Everybody loves a wedding, with some exceptions.

I'm telling you, take it from me.

The weddings have become so expensive now

that it is the father of the bride who cries at weddings.

Back in 2004, I was speaking in very large meetings in the Middle East.

I was preaching from the parable, Jesus' parable, on the wedding feast.

And I explained to them that in the West, it's the father of the bride who cries at weddings.

Well, they really looked at me like a calf looking at a new gate.

And I knew that. I was hooking them in. I knew what I was doing

because I know the culture. And so I went on to say, it is because in the West, it's the father

of the bride who pays for the wedding, who they laughed and they got it.

Because in the Middle East,

it's the father of the groom who pays for the wedding.

And he's the one who cries at weddings.

And in fact, I'm going to show you in a minute the incredible picture that the Bible gives us of the wedding in a Jewish, ancient

Jewish culture and all the intricacies of it. But before I do that, I want you to turn with

me to Psalm 45. It is an impossibility for you to understand this Psalm without understanding all the intricacies of an

ancient Jewish wedding, because that's really what it's all about. In fact, Psalm 45 really

is a most unique Psalm in all of the Psalter. That's the book of Psalms. It's unique. There's no

psalm like it. There are a lot of psalms that are similar to each other, but this Psalm is just

stands alone as a unique Psalm because it is written to symbolize the wedding feast of the king, with all of its splendor,

and with all of its beauty, with all of its sounds and sights and all of its emotions.

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