Let's be turning to Luke chapter
14. Luke 14. Our Lord has healed the man of
the dropsy. A picture of that swelling of
water, picturing the swelling of pride and the arrogance of
man. And he's given a parable instructing
those who would come to the feast to take the lowest room. It's a picture of what he does
in his people by grace to bring us low in ourselves so that we
come as needy sinners. He brings us low, and then he
comes in the hour of grace and says, friend, go up higher. But the self-righteous, what
do they do when they come to Christ? They just assume that
theirs is the highest place, that heaven is their throne,
their place, where they're going because of their works. And in
the day of judgment, the Lord comes and says, give this man
place. that this is Christ's honor.
He saves his people to the uttermost and they with shame begin to
take the lowest place in hell. We're to hear these things today
because today is the day of grace. Today we pray for the grace of
God to humble us and to show us our need of Christ. And then he said, in the preaching
of the gospel, when you preach, when you bid men come to the
feast, you preach it in such a way so that sinners, needy
sinners, are bidden to come to Christ. not the self-righteous,
not for them to feel confident in themselves, but you bid them
as needy sinners, as the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. That's who is bidding. And today
we see who comes. Who comes to the feast? Who comes
to that meal, that supper, which speaks of Christ? Who comes?
And so, We find out here in the parable that we're looking at
now, this third parable, that those who would outwardly seem
most interested, those that we would think and assume would
be those that would gladly come, joyfully come to the feast, we
find that there's a great indifference. They don't care. They've got
better things to do, or they've got their focus on other things. that they think are most important
and most needful. And so the ones who seem most
religious, the ones who seem to be in with those that are
the greatest rank and the most important in society, they reject
the call. And this shows us what we see
here, first among the Jews, but it's still true in our day, among
the Gentiles, that with one mind he came unto his own but they
rejected him. They refused him. They would
not receive him. They received him not, and they
made excuse why they would not come. And today, our Lord teaches
us this because We still make excuses. We still come up with
all kinds of excuses and justifications why we will not come to Christ,
why we will not come and feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ who's
revealed and declared in the gospel, the gospel for sinners. And they were armed with excuses,
but as we'll see, they're all fleshly in nature. They're all
carnal. They're all worthless, vain things that do not profit
the soul of man. And so this, of course, made
room for the unlikeliest of people, the poor, the maimed, the halt,
and the blind. They were compelled by nothing
more than the Word. And that amazes me. because it's how the Lord saves
his people through the preaching of the gospel. That's how he
calls them. That's how he ministers the grace
of God to their hearts. That's how he blesses his people,
is in the preaching of the gospel. So someone was there, we're picking
up in verse 15, Luke 14, 15. Someone was there hearing Christ
speak these parables and says in verse 15, that one of them
that sat at meat with him heard these things, and he said unto
him, blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. And we don't know exactly why
this man said this. Maybe he was just trying to break
the tension in the room of these things being said. There was
a lot of people made uneasy by what Christ was saying. And perhaps
he was saying, these things will be reconciled in that day. The Lord will take care of those
things. He'll raise up the poor and the weak. Well, that's true.
That is true. The Lord will reconcile all things
in that great and final day. But salvation and our need of
Christ is not something to be put off for another day. We need
Christ today. We need his grace and power to
save us today, because we are creatures of this flesh by nature.
And we all go astray. And we all go into darkness if
left to ourselves. We need the grace of God to deliver
us, to turn us again to the Lord Jesus Christ. The self-righteous
we see in these parables are certain of their place in heaven.
and the worldly are enjoying this world too much to even think
about heavenly things. And that's why he's saying, These
things will be taken care of in another day, at another time. And make no mistake, what our
Lord was saying does describe the blessed. It does describe
those who are blessed to eat the bread of the kingdom of God. Who is the bread of the kingdom
of God? Who is the bread of heaven? It's
the Lord Jesus Christ, and upon him we feed. Upon Him we learn
and are instructed of the true and living God. It's by the Lord
Jesus Christ. Today is the day of salvation. Call out upon Him. Cry out to
Him for grace and mercy and forgiveness and for help in time of need.
And we need them, because we are desperate sinners by nature
who cannot save ourselves. And so the Lord brings more attention
to what he's saying here from what this man says, so that it's
clear that we are called by grace, that we need the grace of God
to save us to the uttermost. The mystery of God bids needy
sinners to Christ, needy sinners to Christ, and the Lord adds,
Who hears this call? Who comes to this call? We bid
those that are needy sinners. We bid the blind. We bid the
weak. We bid the poor. Who comes? Who comes? Because
it's not who you would think it is. And he reveals this with
the parable. He says in verse 16 and 17, Then said he unto him, A certain
man made a great supper, and bade many, and sent his servant
at suppertime to say to them that were bidden, Come, for all
things are now ready. Now this supper is the gospel. It's the gospel of Christ. This
is the supper. This is the meal which we prepare,
which we are given to feed upon. It's Christ. It's Christ. And
what is ready? What does it mean? It means now
the mystery, which has been hid from ages past, is being revealed
in the preaching of the Gospel. It's being made known in the
revelation of Christ, of who He is. That He is the Son of
God, come from heaven. Why did the Son of God need to
come? Why did He need to come and take upon Him flesh? Because
we are so desperate, we are so wretched, so wicked in sin, unable
to save ourselves, that it took the Son of God taking upon Him
this flesh to accomplish the righteousness that we cannot
accomplish by the law of Moses, by our form of religion, by our
works and our ways. We cannot save ourselves. It took Christ to come, and He's
declaring That redemption is accomplished. It's finished. That which was necessary to do
has been done by the Lord Jesus Christ, who came fulfilling all
the law in his flesh for his people to establish the law,
to establish righteousness, to show that he is the fit Savior. He is the Lamb of God. That was
promised from the foundation of the world. And he came willingly
and laid down his life on the tree, bearing the sins of his
people, bearing his people in his own self to suffer the wrath
of God in their room and in their stead as the shorty, the substitute
of his people to put away their sin and to make them righteous
in himself. by his blood, by his spirit,
by his life and light which he gives to his people, it's finished. Christ, the servant of God, took
that lowest room as the servant of God to accomplish redemption
for his people. And he, on that cross, said,
it is finished. It's finished. The wrath of God
has been propitiated, turned away from the people of God.
because he put it upon himself, and God is satisfied, and we
know that God is satisfied, because he raised his son from the dead,
justifying all that believe him, and trust him, and come to God
through Christ. It's by the Lord Jesus Christ,
so that through this man is preached unto you, men and brethren, that
the sin is put away. The forgiveness of sins is preached
to you through the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to the fountain. The spirit and the bride say,
come. You that would have your sins
washed, come to Christ. The spirit says, come. The bride,
who is the church of Christ, say, come. And let him that heareth
come. And let him that is athirst come.
And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. Freely. This is not earned, it's
not paid for by us, it's not merited by our works and our
obedience, it's merited by Christ. And the Father says that he is
well pleased with all who come to him in Christ. This is my
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, in whom you that would
come to God, clean, white, spotless, sinless, come in the Lord Jesus
Christ. trusting in the blood of Christ.
Come, for all things are now ready. And you know when you're
being called by the servant of God when he preaches an accomplished
redemption. It's finished by the Lord Jesus
Christ. There's not something, wait a
minute, you've got something yet to do. Wait, you can't come
to Christ now. There's something more that you
need to do. You need to prove yourself. You need to do this,
and you need to do that, and you need to stop this. No, come
to Christ, because Christ will do the stopping. He'll do the
starting. He's the one that instructs his people, keeps his people,
teaches his people, and guides his people. He preserves his
people. Come to Christ. If you wait till
you're better, Hart said, the hymn writer said, you'll never
come at all. If you really see what you are by nature, you'll
never come if you think that you've got to fix yourselves
first. Christ is the one that fixes his people, as it were. He gives his spirit. He gives
light and life and faith to them. And so it's through the preaching
of the gospel that faith is born. That's a fruit of the spirit.
Faith is not of the flesh. We don't manufacture it, we don't
help it, we don't make it, we don't force it. Christ brings
forth the fruit of faith in his people. He's the one that blesses
his people, and he delights to bless his people, so that when
we glory, it's not in what we've done, or how we've fixed ourselves,
or how we adjusted things, or how we've made things better.
We're rejoicing in Christ Jesus the Lord, who of God has made
unto us wisdom and righteousness. sanctification, and redemption,
that according as it's written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. And it's the Lord that's going
to do that. It's the Lord who promises it, and it's the Lord
that fulfills it to the uttermost. He does it, brethren. And so,
in the preaching of these things, in the exaltation of the Lord
Jesus Christ, God is able, and He does bless His people. He gives that hope in His people. He takes our eyes off of sin
and what we are in self and the mourning of sin and puts them
on Christ and causes us to cry out to him, Abba, Father, by
the spirit of adoption, save me, Lord. Have mercy on me. Wash
me in the blood of Christ. Lord, don't turn me away as my
sins deserve, but be gracious and merciful. What we see here is our Lord
gives three persons who excuse themselves from coming to the
feast. And they justify their reasons. At the moment, at the time they're
saying this, it sounds reasonable. It sounds good to them. And so
this is what they say as to why they will not come to the supper,
which is a picture of why they will not come to Christ. Verse 18 through 20. And they
all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto
him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and
see it. I pray thee, have me excused. Now the hour's late. It's suppertime. The hour's late. It's getting
dark here, and yet this man's heart is still set upon this
piece of ground. The things of this world. the
things which are of dust, the things that cannot save or profit
us in the next life. These are the things of the world,
and this man is taken up with these fleshly things rather than
taken up with Christ. Another said, I have bought five
yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them. I pray thee, have me excused. The hour is late. It's supper
time, but there's yet a service to be done. There's yet laboring
to be done for what? the things of this world, the
passing pleasures, momentary pleasures of this world, things
that cannot save, things that cannot add anything to what Christ
alone does. These men were purchasers. They
wanted to pay for things. They wanted to purchase things.
In one sense, we see here, these are lovers of this world. They're
lovers of fleshly things. And in that crowd, there were
a lot of Pharisees, too. who are also lovers of fleshly
things, carnal religion, the form of outward religion that
has no power in it. and does nothing to change the
heart of man. These were just excuses that
they give so as not to come to Christ, so as not to close with
Christ, so as not to fall down and beg Christ to save them,
because they have all their works. They have their ground. They
have their form. They have their service and their
oxen and cattle. And if you notice, it's all backwards.
It's all backwards. He said, I bought the land. Now
I'm going to go see it. I bought the oxen, now I'm going
to go prove them. Wouldn't you, as a shrewd investor,
see that lamb before you purchase it? Before you go and buy Oceanside
property in Arizona? No, you'd want to see it. You'd
want to know what you're getting. You'd want to prove these oxen
before you bought them. And it's saying that man has
it all backwards. Man is looking to increase himself
with this world's riches. He's looking to improve himself
with vain, dead-letter religion. And it's all backwards. You're
not going to do it. We come to Christ. We go to Christ. He's
Lord. He's Christ. He's the Savior.
All the glory is His. We bow to Him. We bow before
Him. And so don't seek this world. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness, and all these things that you need
will be provided for you, and provided in measure so as not
to take your heart away with these things, but to keep you
looking to Christ. And so what it shows us is how
little man thinks of Christ. And if we're honest, we know.
We already know how little we think of Christ in this flesh
and by nature. We already know this. Because
the Lord has shown us to put us in the lowest room, lest we
should think too highly of ourselves and be puffed up with pride and
arrogance in our own self-righteousness. He does that. And so knowing
what this feast pictures out of pictures Christ, is there
anything in this world that rivals Christ, that rivals his salvation? Because man is all too willing
to put forward other things before Christ. It's true of us all. And if it were not for the grace
of God, we'd do it too. And when we do it, it's the grace
of God that turns us back to him, that humbles us and chastens
us and brings us low. to bring us back to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He said, I am come a light into
the world that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
That's how you're going to see the truth of Christ more and
more, is coming to Christ and hearing him, hearing his word,
feeding upon the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way You're going
to come out of darkness. It isn't by doing. It isn't by
you crafting a means to protect yourself and provide for yourself
and put a buffer from this world around yourself with your works.
Trust Christ. Trust him who promises that by
his word, by his spirit, he will provide everything you need.
He will correct the heart. He will correct the mind. He
will correct the thoughts. He'll turn us from sin. He'll
bless us. And so you that do trust him,
continue to give God thanks for what he's worked in you and done
in you. Now another said, I have married
a wife and therefore I cannot come. You cannot come or you
will not come. You cannot come or you will not
come because that's what it is. Man left to himself will not
come to Christ. And if it were not for the grace
of God, we will not come to Christ. We have no desire. Our will is
in bondage to sin, dead in trespasses and sins. Christ said to the
Jews, and ye will not come unto me that ye might have life. You
won't do it. If God doesn't show you mercy,
if he doesn't send his spirit that takes the things of Christ
and shows them to you, you and I will not come to Christ. We
need that grace. We need that mercy always from
beginning to end. He's the author and the finisher
of our faith. He's the beginning and the end,
the first and the last. We need him in all things. And
the picture here is that this man is married to the law. He's
yet married to the law. The former two men, you can really
see how they loved the world and just participated and purchased
this world and didn't want to leave this world, didn't want
to leave their inheritance in this ground, and didn't want
to leave their works and what they could acquire. This man
said, I've already got a marriage. I'm married to the law. My hope
and my righteousness is in the law, not Christ. And so he would
not come to Christ because he had his own works. He had his
own righteousness and his own inheritance by those things.
But if you have not Christ, then you don't have life. If you have
not a spirit, you're none of his. Our Lord said unto them,
if God were your father, ye would love me. And if your religion,
if you love your religion more, if you love this world more,
then you love Christ less. And Christ said, if God were
your father, you would love me. You would come to me. You would
stay upon me, for I proceeded forth and came from God. Neither
came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do you not understand
my speech? Even because you cannot hear
my word. And that's what keeps men from
trusting Christ. They cannot, they will not hear
his word. They don't believe him. They
don't trust him. Our sin separates us from God, and so does our
self-righteousness. If it's not one, it's the other.
We love our sin by nature, and then we use our self-righteousness
to justify ourselves and to excuse it. And so every blessing of Christ
that's declared to the natural man is always met, is always
resisted with some obstacle of the flesh. The piece of ground,
the yoke of oxen, being married to a wife, they're a picture
of the vain excuses that we come up with to justify why we will
not come to Christ. And I can't identify every one
of them, but God is able. He knows the heart. He knows
what we're thinking. He knows what we prefer and what
we would do And all of us would go astray, every one of us, but
for the grace of God, but for the grace of God to turn our
hearts, to teach and instruct us, to keep us. We desperately
need his grace, and that's why Christ his beloved son, was sent
to obtain eternal redemption for us, so that all things by
which we could not be justified under the law of Moses are now
accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, through faith in him
being brought in us by the giving of his spirit, giving rise to
hope and love and every grace by him. by him, and he teaches
us and strips us and turns us from self more and more to him. And so man has a love affair
with this world, right, called the course of this world, the
things of it, the ground, it shows that we're yet creatures
of flesh. loving the things of this world,
having not the spirit nor life in them, they need a stake in
these things. They need a stake in something
that's tangible, that they can touch, that they can feel, that
they can control, that they can manipulate by their hand. But
everything they see and need is dust. It's falling apart. It's wasting away. Why are you
trying to save that? Why are you trying to save this
life? Give it up. Trust Christ. Look to him. Cry
out to him. The oxen is saying who they serve. They yet serve the world. They
yet serve the world looking for the praise and honor of men.
And they don't want to give that up for Christ. The wife they
wed speaks of their yet being married to the law by nature,
all the while dead in trespasses and sins. Paul said, I've betrothed
you a chaste virgin to Christ. And they said, no, no, no. I
betroth these people to the law, to Moses. Let him teach them,
let him guide them. Christ is the better husband.
Moses can't save you. Christ saves, to the uttermost.
He's able. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride
of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the
world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that doeth the
will of God abideth forever. And what is the will of God?
That you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has sent.
And from there, through that seed, that new seed, that living
seed, which is not of Adam, but is of Christ, that's where life
is born and a new birth. His kingdom is not of this world.
And we need a new birth. As we read in Colossians 3, 1
through 4, if ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things
which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of
God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. And we get so taken up with the
things of this world, forgetting that What's above is precious,
that's our inheritance. And that takes faith. To forego
the riches of this world, to forego opportunities and things
that we think will add to us and protect us and provide for
us and bless us here in this world, you want me to trust Christ
for everything? That's a hard, hard thing to
do. And you may not be wealthy. You
may not have everything that you think you need or want and
be able to provide for yourself as you think you should. But
if you have Christ, you have all. And I confess, I know it's
a hard thing to trust him. But he's able. And he gives his
word. And he leads us along how? By
faith. For the just shall live by faith.
You're gonna be left to depend upon Christ. He's gonna make
sure that you know that it's by His hand and His grace, lest
you should be taken up with the dead things of this world again,
and return as a dog to its vomit, trusting these things. We're
told that in Christ, we're dead, and our life is hid with Christ
in God. and when Christ who is our life
shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory. And that's patience, through
experience, through the trials, through the things which our Lord is pleased
to give us to lead us to Christ, to cause us to hope in him. And so that's the question, am
I risen with Christ? He's talking about a new creature.
a new creature. We must be born again. Without
that new birth, we cannot see God. We will not hear the words
of Christ. We will not believe the words
of Christ. And so we trust him. We learn
to trust him for all things. If we don't trust him, it's because
we don't have his spirit. We need that grace and that power
of our Lord. Paul said it this way in Philippians
3.3, we are the circumcision. We are blessed and helped of
the true and living God, which worship God in the spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. When you find yourself trusting
the flesh, something's wrong. When you find everything going
your way according to the flesh, something's off. Because he strips
us of those vain confidences, that we would continue to find
our all in Christ. And faith opposes those fleshly
forms of religion, and those fleshly confidences, and those
things that we think are going to help us. And all the while,
we're just dismissing Christ, and departing from him. And by
his grace, he'll bring us low. He'll humble us in ourselves,
again, that we might find our all in Christ. Now after there
were those who we think would have come, our friends, as he
was saying earlier in the parables, our friends, our brethren, our
kinsmen, our rich neighbors, like those rich in works, those
we think would love Christ, right, who made excuses for their unbelief,
because they always do, we did it. We do it still, if not for
the grace of God. Verse 21 says, so that servant
came and showed his Lord these things, then the master of the
house being angry. Angry at man's just willful disobedience
to Christ and forsaken Christ, just trampling the blood of Christ
underfoot. He 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. Those
who are poor in spirit, those who are broken and can't do good
works, those that are halt. They don't know whether they're
coming or going. They don't know how to please God or come to
God. Those that are blind to the things
that are spiritual, who cannot see, call them in. Declare Christ
to them. Preach Christ to them. And he
said, go out and preach to these. Don't waste your time on those
that refuse to hear and just make excuses of why they will
not come and trust Christ. Preach it to them. And the servant
said, Lord, verse 22, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet
there is room. When all among the Jews that
were poor and blind and maimed and lame had come in, what did
the Lord do? He sent the gospel out to Samaria,
and he sent it out further to the isles of the Gentiles. all
the way out to where we are, to bless us to hear this gospel
word, to be bidden to Christ and to receive power by his spirit
and grace, to hear that word effectually in our hearts and
to be drawn to Christ. And so 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 those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper. And so as it was in that day,
so it is in our day. It's still going on, brethren.
We're still Pharisees by nature. We're still taken up with the
world by nature. And it's by the grace of God
that calls needy sinners. And through that calling, he
makes us to know that we're needy sinners and draws us effectually
by his grace to Christ, the Savior of sinners. And so he does that. I pray the Lord bless that word
to our hearts.