"The Banqueting House"

Below is Day Thirty-three in the book The Midnight Bride by Richard Wurmbrand. May it touch your world as it has mine; and for those who are not here in Kansas City, experiencing this awakening of the Holy Spirit, this devotion below captures, as best it can, just a small taste of what God is doing in and through His children:

The bride says, "He brought me to the banqueting house..."(SoS 2:4)

The church is a banqueting house. God brings us into this happy place that we would not otherwise have come. The soul that was satisfied to sit quietly in His shadow is now brought to greater joys. In His banqueting house, we will know what it means to become inebriated with His love. He has prepared for us not merely meals, but banquets with meat, milk and wines available without payment.

The great mystics and saints can be our guides toward this banqueting house. Their examples teach us that when the Holy Spirit enters into a heart igniting the fire of love, that fire gives birth to an insatiable thirst. The believer says, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God" (Psalm 42:1). As the deer's thirst is even greater when pursuing, so is the believer's thirst for God under temptation. The thirsty deer plunges its whole body into the water and drinks its fill; likewise, we must eat and drink our fill in God's banqueting house. Saint John of the Cross wrote:

May we forget about ourselves. When we are intoxicated by His presence, we will feel that we can do miracles, that we can pass through fire and water, and that we can remain unafraid when thousands of swords are drawn against us. By His grace, we won't fear anymore----neither life nor death, joy nor sorrow. We will be drunk with faith.

This is called "jubilation." Sometimes you smile, sometimes you weep, and sometimes you sing. Rational people who have no idea what the Holy Spirit does with those who belong to Him ask, "How can you be so mad?" our reply is, "God has permitted us to drink in His banqueting house!" But rational people cannot understand such a thing. The soul that has been in God's banqueting house knows unspeakable joy. He rejoices even for the pain he must endure. Whatever is done to him, however well or ill he fares, he is always peaceful and joyous. Rivers of living water flow from his heart. Saint John of the Cross sang:

I drank from my well-beloved

and when I walked out,

I knew nothing more

of this whole field;

and I had lost the flock

which I had followed before.

My soul has put itself,

with all its resources,

into His service.

Now I have no flock anymore;

I have no duties anymore

Because my whole duty consists in loving.