Now I ask, in the name of all that is reasonable, can we, dare we, accuse the Lord of dealing deceitfully?  Perish the thought forever.  No!  He invites all because it is his blessed will to see all come and sit at his table spread with the great love feast which he has prepared for all who are willing and desire to come.  This very thought is the joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue.  And it is a joy which no man taketh from me, because it rests on the rock of Divine Truth.  But a preparation is necessary.  We can hardly separate the parable under consideration from the one recorded in Matthew twenty-second chapter.  There we read of a wedding dinner made by a king, to celebrate the marriage of his son.  And when the king came in he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment.  And the king said:  “Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?  And he was speechless.”  And why was he speechless?  If he would have had any reasonable excuse to offer for the unprepared appearance which he made, would he have been speechless?  Reason says at once.  He would have urged his inability to procure a suitable dress for the occasion, as the cause for his appearing in the way he did, if any such cause had existed.  And the king knew this full well; otherwise he would not have required all to have on the wedding garment.

I now call your attention to the closing words of the parable:  “I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.”  The reason for this is found in the fact that they would not come.  They were the first to be invited.  Had they come, they would have received the right hand of welcome.  But notice the unreasonable excuses they made.  One had bought a piece of ground, and he must go and see it, as if night were the time to look at land.  Another must try the five yoke of oxen he had that day bought, as if night were the best time to do this.  Another had married a wife and could not come, as if night were not a suitable time to enjoy a rich supper with his bride.  We wonder at these vain and almost unnatural excuses; but do we find the excuses of men any more reasonable to-day?  Men hazard their souls in a life of sin, not for want of invitations, entreaties and warnings from the Lord to come unto him, but because they will not.  The Lord pleads with men to-day, just as he pleaded with Israel centuries ago.  Hear what he says to Israel by the mouth of the Prophet Ezekiel:  “Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.  Cast away from you all your transgressions, ... and make you a new heart and a new spirit:  for why will ye die, O house of Israel?  For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God:  wherefore turn yourselves and live ye.”