? Sweet Lord, my soul ? ? Sweet,
sweet Lord ? ? Sweet Lord, my soul ? ? I know when I turn to
Thee ? ? That I see that Thee I see ? Good morning. Let's all stand
together. We'll sing hymn number 326. 326. More about Jesus would I know. More of His grace to others shown. More of His saving flow. ? More of his love ? ? Who died
for me ? ? More, more about Jesus ? ? More, more about Jesus ? More of his love who died for me. More about Jesus let me learn. More of his love who died for
me. discern. Spirit of God, my teacher
be, showing the things of Christ to me. More, more about Jesus More, more about
Jesus of His love who died for me. More about Jesus in His Word,
holding communion with my Lord. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of his love, you die for
me. More about Jesus, all about Jesus. More of his kingdom sure increase,
More of his coming brings of peace. More, more about Jesus, Be seated. We'll sing hymn number 17. M number 17. Come thou fount of every blessing,
do my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing,
all for songs of loudest praise. Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon
it, mount of thy redeeming grace. Here I raise mine ebony, sir,
Hither by thy help I'm come, And I hope by thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wand'ring ? Lord of God ? And to rescue me from danger ? And
to close this precious bond ? Oh to grace how great a debtor
? Vaily I am constrained to be ? Like a feather on my wandering
heart to Thee ? ? Won't You wander, Lord, I feel it ? ? Won't You
leave the God I love ? ? Here's my heart, take and seal it, seal
it for Thy love ? If you have your Bibles with
you this morning, if you would, open with me to the book of Psalms.
I'd like to read Psalm 99. Psalm 99. The Lord reigneth. Let the people
tremble. He sitteth between the cherubims.
Let the earth be moved. The Lord is great in Zion, and
he is high above all the people. Let them praise thy great and
terrible name, for it is holy. The king's strength also loveth
judgment. Thou dost establish equity. Thou
executest judgment and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt ye the Lord our
God, and worship at his footstool, for he is holy. Moses and Aaron
among his priests, and Samuel among them, that call upon his
name, they called upon the Lord, and he answered them. He spake
unto them in the cloudy pillar. They kept his testimonies, and
the ordinance that he gave them. Thou answeredst them, O Lord
our God, thou wast a God that forgavest them. thou tookest
vengeance of their inventions. Exalt the Lord our God and worship
at his holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy. Our most high and heavenly Father,
Lord God Almighty, we come into your holy presence through your
blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we tremble with reverence
as we come into your presence, but we Also come boldly through
your blessed son. We thank you that you have. Given
us. The privilege to come before
you. The ability to come to you through our blessed intercessor.
Father, we thank you for. All that you give us all that
you provide us. All that you have kept us from. Lord we thank you for choosing
a people to show your mercy to, to show your love to. Lord we call on thy holy name
this morning asking that you would meet with us, that you
would send your spirit to be among us. Lord we ask that you
would cause the word to be blessed here today. Open our ears. warm our hearts,
nourish our souls, Lord, that you would teach us more about you. We ask that you would cause us
to truly bow at your feet today, Lord, and worship you. Let us
not be here for vain show or for tradition or for What are
any of many other reasons, Lord, that some may be here that you
would use it to cause thy word to go forth? Plant the seed. Nourish the seed. Lord, we pray for the many weak
and weary. There are those who are greatly
burdened and going through great trials. Lord, you know their
needs more so than we do. You know them perfectly. We trust
that you are able to provide for them, Lord, that you are able to comfort them and to give
them peace if you would. Lord, we pray for our pastor
as he is away and he stands before Another congregation to proclaim
the word. We pray for your pastors wherever they may be. Wherever
your sheep are gathered, Lord, that you would bless your word
today. For those who are unable to attend or listening online
and watching online. Or were two or three together,
do you promise? That you can bless him. We pray that that will be done
for Christ sake, amen. Let's all stand together as we
sing the hymn of the day in the bulletin. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. ? The Lord shall fight for you
? He shall hold your peace ? Your Lord is desperate ? O hear the
Lord's word You're not where he leads, you there is, saving
grace. The enemy beats. Behind in front is the sea, with
mountains on each side. to flee. Stop worrying, stop
trying, stand still, you will see. The Lord has accomplished
salvation for thee. God's sheep are called to this
impossible way. There is no hope within themselves
to be saved. ? The Lord in mercy said ? Stand
still today ? This your salvation ? To his people he gave ? Oh
stand still it is He promised salvation to sinners,
it's true. He will open the sea, his own
will walk through. The good news is that he is calling
for you. Be seated. We're delighted to
have Brother Cody Henson with us once more today. He'll be
bringing both messages today. It's always good to have you
and always good to see you. Pray the Lord bless you today,
Lord. Lord be with you. Come and bring
what is put on your heart whenever you're ready. Good morning. I think I take it for granted
that you all know where I'm from, but I live in Kingsport, Tennessee.
I attend a church called Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church. I always
say, Brother Gabe sends his greetings, Pastor Gabe Stoniker, and he
told me to send his love, so I'm sending his love, and I pray
our Lord would bless us today. I invite you to turn with me
in your Bibles to Luke chapter 14. Luke chapter 14. Here in Luke 14, look with me
at the end of verse 17. Come, for all things are now
ready. That's the title of my message.
Honestly, I can't think of a more wonderful, glorious message to
stand here and declare, and it's taken straight out of God's word.
Come, for all things are now, right now, ready. Oh, I pray
God might enable us to. I truly pray that he will bless
us today. Our text will be verses 16 through
24, and we'll go verse by verse. So look up at verse 16 with me. Then said he, that is our Lord
unto him, that's a man in his midst, a certain man made a great
supper and bade many. A man made a great supper. He prepared this entire meal
all by himself. Nobody helped him. He had no
help whatsoever from start to finish. Now, for this meal, guests,
any guests that are going to partake of this meal, they're
not allowed to bring anything. You know, we just had a fellowship
dinner last week. You all just had a conference.
You all pitch in and you bring stuff, right? You ever invite
somebody to come over to your house? Or you're invited to someone's
house and you feel obliged to bring something, right? Not at
this meal. This man, this certain man, he
prepared the whole thing. from start to finish, nobody's
gonna bring anything, all right? He prepared it all. Now here's
what this meal pictures, okay? God Almighty has prepared a great
salvation and we can contribute nothing to it. Nothing, absolutely
nothing. Man contributes nothing to salvation. It is of the Lord, period. It's all of the Lord. Now in
this story, this man, it says he, the end of verse 16, he bade
many. Now there are different meanings
to this word, but right here it truly means to invite. He
invited many people. He called many people to come
to his dinner. But understand this, we must
make this, we must establish this, make it clear, all right?
Salvation is not an invitation. It is not an invitation. It's
not up to us at all. Not at all. You see, we're going
to get no glory in this. I'll tell you who's going to
get the glory for this great supper and for our salvation. The one
who prepared it. Only the one who prepared it.
All the glory goes to him. Now here's where religion goes
wrong. Religion loves to give men and women the glory for their
decision. Well, yeah, there's this great
supper, but I decided to go. I accepted the invitation. Listen,
he alone gets the glory. We're going to see this very
clearly. By the time we're done, we're going to see it very clearly.
We get no glory for a decision or our accepting or our resolve
and dedication. Nope. All the glory goes to God. It all goes to Him. Verse 16
again, 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. I'm here
with the same declaration. Come, for all things are now
ready. Do you know what time it is?
It's 1021 in the morning. But here's what time it is. It's
suppertime. It's suppertime. All things are
now ready. Behold, now is the accepted time.
Behold, now, right now. Not later today. Right now. is the day of salvation right
now. And I said it a second ago, but
I'll say it again. It's not an invitation, it's a command. God
commandeth all men everywhere to repent. That's God's command. God's word declares salvation
from sin to be accomplished. When our Lord spoke at the Mount
of Transfiguration We read that Moses and Elijah were there.
Do you remember what they were talking about with our Lord?
His deceased, which he should accomplish. His death accomplished
something. His death accomplished the salvation
of his people from their sins. And here's what our Lord cried
as he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. These three marvelous
words. It is finished. It's finished. There's no other message I could
possibly declare to you. There's no other message. What
else are we gonna say? Come for all, most things are
ready? Oh, what a sad message that,
what a blasphemous message that would be. No, it's finished.
He hath delivered. That's what our God hath done. He hath redeemed, hath. He hath perfected. He hath saved. Our God hath done these things. They're done. There's nothing
for us to do. Here in this text, these people
that were called to come to this supper, all they had to do was show up.
That's all. That's all they had to do. That's
all they had to do, just show up. We declare God's salvation
as finished, and we command sinners to come to Christ alone, to look
away from our vain selves to Christ alone. We command, believe
on Christ alone, hope in Him alone, trust in Him alone, come
to Him and Him alone for all things are ready. But do you know what our response
to this is? I have been blessed to sit under
the gospel my whole life. And for years, I heard this glorious,
finished, accomplished message declared week after week after
week, and I would not come. Look right here at verse 18.
And they all with one consent began to make excuse. Every single person invited to
this feast made excuse. And it's telling, is it not,
that they were in one consent. They were all in perfect agreement
in this. Every single one of them. Does that not evidently
set forth our fallen, corrupt nature? If that doesn't, I don't
know what does. They all with one consent, in
perfect unison and agreement, gave excuse. They gave excuse. You remember this. When Adam
fell, what'd he do? He made excuse. Did you eat of
the fruit I commanded you not? Well, the woman that you gave
me. You know, we always say he blamed
the woman. He blamed God. You see that, don't you? The
woman you gave me. What he's saying is, it's all
your fault. Is that so? Are we going to blame God for
our sin and rebellion against him? Oh, God forbid. We have no excuse. We don't want
to come. We won't believe on Christ. We're
without excuse, the scriptures say. No excuse. Oh, we love to
give them. Look here, verse 18. They all
with one consent began to make excuse. Listen to this. The first
said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must
needs go and see it. What, you didn't look at it yet?
I pray thee, have me excused. Another said, I've bought five
yoke a box, and I go to prove them. Did you not make sure they
were worth the investment beforehand? You're going to prove them now?
Let me say this. Are you not going to eat dinner?
I guarantee you they were going to eat. Do you ever skip a meal? I don't. I pray thee, have me excused.
Verse 20, this is my favorite one. And another said, I have
married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. What ridiculous
excuses. Fallen man, and I'm telling myself
included, has no interest in our creator. Oh, we love to just take his
creation and get all of it that we can and consume it upon our
lust, giving him no praise and no thanks. We certainly do that.
Oh, we sure do. All of us. Oh, but remember thy
creator? Nah, no time for him. You know,
people have fallen sons of Adam. They have plenty of time for
religion, but only religion that's all about them. You know that? Oh, sure, we got
time for God, but who's God? Is it you or is it
the sovereign creator? Who gets the glory here? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's God's
command. And look, we won't. You won't. I won't. We won't. We have no
desire to. Our desire is just like these
people that gave these excuses. Self. Our possessions. Our desires. Our spouses don't
come before God. If your spouse doesn't want to
worship God with you, you go anyway. Maybe the Lord will save them
too. Pray for them that the Lord will save them. We will not come. Our Lord said this in John 5
verse 40. He said, ye will not come to me that you might have
life. You won't do it. You won't do
it. Not only will we not come, we
cannot come because of our fallen sin nature. No man can come unto
me except the Father which has sent me draw him. And I'll go
ahead and tell you, perhaps some of you know this story, the Lord's
going to draw some people. We're going to see it. Some people
are going to be drawn to this supper. If we're going to be
in God's kingdom, he's going to draw us. Otherwise, we're
not going to be there. We don't want to be there and
we can't be there. Nevertheless, let's make sure we understand
this. We are responsible to come. We are commanded to repent, turn
from our wicked ways and believe God. Can't do it. Can't do it. Commanded to be perfect, how
in the world are we going to do that? Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
2. I'll show you a verse here. And I really want to establish
this. We can't blame God for our sin. You say, you will not,
you cannot. It's our own fault. We need to
understand that. We have all sinned and come short of the
glory of God. Every single one of us. Every
single one of us. But look here, Hebrews 2 verse
3. Just read the first part here. How shall we escape? If we neglect
so great salvation, how shall we escape? How are we going to make it through
the judgment of a thrice holy God? Apart from His great salvation, we won't. Simply put, we won't. We won't. Go ahead and finish the verse,
which at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed
unto us by them that heard him, God also bearing them witness.
There's no escape. There's no escape. Turn back
to our text. We're commanded to come, all
right? Luke 14, we've all just given
our excuses. Whatever our excuse is, but then
look at verse 21. So that servant came and showed
his lord these things, all the excuses of man, then the master
of the house being angry. Being angry. The man who made
this supper, he represents God who prepared this great salvation. He heard everyone's excuses and
he was angry. And rightfully so. Now, I want
to say this. We need to know this. People
need to hear this. Churchgoing people need to hear
this. God is angry. Oh, God is love. God is love.
But he's also angry. He loves righteousness. Commanded
to be righteous. Who here is righteous? In and
of yourself. Anybody? God's Word says there's none
righteous, no not one. There's none good but God. Now here's what false religion
thinks. You don't want to come to my
supper? Ah, that's all right. I love you anyway. You just want
to make your excuses and have nothing to do with me? That's
fine. You'll be saved anyway. You don't want to believe on
me? That's fine. I died for you. I love you. It's okay. Proverbs 11 21 says this, though
hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished. You know, this world in a sense
is just holding hands, fist raised in God's face. All about us,
who cares about God? It doesn't matter if this whole
world is in perfect agreement. It's not going to go unpunished.
The servant came and he told his master these things. He's
angry. God is angry. Look right here at verse 24. For I say unto you that none
of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper. He does not love everybody. Is
that verse not plainly stated? They're not going to taste of
my supper. They're not going to partake
of my salvation. They will not be in my kingdom.
They're going to see themselves thrust out. Does that sound like
a God who loves everybody and wants everyone to be saved and
is waiting on you to make your decision? No. Nope. Is this verse not condemning?
Do you not see condemnation in this verse? How people read this
verse or hear this text and just assume everything's fine, or
how salvation's left to us is beyond me, honestly. Lord's blinded
their minds to it. We need to understand who God
is. We just sang about His holiness. We read about it. Oh, He's holy,
holy, holy. I want to show you a couple verses
here. Turn to Psalm 7. I'll tell you who God loves.
God loves those who come to his supper. God loves those who love his
salvation. We'll see who it is here in just
a few minutes. Look at Psalm 7 verse 11. God judgeth the righteous, and
God is angry with the wicked every day. Is that who you've always thought
God to be? Angry with the wicked? Well, he is. He's angry with the wicked every
single day and he'll be angry with them forever. Hell is eternal. It's the result of eternal anger
against sin. This one might be a little hard
to find but turn with me to Nahum chapter 1. One of the minor prophets. Nahum chapter 1. Right after Micah, Jonah, Micah,
Nahum chapter 1, in my Bible, page 1158. It's a wonderful account. In these two verses we're going
to read speak volumes. Look here, Nahum chapter 1, verse
2. God is jealous, and the Lord
revengeth, the Lord revengeth, and is furious. The Lord will
take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his
enemies. The Lord is slow to anger, and
great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. The
Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, in the clouds
or the dust of his feet, though God is slow to anger. And I wanted us to read that.
I want us to know that God is slow to anger. Nevertheless,
God is angry. He's angry against sin. He's
angry against those who've transgressed his holy law, who've wronged
him. That's everybody by nature. He's
furious. Do you read that? Furious. Macy
hath fury. Furious against the wicked. He's
reserved his wrath to be unleashed on all his enemies. That's who God is. I heard this so many times growing
up from somebody I hung out with. Smile, Jesus loves you. I have
a grad assistant that works for me and I saw it on his backpack
the other day. We need to know who God is. He's
angry. Yes, God is love, but he's angry. Who does he love? Who's he angry
with? How can I find myself the recipient of his love. How
could God love me? Important questions for us to
ask. Let me ask you this question. Just consider yourself, all right?
I'm going to consider myself. Is God right to be angry with
us? God right to be angry with you?
Consider your heart. Consider your thoughts. Don't
consider what you used to be. Consider what you are right now.
I don't care what you used to be. What are you right now? Is God right to be angry with
you? Is God right to be furious with you? As we are in this dead, rotten
flesh, absolutely He is. Absolutely He is. I pray God might be merciful
to us because one, he delights to show mercy and his mercy endureth
forever. That's who God is. He's not just
angry. He is love. He is merciful. But
we need to understand how desperately we need his love and his mercy.
And we need to understand that it's his sovereign right to show
it to whom he will. Look back in our text. Luke 14,
verse 21. The servant came and showed his
lord these things. Then the master of the house,
being angry, said to his servant. Now we're about to see God's
goodness right here, okay? 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. Aren't you glad
that verse didn't end with the man being angry? I'm 23 minutes in and I'm just
now getting to the good part. That means I'm gonna go long,
sorry. Oh, I'm so glad this verse didn't end there. Here we have the gospel of God. You go out quickly. Now right
here, the servant, he becomes a picture of God the Holy Spirit. Go out quickly and bring in hither. Don't you love the wording of
that? Go out, you bring these people in. Who? The poor, the
lame, the blind, you bring them to me. Bring them, like Mephibosheth,
you bring them to my table. Though all men rage against the
Lord and against his anointed, hand in hand, the Lord shall have them in derision.
His kingdom's gonna be a full kingdom. Absolutely, heaven's
gonna be full of people, absolutely full. God, in His infinite mercy
and grace, sends His Holy Spirit to bring poor, vile, helpless
sinners into His kingdom. That's who God is. That's what
God has been pleased to do. How's He do it? Through the preaching
of His gospel. Through the declaration of this
message. Come, for all things are now ready. Through the declaration
of that blessed message, the Holy Spirit moves and enables
the poor, the maimed, the haught, the blind to hear that message
and come. The Spirit brings us to believe
that, brings us to Christ. Who prepared this great supper?
None other than Christ himself. Brings us to Christ. That's what
God's been pleased to do. Praise his name. You think about
the poor, not materially poor, the poor in spirit, those whom
God makes to be poor in spirit. I thought of what our Lord said
in Isaiah 55, come buy and eat, buy wine and milk, you love what
he said, without money, without price. Eat ye that which is good,
let your soul delight itself in fatness. God brings us to
that place. brings us to his dinner table,
if you will. The maimed, the haunted, that means crippled,
those with no ability. How in the world was someone
who's crippled, maybe they heard the message and they couldn't
go until someone came and brought them. Have you heard the message?
Come, all things are now ready. I have no man to bring me. There's
a man and he'll bring us. If we need Him to bring us, He'll
bring us. You know that, I think I preached
on this here, but that poor man Lazarus that sat at the floor
at that rich man's table and just begging for some crumbs,
that man had to be carried everywhere he went. Spiritually, that's
us. If we're gonna go anywhere, if
we're gonna take one step towards God, let alone enter into His
kingdom, we're gonna have to be brought. in hither." And if
we're his, that's exactly what he's going to do for us. If we're
poor, if we're helpless, blind. Do we need God to fetch us? I
mentioned Mephibosheth, that's what says, they went out and
they fetched that man. Fetch him. You know, and I'm
stressing this for this reason. Most people think that they have
some spiritual ability. Most people think either they
take the first step, the last step, or heck, all the steps, Think they can just, in essence,
walk right up into glory. Think they're ripe for glory.
Think they're worthy of glory. Lord willing, we'll look at that
tonight. The people our Lord's talking to, they think they're worthy
of it. Do you think you're worthy of it? God forbid that I should
glory. I'm not worthy, not in the least,
but Christ is. He is. We need to be brought. We need to be called out of our
blindness. You know, I thought about what must it be like to
be blind? I'm sure it's very dark. We're in darkness. Can't see. We can't see God until
God reveals the marvelous light of Christ to us. Christ is the
light. That glorious light, the light
of the world, the light of all his people. You know, he's the
light of heaven. You know how in Revelation it
said, no need of the sun there, the lamb is the light thereof.
That's Christ. I love that. You know, another phrase that
religion loves, God helps those who help themselves. Nope, you
got it backwards. God helps those who absolutely cannot help themselves.
God saves those who can do nothing to save themselves. What do we
need a Savior for if we can save ourselves? Christ came to save. He did it all. Jesus paid it
all, all to him I owe. Oh, and I like this too. In verse 21, notice where he
told his servant to go. He said, go out into the streets
and the lanes of the city. I'll look this up. Here's what
that means. It means the broad way. That's fitting, isn't it? You go out and you rescue those
poor, helpless people that are on the broad way, which leadeth
to destruction, and you bring them into the straight, narrow
way of Christ, the way of life. You go make them the blessed
few that find it. Rescue them. That's what God
has done. He has rescued us. absolutely rescued us from our
utter ruin and despair. Verse 22, the servant said, Lord
it is done as thou hast commanded and yet there is room. That honestly might be my favorite
part of this message. Yet there is room. You know, man is in complete
agreement in their hatred, our, naturally, hatred towards our
God. And yet, God, God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, are in perfect agreement
to save God's people. To bring in the poor, the lame,
the haught, the blind. God's in perfect agreement. with himself
to save sinners from their sins. Go out quickly. It is done. Will
God's people hear the gospel preached and believe on Christ
and be saved? Yes, they will. Why? Because God is the one that's
going to do it. He's the one. He's the one. It's his word.
I mentioned he prepared the meal from start to finish. God prepared
salvation from start to finish. from start to finish. Yet there
is room. You know, I've heard it said
that someone might come to their pastor and just in utter heartbreak,
just such a sinner. Is there any way God could have
mercy on me? Yet there is room. Do you need
him? Most of the people in this account
didn't need him. Again, all mankind by nature does not need him.
Or better yet, we do need Him, we just don't know that we need
Him. Many people will leave this earth not knowing their need
of Him. We're all going to find out eventually
how desperately we need or needed Him. We will. I love the song. It says, depth
of mercy, can there be? Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God His wrath forbear? Me, the chief of sinners, spare?
Yes. Oh, He's so full of mercy for
all who need it. You know, the only thing that'll
keep us from coming to Christ is if we don't know our need
of Him. I've heard this said a lot too,
it's not our sin that keeps us from coming to Christ, it's our self-righteousness.
You know what self-righteousness declares? I don't need him. Plain
and simple, that's what it means. I don't need him. Do you need
him? Do you need the Lord Jesus Christ
to be your all in all? Then come. What you waiting on?
Come, for all things are right now ready. Let me show you this
verse, and we'll turn right back and close. Revelation 22, verse
17. Revelation 22 verse 17, what
a glorious verse this is. And the spirit and the bride
say, come. And let him that heareth say,
come. And let him that is a thirst,
anybody thirsty? Come. Look at the last part of this
verse. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Can't pay for it. God's not interested in what
you have to offer for it. If we're going to have the water
of life, that means we're going to be saved. And the only way we're
going to be saved is freely. All things are now ready. Come
on. Back in our text, verse 22 again, Luke 14, the
servant said, Lord it is done as thou hast 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. This supper is not going to be
a disappointment. It's not gonna be a disappointment.
Well, nobody showed up. God's not frustrated. Nothing
God does is in vain. Not gonna be a single empty seat. Not a single one. I love how
right here at the end of that verse, that man's determined
to have a full house. God is gonna have a full house.
I'll tell you this too. The reservations have already
been made. Who made them? Not me. Not you. God did. That's what it tells us. Reserved
in heaven for you. Who? The elect. Those caught out of darkness
into Christ. I thought about this too. I love
to eat. I really do. I love to eat. this meal that
God has prepared. Everybody there is going to enjoy
every single bite. Oh, you put garlic in that? I
don't like garlic. First of all, if someone doesn't
like garlic, what's wrong with you, honestly? What God has prepared for us,
there will be no complaints. There will be no special requests.
No, I tell you what we're going to want is exactly what He prepared. Is that what you want? You who
sit here today, are you interested in exactly what God has prepared,
exactly the way He prepared it, exactly the way He serves it?
You know, it doesn't tell us, but who do you suppose is doing
the serving here? Christ is the servant. He came
down, the King of ages, the King of heaven and earth came down
to serve and to save us. He's going to get all the glory.
You know what all these people here are going to do? Literally
all those people who wound up at that man's supper, first they
had nothing to boast about. Where is boasting then? It's
excluded. Who are we going to praise and
glorify? The certain man who prepared the supper. That's it.
Who are we going to spend eternity praising and blessing and glorifying
and honoring and worshiping? I think you just read it. Worshipping
at his footstool. Who's that? The King of Glory, that's who. Christ, who went to prepare it
all for us, the poor, maimed, haunted, and blind. Will you
come to this supper? All things are now ready. It's
all ready. What are we waiting for? What
are we waiting for? We will come to this supper if
God is pleased to compel us to come. Here's what that word means.
It means to necessitate, to drive to, to constrain. That's what it
means. Have you been driven to Christ?
Has necessity been laid upon you to look to Christ and nowhere
else? Have you been constrained by the love of Christ to love
him back? Love him with all your heart,
soul, mind, and strength? To love him like we could never
love the things of this world? John 6, 37. All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. Yes, only the elect shall be
saved. Absolutely. Because it all comes down to
God's purpose and His goodness, His grace, His will for His glory. But all who want to come, all
who desire to be there will be there. God will see to it. Come. for all things are now
ready, right now. Don't wait. I pray God might
compel us to come. Amen. Let's pray. Gracious God and Father, thank you so much for preparing
this great salvation, what this great supper here typifies. Lord,
thank you for doing the whole work from start to finish In
this text we so clearly see our wretchedness and our sin that
we hear what you have done and we have no interest in it, none
whatsoever, but that for a certain people you would not take no
for an answer. Thank you for being pleased to seek us out
and to bring us into your house, to your table, into your kingdom.
Lord, thank you for feeding us with the Lord Jesus Christ, the
bread of heaven. I pray that that's what has happened
here today. Would you cause these words to
go with us? Not my words, but yours. Cause us to believe you,
to call upon you, Lord, enable us to come right now for all
things that you have so perfectly made ready for us. Cause us to
praise and glorify your name, both now and forever and ever.
Lord, bless us. and keep us, and lead us in all
that we do. May Christ be exalted in all things. Lord, please forgive
us, we're so sinful, for Christ's sake, amen. Thank you, brother. Let's all
stand together and sing Come and Dine, number 16 in our course
books. 16, Come and Dine. That first line, we're gonna
say he commands his chosen people instead of he invites. He commands. Jesus has a table spread, where
the saints of God are fed. He commands his chosen people
come and dine. With his fan, a heat of theme,
and supplies our every need. O, to sleeve to self with Jesus
all the time. Come and dine, the Master calleth,
come and dine. You may feast at Jesus' table
all the time. He who fed the multitude turned
the water into wine. He the hungry calleth now, come
and dine. ? The disciples came to land ?
Thus obeying Christ's command ? For the master called to them,
O commandant ? There they found their heart's desire ? Bread
and fish upon the fire ? Thus he satisfies the hungry every
time Come and dine, the Master calleth, come and dine. You may feast at Jesus' table
all the time. He who fed the multitude turned
the water into wine. To the hungry calleth now, come
and dine. ? Soon the lamb will take his
bride ? To the ever-righteous side ? All the host of heaven
will assembled be ? Oh, it will be a glorious flight ? All the
saints in spotless white ? And with Jesus they will feast eternally
? Come and dine, the master calleth,
come and dine ? You may feast at Jesus' table all the time
? He who fed the multitude turned the water into wine ? To the
hungry calleth now, come and dine We'll meet again this evening
at six. Lord Willen, you're dismissed.