Our study in the Word of God
this morning will be a digression from the series of studies in
which we are presently engaged, at which point in that series
we are contemplating the person of Christ as revealed in Scripture,
that One who is our only Redeemer, who is true God and true man.
As I intimated earlier, our study will rather this morning be focused
upon Matthew 22, verses 1 through 14. Today is not only the Lord's
Day in which we gather for public worship in our stated meetings
appointed for that end, but many will be gathering this afternoon
to witness the exchange of vows between Rick and Linda as they
begin life together as husband and wife. And I believe it is
appropriate that we consider a passage which deals with the
subject of marriage, at least in parabolic form. Now marriage,
as an institution ordained of God, involves, as we saw in our
study last Lord's Day evening, at least three irreducible elements. In the language of Genesis 2,
quoted by our Lord in Matthew 19, a man shall leave his father
and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they too shall
be one flesh. And in the language of Christ,
what therefore God hath joined together let no man put asunder. And in that passage, we are led
to understand that marriage involves at least three things. That conscious,
deliberate, irrevocable severance from all previous ties a man
shall leave father and mother. It involves, secondly, this conscious,
deliberate, covenantal commitment to one person for life. He shall
cleave unto his wife. And then thirdly, it involves
the consummating of this relationship. The two shall be one flesh. Now, because marriage is so radical
a relationship, It is natural that in every culture certain
significant ceremonies should surround both the creation of
that new relationship and the declaration of it in the actual
leaving, cleaving, and joining together. So every culture, no
matter how primitive or how advanced, has its marriage rituals. Now this was also true of Eastern
or Hebrew culture as well. And the passage that is before
us this morning, Matthew chapter 22, gives us some insight into
some of the peculiar marriage rituals of Eastern culture. And in this particular passage,
Our Lord is primarily concerned with speaking a word to the Jews. It carries on from the previous
chapter in which he reminds them of the prophecy that the stone
which the builders rejected would be constituted by God the head
of the corner. And our Lord was telling these
impenitent Jews that the gospel would be taken from them and
sent to the Gentiles. And so there is much in this
parable of the marriage feast that has primary reference to
the Jewish nation and to God's dealings with them in history.
However, it would be wrong to limit the principles to that
exclusive application. and fully aware that that intention
is in the passage, I'm going to bypass it for the most part
in the exposition and application and draw out the larger lines
of teaching and application which I trust will have very pointed
relevance to those of us gathered in this place today. As we think
through this passage, this parable of the marriage feast, There
are four very natural divisions of the various ingredients in
the parable. We have, first of all, the account
of a royal provision. Notice the language of the passage.
Jesus answered and spake again in parables unto them, saying,
The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a certain king, which made
a marriage feast for his son, and sent forth his servants to
call them that were bidden to the marriage feast, and they
would not come. And he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell
them that are bidden. Behold, I have made ready my
dinner. My oxen and my fatlings are killed,
and all things are ready." Here then in the first place is a
statement concerning a royal provision. It was a king who
made a feast in honor to his son. And because it was no common
peasant, nor a man of mere common wealth or possessions, but a
king, everything about that feast bespoke the royalty of the one
who prepared it. And perhaps two words accurately
describe the predominant characteristics of this royal feast. First of
all, the word gracious, and secondly, the word lavish. Notice the king
does not ask people to bring a thing. This is not a potluck
supper. He doesn't say, I have prepared a large haul. Bring
your grub and we'll share it. No, it is a gracious provision. The king is able to say in verse
four, I have made ready my dinner. All you have to do is come and
eat. I have provided the oxen. I have
provided the fatlings, all things are ready, and being a royal
feast, it was a feast that bespoke something of the gracious nature
of the king's disposition to his subjects. To honor his son,
he makes a gracious provision adequate for everyone who would
come and sit down at that banquet table. But not only was this
royal provision marked by things that can be underscored by the
word gracious, but we must add to that word the word lavish. This was not a meal that just
provided staple fare. In that day, the common fare
would be, of course, bread. and water or wine and some meat
provision, but here is a feast in which oxen, plural, and fatlings,
plural, have been provided and all other necessary things. It
was a lavish provision. Not only a lavish provision of
food, but when we come to this incident of the man who did not
have a wedding garment, we must understand something of the custom
of that day. Just as in certain cultures today,
if you attend a funeral, the person who is giving that funeral
for a deceased loved one will provide everyone who comes to
that funeral with a certain form of external garment, and if you
have any respect for the person who's invited you and the one
deceased, you will take that garment, be it a headdress of
some kind or a dark shawl, and you will wear that as provided
by the one who's invited you to that occasion. Well, likewise,
It was the custom of those who had the means to prepare a garment
that was universal for all who would come to a feast, so that
there was no social distinction. You see, if you were one of the
up-and-outers who could come with a $100 dress and think you
might show up for someone else who'd come with a dress that
you'd obviously seen at about 50 other weddings and looked
down your nose, no, no. Everyone was provided by the
wealthy host with a garment that the host himself had made for
that occasion. And so this feast was lavishly
prepared, not only in the foodstuffs upon the table, but in that particular
garment that was necessary if you were to sit down and show
that you honored your host. So two words mark this royal
provision. It is both gracious and it is
lavish. Now what does this say to us
concerning the great truths of the gospel of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ? Well, this royal provision is
one of the clearest illustrations in all of Holy Scripture of that
which God has graciously and lavishly done in the gospel of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What joy is in my own heart this
morning to stand in this place and upon divine warrant to say
that Almighty God, the King of heaven and earth, has made a
feast. And that feast is both gracious
and it is lavish. It is the feast of the living
God made for poor, needy sinners such as we are. Those of us who
in the language of Scripture, if we take but one chapter, Romans
chapter 5, are described as sinners, ungodly, without strength, the
enemies of God. And if we move to such passages
as Ephesians chapter 2, we are described as dead in trespasses
and sins, bound by our sins. deluded and duped by the God
of this world. We are by nature the children
of wrath. There we are in the language
of the Bible, in all of our destitution, in all of our filth and nakedness. What a joy it is to announce
that a royal provision has been made. Almighty God in sovereign
mercy has taken the initiative to provide everything necessary
for sinners such as you and such as I. But that is not only to
be reckoned as a gracious feast, it is a lavish feast. God has
provided for every single necessity in order to bring guilty, condemned,
vile sinners safely into his own presence for all eternity. If the King could say, all things
are ready come, how much more the living God, who has sent
His Son by way of a virgin's womb, who subjected Him to the
rejection of man and then to His own malediction and curse
upon the cross, raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His
own right hand in power, and has sent forth the Holy Spirit
to bear witness of Christ, and to convince men of their need
of Christ, and to subdue their rebel wills, and open their blinded
eyes. Surely, if the feast of this
King was marked by its lavishness, the feast provided in the gospel
of Jesus Christ is more lavish than any feast provided by an
earthly king. Almighty God in the gospel comes
to sinners with wonderful news. All things are ready. The grounds
of a just peace with God have been made in the bloodletting
of the Son of God. The grounds for acceptance as
sons and daughters in the family of God has been made in the person
and work of Jesus Christ. Every provision necessary to
subdue the dominion of sin and to bring us into a state where
we love righteousness and love the Savior and serve Him has
been made in the gift of the Holy Spirit. Surely the feast
that the gospel sets forth is a lavish feast, a feast that
is gracious from beginning to end. But then we notice in the
second place, we have in this parable not only a record of
a royal provision, but we have the account of a repeated invitation. Notice the facts in verses 3,
4, and 9. Having prepared the feast, we
read in verse 3, he sent forth his slaves to call them that
were bidden In other words, those that had a previous invitation,
he tells them now the time to comply with that invitation has
come, but it says they would not come. So what does he do?
Well, verse 4 says that he carries on that work of invitation. And he sent forth other servants,
saying, Tell them that are bidden, behold, I have made ready my
dinner, my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are
ready. Come to the marriage feast. But when they despise that invitation,
he still will not be denied a full house. So we read in verse 9,
Go ye therefore unto the partings of the highways, and as many
as ye shall find, bid to the marriage feast. What do we have
then in this parable? We have not only the record of
the royal provision, but of the repeated invitation made at the
direction, at the command of the same King who made the provision. He was not content to have a
feast spread and all preparations ready, nor was he content simply
to ease his conscience. I've made the feast. I've given
an invitation. If they don't want it, that's
their problem. Just let them be. No, no. But again and again,
He sends forth the invitation, Come, the feast is ready. And when certain ones come to
the point where they show the obduracy and the stubbornness
to the point where they abuse the messengers and only then
cut themselves off from the invitation, still not satisfied, he sends
his servants saying, All right, leave those who were the officially
invited ones and now go out wherever you can go and tell them, Come,
my feast is ready. Now, certainly the application
of this to the gospel should be obvious to all of us. Our
great king did not spread the gospel feast and then sit back
and wait for people to discover it. This king did not spread
his feast and say, well, let's hope if people go by the banquet
hall, they'll get a whiff of things and make an inquiry and
peek through the window and then maybe knock on the door and no,
no. He made the feast and he sent
his servants out. He took the initiative to give
the invitation. And so it is with our blessed
and gracious God. He did not merely, if I may use
the word merely without being irreverent, he did not merely
make every provision necessary for needy sinners that they might
find the just grounds of peace and acceptance with God. He did
not merely spread the gospel feast with everything necessary
for life and godliness in time and into eternity, but He commissioned
His original representatives, those apostles, with a very clear
commission. He said, Go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel. Say to every creature, Come,
the feast is spread. And throughout the scriptures
there is this clear indication that the God who has made this
gracious, this lavish provision in Christ has sent forth a repeated
invitation that men should come and partake of that gospel feast. And remember, when that command
and invitation went out, this was not in a democracy, it was
in a monarchy. It was the king sending an invitation
to his subjects. He had claims upon them. Now,
you see, somebody can send you an invitation to a wedding, and
in a free society, so you want to go, you go. You don't want
to go, you don't go. But if you live under a monarchy and a king
sends an invitation, failure to come is high treason. That will help you to understand
something of the violence of the king in seizing those who
would not come. But what does he do? Look carefully
at verses 9 and 10. Go ye therefore unto the partings
of the highways, and as many as ye shall find bid to the marriage
feast. Those servants went out into
the highways and gathered together all as many as they found, both
bad and good. What a gathering at that banquet
hall! There were the moral upright
ones and there were the immoral and the harlots and the publicans,
the cultured and the uncultured, the religious and the irreligious.
The bad and good is in terms of human descriptions of external
character. And here they were, what a motley
crowd, all brought together to the door. But listen, once the
wedding garment was placed upon them and they entered one by
one, you couldn't tell the up-and-outs from the down-and-outs. Oh, if
you listen to their language, some of them might be a little
cultured. Some might be a little deez dem and doze, but by and
large, what they met at the door, the king's servants who clothed
them with the wedding garment, and what they met at the table
was the great leveler. You got it? What they met at
the door, the king's provision of a wedding garment, and what
they met at the table equally lavished for all, regardless
of culture or lack of culture, education or lack of it, was
the great leveler. The invitation was to come, not
to parade what your status had been prior to the feast, but
the invitation was come and partake of the lavishness of the provision
of the King Himself. What was true then is true now.
To everyone sitting in this place, the living God of heaven and
earth who has claims upon you, He is your Creator. He made you. You draw breath this morning
by His sovereign disposition. Acts 17 says, In Him we live
and move and have our being. You are not in a moral democracy. Almighty God is your monarch. He made you. And he says in the
gospel, come! It's a gracious invitation. It
is full of grace, but it is full of regal authority and power. When he commands you to repent
of your sin, when he commands you to believe on his Son, when
He commands you to take the wedding garment of the perfect righteousness
of Jesus Christ and to sit down to all the privileges stored
up and provided by the gospel. This is no whimpering, simpering,
whining plea. Won't you please trust even? Won't you do the Lord a favor
and decide for Christ? Rubbish! Almighty God says, I sent My
Son. My Son has died. My Son has been
raised from the dead. My Son sits at My right hand
to give repentance and remission of sin. Believe upon Him or perish! The invitation to the royal feast
comes from the royal throne. And as surely as the provision
bespeaks all of the wealth of royalty, so the invitation bespeaks
all of the authority of royalty. My friend, listen, sitting here
this morning, if to this day you have never heard the command
issued in the name of Christ to come to the gospel feast,
to repent and to believe, you have heard it this morning, You
will continue to hear it. You ought to leave knowing that
Almighty God has laid solemn responsibilities upon you. Well,
we move to the third place. Having looked at the royal provision,
the repeated invitation, now thirdly, notice the diversity
of reaction. There are three categories of
reaction to this invitation. Notice them carefully. Verse
three, verses five and six. And he sent forth his servants
to call them that were bidden. And in the parable, of course,
this refers to the Jews who had previous invitations through
the prophets of the Old Testament, through John the Baptist. And
it says they would not come. It gives us no insight into the
rationale behind their refusal. It simply says they would not
come. Verse 5 and again verse 6 give
us some indication of at least the reaction of some of these
described in verse 3, if not all of them. When the second
invitation came, all things are ready, come! Now remember, it's
a king commanding. Come to the marriage feast! But
they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm,
another to his merchandise. Here's the reaction of bland
indifference. They made light of it. They said,
oh, the king says, come to the marriage feast. Ha, ha. Believe
for the king. Big deal. I've got a farm to plow. I've
got some money to make. I've got some goods to sell.
All right. The king's having a feast. Good. He'll have another
one sometime. Appreciate it. Thank you. Goodbye. They made
light of it. They didn't mock it. They didn't despise it. They
just were too preoccupied with their own concerns to heed the
royal command to come. But now there was another group
In their refusal, we read, and the rest laid hold on his servants
and treated them shamefully and killed them. Well, what did the
servants do? They weren't coming, saying,
look, we want $10, and then you go to the feast. You know, like
a lot of these Christian organizations, they plan a program and then
say, donation, $5. That's wicked. Christian organizations,
donation, $5. Well, these servants didn't come
and say, look, free feast, donation, $5. No, no. They came with a royal invitation. They just came saying, everything's
ready. We don't ask you to do a thing,
but to come and eat. Some made light of it, bland
indifference. Some became so hostile, they
said, we're going to take those servants. We can't stand this
insistence that we come to the feast. Now, notice carefully,
their treatment of the servants was a revelation of their attitude
to the king. The servant never came in his
own name. When the servant would come, he'd say, in the name of
our King, all things are ready come. If they could have gotten
their hands upon the King, they'd have killed him. Saying, in essence,
don't you bother our lifestyle with your wedding banquets for
your son. Oh yeah, you want to honor your son and you want us
to honor him by showing up at the banquet, but we've got other
things to do other than join you in honoring your son. We've
got money to make. We've got fields to plow. We're
practical people. And the others were hostile and
said, we cannot stand any expression of the will of the king that
cuts across the grain of our own plans. And they show their
attitude to the king by seizing his servants and killing them.
There's the attitude of resolute refusal. You see the application? I'm
talking this morning to men and women, to boys and girls, some
of whom have heard the gospel times without number. In this
very place, in that little cracker box on Runnymede Road, you've
heard the overtones throbbing with divine authority and with
something of human earnestness and compassion. All things are
ready. All that is needful for your
sinful state has been provided in Christ. Come to the feast. You know what your attitude has
been? It's been, I've got my field to plow. I've got my merchandise
to sell. Oh no, you're not one who says,
just get off my back, preach it over. No, no, it's just, well,
that's fine. King wants to have a banquet, fine, but I've got
other things. Some of you dear young people
and children, that's why you're not converted. I've got other
things to attend to. I'm too busy to pray in secret
and to cry to God for a new heart. I am too busy to search the Scriptures
and to seek the Savior where alone He can be found in the
pages of this holy book. I am speaking to young men and
women and adults, too busy seeking a husband, seeking a wife, seeking
position, seeking a home, seeking prestige. What do you do? You
take the invitation that comes with royal authority and you
make light of it. I am talking to some visitors
who are among us today. You know what you are going to do with
what you hear today? Make light of it. He'd go out and say, what's
that guy? Some kind of a professional actor or something, getting all
upset and waving his head. What in the world? My friend, listen
to me. Listen to me. As God is my witness, I'm dead
in earnest with your soul this morning. Almighty God takes seriously
your reaction to gospel invitations. As we're going to see in a little
bit, the reaction of indifference will land you in hell as much
as the attitude of hope and resolute refusal that would abuse publicly
his servants. All you need do to perish is
to fail to come to the feast clothed with a wedding garment.
That's all you need do. What you are by nature is such
that if Almighty God does not change it by grace, you'll perish
and perish forever. Are you in that posture of resolute
refusal? Maybe you resent the fact that
a preacher has dared this morning to look you in the eye and talk
not in professional clerical tones, but in blunt 20th century
Anglo-Saxon that you can understand. You say, I don't like preachers
who look at me and preach to my eyeballs. My friend, I do
so because these things are the only things that matter. I'm not here on a fool's errand.
I'm here on an errand from my master, my king, who says, tell
them. All things are ready. Come! Come! It was the attitude of resolute
refusal. But secondly, and thank God for
this, there was the attitude or reaction of wholehearted acceptance. Look at verse 10. As the servants
go out into the parting of the highways and bid as many as they
find to the feast, those servants went out and gathered together
as many as they found both bad and good And the wedding was
filled with guests. You see, the king's intention
to honor his son with a full banquet house would not be frustrated. And thank God it never shall
be. And when the Jewish nation says,
we will not have this man to reign over us, God says, all
right, go to those vagabonds, Gentiles, those dogs, who for
centuries have had no gospel light, and for centuries have
had no prophets and no priests ordained of God. And from that
rabble I'll have a full house, and so this morning in every
tribe and tongue and kindred and nation there are those who
eat upon gospel dainties as they sit in the banquet house of the
King, and they honor the Son by eating at his table. You see,
that's the whole rationale for this. It says a king would honor
his son. He would make a marriage feast
for his son and in the interest of his son's honor and glory.
Thank God there are those who have responded with wholehearted
acceptance of the gospel invitation. They have faced honestly the
problem of their sin as being a fence against the living God. They have taken honestly what
God has said concerning His dear Son. that He alone is the Savior
of sinners. They've taken seriously the command
to repent and to believe the gospel. And they've turned from
sin and thrown themselves upon Jesus Christ as He's offered
in the gospel. They take seriously the commands
to be holy. They take seriously the language
of Christ who said, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples. They've taken seriously the issue
of that wedding garment. as they stood at the banquet
house and said, what do I need to commend? Maybe they were one
described as the bad ones in rags and tatters and nothing
to make them feel at ease amidst all of the regal provision. And
one of the servants smiles and said, put your fears to rest. Look at what the king has provided
from his royal tailors. And out comes a garment befitting
a king. woven through with gold, spotlessly
white. Those who with wholehearted acceptance
embrace the royal invitation are those who are clothed in
that garment and are actually seated at the table eating the
provisions. Thank God there is such here
this morning. Clothed in the righteousness of Christ because
you've acknowledged you have none of your sitting at the table
and eating of the great paintings of forgiveness and peace with
God and joy in the Holy Ghost, not because of anything in yourself,
but because of all that God has done to honor His Son in making
this provision. But then there's a third class,
and I want you to look carefully at what our Lord says. A third
class of response, there's the resolute refusal described in
verses 3, 5, and 6. The wholehearted acceptance described
in verse 10, but then there is in verses 11 and 12 the hypocritical
response of this strange character who has no wedding garment. But
when the king came in to behold the guests, he saw there a man
who had not on a wedding garment. Now remember the background of
this. The wedding garment was provided by the king. You didn't
have to go out and save your pennies and buy one or make one.
It was provided. But if you were to honor the
king, you showed your honor by submitting to be clothed with
that garment. And so he said unto this character,
Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?
And the next remark is critical to an understanding of the whole
thrust. And he was speechless. Why was he speechless? He couldn't
say, but, but O King, I'm impoverished. I don't have enough money to
go purchase a garment. He could make no plea of poverty.
Nor could he say, O King, not only am I poor, but all the garments
ran out. The fellow in front of me, he
put on the last one. No, no, he had no excuse. He dared to
insult the king by appearing at his table in the presence
of others of his subjects without that which was essential truly
to be found there. He was speechless. And how does
the king react to this? The king said to the servants,
find him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Wait a minute. What's
the big deal? A guy doesn't wear a garment. Listen. It was an
insult to the king. He was saying I can appear on
the basis of what I am in myself, not on the basis of what you
will make me by virtue of your garment. That's the picture of
every single person who says, what is business of repentance
and the new birth and regeneration and a new life? That's for fanatics! I'll make it into God's banquet
house on my own steep. I've never been a lecturer. I've
never been a thief. I've never been a whoremonger.
I've been honest. I've been upright. And when you
hear of Christ, and the blood of atonement, and the work of
the Spirit, and when you hear of repentance, these are all
words and names to you. Why? My friend, it's because
you're like this poor, deluded hypocrite. You think you can
be found among the true people of God on your own steam. And you can't. You can't. Am I speaking to people who sit
here this morning and think all is well because of what you are
in yourself or what you have been able to do of yourself? This brings us, fourthly, to
look in this passage at what is the most sober part of the
entire portion, what I'm calling the royal reckoning. The royal
reckoning. Not only do we have the record
of the royal provision, the repeated invitations, the diversity of
response, resolute refusal, wholehearted acceptance, hypocritical response. But our Lord is very careful
to give a graphic description of the royal reckoning. And there
are two phases of that reckoning. One is given in verse 7 and one
in verse 13. Verse 7, But the king was wroth
and sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned their
city. Now these words came from the
lips of the gracious, meek, and lowly Son of God. It's the Son
of God who says, the King was wroth, that's an English word
for angry. With a white hot, albeit pure
and holy anger, the King was wroth. He sent his armies and
he destroyed the murderers and he burned their cities. That
was a prophecy of the downfall of Jerusalem. When the sovereign
Lord upon His throne so disposed the Roman armies to come in in
70 A.D. and utterly raze to the ground
the city of Jerusalem and to disperse that nation to the ends
of the earth for centuries. My friend, if you've got some
wispy, unfounded notion that God is all love. He's just so
sweet and kind, nearsighted, benevolent, indulgent, grand. My friend, listen, you don't
find that God in the Bible. You don't find Him in the face
of Jesus Christ, or you don't find Him upon the lips of Christ.
The royal reckoning time comes. Here are people who've had tremendous
privilege. They had been previously previously
informed that there would be a wedding for the son They are
the first ones to get the invitation. When they refuse, the king gives
them the benefit of the doubt. He may be said to himself and
the servants come back saying, O king, we gave the invitation,
but they would not come. Perhaps he had some way of reasoning
through. Well, it's that time of the year
when people have this concern, that concern, and all the rest.
Listen, go on back and invite them again. And so they go back
with the repeated invitation. And some of them, as we saw,
make light of it. There is this indifference. I've
got to go to my business. I've got to go plow my field.
Some are openly hostile. But the indifferent and the hostile
came under the frown of the king's wrath, and he destroyed them.
My friend, listen to me this morning. If you show indifference
to the royal command to come in repentance and faith to Jesus
Christ, If you show hostility to the overtures of the gospel
and grace of God in gospel preaching, an hour is coming when you must
reckon with the King himself. The scripture tells us that in
that day men will cry for rocks and hills to fall upon them,
and I quote from Revelation chapter 6, and they shall say, from the
wrath of the Lamb. Who would ever think of putting
those two words together? Wrath of the Lamb. The Lamb is meek and lowly. And
we read of our blessed Lord in the day of His humiliation, as
a lamb before her shearers was dumb, so He opened not His mouth. He was led as a sheep to the
slaughter, even so much so that the heathen authorities were
amazed that He did not defend Himself. But, my friend, that
same lamb who died in self-imposed weakness, That same Lamb who
obediently submitted Himself to the scoffing in the spittle,
He shall come with power and glory, and every eye shall see
Him. And when He breaks through the clouds, if you have treated
the royal invitation with indifference or hostility, you will know,
as I can never depict with words, what it is to bear the brunt
of the wrath of the Lamb. You will wish that somehow you
could go back beyond your mother's womb into a state of non-existence
rather than face the anger of the Son of God. A royal reckoning
is coming. Those who are indifferent and
hostile In the language of II Thessalonians 1.8, to them Jesus
Christ will come with flaming fire to take vengeance on them
that know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. But I direct your attention to
verse 13 as well. Not only will the royal reckoning
bring within its scope those who openly refuse the gospel,
Those who with indifference are not concerned with the gospel,
but what about those who are found in some way among those
who have responded to the invitation? That's you here this morning.
In some way or another, there is some degree of interest in
an identity with the Christian message or you wouldn't be here.
But my friend, the great issue is this. Do you have a wedding
garment this morning? Are you clothed in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ? Has He been made unto you wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption? Or do you merely
have the name of Jesus upon your lips, songs of Jesus in your
mouth, thoughts of Jesus floating through your head? Oh, the day of royal reckoning
is coming, and the language from the lips of Christ again is vigorous
and frightening language. Think now, you're in Palestine.
There are no Edisons who have yet discovered electric light
bulbs or invented electric light bulbs. Outside of the warmth
and the fellowship and the love and provision and gaiety of the
banquet hall, everything is inky black darkness. And so the king
says to the servants, Bind him hand and foot. Render him immobile. Cast him into the outer darkness. In other words, our Lord in this
figurative language is saying, the state into which this hypocrite
is cast is irrevocable, unchangeable, irreversible. Bind him so that
once he is in darkness, there is no escape from darkness. Hell is a popular word in the
language of every news commentator. Every man who's trying to prove
he's a man. Hell and damn are acceptable now in the mass media.
My friend, hell may be just a convenient word that you slip in to prove
you're a man, but to show you're in. But to our Lord, hell was
a place prepared for the devil and his angels. And weeping and
gnashing of teeth are not poetic language. They simply revealed
the poverty of human language to express the awful reality
of abandonment from God. What was in the banquet house?
There was the laughter. There was the gaiety. There was
the fellowship. There was the love. There was
the light. And above all, there was the
King and His Son. Without darkness, Darkness! And that's the hell of hells. A hymn writer caught that when
he said, Jesus, all perfections rise and end in Thee. Heaven
itself without Thee, dark as night would be. Lamb of God,
Thy glory is the light above. Lamb of God, thy glory is the
life of love. My friend, listen to me. You're
externally identified with Christ and his church and the gospel,
but do you have the wedding garland? The royal reckoning is coming,
and in that day it will not be enough that you pass the scrutiny
of fellow mortals, elders who may have interviewed you for
acceptance into a church. It will not be enough that you
pass the scrutiny of fellow mortals who will say, oh, that's Brother
so-and-so, that's Sister so-and-so. It's the King himself who comes
and reckons with this hypocrite. Anyone could mark out those who
openly refuse. But now this passage says the
king himself comes in and discovers him. See it? Now there are men
today that everyone knows they're not converted. They make no profession.
They say the gospel's all right, but I've got other things to
do. They're the indifferent. There are some who openly oppose
it and say, I want nothing to do with it. Shut up. Don't talk
to me about Christ. But there are some of you that
are like this man. You sit at the table, and the king alone
can discover you, and he's going to find you. He's going to find
you in that day. The Scripture says His eyes are
as a flame of fire. And according to Romans 2.16,
in that day He will judge the secrets of men's hearts by Jesus
Christ. Oh, my friend, listen, and may
the Holy Ghost drive it into your conscience with inescapable
power. Do you have the wedding garment
this morning? What do you mean? I mean, are
you joined to Christ in the bond of living faith? Have you been
given a new heart in the language of Ezekiel 36? In the language
of John 3 that has become so prostituted in the past few months? Have you been born of the Spirit? Not have you had some kind of
a mystical experience that has the name of Jesus somehow attached,
but have you received the life of God, giving you a hunger for
holiness and obedience and a disposition to take seriously the Word of
God and to love and serve the Son of God. My friend, if not,
you do not have the wedding garment. Oh, how wonderful it is to know
this morning, at least while we still draw in breath, that
the King has not yet determined that wrath shall come. And there
are few joys that can match the joy of one of His slaves, and
that's all we who preach the Word claim to be His slaves. To echo the royal invitation,
come, all things are ready. Think of it. This poor man's
case was irreversible in the parable. Yours is not. If you're found amongst the guests
with no wedding garment, thank God you can still get up and
go to the door who is Christ and say, Lord Jesus, clothe me.
Clothe me. All things are ready. There's
a wedding garment for all who will have it. The feast is spread. Forgiveness, peace, acceptance,
justification, adoption, and all the blessings conceived by
the infinitely loving mind of God, stored up in the covenant
of grace, all of them are bundled up in Christ. And God says, will
you have my son? Oh, dear people, If you're not
in Christ, will you heed the royal command today? Come, for
the feast is spread, all things are ready. I stand today not
as a preacher of Moses. To tell you do, I stand as a
preacher of the gospel, saying come, all is ready. Why do you
get irritated with preachers who are simply seeking to do
what these servants did, to get you to come and to honor God
by being found at the feast made for His dear Son? My final word of application
is to you, the people of God. Do you see the glory now of what
real gospel endeavor is? It's entreating men, in the language
of Paul, to be reconciled to God through Christ, that God
may be honored as men embrace the provision stored up in and
under half of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why
we refuse to cheapen the gospel, to bring it down to a tawdry
confidence trick. And you and I are going to be
inundated with it in the next few months. This Here's Life
campaign that's inundated the greater New York metropolitan
area. Just a sales gimmick to sell Jesus. And we'll be cluttered
with it. Billboards and spot ads. It's all Madison Avenue. It utterly
obscures the glory of the Christ of the Bible. We don't try to trick you into
a decision over a telephone call. We command you in the name of
the God of heaven, repent and believe the gospel. Bow down
to Christ. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry
and you perish in the way. Those of us who by the grace
of God have embraced that royal invitation and are sitting even
this morning at that royal feast. The Scripture says, The Spirit
and the Bride say, Come. And we want as our closing hymn
of praise to God to confess our believing response to the Word
by singing that great hymn of Joseph Hart in closing hymn number
393. And if you are here as one who
has not heeded that gospel call, will you even now, as the word
has come, there where you sit, we do not ask you to walk an
aisle or raise a hand. We ask you to have dealings with
God Himself in Christ, right where you sit, right now, even
as the gospel is echoed in this wonderful hymn, hymn number 393. One of the old Puritans said
that saving faith is nothing more but gospel begging. Oh,
may God grant that some of you will go to begging today, buying
at the price of your pride and stubbornness those gracious provisions
of God in Jesus Christ. Let us pray. O God, how we thank you again
this morning for the privilege of ever knowing that you, the
God of heaven in sovereign grace, in the sheer compulsion of your
own love, have provided for needy sinners. We worship you, O God. We praise you. We lift up our
voices in our hearts, and we say, Blessing and glory and honor
and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the
Lamb forever. and forever. Who is a pardoning
God like Thee? And who has grace so rich and
free? O our Father, many of us are
ashamed that for so many years our ears were deaf and our wills
insubordinate to that gracious invitation. But we thank You
for overcoming our indisposition and our rebellion for clothing
us in that garment of the righteousness of your Son. We thank you for
all that we have known of those provisions in the banquet house,
and yet we bless you that the best is yet to come. And oh, how we pray for those
among us this day who may perhaps be the indifferent ones, or perhaps
those who are resolute in their rebellion O God, we fear that
there may be the self-deceived hypocrites. O God, may this word
preached today not return to you void, but may you seal it
that in the last day we shall see those who mark this day as
the day when the invitation of heaven broke in upon their hearts
and they were drawn to the knowledge of Christ. Hear our prayer May
the benediction of your presence rest upon us and abide with us. We pray that all of the details
relative to the wedding this afternoon and the necessary rush
that will be upon many of us may not unhinge our spirits and
distract our minds. But, O God, right through the
afternoon hours until we gather again, make this a day marked
by your felt presence in the midst of your gathered people.
Hear our prayers, receive our praises, dismiss us with the
benediction of your presence resting upon us and abiding with
us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.