So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good, and the wedding was furnished with guests. Matthew 22:10
Something about this picture doesn’t make a lot of sense, at least the way most of us think. Here are servants sent out to invite people to the biggest event of the entire year, maybe for many years, the marriage of the King’s son. But when nobody who was invited agrees to show up, the king throws the doors open to everybody who wants to come. Those who were invited first probably had some reason to be on the guest list. Maybe they were relatives, or friends of either the bride or groom, or maybe they were special friends or connections of the parents of the happy couple. These were special people. But they missed out on the great event. Those who did not miss out where people who nobody would have guessed would have had a chance at making this great event. No relationship was needed, no friendship or special link of any kind, They did not need special qualifications of any kind, either; they simply had to come when the servants bid them attend. Representatives of all of those unlikely guests can be seen at any meeting of your local Assembly.
Consider all of the Christians that you know, especially those in your Assembly, and ask which of them deserve to be guests at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Before they were saved, some of those folks were bad, and others were good, just like some of those in our text. And they all were brought in off the highway of life, the broad road that leadeth to destruction. Why them? Why you and me? Because the King desires that the wedding be furnished with guests. Because the King sent His servants out to find us and to invite us. This parable reminds us over again that there is nothing about ourselves that placed us on God’s great guest list for the marriage of His Son.
We see and hear of many around us who feel they have a right to be on that guest list. The pope has been making some delightful speeches lately; maybe he feels he has a good claim to be high on that guest list. But the poor old pope, and many thousands of religious figures like him in dozens of different religions, have refused to put on the wedding garment of God’s salvation, opting for the garments of their own self-righteousness, good works, and religiousness. Like the invitation refusers of our parable, these people are not worthy, and so they will not eat of that supper. If they were not worthy, what makes worthy those who will attend the supper? The simple fact that they did not refuse the invitation.
The simply truth of the difference between Heaven and hell is the truth that God has invited sinners to the marriage of His son; some have refused the invitation, and some have accepted. Such a vast difference depends on a no or a yes. -Jim MacIntosh