man Luke chapter number 14 the Bible reads in verse 1 it came to pass as he
went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath
day that they watched him and behold there was a certain man before him
which had the dropsy and Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and
Pharisees saying is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day and they held
their peace and he took him and healed him and let him go and
answered them saying which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into
a pit and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day and they could
not answer him again to these things this is a common theme with Jesus in the
four Gospels where they're watching him to see if he's going to heal
someone on the Sabbath day because they want to jump all over him and say
that he's breaking the law he's breaking the Sabbath and this just
shows how they put their own traditions over the Word of God the
Bible in the Old Testament did not take as hard of a line on the
Sabbath as what the Pharisees are taking they're taking it to these bizarre
extremes and they're complete hypocrites about it because if their
animal falls into a ditch they'll pull it out but then the wickedness
of their hearts allows them to look at someone who's injured or
diseased or maimed in some way and actually want that person to not
be healed they have no love or regard for that person they don't
care about that person at all but they're just wanting to jump on Jesus
if he would just speak the word and heal them it's not like Jesus is
working that hard to heal these people he just reaches out and touches
them they're healed or just speaks the word and they're healed and
what's revealed here again is that these people are so wicked they care
more about their animals than they care about their fellow human being you
know if they're animals suffering they pull them out of there Sabbath
or no Sabbath but they don't want Jesus to heal this guy on the
Sabbath and again we covered this in other chapters because this
comes up over and over again in the Bible look down if you would
at verse number seven and he put forth the parable to those which
were been so these are the same people and if you remember he's at
the house of one of the chief Pharisees you know so this is a guy
who really is important of a person and he says that he put
forth the parable to those which were bitten when he remarked how
they chose out the chief rooms so he sees all the people that
come over to this Pharisees house how they're trying to kind of get
the best seat for themselves he notices that and he says that when
he saw how they chose out the chief rooms room there it's not talking
about a room like a bedroom room means space or place sort of like
the Christmas song let every heart prepare him room basically make
room for so and so so when he says they saw out the best room
they're getting the best spot at the table for themselves he
puts out this parable verse eight when thou art bidden of any
man to a wedding sit not down in the highest room lest a more
honorable man than thou be bidden of him and he that bade
thee and him come and say to thee give this man place and
thou begin with shame to take the lowest room and when thou are
bidden go and sit down in the lowest room that when he that
bade thee cometh he may say unto thee friend go up higher
then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that
sit at me with thee for whosoever exalted himself shall
be a base and he that humbled himself shall be exalted
here's a great illustration of this when it comes to getting
in the car my children they'll fight over which seat what do
they want they all want shotgun right and that we often
bring up this parable you know when they are fighting
over sitting in the front seat and whenever one of them
gets kicked out of the front seat one of the other kids
will always say you must now with shame take the lowest
seat that's what they always say they they quoted just
like that you know and they're sent to the very back
of the van where the air conditioning does not even reach
at all you know backwards just an oven back there but
anyway you know kids do that don't they they five guys
shotgun i want to sit in the front you know but adults
hopefully have grown out of that and when they go to
get in a car they'll go and sit in the back you know
when somebody says to me okay this is the car we're
riding in all off and head for the back seat just by
nature and then it's better if they say to you no no
you ride up front here you take shotgun but it'd be
pretty embarrassing if adults kind of ran to the van and
they both grab it and they're you know fighting over
shotgun as adults right it'd be ridiculous or all
often go out to the van to go somewhere and you'll
just find like three kids sitting on top of each other
in the passenger and they're all like i was here first
they're all you know one's got like a leg on the
bottom one's got like a handle you know it's like
you're trying to figure out okay who was really here
first try to untwist the puzzle but we need to make
sure that in our lives we put other people first we
don't just kind of rush to the front of the line
shove people out of the way take the best seats
but that we look out for other people this is a
christian virtue not only that but he says
whosoever exalted himself shall be a base if you go
around promoting yourself you're going to end up
being humiliated and if you humble yourself the
bible says you'll be exalted the best illustration
of this is politicians they are the most guilty of
this self-exaltation and self-promotion and this
is what i hate more than anything about
politicians is when they get up and tell you how
great they are you know my record speaks for
itself you know i was the best you know governor
of so and so and when i was in the senate i did
all that and they tell you how great they are and
it's it makes me sick it's very unseemly when
people get up and just tell you how great they're
and of course the the worst person about this on the planet
what's his name people donald trump right
i mean that guy just gets up and just toots his own horn
and i mean he is just you know the best at everything
and just you know he's the greatest and he made so much money
and he's just you know it's such a winner and he's never losing and all
this stuff and it's just it's an embarrassment it's a shame
normal people when they hear that it makes their stomach
turn i mean i know it does to me just to hear anybody
it's embarrassing now little kids will do this little
three-year-olds will come up to you and tell you hey i'm the best runner
i'm the fastest i'm really good at this i'm really good at that
when adults do it though you just have to shake your head like are you
serious give me a break it's embarrassing isn't it when
people the bible says let another man praise thee and
not thine own mouth strangers and not thine own lips and so
politicians are notorious for this i remember back in 2008 that was one
thing that i liked about ron paul you know whatever you do disagree or
agree with about ron paul is that he did not stand up and
tell you how great he was he would just talk about the issues hey
here's what i believe here's where i stand but he other
people would praise him but he was the only you'd look at
these debates and he's the only one who's not up there just telling you how
he's just the greatest person who's ever lived
but i can't understand how the american people just eat this up apparently
because all the politicians are doing it and
the american people just keep voting in these these people who exalt
themselves it just goes to show how people just
don't know the bible or they don't they don't have a christian view of
the world where it should make us sick when people tell us how great
they are and it should seem weird and childish and juvenile
when somebody just tells you how good they are at this and good they are at
that it's embarrassing when i find people
in my presence telling me how great they are at something
usually i get a little embarrassed for them you know i don't say
anything but in my heart i'm just thinking like this is embarrassing for
you that you're telling me this that
you're just shamelessly telling me how great you are
it's weird it makes me uncomfortable and and it ought to make anybody
uncomfortable so don't exalt yourself right be humble
sit in the back seat you know sit at a humble place
let other people tell you to move up let other people promote you or
compliment you or praise you now you don't have to talk down about
yourself the bible says let another man praise you know if somebody else
prays you you don't have to say no it's it's a lie i'm a horrible person
but you know don't promote yourself though
it's ridiculous let's keep going and and all of these uh stories that are
told back to back here in luke 14 they're all connected because these
prideful arrogant people are the same ones who care more
about their money more about their property their ox and
their ass than they do about a human being
but look what it says in verse number 12 then said he
to him that bade him so he's saying this to that
chief of the pharisees who bade him bade means invited him
when thou makest the dinner or a supper call not thy friends nor thy
brethren neither thy kinsmen nor thy rich
neighbors lest they also bid thee again and a
recompense be made thee but when thou makest a feast call the poor the
maim the lame the blind and thou shalt be
blessed for they cannot recompense thee recompense means to repay you for
thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection
of the just so jesus is rebuking these people pretty hard
he's telling him hey here's everything you're doing wrong when you
guys got here you sought out the best seats you did
it wrong oh you who invited us all here let
me tell you how you did it wrong you're supposed to be inviting the poor
the maim the blind the halt you're just you know inviting all
your important buddies so jes is rebuking people pretty hard
why because these are people who are exalting themselves
and jesus is abasing them they're still being humiliated two thousand
years later we're still talking about these bozos
and so he says you know do things for people not so that you can get
something in return but let god bless you you'll be
rewarded in at the resurrection of the just
now this is part of the reason why our soul winning program
is completely different than any other church's soul winning program that i've
ever seen because most soul winning programs
always have a really strong emphasis on we got to get the people to come to
church now i'm all for getting people to
come to church because of the fact that church is the place where
they're going to get discipled they're going to grow
they're going to learn more okay i'm i'm 110
for getting them saved and then baptized and then getting them in church so
that they can grow and learn more but the attitude is that if the people
can never come to church it's pointless to even go to those
people so you'll have churches that'll just
knock the same doors around their church over and over again
they're just they'll limit themselves literally sometimes to a zip code
you know i in fact i knew somebody who went to a church they they would
actually sing a song i want that zip code i want that zip
code and they was you know that to the tune of i want that mountain
but that's a pretty small vision just eight five two eight two
you know we're gonna reach eight five two eight two you know no we
want to we want to reach six oh two amen
and four eight oh and six two three and five two oh i'm talking nine two
eight i want to reach five oh five and
five seven five huh
oh i'll go further than that i want to reach six two six
i'm talking three two three
you know where i'm talking about right fw bcla come on three two three
anyway you know we need to expand our vision
from zip codes to area codes and why don't we do a country code
right plus we're gonna reach plus one
then we're gonna read plus two six seven right and we're gonna read what's two
plus two six seven
what's plus two six seven
you're from there it's butts fun
but anyway the point is that you know our philosophy is different
because yeah we want to disciple people and we do a ton of soul winning
within striking distance of our church but we have a bigger vision than that
and we specifically make a point to go soul winning
a lot in places where the people can never get to our church
and you know what it's not so that we can get their tides
because you know what the people from the white mountain apache reservation
are never going to come here and tied to this church just
you know let's just face that fact you think that the people
from the tohono odom reservation and the navajo reservation
you know they're not going to come here so what's the point then
well see that's how these churches sometimes are thinking because all they
care about is just building their church
getting money in the plate or just having a big church and and bringing
and look like i said i'm not against discipleship i'm for it
but there's also something to be said for just helping somebody out and doing
something for somebody that you're never going to see again
that's never going to do anything for you back because it shows
that actually your goal is just to get people saved
and it's it's good for the congregation to see that it's good for
us all to keep that in view that at the end of the day soul winning is
best at one thing getting people saved
it's not a great way to build the church because if it were
then other churches would be doing it and the reason that churches are
scaling back soul winning is because soul winning is not an
effective way to build the church i mean we go out and knock over
10,000 doors every single month at least
10,000 doors and yet how many visitors do we really get from soul winning
for that for knocking 10,000 doors a month
it's very few it's only a handful that come
does that bother me not at all because soul winning is great at getting
the gospel to every creature soul winning is great at getting
people saved and we just have to keep in perspective
why we're doing what we're doing the reason that we're doing it is to
win people to christ that they go to heaven when they die
and if we drive four or five hours away and
and we're on an indian reservation and we can win a bunch of people to
lord and we can get 10 people saved 20
people saved or have a big group and get 75
80 people saved you know what that's 75 people
that are not going to go to hell and they're going to go to heaven
and you say well you know you need a disciple no i don't need to
disciple somebody who lives five hours away
right well then why did you go up there because i'm not just going to let them
go to hell that's why because the bible said to preach the
gospel to every creature and and matthew mark luke john and act
all have a ton of examples of just passing through towns whether
it's jesus or the apostles passing through a town getting everybody
saved and or as many as they can that is
and then two days later they leave town oh where's the discipleship they
left town they did discipleship but they also
did just this kind of just shotgun soul winning of just get in there
and win people to christ and get out a few days later it's
the bible's filled with examples of that but yet we still have the critics
going on and on about well you know you can't just go up
there and win them to christ and then just leave them well we just did
and you know what that's what the apostles did what jesus did
time to whip out the new testament and read it again and see how many
times they did that and by the way there's already a baptist
church in all these places there's a baptist church in every city
in arizona it's not my fault it's lame
you know sorry get mad at them for being lame don't get mad at us for
winning people to christ in the in the lame church's town
but just a lot of do nothings they want to pick it apart
i love going soul winning in some distant place winning a bunch of
people to lord who will never darken the door of our church
and i think god blesses our church for that because he knows that we're
doing it for the right reason it's not for any personal gain it's not
for any personal glory it's not for us to be recompense where
they're going to pay us back and do good things for us in return
they're going to do nothing for us in return and we're glad about that
because we'll be rewarded in the next life we'll be rewarded in the
resurrection and god will even reward us now just through other avenues
because he's going to bless our obedience
so when you when you help people out it should be because you want to help
those people not because you're looking for something in return
and that's why the bible says when you help people and you give them
alms you're not supposed to let your left hand know what your right
hand is doing why because you shouldn't be doing it
for the glory you shouldn't be doing it to get something in return
you should be doing it because you just want to help just out of love
no strings attached and when it comes to
thanksgiving which is tomorrow you know this is a time where we
are stopping and being thankful to god for all the things that he gives us and
all the blessings that he blessed us with
and then right out of thanksgiving we go straight into the the holiday season
and and the the kind of run up to
christmas and as we lead up to christmas
right away you know black friday it just becomes all about just spending
money and just you know uh coveting this and
coveting that and desiring this and desiring that
right and just it becomes commercialized right away
and i like that there are things i like about christmas and things i don't
like about christmas and one of the things that i like about it
is you know i do like the the gift giving tradition
but i i don't like the attitude that considers it like a quid pro quo
like well i'm gonna give you this and you're gonna give me this
i don't like this attitude of well if you get me a gift i have to give you a gift
or if i give you a gift you have to give me something back
and oh you're spending 50 bucks i better make sure to spend 49
you know i can come out on top a little bit or maybe i'll just one up you and spend 51
you know and it's just a weird attitude it kind of just cheapens
the whole concept of even giving a gift when it's this exchange almost right
and and let me say this if you give me a gift
i'll appreciate it and be thankful for it doesn't mean that i'm going to give you a gift
and if i give you a gift i don't expect anything in return
because to me a gift is just something that's just given and there's no strings attached
it's just given out of love and you know if you find yourself giving things to people
and then being resentful that they didn't give you anything back or that they didn't
give you enough back then maybe you should just stop giving that person a gift
because of the fact that you should be able to give requiring nothing in return
that's a real attitude of giving and that's what the bible is saying here
you know uh make a feast cook food for people help people out but do it
expecting nothing in return you know but but but when you give people gifts and you want
just accolades for the gift that you gave i mean when i get gifts from people like that
i just wish that they would give me nothing i'd rather have nothing than a gift that's given
to me begrudgingly and that's what even god said when he said that he loves a cheerful
giver not by constraint right constrained is when you feel like you have to give something
he said not by constraint but willingly he said god loveth a cheerful giver and we all love a
cheerful giver right i mean if we if somebody gives us something we want them to have a good
attitude about it and not tell us how much it costs and slip in the receipt by accident whoops
you know oh whoops i left the price tag on you know i sometimes have jokingly bought
something on on a really cheap discount right you get something on sale on clearance i would
jokingly say like i'm gonna peel off the discount price tag and leave that original
price tag on you know the one that said it's like 100 bucks it's down to 30 you know peel
off the 30 here you go buddy whoops left a hundred dollar price tag on there you know
that'll show them you know people just get weird about gift giving sometimes and and look i had
somebody one time and this is like a pet peeve for me so i'm parking on the subject
when people give you something and they just they want all this recognition for it okay
somebody sent me a 20 gift card in the mail one time and you gotta understand we're getting
stacks of mail around here we get stacks of mail every day we get emails phone calls like
it takes multiple people just to field all this stuff and there's just a lot of stuff coming in
we're busy we're doing stuff this guy sent me like a 20 gift card or something
and then he sent a bunch of emails like did you get it did you get it did you get it right
i didn't get back to the guy because it was like we were busy we weren't answering emails
or something and we by the time i read the emails it was like did you get it did you get it did you
get it f you buddy if that's how you're gonna act when i send you that gift card
i mean that that's a true story that's the kind of attitude i'm talking about
you're not gonna thank me we'll bleep you it's like what in the world it's wicked
that's not a gift keep your stupid gift card i don't even want the gift card then you know
if you send somebody a gift card and you don't hear from them so what yeah you're giving it
to them because you love them you know and obviously especially people that are bogged down
like all kind of mail and email and phone calls and some people don't agree with me on that
but they've never been in my shoes to understand what it's like to be in my situation where
you're getting bombarded and say well you can answer a phone call i want pastor anderson to
call me back he needs to call me per i've listened to him for years and he needs to listen to me
for a while it's like there's a whole you know there's just so many phone calls coming in i can't
answer them myself you know unless you want me to have a nervous breakdown in my head to explode
because i just stay up till one in the morning every night just answering emails and phone calls
and writing thank you notes and everything it's too much you know i mean look there is a
situation where a lady's in the hospital right she's in the hospital all kinds of complications
and all kinds of bad things going on right and you know when you're in a situation like that
that's all you're thinking about is just your own situation or your child's in the hospital you're
in the hospital you know somebody brings you a gift basket or flowers or food or whatever you
appreciate that it's nice right but what if you don't get around to writing a thank you card
you're in the hospital you're going through trials and tribulations you know yet the first
thing on your mind isn't necessarily to write that thank you card what kind of a jerk gives a
gift to somebody who's in the hospital with their child and then gets mad and starts going
around the church complaining and saying well i didn't get a thank you card i dropped off a gift
basket i didn't even get a thank you card you idiot then don't ever bring a thank you card
again or i mean don't even ever bring a basket again because the last person that that
the last thing that that person in the hospital needs is just a headache
of dealing with people like you with friends like those who needs enemies
it's unbelievable isn't it so we need to make sure all that to say this
we need to make sure that when we give gifts we have the right attitude
an attitude that says you know what i love this person i'm giving it to them and i expect
nothing in return i expect nothing in return and then we also need to have the right attitude
about receiving gifts and here's the right attitude about receiving gifts you go into
christmas or birthday or whatever you go into it expecting nothing that's the right attitude
the right attitude is just nobody owes me anything and then whatever comes in is a bonus
you know if you go into christmas with an attitude that says i expect nothing no one
owes me anything even the tiniest gift is bonus at that point and you get it and you
say oh cool thank you so much wow you didn't have to do that and then you know even if it's
just a two dollar thing a five dollar thing or a homemade thing or whatever the case may be
you just you love it because it's just better than nothing you know because your expectation
zero it can only go up from there but just having this attitude of just i want this and i
want this and i expect this and this is all you got me when it's a gift you know it's it's
it's ridiculous don't look at gift horse in the mouth and so this is kind of a public service
announcement that i do before christmas every year just to go into it with the right attitude
and and i'm i'm not exaggerating or using hyperbole here i'm saying you go into christmas
kids teenagers boys girls men women go into christmas expecting nothing nobody owes you
anything it's supposed to be about jesus christ not about you you're not the one that they
brought the gold frankincense and myrrh to okay so don't act like you are
you know and and and the way i do it with my extended family with my brothers sisters
parents cousins you know what sometimes i get them a gift and sometimes i don't there i said it
you know sometimes and you know what when i get them a gift they can know for sure
that i gave them that gift because i wanted to because i love them and i wanted them to have
it not because i felt obligated because i don't feel obligated to give them anything because
gifts are supposed to be just from the heart just and look don't be wrong i i love giving
gifts and i love receiving gifts i i love that whole tradition just so long as it's not abused
where it becomes this quid pro quo we have to do it it becomes a drudgery it becomes a pain
and now you have all the judaizers out there who are telling us that christmas is pagan
and how we need to rosh hashana and hanukkah and all that kind of stuff right all that
junk and they want to get us on all this jewish hebrew roots thing instead of the christian
holiday celebrating the birth hey i'd rather celebrate the birth of christ
than hanukkah which is celebrating dedicating a temple that god destroyed like you're
celebrating a building that god destroyed yay this is where we got the temple back
oh but then later it got wiped out because because jesus said it would because we rejected jesus
dumbest i mean hanukkah doesn't make any sense but now this is a new thing christians
are celebrating hanukkah but you know what i've noticed a lot of the people that are
anti-christmas people and and you know right now all the hardcore anti-christmas stuff is
about to hit facebook in about two days brace yourselves but you know what i've noticed about
the the usually the hardcore anti-christmas stuff is coming from like two groups of people
usually it's from either the judaizers or it's from people who have no money
so it's just sort of a i'm not kidding so it's just sort of a handy way
well i don't celebrate christmas because you know it's so pagan and whatever
and look you don't have to get all everything's pagan on us you don't have to give gifts on
christmas you can still celebrate christmas and just get your kid something at the dollar tree
or or get it you know what here's here's the answer give them one of those christmas cds off
the back shelf there's your whole christmas list they don't have to know that it was free
at church you know what i mean put some adhesive on it like you peeled off the price
tag you know and then ship that thing out all over the place so the point is you know don't
get this weird attitude like oh man i hate christmas because it's just too expensive it's
such a financial burden you know what why don't you just get a little more creative
and you can actually give gifts that are free if you be a little bit creative
or just don't give a gift at all and tell your family you know what i love you
i love you here's a batch of cookies or whatever
you know i like you know sometimes you can think of creative gifts like one time i i i made
my dad a gift where i just i took i searched through a bunch of sermons every time i brought
up my dad so i made a little compilation of like this is every time i mentioned my dad this
year in a sermon he loved it he thought it was cool you know so you know you can do stuff
that's just creative or just cheap stuff or just something homemade handmade i mean some of the
best things i've gotten were handmade gifts homemade gifts because they showed uh thought effort
you know it's not about putting a price tag on it it's the thought that counts
right all right let's move on i'm glad i got that off my chest so
verse 15 it says when one of them that sat at meet with him heard these things
he said unto him blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of god
that's actually a pretty good response if you think about what's being said because he said in
verse 14 thou shalt be blessed for they cannot recompense thee for thou shalt be recompensed
at the resurrection of the just so this guy's looking forward to that great marriage supper of
the lamb and he's he's looking forward to eating bread in the kingdom of god and he
didn't say you know hey bless is he that eats a filet mignon in the kingdom of god or bless
is he that eats caviar in the kingdom of god he's just saying hey no matter what the reward
it's just great to be there amen so that's one thing that we need to understand is that just
getting to heaven is great even to the person who doesn't do any works for god even if they
just believe on jesus christ and get saved just to eat bread in the kingdom of god is
a blessing and obviously there are different levels of reward in heaven based on your works
jesus said behold i come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according
as his work shall be and obviously we know that even in hell there are varying degrees of
punishment and the bible tells about the lowest hell the greater damnation and those people are
judged by their works as well but i'll tell you this you know even just the bottom rung in
heaven is still a great place to be and even the coolest spot in hell is still a horrible
place to be there's a giant gulf between those two places so he's this guy you know i like this
guy what he says blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of god that's a pretty good
comment so jesus responds to this guy with a story in response to that statement blessed is he
that eateth bread in the kingdom of god it says in verse 16 then said he unto him a certain
man made a great supper and bade many and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that
were bidden come for all things are now ready and they all with one consent began to make
excuse the first said unto him i've bought a piece of ground and i must needs go and see it
i pray thee have me excused and another said i've bought five yoke of oxen and i go to prove
them i pray thee have me excused and another said i've married a wife and therefore i cannot come
so that servant came and showed his lord these things then the master of the house being angry
said to his servant go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city
and bring in hither the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind
and the servant said lord it is done as thou has commanded and yet there is room
and the lord said unto the servant go out into the highways and hedges and compel them
to come in that my house may be filled for i say unto you that none of those men which
were bidden shall taste of my supper so this parable is in response to the man who said
blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of god so jesus is basically reinforcing
what that guy said by explaining what a blessing it is because this great supper that
everyone's being invited to represents eating bread in the kingdom of god it's talking about
getting to heaven right and basically the servants are sent out to invite people
to go to heaven which is similar to soul winning right and this is where we get the statement
of going out into the highways and hedges right and we we think of the hedges going up
and down the street inviting people not to come to church this isn't about coming to church
this parable is about coming to christ coming to salvation so going out in the highways
and hedges and telling people about jesus so that they can do what eat bread in the
kingdom of god so they can get saved so they can get to heaven so when the servants go out
in the story and invite people they begin to make excuse now we've run into that on soul
winning haven't we oh you know i'm busy they have a video game controller in their hand yeah
i'm really i'm really busy today you know or i'm i'm i'm uh cooking uh lunch uh dinner yeah
cooking uh yeah you know or oh i'm i'm just yeah i'm so busy and i mean people just roll
off the couch in sweatpants yeah i'm real i'm real busy today yeah i don't i don't have
time you know so there's a lot of you know a lot of excuses that are given
and then uh people say no and god's angry about that because he's he's prepared this great supper
and obviously we know what went into that supper from his perspective
is that he sent his only son to be to the world that we might live through him
and that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish
but have eternal life so if jesus died on the cross that this supper might be made available
unto us more than just oxen and fatlings being killed right that's just a picture of
the fact that jesus christ is that lamb of god that was slain from the foundation of the world
so they make excuses and he gets angry and he says okay well go out then and just invite
the poor the maim the halt and the blind and when he invites them they come they show up
and he says lord it's done as thou is commanded and yet there is room
and then he says okay go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my
house may be filled compel means to to urge them or to pressure them to come in
and he's saying but then he says in verse 24 for i say to you that none of those men
which were bidden shall taste of my supper so there are multiple interpretations of this parable
that are all valid because the bible is very deep and often we make a mistake when we think
that scriptures only have one interpretation they can often have two three four interpretations
because the bible is so deep now if your interpretation of a parable contradicts clear
scripture you have the wrong interpretation so i'm not saying hey all interpretations are valid
no not all interpretations are valid all interpretations that jive with the rest of
scripture are valid and there are usually multiple layers of meaning so we could look at
this just on the surface and we could say okay you know you go out soul winning people make
excuses they're not going to taste of the supper right they're not going to go to heaven because
they wouldn't listen to the gospel you can take another interpretation and say hey christ
wants us to go preach to the poor first because first they go to the poor then they go to
everybody else right so we can take an interpretation that says hey let's hit the poor
neighborhoods with the gospel and we know of course that poor neighborhoods are the best places
to go soul winning because it's easier for a rich man to go excuse me it's easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved and we can look at the
excuses and we could talk about how people make excuses about this and that there's a lot of
different ways to interpret it but one important interpretation here is regarding the jews themselves
why because the jews are the ones who were originally invited to the party
originally the invitation went to them it went to the jew first and also to the greek right so
this initial invitation goes out to the jews and they make excuses they don't want to come to the
supper they reject christ as their messiah so then he turns to the gentiles which are represented
by the poor the maimed the halt the blind because even though they're not physically disabled
or physically impoverished you know spiritually they're impoverished because they didn't have the
oracles of god they didn't grow up with scripture they didn't grow up with the old
testament and the moses and the prophets and everything like that and so it's a pretty strong
condemnation when he says for i say unto you that none of those men which were bidden shall
taste of my supper so what he's saying there obviously it's a parable so you don't want to run
with it too much obviously there were jews that did get saved even though the jews in general
rejected christ as their messiah there are many who did get saved you know the 12 apostles and
then thousands of other people who got saved and baptized under john the baptist ministry
under jesus ministry but the nation in general especially the leaders and so forth
they rejected christ in general okay so in general the jews have blown it and rejected christ
and in general they're not going to get saved they're not going to get now there's not a an end
of this parable that says but then later i want to go back to those original people
and invite them again no they're done yeah he's done with them
you pastor arison says that god's done with israel yup
pastor anderson said god's through with the jews you got it right
pastor arison believes that replacement theology yup replacement because jesus said the kingdom of
god will be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits they're up they've
been replaced now that's not to say that jewish people don't get saved but when they get saved
they stop caring about being jewish because in christ there's neither jew nor gentile they stop
having that attitude of like well i'm a jew and i'm going back to abraham's bosom because you
know i'm of abraham you know they realize hey it's through christ it's not through abraham that
were saved you're not baptized in the name of abraham you don't believe on and confess the
lord abraham to be saved you confess the lord jesus christ to be saved and look we at this
church have won jews to christ people who came out of judaism i baptized one several months
ago he attends at fwbc la right now somebody who came out of that okay so it's not saying
that jews can't be saved but what it's saying is that in general the jews rejected christ
and in general god's done with them and he's moved on to a nation bringing forth the
fruits thereof just as there were some jews who accepted them there will still be some jews who
get saved today but it's a small minority unfortunately you know let's just face the
honest fact okay let's just be honest and realize that there are certain groups of people
that are receptive to the gospel and certain groups of people that aren't
now the exception proves the rule and you're always going to be able to find a remnant in it
you could go to the most ungodly wicked nation you know iceland itself there's a right
there are people who listen and i'm not saying iceland is the most wicked but i just you know
we've just kind of been hitting on iceland lately because we just put out a documentary
about iceland but you know even in iceland itself there are a bunch of people who listen
to my preaching and like it you know there's there are people who even love faith for baptist
church in iceland okay there are bible believing christians in iceland any nation in the world
i don't care what nation it is in the muslim world in in all parts of hind of india
in all parts of north africa they i have personally been contacted by someone from
every nation on this planet specifically saying that they listen to the preaching from
faithful word baptist church israel included you know all nations okay so there there could
be a righteous remnant anywhere and i'm not saying people have to listen to my preaching to
be righteous but i'm saying if they listen to my preaching they're obviously pretty fundamental
you know they're they're pretty they're pretty uh serious about the bible
if they like hard preaching but then there are tons of other watered down christians
and tons of other people that are listening to some other bible preacher that's that's
preaching hard that besides yours truly you know i'm just saying there's a remnant in every
country on the planet every nation has people that are safe but let's just be honest if we
go soul winning in the philippines we're going to get a lot more people saved than if we go
soul winning in germany and if we go so winning in romania we're going to get more
people saved than if we go so winning in hungary now i'm for going so winning in all places
but it's just you talk to people and you go to different places look even the indian tribes
right here in arizona we're going to get more people saved on the apache reservation
then we're going to get saved all right what was one of the less receptive
tribes one of the ones that was pretty unreceptive the hopi yeah exactly thank you
yeah the whole you know you're going to get more people saved on the white mountain apache
than on the hopi reservation okay so but now we're still going to preach to the hopis
we're going to preach to the apaches but it's just a fact that certain people are just as a
nation they're just more receptive to the gospel than others right and the nation so-called
nation of israel and the jews are one of the least receptive people they're the hopi of
nations you know they're like a spiritual hopi is what they are you know and and and places
like the philippines and gaiana and botswana are like a spiritual apache reservation where the
people are hungry for the gospel and they want to hear the truth so the point is that the jews
are are being called out in this parable as turning their nose up at god's provision of the
lamb god's provision of jesus christ and so he's going to turn to the gentiles that's another
underlying meaning in this there's a lot going on in this parable and and multiple layers of
meaning and i i could go on and on you could do a whole sermon just on this parable but let's
keep going let me just quickly finish the chapter we're almost out of time and i know
that you got to get all your your vegetables chopped and you got to get everything all prepped
and ready to roll for tomorrow and get it get everything rising in the oven and and and
write out your your flow chart and your game plan for what goes in the oven when tomorrow and
everything like that but uh it says in verse 25 and there went great multitudes with him and
he turned and said unto them if any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife
and children and brethren and sisters yea in his own life also he cannot be my disciple
and whosoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple now first let
me just point out that there's a big difference between being saved and being his disciple okay
getting saved requires no sacrifice on your part it requires believing in jesus
he paid it all it's a gift it's a free gift jesus paid it all it's purchased by the blood
of christ there's no strings attached you believe on the lord jesus christ you shall be
saved nothing could separate us from the love of god he'll never leave us nor forsake us
it's not of works lest any man should boast when the bible talks about being a disciple
this is talking about somebody who basically is being trained by him i mean if i said i have a
disciple that would be somebody that i'm tutoring training that's my protege that's who i'm
mentoring so you know there are multitudes of people that got saved under christ ministry but
the number of disciples is a lot smaller 120 people in acts chapter one that are a disciple
why because these are people that have to make sacrifices work hard pick up the cross daily and
follow him now when he says here if any man hate his father and mother you know obviously
when we're reading the bible we take things literally unless it's obvious that it's not
literal okay that's a good rule of thumb when you're reading about now some people just want to
make everything in the bible figurative and that's a big mistake but when things are obviously
figurative then we don't want to just insist nope everything's literal you know when the bible
says that that woman is clothed with the sun in revelation 12 that's literal you know that'd
be ridiculous wouldn't it because no woman can be clothed with the sun but then some people
will take this verse and what they'll do they'll take a verse like this and say see you can't
take the bible literally let's just throw everything out you know well that's just ridiculous
obviously there are times when jesus is using exaggeration or hyperbole or being figurative
when he says different things now when he says here if any man come to me and hate not his
father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters yea in his own life also
he cannot be my disciple obviously he's using that as a figure of speech saying basically
that you have to have zero loyalty to those things in comparison to your loyalty for me and
your love for me is it supersedes all that and you're willing to give up those relationships
if necessary okay and that's why he it's not saying hate your parents kids because the next
thing he even says is his own life also well the bible says in ephesians 5 no man ever yet
hated his own flesh but nourished and cherished it so nobody hates themselves or hates
their own flesh according to ephesians chapter 5 so obviously this is not literal here this is just
basically jesus just using strong language to make a point and just to get them to see when
he says hey you've got to hate everyone else and and your own self and follow me
he doesn't mean a literal hate that person but then people will take this and say well he
never means hate but if you look up other versions that that talk about hate you can
tell that it's a literal hatred because it'll be coupled with things like abomination disgust
loathing and other synonyms right it's sort of like when people say well fear in the bible is
not really fear it's just reverence but then you'll show them a verse that says fear and trembling
right so we can use the context to tell okay this is really fear over here this is really
hate over here and so another example where hate is used in a similar way is where it talks about
jacob's two wives uh rachel and leah and it says that he loved rachel and hated leah what
that means there it's not saying that he actually just oh i hate leah what it is is
that basically he prefers rachel over leah to the point where it's like he all of his loyalty
all of his affection is toward one person and he disdains the other he disdains leah and that's
exactly what he's saying in this passage basically that you know your all your loyalty
and affection lies first with christ to where you would disdain anyone who would get in the
way of that or come between you and the lord jesus christ and jesus and if you compare the
scripture with scripture go to matthew and mark jesus says things like he that loveth father
or mother more than me is not worthy of me he that take his not his cross and fall with after
me is not worthy of me and it's a you know parallel statement with this now today this
would be hate speech right jesus is preaching hate and he's a hate preacher and it's hate
speech and everything like that because hate is a dirty word now but in fact hate is just a
normal word we all experience hatred in our hearts it's one of the the the the emotions
that we go through as human beings it's part of the spectrum of our feelings and god
expresses and feels hatred at times in the bible the bible says that god hates those who love
violence him that loveth violence his soul hated so this idea of hate being a bad word
and that we should never have any hate in our heart for any reason it's just a media
brainwashing and all it's about is just curbing free speech because anytime i say
something that people don't like they say it's hate speech like for example when i preach
that sermon against iceland i didn't say anything about hating anyone i was not hateful
now look there have been sermons where i did talk about hating people and i did get hateful
and i'll admit it when i get hateful but in that particular sermon there's nothing hateful
in that sermon when i'm just exposing the wickedness of the fact that iceland has
you know two-thirds of their children are born out of wedlock now and that 100 of babies
with down syndrome are aborted in iceland not 99 100 percent you know there's just a lot of
wickedness going on over there and i'm preaching hard against the feminism i'm preaching hard
against abortion i'm preaching hard against uh the the the the the the the hoardums and the
the children out of wedlock and and they say it's hate speech hate preaching that's not hate
any opinion that they don't like becomes hate you give an unpopular opinion it's hate
speech why because there's an agenda to brainwash people that hate is bad all hate is bad and
don't be hateful and you can't hate but yet in the bible there's love and there's hate
and there are times when anger is appropriate there are times when and you know the the the
the ironic thing is that these people who are constantly accusing us of hate speech they hate
me anybody who doubts that is crazy i mean they hate my guts so everybody hates somebody
or something but it's just the difference is some people admit it and some people don't
so you know i don't want to go into a whole sermon on hate right now because you know that
that's a big subject that's all throughout the bible i'll i'll preach a sermon on it soon i'll
call it uh make america hate again but anyway the point is though that you know hatred has
its place and and and also hatred has multiple meanings and i preached a sermon on this i don't
remember what it was called but less than a year ago i preached a sermon on this where i explained
that hatred actually has multiple meanings and in the bible in different passages it means
different things like in this passage it doesn't mean what we would normally think of hate
it's more just expressing that you'll turn your back on those people if necessary because christ
is number one okay that's what it means here it's a it's a choosing one over the other
like where he chose rachel over leah but there are other meanings of hate there's a whole
spectrum of meaning so just this idea of just all hate is bad all the time it's just a weird
brainwashing agenda just to pave the way for silencing opposition and silencing free speech
because any unpopular opinion becomes well you know we believe in free speech but that's hate
speech though you're a hate preacher you're a hate group right yeah our church is such a hate
group that's why everybody's smiling and happy all the time and and and having so much uh
good fellowship and fun so anyway i don't want to go on and on about them but uh i don't
i don't know in fact i don't have time to go on and on about anything because my time is up tonight
but he then just talks about how you know we need to finish what we start don't start things
that you're not able to finish make sure you count the cost and then he talks about how
we need to be uh different than the world salt is good but if the salt have lost his
savor wherewith shall it be seasoned you know we don't want to lose our flavor as christians
where we just become bland where we become exactly like the world around us we need to stand
out and be different as god's people inspired and have a word of prayer father we thank you
so much for your word lord in this great chapter lord uh the the the main thing that
that i learned from this chapter lord is just about being humble and not uh not fighting
over the best seats or praising myself or or um you know inviting important people over so that
i can schmooze them and get favors from them lord and and and only going soul winning
in the rich neighborhood where we can try to get bigger offerings or something lord help us to
be humble help us to uh be meek and to put other people first and help us to spend our lives
reaching out to people that can do nothing for us in return help us to do most of our
soul winning in the poor areas and help us always to focus on eternity and and eating
bread in the kingdom of god and getting those rewards then on what kind of a physical reward
or accolade we can get on this earth and in jesus name we pray amen