Today on the Verdict with Pastor John Monroe. Here is Jesus teaching about the kingdom of heaven, and the offer to enter the kingdom of heaven is given to everyone, whether good or bad. It's incredible. Welcome to the Verdict, featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor John Monroe, Senior Pastor of Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the book of Matthew, Jesus shares a curious parable about a royal wedding feast and some very unusual guests.
But as we'll see in today's lesson, this story isn't really about a wedding; it's about our own invitation to enter the kingdom of God.
So let's join Pastor John Monroe for his message: "Jesus, the King." Can you imagine someone coming to a wedding and being turned away because they were inappropriately dressed? This happens in the story told by Jesus in Matthew chapter 22. A king gives a wedding feast for his son. Surprisingly, many of those invited don't come.
So the king sends out another group of servants to invite the guests. They pay no attention to the invitation and go about their business. Others act in an unbelievable way by seizing the servants, treating them shamefully, and even killing them. The king, who not surprisingly is angry, now instructs his servants to go and invite as many people as they can, good or bad. This seems a strange story, doesn't it?
But today we will learn important lessons about the kingdom of heaven as taught by Jesus. Matthew twenty-two verse one, and again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven." Here it is. Maybe compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again, he sent other servants, saying, "Tell those who are invited: See, I've prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready.
Come to the wedding feast." But they paid no attention, and went off. One to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized the servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, "The wedding feast is ready." But those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.
And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good.
So the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there. A man who had no wedding garment, and he said to him, "Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?" And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for many are called." But few are chosen.
Isn't that quite a story? Isn't it wonderful that in this parable of the king and the feast, when he sends out his messengers, the ones who are first invited, as it were, are those that you think would come—the religious people. But did you notice? How strong it is! The anniversary, but they would not come.
He's talking to the Pharisees. He's talking to the chief priests. The King has come, and there is an offer to you to enter the kingdom of God if you repent and believe in Me, the Messiah. But you would not come. Israel, come to the Messiah.
They say no. We're going to kill him. And what does he then say? Go, therefore, verse nine. Did you notice?
Go, therefore, to the main roads. What's our Lord Jesus Christ going to say before he ascends to his Father and his God in Matthew chapter twenty-eight? What's he going to say to his followers? Yes, Jewish men. The disciples go and make disciples of all the nations.
But first, it comes to Israel. I think it's wonderful, however, and I'm so glad that in this parable in verse ten, it says they gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. Any good people here today? Oh, a lot of you think you're very good, don't you? I mean, compared with other people, you don't steal.
You try to keep the commandments. You're a good neighbor. People think well of you. You're invited to the Christmas party. You're you're a good person.
You're not a criminal. You're an outstanding citizen. You think you're pretty good. You're good. This message is for you.
You need it. You too must repent and believe. And some of you say, "No, in actual fact, John, I'm pretty bad." If you knew what I did this week, if you knew my thoughts this week, you'd be absolutely shocked. I might be. I don't know.
You think you're a pretty bad person, and you are. Perhaps you're deceptive. Perhaps you steal. Perhaps you're immoral. Perhaps you're having an affair and covering it up.
Perhaps you're stealing from your employer. Perhaps you betrayed your friends. Perhaps you're a nasty, mean person. Hands up! There must be one honest person here.
Seriously, what I'm saying to you, whoever you are, whoever you are, this message comes to you. Come. Whoever you are, they go into the highways and the byways, and everyone they find, good or bad, comes to the feast. I want to tell you, you are invited to the greatest party ever—one where there is, think of this, unending joy, a tremendous celebration. Of the marriage feast of the Lamb, and it will be incredible.
I want to tell you, if you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, don't buy into the consensus that Christians are kind of dull, nasty people. Yes, some of them are. I could tell you some who are. But we who followers of of Jesus Christ experience a joy. A deep, lasting joy, which is not dependent on our temporary circumstances, which can be very difficult and very disappointing, but the source of our joy is not in the world, it's not in our achievements, but it is in Christ and Christ alone.
And if you follow Jesus Christ, you will never, ever, ever regret it, and you will experience. A joy that the world can never give you. And the wonderful thing is that the offer comes to you, to you. For God so loved the world. One time, someone said to me when I said that Jesus loves the children.
He said, "Well, you don't know if He loves the children. You don't know if the children are elect." I thought, you know, of course, our Lord loves all of the children. His love goes to all the world. Listen to Paul. It is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
God wants you, my dear friend. He wants you to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Peter puts it this way: the Lord is not slow to fulfill His promises, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. And the death of our Lord Jesus Christ—that wonderful death—is sufficient. To save all who will come to Him, there is abundant provision in our Lord Jesus Christ.
He never runs out of grace. He never runs out of love. He never runs out of forgiveness. And if you, whoever you are, if you repent and come to Him, He will receive you. Our magnificent Savior.
That's the first lesson: the offer to enter the kingdom of God goes to all, good and bad. The second lesson is this: Not everyone will be in the kingdom of heaven. I realize the belief in our society. When you talk to people, and you say, "Oh, it's nice, nice, nice, John, that you're following Jesus." That that sounds so so wonderful. That that's your truth, but you know, I've got my own way, and my way is a little different.
But it doesn't really matter because this is my truth. And with all due respect, I'm not going to follow Jesus. I'm going to live my own life. And ultimately, whatever we believe, we're all going to end up in the kingdom of heaven. After all, all are going to be saved.
We've got churches here in Charlotte that preach that they're universalists. I don't know what they do with this parable. Did they cut it out of their Bibles? Did you notice verse fourteen? For many are called, but few are chosen.
Yes, the call goes to everyone, the whole world, good and bad. Ah, but few are chosen. Not everyone will enter the kingdom of God. Illustration, dramatic illustration, and a parable: the man without the wedding garment, the man who comes to the wedding on his own terms and his own ideas, not only is thrown out of the wedding, he's cast into outer darkness, where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. Those who refuse.
The invitation to come. Those who refuse to repent have no part in the kingdom of God. The tenants in the parable that we thought of last week, chapter twenty-one, verse forty-one. Do you notice they're put to a miserable death? God's judgment comes on those who reject His Son.
We all love John three sixteen. We teach it to our children. It's probably the first verse I ever learned. But implicit in John three sixteen is that if you do not believe, you will perish. Listen to it.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. If you don't believe, you will perish. And what is implicit in John three sixteen is explicitly stated in John three thirty six. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.
Now this is the teaching of Jesus. If you are sitting here. And you refuse to repent and continue to refuse to repent. I have to warn you, as a preacher of the gospel, that you will be thrown into the lake of fire. Like this man, you will be speechless.
You will have no excuse. You've heard the gospel, and you've rejected it. And judgment is coming. That's the second lesson. Not everyone will be in the kingdom of heaven.
Third, the last lesson. Not all who profess salvation possess salvation. Isn't that right? This man, I can see him coming in with the crowds into the marriage feast, and perhaps no one sees anything different about him. He's there.
He's beginning to enjoy himself. But when the king comes in, the king immediately knows this man should not be here. He's with the crowd in the feast. But he doesn't belong there. It's a radical difference.
He's not appropriately dressed. Verse forty-one: For many are called, but few are chosen. You remember in the Beatitudes, Jesus talked about two ways. There is a wide road; many are on it. It leads to destruction.
There is a narrow road, and Jesus says there are few that find it. Yes, the offer goes to everyone, and there are people who profess with their lips that they are following Jesus. They're with the crowd as it were, but the reality is they do not know Jesus Christ. And Jesus says in that day, Matthew seven verse twenty one, not everyone who says Lord, Lord Will enter the kingdom of heaven, Lord, Lord, I did this, I did that, and He says, "No, no, depart from me, I didn't know you." Those who profess salvation but do not possess it are cast out. Let me ask you: Are you dressed for the kingdom of heaven?
You say, "What are you talking about?" There's a man there who's improperly dressed, and the question—the obvious question, the logical question—then is this: Lord, how can I be properly dressed for the kingdom of heaven? I don't want to be thrown out. If you point to yourself, if I ask you, do you think you're going to be in the kingdom of heaven? And you immediately start telling me of your achievements and your goodness and your church attendance, and all the good things that you do. You're wearing the wrong dress.
You're pointing to yourself to what you have done. And Isaiah says in Isaiah 64 verse six that all of these things that you think are pretty good and at a human level are good. But in the eyes of God, they're filthy garments; they're polluted. You sit there, and we hear about your accomplishments, and we think, "Yes, that's pretty good." If I was God, I think I'd allow this person into heaven. Ah, but we're not God, and we have a different standard.
And we are unholy people; we are polluted people. All of us, without exception, have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Our The best that we do is polluted. We're wearing the wrong clothes. In God's eyes, we are without a wedding garment, spiritually naked, bankrupt.
You say, "What do I need? What you need are righteous garments. What you need are perfect garments. You can't stand before God." In your own efforts, what you have done—it's a fatal mistake. It's a terrible mistake.
It will damn you for all of eternity. No, what's the gospel? It's not to look at ourselves. It's to look to Christ, and He comes in His perfection. He did no sin.
He knew no sin. In Him was no sin. And in the wonder of the gospel, there is this wonderful, great exchange, where all of my sin, my dirty garments, as it were, my dirty clothes, are given to Jesus as the Lamb of God to take away my sin. And in exchange, He gives me His perfect righteousness.
So that I am clothed in the righteousness of my Lord Jesus Christ.
So when I stand before God, I don't say I deserve to get into heaven. After all, I was a pastor, and I put up with all of these people at church for many years. And if you only knew what I did, God, surely I can get in. Absolutely not. I don't point to what I've done.
How could I? As a sinful human being, ever enter in to the purity of heaven, of a God who's absolutely perfect and righteous and holy. I don't need better clothes that I can manufacture. You can't give me your clothes; they're polluted as well. I need the clothes of someone who is perfect.
And so says Paul in that great exchange, him who knew no sin. Was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And so I stand before my God in the garments of my Savior, my magnificent Lord Jesus Christ. Robert Murray M'Cheyne puts it this way: When I stand before the throne. Listen to it, dressed in beauty not my own.
When I see Thee as Thou art, love Thee with unsinning heart. Then, Lord, shall I fully know not till then how much I owe. This is God's grace. This is the wonder that God takes the worst of people like us, and we understand that we need to repent. We can't stand in our own righteousness.
We can't stand in our own filthy garments, as it were. No, they're put off. We put on the righteousness of Christ. That's illustrated in baptism, isn't it? When we see someone who is being baptized, Isaiah says, chapter sixty-one, verse ten: "I will rejoice greatly in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God." For he has clothed me with the garment of salvation; he's covered me with the robe of righteousness.
That's it. That's it. That's what it means to repent. And so John in Revelation seven sees this great multitude from every tribe and tongue and nation, and they're wearing white clothes, and the robes have been made white. In the blood of the Lamb, through the blood of the cross, through the sacrificial work of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the world crucifies Him, they reject that stone.
He becomes the chief cornerstone. Our Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, and calls on you and me to come. That's the gospel. Come, says our Savior, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. He gives us rest for our soul.
He gives us forgiveness of sin. He gives us this inexpressible joy, so that we're not saved by our works. But once we are saved, we demonstrate the reality of our salvation by a changed life, so that our good works are never the condition of our salvation, but they are the consequences of our salvation, as we are created in Christ. For good works, where do you stand? Where do you stand?
You picture standing, as it were, before God. What do you say? Are you speechless? Or do you realize that you're standing in the garments of your Lord Jesus Christ? Why won't you repent?
Why won't you come to Christ, turning from your sin? And embracing this magnificent Christ who died for our sins and rose again, will you do that, Father? Under God, we pray that some here, many here, will even now be repenting of their sin and trusting the Savior. For those of us who are following Christ, we realize that the closer we follow Him. The more joyful it is.
So, forgive us when we are distracted and our eyes go in other things. Help us to walk close to our Savior. We pray in His name. Amen. This is the verdict, featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor John Monroe.
There is still more to hear when John returns in just a moment.
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Now, here's Pastor John Monroe.
Well, what's your verdict? Do you hear the invitation to enter the kingdom of heaven? Do you understand that Jesus Christ is calling you to come to Him in a spirit of repentance and belief? While almost everyone believes in heaven, they seem to think that they will just get in because God is loving. But that's a huge mistake.
As we learn today, not everyone who professes salvation truly possesses it. May you receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ today, and bow before King Jesus. What a joy to be in the kingdom of heaven! Thanks for joining us today on the Verdict. I'm Michelle Davies.
Today's program with Pastor John Monroe was produced and sponsored by Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
