A ROYAL BANQUET DECLINED (Luke 14:15-24)

“Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ”

Our Lord having on the Sabbath been invited to eat bread in one of the homes of the rulers of the Pharisees… “had in his discourse led the attention of his associates, not only to the proprieties of life, but to future things, by the suggestion that feasts should be given in the interest of the poor, whose inability to return the favor would insure a divine blessing more than compensating in the future–in the Kingdom. This led one of the company to a remark which we loosely paraphrase, thus,–Ah, yes! That Kingdom, for which we hope, will be a blessed time. How blessed it will be to share the bounties which God has promised in the great feast which he shall spread!

The speaker probably was well acquainted with Isaiah’s prophecy respecting the Kingdom (Isa. 25:6) in which God’s mercies and blessings to the world are figuratively represented as a feast, in the words, “In this mountain [Kingdom] shall the Lord of hosts make unto all the people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow.” Thus gradually the minds of the company present had been led from earthly things and from commonplace matters and social chit-chat, which might have occupied their attention, to the consideration of the gracious promises of God. And undoubtedly this was our Lord’s very object in accepting the Pharisee’s invitation, and in leading the conversation gradually in this direction.

Now he had an opportunity to teach something respecting this Kingdom and its blessings and the call to share it; and he improved on it. His hearers, if they had in mind Isaiah’s prophecy and God’s promise to Abraham, would understand that the Kingdom or mountain of the Lord would be the house of Israel, in some glorious and exalted condition under Messiah, and that it was in and through this Kingdom that the feast of divine blessings, for all nations, was to be spread.

Our Lord now, by a parable, drew attention to the Gospel call of great blessings and privileges, and would have his hearers note the fact that while in a general way they would all assent to the statement that the Kingdom would be a blessed one, and the feast there something to be greatly desired, nevertheless when the offer of that Kingdom was made to them temporal things closer to their hearts made it of no effect to the majority.”

“The parable represents a great feast, with a large number of friends of the host invited in advance, that they might be ready at such a time as the feast would be ready and announced. God himself is the host in this parable, and the Jewish nation were his friends to whom, as a people, he had given much advantage every way, chiefly in that to them were committed the oracles of God,–much knowledge of the divine plan for human salvation and the promises that if they, as the seed of Abraham, were faithful, they should have the invitation and privilege and opportunities of this great feast.

The Lord addresses them through the Prophet, saying, “You only have I known [recognized] of all the families of the earth.” (Amos 3:2) Israel only was invited to this feast; but the feast was not ready until our Lord’s Day (during the First Advent), and hence the invitation to partake of it did not go forth until then. Finally, however, the time had come; Christ, as represented in the bullock of the sin-offering, had already given himself, –the sacrifice being counted as accomplished from the time of its offering, when our Lord presented himself to John at Jordan, making a full consecration of his entire being, even unto death. In view of this sacrifice for sins, God could begin at once to call the already promised guests to the great feast of blessing and manifestation of divine favor toward those to whom he had promised it so long before, through their father Abraham.

And thus it was that when Jesus came and called his disciples and sent them forth, the message was, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand;” the great feast of fat things for this nation, that God has so long promised, is ready; and whosoever wills may come and be received and participate in it. The message of Jesus and the twelve, and later the seventy, throughout all Judea, was the invitation of that favored people to come and enjoy the great feast for which they had impatiently waited and hoped and prayed for over sixteen centuries,–the great privileges and opportunities of the Kingdom.

But as the parable shows, when the offer of the Kingdom was really made, when the invitation to partake of the blessings of the great Feast was really put before them, it proved that they loved the Kingdom and the future things far less than they and others might have supposed. On the contrary, the unanimity with which the invitation to the Kingdom was rejected made it appear almost as though the rejecters had acted in concert in the matter. Their excuses for so little interest in the things which God had promised, and which they claimed to be eagerly longing for, were the apparent pressure of other duties which they must attend to, and which left no time for responding to the divine invitation to the Kingdom.

With one the pressure came in the direction of seeing to his farm, and thus being not slothful in business; another felt that it might do very well for people who had nothing else to do, to give attention to a spiritual feast, but as for him, his time was fully occupied with his property, his oxen, sheep, store-business, and what not. Another felt that his duties, social ties, wife, children, etc., demanded all of his attention, and that therefore he could not accept the Kingdom privileges.

And this, which was the sentiment of fleshly Israel, is largely that of spiritual Israel, also, now that the spiritual Kingdom is announced. Many seem to feel that what they would call the real and practical things of life need all of their attention. They want to “get along” in this world’s affairs, and to be somebodies in it, and they find such interest in social and material matters a great hindrance to any response to the divine invitation to a share in the glorious Millennial Kingdom, as joint-heirs with Christ,–the great feast… the high calling which has come to us. Well, in one sense of the word this is all right, for it merely keeps out of the Kingdom a class which the Lord does not desire should be in it, and which if it did come in would need to be sifted out, later. Although God has bidden many, he is seeking for this feast only such as will highly appreciate it above all other privileges—those who would be willing to sacrifice any and every other thing in order to share it.

Now naturally they all want to share in that kingdom and so it is that the blind guides of Christendom have so accommodated them, teaching that all that is necessary for their participation in that kingdom is a mere confession of faith in Christ and the attempt to live as righteous a life as they are able. No mention here is made of any cost, of any sacrifice, no this invitation they say to be joint rulers with Christ in his kingdom is all of the grace of God, it cost nothing of the believer save faith. Alas those who follow the blind guides are misled and will find themselves amongst many others who thought they were going to be in the kingdom saying, ‘Lord. Lord, open unto us; and He will answer and say unto them, I know you not’, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’,” professing to be Christians shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven (the spiritual or ruling phase of the kingdom).” (R2701)

 Continued with next post.