August 13, 2024 -- Luke 14:15-24 -- There's a banquet, you coming to it?

16 … he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”
Luke 14:15-24 ESV

Okay, be serious, who buys five yoke of oxen before examining them? No way! That’s a load of dung. It’d be like trusting a used car salesman to give you a good deal on five expensive cars. He claims they are 'gently used' (wait till you see them, you’ll be shocked). So you buy them without driving them, without inspecting them. I don’t think so! Seriously, no one would buy a field sight unseen. What if it is full of rocks? What if it is in the middle of a busy area and people walk all over it? What if it is sand and not soil? The marriage one, well, that is a crazy excuse. He is going to enjoy connubial bliss rather than attend his friend’s banquet? That same friend probably attended the wedding so the seven days of the nuptials are passed. Though acquainted with the banquet giver he is still living in foolishness.

That is the point. Jesus is explaining Proverbs 9. Wisdom has built her house, she has prepared a great feast and sent out her young women to go and gather the guests. Folly, that is the foolish, godless woman, has prepared a table of wickedness and also invites guests. Who will attend which feast?

In Jesus’ parable it is the most unexpected persons who will attend the banquet of the wise. If the Master of the Banquet, Jesus, did not pursue His guests and bring them in, they would still lounge in the vileness of their sins. People are fools. Original sin, that is, the sin of Adam and all his descendants, blind people to the goodness of God and the majesty of His salvation. Unless one, like the poor, the lame, the crippled and the blind, and the homeless—these are all descriptions of one’s spiritual state before God—are drawn to Jesus by the Holy Spirit, their spiritual poverty would keep them bound down in sin and despair. The rich in Jesus’ parable are trusting their possessions, their finances, their good marriage and so cling to their spiritual blindness and death.

Today the Holy Spirit is calling you. Read the Word. Accept the invitation to walk in the wisdom of Jesus Christ and receive life that is full and free now and stretches into eternity in the glorious presence of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Speak to coworkers and friends, family members and neighbours, tell them about the goodness of God.

I waited patiently for the LORD
He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
   out of the miry bog,
   and set my feet upon a rock,
   making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
   a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
   and put their trust in the LORD.
Blessed is the man, the woman, the child,
   who makes the LORD his trust,
   who does not turn to the proud,
    to those who go astray after a lie!
You have multiplied, O LORD my God,
   Your wondrous deeds and Your thoughts toward us;
   none can compare with You!
I will proclaim and tell tell of them,
yet they are more than can be told.
Prayer: Psalm 40:1-5 Based on the ESV

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