Scrambling To Fill The Banquet Hall

God is serving up salvation blessings that will delight many many souls for all eternity!  One Gospel writer, Luke, doesn’t want people to miss the Kingdom Banquet (see Luke 14:15-24).  A banquet is a wonderful picture of the Kingdom, of salvation, and of the richness of God’s blessings.  

Jesus Christ has brought the Kingdom and the initial blessings of salvation promised.  He will return again to bring in the fullness of the Kingdom and all its blessings.  We should look upon our experience of salvation and living in it as enjoying a spiritual banquet.

According to Luke, the Banquet has already begun, with its opening courses.  But being such an enormous feast with elaborate courses, the varied delicacies are just too numerous to count!  Salvation in Jesus far surpasses our expectations; and what we have in this present age is just the first course.  It will take all of eternity to get through the meal!

Invitations and Lame Excuses

Like the banquet host in the parable, God the Father has sent His “servant,” meaning His Eternal Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ to tell the people previously invited, “The Kingdom is here.  Enter with me and enjoy!”

But amazingly, some consider that real estate investments are better than the Kingdom Jesus offers.  Others find the potential for business prosperity more enticing than the Kingdom Jesus offers.  And still others place their family happiness before the Kingdom Jesus offers.  

Luke makes it clear that wrong priorities and wrong expectations can cause one to miss the Kingdom of God.  Have you heard such excuses, one lame excuse after another, before?  And certainly this is not a complete list of excuses.  Sometimes we wonder if they have really read over the Banquet invitation carefully enough.

And so we try to kindly go over it in detail with them and share about our joy.  But at some point, we simply need to leave them alone, but keep praying, and go urge others:  those who currently do not know about the Banquet and haven’t yet been invited.

The Banquet Hall Must Be Filled

So, how would you feel if you got those lame excuses from people?  Exactly Jesus’ point!  The Lord Jesus, the “servant,” reports the situation to God Father, “the master,” through His times of prayer.  Eventually, the anger of God would cause the invitation to be withdrawn and He would pursue others.

Luke 14:21–23 ESV “So the servant came and reported these things to his master. 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.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.”

The “servant,” now Jesus and His Apostles, is told to go out and search in the streets and back alleys of the city.  They did so; they got many coming, but there was still a lot of room at the table.  And since there was still room, they would eventually be inviting even more people.

Then, in v.23, the “servant,” now including Jesus, His Apostles and His Church, is told to invite strangers beyond city, even very far away.  This is most likely a reference to all the nations of the earth, that is all the other races of mankind (13:29).

To Compel Compellingly

God the Father desires a full Banquet in the coming Kingdom of the Messiah to show off the extravagance of His generosity to a large multitude from every people.  But, notice that now the “servant” needs to “compel” people.  These people will need even more urging because they are ignorant of the Host’s identity, and His wealth and His generosity!  

We will have to elaborate in detail and with exuberance--in order to be “compelling.”  So, it would be good to think about:  What excites you about the Kingdom?  About living as a Christ-follower?  About being in the Church of our Great and Awesome God?!  

There are still openings, and so we must go and invite others!  Our task from this passage should be obvious, that we as the new “servants” are to go out far and wide, find people and “compel them to come in” to the Banquet Hall of salvation and the Kingdom of God.