The Banquet Is Free—we Need Only Enter and Partake of It

Luke chapter 14, verse 15 onward, the parable of the Great Supper—how many of you have read that parable or remember it? Perhaps it is not one of Jesus’ best-known parables, but today we are going to see what God tells us through it. Remember that during these past few Sundays, and in the upcoming ones as well, we have been devoting time to reflecting and meditating on evangelism: how to do evangelistic work, how to become a thoroughly and intentionally evangelistic congregation. This year God has placed it in our hearts to begin a new rhythm, a new direction in our congregation, dedicating ourselves fully and in a very, very committed way to being a church characterized by its passion and evangelistic fire. Amen?

And I was telling you that over the years God has allowed us to do many evangelistic things. I mentioned some of them to you—I do not know whether I did so at the nine o’clock service or the twelve o’clock service a couple of Sundays ago—but there are many things. Through the internet, we reach many people. Two or three days ago, I was looking at the letters containing different people’s responses to one of the meditations we publish weekly, and there were people from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, and Switzerland, not to mention all of Latin America and the United States, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic—many different countries. They read these things wherever God sends them; there are more than a hundred thousand people subscribed, one hundred and thirty-five thousand people.

We do many evangelistic things like that: the radio program I mentioned, everything we do with Bonds of Love, the work in Honduras as well, the evangelistic small groups, and our services where we give an altar call. There are many things, but God wants something new from us, an additional component: that we devote ourselves wholly and single-mindedly to doing evangelistic labor and ministry.

What I want during these months is for us—you and I and the leaders of the congregation—to immerse ourselves in evangelism and evangelistic subjects. I want to lift Christ very high in these upcoming sermons. I want us to see Him through His own eyes, hear Him through His own words, and immerse ourselves in His style: how did He do things? How did He speak? How did He minister? And I want us also to learn to present Christ to the people whom the Lord is going to place before us.

God is going to bring people to us and lead people to us. I declare in the name of Jesus that God is going to place an evangelistic anointing upon this church, and that we are going to bring people; people will come, and they will come to us. God is going to arrange divine appointments, and we will find that we cannot keep up. I can already see God’s blessing. Every time we have issued that call, God has blessed the few things we have done lately with very great, very powerful affirmation. So I know that we are at the center of His will.

And that is why I want to use these services to lift up Jesus, because He says that if the Son of Man is lifted up, people will look to Him and be saved. So here you have a parable that speaks to us about the Kingdom: how does the Kingdom work? What is God’s heart like toward lost souls?

Let us listen. It says here in verse 15: “When he heard this”—I will tell you what “this” is in just a moment—“one of those who sat at the table with Him said to Him, ‘Blessed is the one who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God.’”

And then Jesus told him a parable. He said: “A man prepared a great supper and invited many people. At the hour of the great supper, he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ And they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have bought a piece of land and need to go see it. I ask you to excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out. I ask you to excuse me.’ And another said, ‘I have just gotten married, and therefore I cannot come.’” That one had a slightly better excuse (laughter). I could understand that one a little better, but I do not think it was sufficient, as we will see in a moment.

Verse 21 says: “When the servant returned, he reported these things to his master. Then the head of the household, enraged, said to his servant, ‘Go quickly into the squares and streets of the city and bring in here the poor, the lame, those with crippled hands, and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, it has been done as you commanded, and there is still room.’ The master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the roads and hedges and compel them to come in, so that they may enter my house, for I tell you that none of those men who were invited will taste my supper.’”

May the Lord bless His Holy Word. Do you see what a beautiful passage it is? It speaks to us about the Kingdom of God as a great supper, as an invitation extended to humanity by the Father’s generous heart. God wants to have fellowship and community with His children. God wants to have intimacy and conversation with them, and He invites them to a Great Supper. I believe that the Lord is always inviting humanity to dine with Him. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ says in that famous passage, Revelation 3, I believe it is: “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My Voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”

The Lord always describes the relationship He wants to have with us in terms of intimate things: a meal; a sheepfold where the shepherd has a relationship with his sheep. He wants to converse; He wants to have an ongoing relationship with us. The occasion that prompts Jesus to tell this parable is precisely a gathering where there are guests; it is a meal, a home.

And so the Lord gives teachings throughout the rest of chapter 14 and speaks about a wedding banquet, and about how, when you are invited to a celebration or to a church, you should not be too quick to sit at the front. And when you invite someone to your home, do not invite only the cool people, right? The people who can have a good conversation with you, who will bring you a gift, or who will later invite you to their house for dinner, right? They will repay the money you invested in them with another dinner, and it will be better than the one you gave them.

No, the Lord says: “Look, when you invite people to dine at your home, invite those who cannot invite you back,” because that is what everyone else does—people who do not have God are always looking out for their own interests, right? But you must serve others, give to others, invite the people who cannot return the favor and who may be of a lower social standing than you.

So there is a man sitting there at that gathering whom I suspect was a Pharisee or a scribe, or a man who represented the Jewish religion—and I will tell you why in a moment. When the Lord speaks of a supper, food, weddings, and banquets, a sort of super-spiritual expression slips out of him: “Ah, blessed is the one who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God.” It is like what we evangelicals sometimes do, right? Something very pious comes out of us that sounds very beautiful but is probably superficial and formulaic and does not truly come from the heart.

And whenever the Lord heard things like that, He always wanted to correct the matter, so to speak, and set things out correctly and clearly. That is why He tells and describes this parable that He is composing. It is meant to teach what the Kingdom of God and that supper at which we will one day eat bread in His Presence are truly about. And so He speaks; He says that a presumably rich man—we assume he was a man of wealth and means—prepared a great supper and invited many people.

What is the supper represented by this part of the parable? I see two kinds of supper that this parable brings to mind. Number one: notice that this man is inviting these people to come and eat what he provides for them, and to do so at a very specific moment. I believe that God has prepared a Great Supper for humanity, and it is called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is called the teachings, the truths, and the resources provided by the Gospel.

The table of the Gospel is a table bearing all kinds of nutritious dishes and foods, and we must invite people to that Great Supper that God has prepared. What does it consist of? Brothers and sisters, I believe the Gospel is a table where there are teachings, principles, counsel, and wisdom for life—not only for the life to come, but for life here. I tell people: invite others to come to the Gospel, because they can eat food that will make life more bearable for them.

God has set a table where they will find a Word of wisdom for their marriages, a Word of wisdom for human relationships and their friendships: how to manage their money, how to deal with life’s crises, how to deal with an illness, what attitudes to adopt when someone betrays you or when you are battling difficult things within yourself, how to prepare for the future, how to be a good father, and how to be a good mother. All these things are found at the table of the Gospel, the great supper God has served for all of us, and we must invite people.

I tell you that in this season we must invite the community out there to come and eat the food God has set before them. And it is food for the here and now. The community needs that food that only Christ can give, that spiritual supper God has for us.

So that is one supper, a supper of different foods and nutrients. But the Bible also speaks of a Great Supper, a great banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven that will take place at the end of time. Which one is that? The wedding feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb. But notice that it says here that this man prepared a supper and invited people from here to eat it. So I believe that both suppers are part of God’s complete plan. One is the supper you eat here while you are in the world, and the other is the supper awaiting you at the end of time, when God has completed all His work and the Lamb then celebrates a great supper with His entire Church.

Right now we are betrothed to Christ, but one day we will finally marry the King of kings and Lord of lords. Revelation chapter 19 says in verse 7: “Let us rejoice and give Him glory, for the Wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready—has made herself ready, the Church—and she has been granted the right to clothe herself in fine linen, clean and radiant, for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are the true words of God.’”

How beautiful. There is also a final supper that God has prepared, and the only ones who will be able to participate in that Great Supper at the end of time are those who ate from the other supper, the supper of the Gospel that God prepared for all those willing to listen, come, and sit at the table God has prepared.

So a man prepared a great supper and invited many people. Brother, do you know that God’s invitation is for everyone who wants to come? It does not matter what color you are; it does not matter what race or nation you belong to or what your financial or socioeconomic status is. Whether you are a man, woman, child, or elderly person, God’s invitation is for everyone; it is a broad invitation. God wants everyone to know the Gospel. Preach the Gospel to all the people around you, because God wants many to come to know the Lord.

I believe this is the season when God is going to call many people in the city of Boston to come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and we must prepare the nets so that this may happen. Verse 17 says that “at the hour of the supper, he sent his servant.” Pause there for a moment: “at the hour of the supper.” There is a specific moment God has prepared for declaring His Word to humanity. The Bible says that Christ came into the world at the culmination of the ages, at the precise moment when He had to come.

This man probably sent invitations to his friends a few days beforehand. And he told them, “On such-and-such a day, I am going to have a supper. Get ready. We do not know the exact hour,” perhaps he told them, “but I am going to send my servant, and he will go throughout the neighborhood and tell you that the food is ready.” They knew. There was a precise moment.

Do you know that Christ came into the world, came into history, at God’s precise moment? Historians, people knowledgeable about history, say that the Lord Jesus Christ arrived at a time when the entire world was prepared in terms of the very broad and extensive roads the Roman Empire had built. It had conquered all the known nations of the earth at that time. It had reached Africa, Asia, and India; the entire Mediterranean world had been conquered by Rome. And wherever Rome went, it built good roads so that its armies and administrators could reach those places, and it had fortresses and stations on its side everywhere throughout the entire known world at that time.

And it had established a government, laws, and order—what is called the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome—which was a peace, a government that Rome established. There was a language: just as English is used today throughout the world for business, science, and culture, so Latin was everywhere, and Greek as well. Greco-Roman culture had reached every part of the world.

So God had been strategically preparing things throughout history; He had been preparing humanity. Judaism, with all its laws and its entire religious legal apparatus, was merely a foretaste of what was to come through Jesus Christ. God prepared humanity, and humanity developed and grew and became more complex; before, they were savages doing things here and there, killing one another, etc. The time came when human culture had reached a certain level of complexity, and at that moment, when man could receive the teaching through this language and these roads and all of this, Christ came into the world. The time had come.

And then, at that moment, God begins to announce to humanity that there is a new way to approach the Father through Christ Jesus. This servant whom the lord sends, incidentally, is a type of God the Father sending His Son, because the time has come to enter the supper; this servant is a type of Jesus Christ. So when everything is ready, Jesus arrives; the Church also arrives, in a sense, to proclaim the Gospel and tell the people: now come and sit down.

To enter that supper, one must go through Jesus Christ. The Bible says that He is the door, and all who enter through the door are accepted, but if they do not enter through the door, they are thieves and robbers. He is the door through which one may enter the supper. And so, when everything was ready, what happened? They began making excuses, some for one reason and others for another. Oh, I can’t go because I bought five oxen. Nowadays we would say: oh, I bought a car and have to go test-drive it on the highway. I bought a house and have to go see how many rooms it has and whatever else, so I can’t go—excuses.

It says that they all began making excuses. Evidently, they were too busy with their own affairs, their own things, to respond to the invitation he had extended to them. What we see here is precisely that, isn’t it? God prepared history, God has prepared His message, God sends His Son, Christ dies on the cross of Calvary, takes on the form of a man, sheds His precious blood, and leaves us a wealth of teachings; all of these are delicacies set upon the table. And what happens? Humanity rejects the Word of God; it rejects the banquet God has provided.

The banquet is free; all you have to do is enter and eat from it. But people prefer the cares of their lives. It is interesting that the things mentioned here portray people caught up in the cares and affairs of life. Why don’t people accept the Father’s invitation to be saved and enter eternal life? Because they are too wrapped up in the things of the here and now. They care more about what is immediately before them, the little toy they have. It is like a child who is too preoccupied with a tiny, cheap toy to accept something far greater that is being offered to him, because he thinks only about the present moment.

And that is what the human race is like. The world is so caught up in pleasures and the things of life that people do not want to accept Jesus Christ. You know the parable of the seed. It says that the seed fell in different places: the sower sowed seed, and one kind of seed fell, it says, among thorns. When the seed tried to grow, the thorns came up around it, choked it, and killed it. And the Lord says: those thorns are the cares and pleasures of the world that choke it.

How many people feel a desire to come to the Gospel? How many people come here to the Church, to our own Church, and listen; something inside them vibrates, they feel a desire to receive the Lord, and they know that what they are hearing is good and true, but they think: oh, but I have to stop doing this, I have to stop doing that, I have to stop going to the nightclub every Saturday and getting drunk, I have to stop womanizing, I have to stop deceiving people, I have to give up this business that I know is not right, or I am going to have to shape my life in a certain way—and they count the cost. For a moment they realize what they have to do; their conscience pricks them, and they say: hmm, I’d rather not do it.

Others accept the Lord and even begin the journey of faith, but then the trial comes, or because they have no root, the Word says, they too abandon the Gospel. There are many reasons. What the Lord is saying through His Word is: look, do not allow anything in the world to rob you of the privilege of sitting at the Lord’s table. What do you have to give up? Is there something in your life that is holding you back? Look, the Bible says that the Kingdom of heaven is like a person who finds treasure in a field and sells everything he has to buy that piece of land because there is treasure in it. It also says that it is like a woman who loses a coin and sweeps the whole house, and she does not rest until she finds it. It is saying: the Kingdom of heaven is valuable; you must do whatever it takes to enter.

It says that if you have to enter the Kingdom with one eye or one hand, do it, but enter anyway, because it is worth it. Do not let anything in this world—no pleasure, no appetite, no job, nothing in this world—destroy your opportunity to enter the Kingdom of God. Pay whatever price you have to pay, because one day, when you find yourself enjoying the Supper of the Lamb, you will say: thank God I had the good sense to leave those foolish things behind and exchange them for the privilege of dwelling eternally before Your Presence.

Brothers and sisters, let us do everything we can; let us not allow anything in this world to rob us of the privilege of entering the Lord’s Supper—no excuse, no appetite of this world. I am almost finished. What it says here is that this man, who had such a generous heart, was so happy and so excited; he could already see his friends sitting there at that delicious meal he had prepared for them, and when he sees their contempt, it says that he becomes angry.

Remember that there is another side to the coin. On one side is the heart of God—loving, gentle, full of grace, eager to bless humanity. On the other side is the wrath of God, the King who becomes angry when we reject His offer. There is no neutrality in the face of God’s call; there is no “I’m sorry,” with God saying: all right, that’s fine, don’t worry, no problem. That is what people believe. God is a very clear God. When He invites you, you have two choices: either you accept and are blessed, or you decline the invitation and receive the Judgment of God.

It says here that the head of the household—now, he is a head of the household, a pater familias, as they say in Latin—is a being full of glory, highly honorable, and he feels very angry because he has been treated with contempt. Whoever does not accept Christ as Savior treats Him with contempt. What does Christ say? Whoever does not gather with Me scatters. Either you receive Christ as your Lord and Savior and receive God’s blessing, or you reject Him and receive God’s wrath; there is no middle ground. We cannot reject Him. God has been so careful; He has put so much love into His invitation.

It says: “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” The Lord has invested His angels, His Power, and His gifts; He shed the blood of His Son on the cross of Calvary; the Gospel has been preached for thousands of years. He has invested everything He has so that souls may be saved. Do you think a day will come when someone can say to Him, “Lord, I am very sorry; I simply wasn’t paying attention. Forgive me, but let me in”? He will say: you lazy bum, you missed your chance. I did My part; now depart from Me into eternal fire.

People do not want to believe in hell, but the Bible continually speaks of perdition; it continually speaks of eternal perdition. I do not know whether it is as they say—a fire there with a little devil poking you for all eternity. What I do know is that it is a place where you do not want to be, brother. You want to be in the Presence of God; you want to enjoy the joy of the Lord when you go and sit at His table, not the wrath of the Lord when you reject His offer.

So we tell them: tell people this—there are two alternatives before you that will determine your destiny, where you will spend eternity. God has told me something clearly about that: if we are going to preach the Gospel, then from time to time we must also—perhaps it will not be the first thing we tell them, but at some point in the conversation it must also be said, if you see that people are not acknowledging their part—then tell them: look, do you fully understand what you are consigning yourself to? That is eternal condemnation. You do not want to go there, and instead God offers you salvation, communication, and communion with Christ Jesus.

What happens at the end has a powerful impact on me. The lord says: since these distinguished people do not want to enter, go to Rosie’s Place, go to Pine Street Inn, go to all the shelters in the city; invite the homeless, invite the drunkards, invite the prostitutes, invite the homosexuals, invite the poor, invite the illiterate, and let them come and eat at my table. The Bible says of the Jews: He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him—and the Lord followed through.

There are many people at universities such as Harvard and Yale and Boston College and all these great universities; many of them reject it. Intellectuals often turn away from the simple Gospel that the Word sets before us; rich people feel too powerful to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Who are the ones who have generally accepted Christ first? The poor, the unlettered, those without much education, the people who do not have much to lose because they have already lost everything anyway.

Later, as time passes, when the rich—who are not fools and never pass up a good deal—see what is happening to those people who are receiving the Gospel, they want to enter. They come last; it has always been that way. When the Gospel was preached in the first century, those who came included the Samaritan woman. Whom does the Lord present to us there? The Samaritan woman, the thief on the cross, blind Bartimaeus, Zacchaeus the tax collector, Peter the fisherman. The Lord did not choose people from the upper echelons of society; He chose the poor. And for almost the first four centuries of Christianity, it was persecuted, rejected, and trampled underfoot, and powerful people refused to accept it.

In the fourth century, history says, Emperor Constantine was granted a great vision, in the year 345 after Jesus Christ, I believe it was. After seeing a vision, this emperor says in his testimony that he accepted Christ. And then, when he converted to the Gospel, everyone wanted to convert along with him, and he called upon and commanded his soldiers: the entire Roman army is Christian from this day forward; and his entire court: Christians; his entire bureaucracy and all his workers: Christians. Overnight, Rome went from being a persecutor of the Gospel to being a follower of Jesus Christ.

But do you know what is interesting? Unfortunately, that conversion also brought pressure to change the Gospel. What often happens when rich people come to the Church, or intellectually gifted people? They begin wanting to change the genuine Gospel, which is why we must be careful. Let me tell you: as our Church grows and more people come, there is a danger, and it is that many people will come hungry for the Gospel, but they will want to haggle with us. They will say: all right, I will come in, but you have to stop preaching this; you have to stop saying that, because I do not like it—and that is my great struggle, but I am not willing to sell the Gospel too cheaply either.

If they come, they have to become simple; they have to accept the simple Gospel; they have to become like children; they have to humble themselves; they have to recognize their poverty. Only the person who acknowledges, “I am in need; I am a poor wretch; without Christ I am nothing”—oh yes, I have money, I have education, I have influence, but I know that at the end of the day, if I stand in front of the mirror wearing shorts and an undershirt, I am a man like any other, and when I lie down in my bed, I am simply a body that needs God; there, influence, degrees, and everything else are worth nothing. When you are in a doctor’s office wearing one of those little green gowns that fasten back here, you are a man, a poor human being in need. And there, if the doctor tells you, “Look, you have six months to live; you have cancer, you have diabetes, or something like that,” all human pretension vanishes, brothers and sisters.

We must all recognize our poverty; we are nothing except for what God places within us. Only the poor enter the Kingdom of God. I invite you in the Name of Jesus: recognize that without Christ you are nothing; recognize that Jesus is your only hope, your only salvation, your only way to the Father. Humble yourself before the Lord and sell everything to possess the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Compel them to come in, the Lord tells you, Congregation Lion of Judah. Preach the Gospel in season and out of season. There is room in the Lord’s house. God still has His doors open. I continue to say that the best harvest lies ahead of us. There are still many people to save, and that is why we have to launch a campaign and say (singing): we are on a campaign, and we have to save. Now the people are getting excited. We have to launch a campaign; that is the way. We are on a campaign because there are souls to save, hallelujah! Compel them to come in; let the Lord’s house be filled; let them come from everywhere—from the north, the south, the east, and the west. Let them come to the Lord’s house and eat from the Lord’s table.

The Lord invites us to be fishers of souls. How many would like to be a fisher of souls? Let us ask the Lord to make us radioactive; ask the Lord to give you a ministry of bringing souls to Christ Jesus. Pray right now; pray to the Lord over that Word. God tells you: compel them to come in, compel them to come in. Preach the Gospel in your factory, preach the Gospel in your neighborhood. Young people, share the Gospel with someone, with a classmate; do not be timid. Be bold in the Name of the Lord.

Christ, let them sit at His table. He wants to enter hearts; He wants a committed Church. I declare the Spirit of Evangelism. Raise your hand now and receive a special anointing. I prophesy that this Church will become a great industry of souls; it will become a great machinery of faith that receives anointing in the name of Jesus. The house will be filled, and we will have to tear down the walls so that more may enter, but we will not remain barren.

Arise and raise a song, you who have never given birth; you have been pregnant, so raise a song, because the children of the unmarried woman will be more numerous than those of the married woman, says the Lord. You will spread out to the right and to the left, to the north and to the south. Your children will inherit the desolate cities; you will restore the fallen walls. Do not hold back; enlarge the place of your tent, and let your curtains be stretched out. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes, because you will spread out to the right and to the left, to the north and to the south.

Enlarge the site, enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your dwelling be stretched out. Let the cords of your tent also be lengthened, and let the stakes be driven deeply into the ground and made larger and firmer, because you will spread out to the left and to the right, to the north and to the south, and you will possess the nations. Your children will inherit the cities, and you will establish and renew the desolate places, says the Lord. So conceive a great vision for God. Conceive a great vision for God this afternoon.

In the name of God, I declare the Spirit of Evangelism flowing—life, life, life, the ability to give life. You are pregnant right now with the Glory of God. We receive Your Power, Father, more of Your Glory. Make us fruitful, Lord; make us fruitful, Father. Delight us with a continual pregnancy, continually giving birth to lives for the Glory of the Father’s Name. We worship You, Lord; we bless You. Thank You, thank You. We receive Your calling; please do not let us come down from that glory, Lord.

We ask You, we beg You, Lord: keep our minds held high and upright, Lord, until we see Your Glory fully manifested and Your Name glorified. Thank You, Lord, in the Name of Jesus. I bless you, my brothers and sisters. May the Grace of the Lord be with you.