The Garment the Wedding Guest Rejected...

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 22nd chapter.

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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.

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Again, he sent other servants saying, tell those who are invited, see I've prepared my dinner, my oxen, my fat calves have been slaughtered and everything is ready.

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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 then killed them.

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The king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. And they said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy.

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You go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.

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And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good.

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So the wedding hall was filled with guests, but when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw that there was a man who had no wedding garment.

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And he said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? He was speechless.

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And the king said to the attendants, bind him hand and foot, cast him into the outer darkness, in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for many are called, but few are chosen.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. What's with this?

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We've all heard of something called a wardrobe malfunction, but a wardrobe faux pas that lands you in hell?

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I mean, come on, don't you think this king is a little too uptight? I mean, the guy shows up and he's not one to respect kings, he's one of these people who thinks that, well, everybody should be on a level playing field, and so I'm just going to show up to this wedding that I've been graciously invited to, and I'm going to refuse to put on the clothes provided for me, because my khaki shorts, black t -shirt, and Birkenstock sandals are plenty, and if this is not well enough for the king, then who cares?

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I mean, after all, this is how the kingdom of God should work, isn't it? And the king finds him and throws him into hell.

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What is that all about? Well, my three rules for sound biblical exegesis are context, context, and context.

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And I would note that our gospel text today, Matthew 22, verses 1 through 14, the immediate context before that actually helps us out a little bit.

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We find that in the optional text for today, yes, there's an optional text, and so I decided

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I might as well bring the optional text into bear today, why not, right? The optional text helps us a little bit understand what the theme is.

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Why is it such a big deal that this guy shows up not wearing the wedding garments? Well, Matthew chapter 21, 21, this is our alternate gospel text for today,

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Jesus tells a parable, and boy, is it a zinger. Here's what he says, here another parable, there was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower and leased it to tenants and went into another country.

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Every single Jew who's been to synagogue knows what this is referencing, because this is referencing an image that God makes regarding his people

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Israel in Israel in the prophet Isaiah, and he likens Israel to a vineyard.

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So they're all going to be listening to this going, ah, Jesus is talking about us, right?

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Yeah, he is, very good, and I'm glad you paid attention to your Bible in the synagogue. So, when the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.

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And the tenants took his servants, beat one, killed another, stoned another.

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Does that sound eerily like the prophets of the Old Testament? That's kind of the point, right? So again, he sent other prophets, more than the first, and they did the same to him.

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And finally, he sent his son to them saying, they will respect my son. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, and I'm going to have to insert something into the text here, my apologies,

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I know eisegesis is not a good way to do this, but I'm going to insert something into the text. You have to insert these utterances, mwa ha ha ha ha, it kind of gets you, it gets at the intent here, mwa ha ha ha ha, this is the heir, come let us kill him and have his inheritance.

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See, I didn't do any violence to the text, I think it just added a little bit of color and nuance, right? So they took him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

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When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? Jesus ends his parable with a question.

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And one has to wonder, you know, because the crowd here, we get their response. If there weren't some of the crowd sitting there going, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, this sounds a little too close to home, right?

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They said, well, he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.

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And then Jesus ends with this, have you never read in the scriptures, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?

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This was the Lord's doing, and it's marvelous in our eyes. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

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I wonder what stone that would be, that's Jesus. And so the point is this, is that in all places, the land of Israel, a people who are supposed to be of the book, of the actual revealed word of God there in the

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Torah and the prophets, that what have they done? They've rejected the very one the law and the prophets was pointing to, the stone that the builders has rejected.

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Well, reject him or not, God's made him the cornerstone, so you're just going to have to get over it.

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And this was the Lord's doing, it's marvelous in our sight. So here's the idea, is that this is the theme, if you would, for these two parables.

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So Jesus then says this, therefore I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and it will be given to a people who are producing its fruits.

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And the one who falls on the stone will be broken to pieces and when it falls on anyone it will crush him.

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So the question is, is that what are you doing with that stone? What are you doing with, you know,

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Jesus? That's really the issue, even in our gospel text, which is kind of the twin, if you would, in theme to this parable that we just read.

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Now you all know I just got back from spending three weeks in Europe. We went on a nine day tour of Germany and the

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Reformation sites and I'm here to report, not happily, here to report the state of confessional

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Lutheranism in Western Europe is in tatters. The very churches that we went to visit, the historical places where Luther preached, where Bach wrote his cantatas, where important things took place in the

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Reformation and the God having mercy on humanity and having the gospel come back to light, having been papered over by the

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Rome and the Papists, well, I'm here to tell you that those places are not places that you can hear the gospel, not if you are a

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German and you attend the congregation that meets there at the normal time. In fact, one of the things that was very clear to me and the state of confessional

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Lutheranism in Germany is that not only is it in tatters, it's a tiny, tiny group of people.

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One of our days we spent in Leipzig, we spent that in Leipzig and the day began at a seminary confessional

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Lutheran seminary in Leipzig. Ah, confessional Lutheran seminary, this is going to be impressive.

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How many students do you have? One. You have one? Yeah, yeah, we have one.

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And then we heard the stories of what happened to the church during the time of the

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Eastern Bloc occupation of East Germany and how there's just a fledgling small group of congregations all being held together and their resources are thin, they're tiny.

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In fact, it's kind of a mess. But if we were to travel to, in fact, while we were in Leipzig, we met

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Pastor Andreas of this confessional Lutheran church body and some of his friends, associates, if you would, and one of the fellows was a teacher at the seminary.

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He went with us while we did a little tour of Leipzig and we went to the church where Bach wrote his cantatas, right?

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The musical hymnity behind the Lutheran Reformation, the very church where Bach's body is buried.

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And the seminary guy said to me, yeah, I went to a church service here a few weeks ago.

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Want to know what they said? The female pastor from the pulpit said that no

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Christian should own a vehicle, should own a car. The only thing that Christians should be allowed to own is a bicycle because we have to be responsible to keep our carbon footprint small.

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That doesn't sound like the gospel to me. Doesn't even sound biblical. It sounds completely man -made and just made up nonsense, gobbledygook, right?

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What went wrong? How did it go this way?

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And I would note something here. Right now, today, you're going to hear the gospel, but there's no guarantee that in the future generations at Kongsvinger Lutheran Church that the gospel will be preached here.

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It really depends on what you guys are willing to listen to. And I mean that.

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So you want to know what went wrong? We'll just go back in time a little bit. After the time of Lutheran orthodoxy, there were two big, if you would, enemies of Christianity that arose.

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And I'm sorry to say it this way, but Lutheran pietism was one of them. And the other one was the so -called

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Age of Enlightenment, right? The Age of Enlightenment is that it took human reason and exalted it to the highest apex and said that human reason is going to decide for itself what's true and what is false.

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What a bunch of baloney. Human reason, after sin has come into the world, is broken and fallen and capricious.

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And this is no standard that the church should be listening to. So what happened is during the

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Age of Enlightenment, and by the way, the devil has a really good marketing department.

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I mean that, okay? Rather than calling it the Age of Stupidity, which is what it was, the

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Age of Foolishness, we're going to call it the Age of Enlightenment. Oh, wow, wow, I feel enlightened, right?

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It's like today, you know, in those states where you're allowed to commit suicide with the help of a doctor.

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They don't call those death clinics. You know what they call them in some places? Life clinics.

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You're going to a life clinic. Oh, yeah, I'm going to a life clinic. Well, what's going to happen there? I'm going to commit suicide. I'm going to un -alive myself with medical assistance.

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Well, wouldn't it be better called a death clinic? Well, that's so negative, don't you think, right?

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It's just nuts, the world we live in, calling evil good, up, down, black, white, right?

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Calling men women. It's just crazy when you think about it. So the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Enlightenment says, you know, we now are in the

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Age of Enlightenment. And I know the Bible says that Jesus was born of the

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Virgin Mary, but we know better. We know better, right? We know that virgins don't give birth.

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So this has to be some kind of a poetic metaphor of some kind or another, right?

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And we know that corpses don't rise from the dead. So Jesus is still dead somewhere, right?

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And so you just take your human reason and anything that doesn't agree with it, you just sit there and go, well,

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I don't have to believe that. And here's the thing. When you do that, the thing you're attacking with your so -called reason is the actual

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Word of God. And when you attack the Word of God, you end up making it conform to your nonsense.

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You know what you end up losing in the process? Jesus, the gospel itself, you end up rejecting the cornerstone.

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That's how that works. Really, you believe in a Jesus that wasn't born of the

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Virgin Mary, that didn't rise from the dead. What kind of worthless savior is that?

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Right? Well, I mean, after all, we live in the Age of Enlightenment. We have human reason now.

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We don't have to believe these things. Uh -huh. You're starting to see how this works, right?

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And so Jesus here is talking about rejecting Him, rejecting

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His Word. And so we've got to understand this, that so many of us, because of our sinful nature, there are things that we believe and hold on to that are exactly contrary to what the

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Scripture says. I asked this yesterday in the Men's and Women's Bible Study. So what do you do with those biblical texts you don't agree with?

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Well, I don't like the fact that it says that the world was created in six days. I mean, come on. You don't want me to look stupid with my evolutionary friends, do you?

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Yes. Right? You're starting to get the point. What do you do with those texts that you don't agree with?

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You see, the problem isn't the biblical text. The problem is you. And the problem is that we, like stupid sheep, believe every plausible -sounding argument put out there and say, well, that's got to be truth.

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And we, as Christians, we've got to be devoted to the truth. So we're going to reject what the Bible says, and we're going to embrace this other thing.

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It's the stupidest thing you could possibly do, and you lose Jesus in the process. And if you lose Jesus, you lose the forgiveness of sins, you lose salvation, you lose the whole kit and caboodle.

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There is no salvation apart from Christ. And by the way, did you know that Jesus was a six -day creationist?

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Let that one sit in your hat for a while and stew, right? So all that being said, we now have the understanding of what's going on in this parable.

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So the parable begins, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.

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Hmm. God the Father giving a wedding feast for his son, God the Son, second person of the Trinity, starting to get the idea, who's the bride here, by the way, right?

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But this doesn't come up in the text. So he sent his servants to call those who were invited. Who were the people who

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God hung out with? Who were the people that God revealed himself to? Who were the ones that had the revelation through the prophets that there would even be a wedding feast long before Jesus even gave this parable?

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I know the A -listers, the Israelites. This includes the Jews. Those are the ones descended from the tribe of Judah.

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This includes all the other ones from Naphtali and Manasseh and all the other tribes, right?

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So he sends out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.

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Why? What's wrong here? There's free food. Okay. I just went a week without eating.

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And when I was able to eat again, it was the most wonderful experience I have gone through ever again.

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If you are just tired of eating, stop for a week and start up again. It'll be the best thing that has ever happened to you.

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Just saying. There's food. There's really good food, right? They wouldn't come.

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So he sent other servants to remind them what's on the menu. It says, see, I've prepared my dinner, my oxen, my fat calves have been slaughtered.

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Everything is ready. We got Texas barbecue. There's going to be wine. There's going to be food.

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It's just going to be great. Come on over, guys. It's all ready. But they paid no attention.

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Why? Because they had long ago abandoned God's word.

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The Jews of Jesus' day had embraced the heresy of the Pharisees. And no, I'm not trying to be poetic. The heresy of the

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Pharisees was that, well, God gave two Torahs on Mount Sinai, and we have to follow the oral tradition as well as this other written stuff.

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But when you follow the other thing, you lose the actual thing. That's the point that Jesus says.

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You make void the word of God by your traditions, by your man -made commandments.

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So they've lost it long ago. So they didn't pay attention. One went off his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and then killed them.

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Now the king was angry. So he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

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The theological implications of this are huge, because Jesus there is giving a very, very thinly veiled prophecy about what's going to happen in 70

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AD. And he's saying that the Roman legion was sent by him to destroy

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Jerusalem and tear down the temple. That's what he was saying here. But that is for another text.

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So then he said to his servants, listen, the wedding feast is ready. Those invited were not worthy.

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Why were they not worthy? Because they rejected the cornerstone, right? Go therefore to the main roads, invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.

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Now at this point, the text doesn't say this, but I like to imagine, work with me at this point, that the servants had to sit there and go, everybody?

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Let's talk about this here for a second, master. I mean, if you have us invite everybody, what about the guy who's sleeping in his own vomit there on the sidewalk, because he was drunk the night before?

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Should we invite him? Yeah, invite him. Okay. What about when we get to that neighborhood, you know, that really sketchy sus neighborhood where weird things happen and it's really skibbity?

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And you know, there's like drug users and stuff. Yeah, invite them.

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Okay. What about the hookers on the corner? Yeah, invite them. Okay. Well, we're just going to invite everybody.

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This will be a fun party, don't you think? All right. Because people that are going to be showing up are going to be really interesting.

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Should we invite P. Diddy? Yeah, invite him too. See what happens. Okay. I'm saying, did

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Christ not bleed and die for his sins as well? Right. Right. So, the servants went out into the roads and they gathered all whom they found.

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The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the down and the out, the drunks, the hookers, the tax collectors.

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They found one attorney. Okay. And so, the wedding hall was filled with guests.

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But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw that it was a man who had no wedding garment.

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Now, what do you think that is? You remember in Ephesians 5, husbands, love your wives as Christ has loved the church and gave himself for her.

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Right. And washes away all of her sin and iniquity and presents her to himself in splendor.

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That's another cross reference here. You see, wedding garments back in the days, especially if it was put on by a king, all these people are showing up in their civvy skivvies and basically whatever they're dressed in.

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But nobody has the garments necessary to show up to a royal wedding feast. So, the king decided he would enlist the help of Armani.

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Right. And he had made for everybody on the spot, and we will tailor it up so it fits you perfectly, beautiful, splendid, glorious wedding garments, which is a reference to the imputed righteousness of Christ.

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Because you'll note that not a single one of us can dare show up before God in our own clothes and somehow think that we will not provoke him to anger.

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Because our clothes are soiled, and they smell, and they are falling apart, and they are tattered.

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Why? Because of your sin. Because of my sin. So, we, coming to faith in Christ, are given exactly what we need to be able to be in attendance.

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Paul, in the book of Colossians, says that God has qualified you. He has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints.

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You can't qualify yourself. I can't qualify myself. Therefore, he has to qualify us, and that includes giving us the very garments that we need so that we don't upset

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God the Father. And so, this fellow shows up, and here's how

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I like to think of it. He shows up, having gone to those churches that say,

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Listen, God loves you just the way you are. And he celebrates your pronouns.

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Right. Those churches are lying to these people.

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Well, God is love. Love is God. You are aware that Christ died for our sins.

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Well, that's so negative. Hmm. I see. I like to think that this guy has attended a church just like that.

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So, he is poorly misinformed. That he does not need to repent.

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He does not need to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He does not need to receive his salvation at all.

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He ends up, well, the wedding garment that this fellow rejected happens to be

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Christ. And so, he shows up, and God the Father is provoked.

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Again, for my Greek students, look this up. Look at some of the other lexicons here. The word here for friend is not exactly the friendliest word to use for friend.

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Better translated, it's buddy. Hey, buddy, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?

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How did you get into the wedding feast of the Lamb without wearing Jesus? And he was speechless.

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His answer is, he's got nothing. Well, my pastor told me

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I can be here. My pastor told me I didn't have to wear Jesus. I didn't know I needed him. So, the king said to the attendants, bind him hand and foot, cast him into the outer darkness.

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In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for many are called. And it says, few are chosen.

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Well, how are they chosen? Everybody who's wearing Jesus is chosen. You're not wearing

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Christ? Hasta la vista. And no, you won't be back. That's the point here.

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And we end by saying, this is the gospel of the Lord? No, this is the law, if you think about it.

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So, where do we go for the gospel? Because I'm going to need it after that, because thinking on these things, I can think of all the different ways in which

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I have tried to push God's word aside, to not believe that those texts apply to me, or that I should embrace those things because I'm so intelligent, and nonsense like that, right?

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Well, the gospel of today is provided for us by the prophet Isaiah. Here's what it says in our

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Old Testament text. Come, everyone who thirsts. Come to the waters, he who has no money.

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Come, buy, and eat. Have you ever been in a situation where you were with friends, and you were someplace where everybody was going to buy something to eat, and you looked into your wallet and found, uh -oh,

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I haven't got enough to pay for anything. Right? I've been in that situation, and it stinks.

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It's an awful feeling. And so, what do you do in a situation like that? It's really simple.

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You say, oh, I'm not hungry. I'm not hungry. I'll eat when

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I get home. I'm good right now. I had a big lunch. Things like this, right? You just start coming up with, you don't want to say, mom didn't give me any lunch money, or I don't have enough money.

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I can't afford this. You don't want to say that. So you just say, I'll just wait till later. Wait till later. Okay? That being the case, it's an awkward, terrible feeling.

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Right? We all know what this feels like. But here's the thing. When it comes to salvation, and all the promises of the new earth, and the forgiveness of our sins, and everything that goes with this, and what is guaranteed to us in the world to come, you couldn't purchase it if you tried.

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You never will have enough money. That being the case, note your poverty.

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And God doesn't give a lick about it. He says, come everyone who thirsts.

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Are you thirsty? Come to the waters. You know, baptism, right? Come and buy and eat.

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Come buy wine and milk. Do you know how expensive wine and milk are? Yeah?

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You come buy wine and milk without money, without price. Well, I'll just order the least expensive thing on the menu.

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Put that aside. Let me show you this part of the menu here. You ever had a $700 bottle of wine?

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Let's get you one of these. Here you go. But I can't afford that. I know. I can afford it for you,

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Jesus says. See, that's the thing. When you lose Jesus, you lose all of that generosity because Jesus is that generous.

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He died so that you can be forgiven. Not just of a little bit, but the whole lot.

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And He, it is His desire out of His love for you to give you the riches of heaven because of how great

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He is. Don't sit there and say, I can't afford a $700 bottle of wine. Christ is buying it for you.

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That's what's going to be on your table at the wedding feast of the Lamb, and He paid the whole price for it.

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So why do you then spend your money for that which is not bread, and do labor for that which does not satisfy?

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Now I want you to think this out here with me for a second. The prophet Isaiah is starting to wobble between two realities, a spiritual reality and a worldly reality.

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But this plays very well into something we know. We've all heard the biblical text.

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Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

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So the Word of God is compared to daily bread.

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The Word of God is compared to bread. I need food to survive to the next day.

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Unless you've stored up a little extra like I have, then you can go like a week without eating, but that's a whole other story. All of that being said,

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God gives us our food, but the thing is is that that's to point us to the real reality is that we all need to be eating the meal that God has called us to eat, and that is

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His Word. And so watch the theme here. So why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?

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Why do you labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me,

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God says. Well, how am I supposed to do that? I gave you a book,

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God says. Start there and don't deviate from it. Listen diligently to me.

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Eat what is good, i .e. His Word. Delight yourselves in rich food, you know, the

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Bible. Now, another metaphor at this point. Do you all remember when you were that high, okay?

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Were your food preferences pretty good at that time? When I was about this high,

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I thought that the apex of human cuisine was Kraft macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, okay?

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You couldn't do any better than that. What else is there, right?

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But my mom said, nope, you're going to have to have Lima beans. Lima what? These taste like dead bugs mixed with chalk.

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Nope, you have to have Lima beans and broccoli too and cauliflower and salad.

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Okay, and you know what? I remember quite a few times there would be like a Texas standoff at our dinner table.

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I'd say, I'm not going to eat that. Mom says, you're not getting up until you do. Let's see who can outlast.

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And 20, 30 minutes goes by. The tears start going. I want to leave.

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Well, just eat your best. I don't want to eat this. Right? I want you to think about this.

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Human beings are the same way when it comes to the Word of God. I don't want to believe that God created the world in six days.

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Don't make me believe that. I don't want to believe that women can't be pastors. That's terrible.

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Starting to get it? Eat your veggies. I don't want to. Shut your pie hole and start eating.

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This is good for you. Right? Because it's true. That's the point being made here.

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Delight yourself in the rich food of Scripture. But if I do that, my friends will think

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I'm an idiot. They crucified Christ. Deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow him for heaven's sake.

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Right? Then he goes on. Incline your ear.

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Come to me here so that your soul may live. I think you're starting to get it.

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God says, I will make with you an everlasting covenant. You know, that eternal covenant, the new covenant.

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The covenant where God promises to do what? He remembers to forget all of your sins.

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That's the covenant that is being invoked here. It goes on to say, seek the

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Lord while he may be found. Because God can still be found today. When I woke up this morning,

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Christ hadn't returned in glory to judge the living and the dead. Today is still the day of salvation.

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Today is still the day of God's mercy. Christ can still be found. Where? Well, he said where two or more are gathered in his name, there he is present.

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And we are gathered here in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit to hear his word. To feast on his body and blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

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He is here present for us today. So seek the Lord while he may be found.

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Call upon him while he is near. And then let the wicked forsake his way.

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Yes, those who are thieves need to stop stealing. Those who are drug users need to get clean.

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Those who are drunk need to get sober. Those who are stealing need to get a real job.

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Right? For sure. But then it goes on and says, and let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts, including all those nonsensical false doctrines running around in your head that contradict the word of God.

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Forsake them altogether. Let them then return to Yahweh so that he might have compassion on them.

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And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts.

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Neither are my ways your ways, declares Yahweh. So much for the age of enlightenment. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

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And there is no higher thought given by God for us to ponder and to believe and to hang on to with everything that we have than this, that Christ laid down his life and died for the ungodly, including me and including you.

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Indeed, his ways are much higher than our ways. Thanks be to God. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to And again that address is

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We thank you for your support. All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.