Luke 14:15–24 (NKJV)

Parable of the Great Supper

15 Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!”
16 Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, 17 and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ 18 But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ 20 Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So that servant came and reported these things to his master. 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 here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ 23 Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ”

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Before coming directly to this story or parable, we’ll briefly consider what happened and what was said by Jesus prior to His telling of it which will help us to better understand its significance.  

Healing on the Sabbath vs 1-6
The Occasion and setting for all that’s related by Luke in vs 1-24 was a meal in the house of one of the chief Pharisees – v 1. It was the Sabbath day and the other guests, no doubt mostly lawyers and Pharisees – v 3, were watching Jesus closely. As it happened, there was a man with dropsy present – v 2. This was a condition of excessive fluid in the body’s tissues specially the legs. Now maybe he was a relative of the host or of some other guest or, was he placed there deliberately to see what Jesus would do? If He did as they expected then they would have had reason to accuse Him which of course is just what they wanted. Fearless as always and under the gaze of their glaring eyes and conscious of their disapproval Jesus asked them a simple question about the lawfulness of healing on the Sabbath to which they did not respond. He then took the sick man and healed him. Turning to His audience he asked them another question about the rescuing of an animal on the Sabbath and again no answer. The Lord by what He asked and by what He did reminded these men that a human is of more value than an animal – vs 3-6. A truth these Pharisees needed to learn and one that has been forgotten in our modern culture for reasons other than the scruples of legalistic religion.

Humility before Honour vs 7-11
If the preying eyes of the Pharisees were on the Lord, Luke records how that He also had been watching them. He particularly marked how these illustrious guests with their sense of self-importance assumed to sit down uninvited in the ‘best place’ at the meal and in response spoke directly to them about it by way of a parable – vs 7-11. The Lord reminds them particularly that it was the right and privilege of the host to tell guests where to sit at his wedding banquets. In a culture where honour and shame were everything the Lord shows them how that both shame and honour are earned. Humility is the way to honour while pride is the cause of shame. The Lord shamed the Pharisees by exposing their pride and hypocrisy. They hated Him for it. After giving His illustrative parable He drew this familiar lesson: “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” – v 11. While the Lord certainly taught a practical lesson in humility to His fellow guests there surely was a greater point to His parable in relation to the Kingdom. To honour oneself before God by taking the ‘best place’ will have the ultimate cost of being told to take ‘the lowest place’ in shame on the Day of Judgement, but to take the ‘lowest place’ now will mean that when the kingdom comes He will say: “‘Friend, go up higher” – v 10.  

Hospitality toward the Needy vs 12-14
Then the Lord Jesus had a particular word for His host – vs 12-14. Invite those who cannot recompense you knowing that God will do so “at the resurrection of the just” – 14. The Lord’s lesson for His host was about demonstrating what He Himself came to demonstrate – mercy and grace toward those who needed it most. If the chief Pharisee acted in this way he would be showing that he was truly one of the just who are only ever such by faith which itself is demonstrated by such good works of grace.

The Story of the Great Supper vs 15-24

Having listened to what the Lord said to His host about being ‘blessed’ – v 14 one of the guests speak up in response: “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!” – v 15. Now this person may have been moved to express his appreciation for the values of God’s kingdom as taught by Jesus or it may have been an exclamation of confidence that he and his fellow Pharisees, assuming he was one, were surely the ‘blessed’ and would most certainly be present at ‘the resurrection of the just’ and enjoy their place in the kingdom. Whichever way it was, what the Lord Jesus teaches by way of this story in response is that if anyone wants to enjoy the kingdom in the future, they would need to respond to His gospel invitation in the present.

The Supper Announced vs 16-17
As was the custom in the culture, invitations to attend were first issued to the privileged guests and accepted by them, then when the hour arrived and the supper was ready they were called by the host’s servant to come and partake.
Notice that this was a great supper. It was an evening meal or banquet. Evidently for such a supper to be served the first thing necessary was

      The Preparation
Anyone who hosts even a few guests in their home for a meal knows the work that has to be done to put good food on the table as well as the cost of doing it. In terms of the gospel, the great supper illustrates the work that has been done to provide salvation. Sinners are invited to come and partake of God’s great gospel supper. The work that has been done to make this possible, is the work of the Cross. Christ accomplished it at the infinite cost of His life given and His precious blood shed. The work of Christ is a finished work. The Lord Jesus before commending His spirit into the hands of His Father – Luke 23 v 46 and entering into death said “It is finished!” – John 19 v 30.  

           Provision Made
God has provided a full gospel table. All we need and ever will need is offered in Christ. This is a ‘great salvation’ – Heb 2 v 3. God said through His prophet Isaiah – ‘Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness’ – Isa 55 v 2. God’s gospel feast offers only what is good, rich and delightfully satisfying.
 
           Participation Needed
The servant was sent at ‘suppertime’ to announce “Come, for all things are now ready” – v 17. What beautiful and sweet words. For those invited to benefit, to enjoy, and to experience the great supper they had to obey, by coming and partaking. So it is with the gospel. God’s salvation in Christ is proclaimed and we are invited to come and partake and know the present and eternal blessings of all that God gives us in Christ. Eliza E. Hewitt (1851-1920) penned these words:

Come, for all things are ready! 
’Tis a banquet of love;
Here’s a free invitation 
from the Master above:
It is written in crimson, 
drawn from Calvary’s flood,
From the wonderful fountain 
of the soul cleansing blood.

Oh, what fullness in Jesus!
Oh, what gladness to know,
Though our sins be as scarlet,
He’ll make them as snow.

Come, for all things are ready!
Heaven’s bounty is spread;
Take the cup of salvation, 
take the life giving bread:
Come, the poor and unworthy, 
come, though sinful and weak;
’Tis the hungry and thirsty 
whom the Master doth seek.

Come, for all things are ready! 
Here’s a robe, snowy white,
Fairer far than the raiment 
of the angels of light:
For the beauty of Jesus
will thy covering be;
Only ask for this garment, 
’twill be given to thee.

      The Opportunity
It’s ‘suppertime’ as far as the gospel is concerned. It is the season of opportunity, it is the time to come and be blessed. Everything is ready and the time to partake is now. The Bible says: ‘Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation’ – 2 Cor 6 v 2. But the chance to come is limited and the hour is indeed late. The day of grace will end ‘when once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door’ – Luke 13 v 25. Don’t miss out on God’s ‘so great salvation’ and a place in His kingdom.

The Excuses Offered vs 18-20
The incredible thing about the privileged and pre-invited guests in this story is that they knew the call was coming and they knew they were fully expected to attend, yet when the servant gave the call “they all with one accord began to make excuses” – v 18. From the first right through. The three examples given as excuses concerned land, livestock and marriage. These represent business, work and family. All legitimate things of everyday life. The problem was that the attitude and excuses of those invited displayed their

      Indifference to the Supper
These people didn’t care about the supper. They had no interest in being there and considered it of no importance. Certainly no more important than the ordinary things of life which they used as lame excuses anyone of which could have waited and in the case of the new wife, she surely could have come along with her husband. But more than this, they also showed

      Contempt for the Host
They didn’t have any respect or regard for their host. The expense of the supper, the preparation work, the privilege of being asked meant nothing to them. Their own interests and things came first. The host was ‘angry’ – v 21. How could he be otherwise?

So goes the attitude of many today toward the gospel and toward God Himself. They have no interest in its truth and no time for God.

The most solemn statement comes at the end of the story, “For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper” – v 24. The unusual thing about this comment is the use of the plural pronoun ‘you’ when addressing the singular servant. It would seem, that the Lord is not only concluding the story, He is at the same time through it addressing His audience and applying the statement as a warning to them.

God will ultimately say the same to all those who refuse His supper and slight His call. If you don’t partake of the gospel supper now, you will never ‘eat bread in the kingdom of God’ – v 15. Today, the gospel calls for your response – yes or no to Christ. You must decide. There will be no second chance in eternity to say yes if you have said no in time and there will be no opportunity to partake of the gospel supper when the kingdom comes and the king returns. In that future day of the kingdom He will decide what to do with you instead of you deciding what to do with Him. The Lord Jesus put it this way: “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels” – Mark 8 v 38. If you are ashamed of Him now, He will be ashamed of you then. If you reject Him now, He will reject you then.

The Invitation Extended vs 21-24
The servant was told to “go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind” – v 21. The supper was not to be lost. The provision would not be wasted. If the expected guests wouldn’t come, then ‘unexpected’ ones would.

Now in this story the Lord certainly appears to be illustrating what He has already said to His host, the chief Pharisee in vs 12-14 for the host in the parable, it would seem, because of the refusal of his original guests was forced to reach out further and bring in those he would not naturally invite just as the Lord was telling His host to do. The story demonstrates that the unworthy guests were not the poor and infirmed, but the privileged pre-invited guests! The implication is that by bringing in ‘the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind” – vs 13, 21 and reaching out to the unknown of ‘the highways and hedges’ the host was well blessed for he had the satisfaction of providing for those in need now and extending hospitality to the stranger as well as the prospect of being “repaid at the resurrection of the just” – v 14.

Obviously this story reflected the culture of that day and issue of class distinction. The Lord had told His host “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid” – v 12. Jewish religious higher society lived separately from the lower classes of the sick and sinners considering them unclean.

As already pointed out earlier, God is the host of the great gospel supper and we learn from this parable, there is room at His supper and a place at His table for all who will come. But, unlike the host in the story, God was not forced to reach out to the poor and needy because of the refusal of the privileged and wealthy, rather God’s gospel banquet is a provision for all and He ever intended that the poor and needy would come to it also. The refusal of the privileged and wealthy only served to highlight the fact! The gospel is all about the reach and embrace of His grace through the Lord Jesus. However, it is clear in the parable that the privileged and the prosperous who gave their excuses were indeed the first invited to the great supper. This points to the Pharisees, lawyers, priests and Jewish leaders who through their possession and knowledge of the scriptures knew or should have known that the kingdom would come when the Messiah arrived, but when He did and gave the call to repent and enter it, they refused to do so. What this story illustrates is that Jewish society’s prosperous and privileged, though ever so religious, in their independence and self-sufficiency were ‘blind’ to God’s revelation of the kingdom and the way to enter it. In this story and in the Lord’s ministry the ignorance and arrogance of the leaders and higher society was exposed by the willingness of the unfortunate sick, the unlearned poor and the unworthy sinners to respond to Jesus and come to the gospel supper of God’s forgiveness. It was Jesus who said: “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” – Luke 18 v 24-25. In other words, virtually impossible! But thankfully He did add: “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God” – Luke 18 v 27.

    The Needy Brought v 21
As I’ve said, we must never think that God was compelled to extend grace or that Jesus was forced to reach out to the needy because higher society refused and rejected Him. Not at all. He came to call sinners to repentance and to heal the brokenhearted. In the synagogue of Nazareth at the beginning of His ministry He read from the prophecy of Isaiah these words:

    “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
    Because He has anointed Me
    To preach the gospel to the poor;
    He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
    To proclaim liberty to the captives
    And recovery of sight to the blind,
    To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
    To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”
 
After reading it He said: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” – Luke 4 vs 18-19, 21. His ministry of grace had begun. Indeed we read in Matthew chap. 4 vs 23-25 this account of those early days of His ministry:
 
‘And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them. Great multitudes followed Him—from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan’.

The master of the house hearing the excuses was righteously angry at such contempt. Surely though he could have invited other people of the class who had just refused, but he doesn’t. He does the opposite. He sent his servant to ‘bring in’ the most unlikely people that could possibly come to such a feast. These were the weak and helpless. People who had no merit or reason to be there in themselves. It was the master’s prerogative to bring them in and it was his desire to bless them. It would have been for them an unexpected privilege to attend such a great supper. This illustrates the wonder and beauty of God’s grace.

We all stand in need before God without merit depending on His grace. Spiritually we are all poor and marred by sin in one way or another. No one can claim any right to come and partake of God’s gospel supper, yes not even the privileged or favoured. It is only because of His unconditional love and unmerited grace and the fact that He sent His servant, the Holy Spirit, along with the gospel invitation to bring the unworthy into His ‘banqueting house’ that anyone ever came to be there!

    The Distant Compelled v 23
The servant returns and reports to his master: “Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room” – v 22. Isn’t it good that ‘still there is room’ at the gospel supper? The door has not closed, all the places are not filled, and there is still opportunity to come. Friend, I would remind you sincerely that there is room at the great gospel supper. Why not come this day to the Saviour who died on the Cross for our sins and through whom God offers us forgiveness and redemption? Don’t miss your place in the kingdom. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” – Acts 16 v 31.

The master responded: “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled” – v 23. The servant is moving out from the city limits to those more distant and unknown. Wherever people are found the master wants them brought in. Thank God the gospel invitation has went abroad. Further than Jerusalem and further than the land of Israel. It has reached the ends of the earth bringing to the great gospel supper those who are distant and unknown and outside of the community of God’s covenant people Israel. God’s love is for the world and the reach of grace is universal. Said the Lord Jesus: “And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last” – Luke 13 v 30. Will you be there?

Compel! Is a strong word that implies force, but the idea here is not physical force, but the power of persuasion and appeal. It’s not to force or compel someone against their will. The truth of God’s good news and the power of the Holy Spirit is about persuading people to come. Every gospel message should in itself be a powerful appeal to sinners, a reason why someone should come to Christ. Yet in the end, souls must make their choice and in a world with so many other attractions and appeals how few seem choose Christ.
 
“That my house may be filled” – v 23. This is what the master wanted. He had prepared a great banquet and provided abundantly and therefore He wanted the joy of seeing a full house of guests enjoying his supper. Millions have come to the great gospel supper, many are still coming and many will yet come. God’s house is being ‘filled’, but there is still room.

Will you come?

"All things are ready," come!
Come to the supper spread;
Come, rich and poor, come, old and young;
Come, and be richly fed.
​
"All things are ready," come!
To-morrow may not be;
O sinner, come! The Saviour waits
This hour to welcome thee.
Albert Midlane (1825-1909).

AJC