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THE WEDDING BANQUET - PART 1

 

This parable speaks of God's generous and gracious invitation and mankind's self-centred refusal to respond to that invitation.

The invitation involved a great deal of preparation, and immense provision - summed up in the phrase 'everything is ready.'

Since before the beginning of time God has been preparing, and preparing us, for this invitation. For generations he has been unveiling his great plan through the history of the Israelites and the prophetic word, both recorded in the written Word, the Bible.

We should have been ready.

We should have expected the invitation when it came.

Even the created world shouts out that God is a God like this - a God who has everything under control, from the mega galaxies of space to the intricate complexity of the smallest molecules. A God who takes it upon himself to prepare a way for us to be reunited to him, and then reaches out his hand and says 'Come, for all is ready!'

But the way, the invitation, does not please us.

It calls us away from our self-centredness and our self-sufficiency; it calls us away from the things that we think are important and the things from which we gain our self-esteem. It demands our allegiance and our commitment; it challenges us to put God at the centre.

For he is the King. But we do not realize this - we think, each one of us, that we are the king - that ours is the choice, the decision.

He is the King - his invitation is also his command. It is not a take-it-or-leave-it thing. It is not a something-nothing thing.

In this divine invitation, this divine command to 'come, for all is ready', we are offered an eternal relationship with the eternal King. There is no other invitation like this one. It is this one, or nothing.

 

Scriptures: Matthew 22:1-10; Luke 14:16-24; 1 Peter 1:20; Hebrews 13:8; Ephesians 3:11; Romans 1:19-20; John 14:6; 3:16-19.

 
Copyright Rosemary Bardsley 2004, 2010.