This portion of scripture is
one that I really enjoy studying and preaching through. I know you're very familiar with
it. I've preached on it before, and some of the men here probably
have preached on it too. I didn't look up any messages,
but it's a parable, another parable, that Christ uses to illustrate
the principles that he's been dealing with here as he speaks
to his disciples and as he talks about the Pharisees and the elders
and the scribes of Israel, the false preachers who had taught
the people wrongly. And this one is called the parable
of the marriage supper, a king. gave a marriage supper, a marriage
feast, a time of joy for his son who was getting married.
And of course it's all a picture of Christ and his church. Christ
is the bridegroom and the church is the bride coming together. But I've divided this up into
two lessons. I'm going to try to get through
verse eight today. and then begin at verse nine next week to finish
it out. Today the message is entitled,
A Ready Salvation Rejected. A Ready Salvation Rejected. And then next week we're gonna
talk about the Garment of Righteousness. And so it's two points that are
made in this is number one, The natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God. Now that's the bottom line. You know, one of the things about
the gospel is that it not only reveals the problem, the sickness,
and man's problem by nature, but it also reveals the cure.
And that's the gospel of God's grace in Christ. And you've heard
the term the total depravity of man. And when you think of
terms like that, total depravity, what comes in your mind? You
know, a lot of people, I remember talking to several people about
this years and years ago. And they would always look at
people who are openly just out there with their immorality.
We see that today, don't we? I mean, it's there, you know,
with the woke, you know, people and all that. And they're wanting
us to accept their, what we would call their depravity as being
good and, you know, and all of that. But if I were to ask you,
what is the main evidence of the total depravity of man? And
I'll tell you what it is, it's ignorance of and rejection of
the gospel of God's grace. And a person, all of us left
to ourselves, and this is what we have to see when we, what
we're gonna talk about here, we're gonna see Israel, the nation
Israel, who under the old covenant were God's people providentially,
temporarily, ceremonially, not eternally now. God's people eternally
shall be saved. But in that covenant, they rejected,
left to themselves, they rejected the gospel of God's grace in
and by the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's sin, that's total
depravity, that's spiritual death, that's being guided and controlled
by Satan, all of those things that are negative, you can see.
Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians chapter one when he said, The
preaching of the cross is foolishness to them who are perishing. And
that's what that is, that's total depravity. And one of the things
that we need to keep in mind as we look at these verses is
that there's nothing in here that would give us reason to
be proud or to lift us up as if we're better than those who
reject the gospel. Because if left to ourselves
to understand this, we'd be just like Him. We were just like Him
in our former state, born into this world spiritually dead,
totally depraved, in darkness and unbelief. But God delivered
us out of that kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of His dear
Son, spiritual light. So verse 20, chapter 22, it says
in Jesus, verse one, and Jesus answered, and spake unto them
again by parables, and said," Now, first of all, before we
go into it, consider, as I put in your lesson here, the privileges
that God had already given to the nation Israel, and it's hard
to count them all. God chose this people providentially,
and I emphasize this now, There's God's elect eternally in Christ
made up of both Jew and Gentile who will be brought to faith
in Christ. But God in providence, now what
is providence? Well, that's God's governing
of all things in history. In God's providence, he chose
this particular nation, physical nation, to be the means through
which he would bring the Messiah according to the flesh. And in
order to do that, we see so many providential blessings that they
had, but they didn't return thanks to the true and living God. They
actually became idolaters, and you can see that in the Old Testament.
For example, it was through, when you think about through
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you know, he brought them down into
Egypt. And then they were made slaves,
and then he delivered them out through Moses, brought the Hebrew
children together in Mount Sinai and gave them the law. That's
when they were formed as a nation. They weren't called Israel until
later, as you see. That came after Jacob, whose
name was changed to Israel. And so they were formed as a
nation. under the law of Moses, the old
covenant. And remember, we've talked about
this, that old covenant law was not a means of salvation. It was not a way by which they
could be made righteous in God's sight because the law was given
because of sin. In other words, through that
law, God was showing how it is impossible for sinners falling
in Adam Born dead, born depraved, born spiritually in darkness,
it's impossible for sinners to be saved by their deeds of the
law. And that's what that law shows.
And that's why when we study the law, we study more than the
Ten Commandments. We study the Levitical law, the
law of the priesthood, the tabernacle, the sacrifices. And those were
all pictures of Christ, the promised Messiah. And that's why he gave
those things to them. And in the history of the nation
Israel, the period of time between the giving of the Law of Moses
to the coming of Christ, that was the time period of the Old
Covenant. And when Christ came, and did
his work, died on the cross as our surety, our substitute, our
redeemer, and rose again the third day, that's when that law
was finished. You remember Christ said in John
19, 30, hanging on the cross, it's finished. Gave up the ghost,
the veil was ran into, the law's gone. Now that time, that dispensation
of the old covenant law was over, and of course, the unbelieving
Jews didn't want to accept that, and they tried to keep it in
effect, They wouldn't look to Christ. And so all of that, that
was about probably around 1,500 years between Moses and Christ.
And so during that time, God gave them so many blessings that
they didn't recognize. Again, he gave them that land
of promise, and their gaining the land of promise was not conditioned
on them. That was a promise made 400 years
before the law given to Abraham. And you know how they obtained
the land of promise. It wasn't by their strength or their goodness.
In fact, when they first come up on the land of promise, they
rejected it, and they ended up wandering in the wilderness 40
years. And then when they came to the land of promise, it was
a miracle of God that brought them into it, the walls of Jericho
falling, all of that. So it never was by their strength
or their power or their goodness. And you remember God, I think
in the book of Leviticus, and there might be some in Exodus
too, He told him, he said, I'm going to give you a land that
you didn't buy. I'm going to give you houses
that you didn't build. That's what salvation is. We
are in salvation by God's grace. We are recipients of blessings
that we didn't earn and didn't deserve, didn't buy, didn't build. We're members of a family that
God put together. And so all those privileges that
they had, and Paul lists them in Romans 9, they're listed in
Hebrews 10 and Hebrews 9 through 11, all the things, the priesthood,
the sacrifices, all those types and pictures. And it was through
them that this nation, the lineage of Abraham and David, remember
how Matthew's genealogy started, Matthew 1, 1, through Abraham
to David, it was through this nation that God brought the Messiah. That's what Christ meant when
he told the woman that, well, salvation is of the Jews. He
wasn't saying you've got to become a Jew to be saved. He was saying
it's through the Jewish nation that God sent salvation. Even though many of them themselves
were not saved. Ain't that sad? Think about that. And that's part of that privilege.
The true Messiah entered into the world. But as illustrated
in these earlier parables, we've been reading here in Matthew
20 and 21 and all of that. Even though they had all these
privileges, they didn't bear any spiritual fruit. I've got
in here, they despised the abundant mercies of God and they killed
the prophets. And we've seen that in these
former parables. And then finally, what did they do? They rejected
and murdered the Son of God. Now I call it murder because
technically speaking, Christ wasn't murdered because he came
to die. And he said, no man takes my
life from me, I give it. And that's a beautiful thing,
isn't it? He gave his life. And you know, you hear that song,
he could have called 10,000 angels, well he could have. You know,
man thinks he's overcoming Jesus of Nazareth. You're not, he's
letting it happen. But on our side of the equation
there, it was evil and it was murder. And so, you know, it
goes back to the old adage that Joseph stated. We meant it for
evil, God meant it for good. And boy, think about the good
that comes out of that. So they rejected. So when we
consider all that sin and rebellion of Israel, let's always remember
that by nature we're no better. That if we are saved, and if
we receive the Son of God, it's only by His grace and His power. And we know all of this now as
you look at it. And I know this is difficult
and most people who call themselves Christians don't even want to
consider this. God is not the author of sin. But every bit
of this was according to his predetermined counsel and will. Now that's what the Bible says.
You say, well preacher, I wrestle with that and I don't want to
believe that. Well, okay. That's what the Bible teaches
though. And if you want to take that up with God when you stand
before him, then go right ahead. But do you know what Romans 9
says? Who are you to argue with God? Who do you think you are?
Remember when Job started debating with God about his situation,
the first thing that the Lord asked, he said, where were you
when I created the heavens and the earth? Where were you when
I put Leviathan in the sea? Now, in other words, in order
to debate with God, you better be on his level, and we're not.
I hope you see that. Just like the old guy said, I
know there is a God and I ain't him. So, understand that. But in his wisdom, this is how
he brought it all together. God has a people out of every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, Jew and Gentile. He told Abraham,
he said, through you, I will bless all nations. How's he gonna
do that? Through the salvation of his
chosen people, chosen before the world began, given to Christ,
justified in Christ, forgiven of all their sins, declared righteous
in God's sight, and redeemed by Christ, and called out by
the Holy Spirit, both Jew and Gentile, a remnant according
to the election of grace. And God's gonna save them. And
what the Jews did and what the Gentiles did here in coming together
to defy and kill the Lord of glory did not put a chink in
God's plan at all. It was all according to his purpose
and plan. So in light of that, here's the
parable. Look at verse two. The kingdom
of heaven is likened to a certain king which made a marriage for
his son. Now this kingdom here, this parable,
you know a parable is an earthly story teaching spiritual truth. So here's a kingdom, here's a
king, and here's the king's making a marriage for his son. In the
Jewish culture that was a time of joy. In our culture it is. And so here it is, you know,
a joyous occasion. Well, what does this picture,
what does this illustrate? Well, it certainly illustrates
salvation for God's people, the bride of Christ. Now, the bride
of Christ in the Bible is not some select group, elite group
of Christians. There are denominations that
teach that. But it's the whole body of Christ's people whom
he redeemed with his blood. The church, the called out ones,
There's no hierarchy here, see? And so the Bride of Christ, here
Christ, the King is God the Father, and the Son is Jesus Christ,
the Bridegroom, and though they're not mentioned here, the Bride
is His Church. And this is the marriage supper.
This is a time of joy. The Lord uses this illustration
to set forth that celebration that the father has chosen a
bride for his son. And when did he do that? Before
the foundation of the world. When he chose his people and
their names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And you
know how you can go all the way through the marriage issue. You
know, there was a dowry to be paid. Well, Christ paid the dowry
for his bride on the cross when he obeyed unto death. And when
we look at the issue of Christ and his bride, what we're told
in the Bible is the bride was a sinful, unworthy bride, not
worthy of the son. but the father and the son loved
her unconditionally. That's amazing. Unconditional
love. They talk about unconditional
election. Well, that's unconditional love.
There was no reason. However, when God loves, his
love must be consistent with his justice. And so we read in
passages like 1 John 4 and verse 10, herein is love, not that
we love God. Should we have loved God? Yes.
Did we love God? No. We're an unworthy bride,
a sinful bride. So herein is love, not that we
love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be what?
The satisfaction, the propitiation for our sins. And so I think
it's like we learned in one of the last parables. He talks about
those who are worthy and those who are not worthy. He may bring
that up here a little bit too. What is it to be worthy of salvation? Well, it's certainly not any
worthiness in ourselves. Somebody said, are we worth saving?
Not in ourselves. But the worthiness is in the
Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. That's our worthiness. How are
we accepted with God? We're not worthy in ourselves,
but we are in Christ because we're washed in his blood from
all our sins and we're clothed in his righteousness, imputed,
and God has given us a heart to exalt him and believe in him
and rest in him. So there's the marriage supper.
Well, look at verse three through six. Let's just read these. He
sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the
wedding, and they would not come. Now understand that. Now this
is illustrating how God sent the prophets, the preachers,
the priests who knew the gospel, to bid them to come to the wedding
feast. That's the general call of the
gospel. We preach the gospel to anybody
who will listen. knowing full well that nobody
will come except those whom God draws by his power and grace. And yet he commands us to go
preach the gospel. I had a fellow one time who claimed
to believe in the sovereignty of God, which we all do. We believe
in the absolute sovereignty of God. And he'd say things like
this. He'd say, well, God's gonna save
his people no matter what. And I told him, I said, you're
not stating that correctly. God's gonna save his people,
that's true. Nothing's gonna stop it. No power
on earth can stop the Lord God from saving his people unto glory. But God's gonna use means to
do that, and those means glorify himself. So this fellow would
ask me, he said, well, why are you just preaching to the non-elite? I said, I don't even know who
they are. Who are the elect and the non-elect? What does the
Bible say about the elect? They'll hear the gospel and they'll
believe it as it's preached. So there is a general call in
which we preach the gospel to anybody who'll listen knowing
full well that any of them who are left to themselves are in
this category. They will not come. And that
includes me and includes you. If you came to Christ, you know
who gets the glory for that, don't you? Not you, not me. You see, my salvation is not
based on my decision. You understand that? Well, preacher,
didn't you make a decision? Yes. But if left to myself, I
would have decided wrongly. I would have decided for self
and not for the glory of God. Now that's what the Bible teaches. But you know, a lot of people,
they believe in the heresy of decisional regeneration. Have
you ever heard of that? You make your decision for Christ,
and then as a result, you're born again by the Spirit. Oh
no. Look at John chapter one. Now
all this is important if we're gonna understand this parable.
And I could show you more scriptures than this, But in John chapter
one, now remember what we're talking about, they would not
come. The king sent out his servants, preachers of the gospel, to bid
them to come to the marriage feast. They would not come. Well listen to John one and verse
11. He, that is Christ, came unto his own, and his own received
him not. Now that's us by nature. None
that seek after God, none that doeth good. All right, but look
at verse 12. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power. Now that word power means the
right or the privilege, not the ability now. Sometimes you'll
see the word power in scripture, it means ability. But here it
means the right. To them gave he right to become
or to be called the sons of God, even to them that believe on
his name. Now look at verse 13, which were born not of blood.
Now that's particularly pointed at the Jewish people who would
claim that their physical connection with Abraham made them a child
of God. No, it's not by blood. nor the
will of the flesh, and I believe what that means is the works
of the flesh, it's not the works of the flesh that made you a
son of God or a child of God, nor of the will of man. It wasn't
your decision. But you were born but of God. That's God's work. And he sends
the spirit to bring sinners under the preaching of the gospel and
he does his invincible work, that's the invincible call, and
we'll talk about that next week more. That's the calling of the
Spirit that you cannot resist. That's the convincing work of
the Spirit, convincing us of sin and of righteousness and
of judgment, showing us our sinfulness and our need of Christ and his
righteousness alone. Now go back to Matthew 22, they
would not come always remember I can't emphasize
that's us by nature. Verse four, again he sent forth
other servants saying tell them which are bid behold I have prepared
my dinner. I love that what we're talking
about is a gospel a salvation that's already this this marriage
feast has already been repaired prepared he's not telling him
bring your dishes Bring your contributions. No, we don't want
them. It would be an insult to the
king for you to bring a dish here. And it's not because you're
a bad cook. It's because this is a prepared
dinner. Well, that's what we tell people.
The gospel is a prepared salvation. Look at verse, look on verse
four. He says, my oxen and my fatlings are killed and all things
are ready. It's all ready. That's a ready
salvation. Christ, God the Father sent Christ
to do everything necessary, all things that are required, meet
all conditions, all stipulations, and it's ready, and you don't
bring anything to it. You don't add anything to it.
You don't take anything away. All you do is come as a sinner
crying out for mercy. And that's exactly what the natural
man does not want. He wants to bring some contribution. I've told you the story about
my son's father-in-law, Stan Terry. Some of y'all have met
Stan. And he had a shotgun, and he was gonna give it to a friend
of his. And he gave the shotgun to the friend, and the friend
said, well, let me give you a dollar. And Stan said, no, I don't want
the dollar. And that man insisted on giving
him a dollar. And you know what the issue there
was? Pride. At least I can say I gave him
something. Well, that's the natural man. And I've told you the story
about me and my old guitar, how I had a friend of mine up at
church who repaired that guitar for me. And I had it in an old,
the old original case. It was a ratty case. And he returned
it to me in a brand new hard shell case. And those things
are not cheap. And I told him, I said, well, let me pay you
for the case. He said, no. He said, I want to give it to
you. And I said, no, let me pay for it. He said, do you know
what a gift is? I said, I do now. But that's the way it is with
God. In 1 Corinthians 2, it talks about how the Spirit, when he
comes to us in the gospel, he teaches us about those things
that are freely given. Because you know what? By nature,
we don't really know what a gift is. And that's what God does. This is a ready salvation. We
don't need to bring our works or our decisions to it in order
to attain it or maintain it. It's already done. And that's
what these Pharisees and these unbelieving Jews didn't want.
They wanted to say, we contributed something. And that's the way
people are today under this false gospel that God loves everybody
and Christ died for everybody. Now it's up to you. Now you've
got to bring your contribution. You've got to make your decision.
You've got to walk an aisle. You've got to get baptized. You've
got to give your tithe. You've got to do all this. It's
a general contributorship. and it's offensive to the king,
and especially a denial of his son. The gospel is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, for therein is
the righteousness of God revealed. Not your righteousness, not mine,
God's righteousness, and that's Christ in the glory of his person
and in the power of his finished, prepared, ready work. But he says, all things are ready.
Come unto the marriage. Look at verse five. But they
made light of it. Oh, come on now. You can't tell
me that we don't have to do something in salvation to merit it, be
worthy of it. They made light of it. And he
says, and they went their ways. Don't wanna hear that anymore.
One to his farm, another to his merchandise. We'll go about our
business, we don't wanna hear about that. Verse six, and the
remnant took his servants, those who didn't go away, who stayed
back, they took his servants and entreated them spitefully
and slew them. Killed them. Remember how Christ
said you killed the prophets? And then in the New Testament,
when the apostles began to go out and the evangelists, they
were after them too, killed many of them. Isn't that something? Well, that's again, you know, the Bible tells us, and people
will bring this up to us all the time, whosoever will shall
be saved. Whosoever shall call upon, well,
that's right. But man by nature is not willing.
And if we're made willing, it's by the power of God, isn't it?
None will or can come to the Lord in true faith apart from
the effectual drawing power of God. Look at verse seven. But
when the king heard thereof, he was wroth, he was angry, he
sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up
their city. I believe that's a direct reference to the destruction
of Jerusalem in AD 70. Because that's when Jerusalem
was burned up. That was God's wrath falling down upon those
who rejected Christ. And that's just a picture that
in the end, all who are found before God at the judgment without
Christ, without His blood, without His righteousness, the wrath
of God's going to come down. And they'll perish in condemnation.
And so in verse 8 it says, Then saith he to his servants, The
wedding is ready, But they which were bidden were not worthy.
There's that worthiness. Why weren't they worthy? Because
they rejected the only way of worthiness, which is Christ and
his blood and righteousness. There's no worthiness for you
or for me in ourselves. It's all in Christ. Now we'll pick up there next
week with the rest of this parable, so all right.