1. The man seek a bride had to make a contract with the father, agreeing on the purchase price of the Bride, which was due the day after she accepted the Proposal.
The price the Father demanded to Redeem us was a Holy Blood Sacrifice, and Christ paid the price purchasing the Church as His Bride. 1 Corinthians 6:20 (NKJV)
20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
2. The wedding proposal was never verbal. The man seeking a Bride is invited to a family sit down supper, after making contract with the father. During the course of the meal the man would pour a cup of wine and passed it to his prospective Bride. If she drank from the cup she was accepting the proposal, and if she set it down without drinking, she was refusing the proposal.
Jesus poured the cup and passed it to the Disciples the foundation of the Church. The Disciples drank from the betrothal cup accepting Jesus Christ as our Bridegroom. Just as in any Jewish Wedding Proposal, the Couple is known as Bride and Bridegroom throughout the Betrothal Period. ( Mat. 9:15 )
1 Corinthians 11:25 (NCV)
25 In the same way, after they ate, Jesus took the cup. He said, “This cup is the new agreement that is sealed with the blood of my death. When you drink this, do it to remember me.“
3. The first thing that would take place after the Bride drank from the Cup, accepting the Marriage Proposal, is the Bridegroom would stand, look at his Bride, and say, “I go to prepare a place for you.” He would then leave the old dwelling place of the Bride, never to set foot in it again until after the Wedding Ceremony. According to the Jewish Wedding Traditions, he would go back home and begin to build a New Dwelling Place for his Bride either in or near his father’s home.
Jesus said in: John 12:2-3 (NASB) “
2 In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. “ That comes straight out of a Jewish Wedding Proposal.4. So did they set the Date for the Wedding like we do? NO, because only the father of the Bridegroom had the right to periodically inspect the New Dwelling Place and giving additional instructions to his son to add this and that, make this better, etc. Finally without any advanced warning, the father would say to his son, frequently near midnight, “It is finished, go get your Bride.”
Hence, it is a reality in any Jewish Wedding that ONLY the Father knows when the Wedding will start; because it is ONLY the Father that can decide when the New Dwelling Place is FINISHED, including the Wedding Decorations, because the Wedding ALWAYS took place in the New Dwelling Place. While the Son would go off to steal His Bride away like a Thief in the Night, the father would give orders to the servants to get ready to welcome the Wedding Guests. Where is our New Dwelling Place? The New City Jerusalem in Heaven and it is Decorated, adorned as you would a Bride, which eventually be lowered to the earth.Revelation 21:2 (KJV)
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
5. While it is true that NO ONE knew the day or hour that Wedding would begin, because only the father of the Bridegroom made that decision at the last minute; is was possible to see signs that the Time for the Wedding was NEAR. If the new dwelling place was outside the father’s house, the building itself was a visible sign of times, and/or by the products the servants were buying for their Master. When you saw them buying decorations for a Wedding you knew the time was near. At that time the Bride would gather her wedding party in her old dwelling place. They each would have to have a lantern with oil in because they new that the Jewish Wedding Traditions of 2000 years ago, dictated that the Bridegroom could come to call out his Bride late at night.
We in a real sense are gathering the Wedding Party in our old dwelling place, “earth”, as we lead each new believer to receive Jesus as LORD. Sure we do not know the day or hour, but the signs of the times indicate that it is soon. Therefore we keep watch, expecting our Bridegroom to APPEAR in the clouds to call us out. And JUST LIKE the parable of ten virgins, ONLY those with oil in their lamps ( the Holy Spirit is the living oil in us ), get to go with the Bridegroom to the Wedding. Mark 13:35 (NIV)
35 "Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back--whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.