In Luke 14:15-24 Jesus shares with his listeners the parable of a man having a dinner for all his friends. But all the friends would not come so the man sent the request to all people good and bad on the hi-ways and bi ways. This teaching brings this parable to life
Luke 14:15-24
“A certain man gave a great supper and invited many; sending his servant at supper time to say to those who are invited, “Come, for all things are now ready.” But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I’ve bought a piece of ground, I must go and see it; I ask you to have me excused.” And another said, “I bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m going to test them; I ask you to have me excused too.” Another said, “I’ve married a wife and therefore I cannot come.” So the servant came and reported things to his master. And the master of the house being angry, said to his servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and the lanes of the city, and bring here the poor, and the maimed and the lame and the blind.” And the servant said, “Master, it is done as you have commanded, and still there is room.” And the master said to the servant, “Go out in the highways and the hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you, that none of those men who were invited, shall taste my supper.”
Jesus was at a house of one of the Pharisees on the Sabbath. He told the people at the feast, when he saw them taking good seats, the best seats. He said, “Don’t take the best seat, lest the master of the house tell you where to sit make sure to sit in another place less exalted. And when you go to a feast sitting at a less exalted place; and let the master of the feast exalt you, then you’d be happy to receive glory from the master.” Then he went on to say that when you have a feast, invite the crippled and the maimed and the hurt and the poor, people who can’t repay you. He said, “Don’t invite your relatives, your rich neighbors and your friends, lest they repay you; but invite the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind and they can’t repay you, but you’ll be repaid in the resurrection after life.”
So that’s in context, he’s saying that to Pharisees. First of all, he’s saying, don’t sit in the most exalted places. Second of all, he says when you have a party don’t invite your friends and your relations but invite the poor, the maimed and the crippled. And to top it off, in the middle of the feast, before he’d said these things, he healed the guy who had palsy. He came into the house and he healed him right in front of them.
In this parable Jesus is talking about a man who had a feast and invited all these people and they all had excuses and none of them came. And so he sent out the invitation to all the hurting, the lame. What did he say, go into the highways, get the poor, the maimed, and the lame, and the blind, and bring them in and compel them to come in. And those people that I did invite, they’re not going to have part of my feast.
Jesus was pointing all these messages at the Pharisees of the day. He’s saying, “I’m compelling you to come in to this Kingdom. But none of you are repenting. And all I hear is your excuses. You are trying to trip me up in the law. You’re trying to ask me questions. You’re trying to excuse yourself. You’re trying to make reasons why I’m not the Messiah. You’re trying to reject me in any way you can. I’m inviting you to the supper with my Father and you’re refusing to come in. And if you don’t watch it, you’re not going to come in. I’m going to go and get all the lame, the poor, the blind and the hurting. And I’m going to invite them to my supper. And none of you who’ve got excuses and reasons are going to come to my supper.”
Now, let me tell you something, for 16 years I thought that I was a prophet, a last day’s prophet. I’ve mentioned this in another parable but it bears repeating. For 16 years, I studied the prophets and was right into the judgments of God and believed that God was a harsh god and a judging God. I had all sorts of beliefs that God was a condemning God. So I believed that Christians could be living a life where they’re pursuing other interests. They could be pursuing their marriage, pursuing their job, pursuing their business and pursuing all sorts of things other than Christ. And I believed that they’ve missed out on their eternal salvation when it came to eternal life because they were pursuing all these things as Christians. I took this parable and thought anyone that wasn’t completely satisfied with Jesus and involved in pursuing him with all they are with their life were going to hell. I don’t believe that anymore.
These days, I believe that some people don’t fully enter into salvation because of their own blindness. Their own religious beliefs keep them from the Kingdom. So many people see the Gospel of Christ and they are insulted and offended by it. Some of them are so intellectual that it’s too simple for them. The people with a Western mind, intellectual people, see it as foolishness. They see it as too easy. “You can’t just accept Jesus into your life and be accepted by him”, they say. It’s foolishness to them. And these people, they’ve got excuses.
People have all sorts of excuses why they don’t enter the Kingdom of God. They have excuses like they don’t want to leave their life of sin behind. They’re enjoying living with their partner. They enjoy being gay. They enjoy having sex with different people every week. They enjoy drinking every night. They enjoy gambling. They enjoy all the fun things of the world. They don’t want to enter into the Kingdom. These are the sorts of people that won’t enter into the Kingdom, because they have all these excuses. They have things that they want to do other than come to the party and become a Christian.
So they are the sort of people that don’t enter the Kingdom. And this is what I believe this parable is talking about – people of other religions that aren’t open at looking at the true Gospel, the Christian religion. If you’re Christian and you’ve got Muslim friends, if you’re Christian and you’ve got new age friends, I compel you to lead your friends to this video series or buy the book when it’s a book. And give this as a special gift to your friend and say, “Here’s what just a simple guy wrote about the parables of Jesus. Have a look at these. “
Do you know that most people judge the Christian faith by the Christians that they know? Jesus had a parable taught on being the light of the world. Most people see Christians as judgmental and narrow-minded people who don’t believe anyone’s going to Heaven except them. And this is true. So many Christians are so narrow-minded. You know, a person has until their last breath of life to change, to repent. They have until their last minute of life to have a chance to turn to Jesus.
Sometimes in our zeal, sometimes in our narrow-mindedness, we try to convince people that Jesus is the only answer, where we haven’t got the patience to love the person for who they are for 15 years first. People don’t want to know how much you know until they know how much you care. This is why Jesus impressed upon people to go and have a party and invite the maimed and the crippled and the lame. This is why Jesus impressed the people to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to visit the people in the hospital, and visit the people in prison, and take in the homeless. Jesus spoke in the rest of this parable about going to the maimed, the lame, and the blind.
Do you know, the people of this world are blind to the Kingdom of God? The people in this world don’t have to be in a wheelchair to be lame. People, you just can’t operate in this world successfully without the peace of God, you can’t be at peace in this world until you know God. You’re crippled. You’re walking around this life in a shell of a body without personal satisfaction and meaningful life. Ah yes, there are many non-Christians who’re successful in this life. But look at them when they’re on their deathbed and you see how worried some of those people are. You ask these people who are rich and famous, how much joy they have in their life. And you get face to face with them and they’ll say money, wealth and fame doesn’t buy happiness. It doesn’t give them lasting joy.
You see the marriages breaking down in Hollywood and rich people in the press. Having a lot of money doesn’t mean that you’re going to have a successful marriage. So, lame doesn’t necessarily mean in a wheelchair. You’ve got lame friends. You’ve got blind friends. You’ve got people who are blind to the Gospel. They need to get this video series. They need to watch this video series. You need to send the link of this series to them. Or you can buy the book and give it to them when it is out. You’ve got lame friends who don’t know Jesus, trying to live a life without a connection to God. They’re maimed.
There are people who are emotionally crippled, emotionally hurt and wounded. They’re maimed. They’re hurt. They’ve got wounds that are internal wounds. You can’t see these wounds. But all of these people, these are the sort of people, that when they find out the truth of Jesus Christ, embrace it with both arms. These are the people Jesus commanded us in the Gospel to go out and share the gospel with.
The servants in this parable aren’t the servants of the master in some story, the servants are supposed to be us. When Jesus said, go and get the lame and the crippled and compel them to come in, that is you and me! That’s you and me going out and getting them.
Now, where do you find them? You’ll find them in the clubs, in the pubs, in the gay bars. You find them in the strip joints, in the prostitute dens, in brothels. You find them down at the casinos, in the gambling institutions and at the horse races. You find them in hotels. You find them in the sports arena. You find them at your workplace. You find them at the station and the bus stop. You find them sitting next to you everywhere.
Everywhere you do life, they’re all around you. All these people are waiting to hear the good news of the Gospel. So many people carry a face that says things are all right. So many people wear a face of pretense. So many people are hurting inside. So many people have no direction, no life purpose and no joy in life. You hold the fountain of joy. You hold the answers. It’s really easy. All you need to do is give them this series of parables. You just send them a link. All you need to do is give them this book when it becomes a book. Just give them the parables of Jesus say, “this is what Jesus is all about.”