The gospel is not complicated. It never is. It's very, very
simple. And any man who would try to
preach it to you in a complicated fashion, one of two things is
true. Either he doesn't understand it himself, or he's trying to
impress you with how smart he is. That's the truth, because
it is never complicated. It is very, very simple. But,
while it is a very simple thing, it is a very mysterious thing.
There are things that the Lord reveals in his word here that
are to be believed, not so much understood. Let's talk about
a few of those real quick. Number one, God is sovereign
and man is responsible. He is the first cause behind
everything. All things that happen are according
to his purpose. Everything is according to his
purpose. And you know what? You and I
have done exactly what we have wanted to do. All the sin that
we have committed, the evil things we've done, the evil things we've
said, the evil things that have crossed our heart, we have done
exactly what we have wanted to do. And the Lord is sovereign
over all of it. Now, you take that and you turn
that any way you want. That doesn't fit in man's logic.
It simply doesn't. But you know what? It doesn't
have to. it is simply to be believed,
and not necessarily understood. I'll give you another one. Let's
talk about the Trinity. One singular God divided into three separate
and distinct persons, all with their own work in salvation.
The Father in loving His Son. And in loving His Son, He loved
everybody who was in His Son. And He chose those people unto
salvation before the world ever began. The Son in redemption. coming to this world and living
for his people, taking on their sins and dying for his people,
and being raised again for our justification. And the Holy Spirit
in the quickening, in giving life. One singular God, three
distinct persons. How does that work? I have absolutely
no idea. And I don't have to know. It
simply could be believed, not necessarily understood. What
about this? The Lord Jesus Christ was made
the sins of His people. How real was that? It was so
incredibly real that the Father, who is absolutely just and absolutely
holy, He will not pass by a guilty man and He will not punish a
righteous man. He killed him. That's how real Him being made
our sin actually was. 2 Corinthians 5.21, for He hath
made Him sin for us. Who knew no sin? He never sinned. He never had a sinful thought.
He never had a sinful action. That we might be made the very
righteousness of God in Him. Somebody explain that to me.
Simply to be believed. not necessarily understood. While
this gospel, this book, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, steeped
in mystery, I am thankful for just very simple illustrations
the Lord gives in his word that illustrates the gospel truth.
I'm a very simple person, I learn from simple illustrations. You
think about things like this, the Lord in his word talks about
lilies in the field, how they toil not, they don't work. They
spin not. They don't create their own garment.
And yet, they have everything they need, and they are beautiful. What a simple picture of the
elect. We work not. We don't contribute to our salvation
in any way, shape, or form. We simply rest. We have a beautiful
garment. We are clothed with the very
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, so much so that it really
is ours, and it has nothing to do with us. We're just like the
lilies of the field. A very simple illustration. What
about marriage? Marriage. A man and a woman,
the two become one flesh. This is the type of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the union he has with his people. When a man
takes a wife, he takes over all responsibility for providing
for that woman. Everything she has, he's to make sure she, everything
she needs, he's to make sure she has it. He takes over all
responsibility of protecting her. She doesn't fight her own
battles anymore. Her husband fights all her battles for her. And in that relationship, everything
that is the husband's, it becomes the wife's. And everything that
is the wife's becomes the husband's. Is that not a beautiful picture
of the union we have with the Lord Jesus Christ? Everything
we are and everything we were, He became. But everything He
is, we have in Him. His righteousness, His holiness,
His free access to the Father, we have all that through our
union with Him. Through this very simple illustration
the Lord gives, the two becoming one flesh in marriage. I love
those simple illustrations. Today I want to look at another
very simple illustration, a parable. Pick up in Matthew 22 and look
at verse 1. Matthew 22 and pick up in verse
1. And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables. What's a parable? It's a simple
story that tells a whole bunch of truth. That's it. And Jesus
answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,
The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king which made
a marriage for his son. Now the first thing I notice
here is this king has a purpose. There is someone he is interested
in. There is someone he is fixated on. It's his son. This king is going to make a
marriage for his son. He's going to have a feast. He's
going to invite a bunch of guests. He's going to bring them all
together because his son is going to be worshipped. His son is
going to be honored. This king is consumed. He is
fanatical about one person. It is his son. You read this
parable, you will never hear the bride mentioned. The Son
is the only one that is mentioned here. Who is the Father concerned
with? Whose glory is the Father concerned with? He is concerned
with the glory of His Son. That's who He's concerned with.
Turn to Colossians 1. Look at verse 15. We're going
to talk about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ for a second.
Understand this. In many respects, the Lord Jesus
Christ is already glorified. We're going to look at this.
Colossians 1 verse 15. This speaks of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Colossians 1 verse 15. Speaking of Christ, who is the
image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. Number one, who is Jesus Christ?
He is no one less than God himself. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
dwell in this man, the Lord Jesus Christ." Verse 16, "...for by
Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in
earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers. All things were created by Him
and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things
consist." Now understand this, folks. The Lord Jesus Christ
is already glorified. He's glorified first as the Creator.
I flew in yesterday, I got my rental car, and I got on the
interstate. I come driving by, and I drove by the bay. And I
saw a mountain range, and it had those crazy-looking trees
you all have out here. I enjoyed seeing those. And I
looked up in the sun. I have not seen a sun like that all winter long.
It's been a dreary winter in Canada. I'm sorry, Canada, in
Kentucky. My mom's from Canada. That's where I got that from.
It has been a very dreary winter out there. But I looked at all
that, and it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. That's
the Lord's creation. And it brings glory to His name.
Look at you. Look at the complexity of your
body. Right now your heart beats. You're not even thinking about
it. Your lungs are breathing in air. The complexity of who you are.
That's the glory of Him as the Creator. He's already glorified
in that respect. He's already glorified as the
Sovereign. He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.
What things? What was mentioned? Principalities
and powers, thrones and dominions, the governments that are set
up. Who set up those governments? Those kings, those presidents,
those leaders who sits on the throne. Who put them on that
throne? Who holds the king's heart in his hand to turn it
any which way he wills? He does. He is already glorified
as the Creator. He is already glorified as the
Sovereign. But there is a day coming, folks,
when His chief glory will be revealed. And that is His glory
as the Savior of His people. On the last day, when the trump
sounds, and the Lord Jesus Christ gathers us all together, and
He brings us home to glory, and He sits us before the Father,
and He says, I did it! Remember that covenant of grace? You said, these are yours. You're
going to bring them back to me safe and sound without a scratch
on them. I'm not looking to you. I'm not looking to them for what
I require. I'm looking to you. It's all on you. I did it. Here they are, holy, blameless,
and unapprovable. And on that day, He will be glorified
as the Savior of His people. Now understand this, folks. Every
man is going to glorify God in some respect. Every knee is going
to bow and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord. That's going to happen. In one
or two respects, either you will be a trophy of His power and
His grace. That's how you will glorify Him.
He will sit back and say, there's Aaron, I was able to save even
Aaron, all by myself with absolutely no help from Him. Or, if you
refuse to bow, He will break the legs. and He will cause you
to bow. And you will be an example of
His unwavering justice. But every man will glorify God
in one way or the other. And that's what this King is
interested in. That's who this King is interested in. He is
interested in the glory and the worship of His Son. Now look
at verses 3 and 4. How does the Kingdom go about
this? and sent forth his servants to
call them that were bidden to the wedding. And they would not
come. Again he sent forth other servants
saying, tell them that which are bidden. Behold, I have prepared
my dinner. My ox and my fatlings are killed,
and all things are ready. Come unto the marriage." Now
notice first how gracious and long-suffering this king is.
He said, come, and they said, no. Remember, this is the sovereign. This is the ruler of the kingdom.
If he wanted to, he could have sent his armies out and chopped
up those rebels just with the wave of his hand. Just like that.
But look how gracious and long-suffering he is. He calls again. And He woos them. All things
are ready. There's nothing you need to do.
There's nothing for you to do. Just come. Just come. My ox and
my fatlings are killed. Just come on. How gracious and
long-suffering this King is. How gracious and long-suffering
is our God. How long has He put up with us?
Our disobedience and our unbelief. gracious, and long-suffering.
But what we have here, chiefly, in these verses, are the two
main elements of gospel preaching. Two main elements. And here's
the first one. All things are ready. All things
have been completed. There is nothing you need to
bring. There is nothing you need to do. And folks, this is the
call of the gospel. There is nothing you need to
do. There is nothing you need to bring. He won't accept anything
from you. You come just as you are. That's it. I can't help but notice this.
This is what this king says when he, in reference to all things
being ready, he talks about what he has killed. He says, my oxen
and my fatlings I've killed. I've killed. All things are ready. There's nothing left for you
to do. There are no works left to perform. You want to know
why? Because the Father killed. He killed His only begotten Son.
The Lord Jesus Christ bore our sins in His body, and voluntarily
went to the cross as our substitute, and He killed Him. And because
of that death, because of that shedding of blood, there's nothing
left to do. Nothing at all. The night of
the Passover, the Lord says, I'm coming through Egypt. I'm
coming, and I'm not coming to play games, I'm not coming to
make nice, I'm coming to wet my sword. I'm going to kill. I'm going to kill all the firstborn,
but you, Israel, my people, not everybody, my people, Israel,
here's what you're going to do. You take a lamb, one without
spot and without blemish, and you take a knife and you cut
its throat, and you catch that blood in the basin, it's going
to be a bloody, violent mess, and you take a bunch of hyssop,
and you dip it in that blood, and you put the blood over the
door post and on the side post, and you get inside that house,
and when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. I want you to
think about this for a second. When I see the blood, you've
seen a lot of different kinds of people inside those houses.
In one house, you'd see one guy. He's sitting there. He's eating
his meal. He's got his rod and his staff, loins girded, and
he's calm. He's just waiting. The blood's
there. I know the Lord's going to pass
by. He's strong in faith. In the corner, you'd see a man
cowering in fear. terrified. Is the blood still
there? Is he going to pass by? When
I see the strength of your faith, I'll pass over you. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. What about this? I tried to think
of the most heinous crime I have ever seen. What if a man was
inside a house with the blood over the door and he had just
molested a child earlier that day? What about Him? When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. There was one thing the Father
was looking for, there was one thing God was looking for, and
it was blood. And that, folks, is why all things
are ready, because the Father is killed, the blood has been
spilled, and there is nothing left to do. This is the second
element of gospel preaching. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Come just as you are. Now, I noticed these people were
not just called, they were bidden. And I looked up that word, bidden,
and what it means is summonsed. Summoned. So, I don't know if
you all know what I do for a living, I'm a police officer. Every once
in a while, the court system, the judge sits on his judgely
throne and he says, all right, I want to see this guy. I want
you to go get this guy and I want you to bring him before me. And
so he goes and he gets a summons, right? The court types out a
summons order and it says the name of the guy, what day he's
supposed to appear, what time and where he's supposed to appear
and they hand it to the police department. We go find the guy. And we go
to him and we say, alright, the judge wants to see you. Alright,
this is the day, this is the time, this is the courtroom.
And the first four words on the top there, you are commanded
to come. You are commanded to come to
the Lord Jesus Christ. What is my right to come? What
is my right to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Because you're
commanded to. You are. Right now. What does it mean
to come? Coming is simply this. It is the movement of the soul
from one person to another. In coming, we are leaving someone
and we're going to someone else. The emphasis being on who we're
going to, not who we're leaving. In coming, we leave ourselves.
We leave any hope of a salvation based on something we have done
or we have thought. We leave all hope in ourselves,
and we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, hanging all our hope
of salvation on what He has done. All things are ready. Come. That focuses the Gospel message
as plainly and clearly as I could possibly preach it. But we also
see this. We see the natural man's response
to the message. They would not come. I find this
interesting. Two scriptures that came to mind.
Why not? Why would they not? John 6.44 says, No man can come
to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him. Why can't
they? What stands in their way? John
5.40, And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. I can't, because they won't.
They are unwilling, and that is the natural man. Why not? Go to the next verses, verses
5 and 6. But they made light of it, and
went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise. And
the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully,
and slew them. Here we have the natural man's
two responses to the gospel message. Number one, they made light of
it. You know what that means? Light. It means careless. This
is the first response of the natural man to the gospel. He
doesn't care. He's completely and utterly apathetic. He doesn't care about the Lord
Jesus Christ. He sees no beauty in him. He
doesn't care about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
has no interest in it. He perceives no danger. He has no concern
for his own soul. He simply doesn't care. He has
his farm. He has his merchandise. And all
he wants to do is make himself as happy as he can possibly be
here in this world. He just doesn't care. That's
the first response. And here's the second response.
rage. These men showed up, these servants. They said, come, come on to this
feast. The king's commanding you. Come
on. They said, what are we going to do there? They said, we're
going to honor the king's son. They said, we hate his son. We will not come. I want nothing
to do with that king and I want nothing to do with his son. And that's the natural man. He
hates the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's where the enmity comes
out. What does he hate about him so much? What does he hate?
First, he hates his sovereignty. The natural man hates that the
Lord is in control. Why? Because if the Lord is in
control, that means the man is not. What I find interesting
about that, and we talked about it just a minute ago, what the
world hates, what the natural man hates, the believer loves. You tell me that salvation is
out of my hands and it is in the hands of this sovereign God?
Best news I've ever heard. What the world hates, the believer
loves. He hates his sovereignty. A natural
man hates grace. He hates grace. Why? Because
of salvation by grace, that means there's no glory for the man.
You remember the parable of the man with the vineyard? He goes
out to the beginning of the day. He finds some workers out there.
He says, all right, here's the deal. You go work in my vineyard.
I'll pay you a penny for the whole day. They say, that sounds
good. They go out and work. A couple hours later, he finds
some other fellas. He says, here's the deal. You
go out there and work. I'll pay you whatever's fair.
They say, that sounds good. He goes out a little while later,
finds some other fellas. Whatever's fair, I'll pay you. Go out and
work. They say, that's good. He goes out the last hour of
the day. There's only one hour left. Why are you all standing
here? Nobody hired us. Go into my vineyard and work.
Whatever's fair, I'll pay you." They said, that sounds good.
The last out of the day comes. They all get lined up. Everybody
gets the same thing. Everybody gets a penny. You know
who loved that? The guys who worked one hour.
You know who were mad about it? The guys who worked 12 hours.
Hey, we're mad. I should get more. But that's
what we agreed on. I should get more. I've worked
all day long. I've got to have more than him.
And that's the natural man. I've worked harder. Listen, I
abstained from doing a whole bunch of stuff that I really
wanted to do. While everybody was out there partying and drinking
and carrying on, I wanted to do that stuff, but I didn't.
And I did a whole bunch of stuff I didn't want to do. I went to
church. I read my Bible. I didn't want to do those things.
I've worked harder. I've done more. I deserve more.
Give me my bigger crown and glory. I want more glory than that guy
over there. I will not have this thing where we all get the same
thing. For a man who thinks he's worked harder, grace is a terrible
thing for him. You know who loves grace? Grace is the best thing we've
heard. A man who hasn't worked at all. Man who can't earn anything.
Man who's got no merit to him whatsoever. Grace is the best
news you ever heard. But for somebody who's got something
going for him, grace is terrible news. They hate the Lord's holiness. Why? That is both his nature
and his standard. Unfathomable perfection. And
why do they hate that standard so much? Because they can't reach
it. He's too strict. That standard is too high. I
can't reach it. I don't like that. I hate the
Lord. What I find is interesting about
this is this. This king sent out his servants. He says, come
to the feast, honor the king's son. They killed those servants.
When the father sent the one true servant, his son, when holiness
dwelt on this earth, and the restraints were removed, and
man was allowed to do with God as he wanted, what did we do?
Notice I said we. It's not them. Me and you were
there. Exact same nature. We murdered the Son of God. If
you want to see the natural man's reaction to who the Lord is,
if you want to see what our true crime is, it's found at the cross.
We murdered the Son of God. This one who the Father is ultimately
concerned with His glory, Now these men would not come,
but somebody is going to. Look at verse 7 of your text. But when the king heard thereof,
he was wroth, and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those
murderers, and burned up their city. Then saith he to his servants,
The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways,
And as many as ye shall find bid to the marriage. So those
servants went out into the highways and gathered together all as
many as they found, both bad and good. And the wedding was
furnished with guests. Now I noticed something here
that I don't think I've ever noticed before. The king had sent his
servants out to a particular place. So you've gone everywhere
else. Now I'm going to send you to
a particular place to find a particular people. I'm going to send you
out to the highways. Who are you going to find out
on the highways? Do you want to know? Turn to
Mark chapter 10. Pick up in verse 46. Who are you going to find on the highways? And they came to Jericho. And
as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number
of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the
highway side, begging. Who are you going to find out
on the highways? You going to find the strong,
the wealthy, the capable, the rich? No, but that's where you'll find
the lame. and the poor, and the blind, and the lepers, that's
who you find out on the highways. Keep on reading. Verse 47, and
when he heard, and folks, this is when everything changes. When
you are given a hearing ear, you get a hearing ear, folks,
when the Lord breathes spiritual life into you. The new birth,
that's when the hearing here comes and everything changes
after that. Verse 47, and when he heard that it was Jesus of
Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, thou son of David,
have mercy on me. And many charged him that he
should hold his peace, but he cried the more a great deal,
thou son of David, have mercy on me. I find it very interesting
that Bartimaeus isn't even talking about sight yet. That's not his desire at this
point. Bartimaeus very acutely knows what he needs. He needs
mercy. Verse 49, and Jesus stood still. You can count on this, folks,
that cry for mercy. This is exactly what it does. It'll stop the
Lord dead in his tracks. Why did he cry for mercy in the first
place? Because the Lord purposed it. Same reason he was walking
through Jericho. One of his sheep were there.
This was all purposed and still, this man cries out for mercy.
The Lord stops dead in his tracks. And Jesus stood still and commanded
him to be called. And they called the blind man,
saying unto him, Be of good comfort. Rise, he calleth thee. And he,
casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus. And Jesus
answered and said unto him, Bartman, what are you going to do for
me? Is that what he said? Bartman, what
are you going to do to attract my attention? Is that what he
said? What wilt thou that I should
do unto thee? Because salvation is not what
you do for the Lord. Salvation is what the Lord does
for you. A blind man said unto him, Lord,
that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy
way, my faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received
his sight and followed Jesus in the way. Now make no mistake,
folks, there are two calls. There's the general call. All
men, everywhere, are called to repent and believe the gospel.
But here's the issue. They will not come. But then
there's the call of the irresistible, invincible grace. The call that
cannot be denied. When you hear this call, you
come running. You've got no other choice, and you want no other
choice. And he sends that call out to
the highways with the lepers and the beggars and the lame
and the blind. Because that's his people, sinners. Now in hearing this call, some
things happen. Number one, in hearing this call,
we find our circumstances are just like Bartimaeus. Number
one, we find ourselves blind. What do I mean by that? When
we look inside ourselves, we can't see anything good. When we look inside ourselves,
we can't see any reason in and of myself that the Lord would
be merciful to me. You can't see any reason He would turn
towards me with compassion and favor and care. I just can't
see it would come blind. Blind to any reason and of ourselves
that the Lord would be merciful to us. The second thing we see is the
work of beggars. What's the chief attribute of a beggar? He is
poverty stricken. and he is completely and utterly
dependent upon the unmerited kindness of someone else to have
what he needs. Now, where I work in Lexington,
it's a decent-sized city, and downtown, just about every corner
you come to, you'll find a beggar on that corner. And I'll watch
him. I'll watch him for a while. They got these signs out there
that says, anything will help, God bless, right? And you watch him
for a little while. Sometimes people slow down with
their car, they'll stop. puts money at the window. He takes
the money. And you watch him for a while, he'll go a half
an hour and cars just buzz by and nobody stops. This is my
question. Can that beggar get mad at any one of those cars
that doesn't stop? Does anybody owe him anything? No. You, beggar? The Lord doesn't owe you anything.
Mercy, beggar. completely and utterly dependent
upon the unmerited kindness of the Lord to have everything you
need to live. That's a beggar. In hearing this call, we find
what we need. I'm going to ask you this question. I want you
to think about it for a second. What do you need? What do you need from the Lord? Do you need just a hand up? Listen,
I've got some ability. I'm just, you know, these feet
aren't that great. If you just give me a hand up, I can probably
start to walk. Now, if He just put me on the right path, you
know, just kind of set me up and put me on the right path, I can
probably find my way from there, you know, if He'd kind of meet
me halfway. Is that what you need? In hearing this call, we find
out what we need, and that's mercy. The Lord not giving us what we
rightfully deserve and what we have rightfully earned. Mercy. I love the fact that He doesn't
even talk about sight when He's first dealing with us. He says,
just be merciful. Leave me blind, just be merciful. Save me. In hearing this call, we find
a hope. I got to thinking about this. So, Barnabas is blind,
right? So, he's not very mobile. He
would have spent most of his days on that highway side, begging,
sitting right there. I read this, though, that when
you lose one of the senses, the other senses tend to enhance
to compensate for the loss of that sense. So, he couldn't see,
but he could probably hear pretty good. And he's sitting there,
begging all day long, and no doubt people are walking along
and they're having conversations, and there's talking. And what's
the talk of the town at that point? It's the Lord Jesus Christ
and all His miracles. And one day, he's sitting there,
he's begging, and he hears a couple guys coming, and here's what
he's saying, hey, here's what I heard, Jesus of Nazareth gave
sight to a blind man. He said, finally. As far as he
knew, his condition was incurable. There was no curing his disease. There was no one who could give
him sight. Humanly speaking, it was incurable. There was nothing
that could be done for him. But then he hears of this one
man who is able, able to give him sight. He says, that's it. I've got to have him. And I have
no doubt when Bartimaeus first heard this, he probably questioned
whether he was willing or not. Is He willing to give me my sight?
I want you to understand something. Because even I will sit there
in foolish times and say, is the Lord willing to save me?
He is more willing to save you than you are to be saved. I want
you to understand that. But He's able. I know whom I
have believed and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that
which I have committed unto Him against that day. And that's
faith. He's able. And finally, this call inspires
action. I said, rise, be of good comfort. He calls you. What'd
he do? He got up, and he took his robe,
and he cast it away. Now, keep in mind, he's blind,
right? He's also a beggar, he's also poverty stricken, so this
robe was probably filthy. You ever looked at a beggar?
I'm not being disrespectful here, but they're normally disgusting
looking. Imagine how disgusting that robe would have been. And
it's the only possession we know he has. It's the only thing that's
mentioned in this story. Imagine how closely he held on to that
thing. How much he cherished it. How
much comfort he got out of that robe. That filthy, disgusting
garment. But he hears this call. And all of a sudden, he doesn't
just take it off and fold it up neatly and say, well, I'll
come back to that later. No, no, no. He takes it off, he rips
it off, and he casts it away. I'm never coming back to that,
because that's disgusting. When we hear this call, that
robe of righteousness, we think we've woven for ourselves. We
actually see it for what it is. It's filthy, it's disgusting,
it's just a filthy rag. We want to get as far away from
that as we possibly can. God will not accept that. And
here's the other thing he did. He came to Christ. You know how
he came? He came naked and he came exposed. He came just as
he was. Can you come that way? Folks,
I can come that way, as long as it's just as I am. As sinful
as I am, as wicked as I am, with all the evil imaginations that
cross my heart, in all my unbelief, I believe, help thou my unbelief.
As long as I can come that way, just as I am, I can come that
way, and I want nothing to do with that garment. Now we're dealing with garments.
This is symbolic of a righteousness. There is a man in this story
who favors his own garment. Let's see how it ends. I want
you to see how this plays out. Verse 11 in your text. And when the king came in to
see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding
garment. Now, you see folks, the garment
was provided at the door. The guests were a motley crew.
They were poverty stricken. They were beggars. They were
blind. They were lame. They couldn't come up with anything.
If they had to pay anything for this garment, or for entry into
the feast, they couldn't come up with it. Everything was freely
provided. Even the garment at this door.
Now, I want you to think about this for a second. I want you
to visualize you were there at this feast. and you're standing
on a balcony and you're overlooking the entire feast, what would
you have seen? Fine linen, clean and white,
as far as the eye could see. But here's the best part. Everybody
would have looked the same. Just one garment over and over
and over. Who would they have looked like? The king's son. I'm taking liberty
with the story, but I know it's true. Whatever the king's son
was wearing, that's what everybody else was wearing. They were wearing
the exact same thing. You want to know why I know that?
Because when the father looks at you, all he sees is his darling
son and his perfect righteousness. That's it. You look over the
crowd, where's the king's son? I don't know. Everybody just
looks the same to me. Carbon images all along. That's how
real union with Christ actually is. But there's a man who's different. He's different. Look at verse
12. And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not
having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. What could
he say? Who could he blame? Could he
blame the king? The king had made all things
ready. There was nothing you had to do. There was no price
to pay at the door. Everything was provided for you.
The king had killed. The king had provided the appropriate
garment. All things were ready. There
was nothing this man had to do. Who could he blame? He could
only blame himself. That's it. Why would this man
favor his own garment over the wedding garment? I think a couple
different reasons. Number one, he didn't want to
look like everyone else. He wanted to get noticed. He
wanted to attract some attention. He wanted somebody to pay some
particular attention to him. He wanted some glory. Second
thing was this. He didn't want to be identified
with the king's son. I'll come in and eat your food. I don't
want to look like him. I don't want nothing to do with
him. But here's the third thing. He wanted to show the king that
while all these other poverty-stricken, lame beggars and blind are here,
they can't come up with their own garment, I can. I can come
up with something that's just as good. All these other fellows
might not be able to, but I can do it. I'm able. I'm capable. I'm better than all these folks
right here. That's the reason. Now, look at verse 13. Then said the king to his servants,
bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer
darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth. For many are called, but few
are chosen." Who's going to come to the Lord Jesus Christ? Who's
going to believe on Him? Those that are called Who's called? Those that are chosen. Chosen
in divine election before the world ever began. That's who.
Now, but here's the lingering question. I'm hoping this is
the question we've come to right now because it's the question
I want to ask myself right now. Have I been called? Have I been
chosen? I've got to know. It can't be
this open-ended thing, well maybe you are, maybe you aren't, we'll
just figure it out on Judgment Day. No, I need to know. I need to know. Let
me ask you some questions. Are you blind? When you look inside, can you
find any reason that the Lord will look with favor towards
you? If you can't, then you're blind.
Are you a beggar? To have everything you need,
are you completely and utterly dependent upon the kindness of
the Lord Jesus Christ? And if He were to withhold it,
you've got nothing to say about it. He doesn't owe you anything. What do you need? Do you need
mercy? Where's your hope? Is your hope
in something you did? Something you felt? An experience
you had? Or is it in this one who is able? Able to give a blind man sight
and able to save somebody just as sinful as me. Here's a big one. Are you willing
to part with that old, filthy, disgusting robe? Because it won't
be both. You won't have the righteousness
of Christ and have some of your righteousness over here. All
or nothing. Either cast it away like the
filthy garment is or you're a debtor to the whole wall. One of the
two. Can you come just as you are naked and exposed? No pretenses. Not putting on
any airs. Not promising to get better.
Just coming as a filthy low down sinner and that's it. Because
folks, if you can, even cold, But let me give you another one.
Turn over to 1 Corinthians 1 verse 2. I hope to leave you today with
some confidence. At least give some sinners some confidence. Who's called? Who's chosen? 1 Corinthians 1 and look at verse
2. unto the church of God, which
is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in
Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place
call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours."
What do the called do? They call. I'm asking this right
now. Are you calling on His name?
Are you calling on Him to save you with absolutely no help from
you to the tune of His honor and His glory? Because if you're calling on
His name, that's what the called do.