WE all know that supper is the last meal of the day; no person expects anything after supper-time, and there is something very striking in the Lord’s presenting the Gospel under the figure of a supper, and of a great supper.
It is the last action of God in grace. If you look back on man’s history, you find first the morning of innocence, and then man became a guilty sinner. Then came the noontide of his history, when man was tested and tried by the law, and he became a law-breaker. Next the eventide, when Jesus came in the fullness of His grace, and all man’s thought was to get rid of Him out of the world. God says then, as it were, I will make a last effort to reach man’s heart; I will attract him by the thought that I want his company, want to have him with Myself.
The thought of the supper is not merely forgiveness, but God coming out in the plenitude of His grace after man’s sin, his law-breaking, and his rejection of Himself, and saying, I want your company for Myself.
The supper is the consequence of Christ’s death, and it is the last action of God’s grace to meet man in the scene where the Son of God has been murdered, and the Holy Ghost rejected, for eighteen hundred years, before the besom of destruction sweeps the whole scene.
I believe that great supper includes every blessing the Holy Ghost can proclaim from an ascended Christ to needy sinners down here. Do you want pardon, peace, righteousness, to know God? You have all in Christ.
This, then, is the last message, God wants you. What do you think is man’s answer? The Holy Ghost says, “They all with one consent began to make excuse.” That is the first effect of the Gospel coming to man, unless he has felt the deep, urgent need of salvation. Here the first man’s excuse was, “I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it.” This was not a very good excuse, for most people, if they buy land, go and see it beforehand, but it sufficed for an excuse.
The second makes his business his excuse. “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them;” business which was all right in itself, but he put it between his soul and God.
The third makes the relationships of life his excuse, and this is worse still, for if he had wanted to go he would have taken his wife with him, but he says decidedly, “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”
One makes his pleasure, one his business, and one his relationships his excuse, but all make an excuse.
They are all a polite prayer to God to damn you, my reader, these excuses. God says, I want you for life, I want you for glory, I want you for my Son for everlasting blessing; and you turn and say, “I pray thee have me excused.” Ah, soul, soul, you will pray another prayer when it is too late.
I implore you not to put it oft Now is the moment; if you want salvation now is the time; God is calling on you now to receive the Gospel, to believe on His blessed Son. For only a few short moments God calls you. He would have you this very day give your soul to Him. The man who excuses himself, to him God’s solemn verdict goes out, “None of these men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.” How solemn, how awful, when God answers prayer in this way.
But the tidings of the great supper goes out by the servants to others. Still, “yet there is room,” and so another gracious command goes forth, “Compel them to come in, that my house may be full.” This is what the Spirit of God is doing in the urgency of His grace, for God will have His house filled.
I have no doubt it was the Jew first of all who heard the Word. The Jew had the first offer, then the messages are sent forth far and wide to proclaim the tidings of God’s grace. “They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them, and the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake.” What a contrast to Luke 14!
Philip preached Christ; that beautiful word embraces everything. Christ the sinner’s Friend, Christ the Saviour, Christ the Shepherd, Christ our Life, Christ our Peace, Christ everything. “The people with one accord gave heed.... And there was great joy in that city,” because the moment the supper is partaken of, the moment the soul really receives what grace ministers, great joy follows.
Do you not hear the invitation, my reader? And will you not believe now, believe on Christ the One who loves you, the One who gave Himself a Saviour for you, Christ the One who saves on the spot the soul that gives itself to Him.
These people heard, believed, and had great joy. Everything with God is great.
If people have not this joy it is because they are not simple. When I have found out the goodness that is in the heart of God, grace and goodness only greater than the badness of my heart, what can there be but great joy?
Simple faith in Christ saves the soul, but believing the Word of God, joy springs up in the soul. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, and that gives the heart joy.
Oh, my reader, would you be without the sphere of God’s joy?
Do you say, “What is my title to the supper?”
Your title is that you are invited. It is not your goodness that gives you a title to be there. The last man to be converted is the man who thinks himself a good man, because he is too full of any good deeds to feel any need of Christ.
You, my readers, who are hesitating, you who are halting, I ask, what are you going to do? You who say, I admit that God has provided on that supper table everything the soul needs; you that admit that the Christian has the best of it, I ask you, when are you going to be a real Christian? Nominally and by profession you may be one now, but that is nothing; you must be born again, you must be really converted, turned to God.
Do you say, I have been a professor these many years? Ah, an imitator of Simon Magus are you? Hear what the Lord has to say to such: “Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter.” What matter? The salvation of God, the interests of God.
I press these words upon you, unconverted professors of Christianity, if there is one judgment greater than another, I believe it is for those who have gone on with a lifeless profession of Christianity, and who have never known Christ.
But I turn to another great thing, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” There was a great supper, and great joy when it was tasted, and now a great salvation. It was the Lord first spake that “God so loved the world,” then others carried on the message, like Philip, and now we hear, “How shall we escape if we neglect?” Who are the neglecters? Those who put it off; those who are careless.
Why is it called a great salvation? Think what it cost. It was God’s own blessed Son who went to the cross―it was He who gave His life-blood there. It must be a great salvation that could save great sinners like you and me.
It is a present, a personal, a great, and an eternal salvation, and the Holy Ghost says, “How shall we escape if we neglect” it?
Do you ask, Escape what? Ah, my reader, there are other things coming, other ways of God with man besides ways of grace and long-suffering, and Gospel preaching. Do you say, What? Turn to Rev. 6:12,12And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; (Revelation 6:12) &c. The One whom you have despised is going to enact other scenes on this earth. He is the one who opens the seals, and we read in verse 17: “For the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?” Believer, you will be able to stand. Feeble believer, you can answer that question, for you can say, “I shall be able to stand, for I shall be by the side of the One who is judging.”
But you who are unconverted, unbelievers, what will you do? Now that the Gospel is proclaimed you despise it―you put it off―you neglect it; but then, then, when the great day of His wrath is come, where will you be? What a moment that will be which Scripture calls “the great and notable day of the Lord!” Not the day when God is preaching pardon and peace, but the day when He is gathering up the reins short, when Christ is taking to Himself His great power and reigning.
Ah, my unconverted reader, you who are ashamed to be seen at a prayer-meeting now, you will yet go to a prayer-meeting―yes, and find your prayer unanswered; they say “to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us,” &c. What a foolish prayer, too; but no man is such a fool as the man without Christ.
God offers you eternal life, and you live for time; He offers you everlasting blessing with Himself, and you live only with men on the earth, and die like a beast, as far as earth is concerned, and only rise again for judgment. And if you are alive on the earth when this day comes―and you may be―then you will call on the mountains and rocks to fall on you, and hide you from the wrath of the Lamb. And He would have saved you! You have made light of the blood of the Lamb, and it would have washed your sins away. You have despised the grace of the Lamb; and oh, what will it be when you feel the wrath of the Lamb? “Hide us! hide us!” they cry. Who spake of wrath? Man’s conscience.
What a contrast: A great supper, great joy, great salvation, and great wrath; and who will be able to stand? If you are not in Christ now you will not be able to stand; if you are unconverted, dismiss the thought that you will stand then. No, no; the man who has trusted Christ now is the only one who will stand then.
Now turn to Rev. 20, where we have something else that is great and decisive. A great supper has been despised, great joy has never been tasted, a great salvation never accepted; the great day of His wrath has been long feared, for judgment begins in a man’s conscience long before it really falls. Then at last it falls; there is a “great white throne,” and who sits on it? The One who would have saved you now; the One who shed His blood that He might be able to save you, but the One who then can only judge you. The dead stand before the great white throne, and the books are opened―your book, my reader, and what does it say? Born without Christ, lived without Christ, and died without Christ; born in sin, lived in sin, died in sin. And another book is opened―the book of life―and in vain is its register searched for your name, my unconverted reader. It is not there; and every one whose name is not found there is cast into the lake of fire.
Oh! can you risk it? Can you put off another hour? Come to Christ where you are and as you are. There is salvation for you where you sit. One look of faith at Christ, and everything His great supper provides is yours. May your soul say, Lord, from this moment I believe, I am Thine.
“Jesus, spotless Son of God,
Thou hast bought me with Thy blood;
I am Thine―and Thine alone,
This I gladly, fully own.”
W, T. P. W.