The Bad and the Good

Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests (Matthew 22:9-10).

In this parable the ‘main roads’ refers to wherever people can be found. The servants of the king were commissioned to find anyone willing to attend the wedding celebration. The ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ refers to all people, those acceptable and unacceptable in moral society. Why? No one is ‘good’ by nature, but some, the ‘bad’, are worse than others. What sets these people apart from those ‘not worthy’ is their willingness to attend the celebration while the unworthy were not. Again, Romans 3:10-20 tells us no one is inherently righteous, and what righteousness we think we have disqualifies us from entering the Kingdom of God because it is self-righteousness and not godly righteousness (Isaiah 64:6).

The parable denounces the Chief Priests and Elders (vv. 2-7) as recipients of the Kingdom of God (salvation) because they rejected Jesus Christ, ‘the son of the king’. The Lord then extends the invitation to enter the Kingdom (salvation) to anyone willing to accept it - Jew, Gentile, slave, free, rich poor, the good and the bad. (Matthew 28:18-20) All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Romans 9:25-26; Hosea 1:10; 2:23) As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not My people I will call ‘My people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’” And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’” (Romans 11:11)  So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.

Subsequent to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, what makes a person worthy to enter His Kingdom is the same thing that made a person worthy since the fall of Adam and Eve - personal faith in God through the coming Messiah (Old Testament) and in the Messiah who has come (New Testament). There never has been two ways to God, two roads into the Kingdom, or two means whereby a person is considered righteous in the eyes of God. (Matthew 7:13). Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (John 14:6) Jesus said . . . I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

“Lord Jesus, I am thankful that even though I am not worthy, nor have ever been worthy, to enter Your Kingdom, by Your grace You have invited me in and given me the faith to accept You as my personal Lord and Savior. Thank You for extending Your Kingdom to all who will believe in and receive You into their lives. May Your name be praised forever, Amen.”

Pastor