The Parable of the Wedding Feast, Part 1 (Matthew Sermon 107)

Introduction

So, we resume our series in Matthew. Going back to Matthew now and resuming our look at the life of Christ from that marvelous gospel. And we come to the parable of the wedding feast. We’re gonna deal with it in two weeks. This morning we’re gonna just look at the general overview and details of this parable and next week we’re gonna draw out three of the weighty doctrinal issues that come from this. Just too much to cover in one week and so we can look forward to that next week.

But I will never forget as long as I live, the morning of July, 29th 1981. I was a non-Christian. I was driving to work at a job I hated. And I was listening to the radio, reports describing the most lavish wedding of our time, the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at Saint Paul’s Cathedral. And I was green with envy. I will never forget that. Lady Diana’s wedding train was 25 feet long, we were told. She arrived in a glass coach. Took 3.5 minutes for her to walk the red velvet aisle up to the altar. 750 million people watched that wedding from 58 countries by TV and a privileged 3,500 viewed it in person.

I remember feeling incredibly jealous and not that I cared that much about the royal couple, but I didn’t like my life at that point and thought, “Boy, wouldn’t it be great? Wouldn’t it be great to have the life of luxury and ease they were gonna have?” They were going on a Mediterranean cruise for their honeymoon. Eleven day cruise. A gift of the Queen of England. And I was pulling into the parking lot right at that moment as that all was being described, toiling my way through a life that seemed far less appealing. I remember wishing that I could at least have been one of the privileged few that could have attended that wedding. Little did I know what the future held for that couple or, for that matter, what the future held for me. That couple, as you know, had a tragic future in-store. A life of conflict and hostility, of adultery, broken relationships, of misery and, of course, the untimely death of Diana pursued by the paparazzi in Paris, bizarre car chase. You know the story.

Whereas I, for my part, would be invited and chosen for a far more lavish wedding banquet 15 months later when I became a Christian. And now I look on my own attitude at the time as foolishness, worldly foolishness. I can’t wait to sit at the wedding banquet with Jesus. Amen? I can’t wait to go to that wedding and sit at table with Jesus and partake in a mystical sort of way, a way I cannot understand, but as part of the bride of Christ, as we just sang, how beautiful is the bride of Christ. To be part of that and to enjoy just being in the presence of God. And part of the anticipation and the joy I have looking forward to Heaven comes from this parable and from the image, the picture of God that it gives us as the ultimate generous joy giver. That God is himself a happy being and he delights to make others happy out of his bounty and his lavishness. I’m just looking forward to being in the presence of such a being. Looking forward to being in the presence of God.

There are so many faulty views of God out there, aren’t there? The “cosmic killjoy.” The one leaning over the ramparts of heaven to see if any of you are having a good time. And telling you to cut it out, squelching any joy you might have. I believe these images are clearly a Satanic lie. Clearly a satanic lie. From the Garden of Eden Satan has been lying to us, telling us that God is holding out on us, holding out joy and happiness. If we could just follow him, we would be really happy. The truth of the matter is quite different. The book of Revelation says of Satan that he is filled with rage, because he knows his time is short. How can a being like that give anybody happiness?

Jesus spoke of him saying he’s a murderer from the beginning, the thief who comes to steal and kill and destroy. Jesus is the one who has come to give us life, and give it abundantly. Paul puts it this way, speaking of God, in 1 Timothy 1:11 speaks of “the glorious gospel of the blessed God.” And like many of you, perhaps, you just read over those words and it’s like those religious words: Glorious, gospel, blessed, God, those kind of things.

It wasn’t until John Piper kind of re-translated or actually got a little more careful in the translation than we’re used to. “The glorious good news of the happy God.” It is glorious good news that God is happy and that he invites you into his happiness with him, that he wants you to be as happy as he is. That is a biblical picture of God and that’s a picture we get of God in this parable today. In the parable, Jesus portrays God the Father as a joy-filled host of a wedding banquet. He portrays heaven as a lavish, joy-filled feast in which the fattened oxen and the cattle have been butchered and everything’s made ready, and we’re invited to sit at table and enjoy. And amazingly in this parable, this invitation is rejected. Rejected and rejected and rejected, again and again.

So, my earnest desire today is to explain the joy of God in this parable in such an appealing way that you’ll sit at table with Christ even now, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And I do mean at the Lord’s Supper, later on, but I also just mean day-to-day that you would just sit at table with Jesus, through that deposit, that guarantee of the Holy Spirit, and have foretaste of that heavenly banquet, knowing that it’s not the full consummation, but just sit at table with Jesus.

And even more, mindful of the fact that there are almost certainly people here today who are in an unregenerate state. And you are lost. The Bible says you’re under the wrath of God. If you were to die today, you would go to hell, you would spend eternity away from God. You can be freed from that today, just by hearing the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation. Just by hearing words of Christ crucified, his blood shed for sinners, of his bodily resurrection from the dead. And that hearing that, that faith will spring up in your heart and you’ll be justified, forgiven of all your sins, and you will someday sit at table with God. That’s my hope today. Can all of that happen? Yes, it can. That’s the power of the Word of God. And so, that’s what I’m praying for today.

I. A Happy King Throws A Party

Context

But let’s begin by just setting this parable in its context. A happy king throws a party, that’s what it’s about. And so Jesus is there in the last week of his life, we’ve already traced that out. He has made his triumphal entry to “hosannas” from the little children. “Hallelujahs.” “Blessed is the one who comes in the Name of the Lord,” and they’re just chanting and celebrating. But it wasn’t long after that joyful entry that Jesus began to cross swords with his enemies, the Jewish leaders who wanted to kill him, who were conspiring to put him to death.

They are the ones that rebuked the children for praising Jesus. They’re the ones that were there when Jesus cleansed the temple, and they asked him, “By what power or authority do you do this?” They were there when Jesus was teaching in the temple area. They questioned him about that. They confronted him on his authority to do any of the things he was doing. He told them parables to try to explain their situation before God, Jewish history, and who he was. Parable of the two sons. The first son, the father says, “Go and work in the vineyard,” and the first son says he won’t go, but he changes his mind and goes. And the other son, he says he’ll go, but he doesn’t go. And which of the two did the will of his father? And Jesus applies that parable, talking about the ministry of John the Baptist, he said, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw that, you didn’t repent and believe.”

And then he told them the parable of the wicked tenants in the vineyard, picking up on that theme of God as the owner of a vineyard. An absentee owner. And how a vineyard was planted and rented to some tenant farmers, and when he sent servants to collect the fruit, they just beat them up and killed them, and then finally he sends his son and they kill him too. And then Jesus applies the parable this way, “I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but the one on whom it falls will be crushed.” Well, the Jewish leaders definitely got the message at the end of Matthew 21. It says, “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them, they looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because all the people held that he was a prophet.” That’s how it ends, chapter 21.

And we go right from that into this parable. Jesus answers them again and tells them another parable, the parable of the wedding banquet. Now, why did Jesus use parables? This was something that Jesus chose to do. A parable is a story with elements taken from everyday life, something we understand, something that’s familiar, but it teaches a spiritual principle. And if you get the key, if you understand it, then it’s a marvelous teaching tool. Very memorable and teaches elements of truth that really just can’t be gotten across so powerfully any other way. But if you don’t have that key, it’s gibberish and it makes the one who speaks them look like he’s insane. They actually thought he was demon-possessed after telling parables. So it’s a very wise thing. Jesus actually divides people by the parables that he tells. But in this way, I think he’s explaining something about the rejection of the Messiah by the Jewish nation.

The Parable Recounted

So what’s in this parable? You heard Bert read it. I’ll just go over it briefly, just for details. “The kingdom of Heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.” So God is portrayed as a king and preparing a wedding banquet for the Son. “And he sent servants,” verse 3, “to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come.” So there’s some group of people that had already known that this banquet was coming, and he’s basically saying the time has come. It’s time for the wedding banquet.

However, verse 3, “they refused to come.” It’s rather shocking, if you think about it, but they refused to come to the wedding banquet that’s been prepared. Well, the king tries again. He sends more messengers.

Verse 4, “He sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited, that I prepared my dinner.’” Maybe you didn’t understand the earlier message, maybe you didn’t know. Well, I’m trying to make it clear. Dinner is ready. Dinner is served. In my family, you don’t have to ask twice. They know. Thursday, you know when it was ready, it was long sought after. I’m gonna get into trouble. It was wonderfully made and the ladies worked hard and it was marvelous. But I’m just telling you, when the time came, we were there. We were eager.

But the king sends more messengers, “Tell them the banquet is ready. The time has come. My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.” But those invited actually attack the messengers at this point. Verse 5 and 6, “They paid no attention and went off, one to his field, another to his business.” Verse 6, “The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.” But now we have the rage of the king. The king’s enraged. “He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” And then he sends out a general invitation to everyone.

“He said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.” So here you’ve got this grand wedding hall and it’s filled with good and bad people. But then the king comes in and as he comes in, he looks at the wedding guests and he notices there a man who’s not wearing wedding clothes. And he approaches him, he initiates with him. He said, “Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?” And the man is speechless, it says. He doesn’t have an answer. And then, perhaps some people think maybe the, most shocking part of the whole parable, then the king told the attendants, “Tie him hand and foot and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The Parable Applied

And then Jesus gives this, almost as shocking or maybe even more, in some cases, application or summation of this parable, “For many are called but few are chosen.” That’s it. That’s the parable. Those are the 14 verses we’re gonna look at over these two weeks. Alright?

These striking words at the end, “Many are called but few are chosen,” are striking because it seems that choosing isn’t even in view. What choosing or what election or what kind of choice is involved here? He’s contrasting the invitation to the wedding banquet and the actual attendance of those that end up being there. And not everyone who gets invited actually ends up sitting at table. And this fits the context, actually, because he’s addressing the fact, I believe, that Israel, that the Jews, are rejecting their Messiah and not everyone who gets invited actually sits at table. “Many are called but few are chosen.” It brings it squarely in view of the sovereignty of God in human salvation. 

II. General Lessons from the Parable

The Lavish Character of the King

Alright, well, let’s look at some general lessons from this parable. Some general lessons. First of all, I always ask when I come to a text, two questions: What does it teach me about God and what does it teach me about man? And I would recommend that to you as a general principle of Bible study. Whenever you read a passage just say, “What do I learn about God here and what can I learn about man?” And so, let’s start with the first and most important question. What does this parable teach us about God? And we see first and foremost, the lavish character of the king. This parable teaches us about God. God is a king. Clearly, I think, the king in the parable is God the Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he’s presented as a king, a sovereign, a ruler.

And we see also this wedding analogy. I’ll talk more about that in a moment, but it pictures a relationship between the Son of God and the church. A relationship between the Son of God and his people. Well, what are the attributes of the king? What does the parable teach us about the attributes of God?

Well, we see first and clearly, the love of God here. The love of God. The whole wedding banquet language is about love. It’s a love relationship between the Father and the Son. The Father loves the Son and wants to put on the banquet. And just because it’s a wedding banquet, not just a celebratory feast or a harvest feast or something like that, there’s a love relationship between the Son and his bride. The marriage between Christ and the church. So we see love.

John the Baptist calls Jesus the bridegroom. You know, when his disciples come and they’re jealous, because Jesus is doing better. Jesus’ church is growing faster. And John understands exactly what’s happening. It’s exactly like it needs to be. And he says in John 3:29, “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.” So he uses bridegroom language to speak of Jesus.

Jesus uses that language to speak of himself when questioned about fasting, He said, “How can the friends of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away. At that point they will fast.” So, that’s Matthew 9:15.

The apostle Paul likened marital relations between a husband and wife, in a mysterious way, to the relationship between Christ and the church. And so there is this idea of a wedding between Christ and the church. The final consummation of this is depicted in the book of Revelation. As the new Jerusalem comes down like a bride, beautifully dressed, prepared for her husband, ready for her wedding day. And so the whole context of this parable is the love of the Father for the Son and of the Son for His bride.

We see also, as I’ve already mentioned, the happiness of God. The happiness of God. A wedding is a happy time, it’s a celebration. All over the world, A time of happiness. It’s a time of eating and drinking and being happy, of laughter and music. And our God is a God of overwhelming joy. He is a happy God. You know, it just takes a while to wrap your mind around that. All of the misery in your life and mine has come from departing from this happy God. And all of the happiness and joy we’ll experience comes from returning to him, reconciliation with him, right relationship with him. He’s a happy God. How ridiculous is it then that some people portray him as a miserable being? I’m about to teach a class this upcoming semester on the Puritans at Southeastern. And H.L. Mencken said that Puritanism is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

Well, listen, that’s really very clever and very bitter and all that, but the real issue isn’t so much what does Mencken think of the Puritans, it’s what does an unbeliever think about God? Same kind of thing, the haunting fear God has that someone, somewhere, is happy and they need to cut it out. But you know, the Scripture says, I think it’s Psalm 115, “Our God is in heaven, he does whatever pleases him.” How foolish to be omnipotent and omniscient and be unhappy. [chuckle] I mean, if you’re gonna be omnipotent, be happy, because everything’s the way you want. And he is. He does whatever pleases him. In heaven, earth and under the earth, he’s sovereign, he rules, and he is happy. He’s a happy being.

Our God is a God of infinite happiness and pleasure. Psalms 16:11, this is your future if you’re a Christian, it says: “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Eternal pleasures at the right hand of God. And so the wedding banquet of Jesus Christ is ample evidence that our God is a happy God and He wants you to be happy too. He wants you to experience pleasure and joy.

Thirdly, we see the generosity of the king. He is a generous being in this. He spares nothing for this lavish banquet. He wants to share his generosity with as many people as possible. Psalm 50, he says that, “Our God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.” Well, here he wants to share that bounty lavishly with the guests. So he is lavish and generous. “Tell those I’ve invited that I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered and everything is ready. Come to the feast.” He’s generous.

Now, some people are stingy. Proverbs 23:6-8 says, “Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies; for he’s the kind of man who’s always thinking about the cost. ‘Eat and drink,’ he says to you, but his heart is not with you. You will vomit up the little you have eaten and you will have wasted your compliments.” Well God isn’t stingy and he’s not thinking about the cost. He is putting on this wedding banquet and he is being generous, lavishly generous. How generous? Well, in order to get you there, he didn’t spare his own Son, but gave him up for you. How generous then, is God? How generous? What would you spare? What’s precious to you? He didn’t spare anything. The most precious to him, he gave. Poured him out at the cross.

See then the lavish generosity of God and see also the patience of God. Oh, he doesn’t just try once, He tries multiple times to get these people to come to the wedding banquet. It says in Romans 9, concerning the reprobates, concerning the wicked, that “God bears with great patience the objects of wrath.” Oh, He puts up with an awful lot. And here, he just sends messenger after messenger. “Tell them to come. Tell them to come.” He’s very patient.

We see also the wrath of God here in this parable. You might think, how does that fit with the earlier picture of the happy God? But it does. And we see the wrath of God. Once the people become violent and abusive to his messengers, the king shows his wrath, his righteously passionate emotional anger to what they have done to his messengers. How else could a loving King, a just king, respond? His servants have gone in his name to invite people to a long-prepared wedding banquet and they are refusing to come and actually murdering the messengers.

So I crafted an illustration to try to give you a sense of this. And it was so powerful as I went over it, it brought tears to my eyes because I have children. But imagine, just bear with this illustration. Imagine in one community, there’s a group of parents that wants to put on a party for the village.

And they get everything ready for the party and they send out their children. And the children are dressed, the boys are dressed up in these little white suits, girls are dressed up in party dresses with flowers in their hair, and they go skipping and dancing and singing into the village. And the villagers murder them. Now, what would you feel as a father of those children? What I feel right now. Only make it perfect, make it holy, make it just.

So it is with God and the messengers of his gospel who have been beaten and killed, persecuted in every generation of church history. They have traveled over land and sea, they’ve gone over mountains, they have suffered privations, they’ve left the comforts of their home and they’ve gone over there and they have been persecuted and in some cases, martyred. And God loves those messengers, His children, more than any of you parents love your children.

And the connection between Christ and his messengers is intense and powerful, so much so that he confronts Saul of Tarsus, breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples, confronts him saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting,” he says. So this is how God treats the persecutors of his messengers if he doesn’t convert them. Praise God for the grace of God, He converted Saul of Tarsus. “You deserve to die, but I’m gonna actually convert you instead. I’m gonna transform you and you’d be one of my children too. And you’ll be one of my messengers and guess what’s gonna happen to you? Everywhere you go you’re gonna get beat up.” “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name,” but in the midst of it all, there’ll be the joy of a reconciled relationship.

How do you see wrath in this parable? Well, it’s right there in two ways. Two, actually, stunning ways. First, the burning of the town. Verse 7, “The King was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” In redemptive history, this undoubtedly refers to the destruction of Jerusalem. They rejected Christ, 70 A.D. the Romans came and destroyed that city and burned it to the ground.

But it’s just a foretaste of the final judgment of God. It says in the book of Revelation that he sends out angels with bowls. And the angels pour out bowls on the earth. And the third angel pours out his bowl and the fresh water, the rivers and springs and streams are all turned to blood. And the angel celebrates the justice of God. “You are righteous, oh God, holy and true for doing this, for this is what you have judged. For they shed the blood of your saints and your prophets and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.” The final fulfillment of this will be the second coming of Christ when Jesus comes on that horse in front of the armies of heaven. Read about it in Revelation 19:7-11. He’s riding a horse and the sword of God is coming out of his mouth, two-edged sword. Fire in his eyes. Faithful and true written on his thigh. Brings wrath, brings punishment for all those who have persecuted his people. So we see then, the judgment of God and the wrath of God.

We see it also in the banishment of the man from the hall, who is cast outside into darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, because he’s not wearing the right clothes. We’ll get to that next week. I told you there wasn’t enough time in one time to deal with this parable. But there’s a reason for it, and we’ll talk about it next week, but we see, I think, a picture of hell there. And therefore we see the judgment of God, the keen assessment of the wedding hall and its guests, the perfect judgment of God. Nothing escapes his notice. He comes in there to see the guests. He looks at them, He notices a man there who’s not wearing wedding clothes. He’s just dealing with his eyes. He sees and knows.

And so it says in Proverbs 20:8, “When a king sits on his throne to judge, he winnows out all evil with his eyes.” Well, I don’t know if Solomon could do that, but I know God can do that. And he winnows out all evil, separating the wheat from the chaff, separating the good fish from the bad fish, separating the sheep from the goats with his eyes. So that’s what, some of what, I think the parable teaches about God.

The Stubborn Sinfulness of Man

What does it teach us about man? Well, how about let’s start with the stubborn sinfulness of man. How stubborn are we in our sin, how much we resist the gospel message. The Jewish rejection of the Messiah, that’s the context here. Through the prophets the Lord had been spreading a banquet feast and inviting them to come, getting ready for the Messiah. And they were the ones who had already been invited, but they’re just being told now the banquets here.

These are the Jews. And through the prophets they’ve been prepared for this. Isaiah 55:1-2, “Come, all you are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” Well, that’s the invitation. They’ve been told that the banquet’s coming. And now Jesus is coming saying, “The banquet’s here.” Verse 3, “He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.” Jesus said it, he is very plain. John 7, “On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and called out in a loud voice. ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within you.’”

Did they come? No, they did not, they rejected him. And in the future they would reject the messengers of the Messiah and of the gospel. Matthew 23:34, “I’m sending you prophets and wise men and teachers, and some of them you will kill and crucify and others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.” Now, note the reasons for this stubborn, sinful refusal. First, it’s just a flat, “No.” They just refused to come. Just said no.

Can you imagine a friend receiving an invitation to the inaugural ball in Washington, D.C., for the President, President of the United States? Just set the politics aside or whatever you think about presidents. But just think about the magnitude of the occasion. And you say to your friend, “When are you leaving?” He said, “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m gonna go.” “Why not? Are you not well?” “No, I’m fine. I decided the work’s been piling up in the office. I think I’m probably just gonna work late that night.” “What are you, nuts? Are you crazy? This is an invitation to come, this is a once-in-a-lifetime invitation. How can you reject it to get a little extra work done at the office?”

But that’s about what they say. “They paid no attention and went off,” Verse 5, “one to his field, another to his business.” So the craving for money, for material possessions, for power, for the stuff of this world, drives out any allure that the invitation has. They don’t wanna come, they’re too busy. Even the possessions. Luke’s version of this, Luke 14:18-20, it says, “They all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I’ve just bought a field and I want to go look at it. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I just bought five yoke of oxen and I wanna try them.’” So like, “I just bought a new SUV, I just don’t have time for the Lord, I wanna try it out.” Bought a new boat, something. Something exciting, something interesting, something worldly. And the allure of the invitation starts to fade. Just not that appealing. So they refused to come. Another said, “I just got married. I can’t come.” Just making excuses. And note the escalating wickedness. It starts with simple refusal, then they start to make excuses, and then they get violent and start to abuse them, as we’ve already talked about. This parable then, gives us a remarkable tour of the human heart, of human wickedness in rejecting the gospel.

The Free Offer of the Gospel Worldwide

Notice also, if you would, the free offer of the gospel worldwide. Just tell everyone to come. The invitation, worldwide. I believe in the free offer of the gospel. I believe in telling anyone and everyone to come. It says in Luke 14, “The master told the servant, ‘Go out into the roads and the country lanes, and make them come in so my house will be full.’” Paul and Barnabas in Pisidian Antioch, after being rejected by the Jews, they said, “We are now turning to the Gentiles and they will listen.” So just go out, free, offer to everyone, any nation, tribe and people and language all over the world, “Come to the wedding banquet.

The Mixed Nature of the Church

Notice also the mixed nature of the church. Verse 10, “The servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests, good and bad.” So, also, around the world, the church is filled with good and bad. The church is filled with what the Puritans called gospel hypocrites. People who look good on the outside, but inside their hearts are far from Christ. How dangerous a state. I believe the hardest category of people to reach with the gospel, they’re not Muslims, not communists, not atheists, they are gospel hypocrites. Hardest category of people to reach. What can you tell them? Mixed nature.

The Mixed Nature of Judgment Day

And only on judgment day will they be winnowed out. As I already said, the sheep separated from the goats. The good fish separated from the bad. The wheat separated from the tares. And so it will be. Thus also, I think, the mixed nature of judgment day when Jesus comes and separates all of that out. And so it will be.

III. Three Major Doctrines Illuminated

The Sovereignty of God in Salvation

Now, next week, we’re gonna talk about three significant doctrines that this parable discusses that I didn’t discuss today. One of them is the sovereignty of God in salvation. That final statement, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” What did Jesus mean? We’ll talk about that, God willing, next time.

The Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness

And I think we should talk about the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. What were the wedding clothes that that man lacked? What are we supposed to be wearing on Judgment Day? Because apparently, if you’re not wearing it you get thrown outside into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. So it would behoove us to know what kind of attire God expects on Judgment Day. I say it’s the imputed righteousness of Christ. We’re gonna talk about that next week.

The Joys of Heaven and the Terrors of Hell

And I wanna talk about the joys of Heaven and the terrors of hell. The kingdom of Heaven is like a wedding banquet. “Throw that man outside into the darkness, tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside in the darkness where there’ll be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” There’s so many things in each phrase. Tie him hand and foot. Throw him. Outside. Darkness. Weeping. Gnashing of teeth. Each one of those teaches us something about hell.

IV. The Parable Applied

And so we’re gonna look at it next week, God willing. Now, what application can we take for this parable today? Well, first of all come to Christ. I am one of the messengers that the king has sent out. I’m not speaking highly of myself. “We are all ambassadors of Christ,” it says, “as though God himself were making his appeal through us. … Be reconciled to God.” In the language of the parable, God himself is making his appeal through me: “Come to the wedding banquet.” I know exactly when it is.

This is the Sunday after Thanksgiving. There are probably relatives here listening to me today. You were invited to come to church, maybe you don’t usually go to church, I don’t know. Maybe you go to a church in another place. That’s really not so important right now. The question is, “Are you clothed in the righteousness of Christ? Have you trusted in Jesus?” Earlier, I gave you everything you needed to know. Jesus, the Son of God, shed his blood on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for sins. If you trust in him, all of your sins will be forgiven, past, present, and future. Trust in Jesus. Come to the banquet.

And if I can speak now to Christians, can I say, come to the banquet? He is a happy God. How are you? Are you happy? Are you joyful? Are you, through that indwelling Spirit, having foretaste of the future heavenly banquet? Or is the master coming out and saying, “I didn’t say you could get up from the table, sit down and eat some more. Be joyful in me.” Didn’t Paul say it this way, “Rejoice in the Lord always”? We wander from the banqueting table through sin. Jesus is inviting you right now to come back and sit down and feast some more in Christ. Don’t wander after worldly things. Don’t wander after sin. Understand the greatness of the joy waiting for you in Heaven.

Now, we’re gonna unfold some of those weighty doctrines next time and talk some more about applications at this point. The final application for me right now is, I just want you to prepare your hearts for the Lord’s Supper. We’re going to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. And how beautiful and how synergistic and providential that we’re having the Lord’s Supper today because I believe that this Lord’s Supper pre-figures the wedding banquet of the Lamb. Don’t you? Sitting at table. God and man at table are sat down. I love that song. And just think about what it’s gonna be like to feast with Jesus. And again, if you’re not a Christian, please don’t come. Don’t partake. Instead spend your time repenting of sin and trusting in Jesus.

But if you have trusted in Christ and have testified to that publicly, through baptism, water baptism, I’d like to ask you to partake. You may feel sinful. During the time, as we’re getting our hearts ready, confess that sin. Resolve to make it right. It’s for sinners. It’s not for perfect people, it’s for sinners. So, come and partake.

These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.

I will never forget the morning of July 29, 1981… I was driving to work at a job I hated, and I was listening to the radio, reports describing the most lavish wedding of our time… the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at the St. Paul’s Cathedral in London;

Lady Diana’s wedding train was 25 feet long, she arrived in a glass coach and took 3 and a half minutes to walk the red velvet aisle to the altar

750 million people from 58 countries watched this wedding by TV, and a privileged 3500 watched in person

I remember feeling incredibly jealous at that time… the couple was going to live a life of luxury and ease—they were going on an eleven day Mediterranean cruise, a gift of Queen Elizabeth… I was pulling into the parking lot of a job I hated, toiling my way through a life that seemed far less appealing

I remember wishing I’d been one of the privileged few invited to the wedding!

Little did I know what the future held

That couple had a tragic future in store—of conflicts and hostility, of adultery and misery, of the untimely death of Diana in a bizarre car chase in Paris

Whereas I, for my part, would be invited AND chosen for a far more lavish wedding banquet;  fifteen months later, I would receive a royal invitation from Almighty God to become a Christian, and to be part of the most LAVISH CELEBRATION  in history: the wedding banquet of the Lamb

In today’s passage, Jesus likened God the Father to a King who wanted to put on a lavish wedding feast for His Son… it portrays God as a GENEROUS JOY-GIVER

            Faulty views of God:  “cosmic killjoy”… “the dread fear that someone somewhere is having fun”… “God leaning over the ramparts of heaven, seeing someone happy and yelling ‘Cut it out!!’”

These images of God are a Satanic lie… from the Garden of Eden, Satan has been telling man that God is holding out on us… that God is holding back joy and true happiness from us

The truth of the matter is quite different:  The Book of Revelation has this to say about Satan

But of God, the Psalmist says this:

Psalm 16:11  you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand

And Paul puts it this way

1 Timothy 1:11 the glorious gospel of the blessed God

Which John Piper translates:

The glorious good news of the HAPPY GOD

In our passage today, Jesus portrays God the Father as a joy-filled host of a wedding banquet… he portrays heaven as a lavish, joy-filled feast in which the fattened oxen have been butchered and everything for the guests complete happiness has been provided… but AMAZINGLY people invited to the banquet are actually rejecting the invitation!!!

My earnest desire today is to explain the joy of God in such an appealing way that you will not only be INVITED to the wedding banquet, but actually BE THERE on that final day!

I. A Happy King Throws A Party

A. Context

1. The Final Week of Jesus’ Life

2. Triumphal entry:  Hosannah, Hallelujah… even the little children

3. BUT a week of CONFLICT with the Jewish authorities

a. They rebuke the children for praising Jesus

b. Jesus cleanses the temple… they conspire to kill Him

c. Jesus teaches in the temple area

d. The Jewish leaders confront Him on His authority to do all these things

e. Jesus tells two parables to uncover the Jewish leaders’ rebellion against God

i) The Parable of the Two Sons… Jesus applies it

Matthew 21:31-32  “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.  ³² For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

ii) The Parable of the Wicked Tenants and the Vineyard… Jesus applies it

Matthew 21:43-44  “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.  ⁴⁴ He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”

4. The Jewish leaders got the message:

Matthew 21:45-46  When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them.  ⁴⁶ They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

5. Why Jesus used parables

a. A parable is a story from daily life used to illustrate a spiritual principle

b. If you understand it, it is a very powerful teaching tool

c. So Jesus told another parable… the parable of the Wedding Feast

Matthew 22:1  Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying:

B. The Parable Recounted

1. A Wedding Banquet Prepared for the Son

Matthew 22:2   “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.

2. Servants Sent to Gather Invited Guests

Matthew 22:3  He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come

3. Those Invited Reject the Messengers

Matthew 22:3  but they refused to come.

4. The King Tries Again… More Messengers

Matthew 22:4  “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

5. Those Invited Attack the Messengers

Matthew 22:5-6  “But they paid no attention and went off– one to his field, another to his business.  ⁶ The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.

6. The Rage of the King

Matthew 22:7  The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

7. The General Invitation Goes Out to Everyone

Matthew 22:8-10  “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come.  ⁹ Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’  ¹⁰ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad…

8. The Wedding Hall Filled with Guests

Vs. 10  and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

9. The King Evicts a Man Not Wearing Wedding Clothes

Matthew 22:11-13  “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.  ¹² ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.  ¹³ “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

C. The Parable Applied

Matthew 22:14  For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

1. Jesus chooses these striking words to sum up the point of the whole parable

2. Fascinating, because the issue of “choosing” is not clearly in view

3. However, it makes perfect sense as we shall see

4. Jesus is contrasting the INVITATION to the wedding banquet with the actual attendance of the invitees to the banquet

5. Not everyone who gets invited is actually chosen to go

6. This fits the context:  Jesus addressing the fact that the Jews are rejecting Him

7. This brings us squarely to the issue of the sovereignty of God in salvation:  the free offer of the gospel and the response of human beings to it

8. “Many are called, but few are chosen”… an amazingly deep conclusion to an unforgettable parable

II. General Lessons from the Parable

A. The Lavish Character of the King

1. What does this parable teach us about the attributes of God?

2. Clearly the King in the parable represents God the Father… the King of the Universe

3. The wedding banquet analogy:  pictures the relationship between the Son of God and the Church… a MARRIAGE

4. Attributes

a. Love

i) First:  the whole “wedding banquet” language = the love relationship between Christ and the Church

ii) John the Baptist called Jesus “the bridegroom” and implied that the bride is made up of His disciples;  when some of John’s disciples complained that Jesus was making and baptizing more followers than John, he answered

John 3:29   The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.

iii) Jesus called Himself the bridegroom

Matthew 9:15  Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.

iv) The Apostle Paul likened marital relations between a husband and his wife to the spiritual union of Christ and the Church

v) The final consummation of the relationship between Christ and the church:  a WEDDING in heaven as depicted in Revelation

vi) The FATHER in the Parable is putting on a lavish feast for the Son at His wedding… He is delighted at the marriage, He LOVES the Son and wants to celebrate with Him and His bride

vii) The whole context of the parable is the LOVE of the Father for His Son and of the Son for His bride

b. Happiness

i) A wedding is a happy time, all over the world

ii) The wedding banquet is a CELEBRATION… a time of HAPPINESS

iii) It is a time of eating and drinking, of laughter and music

iv) Our God is God of overwhelming joy, a HAPPY GOD

v) How ridiculous that some people characterize the Puritan concept of God as some miserable being:

H.L. Mencken:  Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Some people extend this characterization to all Christians and their view of God as hating happiness

vi) God is a God of infinite happiness and pleasure

Psalm 16:11  You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand

The wedding banquet of Jesus Christ is ample evidence that God is a HAPPY God, a God of pleasure and joy

c. Generosity

i) The King of the parable is portrayed as a lavishly generous King

ii) He wants to share His joy with as many people as possible

iii) The feast itself is lavishly appointed with the finest foods, and the King is delighted to share the richest of fare with all who attend the wedding banquet

Matthew 22:4  ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

iv) Some people are stingy:

Proverbs 23:6-8  Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies;  ⁷ for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.  ⁸ You will vomit up the little you have eaten and will have wasted your compliments.

v) God is lavishly generous!!!

d. Patience

i) Three different times the King sends out His servants to invite people to the wedding banquet

ii) AND the implication is clear that the first people invited had been invited even before the parable began… they knew the wedding banquet was coming; it’s just that the messengers have now come to say that everything is finally ready

iii) The King is incredibly patient… He keeps trying to fill the wedding hall with guests, even after being rebuffed again and again

e. Wrath

i) However, once the people become violent and abusive, the King shows His wrath, His righteously passionate reaction to their wickedness

ii) How else could the King respond?  His servants have gone in His name to invite people to a long-prepared and anticipated wedding banquet… and the people have MURDERED them

Illus.  Imagine a group of parents wanting to put on a lavish party for the inhabitants of a village;  they spare no expense and get everything ready;  then they dress up their CHILDREN in party clothes—the little boys wearing white suits and ties, the delicate little girls dressed up in spring dresses with wildflowers in their hair;  they are sent into the village singing, happy and proclaiming the message that there will be a party later that afternoon—please COME;  but the people, instead of coming, rise up and MURDER all the children

Can you imagine the emotional reaction on the part of the fathers of those murdered children

So it is with God and the messengers of the Gospel

In every generation, those bearing the good news of the gospel have travelled to distant lands to invite them to come to Christ and join the wedding banquet of the Lamb in heaven

In every generation, vicious, Satanic persecutions have arisen and poured out the blood of the messengers

God LOVES His messengers more than any human father loves his own children

God will JUDGE the persecutors if He doesn’t convert them first

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me????”

iii) Wrath displayed in two ways in the parable;  one of them predictable, the other one shocking

(i)    First, the burning of the town

Matthew 22:7   The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

This refers initially to the destruction of Jerusalem as an act of judgment from God:

In 70 A.D., the Roman army came and completely destroyed Jerusalem

However, this is just the foretaste of the final judgment from God:

This represents the final act, God’s wrath poured out on a persecuting earth with His judgments and with the Second Coming of the Lord

2 Peter 3:7  the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

Revelation 19:11-16  I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war.  ¹² His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.  ¹³ He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.  ¹⁴ The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.  ¹⁵ Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.  ¹⁶ On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

(ii)  Second, the banishment of the man from the wedding hall also shows the wrath of God… more on that in a moment

f. Judgment

i) The keen assessment of the wedding hall and its guests… the perfect judgment of God

ii) Nothing escapes His notice, and His eyes are like blazing fire

iii) Simply by looking at each person, He is able to assess their condition

Matthew 22:11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.

iv) So God judges each of us perfectly, simply with His eyes searching our hearts and perfectly knowing our condition

Proverbs 20:8 When a king sits on his throne to judge, he winnows out all evil with his eyes.

B. The Stubborn Sinfulness of Man

1. The Jewish rejection of the Messiah

a. The context of this parable is the rejection of Christ by the Jewish leaders

b. It is very clear that the initial rejectors of the invitation are the Jews as a nation, led by their leaders

c. They had been invited by the Prophets for centuries to be ready to come to the wedding banquet of the Messiah, the Son of God

Isaiah 55:1-2  Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  ² Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

d. But they WOULD NOT accept the Christ now that the time has come

Matthew 22:3  He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

When did this happen?

John 7:37-38  On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”

e. For years they had persecuted the prophets, and now they would also persecute the Apostles, missionaries, and evangelists that the Lord would send

Matthew 23:34  Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.

2. Note the reasons for NOT COMING to the wedding banquet

a. Simple, flat refusal… no reasons given at all… just NO

Matthew 22:3  He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

Illus.  Can you imagine a friend of yours receiving an invitation to the Presidential Inaugural Ball in Washington D.C. (forget the politics of the illustration… just imagine an invitation to an event of this magnitude)

You say, “When are you leaving?”  He says, “I don’t think I’m going to go!”  You say, “Why??” “I dunno… I’m just busy… I’ve got a lot of extra work to do around the company… I think I’ll just work late that night.”  You look at him in amazement.  “You’re crazy!  You get a once in a lifetime invitation, and you’re skipping it to work late!”

That’s what’s going on in this parable!!

The King of the Realm is inviting people to an incredibly lavish celebration, the wedding of His Son, and

b. “Paid no attention”…. Made light of the invitation, as though it were nothing

Matthew 22:5  “But they paid no attention and went off– one to his field, another to his business.

c. Worldly distractions, especially MONEY

i) A man chooses his work… money… earthly pleasures and possessions

Luke 14:18-20  “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’  ¹⁹ “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’  ²⁰ “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

ii) Money offers security and happiness… the very thing God offers in eternity in heaven

iii) These two are in direct competition with each other, offering the same thing by different means

3. Note the escalating wickedness

a. Abuse:  insults, mockery, opposition, usually of a verbal nature

b. Finally, MURDER!!!!

This parable gives us a remarkable tour of human wickedness in rejecting the gospel

C. The Free Offer of the Gospel Worldwide

1. A central issue of this parable is that of the FREE OFFER OF THE GOSPEL

2. The people are invited to come… freely, with no compulsions

3. The King doesn’t force them to come;  He just sends out His messengers to get the word out that the banquet is ready

4. So also, after the ones who were first offered the gospel refused it, the King turns to a general ingathering around the world… this represents the turn to the Gentiles with a free offer of the Gospel

Acts 13:46-47  Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.  ⁴⁷ For this is what the Lord has commanded us: “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'”

5. So the messengers go out into all the highways and byways with the same offer

6. In another version, the idea is one of a passionate appeal, “compel them to come”

Luke 14:23  “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full.

D. The Mixed Nature of the Church

1. The results of this are clear in the parable:

Matthew 22:10  So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

2. So also the church is FILLED with people who have made some kind of response to the gospel message, but some are not truly chosen to be there

3. Only on judgment day can gospel hypocrites be weeded out

4. However, not everyone sees the “Wedding Hall filled with guests” as referring to the church

5. Better, they say, is that it is a picture of judgment day

E. The Mixed Nature of Judgment Day

1. The Son of Man (Jesus) will return and send out His angels; they will gather all nations and all will stand before Him

2. He will separate all people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats

3. Other parables teach the same thing:  a mixed group that is separated

a. John the Baptist

Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

b. Jesus—the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares

Matthew 13:30  Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'”

c. Jesus-the Parable of the Dragnet

Matthew 13:47-50  “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish.  ⁴⁸ When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away.  ⁴⁹ This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous  ⁵⁰ and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

III. Three Major Doctrines Illuminated

A. The Sovereignty of God in Salvation:

Many are Called, Few Are Chosen

B. The Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness:

“How Did You Get in Here without Wedding Clothes?”

C. The Joys of Heaven and the Terrors of Hell:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is Like a Wedding Banquet” AND “Tie Him Hand and Foot and Thrown Him Outside Where there will be Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth”

IV. The Parable Applied

A. Understand the Essential Character of God:  JOY

1. Reject Satan’s lie about God

2. The “cosmic kill-joy” is SIN, not God

3. Satan, the purveyor of sin is the purveyor of misery

4. Jesus has come to give us LIFE

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

B. Understand the Greatness of the Joy Waiting for Us in Heaven

C. Understand the Importance of the Invitation to the Wedding Banquet

D. Understand the Tragedy of Rejecting this Invitation

E. Understand the Sovereignty of God in Salvation:  Many are Called but Few are Chosen