Amen, and please be seated. Now if you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 22. This morning we continue through the Gospel and we're at verses 1 through 14. Today we come to the last of three parables back to back.
This one is often called the parable of the wedding feast, as you'll see for obvious reasons. Last week we heard the parable of the wicked tenants or tenant farmers. They were entrusted by a wealthy landowner who himself had planted a vineyard. I mean he dug out the stones, he put the plants in the soil, he built a fence around it.
He built a watchtower for their safety and so defense against enemies and thieves and animals. It was a beautiful functional productive vineyard and when the owner sent his servants, the owner had gone away, he sent his servants back to get some of the fruit or at least some of the money they might have picked up as they sold the fruit, some for themselves, some for him, those wicked tenants beat and killed the servants. And then the owner sent to them his beloved son and they killed the son too. It's a pointed story we saw last week at the end of chapter 21 about how some in Israel had rejected and killed God's prophets.
Israel was like a beautiful vineyard and he sent his prophets to them but some had killed them and now Jesus in a confrontation with the chief priests and the elders and the Pharisees who he knows they despise him in their hearts, he knows they have wicked plans for them. Well, it was a pointed parable about the fact that they, like those wicked tenants, were about to kill even the son from just a few days they would do so. Now today we come to another parable which is equally pointed and also very clear. No longer is the image as you'll hear a moment of the kingdom of God, that of a vineyard but now it's that of a wedding feast.
The wedding of God's son and a story of all those who are invited to the wedding banquet to celebrate. But it's also a story of those who refuse to come and it is also a story of those who while they do seek to attend, well, they come improperly clothed for the occasion. In the parable we heard last week, the parable of the wicked tenant, the tenants rejected and the responsibility entrusted to them. In this parable these citizens, oh, they reject the privileges the king extends to them, the privilege of sharing in the celebratory feast of his own son's marriage.
And so they refuse, which is the point, they refuse to listen to the gospel and they insult the king. And so let me invite you to hear the parable and let us learn not only about God and about these folks but about ourselves. Let me invite you to hear it from Matthew chapter 22 verses 1 through 14. This is the word of God.
And again, Jesus spoke to them in parables saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again, he sent other servants saying, tell those who are invited, see, I have prepared my dinner. My snacks and my fat calves have been slaughtered and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.
But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business. While the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. The king was angry and sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy.
go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. Those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?
And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.
Amen. This is God's Word. May he write it on our hearts, let's look to him in prayer. Father, we ask that you would take this Word and by your Spirit, lift Jesus before our eyes, help us to know you truly, and grant us to see ourselves and our place in this story.
And oh, be merciful to us in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. It's a drama in three acts, so to speak, verses 1 to 7, scene 1. The invitations go out for the wedding feast, and they are rejected.
Then in scene 2, verses 8 through 10, invitations to the wedding feast are given to others who come and fill the banquet hall. And then finally in scene 3, verses 11 to 14, the king comes and meets his guests, and yet finds one who doesn't belong. Let's think about this parable in these three scenes. In it, Jesus shows us, well, on the one hand, the wickedness of those who refuse to come and reject the offer of the king.
But it also shows us the love of God and the patience of God and the pursuing love of God to those who are unwilling to come to the feast. And it shows us other things as well. In the first place, think about this scene 1. We learn here in verses 1 to 7, indifference to Christ and opposition to Christ are both a rejection of Christ.
But notice first, God himself is not indifferent to Christ. I mean, look at how it opens. The Father deeply loves his son and finds great pleasure in honoring him in the most extravagant way and desires that others would share his and his own son's joy. That's why it begins.
First one, Jesus spoke of parable, saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast. The wedding, of course, is the marriage of the king's son. This represents the marriage of the son of God to his bride, the church. For the heart of God's plan for this world, from even before the world began, was to create a bride for his eternal son in order to unite this bride called the church to his son in the most intimate and exclusive and enjoyable and faithful and lasting relationship, a covenant marriage, a binding bond in marriage where the two become one where, think of it, humanity is united to divinity in the person of the son and forever.
That's the heart of the universe. That's the heart of God, a covenant marriage of himself to people. In this parable, notice that the marriage idea itself fades as the feast comes to the fore and remains. Let's think about that.
Now, how did the invited guests respond to the invitation to come? Verse three, end of it, they would not come. They had no interest. They weren't wanting to come.
It's not merely that they didn't come or that they couldn't come. They wouldn't. They had no heart for it. It says.
What does the king do then? What does he do? Does he drag them by the hair kicking and screaming to this feast? No.
But does he immediately send out his army to punish them? No. No, actually, well, an ordinary king might have rewarded his subjects insolence in such a way, but he's a king of unparalleled patience with love for them in spite of their slights to him. He reaches out to them again, again, verse four.
He said, other servants saying, tell those who are invited. Come to the feast. And notice how he incentivizes them. I mean, he highlights it.
Well, he's already done it simply by the fact that he's now sent out three invitations. It may be a little hard to see that. There's actually three. But did you notice at verse three that the servants were sent to those who had already been invited?
This is scholars tell us based on an ancient Near East tradition of first inviting people to a party, a kind of saved the date. And then on the day of the event, you send out your servants and you tell them, all right, now, show up at this time. It'll be ready. And that's the second invitation they're receiving that they refuse in the parable.
Then they get a third invitation after they won't come following the second. I mean, see what patience he has for the people that snub him. See how he longs for them to come and enjoy the feast. Do you remember this is what God is like?
This is what we're taught from the earliest days of our rebellion in the garden. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God. God came to them walking in the garden. And what did he do?
Did he just thump him and start over? No, he called out to the man Adam. Where are you? I mean, Adam, do you know where you are?
I know where you are. But do you realize you're hiding from me? You're running from me? You're scared of me?
You're afraid of me? Do you understand what your rebellion has caused here? Now let's talk this through. God even had a plan then to redeem Adam and Eve to send a seed of the woman who would crush the serpent, the deceiver the devil said.
And so rescue them. As one put it, God first seeks out, not wipes out those even who spite God's give. So he incentivizes them with three invitations and notice in this last one, he tells them everything's been provided for for your enjoyment. Verse four, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen, my fat calves, they've all been slaughtered.
And well, everything's been cooked or baked or roasted. I mean, it's all ready for you. I've left nothing up in the air. The food hasn't spoiled.
It hasn't burnt. It hasn't been neglected. It hasn't, I'm not feeding you porridge here, folks. Come on.
It's the picture actually that was painted for Israel and Isaiah 25 by the prophet. Listen to this. Isaiah 25, beginning of verse six. Isaiah says, by the Lord on this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine, well-refined.
And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that's cast over the peoples, the veil spread over the nations, and he will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. In the reproach of his people, he will take away from all the earth for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, behold, this is our God.
We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoiced in his salvation.
This is what Jesus is describing. The marriage supper of the Lamb will be the greatest party the world has ever seen and better than any has ever imagined. The drink will be the best of wine and beverage. The food will be exquisite in quantity, overflowing in quality, the highest in variety, unparalleled.
And the venue itself will be the garden of paradise. There will be dancing and singing and laughter and fun that will have no end. The conversations will be meaningful. I mean, even introverts won't be ducking for the door.
No one would ever want to leave this. At the center of it all, like on any wedding reception, the center will be the bride and the groom, Jesus and his bride, the church. And the feast then is a celebration of the greatness of the gospel. Because in the spiritual banquet, God provides in the blessings of the gospel, what do we have?
We have a feast for the soul. We have pardon for all of our sins. We have acceptance into the very favor of God. We have peace of conscience.
We have assurance of our salvation. We have been given comfort by the Holy Spirit and the hope of everlasting life. And we have all these things, each and every one of us in Christ. And to top it off, or we might say at the root of it all, we have union and communion with God.
And with one another, as Second Corinthians says, he will be a God to us and we will be his people, his sons and his daughters. It is a glorious spiritual banquet feast. You can't even begin to comprehend. But here in the story, how do the invited guests respond to this third invitation?
Verse 5, they paid no attention and went off. One to his farm, another to his business. I don't know that we feel the weight of such insults. I mean, the king prepares a lavish feast.
And they're invited to come and enjoy. It's to celebrate his own beloved son. And one says, you know, I'd really rather be out in the countryside, work in my fence posts and getting head-butted by goats. And the other says, yeah, I'd rather be in the village behind the counter selling flour and salt.
I want to be in the field. I want to be about my business. I want to be anywhere but with the king and with his son. What disdain they show.
And some tremendous hostility. You see that verse 6, the rest sees the servants, treated them shamefully and killed them. This was Israel's response to God by and large. Jesus is saying it right to the leadership's face.
Some killed the prophets who foretold the Messiah. Next, they're going to kill the Messiah himself in just a couple of days. Some will ignore the king. Some will oppose the king in difference to Christ and opposition to Christ are still both rejection of Christ.
He came unto his own says John. And his own did not receive him. And so you ask, what would a king do then to those who would so insult and despise his invitation and ignore and scorn his son and kill his servants? Well, their punishment will fit their crime.
Verse 7, the king was angry. Would you not have been to if you were the king? The king was angry and he sent his troops and he destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Now, he's reminding him.
He did them no injustice. He wielded his authority as the rightful law giver and just judge in that community. And he returned upon their heads what their sins deserve. They were murderers.
Many see here, I think not improperly, the burning of Jerusalem in AD 70 under the Roman general Titus who came against Jewish rebellion against Rome and slaughtered a million Jews and destroyed the temple and scattered the rest of the people to the four corners of the earth. Josephus, the historian tells us that children, old people, mothers and infants and priests alike were massacred by the Romans. As a nation, as a body politic, Israel ceased to exist from AD 70 on. God used one wicked nation, the Romans, to chastise and punish the nation that wickedly rejected the Messiah.
But what of us? The writer of Hebrews asked very pointedly how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? Well, the curtain goes down on scene one and it rises on scene two and verses eight through ten. The king returns to his, from his, excuse me, the king turns from his previously invited guests to invite strangers to fill his banquet hall.
Then he said to the servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. The king had planned this feast and he won't be thwarted by the fickle rebellious will of those who refused to come. He counts them, it says unworthy, but he doesn't cancel the party. He sends his servants to the highways and intersections where travelers will be.
Verse nine, go therefore to the main roads and invite them to the wedding feast as many as you find. That describes the rejection of the Jews who reject the Son of God and the invitation to the Gentiles to come to the feast. As the Apostle Paul and his fellow missionary Barnabas put it in Acts chapter 13 to the Jews who were opposing their ministry, Paul and Barnabas spoke up boldly saying, it was necessary that the Word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrusted aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.
Now we can only hope some of them heard that. The accusation that they judged themselves unworthy of eternal life and it pricked their conscience and it struck their heart and summoned as we know many actually did of the Jews, come eventually to faith in Christ. But these they had counted themselves unworthy and the king counts them unworthy of his banquet feast, Spurgeon in applying this invites us all to think about our own soul. When he tells of a rich ship owner who was visited by a godly man and the Christian asked him, well sir, what is the state of your soul?
To which the merchant replied, soul, I have no time to take care of my soul. I have enough to do just taking care of my ships. He was not too busy to die, which he did about a week later. Who knows?
What was the state of his soul? What was the state of yours? Do you fit the pattern? Are you a person that is more interested in your land or your garden or your business or your retirement portfolio?
Do you have an agenda on your plate that is other than God's agenda? Do you? Well let's just be frank, do you not care about your own soul when God so cares for it he gave his own son upon a cross to redeem it? And here, nicely, the hall eventually was filled with guests because many do in fact receive the mercy of God.
Verse 10 of those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, but bad and good so the wedding hall was filled with guests. Weird understanding, gentiles from every tribe and tongue and language and nation are invited to the wedding banquet. And God will have his son honored and celebrated. You simply can't, says Ralph Davis, you can't frustrate or defeat the grace of God.
He is determined to have a people and he is going to get them even if he must get them out of the riffraff. To twist a quote, it's as if Jesus said, I will build my church and the disdain and unbelief of men will never be able to stop it. So the servants invite everyone they can find, both good and bad and mixed multitude will assemble around the gospel like perhaps we should see it in light of the parable of the net in Matthew 13. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.
When it was full, men drew to shore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the end of the age says Jesus. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them in the fiery furnace. So here at the feast, the hall was filled with guests from the north and from the south and from the east and from the west and the curtain goes down and seems to you.
And it invites us to consider are we ourselves guests at the feast? Are we among the righteous or the wicked as it's called in the parable of the net? Are we among the good or the bad as it's told in this parable? That is, that is, the meaning of those expressions are, are we a genuine believer saved by grace through faith in Christ?
Or are we among the insincere, the hypocritical, among the elders and chief priests and Pharisees who reject Christ and are themselves rejected? Well, as I said, the curtain goes down on scene two and it rises on scene three verses eleven to fourteen where the king comes to meet this new group of guests. And here we learn not everyone who says Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 22 verse 11, but when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment.
And he said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. See, he wasn't dressed for the occasion. And he needed to be dressed for the occasion.
Now, forgive me, but some of you know the legendary story of the Wengar family trip to Chick-fil-A on how appreciation day. Some of you will remember this. They've done away with it probably because of the Wengar family. I mean, dress up like a cow and you got a sandwich, fries and drink.
And with six kids at the time, it would have been parental malpractice not to go. So we went, we got a free lunch for eight. They're not satisfied with that. Later, we went to dinner at a separate Chick-fil-A.
And who could be satisfied with that when you could go to Rogers and negotiate as I did the meal for a milkshake and get your free dessert. But the key to enjoying it all for free was to wear the appropriate clothing. You got to be dressed like a cow. You couldn't waltz in dressed like a chicken, poor chicken.
So here's this man, he shows up. It's to a wedding at the King's Palace. And he isn't clothed properly. He wasn't wearing the wedding garments.
This is a garment we're told that the King's servant would have handed out to each who came. It might have been just something you threw over your shoulders or just something to identify you as part of the group that belongs in this setting. You've been vetted, I guess. Inequipped, gifted the wedding gear.
The man here is speechless when asked about it. That is, he's been caught and he has no defense. He tried evidently to either sneak in without the wedding garment or he said no to the servants and just blew his way through the door. But in any case, he has no way to talk himself out of trouble.
He is in the headlights of the King who can tell he's not appropriately addressed. And so what does this mean? Well, for us, when you think about belonging to Christ and the bride of Christ and enjoying the marriage supper of the Lamb, we don't belong to it because you followed a crowd. You don't belong to it merely because you simply said yes to an invitation.
You don't belong because a preacher invited you forward and you went forward or because the preacher said bow your head and pray and then you let him pray for you. You need to wear the wedding garment, Jesus says. You got to say yes to the invitation and come, but you can't say no to the wedding garment. You can't reject it.
You need to put it on. What is this wedding garment? He's talking about, well, here's the thing. Two answers are usually given.
Let me tell you what the two are and then let me tell you which one I think it is. One is the wedding dress is the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to you or accounted to you or erected to you, you who believe in Jesus. That is, it's not your righteousness based on your obedience, but it's the righteousness of Christ based on Christ's obedience and by grace through faith in Christ in union with Christ, Christ what belongs to him belongs to you. And you are as it were clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
And that is faithful gospel. That is true to the entirety of the New Testament. What we love about the gospel is the gift of righteousness, not having a righteousness of my own based on the law, based on my works. No, but one that is received as a gift through faith, the very righteousness of Christ.
Now some say that's the wedding garment here. The second view is that the wedding garment represents, well let's say that the personal holiness of those who are in Christ. That is the first view is based on the finished work of obedience to God, which Jesus accomplished for you. And the second view is based on the continuing work which Christ does in you by his spirit in progressively making you more like himself.
Support for that you can be found for instance in Revelation 19 verse 7 for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted to her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. Now, don't misunderstand. He's not saying, well they get in because apart from anything God did, they were good enough in themselves.
No, it was granted to them by God, but it manifested itself in their life. That is to say, you want to know which of the two views is my view? Well currently today it's both. This one or the other and neither should trouble us.
Ultimately, and frankly this is Calvin's view and Matthew Henry's view is so that it's too weirded out here. We don't really have to choose one over the other necessarily for in the gospel. We enjoy the double blessing of God's grace. We enjoy the work of Christ for us and we do enjoy the work of Christ in us, both the gift of righteousness and the gift of transformation after the likeness of Christ after his own image.
In heaven after all the souls of the righteous are made perfect and we will be perfectly righteous without any stain or blemish or wrinkle or any such thing. And only those who are perfectly righteous will have the right and privilege of enjoying the marriage supper of the Lamb. You perfectly now in Christ are accounted righteous. In your own personal experience you are not yet perfectly sanctified and made like Christ, but you will be in glory.
It will be finally completed. In any case, this man doesn't have a garment. He rejected the garment. And if we reject the sod, if we refuse God's invitation, if we refuse his gift of the wedding garment, we will not enjoy the marriage supper.
We won't belong. We will receive the language of Jesus is clear. We will receive hell. You see that language very clearly verse 13.
The king said to the attendants, bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. I want to say very clear to you that this isn't Ted's doctrine of hell. This is not our church's doctrine of hell. This is an oppressory or a reform view of hell.
If Jesus is his own doctrine of hell, what is it like to not belong to the kingdom of heaven and not be welcomed at the marriage feast? It feels like being bound with ropes, bound so that you are prevented from fleeing the darkness or returning to the whole. And you're thrown out into the outer darkness where there will be no light and in that place there will be weeping. There will be great, heaping, sobs and tears.
But not only that, there will be a gnashing, a clenching of teeth with the vexed anger and indignation and fury and defiance of a rebel who doesn't love but hates the king. The language Jesus uses here to speak of hell is horrifying because the reality of hell is worse than its description and in love. Jesus invites you to be saved from it and join the wedding feast. Put your hope in him to be saved.
But then finally, notice this last phrase that Jesus speaks in verse 14 for many are called but fewer chosen. Well, we have to close. Okay, we have to deal with that just briefly. What's the meaning of this?
In the parable of anywhere invited to the wedding, but many made excuses not to come and those who came and those who received the wedding garment, Jesus calls them chosen. Again, that's not Ted's word. That's not Redeemer's word. That's not a Presbyterian word.
It's not a reform word. It's Jesus's word. They are elect. They are chosen.
It's not the gift of righteousness and to be transformed after the image of Christ. And this doctrine is humbling. It's humbling to human pride because it cuts off your legs so that you have no legs to stand on in the presence of God except Christ. But it's also incredibly reassuring for we did nothing to earn our salvation nor could we deserve it, but we receive it as a gift and so we know even our failures won't kick us out.
We weren't brought in based on our merits. We aren't kicked out based on our debarits. God doesn't love us because we're good and then he doesn't keep on loving us because we've begun to do good. He loved us when we were sinners, enemies, rebels and ungodly.
And his love for us is the cause of our love for him. First John 4-9, we love because he first loved us. So election humbles us, election assures us and election is the cause of our praise to God. We boast.
But not in ourselves. We boast. But we boast in Christ. God chose us to be to the praise of the glory of His grace and we give Him that praise.
Now what then are we to make of this language of many in few? Well, first of all, we've got to remember that God promised Abraham a multitude of descendants of no man can count as many as the stars in the sky and the same on the seashore. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring. And we also must remember that Jesus purchased people for God from every tribe and pong and language and nation.
Many are invited or summoned to the banquet. Every one of you in the sound of my voice is invited sincerely by a loving and patient God to come to the banquet. And so I urge you don't neglect this invitation. Don't spurn it and don't think you can sneak in by giving lip service to it without truly being united to Christ and wearing the wedding garment.
But do come. Join the feast. Celebrate the Father's love for His Son and the Father's gift of a banquet feast for the Son and His bride, the church. Let's pray.
Father, make it so that each of us have mercy on us. Rescue us and bring us all the way home. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Amen. Let me invite you to stand and we'll sing together.