It's been a great joy to be here,
a great joy to meet you. But I tell you, the greatest
joy is to be gathered together in the presence of God. Where
two or three are gathered together in my name, there I will be in
their midst. And truly, God has met with us,
God has proclaimed His gospel through His men, and I've been
thankful to be here. I pray that you would pray with
for me as I preach to you this morning You take your Bibles
and turn with me to Luke chapter 14 Luke chapter 14 The title of my message this morning
is all is ready All is ready Here in the Gospel of Luke chapter
14 in verse 1 we see this, "...and it came to pass, as he went into
the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the
sabbath day, that they watched him. And behold, there was a
certain man before him which had the dropsy." Here's the scene
before us, the Lord Jesus Christ invited to one of the Pharisees'
house, most likely not for their delight in Him, but rather that
they should watch Him to try to find something in Him that
they could accuse Him. And the first thing we see here
is a man sick with the dropsy, the dropsy. is a disease in which
the body fluids build up in the man so much that the puss and
the blood began to burst out through the skin. This man was
not someone that was commonly invited to dinner, you suppose.
This man was a stench. This man was sick and he had
these pusses and sores all throughout his body and there he was. They
knew the Lord would heal him. And it was a Sabbath day. It
was a Sabbath day. What a picture of sin the dropsy
is. Sin begins within the confines
of a man's heart and it swells and it begins to burst out in
pus and blood and all kinds of vile actions. Sin bursts out in pride. This man was a great picture
of sin. The Scriptures testify that we
by nature are full of sin. There is no soundness in us,
but full of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores from the
crown of our head to the sole of our foot, there is no soundness. And except the Lord Jesus Christ
heal us, we would have no hope. Except Jesus come in compassion
and great mercy, sin would burst us apart. And after this, Jesus,
he noticed something. He healed this man. And we're
going to move on from this. He healed this man. So he's at
a dinner. He's invited. He heals this man. They're not too happy with this.
But the Lord notices something in verse 7. It says, And he put
forth a parable unto those that were bidden, when he marked how
they chose the chief rooms. The Lord marked how they liked
to sit up high. And Jesus said, Don't seek those
things, those high places that don't belong to you. Don't seek those high places
that belong to you or someone may come along to whom it belongs
and have you brought down in shame. You may have to come up
from that high place and be brought down in front of everybody. He
said, don't seek the chief rooms, but rather take the lowest room
and if you do that, Maybe he'll come along and say, no, come
up hither with me, and then you should receive praise. You may
be called up higher, he says in verse 11, for whosoever exalted
himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall
be exalted. The sinner in his lost condition
always seeks the highest room. He always seeks the highest room
because he thinks he deserves it. He thinks he can merit God's
favor. He thinks God should save him
because of who he is. Those people shall be abased. They shall, in the day of judgment,
who think themselves worthy, they shall be cast out into everlasting
hell. They shall be ashamed, but whosoever
shall humble himself. Now let me ask you this, who
is the most humble in the room? It was the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you see how he humbled himself? And God has exalted him. God has exalted him to his rightful
place. The Lord Jesus Christ has come
down in the flesh and God has exalted him. He humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,
and God hath highly exalted him and given him a name that is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to
the glory of God the Father. O sinner, mark out how Christ,
who is rich, yet for your sakes became poor, that you through
his poverty might be made rich. Humble yourself. Think of Mephibosheth,
how he came before David. When David fetched him, what
did Mephibosheth do? He said, what is thy servant
that you should look upon such a dead dog? dead dog as I am."
Mephibosheth did not come in there boasting his lineage of
Saul, did he? Oh, no. He came and he took his
place. Sinner, take your place. And in due time, Christ shall
exalt you. Remember the Gentile woman, the
Lord Jesus Christ said, what is it, meat for me to give the
bread of the children to dogs? And she said, yes, Lord, truth,
Lord. You just said the truth, I'm
a dog. But even the dogs received the crumbs from the master's
table. And what did he do? He exalted her. He said, that's
faith. That's faith right there. Humble and thirdly the Lord Jesus
not only he speaks to the person that is as sick he speaks to
the Those that were bitten and now in verse 12 he speaks to
those that bathe him he speaks to the host of the the get-together
And Jesus says to this man, he said, when you have a supper,
don't call your friends. Don't call those that can repay
you. Call those that can. Call the
poor, the maimed, the blind. And thou shalt be blessed, for
they cannot recompense thee. For thou shalt be recompensed
at the resurrection of the just. Is this not how the God of heaven
does it? He doesn't call those who can
repay Him. Praise God. He doesn't call those
who can repay Him because none of His creation can repay Him
anything. It doesn't belong to us, does
it? What do you have that belongs to you? What do you have that's
not been given? So how can you repay God? You
can't. This is how God does it. God
has called those who are not His equal, God calls those who
are abased, those who are unable to repay Him. All things belong
to God. And in verse 15, this man pipes
up, you know, sometimes when you don't know what to say, it's
good you don't say anything at all. It's best to keep your mouth
closed. But somebody's always got to say something. I have
that problem. No, don't think you're alone.
I have that problem. This man, he pipes up, would
say, well, blessed is those who eat the king. I don't understand
what he said, but blessed are those who eat bread in the kingdom
of heaven. I love the way the Lord uses
all things, even the ignorance of man, to glorify his name. And he uses this as a springboard
and he begins to give a parable here of all these things. He
includes all of these things now that these people have seen
at this supper. He includes the healing of this
man with the dropsy. He includes those that were bitten
and he includes those who bade. And he makes a story, he tells
a story here. The Lord gives this picture of
a great feast of the kingdom of heaven which is the gospel
of God's salvation of free grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is going to preach the gospel. Everything the Lord did was toward
the one thing, preaching the gospel. He said that's why he
was called. That's why he was there. He said, the Spirit of
the Lord is upon me to do what? Preach the gospel. To preach
the gospel. And that's what he's doing here.
Now he says this in verse 16, he said unto him, a certain man
made a great supper and bade many. and sent servants at suppertime
to say unto them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now
ready." I'm going to give you a key to understanding this. You know, every map you have
has keys to give you understanding of the symbols, the emblems on
them. I'm just going to give this to
you. The man, the certain man who made the supper is God. The
supper is the Lord Jesus Christ, the servants are His preachers,
and the gospel is, all is ready. There's the key. You got that?
I hope. I want to make it as plain as
I possibly can. I don't want to muddy the water
here. The Lord said this. It's His parable. It's very clear. All is ready. This is our message. Is this not a gracious sound
that goes out into all the world? All is ready. God hath prepared
a great supper, a valuable supper, a very expensive supper, a feast
of great joy, of eternal salvation for sinners. And now the servants
have gone out. The servants have gone out. They've
been called. They said, go and bid men to
come. All is ready. And this is what
we do here today. This is what I'm doing. I'm bidding
you to a supper. I'm bidding you to a supper.
A supper that's already ready. Don't do anything for this supper.
It's done. Just come. Come and feast. Now behold this, the man who
prepared God. God prepared salvation. It is God the Father who purposed,
decreed by an act of eternal, infinite, powerful love that
He should have and elect people and adopt them as His sons. This
is God's purpose. If anybody wants to know why
something is, here it is. God purposed to save and elect
people. That's why this world spins.
That's why this universe is still here. That's why you're here.
Because God has an elect people. The Father purposed that He should
have a people. And this people that He purposed,
that He loved from eternity, He purposed them to be holy and
without blame. He purposed them to be His sons. He purposed to save them. by
His grace, because God would show to all His creation the
wonder, the height, the depth, the breadth of His grace. You know the Scripture well,
Ephesians chapter 1, because it is a glorious passage. I don't
want to mess it up this morning. Ephesians 1, blessed be the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places, according as he hath chosen us
in Christ before the foundation of the world. In order that we
should be holy and without blame before him, in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ to Himself, according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved."
This is the supper. This is the supper. It's salvation. And God purposed it. God decreed
it, that it should happen. Second of all, look at the supper
itself. He made a great supper. This
supper is lamb. That's what's being served. Lamb.
The Lamb of God. The Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
To fulfill His wonderful purpose, the Father gave all of His elect
to His Son that He should accomplish, that He should finish, that He
should redeem all of them and none of them be lost. He said,
This is the will of Him that sent Me, that of all He hath
given Me, I should lose Nothing. How many will he lose? Not one. Not one. Not one will be lost. He should lose nothing but raise
them up again at the last day. These elect were not to be born
holy. These elect were to be born sinners,
born haters of God, walking in vileness of lusts and passions,
and would not come to God, nor could they come to God. They could never be accepted
by their works. None of the elect could ever
have been accepted by their works. Therefore the Son was ordained
to be their representative man. If you should learn the gospel,
you should learn what a representative man is, because the gospel is
found only in a representative. The Father, our Father, Adam,
was a type of figure of the true representative man, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so that by Adam all men of
his earthly posterity were made sinners, even so, is Christ,
the second Adam, the representative man of all his spiritual posterity. Jesus Christ came into this world
to obey a law his people could not obey. He came to magnify
the law and make it honorable. Do you suppose that you had anything
to do with making the law honorable? Absolutely not. The only hope for us is that
Jesus Christ actually accomplished, passive and actively accomplished,
and magnify the law. Consider the weakness of our
Father. We make too light of Adam. I'll tell you, Adam was
the best of us. He was the best. Adam, consider him in a perfect
environment, given a perfect holiness, a righteousness. He
was in a perfect environment and yet he failed. Now consider
Christ in a wicked environment, actually accomplished righteousness.
Consider how great he is. In a wicked environment, He made
the righteousness of God for us. Consider the one sin that
brought death into all the world, and consider the one death that
brought life. One sin brought death. One death
brought life. Consider him, that Jesus, by
his one great death, not only redeemed us from Adam's one sin,
but redeemed us from the multitude of sins we have committed. All
sin. He's taken all the transgression
of his people upon himself. The Father imputed the sins of
his people to him. He bore them in his own body
on the tree. Became a curse for us. so that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him. And now, the justice of God. Listen, this is the supper. You
should feast on this. I don't know if this is so. I've
had trouble with that verse that said, where the bodies are, there
the eagles shall be gathered together. The only one I really
like, commentary I really like on that is Robert Hawker. He
said that the body is Christ and the eagles that feast on
the body is believers. Believer, feed ferociously on the body of Christ. Feed on Him. He is the supper
of salvation. And this is the message of every
servant of God. All is ready. Salvation accomplished. Salvation finished. Christ risen,
exalted, seated on the right hand of God the Father. Come. All is ready. All is ready. It's a great supper. This is
the message. Behold. Look. Look to the Lamb
of God, who is a great salvation, both sure and steadfast. The
gates of heaven are open wide. The fountain of the water of
life flows freely from the throne of grace to every thirsty sinner."
Did you hear that? Every thirsty sinner. This gospel
flows from the throne of God. Come and drink. Come. The way to the Father is open,
it's manifest, it is Jesus Christ. It is a narrow way in that there's
only one. There's only one way to the Father.
No man cometh to the Father but by me. Now that's either true
or Christ is a liar. I tell you it's true. It's true. I've come by the way myself.
I've come by the way myself. He is the way. By faith in Jesus
Christ alone. Come sinner. Listen. Come sinner. Come the greatest of sinners. The most vile of sinners. Sinners of the vilest sort. Of the greatest degree. Come. You who cannot pay for this feast. Come and welcome. Come and welcome. Oh, everyone that thirsteth,
come to the waters, come, buy wine and milk without money and
without price. Why do you spend money for that
which satisfies not? Hearken unto me and your soul
shall live. Can you get any freer than that? Come and listen, bring nothing. This is a stipulation of grace.
This is a stipulation. Bring nothing. You bring one thing, and you've
defiled it. Bring one good act, one good
thought, one good work, and you've defiled the whole thing. You
must come with nothing. Why? All's ready. That's an insult. It's an insult to God. If you
bring anything, He says, all's ready. Come. You bring anything,
you've offended God. You said His supper is not any
good. I heard this, that if a chef, you know, you get the, I've been
to very few real chefs, but if you get a chef and you start
taking the salt shaker, he's going to be offended. Don't bring anything. This supper
is ready. It's ready. Even so, Christ is ready. Christ has accomplished salvation.
Come naked and He'll clothe you with His righteousness. Come
poor and you'll go away rich. For all things are ready. Now
then, look at this. The result, the response of men to this free
grace. This is horrible. Look at this
response, and they with one consent began to make excuse. Excuses. Someone once said this, an excuse
is a lie disguised as a reason. An excuse is a lie disguised
as a reason. A reason is an intelligent cause
for doing something. An excuse is an unintelligent
cause for doing nothing. An excuse is only to excuse or
justify your inactivity. I didn't do this because of this. I mess this up because of this.
Excuse is a lie wrapped up as a reason. Look at this first
excuse here. He says, first, the first said
unto him, I bought a piece of ground and I must needs go see
it. What moron buys a piece of ground
he never seen? That's the most idiotic excuse
I've ever heard I bought a piece of ground. I haven't seen it
yet, but I'm gonna go look at it Consider this it's dark. It's supper. How is he gonna
see it? What a lame excuse and yet this
is what the natural man does in his desires for the world. This first excuse is the excuse
of worldly pleasures. I will not come to the supper.
Have me excused. I want to fulfill my lusts. I can't come to Christ. I've
not yet filled my life full of pleasures yet. I've not done
what I wanted to do yet. Just wait. I'll come later. May God ever keep you from that. When have you ever seen your
lust fulfilled? When have you ever seen your
lust satisfied? When you get what you want, you
always want more. He that has silver shall not
be satisfied with silver. He said, I haven't had my lust
yet, and I will not come. But I haven't seen God yet either,
so how can you say all is ready? Well, God's always left him a
witness, hasn't he? God has never been left without
a witness. His Word has been tried and proven. Jesus is coming to the world
in the flesh and has fulfilled all the Old Testament Scriptures.
I've got proof that He is real. I've got proof. I've got the
Word of God. One estimate of the prophecies
of Christ, there are 357. I'll tell you there are more.
He has fulfilled a lot more than that. Because they, the Scriptures,
they are they, Christ said, that testify of me. All of it, not
just 354. He fulfilled all the prophecies
of God. What have you ever experienced
in these earthly pleasures that you seek? Are they not all vanity? They cannot satisfy the soul
and they cannot justify you in your conscience. How do you suppose
they'll justify you before God? How do you suppose God will excuse
you if you come not to his supper? Seeking the things of the world.
Second excuse, look at this one. He said, another man said, I
bought a yoke of oxen, five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them. Again, a complete moron. This guy's bought a boat yoke
of oxen and he's not even seen them pull a plow. The natural
man hates the gospel of God's free grace because he desires
to work. This is the excuse of works. I will not come to God because
I've got to do something. I've got to get ready for it. O sinner, tarry not till your
better You'll never come at all. If you tarry till you're better,
you'll never come at all. If you tarry till you've done
enough, you'll never come at all. Jesus. People say, Jesus is good, but
I gotta put forth my effort. Imagine that man trying to use
those oxen at night. You suppose he'd see if they
plowed straight or not? No. Neither is a man who desires
to work his way to heaven, never is he able to see if he's finished." Works religion enough is never
enough. There's always something more. We were watching a show the other
night and a guy said, well, you know, he's standing on the holy
rock and so he's His testimony is true. And I said, yeah, he's
standing on the holy rock, stepping on one foot, shaking his rattle,
and it must be true. And the next thing you know,
they're going to add something else, and something else. You've got
to have the holy smoke. You've got to make the cross not 10
times, 20 times. That ain't enough. You've got
to make it 54 times. It just keeps adding and adding. Have you seen some of the books
of those churches? They're just full of works they've
got to do, and they're never ending. I tell you, all is ready. All
is ready. Salvation's finished. Lay down,
you plow, and come. The third excuse, look at this,
he said, I got a wife. I cannot come. The third excuse,
men won't come to Christ is family. Family. Every man should love
his family. Children are an heritage of the
Lord. A virtuous woman is an invaluable thing. A loving husband
is to be honored. And obedient children are pleasant,
aren't they? I like... My children, if they're
obedient, that's not natural. So, I tell people that. I said,
you know, your children are so polite, that's not natural. That
takes a lot of work. But what value are the relationships
of this world to the salvation of your soul? Nothing. They won't profit you
one thing. What is a family but a group
of sinners in need of a Savior? Therefore, sinner, let not your
relationships hinder you or excuse you from coming to Christ." I
remember talking and preaching to a man, and afterward he came
to me and he said, you know, if that's true, preacher, then
that means my whole family is in hell. And I said, why would
you go? Come. All is ready. And he walked away. Why? He said, I had a wife, and
I cannot come. I got a family, and I cannot
come. You should take the pilgrim's progress and take the example
of Christian. When he was told that he must
escape the city of destruction, his family was pleading with
him to stay, and he put his fingers in his ear, and he said, Life!
Life! Eternal life! And he ran. You should run away
from your family. They're only a hindrance. They'll
only try to pull you back. Don't use your family as an excuse.
Come to Christ. All is ready. All is ready. Therefore, those who would love
this world, love their own religious works, or love their family more
than coming to Christ, at the end of this, he said, none of
those men that were bidden shall taste my supper. Next, look at the urgency here.
And so the servants, in verse 21, came and showed the Lord
these things. And the master of the house,
being angry, said to his servants, Go out quickly into the streets
and the lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and
the maimed, and the haught, and the blind. This matter of preaching
the gospel is an urgent matter. It's an urgent matter. Boast not by self of tomorrow,
for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. You have no promise of tomorrow. You should come now. You should
come now. This is a message of urgency. This is a serious message. We're
not playing. I'm not playing preaching. I'm
telling you that your soul, your eternal soul, hangs in the balance here. Come. Come now. Come quickly. Who do
we call? We don't call those people with
excuses. We call the poor, the halt, the
maim, and the blind. We call the poor who have no
righteousness of their own, maimed. Imagine a man who had no arms
and no legs. What could he do? Nothing. That's who I'm calling.
I'm calling a man who can't work. I'm calling the halt. I'm calling
Mephibosheth. I'm calling those who are lame
on their feet. Come. I'm calling the blind,
those who can't see. Come. And yet look. And the servant
said, Lord, it is done. As thou hast commanded, and yet
there is room. Did you hear me? There's still
room. There's still room. Don't use election as an excuse
not to come. If you ever come, it's only because
of election. If you don't come, it's your
own fault. You won't blame God in that day,
I promise you. The door is open and no man can
shut it. This door is wide. I cannot preach
the gospel wide open enough. I can't. I can't do it. All is ready. Salvation accomplished. Righteousness merited. Atonement
made by Jesus Christ. All who believe on Him from the
heart that He is all in all shall be forgiven of all their sins.
This is a joyful feast. To who? To those who eat it.
To those who eat it. All's ready. What's your excuse? May God bless you.