FromNowUntilForeverBook8.5x5.5 REV.indd

about this glorious banquet, let’s go to the aforementioned parable (Matthew 22:1-14), one which Jesus delivered just days before He was crucified. Examining this story, note first the preparation . As Jesus stated, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son . . .‘My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready’” (Matthew 22:2,4, NIV, emphasis added). Clearly, these words allude to the messianic meal planned around the Second Coming (though this interpretation can’t be pressed to its limits, since when the time comes, acceptance or refusal is already a foregone conclusion). One of my fondest memories of childhood was going to my grandmother’s house for lunch on Sundays after church. She’d wake up early in the morning and fry chicken. Do you remember those days when people actually fried chicken? The leftover grease provided a perfect base for milk gravy to go over biscuits! Add to that corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, sliced fresh tomatoes, and baked apples. On special occasions, we had jam cake. After she did all the work, I grabbed a fork and enjoyed the bounty. In a roundabout way, the above describes the Gospel.The preparation was totally God’s, who offered His one and only sinless Son as atonement for our sin.We did nothing to set the table for our salvation and there’s nothing we can do to earn it. However, we can’t enjoy the abundance if we don’t respond to the next point in this parable, the invitation .The king “Sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast . . . tell those who have been invited,‘Behold, I have prepared my dinner . . . come to the wedding feast’ . . . Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast” (Matthew 22:3,4,9).

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