The Bride of Christ

The sweetest story in the Bible is the love of Christ for His saints and their equal abandonment in love for the Lord Jesus Christ. Never in church history has there been a greater effort by Satan to destroy this story and the undying love between these two partners. The Bride and the Bridegroom is embodies in the Biblical Book of Solomon. The Holy Ghost poured these words into King SolomonÂ’s heart. This book is at the center of the Bible because it communicated the central message. The heart of God is to redeem a Bride for His Son.

Salvation is not just to save souls from the Lake of Fire. The great redemption message is to have a family and an eternal family in an eternal city called New Jerusalem. TodayÂ’s religion has become cheap and carnal; wealth, positive thinking, worldly lifestyle, and a mega church mentality. The search for the hidden treasure of Christ-centered purity has gone the way of the flesh. The Holy Spirit of God has not left off His Divine office of searching for a Bride for the King. As I write, the Spirit is calling with the words of ancient Solomon.

His voice is proclaiming of Christ – the crucified, “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters” (Song of Solomon 2:1-2). The call of the Spirit is to see Jesus Christ as the altogether Lovely One. He is indeed a “lily” among the “thorns of religion.” There are a thousand paths of religious confusion and human ideals that will call you away from Christ into a self-righteous deception. Never has the church world had so many voices. Jesus Christ and Him crucified call you to a life of personal crucifixion. His Bride will have nothing but a single love with all else subservient to the Master.

This love relationship between the servant and his future Bridegroom is beautiful. The Holy Spirit speaks of this call to godliness. The Lord says to His chosen, “My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely” (Song of Solomon 2:10-14).

The call is not to flee into hiding, but to abandon yourself to worship, to the Holy Scripture, and to live the separated life. Jesus Christ will be the center and joy of your life every moment of the day and night. Music of the Spirit will fill your continual thoughts and all else will be made a slave to His Kingship. The language is poetic but clearly meant to be seen as pure devotion. He wants a Bride whose praise and worship is free of all other passions.

The enemy of Jesus Christ is determined to defile this Bride and render her unfit for the wedding. This great Book would warn us of this trap that Satan has set. The Spirit warns us of the loss of this abandonment to Him and the cost it will represent. Listen carefully: “I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse…” “Open to me…my love, my dove, my undefiled.” She answers back, “I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on?” Belated she responds but He has withdrawn himself and is gone. Even the door of her heart was laced with fragrance of His presence, but He was gone. (Read Song of Solomon 5:1-16.)

What a picture of todayÂ’s church. The music of the cross has been replaced with the music of flesh. The preacher is the servant of the crowd instead of the voice of God. The fear of God is hated and has been almost totally destroyed; yet the Bible proclaims this fear as the beginning of all knowledge. Positive attitude and positive confessions have replaced the crucified walk with God. The birthright of the church has been traded for a mess of pottage as did Esau, the firstborn of Isaac.

The voice of the Holy Ghost is calling for the willing to return to be His espoused Bride. The treasure of all treasures is to belong exclusively to Him. All the present trappings of modern religion are already our future inheritance, and even some present promises. Our joy is the separated walk toward an eternal wedding. Giving up all worldly compromise is nothing but shedding the garments of the world for the attire of the Bride. Her beauty is the beauty of “His beloved.”