Sermon Audio

Invitation to a Royal Wedding – No 6.

Scripture: Matthew 22:1-14

Stream or download The Parables #69

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I have been pressing upon you the need there is for you to respond to the gospel invitation on the basis of the great mercy God extends to poor, lost sinners.
He offers full salvation, pardon from sin, victory over it, peace and assurance of eternal safety and an everlasting home in glory with the Saviour and all of the redeemed.
That should be enough to persuade any person to receive Christ! But we know that many remain in their sin, even after hearing these great truths expounded repeatedly.

Indeed, is that not the case with some of you here?

However, there is another reason why you should heed the gospel.
VII. We must remember that there is wrath!
“Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee,” Job 36:18.
The devil has persuaded millions today that there is no WRATH!
The Lord Jesus said: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him,” John 3:36.
Our sins will bring the wrath of God upon our heads for all eternity if we do not seek shelter in Christ. Noah’s Ark is a picture of this salvation from judgment!  There was only ONE way of escape from the coming judgment – GOD’S ARK!

It is a picture of the Lord Jesus. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” John 14:6. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,” Acts 4:12.

VIII. There is a high price to pay for rejecting Christ
“But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city,” verse 7.
This judgment actually took place in AD 70. Gospel warnings are not empty threats! The Saviour is here warning “the chief priests and Pharisees,” Matthew 21:45, the very men who “persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus,” Matthew 27:20.
The Jewish nation rejected Christ. “Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children,” Matthew 27:25.
In AD 70, a generation after the Saviour’s crucifixion, the judgment of God fell on their children when the Roman Army destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish state.
It was 2000 years ago but it is a lesson we must never forget for that which happened to Jerusalem will happen to the world. “Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it,” Isaiah 13:9.
Please heed the warning today, boys and girls, and seek shelter in the Lord Jesus.

Invitation to a Royal Wedding – No 5.

Scripture: Matthew 22:1-14

Stream or download The Parables #68

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VI. DESPITE GOD’S KINDNESS AND PATIENCE MEN BECOME HARDER

1. They chose to disregard His invitation.
“But they made light of it, verse 5. They put no value upon the King’s invitation or the marriage of His Son. There is a verse in Proverbs which sets forth the awful wickedness of this action. “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof,” Proverbs 1:24-25.

God has often to complain of such behaviour. “But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me,” Psalm 81:11.
Boys and girls this is how men treated Christ! “And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate,” Luke 23:11.

Tell me, what value do you place of God’s Word today? Do you listen to it, read it, heed it, obey it? Have you accepted His invitation yet?

2. They counted the common things of this world more important. “But they . . . . went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise,” V 5. Cows and goats and sheep are more important to some than is  the Lord!

3. Furthermore, some went even further in their rejection of the invitation. “And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them,” verse 6.
Rejection hardens the heart. Mockery of the servants of the Lord is but a rejection of the Lord and His invitation. It leads to murder!

Tuesday morning – KICS 68.