SEASON OF THE BRIDE/WIFE – Ron McGatlin
I was awakened by a dream early this morning February 13, 2024. A somewhat frustrating situation with deep spiritual meaning unfolded.
I was part of a bus crew including drivers and stewards starting on a very significant trip. It was a very large, modern, and elegantly styled shiny bus with an attractive interior and plush seats. It was larger than any bus I had ever seen with a powerful diesel-fueled engine.
Another crew had previously prepared the bus with a thorough cleansing and servicing of the engine and the entire running gear. They had sometime during the night parked the prepared bus in the parking lot in front of the building from which we were leaving.
People were excitedly getting on the bus with enthusiastic chatter among themselves as they settled into the comfortable seats.
As they neared finishing the loading, I set down in the big driver’s seat and proceeded to start the huge engine. It had been cold during the night and the starter seemed strained as it began turning the big engine. After a few turns of the engine, the starter did not have enough power to keep going and start the engine.
It was then that I and others realized the engine should have been started hours ago and left running. There would have been someone there at that time to do whatever was necessary to get it started.
No one among us knew what to do to get it started. The crew got out and looked at the engine and then at each other. Does anyone know what to do now? No one could help. I awakened at this point.
Upon waking, I felt extremely frustrated that all had been done in preparation but we failed to get the engine running and warmed up before it was time for the trip.
Everything and all the people were in place but we failed the last step in the preparation. I then thought about how disappointed the people would be at finishing this last leg of the journey of the ages.
As I asked God about this dream, He began revealing direction and even warning about the final preparation of the collective journey of all who are to be married to the Lamb of God.
EXPLANATION OF THE PARABLE
I believe that this is a parabolic dream and pinpoints where we are in our journey into the fullness of times, the goal of all ages, and the final preparations for the marriage of the Lamb.
The planned destination of the journey in the dream is the greatest wedding of all time, “The Marriage of the Lamb.”
The people getting on the bus are, “The Bride of Christ” prepared through the ages of the works of God. They are on the way to their wedding day. (More on that just ahead.)
The bus is the glorious powerful manifest presence of God that has been made ready by all the past faithful saints who have given their lives through the ages of much persecution to bring us to this season. Hebrews 11.
The crew that failed to start the bus before the departure time is the many gifted elders or leaders of the Ekklesia, God’s called-out kingdom people who know what God is doing and are charged with implementing the will of God by the power of God.
MORE ABOUT THE BRIDE/WIFE OF THE LAMB
Revelation 21:9: “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.’”
In Western Christian culture, a young woman or maiden is not called a bride until a date for the wedding is set and definite plans are in process. This usually begins at the giving of an engagement ring.
After the earnest or guarantee of the engagement ring has been given and the time of courting has passed. Only then as the wedding plans are being made, does the maiden begin to be referred to as the bride and from then on until the end of the marriage ceremony. Beyond the wedding season, the bride is no longer a bride but a wife.
If we the church. are the true bride or wife of Christ, we have been born again as spirit babies and grown up. Then after maturing we saw Christ in a grown-up way and fell in love with Him, and a form of courtship began.
God in Christ by the Holy Spirit fills our hearts and lives with His pure holy love and we are consumed in His love. We are filled or baptized with the Holy Spirit. That is the time of engagement or the earnest or down payment of the marriage that is to come. Ephesians 1:13-14.
Then the plans for marriage and preparations for the wedding become serious and very real. AT THIS POINT we may be referred to as the bride or the bride-to-be.
However, we are not really the true bride or wife of Christ until the day or season of the marriage ceremony. We are not the bride until the wedding day or season.
In Ephesians 5:22-32, God calls the church the wife of Christ. Does this mean that we are now in the day or season of the marriage of the Lamb, or of having been married to Christ Jesus? He did not say the “bride or wife to be.” Has the true church truly now come to the season of the process of marriage to the Lamb of God to live on earth as one with Him in this day?
We are no longer the bride after the wedding is over. After the marriage, we are the wife of God in Christ.
We are one with Him and all other suitors and agendas are abandoned. We live to be and do the perfect will of God and fulfill His purposes and plans.
We are one with God in total intimacy of pure love. All the love and attributes of Christ are ours and we are completely His.
We may need to grasp the reality that we are or can be more than engaged but, as the true church, we are now or can be the wife of Christ Jesus in the glorious presence of God in Christ with us. He is always present and we must come to His presence, to where He is in the Spirit to fully consummate our marriage to God in Christ Jesus.
The way is the bus of His glorious presence through praising Him with all our lives in pure love with true worship. This is the powerful bus engine that must start.
STARTING THE ENGINE ON THE BUS
In the dream, the bus had been left outside in the cold during the night. In the natural, there are preparation steps to take to make sure the engine will start in the morning.
One of my Grandsons who live in a remote part of Alaska told me about taking a trip in the winter. First, they travel several miles by snowmobile to where their pick-up is parked in the open air near a paved road.
The truck is equipped with electric heaters in the oil pan and the cooling system however they have no electricity to plug into and must use a gasoline-powered generator to begin to preheat the engine. The pick-up batteries must be fully charged so a charger is also plugged into the generator to recharge the cold batteries.
Other techniques may be used such as space heaters inside the hood and in the cabin to get it all ready to go. Depending on how cold it is this can take from an hour and a half up to three hours of heating time.
Other people who live where electric power is available also have heaters in their vehicles. They can simply plug the heaters in before going to bed and are ready to go in a short time of running the engine to warm up the vehicle in the morning.
Back To The Dream:
The bus represents the presence of God which is the vehicle that contains the power of God, the engine, for the completion of our journey.
It needs to be started now it is time for the trip to start. The journey of all history cannot be fulfilled until the engine is started in the power and love of the manifest presence of God.
Many groups of people including Christians are spiritually cold and have not started to experience the manifest presence of God. It is time to fall in love with God and enter the journey to the Marriage of the Lamb.
Others are less cold and many are lukewarm and may need less warmup time. However, the lukewarm tend to think that they do not need to warm up the engine before entering the journey.
The lukewarm groups believe they are all set and their bus is ready and well prepared. Therefore, they are missing the journey of their lifetime of intimate love and marriage as one with God in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit.
THE SEASON OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB IS NOW
“And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, ‘Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.’ And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, ‘Write: Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’ And he said to me, ‘These are the true sayings of God.’” Revelation 19:6-9.
Ron McGatlin
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