Okay, Matthew chapter 22, if
you wanna turn there, we're going to have a sermon today related
to marriage. I've been working on the ceremony
for my son today, the ceremony that we'll have today in his
marriage. And I've been thinking about
this and I thought it would be appropriate to look at this section
of scripture in Matthew chapter 22, the first 14 verses. If you have your Bible open to
Matthew 22, I'll begin reading at verse one. It says, 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. 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 which are bidden, behold, I have prepared my dinner,
my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready. Come
to the marriage. But they made light of it. They
made light of it. And they went their ways, one
to his farm, another to his merchandise. And the remnant took his servants
and entreated them spitefully and killed them or slew them.
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 you 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. And when the king came in to
see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding
garment. And he said to him, Friend, how
camest thou in hither, and not having a wedding garment? And
he was speechless. 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. I've entitled this message, Come
to the Feast. Now, In this text of scripture,
we see a parable. Jesus says here that he spoke
to them in parables. A parable is a message that's
contained in a story or in symbols that represent the truth that's
being taught. Here, he speaks of the kingdom
of heaven is likened to. The kingdom of heaven is what
the truth, is the truth that's being taught and he's comparing
the kingdom of heaven to what it is like, things that we can
more easily identify with because the kingdom of heaven is a mystery
to us until it's explained. The fact of the matter is, is
that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are really have four different meanings
in scripture, all of which teach us what the kingdom of heaven
is about. The first thing about the kingdom of heaven is it's
the sovereign rule of the Lord Jesus Christ, or God, in the
Lord Jesus Christ. The sovereign rule. Remember
in Matthew chapter six, in verse nine through 13, Jesus taught
his disciples how to pray, and he said, say this, He says, thy
kingdom come, thy will be done. So it has to do with God's sovereign
rule in the Lord Jesus Christ, not only in this world, but at
all times in eternity and in the world to come. The second
thing about the kingdom, excuse me, is that this sovereign rule
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ is for our eternal salvation. So the kingdom of God represents
that realm, those people, the king, and their salvation in
him. And so the scriptures talk about
this, and the kingdom of heaven is also besides it being the
sovereign rule of God and our salvation in Him, it's the rule
of God by His salvation and His Spirit in our hearts, so that
we not only acknowledge, but we want Christ to rule in our
hearts for us. And then finally, the Kingdom
of Heaven in Scripture talks about what God from the beginning
of time, even before time, prepared for His people. And that has
to do with the ultimate blessing that God has prepared for them
in Christ and given to them through the Lord Jesus Christ and His
salvation for them. This is something that wasn't
their doing, it wasn't by their initiative or their influence.
God determined it from the beginning. So God's sovereign rule and our
complete salvation and the work of God in us to make Christ rule
in us, our desire, and our life, and the ultimate consummation
of that at the end of time, all are contained in this phrase,
the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God. But here, in
this particular text of scripture, Jesus is going to explain the
kingdom of heaven by this parable. So notice how he starts. He says,
the kingdom of heaven is likened to a certain king. Now because
here it says the king made a marriage for his son, we know who the
king is. The king in the parable corresponds
to God the father. And the son in the parable corresponds
to the Lord Jesus Christ. So here we see that the kingdom
of heaven is that kingdom in which God the father has made
a marriage for his son. In fact, what we see here is
that the kingdom of heaven has a purpose. It has a purpose for
creation. It has a purpose for history.
It has a purpose that's contained in this event and this will of
God that he would make a marriage for his son. And we see here
also how that marriage, the importance of that marriage and who they
are that are brought to that marriage. Because he says here
in the next verse that the king made a marriage for his son and
he sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to
the wedding. So the servants of the king and
his son are sent to call men and women to the wedding. In
this particular parable it doesn't mention women, but we know that
in the gospel it does include women. Men, women, boys and girls,
all people to whom the gospel is sent. So the servants are
those who carry the message of the king concerning the son,
the king's son, to a people designated by the king. And that message,
of course, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel describes
the marriage of God's son to his people. And then it goes
on, it says, the servants were sent to call them that were bidden. To bid doesn't mean to invite,
as we would invite someone to, let's say, a baby shower or a
party, so that they can say, well, I don't feel like coming,
and we're not offended by that. Nor is it not only not an invitation
where people can accept it or reject it without bringing offense
to us, But it's also not an offer. Sometimes you get these advertisements,
they offer you something to purchase. God's call to the marriage of
his son is not an offer, something that we can make work by our
accepting it. No, it says here that it was
a commandment. He said he called them. The king
sent his servants to call these men to the wedding of his son. And they refused. It says they
would not come. So they disobeyed the king's
call. They disobeyed his command. And
then, in verse four, it goes on, so here we see the king is
God the father, and the son, who is to be married, is his
son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the servants are the prophets
and the preachers of the gospel. And those men who are called
here, who refused, correspond to those in history at least,
to whom the gospel first came in the Lord Jesus Christ and
throughout the Old Testament. God sent his prophets throughout
the Old Testament times to tell about his son who was coming.
But the nation to whom God sent that message first, which was
the Jews, refused the message on the whole. And when Jesus
himself came, as we'll see here in a minute, when Jesus himself
came, they refused him also. So this is what happened in history. The Jews refused to hear Christ. They did not come to the wedding
feast. And so those who were called
at first represent all men who refuse the call of God to the
marriage of his son. But in history, first of all,
it reflects the Jews. So he says in verse four, again,
he sent forth other servants. So to the same ones he first
called by his servants, he sent other servants and he said, tell
them which are bidden Now, it's like he's emphasizing the importance
here, as if he not only wants them to understand how important
it is, but that everything needed has been prepared, and that it's
waiting. He says, tell them which were
bidden, behold, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fatlings
are killed, and all things are ready, come to the marriage.
So here in this part of the parable, those who first refused are called
again. And he tells them, everything
is ready. Come. I have killed my oxen. I've killed my fatlings. Everything
is ready. Come to the marriage. So this
is, you can see the insistence here in the call that to refuse
it now was a great insult to the king. And we're going to
see how great an insult it was in a moment. But it says in verse
5, they made light of it and went their ways, one to his farm
and another to his merchandise. The man who went to his farm
cared more about his farm and the fruit of his farm, his ground,
than he did about the king and the marriage of the king's son.
And so he gave little respect, he gave no respect to the king
or to the king's son or to the king's son's marriage. In fact,
he thought more of his farm than he thought of all those things.
And then there were those who came, who were called, it says
in verse five at the end, that they went to their merchandise.
Some had farms, some had merchandise, things that they treasured. But
their treasure was everything but the king, everything but
the king's son, and everything but the marriage of the king's
son. And so they refused. This is
at least the second time. It says they made light of it.
They made it seem like it was unimportant compared to their
own interests and their own pursuits in their lives. So it says, and
then the remnant, others that were called by the king, by his
servants, took the servants of the king and entreated them spitefully
and slew them. So not only did they refuse the
message, but they hated the messengers and killed them, first treating
them shamefully and cruelly and mercilessly and then finally
killing them, but they showed the greatest offense to the king and his son
and his son's marriage when they did this. They killed the servants
of the king. How presumptuous to think that
you could not only reject the command of the king to call,
the call of the king to his son's marriage, but you could show
so little respect for it, you just go to your own farm and
your own merchandise, but then more that some of you, some of
them would actually destroy, kill the king's servants. So
in verse seven it says, but when the king heard thereof, he was
wroth. He was full of fury because the
way they had treated his servants and the way they had disregarded
his bid, his call to come. And so what did he do? Well,
he sent forth his armies and he destroyed those murderers
and he burned up their city. Now, as I said, because this
is a parable, we'll see here that these things also have a
correspondence to what happened in history. God sent forth his
prophets throughout the Old Testament, and then at the end, John the
Baptist in the New Testament, and finally the Lord Jesus Christ
himself came and preached the gospel. And the Jews who heard
him, it says, he came to his own and his own refused him. They would not have him. His
own How does it say it, in John chapter one, his own, I received
him not, thank you. And so, these who rejected the
king's servants correspond to those who in the New Testament,
the early part of it, refused Christ, and throughout time,
up to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, killed the prophets.
And because of that, because of that buildup over the long
history of the Old Testament and culminating in the New Testament
when they killed the Lord Jesus Christ, what happened after that? Well, in 70 AD, God sent the
armies of the Romans into Jerusalem and utterly destroyed the city. And he burned it up. The whole
city was leveled. There wasn't one stone left upon
another. And the Romans plowed the city. They not only tore it down, but
they made it just a heap. There was nothing left. And so
that corresponds to what happened here in this parable. Jesus is
telling what would happen to those who rejected him and his
gospel. But now notice in verse 9 of
Matthew chapter 22 it says, the king then said, go ye therefore
into the highways and as many as you shall find bid to the
marriage. So now this corresponds to the
New Testament when Christ after having given himself to save
his people in his death on the cross and ascended to heaven
to take his rightful place on the throne of heaven and earth
as the king over all, he sent his servants not only to the
nation of the Jews, but also to all nations of the world.
and in those nations to all people." So it says, "'Go ye therefore
into the highways, and as many as you shall find bid to the
marriage.'" Verse 10, "'So those servants went out into the highways,
and they gathered together all as many as they found, both bad
and good, and the wedding was furnished with guests.'" So here
you see that God the Father, the King, will not be frustrated. He will have his guests. He will have his son's marriage. There will be a success, even
though those to whom the gospel first came refused it. And even
though, even today, many refuse the gospel of the king of heaven
about the marriage of his son, yet the guests, the wedding feast,
will be full of guests, because God will call many to the wedding
of his son, the marriage of his son. In verse 11, Now, everyone
was brought in who was called from the highways and outside
the city, the city of Jerusalem, outside that nation even. And
the wedding was furnished with guests. Everyone was there that
made it full. Verse 11, and when the king came
in to see the guests. Now this represents the judgment
day, final judgment. It says that in Revelation chapter
20, for example, that the books will be opened and everyone,
all the dead raised to life, will be judged out of those things
which are written in the books. And so the king is coming in.
But it also says there in Revelation that there is another book called
the Lamb's Book of Life. And all those who are not found
written in the Lamb's Book of Life will be judged according
to their works and will be cast into the lake of fire. So the
king came into the wedding, and when the king came in and saw
the guest, he saw a man there. It doesn't mean that there was
only one man there in heaven who failed to have on this wedding
garment, but it means that he represents those who appear before
God in judgment without a wedding garment on. So the king came
in to see the guest and he saw there a man which had not on
a wedding garment. Now remember in verse four, the
king had told those who were called to the wedding, everything
is prepared. I have killed my oxen and my
fatlings. Everything is ready. Come to
the marriage." So the king required these men to come. And the king
also required those who came to wear the clothing that he
himself required and provided. So all those who came, they came
from the highways, they came from outside, from long distances. They didn't have, what you think
of in the story, they didn't have time to go buy and prepare
nice clothes. So the king required something
suitable. for appearing with his son in
his wedding feast, something that the son himself and the
king would find glorious and magnificent and beautiful. And
since the king required it, he also provided it. And how Proud
and presumptuous how impudent it was for this man to appear
at the king's wedding feast without this wedding garment that the
king required and provided for the guests. In other words, he
preferred his own clothes. He had no regard to the king's
requirement. He had no appreciation of the
king's provision. He had no respect for the king
or the garments he required, or the son, the king's son, or
the marriage of his son. And so he appeared in his own
clothes. Verse 12, and the king said to
him, friend, Now this doesn't mean they were chums. It means
that he's calling him out here. I called you to this feast and
you came friend. You came as if you were a friend,
but how did you come here without having on a wedding garment?
Now this was a question that really had no appropriate answer. There was nothing this person
could say. And so it says that he was speechless. The king's inquisition into why
he didn't have on a wedding garment left him with nothing to say.
He had no defense, no excuse, no argument to give. The king
found this man's clothes unacceptable. And therefore the man himself
was unacceptable because he had refused the garments the king
required and provided. And he had shown such disrespect
for the king and the king's son and the king's son's marriage. And so he was speechless, because
at judgment day, all who appear before God in judgment and who
defend themselves by what they have done, their own filthy rags,
works righteousness, they will be exposed as hating the king
and his son and the marriage of the son. They will be those
who, like Cain, preferred their own sacrifice to their own fruits
of their labor to the sacrifice of God's own Son, the Lamb of
God. What wickedness that is, and
how God was so very wroth with these who refused to come to
the marriage and sent his armies out to destroy them, and now
he's wroth, he's angry with this man who appeared in his pride. and his stubbornness, and his
disregard, disrespect for God's truth and his righteousness and
his justice to appear in his own filthy rags, righteousness. So he says in verse 13, then
said the king to his servants, bind him, hand and foot, this
man who came to the wedding feast without a garment, and take him
away and cast him into outer darkness. There shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth. So the result is that everyone
who appears in judgment before God at the end of time, in their
own works, they will be cast out into outer darkness, which
is hell, eternal damnation, because they stand before God in their
own selves and not in the Lord Jesus Christ, not in the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he concludes the whole
parable, he says, for many are called, but few are chosen. So
those who appear at the wedding feast, who are not dressed in
the garments of the king's requirement and providing, They are not chosen,
even though they were called by the servants who preached
the gospel. But all those who did appear,
did come to the wedding, and were dressed in the garments
the king required and provided, are those who were chosen. You
see this? Many are called, few are chosen. The ground, the foundation, the
basis, the reason for which we are clothed in the righteousness
of Christ is that we were chosen by God the Father to eternal
life. That's the first thing to point
out here. And the second thing is to see in the in this parable
that the king and his son and the marriage of the king's son
is the purpose of God for creation and all of history. It is the
consummate pinnacle of everything God determined for time, that
he would have a wife for his son, and that wife would be the
people chosen by the Father, as it says here in verse 14,
given to the Son, and given to the Son to love in a bond of
union made between Him and them. that the son would find his highest
delight, his greatest joy in saving them and having them for
himself. And they also would find their
greatest joy in being the wife, the people of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That is the purpose for creation
and for all of history. That's the consummate purpose
of God, the momentous event. that will occur at the end of
time is the open and public ceremony of the marriage of the Lord Jesus
Christ to his people, those dressed in his righteousness. And in
verse four, we see that everything was prepared and provided by
the king, by God the father. He provided those who would come.
He provided for those who would come. He required a garment suitable
so that in the eyes of his son, he would find them to be attractive,
that he would love them and there would be no spot in them. The
king set it all up. It was his work. before time,
fulfilled throughout time, and brought to its consummate end
at the end of time. And so the Gospel tells us, in
the Gospel, God tells us about the accomplishments, the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is His work that has finished
all that is required by God to bring a people to the marriage
of the Son. And it was God's doing. He is
the one who required this. And he gave it to Christ to fulfill.
And the Lord Jesus Christ found no greater joy than to lay down
his life in fulfillment of what God required, to have a people
for himself as his own wife. so intimate a communion, so intimate
a relationship with them, that he finds his greatest joy in
his love for them, a love that cannot be comprehended. It passes
knowledge. The love of Christ passes knowledge.
And who can comprehend the love that compelled the Lord Jesus
Christ to joyfully give his life for his people? But this is all
of our salvation. And as the people saved by the
Lord, we find no greater joy than that He would save us. What
do you want as a believer? What do you want more than anything
but to know Him? and to be found in him, not having
your own righteousness, but his. You want to be clothed in nothing
less than the beautiful garments of his salvation and being clothed
in the garments of his salvation. You are at peace and you have
joy with God for the Lord Jesus Christ sake because of him. You you are The scriptures say
that we are in Him and therefore He has given to us His Spirit
and all that He has done for us is ours because we are in
Him so that we are in Him and we know we are in Him when He
has given us His Spirit to see that He is in us. He is in us
because we have the evidence of God's work, which is believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And having that evidence of trusting
Christ, God gave it to us to look to Him and to find our great
desire to know Him and be found in Him before God in His righteousness
and not our own, to forsake everything that might be called ours, that
we might have all that is His, Having that gift of faith, we
show the evidence that it is God's work, it is Christ in us. And if Christ is in us, then
we are in Him. And if we are in Him, then God
has received us as His Son, and He has given us all things with
His Son. That is the blessing of the marriage
of the Son to His people. The Lord Jesus Christ takes no
greater delight than to give to his people all that he treasures
most, all that is the very best that God could design and give
to a people, to be given what is Christ, to be given Christ
himself, and to be given what is Christ, and to have it with
him. That was His desire, that was
the desire of the Son, and that was the work of His life and
the labor of His love. And He will have what He gave
Himself to have. He will have His people. They
will be saved. And so we see these two things
set in contrast here. The Kingdom of Heaven is like
this. God has done this. It was the
work of God the Father. It was the will of God the Father.
But it was the will of God in his son. And because his son
gave himself for those he loved, he called them by his grace,
and they are brought in the garments of Christ's righteousness to
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they gladly do so. They embrace
him with all that they are. And this describes the kingdom
of heaven, God's sovereign rule. in the hearts of his people,
a rule made for them. They are willing. They desire
it. They want him to rule over them. They submit to him in love
and they find God's purpose revealed and God's glory revealed in this
marriage. And at the end of time, they
anticipate the union, their union with Christ in an open and public
ceremony. where he sets them before the
onlooking universe and he describes his love for them from eternity
in his own gift of himself and sacrifice to God for their sins.
What a blessing this is. And the men who heard this were
those who refused Christ and so he gave it to them as the
sharpest warning If you refuse the Lord Jesus Christ, if your
desire is to bring to God what you can do, if you trust in what
you can do and reject Him, then you face the judgment of God.
You face standing before God in yourself and in your own righteousness
and no one can endure that that examination of God. No one who
comes to God in his own righteousness will be able to stand in the
judgment. But all those who come in the
righteousness of Christ were chosen and were put in the Lamb's
book of life They, Christ's work answers for them. Everyone else's
work will have to stand the scrutiny of the books that God will open.
And so we see that in this parable, we see the full display of the
kingdom of God. The king is God the father. The
son is the Lord Jesus Christ. His servants are the preachers.
The called are all who hear the gospel. The wedding is the salvation
that we have in Christ brought to its consummate end at the
end of time. And the highways are those places
throughout the world where the gospel is sent. As many as you
find, both bad and good, are those guests who are brought
by the hearing of the gospel through the work of Christ and
by his spirit into union with himself, entrusting his righteousness. And the wedding garment is the
righteousness of Christ. They that would not come are
those who hear the gospel but refuse it, trusting in their
own works, preferring their own labors and the fruits of it,
and their own merchandise rather than the merchandise that is
the riches of God's grace in Christ. And so we see here that
the king's rage against those who refused his call and destroyed
his servants and the king's rage against this man without a wedding
garment on shows us the attitude of God toward all who disrespect
his son and the people his son gave his life to save. May God
give us the grace. in our own hearts, each one of
us today, to want nothing more and nothing else than to know
Jesus Christ, to be found in Him, and find our greatest joy
in life, in death, and for all eternity. to see Him in His glory
and to be with Him, knowing that He is ours and we are His. He is in us because we were in
Him from eternity. May we know this now by God-given
faith that we would put our trust in Him and worship God, not trusting
anything of ourselves, but worshiping God, trusting Christ alone. Let's
pray. Father, we thank you for the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you that you delighted,
found it your greatest pleasure to give your son a people. And
he obligated himself for them in everything. He gave himself
for them to endure their sins and the wrath of God against
their sins, to make satisfaction to God's justice and fulfill
all of God's righteousness and to do these in truth. before
the onlooking universe and the purity of God's sovereign rule
and throne. And we thank you that in doing
so, he obtained for us the rivers of God's grace flowing from the
throne of God on the basis of his redeeming work And now we
are justified in Him and all blessings, heavenly blessings,
all of them, all spiritual blessings in heavenly places are given
to us with the Lord Jesus Christ because of His love, His undying
love that laid His life down for us to have us and to wash
us from our sins. May we so trust Him. May you
give us His Spirit in us to desire Him only. We wouldn't have a divided love. We wouldn't have
divided allegiances, but we would love the Lord Jesus Christ alone. and trust him alone. And we would
declare him to all those in the highways and byways of life that
your wedding feast with the Lord Jesus Christ would be filled
with guests and you would come yourself and inspect the guests
and find the garments that you required and provided in the
righteousness of your son to be your great delight, that they
would be there in the feast of the wedding of your son. This,
we understand, to be your great glory in doing all of this for
us who are so unworthy and undeserving as sinners. In Jesus' name we
pray and thank you. Amen.