PARABLE OF THE GREAT SUPPER.
Luke 14:15-24.
LUKE 14:15. “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,” remarked one of the guests sitting at table with Jesus. How sincere the remark was we may only conjecture: but it is, on the surface, a true enough sentiment. But it is one thing to have the kingdom of God offered to us, but quite another if we refuse that offer.
Jesus illustrates this with a parable.
LUKE 14:16-17. “A certain man made a supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready.”
Can you imagine what a privilege it would be to be invited, for example, to the King’s garden party? However, it is not only an invitation, but also a command. What a disgrace it would be to turn down the offer!
It is so with the gospel. The invitation, the command, is to “Come.”
LUKE 14:18a. Yet there are people who hear the call of Jesus, and still refuse to come to Him. “They all with one consent made excuse.” They ‘make light’ (cf. Matthew 22:5) of the gospel, thus insulting the host. This is high treason of the worst kind in the kingdom of God.
#. The one who is (literally) ‘apathetic’ to the Son shall not see life, but has the wrath of God abiding on him (cf. John 3:36). And if he does not have a relationship with the Son, he does not have a relationship with the Father (cf. 1 John 2:23).
LUKE 14:18b. The shallow excuses of those bidden are exposed in the following verses. One had bought a piece of ground, but had not yet inspected it.
LUKE 14:19. Another had bought five yoke of oxen, but had yet to prove them. The equivalent of buying a car, perhaps, without having yet taken it for a test drive.
LUKE 14:20. Another had married a wife. Yet even that most precious of loves should take second place to our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Luke 14:26)!
The reasons offered are all lawful in and of themselves, but it is all a question of priorities. The One who said “Come!” has also said. ‘Seek FIRST the kingdom of God’ (cf. Matthew 6:33). There should be nothing, however good it may be, ahead of our relationship with God.
LUKE 14:21. There still remained the need to furnish the feast with guests. Those first invited proved themselves unworthy by their absence - and “the master of the house” became angry. So now the word went out to others, in “the streets and lanes of the city: the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.”
Representing, first, the Gentiles; and then all who see themselves as spiritually poor and blind, and who recognise their need of the salvation offered in the gospel.
LUKE 14:22. And yet there was still room. There is no lack of grace on God’s part, but there is a lack of willingness to partake of that grace on man’s part.
LUKE 14:23. So the lord of that servant sent him out yet again, with a mission to the highways and hedges, to “compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”
#. This is the ongoing work of the gospel continuing to this very day. ‘Come unto me,’ says Jesus (Matthew 11:28).
‘And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God’ (cf. Luke 13:29).
LUKE 14:24. Finally, the anger of ‘the master of the house’ resolves itself in what the Lord now says: “I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.”
