Will You Marry Me?Sample

Going to the Chapel

We’ve learned so far that Jesus is our bridegroom, that we’re His bride, and that a wedding is coming. Scholars may differ on certain interpretations and timelines regarding this coming wedding and feast, but we can all agree that it’s going to happen. 

The return of Jesus Christ is prophesied a whopping 329 times in the Bible. There are 129 prophecies regarding Jesus’ first coming, so His return is prophesied almost three times more than His first coming. These numbers can assure us that He’s coming again! 

According to Tim LaHaye, a popular author on endtime events, the second coming of Christ will occur in two phases, beginning with the rapture of the church. Then, at least seven years later, Jesus will physically come to the earth in what LaHaye calls the “Glorious Appearing.” For this study’s sake, I’m going to align with the interpretation in Tim’s book “The Merciful God of Prophecy: His Loving Plan for You in the End Times” to help us develop a foundational understanding of these prophecies.

Today, let’s focus on the rapture, when Christ will come back for His bride, the universal church. When God the Father gives the order, He’ll come at a time no one suspects and snatch His bride out of the earth. With a shout and the call of a trumpet, we’ll meet Him in the sky. And just as the Jewish bride wanted to be found ready, we too need to be ready to meet our bridegroom face to face. 

In the rapture, the spirits of already deceased believers will receive glorified bodies, as will the believers who are alive on earth. I firmly believe that we’ll be raptured up to heaven with Jesus before the great tribulation, a time of unprecedented evil on earth when the antichrist will rule for seven years. 

We can look back throughout the Bible and see that God consistently rescued His people from destruction. For example, he saved Noah and his family from the flood. He saved Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and He saved Rahab and her family from the destruction of Jericho. 

This leads me to believe that He’ll save us, His believers, from the coming horrors of the tribulation, too. 

I know it sounds cruel that those who aren’t betrothed to Christ will remain on earth during this horrific time, but love without free choice isn’t really love. Just as the Jewish bride had the choice of whether or not to accept her bridegroom, Jesus offers us each the personal choice to become His bride. 

If we say yes, we become a member of the universal bride made up of all believers, just as a university has one student body consisting of many students. Jesus wants us for His own and loves each of us as if there were only one of us. 

Like a thief in the night, the rapture will be sudden and unexpected—much like the Jewish bridegroom would come at a time the bride didn’t expect. Jesus will take us to His Father’s house, where we’ll celebrate “the marriage supper of the Lamb.” 

This wedding and feast will be holy, magnificent, beautiful, majestic, and full of love and joy. It’ll be beyond anything we could ever imagine!