{"id":2932,"date":"2014-06-28T09:30:22","date_gmt":"2014-06-28T09:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=2932"},"modified":"2014-06-28T09:30:22","modified_gmt":"2014-06-28T09:30:22","slug":"without-a-spot-or-wrinkle-or-any-other-blemish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=2932","title":{"rendered":"Without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>(Philpot, \u201cThe Love of Christ in Giving Himself for the Church\u201c)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChrist loved the church and gave Himself up for her. He did<br \/>\nthis to present her to Himself as a\u00a0<strong>glorious <\/strong>church\u00a0<strong>without<br \/>\na spot or wrinkle or any other blemish!<\/strong> Instead, she will<br \/>\nbe holy and without fault.\u201d\u00a0Ephesians 5:25,\u00a027<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are we ourselves as viewed by our own eyes?<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Full of spots, wrinkles, and blemishes!<\/strong> And\u00a0 What do we<br \/>\nsee in ourselves every day, but\u00a0<strong>sin and filth and folly? <\/strong><br \/>\nWhat evil is there in the world that is not in us, and in<br \/>\nour hearts? It is true others cannot read our hearts. But<br \/>\nwe read them; yes, are every day, and sometimes all the<br \/>\nday reading them. And what do we read there? Like<br \/>\nEzekiel\u2019s scroll, it is \u201cwritten within and without;\u201d and<br \/>\nwe may well add, if we rightly read what is there written,<br \/>\nwe have every reason to say it is \u201cfull of lamentations,<br \/>\nand mourning, and woe.\u201d\u00a0Ezekiel 2:10<\/p>\n<p>For I am sure that there is nothing that we see there<br \/>\nevery day and every hour, but would cover us with<br \/>\nshame and confusion of face, and make us blush to<br \/>\nlift up our eyes before God, or almost to appear in<br \/>\nthe presence of our fellow man!<\/p>\n<p>But neither others, nor we ourselves, now see what<br \/>\nthe church one day will be, and what she ever was in<br \/>\nthe eyes of Jesus! He could look through all the sins<br \/>\nand sorrows of this intermediate period, and fix His<br \/>\neye upon the bridal day\u2013the day when before<br \/>\nassembled angels, in the courts of heaven, in the<br \/>\nrealms of eternal bliss, He would present her to<br \/>\nHimself a glorious church,\u00a0<strong>without\u00a0 a spot or wrinkle<br \/>\nor any other blemish<\/strong>, but holy, and without fault.<\/p>\n<p><strong>O what a day will that be<\/strong>, when the Son of God<br \/>\nshall openly wed His espoused bride; when there<br \/>\nshall be heard in heaven, \u201cwhat sounded like a<br \/>\ngreat multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and<br \/>\nlike loud peals of thunder, shouting\u2013Hallelujah!<br \/>\nFor our Lord God Almighty reigns! Let us rejoice and<br \/>\nbe glad and give Him glory! For\u00a0<strong>the wedding of the<br \/>\nLamb has come<\/strong>, and His bride has made herself ready.\u201d<br \/>\nRevelation 19:6-7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish! (Philpot, \u201cThe Love of Christ in Giving Himself for the Church\u201c) \u201cChrist loved the church and gave Himself up for her. He did this to present her to Himself as a\u00a0glorious church\u00a0without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish! Instead, she will be holy and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,72,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-j-c-philpot","category-christ-and-his-church","category-righteousness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2932"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2933,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions\/2933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}