The thing, salvation is like a garment, okay?
The Bible uses this illustration over and over again,
or this parable of the garment representing salvation.
You know, the Bible talks about how
when the people get to heaven in Revelation,
they're all issued white robes, okay?
That's important.
And then we have, of course, the idea of being clothed
in God's righteousness,
or God's righteousness being a covering for our sin.
Nakedness represents our sinful condition,
and then clothing represents covering up our sin
with God's righteousness.
Now, when did clothing become a thing?
Well, if you remember in the Garden of Eden,
they're naked, right?
Adam and Eve are totally naked, they're not ashamed,
they don't think anything of it.
The man and his wife, they're both naked and not ashamed,
is how Genesis chapter two ends.
Well, once they eat of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, and they realize they're naked,
they hide themselves,
and then they sew themselves fig leaf aprons, okay?
This is a plant-based garment, right?
A vegan garment.
And they sew together fig leaves into an apron,
God rejects that garment.
And he outfits them with coats of skins.
Skin comes from an animal.
Skin comes from an animal that you killed.
The animal dies, and then the skin makes the clothing.
Well, here's what that pictures.
That pictures the fact that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God,
died in order to provide our clothing.
A lamb was killed to provide Adam and Eve's clothing,
coats of skins.
And the idea is that Jesus Christ dies
and provides us with the robe of righteousness,
with the garment of salvation.
Now, there's a parable in the book of Matthew
where there's a great wedding feast,
and he's got the wedding for his son,
and people are invited.
There are a couple of parables that are similar to this,
you know, where people are invited and they don't come.
They make excuses, and that represents the Jews.
You know, the Jews are invited and they don't come.
He came into his own, his own received him not.
So then, of course, he says,
go out into the highways and hedges
and compel them to come in that my house may be filled.
Go get the poor, the maim, the blind.
But there's a great statement in the book of Matthew
in this parable of the wedding feast
where he says, bring them in, and he says, good and bad.
So he didn't say, hey, only invite the good people.
He said, no, bring good and bad people
so that my wedding can be furnished with guests.
And the wedding is salvation.
I mean, the wedding is going to heaven.
The Jews are offered the kingdom of God.
The Jews are offered salvation.
The Jews are offered eternal life.
They rejected it.
Now, obviously, many of them accepted it,
but as a nation, as a whole, the majority rejected it.
Okay, those are the people
who didn't show up at the wedding.
The people who do show up at the wedding
that are accepting the invitation,
the Bible's clear to tell us
that it's both good and bad people.
Why?
Bad people are invited, too.
Why?
Because you don't earn your way to heaven by being good.
You earn your way to heaven
by accepting the invitation of a free gift,
which is not earning it at all.
How do you get into heaven?
You accept the invitation.
What's the invitation?
Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
That's the invitation.
You accept the invitation.
You show up.
You're saved.
Good or bad.
Then, there's a guy in the wedding
who doesn't have a wedding garment on.
And if you remember, the master comes up to him
and says, friend, how camest thou in hither
not having a wedding garment?
And the Bible says he was speechless.
And he says, hey, bind him hand and foot,
cast him into outer darkness.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Okay, what does that represent?
That represents the guy who's not saved.
He's not been washed in the blood.
He's not wearing the robe of righteousness.
He's not wearing the garment
that Christ's death on the cross provided.
Does everybody understand?
Jesus Christ died on the cross,
and there's a spiritual garment.
Obviously, it's not literal.
We're talking a parable here.
The clothing is the difference between salvation
and being cast into outer darkness.
You got the garment on in that parable?
You represent the guy who's saved, right?
The guy who doesn't have the garment is not saved.
He gets thrown into outer darkness.
Now, did it say, oh, it just turned out
all the bad people didn't have a garment on?
No, the wedding was filled with people good and bad.
One guy didn't have a garment.
It doesn't matter whether he was good or bad.
That's not the point.
The point is he didn't have a garment.
Does everybody understand?
That guy thought he was saved.
He thought, this is cool.
I'm here, right?
You know what he's wearing?
I guarantee you that guy was not in the nude.
He didn't say, hey, how'd you get in here naked?
There's kids around.
What are you doing?
You're nude.
No, no, the guy wasn't nude.
You know what he's wearing?
He's wearing his own thing.
Hey, I'm gonna do my own thing.
I'm gonna wear my own clothes.
He's like, whoa, buddy, where's the wedding garment?
You better have the robe that God provides
and you don't try to provide your own outfit of,
oh, well, I got nice clothes too.
You know, his little tuxedo or whatever he wore
wasn't nice enough and so he's cast out.
And that's a picture of, look,
if you're not saved through Jesus,
if you don't have your faith and trust in Christ,
if you're not wearing his righteousness, you're cast out.
The apostle Paul said, not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ.
The righteousness which is of God by faith.
So the righteousness has to be Jesus' righteousness
that we put it on.
We wear it.