favorite dish, flattering himself that he could dispose of it at will
and buy it back at pleasure. But when he sought to buy it back, even at
a great sacrifice on his part, he was not able to do so. He then bitterly
repented his rashness, his folly, his madness. He looked the matter over
on every side. He sought for repentance carefully and with tears, but
it was all in vain. He had despised the blessing, and the Lord removed
it from him forever. You have thought that if you should sacrifice the
truth now, and go on in a course of open transgression and disobedience,
you would not break over all restraint and become reckless, and if you
should be disappointed in your hopes and expectations of worldly gain
you could again interest yourself in the truth and become a candidate for
everlasting life. But you have deceived yourself in this matter. Had you
sacrificed the truth for worldly gain, it would have been at the expense
of life everlasting.
Under the parable of a great supper, our Saviour shows that many
will choose the world above Himself, and will, as the result, lose heaven.
The gracious invitation of our Saviour was slighted. He had been to the
trouble and expense to make great preparation at an immense sacrifice.
Then he sent his invitation; but “they all with one consent began to make
excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and
I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another
said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray
thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and
therefore I cannot come.” The Lord then turns from the wealthy and
world-loving, whose lands and oxen and wives were of so great value
in their estimation as to outweigh the advantages they would gain by
accepting the gracious invitation he had given them to eat of his supper.
The master of the house is angry, and turns from those who have thus
insulted his bounty
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offered them, and he invites a class who are not full, who are not
in possession of lands and houses, but who are poor and hungry,
who are maimed and halt and blind, and who will appreciate the
bounties provided, and in return will render the master sincere gratitude,
unfeigned love and devotion.
Still there is room. The command is then given: “Go out into the
highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may
be filled. For I say unto you, that none of those men which were bidden
shall taste of my supper.” Here is a class rejected of God because they
despised the invitation of the Master. The Lord declared to Eli: “Them
that honor Me I will honor, and they that despise Me shall be lightly
esteemed.” Says Christ: “If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and
where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him
will My Father honor.” God will not be trifled with. If those who have
the light reject it, or neglect to follow it out, it will become darkness to
them.
An immense sacrifice was made on the part of God’s dear Son, that
He might have power to rescue fallen man and exalt him to His own right
hand, make him an heir of the world and a possessor of the eternal weight
of glory. Language fails to express the value of the immortal inheritance.
The glory, riches, and honor offered by the Son of God are of such
infinite value that it is beyond the power of men or even angels to give
any just idea of their worth, their excellence, their magnificence. If men,
plunged in sin and degradation, refuse these heavenly benefits, refuse
a life of obedience, trample upon the gracious invitations of mercy,
and choose the paltry things of earth because they are seen, and it is
convenient for their present enjoyment to pursue a course of sin, Jesus
will carry out the figure in the parable; such shall not taste of His glory,
but the invitation will be extended to another class.
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Those who choose to make excuses and continue in sin and
conformity to the world will be left to their idols. There will be a day
when they will not beg to be excused, when not one will wish to be
excused. When Christ shall come in His glory and the glory of His
Father, with all the heavenly angels surrounding Him, escorting Him on
His way with voices of triumph, while strains of the most enchanting
music fall upon the ear, all will then be interested; there will not be one
indifferent spectator. Speculations will not then engross the soul. The
miser’s piles of gold, which have feasted his eyes, are no more attractive.
The palaces which the proud men of earth have erected, and which have
been their idols, are turned from with loathing and disgust. No one
pleads his lands, his oxen, his wife that he has just married, as a reason
why he should be excused from sharing the glory that bursts upon his
astonished vision. All want a share, but know that it is not for them.
In earnest, agonizing prayer they call for God to pass them not by.
The kings, the mighty men, the lofty, the proud, the mean man, alike
bow together under a pressure of woe, desolation, misery inexpressible;
heart-anguished prayers are wrung from their lips. Mercy! mercy! Save
us from the wrath of an offended God! A voice answers them with
terrible distinctness, sternness, and majesty: “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: I also
will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh.”
Then kings and nobles, the mighty man, and the poor man, and the
mean man, alike, cry there most bitterly. They who in the days of their
prosperity despised Christ and the humble ones who followed in His
footsteps, men who would not humble their dignity to bow to Christ,
who hated His despised cross, are now prostrate in the mire of the earth.
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Their greatness has all at once left them, and they do not hesitate to
bow to the earth at the feet of the saints. They then realize with terrible
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bitterness that they are eating the fruit of their own way, and are filled
with their own devices. In their supposed wisdom they turned away
from the high, eternal reward, rejected the heavenly inducement, for