Invitation: The Spirit and the Bride Say, “Come!”

“One of the favourite words of God is ‘come’”, claims Michael Balcomb, extending invitation. “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’”

Part 1 of extracts from a sermon titled “The Spirit and the Bride Say, ‘Come!’”, that Dr. Michael Balcomb, the President of the Europe and the Middle East Region of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, gave at the Sunday service at the River South branch in London, UK on 24th November 2024. Slightly edited.

See part 2, part 3

As you can see, my title is “The Spirit and the Bride Say, ‘Come!’”

This was the theme of the seminar in Las Vegas that I just returned from late Friday night. And of course it’s talking about this verse in Revelation 22:17.

By the way, this is the 13,997th Bible verse, only two from the end in the 1189th chapter. And True Father said that God deliberately concealed the final message of the Bible right at the very end. And it is in fact the last word from God for 2000 years if we consider the Bible as the authoritative word of God.

We’re going to read it together […] Shall we give it a try?

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’
And let the one who hears say ‘Come!’
Let the one who is thirsty come;
and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” (Revelation 22:17)

I think our Heavenly Parent’s favourite word is “come”. For example, in the Old Testament time, God said to the people of Israel,

“Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow […].” (Isaiah 1:18)

And Jesus said,

“Come to me all you who labour, […] and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

And in this verse we have the Spirit telling us to come to receive the water of life.

So there’s a principle here. Although God has been longing and waiting for thousands of years, our Heavenly Parent does not force or insist on what he wants, what she wants. It’s always a matter of an invitation, but it’s a really pointed invitation:

“Come! Don’t think about it! Don’t check your calendar! Come! And come for something really special – to live eternally in the Kingdom of God with our Heavenly Parent.”

But it starts, as we well know, with a very special event which we’ve heard a lot about this year – the ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’ [Editor’s note: Revelation 19:6-9].

You may have heard so much about it that you don’t want to hear anymore, but the bad news is you’re going to hear about it one more time today.

Of course, True Mother came to Munich in May. […] It is a windy autumnal day today, with the leaves blowing on the ground. So I thought,

“Let’s go back for a moment to spring and that very happy day when True Mother came to speak to us in Munich.”

We had two and a half thousand people in the room, but later on we found out another 20,000 had been watching online, which is really quite extraordinary. […]

True Mother was really smiling the rest of the day. And of course, she talked about the ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’,

“I came here today because of Jesus’ wish, Jesus, who said that he would come again. And when he returns, there will be the ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’, and only then can we see the completion of the Christian providence.”

And later on that day, at lunch, and again that evening when we went to visit True Mother in her hotel room, she emphasized,

“What I really want you to be doing in Europe is to testify to the Christian churches and people of other faiths. For 2000 years, Jesus has been working in Europe to prepare for this day.”

But you need to give the invitations, right? You need to invite people to come to this event.

This summer, Fumiko [Mrs. Balcomb] and I were happy and fortunate to celebrate not the ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’, but the marriage supper of our little lamb, our youngest son. And when you plan a big event, there’s a number of things you think about, right? First of all, you try to set the date, and then you start thinking about the potential guests, who might be a good person to come. And then you think about who will actually get an invitation and then hopefully they’ll RSVP (respond) and they’ll say, “Yes, I’m coming.” Then, with that information you can plan the event.

Who’s invited to the ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’ – not one family’s wedding, but this culminating event at the end of history?

A long time ago, a famous evangelist went to Chicago, and he was welcomed by the mayor. The preacher said,

“Could you give me a list of some of the people in Chicago who need to hear the gospel message?”

He was thinking, “Perhaps the civic leaders or persons with positions.”

The mayor said, “Just a moment.” He went out and came back with the Chicago phone book. He said,

“Here it is. Everybody in Chicago is in need of the gospel message.”

Reaching out to Christians. I’ve been doing a bit of that lately with your help. For example, we held a Divine Principle workshop in Birmingham about six weeks ago in a Christian church with 150 or so people of all faiths actually coming to hear the Divine Principle. […]

And as you know, I’ve just come back from Las Vegas where this week we had the World Clergy Leadership Conference which is now called the World Christian Leadership Conference. […]

Continued in part 2, part 3

Featured image above: Dr. Michael Balcomb speaking 24th Nov. 2024. Photo: Screenshot from video recording by FFWPU

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