Without a Wedding Garment
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The professed churches of Christ in this generation are exalted
to the highest privileges. The Lord has been revealed to us in ever-
increasing light. Our privileges are far greater than were the privileges
of God’s ancient people. We have not only the great light committed
to Israel, but we have the increased evidence of the great salvation
brought to us through Christ. That which was type and symbol to the
Jews is reality to us. They had the Old Testament history; we have that
and the New Testament also. We have the assurance of a Saviour who
has come, a Saviour who has been crucified, who has risen, and over
the rent sepulcher of Joseph has proclaimed, “I am the resurrection
and the life.” In our knowledge of Christ and His love the kingdom of
God is placed in the midst of us. Christ is revealed to us in sermons
and chanted to us in songs. The spiritual banquet is set before us in
rich abundance. The wedding garment, provided at infinite cost, is
freely offered to every soul. By the messengers of God are presented
to us the righteousness of Christ, justification by faith, the exceeding
great and precious promises of God’s word, free access to the Father
by Christ, the comfort of the Spirit, the well-grounded assurance of
eternal life in the kingdom of God. What could God do for us that He
has not done in providing the great supper, the heavenly banquet?
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In heaven it is said by the ministering angels: The ministry which
we have been commissioned to perform we have done. We pressed
back the army of evil angels. We sent brightness and light into the
souls of men, quickening their memory of the love of God expressed
in Jesus. We attracted their eyes to the cross of Christ. Their hearts
were deeply moved by a sense of the sin that crucified the Son of God.
They were convicted. They saw the steps to be taken in conversion;
they felt the power of the gospel; their hearts were made tender as they
saw the sweetness of the love of God. They beheld the beauty of the
character of Christ. But with the many it was all in vain. They would
not surrender their own habits and character. They would not put off
the garments of earth in order to be clothed with the robe of heaven.
Their hearts were given to covetousness. They loved the associations
of the world more than they loved their God.
Solemn will be the day of final decision. In prophetic vision the
apostle John describes it: “I saw a great white throne, and Him that
sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and
there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and