We're in Luke chapter 14. Continuing in our lessons on
parables, Today it's sometimes called the
parable of the great banquet and the little headings they
put in your Bible sometimes. We'll read through there and
then we'll put it in context with the rest of what we've already
studied. So, just as we look at this,
remember that Jesus had been invited to this Pharisee's house
to eat bread on the Sabbath day, and then throughout this block
of scripture, he addresses various ones that he was dealing with
in this breakfast. The last time he was talking
to them about how, well, you know, you guys always choose
the best seats and the most prestigious places to sit, and you love to
have the honor and all those kind of things. And now he addresses
the one that invited him to the supper there in Luke 14, verse
12, and we'll read down. Then said he also to him that
bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, Call not thy friends nor thy
brethren, neither thy kinsmen nor thy rich neighbors, lest
they also bid thee again and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast,
call the poor, the lame, 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. And when one of them that sat
at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed
is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. Then said
he unto him, A certain man made a great supper and bade many,
and he sent his servant at suppertime to say to them that were bidden,
Come, for all things are now ready. And they all with one
consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have
bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it. I
pray thee, have me excused. And another said, I've bought
five yoke of oxen, and I have to go prove them. I pray thee,
have me excused. And another said, I've married
a wife, and therefore I cannot come. And 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. And the
Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges
and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I
say unto you, that none of those men which were bidden shall taste
of my supper." Boy, what a powerful statement that he makes there. story of grace we have here. So as we look at this, what a
tremendous display of the need for the effectual call and salvation
by grace alone. They all with one consent made
excuse. And as we continue the study
here in the Word of God as he addresses the various ones at
the Sabbath meal that he was attending and who really kind
of in type represent man in the world, there were Pharisees,
there were lawyers, there were general guests, those that were
normally rejected by society, they might have had some of those,
like this man that had the the edema problem, those who were seemingly indifferent,
the ones that are described as they're in the highways and the
hedges and the byways and going about their various tasks. So
his attention is now focused on the one that invited him to
the feast. He kind of accurately discovers
to him the natural motivations involved. And then he speaks
to another guest who seemingly utters a religious statement,
blessed be those that eat bread in the kingdom of God. reacts to that or not reacts,
I would say that Jesus said that was segued into His next thing
that He's going to say. I guess I would like to point
out here that none of this is by happenchance. Everything here
is directed by the determinate will and counsel of God. This
man said what he said because God ordained that he would say
that at this time. And all these things that Jesus
brings out in these parables that have a spiritual application,
they all reflect some part of the redemption of the church
by his work, by his finished work. It's interesting, his advice
to the man that bade him, he said to the man that bade him,
he says, well, when you have supper, don't invite all the
people that can pay you back. There's no quid pro quo in the
kingdom of heaven. Invite the people that can't
pay you back. That's what you should be doing. It's a reflection of God's grace. He invites the ones. He came
to call sinners to repentance and not the righteous. There's
no point in calling those that don't need a Savior that will
say, In effect, he's saying, they have it in their mind that
they can pay you back or that they don't, you don't, they don't
owe anything. It's, I have no debt of sin. And there's no need to invite
those that think that they have no debt and that if I have a
debt, I can pay for it myself. So, no quid pro quo. True religion is grace to those
that have nothing of themselves. In my hand, no price I can bring,
as a top lady said. To the second person, he brings
a parable of compelling grace, or what we would call effectual
calling, irresistible grace, as Norman brought out in the
Tulip series. The I in irresistible is irresistible
grace. And the nature of the man and
the nature of our natural condition declared in making excuse to
refuse the most gracious invitation. He made a great supper, and he
bade many to come, and they all with one consent said, I don't
think so. And it wasn't that it wasn't a good invitation,
it was what could be wrong with it. But the T part of Norman's
series on Tulip is total depravity. No will, no desire, no ability. No ability to understand apart
from revelation. And remember, we're in the law
of parables here. To you it's given, and to them
it is not given. So we have to look at what's
required to overcome man's nature, and it's compel them to come
in. So in delivering this message
to the host, Jesus, in fact, He describes this wondrous work
of grace supplied by the Father. And in Luke 14, 12, we just read,
Then He said to him that bade him, When you make a dinner or
a supper, Call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen,
nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again, and
recompense be made thee." So the counsel here is not to invite
the ones that have that capacity to repay you, In their mind they
have that capacity, but in reality they don't in the spiritual context
here. But that's the nature of man.
Well, I want to invite people that are going to look up to
me and think that I'm pretty swell for inviting them. And
maybe when they have some important thing, they'll invite me. in
return. That's just the way we are by
nature. But Jesus said He came not to call the righteous but
sinners to repentance and to display grace to those who absolutely
cannot pay you back. They have nothing. That displays
the nature of God in grace. That no man should glory in His
presence. And if they feel that they can
share in their redemption, they take away from Christ and their
glory in themselves. Well, I wasn't much of a sinner,
or I know I did some things, but here's all the good stuff
that I did to make up for that. And so, consequentially, I'm
not in as much debt other people. Thank God I'm not like that publican
guy. I do all these wonderful things.
So, I'd like to compare a little bit some things that we find
and that we went through some time ago in Luke chapter 4. You
remember the Lord, He went to the synagogue, and then they
gave Him the scroll to read, and He picked up that scroll
at Isaiah, and He read there. And He said, the Spirit of the Lord
is upon Me in Luke 4.18, because He hath anointed me to preach
the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight
to the blind. to set at liberty them that are
bruised." And boy, there's just several messages there on his
qualifications and his purpose that are just fully met by him. He says, The acceptable year
of the Lord. That's from Isaiah 61-2 there. And the acceptable year of the
Lord is not calendar time. And although many in religion
say, well, now is that time, and it's because of the calendar,
all these things are happening. But it's really the Lord's time. When it pleased God, Paul said, He was not on his way to repent
when he got zapped on the road to Damascus. He was still on
his way to do more mischief, but it was his appointed time,
and it was the acceptable time to the Lord. He says, when it
pleased God to reveal His Son in me, then it happened. And that's where it did happen. So we're not talking about calendar
time here, but spiritual time. 2 Corinthians 6-2, Paul quotes
that here, and he says, For he saith, I have heard thee in a
time accepted. Not a time accepted by us, but
it's a time accepted and determined by God. I've heard thee in a
time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored
thee." Isn't that interesting? He says, the time that I appointed
for your salvation, I succored you. I nurtured you. I gave you a new heart. I washed
you. I cleaned you up. All those things
that it talks about in Ezekiel and Jeremiah. I took care of
all that stuff. And behold, now is the accepted
time. Behold, now is the day of salvation,
Isaiah 49.8. It's the time that He appoints.
Now's the time. It won't happen one minute sooner
or one minute later than the time that God determines that
it will happen. And if He has determined it,
then it shall come to pass as He said that it would. So anyway, I wanted to kind of
focus a little bit on this, the acceptable year of the Lord,
and then compare that to in Luke chapter 14, where we're at today,
starting in verse 16. He says, Then said He unto him,
A certain man made a great supper and bade many. And he sent his
servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come,
for all things are now ready. So in Luke and in Isaiah, we
have the acceptable time of the year of the Lord. We have the
time that God determines for His salvation for His people.
He's made all the preparations. He has the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. All things are now ready. They
were ready in Adam's day. They were ready in Abraham's
day, Jacob's day, Israel's day, Joseph's day, And they're ready today. They're always ready at the time
that the Lord has appointed and determined. Things are now ready. And so now let's look in Luke
chapter 7. where Jesus answering said unto
them in Luke 7, 22, Jesus answering and said unto them, go your way
and tell John what things you've seen and heard, how the blind
see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear,
the dead are raised, the poor, the gospel is preached. And note
back here in Luke 14, verse 13, he says, when you make a feast,
call the poor. the ones that the gospel should
be preached to. Call the maimed. Call the lame. Call the blind. Invite them. And isn't that what... He's not chosen the mighty or
the proud. He's chosen the foolish things
of this world to confound the things which are mighty. So those that He has caused to see
themselves as spiritually poor, spiritually maimed, spiritually
lame, spiritually blind, that he says, I give sight to them,
I give them hearing, I give them the ability to walk, the ability
to hear. And so it's such a great metaphor
that's used here to convey a deep picture and understanding of
the gospel. When thou makest a dinner, this
Pharisee, this lawyer, He's talking to him, and he says, and he's
giving him this parable, and the Pharisee says, I know how
to do a dinner. I do it all the time. I have one every Sabbath day,
and I invite whoever I want, but mostly I invite people so
they'll owe me. But when thou makest a dinner,
And here, this is an interesting word, you know, in America we
think dinner. Well, that's the time in the
evening when we sit down at the table and we have dinner. But in the Greek this word is
ariston, and it means to break fast. And it refers primarily
to the first food taken early in the morning before work. That's
what it says in my vines expository dictionary. break the fast before
work. And in the Eastern, you know,
and another thing that's interesting here is in the Eastern custom,
you know, we think we drag up the table and the chairs and
we sit all around the table or like it's pictured in The Last
Supper, they're all at a long table with chairs and everything.
But the Eastern custom, it was kind of they ate on the floor
there on a kind of in reclining positions and not like what we
were used to in the Western culture. So when you make a dinner, a
breakfast, it's the first food. First thing you should have is
the bread of life. First thing that you need early
in the morning before work. And remember, in verse 1 of our
chapter 14, Jesus was bidden to the house of the Pharisees
to eat bread on the Sabbath day. And it was this morning feast,
this morning time, when they would have eaten this bread. So spiritually, to partake of
the bread of life, first before work. Isn't that an interesting
concept? On the Sabbath, this day that
pictures rest, remember what it says in Hebrews 4, he that
has entered into his rest has ceased from his own work. So
we couple that with this meal that should be celebrated, that
should be taken spiritually, looking at before work. It's the primary one. And so,
he says when you make a dinner, that breakfast, or a supper,
he uses those two terms. And we kind of think of them
as interchangeable, but really one is the morning one that we
just discussed and this other one is the evening or chief meal. and has a connotation of to devour
coupled with expense and costliness. What a picture of the Lord, the
costliness of His blood sacrificed in our behalf, the cost of the
blood of Christ, morning and evening. Both displayed in Old
Testament metaphors so many times that Norm's pointed out in the
sacrifices. Exodus 16, in verse 8, Moses
said, It shall be when the Lord shall give you in the evening
flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full. What a spiritual
application, what a picture, what a metaphor of everything
that the Lord does for His people in providing them the bread of
life and His very flesh. He says, unless men eat my flesh,
He'll not have any part of me." And of course, he's not promoting
cannibalism. It's a spiritual issue there.
So in 2 Chronicles 2, verse 4 describes the continual offerings of the
showbread and the burnt offerings in the tabernacle. application of the picture found
in Luke 22 19 where he took bread and gave thanks and break it
and gave unto them saying this is this is my body not and not
actually I'm not tapping it with a wand and making it actually
my body says this is a picture Take, eat, this is my body which
is given for you. And he says, do it in remembrance
of me. When you do this, the purpose
of it is to remember my body that was broken for you, in your
behalf. So we have this invitation and
we have this response in Luke 14. And then we have this utterance
by the attendee that says, oh, that was deep. Blessed be he
that eats bread in the kingdom of God and the Lord's That was
said by determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. And the
Lord says, here's a parable about that,
starting in Luke 14, the great feast invitation. And when one
of them sat at meat with him, heard these things, he said unto
him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.
And then Jesus, in verse 16, then said unto him, Oh yeah,
a certain man made a great supper. And he bade many. And boy, what
a picture we have of the general call. The gospel, when he says,
go you into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
And the general call goes out. Remember the parable of the sower
that he sent the disciples out. And he says, I'm going to give
you a parable that's going to kind of clue you in on how this
is going to go. You're going to cast a seed out.
You're going to preach the gospel to wherever you go, to whoever
you meet. Some of it's going to fall by the wayside. Some
of it's going to fall on rocky ground and not take root. Some
of it's going to be eaten by the birds. But some of it is
going to take root on the good ground, he says. Some of it's
going to fall in good ground, that ground that's prepared by
the Holy Spirit. And it's going to bring forth
fruit. So he gives that parable and
then he says when here we have a great supper made many and
Then we come to the universal response. I was telling Norman
I said, you know, this is the only thing that's really universal
is Depravity is Rejection They all said with one consent it
means they were all in agreement on this and They all had the
same thought. They all had the same idea because
they are all coming from the same place in their natural condition. That's just how they looked at
things. That's just how they view things. Please have me excused. A certain man made a great supper
and bade many. This great word in the Greek
is megas. That's where we get like megaphone
or mega millionaire. Mega means big, enormous, exceedingly
great. And I like what one of the commentators
said. I can't remember which one I
read there, but he said, It was an exceedingly great banquet
of mercy, the most costly. And in verse 17, He sent His
servant at suppertime to say to them that were bidden, Come,
for all things are ready. The Lamb has been slain from
the foundation of the world, a remedy for sin. they all with one consent began
to make excuse. And the first said unto him,
well, I bought a piece of ground, I must need to go see to it,
and I pray thee have me excuse. And we read those, I won't read
them all again, but they all had different things that they
were using for excuse, but their main thought was, I don't want
to go. And here's my most convenient
reason not to. And that's just our nature in
our old condition. Excuses are just smoke. And the
reality is that they just desire not to come. That's just the
way they are. All with one consent. They're precedent. What they
considered important were the things of this world and not
to be bothered by what is in reality the most important thing. You'd think they'd be saying,
a great feast, I'm coming. It's all good. Norman was reading
a scripture this morning that showed all the good things. compared
with all the bad things, and they would think that people
would say, oh, I want all the good things. But no, men love
darkness rather than light because that's their nature. all heard, all received the invitation,
why would you not want to come? And it's just a fact that the
nature of sin and the fall are just significant. They're greater
than we ever could imagine. And we're not just wounded by it.
We're just killed. All refused. Proverbs 124 and
25 says, I've called because I've called. And you refused. I've stretched out my hand and
no man regarded, but you have said it not all my counsel and
would none of my reproof." They don't want anything to do with
saying your ways are not good and you're at enmity. How can
this be overcome? It obviously has to be overcome
before anyone could be redeemed because it says we won't come.
There's Psalm 14, there's none that seek God, none righteous,
none that do any good, no none. none at all. And he repeats that
in another psalm later on. And then Paul quotes it in Romans
chapter 3. So it's laid out there very strongly. So we have this problem that
has to be overcome. And how does that happen? Well,
it's the effectual call. We had the general call that
went out and everybody says, nope, That has to be overridden
and that has to be taken care of. And so the effectual call,
the gospel that's applied by the Holy Spirit in the vessels
that God had afore prepared unto glory, the New Testament tells
us. You put up with the other guys, the long suffering you
put up with them. to make known His glory in the
vessels He had aforeprepared unto glory." So we have this
need, and Jesus said, you have to be born again. It's just the
old part of you is your old nature is dead in trespasses and sins. You have to start over. You have
to be born again from above. So we have The invitation and
the response displayed again in Revelation chapter 3 verse
20 says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. And the free
will people kind of enjoy this verse. He's knocked, so you need
to answer. He says, If any man hear my voice,
And you know in John 10, he says, my sheep hear my voice. He says,
the rest of you that are not my sheep, you don't believe because
you're not my sheep. It's not the other way around.
He says, you're not my sheep, therefore you cannot hear, you
cannot come. He says, if any man hear my voice
and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him,
and he with me." And we looked at that word supper a minute
ago, the evening meal, the costly meal, the expense meal, the great
feast. Well, supper was the noun part
of that, and sup is the verb action part of that. So if any
man If any man opens the door, I will come in to him and will
sup with him and he with me." The verb of partaking to dine. But he says, if any man hear
my voice, but we just read that you need to call the deaf. You
need to call the blind. You need to call the lame. He
says, so how does one hear? And boy, if you missed out on
Wednesday night Bible study, it was a tremendous message that
Norm brought from Zechariah, feed my flock. And he made reference
to Romans chapter 10. And I said, wow, we're going
to intersect at that very point here, Sunday morning in the Bible
class. In Romans 10.14 it says, How
shall they call on Him in whom they've not believed? How shall
they believe in Him in whom they've not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? And I would just note the order
of requirements here because it says you can't call without
belief. How can you call in whom you've
not believed? You're not going to call on something
you don't believe in. It just won't happen. And you can't believe without
hearing. And you can't hear without one preaching or declaring the
gospel, whether that comes from somebody standing there before
you, or whether you're reading Zachariah declaring the gospel,
or Amos, or Luke, or John, or whoever. you have to have the
gospel declared to you. You have to hear it. And it's
only God who can give a heart to perceive, eyes
to see and ears to hear." That comes from Deuteronomy 29, verse
4. In that block of Scripture, I would say that it was used,
the Lord is speaking, and He's using it in a negative context
because of the people that were rejecting Him. He said, it's
because I've not given you a heart to perceive. I've not given you
eyes to see. I've not given you ears to hear."
What a plain statement of that's what's required. And that's what
it tells us in so many places in the Scripture. You have to
be born again. He says, I have to give you a
new heart. And so the invitation from the
king is given, come unto me, the bread of life, And you would
not. The king made a great supper,
and he made many, and they would not. They wouldn't come. The
call to the great supper is given, but none can or will come of
themselves, of their own will, desire, or ability. They'll make
up some reason. I don't have time. I don't want
to. That's the main thing. I don't
want to, so I'm going to come up with a reason that satisfies
that. In John 6, verses 33-44, in this
block of Scripture, Jesus got through feeding the 5,000 with
the two loaves of bread. And then He took that, and then
He says, I'm the bread of life. This is just a picture. I'm the
bread of life. And then after he says that,
he says, no man can come to me except the Father which sent
me draw him. So I say that to kind of compare
it with Luke chapter 14 here. And in verse 1, it says, And
it came to pass, as he went to the house of one of the chief
Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day, that they watched
him. Well, we move on down to verse 16, So that has to be overcome, compel
them to come in, to be called out of that darkness of rejection,
of refusal, called into His marvelous light. And verse 23 says, compel
them to come in. In verse 23 he says, those bidden
in the general invitation who made excuse and refused that
were not compelled, he says, they shall not taste of my supper.
They shall not partake in this costly, expensive, great feast. And conversely, all whom the
Father gave the Son and the covenant of grace shall come, and as it's
said in Revelation 3.20, He shall sup with them. He shall partake
with them. Further, in John 6.35, Jesus
said unto them, I am the bread of life, he that cometh to me
shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
But I said unto you that ye also have seen me, and believe not,
all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. will be those that he says compel
them to come in. And that word compel means to
put a constraint upon. And Webster defines this variously
as forced in an unnatural manner to come together to draw tight,
to draw to you tightly. Isn't that interesting? Because
Jesus says, no man can come to me except the Father. Draw him. tightly, compel him. No man can
come unto me unless the Father compels him. No man can come
to me except the Father which sent me. Draw him, and I will
raise him up at the last day. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power." That talks about God's power. He takes us
from the, I don't want to come, to, oh, I'm so glad He invited
me and compelled me to come. that will be willing in the day
of thy power." That grace that overcomes our rejection is compelling
grace, and it's born out of electing love from eternity of the Father,
drawing us to the Son, the true bread of life whose body was
broken for us, and not of Him that willeth Not of him that
runneth, but God that shows mercy in that compelling. And in 2
Timothy 1.9 says, Who saved us and called
us, bade us, that's what that word, He bade many to come, He
called many to come, but effectually called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works. but according to His own purpose
and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began." Our works are, I desire not to come. Our works is, I've
got oxen I need to go take care of. I've got a new wife. I've
got to go somewhere else. I've got to do something else. No thank you. Psalm 65, verse 4, and we'll
close with this because we're just clear out of time. Psalm
65, verse 4 says, "...Blessed is the man whom thou choosest,
and causest..." There's that compel thought again. "...Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest, compels to approach unto thee that he may dwell in
thy courts. We'll be satisfied with the goodness
of thy house, even of thy holy temple. We'll be more than satisfied. We'll just be so grateful, so
humbled, so blessed that he compels us to come in. So we'll stop
there and Thank the Lord for His compelling
grace. So be free in that. Until next time.