#129 Lu. 14:15-24 THE PARABLE OF THE GREAT SUPPER

Introduction:

    Jesus was en route to Jerusalem to be crucified.  At one of
the cities or villages along the way He and His disciples had been
invited to a dinner at the home of one of the chief Pharisees.
While He was there He healed a man who was sick with the dropsy.
Also while He was there He taught the guests who were present a
lesson in humility.  He told them not to seek the seats of great
honor at such feasts, but to sit in the seats of less honor.  In
addition to this, at that same feast, He taught His host as lesson
in unselfishness.  He told him not to invite people of whom he
expected a favor in return, but to invite people who could not
repay him for his kindness.
    In our text today, at that same feast Jesus gives The Parable
of The Great Supper.  This parable is not to be confused with
The Parable of The Wedding Feast which we find in the gospel of
Matthew.  At first glance we might think of them as being the same
parable and that they were just recorded somewhat differently by
the different writers.  However, not only are the parables
different in their content, but according to Matthew and Luke,
they were given on different occasions.  The Parable of The
Wedding Feast, as given in Matthew was given at the temple in
Jerusalem when Jesus was in conflict with the Pharisees.  The
Parable of The Great Supper, as given in Luke was given while
Jesus was en route to Jerusalem while He attended the dinner at
the home of the Pharisee.  Therefore, I conclude that even though
they are somewhat similar in content, they are actually different
parables.

I.  The great privilege of feasting in the Kingdom of God

    V. 15, "And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard
these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread
in the kingdom of God."  One of the dinner guests who was present
with Jesus in the home of the Pharisee made a very astute
observation to Jesus.  He said, "Blessed is he that shall eat
bread in the kingdom of God."  He apparently thought that he was
really blessed to be privileged to attend this feast in the home
of one of the chief Pharisees.  He could not help but observe that
it would be a far greater blessing to be able to attend a feast in
the kingdom of God.
    I am not certain just what feast in the kingdom of God this
man may have had in mind.  It is probable that he understood that
the promised Christ would be the Son of God and he, like all Jews,
anticipated that the Christ would drive out the Romans.  He
expected that the Christ would celebrate His victory over the
Romans by giving great feasts.  He considered that it would be a
great blessing to attend one of those feasts.  In the realm of
possibility, he may have begun to suspect that Jesus really is the
Christ, and that he was hinting for an invitation in the event
that Jesus really is the Christ and really did host such feasts in
the future.  As I said, I am not certain just what this man had in
mind.  In the realm of possibility, he may have been thinking of
the heaven age and saying what a great blessing it would be to be
saved and to enter heaven.
    Never-the-less, his statement opened up the way for Jesus to
present this parable and to emphasize the importance of being
saved.

II.  Invitations to a great feast

    Let us take a look at the parable.  V. 16, "Then said he unto
him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many."  The
certain man in the parable who plans this great supper represents
God, the Heavenly Father.  The great feast that this man planned
represents God's great plan of salvation for sinful man.  The joys
of feasting represent the great joys of salvation.
    In the parable, the man sent out invitations to many people.
The many who were first invited represent the Jewish people who
were the first to receive an invitation to salvation.  The
Gentiles had long ago turned from the worship of the true God and
had turned to worship idol gods.  Because they had turned away
from God, God gave them up to the worship of idols.  Through
Abraham called the nation of Israel to be His covenant nation.
God presented the invitation of salvation to the people of Israel
through the types and shadows of the Old Testament law ceremonies
and through the preaching of the prophets of old.  This does not
mean that Gentiles were not invited to salvation in Old Testament
times, but it does mean that from the time they turned away from
God and to idolatry and the covenant was made with Israel, the
opportunity for Gentiles to be saved was chiefly by believing the
message of salvation as presented to them through the Jews by the
law and the prophets.  Those Gentiles who would believe were to
become proselyte Jews.  Then even in the New Testament times the
gospel was sent to the Jews first.

III.  The notification that all things were ready

    V.  17, "And sent his servant at supper time to say to them
that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready."  In the
parable, this second messenger was not sent to invite people to
the feast.  He invitation to the feast had already been made.
This messenger was sent to inform those who had already been
invited that the time had arrived for them to come.  This is in
keeping with the customs of that day.  A feast would be planned,
the invitations would be delivered, the meal would be prepared and
other messengers would be sent out to inform the invited guests
that everything was now in readiness and that they should now
come.
    This represents the time when John the Baptist came on the
scene in Israel.  John informed the people of Israel that they
should repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.  Or to put it
another way, the King from heaven is at hand.  The people were
being called upon to repent of their sins and to trust the Christ
and be saved.  Many in Israel did repent and trust the coming
Christ under the preaching of John the Baptist.  But the vast
majority of people in the nation did not repent and get saved.
The vast majority in Israel were still unsaved when the Christ
came and began His ministry and the vast majority of them were
still unsaved even as Christ journeyed to Jerusalem to be
crucified.

IV.  Excuses for not coming

    V. 18, "And they all with one consent began to make excuse..."
In the parable the guests who were first invited would be expected
to come immediately upon receiving notification that all things
were ready.  Instead, they began to make excuses.  Now this was no
time to decline the invitation.  If they were going to decline the
time to do so would have been when they were first invited.  The
time to decline would have been before the cooking and all the
preparations were made.  But they had not declined when they were
invited.  They had accepted the invitation to come.  But now that
the feast has been prepared and time has arrived for them to come,
they refuse to come.  Instead, they make excuses one right after
the other.
    (V. 18), "...The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of
ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me
excused."  Let us assume that the man would not close the deal
until he had seen and approved the land.  This must have sounded
like a perfectly legitimate excuse to him.  But in fact, it was
not a good excuse.  He knew that he had already made a commitment
to attend the feast and he should have arranged his business deal
so as not to interfere with that commitment.
    The truth of the matter is that he did not go to the banquet
because he did not want to go.  There was no excuse for accepting
the invitation, waiting until the meal was prepared and then
cancelling out on some trumped up excuse.
    V. 19, "And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and
I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused."  A very similar
situation exists with this man as with the first.  If he were
going to decline the invitation, the time for him to do so was
when he first received it before the preparation was made.  He
should not have waited until the meal was cooked and all
preparations were made and then cancelled out.  He could surely
have waited until after the feast to go and try out the oxen and
finalize the purchase.  There was no reason whatsoever for him not
to go to the banquet.  His was a flimsy excuse.  The real reason
had to be that he just simply did not want to go.
    V. 20, "And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore
I cannot come."  This third and final excuse at first appears to
have more credibility than the others.  At least there was the
semblance of a Biblical excuse.  In Old Testament times, the Law
of Moses excused a newly wedded man from going off to war.  He was
told that he should stay home and cheer his wife.  For that
reason, it must have seemed to him that he had the best excuse of
all.  If he was to be excused from war, then he felt he should be
excused from any other obligation.   So when the messenger arrived
he sent word back to his host that he could not come because he
had just married.
    The truth of the matter is that this, too, was just an excuse.
He surely knew about his plans for a wedding service when he
accepted the invitation.  If he had wanted to decline because of
the wedding, that was the time to do so before the preparations
for the feast were made.  Now that he was already married the
wedding services would not conflict with the banquet.  There was
no reason why both he and his new bride could not attend the
banquet.  Like the others this man was not going to the banquet
because he did not want to go.  All he had was a flimsy excuse.

V.  New invitations sent out

    V. 21, "So that servant came, and showed his lord these
things..."  In the parable the servant who went out and notified
the guests that all was in readiness reported back to the host
that all of the guests had come up with flimsy excuses and had
cancelled out.  They would not be coming to the feast.  He
reported to him the various excuses that had been offered.
    (V. 21), "...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 hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt,
and the blind."  The host, the master of the house, immediately
saw through their flimsy excuses.  Immediately he sent the servant
back to the city to invite others.  These were people who were not
invited at the first invitation.  He instructed that they were to
go into the streets and alleys of the city and bring in the poor,
the crippled and the blind.  Soon there was a large crowd of
people gathered at his house for the banquet.  They were the poor,
the crippled and the blind.
    The servant once more reports back to his master.  V. 22, "And
the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet
there is room."  The report to the master is that the poor, the
crippled and the blind have been invited and still there is room.
    Once more the servant is sent out.  V. 23-24, "And the lord
said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and
compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.  For I say
unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of
my supper."

VI.  The interpretation of the parable

    Let me first point out to you the way that the parable applied
to the people of that day.  I have already touched on the
interpretation somewhat, but let me expand on it at this point.
God's plan of salvation is illustrated by the great feast that is
planned by the master of the house.  Just as the master of the
house had planned the banquet, even so God the Heavenly Father had
planned the salvation of lost souls.
    In the parable the first invitation which was sent out
represents God's dealings with the Jews.  God had sent out the
invitation to salvation through the Law of Moses and through the
preaching and writings of the prophets.
    In the parable the invitation was accepted when it was first
received.  The Jews accepted the Law Covenant.  They accepted the
invitation to be God's covenant nation.
    In the parable the messenger who later came and informed the
people that all was now ready represented the work of John the
Baptist.  John preached in the wilderness of Judea and informed
the people of Israel that the Kingdom of God was at hand.  They
were told that they should repent of their sin and trust in the
soon coming Christ.  The ministry of Jesus then followed closely
on the heels of John the Baptist.  The people of Israel, for the
most part, rejected both the message of John the Baptist and the
message of Jesus Christ.  Even after they witnessed the miracle
signs which showed that Jesus is the Christ, they still rejected
Him and they offered such flimsy excuses for rejecting Him.  This
was especially true of the Jewish leadership.
    The new invitation in the parable which was sent out into the
streets of the city and extended to the poor, the crippled and the
blind, represents the gospel being preached to the poor, the sick,
the crippled and the blind by Jesus and His disciples.  Many of
these common people did receive the message.  They repented of
their sin, they trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and they
got saved.
    In the parable, even after the poor, the blind and the
crippled came to the banquet there was still room for more.
Therefore the invitation was sent out into the highways and the
hedges.  This represents the sending of the gospel down the
highways in all directions to all parts of the world.  He would
send the gospel even to the Gentile nations of the world.  God
would give instructions that the gospel should be preached to
every nation of the world and to every person of the world.
    There are some things revealed in this parable that come right
down to our day and gets right down to where we live.  Note first
of all that the gospel of salvation was sent out first to the
people of Israel and that the majority of the Jews rejected the
gospel message.  Note that after the Jews rejected the gospel, God
then turned and set the gospel of salvation into the highways and
hedges of the whole world.  He has sent the gospel to every nation
and to every man, woman, boy and girl.  He did this that every
person might be saved.
    Note that just as the Jews of Jesus' day rejected the Christ
and turned down the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is what the
majority of men have done through the ages and that is what the
majority do today.
    Note that men put up the flimsiest excuses for not trusting in
Jesus Christ.  We hear them all the time.  For instance, "I don't
believe in all that stuff."  Well, it is true whether they believe
it or not.  "There are too many hypocrites in the churches." Well,
I will acknowledge that are too many hypocrites in the churches.
There are not nearly as many as some folks would have us to
believe.  But even if there were only one, that is too many.
But hypocrites do not stop people from going anywhere else they
want to go.  They don't stop going to work, to town, to the ball
games or anywhere else they want to go.  There are only two places
people want go because of hypocrites.  They won't go to church and
they won't go to heaven because of the hypocrites.  But they will
wind up going to hell and hell is going to be full of them.
    Some use the excuse, "I have plenty of time.  I plan to get
some day, but not right now."  The truth of the matter is that
they do not know how much time they have.  The Bible says, "Boast
not yourself of tomorrow, for you know not what a day may bring."
    Then there are those who take the attitude that it doesn't
really matter what excuse.  When you just do not want to do a
thing, any excuse is as good as another.  But when it comes to
trusting Jesus for salvation, there is no excuse that is worth a
hill of beans.  There is no excuse what-so-ever that will hold up.
    Note that in the parable, no man was turned down because he
was poor, or dirty or unworthy of being at the master's table.
Neither will any, woman, boy or girl be turned down because he is
filthy in sin and unworthy of sitting at the Lord's table.  We are
all unworthy.
    Note that in the parable every man who did come and eat at the
master's table in the parable was blessed indeed.  They had a
great meal and a great time.  Likewise every man who comes to
feast at the table of God's saving grace in the kingdom of God is
exceedingly blessed indeed.  The man at the feast was right.
"Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of heaven."

Conclusion:

    Will you come today and be saved or will you try to use an
excuse?  "Blessed is the man whose iniquities are forgiven and
whose sins are covered."  "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord
will not impute iniquity."  Blessed is the man who will not go
into hell when he dies.  Blessed is the man who is prepared to
stand before God in judgment.  Blessed is the man whose mortal
body will be made immortal in the resurrection.  Blessed is the
man who will walk the golden streets and who will have an eternal
home in glory with God.