Fellowship with God, 1 John 1:1-4

At the time this epistle is written, John was the last surviving apostle, and probably one of the last people living who had seen and heard Jesus during His ministry on earth.  When John was one of Jesus’s disciples, he was known as the disciple whom Jesus loved.  He had a special relationship with Jesus.  It’s believed that he was  the youngest of the 12 disciples of Christ, perhaps not even 20 years old when he first started to follow Christ.  He had an older brother named James, and together they were referred to as “the sons of thunder.”  His brother James was the first of the disciples to be martyred, whereas John was the longest living apostle.  It’s believed that John was very old by the time he wrote this epistle, perhaps in his eighties.  He also wrote the gospel of John, and Revelation.

It’s interesting to consider how John remembers Jesus.  He spent three years with Him, daily eating and sleeping and traveling all over Israel.  He saw Him in all kinds of situations.  But what comes out of his remembrances of Jesus is not some sort of sentimental feelings for the humanity of Jesus, nor a lot of remarks concerning HIs personality or His looks, but rather a firm conviction of His deity.

You would think just the opposite would be true. It’s kind of like if you met a celebrity, what you might take away from that encounter is the humaness of the person.  You would probably say things to your friends like, “He seemed like just a normal guy.”  We’re always surprised that they are just people, and we think that is so noteworthy.  But John doesn’t reminisce that way about Jesus.  His first thoughts, both in this epistle and his gospel, is to note the deity of Christ, the supernatural qualities of God incarnate.

Notice John declares first of all that Jesus was from the beginning. When John speaks of the beginning he is not talking about creation, he is talking about the time before creation, before there was anything.  When there was only God. In so doing, he emphasizes the eternality of Christ.  He does the same in his gospel, albeit with even more explanation. Listen to the way John introduces Christ in his gospel, in John 1:1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.”

John identifies in both books Jesus as the Word.  He was in the beginning with God. John doesn’t say He was created in the beginning with God, but that He was in the beginning with God.  Most importantly, John says the Word was not only in the beginning with God, but that the Word was God.  That truth is foundational to our faith.  If we are to believe in Him, if we are to have faith in Him, then it has to be a belief that He is God. And Jesus says in chapter 3:16 that whosoever believes in Him will have eternal life. 

This doctrine of the deity of Christ is the point at which a lot of the cults and heresies show their true colors.  They will say they believe in Jesus Christ, but when you investigate you find they don’t believe that Jesus was God.  They believe that He was a prophet, or a teacher, or a higher order of creation on par with the angels, but not God.  And though John doesn’t directly address it, there was a heresy called Gnosticism that was gaining ground in the church in his day which was corrupting the doctrine of Christ.  And we will see other evidences in John’s writings in which he would seem to be setting forth certain absolute truths by which to counter the false teachings which were prevalent in his day.

Notice another thing that John says about Jesus in both books, that Jesus is life.  In the gospel he says “in Him was life and the life was the life of man.” In the epistle He says he is speaking of the “Word of Life, and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life.” They both refer to the same thing, that in Jesus Christ was life.  He is the creator of all life.  In John 1 vs 3 he said, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”  If you remember the Genesis account of creation, God spoke the world in existence.  The Word was with God, and nothing came into being without the Word.

Not only is the Word of Life the creator, but the Word gives life.  Now we know that life is more than just the body, but it is also soul and spirit. When a person dies, the heart stops beating, the breath stops, the body shuts down. But the soul continues to exist. The soul includes the intellect, feelings, and the will of man.  When God made man, He first formed the body out of clay, but then He breathed His breath into man, and man became a living soul.  The soul of man lives forever.  The body of man is destined to grow old and die.  But the soul of man continues.  But there is another aspect of life which is spirit.  And though we are born dead spiritually because of sin, we are able to be born again in the spirit by the Word of Life.  The spirit is that which is the life of God in us, by which we are able to have fellowship with God in the fullness of life for eternity that God intended for man at creation.

To be spiritually dead then means that the body is dead, the spirit is dead, but the soul lives on, however it lives separated for eternity from God. Man was created for fellowship with God, to live with God, but sin caused death of the spirit, which in turn causes death of the flesh, and causes death to the soul, which is eternal separation from the life of God.

This is difficult for us to fathom.  We cannot separate our body from our thoughts. But as we get older, it should become more apparent that there is a life in our minds which is different from life in our body.  We start to see that our life of the body is failing, but in our mind we may not sense much of a change. We still feel and think the way we always have.  Sure, our experiences in life have an affect on the way we think, but fundamentally, we still feel the same in our minds, even though we recognize a decline in our bodies.  For instance, you can lose all movement, all feeling in your body, and yet still have the same thoughts, the same mind.  That should tell us that there is more to life than the body.  The soul lives on after the body is gone.  What we don’t really comprehend, is the loss of the spirit.  We never had any sense of it to begin with.  It was dead when we were born. So we don’t sense the loss of our spirit.  That’s what makes it so difficult for us to comprehend all that God intended for us in life.  But if we are thinking people, we should at least have a sense of the immortality of the soul.

So Jesus is the source of life, the giver of the fullness of life; body, soul and spirit. In John 14:6 Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”  There we see that truth is necessary for life, the truth is the way to life.

In the gospel of John, chapter 1, John uses light as a synonym of truth.  John said, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not comprehend it.”  Darkness is always used in the Bible as a metaphor for ignorance, for sin, for the absence of truth.  So truth is related to light.  John goes on to say in that chapter, “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” So the truth of God enlightens man. It gives understanding. The truth gives life. 

Notice how John speaks of it in the epistle of 1 John. Vs 5 “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and [yet] walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” These verses we will be studying in more detail next week, but I mention them now just to show that John correlates truth and light.

The greatest minds of men have always searched for truth. That was the goal of the great philosophers of ancient Greece. And in their search for truth they sought to understand life, and gain spiritual life, or enduring life.  Socrates, for instance, believed in the immortality of the human soul.  And they sought truth through reason. In some respects, these philosophers, though carnal, sinful men, were on a higher plane intellectually because they at least came to understand the immortality of the soul and attempt through reason to answer questions concerning the afterlife.

Other men in history were not quite so noble, yet perhaps were just concerned with escaping death. Ponce de Leon, for instance, is one of many men in history who famously searched for the fountain of youth.  They were concerned with life, but only in extending the life that they had.  They failed to realize that the source of life is not a magical water, but that it comes by the Spirit.  That was the thought behind the words which John the Baptist used at the baptism of Jesus, saying, “this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” And Jesus says that the spirit is life in John 6:63 saying "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and [they] are life.”  That’s incredible to think about - the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  

At the baptism of Jesus, the Light of Truth, the Word made flesh, was manifested to the world. John said “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life-- and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—“

In his gospel, John speaks of it this way; “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

What John is saying here is that the Word which was from the beginning, the eternal God, manifested Himself to the world in human flesh.  And John and the other disciples heard Him, saw Him, touched Him, lived with Him.  They knew Him.  They were first hand witnesses of Him. And they now testify of Him.

The implications are tremendous because they said that the eternal God became accessible to man in the most tangible way, so that we might know the truth. The Word of God, the Word of Life can be known, because He has revealed Himself to us, and His revelation is the truth of God.  John’s words carry the weight of eyewitness testimony. He did not speak of myths or of fables. He had carefully studied the person of Christ and he knew whom he spoke about.  He said, we beheld His glory in the flesh.  We saw His deity in the flesh.

John was setting forth an absolute truth which would be an important tenet of the argument in refuting Gnosticism.  Part of the teaching of Gnosticism was that though Jesus was a form of deity, He was not actually a physical man, but instead some kind of phantom that only appeared human. Yet John declares, “I heard Him! I saw Him! I studied Him! I touched Him!”

Gnosticism taught a super knowledge, or a secret knowledge of God.  But John speaks of a personal knowledge, an intimate knowledge, and a manifest knowledge.  It’s interesting to study the word “Logos” which is the Greek translated Word.  For the Greek, their philosophers had spoken for centuries about the Logos – the basis for organization and intelligence in the universe, the Ultimate Reason which controls all things. But for the philosophers, it was intangible, if not unknowable. They understood the meaning of logos as not only the spoken word, but the reason, the thinking of the mind. 

But John says we know the Word.  We have touched the Word, heard the Word, seen the Word.  The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.  The truth was manifested in human flesh in the body of Jesus Christ.  And yet though the physical Jesus Christ is given such importance in the scriptures,  it is so amazing that there is not one reference in the New Testament to the way Jesus looked as a man in the flesh.  If we were in the position of an eyewitness, and writing about it later, I think we would spend a lot of paper and ink writing about how Jesus looked.  About His appearance, how tall, or short, His physical characteristics.  But that is not the emphasis of the disciples.  They were more concerned about His words, His deeds.

I’m reminded of Isaiah 53 which describes Jesus in prophetic form, long before He was ever manifested in the flesh.  Isaiah said this about Him; “He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”

We were talking at the dinner table at my house the other day about certain movies that portrayed Jesus.  And one of the downfalls of such movies is that the actor who plays Jesus kind of gets in your head and starts to dominate your thinking of Him. They usually are some strong, viral, handsome man that plays the part. I think it’s no accident that God left no picture of Jesus. But if we really were to believe what Isaiah says of Him by inspiration, then perhaps the picture would not be quite what we are looking for.  He said he has no appearance that we should be attracted to Him.  He had no stately form or majesty.  I wonder if God saw fit to deliberately make Jesus unattractive so that people would not be drawn to Him for the wrong reasons. One day we shall see Him as He is, and I think that as He is, is much the same as He was when He was on earth.

So though John saw Him in the flesh, he recognized Him as the Word, the expression of God. And he bares witness to the Life that was manifested, and as a result of that, he proclaims to us the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. He is saying that eternal life is possible to us through Jesus Christ who is the Life. As I alluded to at the beginning, eternal life is so much more than just a chronologically long life. It is even more than just immortality.  It is the fullness of life. Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.”   Life is fellowship with God. It is being in the presence of God. It is fulfillment and joy.  And because God is the source of life, the life He gives is everlasting.  It does not come to an end. Jesus said in John 11:26, “everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.”

John calls that life fellowship with God.  That fellowship with God is what John invites us to join.  He says in vs 3, “What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.”  To be in the presence of God, to have fellowship with God, who is the source of life, who is the Light of the world, who is the source of truth, who is the source of love, who is all powerful, all knowing, is too wonderful to comprehend.  We often talk about what heaven will be like.  We imagine streets of gold, or mansions, or all the wonderful things that we will enjoy.  But what we sometimes fail to comprehend is how wonderful God is, and how wonderful it will be to be in His presence.

There is an ancient Christian doctrine which does not get much airplay today, which is called the beatific vision.  It refers to being in the presence of inapproachable light, in the presence of pure holiness, pure righteousness and the incredible joy and blessing that will be experienced in that presence. It was something the early church fathers wrote about and looked forward to.  I think that we need to have more expectancy of the beatific vision as the ultimate fulfillment and joy in life. To be in the presence of God in perfect fellowship with Him is going to be more wonderful than we can comprehend.  And because we shall see Him as He is, the Bible says that we shall be like Him.  That’s even more incomprehensible.  But it should be what we are looking forward to more than anything.

This doctrine of fellowship with God is one of the most important ideas in this letter of John’s. Fellowship is the ancient Greek word koinonia, which speaks of a sharing, a communion, a common bond and common life. It speaks of a living, breathing, sharing, loving relationship with another person.  And John says that we can have fellowship with God through Jesus Christ.  What a tremendous opportunity.  That which men have sought throughout the ages is now possible through faith in Christ.  That we might have that kind of relationship with the immortal, invisible God of the universe is incredible.

But I”m afraid for some people that idea is totally unappealing. Perhaps it is because they don’t know who God is, and an invitation to have a “personal relationship with God” is about as attractive to them as telling a teenager that they can have a personal relationship with the assistant principal. But when we know the greatness, the goodness, the power and the glory of God, we should want to have a relationship with Him.

And finally in vs 4, we see the benefit of this fellowship that we can have with God.  “These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.” The result of fellowship is fullness of joy. Lots of things in this world promise happiness.  The band Switchfoot said in one of their songs that happiness is a yuppie word. It’s a shallow word.  The pursuit of happiness is just that - a pursuit.  It rarely ends up producing lasting joy.  Joy is something that is satisfied.  It is contentment.  It is fulfillment. It’s not necessarily laughing or even smiling.  But it is the satisfaction of the soul.  That is joy.  And you are never going to know that satisfaction of the soul without Jesus Christ. 

You may find some happiness in the world for a season or two. You may get rich, you may gain the world, but without Christ you lose your own soul. Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” But when you gain Jesus, you gain life, you gain joy, you gain fellowship with God.  You gain it all.

Reject Christ and you have everything to lose.  Claim Christ and you have everything to gain.  It should be an easy choice.  Call upon Jesus today and be given the everlasting, eternal, fulfilled life of God. God invites you today to have fellowship with Him through faith in Jesus Christ His Son.

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The Parable of the Wedding Feast, Matthew 22:1-14

Today we are concluding our series on the parables of Christ by looking at the parable of the wedding feast. And I want to first consider the historical context in which this parable is given. This would have been Wednesday of the last week before Christ’s death.  On Friday, He will be crucified. On Sunday, He will rise from the dead. For three years He has been preaching and teaching the Gospel of the kingdom. He has been presenting Himself as the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world. He has been offering an invitation into His kingdom to the people of Israel, the Jews.  And now at the end of His ministry He has come into Jerusalem for the final act.  He knows that the religious leadership have rejected Him as the Messiah.  And in just two more days they will turn Him over to the Romans to be crucified.

On Monday, He had entered Jerusalem on a donkey to the sounds of crowds crying Hosanna! The common people expected Him to be king and to overthrow the Roman occupation and take the throne of David.  But on Tuesday, instead of doing that, He went to the temple and overthrew the money changer’s tables and drove out the merchandisers from the temple.  And in so doing, He sealed His fate with the High Priest, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  They wanted Him dead.

So this is Wednesday, and He has come back to the temple, and this time He comes to preach.   And in His message, He gives three parables, a trilogy of kingdom of heaven parables, which prophetically forecast the rejection by the Jews and the judgment that will befall them because they failed to accept Him as their Messiah and King.

The first parable He gives in this trilogy is the Parable of Two Sons. It is found in chapter 21 vs 28. "But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, 'Son, go work today in the vineyard.' And he answered, 'I will not'; but afterward he regretted it and went. "The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, 'I [will,] sir'; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing [this,] did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.” 

Jesus explains this simple parable to show that the religious Jews claimed to do the will of God, but actually did not, and thus would not enter into the kingdom of heaven, whereas the sinners who repented would enter the kingdom of heaven.

The second parable of the trilogy speaks of the judgment that will fall on those who rejected the gospel of the kingdom, which was again directed at the religious leadership of the Jews. Jesus said in vs 33 "Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL AROUND IT AND DUG A WINE PRESS IN IT, AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.' They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?"  They said to Him, "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the [proper] seasons." Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the Scriptures, 'THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER [stone;] THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES'? Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it.”

Now that parable is pretty self explanatory as well.  But irregardless, in expounding it, Jesus makes it clear that He is speaking it about them, the religious Jews. That the kingdom of God will be taken away from them, and they will receive the judgment of God because of their rejection.  Whereas the kingdom will be given to a people who will produce spiritual fruit.

And Matthew says that the Jews did recognize that He was speaking about them. I think it’s possible that they recognized Jesus was speaking of God as the Father, and He as the Son of God, and that they would kill Him.  I think it’s possible that they even knew that He was the Messiah, but He was not the kind of Messiah that they wanted. He was going to destroy their livelihood, their financial rackets, and their position of power.  Look at vs 45 “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. When they sought to seize Him, they feared the people, because they considered Him to be a prophet.”  They had already planned on killing Him, but were just waiting for the right opportunity.

Now we come to the third parable in this trilogy, which we will look at in a little more detail, as Jesus gives more insight, and a different perspective on the same issue of rejection of the kingdom of God and the judgment due to those who do so. There are four parts to this parable, similar to four parts in a play.  The first act we will call  the invitation rejected.

The story is about the kingdom of heaven, which was the foremost topic of Jesus’s teaching.  As we have repeatedly stressed, the kingdom of heaven is not speaking of what we often think of as heaven, per se, but is referring to the rule of heaven, the rule of God in the hearts of His people.  It is a spiritual kingdom, where those who have been born of the Spirit have their life, their inheritance, in the realm of Christ.

Jesus says in vs 2 "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. Again he sent out other slaves saying, 'Tell those who have been invited, "Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are [all] butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast."' But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business,  and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them.”

So the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a wedding feast given by the King for His Son.  A wedding was in those days the most important social event of a person’s life.  And a royal wedding would have been the most important social event of a lifetime.  Imagine being invited to attend Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding back in the early 80’s when that event occurred.  It was perhaps the most prestigious, most desirable social event in England of the century.  

Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven can be compared to that kind of wedding.  He is taking the most important, significant event of person’s spiritual life and comparing it to a situation that can be more easily comprehended by mortal man -a wedding invitation by the royal family. 

In those days, the wedding was not given a specific date.  The exact timing of the bridegroom was something of a surprise.  The general time frame would be known, and the invitation was given out to make the people aware that it could be very soon, on a moments notice.  

We know from a previous parable we studied that the bridegroom is Christ, and the bride is HIs church. Jesus is saying in this parable that the invitations to the wedding feast had gone out.  And as the moment arrived for the celebration, the slaves of the king were sent to those who had been invited to attend, but they were not interested in coming.  It says in vs 3, “they were unwilling to come.”  This was an unthinkable thing, that the people would not want to attend the king’s wedding celebration.  

But the king responds to their rejection with graciousness.  He sends out his slaves again, to ask them to come to the wedding feast. This time he adds that he has prepared this grand feast, the oxen and livestock have been butchered, and everything is ready.  That indicates a tremendous expense on the part of the king, which was prepared for their enjoyment.

But they paid no attention to the second summons from the slaves.  They went on about their business, one to his farm and one to his place of business. Such a callous display towards the king’s invitation would have been unthinkable. The listeners of Jesus would have been shocked to hear of such disregard for the king’s invitation.  The first group of people in the parable were just too busy with their own agenda to be bothered with the king’s business. What they were doing seemed more important and more enjoyable. 

As bad as that was, the second group of people Jesus describes are even worse.  They take the king’s slaves and beat them, and murder them.  In the context of the story, this is just outrageous behavior.  Why would you beat up and murder the servants who invited you to the king’s celebration?  It’s unthinkable.

Now what is Jesus describing here?  I think it’s pretty clear. The king is a picture of God, the king’s son is the Christ, and the wedding celebration is an invitation to be part of the kingdom of His Son.  The invitation had been given to the Jews.  They were the ones first invited to enter the kingdom of heaven.  They were the preferred guests, the priority list.  The gospel was given to the Jews first.  They were the called people of God. 

And the kingdom was offered to them.  They were invited as the special guests who were able to enter the kingdom.  But they were not interested.  They had their own agenda which they were more interested in.  They were busy making money, doing deals.  They were so callused that they refused the invitation again and again.

And even worse, they mistreated and killed the prophets that God sent to them.  Jesus said in Luke 11:47  "Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and [it was] your fathers [who] killed them.” Vs 49 "For this reason also the wisdom of God said, 'I will send to them prophets and apostles, and [some] of them they will kill and [some] they will persecute,  so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation.”

That takes us to the second act, the rejecters punished. Verse 7, "But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire.”  The king’s graciousness and mercy has an end.  HIs patience has run out. His wrath is poured out on the rejecters, and it is justified.  They have murdered His innocent servants, rather than submit to His rule and be a part of His administration.  So the wrath of God is poured out on the Jews because they have rejected His invitation.

History tells us that just as Jesus depicts in this parable God burned the city of Jerusalem with fire in AD 70.  Over a million Jews were killed when the Roman general Titus surrounded the city and in the process the temple was destroyed and burned.  The remaining Jews were scattered all across Asia.  God’s justice was served against a people that rejected His invitation, they rejected His grace, and they rejected His Son. Because Israel as a nation rejected the Messiah, God rejected them as nation.  And so the invitation is given to others who will bear the fruit of it.

That brings us to the third act, the new guests are invited.  We see that in vs 8 "Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find [there,] invite to the wedding feast.' Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.”

The instruction from the king is to go everywhere and get everyone that will come. That’s the mandate of the church’s mission, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” That’s the mission. Because of the rejection of Israel, we that were not a people have become the people of God.  He has sent His message into every nation to everyone. “As many as you can find, invite them all to come.” 

Vs 10 "Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.” The invitation to enter the kingdom of heaven is given to whomever will come.  What Jesus is indicating here is that their acceptance of the invitation is the key to entering, not their morality, not either how good of a person they are, nor how bad of a person they are. It’s not dependent upon their nationality.  But simply all who accept the invitation can enter.  Accepting the invitation is the criteria, accepting the grace of God, not how good of a person you may be.

And that brings us to the last act, the intruder expelled.  Vs 11 "But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes,  and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?' And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' For many are called, but few [are] chosen."

So this great crowd of people who accepted the invitation were in the wedding hall.  And there is one man who is not dressed in the wedding garment.  Now we are not told exactly what this garment looked like, nor exactly how it is given, nor how this man does not have it.  But what we can assume is that it correlates to the robe of righteousness which God provides to those who believe in Christ and have accepted Him as their Lord and Savior.

We find direct correlation to this robe of righteousness that all who enter must wear, in Isaiah 61:10 which says, “I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”  

The hymn we often sing, “The Solid Rock” has a line which speaks to this, which says, “Dressed in HIs righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.”   The robe of righteousness is one that we receive by faith from Christ.  It’s His righteousness.  Our sins are transferred to Him, and His righteousness is transferred to us.  That’s what 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God caused Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  It’s Christ’s righteousness which becomes our wedding garment, without which no one can enter the kingdom of heaven.

This man without the wedding garment is asked by the king, “Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?” And the man was speechless. He had no answer.  When we stand before God in all His holiness, we will be ever so aware of our own sinfulness.  We will have no excuse.  In our natural state, many people think that they are a pretty good person. I can’t tell you how often I hear people say that.  Somehow, in spite of all that they have done wrong and all the good that they have not done in this life, they somehow think deep down inside I’m really a good person. Well, when the day comes when they stand before God and they see themselves in the light of righteousness and perfect holiness, then they will throw themselves prostrate on the ground and say as Isaiah said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”

I want you to notice that the garment which the guests received was provided by the King.  It was given to them.  They did not already have it, they could not earn it, but when they accepted the invitation it was given to them.  That gift is called grace.  Eph.2:8,9 “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it’s a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”

So this man who rejected the garment is in effect no better than the Jews who rejected their Messiah.  He is indifferent.  He doesn’t value the garment which the King provided.  He wants the benefits of the kingdom perhaps, but He doesn’t think that the means by which he is granted an invitation is important.  He thinks he can do it his own way.

I think one of the most tragic songs I have ever heard is the song by Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way.” I  remember after he passed away a few years ago, and hearing all these tributes about him on the radio, and they all seemed to want to play that song.  And I just couldn’t help but wonder where he was at that moment, and if living life his way, according to his agenda and his set of standards, was good enough to enter the kingdom of heaven.  I don’t know the state of his soul, but I know the standard for heaven, and it’s not doing it your way.  It’s not entered according to how you think God should be, or based on your own merits.  But  entrance is only admitted through Jesus Christ.

I know that when I stand at the gate of Paradise, and perhaps some angel says to me, “Friend, what are you doing here?” My only plea will be, “I am with Him. Jesus Christ invited me to come, and He has provided the garment of righteousness required to enter.”

Well, this man had no answer.  He was speechless.  And so the king said “bind him up and throw him into outer darkness. in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Listen, the Bible says hell was prepared for the devil and his angels.  Hell wasn’t made for you and me.  Paradise was made for you and me. God has prepared a place beyond our imagination for those that love Him.  But when we reject Jesus, we reject Paradise and choose to listen to the enemy, and as such they that do so will suffer the same fate as he who they chose to obey. 

Jesus closes this parable with a very simple statement, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” The call has gone out to the world, but only a few are chosen. The gospel invitation is sent out everywhere to everyone. Some are indifferent. Some are hostile. Some try to crash the wedding party on their own terms. But few are chosen. And with the word “chosen,” we’re introduced to the sovereignty of God in salvation.  I think we can parse this word from a lot of different perspectives, but the one perspective I want to focus on is the sovereign act of God in granting salvation, granting righteousness to those who believe.  You believe, and God grants you the kingdom. He graciously bestows upon you an inheritance in the kingdom.  He makes you His child and gives you all the benefits of an heir.

But the great emphasis that Jesus gives in this parable is not on the election of God, but the acceptance of the invitation by man.  He has extended to you that invitation today, to join HIs kingdom, to receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ and become a child of God.  The question is, will you come to Him and bow to Him and believe in Him, that you may be dressed in the robe of righteousness by which you may enter?  Come to Him today.   The invitation is given to you. 

Parable of the wheat and the tares, Matthew 13:24-33

We are continuing in our series on the parables of Jesus, and today we have come to a trilogy of parables which I believe are teaching a similar principle, albeit from differing perspectives.  These parables are part of a greater sermon that Jesus taught which is called the Olivet Discourse.  

Last week we looked at another parable from this sermon, which comes directly before these three. It is the parable of the sower. If you will recall, in that parable Jesus spoke of four types of soil, representing four conditions of the heart, all of which received the seed which was the word of God, but two failed to produce any real spiritual growth, one produced growth which was choked by weeds and thorns and did not produce fruit, and then one soil, the good soil, which produced varying degrees of fruitfulness.

Now the first parable in this series of three sort of builds on the parable of the sower by using a similar illustration of sowing.  Some aspects are similar, and some are different. For instance, in the previous parable Jesus taught that there were four types of soil, indicating believers and non-believers.  In this next parable, He teaches that there are two types of seed. 

Let’s consider then the parable of the wheat and the tares.  Jesus said, ““The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away.”  

I have repeatedly explained in our study of the parables that when Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven, He is not speaking of the eternal abode of the righteous, or a place somewhere in outer space where God lives and the saints shall live with Him.  But Jesus is speaking of the sovereign reign of God.  The Bible says that heaven is My throne, and the earth is my footstool.  God is the creator of the world, and He rules over the world.  Not all the people in the world have submitted to Him as Sovereign, but one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.  Until that day, when He is revealed from heaven in power and glory, men are given the gospel, an invitation, that the way to gain citizenship in the kingdom has been offered through Jesus Christ.  That invitation was given when Jesus came to earth the first time. Men are given the opportunity to receive Him in this age and be spiritually reborn as sons and daughters of God.  And then when the King returns in His glory at the end of the age, those who are His people will join Him to live and reign with Him forever, but those who rejected Him during their life, will be cast out of the kingdom into eternal punishment. 

So when Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven, He is speaking of the intermediate age between the first coming and the second coming of the King.  It is the age in which we live on earth now.  God is on the throne in heaven, and He is over all the earth.  He has established His rule and law and proclaimed the good news of the kingdom and invited all who believe to enter.  And at the end of this age He will come again to judge the earth and consummate the final age of His kingdom on earth. 

The teaching of the kingdom of heaven was nothing new to the Jewish audience that listened to Jesus.  But they had a distorted view of what that would look like.  They were expecting the Messiah to be King, and to take up the throne of David in Jerusalem, to defeat the enemies of Israel, and establish Israel as the nation of God, which dominates the world, and to whom the world serves.  They expected a kingdom on earth, but with Israel as the people of God, and the rest of the world to be in subjection to them, or to be destroyed by the Messiah.  They expected that reign to begin immediately upon the inauguration of the Messiah and that it would never end.  They did not understand that it would be a spiritual kingdom for a long time, during which both righteousness and evil would be in effect on the earth for what has been 2000 years now, until the day when the Messiah returns to consummate that kingdom.

So when Jesus teaches concerning the kingdom of heaven, He is in effect correcting, if not  overturning the stereotypical views of the Jews.  And it must have been difficult for them to understand because like most people, they heard what they wanted to hear.  That’s why Jesus concluded the previous parable by saying, those that have ears to hear, let them hear.  Their hearing was hindered because they did not have spiritual insight.

The disciples,  on the other hand, did have spiritual insight, and so after Jesus had given the parable to the multitude, He went in the house, in vs 36, and the disciples asked Him then to explain the parable to them.

The interesting thing which Jesus taught,  is that during the present age, as the kingdom of heaven is in effect, there are those who are in subjection to the king, and those that are not. He says in vs 38, the field is analogous to the world. The entire world belongs to the king.  Those that have submitted to the King are those illustrated in the previous parable as the good soil.  They received the word of God, the seed, the gospel, and that seed sown in good ground has produced spiritual life.  And a similar analogy is given in this parable; Jesus says the good seed that was sown by the sower are the sons of the kingdom.

But in the parable Jesus says that there is an enemy of the king, who sowed tares among the wheat while the king’s men were sleeping.  In HIs interpretation of the parable Jesus identifies the enemy as the sons of the evil one.  These are those who have believed the lies of Satan. They are not concerned about the things of God because they have believed the lie rather than the truth. And so consequently they are doing the devil’s work in spreading lies and deceit amongst the world.

The idea of this happening while his men were sleeping is something that should be elaborated on.  There was a book that was written by John F. Kennedy while he was still a young man at Harvard.  And the book was titled, “Why England Slept.”  It was about how England and other western countries seemed to sleep while Hitler was ascending to power and preparing to take over Europe.  

A similar reference was made by many people regarding the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor.  While America was asleep, the warplanes of Japan were making their descent upon the unsuspecting forces in Pearl Harbor.  That same stealthy kind of approach by the enemy is what Jesus is referring to here in this parable.  It indicates the way in which the enemy works.  He is deceitful.  He works by lying, by subterfuge. He takes advantage of darkness, which is an idiom for ignorance.  And he works by counterfeiting.  The tares look like wheat.

It also indicates that Satan takes advantage of the lethargy and slumber of the church.  The job of the church is to be the watchman, to be wakeful, to be on the alert.  Peter says, be on the alert, because your adversary the devil goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  But the devil is working while we are sleeping.   There was an album that came out years ago by Neil Young, called Rust Never Sleeps.  That may be said about the devil.  He is working 24/7 knowing that his time is short.  But meanwhile, the church seems to be taking a perpetual nap, while the corruption that is in the world is spreading at a frightful pace.

Jesus said the enemy sowed tares among the wheat.  Tares look like wheat when they are young, but in fact produce a poisonous fungus which makes a person sick.  That sickness is a pretty apt illustration of the nature of the lie of Satan. He promises happiness and fulfillment but in the end it only produces death. And the field which is the world receives the lie of Satan and they become corrupted and poisoned by sin which produces death.

That illustrates an important principle which I mentioned a moment ago.  The work of Satan is often a work of counterfeiting the gospel with another gospel.  A gospel without power, without conviction, without repentance, without the cross, without  judgment. Someone has aptly said, “Where the good seed is sown, there the evil is scattered thickest. False christs and false apostles dog the true like their shadows. Every truth has its counterfeit.”  Satan masquerades as an angel of light, and his message is a lie construed to look like the truth.

We have counterfeit churches in which the true gospel is not proclaimed. We have counterfeit ministries in which the Word of God is not taught. We have counterfeit ministers who open up the Bible and who twist it into false doctrine.  In other words, the counterfeit is always there in the presence of the true, and it is very easy to be misled by them if we are not students of the Bible, and come to the Lord and ask him to explain His word for us.

In the parable, the servants of the landowner come and ask him “‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’  That would seem to be the logical conclusion.  But Jesus says the landowner replies, “No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

What that indicates is that there is a danger to uprooting the counterfeit.  In an actual field of wheat, the roots of the tares may be intertwined with the wheat.  Pulling up the bad would perhaps inadvertently uproot the good. Also, the similarity between the two may be cause for a mistake to be made by the reapers.  And so Jesus says let them both grow.

I think it’s a mistake to try to draw too many conclusions from some elements of the story, particularly this element of not uprooting the tares until harvest. I”m not sure that we can draw too many analogies from that and be certain of our deductions. We might be tempted to say that perhaps even a false teacher could lead someone to become a believer.  And that may be one way of looking at it.  However, what I think the salient  point that Jesus is teaching is that the angels of God will wait until the judgment to separate the wheat from the tares.  I don’t think that Jesus is saying that we should not identify false teaching or should not call out false teachers.  There is plenty of evidence in scripture that indicates that we should call out false teaching and we should warn others concerning it.

But that is not what Jesus is primarily teaching here.  I think the primary lesson that He is illustrating is that both wheat and tares will be allowed to grow until the harvest.  And at the harvest, it will be clear which are wheat and which are tares, because the fruit will be evident.  The point is that there will be a judgment which will determine the sons of the kingdom from the sons of the evil one. Jesus said, “Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Jesus expounds on that in vs 40 "So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.”

I want you to notice that in the parable, Jesus refers to the tares as being burned, and in the interpretation of the parable Jesus again says that that lawless and stumbling blocks will thrown into the furnace of fire.  The point being that in both the parable and the interpretation, fire is fire.  The fire doesn’t symbolize something that is not fire.  So we don’t see the terror of hell which is symbolized by fire,  diminished in any way by the interpretation, but actually the reality of hell is reinforced.  The fact of a burning, actual fiery hell that lasts forever is clearly illustrated in this message.

But while the judgment at the end of the age is given great emphasis, the main point of the parable is that both wheat and tares are sown in the kingdom, and will be allowed to continue to grow until the day when Christ returns, and at that time will come the judgment.

And another point that is illustrated in the interpretation of the parable is that the deeds of the unrighteous will be the evidence that they never were converted. Jesus calls them stumbling blocks and those that commit lawlessness.  And by inference, the deeds of the righteous will be the proof that they are sons of the kingdom, even as the fruitfulness was an indication in the previous parable.  Deeds are not the means of salvation, but deeds are the evidence of it, or the evidence that you are not of the kingdom.  That should be clear from the parables. 

Now there are two other parables that Jesus gives immediately after the wheat and the tares. These two are not interpreted by Jesus.  However, I believe the key to a proper interpretation is found in the fact that they come in the sermon before the interpretation of the wheat and the tares.  And so I think that positioning indicates that they are part of a trilogy of parables which are teaching a similar principle, only one of which will be interpreted, but the juxtaposition of the other two before the interpretation means that they share in that interpretation.

Notice then the parable of the mustard seed. Jesus said in vs31 "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field;  and this is smaller than all [other] seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES.”

In this parable we see that the birds of the air nest in the branches of the mustard tree when it is full grown.  If we use the principle of expositional constancy, then we can deduce that the birds are a picture of the devil and his angels as identified in the parable of the sower.  In that parable Jesus says the birds who snatch away the seed is the evil one.  

The sower would be Jesus, if we follow the exposition of the previous parable. In this case, the mustard tree would be the church, which springs up from the good seed, which when fully grown becomes a tree big enough to have birds nest in it’s branches.  

What Jesus is illustrating here is similar to that of the wheat and the tares.  Within the kingdom exists both wheat and tares, both good and evil.  And within the church, the offshoot of the seed, exists both good and evil.  The devil and his angels find safe haven in the church.  We saw that same principle in the previous parable with the idea of counterfeit churches, and a counterfeit gospel.  Satan has always found a suitable site for subterfuge in the branches of the church, counterfeiting the truth with a lie.

Another thing that is worth pointing out about this parable is that a mustard seed does not produce a tree that big, but is actually a bush. Jesus seems to lay stress on the fact that this plant grows bigger than the other plants in the garden to become a tree.   A mustard seed producing a tree is abnormal growth.  And so we can see that what Jesus is teaching is that the church grows abnormally large, and as a result it harbors false teachers and false churches within it.  But if we apply the same teaching about the end of the age which we have seen previously, then at the end of the age, the fruit of the church will be evident and will precipitate the judgment of the unrighteous who have counterfeited the gospel.

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the interpretation I have presented of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven, is not the mainstream interpretation.  Most traditional commentators have taken the approach that the mustard seed is a picture of the church which will expand throughout the age and throughout the world. They say the same thing about the leaven, that it’s a picture of the church’s rise and prominence in the world.  That may be true, or not true, but either way I don’t think that is what Jesus is teaching.  Again, besides the principle of expositional constancy, I would point to another evidence for my view as the positioning of these two parables.  They are a continuation of the principle being taught in the wheat and tares, which is interpreted after they are all presented, signifying that they all share in that interpretation. 

Now that being said, let’s look at the last parable in this trilogy which I think will verify my position even further.  Vs 33 “He spoke another parable to them, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened."  All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable.  [This was] to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: "I WILL OPEN MY MOUTH IN PARABLES; I WILL UTTER THINGS HIDDEN SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.””

This parable of the leaven is very short and simple.  And yet it too is often misinterpreted as a picture of the growth of the church.  But the problem with that is that leaven is always presented in the Bible as a picture of sin and corruption. Jesus on at least a couple of occasions preached, “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” They were the stumbling blocks which prohibited the Jews from coming to Christ.  He was speaking of the corrupt teaching which was being done by them which kept the Jews in bondage.  And in the Passover, leaven is a picture of sin, and they were to search out the house for leaven and throw it out, and eat unleavened bread.  It was a  picture of getting rid of the sinful, corrupting influences of the world.

So if you are consistent with that symbolism, then the woman taking flour and adding leaven to it until it was all leavened is not a picture of the church growing in a good way, but growing in a bad way.  The leaven is a corrupting influence which causes the dough to rise.  And so the corrupting influence of sin in the church spreads to all the church.

We also see a similarity in the woman hiding the leaven in the dough, and the enemy sowing the tares while they were sleeping.  Both indicate the stealthy, subversive nature of the tactics of the enemy to sow bad seed in the church.

The idea of hiding leaven in three measures of meal would have offended any observant Jew. This certainly isn’t a picture of the church gradually influencing the whole world for good. Rather, in the context of increasing opposition to His work, Jesus announced that His church would be influenced by corruption and false teaching and a tolerance for sin.

In the final analysis, we must examine ourselves in light of these parables as to whether or not we are truly sons and daughters of the kingdom, or whether we have been deceived by the lie of the devil and are actually children of rebellion.  Jesus said by their fruits you shall know them.  Those who have confessed Jesus as Lord have received the righteousness of Christ resulting in being born again spiritually as children of God.  And as such, they have a new nature, and their deeds are evidence of that.  Those that are in rebellion are still in their sins, and are  still carnal, and their lawless deeds are evidence of their nature.  

The difference might not be easily seen.  On the surface, the regenerate and the unregenerate may look the same.  But God sees the heart.  And on the day when we all are judged at Christ’s appearing, God will separate the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the unrighteous, and the wheat from the tares. 

If you are here today and you have realized in your heart that you have never been born again spiritually through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, then you still have the opportunity to surrender to Jesus Christ today.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  Today Jesus invites you to join His kingdom.  I pray that you will call upon Him today and be delivered from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of Jesus Christ.  Don’t put it off.  Call upon the Lord today and be saved.