WHEN THE GUESTS FAILED TO COME

LUKE 14:1

A. OUR LORD WAS AT THE HOME OF ONE OF THE LEADERS OF THE PHARISEES
  1. A man that had dropsy was healed by the Lord:
    1. That was looked upon as manual labor by the Pharisees.
    2. Christ pointed out to them that if the ox of one of them would fall into a pit, he would surely pull it out, even on the Sabbath day.
    3. That being true of an animal, how much more should a son of Abraham deserve to be healed from his sickness.
  2. It was at this point that one of the guests exclaimed: "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God": Luke 14:15
B. WHEN THE GUESTS FAILED TO COME
  1. The erroneous concept of the Jews about the kingdom of God:
    1. They looked for their nation to be restored as an independent nation.
    2. Even the disciples, after they had heard the Lord expound the gospel of the kingdom, were not free from the materialistic concept of the Jews - Luke 24:21; Acts 1:6
    3. They seemed ignorant of the dual nature of the kingdom of God -
      1. The kingdom of grace -- a preparatory period or phase of God's kingdom.
      2. The kingdom of glory to be set up when sin will have been removed from this planet forever.
  2. The parable of the great feast has reference to the kingdom of grace:
    1. The invited guests were, in the first place, the lost sheep of the house of Israel - Matt. 15:24
    2. The gospel invitation went to them first - Matt. 10:6
    3. That was the great argument of the apostles - Acts 3:26; Rom. 2:9, 10
  3. The supper is a type of the universal gospel appeal to the world lost in sin:
    1. Wonderfully expressed in John 3:16
    2. Also, in the gospel commission - Matt. 28:18-20
  4. The attitude of the invited guests:
    1. Totally indifferent to the feast they had been invited to.
    2. That, we know, is not normal, when people are invited to a material feast.
    3. But this was a spiritual feast; it was heaven's invitation to the guests to be saved.
  5. Why were the Jews so indifferent to the gospel of Jesus Christ?
    1. They were blind to their lost condition - John 8:31-44; Rom. 10:1-3
    2. They loved darkness rather than the light - John 3:19, 20
    3. They, foolishly, boasted of never having been in bondage to any man! That was very untrue because at that very moment they were under the yoke of the Romans.
C. WHEN THE GUESTS FAILED TO COME
  1. The parable was directed, primarily, to the Jewish nation:
    1. Because God sent his Son to his people to bring them back to God.
    2. The parable shows that God's efforts were rejected by the Jews.
  2. But are we, today, any better?
    1. Do we make unreasonable excuses for being absent from the feast of the Lord?
    2. If the truth was known by us, how often are we tempted to bypass the gospel invitation? Would we dare to point the finger of accusation at the Jews?
    3. Let us take a closer look at an ungracious reception of the invitation -
      1. Men manufacture boldfaced excuses to cover up the true sentiment of their heart.
      2. How senseless it was for them to claim all the time for their certain projects, to the exclusion of the feast.
      3. Are we any different today? Do we make the material things in life more important than the salvation of our soul?


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