WEEKLY
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON
An
international Sunday school lesson commentary
For
Sunday July 29, 2018
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STORY
OF THE GREAT FEAST
(Salvation
is for all who come by faith)
(Luke
14:15-24)
In Luke 14,
verses 15-24, we see JESUS presenting the invited guests at the home of a
leading Pharisee, with yet another parable. This time HE turns our attention to
the most important of all invitations. It is “the invitation to salvation” that
HE HIMSELF had come into the world to deliver.
After hearing a
man who was sitting at the dinner table exclaim to HIM, “What a privilege it would be to have a share in the Kingdom of GOD!
“, JESUS responded as only HE could. Here HE gives the illustration of a man
who prepared a great feast for which he would send out many invitations.
When the time of
the feast came, the man sent his servants out with a “live invitation” to
notify all of his people (the Jews) that the time had come. One by one they all
begin to make “lame excuses” as to why they could not attend. Anything from, “I can’t. I need to stay here and inspect the
field I just purchased” to “I just
got married, so I’ll have to decline your invitation”.
When the servants
returned and told their master what had happened, in his anger, he sent them
back out, instructing them to go into the streets and the alleys of the city,
and invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. After they had done
this, he sent them back out, this time into the country places, to ask everyone
(the Gentiles) that they might see, to come to the feast, so that his house
would be filled.
This parable
serves to show us that GOD invites all people to enter into “the salvation
feast”, which will take place in HIS wonderful and glorious Kingdom. However,
only those who are willingly accept HIS invitation, through CHRIST, HIS
SERVANT, will be able to attend. Salvation is for all who are willing to, first,
recognize that they need GOD, then, humble themselves enough to repent, and,
last but not least, willingly accept the invitation to salvation, based solely
on your faith in CHRIST.
Ironically, this
passage of Luke 14 was the text of the last sermon preached by the highly
respected minister, D.L. Moody in Kansas City, Missouri, way back in 1899, only
one month prior to his death. But it is a message of salvation that was first
delivered by CHRIST JESUS from the house of an unbelieving Pharisee, somewhere
in the midst of the city of Jerusalem, way back in the first century A.D..
And JESUS had no
doubt, through HIS teachings that day in Jerusalem, from across the spans of
time, inspired a hope in Moody that was similar to hope that HE had previously
inspired in HIS original disciples. It is a hope (“the Christian Hope”) that
each generation would take advantage of the opportunity to share in the coming
“Kingdom Feast”, that can only be attended by those who are willing and humble
enough, to accept the “free invitation”.
A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander
LARRY D. ALEXANDER-
Official Website
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