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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