Table Talk

The question is, has he saved you a seat by virtue of you accepting the invitation to come to the banquet?

What might your excuse be today if you haven't? I'm young, I want to live my life on my own terms for a little while. Or I'm old, I can't admit I've been wrong about Jesus now. Or I'd have to give up some pleasure, some relationship, some activity in life.

I don't want to give that up. I know all about the church, I'm better than a lot of people to go there. What's your excuse today? On Sabbath day, Jesus attended a dinner at the home of a prominent Pharisee. During the dinner, Jesus healed a man, which sparked a debate with the Pharisees.

Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? In response, Jesus told a parable about a great banquet. The parable serves as a warning to those who prioritize the worldly over the spiritual. Jesus taught that those who were invited but declined to come would miss out.

The bottom line, reject his message and you'll miss out on the blessings of his kingdom. Stephen Davey called this message Table Talk. The Apostle John gives us some of the details of that future meal that occurs when Jesus returns with the redeemed from heaven to earth in his second coming to establish the millennial, the thousand year kingdom of Christ on earth. It's inaugurated by a meal. We call it the marriage supper of the lamb. I believe that's when Jesus will once again drink the fruit of the vine with all the redeemed. We're told by John there's going to be singing, there's going to be a feasting at the celebration dinner. In fact, the Apostle John is given a tour of heaven and a vision into the future of this meal. It's recorded in Revelation 19 verse 6. He says, Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of many peals of thunder, crying out this massive crowd, sounds like Niagara Falls.

Here are the lyrics of their chanting. Hallelujah. For the Lord our God, the almighty reigns, let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory for the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. The lamb is Jesus and the bride is really more like a bridal party composed of all those who've believed in him. John writes in verse 9, And the angel said to me, Write this, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb.

These are the true words of God. So this future dinner table, this future feast will celebrate the return of Christ and we believe we'll have a literal seat at a literal table in a literal kingdom on that day when Christ comes to reign. You have been given an RSVP to that banquet.

The question is, have you responded by placing your faith in the one who sent it, the Lord Jesus, because you want to be there? That's the underlying message that Jesus is about to deliver at dinner around the table one evening. I'd like to call it a divine table talk with Jesus. So take your Bibles and we're in Luke chapter 14 now and it records that dinner conversation for us here in the next 24 verses. So I plan to cover all 24 verses this morning and I believe we can do it because I believe miracles can happen. All right, now speaking of miracles, here's a real one that's about to happen before dinner. Look at verse 1.

One Sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. Behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. This condition would be called today edema. This is the accumulation of fluid. It's painful.

It can be deadly. Now more than likely, this is a setup. This man's been invited. He's been placed near the front door when Jesus shows up.

In other words, this is a trap. Jesus knows it, of course. This is an invitation to eat with your text as a ruler of the Pharisees. Most Bible scholars believe the host is a member of the Supreme Court of Israel, the Sanhedrin. Any kind of medical assistance, unless it's life-threatening, certainly any kind of healing would be considered work and this is the Sabbath and you don't work on the Sabbath. So this is a trap.

This is a setup. In fact, the word Luke uses here for watching, they were watching Jesus, is a word that can be used in the sense of spying or watching in espionage. See, they're wondering if Jesus will actually violate their law with somebody like a Supreme Court justice in the dining room.

They're hoping he will. So Jesus stops. He looks at all of them and asks the question here in verse 3, is it lawful to say, heal on the Sabbath day or not?

Now, Jesus, he springs a trap of his own. The word for lawful here is a word that can be proper or permitted. You'll know Jesus doesn't ask them if this is lawful according to the law of Moses because it is.

The Mosaic law doesn't forbid this. That word can be understood as proper or appropriate. Does it conform to good manners? This is actually a brilliant move here. He's asking them to choose between their traditions and kindness.

He's asking them if they view their traditions as more important than people. Now they're stuck in their own trap. It reminds me of my grandmother who taught me how to play chess when I was in middle school. I never beat her. I used to hate to hear that word checkmate.

You've heard it too. You had a grandmother as kind as mine. All the way through college, I never won. She was vicious.

I quit playing her actually. Can you imagine these Pharisees are trying to play chess with the master? It's as if I hear the Lord say, checkmate. Verse four, they remain silent.

Checkmate. Then he took him, that is the man with dropsy, and healed him, sent him away. And he said to them, which of you having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day will not immediately pull him out. They could not reply to him. Of course they can't. They know the law didn't forbid helping someone in need.

Here's a man in misery. Jesus can heal him without even a word, which he does here. They get the point. Jesus made them admit that according to their religious traditions, animals were more precious than people. Dinner hadn't even started. I just kind of see him standing there with their plastic plates and hors d'oeuvres and little cheese squares and crackers thinking, whose idea was this to bring this guy and put him in the front door? He made us admit that animals are more important than people.

Can you believe those Pharisees? Not so fast. America happens to be the leading country in the world spending on domestic pets. Now I'm not talking about livestock or milk cows. The American Pet Products Association recorded that last year Americans spent $109 billion on their pets, up $6 billion from the previous year. And the last year, last year for the first time by the way, less than 50 percent, first time ever, less than 50 percent of Americans gave anything to charity, any charitable cause.

And those who did gave on average $47 a month. I'm so glad we're not like the Pharisees who cared more about animals than people. This might be a little too convicting. We ought to move on. We've got 17 more verses to cover. By the way, I'm not against having a pet. Most of them are wonderful to have. You want me to say more, but I'm not going to say anymore.

I know you. All right, now the chapter opened with these men watching Jesus. What they didn't know is that he's now watching them. Look at verse 7. Now he told the parable to those who were invited who he noticed, get that, he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, let someone more distinguished than you be invited by him. And he who invited you both will come and say to you, give your place to this person. And then you'll begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes, he may say to you, friend, move up higher. Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.

Now, don't misunderstand. Jesus isn't giving them this little gimmick to guarantee being honored. He's not suggesting false humility that takes, you know, the back seat. In fact, that might be just as prideful as choosing the front seat.

Jesus is simply pointing out what he's observed here in this dining room. In this generation, there's this unspoken seating etiquette. Everybody sat according to rank and importance. In fact, in my research on this passage, I read that the Romans during the days of Christ believed that if there was a couch and there were three cushions, a couch large enough for three people, the middle cushion was the seat of honor. Let me tell you, I wouldn't want that middle seat. I want the window seat or the aisle seat. The middle seat was the seat of honor. Furthermore, the closer you sat to the host, the more important you were. So Jesus is watching as everybody's choosing their seat. One author put it this way, the dining room has become a flurry of elbows as they try to outmaneuver each other into the most prestigious seats.

It would have been comical had it not been so dreadful. These are the religious leaders. This is the home of one of the Supreme Court justices, and it's nothing but pride per square inch. It's all about status, self-promotion.

It's all about being a big shot, and it happens to this day in a thousand different ways. I was sent this humorous incident some time ago. An army colonel had just been promoted. He'd been given his new office on base. He had a big desk, a nice chair. As he sat there waiting for his first day to begin, a knock came at the door.

It was a lowly private. The colonel said, just a minute. I'm on the phone. And he said, loudly enough on the phone to be heard down the hallway, yes, sir, general. I'll be happy to, sir. I'll call the president of the United States today.

No, sir, I won't forget. I'll call him right now. Then he hung up and said, come in, private. I'm a busy man.

What do you want? Private meekly said, well, I've just come to hook up your telephone. Caught.

I love it. Well, Jesus is telling them, about to tell them that the kingdom has a different seating arrangement. The proud are humbled, the humbled are exalted. Now, Jesus goes on to say that these religious leaders not only have the wrong seating arrangement, but they've sent the wrong dinner invitations for the wrong reason. He says to his host here in verse 12, notice, and he said to the man who had invited him.

This is the Supreme Court justice. When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. Again, Jesus isn't against having dinner with your family or friends or your wealthy neighbors. He's saying just don't limit your invitation list to them.

But he's also exposing here a motive. As the Lord, he sees motive and he cuts to the heart of it and he looks at this justice and basically says, what you're doing here is nothing more than a hospitality quid pro quo. Look, I'll invite you over so you'll make me look good and then you invite me over so I'll make you look good and you can repay me. You might notice that key word in verse 12.

So I'll get repaid when you have me over. This dinner is not graciousness, it's selfishness. And Jesus turns that thinking upside down. He says basically you need to make a new list, verse 13. He says here, but when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, here's the idea, because they cannot repay you.

You'll be repaid, rewarded, the coming resurrection of those who are right with God. By the way, in this generation, the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind were never invited to public banquets. They were under some kind of judgment from God, which is how people felt. Besides, they didn't enhance anybody's reputation.

They couldn't pay anybody back. So the Pharisees are making sure they're hanging around the right people and they're snubbing the wrong people. Those naked Pharisees, I'm glad we're not like that.

Do you have a click? We call it a circle of friends, sounds nicer. Maybe you're one of those people on the outside looking in.

Well the advice would be the same both ways. Look for someone who's being overlooked. Include someone who's being excluded.

Go find somebody who's being forgotten. That will demonstrate the heart of Christ. So now after Jesus cuts to the chase here, why this dining room is filled with VIPs, you probably could have heard a pin drop.

Again, it's deathly quiet. Some anonymous man breaks the awkward silence here in verse 15. Well bless it, is everyone who will eat bread in this kingdom of God? In other words, how about that kingdom?

It's going to be great, isn't it? They don't know what to say. Well that Jesus makes a direct application of the gospel invitation to this future banquet, the marriage supper of the Lamb. Here's who's been invited, verse 16. But he said to him, a man once gave a great banquet and invited many.

And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come for everything now is ready. But they all began to make excuses. Now you need to note that in this text, it tells us that all alike began to make excuses. That doesn't mean they all had the same excuse, but that they all began to make excuses.

And here's why they had to. In this day, it was customary to send two invitations to a dinner like this or a banquet. The first would go out weeks in advance. We kind of do the same thing when we mail out the RSVP, the invitation as people send in their RSVP.

You send back your regrets or you send back your acceptance. That way the host knows how many paper plates to set out and how many hamburgers and hotdogs to put on the grill. It's the kind of banquet I like to go to. Well evidently all these people responded, they're coming. Now in the Lord's generation, that first invitation would give the day but not the hour. So the second messenger would essentially then go around, go around the village and tell everybody that dinner is going to be ready in a few hours, two or three hours, whatever it might be.

The host has spent with his household days preparing, cooking, cleaning, making arrangements, all quite expensive to the host and verse 16 implies this is his gift to them. They just have to show up. And they all, even though they had said they're coming and he's prepared, now beg off.

All this food is going to be wasted along with all the time and effort. So what's he going to do? Well before we're told what he's going to do, the Lord gives us three of the excuses people came up with. Verse 18, notice the verse said to him, I bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused. Now this excuse is actually a lie and everybody knows it.

In fact the guy doesn't care enough about the host to come up with a better excuse than this one. See in these days and in our day, nobody buys a piece of land without having seen it. In these days, land ownership was so precious in the Middle East. In fact no one would buy a field without knowing how many trees and where they were planted and if there were paths or roads, what the anticipated water sources would be.

They would know that land like the palm of their hand. I can't come to the banquet because I bought a piece of land, I haven't seen it yet, so excuse me while I go look at it. It's a lie. The second excuse, verse 19, and another said, I bought five yoke of oxen, five pears, that's 10, and I go to examine them.

Please have me excused. Again this is such a bad excuse, it's an insult to the host. Notice he has already bought them and now he's going to test them. Examine them.

He's going to see if they can pull a plow. This is an insult. This is a lie and everybody knows it. If you tell your teacher that you can't turn in the term paper because the dog ate it, that not only reflects on how ridiculous you are, but it shows how ridiculous you must think the teacher is to believe it. One author said these excuses aren't just flimsy, they're hostile. Now here's the third one, seems to save the best for last, verse 20, and another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.

I used to be able to get out of the house. She won't let me leave. He's not only coming up with a ridiculous excuse, he's insulting the host, but he has just insulted his wife.

It's her fault. Now these religious leaders are picking up by now. The host is God. The house is the Father's house.

It's the kingdom. Their excuses, as ridiculous as they are, really fall into two categories, which are the same excuses you hear today when people reject the gospel, possessions and affections. A person who rejects the invitation of God is saying essentially this, what I am doing with my life is more significant than whatever it is that God wants to do with my life, or whatever I have going on in my life is more important and frankly more interesting than whatever God can offer me.

It isn't just flimsy. It's hostile. People today are not heading toward the kingdom of God because they haven't been invited, but because they are not interested.

In fact, they don't care for the host. So what's God going to do about it? Well, he's going to send out some unexpected invitations. Look at verse 21 where he says, so the servant came and reported these things to his master, these excuses. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. In other words, go out and invite people who don't believe they're worthy to get in. Let's give them a seat. Verse 22, and the servant said, sir, what you commanded has been done and still there's room. In other words, we've got some seats that are still available around the table.

What do you want me to do now? Verse 23, and the master said to the servant, go out to the highways and hedges. Your translation may read byways or lowways. You had the highway.

It was elevated and paved by the Roman Empire. You had to pay a toll to use it off to the side and down a little bit where the hedges grew was the byway. That was the low way. That's where the poor people walked. So he's basically saying, go out and invite the wealthy.

Invite the poor, the highways and the hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. This is a prophetic implication here of the invitation list for the kingdom. This banquet is going to extend beyond the Jewish community. Now it's going to go out there. It's going to hit the highway. Gentiles will be invited and compelled to come in. You know what I love about this? Ralph Davis pointed this out in his wonderful little commentary.

It just got published. He said this. He said, the response of God here in rejection of his invitation did not cancel the banquet.

I never thought about it that way before. It didn't cancel the banquet. God's going to have a full house, in other words. He has determined from eternity past to fill every seat.

The question is, has he saved you a seat by virtue of you accepting the invitation of the messenger to come to the banquet? What might your excuse be today if you haven't? Well, I'm young. I want to live my life on my own terms for a little while, at least a little while longer. I'm old.

I can't admit I've been wrong about Jesus now. It would be humiliating. Or I'd have to give up some pleasure, some relationship, some activity in life. I don't want to give that up.

I don't need saving. I know all about the church. I'm better than a lot of people to go there.

What's your excuse today? So I ask you, what is your answer? If it is, I accept by faith in your son alone. Let me tell you, you're heading for a dinner party, and it's a big one. It's a wedding supper.

It is the opening ceremonies of the kingdom of Christ, which has finally arrived on earth. Don't miss it. Don't miss it. Before you leave today, if you have not yet said, say to Jesus, Lord, save me. Lord, save me a seat.

And he will go. That was Stephen Davey, and he called his message Table Talk. I invite you to learn more about Stephen and this ministry at wisdomonline.org. On that website, you'll be able to access the complete library of Stephen's Bible teaching ministry. All of that content from Stephen's 37 years of Bible teaching is posted there. You'll find that collection of sermons organized by Book of the Bible. If there's a particular book that you want to study, and if Stephen has preached through it, you can listen or read each message. All of that content is available to you free of charge and on demand. You can access it anytime at wisdomonline.org. Please visit there today, and please make plans to be back here next time for more wisdom for the heart.