Responding to the Invitation
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2014 · 21 September 2014
“And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said, 2 The Kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son and 3 sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding and they were not willing to come. 4 Again he sent out other servants saying, tell those who are invited, see I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fatted cattle are killed and all things are ready. Come to the wedding. 5 But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, and another to his business. 6 And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully and killed them. 7 But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies and destroyed those murderers and destroyed their city.”
“8 Then he said to his servants, “The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9 Therefore go into the highways and as many as you find, invite to the wedding. 10 So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. 12 So he said to him, Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. 13 Then said the king to the servants, “Bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”
This parable is about a royal wedding feast. It is directed in a very specific way in its historical context and yet in general has far reaching complications. First, let me explain the historical setting. This is the Wednesday of the last week of our Lord's life and ministry. Friday He will be crucified. Sunday He will rise from the dead. For three years He has been preaching and teaching the gospel of the Kingdom.
Jesus has been proclaiming Himself as the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world. He has been offering Himself and His Kingdom to the people of Israel, His own people, the called people of God. And now the three years are ending and the people have rejected Him. And the leaders have rejected Him and are extremely hostile to Him and by Friday will turn Him over to the Romans for execution.
And Jesus is back in the temple. Now that it is cleansed, He has come there to teach again the gospel of the Kingdom, the good news of salvation. And as He teaches, the people are listening, Jesus is the center of attention. And the religious leaders are really threatened by this because He speaks of an internal righteousness that they know nothing about in their external self-righteous religion. And He is a threat to their system.
And in Matthew 21:23 they stop Him and say, "By what authority do You do these things and who gave You this authority?" They are angry and hostile and they are already planning His death the Bible tells us. And so Jesus answers them with three parables. The first one in Matthew 21:28-32 is about two sons. The second one is a parable about a vineyard that was leased out to tenant farmers in Matthew 21:33-46. And this is the third parable in Matthew 22:1-14. And each of the parables has a message of judgment.
The parables say this: you have rejected Me, all of the Old Testament prophets spoke of Me, all of My miracles validate My claim to be the Son of God, the Savior, the Messiah, and all the words that I have said affirm that. But you have consistently for three years rejected Me and now God rejects you. Now this is your judgment and they are in the form of parables of judgment and they climax in this third parable.
Now parables are simply stories, analogies used to convey spiritual truth. And the best way to do it is to start with something they know to explain the unknown. And Jesus was the master of analogies and the master of figures of speech and the master of articulating truth. And Jesus used all the things of common life, all the things of daily routine and turned them into spiritual messengers which conveyed profound spiritual truth.
Now it is a story, verse 2 says, about the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus always talked about the Kingdom of heaven. It is a sphere of God's rule. It is a dominion where God rules, where God is sovereign, it is the dominion of redemption and salvation. The Kingdom is that place where God's children live. It is a community of people who are redeemed, who are under the rule and the guiding and the leading of God.
And so Jesus says it is like a king who prepared a wedding. But the word itself means a wedding which was inseparable from a big feast. How long? Normally it was seven days. And if you were a king, it could go on way beyond that. It was one great grand glorious celebration. And a wedding made by a king for his son would be the wedding of all weddings. Even in our culture we understand the grandeur and the majesty and the spectacle of that.
And what our Lord is describing here is the greatest celebration that people can imagine. He is saying the Kingdom of heaven is like the greatest celebration imaginable thrown by the wealthiest person imaginable for the most honored person imaginable. He wants to capture all the best that life could ever imagine to give. And so Jesus says there was a king who made a wedding feast for his son. This was the biggest and best celebration of all.
Now verse 3 says, "He sent out his servants to call them that were invited to the wedding. And they would not come." In those days, people did not have watches and they were not as rigidly tied to time schedules as we are today. And preparation was also difficult. Time was somewhat flexible. And so the phrase "that were invited" means they were notified before.
Now when the feast is ready to begin, the servants are sent out to these people to say it is time to begin. And unbelievably, they would not come. It's unthinkable. If you had been given an invitation to a two-week festival connected with the royal wedding, you would surely go. But they wouldn't come. And now we are beginning to see the impact because the people, including the religious leaders, are saying, "That's ridiculous. Nobody in their right mind would not go."
What was the king's response? Verse 4, "Again he sent out other servants saying, tell those who are invited, see I have prepared my dinner my oxen and my fatted cattle are killed and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” Verse 5, "But they made light of it." They treated it with indifference. "And went their ways." They just walked away from it. This story is hard to believe. No one would ever do this.
"And one went to his farm, and another to his own business." No, we are not coming to the great grand glorious royal wedding feast, we are going to go to the farm and over to the store. Such selfish preoccupation with your own enterprises. Such a forfeiture of joy and celebration and such an insult to the king. Such an affront to his graciousness for such an invitation was the highest honor in a country.
Now look at verse 6, "And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully and killed them." Wow, why did they kill the guys who came to call them to the feast? That's what it says. Outright hostility is added to indifference. And both reflect a certain rebellion against the king. What really does this mean? The story is clear.
The Kingdom of heaven is the community of the redeemed. It's the place of divine blessing, salvation by grace. Who is the king? God. Who is his son? Jesus Christ. And the idea of a great banquet is a Jewish idea. You can read it in the Talmud that the Jews said that when the Messiah comes, God will put on a banquet to end all banquets and we will feast with the Messiah. And God is calling people to come to His Kingdom and honor His Son.
Who are these people that are called in verse 3 and 4? Well, they are the already invited ones. Who are they? The Jews, Israel. Look in Genesis 12 where God made a promise to Abraham, the people of Israel and said, "I will make you a great nation, a nation through whom the earth will be blessed. And they shall be as the sand of the sea and the stars of the heaven." They were the invited ones.
Who are the servants that go out to call the already invited ones? Preachers like John the Baptist, like Jesus Himself, like the Apostles, right? Sent out two-by-two to preach the Kingdom and so here were the already-having-been-called ones, the nation Israel, the Kingdom is offered to them. The King says, "Here's My Son, here's My Kingdom, come and honor My Son," and this is how He sends out His servants.
And what do they do? The people treated them with indifference. And some of the people killed John the Baptist, cut his head off. They killed Jesus Christ. James was the first of the Apostles to be beheaded. And the rest of the Apostles is a list of martyrs, isn't it? They killed God’s servants. The indifferent people in the parable are the people who were preoccupied with the farm and the merchandise.
Most people who are indifferent to the gospel are secular people. Their preoccupation is with stuff. They are interested in earthly matters, they had no time for heavenly issues. They were so busy with business, they couldn't understand salvation was offered to them. So trapped by the farm and the shop that they couldn't go to the celebration. Finding their satisfaction in the pursuit of wealth.
False religion is hostile. You look at the history of persecution around the world and the persecutors of the truth are the purveyors of religious error, inevitably. And that is why in Revelation 17 when you see the final world system of religion that comes together in the end times, it says that final world religious system is drunk with the blood of the martyrs because it is false religion that stamps out the truth in hostility.
Now look at verse 7, "When the king heard of it, he was furious." He had been gracious. But his patience has a limit. And when they have killed his servants, he responds in anger. And it is justified, for unrighteousness has slain righteousness. "He sent out his armies and destroyed those murderers and destroyed their city."
Even today we understand that murderers pay with their life, even though we struggle with that capital punishment issue. And, of course, the Bible articulates that it is. And so what was done was just. The order was given to destroy their city. Verse 8, "Then he said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but they who were invited were not worthy." Why? They weren't worthy because they would not accept the invitation. That's all it says.
You see, when the servants go back to call another group in verse 10, they call those that are bad and good, it says. So it isn't that they are looking around to find the most noble and the most moral and the most self-righteous people in the world and say, ah, they're worthy. No, worthiness is only tied to saying yes to the invitation. They weren't worthy because they refused salvation in the Son, they wouldn't come.
Here Israel was cast off as God's called people. Why? Because they rejected the Messiah. And He says your city is going to be burned, and in 70 A.D. it happened. Titus Vespasian, the Roman general, conquered Jerusalem, murdered one million, one hundred thousand Jews, and threw their bodies over the wall. And Josephus, who was an eye witness, wrote that neither pity for age nor respect for rank was shown. The emperor had ordered the entire city and sanctuary to be razed to the ground, except that part of the wall that enclosed the city on the west. And that is the wailing west wall that remains.
The third facet of the parable is called "new guests invited." Verses 9-10, " Therefore go into the highways and as many as you find, invite to the wedding. 10 So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.” So the point is, go everywhere and get everybody that will come. Go into all the world and preach the gospel, make disciples. That is the mandate.
That's what Paul says in the book of Romans when he says, "The fall of Israel is the rising of many." Now isn't that the heart of the gospel message? That's where we are now, isn't it? Their fall became our rising. God will not be frustrated, beloved. The festival is going to have some guests and it is going to go on.
And notice verse 10, "So the servants went out into the highways, the crossroads, the forks in the road, and they gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good." You mean, bad people can come? Yes, God is calling everybody bad and good. And the thing that makes them worthy is not their inherent goodness or badness, but their willingness to accept the invitation. And all can come if they're willing to come on God's terms.
And then finally, the last little scene in this parable is very important, the intruder expelled. Verse 11, "And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who did not have on a wedding garment." The point here is that there was only one guy who wasn't properly garmented. The parable doesn't say anything else. So the best thing is to assume that everybody else were wearing the proper garments.
"The king says to him in verse 12, “Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless." He had no excuse. Which means that everybody could have had a garment, including him. But he just didn't accept it. Verse 13, "Then said the king to the servants, “Bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
There are going to be people who try to crash the Kingdom, they come in and they join the church and they get involved. They are like the people in Matthew 7:22-23 who say, "Lord, Lord, have we not cast out demons, have we not done many wonderful works in your name? Lord, Lord, we preached. 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’" These are Kingdom crashers, these are tares among the wheat. They do not have the proper garments.
So what is the proper garment? Matthew 5:20, "For I say to you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of heaven." What is necessary to enter the Kingdom of heaven? Righteousness, a God-given righteousness. Job 29:14 says, "I put on righteousness and it clothed me." Isaiah 61:10 says, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness."
Verse 14, "For many are called but few are chosen." Paul often talks about the call in Romans and that is an internal call by God to salvation. This call here is an external call. The gospel invitation is sent out everywhere. Some are indifferent, some are hostile and some try to crash the Kingdom on their own terms. But few are chosen. So the perfect balance to that is that God is sovereign. That is a mystery we will never understand, but we believe it. Let's pray.