Christ's Object Lessons - Chapter 18: Go Into the Highways and Hedges

Pastor David Asscherick is joined by Johnny Suarez (or, to be more precise, Juan Jorge Suarez Melendez) to discuss Chapter 18 of Ellen White's Christ's Object Lessons, which examines the parable of the great banquet. Ellen White unpacks how Jesus used this story to reveal God's full and gracious invitation extended first to the religious Jews, then to ordinary Jews, and ultimately to the entire Gentile world. The chapter emphasizes that Christ Himself is the feast—the satisfying meal offered at infinite cost yet freely given to all who will come. David and Johnny explore how the excuses of property, profession, and people prevented the original guests from accepting, while God longs to fill His house with an innumerable multitude through radical hospitality and simple, personal ministry.

Guest: Juan Jorge Suarez Melendez
Scripture References: Luke 14:1-24
Covers: Chapter 18: Go Into the Highways and Hedges
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS0s5D4IiPc
Light Bearers

Transcript

Greeting and Announcements

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to with DA. And once again, JJSM. Did I get it right?

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Yes. Juan Jorge Suárez Melendez.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Melendez. Okay, welcome everybody. We are so glad that you are here. You might be able to tell that my voice is a little deep. And I sent a Violeta just a moment ago. I feel like I'm starting to lose my voice, but I think I'll be okay. So, Johnny, I just need you to do most of the talking tonight. Oh, yeah. Can you do about 90% of the talking?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

90%.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

I hope you have all had an awesome day today. I've had a great day. Johnny, you had a productive day.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Very productive day.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Trying to Yeah, I came home uh this afternoon, early this afternoon, and I said, uh, where's Johnny? And Violetta said, I don't know. I said, Have you seen him today? She said, I haven't seen him all day.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

That's the truth. Where were you? I was in my room trying to catch up with all my tasks and labors. So you were doing work.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

You were working on it on the phone, on the computer, getting work done.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

First time I went down, it was like 4 30 p.m. I did get a little breakfast.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

You got a little breakfast this morning. I saw you for breakfast. And then I had a sumptuous feast. Oh, we got a sumptuous feast. Johnny, why don't you tell us about that sumptuous feast? What was it?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Absolutely delectable. We had uh some homemade pizza from the Ash ranks in their absolutely exquisite uh massive little machine that takes, I think, 700 and something degrees. Oh no, it gets almost to a thousand degrees. Almost to a thousand, like like homemade pizza, and I was like, this is good.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

I asked you how good the homemade pizza was, one to ten, and you said without hesitation, ten. Were you just being nice? Oh no, no, no. Now we made about five different varieties of pizza tonight. What was your favorite?

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Matt, I think that one that had the olives and the cheese and the veggies on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

The one at the end.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Okay. And what'd you think of the pear pizza, the sweet pizza?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

The pear pizza, I was told it had figs in it, and because we had had a rather unpleasant experience with figs the night before, I'm like, eh. But overall, I think the pears was good. You had an unpleasant experience with figs? No, no, no. The the story of the fig tree.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Oh, the figs. I was like, I don't remember serving you figs last night. Okay, got it. So you felt like you couldn't like the pear pizza because it had figs on it, and we had just finished talking the night before about figs.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

You got it.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Okay, that's biased. You were biased against it. Okay, but the pizza was good.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

The pizza was good. Now I'll tell you kind of a funny thing. Um I was with my wife on the phone. Okay, and and I told her, honey, I gotta go. And she's like, Where are you going? I was like, I have to help make some food uh with cashers. And she said, Stop. She said something like, What are you talking about? You don't know how to make any food. You never make any food, you don't know how to make any food. I was like, Well, I'm not actually gonna make a I'm gonna be there while the dough is getting to the night. Offered my services. Yeah, she was like, This is not true. Like, you don't make who is this man? Put my husband on the phone. Exactly. So I had to spend like a good two or three minutes just expounding on the fact that I was truly, truthfully, just coming to be an observer. You did come down and see, you saw me cooking. I I actually saw it, even though it was.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

It was fun. It was great. It was great. Very good. So the pizza is as good as advertised. So far, every guest that we've had here for with DA that's at our homemade pizza from my new pizza oven. It was a Christmas gift for my son. Did I tell you that? Yeah, my son got it for me. And uh so far, everybody's approving, right? High approval ratings. Extremely good. You'd come back, you'd come back to this restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

And that's what I was telling Violet. I was like, man, we were going through the mathematics of it. You know, we were talking about a return on love. That was a yeah. So I was asking you how much did it cost? We figured out that the dough cost only about 50 cents per pie.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Oh, 50 shots, this is just exactly what a businessman would do. I know. Okay, so we got 50 cents for dough.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Of the dough, and then about maybe 75 cents to a dollar per pie in cheese. Okay, cheese. Cheese, okay. And then the ingredients that can vary significantly because now what you put in there, probably about a dollar, dollar and fifty. So we're at less than three dollars for a pizza. Let's just say four bucks. But what she did tell me was that the biggest expense was the time that it took her about an hour and a half. To get it all ready. To get it ready, prep it all up. And that's the thing that I'm totally impatient. Like, I just I can't. That's why I asked you the first day I asked you when you were putting the pizza in there, how long is this gonna take?

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Yeah, you said, How long does it take? And I said, about one to two minutes. And you were like, What? Really? I said, Yeah, it'll be done in like a minute and a half. Um, okay, Johnny, but you grew up in New York City. They have great pizza. I did. And so this was good good pizza.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Some of the great pizzas of the world are found in New York. Grimaldi's pizza, if you've never been to New York. This was right up there. I was like, Right up there with Grimaldi's Grimaldi.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

I don't even know what Grimaldi's is. All right, welcome everybody. We are super glad that you are here. We hope you've had an awesome day and maybe even a pizza-filled day. We are in chapter 18 of Christ's Object Lessons. For those of you that don't know, this is with DA. Uh, we are going through a one-month journey looking at many of the parables of Jesus, the incomparable parables of Jesus. And today we're in Luke chapter 14. The chapter title is Go Into the Highways and Hedges. Go Into the Highways and Hedges. Johnny, you're all ready? Ready? You're prepared? Indeed. And it's a long chapter. It was very long.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

It was like more than double the size of the other one.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

A long chapter. And so we're gonna, as we often do on the long chapters, we're going to move more quickly through it. But happily for us, she spends, oh, I don't know, maybe a quarter or a third of the time really unpacking the parable itself, and then the rest of the time making personal application to individuals, to our day, to the various classes of people. And so we'll spend time on the parable, and then we'll just sort of pick up the highlights of what you loved in her particular application. And there's a lot. I mean, it's great stuff. But we're not going to have the opportunity to read through the whole chapter, probably. No. No way. Okay, Johnny, why don't you have our opening prayer? Let's pray.

Prayer

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Father in heaven, Lord, we're delighted to be able to bask in the beauty and the blessedness of your word. We ask that you will minister to us and in a in a real way feed us through your word that we may be reminded that you are indeed the feast. Thank you to advance in Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Amen.

Discussion

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Amen. Dude, in your prayer there, you made a point that she makes in the chapter. That's exactly I see what you're doing. Now, Johnny, also just quickly, tonight you got to meet a couple of my rock blemming friends that you have never met before. Just quickly, totally honest, because they're never gonna they won't watch. What's your impression of them? What what what are they?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Well, look, one of them was Canadian. No, just kidding. Uh Canadians seem to be cool. That they were fascinating. Um, the one guy spoke Spanish. Yeah. I thought he might have Hispanic heritage.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

But no.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

No, he's from Saskatchewan.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

He's he's Canadian. I think he lived in Mexico, in Peru, and a few other countries. So I was impressed by that. And then the other guy, your friend Luke. Luke. I think you know him since you were teenagers.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Since we were teenagers, yeah. Something like that. Yeah. We've known each other for 30 years.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

He seems like very knowledgeable, kind.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

He's a very kind person.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

And they know a lot about rock climbing, which, like, I'm sure you're talking about it. They know about a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Uh, one of the really cool things about having uh Luke and Mike and Johnny over for dinner tonight was for me, this is a number of my different worlds colliding. Right? Like, it's it's fun when you have friends that you've known for a long time and then other friends, because I've known you for 20 years. Yeah. Right? Like your world's colliding, and it's it was just fun to sit there and watch you guys interact. I was curious what you thought about.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

I was thinking all about like you were asking about the cities. So one of them, Luke, he's an American, he's never been to New York City. Never been to New York City. And he's like 52 or 60. Nah, he's 46. Oh, 46, sorry, 46. Never been to New York, but been all over the Midwest and parts of this area. Yeah, yeah. And he was like, Do you think I should go to New York?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

That's kind of Europe a lot too. Christopher Kleining. But never been to New York. So now to you this sounds crazy.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

I was like, wait, how do you travel around the world, but you've never been to the largest city in the United States of America? And I think you were making a point to me, like, yeah, maybe you should go check it out. They do have some good food. And we started talking about how expensive everything is, and he's like, I think I'm okay with it.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

I'm good. I'm good. Um, okay, just a some a point about that. Last night we talked about how it was totally providential that we were talking about Jerusalem and we talked about our tour to Israel, which is coming up dates.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

This is August 31st to September 7th. So we'll be there for seven nights, and uh we'll be there nine days, including travel time. You can join us on the pre-extension, the post-extension. It'll be absolutely fabulous. We have a few extra bonus spots that I've never gone to. Whenever I take people on these tours, I always look for one and two places that's new for me. And I tell people, I've never been here before. Let's find out what happens. Let's see if it's any good. Let's see if it's any good. Usually it's pretty good. Once in a while, you're like, Whoa, that was not a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Not time I was spent.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

But most of the time we find something fresh.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Well, you don't know unless you go. It's true. Okay, and then just quickly, Johnny, if somebody's interested in learning more about the tour, what would they do?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yeah, so just send us a text message. We mentioned this yesterday. And this would be with DA. That's what you'll text. The number is 914-804-5699. And just text with DA to that number if you're interested. We had several people reach out to us uh last night and this morning saying they're interested in the chat. So you're welcome. We have a few spots left. Uh happy to have you again. It's gonna be an unforgettable experience. Can't wait. We're gonna get into scripture and we're gonna be in the actual sites where those stories occurred. Pastor Ashre will be there, I'll be there, and some other uh great people will be there. So hopefully you can join us as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Okay, so the point I was making about that, thank you, Johnny, for making it.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

By the way, that's called the invitation, and that goes along with me.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Okay, that I was just gonna make this point that that last night we were talking about Jerusalem, and it was just totally providential because we're gonna be in Israel and Jerusalem later this year. But then this is about inviting people to dinner. Yes. And tonight I invited you and Luke and Mike to come to dinner, all very different kinds of people. We got a Mexican-Eurecan, we've got a Canadian that spent a lot of time in South America, and then my good friend Luke, who's lived basically is like you. Well, you're a unique species. I'm unique in every sense. Okay, great. So it was really great to have. It's fun to sit down and share a meal. And the context and setting of this chapter is a shared meal. So, Johnny, I'm gonna have you read. Uh, why don't you read verse one? Okay. So this is Luke chapter 14. Luke chapter 14. We're gonna read verse one, and then John, um, Johnny, I'm gonna have you just read the parable of the great bank. This is in the NIV, and then we'll do the same thing in NT Rights Translation. Listen for the similarities and the differences. All right. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

One Sabbath when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering. Oh, now I skip that. That's first one. So remember.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

No, that's just sets the context. He's in the house of a Pharisee, and then there's this healing that takes place, and then Jesus tells this story.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God. I don't know why, but I was thinking he said it in the British accent. Right with the high fluence. So he says, A certain man, Jesus replied, a certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, Come, for everything is now ready. But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, I have just brought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me. Another said, I have just brought five yoke of oxen, and I am on my way to try them out. Please excuse me. Still another said, I just got married, so I can't come. The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servants, saying, Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. Sir, the servant said, What you ordered has been done. There is still room. Then the master told the servants, Go out to the roads and country lands and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, one of those who were invited will get a taste of my bankrupt.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Okay, well done, Johnny. I like your voices.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

I do, I do like to do it.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

When you read the Bible to your children, do you do that? I do that. I do that. Yeah, I can tell. That was that is the way that a father with young children reads scripture. That was really, really good. Okay, now we're gonna read it in anti-Rights Translation, uh, beginning in verse 1, Luke 14, 1. One Sabbath Jesus went to a meal in the house of a leading Pharisee. Uh, they were keeping a close eye on him. Jumping down now to the parable, which begins in verse 12. He turned to his host. Uh no, where is it that he says uh it's actually verse 15. Jumping down to verse 15. One of the guests heard this and commented, A blessing on those who eat food in God's kingdom. Jesus said, Once a man made a great dinner and invited lots of guests. When the time came, when the time for the meal arrived, he sent his servant to say to the guests, Come now, everything's ready. But the whole pack of them just began to make excuses. The first one said, Ah, I bought a field and I really have to go and see it. Please accept my apologies. Another one said, I've bought five yolk of oxen, and I've got to go and test them out. Please accept my apologies. And another said, I've just gotten married, so naturally I can't come. So the servant went back and told his master all this. The householder was cross and said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in here the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. All right, master said the servant, I've done that, but there's still room. Well then, said the master to the servant, go out into the roads and hedgerows and make them come in so that my house may be full. Let me tell you this: none of those people who were invited will get to taste my dinner. Okay, so this is what's called the parable of the great banquet. The parable of the great banquet. And it's fascinating that it takes place in a dinner setting. We were just talking about dinner here at my house tonight, eating pizza. This is a dinner setting. And if you kind of read between the lines here, let me just say this briefly. It's entirely possible that Luke 14 is a setup. It's a trap. Okay, let me make the case here.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Um, first of all, Jesus has been invited by a Pharisee. Up to this point in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus has been in an adversarial relationship with the Pharisees, primarily coming from their end, of course, right? They're not sure about Jesus. They don't like Jesus. They don't like the popularity of Jesus, they don't like the way that Jesus seems to be undermining them and their position and their perspectives. So already it's a little unusual that they would invite Jesus. Okay, so you you start to ask the question, are they inviting him to learn? Are they inviting him because they're interested? Are they inviting him because they want to better understand his perspective? Probably not. So then you start to say, are there other reasons they might invite him? And the answer would be, yeah, because we already know in the larger picture of the gospels that they're trying to trap Jesus, right? That they want to quiet Jesus, they want to get rid of him, if necessary, by death. And that's where this is eventually going to end. So you already kind of get this sense of suspicion. Like, why has a Pharisee invited Jesus? Okay, then now it gets even more interesting. Notice that it says right there in chapter 14, verse 1, that they were keeping a close eye on him. So Luke adds this very interesting editorial detail to let us know the kind of context and posture in which they had invited him to keep an eye on him. Right. But then check this out. There's a man there that has a strange illness, right? Now, let's just, I'll read this here in the IV. Now let me just read you this here. It says, um, verse two, there was in front of him, in other words, close to Jesus, a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

So we have some kind of like an edema. Okay. Now here's what's interesting. Edemas are sometimes, perhaps often, accompanied by like oozings out of the body, right? Like open sores, which is already kind of a situation in which a Pharisee, uh, especially on the Sabbath would not want to have a sick person around them, and certainly not a sick person that was potentially contagious, right? And might even have weeping sores. So this man just happens to be there at the banquet as well. And it all starts to sound a little thorny, a little suggestive. It says there was in front of him a man suffering from abnormal swelling of the body. Verse three, Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, you almost get the sense that Jesus knows this is his Sabbath. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? He's kind of almost politely asking permission to heal the man in the house of the Pharisee. Like, what's your opinion? And the Pharisees and the rabbis didn't mind a good old-fashioned theological debate. Verse 4. But they remain silent. They want to see what Jesus is going to do. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way. Why did he send him on his way if he had been invited to be at the banquet? You almost get the sense that he's he's a prop. You want to see what Jesus wants to do. There's more to the story. There's more to the story. That's exactly right. There's more to the story. And if you read between the lines here, it appears to me that it has been a likely, we can't say definitively, but it looks to me as though likely, and there are other commentators that tend to agree with this perspective, that this was a bit of a setup.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

A bit of a setup to try and trap Jesus and to try to pin him down on things like, How do you keep Sabbath? Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? And Jesus heals this man and then sends him out. Then he asked them, if one of your, you know, you know this familiar passage, if you have a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath, will you not immediately pull it out? Now, just quickly, this is Luke 14. Jesus has just done the same thing in Luke 15. Remember the woman that was bowed over? The woman that was bowed over, and Jesus called her over to himself in the synagogue and healed her and said, Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity. And they were upset. They said, Hey, there's six days you can heal. Why are you healing on this day? Because the basic Jewish rule in Jesus' day was if something could be put off until after Sabbath, even an urgent matter, even an emergency matter, if it could be put off without the loss of life until after the Sabbath, you waited. And they might have said, Well, this guy's had this disease, this swelling for weeks and weeks. Wait until after the Sabbath. This woman's been bent over for years. Wait until after the Sabbath. So the fact that that happens in 13, and then they're like, we're going to test this again. And it happens in a very chapter. We'll invite him. And we'll smoke. We'll we'll have a man who just happens to be sick right here in front of him, a man who has a disease that's potentially contagious. And you know that so much of first century Judaism was worry about ritual contamination, ceremonial contamination, etc. And so it looks like a bit of a setup, and you almost get the sense that Jesus detects that it's a setup. And he still comes. Of course he still comes. And that's the point that Nellyn White's going to make here in just a moment when we read the first paragraph. But I just want to set the tone here. It then makes sense why Jesus tells a parable that's specifically about those. Watch this now. There's three groups of people that are in fire. There's three invitations: the initial invitation, the second invitation, and then finally go into the highways and hedges. And the kind of standard, almost allegorical interpretation of this, it's quasi-allegorical, but there are a number of commentators that see the invitations like this. The first invitation is to the righteous Jew. Okay. Right? They're the ones that are invited, but they're disinterested. Oh, I've got to do this, I've got to do this, I've got to do this. They're not really interested.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

The second invitation is to the ordinary Jew.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Right? The poor, the lame, nominal Jew. The nominal Jew, coming up the righteous once in a while. Okay, but there's not enough nominal Jews to fill up the house. And then the third invitation is to the whole world. That's good. Right? It's to the entire world. So you get the sense, if in fact this was a setup, it makes sense that Jesus would tell a parable that was designed to pierce the heart and say, hey, look, you've invited me into your house. I'm inviting you to a much more important dinner, but you're too busy. You're not here to learn. You're here to trap me. But I'm going to go out and I'm going to reach out to the Samaritan. I'm going to reach out to the Roman centurion. I'm going to reach out to the leper. I'm going to reach out to the person that needs healed. I'm going to reach out to the woman who has an issue of blood. And then my house still isn't filled. I'm going to reach out to the entire Gentile world. So that's the context, ladies and gentlemen. Keep that context in mind as we now move through chapter 18. Anything to add to that?

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah, so I had a few things. Yeah. Um, so the Pharisees. Um I was just looking up a little bit of what some scholars believe. There was about 6,000 Pharisees. And you correct me if I'm wrong in any of this. Yeah, that I don't know. But apparently it's the first time I've heard that. So, you know, usually we think of the Pharisees of oh, so I I I made a list of words that I associated with Pharisees, right? So I mean negative. Hypocrites, hypocrite, legalistic, self righteous, judgmental, prideful. Rule obsess. Outwardly religious. Rule rule obsessed. Outwardly religious, inwardly corrupt, concerned with appearances, burdening others with regulations, and missing the spirit of the law while fixated on the letter.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

This is not a particularly flattering list.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

This is not a particular list. This is a list that you've just come up with. Is this from the chapter? Yeah, yeah. Well, I just want to start putting together just some things.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

You're trying to create like a character profile.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Profile. Okay. But then I thought to myself, well, what about the positive attributes of the Pharisee?

SPEAKER_00 22:27

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Now we know there's several Pharisees that are completely gum all for Jesus and do some amazing things, right? So we have uh, what is it, Joseph, Arimathea, Arimathea, Nicodemus, who has like the greatest passage of scripture, comes in this one-on-one conversation that he has. John chapter 3. So you have Gamelio, right? Yeah. Also is like, hey, he's kind of stopping them. And so I made a list of that. Here's some positive attributes of the Pharisees. Give us some positive. So theological soundness on key doctrines, right? They believed in the resurrection of the dead. Yeah. They believed in angels and spirits. They believe in God's active providence in the world. Um, those beliefs aligned more closely with Jesus' teaching than with other Jewish groups. So there was some theological alignment. That's right. Another thing, they were serious about scripture, okay? I like deeply studied the Torah, sought to apply God's law to everyday life, wanted to make holiness accessible to ordinary people, not just the priests, because remember, the Sadducees, they were kind of the official line, and these were the kind of the unofficial guys. And so they they they created uh interpretive frameworks to help people live faithfully in their own perspective.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Yeah, in accordance with kind of their own understanding of what it meant to live faithfully. Okay. I like this, by the way. This is very good to be creating a kind of positive character profile of the Pharisees because it's very easy and reflexive for us to be dismissive and to give that list of sort of you know eight or ten things that you have to communicate. Yeah, and then just a couple more. Yeah, keep going.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Some showed openness to Jesus, so we mentioned that. Luke 13, 31 says that some Pharisees warned Jesus that Harry wanted to kill him. So some Pharisees are like, whoa, what's going on? Acts 15, verse 5 says, Many Pharisees eventually become believers, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:09

And then they have Acts chapter 6, it says the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Exactly. So you have a little bit of that. Uh again, we mentioned concern for the people. They were they were more connected to the common people.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Yeah, they were very populist for sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

And then Paul's own testimony testimony. He called himself a Pharisee or a son of a Pharisees even after becoming a Christian. He described his Phariseeal background as being zealous for God and blameless in legalistic righteousness. So I find it fascinating. I feel like Jesus is almost like, you know what? I gotta go to that party. There's some of my people there.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

That's right. Like there's something I can work with here. Yes. Yes. There's been layers of rabbinical tradition and human uh sort of maxims, but these people, they don't have all of it, but they have enough. I got something I can work with. It's almost like Jesus saying, even Pharisees need the gospel. I'm gonna go to their party. I don't I can't think of an instance in the New Testament where Jesus went to the house of a Sadducee. A Sadducee. No. He probably hadn't been invited, and the Sadducees would have been many fewer in number than the Pharisees.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

That's right. You get the sense that the Sadducees were the elected elite.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah, they were the elite.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

And they were connected with the Romans, and they had their own agendas, more politicized. Some would say they were more liberals, they had sold out to the Roman way of life. I love it. They were just going all out to appease the Romans. And the Pharisees, many of them were sincere. They were searching, they were seeking. And Jesus was like Paul. They were like Paul. They were like Joseph or Mipha who say, Hey, you know what? I've got your back. So much so that you can you can be buried in my tomb. The place where I was gonna die, that's where we're gonna put you in there. And Jesus is like, let's go to that party.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Where's the mail? Even you almost get the sense here, Johnny, and so glad you did this. And by the way, we didn't script this at all. This is the first conversation we're talking about this all day. Um, what I love about this is that one of the things that that is the description of love is that, and I've mentioned this many times before, love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. So, so love will put the best possible construction on another's motives, right? Philippians 2. Love will esteem other others better than oneself. So even if Jesus would have had probable cause to think this feels kind of like a bit of a setup, he goes anyway.

unknown 26:15

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

He goes anyway, John. I love that. I love that. He could have given he could have come up with a number of reasons not to go. He's got an invitation from them. There were people there.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

They invite him, and then he's gonna tell them about a better invitation that he has for them. Oh, I like that. So you thought you were inviting me to your party. Guess what? I'm inviting you. I'm inviting you mine. Wow and my party is way better than your party.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

So then he goes into that story.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Beautiful. Okay, so let's read this now. We'll go to paragraph one on page 262 of Press Object Lessons. And again, Johnny, we're gonna do the highlights here. And I'm gonna read the first, I'm gonna read the first couple paragraphs at least. I'll read the first one and grief a second. The Savior was a guest at the feast of a Pharisee. He accepted invitations from the rich as well as the poor. And according to his customs, he would he linked the scene before him with lessons of truth, where he was invited, he went.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

He's invited into a tax collector's house, he goes. Oh go. Whether it was Levi, Matthew, or Zacchaeus, and here he's invited by a Pharisee, he says, Yeah, I'll go. I liked that. Yeah, yeah. That's so beautiful. What a beautiful picture. Among the Jews, the sacred feast was connected with all their seasons of national and religious rejoicing. It was to them a type of the blessings of eternal life, the great feast at which their uh they were to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while the Gentiles stood outside. Mm-hmm, interesting, and looked on with longing eyes, was a theme on which they delighted to dwell. Thanks. The lesson of warning and instruction which Christ desired to give, he now illustrated by the parable of a great supper, a greater invitation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The blessings of God, both for the present and for the future life, the Jews thought to shut up to themselves. They denied God's mercy to the Gentiles. By the parable, Christ showed that they were themselves, at that very time, rejecting the invitation of mercy, the call to God's kingdom. He showed that the invitation which they had slighted was to be sent to those whom they had despised, those from whom they had drawn away their garments as if they were lepers to be shot. She means like this, like pulling your coat away so it cannot be contaminated. So this really highlights a lot of what you're getting at here. That there were reasons to avoid the Pharisees and reasons to draw closer to the Pharisees, and Jesus gave the benefit of the doubt. He said there's gonna be people there, there's gonna be some open people there, it might even be a trap, it might even be a setup. But if I'm given an invitation to preach the gospel, to tell the good news, and to talk about the larger invitation, I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Yeah. And by the way, I think there is some profound applications to us, especially in the kind of America that we live in, that's so politicized. That's like, I just want to be with my people and those people, right? So it doesn't matter if you're a flaming liberal or an ultra conservative. Jesus is like, I know there's people in there that need the gospel. So I'm gonna go there. I'm gonna spend time with them. Thank you. And I think it does well for us to try to go to people that don't look at the world the way they ever do. You know, I don't know if you heard this, but for a while, Mark Zuckerberg, he he would have these challenges that he would do every year. I don't know if you heard this. I don't know. Okay, so apparently he did his challenge where, if I'm not mistaken, and someone may know better than us, he would visit an average person's home for 50, 52 weeks, every week. He would fly out to an average person home, like somewhere in the Midwest.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Oh, once a week.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Like once a week, or maybe it was like once a month. But he would just have dinner at some regular normal person's home.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah, he was actually here a couple weeks ago and we had pizza. And it was great. Not true. I was not invited. Not true.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

But this idea of hey, let me enter into the space and the the mental framework and the perspective of someone that thinks totally different than me. Let me go into their party, let me listen to their dinner conversations, let me rupture. I may not agree with them, but I want to see what their world is like because somewhere here, there is something that I can work with. And the gospel needs to be heard by even those individuals. And I love Adam Hajes, that he's doing that with them.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Yeah, no, this is a great point. I made the point the other day that I've had I have dear friends of mine that are on the you know right end of the political spectrum. I have friends that are centrists, I have lifelong friends that are Democrats till the day they die. And every one of these people, my friends, I'm happy to report, are smart enough to subordinate their sort of political inclinations and opinions to the much larger thing that matters far more, and that's the gospel. That's the kingdom, that's the soon return of Jesus. We just don't have time. She actually gets into the second coming here. We do not have time to be getting overly caught up in political partisanship because we want Democrats and centrists and Republicans and non-Americans to hear the gospel. Amen. Right? And Jesus here, I love your point. Jesus is like, okay, so the Pharisees were the populists, they were the patriots, they were the people on the right end of the sort of political social spectrum. He goes there. If Jesus had received an invitation to a Sadducee's house, he most certainly would have gone. But how about this one? He sat down with the Samaritan woman. He went into the house of Zacchaeus. He immediately said to the Roman centurion, when the Roman centurion said, I have a servant that's grievous you know, grievously ill, he said, Okay, where do we go? Yeah. So Jesus just went where the invitation was, and as gospel ministers, gospel preachers, and it as representatives, we don't want to be shunning ourselves away and othering people. Oh, they're that political persuasion, they're that political persuasion. I only hang out in the echo chamber and sort of political party of my own liking. No, no, we're ministers of the gospel, we're ambassadors of a much more important kingdom. And it's a great point that you raise. If we're given invitations, we need to go and be a blessing. Let's go be a blessing. Okay, read read us the second uh paragraph there.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

And like that, she starts to say, in choosing the guests for his feast, the Pharisee, and and and I notice, I don't know if you notice, it's it's uh singular. So there's there's a guy the Pharisee. We don't know who he was, right? But there was some guy who set this up. He had consulted his own selfish interest. Right. Christ said to him, When thou make us a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

All right. I'm just gonna sneak in here. We've already read this far. We've already read this far. Right, haven't we? When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, actually we haven't read this yet, or your relatives, nor your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, that you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

I like how he sneaks in a little resurrection language, you know, yeah. Yeah, yeah, just like we believe.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Well, then Jesus believed, based on Daniel 12 and other Old Testament passages, that there would be a resurrection of the righteous. Right? And by the way, Johnny, you might be wondering why I invited you to pizza. I invited you because you are poor, lame, blind, and maimed. And I know there is no actually you're none of those things. But I also know there's no chance you're going to return the favor. So it's perfect, right? I invited people in that I knew would not return. Um, but in serious, in all seriousness, seriousness though, the point is that we should not only invite our friends, invite our family members. We should be collectively trying to reach out. Are there others that we can invite to come to our home? Violetta and I are often, often, in fact, I was just at the dentist's office the other day. It's a true story. I was at the dentist's office, I might have mentioned this, and I got to talking about pizza. Because they had the the lady that was cleaning my teeth's teeth asked if I got any, you know, if I had a good Christmas. I said, Yeah, I did. I got a pizza oven. We've been making a lot of pizza. She's like, we've been considering buying a pizza oven. And I literally said to her, She's cleaned my teeth two or three times over the last couple of years. Or actually, I get I go twice a year, so I guess it's what probably four times. I've been going to this dentist now for a couple years. Her name is Allie. And I said, Allie, why don't you come to my house for pizza? I mean, just I was totally serious. I said, I'm happy. She's like, uh, I was like, I'm kidding. I she said, You you would invite me? I said, Yeah, come bring your boyfriend. You can come to my house, we'll make you pizza. I she cleansed my teeth. I mean, that's pretty intimate. She's in my mouth. I can have her in my home. Exactly. Right? And so this is just the way that Violeta and I have always lived. We love having people in our home and not just our family members, not just our friends. We invite people into our home. It was one of the sort of features, especially in pastoral ministry. If we saw people in church that we didn't know, that we didn't recognize, and there wasn't a church pot like that Sabbath, we're inviting people over. Come on over.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

We're inviting people over. And by the way, that seems to be a very important, recurrent theme in the book of Luke. Ten times meal and also the Bible of Luke. Like the evangelism through eating out.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Eating out. It's like, oh man. And the Son of Man came eating and drinking. That's what scripture says. The Son of Man came eating and drinking.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

And and Luke was Greek, and the Greeks, we know, we've been to Greece a few times. Yeah. They love their food. They loved it. Quite delicious food. And that was a way of saying, let's have this shared experience. I value you enough to bring you into the intimate sanctum of my home and share a bit.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

There is something very intimate and very it's it's an act of trust. I think that's even why Allie was a little bit like, she was totally, couldn't believe that I invited her over. I'm like, come over, we'll show you how we make the dough. You can see the oven that we got. We'll walk you through the whole thing. Because she was showing a lot of interest. She's like, no, what oven did you get? I want to take a picture. And how do you make your I said, just come over. We'll just show and she was like, uh. I could tell she was like, I said, she's like, bring me a pizza. I said, Allie, we're gonna make a pizza, drive it over here 40 minutes away to the dentist's office. It's not gonna taste good. You come to my house and make the pizza.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Okay, read us the next paragraph. Christ was here repeating.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Christ was here repeating the instruction he had given to Israel through Moses. And I like this because he's basically saying, This is nothing new. It's not stuff we've been talking about for a while. You probably forgot. Oh, and I know you guys like Moses, right? And you like the resurrection. Oh, by the way, yeah, let me repeat what I've given Moses. Now, what was that? At their sacred feast, the Lord had directed that the stranger. Now, this is very interesting because we're talking about illegal aliens and that whole situation in America. She says, and the fatherless and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come and shall eat and be satisfied.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

In other words, the religious feasts, especially the pilgrim feasts, were not supposed to be exclusive. They were supposed to be inclusive. Invite people to come, especially those that can't afford to come. Invite them. Invite anybody that wants to come to your religious feasts, invite them. Keep reading.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

And by the way, that's hard sometimes to do because when we want to have these shared experiences, we want to have them with people that we have something in common. We can talk about the stuff that we know about. We can talk about the basketball. But if you bring someone that's not of your little circle, well, what does he have in common? Well, his clothes are different, his accent is different. He probably doesn't even understand what we're saying. Yeah, that's the kind of people I want you to do. What? These gatherings were to be as object lessons to Israel.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Being thus taught the joy of, I like how she puts it, true hospitality.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yeah, underline that. That's a key idea in the whole chapter, Luke 14, and in this chapter here, uh, Price Object Lessons, chapter 18. Underline that the joy of true hospitality. We've already talked about in our lesson study the joy of obedience. The joy of obedience. She's used that phrase. Now we're talking about the joy of true hospitality. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

And you get that as opposed to fake, phony pseudo-hospitality, which is hee hee, I've got my friends, we're all together. No, that's not true hospitality. The people were throughout the year to care for the bereaved and the poor. I like that. And these feasts had a wider lesson. The spiritual blessings given to Israel were not for themselves alone.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

This is my favorite. One of my favorite lines is the next line in the whole chapter.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

God had given, I like it too, the Pandivida, bread of life to them, that they might break it to the world.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

That's it. God gave them the bread of life to Israel, that they might break it to the world. Now, even before the incarnation, they had the bread of life, Torah, they had the bread of life, the sanctuary, they had the bread of life, the Sabbath. They had all of this truth. And the idea here is that they're to share that meal with the world. By the way, think of it, think of this in John chapter 6, where Jesus feeds the 5,000, he feeds the 5,000 with just a little bit. The idea here is that you just have a little, but then God blesses it and you can share it with an enormous, a large group of people, because God is trying to get as many people into his gospel feast as possible. And that's really what the parable is about. It's an invitation first to those that are originally invited. Again, if we use the kind of uh uh allegorical method here, which is seems to be kind of legit, yeah. Uh at least in this case, this is the righteous Jew, they're invited. And then the ordinary Jew, they're invited, and then the entire Gentile world. Everybody is invited. Yeah. Everybody's invited.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

And you get the sense that Jesus, Messiah, is the meal, that he's there. Yeah, right. And he is he's gonna go to the entire world, and he wants them to receive that.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Beautiful. This work they have not fulfilled. Christ's words, reading now again on 264, Christ's words were a rebuke to their selfishness. To the Pharisees, his words were distasteful, which is interesting to what you're saying. She's taste all in the context of a meal. Great. Hoping to turn the conversation into another channel, one of them, with a sanctimonious air, explained. Blessed is he who shall eat bread of the kingdom of heaven. This man spoke with great assurance, as if he himself were certain of a place in the kingdom. His attitude was similar to the attitude of those who rejoice that they are saved by Christ when they don't comply with the conditions upon which salvation is promised. His spirit was like that of Balaam when he prayed, Let me die the death of a righteous, and let me end, uh let my end be like his, Numbers 23.10. The Pharisee was not thinking of his own fitness for heaven, but of what he hoped to enjoy in heaven. Big difference. His remark was designed to turn away the minds of the guests at the feast from the subject of their practical duty. He thought to carry them past the present life, the nitty-gritty, the real world in which they're living, yeah, to the remote time of the resurrection of the just. And I wrote in my margin here this man, like many religious people in the days of Jesus, were so heavenly minded that there were no earthly goods.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Jesus is like, okay, okay, okay. We can talk about the resurrection, we can talk about the end of time, we can talk about the resurrection of the just. But what about today? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Are there people that we could invite today to your house?

SPEAKER_01 41:00

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because one time, I I don't know if you remember you were sharing uh what I thought was a very interesting point, and that is we often talk about, oh man, I can't wait till I go to heaven, and we're gonna go to heaven, and we're gonna we're gonna be there for a thousand years, but then we're coming here to earth to earth, right? So we gotta think about how to make this world a better place here.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

And yes, of course, like you said, we're gonna go to heaven. But this guy was so stuck out, he's like, you know, he changes the the conversation. He's like, Oh yeah, blessed is he, you know, that that shall come and eat. And like Jesus is like, well, what about here? Like we just had a meal. Why don't you worry about what's going on at this point?

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with having heavenly or celestial desires and admissions. There's a lot right with it, but not to the exclusion of real world responsibilities and opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 41:45

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Like Jesus is not down on anybody who's thinking about eternal things, about things that are celestial and permanent. Amen. But when we're gonna just sort of use that as a heavenly mindedness to leap over opportunities, responsibilities have obligations and duties that are in front of us right now. Jesus is like, okay, but wait a minute, just a moment ago, there was a man here, he had the edema, I healed him, and I I know you know he doesn't say this, but we're reading between the lines here. You didn't like it. Yeah. You didn't like that. You didn't like it when I healed the woman in the synagogue in the chapter before. So, so that's let's not just talk about the resurrection of the just, and as she says in that first paragraph there, we could look, they were so looking forward to that meal because they would be sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the Gentiles would be looking on jealously, wishing they could partake of the meal. Now, interestingly, just on that note, watch this. When Jesus meets the Roman centurion in Matthew chapter eight, he says, because remember, the centurion says, I'm a man of you know authority. I tell people, go and they go, come and they come, to do something and they do it. So I'm a man like you, just speak the word and my servant will be healed. And then Jesus says, I've not seen faith like this in the whole of Israel. Then he turns because he knows that this registers as astonishing to the audience. And he says, Oh, by the way, hear this many will come east and the west and will sit down with who? Yeah. Abraham, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom. And then he says, The sons of the kingdom will be cast out. So Jesus actually reverses the very point that she makes in the opening paragraph here. They think they're going to be sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because they have this genealogical connection to him. But Jesus actually reverses that in Matthew chapter 8 and says, people like the Roman centurion, who now let's just think about this. It's just occurring to me right now as I'm saying this out loud. Why is the Roman centurion seeking reasons? He's uh he thinks he's on the out. No, no. Why specifically did the Roman centurion come to Jesus on his own behalf? Oh, I don't know. On the behalf of his servants. So Jesus is like, this is it. This is it. A Roman centurion steeping centurion stooping way down, several social strata down to be a blessing to his servant. And Jesus is like, this is it. Because the Abrahamic promise was in you, all the families, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. So I I didn't see that inversion until right here. This is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Very interesting. Because there was a lot of polemic going on here of who gets in, right? Who gets into the and I was mentioning to you on text messages, like when we go to Jerusalem, that becomes a big point, the temple, and who gets access and who's who's in the inn? Who who is identified as being the ones that receive the blessing. And so when when the guy says, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God, it's almost like saying, I'm so glad I'm in and I'm so happy to look out, and you didn't make it, you know? And Jesus is turning that around saying, No, no, no, no, no. That's not gonna end quite that way. Yeah. I'm gonna end up giving that invitation, and you're not gonna get a single bite on it, right? You're gonna just be the ones looking out if you don't accept the invitation. How?

SPEAKER_00 44:47

Yeah, no, that's good. Okay, so then Jesus tells the parable, and the parable kind of boils down to this broad invitation to three, you know, there's the the three brutes, right? The first one says, Hey, look, I can't come. This is the first invitation that's extended. I can't come because why? I've purchased a field. Right? So we would say property. The one word reason why he couldn't come, write this down, was property. Yeah, you with me? Yeah. So the second one said he couldn't come why. He didn't just get a new sports car. He got what? What was it? His oxen. He got five oxen, he had to go try them out. So we would say that would boil down to you ready for this? Profession. Okay. Right? So you got property, profession. Okay. And then the third one couldn't come why. Say says. My wife won't let me come. Now we're gonna broaden this out and say people. People in my life won't let me come. Ellen White broadens it out to say husbands say no to faith. Wives, wives say no to faith, and then children, all these excuses are made. So write that down. It's very easy to keep track of. And by the way, that's what life is made up of.

SPEAKER_02 45:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Right? Property, profession, and people. Profession and people. In other words, what Jesus is doing here is he's very wisely saying that that he gives a comprehensive excuse, right? Like he covers all the bases. Yeah. Property, profession, people. I can't come. And by the way, to me it's very interesting that the word excuse, right? They they they gave excuses and they asked to be excused. Right? So is the the words are related, right? I mean they're the same word, but they're just pronounced them a little differently. They made excuses. Alan White uses the word excuses numerous times here. And then they're what they're really saying is, please excuse me. Right? They they had an excuse. They didn't want to be there. And the reason they didn't want to be there, these were, and by the way, interestingly, Joni, um, I read a commentary this afternoon by James Edwards. I've been following along in Edwards' commentary on Luke, and he says that scholars debate whether or not these are legitimate excuses. Okay. And that the kind of point is that even for people that can't come, they still have good reasons not to come. Sure. Or i are these just totally superfluous, unrealistic, made-up excuses. Absolutely. And he takes the position that Ellen White does, which is that these are these are not real excuses. They just have no interest. They just they're indifferent to use Ellen White's term. So property, profession, people. Okay, very helpful. Very good. Right? Very helpful. So they kind of offer, and then uh let's turn the page here.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

And she actually says all the excuses betray a preoccupied mind. So you get the sense that they had other stuff going on that took the preeminence and the priority so that they would use them as excuses.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

And diminish the invitation.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

Yeah, all the excuses. This is top of page 266, 223. Why don't you read that?

SPEAKER_01 47:43

All the excuses betray a preoccupied mind. To these intended guests, other interests had become all absorbing.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

She uses that word a few times, absorbed or absorbing.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

Yeah. The invitation they had pledged themselves to accept was put aside. But I I like that part though. And I didn't catch that before. And tell me if I'm wrong. The invitation they had pledged themselves in. So it seems like at some point they had said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll be there.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

Well, yes, yes. No, no, saying earlier. Like before they had been like, yeah, we'll come. Exactly. But then now in the actual, by the way, just real talk here. Okay. I'm totally guilty of this. Yeah, yes. I do this all the time. My wife is often elbowing me and kicking me under the table because somebody will be like, Hey, can you come over? Hey, we'd love to have you over. Hey, we'd love to take you out to dinner. And my natural instinct, because I love people, I love hanging out with people and I love saying yes, I am always like, Yeah, yeah, totally, let's make it happen. And then she'll say to me later that night, because she's somebody that actually takes care of the schedule, she'll say, You can't, you don't have time to do that. You could never do that. You've already double booked. Some cases I triple book. So I'm actually one of these people. I'm one of these people that, especially when it comes to hanging out with people, I have a tendency, my weakness, and my wife corrects me on this, is to overpromise and underdeliver. To to say, yeah, yeah, I can do it. But then when it actually comes down to it, I'm like, babe, I don't, I don't think I can do this. And she she just wants to pull her hair out. She's like, I told you we wouldn't be able to do this. And then and then I don't make her do this. I'm like, what could you call them bad? Could you could you tell them? But I mean, my point is that I'm trying to personalize this. Like sometimes I fall into this of overpromising and then under-delivering. And that's what the people have done here. They had pledged themselves to accept, but they put it aside, yeah, and the generous friend was insulted by their indifference. Fair enough. Fair enough. Right? I had invited people to come over tonight and eat pizza at my house, and you all came. Now it didn't hurt that you're staying in my house. No choice. So this is the only restaurant in my house. So you came with the reason. I love, love the next paragraph by the Great Supper. Why don't you read Matt?

SPEAKER_01 49:51

By the Great Supper, Christ represents the blessings offered to the gospel. Thank you. The provision is nothing less than Christ Himself.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

Which is the point she's made earlier.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

He is, he is the meal. He is, he is, he is the bread that comes down from heaven. And from him the streams of salvation flow. The Lord's messengers had proclaimed to the Jews the advent of the Savior. They had pointed to Christ as the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. In the feast he had provided, God offered to them the greatest gift that heaven can bestow. Yeah. A gift that is beyond human computation. The love of God had furnished. I love that phrase. Like you get this idea of God, the divine decorator. Yeah. Right? He's he's like designer. He's like, guys, so what's this party gonna be like? What's the theme? Well, I think we're gonna do an Indian theme. We're gonna have the Maharaja. He's gonna come in here, and then we need some pink roses over here. We'll put the other purple, then the group will cup. That's how I'm imagining, right? Like he's designing this, right? Dude, I love you. So he he's he's providing the she says, the greatest gift that heaven can bestow, a gift that is beyond human competition. The love of God had furnished, and then she says, the costly banquet. By the way, I don't know if you heard, but just like a year ago, they had the most expensive wedding ever had. It was like an Indian guy. Let me guess, let me guess. Do you know the number?

SPEAKER_00 51:12

Ah, and it was You don't know. It was, I was gonna say it was like hundreds of millions.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Yeah, it was like a billion dollars. It was it was so big that in order to make himself feel good, he did a feast for five thousand poor people and gave away like all the food and had a party for them so that he could have the real feast and he could feel like, hey, I did some really good things. I would be generous, magnanimous.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

And then he full in all these, you know, celebrities and so forth. If you saw a picture of it, you'd be like, eh, this guy because now he was kind of rather.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah, all that he paid them like millions of dollars. It's just a funny point because the costly banquet is not just the ornamentation and the decorations and the furnishings, the costliness of the banquet is the life of Christ. Amen. That's the cost. Amen. By the way, just on that, when you did that, Johnny, when you started imagining this, you know, this Indian themed feast. I don't know why, but dude, what is the what is the marriage supper of the land gonna look like? I mean, is it gonna be simple? Is it gonna be minimalist design?

SPEAKER_01 52:19

Is it gonna be like I'm looking forward to the special music by Jesus Christ Himself. Yes, and the Angelic Choir. Angelic choir.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

But I just I guess I'd never thought about like there will be decorations there, there won't be furnishings there, there will be silverware there.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

There will it's gotta be marvelous because when we look and going back to the Indian thing, and part of the reason why I thought Indian is the Indians don't do anything small, they do stuff big. Like you don't have a party where you're there for three or four hours and then you go home and you live again. It's several days.

SPEAKER_00 52:51

I actually marry a good friend of mine to an Indian, and it was it was an experience. Multiple days awesome. Oh, it's a big, it's big. I love it. I love it. Indians, Indian people, my Indian friends are some of the most beautiful people in the world. I love Indian food, as you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Uh okay, great. I love this. I absolutely love this. So so the invitation, the the the whole concept here is that the food is a metaphor, the banquet is a metaphor that Jesus is the bread of life, and everyone is invited. And it is costly. Can I finish with a sentence? But Johnny, check this out real quick. Here's the paradox. It's costly.

unknown 53:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

And totally free. That's it. It's free. It's completely free. In fact, as we're going to see in a later parable, the wedding garment, the garments will actually be provided for you. You're going to a wedding and and it's such a high class, high-quality transportation is invited, garments are covered. Your transportation is covered, the food is all covered, your clothing is covered. Yes. From the greatest desires in the universe. Yes. Paid for.

SPEAKER_01 53:55

This is exactly what she says. Look at this. She says the love of God. This is very the love of God had furnished the costly banquet and had provided inexhaustible resources. Like there's there's no linen. Like, what's the budget?

SPEAKER_00 54:09

You're not going to run out of the Baba Ganoush. You're not going to run out of the pomegranate juice. You're not going to run out of the freshly chilled grapes. You're not going to run out of the mango cheeks. It's inexhaustible.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

It's inexhaustible. And then she says, if any man eat of this bread, Christ said, he shall live forever.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Wow. It's good stuff. I just love it. I love it. I love having you, Johnny. You bring an enthusiasm and uh an imagination. Like last night, your timeout thing.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

This overtime.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

You know how Oh, yeah, that's what it was. Not timeout. Overtime. We're going into overtime. I love it. Um, and the next page, one page over, 267, 224, that paragraph that begins around the family table.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

Why don't you read that? Because she makes the similar point.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

Around the family table, when breaking their daily bread, many in Christ's day repeated the word. And they hear the same phrase Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Because they're always looking forward. Yes. Jesus is like, there's nothing wrong with looking forward, but there's people right now. We can be a blessing right now. Bring a little piece of heaven here on earth. There you go. Why not have the appetizer the or doing it? Because how about this, Johnny? How about this? The common meals that many of us are accustomed to if we're living a middle or upper middle class life is like a heavenly banquet to some people.

SPEAKER_02 55:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

Right? Like we we just mentioned a moment ago, like Zuckerberg. Like if Zuckerberg invited us to his place, that would be like a step up for us. Yeah. But for us, many of us, just in our own home, like my wife's cooking. I know I can't tell you how many people, hundreds of people over the years have sat at my wife's, have sat at our table and eaten my wife's cooking. She's crazy. And people are like, this food is incredible. Like I love exactly. So my point is is that we can provide an opportunity, a fellowship, a connection, a meal, hanging out with people in a social setting that a lot of people just aren't getting. Yeah.

unknown 56:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

Okay, keep reading, keep reading.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

And okay, so where were we? We're on the table. And then she says, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. But Christ showed how difficult it was to find guests for the table provided. And then she infinite sauce.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

Which is the tie with over here, costly. The costly bank. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:28

Here it's infinite. Inexhaustible resources he had said before. And then difficult. She's contrasting. Hard to find people, difficult for people to come in. Even though it's gonna be the most expensive banquet. Infinite, but I can't find anyone to come.

SPEAKER_00 56:41

Mercy.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

Those who listen to his words knew that they had slighted the invitation of mercy. So I like how she says that. I'm wondering if she's suggesting the people who are sitting in the banquet, they're listening and they're they're dipping their food in there, and they're like, yeah, ma'am, maybe we've slighted the invitation of mercy. You're talking clearly about the people that are present for the actual meal. To them, worldly possessions, riches, and pleasures. And then she uses that phrase again. All absorbing. All absorbing. With one consent, they had made excuses.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

Okay, so this is actually talking about the people that were had been given the invitation. And the pair.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

And then she says, so it is now.

unknown 57:21

Right?

SPEAKER_00 57:21

So it is now. She's bringing it home. The excuses urged for refusing the invitation to the feast cover the whole ground of excuses, right? Property, profession, people, everything. Yeah. For refusing the gospel invitation. Men declare that they cannot impair their worldly prospects by giving attention to the claims of the gospel. They count their temporal interests as of more value than the things of eternity, the very blessings they have received from God become a barrier to separate their souls from their creator and redeemer. They will not be interrupted in their worldly pursuits, as they say to the messenger of mercy, go away for now. When I have a convenient time, I will call for you. Quoting here, Paul, when Paul stood before Felix, and then I grew up. Others urge that difficulties that would arise in their social relations, should they obey the call of God, it's a little tricky, can't make it. They say they cannot afford to be out of harmony with their relatives and acquaintances. People. Yeah. It's not just wives and husbands, just people, right? Thus they prove themselves to be the very actors described in the parable. The master of the feast regards their flimsy excuses as showing contempt for his invitation. Then in the next paragraph, she talks about marriage. Yeah. And then in the paragraph after that, family.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Right? Like, so so all she now starts fleshing out. She's kind of done the theology and the historical setting. And now she starts, in fact, for the rest of the chapter, application, application, application, application, application. Now I love on page 269, 225 of the original, the paragraph that begins, the host turn. Why don't you read that?

SPEAKER_01 58:57

The host turn from those who despised his bounty and invited a class who were not full, who were not in possession of causes and not.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

No, no, this is this is crucial. Okay. Okay, so the first group. So the people who have left. I got my profession, I got my property, I got my people. So now he goes to the second class. But notice how she describes the second class. Invited a class who are not full. Not full. Okay, the others are full. So the opposite of all absorbing. Yeah, because you're empty. These people are not all absorbed, they're not totally consumed. In other words, these are people, let's just do the affocation here. These are people that are circing, that are searching, that are looking, that have needs, that have hopes, that are that are lonely, that these are people who are not all absorbed with, again, profession and property and pleasing the people in their lives. So these are people who are longing. She says they're not full. It's good news. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 59:50

Right? It's like it's like a positive thing saying the fact that you don't have all these things means that you have room.

SPEAKER_00 59:56

There's room to be absorbed by something else. Something else. Something better. Something more delicious, too. Who are not a possession of houses and lands. He invited those who are poor and hungry and those who would appreciate the bounties provided. Tax collectors and harlots, Christ said, enter the kingdom of God before you, Matthew 21, 31. However wretched may be the specimens of humanity that men spurn and turn aside from, they are not too low, too wretched. For the notice and love of God. Beautiful. And then I love this. Christ longs to have care, worn, weary, oppressed human beings come to him. He longs to give them life and joy and peace that they are to be found, that are to be found nowhere else. The veriest sinners are objects of his deep and earnest pity of love. He sends his Holy Spirit to yearn over them with tenderness, seeking them, seeking to draw them to himself. It's beautiful. So now she's turned to the second class in the parables, the second class. And lots of these people are going to come in. But guess what's going to happen? The master is going to say, Hey, listen, these people said no, they couldn't make it. So invite others. And then the guy literally says, I've already done that. He anticipated. And then he says, Well, then you go find others. Go outside of this area. This is what Jesus meant. And then we'll come from the east of the west. Not from here. Go into the highways and the hedges. Anyone that can come. Because those that are right here approximate, they're too busy. They're all absorbed, disinterested. So I know you've invited in the ordinary Jew. Go out and invite the Jinn. And that's really what we see Paul doing. Paul and Silas and Barnabas in the early church, this is the latter two-thirds of the book of Acts, traveling around the larger Mediterranean world, setting up congregations in Antioch, Lystra, Iconium, Derby, all throughout this sort of uh west coast of Turkey, all the way over across the Aegean Sea, into northern Greece, down into central Greece, southern Greece. I mean, all over the Mediterranean, planting churches of people that are largely Gentile.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

This is fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:59

You know, inviting them in, compel them to come in. Go ahead, what you got?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:03

Well, I was just gonna say, you know, I run these tours, and it's very interesting to me that almost everyone who comes to my tours comes from faraway places. And so um earlier this just a few weeks ago, I had a young lady who's from England who's going on a reformation tour, and she asked me an interesting question. She's like, Do you get many Europeans to come on your tours? And I was like, Not really? And she's like, Why? And I said, I don't know, probably because it's so approximate that they so close. So close. They take advantage of it. Oh, I can fly in a Ryanair flight for 50 euros, I can stay in a little hostel, I don't need a guy to tell me I know the places. If any of them don't do it, most of them don't do it. And she was actually coming. And connected to this, I think that proximity that we have to truth makes us take it for granted. Correct. And so the fact that we're that that they're far away, we're like, so American kids, like I have young people that are coming from Wisconsin Academy, a group of 84, and many of them don't have a lot of means. And I was just talking to their lead. Shout out to Danielle. They work hard, they save, they get the money. And I asked her, like, hey, do they come from affluent homes? And she was like, no, and we're going through the numbers. They value the experience and the difficulty of going through, you know, the the the hardship of raising funds, of getting on a plane across the frigid waters of the Atlantic, all the way to Europe, spending thousands of dollars out of their pocket because they value the experience. And the European ones are like, meh, I've I've seen the Coliseum. I don't really need to go there. The same thing is happening here, right? That proximity that they had to the truth. That's a great point. I don't really need that. And God says, okay, you know what? Go all the way out there, what do you say? To the highways and edges. So it gives you this idea of you're gonna have to make a little bit of a trek.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:49

Yeah, I know you walked a couple of years. Well, this is the story of the book of Acts. That's why I said the latter two-thirds of Acts. I mean, Paul is traveling. I mean, he's peripatetic, he's all over the place. He's traveling here and there and hither and yon. When he gets to the eastern and the western shore there in Troas, and he's like, You know where to go. Did you go back east? Did you go to the north? He was forbidden by the spirit to go north, he was forbidden by the spirit to go south. Then finally he gets the dream in Acts chapter 16. The man of Macedonia says, Come across and help me. You almost get the sense that it hadn't crossed Paul's mind yet to go across the northern part of the Aegean Sea and go into Europe. We've been there, we've hit that very place. And and to so then Paul sees this whole other vista, right? Like, like go to the highways and the hedges. Okay, we've gone there. No, go even further. Okay, we've gone there. No, go even further. Invite them all in. And Paul was setting up these tiny little congregations all over the Mediterranean world, inviting people to believe in the life, death, resurrection, burial, ascension, and enthronement of Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

And you get the sense in the invitation that he's making that he knows that those who are in the most remote corners, the highways and the byways, they're more likely to come because it's so far away. And they're saying, Someone's inviting me all the way from there.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:06

And he's opening up, and you get the sense that this is a banquet, that this is an invitation to something important is a fact. That's important. This is essential. They're like, Yes, sign me up.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:14

I'm coming.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

Where do I go? How do I get there? Take me.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:18

Beautiful. It's interesting that she actually quotes on page 270 from a long section from Acts 13, 46 to 48. She she quotes this section, it was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first. But since you rejected, because this is the Antioch this is the Jews in Antioch, where Paul has preached several Sabbaths, and then crowds are gathering. Yeah, we've been there. Antioch. We were just there a few months ago. Um, in that very place, in that very church, in that very almost certainly the very spot where the synagogue was. Here's the point the the the invitation was being increasingly accepted, and the local Jewish leadership began to get jealous, not unlike what happened with Jesus. So then when they tried to kick Paul out of town, Paul Says, listen to this. Paul says, You judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Behold, we turn to the Gentile. The very thing that the parable is about. Ellen White knows she's got a great theological grasp of the story of Jesus, the story of the New Testament. So she's using this in Acts 13 to tell the story of the people that were first invited. Yep. The second people that were invited, many of them came in, but there was still opportunity for more. We turned to the Gentiles. Which kind of lends credence to this almost allegorical interpretation. The righteous Jews, the ordinary Jews, the wider world, the Gentile world. And to us. Which is we are Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us. I have sent you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should me for salvation of the ends of the earth. Now, when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad. This is your point. They were like, what? I'm invited to this. They were glad and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as had been appointed to eternal life, believed. A great many people will receive the gospel invitation. Invite, invite, invite, invite. And I'm gonna make a point that Ellen White makes. When you make your invitations, everybody, keep it simple. She makes that point repeat. The simplicity of the invitation, the simplicity of the gospel, the simplicity of forgiveness, the simplicity of assurance, the simplicity of eternal life. Keep it simple. And then she starts to talk about how in this day and age, she's talking about Paul traveling around the larger Mediterranean preaching the gospel. She says, now this book was published in 1900. We're living in 2026. Now she says, when we preach, we need to include this part, the soon return of Jesus. She spends one, two, two full pages talking about the second coming. Interesting. And Johnny, I'm an Adventist. Of course. You're an Adventist. It means we believe in the coming of Jesus, not just the general or generic return of Jesus at some nondescript point and the far distant future. We believe that we are living in the last age of history, the last moments of Earth's history. The prophetic timeline timeline is fulfilled. We believe Jesus is coming soon. We're at that. That's right. And so she says part of what part of what we're going to do in our invitation is not just a general gospel invitation, it's the everlasting gospel, which is Jesus is coming soon. We might say that like this. The gospel invitation, for us, we're saying now, hey, it's coming up. Like it's it's just around the corner. You need to be preparing because Jesus is soon to come. The invitation is soon to be extended and received. There's an urgency. She actually uses the word urgency in this chapter. Yeah, you feel me? Oh, that's good. Um then, and I don't want to spend too much time on this, but you feel free to jump in here anywhere you want. She starts talking about how they you were gonna say something.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:49

Well, I was just gonna say one of the things that I that I really love towards the end is when she talks about not waiting for souls to come to us, but we must seek them out where they are. Where they are. And this idea of like, you know, don't try to make them be a mini-version of us. Of course, God will do his work, but seek them out in the context, in the situation that they're in. And I think that's hard for us as as Seventh-day Adventists. Like, we've got our structures, we've got our buildings, we have our way of doing things, and we'll say, okay, yeah, come and join us.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:19

Come here, come to us. And Jesus is like, Well, I thought I told you to go out to them.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:25

And that's what she she's saying there. She says, like, we are not to wait for souls to come to us. We must seek them out where they are. When the word has been preached in the pulpit, the work has but just begun. There are multitudes who will never be reached by the gospel unless it is carried to them. And I'm like, oh man, that's so fascinating. And that's what's happening in that story is the invitation is going out in the highlands, into the batteries, and that's the only time they're gonna make that.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:49

So then what she does is she spends quite a little bit of time. This is page 274, 230, 275, 231, 276, talking about extending the invitation to the wealthy. And my friend Centina Jima, she refers to this as the wealthy, the worldly, and the well-educated. Right? Those in the upper classes. She talks about the educational upper class, the intellectual upper class, the economic upper class, Ellen White in this chapter. So, so the wealthy, the worldly, and the well-educated. She spends three pages on that. She then says, but while preaching to the wealthy, the worldly, and the well-educated, we shouldn't neglect the poorer classes. Page 277. I'll read it here. But we are not to think only of the great and gifted men, to the neglect of the poorer classes. She goes, one, two, three pages talking about that, that the message is to go to the poorer classes as well. And by the way, the church, especially in the second and third centuries, and also, of course, the first century and the apostolic church, but at the second, third centuries, the church largely grew among the disenfranchised, disenfranchised poorer classes. It was rare to have, and it did happen, it was rare to have a wealthy person of consequence or influence converted. In fact, one of the critiques of the early Christian church in the second and third centuries was these people are they're not really effective at winning anybody. All they win is these poor women, orphans, and idiots and slaves. And this critique of Christians as largely spending their time in the sort of lower echelons of society. It's true. It was true. They might have been trying to reach the upper classes, but it was horror. And there is, we know there's an inverse correlation between income and interest in the things of eternity. Absolutely. Right? We know this. Yeah. Okay, so then she spends time talking about urgency. And the urgency that we've discussed here is the urgency of the second coming. Johnny, is there any chapter or section that you want to read? I've got one section I want to read. And then I want it. Okay. So top of page 281. Okay. Top of page 281, this is 236 of the original. Christ will impart to his messengers. Oh, you're right there. Why don't you read that for us?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:08

Christ will impart to his messengers the same yearning love that he himself was has in seeking for the lost. We are not merely to say, come. There are those who hear the call, but their ears are too dull to take in the meaning. Their eyes are too blind to see anything good in store for them. Many realize they are in great degradation. They say, I am not fit to be helpful. Leave me alone. To be helped. To be helped, yeah, to be helped. But the workers must not desist. In other words, don't give up. Don't give up. In tender, pitying love, lay hold of the discouraged, helpless ones. Give them your courage. Your hope. Your hope. Your strength. By kindness, compel them to come. I like how she uses the contrast. How do you compel them? By kindness. Like this is one way that you don't want people. By encouragement. I've some have compassion, making a difference, and others say with fear pulling them out of the fire. June 22.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:00

Quoting from Jude, she even mentions in here that that passage, compel them to come in, has been perverted in church history, where the church felt that this was a license to use force, even torture and imprisonment, violence, even the threat and the actual administration of death. But that's clearly not what Jesus means. Jesus means urgently plead with them to come, give them your, and this is so great, this is such great language, give them your courage, give them your hope, give them your strength. By kindness, compel them to come in. But the medieval church particularly tried to use literal threats of corporeal punishment and violence and imprisonment and economic sanctions, which we know that's where this is going to go at the end, too. Of course. There's going to be these forces to try to compel people the wrong way on economic uh sanctions and then later pain of death. That's not the way that the that's not the way that God works, not the way the kingdom works. God's not compelling people into a decision to follow him out of fear of violence. It's just not that's not the way it works. You got anything else, Johnny, that you love? Or you're happy? No, I'm I'm kind of I've got I want to read one more line here. Page 282, uh 237, there's a long paragraph that begins, but see that you do not refuse him who speaks. Okay. But see that you do not refuse him who speaks. Okay. Right in the middle of that. This is the bottom of page 282, 237. I love this line.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:32

If the love of God is not appreciated and does not become an abiding principle to soften and subdue the soul, we are utterly lost. The Lord can give no greater manifestation of his love than he has given. If the love of Jesus does not subdue the heart, there are no means by which we or anyone else can be reached. And I love this. When she says that that if the love of God is not appreciated and does not become an abiding principle to soften and subdue the soul, we are utterly lost. I don't believe she just means like salvationally lost. I think she means something even more profound. We're clueless. I think that's what she said. She's like, we're clueless. If we think that anything other than the beautiful, persuasive, compelling, sacrificial love of God, if we think there's anything other than that, that's our message and that's our means and that's our methodology, if there's some other way, whether through violence or coercion or manipulation or threats, she's like, we're lost. And I don't think she again just means soteriologically lost. I think she just means like, what are we thinking? Yeah. What are we thinking? We have the example of Jesus, the Galilean rabbi who traveled town to town, place to place, village to village, ministering to people. And the punchline was always, follow me. Follow me, follow me. The invitation of the opportunity to be restored, to be healed, to be seen, to be known, to be loved, to be appreciated. That's the invitation that the church has to give. Not some manipulative, you you better come or else if you don't come, you're gonna be eternally lost. I mean, I just don't think that this is the way forward. I I I I sometimes see people standing in like public situations. I've seen this a few years. I went to a Denver Broncos game with my with my brother. Okay. Um, there was a guy out there. There's like thousands of people coming out of the stadium.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:30

And they only come because they have the crowds.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:31

Well, well, here's the interesting thing. I I actually praise God. I praise God that these people have the courage to be out there preaching. Okay. Right? It's great. One of them was holding a giant sign, thousands of people everywhere. Big sign, yellow and black, said Jesus saves. Amen. I I'm literally praying for these people. Praying. But here's the problem. They've got the megaphones there. So when you're you can see them from a long way away, you're shuffling along, you're not moving very fast. So you you hear them preach for like seven minutes, which is a long time because you're coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, because people are moving very slow. Sure. Right? Kind of goes under this bridge where I park. It's like a massive human massive humanity funnel down on this little bridge, and that's why they sit there. The problem is, you know what the preaching is? You're all going to hell. You just text after text after text, you know. Well, it's just all fear and hell and repent, or you're gonna perish. It's just selfishness. Suffering. It's like, dude, who wants to join that? What what what what and some significant, I mean, we're here in in Colorado, some significant percentage of the people that are walking by you are already believers. I'm a believer, I love Jesus. Why don't you say, Jesus is beautiful, Jesus is awesome, Jesus is amazing. You would want to be a follower of Jesus. Jesus gave his life for you, Jesus wants to spend eternity with you. Jesus not only loves you, Jesus likes you, Jesus loves your family, Jesus was a healer. Like, you barely hear the name of Jesus. You hear hell, wrath, condemnation, damnation, eternal consequence, weeping and gnashing of teeth, fire and brimstone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, dude, with all due respect and mad respect that you're out there preaching, but dude, you need to go back and read the New Testament. He's a lot more. You need to go back and read the New Testament. You need to go back and read the ministry of Paul. Find me a place where Paul is standing in some open-air market or going into the synagogue and saying, damnation, fire, hell, brimstone, weeping, gnashing teeth. No, he's saying Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. He's the fulfillment of Torah. He's a anyway. I'm kind of on my soapbox here a little bit. But it's frustrating to me that we can make the most glorious, most beautiful invitation so profoundly unattractive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:52

Yeah. Not make it so that you yearn and you desire to. You want it. What are you trying to do?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:58

Scare the hell out of me? Like literally, that's what they're trying to do. Scare the hell out of you. But I just feel like this is not the way. By the way. It is not the way. And this is a problem that evangelicalism has. I'll just say it. I'll put my cards right on the table here. Evangelicalism's got a problem with this eternal conscious torment thing. Because this is what they're saying. Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you. Give your life to Jesus because he loves you. And if you don't, you suffer eternal conscious torment in the fires of hell through the unending, ceaseless, eternal ages. They've got a problem. They got to sort this out. And Kirk Cameron and others are trying to help them sort it out. But this is just in the evangelical psyche that really at the end of the day, at the end of the day, really, what really matters, what really matters, you need to give your life to Jesus, or you're going to suffer in the fires of hell forever. And people are too smart for that. Even people that aren't theologians, they're like, you know what, I see through that. Yep. That just doesn't work. It doesn't work on any level. God is love. Jesus died so that I can be forgiven. And if I don't receive this, I suffer eternal conscious torment. Evangelicalism's got to come to grips with you. That's true. But you're going to see how it informs their preaching. That's true. Anyway, I went on a little record. That's it. It just reminded me of how I just get that none of that sounds inviting or interesting or alluring or drawing or wooing.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:27

None of it. By the way, connecting with that, there was one smart. To a great degree, she's just talking about going out and public preaching and all that stuff. She says, This must be accomplished. Uh this must be accomplished by personal labor. Yeah. This was Christ's methods. His work was largely made up of personal interviews. Personal interviews. He had a faithful regard for the one soul audience. Through that one soul, the message was often extended to thousands. And you think of some of the great interactions that Jesus had, right? The interaction with the women at the well. Nicodemus.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:59

Nicodemus. The woman at the well. The Roman centurion. I mean, there were others there, but the Roman centurion. One-on-one.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:05

And we deprive ourselves of that one-on-one ministry when we think it's only about shouting to the masses and scaring them in, because you're missing out on the privilege of getting to know the person. That's a lot more work. That's gonna require intentionality. There's this interesting little proverb with the um an Indian proverb that says that a friend is someone that you can eat an entire sack of salt with. And you're like, what? Yeah, because salt can only be eaten in small portions. So in order for you to have eaten an entire sack of salt, that means that you had a lot of meals with them, right? So this idea of personal interaction with them, like we're talking about meals in this whole thing. It's not just a one-off thing. It's not like, well, I came in and I gave him a Bible study. I have no interest in anything that he's doing in his life, but rather I interacted with him and I made sure that I had faithful regard from that one soul audience. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:54

All right. Good. Good job, Johnny. Okay, I like that. So the sack of salt. Sack of salt. Johnny, I'd be happy to eat a sack of salt if you.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:02

That might be the only thing you get for me because I'm not a good cook, but he's not a bit. That's what I get.

Rubric

SPEAKER_01 1:22:07

Our dinner tonight is salt. Mermaid salt.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:11

Okay. By the way, I'm just gonna let everybody know right up front, I'm really, really excited about my word.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:18

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:18

Yeah, my word last night, um, I think it was, I think a lot of people have the same word that I have. It's common. Okay. Fruit. A lot of people had fruit. Okay. Or fruitful. But I I I'm feeling good about my word tonight. Okay. I think it captures the chapter, and I think very few people will have it. I I believe you. Okay. Good.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:42

Okay, mine's simple. God's message of love is exclusive, inclusive, and universal, reaching all people rather than being restricted to a single.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:50

Beautiful. Jesus grace filled invitation to the grand messianic banquet is for all religious Jews, ordinary Jews, and the entire Gentile world. Amen. Including Johnny and David.

unknown 1:23:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:02

Person. Person.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:03

I put Jesus is the meal. Messiah is the meal. He's the satisfying appetizer, the refreshing drink, the assumption main dish, and the tantalizing dessert. Jesus is the meal.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:14

Johnny, I have a question for you. When you speak in Spanish, do you speak even faster than you do in English? Because I think Spanish is a language that's really conducive to speaking fast.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:25

It's probably true, but it's the the language that King Charles V spoke to God in. He would he would prefer Spanish.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:32

In Spanish.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:33

It's a special language.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:34

It is a beautiful language, so I'm just asking you. You speak so fast in English. Do you speak even faster in Spanish? No. No, you don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:41

Spanish requires intentionality.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:43

Okay. Okay, I would say uh God longs. She uses that phrase several times here. God longs and plans to have a full house. Amen. That's the plan. Amen. And God's gonna get what he wants. I like that. That's good. God wants a sellout. He wants. He wants last time we talked about overtime. Tonight sellout. That's feeling sold out.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:08

No MTC.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:09

No MTC.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:10

Feeling heaven.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:11

Okay, the prayer.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:13

I just put help me to find ultimate pleasure in the society of the host. Jesus is the host.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:19

The society of the host. That's good. And in those that he invited. Of course. Yes. Yes. That's too. God help me to not place property, profession, or people, including family, before you and your kingdom.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:32

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:33

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:34

Practice. Practice. I'm going to seek to engage with people outside of my usual circus circ circles. Different economic backgrounds, beliefs, ethnicities. I want to be a little bit more intentional. I don't have any Muslim friends. I did have a Muslim lady that I met that invited me and Jean Rosario to her house. Oh, that's great. Completely Muslim with the hijab with her husband and everything. Came out. She had a menu for us. She invited us for a meal. Oh, that's great. And I think later on her parents or family didn't like that, but we had a great time. This is years ago. And I want to be more intentional on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:03

Beautiful. Practice. Number one, uh, this goes along with what you just said, Johnny. Number one, practice. Continue to practice radical hospitality.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:10

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:11

This is something that is really easy for me to do. I'm going to give my wife a shout out here because she's so amazing. She's such a great host. She's such a great cook. She has such a great spirit. She's so adaptable. Yes. She makes my desire, our desire to be hospitable. We have people in our home all the time. Right now we have two different people staying in our house. We've been married 26 years, and I think we calculated that we've had people living with us like 18 years of our married life. So I want to continue to practice radical hospitality. Number one. Number two, I want to extend the gospel invitation to any and all who will hear. I want to get more and more bold. As I get older, I want to get bolder. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:58

You do like bolder.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:59

Okay. Uh the promise.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:00

The promise. Uh just John 6.37, him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:07

And you love that King James. I like your. I like it. Why not just he that comes to me, I will never cast out.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:13

There's something about the grandiose of the ancient tongue that I'm reading. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:19

I don't mind it. I think it's fine. Okay, here we go. Luke chapter 14, verse 23. I loved this here. Then the master told his sermon, go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in. So, and here it is, that my house will be full. I love that. I I really lean into this idea that the promise is, and what does the Bible say in Revelation chapter 7, verse 9? John saw a number, an innumerable multitude, one translation says, or the familiar King James, a number so great no man could number. It's good.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:49

It's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:50

That's the promise. The promise is there's going to be room enough. There's room enough for you. There's room enough for me. There's room enough for your family. There's room enough for my family. There's room enough for the world. I mean, think about that. There's room enough for the world. Okay, ladies and gentlemen. What was your word? What was your word? Hey, Jennifer, great to see you. Great to see you, Jennifer. Love you so much. She's wonderful. One of my closest friends. All right. What do we have for word? Okay, let's see what we've got here. You've got yours all selected. I do. Mine's is an easy one. That's fine. Yeah. Invitation. Okay, good. Pastor David, that is beautiful. You're beautiful, pure lover forever. Um come time. Many go. Invitation. Invite. Invitation. Great. Very good. Witsmessi says reach. Grace, peace, and blessing says gift. Oh, Kendrell, I love it. You picked up on Variest. The Variest Sinner. Very good. It's a good one now. Invitation. Great. Come. Simplicity. Oh, excellent. Excellent. She uses that numerous times. Come, invite. House. Bread. Very good. Excellent. Now, room. All absorbing. Oh, all inclusive. Yeah, that's kind of what's good, John Lane Seven. Room. Inclusive. Excuses. Grace, peace, and blessings, writer, Alice. That was almost my word, but I got a better word. For me, at least it was better. Longs. Urgent. Low-hanging fruit. We couldn't think of anything better. Invitation. Deigned to notice them. All as in gives all. Invite. One size audience, says Sarah. Everyone. Okay, Maria King has my word. 186. Full. My word is full. We'll come back to that in a second. Urgency. All compel. Break. Brady Sherry. Sherry Brady also has the word. Full. Full. I love it. I really like that concept that you can do. Dude, you I I'm going to unpack it all. Okay, all right. You got to listen. Places.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:54

Um, expansion. Pack R828 says, Is your word compel or simplicity? No, my word is full. Feast. Kindness. Bless Chuck7 says, Thank you so much, DA family. We love you all so much. Banquet, gospel, hospitality. My chair at the table, says Bob Big Sky. I love it. Uh Johnny says, hello from Larry. Hey, Larry. Good to see you. Okay, urgent. Okay, so a couple of us had full. Wesley, love you, brother, says. Wait, so yours is full? Feast. Mine is full. F-U-L-L. Yeah, full. I'm gonna unpack it here in a second. Go for it. Costly. Ruby says mango cheese. Love removing of the bolts of my heart for his entrance, delight. My wire says, learn so much. Extended. We're so glad you're here, Myrawire. Dashy-707. Great word, extended. Because the invitation is extended. Here's why I went with full. Are you ready for that? Okay, go for it. We have. Okay, the the story opens with the in terms of the invitation, the parable. Okay. Everybody was full of excuses. Well, that's good. That's good. Right? Full of excuses. Yeah. Everybody had an excuse. Oh, my property. Oh, my profession. Oh, my people. Full of excuses. Number two, but God's invitation extended not once, not twice, not three times, was full of grace and patience. That's true. God's grace was filled, God's invitation was filled with grace and patience. Number two. Number three, the promises, God's house, God's banquet, that costly will be standing one only. Will be what? Full. It's gonna be full. I love it. They were full of excuses. The divine invitation is full of grace, full of mercy, full of patience, and that invitation will be accepted and received by so many that there are an innumerable multitude. Never tell yourself that only a scanty few are gonna sneak in. John said there were so many that they could not be numbered. Oh, I like that too. And the Pharisee was full of himself. Yeah, full of himself. And Johnny, you are full of pizza. I I had some very good pizza. I am also full of pizza. My joy was fulfilled. And your joy was fulfilled. It's so great to have you, man. Thanks for coming. By the way, you should know when Johnny comes out, he pays his own way. He he he comes out. I just call him up. I'm like, Johnny, I really want you to come. I want to hang out with you. I want to spend a little time, but I can't afford to pay your ticket. You got to come out on your own. And then Johnny, who does not like to spend money, to be clear, he's a bit of a penny pincher.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:46

Even for myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:48

But you you come. But you don't have greeting. So thank you for coming. I accepted the invitation. You come to the Ashwick Hotel. We don't charge you to stay here. It's well worth it. And you get to eat the food. I have to accept the invitation. The company's good. The company's great. I uh you should know I invited Johnny to go rock climbing today. True. I said, Johnny, why don't you come climbing with us today? Because my friend Luke's from out of town. We're spent a couple days climbing. Actually, three days. It's gonna be two. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He flies home on Thursday or Wednesday. Johnny, you didn't come. I invited you to come rock climbing, but what was it? Was it your cooperating? I went on a walk. Was it your profession?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:25

I went was it your people? Why didn't you come? I went on a walk with Violetta for 1.6 miles in 6,500 feet high.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:33

Elevation. That's not the question. You're avoiding the question. The question is, I invited you to come spend the day rock climbing with me.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:41

I have no idea how to rock climb. Yeah, but I can teach you. This is this is the dangerous part. You might teach me. And I'm afraid of the things that you teach me that have to do with the outdoors. The world needs to know that every time that I'm gone with David and he's invited me into an adventure, it has usually ended in some strange situation. Uh bike rides, like 20 miles in Alaska.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:02

No, it's longer than that. 35 miles. Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:05

It was terrible. Canyoning in Tasmania. He said, come in.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:09

And you have lived through every one of those invitations. Barely. Barely. And you would have lived through this one. But you did have work to get done today. I did. So thank you for accepting the invitation to come here.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:19

Anytime. Each time within the time, Mamma.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:21

Let's close with prayer. What I think you had opening prayer. I did. Would you have closing prayer for us, but in Spanish? See? Yeah, in Spanish. We love you all so much. We'll see you tomorrow night. No guest tomorrow night. Just me. No guest. Johnny, you're leaving tomorrow morning early. It's been great to have you. We'll see you tomorrow night. Same time, same place. We love you all so much.