SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13325, 3 November 1906, Page 4 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

A WONDERFUL WEDDING. A BY THE REV. CANON W. HAT M. H. AIT KEN*.' "And when the king came in to see the guests he saw there a man which hud not on a wedding garment; and he saith unto him. Friend, how earnest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless."—Matthew xxii. 11. 12. We learn from this parable that the primary purpose of the feast was not to gratify the guests, but to celebrate the marriage of the king's son;. it, is designed to teach us also that there has been- a double object present to the mind of God in His dealings with man, ami our, apprehension of the higher must not bind us to the lower intent. God is preparing through the ages a Bride for His Son, but in doing so He also finds an opportunity of extending a more general and less specific benefit to as large a number of His creatures as possible. And while we encourage those who have received the grace of God to aspire to the 'higher glory, it is no less our duty to give to all the more general gospel invitation, " Come, for ALL THINGS ARE NOW READY."' and. indeed, it is with this lower but most gracious purpose that the parable has most to do. The king sends forth his messengers at lite supper-time to summon the guests to the feast. Consider how this gracious call is received. Turning to the parable, wo observe that the invitation was received in some cases with indifference, and in some with violent antagonism. What an extraordinary thing that, an invitation to such a marriage feast should be thus treated! Our blessed Lord has to strain the probabilities of the tale to convey His sorrowful prophecy of the way in which His gospel message would be received. It is certainly not in accordance with our experience of social life that a king's invitation should be thus treated. Most of us would be eager enough to go to such a feast. But, strange as it seems, the parable gives us an accurate representation of the welcome which the gospel message has met with all through the ages of Christian history. When the king's messengers went forth with the invitation, we read that the invited, guests "made light ; of it, and went -their ways, one to his farm, another to. his merchandise." Such has always been the eonduet of by far the largest class' amongst gospel hearers; a smaller number prove actively hostile both to the message and the messenger; " the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them." Such persons are to be met with still; when the message of mercy is declared and the invitation urged on men there .is aroused within the hearts of some a spirit of bitter antagonism and defiance that would be surprising if it were not so common. Is this your case, my brethren? Do you reply to my invitation, '.' Well, you see wo are so busy we have no time for these thing*. We men of business are so/: engrossed with our affairs, and we women with our domestic and social cares and pleasures, we have so much to do that : WE CANNOT SPARE THE TIME to think on these matters. It is very easy for you who have nothing else to do but to serve God; but we are far too busy. The claims of God may deserve consideration, but other things are more urgent, and must be attended to more, promptly?" < Is that the way in which you have treated Cod's invitation to the wedding feast? Have you made light of it? Will you make light of it when the shadows begin to fall, when the dying hour - draws near, when you feel the world slipping away beneath your feet, when the room is darkened, and the sorrowing friends stand round your bed, and when from a dying pillow "you. look back on a wasted life of golden opportunities lost and see.the dreams of your worldly ambition sinking into nothingness? In the awful stillness of that last hour of weakness and helplessness, when tlje shadow of death shall begin to wrap your soul in its dread embrace, when the vanity of your past life shall at last become fully apparent, what will you think of your indifference then? And when you take your place befor» the judgment bar of an offended God and wait with trembling heart to hear the sentence of doom from the Judge's lips, what will you think of your indifference then? You had the offer of eternal life, and yet von lived and died without it. You made light of it. Will you make light of it then? Dare you make light of it now? Look again at the parable, and learn, first of all, a solemn lesson from the.fact that | those who made light of the message had no • second opportunity. Let us take care how | we trifle with opportunities, lest haply we | provoke Him who of old sware in His wrath of His own favoured people that they should enter into His rest. But the parable teaches us more than this; indeed, we may say it furnishes us at once with a prophetic picture of the history of the Christian Church and a solmen warning to its nominal members. After the rejection of the message by those to whom it i was first addressed we find that the king says unto his servants, "They which were bidden were not worthy. GO YE THEREFORE INTO THE HIGHWAYS, and as many as ye shall find bid to the marriage. So those servants went cut into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good, and the wedding was furnished with guests." l'rom the highways, from the lanes and streets of the city, they have been gathered in, good and bad, and it would seem probable that as each passes in he finds himself by the Royal bounty provided with a " wedcling garment." This is not stated in the story, but it would sv>em to be obviously implied. Similar instances of Royal bounty are to be met with in ancient and especially in Oriental history and indeed were not infrequent. Here the exigencies of the story seem to demand some such provision, for it would surely have been impossible for these guests so suddenly summoned, with actually no warning or preparation, to supply themselves wjth suitable raiment for such an occasion The highways from which they were called would have been a strange place in which to find men clothed in wedding garments. The fact that all kinds of people were, summoned, rich and poor, good and bad, lies at the very root of the story, and hence it seems absurd to suppose that they could in a moment have supplied themselves with suitable apparel by any effort of their own. In the case of him who bad not on a wedding garment, it is clear that under the Circumstances he could not have been blamed for not having purchased or made one for himself. What opportunity hud he of obtaining the, garment ore he approached the feast, in response to the imitation of the messengers? Had he been expected to supply himself the man would have had a very good excuse, and he would certainly not. have been speechless in the presence of the king. • "0 king," he might very well in such a ease have replied, " i have been summoned here from the street, where I was pursuing mv daily avocation.

I WAS BBOEGHT HERB IN HOT HASTE by your messengers. " I was very glad to come to a royal feast; but lam a poor man I do not possess a wedding garment/ and { had no means of getting one. Had £ understood six months ago that you intend.' ed to invite me, I should have tried by hard work to earn sufficient to purchase one." Hut when the king accosted this guest- w » find that "he was speechless," and in that .silence we find proof of it, it seems to. me irrestible. that the man must havi> had a frco and full oportunity of obtaining the garment required. Yes, he had no doubt been afforded the opportunity, but he had flung it away Probably, as the guest entered the outer hall of the palace they had been offered a bridal garb; possibly this man may have been sufficiently well satisfied with his own garments, and flattered himself that he could pass muster in any society ; or perhaps he may have been to careless to take any notice of the offer, or too regardless of the" dignity of the occasion to recognise the importance of being suitably apparelled. At any rat*, he might have obtained the wedding garment and by his own carelessness or pridehe failed to do so And so it has beer, all through the Church's history, and .-<> it i? still. For all who ate members of the out. ward Church, for all to whom the gospel invitation comes, a wedding garment is provided, and all who value it may wear it and must wear it. if they arc not merely, to sit down at the table, hut to enjoy th«» feast. Such a spiritual garment is offered to us all in that rightousuess which is of (Sod..and is accepted by faith. This is rarely the " best robe" in which the restore prodigal was arrayed, and in none other can they hope to be clothed who are gathered in from the • highways, all unfit and unprepared in themselves, and summoned to sit down at the king's bridal feast. We sit together Sunday after Sunday, and join in our songs of praise: so we learn to love one another after the flesh, while TOUR MINISTER KNOWS VOfR FACES, and yearns over your souls with an ardent, longing desire that you should all be clothed in the robe of Christ's righteousness, and *> time slips away, and the Hooting hut, priceless opportunities pass by. Life runs out," and at last the solemn moment arrives when the King conies in to see His guests. One moment, and His keen, pent rati tig comprehends the whole scene. His eye passes from one to another, and before He will speak a word of welcome to His own, before He bids the blessed guests dud in the wedding garment begin the banquet which His love supplies. Ho must gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, atjid those which do -iniquity. So His keen ■ eye is fixed in scrutiny on one and another, until at last it rests on a man who has not on the wedding garment. There he sat, in. the midst of those who wore the festal garb. "Friend, how earnest thou in hither, nothaving a wedding garment? And he was speechless." ■», He was speechless. He had not- one excuse to offer. His self-complacency was gone. It fled before one glance of the king's eye. And so shall those be speechless in that last' day of division who have dared to take their place within the Christian Church, but who. being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of Cod. Silent and conscience-stricken such must stand before the God whose ban- jj queting-house they have desecrated by their unsaiietified presence. „ HOW EASY IT IS TO DEFEND OURSELVES now, even though our inmost conscience may tell us that our very religion is a pretentious unreality! But the moment must come when the severe light of truth, flashing into tho inmost soul from the Judge's eye, shall silence all our self-complacent arguments,: and rob us of our baseless hopes. Vain will it be, my brother, in that dread hour to attempt to describe thyself as "a good Churchman," a "stout Protestant," a "sound evangelical;" these empty terms have lost their conventional value, the mind refuses to think them, and the lips to give them utterance.'* Friends, have you on tho wedding garment? Will you ask, as under the eye of Him from whom no secrets are hid, "Have I the wedding garment'/'-' Lo. tied offers to each one of us this wonderful rol>e which in Christ Ho has provided for the sinful .sons of men. Shall we accept it now at His hands'/