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Let’s talk about The Parable of the Wedding Feast? In Jewish society, the parents of the betrothed generally drew up the marriage contract. The bride and groom would meet, perhaps for the first time, when this contract was signed. The couple was considered married at this point, but they would separate until the actual time of the ceremony. The bride would remain with her parents, and the groom would leave to prepare their home. This could take quite a while. When the home was all was ready, the groom would return for his bride without notice. The marriage ceremony would then take place, and the wedding banquet would follow.

The king, enraged at the response of those who had been invited, sent his army to avenge the death of his servants (verse 7). He then sent invitations to anyone his servants could find, with the result that the wedding hall was filed (verses 8-10).

Nothing is hidden from God. If you are maintaining a façade of righteousness, He knows. If you are trying to hold onto the world and maintain your salvation, it won’t work. You cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Accept God’s free gift of salvation today. “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” “The wages of sin is death,” the Bible warns (Romans 6:23). Nothing will save us except the blood of Jesus.

The king is God the Father, and the son who is being honored at the banquet is Jesus Christ, who “came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11). Israel held the invitation to the kingdom, but when the time actually came for the kingdom to appear (see Matthew 3:1), they refused to believe it. Many prophets, including John the Baptist, had been murdered (Matthew 14:10). The king’s reprisal against the murderers can be interpreted as a prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction in A.D. 70 at the hands of the Romans (cf. Luke 21:5). More broadly, the king’s vengeance speaks of the desolation mentioned in the book of Revelation. God is patient, but He will not tolerate wickedness forever (Obadiah 1:15). His judgment will come upon those who reject His offer of salvation. Considering what that salvation cost Jesus, is not this judgment well deserved (see Hebrews 10:29-31)?

Note that it is not because the invited guests could not come to the wedding feast, but that they would not come (see Luke 13:34). Everyone had an excuse. How tragic, and how indicative of human nature, to be offered the blessings of God and to refuse them because of the draw of mundane things!

The wedding invitation is extended to anyone and everyone, total strangers, both good and bad. This refers to the gospel being taken to the Gentiles. This portion of the parable is a foreshadowing of the Jews’ rejection of the gospel in Acts 13. Paul and Barnabas were in Pisidian Antioch, where the Jewish leaders strongly opposed them. The apostle’s words echo the king’s estimation that those invited to the wedding “did not deserve to come”: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). The gospel message, Jesus taught, would be made available to everyone.

For his crime against the king, the improperly attired guest is thrown out into the darkness. For their crimes against God, there will be many who will be consigned to “outer darkness”—existence without God for eternity. Christ concludes the parable with the sad fact that “many are invited, but few are chosen.” In other words, many people hear the call of God, but only a few heed it.

“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: “My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.”’” Although rejected, God continued to woo His people. He warned and disciplined them. Still, they refused to repent. God would not give up on them. “But they paid no attention and went off — one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.”

To summarize the point of the Parable of the Wedding Feast, God sent His Son into the world, and the very people who should have celebrated His coming rejected Him, bringing judgment upon themselves. As a result, the kingdom of heaven was opened up to anyone who will set aside his own righteousness and by faith accept the righteousness God provides in Christ. Those who spurn the gift of salvation and cling instead to their own “good” works will spend eternity in hell. The self-righteous Pharisees who heard this parable did not miss Jesus’ point. In the very next verse, “the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words” (Matthew 22:15). The Parable of the Wedding Feast is also a warning to us, to make sure we are relying on God’s provision of salvation, not on our own good works or religious service. See even more details on the The Parable of the Wedding Feast video on YouTube.

This was Jesus’ way of teaching the inadequacy of self-righteousness. From the very beginning, God has provided a “covering” for our sin. To insist on covering ourselves is to be clad in “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Adam and Eve tried to cover their shame, but they found their fig leaves to be woefully scant. God took away their handmade clothes and replaced them with skins of (sacrificed) animals (Genesis 3:7, 21). In the book of Revelation, we see those in heaven wearing “white robes” (Revelation 7:9), and we learn that the whiteness of the robes is due to their being washed in the blood of the Lamb (verse 14). We trust in God’s righteousness, not our own (Philippians 3:9).

The Parable Of The Net? The parable of the net is another simple story. However, it is very important. We should understand what it teaches us. Fishermen (men who catch fish) put a net in the water. They catch all kinds of fish, good and bad. At last they pull the net to the shore, and separate the fish. They keep the good ones but they throw away the bad ones. Jesus says that it will be like that at the end of the age. *Angels will separate the *righteous people from the wicked people. Jesus says that there will be severe punishment for the wicked people.

Jesus tells the Parable of the Dragnet, or the Parable of the Various Kinds of Fish, in Matthew 13:47-50. Jesus prefaces the parable by saying it illustrates an aspect of the kingdom of heaven. The story concerns fishermen using a dragnet, a weighted net dragged along the bottom of a body of water to collect an assortment of fish.

Our Lord would have us consider the consummation of all things, when the great net shall at last be drawn to shore, when there shall be no more sea, no ebb and flow, especially no mingling of bad and good in an obscure and confusing element; but decision and separation, a deliberate sitting down to see what has been made of this world by us all, and a summing up on that eternal shore of all gains and results, and every man’s aim made manifest by his end.

These “bad fish,” or false believers, can be likened to the rocky soil and thorny soil in Matthew 13:5-7 and to the tares in verse 40. They claim to have a relationship with Jesus, saying “Lord, Lord” (Matthew 7:22), and Jesus’ reply will be “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (verse 23). The sobering main point of the parable can be stated thus: “A day of reckoning will come in which God will separate the true believers from mere pretenders, and those found to be false will be cast into hell.” Discover even more information with the The Parable Of The Net video on YouTube.

Our condition in this respect bears a close resemblance to fish enclosed in a net. At first, while the net is wide, they frisk and leap and seem free, but soon they discover that their advance is but in one direction, and when they halt they feel the pressure of the net. So it is with ourselves. We must go on; we cannot break through into the past; we cannot make time stand still till we resolve how to spend it. The years spent in indecision, in doubt, in self-seclusion, cannot now be filled with service of God and profit to our fellows.