We continue in Luke chapter 14 today. Let's hear God's Word starting at verse 1, Luke 14, verse 1. And I'll be especially concentrating and preaching on verses 15 through 24. Let's hear God's Word. Now it happened. As Jesus went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched him closely. And behold, there was a certain man before him who had dropped it. And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? But they kept silent. And he took them and healed them and let them go. Then he answered them, saying, Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day? And they could not answer him regarding these things. So he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noted how they chose the best places, saying to them, when you're invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him, and he who invited you, and him, and him come and save you, give place to this man, and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you're invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when He who invited you comes, He may say to you, Friend, go up higher. Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Then He also said to him who invited him, When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But, when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just, in our preaching text. When one of those who sat at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God, then Jesus said to him, A certain man gave a great supper, and invited many, and sent his servant at suppertime to say to those who were invited, Come, for all things are now ready. that they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, I bought a piece of ground and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused. And another said, I bought five yoke of oxen and I'm going to test them. I ask you to have me excused. Still another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. And the servant said, Master, it's done as you commanded, and still there is room. Then the master said to the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper. Now the rest of the chapter. A great multitudes went with Jesus, and he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not eat his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and have thought whether he has enough to finish it? Thus, after he has laid the foundations and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with 20,000 or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how should it be seasoned? It is neither fit for land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. God bless those who are reading, hearing, and preaching. God bless the world. Now as we saw in the context and as we've been talking about for the last several weeks, Jesus had been in the synagogue on the Sabbath, which was then on the last day of the week. And there had come a woman in who was all permanently bent over, And we talked about there was some problem with his spine. And Jesus healed it. And the local Pharisees were really angry because they had a tradition that although it was okay to heal someone who was in danger of their life, and it was okay to keep a person from getting worse, healing otherwise was work forbidden on the Sabbath. And Jesus said, well, look, guys, You know what, when you go out to your barn in the morning, and you've got an animal there who's been tied to a post that doesn't wander away, you untie it. Why? So it can get some drink. Because it's Thursday, it hasn't had anything to drink all night. Now, this lady, for 18 years, not overnight, has been bound up, not tied to a post, but all crunched together because of a sign. She is a child of Abraham. She is a child of God. Not a donkey, not a cow, not a horse or a camel. She is a child of God. And they let her loose, and they didn't have anything to say. He nailed it. And here we read about a man, well, he got invited that very same day to a chief Pharisee's house. This was a big guy in the world of the Pharisees. May have been a member of the National Council, the Sanhedrin. And on that day, here's a man with dropsy, and that's what we call today edema. You're all swollen because your body's retaining fluids and all this, and Jesus heals him. And then asked them, well, he asked them in front, before you did the healing. Is it okay to do this?" And they don't say anything, because they can't. They don't want to say, yeah, it's okay, because that goes against their tradition. But on the other hand, they don't want to say, it's not okay, because he just proved a little while before that it was okay. And he reinforces this by saying, look, if your critter falls into a pit, it might have all kinds of water, the animal could drown, you get it right out. You don't wait around to the next day, and here this man is drowning in his own body fluids. Shouldn't I pull him out of this pit? He can't get himself out. And so it's after that that the dinner starts, or I should say the supper. Everyone rushes in to try to get the best spots, and Jesus makes a story out of it, makes a lesson out of it. We saw that a couple weeks ago. Last week, we saw him talking to the host. about what kind of people he should be inviting. And all this leads, when Jesus says, you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, there in verse 14, you should be repaid at the resurrection of the just. This leads one of the Pharisees and lawyers to say, blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. So Jesus moves from taking lessons from what's going on right before him, right in front of him, and he makes them into a parable to talk about an image, or telling a story about a great banquet to teach other spiritual lessons. And by the way, he uses this word picture of a great feast also in Matthew 22, verses 2-14. Well, what goes on in this story that Jesus teaches? Well, we have a certain man, and he's apparently very rich, and he's very influential. He has planned this huge banquet. Now, I want to explain to some of you children, you may not know what a banquet is. It's a great big party feast. There's lots of different foods, and there's all kinds of different foods, lots of them, and there's plenty for everyone to eat. There would often be an orchestra playing to make the time more enjoyable, and there would be good things not only to eat, but to drink as well. It takes a long time and a lot of money to get this planned. You people who are married, or particularly maybe parents of brides, you know how long it takes to get a wedding feast and a reception put together. And so he had sent out invitations, and now the time's come. The food had been bought, the arrangements had been made, delicious recipes were cooked up, and now everything was ready. Now, not everyone at those times had timekeeping ability. There weren't watches, there weren't clocks. And there weren't calendars particularly, at least for common people. And so you would send out a notification that, okay, that which I've already invited you to, and that which you've already said you'd be coming to, it's already, come on in. Now, I wonder how many of you are married, or you had to pay for a big banquet of this sort. How many of you, you don't have to put up a hand, but I want you to think, have had people say, yeah, I'll be there. and you plan for them, and they don't show up. It happens annoyingly very often. I won't ask you, but I will mention that when we got married, Judy's folks had sent out the invitations, and there were all kinds of the RSVPs coming in, people saying, well, we can't make it, but then other people said, yeah, we'll be there, and they didn't show up. And this worked out okay, because in God's province, we'd sent invitations to the pastor of the Geneva RV Church, where Judy attended when she was in college. And there was another one sent for information purposes to the church, and a bunch of people thought that meant, oh, the church was invited. So we had enough to fit all these people who weren't really invited, because the ones who were invited didn't show up! All right, so God's providence, it all worked out great. But, yeah, the banquet is ready now for the attendance. Now, this should bring to mind, and Jesus intended for this to bring to mind, the prophecies of the Old Testament and God's offer of the gospel to the people of Israel through the prophets I was just talking a bunch about this when going through and meditating upon Psalm 84. All these things were pointing to the coming of Christ and people were expecting him to be there at the time God sent Jesus because God had told them it's going to be around this time about 500 years before. It said in about 500 years or so Messiah is going to come, the anointed one, the Christ will be coming. That's why they were expecting a Christ, and a bunch of false Christs popped up. Jesus was the only true one. It's like the devil was setting out decoys. And so, they should have been thinking the promise has become a reality, right? All the preparation, all the prior invitations had been sent out through the law and through the prophets and the writings. All this was there. All the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms were speaking of Jesus, as he later says in Luke 24, verse 44. And so now the promises become reality, and Jesus is calling them to come. We saw this some time ago when we were in Matthew's Gospel, back in Chapter 11. Fairly familiar words, but I don't have them memorized. So at the end of Chapter 11, We see here in verse 28, 29, and 30, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly at heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. There was the invitation, come now. Or we could go over into John's Gospel in chapter 7, Verse 37, where Jesus says, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Jesus himself commands sinners to come to him. He also speaks through his servant, the Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 18 through 21. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to him, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you, on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Paul also spoke in the next chapter. In verse 1, we then as workers together with Jesus also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. And so this call goes out, come, come! In verses 18 through 20 we see what happens. It's basically a collective, nah. made this section of verses 18 through 20 to be called ridiculous excuses, because they are. They all with one accord, that means all together, children, began to make excuses. The first said, I bought a piece of rim, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused. And another said, I bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm going to test them. I ask you to have me excused. Still another said, I've married a wife, and therefore I can't come. These were, here's a new word for you children, specious, specious excuses. That is, they sounded kind of good, but they weren't, right? If you want to learn how to spell that word, just ask me later. So all of these species excuses are ridiculous when you think about it. Who buys land and checks it out later? What gives? And couldn't you have done this like the day before? Or couldn't it wait until tomorrow? This is ridiculous. Who buys oxen without Checking them out first. Some of you know the phrase of getting something that's a pig and a poke? Alright, well this is an ox and these are oxen in a bag. You don't know but that maybe they are sick, maybe they are injured, maybe they are lame in some way. Why would you buy them and now you're checking them out? We don't do this nowadays with Imagine that, buying a car, and you haven't checked it out at all. People do this, I guess, on Facebook, whatever it's called, market or something, but it's ridiculous. And then, I've married a wife, so I can't come. Well, you know, when we're newly married, we just can't stay away from each other, it seems. But, couldn't you have asked if she could come? Couldn't you ask for it using our modern way of speaking? Couldn't you have asked for a plus one? And you can't be apart from her for a few hours? This is all ridiculous. Now, these aren't just ridiculous either, but really they are insulting and rude. These people had already said they would be there, and they are backing off. They are betraying, I guess, their promises. Well, we should be thinking, how often was it that the Jews, back then and even now, refused the call to come to Christ? They'll use all sorts of ridiculous objections, and though the call continues to go to them, for as a group, God is not done with them yet. The call continues to go to them. We continue to pray that they will come to the Savior. And they continue to stay away from the feast of good things in the Gospel. In fact, sadly, they have and do go after false messiahs and trust in them for a God. It wasn't but some few years later that there was a false messiah that many of the Jews went after, and it was disastrous for them, the Romans. Even now, there are those Jews who are thinking that a very high rabbi who died, it's 30 years ago, they're waiting for him to come back from the dead, I recently saw a YouTube video that purports to show some guy that lives in Israel. He's the Messiah. All this goes against the prophecies of Scripture, but they're not going to take the real one. They will marry themselves in a sort of spiritual adultery to another wife and not come. And then, It's this way for many people from the nations. They will plead all sorts of reasons why they cannot and will not come to Christ for salvation. They want to cling to their traditions. They want to cling to their false gods. They want to stay away from Christ. In this story, the host is really a hat. And who wouldn't be? In our wedding, when Judy came around to go up the aisle where I was waiting for her at the Rose Point Church building, she came in to the auditorium, a bunch of her friends were missing, but she started quietly to laugh. Here are all these people from the Geneva RP Church. This guy wasn't laughing. He was furious. And so the servant reports, well, has reported all these ridiculous and rude refusals, just like in Isaiah 53 verse 1. Many of us know that Isaiah 53 is sometimes called the Gospel of Isaiah because it was such a very clear portrayal of the work of Jesus who would come. And here Isaiah is moved by the Spirit of God to say, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? In other words, nobody is believing. Nobody is believing. The host is outraged and he directs the servant to go to the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. These are the same ones that Jesus had talked to, the host of the banquet events. And we saw that spiritually they were this way. Spiritually. bankrupt, spiritually ugly, spiritually not able to walk in the way of salvation, spiritually blind. Go to these people who are in the streets and in the bad parts of town, even as Jesus himself appealed to the whores, the tax collectors and other sinners. And it ends up that these Low-class people. These that were looked down upon by the Pharisees were the remnant. We took years to go through Isaiah's prophecies, and we often were talking about the true Israel of God. We were often talking about the remnant, and those who were circumcised in heart, not merely in the flesh. These were the ones invited. Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 1, verses 26 and 27, how there are not many that are called who are rich, who are wise, who are influential. They palm off the invitation with excuses. Now these lowly ones, these outsiders, they're you, they're me. And I'm just going to reiterate some things from last week. What do we got to bring to God? What do we have that he needs? We are bankrupt spiritually. We have nothing to give. We are not whole. We are not entire. We are broken. We are shattered and maimed, crippled up by our sins. We cannot walk in the way of holiness. It's like we've had a leg amputated or something. I was just reading about, I don't know why I was looking at this, but I was just reading about an instrument of torture called the thumken or thumbscrew. And it was made and it could, you'd be forced to stick your thumbs in or your big toes. And as things went on, they'd screw it tighter and tighter. If it was made of iron, it would crush your thumb. It would crush your big toes. And if you don't have a big toe on your foot, you can't walk very well. And it wouldn't be temporary. If you have your thumb shattered, it can't be fixed. And so you can't do much of anything anymore, especially if both thumbs are broken. It's amazing how God has made us and what our thumbs are able and needed to do. You can't open a door very well, you've just got a plain doorknob. You can't draw a bow, you can't throw a spear, you can't wield a sword. You're useless militarily, useless in a lot of ways. And we are useless because of this. And finally, blind. We can't see, we can't understand the truth. We are the ones who are totally undesirable, yet God invites us in. And so this was done with the people of Israel. There were some who came, like at Pentecost and at other times. But the servant says, uh, boss, there are still seats. And so the host says, all right, you canvassed the city already. Go outside the walls. Go out into the countryside. Go find the poor people who are too poor to live in town. They dig holes in the banks by the roadside. They hide in the hedges. Go out and get them. They're not in the city of God. They're out there. And this is a picture of the Gentiles. You who are from outside of Israel, they are brought into They're to be compelled. You can't force conversions. There's a false religion that likes to do that. We can't force conversions at the point or edge of a sword, but we have, as Scripture says, in Galatians 6, verses 6-14, excuse me, Ephesians 6, verse 17, when Paul talks about the whole armor of God, one of those things is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. So who are these people in the highways and hedges outside of town? They are those from the nations who are called to come in and be part of the people of God, to be the heirs, the inheritors of the promises of Abraham by faith. We see in Galatians 3, verses 6 through 14. And again, these lowly ones, these outsiders, these who weren't of the people of God, are you! You and I should be left aside, because we're unclean, we're guilty, we're profane, we're not holy. But as we saw last week, you are the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind, spiritually, who are loved by God and called in to dine with Him. And what about those who had been invited, but who said, nah, I've got better things to do? For those who refuse to come, those who continue to think they are rich and whole and swift and clear-sighted, those who refuse the Gospel, the time has come when the invitation is cut off. It may be when Jesus comes to them at the time of their death, It may be at the time Jesus comes generally to end all things, when he comes again physically, liberally and gloriously, but a time comes when the invitation is revoked, never to be renewed again. Those who refuse the Gospel have no faith. I'd be remiss if I didn't apply this further to you. What have you done? The invitation is for anyone and everyone who wants it. Here is a free meal ticket bought for you, paid for you by the person and work of Jesus Christ. Anyone, everyone may come. Will you? Will you confess your sin before Jesus? Will you cry out to Him to forgive you for your sin? Will you trust in Him and in Him alone instead of thinking, well, I'm pretty good, I don't need that. You've got some other God, some other plan and way of goodness that I'm going to adhere to. That seems better to me. Or will you take this invitation and have an everlasting dining and pleasure in God? And we urge, go, to the great name. He says, come, go. Amen. Now, we're going to sing from Psalm 23, using version C. And we should be thinking about what we've been hearing about. In the last stanza there, you set me a table before all my foes. My head you anoint, and my cup overflows. Your goodness and mercy attend my life's ways. Love dwell in the house of the Lord in this day. You know, an earthly banquet comes to an end. The food runs out or gets too late at night for something. Maybe the host loses patience. I don't know. But our abiding with and our delighting in our father in heaven will never end in death.