A Typical Monday with a Few Fun Finds😊An Invitation to Life

Matthew 22:8 - 10

8Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ 10And 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.

This is a continuation from last week’s devotion on the parable of the wedding feast.

Here we see clearly that the Lord was speaking about how the gospel message with its invitation to worship the Son, is to go out to all the world.

Everyone is invited. It does not make any difference whether they have a respectable reputation, or if they are looked down upon by society…

When our verses today said “they gathered both, ‘bad and good’” this is only how society evaluated of them.

No matter who they are, if people have a need, if they want life, whether they have a good reputation or not, they are invited.

We know from history that the gospel has gone out to all the world, and it has been "whosoever will may come," (Revelation 22:17).

Now, I want to take a closer look at certain of the parts of this parable…

Notice first that this is a wedding feast.

Today we call them receptions, these are joyful occasions marked, music, and laughter, goodwill and fellowship. It’s a cheerful time full of joy and gladness.

Let that stink in for a moment… because it’s important that we see this is the way our Lord characterized God's invitation… the gospel.

As one Bible preacher put it… “It is not an invitation to a funeral, even though some people act as though becoming a Christian is equivalent to being soaked for a week in formaldehyde.”

It’s an invitation to joy… not an invitation to a formal state dinner, but to a relaxed, cheerful, joyful occasion.

This is an invitation to life. And this is what we so desperately need to understand.

This is indicative also of what God has prepared for the spirit in man. His invitation to us is never to unhappiness or sorrow, drudgery or darkness, fear or death; it is to life, vitality, excitement, and gladness. We will never understand the gospel unless we understand it in those terms.

God is inviting us to come alive, to discover what makes life exciting and wonderful.

I read this recently and wanted to share it with you (I'm sorry I cannot remember where I read it).

      A Christian young man was talking to his pastor about what he should be doing for the next few months of his life. 
He said. "I have two choices before me, two things I can do this summer. One of them I would really hate to do. It doesn't have any appeal to me at all. I feel that perhaps I should do it, but I don't want to.

The other is something I really enjoy doing. It's a ministry I delight in." And he looked at his pastor and said, "Of course, it's not difficult for me to know which is the will of God. I know he wants me to do the hard thing, the difficult thing."

His pastor asked him, "Why do you say that?" 
He said. "Well isn't that what God always wants?" He wants us to do things that are tough and challenging and difficult." 
The pastor replied, "My friend, I'm afraid you don't know God very well yet. The Lord Jesus said, 'I delight always to do those things that please him.' It is great, it is exciting, it is challenging to do the things that please him."

This is the testimony of millions who have become Christians that they have found the secret of life. God has invited them to a joyful feast in fellowship with the Son of God.

And just as today’s scripture tells us… the king was not defeated; he was and He is… determined to have guests at the wedding.

So, the invitation goes out, literally, "to the highways and the by ways," and gathers them to come to His feast…

Where people mingle and mix without distinction, where there are people of all kinds -- the respectable and disrespectful… the honorable and the dishonorable. The invitation goes out to anyone who will hear, anyone who wants to live.