Continuing in our series of messages from the gospel according to Matthew, and we are in chapter 22 of Matthew today, we'll be looking at the first 14 verses of this chapter as our text for this morning, and as always, if you are able, would you stand with me for the reading of God's inerrant, infallible, and inspired word. 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. 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. The king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main rows and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find. And those servants went out into the rows and gathered all whom they found both good, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. 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 his 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. This is the word of God. May he bless it to our hearts this morning. Please be seated. So in the last few passages that we've looked at in Matthew 21 in particular, we have seen Jesus exerting his authority as the God sent King and Messiah of his people and as the Lord of the temple. And we've seen that the chief priests and elders and scribes have come to him to openly challenge him and ask him, where is your authority from? Who gave you this authority? We've heard him quote from Psalm 118 verses 22 and 23 about the stone that the builders rejected being vindicated by God and becoming the chief cornerstone to show them that they, in fact, are the builders who've rejected him, but God has chosen him and will vindicate him. We've also then heard him tell them two parables in a row, showing that though they claim to be following God, that they are not at all, in fact, these leaders, and in fact, most of the people. While open sinners, people like tax collectors and prostitutes, have repented, changed their minds and are entering the kingdom of God ahead of them, instead of them. He also told them about the wicked tenants of the vineyard who rebel against the authority of the master of the vineyard, God himself, and refuse to give him the fruit that is due to him and end up killing his own son. He assured them at the end of that parable that the kingdom of heaven would be taken away from them and would be given to another nation, another people that would produce the fruit that God requires. We've noted it's interesting that Jesus, contrary to his former practice, interprets these parables for these men directly to their face instead of just teaching them to his disciples. And they understand the meaning. They know that Jesus is talking about them. And we've been told that they in fact desperately want to arrest him in one of the other gospels so that they can kill him, but they can't do it. And the reason we're given is because they fear the people. because the people might stone them to death if they tried to arrest him openly. You see, the problem is they fear the people, but as we read in the psalm, they have no true fear of God before their eyes, which is what Jesus has been teaching them through his parables. And so in our text for today, we see Jesus now, it seems at least, going immediately after the other two parables into another parable for these wicked rulers who have confronted him and challenged his authority. Now remember, as we've been working through Matthew, we have seen Jesus, heard him giving all kinds of parables about what the kingdom of heaven is like. Although usually these parables are being given to the crowds, the multitudes and or the disciples themselves. This time he's giving this parable. Yes, there is a crowd around listening, but he's speaking directly to these religious leaders who have dared to confront him about his authority. Actually, when you look at verse 1, although it says basically in our text that he, again, spoke to them, what it really says in the original language is that he answered them, even though it seems as if they haven't said anything else yet for him to be answering. And so it seems likely that Jesus is either still answering their question about where his authority comes from, or else what he's really answering here is the attitude of their heart. as they pretend to be godly, righteous men who just want to know where his authority is from, when instead what they want to do is arrest him and put him to death. He, the Son of God, the Messiah of the people of God. Well, in the previous parables that Jesus has presented, these last two that I just talked about, he has presented God to them as the father. Remember the father who had two sons that he wanted to go work in his vineyard? One said he would and didn't. The other said he wouldn't and he did. He changed his mind. And also as the master of the vineyard, the one who owned the vineyard, set the vineyard up, planted the vines, cared for it in every way possible, and yet the tenants refused to submit to him and give him the fruit that belonged to him. He has also presented himself as the son in that parable about the tenants. We should keep that background in mind as we move into this parable. And along with that, we should remember that it's significant that in the Old Testament, the full consummation of the kingdom of God is often presented as a great feast. You remember Jesus back in chapter 8 of Matthew in verse 11? He says to them, truly, I say to you that many will come from the East and from the West, Gentiles, by the way, not Jews, will come from the East and from the West and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet, the consummation of the kingdom of which he is the king. So we come to verse 2 then, and verse 2 tells us that Jesus says to them, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. Now, I would venture to say that probably all of us at one point or another have been invited to a wedding. Right? And most of the time, yes, admittedly, there are a few of these weddings that we'd really rather not go to, but most of the time we're happy to go to a wedding because it's a joyous occasion. Right? It's a time of celebration for somebody that we care about. And so we go and we anticipate the ability to be there. And we often spend hours there with those people that we care about. There's an added dimension to this wedding feast, though, and it's one that we don't get very well, I think, in America because we don't have this connection with being ruled by kings. In fact, we actually have a history of rebelling against being ruled by a king. And so I don't think we get the real connection, the power that is implied in the fact of a king ruling over his subjects and that the king's will is what the subjects are to care about and to carry out. And I think that's important for this parable and understanding it. As we look at this parable too, we want to understand that the servants or slaves that are being sent out by the king are not the king. I mean, I think that's fairly obvious, but we should make sure we realize that. They are not the king, but they represent the king. They go out with his authority. It is as if the king himself is speaking to his people through them. They also are not the ones who are inviting the people to this wedding feast. They are going out to remind the people who have already been invited by the king himself. The king is the one who has issued the invitations to this wedding feast. They're going out to remind them and to urge them to attend as they have initially agreed to do. It's also important to note that they are at first being sent out only to those who were initially invited by the king. That's important. The truth is that these subjects of the king should have been subject to him. That's the point of calling them subjects, right? They should have been subject to him. They should have been humbled and honored, in fact, to have been invited by the king to come to this wedding feast of his son. And they should have been eager, eager to be part of the wedding feast, which Jesus tells us is actually the kingdom of heaven, right? It can be compared to the kingdom of heaven. However, the problem is that when these servants go out and go to these people who have received the invitations from the king, having initially agreed to go, they now reject the king's invitation completely. They just say, no, I'm not going to go. And in fact, I think it's right for us, because these three parables are told in sequence, it's right for us to look back and say, boy, they sound an awful lot like that bad son in the parable of the father and his two sons, the one who said, yes, father, I'll go, and then never went to work in the vineyard. That's what these people are doing, right? They've initially agreed to go, but now when the king says it's ready, they're refusing to come. And again, in this parable, as in the others, we note the very gracious response of the king here. He goes out and sends more servants out to them. Yes, I know you said you can't come or you won't come, but I'm telling you, and notice how he puts this second invitation. It isn't just come to the wedding feast. I want you to come because everything's all ready. I've done everything for you. I've killed the fatted animals. I've slaughtered the oxen. Everything is roasting and cooking. The food is all ready. The feast is prepared. The only thing missing is you. Please come to the wedding feast. It really, again, is much like the master who set up the vineyard, right? He did everything you could expect him to do for that vineyard to produce good fruit. He planted the vines, he cleared the ground, he put up a watchtower, he put a fence around it, he dug a wine press, and he hired people to take care of it. And here we see the king has extended himself and done everything that could possibly have been done. Now, what we see in this is the abundant provision of the king, who by now we should recognize as God with the kingdom of heaven. And yet still these ungrateful people who are supposed to be subjects of the king continue to reject his offer. And notice that Jesus describes for us two different kinds of negative responses to this second invitation of the king. The first response is that it seems that many of the people that have been invited simply pay no attention to the king and his servants at all. They're not interested in what the king wants. They're interested in their interests. Notice that they don't pay any attention and one goes to his farm and another goes to his business. They care about themselves, not about their king and what he wants. and what he has asked them to do. This would in fact be most of Israel, right? in the current day and even going back through all of his history. God has invited his people constantly through his word. He has sent his prophets to them. He has reminded them that they are invited to come, that they are required to come, that he's done everything for them. But most of the people and particularly leaders of Israel have absolutely paid no attention to God and have walked away from him, paid attention to their own affairs instead. But I don't think we should stop there with this parable. Because this word is written for our learning as well. And I think it's important for us to recognize that this is not only true in Jesus' day, but the fact is that even today, and in all the generations between today and back to Jesus' day, multitudes everywhere Even, yes, here in America, which never truly was a Christian nation, but was at least a very Christianized nation, even here in America, multitudes of people are hearing the invitation sent out by the king, by God, and yet they're paying no attention to it at all. And they're busy going about their own affairs. They couldn't care less what God the king wants. It's all about them. And so we need to be very careful that we are not among this first group of people who have been invited by the king, but care more about this world than we do about what the king requires of us. But also notice in Jesus' parable that there is this second group of people who don't ignore what the king has to say. They, in fact, actually actively rebel against the king and his servants. They grab the king's servants. They treat them shamefully. They abuse them and even kill them. This is outrageous and wicked behavior. Again, it reminds you of the tenants of the vineyard, right? Who every time the king sent service to get his fruit, treated them badly and killed them. Clearly, Jesus, in this parable, is still pointing back, as he's talking about these servants, to the prophets, including, by the way, John the Baptist and himself, Jesus, who God has sent in order to remind the people of the promises God has made, of the invitation he has given them, and urging them to submit and to come to the wedding feast, enter into the kingdom of God. But back in that parable about the vineyard, Jesus stopped at that point and asked the leaders, what do you think the master of the house, the father, is going to do to those wicked men after they've killed his son? What do you think he's going to do to them? He doesn't even ask them this time. You notice that? Instead, he just straight out tells them. He tells them exactly what this king will do in response. God is angry. The king is angry about how his servants are being treated and how they are being killed. And notice this king is not only gracious in extending extra offers to people, but he's also powerful. And he is a just king. And he will see that justice is served on people who do this. And so he sends his troops in, and these troops destroy, Jesus says, those murderers. And again, it reminds us what did the religious leader say the owner would do, the father would do to those who had killed his son? He will, actually the original text says he will destroy them badly. And Jesus says that this king sent his troops out and destroyed these murderers. And he did something else. Notice in the text, he doesn't just destroy them, he burned their city. Now, again, that should stand out to us because this guy is the king. These people are his subjects. Any place where they live is part of his kingdom, right? The city isn't truly theirs, it's his. But you see, in their rebellion against him as king, They have made the city theirs instead of his. And so the king will take the city away from them and destroy it because it's been more important to them than he has been. Now, we should understand here as we look at this that the king has been declaring to his servants now as he's preparing to send out a second group, that those who had been invited originally were not worthy. Notice the word worthy. And so their invitation is canceled. We should wonder, who were these people? Who were these people the king had invited to the wedding feast of his son, but were found not to be worthy? Well, some, when they look at this text, believe that Jesus is talking about the Jews here. Absolutely, the Jews as a whole. and that they're the ones that have been canceled out of this, and that the later invitations that were people to go out and find everyone you can find is talking about the Gentiles. I would say to you, I don't think that's likely. Because remember, we've been talking about the fact that in Old Testament Israel, all the way up to Jesus' time, God has always maintained a remnant of faithful people who are part of the kingdom of God, have been from the very beginning. And so it isn't as if all of Israel has been rejected. Paul talks about it in his writings in Romans. And so others look at this and they say, well, perhaps this is talking about the elite in Israel, those rulers and leaders, the rich who God constantly condemns for oppressing the poor and for not following his will and his law. And there is certainly an indication that this is directed, at least in part, to the religious leaders who have been wanting to kill the Son of God instead of obey Him and submit to Him. But I wonder if it isn't more likely that these ones that have been invited and have refused to come are actually those in the Old Testament covenant nation of Israel who have presented themselves outwardly as true believers, true Israelites, followers of Yahweh, but in here really weren't. People who God would have said in the Old Testament times were circumcised in their flesh, but not in their hearts. Their necks were still uncircumcised. They were stiff-necked and rebellious. Surely, at least, as Jesus tells this parable to the religious leaders who are wanting him dead, surely at least it is directed toward them and their forebears who have done the same thing to the prophets. And in the same way, we should understand that when Jesus speaks about burning their city, their city is surely Jerusalem. There shouldn't be any question about that. That was the city that was supposed to be God's. Remember, this is the city where his name would be placed and his name would dwell. But you see, in their rebellion against him, they have been trusting in Jerusalem and in the temple, and they've been ignoring God. Oh, we've got Jerusalem, we've got the temple. God will never allow that to be destroyed. Remember, that's what they thought in the Old Testament, too, until the Assyrians and the Babylonians came and destroyed it all. In fact, when we talk about that, remember that in the Old Testament when Israel and Judah had become so wicked and so unfaithful to God that he decided it was time to destroy the nation and to send them into exile, he sent the Babylonians and the Assyrians against them to do that. Now, certainly Nebuchadnezzar didn't sit in his throne room one day and hear God's voice saying, okay, Nebuchadnezzar, you may not have been thinking about this, but I want you to take your troops and go up and destroy Israel and bring those people down here. Nebuchadnezzar did that because he wanted to do it, but a man's heart directs his way and the Lord directs his steps. And God says that I have called Nebuchadnezzar to do this. I've called the Assyrians to do this. And so in a very real way, in those Old Testament encounters when Israel and Judah were taken into captivity, those troops, although they were foreign troops, were God's troops. God is the one who actually sent them to accomplish that. And remember that Nebuchadnezzar, when he went against Israel, when he went against Judah, he actually did destroy the city of Jerusalem and the temple. God's troops did that in that day. And what we need to understand is that in Jesus telling this parable, we're being told that there is going to be a repeat performance of that, that in 70 AD, although he doesn't give any dates, obviously, God is going to send his troops, the Romans, to destroy these murderers and literally to burn their city of Jerusalem, which is exactly what happened in history. Also keep in mind when we talked about that vineyard parable that Jesus just finished telling us, I told you that it was connected to Isaiah's prophecy in chapter five, verses one through seven, where God talked about setting up Israel as the vineyard that he planned for, cared for, did everything for, and they failed to produce fruit for him. And so he was going to, remember in that parable, he was going to destroy Israel, destroy the vineyard. Whereas in Jesus' parable, it wasn't the vineyard that was going to be destroyed. It was going to be the wicked tenants who were not providing the fruit to the master of the house. But do you see how in this parable, Jesus is telling today, both of those actually come together. The king is not only going to destroy those murderers, he's going to burn their city as well. So we see the king acting in judgment on these wicked and rebellious people that were supposed to be his subjects, supposed to be the ones who came to the feast. And now we're told that the king, God, sends out other servants. And the reason he does that is because the wedding feast, we're told, is still ready. Everything has still been prepared. God's plans never fall to the ground. And since the former guests, he says, were unworthy, he tells his servants now to go out to, we see a word translated sort of as the main roads, I think, in the ESV. The word, what it really means is a road that goes out of a city, out into the surrounding countryside. In this case, not necessarily out of the city, but out of the king's palace, perhaps. And so you could imagine, as we know, out of a city there are many roads that will go out into the country in different directions. And so the king is saying, go out into these roads and find anyone you can and bring them to the feast. and offer another invitation from me to these people to come to the feast. As many as you can find. And so what we find here, again, translating, interpreting the parable as we go, what we find here is that this represents for us the universal call of the gospel. From Jesus' day moving forward, the gospel is being sent out no longer just to the covenant nation of Israel, which has failed to respond to the invitation and has been punished, or will be in Jesus' day punished. But it's now going out through those roads out into the surrounding areas. And the people who are being invited now are not the elite, not the ones that think they deserve to be invited to King's Feast. These are more like those more despised people, like those tax collectors and prostitutes, the ones that you wouldn't think necessarily God would be all that interested in. And yet the king tells them to go out and invite as many as they can find. And the servants, by the way, if the earlier servants were the Old Testament prophets, these servants would include, for instance, John the Baptist, remember the kingdom of heaven is at hand, Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and his apostles and those who would follow them, they're up to us today, who continue to take the invitation from the king out on the main roads and invite all who will come into the wedding feast, the kingdom of God. But notice something here. As those servants go out and they gather everyone they can find, do you notice what Jesus says? They brought them all in, including, Jesus says, both bad and good. That word for bad there is one that generally means like evil and good. Bad could be evil or worthless. The word good is something that stands for something that is select, valuable, or worthy. You see where I'm going with the others weren't worthy, but the servants go out now and bring in as many people as they can find, and yet even among the ones they bring in, there are some who are worthy, and there are others who are worthless, who are not worthy. But the wedding hall is full of guests. And this is another encouragement we should take from the parable. The wedding hall represents the visible church, the kingdom of God. We're not just a few people. Sometimes it looks to us here in Slate like we might be, right? We're not just a few people. The wedding hall, the kingdom of God is full of guests. Revelations will tell us a number that can't be counted. It's full of guests. However, the feast hasn't yet begun. You notice that? We never really get to where the feast starts. Because at this point in the parable, we see that before the feast can start, the king, God, has to come in and look at the guests. Now the word Jesus uses there for look at the guests isn't one that points to just a Casual kind of glance at people. Hey, I'm glad to see you're here. Thanks for coming. Nice that we have a lot of people here. The word is one that describes a look that is very attentive. A look that is in fact searching. And as God the King comes into the wedding hall at this point in the parable, he searchingly looks over all of those who have come by invitation and entered into the wedding hall. And as he does that, he notices something. There's someone here who doesn't fit in, who doesn't belong. And he walks up to the man and he says, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? Now, notice the person that the king addresses is speechless. He has no defense to offer. He doesn't try to plead with the king and say, well, I really do belong here. You just need to understand my circumstances. He's speechless. He cannot answer the king in any way at all. But we haven't heard anything about a wedding garment up to this point. What does this wedding garment and or the lack of it mean in this parable? Well, there's considerable speculation about that. There are many who suggest that when a king in this day would have invited people to a wedding of his son, he would have provided each one of them with a special wedding garment to wear that they were to put on as part of their attending the wedding feast. The problem is there doesn't seem to be any actual historical evidence that that was ever a practice. And so there's no reason for us to necessarily see that as the mechanism that is at work here. The people who follow this, though, would say, I think, that if we take that line that this is something the king would have given to you and say you need to wear this to be here, then this man would be seen as refusing to wear the king's wedding garment because he feels like my own clothes are good enough. I don't need the king's. I don't know for sure. The truth is that at its root, that interpretation of it isn't very much unlike the way R.T. France looks at it in his commentary. He suggests that the wedding garment isn't actually a special garment at all that would have been handed out by a king, but instead what's hinted at here is that if Servants of the king came up to you while you were out working in your field and said, hey, the king's having a big feast for his son's wedding. He wants you to come. You got to hurry up and go. You wouldn't just drop your rake or hoe in the field and go to the king's feast in your grubby work clothes. You would at least go home and change into something that would be more appropriate to be in the presence of the king and his son and to take part in this glorious wedding feast. He suggests, I think, if I understand him correctly, that in the parable, this would suggest perhaps that faith without works that James condemns, remember? Faith always has to have works to flow out of it. And if you say you have faith and you don't have any works, you don't have any righteousness in your life, then your faith is dead. It's not real, true, saving, living faith, James says. So in essence, I think the way France looks at this, he sees this man as a person who has heard the gospel invitation and has come into the church, but in doing so, he is presuming on the free offer of the gospel. which this invitation represents. And he is in fact assuming that all I have to do is show up. There's no obligation on me at all. I don't have to be changed. I don't have to be different. This offer, this gospel offer accepts everybody as they are, no change required. No requirement to be clothed, if you will, let's say in righteousness. Only the king can clothe us in righteousness. And so if that's what this is looking at, then in a very real sense, no garment would mean no actual fruit of godliness or righteousness in your life. And that would connect to the fig tree that Jesus cursed, right? He cursed it because it looked like it should have fruit on it, but it didn't have any on it. And that was a symbol of Israel, his people. People that are supposed to be godly and Christian and are not. Now another small point, not really a small point, but we'll make it a brief point, that we should get from this parable is that really, actually it's kind of startling from Jesus' mouth, that both bad and good were brought into the wedding hall, into sort of the at least outward manifestation of the kingdom of God, of heaven. And that the king actually finds this improperly dressed man in there and has him thrown out. What's that all about? Well, there are those who believe that in the New Testament church, in the new covenant church, that the church is going to be, has to be pure, unmixed. Everybody has to be a true believer in the church. You can't have unbelievers in the church. But the problem is that Jesus himself says here that this wedding feast, this wedding hall, which represents, we have to believe, the church in the kingdom of God, actually the servants brought in both bad, unworthy, and good, worthy people. And that at some point God himself has to come into the picture, come into the wedding hall and examine each one of the guests. And God himself will make a determination whether that person really is worthy and has the garment on or has to be placed outside of the wedding feast. Now, The man who isn't clothed in the wedding garment, again, I said, he has no reply, he has no excuse, he has no explanation. So the question I think we have to ask is, are we right in understanding this man and how he's handled by the king as pointing to whether a person is truly saved and truly has faith in Christ or not? Are we just reading that into the passage, eisegesis instead of exegesis? Well, I think what we need to do is listen to the king's response in verse 13. Notice what the king says when the man is speechless. Then the king said to his attendants, bind him hand and foot. Notice he doesn't say go get him a wedding garment and put it on him. Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place, the outer darkness, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Do you recognize that kind of phrase, that kind of description from anywhere else in Scripture? Do we see that anywhere else? I mean, there are several places where we see that kind of description, and it always points to end times of scatological judgment, the last day, hell, outer darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth. Why else would someone be put out into the outer darkness if it isn't because they refuse to be clothed in the sun's robe of righteousness. It actually takes us back, if you think about it, to Matthew chapter 7 verses 21 to 23, when Jesus is talking about at that last day, there are going to be people come up and say, Lord, Lord, didn't I do this for you and that for you and that for you? And Jesus is going to look at them in the last day as the judge, and he's going to say what? I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Sounds like those two connect here in this. And again, if we really want to say, are you sure about that? Then I think we have to look at how Jesus ends the parable. As he's talking to these leaders, he explains to them the reason why this improperly dressed guest will be judged so severely. Notice what he says. For, that word means because. This is going to happen because many are called but few are chosen." What does Jesus mean by a statement like that? Well, the word he uses in the first half, called, means that. It means to be called or invited to something. And so that connects to the parable, right? Lots of people were invited to this wedding feast. In his parable, there were all kinds of people, but that didn't mean that they would actually end up being blessed by being able to take part in the feast. because many refused to come, and others who thought they were coming were going to be judged unworthy because they weren't wearing the wedding garment that was required. The fact that many had received this invitation from the king, I think it points at least to the covenant people and nation of Israel. particularly the leaders and rulers who for all of their history, for the most part, the people and the leaders had no fear of God before their eyes. They weren't interested in what God had planned for them. They went about their own way. They were too busy with their own affairs, their own interests. And their response, in fact, reminds us of, remember the parable of the sower when Jesus talked about the four kinds of soil? And the third kind, he said, when the seed gets choked out by the thorns, he said, this is the one who hears the word. the invitation, but the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it's unfruitful. These people care about their world and their things, and they say they don't respond to the gospel. That invitation is unfruitful in their lives. Paul talks about this concern for being properly dressed that Jesus is addressing here, in fact, in the kingdom of God, in the kingdom of heaven. In the book of Ephesians, I've included a couple passages in your bulletins that you can look at and see. In chapter 5, in the first two verses, he says that because Christ gave himself up for us, this verse isn't in there, but because he gave himself up for us, we're to be imitators of God. And so back in chapter four, which I do have there in verses 20 to 21, Paul says that if we have truly learned Christ, if we have been taught by him, by the power of the spirit, then we must, we will in fact, notice what he says, put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and instead be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new self. What is this new self like? Created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. You see, Paul's talking about changing clothes, putting on a garment that's suitable for being part of the kingdom of heaven. But how can we put off our old self, that sinful nature, and put on this new self that is after the likeness of God and true righteousness? How are we able to do that? Well, this is where the second half of Jesus' statement comes in. The word Jesus uses in the second half of verse 14, when he says that few were chosen, that word chosen means selected, favored with select status. You see, we can't be dressed in the righteousness of Christ in that wedding garment in any way at all, by our own desire, by our own efforts. We're only properly dressed in the wedding garment if and when the King, God, truly chooses us and blesses us with it. And that's why Paul begins that letter to the Ephesians in chapter one, Verses three through seven by saying this, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Notice what he says next. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be what? Holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. How? According to the purpose of his will and to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved, in Christ. In him, in the beloved, in Christ, we have what? What does this robe amount to? We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace. which the king has shown all through this parable. You see, Jesus indicates to us, yes, briefly, yes, in skeletal form, it gets filled out more through the epistles and the rest of the New Testament, but the external call and invitation of the gospel goes out to everyone. Out into the roads, the highways and byways, and everybody is invited to come in. And many are going to respond in one way or another to that call. But out of all those who respond, only some, few, Jesus says, are truly not just invited, but chosen. will actually receive the real effective internal call of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, which will compel them to come to Christ, which will actually bring them to Christ. The change of heart is what makes them followers of Christ. As we think about that, we should be asking the question which Paul answers in that passage from Ephesians 1. Notice how he says in there, blessed be the God and Father who has blessed us. How blessed are we that we have not only been invited to the wedding feast, but that we have been granted by the King the garment that allows us to be there and to fully participate in the feast and to enjoy the marriage supper of the Lamb. And so as we hear this parable, we shouldn't be so focused on those religious leaders, although that's what Matthew wants us to realize as well. But we should be wondering, are we dressed in our wedding garment? As we hear the invitation from the king and we're attending the feast, even now as we're here, are we all wearing our wedding garment? Have we been renewed in the spirit of our mind by the power of Christ's spirit? Have we by His power and grace been able to at least begin to put off that old man, that old nature that rebels against God and that hates God? And have we instead by His grace been able to begin to put on the new which is actually created after the image of God and holiness and true righteousness? We want to make sure that we're not sitting at the feast waiting for the king to come along and say what are you friend doing here without a wedding garment? Get out. Outer darkness. We can't do that on our own, and so we need to pray to God. that he will, through his word and spirit, work in our hearts to clothe us in the righteousness of Christ so that we can be full participants in the wedding feast of the Lamb. Let's pray. Father, we come to you and we are thankful for the glorious, beautiful, and yet scarily warning passage that we have just worked through this morning. You are the one who has prepared everything for our salvation. You've done it all. You've invited all to come and yet many are going to ignore you and some are going to despise you so much they will attack your people for bringing the invitation. Let us not be afraid of that. Let us be faithful like these servants going out into the roads and trying to bring as many in as we can, understanding that we will also sometimes bring in people who really aren't going to prove to be true Christians. But help us all. to be carefully, prayerfully examining ourselves, as Paul tells us to do in 1 Corinthians 11, to be sure that we really are in the body of Christ, that we really are saved by him, that our old man is being put off and the new man is being put on, that our minds have been renewed by your Spirit. Help us to truly be your people. who will sit one day in the full consummation when the new heaven and new earth comes at that wedding feast of the Lamb with those many who will come from east and west. We ask these things in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.