The Wedding Banquet

Parables

The Wedding Banquet

Intro:

Good morning Church, Good morning family. What a beautiful day, I hope your hearts are open and your spirits are ready for this teaching of the Lord. This is not necessarily an easy lesson, but one that we must put in our hearts, not only for ourselves but for our hearers so that we may both be saved. We must lead people to Christ, but we also realize that not all are ready or willing to come to Christ that is why in it states: Read

Pray

If you would go ahead and turn over to , that is where we will be this morning. Pastors stops by and is visiting people. He knocks upon one door and there is no answer. So He leaves his business card in the door with written on the back. When the offering was processed the next morning, the pastor’s card was returned with written under his note. He began to laugh out loud as he researched the verse for says, “I stand at the door and knock,” states, “I heard your voice in the garden and I was naked and afraid.” It is great to be invited to things isn’t, even though sometimes we aren’t quite prepared. However, the one invitation we never want to miss, is the one that comes from God himself. That is what the parable of the wedding banquet is all about, it is about being invited and making sure we take the time to accept the invitation.

I. The Wedding Banquet – vs 1-3

A. What is it

1. Days of Celebration

a. A cause to rejoice

b. Bless the one in the position of honor

2. Huge Feast –

a. A place of relationship

b. A place of sharing

c. Rest

B. Designed to honor couple

1. In this case the son

2. Relative to God and the Son

a. Realizing why He came

b. That this son would reunite people to God

3. Bring about the Church

4.

5. Celebration of an eternal union

II. Those invited – vs 4 - 7

A. By the King

a. High matter of state

b. An honor to be invited

i. Like being invited to the White House

ii.

B. Those who reject

1. Representative of Israel

a.

b. Came to the Jews first

c. 4K years of invitation

2. See all throughout the OT

3. They have declined their invitation

a. Saw it time and again

i.

4. Rejecting the invitation

1. Is an Act of treason

2.Disrespecting the King

3. The Cross was the ultimate denial

i. Not all Jews, but the culture

C. The others – vs 8 - 10

1. God never put in a box

a. Not worthy

b. God will use anyone –

i. Willing

ii. Moldable

2. Invites all to come in

a. God knows the truth

b. It is God who changes us

c. So, it doesn’t matter, good or bad

d. Only willingness

3. The King isn’t offended

a. Disappointed

b. Will move on

c. Jesus tells us to be ready

1.

2. God isn’t going to beg

d. God loves us but doesn’t need us

1. Don’t let your pride cause hesitation

2. Don’t ignore the calling

3. He doesn’t call forever

III. Must come on His terms – vs 11-13

A. Must come for His purpose

1. Must change –

2. Cannot stay the same

3. Here we see the man unwilling to even change his clothes

a. Represents an uncaring heart

b. Did not come in for the Son but His own wants

B. What happens to the imposter

1. Here we see the man is thrown out

2. God will also toss us out too

a. Remember God wants us/does not need us

b. It is His way and no other

i. Reminder Jesus is the only way

ii. There is no second way

C. Few will enter because they will ignore – vs 14

1. Goes back to the first verses

2. Be unworthy of invitation

3. They heard but did not care

4. See too much of this in our nation

a. People have become despondent to Jesus

b. They are uncaring

c. Don’t think it’s important

d. There will be time later

Conclusion:

I want to close with this, I want to tell you a bit about my father. He always thought there would be time later. I remember seeing him as a strong, hard working man. A man who I knew to be tough and tough on us, even though I have come to understand that he loved us and was trying to raise us right. We didn’t go to Church very often, especially early on in life. But, when we moved back to OK when he retired, we went a bit more often, but after my grandmother passed that all stopped. He always said, maybe next week. You know I still to this day don’t know if he was ever baptized or not, we never had that conversation. As a young man it just didn’t seem like the thing to ask your Dad. Today, I wished I had. I know that he knew a bit about the Bible and I know in the end he was able to proclaim Jesus as Lord. But in the end, was it too late? I have no idea to be honest, all I am glad about is that I am not in charge of those things. But it leaves me to wonder, if we wouldn’t had waited, if we wouldn’t have said, there will be more time for that? I don’t want you on your death bed wishing that at all. My father died in his 50s and I guarantee you he thought he had more time. But now, now is the day and this is the hour that Jesus is calling you. Stop putting it off, don’t be my father begging on the death bed to come into Christ, but choose today to accept the invitation. Choose today to have confidence in your salvation in Jesus Christ. Choose today to come to the banquet.