Something is shifting. If you’ve been paying attention, to the news, to conversations in the body of Christ, to the general feeling in the air, you may have noticed it too. Talk of the return of Jesus has picked up. Not the usual background noise, but something sharper, more urgent, more personal. People who weren’t talking this way a year ago are talking this way now. William Miller noticed it at the Feast of Tabernacles. He’d been hearing it from people around him, from voices across the broader church, from a cultural moment that seemed to be pressing in on something. And so he brought a message not simply about whether Jesus is coming back, most of us already believe that, but about the more pressing question: What does it mean to be ready?
The Verse That Frames Everything
Revelation 19:6–8 is the starting point. “I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude and the sound of many waters and the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.’ And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.”
Read that last line again. The fine linen, the wedding garment, is the righteous acts of the saints. It is not status. It is not title. It is not attendance. It is the accumulated pattern of a life given to God, lived out in real moments, real decisions, and real obedience to the Spirit’s leading. The bride has made herself ready. The question for each of us: have we?
The Parable of the Wedding Feast
Jesus told a story in Matthew 22 that William used to anchor the message. A king prepares a wedding feast for his son. He sends invitations. The invited guests refuse to come, some ignore it, others go back to their farms and businesses, some treat the messengers with contempt. The king opens the invitation to anyone who can be found, good and bad alike. The hall fills. But when the king comes in to greet the guests, he finds one man with no wedding garment. Not someone who snuck in uninvited. Someone who came, but didn’t come prepared.
The king’s response is not mild. “Bind him hand and foot, take him away and cast him into outer darkness. For many are called, but few are chosen.” The wedding garment, as Revelation 19 already told us, is the righteous acts of the saints. Which means you can show up to the feast — you can be in the congregation, you can attend, you can go through the motions — and still not be dressed for it.
What the Parable of the Virgins Adds
Matthew 25 takes the warning a step further. Ten virgins go out to meet the bridegroom. Five are wise. Five are foolish. The difference isn’t who believes — all ten are waiting. The difference is who prepared. Five had oil in their lamps and extra in their vessels. Five had just enough to light the wick, or perhaps not quite enough. When the bridegroom came at midnight, the foolish ones found their lamps going out. They scrambled to buy more oil. But while they were gone, the bridegroom arrived, the ready ones went in, and the door shut.
“Lord, Lord, open to us.” “I do not know you.” William didn’t use this passage to frighten. He used it to wake something up. The wise virgins couldn’t give their oil away. You can’t receive someone else’s relationship with God at the last moment. The oil — the Holy Spirit, the living faith that grows from genuine belief — has to be cultivated over time. It has to become a well inside you that keeps flowing.
The Well That Doesn’t Run Out
Jesus told the woman at the well in John 4 that the water He gives becomes a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. In John 7, He cried out on the last great day of the feast: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” This is the oil. This is the linen. It’s not manufactured by effort alone, it flows from genuine belief. When we receive His words, when we say yes to what the Spirit leads us toward, the water keeps coming. The lamp stays lit.
We are to stir each other up. Meet together. Encourage one another. Use what God has given us, however small it seems, and multiply it. The servant who buried his talent in the ground didn’t lose it because it was small. He lost it because he did nothing with it.
What the Bride Is Actually Wearing
The image in Revelation 19 is striking: fine linen, clean and bright. Not achieved through performance. Received through faith. Paul says it in Ephesians 1:13 — when you heard and believed the gospel of your salvation, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. That sealing is the beginning. But Paul also writes in 2 Timothy 1:6 to stir up the gift that is in you. And Hebrews 10:24–25 puts it in community terms: “Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together… and so much the more as you see the day approaching.”
So much the more as you see the day approaching. We are to stir each other up. Meet together. Encourage one another. Use what God has given us — however small it seems — and multiply it. The servant who buried his talent in the ground didn’t lose it because it was small. He lost it because he did nothing with it.
The Question Left on the Table
William closed with this from Matthew 10:32 — Jesus said, “Whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.” And this from Matthew 25:40 — “Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” The bride making herself ready looks like this: everyday belief in action. Small acts of love that are led by the Spirit. A life that keeps its lamp trimmed, not because you’re trying to earn a garment, but because the Spirit inside you keeps producing one. Jesus is coming back. That isn’t abstract. That is coming for a bride who has made herself ready. The question today is not if, the question is how are you dressing?
Watch the full message from William Miller on our YouTube channel. Greater Phoenix Church of God meets every Saturday at 10:30 AM at 4300 N. 82nd Street, Scottsdale, AZ. All are welcome.