Who Really Is The Bride Of Christ?

We are hearing so much about the Bride but the church is missing the scripture in Rev 19;7 that says the Bride has made herself ready. You see the church thinks they are all a Bride of Christ. While it is true, the question you must ask is "Have you made yourself ready?"

Lets look in Gen: Recall that Eve was taken OUT of the body of Adam. Notice that it was not the whole body of Adam which made the bride. So, too, out of the Body of Christ can come His Bride.

This also is brought about by a separation -- He calls the Overcoming group His Bride. The whole group, or body, is not the Bride. The highest expression in God's Thought, He calls the Bride.

God is using the world to hammer out a Bride. The same world that Crucified Jesus.

Do you think we are going to have any more glorious ending?

In the end times; we will have to know something of the fellowship of the sufferings and defeat of the Bridegroom. He went home in shame and disgrace, without the applause and satisfaction of the world -- He went out in darkness.

Do you think the Bride is going home on a bandwagon?

A lot of people are trying to get that bandwagon painted up now, so it will play real good. Where will the Bride -- the over comers -- be in this picture?

They will be identified with a slain Bridegroom, and the Bride will know something of being slain. The Bride of Christ will know the slain life, before she will go home as a slain Bride in Love with the Bridegroom.

She will be totally crucified of her flesh; she will not stand in her own strength. God has to reduce and deplete her, and bring her to complete exhaustion of self-effort.

In the Song of Solomon we read: "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?" In Hosea 2:14 it says, "... I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." -- He charms her and allures her into the wilderness so that He can speak love words to her.

The Lord is trying to get His Bride out of the world and out of the church system. He is trying to get the attention of His Bride, so He can have all of her heart; He wants her to have total dependence on Him.

We see John at the Last Supper leaning on Jesus' bosom; there is a language between them. Jesus waits for somebody to come near enough to hear His heartbeat -- breaking.

In the Song of Solomon, toward the end, the Bride becomes so intense with longing for her Bridegroom, that she dares to speak.

I suppose as we too go on with God, we become so bold in our resistance to the world, that we become almost offensive to people. They will say: "Where are your interests? Don't you have any touch for the world? Can't you be absorbed in it?"

We just say, "We can't. We 'have none. Our interests are not here. They are over there with Him: The Bride, fights to come out of the world, and separates herself for Him , as He turns and describes her beautifully as she really is.

As He describes her the world knows there is something peculiar because she won't come under the philosophy of this world, but rather she comes under the philosophy of the Spirit.

The time comes when God won't let us have a crutch to stand on. HE wants to be the satisfying portion. "Forget thy people" -- it doesn't mean we don't like them anymore -- but we don't let them have an influence in our life. We become independent of them; released. We keep them in their proper place. "Forget thy people and thy father's house;' -- a separation as was the case with Rebekah. (Genesis 24) "My father's house" is our natural concept of life; the natural flesh concept.

If we dare to lean on Him, we will hear His Voice! He is wooing us again to Himself with the eternal heart of God.

The Church is holding us back from the coming of the Lord. "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready." (Revelation 19:7)