THE Wedding Invitation 

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Guten Morgen. Mike A. Midroth here. Hola. Shalom. I'm still trying to do my Duolingo, but the modern Hebrew is so hard. I mean, the alphabet was one thing. How to say no low is one thing.

Reading right to left. Okay, I got that. No vowels. All right, getting better. But then, wow. Speaking of no vowels, before we get into the show today, when I think of consonants and vowels, I always think of a guy that used to come to church here.

And he had blown his mind out on LSD and drugs and all that stuff. I think I've even had him on No Compromise Radio. And he went to some charismatic church and was going through rehab or had stopped the drugs and everything else.

And the charismatic leaders were trying to get him to speak in tongues. And like me, I think this man's public school, publicly schooled. And so he couldn't speak in tongues. And so the leader said, just start saying a bunch of consonants and string them together.

And that will jumpstart you. We have a little Honda 70, four stroke, and a little Honda 100, four stroke, that the kids rode around the neighborhood a lot and up into the orchard before there was a bunch of houses built.

And sometimes those are hard to start and the carburetors get all gummy and try to kick that thing and start it. And just, you know, hard. Just start saying some consonants and you'll learn how to speak in tongues.

And so the man said, A-E-I-O-U, A-E-I-O-U. Consonants, smoshonants, vowels, schmowls. What do we care? Today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, I'd like to talk to you about a parable. And it is one of the most interesting parables in the Bible.

It's found in Matthew chapter 22. And this is especially a good parable for those who are listening who aren't Christians. This is especially a good parable for those who are Christians and who could look back and think, I'm so thankful that the Lord saved me.

So both are applicable. Don't forget, you can order Cancer Is Not Your Shepherd. Or you can order all kinds of things on Amazon. You can no longer get sexual fidelity on our website, which is getting a redo, but you can order, well, I don't even know what's on the website, Evangelical White Lies, Discovering Colossians, Cancer Is Not Your Shepherd, Updated Sexual Fidelity.

You can order all those online. So I'm just trying to say that regularly. So if you need one, and matter of fact, thankfully, as the Lord has given me a ministry to talk to cancer folks, talk to a couple of people this last week who have had cancer, who have cancer, and just working through things.

And we're already on the same wavelength. We already know how to talk to each other. We already know how to work through things, ups and downs, feelings, side effects, future. So if you know somebody that needs some encouragement, you can always email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

Tell me the situation. Give me the person's phone number. I can just click on it. And if I'm driving down the street and I have a little time, maybe I'll give the person a call. Preferably male. If it's a woman and you want me to call the woman, maybe they can be on speakerphone with her husband or something like that.

It's not my style to call ladies. Unless it's my wife or my daughters or my daughter-in-law. Are there some grandmas here at the church? I mean, we have some exceptions. The parable of the wedding feast, Matthew 22.

The Wedding Feast and the Rejected Invitation

Now I was thinking about this because I've been working through Luke five and Jesus talks about himself as not only being a physician, but also being a groomsman. Yeah, a groomsman, the groom, the groom man, the groomsman.

And I think, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I take that all back. When I say groomsman, that's wrong. The bridegroom, that's what I'm after, the bridegroom. John the Baptist is a groomsman. This is hard.

Why don't we just say bride and groom? That makes it so much easier. Jesus is a groom. And so I've been thinking about weddings and feasting. Remember the Pharisees said, you are eating and drinking with tax collectors.

That's a no-no. And furthermore, you shouldn't even be eating and drinking at all. You should be fasting like us, morning like us, faces painted white like us. That's what you should be doing. Parable of the wedding feast is the third in kind of a trilogy of parables.

And it pretty much should get you to ask the question, will I make it into the kingdom of heaven? The Jews, they're missing the kingdom. I want to make sure I don't miss it. How can I go to heaven? I want to make sure I go.

I don't want to miss it. The Pharisees are going to miss it. I don't want to miss it. I want to make sure I don't fall prey to what false teachers are saying. I want to make sure I don't come face-to-face with God on judgment day.

I want to make sure that I don't fall into the trap that to become a Christian, you simply need to be baptized or walk the aisle or be good or be nice or do more good than bad. What is going on? And so Jesus gives a parable of the wedding feast.

Matthew 22, one 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, the Pharisees are sad. And Jesus says, here's a parable for you.

It's going to have a sting at the end, like a scorpion's tail. Obviously, if there's going to be a wedding feast, there's preparations that are involved. And if we look at this and we say, a king is going to give a wedding feast, think of the planning, think of the expense, think of the preparations, think of everything that's going to be put into it.

This is going to be a banquet. This is going to be a feast. I haven't been to a lot of rich people's weddings, but when I get to go, it's pretty nice. Here's the feast and it's called a wedding feast.

And verse three says, and he sent his servants to call those who were invited to the feast, but they would not come. Now you see the backdrop here. Jesus is talking about a big feast going to heaven and there's a king and a son.

Jesus is the son. The father is the father, heavenly father, God, the father and the servants. These people are supposed to be serving God's people. They're not going to come. These religious leaders, they're not going to come.

They're invited, come, believe, but they don't want to come. They don't want anything to do with it. I mean, but there's a lot of preparation that's been involved and it's taken a lot of time. It's taken a lot of money.

It's taken a lot of resources and you're invited. And of course, all we have to do is think big picture. This side of the cross, the Lord Jesus has died. It's been very expensive for the father, very costly for Jesus.

And people are invited to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. In the day, they had two invitations. The first invitation would go out early, almost like, can you RSVP? And then another invitation would be sent.

And if you got one of those from the king, you'd want to go. If you got an invite to the presidency to have a meal at the White House, you'd want to go because this is going to be top notch. So you, just like today, you get a reminder.

I'm excuse me, you get a RSVP, you get a little thing, a mail, and here's the wedding, can you come? Do you want chicken or steak or whatever? And then the day of the wedding, another reminder goes out.

That would be the custom back in those days. And that's probably what's happening here. But these guests keep refusing. It's an imperfect tense in the Greek. And that basically means, no, no, no. We're not going to come, we're not going to come.

We don't want anything to do with you. And this is war. This is a declaration of war. You don't do that to the king. You don't snub the king. You don't spit in the king's face. Again, he sent other servants saying, tell those who are invited, see, I prepared my dinner.

My oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered and everything's ready. Come to the wedding feast above and beyond. He overdoes it, doesn't he? He outdoes himself. Come on, please. You think about how the long suffering of God is entreating and calling people and forbearing with people.

You think about your own life. How long did I snub the Lord before I finally came by faith and how just patient God is and how generous God is. How can this happen? These religious leaders are going to say no to this.

I thought they were religious leaders. Verse five, 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.

And the king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their cities. The royal decree, come to the feast by faith in Jesus. No, no, we will not accept it. We like business as usual.

We like being the leaders. Obviously, if we believe in Jesus, we're not gonna be leading this whole thing. We're gonna be following him and we'd rather be leaders. The lame excuses of not coming to Christ by faith.

I mean, have you ever talked to anybody? Think about your own life before you got saved. What lame excuses did we give? I, if you're a lady, I don't want to take my husband's last name. I'm a feminist and I know what the Bible says about submitting to husbands.

If I come to faith, I'm gonna have to move out of my girlfriend's house. If I, I mean, this just goes on and on and on. What will people think of me? This king was angry. And of course we know of ultimate judgment, but we also know it's 70 AD.

Four short decades later, Jerusalem is going to be demolished. Fire, burned, just flattened almost. God is a consuming fire, a jealous God, Deuteronomy chapter four. You're gonna insult, you're gonna mock, you're gonna reject the feast.

The Wedding Garment and the Righteousness of Christ

Then he said to his servants, Matthew 22, eight, 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. Well, the food's prepared, the fattened calves are prepared, the feast is prepared.

You think I'm gonna end the celebration? We need to fill this place up. Royal banquet, we're going to have guests. We are going to have guests. It's to celebrate my son. The celebration is because of my son.

Here, open to all, no prerequisites, no forsaking your sin in order to come, nor cleaning yourself up in order to believe. Romans four, Jesus justifies the ungodly. There's mercy and love for all kinds of sinners, all walks of life, all people.

If you're listening today and you're not a believer, for you, yes, even you. And back in time, yes, for even me. Verse 10, and 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. There we go, there's going to be a celebration. When the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there was a man who had no wedding garment. That's kind of suspicious.

That's kind of conspicuous. It's kind of obvious. There's all these guests, there's all these people. That's a big party, it's gonna be a celebration. It's gonna be a feast like no other, royal banquet.

Somebody wants to come in. Maybe they slipped in, maybe they're a party crasher. Maybe they're a wedding crasher. I think they're probably movies about crashing weddings. You gotta have the right attire.

Yeah, there is something to be said for these riffraff, these lowlife, according to the Pharisees, people that don't even seem like image bearers. Pharisees don't have anything to do with it, them. But these people are invited to this wedding, but then there's this man.

It's like the spotlight goes on this one man. What is he doing? He doesn't have a wedding garment on? Does that mean he doesn't have a tuxedo? Well, back in those days, you didn't have a lot of clothes.

And if you were a royal king, you would especially give a wedding garment to every person that came. Especially if the people like the Pharisees, they had the money. Now you got the riffraff, they don't have the money.

How are people living on the streets? How are people living in the tenements? How are people scraping by, asking God for their daily bread? How can they go to the royal banquet? You've got to get dressed up.

I've been to certain places where there's a dress code and I had to have a sports coat and tie, minimum, to get in. I think once I was even in the casino in Monte Carlo, and I was just there on vacation in 1984, and you have to have a sports coat and a tie to get in there.

There are other places you need that in order to come in. You just can't saunter in with your work clothes and with your car hearts and all that. And your dickies, dirty, nasty, robe all bad. So what they would do is they would show up, right?

You get the first invitation, then you get the second invitation. These Pharisees don't want to have either. Then the servants go out and ask them the veritable riffraff of the world, and they come and when they enter, they're to put this garment on.

Wow, a garment, I get another garment. This is amazing, this is fabulous. But there's a man without a garment. What's going on? Now, when you think about the Bible regularly, there's a clothing that God gives his people as a sign of blessing.

Figuratively, well, of course, it's a blessing of God to have clothes, but more figuratively, you'll see a lot of that. Clothing people, clothing people that don't deserve it. Here's an illustration, has nothing to do with the wedding, but you get the idea.

Ezekiel 16, I clothed you, God says, with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck.

And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you are adorned with gold and silver and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth.

You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. Wedding clothes were provided by the host, the King. What do you need to get in? You need that robe. See where this is all going?

Understand where this is all taking place, you students of the Bible? Suitable clothing in order to enter into the King's presence. Oh, you say, now I see, now I'm getting it. I've got to have the right garment to be in the presence of the King.

The King provided it. You see, the King has provided the righteous robes of Christ Jesus, like a garment. And you receive by faith and faith alone. In the Lord Jesus, the risen Savior. Jesus pays for your sins, imputed his account, treated like a sinner, even though he never sinned.

And we get the righteous robes of Christ Jesus. Think Isaiah 61, for instance. So I want to be in the King's presence with my old-fashioned ways. I don't need provision. I don't need to be forgiven. I don't need to be born again.

I don't have to think about my sins rightly and repent. I don't need to do any of that. I can saunter into heaven. The only thing I need to do to get to heaven is die. I'm going to be good enough. I've had people tell me, yes, in fact, I'm going to be good enough and I'm going to bank on their words, except the Bible tells me differently, but I don't care.

There's a man standing there. God has provided the banquet. God has provided a time of celebration. God has provided the food and the celebration and the wine and everything else, the merriment. And he's also provided a garment to get in.

And you just go, no, I'm not going to put on that garment. That man, I wonder what's going to happen to that man. I wonder what's going to happen to that man or that woman who says I'm going to get to heaven without Jesus.

What does that really do? Galatians chapter two, the death of Jesus was of no avail. That's what they're really saying. And they might say, well, yeah, Jesus had to die. And he was an example of love and sacrifice and it's divine judgment.

But what about substitution? Matthew 22, 12, he said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. You think your own good deeds, if you ever had one is good enough?

Friend has kind of got an appeal to it, some might say, but it's not really quite what we mean by friend. Hey pal, hey buddy, maybe it's a little closer to that. I provided clothes for you. You said yours was good enough.

That's an insult. Our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment, Isaiah 64 says. Coming to the King on his terms, coming to the King, having a robe of righteousness that's earned by Jesus, that is freely given to you by grace alone through faith alone.

Zinzendorf wrote, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, my beauty are my glorious dress, midst flaming worlds in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift my head. What does the man say? He was speechless. What could he say?

He didn't even give an excuse. And then the King said that 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 from patient to kind, to gracious, to generous, eventually to judge.

When you walk into the wedding and you realize you're dirty and filthy and your old ragged clothes are on, you realize I'm poor and I need something. You have to come face to face with your own poverty, with your own misery, with your own sin.

And then you say, father, I don't deserve it, but I am a sinner, but I heard you're merciful and you save sinners like me because of and on behalf of Christ. And because you love sinners like me. I wonder if this all took God by surprise that some would say no, and we know the answer.

And it's found right here in Jesus' words in Matthew 22, 14. For many are called, but few are chosen. Leon Morris said, those who hear God's call and know of his grace must not think that it is a call, that a call is the same as a response.

In other words, he says, come unto me all who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. That's a call, but the response is you come to Christ by faith. Was that man held responsible? Yes. Is God sovereign?

Yes. Do those two doctrines contradict each other? No, you don't have to reconcile friends as Spurgeon says. So if you're an unbeliever, do you think you're gonna get to heaven by your own goodness? You're not.

And if you're a believer, aren't you glad you got rescued from such a depraved mind, blinded by sin, going according to the course of the world, deceived by Satan, captive to do his will. But God being rich in mercy, you're rescued.

I'm rescued. And now we know it. We were invited and we would have refused except grace. And so Jesus, not only in the Bible, but now is calling sinners everywhere to come to him on his terms, to think rightly.

We think about believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. And the fruit of that is repentance. There's a feast, it's heaven. There's a banquet, it's forgiveness. God is gracious and patient and keeps offering the invitation to you even now through my words.

Do you wanna presume on God's patience? There's going to be a time for everyone listening when it's too late. Either the Lord's gonna come back, trumpet, too late, or you'll die too late. So why try to stroll in to God's heaven thinking you're gonna make it with your own garment?

That's foolish. Jesus with his great teaching style wants us to know that. Say, well, I'm too busy to believe. I've got businesses and hobbies and families and maybe I'll believe when the kids move out of the house.

Maybe believe when I get married and have kids. But isn't that just rebellion? Isn't that saying I'll just come to God on my own? Isn't that presuming on God's grace? I mean, at the end of it all, the person that strolled in on his own was saying he could wear his own stuff.

He's got enough self-righteousness. He's got enough righteousness. He doesn't need Jesus. And when you think about Jesus, isn't it similar to a lavish dinner prepared for a king, for his son at wedding time with oxen and fat calves and everything's ready?

So you, dear listener, if you're not a believer, won't you come to the feast? Won't you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and come by faith? And if you're a believer, oh, what a day of rejoicing it is to know that you've come to the wedding feast by faith and you're welcome in God's sight and there's a greater wedding feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb, that's coming for you soon.