Rev.19:9 – Then he *said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Rev.19:19 – And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies, assembled to make war against Him who sat on the horse, and against His army.

The book of Revelation is a great unveiling of the banquet and the war that have been evolving all around us throughout our lives. Actually they have both been building toward their consummation since the eating of the fruit of the tree in the garden of Eden. The Lord is calling us into His banquet celebrating His redeeming love. The enemy is enraged, desperately trying to thwart the coming kingdom of our Lord. We saw this conflict in full force in the ministry of Jesus. We saw Him wooing those bound in sin to His banqueting table of forgiveness and love. We saw Him challenging the spirit of the world as He drove demons from their captives. Here is how Eugene Peterson describes this conflict.

“The second element in St.John’s salvation vision is a war. First the image of the Bridegroom Christ married to His Bride Christians was expanded into the image of the Lamb Christ providing Himself as the Eucharistic meal. This is now juxtaposed to the image of the Warrior Christ riding into the Great War, Armageddon. The contrast between meal and war could hardly be more extreme, but it is complimentary, not contradiction, that we experience as we submit to the images. Salvation is the intimacies and festivities of marriage; salvation is aggressive battle and the defeat of evil. Salvation is neither of these things by itself. It is the two energies, the embrace of love and the assault on evil, in polar tension, each defined by the other, each feeding into the other.”

So here we are at the end of the age. The enemies of God have ramped up their attacks in their desperate attempts to stop the appearance of the kingdom of God. At the same time the Spirit and the Bride are preparing for the great banquet. Whoever is thirsty, whoever is hungry, come to the Lord’s table, He has prepared a special seat for you. The great wedding feast of the Lamb is about to begin but before it gets started there is a war to win.