The Great Banquet

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm trying to enunciate every syllable, right? When you try to sing, you know who does a good job of like pronouncing the ends of their words?

Our people from Liverpool. If you hear Paul McCartney talking about singing, that second, first and second Gs are pronounced. Singing, when I have headphones on, I think, oh, Mike Abendroth is a hick from Nebraska.

Omaha public schools. Oh, why do I talk this way? Anyway, that's just my pride, because I'd like to be erudite. I'd like to be sophisticated. I'd like to be from Havid. Actually, my daughters now live, well, two of them are in Southern California, one's in Wyoming.

And they like the Boston accent because they grew up here, right? I have not adopted the Boston accent. Mario, do you have a Boston accent at all? Anything from Worcester? Someone's in New York, I don't know.

Yeah, are you from New York originally? No, I'm from Worcester. Okay, I'm from Worcester. Yeah. I'm from Worcester. My favorite all-time New Englandese talk thing is when I, I think it was 1995, I went to Bar Harbor, Maine with my wife on a little vacation.

I came out here for work. I was in sales and we hung out. Bar Harbor. And of course, New Englanders, we don't say a lot of R's. And we talk about saying it, you know, singing, Bar Harbor. And so we went to Bar Harbor, Maine, and they had t-shirts in this tourist t-shirt shop.

And here's what the t-shirt said, B-A-H-A-B-A. Go ahead, you can do it. B-A-H-A-B-A, B-A-H-A-B-A, B-A-H-A-B-A. All right, that's enough of that. If you want bulk copies of the book, Sexual Fidelity, Law Gospel.

You know what did not sell at all, Mario? Hardly any? The Chosen. So three chapters on unconditional election, how to try to help people. Some of the chapters were kind of funny to try to get people to understand this doctrine that's very difficult doctrine for many people.

Even in the news these days, Jenna Ellis used to be President Trump's, one of his lawyers. She's attacking Calvinism, even though she said John MacArthur used to be her pastor. Dinesh D'Souza, is that his name?

Somebody like that TV guy, he's attacking Calvinism. Seems to be a big deal these days. Anyway, I put that book together and I thought the title was funny. I blame my brother, the Ascension, Pat Avendroth.

Anyway, just never sold. So there you go. Now what? My identity is crushed. My self image is crushed. When I wrote that book, I was so proud of myself. Let's get to the topic. I have some questions for you that are usually off limits.

Socially intrusive questions, inappropriate questions many times to ask other people in public. How much debt do you have? Why don't you have children? Are you going to have children? Why are you still single?

Why'd you get divorced? How much do you weigh? Have you had cosmetic surgery? Are you pregnant? What happened to your hair? Is that your real hair? Socially inappropriate, intrusive questions. Well, I'd like to ask three more questions today that are pretty intrusive, but not socially, but spiritually.

Three Spiritual Questions About God's Invitation

And pretty much they come from the Lord Jesus, the great prophet, Jesus Christ. Prophet, priest, and King designed to make sure you are right with God. You're justified, forgiven, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and having the hope of heaven.

Our passage today is Luke chapter 14. And who's coming to dinner? Who's coming to God's banquet? And we'll ask that in the form of questions. Let me read the passage. And then I'm going to give you three, probably the three most important questions you could ever be asked.

And if they're intrusive, not supposed to talk about politics and religion, you've got the wrong show. Matter of fact, this last week, I prayed that the Lord would give me an opportunity to preach the gospel to someone.

And I sat next to someone on a bus and got to preach the gospel to them. She said something like Mazel Tov or whatever, and off we went, off to the Yeshua, Yamashia, we went. All right, what am I doing?

I don't know. This is show four. I have the same pants on that I've had for all four shows, different shirt, same glasses, same rings, same shilling people's books. Nobody buys mine. That's not true. I actually got a Discovering Romans quarterly royalty check from Harper Collins that it was the largest one I ever got from them.

Usually it's 25 bucks a quarter. This was like 250. So maybe a bunch of people bought it or something on Lagos. I'm not exactly sure. Once I got a check from day one, I published two books with day one.

I got a check for one pound, 30 pence for the quarter. I thought, how do you even cash a check with pounds? What am I gonna do? Go to the bank. Excuse me, could you please cash this check for about $3?

It's like going to the store yesterday to get gas, to get petrol, to get benzene. And I thought, you know what? I'm tired. I need to get a soda to just wake up or some kind of monster drink or something.

So you go in there and I'm like, who has cash these days? $10 minimum credit card transaction. So you just buy two Diet Pepsis, that's 10 bucks. It's crazy. Luke 14, 15. When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.

But he said to him, a man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come everything's ready now. But they all alike began to make excuses.

The first said to him, I bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. And another said, I bought five oxen, five yoke of oxen. And I go to examine them now. I need to, please have me excused.

Another said, I've married a wife and therefore I cannot come. So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame.

And the servant said, sir, what you commanded has been done and there's still room. And the master said to the servant, go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled.

For I tell you, none of those men who are invited shall taste my banquet. Luke chapter 14 with the master teacher, Jesus Christ. So as we work through this passage today on the show, I'm just going to ask you three questions, three direct questions that could prove very intrusive, but you don't have to answer them to me.

I don't even know who you are. You can answer them before the Lord. Question number one, do you want to be eternally blessed by God? Do you want to be? Now, anybody watching this show is probably gonna say, of course I want to be eternally blessed.

Do You Want to Be Eternally Blessed by God?

That's the point. I want to learn more about Jesus. That's why I'm watching the show. But it's a good question to ask because some people don't want to. I don't believe in God. I don't care. I know there's going to be strings attached.

That means I'm going to have to change the way that I live. I'm going to have to repent. I'm going to have to do this out of the other. Do you want to be eternally blessed by God? I mean, there are so many blessings materially, temporally.

Don't you want a good income? Don't you want a nice house, a car, financial security, debt-free life, have a loving spouse, have a good marriage, have some babies, some grandchildren, have a close-knit family?

Don't you want blessings of health and live a long life, the ability to exercise? Those are all things that you would want. Why would you not want eternal blessings from God? You should want that. And not just, I want to stay out of hell, but wouldn't you want the ultimate blessing?

And so this guy in Luke 14, 15, he's having dinner with Jesus, and he's hearing Jesus talk about the humble will be exalted and the exalted will be humbled. He's hearing what Jesus is saying in Luke chapter 14.

He's just healed the man with dropsy on the Sabbath in front of everyone. And here the compassionate God-man is talking and talking about mercy and grace and humility. And this guy is realizing, hey, wait, Jesus, you're talking about who's going and who's not, who gets blessed and who doesn't.

Hey, we're Jews. Hey, we're going. We've been invited to the great supper. Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. That's what this guy said to Jesus. Hey, Jesus, you're kind of boiling it down to only maybe a few get into heaven, some select get into heaven.

Not everybody goes into heaven, but we're Jews. Blessed is everyone. Blessed us Jews, for we will eat bread in the kingdom of God. And by the way, this is language that should make you think wonderful things about heaven.

Heaven as the Eternal Banquet

How do you describe heaven? I mean, glory, beatific vision. Sometimes the Bible talks about heaven as a banquet, dinner, the marriage supper of the lamb, where you just think about this feast and you think about wedding feast.

My daughter, Gracie, just got married to Dawson and we had a wonderful catered barbecue. We had pulled pork and we had tri-tip and we had the special cheesy macaroni thing. We had coleslaw. We had all kinds of things and it was wonderful.

And so you can just imagine, if that's good, how much greater will be the eternal banquet? And we're not talking about literal food in heaven and the desserts are gonna be Michelin star or anything like that.

But regularly, the joy of heaven is seeing the joy of relationships around a table, having dinner, closeness, fellowship, reclining together. Jesus said in Matthew 8, many shall come from East and West, talking about heaven and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Kingdom of God, a banquet, a party, a festival, joy, satisfaction, pleasure, taste buds, everything going to be wonderful. Especially back in the day when it wasn't like our day, we just don't put up the fridge and there's the food.

How hard is it to get the food? These kinds of banquets were probably for kings and big shots only. And that the creator of the universe would want fellowship with us and to eat at the table. It says in Isaiah 25, 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 people. He'll swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of his people. He'll take away from the earth for the Lord himself has spoken.

Wouldn't you wanna be at that table? Wouldn't you wanna have that banquet? Wouldn't you wanna be eternally blessed by God? I mean, you can ask yourself, what's the best dinner you've ever been to? I don't think I've ever been to a Michelin star restaurant, but I've been to some pretty good ones in Italy.

Seems like even the bad restaurants in Italy are still good. I don't even know why that is. There were two banquets that were huge that I paid a lot of money for. The food wasn't good at either of them, but there were just two big banquets.

One, I was married to Kim and we went to a luau in Hawaii. And I went over there for work and brought her over. And so we thought we'd do some tourist things. We went to Aloha Stadium and saw some college football game.

And afterwards, Willie Nelson played and I didn't even care about Willie Nelson, but hey, I might as well stay and listen. And we went to a 19 course luau. And they picked us up and drove us to like some nuclear bomb facility.

It was horrible. The food was horrible. And I'm like, what a rip off. And the other one was a 16 course meal that I paid a lot of money for at Bally's Casino in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve, 1988, before I was married with Frank Sinatra singing during the meal.

True story. That food wasn't even good either. But those are my two biggest banquets that I can think of. The banquet of heaven, you've got to attend. Don't you want to attend? That's a dinner you don't want to miss.

You don't want to go to heaven? You're going to have excuses? We're going to learn about some of those excuses. Don't you want to be forgiven? Don't you want eternal life? Don't you want that Damocles sword that's over your head swinging back and forth?

Like I know I'm a sinner and I'm going to have to pay. Don't you want to know right now that you get to go to heaven? Of course. Will you attend? Will you believe in the Lord Jesus? And many reject this.

This guy is like, hey, we're in, we're Jews. And Jesus tells a parable to prove the sincerity or disprove the insincerity of this guy. Is that right? Prove the insincerity? No, no. Prove the sincerity or disprove the sincerity.

Is he sincere? Is he insincere? Will this light go off with three minutes to go? I don't know. We don't know these things. This is show four. I should blow a shofar for show four. I know that the Gentiles will probably be included.

This guy is saying, but don't for us, don't forget us good Jews. We're going to make it. Blessed is everyone. You're saying that there's these people over here, these Gentiles that are going to make it too.

And you know, hey, these Pharisees, they might not make it, but you know, hey, we're good Jews and we're promised this great feast, this great banquet, this great kingdom of God that's going to last forever.

And I'm glad you're inviting the crippled and the lame and some of these other people in, but you know what? Anybody that makes it, it's going to be good. And we're not Gentiles, we're Jews. Question number one, don't you want to be eternally blessed?

And I think the answer is yes. Question two, how are you eternally blessed? How are you eternally blessed? And so Jesus tests this man's sincerity. And I could probably test yours as well. Some call this the parable of the great supper.

How Israel Received God's Invitation

Others have called it the parable of excuses. Why I'm not going to go to this supper. Remember, this has nothing to do with a real supper. This is kingdom of heaven talk, language that we can understand.

The parable, I'm going to call it the parable of the lame excuses. How lame are these excuses? So let's see what happens. How are you blessed? Verse 16, a man once gave a great banquet and invited many.

We could talk about the generosity. We could talk about the goodness. We could talk about how this is such a gracious. Given the day, a great banquet and invited many. And at the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come for everything now is ready.

So here's what we didn't know about culture. Here's what we don't know about the culture back in those days. There was a double invitation. And it's not that hard to really think through. I'm going to have a big meal at my house on next Sunday and everybody's invited.

So I first invite them today. And then right before the banquet, I send my servants out again and say, don't forget. Right? It's a double invitation system. It's not that big. It's not that hard to kind of think through.

I have things at work here and I'll make an appointment. And then the day before say, follow up, don't forget. Let's do that. So there's a double invitation. And if you know that second invitation comes out the day of the banquet, it's going to help you understand this parable that Jesus is working through.

There's a double invitation. And of course, Israel has been invited to the banquet. Have they not? The first invitation, Israel, you're invited to the banquet. There's a Messiah who's going to come. This is how you see the Messiah.

You're sinful. Here's all the types of sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and wave offerings and everything else. Look for the Messiah and get ready. And you're invited. All are invited. Jews, Gentiles, you're invited to this great Messiah.

The prophets have proclaimed this. Isaiah 65, I've spread out my hands all day long to a rebellious people. Here's a free gracious invitation to come drink water without price, Isaiah talks about. And the second invitation, Jesus actually just gave in Luke 13.

Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophet and stones those sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you would not.

The Old Testament prophets, here's an invitation. All of the Old Testament, here's an invitation. Jesus shows up the day before the great banquet as it were. Here's another invitation. And so what do you think people did?

Of course, we're sinful. Would you please forgive us? We want to attend such a great feast. We want to attend such a great thing. And of course we know the way to accept is to believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved.

As many as received him, he gave the right to become children, to trust, to rest in, not to work, but to believe. And look at these excuses. Why would these people make these excuses? Now, before I read the excuses again, the excuse is not, sorry, I'm busy.

I have to go rob a bank. Sorry, I'm busy. I need to take my girlfriend to the pregnancy center and get an abortion. Sorry, we're going to plant some bombs in a public library. Some kind of heinous sins.

None of that is going on. This is all kind of upright moral stuff. They're all making excuses, verse 18. Here's the first excuse. I bought a field, I've got to go see it, have me excused. What? I bought a field?

Property and Possessions as Excuses to Reject the Invitation

He didn't say I got to go rape and pillage and murder. If you did this to someone who gave you invitation one, invitation two, in the Arab culture, you could start a war that way. It's like a slap in the face.

Not with your hand, but the backside because you don't deserve the front part of my hand. I give you the backhand. It's like spitting in someone's face. I bought a piece of land. Could have looked at it earlier.

You didn't look at it when you bought it. Wiersbe said in the East, real estate transactions are long and complicated. And how could he examine his property in the dark? Even if you did have to go back and look at it.

Here's the banquet at night, it's dark. Want to buy some land in Florida? I mean, would a few hours make a difference? He did not want to come. Bad excuse, insufficient excuse, flimsy excuse. So you know where this is going, don't you?

The banquet of eternal life, the table's been set. You've been invited, you've been called to come, believing on the Lord Jesus. What's your excuse? If you're not a Christian, what's your excuse? I have a girlfriend, I'll wait.

I don't want to deny myself right now. I don't want to repent right now. I don't believe in God. The church has burned me. Whatever the excuses are, I'm telling you, they're lame and they're flimsy and they won't stand eternity.

What's your excuse? There's no good excuse. You don't want to admit you're a sinner? Don't you know deep down that you are? Aren't you a realist? Don't you know you've sinned? Well, there's more dumb excuses, lame excuses.

And another said, I bought five yoke of oxen. I must examine them. Please have me excused. How many pounds of oxen would these five yoke be? Right, two and a yoke's a five, that's 10. 20 ,000 pounds. I need to go check these out.

Work and Business as Excuses for Rejecting God's Invitation

Morgan said, it may be perfectly true that you do not look a gift horse in the mouth, but you do look at the horse you are buying. I can't, that's true. These are just so dumb. If you talk to unbelievers, why don't you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?

And whatever they're saying out of their mouth, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, kind of like, you know, Charlie Brown's teacher. It's just, I'm dumb. I'm ignorant. I'm enslaved to sin. I'm blind. I'm dead in trespasses and sins.

That's what they all are. That's what I did. That's what you did. God has to reveal. God has to take the scales off your eyes. Satan's blinding their minds, blinding their eyes. They're deaf, dumb, and blind spiritually.

And they just offer dumb excuses. The woman you gave me did that. I mean, it just verbal diarrhea excuses. How about this one? Another said, verse 20, I've married a wife and therefore I can't come. He doesn't say, please have me excused.

Marriage and Personal Commitments as Excuses

I mean, the first two kind of seem polite. Hey, I got to do this. This one's like, hey, don't bother me. I'm married. Wouldn't the wife like to do this? Especially back in those days. Hey, I don't have to cook tonight.

I don't have to clean. I don't have to prepare. I don't have to kill the lamb. I get to go to somebody else's house for this great feast. What married wife wouldn't want to go? What else do you do? There's no TikTok in those days.

You're like, I would love to go. This would cheer her up. Come on, bring her along by all means. This is a generous host. This is a gracious host. There's plenty of food and wine for your wife. Bring her.

Some say this guy was even extra tricky and he's using the Bible out of context to get out of it. Deuteronomy 24, when a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army nor be charged with any duty.

He shall be free at home one year and shall give happiness to his wife whom he's taken. So when you become married, you don't have to be in the army for a year because you need to be with your wife. Be happy with her.

Give her happiness. Isn't that good of God, even in Deuteronomy and Mosaic law? You know what? You get married, enjoy your wife for a year, then go fight and die for the cause. So maybe he's hiding. Hey, going to this banquet would be like going to war and I need to be with my wife.

I'm not in the army right now. I just am newly married. How dumb. What a bad excuse. These excuses are not good. These are sinful excuses. And they're all with a backdrop of a spiritual truth. There's no excuse for not accepting the invitation to the banquet of God for eternal life by trusting in the Lord Jesus.

Not one good excuse. Whatever you say to me, it's not good enough. I got burned by the church. My dad's gonna kick me out. I might be killed by my family because of shame culture. Whatever it is. It's not that I don't understand, but they're not good excuses.

Ryken said he learned this in sixth grade grammar school. I cannot come to the banquet. Don't trouble me now. I have married a wife and I have bought a cow. I have fields and dominions that cost a tidy sum.

Don't trouble me now. I cannot come. Yikes. If you refuse an invitation to the banquet in the Middle East, that's a slap on the face. If you refuse the second invitation, it's the equivalent, like I said earlier, to declare war.

I've got something better to do. You don't matter to me. I don't care that I've offended you, God. I'll do what I want. I'm not going to show up. Years ago, I listened to Chuck Swindoll. I love listening to Chuck Swindoll.

And he had excuses that drivers gave to their insurance departments when they had an accident. And they sound so dumb. I just want you to know, if you're an unbeliever, these are funny, but your excuses aren't funny.

They're dumber than this. A pedestrian hit me and went under my car. The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him. An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle and vanished.

The pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so I ran him over. The telephone pole was approaching fast. I attempted to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end. I'd been driving my car for four years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.

And the last one, the indirect cause of this accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth. I don't know about God. Well, now you do. That's ignorance, doesn't count. Look in the nature, look outside.

You know there's a God. I defy you, God. I don't care what you say. I'm too busy. I'm too intoxicated. I'm too medicated. I don't have any time for solitude. I'm a good person. I don't need a savior. I've done too much bad.

I've done too much sin. How could God ever accept me? I'll do it later. I'll sow some wild oats. You know, the Bible's got a lot of problems. There's a lot of inconsistencies in the Bible. How could God be good and allow so much suffering on earth?

There's so many hypocrites in the church. All of those. Just throw them in the pile of lame excuses. You have an eternal soul. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of living God. And God in his goodness and graciousness freely offers through the personal work of Jesus, salvation, forgiveness, eternal life, the banquet of all banquets for you.

God's Mercy and the Call to Believe in Christ

And you don't even have to stop sinning. God is so great. He will then give you the spirit of God. And then you can start saying no to sin. That's how wonderful a savior God is. So my name is Mike Abendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Do you want to be eternally blessed? How are you eternally blessed? Faith in Christ Jesus. And how merciful is the host who eternally blesses? Well, maybe we'll talk about that next time.

But that's it for the show. That's it for this week. That's a wrap. That's the ascension. They buy this book. They don't buy The Chosen. I have no idea what's going on. See you later.