"THE BANQUET TABLE IS SET": Highways and Hedges Must Come, NOW!

@Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell of @2819 Church is a SIGN and a WONDER in these LAST DAYS — as a unique attestation to The INEXHAUSTIBLE HEADSHIP of JESUS CHRIST's — END TIME AGENDA!

Although I haven't been FORMERLY INTRODUCED to him (never physically met him) I KNOW HIM (by the Spirit) — and as I woke up this morning to THIS WORD…

YOUTUBE LINK: (https://www.youtube.com/live/yPUBXUvPnWU?si=XupB_yZG7tWZlFvT)

BIBLICAL CONTEXT FOR THE BANQUET TABLE

"Jesus responded by telling still more stories. "God's kingdom," he said, "is like a king who threw a wedding banquet for his son. He sent out servants to call in all the invited guests. And they wouldn't come! "He sent out another round of servants, instructing them to tell the guests, 'Look, everything is on the table, the prime rib is ready for carving. Come to the feast!' "They only shrugged their shoulders and went off, one to weed his garden, another to work in his shop. The rest, with nothing better to do, beat up on the messengers and then killed them. The king was outraged and sent his soldiers to destroy those thugs and level their city. "Then he told his servants, 'We have a wedding banquet all prepared but no guests. The ones I invited weren't up to it. Go out into the busiest intersections in town and invite anyone you find to the banquet.' The servants went out on the streets and rounded up everyone they laid eyes on, good and bad, regardless. And so the banquet was on—every place filled. "When the king entered and looked over the scene, he spotted a man who wasn't properly dressed. He said to him, 'Friend, how dare you come in here looking like that!' The man was speechless. Then the king told his servants, 'Get him out of here—fast. Tie him up and ship him to hell. And make sure he doesn't get back in.' "That's what I mean when I say, 'Many get invited; only a few make it.'"" (Matthew‬ ‭22‬:‭1‬-‭14‬ ‭MSG‬‬)

PASTOR PHILIP's PASSIONATE PROCLAMATION

When people ask whether open-air preaching is effective in today's context, I find it helpful to consider what the Bible says about humans.

Are people in the twenty-first century really that different from the people in Jeremiah's or Paul's day?

The Bible answers with a resounding no.

People in ancient times felt the same natural aversion to the gospel as the people in our own day do — hence why Jeremiah was thrown into a well and why Paul was stoned and beaten with rods.

Since the fall of Adam, man is born in sin, which means we have a nature hostile to God until we are "born from above" (John 3:3 NET).

This is why the Bible says, "No one understands; no one seeks for God" (Romans 3:11).

Thus, for man to be saved, God has commissioned us to go and seek them (Matthew 28:18–20 — share the gospel with them.

Expose them to the message of Christ. "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17).

"How are they to hear without someone preaching?" (Romans 10:14).

"The gospel . . . is the power of God for salvation" (Romans 1:16).

WEDDING FEAST PREPARATIONS

Jesus Christ often taught using parables, and just like His disciples, modern readers sometimes need help decoding the comparisons they make. In the Parable of the Wedding Feast, Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a wedding feast for a king's son. A pivotal scene in the story focuses on the improper attire of a guest and his subsequent punishment. The interpretation of the parable that aligns best with Jesus' articulation of its main point, which other Scripture supports, is that the wedding garment represents the righteousness of Christ.

The Parable of the Wedding Feast consists of two scenes, and together they provide important context for understanding the meaning of the wedding garment. In the first scene, the king sent his servants to summon selected guests to the banquet, but they ignored the invitation as some returned to work and others mistreated and killed the servants. This part of the parable represents Israel's collective rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. Consequently, the king punished the killers and destroyed their city. Then, depicting the inclusion of the Gentiles into God's plan for the ages, the king expanded the banquet invitation to anyone his servants could find, resulting in "both bad and good" guests attending the banquet (Matthew 22:1–10, ESV).

The second scene of the parable describes a guest wearing improper clothing: "But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment" (Matthew 22:11). When the king asked him about his clothes, the man was speechless, indicating he didn't have an excuse. In response, the king instructed his servants to tie the man up and "cast him into the outer darkness," where "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 22:12–13).

There are three primary reasons why the best interpretation of the wedding garment is that it represents the righteousness of Jesus. The first comes from the lesson of the parable, found in Jesus' words at the conclusion: "For many are called, but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14). The word translated as "chosen" comes from the Greek word eklektos, meaning "select ones," and refers to sinners Jesus has saved. This is the second time Jesus uses the word in Matthew; the first was when He described those who know the Father as the ones "whom the Son chooses" (Matthew 11:27). Additionally, the word eklektos is translated as "elect" later in Matthew (Matthew 24:22, 24, 31) and as "chosen" or "elect" elsewhere in the New Testament (Romans 8:33; 16:13; Luke 18:7; 1 Peter 2:9). Thus, Jesus implies the man's improper attire signifies that he wasn't among the chosen few.

Second, since the king in the parable represents God, and its lesson, according to Jesus, distinguishes between those who are invited to the banquet and those who are chosen, the best interpretation of the invitation is that it symbolizes the gospel proclamation. Since a parable is an elaborate simile, it's helpful to apply the analogy of faith—using Scripture to interpret Scripture—to fully understand the comparison. Accordingly, other New Testament passages teach that sinners are reconciled with God through the gospel, which proclaims that those who respond in faith have the righteousness of Jesus imputed (i.e., transferred) to them. Paul further explains that, at conversion, God transfers a person's sin to Jesus and Jesus' righteousness to that person (2 Corinthians 5:21). Further supporting the interpretation that the wedding garment symbolizes Jesus' righteousness is the association of righteousness and clothing in other passages. For example, Revelation 19:7–8 says, "Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints" (also see Isaiah 61:10; Zechariah 3:3–4; Revelation 7:14).

The third reason why the wedding garment symbolizes Jesus' righteousness is the description of the improperly dressed man being cast "into the outer darkness" where "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 22:13). Jesus teaches elsewhere that these descriptions refer to the eternal destination of those who have rejected Him and the consequences they will suffer because of their unrighteousness (Matthew 8:12; 13:42, 50; 24:51; 25:30). > END WS-3

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