Luke 14:16-24; 15:8-1016Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: 17And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. 18And 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. 19And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. 20And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. 21So that servant came, and showed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. 22And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. 23And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. 24For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper. (Luke 14:16‑24)
8Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? 9And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. 10Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. (Luke 15:8‑10)
(From Notes of Addresses)
LET us now consider the active side of the Holy Ghost’s presence and mission. You may have wondered why I read from Luke 14 and 15 in connection with such a subject. But His active work is brought before us here in a very striking though parabolic way.
The Lord being invited to a Pharisee’s house He noticed that every one was seeking the chief place, so He made the remark, “When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.” Do not let it be a kind of complimentary feast that may be returned to you. Make it for needy people. And one of them that sat with Him said, “Blessed is He that shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God,” as much as to say, that kind of thing is more like heaven than earth, more like God than man. And the Lord then gives this parable to show that grace is not appreciated as you might think.
A certain man made a great supper, and when the supper was ready, he sent out a servant. Now there are three Persons in the Trinity, and you may find them in the parable, as in the next one in Luke 15 God the Father, to Him belongs the initiative, the origination of purpose and counsel. To God the Son belongs its administration, the carrying out of those purposes and counsels. To God the Holy Ghost belongs that all-pervading power that works in fellowship with both the Father in His purposes, and the Son in His activities. Only He works in the individual who becomes the subject of His activities, and so the Spirit’s work is called subjective. The Father designs this great supper. It was made ready at tremendous cost. It was a great supper because it had to meet a great need, and it was made at a very great cost. What was the cost? Who was the One to carry out that design? It was planned by God the Father; prepared and made ready by God the Son at His own personal cost, when He gave His precious, blood to make the Gospel a righteous possibility; and proclaimed by God the Holy Ghost.
A supper is the last meal of the day. You have often heard that said in gospel preaching. In eastern countries, the final meal was the most important one. They could not eat a heavy meal in the middle of the day, they waited till the cool of the evening. In was not a complimentary feast, but a meal spread for needy people. It has been spread at great cost, and when everything was ready there came forth a Servant. God the Holy Ghost has come down to make the Gospel known, and here you find Him in the character of a Servant.
Did you ever notice the difference between Matthew 22 and Luke 14? In Luke 14 it is a Servant. In Matthew 22 it is servants. In Luke 14 every one the Servant brings in stops in, but in Matthew 22 There is one of the servants who brings in a man and he has to be thrown out. In the Servant in this parable it is God the Holy Ghost. Who are the servants then? Men, such as myself. You can easily deceive me and make me believe you are converted, when you are not, but you cannot deceive the Holy Ghost.
Here is the great Servant, and He brings the invitation and says, “Come.” That is the golden gospel message right through the Bible. In some of the big palatial residences they have what they call visiting days and allow you to see the luxury in which they live. They throw certain rooms open for public inspection and they have the green, the blue and the yellow rooms, the great dining hall, and the drawing rooms, and when they have shown you round, they bring you to a place and say, “This is the road out.” They do not want you.
They do not mind you admiring their luxury, but they do not want you. That is the difference between Luke 14 and what they do. The door has been flung open and a way has been made by God the Son, and He has prepared this Gospel supper and God the Holy Ghost has come from heaven and says, “God wants you.”
Why is it the gospel supper? Because the gospel is God’s last provision for the need of sinful men. If you do not get a seat at that supper table, there is no second chance. Christendom is getting its last chance. God has no more suppers. You may be sending your money to convert the swarthy-skinned African and the yellow Chinese, and I will tell you what they are doing. They are accepting the invitation and taking their seat at the supper table, and you may be missing it. What a serious consideration. The house is going to be filled. Take care is not filled without you. A flat-headed Hottentot may sit in the place you might have occupied. God has decreed it is to be filled, and the Holy Spirit is here to carry out that wonderful work. That is His active work; not satisfied with giving invitations, but compelling them to come in. His grace is rebuffed, they make excuses. There is a Trinity in the Godhead bent on blessing man, and there is a trinity of excuses to get out of the blessing. A terrible thing happens. God excuses them. Peter tells us the Holy Ghost brings the message down from heaven, and you have been making excuses to evade it. Look! If God puts one word against your name tonight, “excused,” you are done for. There is no second blessing for you.
How does He compel people? I used to think it meant we had to compel people to come into the meetings. You know how hard that is. That it not what it means. It is not we who are doing the compelling but the Spirit of God. Do you know why I came to Christ? Because I could not stop away. It was the ‘same love that spread the feast that sweetly forced me in, or I had perished in my sin. If you want an expression of divine compulsion you will find it in Luke 15. The prodigal son came back to his Father. He started off thinking he was going to have a good time and do without his Father, but it ended in misery and he came back. It was not a sentimental reason, or a religious one that brought him back. He came back because he could not stop away. Compulsion had been at work. A famine was in the land and he came, being driven at the bayonet point of dire need. Want like an armed man came upon him and he was compelled to go home.
There was something else. At the other end of the line there was a little bit of knowledge he had of the grace of the Father, He thought there would be a little bit to spare for him, so that with what knowledge he had of love of his Father, and behind him the pressure of want, that prodigal son had been forced home. He was compelled because he was starved out, and that is what happens with most of us. John Bunyan wrote to the effect that, “No ship ever yet entered the harbor of free grace unless driven in by the storm, and no sinner ever came to Christ unless driven by sheer need and drawn by God’s grace.” What a good thing God did not take my, No, as my final answer, but he went on pursuing me until I said, I will yield, I can hold out no more. I was under compulsion. When the prodigal son came home he got all the wealth. He began to be in want in the far-off land, but that want ended when he came to the Father’s house. That is the way the Spirit of God compels.
Now we come to Luke 15, the woman sweeping the house. Woman is constantly used in Scripture as a figure of the Church. She is called the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, and when the Lord wants to show the true behavior of husband to wife, in Ephesians 5, He likens it to His own behavior to His Church. So the woman is a figure of the Church, and in the Church the Holy Ghost is dwelling. It is the Holy Spirit using the Church of God to carry on the search when God the Son is gone. The Shepherd after the sheep is God the Son seeking for lost ones. He is gone, His work is, finished, but the Holy Ghost is come dawn and the search is being carried on.
What happens? She is using instrumental means. She has a light. A candle is always a figure of testimony; and she has a brush. The brush is what we might call providential means. What is the brush for? To uncover. What is the light for? To discover. To what end? That she might recover. How does the brush work? In many ways.
I will tell you a little incident I very often tell in the gospel. A young wife got converted at one of my meetings. Calling on her one day, I said “Is your husband converted?” “No Charlie is not converted but he doesn’t think as he used to.” I said, “How used he to think?” “He used to think when we were dead we were done with.” Cheap infidelity! I said, “What has altered Charlie’s views? “She paused a bit and then swallowed a lump in her throat and said, “We had one little girl. She was the very darling of his heart, his very idol. One Saturday night I had washed her, and said to Charlie, Here she is, give her a goodnight kiss. After he had kissed her he said, ‘I hope we’re not making too much of you.’” Thursday afternoon you might have seen a procession from outside Charlie’s house and you could have followed it to Brighouse Cemetery, and a little casket held all that Charlie counted dear. She had gone. What happened? The sweeping brush had come into the house and swept the baby out to get at the Mother and Father. The brush had brought things to light. Then she said, “When the funeral was over, Charlie sat there and I sat here, and neither of us spoke for some time. At last I said, ‘Charlie, do you think our Alice is done with?’ And with some big sobs he said, ‘No, I hope we shall meet her again.’” What had happened? The sweeping brush had knocked a hole in the bottom of Charlie’s infidelity, and uncovered the need in the mother’s heart, and there was a conversion there soon after. I wish I could tell you of Charlie’s conversion, but at any rate he had lost his infidelity if he was not converted. Sometimes God smashes a man’s business to get at him. I saw a man in the hospital with his back broken, and he said God had to do that to get at his soul.
With regard to the piece of silver, the light falls on it and it is found. I think it is a little figure of repentance, owning the truth of God about yourself. You say, O God, I own my guilt. What has happed? The light of God’s testimony against me, I have flashed back to Him in the form of repentance, owning the truth of God about myself.
The light strikes upon the silver coin flashes back to the eye, and it is found. God uses means to bring us into the light in His own sovereign way, and the Spirit of God uses it, drops in a little bit of the Word of God, and the end is, there is joy in heaven over sinners repenting. That is the active side of the mission of the Holy Ghost. It is impossible for you to be in fellowship with the Holy Ghost without being evangelical. I defy you to put your hand into the hand of that great Servant, that great Missioner from heaven, God the Holy Ghost, the Servant of Luke 14, without going where He goes, and you will look, for what He is looking for in the highways and byways. The worst of society may be found by the Holy Ghost. That is His mission on earth. May God grant that you and I may be kept in close fellowship with God the Holy Ghost on earth in the pursuit of this mission. He has come down through the open door of heaven, bringing the gospel of forgive and salvation.
As long as the Church of God is here the Holy Spirit will be here, and as long as He is here the Gospel day will go on. Don’t you believe the lie that the Gospel day is over, it is nothing of the kind. The Holy Ghost is here and is working today, and may God give you and me grace to work in the fellowship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. It is the Father who planned it, the Son who prepared it, the Holy Ghost who proclaims it. Father, Son and Holy Ghost rejoice together. He says, “It was meet that we should make merry and be glad.” May the Lord help us to be in the fellowship of the Holy Ghost.
Art. Cutting.