Good morning, everybody. You
want to turn to your text, turn to Matthew chapter 22. Matthew 22, we're going to look
at a parable this morning, probably familiar to, a parable of the
king that would make a marriage for his son. I'll let you get
there and we'll go to the Lord and have a word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father, Lord, we
come to you this day in the high and holy name of your son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. And Lord, we ask that as we meet together
this morning, we attempt to open your word that you would give
us understanding, Lord, that you would be our teacher and
you would reveal to us the Lord Jesus Christ in this book. Lord,
cause him to be high and lifted up. Cause us, Lord, to be given
a spirit of worship to him. And Lord, we pray that we would
be saved. Lord bless us, keep us, be with our pastor and his
wife as they travel, and be with all your people everywhere. We
ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. The way we're gonna tackle it, this
is, I'm just gonna read a couple verses from the parable, and
we'll talk about it. A couple beginning comments here. Number
one, the gospel is not complicated. There's absolutely nothing complicated
about it. That being said, this book is
full of mysteries. And I'll talk about just a couple
of them for a second. Number one, here's a mystery. God is absolutely
sovereign. He is the first cause behind
everything. Everything that happens is according
to His purpose and His will, and His will is always done.
And here's also just the same truth. I am responsible for my
sin. I have done what I have wanted
to do. No one's twisted my arm. No one's
forced me into anything. My sin is my fault. Now, you
can turn that any which way you want. Try to twist it. That doesn't
fit in human logic. You want to know what? It doesn't
have to. It's simply to be believed, not
necessarily understood. And you know what? That's what
every believer believes. My sin is my fault. I know that to be
the case. It doesn't have to fit into a set of logic. It just
shows that man's logic is flawed. I'll give you another one. The
mystery of the Trinity. fact that the singular God, one
God, is broken up into three distinct persons all having their
own particular work in salvation. The Father in divine election,
loving a people, choosing those people in Christ unto salvation,
predestinating those people to be conformed to the image of
Jesus Christ, giving those people to the Lord Jesus Christ in the
covenant of grace. The Son, the second person of
the Trinity, receiving those people, standing as their surety
before time began, working out a righteousness for those people,
redeeming those people on the cross, bringing them back to
God, being their intercessor, and then the Holy Spirit who
gives life, breathes life into a dead center. One God, three
distinct persons. How does that work? It's a great
mystery. I have no idea. Simply believe it. Now, with
all that being said, book is full of mysteries, yet the Lord
gives us simple illustrations to define the gospel. And we'll
talk about those for a second. So when the Lord said, the lilies
of the field, he talks about lilies spinning not, toiling
not, and yet they are beautifully arrayed. Well, that's a picture
of the Lord's people. We toil not, we spin not, we're
not working. We're not trying to, excuse me, earn the favor
of God and yet we are beautifully arrayed. We are beautifully arrayed
with the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. We didn't earn
anything and yet that's the way the Lord makes us. Now, also
this, what about marriage? The union of marriage, a man
and a woman, the two become one flesh that is given to typify
the union between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. And in
that union, excuse me, everything that is the husband's, it becomes
the wives. Everything that is the wives,
it becomes the husbands. That's our union with the Lord
Jesus Christ, and that's real. Everything I am, he became. All my sin, all my shame, he
became that, and he put that sin away. Everything he is, now
every believer is. We are the very righteousness
of God in him. That's a simple illustration,
but it says so much. parable we just get another simple
illustration of the Gospel. So pick up in verse 1. Matthew 22 verse 1, And Jesus
answered and spake unto them again by parables. said, the
kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king which made a marriage
for his son." Now, here's the first thing we see. There's a
king, right? He's a father. He has a son.
This king is fixated on one person. He is interested in one person,
completely fixated on that one person, and that's his son. He's
going to have a feast, right? He's going to make a marriage.
He's going to have to feast. He's going to bring in all these guests.
And it is for this sole purpose that everybody there is going
to honor and glorify His Son. Well, this is God the Father.
What is He consumed with? Or who is He consumed with? He
is consumed with His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is
consumed with Him being glorified. Now, let me show you something.
Turn to Colossians 1. Colossians 1, you can pick up
in verse 16. For by him, speaking of Christ,
were all things created that are in heaven and that are in
earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers. All things were created by him
and for him. And he is before all things.
And by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body,
the church. beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things
He might have the preeminence." The Father is concerned with
this singular thing, His Son having the preeminence, having
the glory in all things. Now, understand this, in every
sense, I don't want you to misunderstand anything I'm about to say, in
every sense the Lord Jesus Christ is already glorified. Number
one, looking at this, He's glorified as the Creator. Now, you can
look out here, Everything that's made, he made, and he made it
for himself. Every mountain range, the oceans,
the stars in the sky, that all speaks of his creative glory.
Everybody can see that. He's already glorified as the
creator. We can see that by what's been made, right? He's already
glorified as the sovereign. Now this passage speaks of thrones
and dominions and principalities and powers. Who set those governments
up? Who set those men over those
governments up? He did. He is the one who holds
the heart of the King in His hand to turn it any which way
He wants. This thing of control is an illusion.
We don't have any. The Lord holds all men in His hand, holds the
heart of all men in His hand to turn it any which way He wants.
He is already glorified in that respect. But there is a sense
in which one day His chief glory will be revealed. Revealed for
everybody to see when the last trumpet sounds When the last
member of the elect is brought back to God, safe and sound,
without a scratch on him, there he's gonna stand in that day,
look what I did. Look what I accomplished. And
everybody's going to see his chief glory as the savior of
his people. Now people ask, what is this
life all about? What are we doing here? What's
my purpose? It is simply this, folks, it is to glorify God.
man is going to glorify God in some way, shape, or form. He
will either do it as a trophy of the Lord's power and His grace,
or He will do it as an example of His unwavering justice. But
every man is going to glorify God, and that's what this parable
is about. Now, look here, look at verse 3 of your text. And sent forth His servants to
call them that were bidden to the wedding. And look at this,
they would not come. Again, he sent forth other servants
saying, tell them that we're bidden. Behold, I've prepared
my dinner, my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are
ready. Come unto the marriage. Now the
first thing we see here is how long-suffering this king is.
He said, come, all things are ready. I'm going to have a feast
to honor my son. Come on. And they said, no. No, we won't
come. This is an open rebellion. Now,
if I'm the king, right, and I have all these armies, and I'm the
one who's in control, what am I going to do? I'm going to squash
that rebellion, right? I'm going to send my armies down
there and cut them all down. But what does this king do? This
is a long-suffering king. He sends more servants out there.
Come on. You're still welcome. Come on
into the marriage feast. Come on. And he beckons them.
How long-suffering is the Lord with us? But also we see this. We see the two main elements
of gospel preaching. They're seen right here. Number
one, all things are ready. There is nothing you have to
do. Everything's already been done.
There's nothing you need to bring. There's nothing you need to buy
with. You don't have anything to buy with. There's nothing
you can bring, but nothing is expected of you whatsoever. All
things are ready. And if you notice the context
in which the King says that, He says it in the context of
what he has killed. My oxen and my fatlings are killed. Why are all things ready? Why
has everything already been done? Because on the cross, the Father
slew the Lord Jesus Christ. The sins of his people were put
in him so much so that he bore that shame and he bore that guilt
and he bore those sins. And his blood was spilt. And
when he said, it is finished, it was over. It's done. Everyone
for whom he died, their salvation was accomplished. And now the
call is this. All things are ready. It's all been done. Here's
the second element of gospel preaching. Come. All things are
ready. Come to the marriage. Now, if
you notice here, when we look at this, not only were these
people called, they were bidden. And that word bidden is interesting.
What it means is summonsed. So here's some technical knowledge
for you. In the judicial world, in the
court system, if the judge wants to see somebody, he says, I want
to see Joe Smith. I want him tomorrow, my office, or my courtroom,
this time. He cuts a summons. That's what
it's called. And he hands it out to the police department.
He says, go find Joe Smith. Issue the summons to him. And so we
find him. Don't rest till we find him. We issue him the summons.
And the top of that summons says this. You are commanded to come. And there are consequences to
not coming. You don't want to make the judge
mad, alright? He can hold you in contempt. You are commanded
to come. This is the call of the Gospel.
You are summonsed. You are commanded to come. What
does that mean? It means believing on the Lord
Jesus Christ. But in coming, here's what we
do, we leave someone and we go to someone. In coming to Christ
we leave ourselves. leave all hope in ourselves,
all confidence in ourselves. Any confidence we had in something
we did in earning favor with God based on our own obedience,
we leave all that and we come to Christ. We have our confidence
in Him. We trust Him. Our hope is in
Him. That's coming, simple enough.
And that folks is a command. All men everywhere are summonsed,
are commanded to trust Christ right now. Those are the two
main elements of Gospel preaching. Now look at verse 5, If you'll notice in the previous
verse, these people said, no, we would not come. Why is that? Verse five, but they made light
of it and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise. And the remnant took his servants
and entreated them spitefully and slew them. Now here we see
the two responses of the natural man to the Gospel and to Christ.
Number one, they made light of it. This is the first response.
That word light means careless. The natural man is careless.
He doesn't care. He's apathetic to the Gospel
message. He sees no beauty in Christ. He is not interested
in His glory in any way. He perceives no danger for himself
and he has no interest in salvation. All he wants to do is be here
and make himself happy while he's in this world. He's completely
and utterly apathetic. Here's the other response. Rage. These other men, this remnant,
they took his servants and they treated them spitefully and they
slew them. They were so mad because they
didn't want to honor the king's son. They didn't want to have
anything to do with the king's son. They hated the king's son. What is it about the gospel and
about Christ that makes men so mad? It brings out this type
of rage. Well, first it's this, his sovereignty. The fact that he is in absolute
sovereign control, that he holds all men in his hand to do with
as he sees fit, to save or to damn at his good pleasure. That
makes men infuriated because it takes away their illusion
of control. I want you to recognize something. Whether you will be
saved or damned has already been decided. It was decided in the
eternity past. And still, this is just the same,
everybody who comes to Christ will be saved. I want you to
understand, you're in the hands of a sovereign God who can do
with you as He sees fit. That's the first thing that makes
men mad. Here's the second thing. It is the manner by which the
Lord Jesus Christ saves. He saves by grace. And if salvation
is by grace, what does that mean? That means the Lord Jesus Christ
is going to get all the glory in that salvation. No man who
will be in heaven will stand there and say, I'm here because
I, and be able to fill in the blank. The answer will always
be, I am here because of Him. There's one person who's going
to get the glory, and that's Christ. And that's what makes
men so mad, because they won't have any glory. And this thing
is completely out of their hands. Now, look what the king does,
look at verse 7. But when the king heard thereof,
he was wroth, and he set forth his armies, and destroyed those
murderers, and burned up their city. Then saith he to his servants,
the wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.
Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye 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
if you'll notice here, now these servants are sent to a particular
place to get a particular people, the people on the highways. What
type of person are you going to find on a highway? You wanna
know? Turn to Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10, pick up in verse
46. And they came to Jericho, this
is the Lord and His disciples, and as He went out of Jericho
with His disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus,
the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging. They were sent to a particular
people at a particular place and who were you going to find
out on that highway? You wouldn't have found the rich,
and you wouldn't have found the powerful, and you wouldn't have
found the well, but this is who you would have found out on the
highway. You would have found the beggars, and you would have
found the blind, and you would have found the poor, and you
would have found the crippled, and you would have found the
lame. And it is a very cute way to say that Jesus Christ came
to this world to save sinners. something. Keep reading, verse
47, "'And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth.'" Now
make no mistake folks, there are two calls. There is the general
call. All men everywhere are commanded
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what the
response will always be to this general call? They would not
come. They will not believe him. They
will not trust him. But there's a second call. Thank
the Lord there is. This is the call he sends to
his chosen people. This is the call of irresistible,
invincible grace. And if this call is ever sent
to you, and you're given the ears to hear it, like Bartimaeus,
you're going to find yourself in his same shoes. What do I
mean by that? You're going to find that you're
blind. What do I mean? When you look inside yourself,
you won't see anything good. completely blind to any reason
that the Lord would look in favor upon you, a complete and utter
mercy beggar. You'll find that you're a beggar.
Now, we have a bunch of beggars in Lexington, right? What is
the chief attribute of a beggar? He is completely and utterly
dependent upon the kindness of someone else to have what he
needs to live. And if someone doesn't help him
out, if someone doesn't drop a dime in his cup, He can't say
anything about it. He's got nothing to say. He can't
get mad. He's not owed anything. Well, here's where you'll find
yourself, a beggar, completely and utterly dependent upon the
kindness of the Lord Jesus Christ, completely. And you know what?
If He does nothing for you, that's right. That's fair. Now go on
reading, verse 47. And when he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, thou
Son of David, have mercy If this call ever comes to you, you will
find out what you need. Now, he was blind and he wanted
sight, but we're not even talking about sight yet. He's not even
addressing the issue of sight. He says, I need mercy. And if
the Lord ever reveals himself to you, you'll see what you need.
You need him to be merciful to you, to be kind to you, even
though you don't deserve it. Keep on reading. Verse 48, and
many charged him that he should hold his peace. But he cried
the more a great deal, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still. His cry of mercy always causes
the Lord to stop directly in his path. And commanded him to
be called. And they called the blind man,
saying unto him, be of good comfort. Rise, he calleth thee. Can you
imagine the hope Bartimaeus has at this time? You've heard this
before, but I'm gonna give it to you again. He's blind, right? There is no one on the face of
the earth that he knows of that can cure his problem. No one
can give him sight. He is in a destitute place, and
all of a sudden, somebody says, Jesus of Nazareth, this one who
can give sight to the blind, he's passing by, and guess what,
Bartimaeus? He's called you. Can you imagine the hope that
man would have experienced? Now, he was probably wondering,
is he willing? willing to give me sight?" But
you know what he didn't question? Whether he was able. His hope
was in this one man. There is one person that can
do me good. There is one person who can restore
my sight and that is this man, Jesus Christ. His hope was in
one man. And if the Lord ever reveals
Himself to you your hope is going to be in one man. There is nowhere
else to go. There is nowhere else to turn
to. You can't turn to yourself. You can't turn to the law. There
is one place of hope and that is Christ. He is all your hope.
and never doubt whether he's willing to save a sinner or not,
because he always is. Keep going. Verse 50, and he,
casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus. This call,
this call that is effectually heard and effectually given,
it always inspires action. And here's what Bartimaeus did
when he heard this call. He took off that filthy, disgusting robe,
that beggar's robe, and he got as far away from it as he possibly
could, and he came to Christ. And he came, folks, just as he
was. And if you ever hear this call
in power, it's exactly what you're gonna do. You'll see that robe
for what it really is. that robe of your self-righteousness,
that it's worthless, and it's disgusting, and it stinks, and
you want to just get away from it as far as you can, and you
come to Christ, and you come just as you are. No promises
to get better. You're not going to. That old man's never going
to get better. No promises to change things.
This is who I am. I'm a sinner in need of mercy,
and that's how you'll come. Go back to your text. Now we just got done talking
about robes, Barimaeus' robe, the picture of righteousness.
Let's see how the story ends. Verse 11, and when the king came in to
see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding
garment. See folks, the wedding garment
was provided at the door for all the guests. What is this
garment? What's the type here? This is
the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. All the people that were
there, they went up the highways to get them. A bunch of beggars,
lame, blind, disgusting people. They had no money to pay with.
They couldn't afford the appropriate garment. But the garment was
provided at the door. Everybody who wanted in got the
garment at the door. It was the acceptable garment.
It's the one the king prescribed. Now, imagine you're standing
on a balcony and you're overviewing this wedding feast. You see everybody,
and they all look the same. The clothes they're wearing,
who else would have been wearing those clothes? The king's son. The garment that
they were wearing was the exact same garment that the king's
son was wearing, because that's what the father found acceptable.
This is the very righteousness of Jesus Christ, given at the
door, and everybody looks the same. The king looked over and
said, everyone is beautiful. It's all fine linen, clean and
white. They all look just like my son. Now, there's a guy who
wants to get noticed. There's a guy who's different.
Let's see what happens to him. Look at verse 12. And he saith unto him, Friend,
how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And
he was speechless. This man comes in, he's got the
best he can bring, right? I said, I know what I'm going
to do. I'm going to impress the king. I don't want to look like everyone
else here. And I don't want to be identified with the king's
son. I'm going to bring the best I can bring. I want to provide
my own garment. I want to get noticed. And he
does. And he's speechless because he knows the king is upset with
him. Now, who can he blame in all this? The king had made all things
ready. The king had killed. He had made his dinner ready.
The king had provided the appropriate garment at the door. Who could
this man blame? He could only blame himself.
That's it. He didn't want to be identified
with the king's son. He wanted to stand out. He wanted
to show what he could do, and this is what he was trying to
show the king. even though all these other beggars here, all
these lame people, all these people here, although they can't
come up with the goods you have to provide for them, I'm going
to show you I can provide for myself. Now, watch what happens
to them. Verse 13. Then said the king
to the servants, bind him hand and foot and take him away and
cast him into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth for many are called, but few are chosen. You come to God with anything
than the very righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is
your end state right here. Many are called, few are chosen. Everyone whom the Lord affectionately
calls are those he chosen, chosen divine 11, the election of eternity
past. Now, the question is, has he
called me? Have I received this call? Well, here's what I would ask
you. How do you stack up against Bartimaeus? He was blind. Can you see any good in you?
Can you see any reason that the Lord would have favor on you
and of yourself? He was a beggar. He was completely
and utterly dependent upon the kindness of someone else to live.
Are you completely and utterly dependent upon the kindness of
the Lord Jesus Christ to live? All his hope was in Christ. Is
all your hope in Christ? Because if that's the case, you've
heard. You've been called with this effectual call. And that's
because you were chosen. He knew you long before you ever
knew him. I'm gonna leave you there.