John 14:1-3 says, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
Jesus is using wedding language. The Lord’s Supper, as we call it, the new covenant, was a proposal. The groom would pour a cup of wine. When she took the wine, that was her agreement to his proposal. From that point on, they were considered married. By the way, the Hebrew word for that ceremony means sanctified. Once we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been sanctified, set apart like that young bride.
Well, what would happen? The young man would say to her, “In my father’s house there’s plenty of room, and I’m going to prepare a place for you.” The young man would go. He would prepare a place. There would be as much as a year or more of time until the father gives the approval that it is built and furnished as it should be. The day of the wedding comes. The father gives his approval. The young man comes with his friends, usually at the least expected hour. He or she is asleep at night. There’s a shout and the blast of a trumpet. She comes awake and the young man calls to her. He would not go to her door. He would wait in the street. She would come running out. She’s got her wedding dress all packed up. She has been waiting and anticipating his coming. Sounds kind of familiar, does it? The rapture of the church.
They go to the house of the father. She has a time of preparation. It was like a week of spa to get her ready for that day. And then whenever she comes out, the wedding takes place. Revelation 21:9, the angel says, “Come, and I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife. He carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was a precious stone. …” What is the point? The bride is at home. This is the place that he prepared. We learn that we are actually beautifying the garment of the bride. Jesus says in Revelation 22:12, “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me to give to everyone according to his work.” That is work that is accomplished by faith in the Spirit, in obedience to the word, not from our own strength.
“I am coming quickly” and we say, “Wait a minute, it’s been 2000 years.!” His quickly is not our quickly. “A day with the Lord is as a thousand years. A thousand years is as a day.” Drop down in verse 20. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” He’s coming again. And what are we to be doing? We are to be preparing and looking. It could be today.
Maranatha!
Detailed audio lessons and notes are here:
https://basictraining.org/rapture/