open your Bibles to Acts chapter
17. This is the passage I'm going
to use to introduce our message, and we will be in Matthew 22
for the second part of it. Acts chapter 17, I'm going to
start reading in verse 16. Now while Paul waited for them
at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him. And when he saw the city
wholly given to idolatry, therefore disputed he in the synagogue
with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily
with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of
the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him. And some said,
what will this babbler say? And some, he seemeth to be a
setter forth of strange gods, because he preached unto them
Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought
him unto Areopagus, saying, may we know what this new doctrine
whereof thou speakest is? For thou bringest certain strange
things to our ears, that we would know therefore what these things
mean. For all the Athenians and the
strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but
either to tell or to hear something new. Then Paul stood in the midst
of Mars Hill and said, you men of Athens, I perceive that in
all things you are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld
your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the
unknown God, whom therefore you ignorantly worship, Him declare
I unto you. So we know this passage is where
Paul is in Athens and he sees the idols and you can, from what
we know of Paul, Paul can get very animated. And so he gets
really upset when he sees this. And so he's taking this opportunity
to tell them who the unknown God is. And to illustrate this,
I wanna open with a illustration, I think that you'll see by the
end of it what I mean by it. So if you were at this point
sent to a doctor and this doctor tells you at this point you have
a bad disease and it's going to kill you and you need to go
home and you need to set your house in order because you are
going to die. I'm going to look and see if
there's anything that can be done for you but you need to
go home and then come back. And you go back, you set your
house in order, and the doctor says, I've still got bad news
for you. There is a 100% kill rate for what you have. If things
continue the way they are, you will die. But there is a cure. We have found one. We've heard
of one. But there's only one. And there's
only one way that the cure can be administered. Very specific
method of treatment, and there can be no deviation from it whatsoever. Now, if you were the person who
was going to the doctor, wouldn't you want to find a doctor, number
one, that understood your disease, understood what was wrong with
you? And secondly, a doctor who had had experience in administering
this treatment, this very specific treatment that can only cure
your disease, because you would die otherwise. Well, what if,
in going to this doctor, this was his response? Well, I have
lots of treatments. Let's try them all. Surely, one
of them would work. Or if he says, I know all the
medical literature, all the clinical trials, and all the research
would say, this is how to do it. But here's what I think. And then he goes on to explain
what his thoughts are. What would you do in that situation? In our private lives, we would
say any intelligent thinking person would get out of there,
get away from that person, and go to a place where we knew where
the cure or the treatment was very specifically administered.
If you had a desire to live, you'd get away from that doctor.
Yet millions today go to so-called houses of worship, and they're
sitting there with terminal illness. accepting medicine from people
who do not understand the nature or the cause of their disease,
of sin, or understand the treatment that they've found that must
be administered this specific way, yet they won't give it because,
number one, they don't know it. They don't know this is the treatment. This this speaks of our savior
in this book. This speaks of a God and a savior
and how he cleanses men and women of sins. These people in these
other institutions, they and they may have good intentions.
They don't know, but they have good intentions. But good intentions
in this case still rely on the result is eternal damnation. So good intentions don't get
us anywhere or in order to make the treatment more palatable.
They change how it sounds because it's a little too harsh. It's
a little too exclusive. But in order to avoid that which
is harsh and exclusive in this life, you're condemning your
hearers to something far more harsh and exclusive in the next
life. This is the reality of what Paul
is walking into here in Athens, in seeing these altars to all
these other gods. Will they have good intentions?
Well, maybe it's close to what you're saying, but it's not quite
that. The end result of the words, at least of this book, if I'm
somebody who wants to have something of the promises of this book,
I'd better know what's written in this book, because that's
what most people today go to many other places and have no
idea. The reality of it is we are dead where we sit outside
of Christ. It's not just that we're sick.
We're already dead. We will go on to meet the dead
in the next life if somebody, if the Lord, if the Holy Spirit
does not do something for us. The message here to the unknown
God declared in this parable as I thought, where in the word
of God can I find out where this unknown God is? because clearly
these people didn't know him. They had an altar to who the
unknown God was. And so what I'd like us to look
at is a parable that the Lord himself gave with regard to the
kingdom of heaven and his father. So if you'll turn with me over
to Matthew chapter 22, we'll look at this parable. Let's read the parable in whole,
and then we'll go back and kind of look at it. So in verse one,
Matthew 22, 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 which were bidden to the wedding,
and they would not come. Again, he set 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 unto the marriage. But 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 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 you therefore into the highways,
and as many as you shall find, bid to the marriage. So the 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 saith unto him, Friend,
how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And
he was speechless. And then the king said to the
servants, bind him hand and foot, 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. There are three things in this
parable. There's so much in this parable,
but I want to focus on three things that. To me, tell the
story of who is the unknown God? Who is it that the Lord himself
is setting forth in this parable? Well, the first thing we read
of here is number one, there's a kingdom. And if there is a
kingdom, it necessitates that there be a king. My God is a
king. He is not an option. He is not
a consideration. He is not a genie that you go
to when you have a wish and want something. Nor is he a doormat
named Jesus that you step on when your will conflicts with
his. Yet in most people's worldview
of God and the way they interact with him, he fits one of these
descriptions. It's an option when it's convenient.
I'm busy, I don't have time for this. But yet every now and then
they go on Christmas and Easter, or they show up occasionally. It's an option, he's not a king.
The point is, we don't even have an understanding of what a king
is today. Even you think of the king of
England, that's nothing more than a figurehead. A king back
then had ultimate, absolute power. There is no one that questioned
his will. There is no one that stood against
him. And when they did, he sent his armies out to kill them. So our understanding of king
is very limited in the world we live in today. But here, the
Lord is setting forth, this is who he is. He is the king. He is my father. And this is
the king, not only the king, but he is the king of kings.
He is Lord of Lords. That means he is overall. There
is no one who is even another king who is equal to him. He
is above all the kings. And it says of which, to every
which every knee shall bow. Living, those who are, if the
Lord were to come back today, every living person would bow
the knee to him. Every person who has ever lived
here and died will be raised up, they will bow the knee to.
Those things that we see in this world will bow the knee. The
things that are unseen, the unseen forces in this world that we
have no power over and don't want to even see or know, they
will be required to bow as well because he is the king and demands
that we worship him. And every tongue will confess
that he is Lord, Whether you know it or not, he is your Lord.
Those that love it, he's our Lord. Those that hate him, he's
still your Lord. So every tongue will confess
that he is Lord. And if we see over here in verse
three, he says he sent forth his servants to call them which
were bidden to the wedding. But it says they would not come.
Now this word call is not like me calling you on the phone saying,
hey, come over to my house and have dinner. That's not what
this word actually means. Call, it says, is to call one
to stand or to approach before. This would be as if you were
in a court of law and a judge called you forth. You come here
and you stand here. This is not an option, not an
invitation, not something for you to choose whether you decide
to want to do it or not. That's the point of the understanding
the word call. And so it says, They would not
come. It's not that they could not.
They would not come. What an insult. You consider
if you were invited, whether you liked the king or not, you
have some understanding of his power and who he is, and to say,
you know what, I don't think I'm going to come. And they have
all these excuses, not only in this passage, but in the other
passage in Luke where it references this parable. They had all these
things going on in their life. You know, I bought a plot of
land, I'm getting married, I've got all these things. All these
things that we do in life is the reason why they couldn't
be troubled to come to the pinnacle of what this king is doing in
honoring his son. Sorry, I can't be there. What
an insult. And if you look in verse four,
it says, again, he sent forth other servants. And I stopped
there. I've read this parable so many
times, as I know many of you have, but I had to pause there
for a minute and think, what long-suffering our Lord has with
us. Again, he calls. I'm thankful
he does, because he has to call me again and again and again. Because I'm someone that I don't
always walk the way he's walking. And the Lord has to come to where
I am and pull me back. And I'm thankful that he is such
a long-suffering Lord that he would call me again. So we see
some of the character of the long-suffering of the Lord. He
calls again. And he's saying the dinner's
ready. I've prepared the meals. All
things are ready. All you have to do is come to
the marriage. And in verse 5 and 6, we see
they made light of it. They went their ways, one to
his farm, another to his merchandise, and the rest of them took his
servants and entreated them spitefully and slew them. The servants that
he sent, these are the preachers of the gospel. These are the
men who carries the word of the king. And they are sent out into
the world to proclaim his message. Come to the dinner. The wedding
feast is ready. Everything is done. Come to the
dinner. This is the call of the gospel.
So this is what you know the Lord is saying in the end. You
know many are called but few are chosen. This is the call
of the gospel. So many have heard the message
of the gospel. But how many just they just don't
care. In this case, these ones, they
just won't come. But other ones do come, but these
ones don't. So we see this is the preaching
of the good news of the word, that there is a remedy for sin. And there's nothing for you to
provide, that his son did it all. So he's saying, you come
to him. You come to him for a righteousness
which he can accept. His son's provided that. You
come to him for forgiveness of sins. His son has provided that. You come to him, I think in the
passage our brother read earlier, everything that we're called
to ask our heavenly father for, he already knows that you have
needed those things. Who gave you the will and ability
to even call on his name? So when we think of those things,
we're to come to him. So we see here in light of these
people that they were sent, and this is all of us, this is not
somebody else, the extent of our stupidity and shame and how
our shamelessness knows no boundaries. It's, I won't come. What do you
mean you won't come? This is the king inviting you
to a dinner. I won't come. This is their response. They hate God, they hate his
rule, They hate his authority. They hate his judgment. There's
an utter contempt and disrespect for him. I remember being in
college, and a friend of mine had to go to court, and so he
needed a ride there, and I gave him a ride. And I remember standing
there, and I had never been in there in that fashion before.
I was maybe 22. There was the dirtiest looking
person, filthy clothes, standing there. And they called them up
to come before the judge. They weren't paying attention.
And then the judge had to call them again, get them up here.
And we're talking very disrespectfully to the judge back and forth.
And at one point, the judge said, we're going to stop for a minute.
You're going to go home, and you're going to take a bath.
And you're going to come back with clean clothes, and you're
going to tuck your shirt in. And you're not going to talk
to me that way. And until then, you're not going to get anything
you want. That is us here. These people have been invited
to the wedding. I can't come. I won't come. What
level of disrespect? That level of disrespect, it
made me remember, it made an impression on me as a young man
that like, what disrespect? to show to someone in a place
of authority. And that's just in this world.
This is a king. This person can say off with
your head. But this is us outside of Christ. A hatred for God, a hatred for
his son, a hatred for everything that he stands for. They said,
we don't have and we don't want to make time for you. We hate
you so much and we hate all that is associated with you. So first
we read in this passage, that there is a kingdom and that there
is a king. So this is the Lord's message
of who the unknown God is. There is a king and there is
a king overall. And the second point is that
about this king he will honor his son. This is a banquet of
love. This is the marriage feast for
his son. He has prepared all things. and
he wants nothing more than to honor his son in front of all
the guests. There is no greater honor, especially
given, consider this, how did his son acquire the bride? His
son acquired his bride through his death. He gave everything
for the bride. the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He gave his life for. He stood
before us before time began, and we were united to him then.
And in time, he had to come and live the life we could never
live. He had to die like I should have died. And he has to live
for me and stand before God so that I can become accepted in
his presence. He will honor his son. His acquired
bride was paid with his own life. And in verse seven, it says,
but when the king heard that they wouldn't come and they killed
his servants, he was angry. And he sent forth his armies
and destroyed those murderers, burned up their city. And then
he said to his servants, the wedding is ready, but they which
were bidden were not worthy. So we see here the king's son
is the image of his glory. The brightness of his glory is
found in the Lord Jesus Christ, his son. And everything that
is done in this life and what we will see in the next is all
built around honoring the son, glorifying his son, worshiping
his son. And this is what this all is
centered around. And they said that they would
not come. Not that they could not come,
but they would not. They didn't care. As we read,
they just had some things were just more important. And when
you look at it in terms of in light of eternity, it's ridiculous. Like you're worried about a farm
or you're worried about something you went to buy instead of angering
the one person who has every ability to destroy your entire
life and existence. Just from a humanistic standpoint,
we look at it and say, this is ridiculous. But how foolish is
it? We have God's word here. And
there's people that just don't care. They don't believe it.
They don't want anything to do with it. I have a life. This is a great inconvenience.
Only so if there is no love for the sun. If there's no love for
the sun, this is an inconvenience. It's something that I have to
do, if you're a step different than that. Otherwise, you'd be
here if you had a love for the sun. And so how did God, the
king, react to them? Says he destroyed every one of
them, and he burned up their cities. And he tells them what
instructions now that we've started over, go you therefore into the
highways. and find as many as you shall
find and bid them to the marriage. And so the servants went out
of the highways gathered together all as many as they found both
bad and good and the wedding was furnished with guests. So
those who deem themselves worthy or in this case more worthy than
the son and the king they wouldn't even show up. And so what we
read here is the Lord saying they're excluded. They're pushed
aside, you have done this. But those who by our standards,
we'd look at and say, they're not worthy. These are homeless
people that you found out on the road. It said some of them
are good, some of them are bad, but we pushed them all in here.
And so the king is pleased because now you're in his house and all
the house is full. If you read the other account
of this parable, you know, cause in my mind I'm thinking they're
worthless, they're dirty. It says, it describes them as
poor, maimed, lame, and blind. And so these were not, obviously
we know these are not physical attributes. These are spiritual
attributes. Poor is, you have no righteousness. I have no claim on God as a means
to let me into his kingdom. There's nothing that I can say
for him to say, let Andy Davis come into your house and be accepted. Because if I'm seen outside of
his son, I know what I've done to an extent. He knows much more
what I've done. It's frightening to me to think
of what it must feel like to be a sinner seen by God in your
sin. That is utterly terrifying for
us, and we don't even understand what that means. We have such
a small grasp of the nature of sin. It also says that they were
maimed. Maimed means permanently injured,
and I think As I'm getting older, I'm learning, you know, my body,
things used to heal, they don't anymore. And so now, like, I
permanently can't do certain things because I've injured myself,
usually through my own stupidity in doing something, but then
I'm stuck with it forever. But what this is speaking of,
being maimed, permanently injured, is our fall. When we fell in
Adam, Our spiritual, the spiritual nature that we have to allow
us to love God, to see him, to worship, to know him, it died. So our bodies were left, but
we were permanently injured in a way where that part can never
come back. There's nothing that I can do
to fix it. There's nothing I can do to bring it back even a little
bit. So they brought in the maid. It says they also brought in
the lame. This has to do with ability. You have no ability
to get up your walk. I have there's nothing that I
can do to please God Because I do it because it's done in
sin my walk before him. I'm ashamed of I'm ashamed of
when I when you examine even something and say my faith I'm
ashamed my faith that I don't love him more that I don't think
of him more that I forget him as often as I do these things
are all part of my walk in this life and but yet it says the
lame are brought in. And lastly, the blind. The blind
are the ones who have no ability to see God, and if they have
no ability to see God, you have no ability to see yourself. Because
you can only truly know yourself and who you are before God is
if you see him. When you see him, then you will
have an idea, some glimpse of who you are. So what is beautiful
about this, of all these people who by all means and measures
we would say were not the people we would select to populate our
wedding, none of them were asking to come, none of them knew to
come, but yet the king said, you go get them. Go get them
and bring them in. It was compelled them to come
in, I believe the other parable used that word. So it's not inviting
them. It's saying, come with me. We
will drag you in. Aren't you thankful that the
Lord, when he comes to find you, it's not something where this
is something you enter into a decision together. He brings you. Just
like Mephibosheth, when David said, he said, you go and fetch
him, go and get him. I'm not asking you whether you
want to come, you will be brought. And so I'm thankful that that's
how the Lord deals with me, because otherwise I wouldn't come. I
would find a reason like everybody else to not come. So how can
people like this, if you consider this, of the folks that were
populating this wedding and what they must have looked like when
they pulled them off the road, because these are beggars and
homeless people. So you can imagine the condition
that they were dragged into the king's palace because this was
dinner's ready. So they've dragged them right
in. There was no cleaning them up. How can people like this
coming to the wedding into the presence of the king and honor
his son? Don't miss this. In verse 11,
we read of a man that did not have on a wedding garment. This
is how the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind can be
accepted. He provides the wedding garment. In this day, I guess
that when you had a wedding, you provided your guests what
to wear. Everybody looked the same. There
was not a blue one for this one over here and a red one here.
Whatever you were provided with, that's what you wore, because
that's what the wedding garment was. He provides the wedding
garment. And this is the spiritual application. All we need to come into his
kingdom, to come into his house, where my father welcomes me,
it's been provided. There's nothing that I need to
bring to buy it. There's nothing that I need to
bring on my own to say, this is mine, and we're gonna put
my little pin on the garment that I have. it's been provided
for you. And secondly, and this was the
beautiful part that occurred to me, is we all look the same. Nobody gets a different one.
If everybody is wearing the same thing, we all look the same.
Nobody can look at someone over here and say, well, this one's
better than that one. Whether you were rich, poor,
blind, lame. They didn't know everybody looked
the same. And so this is the beauty of
what we're given with the righteousness of Christ. There is no my righteousness
and his. There's only his righteousness.
This is the only thing that God will accept. And if we are given
his righteousness, we have everything we'll ever need. We are not because
we are united and made one with him. This is not just I'm getting
some. I remember this clear as day
as a kid that my pastor Henry at the time was describing the
righteousness of Christ. And he said this is not something
that if I put like a sheet over your head and you're underneath. and we see you from the outside,
that we know you're underneath the sheet. It's not something
laid on you. We are actually made one with
Christ. There is no difference. Romans
8 29 says we are conformed to the image of his son. It means
we are made just like him. How Christ is seen, if I'm in
him, that's how I'm seen. So this gift that he gives, this
wedding garment, is the greatest gift that he can give. And if
you've been bidden to the wedding, you're called to wear the wedding
garment. But this man didn't have one.
And so my final point, the third point, so first is it's a king
that has a kingdom. The second is there's a son that
will be honored. And the third is, Whatever he
does or whatever he does not do with you, everything is on
his terms. And that is clear from this story
with the king and the wedding garment. Because when the king
came to see the guests in verse 11, he saw there was a man that
did not have on the wedding garment. And he said unto him, friend,
how'd you come in here not having a wedding garment? And he was
speechless. You see, salvation is on his
terms. he tells us right here in this
book what his terms are. It's not what you think, it's
not what you do or don't do, and it has nothing to do with
how you feel. If you want the promises that are found in this
book, we better find out what's written in it. We better crack
it open every now and then. We better find out what the requirements
are, or else we will find ourselves like this man, who brought his
own, wedding garment. Now, what is the only reason
why he would have his own wedding garment? The only reason he would
have his own wedding garment is he felt it was better or added
to the wedding garment that the king provided. Because if the
wedding garment that the king provided was the best, there
was nothing better, the finest wedding garment that a man could
wear, he would have wore it. But he brought his own. And what
this tells us, spiritual application, you can bring nothing before
the presence of this king. The only thing that he will accept
is the righteousness of his son. That is the only honor and glory
which he will respond to, and anything else, we're shown how
he deals with it. So if he tells us salvation's
only in Christ, then salvation's only in Christ. If he tells us
that the only way you can be cleansed by his blood, Lord cleanse
me with his blood. I need to be cleansed. And if
he tells us you can only enter at the straight gate in the narrow
way, then we best be able to get through that gate. Because
I can tell you this, the gate is not going to accommodate what
you bring with you. There's only one way through
the gate. And if you bring anything with you other than Christ, You
can't get through the gate and this is what the illustration
that the lord gives here We must come The gate will not
widen for us if he says to you To wear the wedding garment the
righteousness the deeds the merits everything that makes his son
glorious We best throw off our old garment and put on his wedding
garment It made me think of, I love the story of blind Bartimaeus
when the Lord's passing by, when they told him, the Lord calls
you, Jesus, our son of David, have mercy on me. And they say,
okay, Bartimaeus, stop yelling. The Lord's called you and he
wants to see you. What's the first thing he did?
He was a beggar by the side of the road. And you could imagine
the nasty coat that he wore. It stunk, it was filthy. There
was no cleaning it up. It was worn. He didn't take it
off, fold it, set it down, and look where he set it. He threw
it off. He didn't look where it fell
on the ground, didn't care, because he wasn't going to pick it back
up. And this is the wedding garment. If we are told to wear the wedding
garment of Christ, this is the only garment that allows me into
the house of the king. This is the garment that I want. And the interesting thing here
is the Lord tells this parable. It's very clear. Describes a
sovereign king that has his own set of rules. Those who do not
follow his rules are cast out and destroyed. Those who are
brought in, it's not because you deserved anything, and he's
giving you everything. He's giving you the meal to feed
on for the rest of your life. That is, this is the bread of
life. Christ is the bread of life.
We're given the meal to feed on for the rest of our lives.
We're given his righteousness as the wedding garment. All these
things, and the Lord doesn't offer any apology or explanation
for this. He just simply states it. This
is the unknown God. Can we know him? The Lord set
him forth here in this passage. This I do know, we can know him,
he's in this word. And this is, I believe, shows
forth who this unknown God is through the parable the Lord
gives. All I know is that I want to be a guest at this wedding.
I want him to come get me, I want him to clothe me, and I want
him to feed me. So I say, Lord, draw me, and
I pray the Lord does the same for you. All right, that's where
I'll leave you tonight. Let's bow our heads in prayer
before we go. Our Heavenly Father, we pray
to you in the high and holy name of Christ Jesus, our Lord. And
Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for that you
are the king. And we're thankful and ask that
you'd make us to be willing subjects of your kingdom. We ask that
you'd cause us to see your son in the same glory and light which
you see him. Give us a greater love for him
and a greater appreciation for the righteousness, the wedding
garment that allows us to come into your presence as guests.
We pray that you would be with us this week as we go about our
work week and things that we all have to do. And you give
us traveling mercies. Lord, we pray that you have mercy
upon our homes and families and that you reveal your gospel to
our friends and loved ones. Lord, use us to be witnesses
in this world. We pray these things and ask
them in Christ's name. Amen.