The Great Supper illustrates God's expansive invitation to His kingdom, challenging human exclusivity and highlighting divine inclusivity. The sermon begins by examining Jesus' teachings on humility at feasts and the importance of inviting the poor and marginalized, contrasting this with the self-serving tendencies of many. It then expands to the ultimate "Great Supper" of God's kingdom, emphasizing that God's mercy and invitation extend to all people, regardless of their background or perceived worthiness, as depicted in Old Testament prophecies and the New Testament community. The core lesson is that God's love is broader than human understanding, and His kingdom banquet is for everyone, urging believers to reflect this inclusive love in their own lives.
Restored with Diffio
Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 2.51 → restored 4.37
of the environment, of the social levels, of the customs of that time, because this all forms an important part of the background to the story of the Great Supper. This morning I would look rather at the immediate background, not the general background, and I'm going to take you to Luke's Gospel Chapter Fourteen, and we'll read again some of the things that happened that led up to the Lord Jesus telling the story of the Great Supper. Tomorrow and Friday morning, in God's goodwill, we will look specifically at the story, take it apart gently, and try and understand the components and then put it together as one of the great stories he shared with those who surrounded him.
In Luke's Gospel, chapter fourteen and verse seven, we read, So he told a parable to those who were invited when he noted how they chose the best places, saying to them, When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him. And he who invited you and him come and say to you, Give place to this man. and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes, he may say to you, Friend, go up higher.
Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Then he also said to him who invited him, When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind, and you will be blessed.
because they cannot repay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just. Now when one of those who sat at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, Blessed is he who shall eat in the kingdom of God. Then the Lord Jesus said to him, A certain man gave a great supper and invited many And the Lord Jesus takes them into the story of the Great Supper. Talking about the wedding feast, as we noticed yesterday, it was that common attitude to try and get the best place.
We've read this morning how the Lord Jesus dealt with that. But beyond just the story of the supper, that particular supper, and those who are invited and perhaps some who push to get into the first place, there is a much deeper lesson. It will come out in the story of the Great Supper. There are some who are so convinced that they merit the best place in the kingdom of God. Not an ordinary dinner, not even a special dinner here in this world, but that great banquet that lies ahead They are absolutely convinced they merit the best place.
There's a warning to them that they may be humbled on that coming day, taken down to the lowest place. But then the Lord Jesus, again speaking to those who are around him, and especially to the man who organized this dinner, he said to this man, Now when you have a dinner or a supper, Don't think only of your brothers and your sisters and your rich neighbors and so on. And I'm sure this would come as a shock. You would never see this in ordinary life in Palestine two thousand years ago. When you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.
But on that coming day of the resurrection of the just, You could have spent a long time in Palestine going from village to village every time you heard about a special dinner and go and look in the door. You never would have seen the blind and the main present at a service or a supper like that. So the Lord Jesus is saying to this man, I would like you to reflect in your attitude the character of God. What you're doing is very selfish. you're inviting those who are like you. You like to be with those who are like you. Now look into the heart of God, and God invites into His presence those who are not like Him.
They're broken, maimed, blind, oppressed, but He welcomes them into His presence. I don't think the man who organized this supper would be very happy with those words. He might have even felt offended. But in your hymn book, you have those beautiful words written by Faber who lived a long time ago. There's a wideness in God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea. There's a kindness in His justice, which is more than liberty. For the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind.
and the heart of the eternal is most wonderfully kind. When you think of those you love who are not yet into the kingdom of God as far as you know, please remember the last chapter has not been written yet, and there is a wideness in God's mercy. There's a kindness that goes beyond our understanding. This is the character and the heart of God. Now, these two stories or narratives or exchange and conversation that we've noticed this morning, they took place when the dinner was over.
Life, I think, was more simple in Palestine two thousand years ago. You didn't eat and then leave and rush back to some other thing that you were doing. There was always a moment of relaxation after the meal, and you would sit and you would talk. Mrs. Duncan Reed in the Dominican Republic, who was a mother to us and who passed away, I believe, around the year nineteen ninety, she was about ninety years of age herself. In the latter years of her life, her memory began to go. And one day I remember coming into the home just after Duncan Reed had died and just the month that she remained before she was taken back to the United Kingdom.
And I came in and saw my wife looking very, very solemn. Mrs. Reed's daughter was there and she was crying. And there was another member of the family, a niece, and she was perturbed. And I wondered what was wrong. And here was Mrs. Reed. I'd never seen her like this before, standing in the middle of her living room and saying in a strong voice, I want you to take me home. So my wife said, Mrs. Reed, you're home. This is your furniture. These are the curtains on the windows. This is your home. And she answered and said, this is my summer home. I want to go to my real home.
And that was in Irvine, in Ayrshire, Scotland. She was back in her childhood. And the Lord helped me that day. I said, Mrs. Reed, I'll take you home. And we got her purse. I put her in the car, drove her around Porta Plata for twenty minutes. and brought her back and she thanked me profusely for bringing her home. But in her mind, she was back in Ayrshire. She would talk to me about it. We would have the meals. And after the meal, we never rushed away. We all had our Bibles and we read. And my father led us in conversation. She said, sometimes when I was very young, excuse me, I would put down my head on the table and go to sleep.
The conversation went on so long. There wasn't that rush we have today. Well, it was like that in Palestine. You relaxed and you talked with your friends. There is one incident that is troublesome to us today. Perhaps some of you know Gore Vidal, a great American writer who lives today in angry exile over in France. One of its latest books called Live from Golgotha. He attributes to the Lord Jesus and the disciples scandalous behavior. Now, part of that theory comes from the fact that it is written that John laid his head on the breast of the Lord Jesus, that the Lord Jesus loved him.
And with those comments, men have taken this into areas that we would rather not talk about in public. But what you have here is that after supper time when you relaxed. Now they were on these couches semi-inclined. And the fact that it is stated that John placed his head on the breast of the Lord Jesus primarily means he occupied the place beside the Lord Jesus. And when the meal was over, it was not that uncommon for John to rest his head for a few moments on the chest of the Lord Jesus. Some have used this phrase, the new international version, leaning back against Jesus.
And the term that Jesus loved him, you must remember that scholars build a good case that John and Jesus, through the mothers, were cousins. There was possibly a family relationship there. John was special in the life of the Lord Jesus. But what you really have is that moment of relaxation. And you talk and you chat on that last supper, on the eve of the death of the Lord Jesus. John was in his usual position. We don't know where Peter was, but he was somewhere else on his couch. And he signaled to John right beside the Lord Jesus.
You ask him the question. Who is the betrayer? And you have all of that sense of that conversation around the table after a meal. Well, it was in that setting that the Lord Jesus talked about the wedding feast. And he talked about those who should invite those who were less fortunate to enjoy the blessings of their home. This was the table talk after the meal. And it's at that moment when there's one who is present. who's heard all of the conversation. He just kind of bursts out, and he says to those who are present, but especially to the Lord, blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.
His mind now had gone to the future. At least he seemed to understand that behind these comments the Lord Jesus was making, There was more involved than a special dinner in some town in Palestine. He's talking about the great messianic banquet. And he simply says, Blessed is the one who will eat bread, who will participate in that eternal meal in the presence of God. Now we have to ask the question, is there a sense of arrogance in this comment? Is the man by saying this simply recognizing there's no doubt I will be there on that coming day?
Why would he think that way? Well, Paul might help us when he writes to the Romans about his fellow Jewish companions and friends. Paul says, and I use his language, to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises of God. Well, if that's your heritage, maybe you really think you have a special inn and you will be there on that coming day. By the way, those words of Paul, you can take them and put them right back into the heart of Saul of Tarsus.
That's exactly what he thought. I have all these blessings. I will stand on that coming day. in the presence of God. So I wonder, and I make no final judgment, was there a touch of arrogance in the comment made by this man? But one thing is true, it will be a blessed experience on the coming day to be present. When God comes down to dwell with men, you know these words so well, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them. and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
There shall be no more death, no more sorrow, no crying. There shall be no more pain for the former things that have passed away. It will be a blessed experience. In this point, the man was absolutely right. Blessed is He who will eat bread. in the kingdom of God. Now, let's go back and try and capture what it would mean to a man like that. You see, he would be nourished in the portions that come from the Old Testament that deal with this great coming banquet. I'm going to take you to Isaiah chapter twenty-five, and I'm going to read from verse six.
It is one of those very special portions that deals with a meal on the coming day. Isaiah twenty-five in verse six. And in this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for, now please notice as I read, five times the word all is used. And this is very significant. And in this mountain referring to Jerusalem, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of choice meat. a feast of wines on the leaves, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the leaves.
And He will destroy on this mountain the surface of the covering cast over all people and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever. and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. The rebuke of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. Now the man who made the common, blessed is he who will eat meat in the kingdom of God. He would know this portion from memory. For some of us, the phrase, well-refined wines on the leaves, may be a little bit difficult, so I would read from another translation a feast of well-aged wines, well-aged wines strained clear.
Now I emphasize this because for the ordinary person, and in those days they did drink mine a week wine with their meals, it was not that type of wine. You could see the dregs in the glass. Only the wealthy people had the well-refined wine, strained clear. No drinks. You never tasted anything like that. That was beyond your means. But when he talks to the Prophet about that coming great banquet, it's the very best wine of the highest quality. You might want to note that in Chapter XXIV, where the judgment of God is dealt with, The wine fails.
But when you come to this chapter, the great messianic feast, it is the highest quality of wine, the choice pieces of meat. There is a new translation out, and I'm going to read it this morning because I think it may capture the sense more in the language we're used to today. In Jerusalem, the Lord Almighty will spread a wonderful feast for everyone around the world. It will be a delicious feast of good food, with clear, well-aged wine and choice beef. In that day he will remove the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth.
He will swallow up death forever. The sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears. He will remove forever all insults and mockery against His land and His people. The Lord has spoken. Now, some of those terms are part of our ordinary vocabulary. Choice beef, good food. Well, these are used, but please remember, the people who would read them or would hear the words read to them in the days of Isaiah, they never ate like that. like the people in my country, the most of them, whom we love so much in the Lord, their basic diet will be rice and beans.
Sometimes they might have a little bit of meat, not often, and sometimes if they're not too expensive, they might have a plant, and this is their basic diet. Now, if you live in that type of situation and you read about good food, and choice beef and well-refined wine without dredge. You're listening to something you've never experienced in your life. It's too good to be true. In the New Testament, what comes to mind is the story of the prodigal son. When he comes back home, the father gives the word, kill the fatted calf.
Now, no wonder the older son was incensed and indignant. That was only for someone very, very important. And here's a worthless son that comes back, and the father says, Take that fatted calf. We're going to have a great celebration. Well, you get it in the Old Testament. You get it in the New Testament. God is going to reach out to the whole world and bring men and women into his presence. The thought is not gluttony. The thought is you're going to experience something you've never experienced before. This is the table of God, and you will be sustained forever in His presence on that coming day.
I think about it often and realize that our own imaginations fail us so often when we try and understand the banquet. But going back to the banquet, please notice, even in Isaiah, it's to all the peoples of the world. This was a major problem in the mind of the Jewish scholars. They never really understood it, or if they understood it, they did not want to accept it. Isaiah tends to blend the mission of Israel into the mission of the coming Messiah. They're not identical, but I think what he's telling us is it was God's intention.
that the mission of Israel would be consistent with the mission of the great Messiah. He would come to bless the whole world. They should have been a vehicle for blessing to all the nations round about them, but they did not do that. Please listen to the words from the Old Testament. It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob. That is too small a thing. And God adds, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel, I will also give you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be my salvation to the end of the earth.
But the Jewish scholars, they tended to bring it down to themselves. They never really reached out to the world that surrounded them. The Lord Jesus said, pardon me, in the Old Testament on Isaiah, He said, I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness and will hold your hand. He didn't send them alone. Think of the Great Commission and, lo, I am with you right to the end of the world. It comes from the thought in Isaiah. I will hold your hand. I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house.
And again in Isaiah, which is a great evangelistic prophecy, three times in chapter forty-four, you have the words, You are my witnesses. Remember the Lord Jesus? In the moment of the ascension, you are my witnesses. Well, it comes from Isaiah. Three times, you are my witnesses. Therefore, you are my witnesses, says the Lord, that I am God. You are my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? Indeed, there is no other rock. I know not one. But Israel never came up to that great expectancy. They never reached out to the world around about them.
So we go now to the times of the Lord Jesus. And he's in Nazareth. That's where he grew up. He goes to the synagogue. They all knew him there. He took down some of the manuscripts and he began to read. And he read a portion like this, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."
And he closed the book. and he gave it back to the attendants, and he sat down, and everyone looked at him. They wanted to know what he meant by reading that portion. Well, he told them, for he made some comments, and he spoke about Elijah. And Elijah went to a widow in Sidon, outside of Jerusalem, outside of Judea, beyond Galilee. He went to Sidon. and to a widow, and Elijah brought her the blessing of God. Then he talked about Naaman, how the prophet went to this man who was from Syria and brought him the blessing of God.
And the audience in his hometown was so incensed they tried to take him and kill him by pushing him over the brow of a cliff. The very thought that the blessings of God that have come to us by tradition should be shared with people in strange lands for that reason they tried to kill him. It's surprising how deep-rooted that selfishness can be. I know God, His blessings are for me, and I don't really care about those who are outside. Well, they did try to kill him. I've jotted down in an article that I've just written these words at times, they may have acknowledged that there is only one God while struggling to box Him in to their own way of thinking.
And again, they may have theoretically believed He is the Lord of the nations while passionately straining to keep Him to themselves. They did not want to recognize that God's intention was to reach out and bless all the peoples of the world. I speak gently now in the early Christian community. This was a hard lesson to learn. Peter is a man of stature. We don't stand back and arrogantly criticize him. He's one of the chief apostles. And yet there was a time when he went back into the old habit and he did so in the presence of Paul.
And Paul stood right up, and he spoke to Peter, and behind Peter was James and Barnabas. They were doing the same thing. They were eating alone on this side of the room, and the Gentile Christians were left over on the other side of the room. And Paul says, And before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him. So that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.
This is not just a Jewish problem. It is a problem that has come down through the centuries, even in the Christian community. We sometimes may give lip service. Oh, yes, the gospel is for all, but how often we would rather just be with the people who are like us and keep God all to ourselves and the blessings to ourselves. But there is an eternal reality. It comes out in the Great Supper. We've seen it already this morning in the Old Testament. I will give you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be my salvation to the ends of the earth. I will hold your hand and give you as a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, bring the prisoners out, and free those who sit in darkness.
And I am sure that in Hebrews, this is a book we call it to the Hebrews, that when the author says, that God is bringing many sons to glory. In that beautiful phrase, He is thinking of the blind and the prisoners and those who sit in darkness. God will bring from all the peoples of the world this great multitude into the presence of God. Now there is a beautiful picture of that in the Revelation five. We all know the portion I sometimes visualize it in my mind, but I do it from my perspective.
When I read words like this and they sing the new song and they say, You were slain and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and I see the Dominicans and I see the Haitians so different from the Dominicans. And I see other Latin Americans and we go to New York and they come from all parts of the world. And you can visualize in your mind this beautiful procession of men and women from all the distinct races and cultures and languages of the world. They follow the Lord Jesus right up to the throne of the ancient of days.
Now the New Testament very clearly tells us don't wait just for that day. The beauty of that eternal wonder is to be displayed now. Listen to Paul. But now you yourselves are to put off all these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie one to another since you have put off the old man and his deeds and have put on the new man. who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created Him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, synthian, slave, nor free.
But Christ is all and in all. So I'm going to close today trying to capture some of the meaning of those terms. This was a community of people so different than anything the world had ever seen. It was not imposed by brutal military force. It happened spontaneously as the result of the Spirit's work in the world. It is true that in ancient times by military power they would try and make you fit in. to a special niche. Take, for instance, the Assyrians. They came and took the northern kingdom, broke them up into little groups, and they forced them into small communities in the northern part of Mesopotamia.
They wanted to destroy their national identity. They did it by brute military force. Nothing like that in the Christian community. Then you can think, of the fact that they came together not because of worldly things like sensual pleasure. There were clubs dedicated to that in the world. That's why they came together. Nothing like that. They didn't come together to try and protect their trades. There were many guilds in Asia. Nothing like that in the Christian church. This is a new community. And the free man and a slave, they exchanged the holy kiss of salutation.
Never seen in the world outside of the Christian community that a slave and a freeman would embrace and kiss as Christians. Nothing like that. Or a Jewish woman who would go off to the meeting and have in her arm the hand or the arm of a Gentile woman. Nothing like that in the ancient world. Slaves? Ever trying to imagine Philemon after he receives a letter from Paul? And here's Onesimus, who's run away, but he's come back, transformed. He's a Christian. They meet his brothers.
I would like to have been there. The first day they walked together to the church meetings. A slave and a free man. The world had never seen anything like that. Then you have the barbarians. Now the barbarians, anyone who had not been assimilated by the Greek language and the Greek culture, didn't matter whether you were well educated or what language you spoke or how wealthy you were. If you did not speak Greek and were not familiar with the Greek culture, you were a barbarian. Paul says they're welcome in the church. The Synthian. This is almost hilarious.
He was the most outlandish of all the peoples at that particular time. He came from an area northwest of the Black Sea and originally from Central Asia. They dressed differently. Their language was strange. Paul says they belong in the Christian church. And in that beautiful community you have a foretaste of that coming day. I close today. The Great Supper is told against that background, the Jews did not understand them. I was brought up in Vancouver, Canada, and in our church, they all came from Scotland. Well, there were one or two from Northern Ireland.
I think there was one Englishman. They all came. They just moved a little bit of the British Empire right over to Vancouver, and you'd hear the accents. I had a friend I led him to the Lord, my age of Italian descent, and I took him for a weekend to be with my grandparents, who came from the Kingdom of Fife in Scotland. And my friend was in the home, and after five minutes he leaned over and said, Jim, what language are they speaking? That was the type of church. And then God sent us an Italian. who could barely speak the English language. And it was one of the best things that ever happened to us, especially to me as a young man.
All of a sudden I realized, no, no, this is not for a select group of people. And that man would stand up in the communion service, difficulty speaking our language, and you had to listen intently as he gave us praise to God for the Lord Jesus. The odd time, not often he would stand up in the communion service and just for five minutes, maybe ten, would give a little word about the Lord Jesus. Again, you listened intently, but the practical implication was this gospel message is going out to the whole world. And as I think of that today in Minneapolis, in the U.S.
Congress of Evangelism, I was there with a friend from Vancouver. We sat in one of the galleries looking right down the main aisle. And as we sat waiting for the service to begin, the people came on the platform, including Dr. Billy Graham. And I looked down and here was the strangest thing. A couple were walking down the aisle. You could tell they were not properly dressed. The man had a long coat. I don't know when he'd last washed his hair. It was long. and they walked down and the lady she found a seat right near the front and she sat down but there wasn't one for the man so he came to the front and he turned and in a moment he was surrounded by twenty ushers they'd all been trained and they wondered who he was and in that very scientific way in a circle he just moved him right out of the auditorium we all sat and wondered what had happened Well, there'd been a threat that day against Dr.
Billy Graham's life, and they were all nervous, and they wondered, would this strange character be the person? Of course, he was not the person, and you don't often hear this, but there was a public apology, and the man was brought back and given an honored place, and the whole audience erupted in applause. We so quickly want to put the Cynthia out. the barbarian out, anyone who is not like us. The message of the Great Supper is God has opened his heart to everyone and they're welcome in his kingdom and at his banquet forever. Father, bless us now as we separate and go out into our activities today.
Again, we pray that your love and your mercy and your grace will fill our hearts as we look forward to the day of great blessing. when we sit down in table fellowship with you forever and ever. And we give thanks in his name. Amen.