Well, good morning. It's good
to see everybody here this morning. We had some people out sick.
I breathe a lot easier. Everybody's feeling better. If
you would, open your Bibles with me to Matthew 22. Matthew 22.
Before we begin, let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, we bow. awesome presence this morning,
thankful to be able to come before you in the person of our Lord
Jesus Christ, pleading His obedience as our only righteousness, pleading
His blood as our only sacrifice to put away our sin. Father,
how thankful we are. How thankful we are for our Lord
Jesus Christ. And Father, we pray this morning
that His name would be exalted and glorified in everything that
we to say and do here this morning. In the opening of Your Word,
in the preaching of Your Word, Father, we pray that You'd show
us by faith the Lord Jesus Christ. Enable us to see Him, to see
His glory, to see His person that would cause us to run to
Him, to rest in Him, to beg Him for mercy, to fall at His feet
and to truly worship. Father, won't we pray for ourselves
here in our class service this morning. We pray for our children's
classes right now and for your people everywhere who meet together
this morning. Father, bless your word where
it's preached to your glory for the good and benefit and edification
of your people. Father, we continue to pray for
those who are sick and hurting and who need you especially.
We pray for Joyce and Barb and Novi Father, so many who need
you especially, we pray you'd be with them. We thank you for
your healing power and restoring many to us, and your power in
being with your people, comforting the hearts of your people. Father,
bless us as we look into your word. Let us see the Lord Jesus
Christ. For it's in his precious name
we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, I've titled
the lesson this morning, The Feast is for the Son. In a sentence, the lesson of
the parable we'll look at this morning teaches us this lesson. It's all for the son. It's all
for the son. Let's begin reading here in Matthew
22 verse 1. And Jesus answered and spake
unto them again by parables and said, the kingdom of heaven is
likened to 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. And he sent forth other servants,
saying, tell them what you're bidden. Behold, I've prepared
my dinner. My oxen and my fatlings are killed,
and all things are ready. Come unto the marriage. And they
made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another
to his merchandise. And the remnant took his servants,
and he treated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the king
heard thereof, he was wroth, and sent forth his armies and
destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. Now the
meaning of the Lord's parable is obvious to us today. The law
and the ceremonies which God gave to Israel, all those things
are given to us as pictures of Christ. And God gave those pictures
of Christ, the law and the ceremony, the priesthood. He gave those
things only to Israel, no other nation on earth. And you know
Israel's history, how often did they reject it? How often did
Israel fall into idolatry? They had the tabernacle, they
had the temple, they had the priest, they had the reading
of the law, they had the prophets. And how often did they reject
all that and turn to idolatry? Finally, God sent his son to
Israel. He came into his own and his
own received him not. They rejected God's son. They
rejected salvation by grace through faith in Christ because they
wanted their works. They took those things that the
law gave them, that the Lord gave them, that were blessings
to point them to Christ, and they hung on to the pictures.
They used them for the wrong reasons and rejected the son.
And just like here in the parable, in 70 AD, God sent his armies. He sent a Roman army to Jerusalem
and they burned it to the ground. They destroyed it, and that was
God's judgment on that nation. God also judged Israel spiritually.
Israel rejected Christ. They didn't want God's son. So
God cast them off. And to this day, the Jews as
a nation are in judicial blindness. They cannot hear the gospel of
Christ. I was at a convention one time,
People got together, they had this big prayer breakfast. My
boss wanted to go, we went. And a man talked about Jesus. As we were leaving, this man,
this woman were Jews, and they were talking about, well, next
year, we need to have this thing balanced out, because what he
says is not true. Jesus is not the Messiah. We're still looking
for him. I mean, I know people Think that, but I'd never seen
it face to face. I never talked to anybody about
that face to face. And I asked him about, you know, really,
they said, really, we're still looking for the Messiah. They
can't hear, they can't hear the gospel. They can't see Christ
and believe on him. And you know what that is? That's
the Lord's just and right judgment on the amendment. They rejected
Christ and God took the gospel away from the Jews and he sent
it to the Gentiles. He tells us about this in the
parable. Read on verse eight. Then saith he to his servants,
the wedding is ready, but they which are bidden were not worthy.
But 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. Now you know what the meaning
of this parable, It was the Lord's purpose eternally. He even showed
us this in the Old Testament scriptures too. It was always
his purpose to save the Gentiles. The Lord never was only going
to save that little nation of Israel. The Lord was always going
to save people, the Gentiles, so that he would have a people
from the whole world for his glory. It was always the Lord's
purpose to take the gospel, to take those things that point
to Christ, to take them away from the Jews, and send them
to the Gentiles. That was always God's purpose.
But this parable shows us when God did it, he was just and right
to do it. I mean, it was his purpose, yes,
but he was just and right to do it because Israel rejected
Christ. Just like in the parable, it
was only right for the king to send his servants out and go
invite the poor people to come to the wedding of his son because
the rich people, the nobles and the nobility and the rich people
They rejected it, they refused to come. Well, it's only right
that God send the gospel to the poor Gentiles after the Jews
refused it. Now, if that's all we get from
this, we missed it. This parable is not just a parable
about the Jews. This is a warning to you and
me. And I pray we heed it. The Lord will judge you and me
the very same way. If we reject the gospel of Christ
and we trod underfoot the son of God and we count his blood
as a common unholy thing. Now the key to understanding
this parable and applying it to our hearts, the key to understanding
the gospel, the key to understanding why God does everything he does.
Now we may not understand why God's doing what he's doing,
but this is why God's doing what he's doing in every single instance. This is the, You cannot understand
the gospel until you understand this. Everything God does is
for the glory of his son. Everything from creation. God
created this world for the glory of his son. He allowed Adam to
fall for the glory of his son. He filled the Old Testament with
stories, what we call Bible stories for the glory of his son to give
us pictures of Christ. You know, Wednesday nights as
we're going through Genesis, we're now looking at the ark.
You know why God sent that flood and destroyed the world with
the flood, but only Satan and his family and those animals
in that ark? It's for the glory of his son. I mean, that's just
every instance. It's all for the glory of his
son. The king in this parable is having
a feast. He's having a wedding feast.
You know why he's having this wedding feast? So that his son will be
honored by everybody in his kingdom. The purpose is the honor of the
son that in verse two, it says here, uh, the kingdom of heaven
is likened to a certain King, which made a marriage for his
son. Everything he did was for his
son. Now the purpose of everything that God does is so that his
son will be honored and glorified the purpose of the gospel. What
is the purpose of the gospel? It's to glorify Christ. The purpose,
the main purpose of the gospel is not to save you and me from
hell. The purpose of the gospel is to glorify the son. The purpose
of this wedding feast and the parable was not so that the king
could feed poor people. The purpose of it wasn't so that
poor people could come sing and dance, you know, with the son.
The purpose of the wedding feast was to honor the king's son.
The purpose of the gospel is to glorify Christ. If we're not
here to glorify Christ, we're wasting our time. Now the result
of the gospel is the salvation of God's people. The result of
the gospel is the feeding of God's sheep. The result of the
gospel is teaching God's people, enabling them to grow in grace.
The result is to comfort the hearts of God's people. But that's
the result, not the purpose. The purpose is to glorify Christ. It's to glorify the son. Now
let me give you four points about honoring God's son from this
parable. Number one is this. The marriage feast is a picture
of the gospel of Christ. Verse four, again, he sent forth
other servants saying, tell them what you're bidding. Behold,
I've prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fatlings are killed and
all things are ready. Come unto the marriage. Now the
king sent out his servants to tell people everything's ready.
I've made everything ready. You don't have to do a thing.
I made everything ready. Now come and die. Come and honor
my son. And that's the message of the
gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ has made everything ready. He
did it all. You don't have to do a thing.
He did it all. He's made everything ready. Now come to him. Come
to Him in faith. Come to Him believing Him. Come
and glorify Him. Come and celebrate Him. Everything's
ready. Don't bring anything of your
own. Don't bring anything of your own. If you did, wouldn't
that be an insult to the king? Wouldn't that be an insult to
the king's son? Jay and I were at a wedding recently. I mean, maybe by real rich people's
standard, it wasn't that fancy. Seemed fancy to me. Would have
been something if we'd brought our own little bag of food and
stuff. You know, they got this big buffet and all that. Would
have been something if we just, you know, we don't want to disturb
you. You know, you invite us to this
wedding and, you know, we'll just eat out of this little baggie
here. We got some trail mix. That'd be an insult to them.
We provide everything. Come eat. Come dine. That'd be
an insult. What an insult it would be. For
us to come to God's Son, saying, I know you've provided everything,
but I've got this little baggy, dried up trail mix here. I'll
contribute to the cause. That's an insult to the King.
Everything's been made ready. Everything's provided in the
blood atonement of Christ. That's what the oxen and the
fatlings mean. There's been a sacrifice. There's a blood atonement that's
already been made. You come and satisfy your spiritual
hunger. You come and satisfy your spiritual
thirst because everything is provided in Christ. Come to Him
and have it all. Just come. Come to Christ. Believe
Him. Come and celebrate Him. And I
tell you this is a feast of fat things. Now scripture talks about
fat things meaning good tasting things. There is nothing low
fat here. Janet sent me to the store. a
few weeks ago. Y'all never send a man to do
a woman's job. She sent me to the store to get
something she needed to make in dinner, some chicken soup,
I don't know, something she sent me to get, I don't know. And
without realizing it, I said, I bought low-fat. And I brought
that home. She said, well, I'll use it,
but this ain't going to taste very good. The gospel had no
low-fat things in it. It's a feast of good things.
This is a feast of a message of glad tidings of good things. It says salvation is already
accomplished. It's full. It's free in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now come and have it. Come and
have it. The King's not inviting you.
He's bidding you to come. Come and have it. Come. Come
without your works and just rest in Christ and celebrate Him.
Come and honor the Son. That's why God does everything
He does to honor the Son. Would you be blessed of God?
Honor the son. Honor the son by believing him,
come to him. All right, here's the second
thing. Sadly, most people reject Christ
and his gospel. People refuse to come. The king
sent out and told him, you're bidding to come to the marriage
of my son, and they refused to come. Maybe they didn't like
the king too much. Maybe they didn't like his son
too much, I don't know. But this really wasn't an invitation. King doesn't send somebody and
burn a city to the ground if he invites you and you don't
come. This was a command, a command to come to honor my son, and
they just didn't feel like they had to do it. And I tell you,
this is a real good picture in the people who refused to come
to the wedding. You know why they refused to come, the excuse
that they gave? I got work to do and profit to
gain. Verse five, but they made light
of it. The king bid them to the marriage
of his son, told them, come honor my son. And they made light of
it. They honoring his son's no big deal. And they went their
ways. One to his farm, another to his
merchandise. See these, these fellows would
rather go work on their farm. They'd rather go down. Maybe
he owned a general store. He got merchandise. He's making
merchandise of men's souls. I'd rather go down here and get
profit from my merchandise. I'd rather go down here and work
on my farm. I'm still like Cain. I'm still like Cain. I want to
grow my fruits and vegetables to bring to God. I won't go down
here to my general store and make money off my merchandise.
That's more valuable to me. That's more important to me than
coming to honor the Son, than giving up my works and coming
to honor the Son. And that's the very reason people
don't come to Christ. They don't see any value of Christ.
They don't see any value in him for their souls. Blindly they
see value in their own works, their own works of religion,
but they don't see any value in resting in Christ. They don't
see any beauty in him that they should desire him, that they
should come to him. They don't see their need. They
don't see their need of Christ and they don't, you know why
they don't see their need of him. They don't see their own sin. No seeing their
own helplessness. They don't see their own deadness.
They think their goodness is enough to get God to accept them. And the second reason people
don't come to Christ is because by nature we hate Him. That's
exactly right. By nature we hate Him. We hate
God the King. That's been the issue from the
time of Adam in the garden to here in 2022 AD. That's the problem. We hate God. We hate having God
reign over us. We hate having God's son to reign
over us, and we hate his servants who tell us about him. Verse
six, the remnant, those that didn't go to their farms and
didn't go to their general store, the remnant took his servants
and entreated them spitefully and slew them. They took God's servants and
they killed them. Well, it's no wonder the king
sent his armies to destroy and burn their city to the ground.
It's no wonder. They just ignored his commandment
and killed his servants. And with God, this was, you know,
the judgment of the Jews in burning Jerusalem down, that really don't
have anything to do with you and me. This is talking about
one day in judgment. When God condemns people and
sends them to hell, nobody there is gonna be able to say, God's
wrong to do it. Not one of them. They're all
gonna have to say, it's my own fault. Not one person in hell
is gonna be able to say, I'm not saved because God didn't
choose me. I believe in election. The only reason I'm not saved
is God didn't choose me. Nobody's going to say that. Nobody
is going to be able to say I'm not saved because the blood of
Christ wasn't enough to put my sin away. Christ crucified, Christ
lifted up on the tree was not enough to draw me to him. It's
God's fault. Christ could not save me. Nobody's
going to say that. They're going to have to say
it's my fault. I'm not here because God didn't
choose me. I'm not here because Christ didn't die for me. I'm here because
of my sin. I'm getting what I deserve. I'm not saved because I rejected
Christ and refused to believe on Him. I'm telling you, the
issue here is who are you trying to honor? Who am I trying to
honor? That's the issue. If we're seeking
to honor ourselves and get gain for ourselves, we'll be damned. God's wrath is going to come
on those who refuse to trust on His Son. They refuse to honor
the Son. And that's the issue. And if
you would honor the Son, here's how you honor the Son. It's by
believing Him. By bowing to Him and believing
Him and trusting that He's all it takes to save your sinful
soul. That's how you honor the Son. These refuse to do it. Alright, here's the third thing.
The wedding garment is the righteousness of Christ. And when the king came in to
see the guest, he saw their man, which had not on a wedding garment.
And he sayeth unto him, friend, how camest thou in hither not
having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. See, he
had no defense. He couldn't say anything in defense
of himself. He realized here, this is my
fault. Then said the king to the servants, bind him hand and
foot and take him away and cast him into outer darkness. There
should be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now in this wedding
feast, everything, everything was made ready by the king. Everything. The tables, the chairs, they
had fancy tablecloths. They even had those fancy things
that cover up the chairs. You ever seen those white cloths
they used to cover up the chairs, you know? They had fancy china
and silverware. The place settings were all done
in crystal glasses. The food, the drink, everything
all made ready by the king. including the wedding garments
that everybody wore to the feast. Now, it kind of sounds like the
people who ended up coming to the wedding feast, they were
people who were out in the highways, weren't they? The highways going
out into the country. These are country folks. They're
poor people. They're out there working in
their fields. They're wearing rough working clothes, you know, the
kind of clothes that poor people would wear. That's what they're
wearing. when the king bid them to come to the wedding of his
son. And the king understood that. He knew who he was bidding
to come to the feast. So you know what he did? He knew
the people would come and were poor and ill-dressed and naked
and dirty. He provided a wedding garment
for everybody to feast. And the king, he's so rich, he
can be generous like this. He's so wealthy, he owns everything. He is so wealthy. He can be generous
enough to provide a garment for everybody. It's just like the
garment that your son's wearing to the wedding feast. Now, I
know when we have weddings, we don't honor the groom. We're
all honoring the bride. I mean, that's just the way it
is in our society. But can you imagine how everybody
look at women coming to a wedding all dressed in a great big white
gown, dressed just like the bride? That would not go over too well,
would it? The king says, I'm so generous to these people that
I'm bidding to come to the wedding feast of my son to honor my son.
You know how I'm going to honor my son? I'm going to dress everybody
just like him in garments just as glorious as the prince, the
crown prince. Everybody was dressed just as
handsome as the king's son. Isn't that something? Wouldn't
you love to be dressed like the king's son? But there's a fellow
who came. came that feast, and he refused
to put on that wedding garment that the king provided. I like
my own clothes, he said. I'll just wear these, thank you.
You see, he wanted to come to the party. He wanted to come
to the party. He wanted to come for the party.
He wanted to enjoy the free food. He wanted to enjoy the fancy
place settings. I mean, how often do you get
to go to a place with fancy place settings, like what the king
would put out? He wanted to enjoy that. He wanted to enjoy good
music. The king's throwing a feast for
his son. He's going to have a good band, isn't he? He wanted to
come enjoy the good music and dance the night away. And this
is what he didn't understand. Brother, it's not your party.
This is to honor the king's son. He wanted to come enjoy all those
things for himself. He didn't want to come honor
the son. See the difference? His goal was to enjoy the good
food, to be noticed for himself. I'm here at the wedding feast
of the king's son, you know, he was there to honor himself,
not honor. His goal was not to honor the
son and the king thrust him out. Now, why is this wedding garment
so important? I mean, I know this is just a
parable, but why is this so important? Well, it's because the wedding
garment is a picture of the righteousness of God's son. Now there are people
in the assembly, what we call the church today, you know, we,
We meet here, the doors are open to anybody. People of all different
kinds, you know, come in. Some know the Lord, some don't.
Some are coming seeking the Lord. Some aren't. People come for
all reasons. Or people do what they want,
don't they? For whatever reason, they come. And some people in
that assembly are just there pretending. They're wearing a
garment. And it looks pretty good to us.
It looks pretty good. They're a nice, moral, kind,
You know, person seems like they're pretty religious. Seems like
they got the doctrine down. You know, they're pretty good
Calvinists look pretty good to us. But what it's hard for you
and me to tell is they're wearing a garment that they made themselves
of their own works. Now they act like they want to
honor Christ. I mean, they know the words that
they should say. I mean, you know, they're not going to come
and say, I'm trying to come make a show of myself. They act like
they want to honor Christ, but really what they're doing is
seeking their own honor. and their own recognition for
the fine garment that they're wearing. They want everybody
to see them. They want people to see all their
religious works. They want them to see how strict
and orthodox, you know, that they are. They want people to
see their morality. They want people to see, ooh,
this guy's got a knowledge of doctrine. He's got a knowledge
of old writers or knowledge of things, you know, whatever. It's
just something. I mean, they try not to exactly
major on, but they want you to notice. There's something about
them that makes them superior to you. So they get noticed. And they enjoy the trinkets of
religion. They enjoy the atmosphere of
religion. They want the music. They want
to dance the night away. They want to party atmosphere
with all the fine china and the tablecloths and stuff, you know.
They want to party atmosphere. Oh, they want lots of preachers.
They want lots of different people. They say, I want all these different
people to come because I want fellowship. And that's the purpose. Fellowship. And I'm all for it.
I mean, man, I want us to enjoy one another's company and stuff,
but that's not the purpose. We need to remember that. That's
not the purpose. The purpose is to honor the Son. Our purpose in being here is
supposed to be to honor Christ, to seek Christ, And these people
that want this big party atmosphere, where are they every Sunday and
every Wednesday? Huh? The simple feeding of God's
sheep, the plain preaching of the gospel by a simple, plain
pastor is not good enough for them. They've got to have the
atmosphere. They've got to have the party.
They're coming for some other reason than to honor the Son.
And in judgment, they're going to be cast into hell. Because
the whole issue is Christ. It's His glory. It's His righteousness. It's His obedience. It's His
sacrifice. It's His person. In every way,
He's got to get all the credit. He's got to get all the glory.
And the one and only way to be accepted in God's presence is
to be dressed in the righteousness of Christ. And when I say dressed,
I don't mean putting on a suit coat or a robe or something that
covers up the stain on your shirt or the dirt on your... When we
talk about being dressed in Christ's righteousness, clothed in Christ's
righteousness, we mean inside and out. Inside and out. I don't want to get too far ahead
of myself, but you know what we're going to look at Wednesday
night? The pitch that kept that ark afloat, kept water from coming
in. The ark was pitched inside and
out. We got to be made righteous inside and out. Made completely
righteous by the Lord Jesus Christ. And I've got good news for everybody
here. I don't care who you are. I don't care what you've done.
I don't care what your past is. I don't care anything about you.
God will save you. He will. If he can get all the
glory for doing it. If he can get all the credit
for doing it. Now, if you can't help out, if you can't help God
save you, if you can't do something to make yourself more savable,
if you can't do something to deserve God's grace, you just
can't do anything because you're a needy, helpless, naked sinner,
God will save you. I promise you God will save you.
Because He'll get all the glory because He has to do all the
saving. You can't do anything. He's got to do it all. That means
He gets all the glory. That's the person God will save.
Now, do you got nothing? Can you do nothing? That's the
person God saved. If he can get all the credit
for doing it. See, it's all about the son, isn't it? All right,
here's the fourth thing. What's the difference between
being called and being chosen? Verse 14, for many are called,
but few are chosen. Now people get so confused about
this verse and they take it to mean so many different things.
but don't be confused about it. Just look at it in context of
the Lord's parable. If you do that, you'll see the
Lord's meaning is very simple. The call that the Lord talks
about here is not the effectual call of the Holy Spirit. It's
the call of the gospel and the chosen that the Lord talks about
are those who God has chosen in divine election. So here's
what the Lord saying. Many people hear the call of
the gospel with the natural ear. If we preach the gospel right,
every time we preach the gospel, we set forth the glory of Christ
and call on sinners to believe Him, to come to Him. When I tell
you in a message, now you come to Christ, you look to Christ.
That's the call of the gospel. That's the command of the gospel.
When we hear the gospel, we hear the glory of Christ. We hear
of who He is and how He humbled Himself to come save His people
from their sins. We are the perfect, glorious
Son of God, who would eternally love sinful men and women like
you and me. The great love wherewith He loved us, that caused Him
to sacrifice Himself, to humble Himself and sacrifice Himself
and endure that pain and that humiliation to suffer death. so that He could redeem His people
from their sin. When you hear the glory of that
person and what He does for just little specks of dust like you
and me, how can you not come to Him? I ask you, how can you
stay away from Him? You come and believe on one who
would love His people like that. He can't fail to save you. You
come and believe on one who has the power to save you. I don't
care how sinful you are. He's got the power to put your
sin away. That's the call of the gospel. Now, how can you
stay away from him? Well, many people hear that message. Many people hear that message.
But few believe it. Most reject it because they think
that they can make a go of it on their own, by their own works,
by their own righteousness. They can, you know, do something
good enough so God will accept them. But the poor, the needy,
the naked, the hungry, those who are out there in the highways,
they come to Christ. The hungry come to Christ to
be fed by Him. The naked come to Christ to be
clothed by Him. The poor come to Christ to be
made rich in Him. And you know why they come? They're
chosen. They're the elect of God. Christ
came and died for them. And this is why I promise you,
when the gospel is preached, This is not just a call to these
ears, it's a call to the heart. The Holy Spirit will powerfully
and irresistibly draw them to Christ by making them see Christ
with eyes of faith. If you see Him, I'm telling you
this, Katie, bar the doors, you're coming to Him and nothing will
stop you. Nothing will stop you. See, the whole point is this.
Salvation is of the Lord. You know why salvation is of
the Lord? From beginning to end, it's of the Lord. so that Christ
gets all the glory in saving His people from their sins. And
the only way a sinner can stand in the presence of God, accept
it, come to the wedding feast of the Son, is the Father chose
us. Christ came and made us obedient,
or made us righteous by His obedience. He put our sin away by the blood
of His sacrifice. And the Holy Spirit gives us
faith, causes us to come to Christ. It's all the work of God, isn't
it? Now, salvation done that way gives Christ all the glory. And that's the purpose behind
everything that God does. And I say it again, I don't care
who you are. If God can get all the glory
in saving you, he will. All right, Lord bless you.