Luke chapter 14 and verse 15
this morning Luke 14 15 I think we'll just
go verse by verse instead of reading this passage but Verse
15 it says when one of them that sat at meat with him we read
in the previous context there that the Lord had come to have
supper and Somebody that was sitting there as he spoke about
The kingdom of God and the feast and bidding those that are not
your friends the poor and the lame and the maimed and the blind
and how that when you are bidden
to a feast, take the lowest seed and things like that. He heard
the Lord speak of those things. And he said unto him, this is
the man saying this to the Lord, blessed is he that shall eat
bread in the kingdom of God. And that's true. Whoever eats in the kingdom of
God is blessed of God. It's not going to happen any
other way. about the blessing of God so there's nothing wrong
with what he's saying but it reminds us of what happened in
Luke 11 27 it says it came to pass as the Lord spake these
things a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice and
said unto him blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps
which thou hast sucked it almost sounds Catholic doesn't it they're
always wanting to make a God out of Mary Vicki and I saw one
of their so-called churches one time called Queen Mary the Mother of the
Universe Church or something, not Queen of the Universe Church. Who do you reckon they worship
there? Doesn't sound like it's Christ. But the Lord said, yea rather. Yea rather blessed are they that
hear the word of God and treasure it, keep it. Now there's reason to believe
that because of Jewish writings at the time and things like that,
that this man's idea of eating bread in the kingdom of God was
a carnal one, just like religion today. Their idea of heaven and
the kingdom of God is carnal. They speak of mansions over the
hilltop and things like that and having extra jewels in their
crown because of things that they do and nonsense like that. But our Lord told this man the
gospel. And that's why we're here, to
hear what the Lord said to him. Listen to this, verse 16. Then
said he unto him, a certain man made a great supper. And bade many, bade many. Now let's think about this for
a second. We've been talking about suppers for a while now.
In all three of these scenarios that our Lord spoke of, where
the lesson was to take the lowest seat, that's when you're bidding
to a supper. Take the lowest seat. And where
the lesson was about who to call to supper. If you have a supper,
call, don't just call your friends, call the lame and the poor and
the blind and the maimed. And this one here, where a great
supper was made, in all three, the supper is salvation. It's salvation. You're bidden
to a great supper, to come and sit down and eat with, as he's
referred to in verse 10 of the context, he that bade thee. I like that name. That's what
God is called here. He that bathed thee. He that
said to you, come and dine. And sitting down with him in
the kingdom of God and eating his supper, that's salvation.
That's salvation. And I love that name, He that
bathed thee. That's God, and this has to do
with coming to Christ. He bids you to a great supper,
to a great feast. God, where does God bid sinners
to come to? His Son. The Lord Jesus Christ
said, no man can come to me. We always miss that word, it
seems like, in that we're talking about the inability of the sinner,
and that's a good thing to talk about. No man can come unto me
except the Father which hath sent me. Draw him. He said, I've
loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn you. And you're not coming to Christ
any other way. But don't forget that it's Christ that you're
coming to. No man cometh unto me. Where does the Father draw
sinners to? Christ his Son. And he bids them to feast upon
him who himself is the meat and drink indeed. This is a supper
that you must partake of or you die eternally. You will never
have life in any real sense. What we call life is death. John 6.53, Then Jesus said unto
them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh
of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
He's speaking of partaking of Him by faith. His flesh and His
blood, His person and His work, Christ and Him crucified. Unless
you partake of Him by faith and He becomes Christ in you, the
hope of glory, you have no hope of anything. But wrath, you have
no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last
day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and
I in him. And as the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the
Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This
is that bread which came down from heaven. He's preaching to them concerning
the manna in the Old Testament in the wilderness that God sent
down to his people to sustain life, to give them life in a
barren wilderness. He said, this is that bread,
not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. It wasn't just
about that manna. He's talking about the bread
of life. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. So
this is a feast that you've got to come to. You've got to attend.
You must eat or you have no life. You are forever dead in every
way. So this is mandatory. And he
that bids is God. This is simple, just like all
of the Lord's preaching. It's simple, isn't it? He that
bids you is God. The supper you are bidden to
is Christ. Feasting with Him and upon Him
by faith is salvation. And the way God bids sinners
to come to His Son is the preaching of the gospel. Look at the next
verse. Look at the parable itself. This
is the gospel now that's preached. He sent His servant at suppertime
to say to them that were bidden, For all things are now ready. You talk about simple. That's
the gospel. That's what we preach. Two things. Come. Come. And you know what our second
point is? It's done. Everything's ready. There's nothing
for you to do. There's nothing for you to be.
There's nothing for you to bring. Just come. Just come. God's true servant now is Christ,
of course. But remember what Christ said
to his disciples in John 20, 21. Peace be unto you as my Father
hath sent me, even so send I you. So we also are the servant that
bids sinners come. We say what he said. Come. Everything's
ready. It's finished. And keep it in mind now that
this is a supper that you must partake of. You need to pay attention
to the time. This is a supper that you must
eat. And so what time is it? Look
at the verse again. What time is it? It's supper
time. That's what time it is. It's
supper time. Eating this supper is salvation
now. Remember that and remember this. We then as workers together
with our Lord beseech you also that you receive not the grace
of God in vain. Don't hear the gospel this morning
and let it fall on empty ears. Oh, I pray that's not so. For
he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted. In the day of
salvation have I secured thee. And Paul expounds upon that.
Listen, behold, now is the accepted time. It's supper time. Now is the day of salvation. Now not now is the accepted time
today is the day now is the day now Tomorrow it's not supper time
there is no tomorrow If your salvation is something that happened
in your past then you're not saved Salvation is now Do you
trust him now? And there is no tomorrow They're
just not. There's no tomorrow. The Lord
has sent us this morning at suppertime to say something of eternal consequence
to you. And you know what it is? What
I'm here to say is very simple. It's not complicated in any way.
I don't need a chalkboard to lay it out for you and describe
this. This is the Lord's way. He sent
somebody to say it. Did you see that in the text?
He sent somebody to say to them. He didn't send out invitations.
Gospel's not an invitation. I mean, if you're invited to
a party, maybe a Memorial Day event this weekend, you can go,
you can not go, you know, whatever. If you don't come to this feast,
there are eternal consequences. And what do we say? This is the
Lord's way. He sent a servant to say what
needed to be said directly to the ones that needed to hear
it. That's what's happening right now. So what do we say? All things
are now ready. The gospel does not tell you
what you need to do for God. That rules out all of religion
right there. I started to say 99% of it. That
does away with every bit of it, doesn't it? Everybody in all
of the Christless, godless religion of this world, they're standing
before sinners today and telling them what they need to do to
be saved. The gospel, if God gives you
ears to hear, will show you what God has done to save sinners. It's already done. What religious
soul winners call the Roman Road. Have you ever heard of that in
the book of Romans? And they've devised what's called
the Roman Road. It's a series of things that they go through
with somebody, you know, that comes down to the front after
they sang 10 verses of Just As I Am, even though there's only
four of them, I think, they still manage to sing 10 of them. It's a perverted manipulation
of scripture designed to tell sinners what they need to do
to be saved. When God says, with men it's impossible. When that
jailer said, what must I do to be saved? And Paul said, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, he wasn't giving him something to
do. He's telling him to trust the one who did it. The gospel message is that salvation
is accomplished. In order for you to feast, if
it's going to be what I call a feast, something's got to die,
doesn't it? If it's a vegetarian meal, that's
not what I call a feast. The innocent victim has already
been slain. And because he has, come and
dine. There's divine food. upon which
the soul can feed and never be hungry again. There's wine that
a sinner can drink and never be thirsty again. Think about this. What do you
need in order to sit down with God? How are you going to sit
down at God's table? Now, everybody, I don't care
how sacrilegious they are, we all know in our hearts that we
can't just come into the presence of God as we are. Everybody knows
that they're a sinner. To some extent, however they
understand that, we have no spiritual understanding by nature. But
we know something of who God is. Read Romans chapter 1. In
so much as that there's no excuse. We have no excuse. The problem
is we hate God. We don't have any interest to
come into his presence. But just in case you do, just
in case you're interested in sitting down with God at his
table, how are you going to do that? How's a wretched sinner
like you going to do that? Have fellowship with God. You're
banished from his presence. We're kicked out of his paradise.
Our sins have separated between us and our God. There's a great
gulf. How far has our sin separated
us from our God? It's a great gulf. fixed between
the godless sinner and the God who made him now. And what are
you going to have to have now? To sit down, have you ever think
about, to sit down with God at his table. What a wonderful thing,
is there anything more wonderful, more enjoyable than sitting down
to a meal with somebody that you love. That's a simple thing. Every once in a while, quite
a bit, somebody will say, come, come, let's go to dinner. And
that just, that's one of the most wonderful things. That's
a special, special blessing to me, to do that. Can you even
think about sitting down with God at His table and feeding upon what He provides? But how can we sit at God's table?
We're sinners. What do you need, sinner? I need
a perfect righteousness. I gotta be as holy as God is. Nobody can even come into the
presence of God without spotless righteousness. I must be holy. All things are now ready. Listen,
who shall ascend, Psalm 24, 3, who shall ascend into the hill
of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath
clean hands and a pure heart. Not only can you never have done
anything wrong, you can't even have ever thought about it. You
can't have even ever wanted to. Oh boy, that rules me out. I
started to say, I don't know about you, but I do. It rules
you out too. I know about you. It rules us out, doesn't it? He who hath not lifted up his
soul into vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. That's my Savior. That's Christ
going up into the holy hill of God for me, as me, before me,
so that we might come with boldness to the very throne of God because
of his one sacrifice for sin. For us, he shall receive the
blessing from the Lord. and righteousness from the God
of his salvation. Listen to the language of that.
In order to sit down at God's table, I must have a perfect
righteousness in which to stand before him. And the message of
the gospel is it's ready. It's accomplished. There is a
righteousness in which sinners can stand before God. And it
has nothing to do with anything you've ever done or doing or
ever will do. Righteousness, human righteousness,
the only righteousness in which any sinner can ever or will ever
stand before God has already been accomplished by Jesus Christ. He accomplished it for his people.
The Son of Man and the Son of God, the God-Man, did always
those things that pleased the Father. And the father said,
this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. This is exactly what Paul said
in Philippians 3, a doubtless and I count all things but lost
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things and to count them
but done, that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law. But that which is
through the faithfulness of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith, the righteousness imputed to sinners by grace through
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, it's His righteousness. My righteousness
before God is not like His, it is His. It's not just as good
as His, it is His. He is my righteousness. And notice
the language of Psalm 24.5 there. Don't come to God with your righteousness,
with your decision, with your works, with anything. Come to
him for righteousness. Did you see what he said there?
He that can come into the holy hill of the Lord, he shall receive
righteousness from God. That's us. Because Christ is
the one who has clean hands and a pure heart and we come in Him.
We receive. We don't come to Him having done
good things with some kind of something we call righteousness.
Paul said they go about to establish their own righteousness. Don't
come to Him with a righteousness that you've established. Come
to Him for righteousness. The message of Luke chapter 14
is don't be anything. Only the poor and the maimed
and the lame and the blind get anything to eat in this chapter.
Did you notice that? Don't be anything. Don't do anything. They all began in this story
we're about to read, this parable, they all began to make excuses.
He made a great supper and bade many to come. And you know what
they did? They said, well, I've got to do this, I've got to do that,
I've got to do this other thing. They had more important things
to do. Do you know what you're doing when you try to do anything
to please God? You're saying that what you do
is more important than what he did. He's prepared a supper,
it's done. But I've got to do some things.
You're not going to even taste a bite of it, he said, at the
end of this parable. That's got to change or you're
never going to eat a bite of it. Oh, you're saying that me
doing something to gain favor with God is more important than
what Christ has provided. I appreciate the fact that God
has prepared something, you know, and he's included, he's bade
me to come, enjoy the benefit of that and all that, but I've
got something really important I need to do. Really? And then the third thing is don't
bring anything. All things are now ready. They're
ready now. Do you notice that word now? They're ready now,
not when you add to it, not when you live up to it, not once you've
figured it all out, not when you've done something to prepare,
not when you've made up your mind and exercised your will.
They're now ready. Before you even heard about it,
they were already ready. What do you need in order to
be able to sit down at God's table, sinner? I need a sin offering. I see that Christ is righteous
and that by faith in Him, a sinner might stand in his righteousness
before God. But what about all the evil that
I've committed? What about everything I've ever
said and everything I've ever thought? Everything I've ever
done, none of it measures up to God. It's all evil. All of my motives have been evil.
All of my deeds have been evil. Everything that's come from me
has been evil. Everything I've touched all my life has been
defiled. My very nature is defiled before God and I can't come even
if I wanted to. I need all of my sin paid for.
I need it all paid for. All things are now ready. God's
spotless lamb shed his precious blood for sinners and he's all
you need. You need a sin offering? Ready. You need righteousness? Ready.
You need life? You need faith? He gives. He's
the author and finisher of that. Don't come to Him with something
you came up with. His blood washes sins away unto
Him that loved us and washed us from our sins. What does that
mean? What does it mean He washes our sins away? It means that
when the Lord Jesus Christ shed His precious blood for sinners,
that God was laying on His Son all of their iniquity. all those
for whom he died he laid all of their iniquities on him and
he poured out his wrath his infinite wrath upon his own son in my
place for my sin and there was a direct definite infallible
certain consequence of that listen to it in Isaiah 53-4 Surely he
hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem
him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, but he was wounded
for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and here it is.
With his stripes, we're healed. when God put my sin on him and
punished his son for my sin. That is salvation. That didn't
make salvation possible for me. He saved me when he did that.
That was him saving me. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We've turned everyone to his own way and the Lord hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all. And the Lord Jesus Christ, having
borne my sin and God's wrath against my sin, he put it away
and now there is no my sin. You want to talk about my sin?
What sin? There's no such thing. The Lord
Jesus Christ has taken it away. What do you need in order to
come to God and sit down at his table? One thing is needful. Christ is all you need, and all
you need is Christ. That's why we say the other thing
we say when we preach, come. Come to Him, not consider, come. And this is a command. Notice that he who bids when
no one would come, he became angry. Let's read the rest of
that parable. Chapter 14. sent his servant, verse 17, at
supper time to say to them that we've been come, for all things
are now ready. And they all with one consent
began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I bought
a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it. I pray thee,
have me excused. Another said, I bought five yoke
of oxen, and I go to prove them. I pray thee, have me excused.
And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot
come. So that servant came and showed his lord these things.
Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant,
go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring
in hither the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind. And
the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded.
And yet there's room. I want to talk about that in
a minute. This is a command now, he who bids. And listen, when
nobody would come, he became angry. It's a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God. You don't want God angry
at you. And listen now, if all the gospel
is to you is an invitation, you'll never come. You'll never come. Everybody that was invited had
a good reason not to come, and they didn't come. Notice the word all in verse
18. They all with one consent. Not most of them. Not just, you know, the unfortunate
ones that weren't spiritual enough to make a decision for Jesus.
All of them had something more important. What they did was
more important to them than what Christ did. That's why people
don't come to Christ. They don't need him. They don't
need him. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. He just don't. He never does.
For two reasons. It's foolishness to him. Has
no interest. Neither can he know them. Because
they are spiritually discerned. And by nature we're spiritually
dead. Psalm 14.2. The Lord looked down from heaven
upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand
and seek God. They are all gone aside. Same word in our text.
All. All. Altogether become filthy. There's
none that doeth good. No, not one. Nobody's coming
until He brings them. Did you notice that? They didn't
come and partake of what was made ready by God because of
what they felt they needed to do. This is works religion. I believe salvation is all of
grace, but I've got this I need to do. Salvation's of the Lord,
but I need to and you can just fill in the blank. It doesn't
matter what it is. Walk an aisle, make a decision, whatever it
is. Salvation's of the Lord. There's
a period after that. What you think you need to do,
no matter how wonderful it is, will only serve to keep you from
benefiting from what Christ did. That's what happened in our story.
We all have a lot to do. We think. You just have one thing
to do. Your business, listen to me now,
young people and everybody else too, but you children, you listen
to me now. Your business in this world is
to come to Christ. That's your business. To come to Him, to honor Him,
to believe on Him, to worship Him, and bless Him in everything
you do. That's your business. You must
have Him. Nothing else matters. I started
to say nothing else matters all that much. You know what? Nothing else matters. You've
got to have Him. One thing is needful. Do what
you want. Listen, have dreams and make
them come true. With whatever the Lord gives,
whatever resources and wisdom. Have a good life. But honor Him in all things now. Your business is to come to Him.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things, He'll
add them to you. And if it doesn't happen that
way, then all it is is something to keep you from Him and you
will die forever. I hope that's clear. If you have Him, you have everything. And if you have everything else
but him, you have nothing. In the end of the story, when
all is said and done, who comes to Christ? Verse 21, those who
are brought. That's who's coming. That's how
bad we are. That's how far gone we are. We're not coming unless he brings
us. We're just too important to ourselves. We've got too many
things to do now. Religious things, good works,
we call them. It's sin. And listen now, he went out and
he brought those that nobody else would have ever even had
to their house. go and find the poor and the
maimed and the blind and the lame and bring them in. That's my hope right there. That's
my testimony. That's exactly what happened
to me. He brought me. I was a worthless, wretched, helpless. We think
of Words that are bad enough to describe us, but you know
there's nothing worse than just a sinner. If we had any idea
what that meant, you can't think of anything worse than that.
May God teach us what that is. We're sinners. And he brought me in. In any
way, he brought me in. And I have good news upon good
news this morning. Look at verse 22. There's still
room. There's still room. And the Lord
said unto the servant, verse 23, go out into the highways
and hedges and compel them to come in that my house may be
filled. His house is going to be completely
full. There's not going to be one empty
chair. But now there is. There's room now. There's room. But He sent us to compel you
now. I insist upon it. I insist that
you come to Christ. And I'll tell you this, if you
ever come to Him, you'll be glad I insisted upon it. by the grace
of God and by his authority, not mine. I insist that you come. The consequences of not coming
to this supper are unthinkable. If you knew the gift of God,
the Lord said to that woman at the well, and who it is that
speaks with you, you'd ask. But you don't know. And so he brings. If you don't know now, and someday
you do, you would want me to insist upon it now. If you ever
know Him, you'll be glad that He graciously forced you. Now,
I can't make you come. I can't make you come to Christ. And you know, we want to say,
we want to say, I wish I could. There's some that I, in my vanity,
I would want to say, I wish I could bring them to Christ. But you
know what? What He does is right. It's in the right hands, isn't
it? The whole matter's in the right hands. It's not mine. But
I'll tell you this, that is what happens when the gospel's preached.
Sinners are made to come. He loved you with an everlasting
love. He's gonna, with loving kindness, draw you to himself. Religion has sinners that God
loves and would do anything for them, and yet they still go to
hell. What kind of God is that? Not mine. Not mine. By the Holy Spirit of God, sinners
are birthed from above and made to see and enter the kingdom
of God. Christ said, my sheep hear my voice and they follow
me. That's his power. And listen
to the last thing he said, verse 24, for I say unto you that none
of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper. If all you hear is me bidding
you to come, you're not ever going to come. Something more
has got to happen, doesn't it? You know what it is too, don't
you? God has got to speak in power. If all you hear is a preacher,
you're never going to come. But when the gospel is preached,
God speaks to the hearts of his people in his good time, what
he calls the time of love. He draws sinners to his Son,
he brings them to himself. Many are called, but few are
chosen. And those who are chosen, they
come, sooner or later. May not be this morning, sooner
or later they come. He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. Oh and I love the way now, he
didn't say all that the Father giveth me shall be saved. Although
that's true. But what is salvation? Come unto
me. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. What a wonderful word from our
God. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. Aren't you glad about that? Aren't
you glad it's not a crapshoot? That salvation is not up to you?
Religion loves to say, oh, God's done a lot of good things, but
now it's up to you. Thank God that's not true. Thank
God. When it was left up to them,
they made excuses. I'm glad that they shall come. But you know what else I'm glad
about? Him that cometh to me. No way will I cast them out. I love that part too don't you?
There's still room. Come to Him like that leper in
Matthew 8 who said, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Come to Him knowing that salvation
is not by your will, it's by His will. Lord, if you're willing,
you can make me clean. You can make me fit to sit down
at your table and eat of you. And you know what the Lord said?
He said what he says, in effect, every time a sinner comes to
him that way, I will. Be thou clean. I just want to close with this
verse of scripture, Revelation 22, 16. I, Jesus, have sent mine
angel, my messenger, to testify unto you these things
in the churches. I believe that's what's happening
right now. The word angel means messenger. What are we testifying? I, Jesus, am the root and the
offspring of David and the bright and morning star. We're preaching
him. I am. Everything included in
that who he is and what he did for sinners and the spirit and
the bride Say come Now if just the bride says come Aren't you
glad the spirit says come to Spirits gonna speak to a heart
now Sometime soon somewhere and say come The spirit and the bride Say
come and let him that heareth. If you've heard and come then
you say come. Tell somebody, testify these
things of the Savior to them and say come. And let him that's thirsty come. Are you thirsty? Somebody asked
me that one day from a pulpit named Jack Shanks. And lo and
behold, by the grace of God, I was thirsty. And let him that's thirsty come,
and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Nothing in my hand I bring. No price. Simply to that cross,
there's the price. Price is paid. All things are
ready. Come. By the grace of God, by
the power of God, come to his side.