view in this short, little parable.  He has the two outpourings of the Holy Spirit in the early rain and in the Latter Rain and then the marriage itself is Judgment Day.  It is the time when the bride has been prepared or made ready for her husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the bridegroom.  The Bible pictures it as the time when all come to the wedding ceremony, the marriage between the bridegroom and His bride.  It is a time of “inspection,” as God makes sure all the guests have on the proper wedding attire, which would be the “righteousness of Christ.”  In this parable, the king finds a man who did not have on that proper wedding attire.

Our verse said, “Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.”  That call went out far and wide.  We find the same Greek word translated as “called,” Strong’s #2564, in 2Thessalonians 2:14:

Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here, God says it directly as He specifies the manner in which He calls people: “by our gospel.”  We also know that the Bible says in Matthew 20:16:

So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

This tells us that the Gospel call goes out far and wide; it is like a wide casting of a net and all that hear the Gospel are “called.”  The call goes to the saved and the unsaved.  It is for all men.  It is a call to the wedding or marriage.  God is the Creator of all mankind and He bids them to come.  Many are “called,” as many do hear the Gospel, but few of those that are “called” are actually “chosen,” which is a word that identifies with being the elect that are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.  They are the remnant God saved out of the whole of mankind.  He refers to them as His chosen or His elect.

It says in Romans 8:29-30:

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

In these verses God is singling out the elect that were called.  The elect that were called are not the “many,” but the “few.”  They were also justified and glorified through the salvation that God provided for them through the grace and mercy bestowed upon them, through the faith and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The elect were predestinated to salvation.  Notice this comes first.  They were predestinated before the foundation of the world and then at some point in history, they were “called.”  The “calling” follows the predestination.  Then after being called, they are justified by His faith, as God applies His Word to their souls in salvation.

It says in Revelation 1:3:

Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

Our verse in Revelation 19:9 says, “Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.”  Are they all “blessed” even though the majority of those that are called were never saved?  And the answer is, “Yes,” according to the Bible.  The Bible says, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy,” and in order to be “called,” you would have to read or hear the Word of God.  The Gospel call is the hearing in some manner the Word of God and that is a blessing in the lives of the unsaved as well as the saved.  Potentially, through the Gospel call, a person could have had their sins washed away and they could have been granted eternal life.  They were presented with the Gospel and from their perspective they could have approached to the throne of grace and besought God for mercy.  They could have kept coming to Him, day after day, beseeching Him and crying out for mercy and God tells us that He is a merciful God. 

So there was great blessing involved with hearing the Words of the Bible.  There was great blessing for all the world, especially in the time leading up to Judgment Day, which began on May 21, 2011.  There was blessing because they were forewarned.  They were given advance notice that the Day of Judgment was coming and they were given advance notice that God would end His salvation program on that day and, therefore, they were blessed to hear the facts from the Bible that they had a certain amount of time from the point they heard the Gospel call.  For some, that point in time could have been years prior to May 21, 2011 and for others, it could have been months or even days before May 21, 2011.  They were told, “Salvation will conclude on that day.  Go to the Lord.”  That was the strong implication.  Even if they just saw a billboard, they would know they had up until that date to approach unto God and that was a tremendous blessing that interrupted the sinner’s life.  It was the same blessing as when Jonah went to Nineveh and cried, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”  The Ninevites “heard” and in their case, God had much people in that city and they responded in a proper way; they allowed the message to interrupt their lives and they sat in sackcloth and ashes and cried mightily unto God.  That is the opportunity God gave to the people of the nations of the world as the final judgment of mankind was coming closer and closer.  Any individual could have responded as the Ninevites and gone to God in that manner.  Of course, it would have to be a humble manner in coming unto him, but it was nothing but a blessing to be forewarned of things that were about to happen.  God tells us that in Hebrews 11, where we read of Isaac, who was the father of twin boys, in Hebrews 11:20:

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

Jacob and Esau were twins and of these two boys, God said, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”  God said that before they were formed in the womb.  It was according to God’s election program that He loved Jacob and hated Esau and God let it be known to their mother Rebecca, as she was wondering why they were striving in her womb.  God revealed to her that the elder would serve the younger and that was language indicating that the spiritual blessing would go to the younger child rather than the firstborn child.  Of course, Esau was the firstborn and Jacob was the younger.  Later, when Esau was about to get the blessing from their Father Isaac, Rebecca acted on Jacob’s behalf.  In a way, it was a result of what God had told her, but she was doing this on her own, but God worked through it; she acted to make sure Jacob got the blessing because she had been told by God that Jacob was the favored one. 

Yet, having this information that Jacob was the favored one (the one God had bestowed His love upon), Isaac still blessed both Jacob and Esau “concerning things to come.”   Isaac, the father, gave them both the Gospel.  He told them both equally the Word of God.  He shared the truths of the Bible with both of them and the Bible information, of course, speaks of judgment to come and God’s program of the final judgment of man, and so forth.  Even though one son was saved and the other was unsaved, both were “blessed.”  That is what God means when God says, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy.”  Yes, “many are called,” and all that are called and all that have heard some portion of the Bible are blessed to a degree, but the “few” are tremendously more blessed as God applies salvation to them and they have the added blessing of eternal life.  That is the eternal blessing the unsaved do not have.

Let us go back to Revelation 19:9-10:

And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

“These are the true sayings of God.”  The Greek word translated here as “sayings” is the word “logos.”  It is Strong’s #3056.  It is the word that is often translated as “word.”  For instance, it is used in John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word…”  It is the word “logos,” and it is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the very essence of the Word of God, the Bible.

In Revelation, chapter 22 the word “logos” is found many times.  It says in Revelation 22:6:

And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true…

It is significant where this statement is made in the context of the people of God seeing the face of God.  It is such glorious information that God is revealing.  It is so super-wonderful it is almost as though God is stopping to confirm it and as if He is saying, “I am not exaggerating.  I am not saying something that is untrue.”  God always speaks the truth.  He never lies.  He does not exaggerate.  He is not fanciful and He is not just using imagination.  Mankind constantly lies and they try to exaggerate things to make them sound larger, greater or better.  God is telling us things that are truth, and it goes on to say in Revelation 22:6-7:

And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.

Here, “sayings” is the same word “logos.”  Then we read in Revelation 22:9:

Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God. And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.

So, here, the word “logos” is translated as “sayings” several times.  Then it says in Revelation 22:18-19:

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

In these two verses, our word is translated as “words,” but it is the identical Greek word and we can clearly see that it has to do with the Word of the Bible.  It is why the Bible can be referred to as the “sayings of God” or the “sayings of Christ.”  This is what is in view in our verse in Revelation 19:9:

…And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

There is no error or mistakes.  There is not a jot or tittle that is out of place.  There is no lie of any kind.  This is the truth.  The bride has made herself ready and it is the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”  All that were called were blessed in the call to come to the marriage supper and God is now going to move on to describe the wrath of God being poured out in the Day of Judgment.  That also is a “true saying” or “true word” of God.