I am bringing you back to that part of God’s Word which has been read to us this evening: Luke 14, the story called the great supper and the great invitation.
It might be thought by those who have been here in this conference that that story has very little relationship to what we have been considering. But I want to correct that idea immediately and say that it is an integral part of this very matter: the kind of people upon whom God has set His heart, to be the fruit of Christ’s travail, is here.
There are two applications of this story. There is what we may call the dispensational interpretation, and there is a further interpretation and application in relation to the kingdom of God.
The dispensational interpretation ties this story closely to what was happening at the time the Lord Jesus spoke these words. It was in the time of the great transition from Israel to the church, from the Jews to Christianity.
This set of appearances by the Lord Jesus in these chapters, including the well-known fifteenth chapter of Luke containing the parables of the lost things—the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the prodigal son—were all of a piece, and probably gathered into the last week of our Lord’s ministry.
You go back to the Gospel by Matthew. You know how true that was when you take it up to, say, Matthew 21 and move right on. These are undoubtedly the closing days. What is being said here has to do with His going, and the great crisis which was immediately in view: the crisis of His cross.
In Matthew 21, He had made that statement to the Jews, to Israel as a nation:
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
Then, straight into Matthew 22, there is a story very similar to this one about a king who made a marriage supper for his son. The same kind of invitations went out.
This, in Luke, is all of a piece with that. It circles round the great crisis. Israel is about to be set aside—rejected. The kingdom of heaven is about to be taken away from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof: the nation of which Peter later referred, in his hope of believers in Christ, as a holy nation.
Not another nation on this earth, but God’s own people, out of the nations of this world—a people for His name.
So, you see, this story in its historic setting relates to that great crisis and that great transition: the rejection of one people and the putting in their place of another. You have to read the story in the light of that, or here we have the death knell of Israel after the flesh.
Well, that is so much for the Christian and for the Bible student, for those who know something about it. As I have said, it is in keeping with what we are considering in this conference in the main: a people secured by God through the travail of His Son—the cross—a kind of people.
I think that is the outstanding thing in this story and these stories: the kind of people that will inherit the kingdom of heaven.
But, as I have said, there is a larger application and interpretation. It applies to the whole meaning of the kingdom of God and to who will enter that kingdom. That is a matter of supreme, of superlative, importance. Who will be in the kingdom of heaven?
Here we have the gospel of the kingdom—no doubt about it. There are certain very clearly defined features to this story of the great supper and the great invitation.
We find here God, speaking by the mouth of His Son, Jesus Christ. What He said was what came from God; it was God speaking. God, in relation to the gospel of the kingdom, takes up a common social custom and brings it into use.
Of course, Jesus was, at the time when He gave this story, at a feast. You notice, if you look at the earlier part of the chapter, He went to a feast made by a prominent Pharisee—evidently a wealthy man in good position, because certain very important people, in their own eyes at any rate, came in and took the chief places. Jesus noted all that and had something to say about it.
But the point is, it was at a feast, and Jesus went to it; and it says they watched Him. They watched Him.
Now, a lot of detail we leave untouched. The fact is, Jesus took hold of this and enlarged it in relation to the kingdom of God. He took up this common social custom of a feast and used it for gospel purposes: to interpret the gospel, to interpret the kingdom of heaven, to interpret, furthermore, who would not get in and who would get in.
There are certain things, you see, about this feast which, although not exactly stated, are quite evidently included. We might note three of them.
A certain man made a feast and sent out his invitation. The implication is that the man would be respected and honoured. He would not have done it if he had known that, if he was in such disrepute, no one would ever accept his invitation.
He was assuming that they would respect him and his invitation, and be quite glad to go to his feast and be with him in his house. Now, that is quite simple. You will see what that means as we go on. It is the assumption that the invitation would be welcome, that he would be in good standing with them, and that they would give him respect and honour, respond suitably to the invitation, and go to his feast.
The second thing assumed is that the invited people would have an appetite for a feast. So assumed, of course. They would have an appetite.
It might not interest some of you people a little bit. You would turn down any invitation early on the ground that you have no appetite for such things, or something is wrong with your digestion and you just could not taste it at all. But it is assumed here that they would have an appetite for his feast, for his provision. It is very simple.
Then, of course, the third thing assumed is that they would be quite happy to meet other people in his house and have good intercourse and fellowship and a good time together.
These are the constituent parts of any feast like this: we are glad to go and meet the host, glad to go and meet the other people, and glad to have what is provided. You see, that is the atmosphere; these are the elements. Dismiss any of them and you just lose the whole point in the feast. It breaks down at once.
Jesus is speaking, and He knows. He is not speaking casually; He has a very deep and comprehensive knowledge. Indeed, He knows God’s mind. None knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son.
He knew the refusal that would come to His invitation. The foreknowledge of God, His omniscience, made Him know that this would be the reaction. They would not accept; they would not come.
Jesus knew that. He would not have said all these things as He did—especially that solemn thing, “Therefore is the kingdom of heaven taken away from you and given to a nation”—if He had not known what the issue would be.
God knew what the reaction would be. But God did not act upon His foreknowledge in this matter. He sent out the invitation.
In that is one of the great gospel principles. God, who knows all about men’s adverse reactions to His invitation and His great provision, does not begin from that point and say, “I know they will not accept, and I know it will be to their doom; therefore I will never invite them. I will doom them right away in My foreknowledge.”
For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him.
You see, God, however He knows about men’s refusals, leaves the door wide open. He always takes the positive line in grace, never the negative line in judgment. That is one of the great things about the gospel.
He knows. Maybe here in this place tonight there is someone who will not accept His invitation, who will refuse, or who will, like these people, make excuses. Nevertheless, God comes right out to you in infinite grace, opens the door wide, and makes His appeal to you. He says, “Come; for all things are now ready.”
You see, God keeps back that foreknowledge of His while He tries in grace to make a way. A tremendous thing—that the grace of God holds back the judgment of God until the thing is settled by man himself.
He knows the truth, and yet He does not, in the first instance, act according to His knowledge of men’s reactions. He acts in grace to give them an opportunity to respond.
You see, there is something else involved in that. God removes all ground upon which man’s doom could be laid to His charge.
In the end, it will never be possible for any doomed man or woman to say, “You never gave me a chance. You never gave me an opportunity. The door was never open to me. The way was never provided.”
No, God removes all that ground. You see, in His grace and His mercy, He takes all the ground of man’s self-condemnation away and puts the whole issue upon man.
If anybody misses all that God has provided and called them unto, it will be their own fault entirely. God has seen to it. God has seen to it. He puts it back on us.
Now, it looks, on the face of things, as you read a story like this, as though the man—and now put God into the place of the man who makes the feast and sends the invitation—assumes that those invited would respect him, honour him, and give him credit for being worthy of their acceptance.
It looks as though God assumes that. Because He knows, you know; nevertheless, He proceeds upon this. And in His procedure He is appealing to man, appealing to man to give some expression of, some proof of, his respect for God.
If man does not respond to God’s appeal and invitation, it means man has no respect for God. He has not given God His place. He has put Him out. He is not worth considering. You see, the implications are tremendous.
Further, it means that man has no appetite for the things that God has provided. If only you imagine these people, when they got the invitations, saying, “I do not care about his feast. I do not think I want to go and have that. I have not much appetite for that.”
Ah, yes, but look: that very desire, or absence of desire, for the things of God is a thing which means the kingdom or not the kingdom.
Jesus said:
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Something is bound up with this appetite, or the lack of it. The same applies in this matter of the people of God. To refuse means not only, “I have no interest in God and His things,” but, “I do not want to have any association with His people.” All this, you see, is forcing a choice.
Now, it is not difficult, is it, to turn that right round to see what kind of people will inherit the kingdom—what kind of people they will be that He shall see as the travail of His soul?
People, first of all, who above all other things desire God; and then desire God’s things, feed upon them; and then desire God’s people.
It is a remarkable thing, is it not, how that becomes the very constitution, makeup, and nature of children of the kingdom of heaven.
One thing that is preeminent with them is their love for God, their desire for God: that He is their joy—not only that He is joy, but really their only joy.
A wonderful thing happens in us. Something happens; something takes place. Maybe we do come to that state where we just cannot live without God. If there should be an hour in our life when any shadow comes between us and God, that is the darkest hour, the most wretched time.
He has spoiled us for all but Himself, made Himself indispensable to us. We cannot get on without Him. But not only is it a matter of cannot—we have no desire to. We have got to long to be in His presence.
The Psalmist says:
As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
So panteth my soul after thee, O God.
Like that, something happens inside. Now, that is a test whether we are children of the kingdom or not, and a test as to whether we are going to inherit the kingdom.
You poor thing, look out for anybody who had not that disposition and had to live in the presence of God for all eternity. A very miserable thing. But it will not happen, of course.
What is true in that connection is true in these other two things. Something happens to us that our company, our people—I use the word “ours”—is the people of God.
We have to live with others; we have to move in this world. But we are not happy with them. We are not happy with them. There is no deep, basic, fundamental oneness between them and us. But with the people of God it is different. We are at home; we are in the family.
Something happens to us. It is not something that we decide upon at all: “We are going to be Christians; we will mix with Christians.” It does not happen like that. It is simply this: we long for the fellowship of God’s people, and if we are deprived of it, it is depriving us of very life.
Perhaps those who have a lot of it lose the sense of its value, but you ask some of those Christians who have to live in isolation and apart and do not get Christian fellowship. You ask them about it, and you will soon discover that something has happened in them. They long for this fellowship. These are the children of the kingdom.
And as for the feast—God’s things—well, why are we here? It is not presumption; do not misunderstand it. Whether you are getting the things of God and the table spread or not, you come for it. That is the explanation of times like these.
We come from the north and the south and the east and the west to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—whoever they may be—in the kingdom of God, to feed upon what the Lord will provide, a table for us.
Why? Why will a large company of young men and women give up their bank holidays, let the world go its way, and come together in this way, and in other directions, for meetings and addresses?
Oh, that is not all that there is to it. There is something constitutional about this, is there not? It is an appetite. These are the children of the kingdom. God is working on that principle: to discriminate, to select, and to give the kingdom like that.
Now we must go back to the story, to the other disappointing aspect. God, in His grace, with His foreknowledge—knowing that many will react unfavourably—puts that back and says nothing about it for the moment, but goes out in great invitation: inviting, inviting, inviting.
His knowledge of them comes out, does it not? It comes out. Who will respond? So we can see what is really shown to be the case with many. They are totally indifferent to all these things: to Him, to His feast, and to His people—totally indifferent.
They are not touched by it. It makes no appeal to them. They have no sense that they are under obligation or likely to lose something of vital importance. That is their judgment. That is their condemnation. That is their doom.
Now, taking this setting to Israel, the Jewish nation, you remember how the Lord Jesus put this to them another way. Reading over Jerusalem, He said:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
Notice two things: “Ye would not”; “thou knewest not.” That was something in themselves. It was not the case that they could not; it was that they would not. It was not that they could not know; it was because they would not know.
They would not. They did not want to know. They just did not want to. They had decided that they were not going to know. Now God knows the heart. He knows that.
It is not just that we are like that. Somehow, we have taken an attitude. We have taken the attitude, “I am not interested in that. I am not for that. I do not want that. That is not for me. I am not going that way.”
“Thou wouldest not. Thou knewest not what thou mightest have known.” That is always a ground of judgment.
Look at these people. Whether they were actual people, whether it was a real story in life, or what is called a parable, does not matter. The Lord Jesus knew what He was saying.
Not only indifference, but then it comes to it. This is where you find out, you know. When it really comes to it, someone says, “Look here, the Lord wants you. The Lord calls you. The Lord has sent His Word to invite you to come.” Then the real thing is disclosed, and they all with one consent began to make excuses.
Excuses. I do not know how far the Lord Jesus had irony of human nature in mind. One said, “I have bought a piece of land, and I must needs go and see it.”
Now, may I be quite plain here? That is a thing that not one of you would do. If you did, you would be a fool. Who would buy a piece of land without first of all having seen it? That is very lame. Oh, no, that will not pass. That is not good enough.
But you see, you see, when we have really run it to earth, it is found out that there is not any solid basis. We are just evading. We are trying to get round. We are looking for a back-door way out. It is an excuse; it is not a reason.
The man said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them.” Well, there are some farmers here. Is that your way of going about business—buying them before you have seen them? See how empty it is?
I do not know about the third man’s excuse. “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.” But the Lord Jesus said it is an excuse all the same.
How is it an excuse? Something in the realm of natural affections, natural attachments, is accounted of greater value than the kingdom of God. That is a poor excuse.
Now, the point is that when it really does come to it, there is no really solid ground for this kind of reaction. It is, “I do not want.” It is a failure to recognise the infinite seriousness and value of this kingdom of God, this gospel of the grace of God.
It discloses a state of heart and mind and will which in itself is the ground of rejection. Therefore shall the kingdom be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. Part of the fruits is hungering and thirsting after righteousness, thirsting for the living God.
A sense of real business, not justification and excuse—these are the conditions of inheriting the kingdom.
Of course, they are capable of very far-reaching, wide-extending applications. They touch so many things, do they not? They are principles, you see. It is not just the connection; it is the thing itself, the attitude of heart.
Well, says the Lord, none of those shall come to My feast; none of those shall inherit the kingdom; none of those shall enter the kingdom.
Out into the streets and lanes of the city: call the poor, the maimed, the blind, the lame. The servant does it. “Lord, what thou didst command is done, and yet there is room.” Out again into the highways and hedges: compel them to come in.
The poor, the maimed, the blind, the lame, the vagabond, the wayfarer. Jesus said to the Jewish leaders:
The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
All of this principle answers the question: Who will inherit the kingdom? And not only initially get into it, but come into all the fullness of what the Lord has provided.
What a vast fullness it is. We could dwell upon this feast and what there is in it. Paul speaks so much about it himself:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Oh, what a lot there is in this inheritance, this kingdom. Who will receive it? Those who know their own poverty.
Now, you see, these other people did not know that. They were independent. They felt they did not need this at all. They could get on quite well without it. No sense of their own poverty—pride, not poverty.
The maimed: those who had suffered in life, whom life had treated cruelly, who had met with damaged lives, were marred and mutilated.
The blind: those who longed to see, from whom a whole world was shut out. If only their eyes could see.
The lame: people who found it very difficult and very hard going, limited in their capacity and knowing it.
And what shall we say about the vagabonds and the wayfarers of the highways and hedges? You see, they are all people who had a consciousness of need in some way or another. Consciousness of need—that is the great contrasting factor here.
You will go a long way if that is your consciousness. You will go a long way in the things of God if it is really, really heart-hunger, if it is really a heart set upon the Lord, His things, and His church. You will go a long way.
Now this is a challenge, solemnly, to us all—Christians and those who are not. The Lord is a challenge to us. He calls. He has made a great provision. He is dealing with us in infinite grace and not in judgment. He has placed everything open to us and said, “Come; for all things are now ready.”
Oh, you Christians, that little phrase—do you know what it means? Go to Paul’s letters again and collect up all the occurrences of that phrase, “all things.” All things in Christ. That is the great thing, is it not?
What a vast “all things” it comes to be when we look into it. “Come; for all things are now ready.”
It is a challenge to those who have not come. But it is a challenge to us who have come. There is a range and a depth about the “all things” that you and I have never yet had. It always is so much a matter of where our heart is, whether we really do mean business or whether we can be put off, be like these people, and make excuses.
Challenge. And it is a test of capacity for appreciating things of God.
May I say the last word? Never mind when you get there: you will no longer be poor, maimed, blind, lame, or beggar. It is a wonderful healing that goes on as soon as you get into the kingdom.
All these things clear up. Now, you see, Jesus had taught the kingdom of God in action. He was teaching the kingdom of God in action as much as in words. His life and His work were a demonstration of the meaning of the kingdom.
He healed the maimed and the lame. He opened the eyes of the blind. He called the poor and the needy, publicans and sinners, and made them His friends. He demonstrated in action the kingdom of God.
That is what happens when you come. In that kingdom is the tree, and the leaves of that tree are for the healing of the nations. He is the tree. There is a healing that takes place when we are in the kingdom of God.
Humbly, we are able to say, “Yes, my eyes have been opened. My halting steps have been strengthened. My wounds have been healed. My wanderings in the highways and byways have ceased. My vagabond life has been ended.”
That is what happens. That is the prosperity of the kingdom. Are you going to make excuses to avoid all that? It is not worth it. It is nonsense, is it not? It is nonsense. They are mere empty excuses. There is nothing in them.
May God touch you. See, the divine invitation is offered to you. You can miss it. You can lose it. You can be put beyond it.
There is, in this world, the greatest object lesson that ever God has given to men of this very thing. You remember the place that the Jewish nation once had with God—in blessing and prosperity, yes, at the table.
What a place they had. Then God called them into the kingdom of His Son, and they began to make excuses. They showed that they were not interested in that.
Look at them. For these two thousand years, vagabonds on the earth, without a kingdom and a home, wounded, blinded. Partial blindness hath happened to Israel. They are all in those conditions.
They are in rejection, and in rejection of heart are suffering what they lost. They lost the kingdom of heaven.
I say, the most terrible demonstration and object lesson of what it means to lose the kingdom of heaven. But remember, that is only an illustration in the temporal realm; the parallel is in the eternal realm.
One does not like speaking like that, but there it is. There is a tremendous issue.
Well, there was one of their number who came and responded. His great testimony afterward was:
I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.
That man went a long, long way. That was none other than the Apostle Paul himself.
Lord, incline our hearts to respond. He says, “Come; for all things are now ready.” May our hearts say, “I am coming, Lord. I am coming now.”