Welcome to a firm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries with Dr. Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

My wife, Carol and I recently attended a Chinese wedding, followed I a Chinese banquet feast for that wedding couple. We received the invitation at least six months ago. It is an honor to be invited to the banquet that follows the wedding service. And so the only people that we knew was the bridegroom. I’d never met his wife and the 300-plus guests who attended the wedding. I did not know one other person. So went through a beautiful wedding service. And then later in the afternoon, were together at a great banquet hall in Chinatown for this great feast. We had a card written in Chinese, and we presented it to the Mater d and said that were here to attend the banquet of the Sung family who had just been married. And he said, yes. And he brought us into this large room.

There were many weddings parties going on. And he brought us over to one table and he said, I want to introduce you. This is the room where you will be seated for the feast. And there were hundreds of people in the room. I looked around, didn’t recognize anyone. We were brought to a table and asked to sign what later is part of the wedding garments, part of the reminder of that wedding. A large red silk piece of fabric with Chinese characters at the top. And all around that beautiful piece of silk. People had signed their names in Chinese, and so were given the pen and we signed Ken and Smith. And then we entered a room, total stranger. We had our wedding gift, and we asked one of the hosts, we would like to give our gift to the couple.

He said, just a moment. About ten minutes passed, and he brought the bride, who I had never seen except in the wedding service, and she didn’t look familiar. And then the bridegroom came, and they looked at us, and we looked at them, and were in the wrong weeding party. And then all of our eyes fell on the piece of red silk on the table. It’s a terrible thing to be at a wedding and to assume that everything has been set in place. To know that you are at this great banquet and then to find out at the last moment you’re in the wrong place. A wedding is joyful. It is an attractive event. It’s one of the great events in a couple’s life. Wedding is a time of laughter, of joy. It’s a time of happiness.

It’s a time when someone else has made all of the preparations so that you can come and enjoy the wedding banquet in the service. Jesus chose to tell a parable that focused on this most joyful event of a wedding, and he uses it as the outline to teach to us some great truths about the kingdom of heaven. We read in Matthew, chapter 22. And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. Now, this is no regular wedding. It is a royal wedding. And here the king brings his son, the great prince, and prepares everything for a great wedding. Now the instruction to us is that God the Father has prepared for us a great feast, a great wedding.

And who is the bride and who is the bridegroom? It is none other than his son, Jesus Christ, the prince of peace. And Jesus Christ will be wed with his bride, the church of Jesus Christ. We know that there is a day coming when this spotless bride will be brought together with the bridegroom. We are told that this king sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding, but they were not willing to come. Now, the custom in the day of Jesus was that a person of nobility would send out servants to bring all of the announcements and the invitations to come to the great wedding.

Now wouldn’t you think that having received a special invitation to a great banquet, that everyone would be overjoyed and full of thanksgiving, that they would be able to come and to attend this great wedding? Well, we ask, well, what is the point that Jesus is making in this parable? The point is that God the Father had already sent his messengers. He had sent the Prophets in preparation to tell them that there is coming a great event. My son, the Messiah, is going to come into this world, and there will be a great gathering of people from every tribe and kindred and nation, and they might be present at this great weeding feast. And in the Old Testament we know that the invitation was sent out to that chosen nation, that chosen people, the Jews.

And so in preparation, God the Father sent out John the Baptist to make announcement that the bride and the groom are ready. He sent out the apostles. He sent out the 70 to make the proclamation. To those who ought to have known, to those who ought to have been prepared for the coming of the son for this great wedding, but instead they were not willing to come. If ever there was a group of people who should have looked with such eagerness to the coming of the son, it was that chosen seed of those Jewish descendants who for years had been told to prepare for the coming of the son, but they would not come. We’re told in verse four. Tell those who have been invited. Behold, I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fatted livestock are all butchered, and all are ready.

Come to the wedding feast. Now, a great banquet. Feast at a wedding is a wonderful experience. At the Chinese banquet that we attended, it was a ten course dinner beginning with shrimp through chicken and beef and lobster through dessert. And what a wonderful experience to be part of that wedding company. The father says, I have made everything ready. I have made every preparation for this feast. The calves have been slain. The oxen are ready. Come. But they still would not come, even though it was an honor to have been invited. Probably this is one of the reasons that I have come so much to believe in that word, grace. Grace is God reaching down to man, who on his own will not come. And God freely reaches down and changes hearts and minds. That man who is in rebellion.

And even though he would be invited to a great wedding feast, we would say, why wouldn’t he come? What would be a reason for a person to turn down such a wonderful opportunity? Well, we are told they paid no attention. They went their own way, and they made light of it. Perhaps the greatest sin of man is to make light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember several years ago, talking to a man about Jesus Christ? And he laughed. He said, you mean to tell me that you believe that Christ came into the world? You believe that there’s a heaven? You believe there’s a hell? Young man, grow up to make light of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

I’m afraid we live in a world where the name of Christ is dishonoured, where the lives of many who bear the name Christian do not bring honor to Christ. And when we would share the gospel of Jesus Christ so often, our expectation is that people would make light of it. Wouldn’t you like it if at the moment that someone would make light of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Suddenly at that moment, the heavens would open and a voice would descend and it would say, do not make light. Do not make a joke of these things. Wouldn’t that get your attention? Sure would. But you know, we can make light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and there is no voice from heaven on that day.

The scripture teaches, there is a day coming when all which has been done in secret will be brought to light. And all of the mocking, all of the taking for granted, all of the treating lightly of Jesus Christ, will be treated clearly in the light of his holiness. And this group of people, they chose to make light of the wedding of the son. One of them went to his farm, we’re told. Another went to business. Still others seized the servants. They mistreated them and killed them. Then we find that of the original twelve, with Judas committing suicide, leaving eleven, and then adding Thaddeus as number twelve, that of those twelve disciples, all but one would die of vicious death.

And that all of those who would take the message of Jesus Christ in that following generation after Christ would be cut in half, would be killed with the sword, they would be crucified upside down. They would be boiled alive. And there were some who would take the messengers of the sun, and they would treat them in a shameful way, but they would not come to this royal, wonderful wedding. It’s hard to believe that people would be spiteful against an invitation that is so free and so open and so wonderful. Verse seven tells us. But when the king heard about it, he was furious, and he sent out his armies. He destroyed those murderers and burned up their city.

There are many who look at this verse and say, this is one of the great prophecies of what will happen and what eventually happened to the city of Jerusalem. That those who had taken this sacred city within just 40 years. In 70 AD, the city of Jerusalem would come under the attack of Vespasian and Titus, roman generals, and they would make a siege on the city of Jerusalem, and the temple would be destroyed, and the city would be set on fire, and that all of the walls were broken down and the city of Jerusalem was laid in rubble. Also, those who had denied the gospel call, that chosen race would find in 70 AD that by the tens of thousands, they were taken out of the city of Jerusalem and executed on crosses as they dotted the hillside around Jerusalem.

And what we have is a great prophecy by Jesus Christ that those who would mock, that those who would take lightly his gospel and his invitation, that there was a day coming when their city would be destroyed and set on fire. Why? Because the king was now angry. The king, who was full of compassion, full of invitation, full of grace, would reach a place where the door would be closed on the receiving of that grace, and the time would pass, and their city would be destroyed. We read in verses eight and nine. Then he said to his servants, the wedding is ready. But those who were invited were not worthy. Go, therefore, to the highways, and as many as you find there invite to the wedding feast.

And so the gospel of Jesus Christ, beginning with the apostle Paul, is taken not only to the Jew, but also to the gentile. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is introduced not only to the male, but also to the female, not only to the slave, but also to the free. The Gospel of Jesus Christ with great energy, was brought out of Jerusalem to all who would receive the gospel call in verse eleven. But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw there was a man not dressed in a wedding garment. And he said, friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes? Now, this may sound strange to our ears, but the custom still today in many parts of the Orient and the Middle east is that those who are of great wealth would invite to their wedding friends.

And as they would come, they would be given a piece of wardrobe, which was called a calftan. Was a piece of clothing, apparel that would be worn during a great, festive time of a wedding? And the king comes in, and he sees all of his guests assembled in the great banquet hall. But there is one person who has no calftan on. There is no proper attire. There is one who stands. They stand in their own apparel. We ask the question, what about this garment? What does it mean to wear the proper garment? In the book of Zephaniah, chapter one, verse eight, is this interesting verse talking about the end of the age when judgment will come and Christ shall return.

It will come about on the day of the Lord’s sacrifice that I will punish the princes, the king’s sons, and all who clothe themselves with foreign garments. What is this foreign garment? What is the garment that this man did not have on as the king walks, and his eyes fixed on this one who had entered the great banquet? Donald Gray Barnhouse, who is pastor at 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, often asked this question, if you were to die tonight and stand before God, and he were to ask you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? Barnhouse says there were three answers to that question that were typically given by people. The first was that people would say, well, I’ve done my best. I have tried to keep the commandments.

I have tried to love my neighbor as well as I can. And when I stand before God, I will present those deeds to him, and I hope that will be good enough so that person would come clothed in their own righteousness, in their own good deeds. Barnhouse said there was a second answer that he often received to that question, and that answer was silence. I don’t know. I don’t know what I would say to God. But the third answer, which is the answer of the household of faith, of all of those who love Christ Jesus, that they would say, there’s nothing that I’ve ever done, except that I have placed my faith in Jesus Christ. And I don’t trust in my own good deeds. I don’t trust in my commandment keeping.

I simply trust that Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, died to forgive me of my sins. And I come clothed in the garment of Jesus Christ. When you and I were born, it is as though were given a robe. And we all started out with this white robe. And then we would commit that first sin. And a little smudge on our robe, and then another. There was another smudge. And as the years went by, each year we would commit untold numbers. Hundreds, thousands of sins. And each of them would be marked on this robe. And on the day when we would come before God, our father, the great king, there are some who on that day are going to come with their robe soiled and odious to the nostrils of God stained.

And he will ask, why should I let you into my heaven? And we will say, it is the deeds that I’ve done. He will look at us. He will call us to depart from his presence. For we’re not robed in Jesus Christ. When I was 20 years old and became a Christian, it was very much as though as an act of faith, Jesus Christ came, and he removed that foul, stenching robe, and he took it off, and he placed upon my shoulder his perfect robe that was perfectly white. Jesus Christ, who never sinned. Jesus Christ, whose robe was as pure on the day that he was crucified, as the day that he was born. And by faith, you’re looking at a man clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And if I were to die and to fall over dead right now, the only thing that would save me is that robe of righteousness of Jesus Christ. But it is important that we realize that the robe that wear as human beings is spotted. It is tainted. This week, my little girl, Mary, was walking across the living room, and there was a little tray. She picked up this little tray, and she wanted to come and bring me a cracker. And as with all of her strength, she tried to lift this heavy tray almost in slow motion. It rocked this way and that way, and then it came back, and it hit a glass of soda, and it fell on the floor. And I looked at that, and I looked at Mary, and she knew she had done something wrong.

And she ran over to her uncle. And as I’m cleaning up this spot on the floor, I feel a little tug. And Mary comes, and she whispers into my ear, I’m sorry, daddy. You and I are asked to come before our heavenly Father and to say to him, I’m sorry, daddy. I’m sorry that I have sinned. I am sorry for the many times that I’ve tried to trust in my own good deeds. Please forgive me. That becomes the act of repentance where Christ Jesus comes and he takes away that foul robe, and he places on us his perfect robe of righteousness, and we can stand in his presence at that great weeding feast clothed in the proper garment. How is it with you? What garment are you wearing?

If God the king, were to enter this room and look across and see you, would he pick you out and check eye to eye and see one who is robed in their own righteousness? Or would he see you clothed in the righteousness of his son? Everyone thinks they’re going to the great wedding banquet. Some of us are certain that our name is signed on that great silk. But I’m afraid on that day, there will be many who will think that they have entered the great wedding of the sun and find that the sun is not present. That they have entered a wedding feast that will turn into a death march, that where they thought they were coming for great joy. They will be shocked as they will hear the words, you’re not of my family. You are not of the household of faith.

For Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, the life. And no one shall come to that great wedding feast except they be clothed in Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our God and our Father, we thank you that Jesus has taught us of this great feast, that there were many who were called, but few were chosen. There were many who heard of the invitation, but there were few who actually came and were clothed in the garments of righteousness. Father, we pray that each person within the sound of my voice would be clothed in Jesus Christ alone, that they would know Christ Jesus, that they would stand before you not in their old garments, soiled, but in the pure, white, spotless garment of Jesus Christ Jesus, who has made all things ready.

Father, we pray that we would enter into the joy of the wedding of your son, for we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you for listening to a firm foundation presented by Princeton ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener. You may go to our website, princetonministries.org, or send your donation to Princeton ministries post office box 21 71, Princeton, New Jersey 8543. That’s Princeton ministries, post office box 21 71, Princeton, New Jersey 8543. The Lord bless you. And Dr. Smith looks forward to hearing from you. We would like to thank Rone’s web development company for making this webcast possible. You can find their link at the bottom of our website, princetonministries.org.