Ephesians 5:26-27 ( NKJV )
that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
This week we are proceeding form the thought that Jesus really is coming back. This is a foundational truth of biblical Christianity. It will happen. When? According to Jesus when we don’t expect it to. We need to stay ready.
Not only is he coming back, but according to the verse above, He is coming back for a glory filled church. A church filled with His power and His characteristics. It will be a church with a flow of God’s power in manifestation. It will be a loving church, a holy church, a church that looks like Him in every way. This all is going to happen. I don’t know exactly how or when, but I do know that I want to be a part of it.
The above verse does give us some clues. It will be a church without spots, wrinkles or blemishes. When those things are gone from the church it will be glorious. Another revealing statement is that Jesus will present himself with this church. It will be His power that brings it to pass. Let’s look at each one of these a little more closely.
How do we remove spots. Today we use some kind of spray spot remover. My wife will take the liquid detergent she uses and apply it directly to the spot before she puts it into the washing machine. In bible days there were no spot removers or washing machine. They washed clothes in the river or in tubs. To get out a stubborn spot involved scrubbing. Look at this verse in Malachi.
Malachi 3:1-3 ( NKJV ) “Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts. “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the Lord An offering in righteousness.
We often cry out for a visitation from God. I believe that is what we need, however this verse gives us a slightly different interpretation of what His coming will be like. He will bring purifying fire and a launders soap. We will talk about the fire aspect of this verse later, however when he speaks of launderers soap I see the process by which spots are removed from the church. With scrubbing.
This soap was not “Ivory”, which is gentle to the skin. It was a harsh lye soap that was hard on whatever it came into contact with. I believe God has been scrubbing us to get the spots out of our lives. Ephesians indicates that the water is the Word of God, but the soap is the dealing of the Spirit. God is scrubbing us by His spirit to get rid of the spots from our lives. He is rinsing us in the Word until we are clean.
This is not always a pleasant process. I remember once we were going to preach at a church in Virginia and my youngest daughter fell asleep in the van with gum in her mouth. The gum ended up everywhere. We had to preach that night. My daughter was probably 4 or 5 and we put her in the tub and mom had to scrub. It was not a pretty sight. She had gum on her skin, in her hair and everywhere else. Gum does not come off easily. It hurt when mom scrubbed at the gum with a soapy wash cloth. Mom didn’t like it, Nicky didn’t like it and I didn’t like hearing her cry, but there was no choice.
Jesus is coming back for a glory filled church. Many of us have desired a visitation to prepare the world for His coming. However any visitation is going to prepare us first. I believe some of what we are experiencing is God washing out the spots. We need to cooperate with the process. We need to let Him scrub as much as necessary. We need to fill our minds with the Word and let it rinse away the things in our lives that are keeping us from being the glorious church that Jesus is coming back for.
In verse three of Malachi 3 it says,”He will sit as a refiner…..” He is in no hurry. He will settle in as the refiner. He intends to take the process to completion.
Examine yourself today. Has there been some rough scrubbing going on? Some things that don’t feel too good? Some areas that seem almost under attack in your life? If what’s under attack is ungodliness it may not be the devil. It may be the “Launderer” attacking the spots by the work of the Holy Spirit and the washing of the water of the Word. Let God have His way. In the end the results will be glorious.
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