THAT is what the kingdom of heaven is like. God spreads a feast in honor of His blessed Son, who has always been so well pleasing to Him, and He will have the wedding furnished with guests; they shall share His joy, and the delight He always takes in making much of His dear Son, they shall enjoy with Him. And when all things are quite ready, He sends to fetch in those whom He has invited, but they will not come. How strange! Was ever another feast so treated? Nor was it that they would gladly have come if they possibly could. No! “they MADE LIGHT of it, and went THEIR WAYS, one to his farm, another to his merchandise.” Ah! they did not make light of those things, but the King’s feast was nothing to them; they could do without it.
Now I want to ask you, my dear reader, How are YOU treating God’s feast, that rich provision of His grace, that precious salvation for poor hell-deserving sinners, which the gospel unfolds to you? The banqueting house of the blessed God is open for “the hungry,” the water of eternal life is flowing there, and He says, whosoever will, let him take of it “freely.” You know this, are you making light of it? You do not disbelieve a word of it; you do not scoff at it and ridicule it; you are not, it may be, an open despiser of His grace, no! But are you making light of His feast, that He has spread for such as you? You do not make light of your business; your farm has quite due attention; you eagerly follow your pleasure, and you never think of making light of a good bargain.
Perhaps you do not make light of “religion,” but attend diligently upon all its outward forms; you are more upright and benevolent than many you could point out, but what about God’s feast? He feasts on Christ. All His delight is in Jesus. He calls you to fellowship with Himself in this. He desires that You should be satisfied only with what delights His heart. Now, are you “making light” of this? Is your heart on God’s Christ, God’s Lamb? Or are you saying in the bottom of your heart, “I can do without Jesus, I do not want Him, at any rate not now? It may be all well to think of religion when I am going to die, but things of much more immediate importance demand my attention now.” Oh, if you are thinking thus, my beloved reader, you are despising Christ. Verily, God holds you guilty of making light of His feast.
And what will you do if God makes light of you presently, if He makes you “like the chaff which the wind driveth away,” and you be swept forever from His blessed presence, where alone “there is fullness of joy, and pleasures for evermore”? Ah! you will wish then you had made more of the grace of God in the gospel, and lighter of a thousand other things that will be of no benefit to you then.
“He filleth the hungry soul with goodness.” Confess your emptiness and need of Him, and seek through faith in Jesus, supply from His store, and “your soul shall delight itself in fatness.” But make light of His feast a little longer, and it will be too late, and naught will remain for you, but “Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish.”
W. T.