<p>22:9&nbsp;<em>Therefore, go-&nbsp;</em>Leading up to &ldquo;go therefore and teach all nations&rdquo;.</p><p><em>To the main roads- </em>AV &quot;Highways<em>&quot;. </em>See on :5&nbsp;<em>Went their ways.&nbsp;</em>The RV offers: &quot;unto the partings of the highways&rdquo;. The point from which He foresaw us making our appeal was a fork in the road. We are to appeal to men and women with the message that there is no third road; that it truly is a case of believe or perish. The art of preaching seems to be to bring people to perceive that they stand at a fork in their life's journey, they can take the road to the Kingdom or the road of temporary absorption in the things of this life. The point from which He foresaw us making our appeal was a fork in the road. We are to appeal to men and women with the message that there is no third road; that it truly is a case of believe or perish.&nbsp;<em>Diexodos</em>&nbsp;can also be understood as the place of crossing the city boundaries, out into the countryside- a possible hint at taking the invitation beyond Jerusalem, for the work of the Gospel was to begin in Jerusalem and spread outwards (Lk. 24:47).</p><p>Another possible meaning for the term is 'a market square'. This would then be designed to recall the parable of the labourers standing idle in the market place at the 11th hour (Mt. 20:6,7).&nbsp;In the Septuagint this word&nbsp;<em>diexodos&nbsp;</em>describes &quot;the&nbsp;<em>issues&nbsp;</em>from death&quot; (Ps. 68:20), the&nbsp;<em>waters&nbsp;</em>of death (2 Kings 2:21), &quot;<em>rivers&nbsp;</em>of water&quot; (Ps. 1:3), &quot;<em>watersprings&quot;</em>&nbsp;(Ps. 107:35). If this usage was in the Lord's mind and I am unsure it definitely was, then the idea would be that people were to be called from their seeking of water to seeking the water of life eternal; to exchange their secular passions and concerns for a concern about eternity.</p><p><em>And as many as</em>- The phrase could possibly imply that there was a specific number that had to be found and invited. That certainly is the teaching of the parable overall. Therefore the more people we invite, the quicker the wedding begins. The repetition of the phrase in :10 suggests that the servants were obedient to the instruction, strange as it was- to scrap the idea of a guest list and invite people from the street, bad or good, to a royal banquet which was getting cold on the table, without any pre-invitation or agreement to attend having been given by the people.&nbsp;</p><p><em>You shall find, invite them to the marriage feast-&nbsp;</em>The Lord Jesus is described as &ldquo;finding&rdquo; His people- the lost sheep, lost son, the idle workers in the marketplace (Mt. 20:6; Lk. 15:5,6,8,9); and yet He sends us out to &ldquo;find&rdquo; s.w. those who are to be invited into His Kingdom, just as the disciples &lsquo;found&rsquo; fish when they obeyed the Lord&rsquo;s commission to fish (Jn. 21:6). We do the Lord&rsquo;s work for Him in this sense. And yet of course people &ldquo;find&rdquo; the narrow way themselves, they&nbsp;&ldquo;find&rdquo; the treasure and pearl of the Gospel (Mt. 7:14; 13:44,46); but only because we have gone out and &lsquo;found&rsquo; them. The Lord&rsquo;s finding of us leads to us doing His work in finding others for Him and on His behalf. Thus Jesus &ldquo;finds&rdquo; Philip, and Philip&rsquo;s response is to go and &lsquo;find&rsquo; Nathanael (Jn. 1:43,45). And so it must be ours too. Just as the disciples &lsquo;found&rsquo; fish when they obeyed the Lord&rsquo;s commission to fish (Jn. 21:6). We do the Lord&rsquo;s work for Him in this sense.&nbsp;</p><p>It was totally scandalous that the majority of guests refused an invitation by the King (Mt. 22:9; Lk. 14:21-23), and that whilst the dinner was cold on the table, a desperately urgent expedition was sent to get people to come in and eat it. This is the urgency of our Gospel proclamation. And no King or wealthy man would really invite riff-raff off the street into his party; yet this is the wonder of God&rsquo;s grace in calling us through the Gospel. And such is the tragedy of humanity's rejection of the Gospel. To reject a royal invitation was tantamount to rejecting a royal command. It was unheard of in the time of Jesus. Yet people just don't perceive the honour of being invited by the King. Notice too how it is the King Himself who makes all the arrangements- not, as the initial hearers would have expected, a senior steward or his wife. But the King Himself. And this reflects the extraordinary involvement of God Almighty in personally inviting each of us to fellowship with Him, through the call of the Gospel. Likewise that&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;the girls should fall asleep whilst awaiting the bridegroom (Mt. 25:5) is unusual- they must have been a pretty lazy, switched off bunch.</p>