As you open your Bibles this morning to the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 14. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 14. We will be looking at verses 15-24. Luke 14, verses 15-24. And before we read the Word of God, Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank you for your word that we're about to read. Help us to truly feast upon it and see Christ in all of it and draw us near unto you as we partake of the Lord's Supper in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, body and blood. His name I pray, amen. Luke 14, beginning in verse 15, we read, and when one of them that sat at meal with him heard these things, he said unto him, blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper and bade many. And he sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now ready. And they all, with one consent, began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it. I pray thee, have me excused. And another said, I bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them. I pray thee, have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and showed his lord these things. 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 hither the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou has commanded. And yet there is room. And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, that none of these men which were bidden shall taste of my supper." Jesus, in our text, tells what we call the parable of the great supper, the parable of the great banquet or feast. A similar one is told in Matthew chapter 22. Some have thought it's the same parable, but it's not. If you read the two parables, you can tell there's a big difference, though very similar, and a different point. The idea of heaven being a great banquet is found a few times in scripture. Let's go to Matthew 22, the one I mentioned. We're just going to look at a portion of that, and I'm not reading the whole parable because it is a different parable, and I don't want to go down that rabbit hole of preaching on both of these, but I just want to show you what Jesus says here in Matthew 22 too. What does he say the kingdom of heaven is like? The kingdom of heaven is like in a certain king, which made a marriage for his son and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding, and they would not come. Again, he sent other servants, saying, tell them which are bidden. Behold, I prepared my dinner, my oxen, and my fatmen are killed, and all things are ready. Come unto the marriage. So we see twice here in the gospels, Jesus compares the idea of heaven, the idea of the kingdom of heaven, of people becoming part of the body of Christ, as we know it today, as a great banquet, a great feast. Now let's look at this parable that Jesus tells us here in Luke 14 and break it down. Notice at the very beginning, of the parable, a man was sitting with Jesus and said, you know, and the man said, blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. And Jesus expands on what this man says. He tells this parable and notice in this parable that we read, He made a great supper and bade many. In other words, there was a invitation sent, or we might could say a pre-invitation sent. And then secondly, there's a second invitation sent. to them that were bitten come for all things are now ready. The supper is ready. So there's actually two invitations. The first invitation was to invite them to the supper that was going to be prepared. And there's an assumption here in the parable that they all accepted that first invitation. The second invitation was to tell them, hey, it's ready now. It'd be like you saying, look, we're gonna have supper over at my house this Tuesday night. And then you send out a second one saying, hey, it's ready, y'all come on. That's basically what we're seeing here. Now, when the second invitation came, they began to make excuses, but their excuses are all insincere. Notice the first excuse, you know, I bought a piece of ground and I must needs go in and see it. I pray they have me excuse. Now think about that. He says, look, I bought some property and I need to go look at it. How many of y'all ever bought property and have never seen it before? Y'all ever done that? Anybody here bought a house or bought some property? I bought that property. I spent several hundred thousand dollars on it. I need to go look at it now to see if it's any good. You don't do that, do you? It's insincere. That's what Jesus is trying to show in this parable. The guy's lying. I need to go look at it. I bought it, and now I need to go see it. Notice the second one. that is given here. I bought five yoke of oxen, or 10 oxen, and I need to go prove them or test them. I pray you have me excused. Look, I bought some oxen, and I need to go find out if they're any good at plowing. Now, does that make any sense? No, it don't make any sense. It'd be like, for any of us, just think that, hey, I bought a car, I bought a truck, I need to see if it's any good driving. You know, you don't do that, do you? You drive it first. You find out about it. So a second insincere excuse. And the third guy said, look, I've married a wife and I can't come. I've got a wedding now. There may be also some in this third excuse. Jesus might be using under the Jewish Old Testament law, if you got married, you were excused from, say, military service or even any other, even from your profession that you have. You were to have some time alone. So he was free, he could come, him and his wife both could come. Why not come to a big feast? But he made an insincere excuse. And the servant reported this to his master. in the parable, and the master is angry. And he tells them, go to the streets and bring in the poor, the maimed, the halt, the blind. Bring them in. Bring out in the outcast. And then the servant did that. He says, Master, this is done. I brought in them, and there's still room here in your banquet hall. He said, then he told him, says, go into the highways, the hedges, go into outer areas of my territory and compel them to come in. Invite them to come in. And this compel them means, hey, do it in a, not just a, I mean, do it in a vigorous manner. Tell them to come now that my house may be filled. And then he says, for none of those who were first invited will taste of this supper. Now just what is the theological implications? What is Jesus getting at? Well, the first group, the pre-invited, it seems without a doubt is referring to Israel, the Jews. Throughout their history, who did they have? They had Moses and the Old Testament prophets pointing to Jesus Christ, pointing to the Messiah. Moses and the prophets and the Psalms. What does Jesus say in John chapter 5? In John chapter 5 and verse 39, He says, search the Scriptures. For in them ye think, just notice what he says, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. Just keeping the law don't save you. The scriptures point to me, because you can't keep the law. All the scriptures, and when Jesus is speaking of the scriptures, he's talking about Moses and the prophets specifically at this time, because there was no New Testament. The Old Testament points to Jesus. So I see here of the Moses and the Old Testament prophets had long pointed to a Messiah. And then the second invitation, all is ready. Everything is ready. It's prepared now. I believe we see here a picture of Messiah has come. And what happened in Jesus' day? They all rejected Him. Majority did. And notice the people, the first group of people that were invited in. The halt, the mime, the blind. This is those unclean people that the Pharisees, the scribes, the religious leaders wouldn't have nothing to do with. We've been going through Mark, and you'll notice in these first six chapters of Mark that we've looked at who are some of the ones that Jesus is reaching out to and is believing upon Him? The outcasts, the unclean, these people the religious leaders wouldn't fool with. This is who was given And here we see Jesus invites in. And the second group is out in the highways, the hedges, the Gentiles. In Matthew chapter 8, we have another reference to heaven being like a great supper, a banquet. Matthew chapter 8. And beginning in verse 5, it says, And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant, lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou should come under my roof, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I'm a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this man, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he cometh, and to my servants, do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marveled. Now, when Jesus marvels at something somebody says, that means they said something big. Remember, this is God the Son here. When Jesus heard it, He marveled and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. That probably shocked a lot of people. This is a Roman centurion, part of the occupying military force in the land of Palestine. A centurion, he's over about, I think, 100 men. An officer. And Jesus says, this Roman officer, I haven't found so great a faith in Israel among even the Jewish people as this man. I was going to go and heal him, but, you know, to his house. He says, you don't have to do that, Lord. Just speak the word and he's healed. You don't have to come lay hands. I have that great a faith. And then Jesus says something I'm sure those around him were shocked at in verses 11 and 12. which is what I wanted to look at. He says, I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out in the outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus says there's gonna be many from the east and the west. He's referring to the Gentiles. or shall sit down with who? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Who are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? The three great patriarchs of the Hebrew faith, of the Old Testament faith. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He says Gentiles are gonna come and sit down with the great patriarchs while the children of the kingdom are gonna be cast out. You know why? Because they wouldn't believe in the Messiah. They wouldn't believe in Christ. And if you're a believer in Christ, regardless of who you are, whether you're Gentile or you're Jewish, I think we're all come from Gentile heritage, all of us here, though through Christ, we've been made children of Abraham by faith. True Jews. If you're a believer in Christ, you have been called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And you will be there. Notice in Revelation chapter 19, in Revelation chapter 19, verses seven through nine, where we read here, let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to him for the marriage of the lamb has come and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. This is referring to the church here, the bride of Christ. And he saith unto me, Write, blessed are they which are called in the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said unto me, These are the true sayings. And then in Revelation 22, in verse 17, almost near the end of the Bible, what do we see here? And the spirit and the bride say, come and let him that hear us say, come and let him that is a thirst come and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely. The picture here is the Holy Spirit and the bride. And I kind of get a picture of the Holy Spirit speaking through the bride of Christ saying to sinners, come, come. You know, we should be telling others about Christ. Like that servant in the parable that the master sent, we should be like that servant, telling others about Christ. And then in Matthew chapter 26, Matthew chapter 26 and verse 29, Matthew chapter 26, In verse 29, Jesus, after establishing the Lord's Supper, states, but I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom. Again, a picture of the heaven being a eternal banquet The Lord's Supper that we partake of, and are about to partake of here in a few minutes, is a foretaste of the eternal Kingdom of Heaven. In Isaiah chapter 25, Isaiah chapter 25, verses 6 through 8, Isaiah chapter 25, Verse 6 says, In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the leaves, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the leaves well refined. He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people. And the veil, that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death and victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the rebuke of His people shall be taken away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken it." Oh, what a day that will be. You know, of course, we find references to these, this verse of scripture, these verses of scripture in the New Testament, Paul's writings in 1 Corinthians 15, in Revelation about tears being wiped away, and all that's coming today, my friends. Death has been swallowed up in victory by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He has destroyed it. Bobby Jamison says that the Lord's Supper, is pilgrim food. It's food on the way. It's food that we're, it's traveling food that we eat on our way to heaven. And it points to Jesus Christ, but it's just a foretaste of what's to come. It reminds us that we're not saved by our good works, that it required the body and the blood of Jesus Christ to redeem us who are saved. And it is only for us who know Him as Lord and Savior, and we take it in all points to that perfect, eternal banquet with Christ that is awaiting us who know Him. And as we prepare to take the Lord's Supper here in just a moment, let us remember these words from the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. In 1 Corinthians 11, verses 27-28, where Paul states, Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. Paul urges us to not take of this in an unworthy manner. He's not meaning you have to make yourself worthy, no. He's talking about the manner you take of it. He says we should examine ourselves and then eat of it. Because I know of people who said, look, I got some sin I'm dealing with and I can't take of it. Look, you need to repent of that. Don't be unrepentant, repent. Then take the Lord's Supper. So let us examine ourselves. Is there sin in our life? Is there something in our life that's keeping us from having our mind as we take remembering Christ's body and blood and confess that to Him? So I'm going to ask that we have a time of quiet time, quiet prayer, and we bow our heads and silently confess to the Lord our sins unto Him and prepare our hearts.