Three Banquets: Three lessons about going to heaven Luke 14:1-24 Message 6 in our 9-part series called Table Talk with Jesus.

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Three Banquets Three lessons about going to
heavenLuke 141-24Message 6 in our 9-part
series called Table Talk with Jesus.

• Sunday, August 4, 2013
• Speaker Doug Virgint

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Outline

• Introduction
• The Sabbath meal
• The wedding banquet
• The great banquet
• Transition

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Outline

• Introduction
• The Sabbath meal
• The wedding banquet
• The great banquet
• Transition

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Introduction

• Luke 14 follows Luke 13
• The last paragraph of Luke 13 anticipates our
  Lords rejection and crucifixion in Jerusalem
• Why did the Jewish people reject Jesus
• Because their leaders rejected him
• And this chapter helps explain why

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Outline

• Introduction
• The Sabbath meal
• The wedding banquet
• The great banquet
• Transition

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The Sabbath meal

• We have three characters
• The Pharisees
• The sick man
• Our Lord Jesus Christ

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The Sabbath meal

• The Pharisees
• Their origin 160 BC (period of Maccabees)
• A lay movement in synagogues
• Reaction against Greco-Roman idolatry
• Respect of the Scriptures and Law
• Popular and respected
• About 6000 members
• Strongly legalistic

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The Sabbath meal

• The sick man
• Dropsy hydropikos - edema
• A somewhat technical medical term
• Considered to be ceremonially impure
• Why was he at a meal in Pharisees home?

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The Sabbath meal

• Our Lord
• Took hold of him (see Acts 16)
• Healed him on the Sabbath
• Sent him away
• Confronted the Pharisees hypocritical legalism
• The Pharisees were more interested in saving an
  ox drowning in a well than a man drowning in his
  own fluids

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The Sabbath meal

• The lesson
• Legalistic people
• tend to be so inconsistent
• lack compassion to the point of cruelty
• do not understand the reason for the law
• apply the Scriptures wrongly

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The Sabbath meal

• The lesson
• You can be devout, dutiful, outwardly good,
  serious about God, a defender of your religion, a
  good person
• and still not be invited to heaven!

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Outline

• Introduction
• The Sabbath meal
• The wedding banquet
• The great banquet
• Transition

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The wedding banquet

• The illustration
• The scramble
• The lesson

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The wedding banquet

• The illustration
• A parable is not an allegory with details we
  should attempt to interpret
• It is a story that makes one main point
• It is a story that illustrates

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The wedding banquet

• The scramble
• Keeping up appearances (Hyacinthe Bucket)
• A U-shaped table with 3-person couches
• People scrambling to sit next to the host
• Think about Jamess and Johns mother making her
  request!

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The wedding banquet

• The scramble
• They do all their deeds to be seen by others.
  For they make their phylacteries broad and their
  fringes long, and they love the place of honour
  at feasts and the best seats in the
  synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and
  being called rabbi by others. (Matthew 235-7)

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The wedding banquet

• The scramble
• Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best
  seat in the synagogues and greetings in the
  marketplaces. (Luke 1143)

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The wedding banquet

• The scramble
• Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around
  in long robes, and love greetings in the
  marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues
  and the places of honour at feasts (Luke
  2046)

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The wedding banquet

• The lesson
• The seating arrangements were just external
  evidence of a heart-problem
• The narrow way is not for those who are swollen
  with the dropsy of pride
• Blessed are the meek!
• Salvation is for the humble in heart 
• God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the
  humble. (James 46)

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The wedding banquet

• The lesson
• The Pharisees believed in the resurrection
• This story is all about preparation for the
  resurrection of the just.
• Jesus was identifying the outward expression of a
  humble heart
• Works, merit, external religion, pride will shut
  us out of heaven!

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The wedding banquet

• The lesson
• The Pharisees invited those who had influence
  today we call that networking
• They invited those who could invite them in
  return
• They had their reward on earth our Lord invites
  them to invite those who could not return the
  favour and to be rewarded in heaven!

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Outline

• Introduction
• The Sabbath meal
• The wedding banquet
• The great banquet
• Transition

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The great banquet

• The invitation
• The excuses
• The inclusions
• The exclusions

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The great banquet

• The invitation
• A great feast was the pinnacle of social life
• Being invited was a great privilege
• Invitations were in two stages
• A preliminary invitation you are invited
  details will come later
• A final invitation details, when, where
• Great feasts could last for days

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The great banquet

• The invitation
• The Pharisees understood the parable
• See verse 15
• When one of those who reclined at table with him
  heard these things, he said to him, Blessed is
  everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of
  God! (Luke 2415)

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The great banquet

• The invitation
• This concept finds its roots in the Old Testament

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The great banquet

• On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for
  all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of
  well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of
  aged wine well refined.And he will swallow up on
  this mountainthe covering that is cast over all
  peoples,the veil that is spread over all
  nations.He will swallow up death
  foreverand the Lord God will wipe away tears
  from all faces (Isaiah 256-8)

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The great banquet

• The invitation
• Look at how much room there is at the banquet
  (verses 22, 23)
• and still there is room . that my house may
  be filled (Luke 2422, 23)

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The great banquet

• The excuses
• bad, bad excuses!
• two concerned possessions, one concerned
  relationships

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The great banquet

• The excuses
• a field
• do you think a Jew would buy a field without
  first checking it out!
• what was the hurry?

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The great banquet

• The excuses
• 5 yoke of oxen
• Only a very rich man could afford that
• Do you think a Jew would buy them without being
  sure of what he was buying!
• Do you think that a rich man would be ploughing
  or driving his oxen himself?

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The great banquet

• The excuses
• A new wife
• I couldnt keep my wife away from a wedding
  reception!
• Would a man in that era admit publically that his
  agenda was controlled by his wife?

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The great banquet

• The excuses
• In those days and in that culture, refusing an
  invitation to a feast was tantamount to a
  declaration of war.
• Are possessions or relationships stopping you
  from accepting Christs invitation to you?
• Are you declaring war on the Sovereign of the
  universe? The Lord was very angry!

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The great banquet

• The inclusions
• The Pharisees would have laughed at the idea that
  the poor, crippled, blind and lame might be
  invited to the final great banquet.
• But that is the way our God acts he gives
  pardon and an invitation to those who can give
  nothing in return.
• And so everyone in this room is included in his
  invitation.

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The great banquet

• The exclusions
• Religious people who looked down on our Lord were
  excluded.
• People who refused the invitation were excluded.

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The great banquet

• The lesson
• It is so very perilous to refuse to accept our
  Lords invitation when he calls us to himself.
• No one is too poor or too wicked or has made too
  many mistakes to receive the invitation to
  heaven.
• If people do not make it to heaven, it will
  because they refused the invitation.

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Outline

• Introduction
• The Sabbath meal
• The wedding banquet
• The great banquet
• Transition

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The transition

• Father, we thank You now as we come to this
  table that You have humbled us, that You have
  brought us to this place of humility. This is not
  some human virtue, but You have broken us by Your
  spirit and Your word. And You have drawn us to an
  awareness of our own sin and hopelessness and
  then You have lifted us to look at the cross and
  see there the sacrifice for our sins.

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The transition

• We thank You for the Lord Jesus Christ who
  responds to our humiliation our shame, our sorrow
  with grace and salvation. Father, we now thank
  You for the wondrous time we've had in Your word.
  It's glories are endless and may we apply its
  truth. Would You humble us before You, the great
  and Almighty God?

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The transition

• Show us the folly of human pride and religious
  merit and efforts and ceremony and ritual. May we
  fall on our faces humbling ourselves pleading for
  mercy that You will always give the penitent
  believer in Christ and know that one day having
  been humbled we will be by You exalted in the
  glory of Your eternal kingdom. Work Your work in
  every heart.

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Three banquets

• Three lessons about going to heaven
• Luke 141-24