My House Shall Be Filled

In the parable of The Great Banquet (Luke 14:15-24) Jesus talks about the real reason people reject Christ. It is certainly not the lame excuses they offer as they did in the parable. It is that they have no appetite for spiritual things. They have no appetite for Christ. They feel no conviction to examine their life in the light of what the Bible says. It seems incredible that people would turn down the offer of God’s forgiveness, peace and eternal life, but they do. It is because there is a problem with their ability to actually think straight. They have learned to think almost entirely about this earth and the temporal stuff they love leaving them almost no ability at all to think about eternal things.

In the parable the servant came back and reported that the invitations were being ignored, so the master ordered his servant to go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor. He said bring them even if they are crippled, blind, or lame, or in other words bring in the outcasts.

The servant came back and reported what you ordered has been done, but there is still room. Then the master told his servant, “Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full” (Luke 14:22-23). This is a missions statement if there ever was one. According to the U.S. State Department there are 196 official countries in the world that speak over 6,900 languages. Jesus is making clear that there will always be people that will respond to the invitation. When one group doesn’t, he sends his servants out in the remote areas of the world where someone will be glad to hear the news. This parable underscores The Great Commission that Jesus gave to the church to go, make, baptize and teach in all the world.

The parable speaks to us of the danger of people rejecting the message of the Gospel the way the religious leaders did in Jesus’ day. However, it also speaks to us of the need to take the message to everyone so that God’s House will be filled. This is a clear picture of how much God loves the world and wants them to come to his eternal banquet.