The Bride of Christ – Part 3
The Vision of the Bride
In 1979 I felt a very intense burden to pray for the lost. I also felt compelled to seek an anointing for evangelism in my own life. During a period that lasted about eight days or so food became unimportant. I remember waking up during the night to pray for the lost. There was a travailing in prayer that I had not experienced before. This desire was from God. He was leading me toward an unexpected destination. After about eight days God answered my request. But it was not at all what I was expecting.
One Sunday afternoon my wife, our baby, and I were driving into town for a Sunday evening church service. Our small daughter had finally fallen asleep, and I began to pray. Because I had been consumed lately with the thought of those without Christ, naturally I began to turn my prayer toward this matter again. Then, it seemed that without any conscious effort on my part, I began to pray for "The Church" - the Church Universal. This was strange because I had no understanding of this concept, nor had it ever entered my thinking before. Suddenly, a weeping came over me that I was unable to control. A grief rose in my heart that seemed unreasonable to me. It felt as though a knife were sawing through my heart. A sensation similar - I suppose - to what I would feel if I were mourning the death of my wife and children. An uncontrollable, unbearable grief entered my heart.
I looked out the driver's side window, bewildered by what was happening to me. What I saw was stranger yet! I saw the Lord come for His people. He was a distant figure, high up in the sky. I thought to myself, "Oh, no. I'm a good Baptist boy. We Baptists don't have hallucinations!" Then in the field below the Lord I saw a multitude of people. I suppose there were millions. The crowd stretched out as far as I could see. I watched as they all faded and only one person was left, far away on the horizon. They all morphed into one person. In the Spirit, my vision came up close to this person in an instant. It was someone standing with their back turned toward me. It appeared that it was a woman in a long dress, like a wedding dress. But something was wrong. The dress was stained, filthy, and torn. I then came up very close behind the woman as she turned her head to look at me. When I saw her, I literally screamed in horror! My wife, sitting next to me in the car must have thought I had been shot.
What I saw was not a woman at all but a young girl - far too young to be in a wedding dress. Yet she had some features of an old woman. The teeth were nearly all gone. The hair was present only in patches. I could tell she was not much more than a skeleton; emaciated, sickly, diseased. There was a blank, hopeless stare in her eyes that resembled photos of starving women I have seen from East Africa. At this moment the phrase came to mind, "the bride of Christ"*. I thought, "Lord, You cannot marry this!" I looked up at the Lord. He turned His back and left! I looked back at the woman, but she was gone. In her place were the millions again like I had seen at the beginning of the vision. They all were looking up toward the place where the Lord had been. They all had their hands raised but, strangely, no one said a word. It seemed peculiar to me that there was no sound from such a multitude. No one was praying. Not a voice was heard crying out. They were not asking the Lord to return or anything at all. Then I heard the Lord say to me, "GO, GET MY PEOPLE READY TO MEET ME, FOR I AM COMING SOON!"
While we should never use dreams and visions to form doctrine, they may illustrate it – if our doctrine is correct. I believe the vision was from God. I believe it illustrates correct doctrine, if I can correctly understand it. This is what I understand and what I think the vision illustrates. I believe the Bride is a composite person. I also believe that not everyone is the Bride. I believe it is offered to some of a special group. God does not assign people to Bride status. They disqualify themselves. The most pitiful person who is saved will be infinitely happier than the finest lost sinner. Where we will spend eternity is entirely the work of God. How we will spend eternity is up to the person themselves.
We will look at Who the Bride is in the next part.
Oct 22, 2023
*The Scriptures never say the Body of Christ is the Bride of Christ however, the imagery is occasionally used.