Regrets to the King of Kings

Find yourself once again in the
gospel of Luke after a week’s hiatus of sorts. The new format of our bulletin still allowed for a place for
the passage, but because of the length of the passage, I didn’t
have place for notes. They’re relatively simple this
morning, so I trust you can make do. In order to set the context
really, and by way of reminder of where we were 14 days ago,
I want to take us back to the beginning of the Gospel of Luke.
Pardon me, the beginning of the 14th chapter of the Gospel of
Luke, a review of that sort going all the way back to the gospel
would take me about a week. Let’s go back to the beginning
of the 14th chapter where we found Jesus as he had had as
he had been a number of times invited into hostile territory
for the precious occasion of sharing a meal. Having people
and having fellowship over a meal is always and supposed to be
a joyous and it’s difficult to even sit down
with an enemy at a dinner table and not close the gap to some
degree. But this occasion was different.
This was a setup. This was a hostile invitation. Once again, as all of them were,
looking to seize hold of something where they might accuse Christ.
Look at verse 1. It happened that when he went
into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the
Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching him closely. He was
under constant scrutiny, even in an occasion such as this.
some alleged fellowship meal. And there in front of him was
a man suffering from dropsy. And Jesus answered and spoke
to the lawyers and the Pharisees saying, is it lawful to heal
on the Sabbath or not? And Jesus took matters into his
own hands and he circumvented what they were perhaps even setting
up this Sabbath healing. And he put the case to them.
They were too cowardly to answer him. They kept silent. Verse
four, he took hold of him and healed him and sent him away.
And he said to them, which one of you will have a son or an
ox fall into a well and will not immediately pull him out
on the Sabbath day? And they could make no reply.
They were dumbstruck. They had no reply to this because
there was no just reply. Of course, they would reach in
and pull out a son or a daughter or an ox or a lamb. And really what Jesus was saying
there was that even a healing on the Sabbath was that much
more just to do. What happens there is this transition. This transition where Jesus turns
to become the watcher, Jesus becomes the one watching them.
And he began observing them, perhaps without even their notice,
that they were seizing hold of the primary seats, the seats
of honor. And it was that occasion that
we focused in on last week. We noted that the real place
of honor is by degree part of our invitation, right? Isn’t
it enough just to be invited to one of these places? not for
the Pharisees. They wanted the primary seat.
They wanted the chief seat. In a sense, the place of honor
is not only part of our invitation, it was relative to who else was
in attendance. And if they’d only known and
really realized and acknowledged that the very Son of God, the
Messiah Himself, was in their midst, He should have had the
place of highest honors Jesus also pointed out that a place
of honor is the prerogative of the host, that it’s for the host
to designate where we seat or where we are seated and where
we sit at tables. And ultimately, finally, Jesus
pointed out that it’s only the seat of honor is really only
an honor to whom it’s bestowed. But it was a dinner party that
occasioned this, this lengthy passage. It was a dinner party
that Jesus was observing. And in a sense, while he’s in
the midst of this, educating them on it isn’t just etiquette,
this goes far beyond just earthly etiquette. But he transitions
here into the passage we want to look at this morning into
more instruction regarding dinner parties, so to speak. It pointed out when you are invited
to a dinner party, what your protocol ought to be in selecting
a chair. Now he turns the passage and
says, what do you do when you’re going to throw a dinner party?
Let’s pick up fresh here with verse 12. And he went on to say
to the one who had invited him, When you give a luncheon or a
dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives
or your rich neighbors. Otherwise, they may also invite
you in return and that will be your repayment. But when you
give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame,
the blind, and you will be blessed since they do not have the means
to repay you. For you will be repaid at the
resurrection of the righteous. When one of those who were reclining
at the table with him heard this, he said to him, blessed is everyone
who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. But he said to him, a man was
giving a big dinner and he invited many. And at the dinner hour,
he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, come for
everything is ready now. But they all alike began to make
excuses. The first one said to him, I
bought a piece of land and I need to go look at it. Please consider
me excused. Another one said, I bought five
yoke of oxen and I’m going to try them out. Please consider
me excused. Another one said, I’ve married
a wife and for that reason I cannot come. The slave came back and
reported this to his master. Then the head of the household
became angry and said to his slave, Go out at once into the
streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and
the crippled and blind and lame.” The slave said, Master, what
you have commanded has been done and there is still room. The
master said to the slave, Go out into the highways and along
the hedges and compel them to come in so that my house may
be filled. For I tell you, none of those
men who are invited shall taste of my dinner. There are those that in looking
at this passage, this lengthy passage beginning in verse 1
of chapter 14, distill this down as to try to suggest that all
Jesus is doing here is playing a first century version of mismanners. All He’s doing is teaching about
etiquette and how we ought to behave. How we ought to behave
when we show up to the dinner. How we ought to behave when we
throw a dinner. And it couldn’t be further from the truth. The
passage here is rich and it’s full of very pointed meaning,
full spiritual truth. I want to take us back. I want
to use verses 12 through 14 merely as transitional to get to the
section that I’m treating as the main part this morning. Look
again at verse 12. He went in to say to the ones
who had invited Him, when you give a luncheon or a dinner,
do not invite your friends. It’s amazing to see what people
have done with this one. Perhaps some of us, as we were
reading this, are squirming. I know there were dinner parties
going on last night and we had one last week. Do we have to
think and rethink our whole approach to having dinner parties? And
have we sinned in inviting our friends? Did we sin in inviting
our relatives over for dinner at Christmas? We don’t know that all of the
guests in attendance were of the upper classes. Jesus is giving
a broad brush command. A warning, if you will. In fact,
if you look at the situation, we know Jesus was there. He wasn’t
exactly treated as part of the social upper class. He was the
King of Kings in truth, but from a social standpoint, He was practically
an outcast. We know that his disciples were
likely with him. These were, for the most part,
fishermen, the lowest trade of the community. Some of his disciples
were not only with him, but perhaps even some extended persons. We don’t know. But we do know that what Jesus is
pointing out was a truism of the Pharisees. They were elitists. They liked to be only among those
of their own kind. They disdained any who were less
than what they had, in their own mind, achieved. What Jesus
points out is their behavior, their arrogance was wrong. Jesus
wasn’t giving some kind of a lesson on the propriety or impropriety
of inviting friends and family or even the wealthy. What is contained here? The lesson
is contained that our Lord didn’t intend to forbid men from showing
hospitality to one another, even to relatives and friends. It
isn’t wrong in and of itself. He didn’t mean to encourage another
lesson that’s woven in here is that he didn’t necessarily mean
to encourage just an indiscriminate giving to the poor and the poor
exclusively. What Jesus gives is a balance
here. It’s not wrong to have your friends over, but don’t
just have your friends. Inviting friends isn’t necessarily,
he says, an act of charity, an act of love. It was a lawful
act, as one said, of humanity and civility. It had a good tendency
to promote unity and friendship among neighbors and friends,
but no such act of charity for which they could expect a heavenly
reward. You see, the Pharisees had this mind that just by flocking
together in this elitist crowd, that somehow that gained them
not only reputation among others, but recognition before God. And
Jesus says that’s not the case. Jesus doesn’t forbid, forbid
us, forbid you. to have a dinner party, to have
people over for lunch, for dinner, even your dear friends, your
family. But he says, don’t stop there. Don’t just stop there. See, we’ve looked at hospitality
in the past when Paul exhorts. that an elder must be hospitable,
both in 1st Timothy 3 and in Titus 1. When he says that, he
isn’t saying that an elder must have a good wife who cooks good
food so that they can have lots of good dinner parties. Even
though I do. That’s not what makes an elder.
Hospitality goes far beyond a good dinner party. It goes to looking
to who is in need and responding to that need. And it isn’t just
about food. It’s about caring for their needs
and caring for them fully and reaching down to them and reaching
out to them and caring for their particular needs. One characterized
it this way. If the rich socialize only with
the rich and the educated only with the educated, And the influential,
only with the influential, what happens to the rest of society? Where is that aspect of leaven
in your life if you shut yourselves off to only those of your like
kind? There’s no doubt that like people
are drawn to like people. There’s nothing wrong with having
dear friends. that are like you. That’s good.
That’s normal and natural. But when you begin to rigidly
restrict it and to forbid anybody outside of your so-called social
class or your educational background or your particular club, whatever
it may be, from coming into your sphere, from welcoming them and
inviting them into your sphere, that’s wrong and that’s what
Jesus addresses. Where is the room under that
mentality to practice true hospitality? In essence, what Jesus says here
is that failure to heed this command of Christ, you not only
end up cheating others, cheating the poor, cheating the uneducated,
cheating those who aren’t wealthy, cheating those who aren’t your
best friends. You end up cheating yourself. I remember as a young pastor,
one of the when he gets in the new church, you know, one of
the unspoken expectations is that when the missionaries come
in, you host them, you house them, you feed them, you drive
them where they want to go. And at first, you know, OK, that
comes part of the job. That’s fine. We’ll never forget. Now we almost hoard them. Now
we almost feel guilty because we’ll never forget those first
few that came through and what a blessing they were and how
they prayed for us in our ministry and how they gave us advice and
counsel and served us. What a blessing we miss. If we
only stay within our sphere of friends, and that’s what Jesus
began to rebuke. Note the advice in verse 13,
but when you give a reception, invite the poor, invite the crippled,
the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed since they do
not have the means to repay you. I know I’ve mentioned it before. There seems to be this kind of
sick reciprocation that goes on in Christian circles that,
well, it’s our turn or then if you You know, if things stagnate,
well, then you dig in your heels. Well, it’s their turn. You know,
we’ve had them over four times and they’ve only had us two.
It’s their turn. And Jesus addresses that, that
that mentality shouldn’t even figure in, we shouldn’t even
be keeping count. The poor, you can be sure of
this, the poor never will have you over. They don’t have the
means to repay you, Jesus says. They don’t have the infirm, don’t
have the strength to give a dinner party. The poor don’t have the
money to give a dinner party. But there is there is some reciprocation
to be gained from it. But Jesus says you’re going to
have to wait a while. You may not have the immediate gratification
of taking turn at their home the following week. But Jesus
says there is going to be recompense. Look again at verse 14. If you
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, you will
be blessed. And some of us have never even
tested that concept. We’ve never even tested to see
if the Lord is really being truthful here. We will be blessed. What a great
promise. If you invite those outside of
your typical sphere of influence, your typical comfort level, and
you reach out to them and invite them in, you will be blessed. Since they do not have the means
to repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
In eternity, when Christ returns and takes you there, this is
one of those many things which Christ mentions there in Matthew
7. You gave me to drink. I was naked
and you clothed me. I was thirsty and you gave me
to drink. I was hungry and you fed me. These are the people
that Christ is referring to. And what he points out to the
Pharisees is their tendency was so often in the opposite direction.
They have this elitist, socialistic club that kept out everybody
except those of their own kind. See, what they forgot is that
an act of benevolence, an act of kindness is an act of faith.
We’re stepping out of faith. We’re stepping out on faith and
we are giving to those who don’t have of themselves. We are responding
to their need. We are trusting the Lord to bless
us in return and to take care of our needs. So, an act like
this is an evidence of trust in God. It’s an evidence of a
soul that’s looking beyond this sordid, present life that we
have. Looking beyond the thin means
that we may have. Paul seized upon this very thought
at the close of His first epistle to Timothy. He said, instruct
those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or
to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly
supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good,
to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.
storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation
for future, so that they may take hold of that which is life
indeed.” In other words, he says, look beyond this world. You’re
giving a dinner party. Look beyond this world. Think
in heavenly terms. Think in eternal terms when you
carve out your guest list. Jesus’ counsel. in the hearing
of his host, I think draws out one of these people that in the
midst of tenseness has to say something. Do you know somebody
like that? I do. In the midst of tenseness, in
the midst of a little friction, a little tension, let’s switch
the subject really quickly. And listen to what he does in
verse 15. One of those who was reclining with him at the table
heard this. He said, blessed is everyone who will eat bread
in the kingdom of God. Great. Let’s move on. It’s exactly
what I think was going on. Couldn’t wait to change the subject
because Jesus in the host mind had just offended him. He invited
him to dinner and now he has rebuked him in the presence of
all. Blessed is everybody who eats
bread in the presence of God. Let’s change the subject, shall
we? What’s for dinner? It’s likely
that the individual that made this comment was one of the very
class, the people that just was presuming that he was going to
heaven. Perhaps he was one of those people that liked to talk
about spiritual things. They like to talk about religion
and those kinds of things, but they never go any further. You
know people like that? Remember Pilgrim’s Progress? Comes across the man named Talkative. And he loved to talk and talk
about spiritual things and talk about church and talk about the
Bible and talk about these things. But all it was, was talk. I think
that’s exactly who Jesus comes face to face with. One that just
inserts this comment, just talk, talk, talk. The resurrection here that he
talked, or pardon me, the meal that he speaks of. When he speaks of eating bread,
it was a Hebraism that pointed to the Jewish idea that the Messianic
age was going to open with this, going to be begun with this lavish
banquet. And it would be this prolonged
festival of eating and drinking. And that was really what the
Jews believed that the Messianic kingdom was going to begin with.
And that’s why Jesus was so poorly received by them. And in a sense,
they have some justification for thinking along these things.
You think we’ve touched upon it before, Isaiah 25. The Lord of hosts will prepare
a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain, a banquet of
aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, refined aged wine.” Scripture
often pictures the joy of the new heaven and earth in those
terms. So they weren’t completely without
justification, but what they had done is embellished this
thing to become the primary focus of kingdom living. They connected
it not only with banquets, but they said that the food there
was going to be better than manna. Listen to this one characterized
it this way, one historian noted that the Jews supposed that God
would make a splendid feast in which beside bread, there would
be a great variety of flesh and fish and fowl, plenty and generous,
plenty of generous wine and all sorts of delicious fruit. Particularly,
they speak of a great ox, which they suppose will be the behemoth
of Job, which will be then prepared and Leviathan, which will be
dressed. Now, from everything I read about Leviathan, it’s
not exactly something I want on my dinner table. Leviathan, which will be dressed
and of old wine kept from the creation of the world. Can you
imagine how fermented that would be? And the fruits of the Garden
of Eden, which will then be served up. They had embellished the
whole thing to where that became their primary focus with what
was on the dinner table, not who was sitting at the head of
the table. Not on God. And Jesus begins to clarify not
only the man’s thinking, but really our thinking as well. I’ve entitled the message regrets
to the King of Kings regrets. Remember when you get those invitations
and always at the bottom, it says regrets only or RSVP. This is a case where God gets
one of these envelopes back in the mail and it says, sorry,
God, I know you invited me. I sure appreciate it, but I can’t
come. Let’s look at the What I’ve suggested are three phases
of the divine summons to heaven. God is the one that calls us.
God is the one that is giving this dinner party. Let’s look
at the response. The call to heaven is marked
by three distinct phases that urge us to examine our own response. How are we currently responding
to the divine summons? Phase one. Phase one is what
I would call the request to the kingdom, the invitation itself,
if you will. Look at verse 16. He said to
them, a man was giving a big dinner and he invited many. And
at the dinner hour, he sent his slave to say to those who had
been invited, come for everything is ready now. Now, our situation
is a little bit different. We send out the invitations,
we send back the RSVP, we tell them whether we’re coming or
whether we’re not. And then on the given day, it’s
up to us to look at our calendars, to remember where we’re supposed
to be on such a given time. And we go. In the east, it was
somewhat different. The day was announced far in
advance. And if you were invited, you
were expected to respond yes or no almost immediately. Yes,
I’ll be there. No, I won’t. Can I get back to
you? And then on the day of the great
event, The cryers, the announcers, the servants would go out and
they would summon everybody into the kingdom, a formal summons
into the dinner. It wasn’t unusual, it was a very
typical thing in the East. What Christ was doing here in
zeroing in and pointing this out to this individual and to
everybody who was in his hearing was this Comfortable self complacency,
arrogance, presumptuousness, really of this speaker. Of the man who blurted out this
thing about eating bread in the kingdom of God. What he says
is true. In some sense, because of what
Isaiah says, in some sense, there is some truth to that. There’s
going to be some kind of a banquet, but the focus isn’t on the banquet.
The focus is on Christ and on God himself. What he says is correct, but
the spirit in which he says it is all wrong. The primary point of this whole
parable is going to be to show the wickedness and the unbelief
of the Jews. And that ultimately, the calling
of the Gentiles, the Jews had first been offered Christ. And
when they rejected him, the offer was turned instead to the Gentiles. And yet the parable doesn’t stop
just with the reception of the Gentiles, because throughout
the history of the church, even today, if you were to go out
and faithfully proclaim the gospel, you are going to experience this.
Some would reject. Some may respond. That’s what
Jesus says. And so the announcer went out
and he was sent to remind them of the day. Perhaps they didn’t
have a calendar palm pilot with all their dates, all their things
to do. So the announcer went out and reminded them to come.
Now was the time for the dinner party. And to omit this second
summons would be such a terrible breach of etiquette that it was
almost unthinkable. We’ve known people, we certainly
experienced it ourselves at our wedding, which I can scarcely
remember now, 15, 16 years ago. We know people that RSVP, yes,
we’ll be there and then come the day of the wedding. We still
are waiting for something in the mail as to some excuse where
they were. We’ve all given dinner parties
like that, haven’t we? You’ve all heard of those. People
give an invitation. The invitation is responded to.
People promise to come and then given the day. We don’t know what happened to them.
It’s a terrible, terrible thing to do. Counts are taken, money
is spent, commitments are made. Places set. It’s understandable
that things come up. But to behave in the manner in
which these people did was unspeakable. What these slaves represent is a patient and a faithful God
who sends messengers time and again, not only the prophets,
but he had sent John the Baptist and not only John the Baptist,
but he had sent Christ and not only Christ. But from then on,
he sent the apostles and then he sent servants and he sent
pastors and missionaries by the thousands into the world. That’s
what these servants represent, and they represent those that
go out and faithfully proclaim Christ and appeal to those to
come. It’s time come. They represent God’s messengers
to His people. The message is the same century
after century. Come to me all who are weary
and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Come. The invitation
is a substantial one. And the first thing that we have
to look at with regards to our own lives is what have we done
with the invitation? I don’t I can’t possibly doubt
that every person in this room has responded in full and given
their lives fully to Christ. I think of the young people.
I think of the kids in our midst. We teach them about Christ, we
teach them about spiritual things and we wait and we wait. Some
of you young people, you’ve heard it time and time again, and I
honestly don’t know what you’re waiting for. There is the request
of the kingdom and there is a very real sense in which Jesus stands
every day waiting, waiting for those to respond, waiting for
those to place their faith. There’s a second phase. Call to heaven is marked not
only by a Phase 1, the request of the kingdom. But phase 2,
the rejection of that very kingdom. Look at verse 18. They all alike
began to make excuses. The first one said to him, I
have bought a piece of land. I need to go look at it. Please
consider me excused. Another one said, I bought five
yoke of oxen. I’m going to try them out. Please
consider me excused. Another one said, I have married
a wife. For that reason, I cannot come.”
The slave came back and reported this to his master. These people
had already promised to come. If there was an excuse to be
given, they already missed that opportunity. They could have
RSVP’d. They could have given their regrets and they didn’t.
That’s what is assumed by this parable. Given the nature of
invitations in the day, the time for rejecting the offer was early
on. Not now. They had claimed that
they were coming just like the Pharisees. The Pharisees claimed
to have the corner on the market. The Pharisees claimed to be the
ones who would be seated at the table eating bread in the kingdom
of heaven. And Jesus says no. It’s interesting. There have
been all kinds of explanations of those three excuses. One suggested
it was property possessed, property getting and sensual enjoyments.
But I don’t think Jesus had any symbolical intent here at all. You could have said anything.
Essentially, what he’s saying is excuses, excuses, excuses. Because these three so-called
hindrances are no hindrances at all. plowing a field. If this was
a dinner party, a true evening dinner party, are we to assume
that the man with the five yoke of oxen was going to go plow
in the dark? This is what we call a lame excuse. The man who
bought a piece of land, are we to assume that he hadn’t seen
the land beforehand? And if so, is such a fool to
now go and look at the land that he’s purchased? And even the
one, perhaps he thought that he had biblical mandate to do
what he did. I remember as a young seminary
student at Dallas, one of the suggest, well, it was a practically
a stipulation that if you got married, you needed to take six
months off, take a semester off and be with your wife. See, the law said this. The law
basically allowed people to plead this excuse Deuteronomy 24, 5,
the building of a house, planting a vineyard, those things, the
service in the military, those things are to be accepted for
the man in his first year of marriage so that he could give
full attention to his wife. Some of you ladies would say,
well, let’s go back to those days. But the sin of this invited guest,
this third invited guest was that they treated this invitation
to dinner as some kind of a burden on a par with being drafted into
military service. I mean, the guy’s inviting you
to dinner. Really, from the beginning of
time, it’s been no different. From the first time that Christ
called people to the kingdom to today, it’s no different.
People continue to offer up alibis and excuses and all kinds of
reasonings on why they can’t serve Christ, why they I mean,
you think today. I would dare say a quarter of
the population of the city is up in the mountains and on any
given day of the year, that probably is pretty much the case. People here were invited to the
highest spiritual blessings of all. There was Christ in their
midst and they were missing the whole point. They looked askance, just like
these three individuals at the invitation, as though it called
them to some kind of misery or difficulty. And they literally
beg off by offering up these three excuses. It’s interesting to one said
that ungodliness and worldliness are always found in company. But sometimes it’s difficult
to determine which of the two goes first and draws the other
after it. You seldom meet a man who neglects
this great salvation and neglects also the gains and pleasures
of life. You see what he’s saying is. They turn their back on God
to pleasures. Remember, that’s exactly what
the Thessalonians were called from. They turned their back
to pleasures and turned to God instead. One Puritan said it
this way, many people who receive gospel invitations refuse to
accept them. We have this part of the parable,
a vivid picture of the reception, which the gospel is continually
meeting wherever it is proclaimed. Thousands are continually doing
what the parable describes. They’re invited to come to Christ,
but they will not come. It is an ignorance of spiritual
things that ruins most men’s souls. It is a want of will to
use knowledge. And love of this present world,
not open profligacy that leads to hell. Did you hear what he
said? He’s talking about your neighbor.
He’s talking about your neighbor who’s a good guy. He’s a nice
guy. He’s a moral guy. He’s an upstanding
citizen of our community. He just doesn’t love Christ.
He just doesn’t serve Christ. He just doesn’t worship Christ
in all that he does. He just doesn’t go to church. He goes on and says, it is excessive
attention to things which in themselves are lawful, not avowed
dislike to the gospel, which is so much to be feared. You
see, in our day and age, now we’ve even coined a term for
it, workaholic. It’s exactly what he says. Excessive
attention to things in which in themselves are lawful. Is
work lawful? You bet. Is working to the point of forgetting
about God lawful? Absolutely not. He goes on and says, it is that
procrastinating, excuse making spirit which is always ready
with a reason why Christ cannot be served today. Infidelity and
immorality no doubt slay their thousands, but decent, plausible,
smooth spoken excuses slay their tens of thousands. And yet no
excuse can justify not turning to Christ. My question to you
in this regard is what excuse are you making for not being
more fully, more completely committed to the cause of Christ? What
is lacking? What excuse are we making? What
excuse are we allowing to fill the void of our service of Christ? What excuse are we using in coming
to Christ? Maybe I’ll come when I’m in college.
Maybe I’ll come when it’s later. Maybe I’ll serve Christ when
I’ve got more time. There’s a third phase. The call to heaven is marked
not only by the request to the kingdom and the rejection of
the kingdom, but phase three, the reallocation of the kingdom. Look what happens there in verse
21. After the slave reported to him, then the head of the
household became angry and said to his slave, go out at once
into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the
poor and the crippled and blind and lame. The slave said, Master, what
you’ve commanded has been done. I get the sense that there is
this progression here. The slave goes out, does what
he says, comes back. Still more room. Still more places
to fill at the table. And the master said to the slave,
go into the highways along the hedges, compel them to come in
so that the house may be filled. Let me take you to the context. Jesus
had been rejected over and over again. And I just want to I want
to narrow it down just to the gospel of Luke and bring to your
recollection entire regions, entire people groups that had
rejected Christ. Back in Luke 4, 29 says that
they got up and drove him out of the city and led him to the
brow of the hill, which their city had been built on in order
to throw him down the cliff. They rejected him at Nazareth. Luke 9.53. Let’s go to 8.37. Luke 8.37. All the people of
the country of the Gerasenes and the surrounding district
asked him to lead them, for they were gripped with great fear.
And he got into a boat and returned. Here he had just done this mighty
miracle of healing the demon-possessed man. Instead of inviting him
to lunch, they drive him out of the city. Luke 9.53. He was rejected not only at Nazareth
and Perea, He was rejected in Jerusalem, the city of God, so
to speak. They picked up stones to throw
it in and Jesus hid himself and went out of their temple. Luke
9.53. He was rejected in Judea and Samaria. They did not receive
him because he was traveling towards Jerusalem. Luke 10.13. Not only was he rejected
in Nazareth and Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and Perea,
he was rejected in Galilee, his own hometown. Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. For if
the miracles had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, which occurred
in you, they would have repented long ago. That’s the context
of this. Jesus is facing rejection, and
yet he is going to have his banquet table filled. And in the parable, he says,
go out into the streets and lanes. What those represent are those
highways and byways of Jewish life, the suburbs, if you will,
the outlying areas. Well, one described as the wretched
courts and alleys which no scribe would stoop to enter. They were
Gentile areas and they were considered impure and unclean, and no scribe
would go there. But Christ sent his servants
there Christ sent his apostles there. Christ sent missionaries
there and still does. These areas lay entirely outside
the notice and functions of the Jewish priesthood, the poor,
the maimed, the crippled and blind, the publicans and sinners,
harlots and men of violence who obeyed the summons and pressed
eagerly into the kingdom. That’s who’s in view. It’s a
glorious thing. Jesus says, I’m going to fill
my banquet table with people. And if it isn’t the people of
God, so to speak, it’s going to be whoever responds. But note this, now he goes down
to the dregs of society and he says, go into the highways and
hedges. Not only go get the crippled
in the lane, which would have included Jewish, crippled and
lame. But he says, go into the highways
and hedges. This points to the lower class
of population of an Eastern country. The lowest of low. These are
the homeless. These are the tramps and those
who had no home and were constantly sleeping alongside bushes and
fences. These were Gentiles. People,
this is us. We weren’t the primary focus.
Christ came first to save Israel. He came and he preached the gospel
to the Jews and the Jews rejected him. And in time, he turned his
focus to the Gentiles, to us. The question I want to ask you, in a sense, that Jesus really is
saying to everybody that was present at that dinner, and not
only to them, but everybody who ever hears this parable on down
through history itself, that a refusal to accept God’s gracious
offer of salvation by grace through faith in Christ is going to mean a loss of great
blessing and joy. And then notice also, look at
verse 23. And I ask you what your responsibility
is in this when he says, compel them to come. He certainly isn’t
talking about anything violent here. There have been those episodes
in the church, the Crusades, the Inquisition, where we sought
to make people Christians. It isn’t that kind of compulsion
that’s meant at all. What he means is, As in Romans
10, how should they hear without a preacher? What Paul is talking
about there is not somebody who’s been to seminary, who comes out
and who has the ability to preach and proclaim the gospel. He’s
talking about you. How are those that are in the
highways and byways and along the hedges of this world, how
are the people ever going to hear without a preacher? How
are they going to hear unless we open our mouth and proclaim
Christ? J.C. Ryle said it this way, we
must not be ashamed to use a gentle violence. We must be ready in
season and out of season. We must deal with many an unconverted
man as one who is half asleep, half out of his mind and not
fully conscious of the state in which he is in. We must press
the gospel to his notice again and again. We must deal with
him as we would about a man about to commit suicide. We must say,
I cannot, I will not, I dare not let you go on ruining your
soul. Is that your heart? Are you one of Christ’s servants
who is compelling others to come? Or are you just nestled in at
the banquet table waiting for the feast to begin? Let’s examine
our hearts before him. Our gracious King, we see a solemn
occasion, a precious occasion, a dinner, a banquet to which
Christ was invited. And because of the circumstances,
Father, providentially was turned to a lesson. Not only a lesson
to those who are grabbing after seats and a lesson to those who
offer banquets But a lesson about the heavenly banquet, the banquet
of all time, the kingdom of heaven. Father, let us examine our hearts
carefully and cautiously. Let us check our own response. And to what degree we have even
rejected the kingdom with various excuses. To what degree we have
turned instead from calling people to the kingdom
to sitting back as this one presuming upon the kingdom. Examine our
hearts, Father, and change our lives for Your glory. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen.