The Great Supper story illustrates that God's kingdom will be filled with unexpected guests who respond to His invitation, even when many who were initially invited refuse. The sermon begins by setting the historical and social context of Jesus' time in Palestine, highlighting economic and social divisions, and the spiritual darkness of the nation. It then delves into Jesus' interactions with Pharisees and Sadducees, emphasizing the importance of humility and the true nature of God's kingdom, contrasting it with human pride and exclusivity. The core lesson is that God's grace extends to all who accept His invitation, regardless of their background, and the sermon concludes with a call to embrace this inclusive vision of God's kingdom.
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Well, we certainly want to keep peace in the family. And maybe the ladies should remember there is a story in the Bible about a marriage feast and the wine at the end was better than the wine at the beginning. So you may be in for a special treat this morning. I would like during the morning sessions of this conference week to share with you some thoughts about A very special story the Lord Jesus shared with those who surrounded him, we refer to it as the Great Supper. Some scholars believe it should be placed on the same level as the story of the prodigal son.
No one ever thought that a father would run towards a worthless son. That was the shock of all the stories the Lord Jesus told. And no one ever dreamed that in a great supper when all the guests said, no, the Master would fill the house with those who never dreamed they would be there. So we would like to look at that, but as we have four sessions, I would like this morning not to deal specifically with the supper, but to take you back in your mind two thousand years ago to Palestine. I know some of you have gone there in recent years and you've seen the modern state of Israel.
If you had the opportunity to see the Bedouins out on the fields or into some of the very small rural villages, you might come fairly close to what it was like two thousand years ago. But in the Bible you have details about that world. I would like to look at it this morning and think of the economic differences between those who inhabited the land. They were not all on the same economic level. And then I would like to look at the social differences. There were so many things that divided people, one from another.
And I'd like to look at the spiritual need. There was a darkness in that nation of Israel that was dense, almost overpowering. And to those of us who look back, it seems so unbelievable. So I invite you this morning to read with me just a verse or two in Luke's Gospel Chapter Fourteen. And we'll notice how you have an introduction to this story. Luke's Gospel Chapter Fourteen, and beginning with verse one, Luke's Gospel, verse one.
Now it happened. That's an interesting phrase. Now it happened as he went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched him closely. And behold, there was a certain man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus answering, spoke to the lawyers and the Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Verse four, the opening words, And they kept silent. Then you have the man healed by the Lord Jesus.
And then the Lord Jesus goes on. You'll notice in passing, the man is healed, and it seems almost immediately he is dismissed. Because the issue is not the healing of this man. The real issue is, There are those who think they will be at the great messianic banquet, and they will not be there. And this is the main issue that comes out in this portion before you come to the great supper. So you read in verse five, and he answered them, saying, Which of you having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?
and they could not answer him regarding these things. Now I leave the reading there for a moment and go back and ask them questions. We have a ruler of the Pharisees. Many of you will be familiar with the Pharisees. They came from the masses of the people. Most of them were ordinary people who had made a decision to study the law, that is the Old Testament, and they became the well-known Bible teachers of that generation in Israel. They stood very strongly, both for the written and the oral traditions of the nation.
There are some very sad things that happened to the Pharisees. One king came on the scene in that intertestamental period and wanted Israel to be more like the people round about in the great Greco-Roman world, and the Pharisees said no. And eight hundred of them were taken and crucified. And as these men hung on the crosses dying, their wives and children were slaughtered before them. They represented that stubbornness. They believed in the ancient traditions, and they would not yield. You do have in New Testament times the Sadducees, and that is an entirely different group.
They belong to the high priestly and the wealthy families in Jerusalem. And though sometimes they came together in opposition to the Lord Jesus, they were really opposites. The men and the Pharisees, as I mentioned, believed the Old Testament The Sadducees did not believe the Old Testament. Only some books of the Old Testament, those of Moses, even there they had their doubts. They did not believe in resurrection. They did not believe in life after death. But they did believe in the now, and they managed the temple. And the temple was a great money-making machine for the Sadducees, the high priestly families, the wealthy families of Jerusalem.
There's a great gulf that separates the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but they were both known as religious leaders two thousand years ago. Now, the Lord Jesus went into the home of a ruler of the Pharisees. I can't be dogmatic, but I do know that many would suggest he was probably a member of the Supreme Council in Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin. He would be a very important person. not an average person, not an average Pharisee. He is a ruler of the Pharisees. That means he would have a larger home, a spacious home.
Very important as we begin to set the background for the Great Supper. This man did not live in a small home. He had a spacious home. And as the Lord Jesus went in, he went in to eat bread. Now that's a colloquial term. It simply means to enjoy a meal, and it was in the home of a ruler of the Pharisees. There are a lot of questions come to mind. Even those in high places were fascinated with Jesus. They didn't like him. They did not like what he was saying, but there was a fascination there. And there's more than one occasion when you find the Lord Jesus in a setting that was beyond his own background, born in Bethlehem, brought up in Nazareth, in a very small home.
The disciples all came, most of them from the fishing villages around the Sea of Galilee. They would live in very small, primitive homes. But every now and then you find the Lord Jesus in an entirely different situation. Here he is in the home of a ruler of the Pharisees. and he's there to enjoy with him a meal. Now, because it was the home of a man of certain standing and wealth, you have the implications in the story that this man had a room large enough for a table. Now, this may seem strange to all of us today, in our homes we all have tables, but in those homes that were small two thousand years ago, If there was a table, it would be a very small table, not much larger than the pulpit behind which I'm standing this morning.
But to have a proper table, you needed a spacious room. And you would find that the table would be placed in the form of a U. If I can take the chapel as an illustration, but we must reduce it in our minds, you have the two arms of a U. And at the circle, down where the table is there, that's where the host would sit. And down the two arms, you would have couches with pillows. You had to have a spacious room for a table like that. And the Lord Jesus went into this home. It would be that type of a table.
Now, when the Lord Jesus was there, I'm not going to suggest to you this morning he felt out of his environment, although sometimes I wonder, even spiritually, these were not his friends. These were his antagonists. Also, from his own background, not many times would he be in a situation like that. As a matter of fact, in the New Testament, the word table is used very seldom. I'm thinking of the Gospels primarily. And you have at least four cases I'd like to share them with you this morning. There's one in Matthew's Gospel about a woman from Canaan. Now this is one of those stories that really shocks you when you read it.
And you just wonder why the Lord Jesus did things like this. He took the disciples and he went up into the area of Tyre and Sidon. We call it Lebanon today. outside of the Jewish territory, in Gentile territory. And up there, there is a descendant of the ancient enemies of Israel, a Canaanite woman. And she has a child, and the child is demon-possessed. And she comes to the Lord Jesus, pleading for help. Now that's the background, and as I share it with you, you can imagine any Jews who were present with the Lord Jesus would be wondering, what will he do now in Gentile territory with a Gentile?
Well, the woman comes to the Lord Jesus and she says, Have mercy on me, O Lord Son of David. My daughter is severely demon-possessed. And the Lord Jesus? did not answer a word. Now this is so unlike him. He always seemed to be compassionate. He would reach out and help those round about him. Here's a woman in a desperate situation. And she cries. And she recognizes he's the son of David. And the Lord Jesus did not answer her a word.
And you have the impression that though the Bible just mentions the one cry, she must have done this repeatedly to the point that the disciples were absolutely frustrated. This woman was hounding them and crying out with a message, Help me, I need help, son of David. He never answered a word. So he came. Pardon me, the disciples came to the Lord Jesus, and they urged him, saying, Send her away, for she cries out after us. Now deal gently with that phrase.
There are times when the disciples formed the barrier between those who wanted to see the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus. I'm not sure that that is the case here. The reason I would raise the doubt, the answer the Lord Jesus gives to the disciples has nothing to do about sending her away. He doesn't say, I can't send her away. Instead, he addresses the issue of why he didn't speak to her. And I think maybe what the disciples were really saying was, do what she wants and send her away. We don't want her hounding us day after day."
The Lord Jesus answered, and He said, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now that may seem a callous statement, looking at a woman whose heart broken and desperate, and the Lord Jesus did not address her, and then He tells the disciples why. I was not sent to the Gentile world. I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It was at that moment that this lady who came, first of all, with the right terminology, son of David, she was a Canaanite, but she knew her history, and she finally accepted he is the son of the great King David.
I'm sure she had some thought of Messiah in using that phrase. She's heard the conversation, and now she comes and she drops all of the religious terminology, and she stands before the Lord Jesus, and she simply says, Lord, help me. A cry like that would move anyone. And then the Lord Jesus said, It is not good to take the children's bread, and this will startle you and throw it to the little dogs. Now the Lord Jesus simply picked up the language of the day.
The Jews referred to the Gentiles as dogs. If we take that diminutive form, little dogs, then he softens the term. But he recognizes there is a difference between Israel and the Gentile nations. And it's not right to take the children's bread and give it to those outside. It's not that they will not receive something, but I think the subject is precedence. It's the Jews first, then the Gentiles. You'll find that in John's Gospel, salvation comes from the Jews. You will find it in the writings of Paul, the Jews first, and then the Gentiles.
It all comes from a conversation like this. But this woman is listening. And as she hears that term, these are her words. And she says, Yes, Lord, for even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table. There's the word table. This is a master with a proper type of home and a table and abundance of food. And in that setting, she says to the Lord Jesus, Lord, yes, for even the little dogs eat from the supply of the master's table.
The Lord Jesus, and I don't think it comes out in English the way we'd like it to, is just overcome with emotions. That this Canaanite woman would have that great faith, doesn't come pleading any personal merit doesn't even now use the language of the Jews, the Son of David. She simply come and said, Lord, help me. I don't merit anything. Just help me. And recognizes that everything that comes comes from the master's table. This is a real table. It's a table of abundance. And we can't leave the story without noticing the words of the Lord Jesus.
He answered and said, O woman, great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire, and her daughter was healed as of that hour. Now that's what's going to happen in the story of the Great Supper. The unexpected people are going to come in and fill the eternal messianic banquet hall. The whole message shocks the Jews. They can't believe it. There's another place where the word table is used, and it's in connection with Lazarus. If you ever want to find in the Bible a stark contrast, and may I say this reverently, the Lord Jesus was a master storyteller in just a few words.
He can see, he can bring you to a point where you visualize the whole situation. Listen now to this. There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. Now, in those few words, you couldn't possibly paint a wealthy man in a better way, dressed in purple. That color purple was made generally from little organisms that came from the sea, little seashell type of fish, and they had to gather them, and then they had to crush them and get out this liquid which made the purple die.
Of course, there was a better purple, and that came from Thyatira, and that was the weed that grew all round about that community, and Lydia was in that business. And she went to Philippi with her purple dyed cloth. And why? Well, that was a military retirement center. You had officers there who fought the wars, had their bounty. They had money. And because of that, they would dress in purple. Anyone who dressed in purple was telling everyone around about them, I am a wealthy person. This man dressed in purple. and the material was fine linen, nothing better.
And he did not have a special meal once a week, but every day his table was laden with food. For you read, he fared sumptuously every day. And outside on the street there was a beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at the gate And you make that contrast in your mind. You don't want to look at Lazarus very much, a man whose body is covered with sores. You would just turn in revulsion, the very opposite of the wealthy man. And it is said of Lazarus, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table.
This is a real table. It's filled with everything. And all the poor man wanted were a few crumbs. Another place where the word is used. And this is a remarkable case in that upper room where the Lord Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper. I've thought often about that, and I do not have all the answers. You know the story. He said to the disciples, I want you to go into the town. You'll see a man carrying a pitcher of water. That would be easy to see. Men did not usually do that. Only women carried the pictures of water. So when they came in, sure enough, there's the man, and they followed him, and he took them to the room, and he showed it to them.
Now, I would like to have been there. I wonder what the expression was like on their faces when they saw this room. Remember where they came from. If you've gone to Capernaum, They've showed you the outline of Peter's home, just a little square where the foundation is. No upper rooms, and certainly no spacious rooms, and they're taken into an upper room, and the Scriptures say it was a large upper room. Then you have this word, furnished, not an empty room, a comfortable room, The couches were there. The table was there. The cushions were there.
And then you have prepared. Someone had gone in and prepared that room, probably the owner. So you have a large room. It's a furnished room, and it has been lovingly prepared. Some of us are sure the Lord Jesus made those arrangements, but we wonder who was the person who had a room like that. and so quickly gave it to the Lord Jesus. And that's where they met for that last Passover scene. And when they also were introduced to the Lord's Supper, and the Lord Jesus said on that occasion, But behold, the hand of my betrayer is with me on the table.
The table was there, a low table with the couches. Not like you see in the paintings today. But that great old Roman style of that world of two thousand years ago, the disciples were there. It would be for them probably a very special occasion, not often in their lives would they have found themselves in a setting like that. And the other time it is used in the Gospels is of the greatest catalogical messianic supper that we'd like to deal with later on in the week. But just listen this morning to the words of the Lord Jesus and understand them in that setting of two thousand years ago.
And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my Father bestowed one on me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom. Now that's the real table. That's the messianic banquet. The Lord Jesus is the host. and they will sit or recline at His table on that coming day, as all of those of us who know and love the Lord Jesus. So when we think of the ruler of the Pharisees, we must think in our minds, we must visualize relatively wealthy people reclining in Greco-Roman style in this spacious room for a formal banquet.
This was a special occasion. And I've emphasized it this morning because this is the background that leads into the story of the Great Supper. This may have been the Great Supper. The Messianic Supper, of course, is better by far than any banquet the disciples ever attended with the Lord Jesus here in this world. Now we read they watched him closely. The New International Version reads he was being carefully watched. Now you can't help but ask the question, did these Pharisees plant the man with the dropsy right in front of the Lord Jesus?
Now you can't confirm it by the grammatical construction of these sentences, but there certainly is reason to think they did that. They put the dropsy man there and then they watched him carefully. It was the Sabbath day. Would he heal him? Would he not heal him? We've read what happened and they couldn't answer him a word. It's stated twice. They kept silent. They could not answer him. He healed the man. But because of their attitudes, the real subject is, you think you belong to the kingdom of God. You're looking forward to the great messianic banquet, but I'm telling you, you're not going to be there.
And that is a solemn message two thousand years ago. It has this application even in our world today. When they sat down, or when they reclined at the table, the Lord Jesus took the opportunity to teach them a lesson, and I'll read it to you in that portion. When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place. Now, that's from my new King James Version that I use for my ministry. But listen to Young's literal translation. When thou mayest be called by anyone to marriage feast, thou mayest not recline on the first couch, lest the more honorable than you come along and so on.
You can't see it in your mind. You're invited to a feast. You get there early. You want to be right up here at the front. right next to this you, right at the curve. The host is there. You don't want to sit away down there, and you make your way up as close as you can to be right beside him. Darby translates that portion, When thou art invited by anyone to a wedding, do not lay thyself down in the first place at the table, right at the top of the line. They all wanted that place of preeminence. Now why do we highlight this now? Because that was the same feeling they projected towards the messianic banquet.
They would certainly be in the first places. The Lord Jesus reminds them, it's not going to be like that. And he adds these words, For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored. Now look following the other writers of the New Testament, often out of great respect for the name of God, uses the passive form. You don't speak directly of what God is going to do. So he says, for the proud will be humbled. He doesn't tell you who will humble them. And he adds, and the humble will be honored. But the truth is the subject of the verse is gone.
And there is a day coming when God, according to his will, will exalt those who should be exalted, and He will humble those who have exalted themselves. It is a very serious word. One other thing in preparation for the Great Supper, you have a conversation in chapter thirteen of Luke's Gospel. It has to do with this coming day of the gathering in of those who belong to God and the great festival. I'm going to read part of chapter thirteen to you. You read down in verse twenty-eight, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and yourselves thrust out.
And then you have these beautiful words. They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south. and sit down in the kingdom of God. Now that's the great in-gathering. We look forward to that day. Revelation five, from every tongue and nation and culture and language, they follow the Lamb right up into the presence of God. But then in chapter thirteen of Luke and verse thirty-one, reference is made to the death of the Lord Jesus. And you read, on that very day some Pharisees came saying to him, Get out and depart from here, for Herod wants to kill you.
So we've come from the in-gathering, the great banquet feast, now to reference of the death of the Lord Jesus. And that's followed in verse thirty-two by reference to the great day. And he said to them, Go tell that fox, Behold, I cast out demons, and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day, that's the great day, and the third day I shall be perfected. Now notice the in-gathering, reference to the death of the Lord Jesus, and then mention of the great day. Now this is repeated again, but in the reverse order.
For down in verse thirty-three you read, Nevertheless, I must journey today, tomorrow, and the day following, or the day coming. This is the third day. For it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem. Now just follow me in your mind. The great in gathering, reference to the death of the Lord Jesus, and then the great day. Now we start again, but we start with the great day, the day following. Then you have reference to the death of the Lord Jesus. Verse thirty-four, the first part. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones, those who are sent to her.
We're coming back up now. Reference has been made to the great day, and now to the death of the Lord Jesus. And then you come again to the end gatherings. And you read in verse thirty-four the second part, how often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing. That's all background information for the story of the Great Supper. They said, no, they did not want to attend, but there is going to be a great banquet on that coming day. As I closed this morning, It just breaks your heart.
You've gone up Mount Olive, many of you, the Mount of Olives, you've stood there on the brow and you've looked over at Jerusalem. You can still see something of the outline of the old city. The Lord Jesus was there. He looked out on the city and he wept unashamedly. His greatest desire was that the eternal banquet would come down and start in Jerusalem. But the thing is, they were not interested. And he stood there and wept. The very, very solemn lesson is that when you make a decision, God does not change it.
Jesus did not call on legions of angels. did not by force try to set up the kingdom of God. The people said, No, we do not want this man to reign over us. And Jesus stood there and poured out his heart in tears. He wept over that city. Now, it's not identical. I must emphasize that it is not identical. But many of us know something of that in our lifetimes. I went to Germany in nineteen sixty-six to the World Congress on Evangelism. I remember walking to the Brandenburg Gate, climbing up on the platform and looking over the wall, and on the other side was East Berlin and East Germany.
Afterwards I went into East Germany, not too many miles from are Martin Luther. revolutionize the Christian world by bringing us back to the message of the Bible, that is, all by the grace of God. And that Reformation has touched our lives. We, in a sense, are the spiritual descendants of the Reformation. But in nineteen sixty-six, we were just a few years after the Second World War. And I remember I wasn't there with thoughts of recrimination. I wasn't there to put blame on anyone. I was there with a deep sadness.
And I remember standing on the platform and asking myself, how did it happen? This is where the Reformation was born. This is where the Bible was picked up and read again and the message burst out and filled and changed the hearts of men and women. But the vision had gone. And the Second World War indicates how far we went from the message of the Reformation. You may think about Scotland. Some of you come from Scotland. You may remember John Knox. Some of us wish he hadn't been quite so strong.
Some would say even a little violent. But then you see, we've never seen men and women strangle to death for their faith. We've never seen them burned at the stake. or left a languish in the jails. And though he was strong on the issues, he was on the right side. I went last summer with my wife to the old church building where Samuel Rutherford ministered. The man who wrote those beautiful words, Oh Christ, he is the fountain, the deep, sweet well of love and so on. It's in rooms today. He died in prison for his faith Men who knew the Word of God, how far Scotland has gone from that today.
Think about England, William Tyndale, strangled to death as a heretic, the man who translated the New Testament and the Pentateuch and really set the foundation for the King James Version. Men like John Wesley were in London last year. And down there on Aldergate Street, and we saw the plaque. That was the place where he heard the message about Romans, about the love of God, and his heart was strangely warmed. And then he traveled around England, and thousands were brought into the kingdom of God. Or you can think about North America, George Whitefield, who preached in the colonies.
Many came to know God. You can think of a whole host of men. In our generation, I heard just two weeks ago Dr. Billy Graham interviewed by Larry King, and in that interview he spoke to this man who's reached more people in his lifetime than anyone else has in all of history with a message of God's good news. And he said to him, Billy, do you think you've achieved your objective? And Billy Graham sort of shook his head. He said, we haven't seen yet what we want to see. We stand and weep today over our Jerusalem's. The Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem.
For those who have heard, many have responded, but so many have rejected the message of God. The message then of the Great Supper is that the Lord Jesus tells us, in spite of it all, God will fill the eternal banquet hall. To overflowing. with those who never dreamed they would be there. Father, bless us now as we separate. Help us to catch the passion of your love, the breadth of your vision, as we wait for that day when from every tribe and nation and tongue and language, men and women will come who never dreamed they were destined for eternal glory.
And we give you the thanks, and we worship you this morning in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.