The Parable of the Wedding Feast

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Adam Bambrick. And I have the privilege of serving as one of the elders here at Grace Bible Church. And today I have the great privilege of sharing with you from God's Word. Because our pastor, Dave, he was invited to preach at Hope Bible Church, up in Maryland, this morning.

And so, the word “invitation” comes to mind. He was invited. And if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you too have been invited to the greatest thing a man can be invited to: the kingdom of God. We'll be looking at a parable today that talks about that. Turn with me, if you would, in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 22. Jesus taught a parable. It's called “The Parable of the Wedding Feast.” And in this parable – I’ll go ahead and give you the bottom line right up front – you're going to see that God one day – a day can come – when God no longer invites those who continuously refuse his offer to come. And we will also see that for any who would come to him, they must come to him on his terms. John MacArthur called this, “the most important parable that Jesus ever taught.” And so, I hope today that we can give God such glory by opening our minds and our hearts to it, because we will see how great and awesome our God is.

Pray with me, just for a moment.

Heavenly Father, as we open your Word, would you please just bless us? Speak through me and open our hearts to receive your Word and give you glory. It's in your Son's Name, I pray. Amen.

So, Matthew 22, the context – and it will be verse one – the context of this parable. Jesus had just come in the city of Jerusalem; it was a last week of his life. It’s what we call the Triumphal Entry. He just entered in; he cleanses the temple. The next day, he's back in the temple, and he's teaching and who comes up to him, but the people that just love him the most: the Pharisees. “By what authority are you doing these things? I mean, you just cleansed the temple, you're telling the people we're wrong, by what authority are you doing these things?” And he silenced them, he always did. They had no response for him. And then he rattles off three parables, one right after the other.

The first parable, he basically condemns them. He says, “You’re refusing to repent, you're not entering the kingdom of God. But the prostitutes and tax collectors are, because they’re repenting and they're coming in, you're not.” And then the second parable, again, against the Pharisees. He's telling them, “You're supposed to be the people to help Israel bear fruit for God. This is the chosen nation, but you're not bearing fruit for God.” And so, he says this, he says, “God will take the kingdom of heaven from you and give it to a people who will produce its fruit.”

And the third parable explains that statement. The third parable explains what Jesus meant when he said, “God is going to take the kingdom of heaven from you and give it to a people who will.” And so, in this parable, we kind of see two scenes. They’re very similar. They have invitations, responses and then judgment. You see invitations, responses, and judgment. And so, we'll just break this down, the way we normally do.

Matthew 22:1–4
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, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.” ’

And we'll stop there, just for a moment. So, let me paint the picture of what's happening here. What is Jesus saying in this parable? So here we have a king. And the king is going to throw a wedding for his son. This day would be unmatched. And the hearers that Jesus was talking to, the people who were listening, would have known that. And he says here, he “sent his servants to call those who were invited.” That sounds a little strange to us. But it's really not that hard when you think about it. The people in Jesus's day, they didn't have watches, they didn't have cell phones, or computers. So, what the king would’ve done, he would have said, “On this day, my son will get married.” And he would have sent his servants out and they would have went through every town telling people: “You're invited, the wedding will be on this day, you're invited, the wedding will be on this day.”

And then the day of the wedding comes. And the king and his servants they’ve been working, there preparing everything, and then it comes. The dinner is ready, the oxen are slaughtered, the fattened calves are slaughtered. He tells his servants, “Go, tell everyone, ‘Now is the time to come.’” And so, his servants go out everywhere. To the people who had already been invited, “Come to the wedding. The wedding is ready. Come to the wedding, come!” But no one comes. It would have been unthinkable. So, the king sends different servants, in his generosity, he sends different servants. Only this time he gives them details: “Go tell them, I have prepared my dinner. My oxen, my fat calves, they’ve been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come!”

Why would they not come? I mean, it would have been unthinkable. We can understand this. I mean, think about… a royal wedding. We love weddings! Weddings are so much fun! But a royal wedding? I mean, I know literally nothing. I mean, I kind of had to look up their names: Prince William, and Mary, and Kate. You can see I know literally nothing. But if I got an invitation to that wedding, you better believe I would have dropped everything that I was doing that weekend, and I would have flown to England to be a part of that wedding. Why? Because it's a once in a lifetime opportunity! Can you imagine the food, the drinks, the music, the dancing, the fun, and just the people you would see? It would be incredible! It's the same thing here. There's no reason these people wouldn't go. This is the king and his son. This is going to be amazing.

And even if it wasn't. Maybe you're just so introverted, you're like, “There's no way. There's no way I'm going.” You would go, so that you wouldn't insult the king. Not but a month ago, I got an invitation from work. They said, “Hey, Adam, we're going to have a small dinner party at a very nice restaurant, it’s like on a Wednesday night, we'd like for you to be there.” There's so many things I would rather be doing. I just would rather be home with my wife, my kids. That is just not my thing. But you better believe I went! I did not want to insult my employer! So, I accepted his generosity. I went and I had a wonderful time. I didn't want to send the message: “That I'm not a part of this team, and I’m not interested in this thing that's very important to you.” No, that would have been silly, very poor career move. So, I went.

So, in this parable, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for these people. The king had invited them to the most important event that was going on for him. This was his son's wedding. And not only that, the last thing they would want to do is insult him. The point is, there's no reason these people would not have responded to the king's invitation, none. And so, let's pull up and ask: What is Jesus teaching the people through this parable so far? Who is the king? The king is God, the Father. Who is the king’s son? Jesus Christ. What is the wedding feast? The wedding feast is the long-promised kingdom of God.

For centuries, prophet after prophet talked about it. They told about a man who would come. He would be a descendant from the line of David, he would be the Son of God. And when that man would come, he would reverse the curse that landed in the garden, he would reverse it all. And not only that, he would set up his kingdom and rule from Jerusalem. And he would rule the world with righteousness and love. And this was a kingdom the Jews were looking forward to, for so long. They had been ruled by other nations and oppressed. I mean, the Babylonians, then the Persians, and then the Greeks, and then the Romans. You better believe they wanted, they were waiting for this kingdom. When is it coming? When is it coming? When is it coming? They had received the promises, no other nation had. They had the Old Testament, they had the Scriptures. And so that anticipation is there. And so, you just imagine what happens when Jesus Christ set foot on this earth. And as it says, in Matthew 4:17, he starts preaching and he says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

That would have turned heads! This long-foretold kingdom that you've been waiting for, the kingdom of heaven is at hand! It's here! And he starts telling them, he tells them he is this Messiah. Even in the Gospel of John alone: “I am the bread of life.” “I am the good shepherd.” “I am the resurrection and the life.” “I am the light of the world.” And he starts backing these statements up. He's walking on water, he's feeding thousands. He's casting out demons. Why? Because there would be no demonic rule in his kingdom. He's healing the sick everywhere. There will be no one sick, in the kingdom of God. He's raising the dead because death will not reign in his kingdom. And he's showing the people, he's given them a foretaste of what his kingdom will be like. He's proving he has the resume, the credentials. He literally is the man who has the authority to say, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent.”

And it was good news. The gospel: “God has a kingdom, and you can be in it. Come to me and I will grant you forgiveness and you can be in the kingdom of God.” That was good news for the people. The point, there was no reason they would reject his offer to come. He was the kindest, most loving, most gentle person the world has ever known. He performed every miracle he needed to, he said everything the right way, he fulfilled the Father's will perfectly. There was no reason that they should not come and respond his invitation. None.

But let's look at how they did respond. Back to our parable.

Matthew 22:5–6
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 killed them.

There was the response. The king’s generosity, sending out servant after servant: “Come, I prepared everything, everything is ready.” And you can group their responses into two groups: You have 1) The Indifferent and you have 2) The Hostile. The indifferent, they paid him no attention. They went off to their farm. They went off to their business. We just call that everyday life. Their everyday life. What we often call “the rat race,” was more important to them than honoring the king and honoring his son. Their actions showed they had no love for the king. They had no respect for his son. And they certainly did not fear the king.

The other group, the hostile, they seize his servants, treat them shamefully, humiliate them, embarrass them. And once they're done having their fun, then they kill them. Their point was to send a message to the king: “We despise you, we despise your son, we despise your wedding and you will not rule over us.” It was pretty clear. What did Jesus want the people to get with this? He's looking right at the Pharisees. Going, “This is you. You are the hostile, you want me dead.” And the leaders of the nation of Israel, largely, did want him dead. The nation as a whole, largely, was just indifferent to him. He had followers, yes, but the nation as a whole just… they didn't care. I mean, he can heal anybody who's sick. He can feed thousands of people from nothing. That's really handy. But the problem is, the problem is, he keeps saying, “Repent!”

Everybody wanted a kingdom. Everybody wants a kingdom, an eternal kingdom, where there's no strife, no sickness, everybody wants that. It's just that word “repent first” that really threw people off. And it throws them off today, as well. Today, we see these two groups. We see the hostile, we see the indifferent. The hostile. Our Lord sits at the right hand of God the Father and they can't get at him. So they will get at anyone who bears his name or brings the message. And while we have been very fortunate in this country for so long. We have not experienced the persecution that many of our brothers and sisters around the globe have. Our nation, at large, is simply indifferent. He's a good guy. Religion has its place. But it's education, it's hard work. These are the things a man really needs to focus on. And by the nation's reactions you can tell their heart they have no fear of God, no fear of God.

And before we start being too hard on unbelievers, when I shared my sermon with Dave, he said, “You know, Adam, indifference is really a problem within the church is well – within the church, even amongst born again believers.” Think about it. How many born again believers will hear a sermon on Sunday morning, and yet go home completely indifferent to the message and change nothing about their life? How many believers will spend hours and hours learning a hobby and yet spend almost no time learning to rightly handle the Word of God? How many believers spend hours and hours streaming their favorite show and yet are completely indifferent to meeting the needs of the Lord's church? We should examine ourselves so that we are not indifferent to our Lord.

Back to our parable, verse seven. So, we've seen the invitations go out. We've seen responses. Now we're going to see judgment. Matthew 22:7, “The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” Talk about a huge miscalculation on their part. Like, you messed up. Don't miss this, how easy this was for the king. This was no problem. He sent some troops, “Go kill them, end their life, those people who murdered my servants. And those others who were too busy to honor my son, who went to their farms and their businesses – those things are more important, light it on fire.” They miscalculated the king’s anger. They miscalculated the king’s love for his son and how his wrath would flare up and consume anyone who dishonors him.

So, what was Jesus foretelling here? Well, this was straight-up prophecy right here. He was literally telling the nation of Israel, “This is what's going to happen to you because you have rejected me.” Just like God, in history past, had sent the Assyrian army to discipline his people. Just like God had sent the Babylonian army to discipline his people. Now he will send Rome. 40 years after Jesus said this, the Roman General Titus comes in levels Jerusalem, slaughters over a million people, lights it on fire. He wanted it to burn so bad he literally built scaffolding around the temple, so that he could pile up anything that would catch on fire. So that once that was lit, the fire was so hot, it caused the bricks of the temple to crumble. And they lay there today. That has not been rebuilt.

Let's look at Luke 22:8-10, “Then he said to his servants, ‘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.’ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.”

I love this part! Because he says, “The wedding feast is ready.” There's going to be a wedding here today. Man's plans will never thwart God's plans! The wedding is ready. There will be people in here. So, he tells his servants, “Go!” The last group, not worthy. We’ll go get more. No people, no problem! He says, “Go out to the roads, the main roads that connect the cities together. And you have one job, you tell everyone to come.” They were to exercise no judgment, no discernment. The young, the old, men, women, servants, masters, rich, poor – you invite them all. I want the good and the bad. The honest man, the dishonest man. The selfless man, the selfish man. The upright, the despicable. The pure, the prostitute, the sober, the drunk – you invite them all in. That is your task.

Isn't that interesting? The bad. I love how Christ put that in there… “the bad.” And it’s like, “Well, wait a minute, you just said the last group was unworthy? And you want the bad? What makes a man worthy in the king’s eyes? That is what makes a man worthy, he accepts the invitation of the king. What was Jesus telling them with this? This is where it's just fun. He was telling them what was going to happen next on God's timeline of salvation: The Church Age. Up to this point in history, Israel had been the focal point. They were the ones who received the promises. They were the ones that everything was focused on. But remember, Jesus said, “Because you will not bear fruit, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will.” They were supposed to reflect God's character and glory to the world. They had his Law. They were the ones who were supposed to tell the good news to everyone. But they refused him. And so, God took it.

As Spurgeon said, “How glorious was the outburst of grace when the Holy Spirit bade the apostles to take the gospel to the Gentiles.” That's what this is, the Great Commission: “Go out to the road! You go everywhere!” This is Jesus in Acts 1:8, [paraphrased] “You will be by witnesses from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth. You just go and tell them to come in. You give them the Gospel.” It’s always been the same Gospel. God has a kingdom. You can be in it, I can be in it. We repent, we come to the Savior for forgiveness. We just know how he was going to accomplish that forgiveness today. We know what he did on that.

Let me explain that. Let's say I'm a judge, and one of my children commit a horrific act one day. And they need to be put in prison for life, down death row. That child is brought before me. The jury is out there, they're listening. As much as I love that child, if I am to be a just, good judge, what must I do? Condemn him. No matter how much I love him, I must condemn him. If I'm going to be just. God loves you, God loves me, God loves all sinners! But God is also good and just. He will not let the guilty go unpunished. So, what did he do?

I'm going to read Colossians 2:13-14, it says this, “God made [you] alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” It’s “legal demands.”

You see, Satan would have every right to accuse me before God: “Adam has sinned. He has no right to be a child of God. He has no right to be in your kingdom. Adam committed this immoral thought, he has no right to be in your kingdom, he deserves hell. Adam treated this person poorly, he deserves hell, he has no right. God, you're not just if you let him into your kingdom.” God's response is, “Look at the cross because on the cross I paid for his sins. My Son nailed it to the cross.”

On the cross that day, it wasn't what you could see. It wasn't the nails. It wasn't the hole in his side. It was the wrath of God being poured out on Christ. You see, for every sinner that came to Christ and he said, “Your sins are forgiven.” On the cross, he had to bear every horror of hell that that person deserved. That's why God turned the world black that day. That's why we have the Scripture to explain to us what was happening. He was the sacrifice, it was always God's plan. That's why we can be forgiven. Because he was punished. But that's only half the gospel. That's only half.

You see, imagine if you're trying to get into a country club. I have no idea what fees cost for a country club. Let's just say it costs $100 a year. But I'm in debt. I can’t afford $100 a year, I have debt. Let's say somebody comes along and they wipe away my debt. That just gets me to zero. I still don’t have a $100, I’m just not in debt. When Christ took the punishment for our sin, that wipes our debt clean. That means we don't deserve hell anymore. But we don't deserve heaven either. But he takes care of that too. This is why this is good news. 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

We need righteousness to be in the presence of God! There's only one man who has ever earned righteousness. That's Jesus Christ. And so, what happens? When that sinner puts their faith in Christ, when they repent, they come to Christ. Not only does he say, “I have taken care of your sin problem,” but then he clothes you with his righteousness. You see, he got what we deserved. We get what he deserved. That's the gospel. And we accept this invitation through faith. It is Ephesians 2:8, it is “by grace [that] you have been saved through faith.” It's a gift! This invitation into the kingdom of God is a gift! We cannot earn it! Church, may we never forget that.

And how does it work? Adam, I don't feel like I’m saved, I don’t feel like I'm in God's kingdom. How does that work? Colossians again, one it tells us, I'll just flip there read it for you. Colossians 1:13-14, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” The moment a believer puts their faith in Christ, that person is transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, positionally. And then when the kingdom of God comes in its physical manifestation, then we enter.

It's kind of like this, say you want to go to a concert, but you don't have a ticket. So, you go to where the concert is, you're walking around, and you actually acquire a ticket. You're in! You've got the ticket! All you're waiting for is the doors to open, and then you're going to go in. When a believer puts their faith in Christ, they get the ticket, they're in. We're just waiting for the doors to open. For Christ to come back, and reign.

But here's the thing. Anybody who's holding that ticket. Anybody who accepts the invitation to come into the kingdom of God. Anybody who says, “I want in your kingdom,” will also live as though they're under the rule of a king. That's why Jesus told this last part. You see, this parable, it could have ended here, it doesn't get any better, right? The wedding hall was filled with guests, but let's look at verse 11,

Matthew 22:11–14
“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to 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.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Oh, that's interesting. What's happening? The servants did as they were told, that wedding hall was filled. And it says, “the king came in to look at [his] guests.” And, what's that guy doing in here? There's someone in there without a wedding garment. Well, this is the first time I heard anything about wedding garments, what does that mean? Well, we know they invited everybody: the rich, the poor, the servants, the masters, the young, the old. There's no way everyone had a wedding garment on hand. The king was providing them. So, part of accepting his invitation is when you get there, he put his wedding garment on you, then you came in. But there was a man there with no wedding garment. Why would he not have one? It's because he refused it. That's why he was speechless. He said, “No thanks.” I mean, if it wasn't offered to him, he would have said, “I must have been in the wrong line. I don't know. Like, will I get one?” No. He had no excuse. He simply refused it. But why would he want to refuse it?

Just thinking through this, here are a couple of ideas. Why, in our culture, do women not wear white to a wedding? It’s not your wedding. It's so that they don't draw attention away from the bride. Let her wear white. Let all the attention and the focus be on her. Everyone else can blend in. This man was not interested in that. He was not there to honor the king's son, “Look at me.” But you know what really got him? It's like, “No, my garments are sufficient for the king's wedding. I don't need that one. I don't need the one provided, my garments are sufficient.” Another very severe miscalculation. The king said, “Friend…” That's the same word Jesus used for Judas when Judas came up to him in the garden. Then he calls his attendants, he says, “bind him,” that’s so he can never come back. [paraphrase] “Cast him into the outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Done. “He thought he was free in his decision. He will never be free again.”

Jesus is teaching us here. This is a warning for us, the church age, that we approach God on his terms. We approach God on his terms. And Jesus knew that there would be people congregating in churches, thinking that because they were around the people of God that they were children of God. You only become a child of God, if you repent of your sins and believe in him, it is through faith. But there will be some who think that they can approach the holy, living, all-powerful, just God in their own righteousness.

I have a buddy who lives out in Montana. He has some of the wildest stories. And one of them was this, he said, “Adam, I was driving through Yellowstone. And as we're coming up, there's a couple of cars parked in front of me, and they’re stopped. So, I slowed down and it turned out a huge grizzly, had just come up on the road. That grizzly didn’t care, we just stopped. And a tour bus pulled up behind me and stopped, and the tour bus door opened. And a guy gets off the tour bus and starts walking past my car. And so, I roll down my windows, ‘Get back on the bus, get back on the bus!’ So the guy looked at him and goes, ‘We have much more terrifying creatures than this in my own country.’” He wanted to take a picture of the grizzly, let's just say the grizzly didn't want his picture taken that day. The guy lived; he made it back on the bus.

But it is insanity to think you can approach a grizzly bear just how you are. How much more so is it to think that you can approach a holy, living, just God and walk away unscathed. We approach God on his terms. Can you imagine the high priest just walking in to the Holy of Holies whenever he wanted to? Or walking in on the Day of Atonement without any blood for the sacrifice? “We’ll be alright, God.” Yeah, I think I know whose blood we will use today. You approach God on his terms.

But this is the invite to us: Everything has been prepared. Christ has died. Our sins can be wiped away. The righteousness we need can be given to us. But God's terms are this: “You want to stand in front of me, you go to my Son first. You get your sins forgiven. You put on his righteousness, then you stand before me.” That's how it works. I think Isaiah 61:10 talks about the garment nicely. It says, “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness…”

And commentators will pick out several verses because Jesus isn't clear exactly what the garment meant. But the point is this: you ain't getting it, if Christ doesn’t give it to you. It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that we need to stand before God. Hear me now, no man can enter the Kingdom of God as he is. But any man can come to Jesus Christ as he is and be made ready and worthy for the Kingdom! Did you get that? If you don't get anything else today, get that. No man can come into the kingdom as he is. Every man can come to Jesus Christ as he is: sinner, broken, horrible, awful. The good, the bad, can come to Christ, he makes us ready to stand in the presence of God. And that is the good news. That is the good news, church.

And Christ wants us to accept this. This is why he says at the end [Matthew 22:14], “many are called, but few are chosen.” He's not using the word “called” here like Paul does in the New Testament. This isn't the irresistible call. Even though, yes, of course, if we are in heaven, it is simply by the grace of God because he chose us. But Jesus is saying this, like he was saying, “enter through the narrow gate. The gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction, enter through the narrow gate.” Here he's going, “Many will be called, few will be chosen.” If you hear his call, come to him on his terms. Jesus says, “Come to me. Let me grant you the forgiveness you need. Everything is ready.”

We'll close with J.C. Ryle’s quote, he said this, “The Father is ready to love and receive. The Son is ready to pardon and cleanse away guilt. The Spirit is ready to sanctify and renew. The angels are ready to rejoice over the sinner. Grace is ready to assist him. The Bible is ready to instruct him. Heaven is ready to be his everlasting home. One thing remains. The sinner must be ready and willing to come.” We have received the greatest invitation that a man can receive. And it came at the greatest cost that God could give. May we accept the call of our King, come to him on his terms, and honor his Son.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your Son. Thank you for the cross. May all who hear this accept and bring you glory. It's in Christ's Name we pray, Amen.