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Phil Mills, Sr.

Phil Mills

Without a Wedding Garment

It's a text we all know, Matthew 5 verse 6, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

For many years I had hospital patients that would tell me, Dr.

And so sometimes their family would bring them food.

And I would notice they did not eat that either.

The problem wasn't the hospital food, the problem was their appetite.

And you know, in our church service, if we don't come hungering and thirsting, it doesn't really matter what is given to us.

It won't benefit us because we are not hungry for it.

We're satisfied, we're full, and we need to ask the Lord before we study His word this morning together.

We need to ask Him, dear God, will you Give me a hunger and a thirst that can only be filled by your word.

So let's just ask an additional word of prayer.

Dear Lord, I pray that you'll Bless us as we study from your word.

May this not simply be an intellectual exercise, but may this be life for our soul.

We're grateful for your spirit, and we pray that it will be present here.

We just commit our life to you, we commit this time to you, we commit our ears to you and our minds, our thoughts, direct all of them.

Please turn to Matthew 22, and I'm going to start in verse 2 with Jesus speaking.

A certain king arranged a marriage for his son and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding.

Again he sent out other servants, saying, Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready, come to the wedding.

But they made light of it, and went their ways, 1 to his own farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them.

But when the king heard about it, he was furious, and he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

Then he said to his servants, The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.

Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you can find, invite to the wedding.

So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good.

And the wedding hall was filled with guests.

But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment.

So he said to him, Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?" And he was speechless.

Then the king said to the servants, Bind him, hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for many are called, but few are chosen.

I would like us to study this passage this morning, taking it verse by verse.

And we listen while God speaks to us from his word, let's begin with verse 1.

Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said, How many of you know what PhotoStream is?

Well until a couple weeks ago with my children at the GYC, I did not know what PhotoStream was.

But there, while Philip was with about 5, 000 other young people in Seattle.

He said, Dad, I'm going to set you up with PhotoStream.

So he would take a picture and it would stream to our computer and we could see what was happening, even simple movies.

Verse 1 and the 2 verses before verse 1 are a photo stream of Jesus' final day in the temple.

Like a time machine, these verses transport us back 123, 811 days to Tuesday, April 24, AD 31, the last Tuesday of Jesus' life on earth.

It was a beautiful spring day, according to Ellen White, as she describes it, that historic Passover week.

From all over Palestine and the Roman world, travelers were streaming in to celebrate Passover.

On Sunday, April 22, Jesus had made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

And since his triumphal entry, he was the subject of every conversation.

You couldn't really talk about something before the conversation went to Jesus.

He was not the designated speaker in the official Passover bulletins And his name wasn't flashing on the marquees advertising the famous rabbis who would be giving breakout seminars.

But ignoring the planned program, forgetting about the rabbis and their fame, the multitudes wanted to listen to Jesus.

The space around him, wherever he was, was the auditorium for his next talk.

Thousands pressed together to hear him speak, and he gave interesting parables.

He easily and clearly answered very perplexing questions.

Even the religious leaders, as much as they disliked him, they couldn't help but let their curiosity go to listen to him to hear, What was this man speaking about today?

Most of the crowd considered him to be a prophet, but not all the listeners were friendly.

Within the crowd were enemies thirsting for his life.

Notice Matthew 21, verse 45, Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables, where were they?

Nobody was coming to listen to them, so they didn't have a crowd.

They perceived that he was speaking of them.

But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitudes, because the multitudes took him for a prophet.

Looking into the eager faces of the believers, Jesus sensed that they needed more instruction.

And looking into the scowling faces of his enemies, Jesus saw they needed more instruction as well.

In verse 1 of chapter 22, Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said, In this verse, the word again is an important and encouraging and powerful word.

It shows that Jesus saw a glimmer of hope even in his enemies that were there thirsting for his life.

Hardened as his adversaries appeared, they deserved, he felt, another call, another appeal, another warning.

There will come a time when his entreaties will cease, but once again he attempts to reach their hearts.

But his parable is so rich, it is so comprehensive, that as we listen in to it, through the mists of thousands of years, of 2000 years, we find it speaks to us today.

Verse 2, the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son.

It says a certain King made a marriage for his son.

In other words, this was a marriage made in heaven.

The marriage in the parable is the union of Jesus divinity with man's humanity.

You'll see that in the bulletin where it has a quote from Christ's object lesson.

Jesus became Emmanuel, God with us, Matthew 123.

Isaiah prophesied of this wonderful union.

Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.

This is the marvelous marriage that God made.

The word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

King's weddings are usually a subject of great anticipation and joy and interest throughout a kingdom.

I remember when Prince Charles and Lady Di were to be married.

The tabloids were consumed with the details of the wedding for months in England.

When the wedding arrived, it was billed as the wedding of the century, and it may have been, but it certainly wasn't the marriage of the century.

Nearly every British citizen secretly wished for an invitation because you see it's a great honor to be invited to the marriage of a king's son.

It's a great honor to be the guest of a king.

Notice verse 3, the God of heaven sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding.

When I had young children, sometimes my wife would be finished fixing lunch and her voice could be heard saying, come to dinner.

Before the advent of emails and instant texting, cell phones, in the days of Christ, messengers would be sent to invited guests to let them know that the wedding preparations were completed and the wedding was about to begin.

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Without a Wedding Garment

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