If you have your Bible, turn
back with me to the book of Matthew, chapter 22, and I'd like to speak
to you this morning out of these first 14 verses. I wanted primarily
just to speak on verse 14, but I just simply could not see how
that I could do that. So I might have to preach two
sermons, but then maybe not. We'll see what happens as we
go along. But I had to speak on some of
these verses and talk to you about what our Lord is saying
here in this parable. He was speaking here unto the
religious folks, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the lawyers,
and he was speaking to them in parables so that they seeing
could not see, and they certainly were not able to see what he
was talking about. They perceived that he was talking
to them. They indicated that in the previous
chapter. They understood he was addressing
his message to them. However, they were angry with
him and they wanted to find some way to apprehend him and put
him to death. They hated the Lord Jesus Christ,
as men by nature do. But anyway, the Lord Jesus spoke
to them in parables and said, the kingdom of heaven is likened
to a certain king. Now this king, this certain king,
here in this parable is to be understood as God the Father.
God the Father, who has a son. Bless God he has a son, and that
son is his only begotten son. That son is the blessed Lord
Jesus Christ. And he said, which made a marriage
for his son, and that son, as we said, is the Lord Jesus. Now
the Lord has planned a marriage, a marriage feast for his son. The Lord has chosen a bride for
his son. The Lord has chosen a people,
a choice. He's made a choice. And He's
chosen His bride. And He's going to have a marriage.
He's going to celebrate the marriage of His Son, the oneness and the
eternal union of His Son with His choice people. And He's going
to celebrate that with a festival, with a great wedding feast. And
that, of course, is to come in the future. It's something that
we know is going to happen in eternity. There's going to be
this great marriage supper of the Lamb. Well, the Lord said,
the Lord Jesus said, He sent forth His servants, that is the
King, this certain King, sent forth His servants. Now some
people believe in this first instance that He's talking about
Moses, that He sent forth Moses. I just simply believe it means
He sent forth the prophets. and to call them that were bitten. And those that were bitten, of
course, was the Jewish people, the Jewish nation, that nation
which God had chosen. that people which were physical
people, and they did not know the Lord, but there were some,
there was a remnant out of the nation Israel who did believe
on the Lord, but they were a chosen nation, a nation chosen. And they were bidden to the wedding,
and they would not come. And our Lord was speaking to
these very Jews, and He said they were bidden to the wedding.
Now in these last words here, and they would not come. We find
the attitude, as our Lord summed it up, of the Jewish people toward
him and toward his coming into the world, toward his Messiahship,
toward his being sent of God and anointed of God for the purpose
of delivering a people for his name. They would not come, and
they would not come. Now it does not say they could
not come. It says they would not come.
They could not come because they would not come. Now, beloved,
I realize that there are some people that may have a little
difficulty in understanding that. But my friend, listen to me this
morning. If you had a disposition You
know Jesus spoke in John 5.40 to these same people and said,
ye will not come to me that ye might have life. You won't come.
You just won't do it because your nature is contrary to God
and is contrary to what's right. It's contrary to the truth. You're
dead in sin, blind as a bat, dead as a doornail, and you haven't
got the sense, spiritual sense, of an ass. And he looks at these
people and he said, and they would not come. Man by nature
will not. He will not have the Lord Jesus
Christ. Their saying was, we will not
have this man to rule over us. We will not have him. We don't
want this man to rule over us. Give us Barabbas. We don't want
this man. And they would not come to the
wedding feast. Now, in John 1, 11, The Scripture
says He came unto His own, and His own did what? They received
Him not. They received Him not. They would
not come. Because they were dead in sin, and they had not the
Spirit of God, and the Lord left them to themselves, and they
would not come. They would not come. Now my friend,
at the very outset of our message this morning, I'd like to remind
you of the fact that if the Lord leaves you to yourself, you will
never come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Neither will you be in
the marriage, you'll be in attendance at this great festival, the marriage
supper of the Lamb. You won't be there if God leaves
you to yourself. If He leaves you to yourself,
it will be said of you in eternity, they would not come. They would
not come! The gospel feast has been prepared.
All things are ready. God has made provision. Every
provision necessary for the salvation of the soul. But they would not
come. They would not. And so the prayer
of my heart is that God won't leave you alone. My prayer is
that God will cross your path. My prayer is, and don't anybody
get upset, but my prayer is that somewhere or another, if you
have to break your leg, or if he has to burn your house down,
or whatever in Providence he's got to do, that somewhere or
another he won't leave you alone. He will not leave you to yourself.
That he will cross your path and bring you unto his feet. Bring you in order that you might
be in attendance at the buried supper of the Lamb, adorned and
dressed in the proper wedding garment, and be received everlastingly
into the bliss and blessing of eternal heaven. So again, so
here's these Jewish people and they're listening to our Lord
and this certain king has made this marriage supper for his
son. It's in honor of the Son. In
honor of the Son. Well, you know the scripture
says that all men should honor the Son. All men should honor
the Son of God. Everybody ought to honor the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, maybe we'll say something
directly that will help you to understand why that you ought
to honor the Son. But this marriage is in honor
of the Son. And these people not coming is
an affront to the Son. It's a declaration of disloyalty
to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the King. All right, they
would not come. And again he sent forth other
servants saying, tell them which are bidden. It was the oriental
custom to bid people to come and if they received, the announcement
favorably, then they would send them another announcement saying,
come to the wedding feast. Well, these people didn't receive
it favorably the first time, but out of long-suffering and
mercy, which our God, I read it last week, that He is full
of compassion. He's gracious and full of compassion,
and He's righteous. But the Lord has sent His servants
again, telling them which are bidden, those which had been
bidden already, behold, I've prepared my dinner, I've got
it all ready, my oxen and my fattlings are killed, and all
things are ready. Gracious provisions have been
made. All things are ready. Not a potluck. Don't bring anything. Just come
as you are. Just come. I've got all that
you need. Every provision, I have it right
here. All things are ready. Come unto
the marriage. Come unto the marriage. And so
you see, as you come here this morning, you say, I may not be,
I'm not ready. yet. I'm not ready yet. I've
heard that so many times from the mouths of people. I'm just
not ready yet. My friend, it hasn't got a thing
on earth to do with your readiness. It's got everything to do with
God's preparation and God's provision. All the need that you require,
all the need that He requires, all that is that you feel your
need of Him. That's what you must do. You
must feel your need of the Lord Jesus Christ. All things are
ready. All things are ready. How glorious
that is! That everything has been provided.
Come unto the marriage. When they made light of it, they
made light of it. These are carnal people. Carnal
people make light of spiritual truths. The Bible says that the
carnal man, he understands not the things of the Spirit of God. And he does not receive the things
of the Spirit of God. He makes light of them. Now beloved,
the Bible says in 1st Corinthians 2 and 12, now we have received
not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things which are freely given to us
of God. That we might know those things
that are freely given to us of God. But these people, they made
light of it. They didn't have an idea. They
didn't have any idea what it was they were trifling with.
Here they have been honored. by the Lord, by this king, inviting
them to the marriage supper. And they made light of it and
went their ways. Care anything about the ways
of the king? The king has killed his fatlings. And the king has
all things ready. The king has made provisions.
But they were filled, it says, with their ways. They went their
ways. Well, one to his farm, another
to his merchandise. They said, our farm and our merchandise
more important than the king's son, more important than this
wedding feast. It's more important. They're
carnal, as we said, and dead in sin. They see no reason why
they ought to adhere to the command of the king to come to this wedding
feast. They made light of it. And the
remnant That is, those folks that were ferociously
addicted to the various ins and outs of the religion of the Pharisees,
this remnant took his servants. They took these servants that
came with the message and entreated them spitefully and slew them. And this is a picture of how
the Jewish people, how they slew the prophets of God that God
raised up, sent them. Early in the morning, it says,
to late at night, the Lord sent out His servants. From the coming
up of the sun to the going down of the same, God sent out His
prophets to speak to that nation. And they refused, and they rebelled. And they put them to death. You
remember they sawed, I believe it was Isaiah the prophet, in
two with a saw. And they borrowed others in oil.
And they threw Jeremiah into a pit because they would not
listen to the message of God. And so they slew. And even Stephen,
you remember, was slain. by these religious hypocrites. And Paul, you remember that,
or Saul of Tarsus as he was, as he explained to King Agrippa
that he was exceedingly mad against the followers of the Lamb of
God. And so these people slew these
messengers that came to them to tell them that it's time to
come to the wedding, come to the wedding. And that was their
attitude. And when the king heard thereof,
he was wroth. I mean, he come to the end of
his patience. He had sent out two bands of servants saying,
come to the feast. And so he was wroth. And he sent
forth his armies. Well, you know, the Roman emperor,
he thought that he was sending his army into Jerusalem to destroy
it in AD 63. He thought, I'm doing it. But
he wasn't doing it. God said he sent forth his army.
God sent forth the Roman army into Jerusalem and slew that
city and the people in that city. And he reduced it to rubble and
ashes because they would not come. They would not hear the
bidding of the servants of God. And so they were destroyed. Then
saith he to his servants, the wedding is ready. In other words,
the wedding is ready. Now we got to have some guests.
We need to have some guests at this wedding, and we're going
to have. And he said, but they which were bitten, they were
not worthy. You remember Paul said that when he was preaching
to the Jews in Acts 13, I think it is verse 46, He said that
it was necessary that the Word of God would first come to you.
But now you judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo,
we turn to the Gentiles. We're just going to turn to that
despised race, to the Gentiles, and we'll preach to them. The
Gospel is the power of God and the salvation to everyone that
believes that you first It was necessary that the Jews should
hear the message and that they should receive the bread before
the Gentiles received the crumbs which fell under the table. Gentiles'
dogs received the crumbs that fell off of the table. And so
now he says, but they which were bitten were not worthy. They
were not worthy in the sense that they refused the message.
They refused the invitation to come to the marriage supper. Go ye therefore into the highways.
So he says to his servants, you go therefore into the highways.
The highways here, according to the original, I understand
is the crossroads. You go to where the people are
gathering. At the crossroads, various places
where roads crossed and came together. And there you'd find
a multitude of people standing around conversing. And he said,
you go to these places and gather together all as many as they
could find, both bad and good. And the wedding was furnished
with guests. Now, beloved, we know that in the church of our
Lord Jesus Christ that there are tares that grow up with the
wheat. You find a pile of wheat, there's
always chaff there. And when the wheat is growing,
there's tares. in the wheat, and then if you
throw out the gospel net, as we do, we're throwing it out
this morning, and we gather together, and all the fishes are not all
good. Some of them you'd want to throw back. You wouldn't want
to keep them. But there are some good ones
in there too. And our Lord does the sorting out. He's the one
that knows the difference. I don't know anything about it.
As far as I'm concerned, we're all bad here. We're all bad. All men are bad by nature. Every
man. is a sinner by nature. It's like,
well, what was his name, the character down on the Missouri
River? Not the Missouri, yeah, way down on the Missouri, down
by St. Louis, what was that, Mark Twain, who said that all
men are like the moon, they all got a dark side. And all men
are bad by nature. And anybody that is good in the
sense that they're good like God is, because the Bible says
There's none good save one, that is God. He's the only one that's
good. And so we're talking about the
message of the gospel to bad men. But the wedding was furnished
with guests, but they were indiscriminate. They went out and invited whoever
they found. And that's an indication also that when we preach the
gospel, we preach to every creature. We have no way of knowing who
God's going to save and who he's not. We preach to every creature. The scripture says, preach the
word, be instant in season and out of season. Paul said, I'm
not ashamed of the gospel. I just preach it to the Jew first
and then unto the Greek. I preach the gospel. And he said,
I preach not ourselves, we preach Christ Jesus the Lord. And God
has chosen through the foolishness of preaching to save them to
believe. So we just go out, the Great
Commission is going into all the world and preach the gospel
to every creature. Preach it to every creature.
And so this is the general call of the gospel. It goes out to
all men. Everybody hears the general call
of the gospel. The general call of the gospel
saves nobody. It didn't save the Jewish nation,
did it? No, it did not. It will not save anybody. It's
the effectual call of the gospel that saves sinners. But we'll
get to that in a little bit. But he said, you go out in these
highways, and as many as you shall find, you bid them to come. And I bid you to come to Christ
this morning. We're ambassadors for Jesus Christ
as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you, in Christ's
stead, be you reconciled to God. God sent me here to pray you,
in His stead, that you be reconciled to God. That you'd come to the
Lord Jesus Christ. that you'd come in faith, that
you'd come believing, that you would come in order that you
might receive the wedding garment, that you might have that which
you absolutely must have. And so they went forth, and so
the servants went out into the highways, the crossroads, and
gathered together all as many as they found. And verse 11,
and when the king came in to see the guests, Here's this great
king, and he comes in to see the guest. He comes in to look
the guest over. How many do you suppose were
there? Well, there was a multitude there, as there shall be at that
time. Now, there's a great truth we're
coming into here, and I want you to listen very, very carefully
to what we're saying. The king has come in to see the
guest. He's coming to see them. Now,
beloved, let me remind you that The God of the Bible is a heart-searching
God. The God of the Bible. Now however
diligent, listen to me now, that we may be or those may be who
have the oversight of the church, there will always be pretenders
coming in, unawares, who have no partner locked in the matter
of salvation. And so it says the King has come
in and he saw. His eyes are open, and he sees
every guest that's there. He sees all of those guests.
And men and women will make a perfection of faith, moved maybe by a carnal
motive, yet they do not know God. He saw. The Lord saw all
of these guests that were there. Now it was the custom in that
day and time, when anybody would come, if somebody like this certain
king, very royal, marriage, son was of the royal family, the
most royal family, king of kings and lord of lords, that the family
would provide the robe, they would provide the garment. that
the people would wear. Everybody would wear the same
garment and this would be in order that the son might be properly
admired and that attention would be taken completely off everybody. Everybody else would look exactly
the same and the king's son would be the center of attraction. And it was also true, and it
was true up until even in the 1800s in some places that churches,
large churches, would furnish mourners garments to wear at
funerals. And when somebody would come,
Spurgeon indicated that they even had a wardrobe. That when
people would come to a funeral, that they would furnish the garments
so that it would be a proper, everybody would be dressed properly. Nobody would stand out. be anything
extraordinary about anybody that in honor of the person that they
were mourning, everybody would have on a certain specific mourner's
garment. And so the same is true with
the king. Oh yes, but now he saw there
a man. The king has come in, and all
things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we
have to do. And the king comes in, and he saw, and he can see,
and he knows whether or not a man has the wedding garment or not.
And he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment. He
didn't have it on. And he saith unto him, Friend,
Friend. In other words, this man has
come to the wedding feast for the son. And he pretends to be,
that's what he pretends to be, is a friend. But he's there and
he's dressed and he's dressed in a way he looks like he's like
a, stands out like a speckled bird because he has on his own
garments, and he has on the garments made by his own tailor. He has
on garments that are different than everybody else, because
everybody else has on the wedding garment. And so here he stands
out, and the king saw him, and the king looks at him, and he
says to him, friend, and you know, he pretended to be a friend,
but yet here he is, and he's disloyal, to the king and to
the king's son, because he's not properly attired. And you
remember that in Matthew 26.50 where Judas Iscariot, when he
come to betray the Lord, he said, the one that I kiss, that's him,
when they were going to take the Lord Jesus. And so he came
and kissed Christ, and the Lord said, friend, friend, what are
you doing? What are you doing? You're pretending
to be a friend, but you're really disloyal. Now, there's something
here that's very important. Let's talk a little bit more
about this wedding garment and what it represents. this wedding
garment that this man did not have on, that it seems that everybody
else did have on, and everybody that is at the marriage of the
Supper of the Lamb will and must have on the wedding garment.
Listen to what I have to say. The wedding garment represents
anything which is indispensable to a believer, but which the
unredeemed heart of man is not willing to accept. Now what the
Lord ordains to be a necessary thing, self-righteous rebels
will not have. They will not bow their knee
to it. You know the scripture says that
they're those who went about to establish their own righteousness
and have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
Now beloved, this wedding garment is the imputed righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And many professors of religion,
they kick against the doctrine of justification by faith, by
the righteousness of the Savior, and set up their own self-righteousness
in opposition to it, to be found in Christ. ...righteousness which is of
the law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now the righteousness which is
of God by faith is a very prominent badge of a real servant of God. Anybody that truly loves Christ,
anybody that is a true believer of the Lord Jesus Christ is always
happy to wear, joyful to wear this badge of the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ and refuse it to refuse it, and there
are many who do. There are many who are yet toying
with the idea of getting their own tailor to make their garments,
to make their outfit. I want to be a little different
than everybody else. I'd like to be recognized. No, my friend,
we don't want to be recognized. We just want to be there and
we want to look like the king's son. We want to call attention
to the King's Son. We want on a garment that will
remind everybody of the righteousness of the King, the King's Son,
that is. And we want this to show, now
listen to it, those who refuse, it is to manifest an opposition
to the glory of God. It's to manifest an opposition
to the glory of God and to the name and to the person and to
the work of His exalted Son. That's what it is. A man who
says, you know, this imputed righteousness rubbish that the
preacher talks about, it's just a bunch of rubbish! There isn't
anything to it! And they scoff at it and say,
well, well, I've got my own righteousness, and my friend,
this is to be disloyal to the king's son. The wedding garment
here represents a test of loyalty to those who come to the feast.
Rebellion was avowed by this man. He said, I am not going
to wear one of them garments. I'm not going to do it. I'm not
going to wear one of them garments. I'll wear what I want to wear. This is rebellion. And when a
man come in with the wedding garment on, then that showed
his loyalty, it was made apparent. So if or if not, my friend, if
you do not have it, then you're disloyal to the king's son. Now this man's sin lay, I think,
first of all, in coming there at all without the wedding garment. That was where his sin lay, first
of all, in coming there. There was pride involved in it.
And rebellion that was involved in it. And the reason why you've
not yet come and have come to the Lord Jesus Christ, pride
and rebellion is at the center of it. You're a rebel, that's
what you are. Your heart's full of pride. You
won't bow your knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now listen to me.
If this man did not mean to be one in heart with his fellow
guest and his Lord, why did he come at all? Why did he come?
Why would anybody, listen, if a man does not intend to yield
himself up to God's will and God's way, why does he profess
to be a member of the body of Christ at all? What's this business
of a man being a professor of religion and yet he does not
have on the wedding garment and yet he's not interested in wearing
the imputed, imparted righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ as a
badge to show the world that he's lined up with the Lord Jesus,
and that he's making as much of his relationship with Christ
as he possibly can to be a testimony unto the world. If a man is not
saved by the righteousness of Christ, then why would he profess
to be a believer in Christ? And we hear people talking about,
oh, I'm a believer, all right. I'm a believer. Oh, yeah, sure,
you are a believer. Well, the devils believe in Trimble,
too. They do. But believers, true believers,
wear the wedding garment. They got on the wedding garment.
That's what that poet meant. When he said, I'm blessed, I'm
blessed. He said, my rags are gone and
I'm dressed in garments not my own. I'm married to the Lord,
the Lamb, whose beauties I can ne'er explain, nor half his glory
show. That's what he meant. My friend,
listen, we have on garments that are not ours. They're not ours.
Our comeliness is not of us. I mean, the wedding feast is
ready, everything provided, including the wedding garment. And the
wedding garment, as we said, is the imputed righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a grave mistake for any
person to imagine that he could be in the Church of God to his
own advantage unless his heart is renewed by the Spirit of God,
unless he means what he declares and sincerely loves the rule
under which he professes to put himself. We come in to this place
this morning and we come here to glorify God. We come here
to worship the great King. We come here to honor His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. We come here to talk about His
righteousness and to spread the message that everything that
God demands, He's provided in the person of His Son. My friend,
this morning, seek what God says you must have. Righteousness. And you must have it. God demands
perfect righteousness. God demands, and I'll never get
tired of saying it, God demands that you be just as righteous
as His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And all of these wedding guests
will have on that robe, that spotless robe, wove from top
to bottom by the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
they'll all have on that garment. And it'll be in honor of the
Son. It won't be an affront to the Lord Jesus Christ. Dare anybody
come into the presence of the great king and his son and be
an affront to him? Come in with their little old
suit on and their clothes on, their righteousness I'm talking
about. Come in with that. Oh no, my friend, you'll not
listen. So the Lord said to him, friend, he said, how came a sow
in hither not having a wedding garment? How did you come in
here? Why did you come in here? Why
you stand out like a sore thumb in this bunch? These people are
honoring the Son and you are not honoring the Son. And he
was muzzled. The word speechless there means
he was muzzled. He couldn't say a word. He was
a rebel from the beginning. You think he's going to fall
down and ask the king to forgive him for being a front to him
and to his son? Do you think he's going to do
that? No. No. You think rebels in hell are
going to repent? No. No. No. You can read the
book of Revelation and you find out the judgment of God when
it comes. If people don't repent, they repented not. They repented
not. They repented not. When the vitals
of the wrath of God was poured out upon them, this man was muzzled. He couldn't say a word. You say,
I'll talk to the Lord. No. You'll be muzzled when you
speak to God, when God speaks to you. You'll be muzzled, you
won't have a word to say, no repentance, not a word, not an
apology, nothing! You'll stand there and listen
to what happens. Then said the king to the servants,
you bind him hand and foot. Bind him, tie him up, hand and
foot, take him away! Take him away, he's an affront
to the son, the king's son. He's in here without a wedding
garment. Take Him away. Take Him away. Do you have the wedding garment?
I mean the garments of salvation? Do you have them on by faith
this morning? Trusting in the imputed righteousness,
the shed blood of the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ? My friend,
bind Him, hand Him over, take Him away. Cast Him into outer
darkness. Cast Him into outer darkness. I heard about a fella that went
into a cave, and I've been in some of them too, you probably
have too, but where it was dark and there were some birds in
this cave over in Africa. And these were birds that never
flew in the daylight, never ever went out except at night, in
the darkness of the night. And so they could hear these
birds flying around in there. And at night these birds would
fly out and they would fly off and scavenge at night. And this
was a black, dark cave. And beloved, where these that
have not owned the wedding garden will be cast, there will be outer
darkness. You'll be in a place where there's
never any light. Outer darkness. Total darkness. Your soul in total darkness. Absolute darkness. Total. Oh, you say, well, I feel
that I'm in darkness now, preacher. Well, you may be, but not the
kind of darkness to where you're going to be cast if you have
not worn the wedding garment. If you're not under the rule
of Christ, if you're not bowing to the will and rule of Christ,
if you're not acknowledging Him, if you do not seek to become
His loyal subject, the loyal subject of the King, and be content
to have these things, the King will soon come in and He's going
to spot you. He'll spot you. He looks on the
heart, He knows. He knows whether you've got the
wedding garment on or not. He knows whether you're one of
them religious pretenders, whether you're one of them hypocrites,
whether you're one of them people that talks like you're a believer,
acts like you are now and then. He knows whether you've got the
wedding garment on or not, whether you're loyal to it, whether you've
got holiness, whether your will is the only will you've got is
His will. Recently, I was talking to Sister Helen Palagi on the
phone, And she was talking about how sweet it was just to bow
to the Lord and have no will but His. My friend, that's the
closest to holiness you will ever get. And that is holiness. That is holiness. To lay down
before the Lord. Lord, Your will be done. Whatever
you would have, Thy will be done, Lord. Thy will be done. Let other
people talk about what it is. They can say what they want to.
I know the bottom line. People have been talking about,
you know, the bottom line is this and the bottom line is that.
The bottom line of holiness is to have no will but God's will.
Submit yourself to the hand of God and to be content with His
will, whatever it is. You know the Lord Jesus said,
I come into the world not to do my own will, but the will
of Him that sent me. There it is. Right there it is.
That's what holiness is, my friend. And that takes in all of it.
Takes in all of it. Now I know that some people say,
I think I can improve on that. Maybe you can, but I can't. I
can't, but he can. None of us can, but the Lord
teaches us clearly that Christ is our example in that instance.
Alright, and then listen to this. There shall be weeping. Say,
I just not inclined to cry a preacher. Well, there'll be weeping that
day. There will be some weeping. Now God's gonna wipe away all
tears from the eyes of His chosen people. But there'll be weeping
in that day. And then gnashing of teeth. gnashing
of teeth, anger, wrath. What a place hell's going to
be. It's going to be an awful place. You say, I don't like
to be around people that are disturbed. I don't like to be
around people that are angry. I don't like to be around people
that's always gnashing on others with their teeth. I don't like
to be around them. I've been around people like that. I don't like
it either. I don't like it at all. But these people are going
to be there all eternity where there's gnashing of teeth. You say, well, is it all that
important preaching? Well, listen. He said, many are called. Many
are called to this. Now, I've not even got to the
sermon yet, and I'm not going to preach it today. I'll probably
preach it next week. Make good Easter service. But
He said, many are called. Few are chosen. There's few. And I just want to talk to you
just a second or two more. I quoted that verse while I go
out of 1 Corinthians 2 and 12. Now we have received, Paul said,
and that's believers, received not the spirit of the world,
but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things
that are freely given to us of God. Now, all that's been said
here this morning, all that Jesus said to these Jews, they couldn't
understand. They couldn't interpret this.
They couldn't interpret this parable. They couldn't. They
didn't have the ability to see it. But let me tell you something
now. The people of God, we can only see light in God's light. You say, I have a little trouble
understanding all that. Well, if God's light would be
given, you see light. My friend, you can only believe
by God's faith. Only believe by God's faith. You can only love by God's love.
As the love of God is put into you, than you can love. Therefore
we can only know the things freely given to us of God by the revelation
of the Spirit of God. Now hear this statement. What
we know, what any of us truly know, savingly, experimentally,
feelingly, we know only by divine teaching. We know only by the
revelation of the Spirit of God. That's it. We know Him by the
teaching of the Spirit, but cannot see Him until our eyes are divinely
opened. The sun, somebody said, may shine
in all of its glory, but the eyes of the blind cannot see
it. So now here you've got a blind man, and the sun is up in the
heavens, and that sun is bright, and the blind man can't see it. He can't see it. These truths
are right here on the page, right here on the page, Matthew 22,
1-14. These truths are right here.
But you say, I can't see it. I can't see it. Well, neither
will it revive the corpse lying in the coffin. The sun shining
on the corpse in the coffin won't revive it. Won't do it. And the
reason for that is That the blind see not, the dead hear not, the
living alone see and know. The living alone see and know
the Son of God. Nobody else does. The living. Those that God has made to live
by His Spirit. Those that God has regenerated,
made alive by the Spirit. Now does that make you angry?
You say, Preacher, that irritates me a little bit. Well, that's
the rebegging of a natural heart. That's the rebegging of a natural
heart. A natural heart says, I'm as smart as anybody else,
Preacher. What, do you act like I'm not
smart? I'm not intelligent? Oh, I believe you're as smart
as all get out. You're just as intelligent as you can be, but
you're blind as a bat when it comes to spiritual things. I'm
telling you, the Lord must reveal these things to you. He must
make them know into your heart, I love you, and these people
here love you. But my friend, we cannot make
you live. Only the Lord can make you live.
Only He can add you to the few that are affectionately called.
Only the Lord can do that. Our Father, we thank You for
helping us this morning, and we thank You for Your Word. And
Lord, we just pray that You might undertake and bless this exposition
of these verses. Many more things could have been
said, but we just pray that you'll own the message and use it. And
I pray that some poor soul will be enlightened, suddenly be enlightened
from heaven, and they'll see what this truth is all about,
and see the wonderful provisions of the Gospel, and thus be clothed
on with the garments of salvation. We ask it in Jesus' name, and
for His sake. Amen.