SCRIPTURE: Revelation 19
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” [Revelation 19:6-9]
There are different things I could look at here; I was going to look at the Rider on the horse, Whose Name is the Word of God [John 1:1], but I was drawn to look at the “fine linen”, and saw a connection to Matthew 22.

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are invited, but few are chosen.” [Matthew 22:8-14]
Both passages speak about the wedding, the final judgment, the fine linen (wedding clothes), and the invitation to the wedding supper.
Jesus does not explain what the “wedding clothes” represent, but the implication is that they were something he could have and should have come in.
In John’s vision, the fine linen represents the righteous acts of God’s holy people.
This fits with the consistent message of the bible that those who humbly acknowledge their sin and strive with God’s help to live a holy life, will be accepted.
It is interesting to note that “fine linen, bright and clean” was given to the wedding guests to wear – in other words, they were not clean themselves, but He honours their humble, sincere hearts by giving them clean, new clothes.

This shows both the seriousness of sin and the awesomeness of grace.
We cannot sneak into God’s presence and enjoy His love, and cling to our love for sin.
God hates sin, and so should we; God deals with sin through Jesus, and makes it possible for us to be forgiven and set free from sin.
By grace He offers us clean linen – which represents both forgiveness AND freedom, our ability to turn away from sin toward God.
Those who accept forgiveness, but do not reject sin, will lose out on God’s grace.
The good and the bad are invited; Babylon represents those who reject the invitation outright – whether Jews or Gentiles; those in fine linen represent those who accept the invitation and strive to live according to it.
And the man at the wedding without the wedding clothes represents those who accept the invitation, but do not choose to leave their filth behind.
They are hypocrites, half-hearted ‘believers’ who do not hate sin and love good.

PRAYER:
Lord, this passage shows me how serious sin is, how gracious You are in giving us new life, and how dangerous it is to refuse Your grace. Help me to hate sin and love good!