<p>22:8&nbsp;<em>Then he said to his servants</em>- We are meant to imagine how they felt. The previous servants had been at best ignored, others beaten and killed. And now... it was for them to go out with the same message? We too should not fail to see the cost involved in the work of the Gospel, for we stand in direct continuum with the persecuted prophets and preachers who have gone before us. It may even be that by following the Lord's instructions to persuade all men, bad and good, to enter the Kingdom, simply on the basis of them saying 'yes', we will suffer isolation and rejection from our own brethren. And that too would be a sharing in His crucifixion sufferings, and taking our place in the sufferings of the Gospel. The work of the Gospel, if done properly, can never ultimately be 'fun' or purely pleasurable.&nbsp;</p><p><em>The wedding is ready...</em>- This statement seems so obvious it doesn't need to be made. But it is made in order to motivate the servants in their efforts to get at least someone somewhere to say &quot;yes&quot;. They were being asked to do something most unusual- to just grab anyone and urge them to come in to a King's banquet without a prior invitation and agreement, as was the norm. This appeal to secular people&nbsp;<em>without</em>&nbsp;the prior invitation was so wonderful and unusual that the very unusualness of it would be hard for both preacher and listener to accept. Surely there was a catch somewhere... And so often when we present the things of the Kingdom to people, their honest response is that 'Can that really be... it sounds just too fantastic'. This is the difficulty with the level and depth of grace we are asked to believe in and share. It is so unusual and out of our experience that we find it hard to believe for real.&nbsp;</p><p><em>But they that were invited were not worthy</em>- John's appeal had been to bring forth fruit &quot;worthy&quot; s.w. of repentance (Lk. 3:8). They had initially agreed to this, but hadn't come up with the fruit. Paul surely had this part of the parable in mind when he turned away from preaching to the Jews and went to the Gentiles, because the Jews had &quot;judged themselves unworthy s.w. of everlasting life&quot; (Acts 13:46).&nbsp;</p><p>The parable of the marriage feast&nbsp;highlights the tragedy of Jewish rejection of what could have been theirs. There will be an ever-increasingly vigorous preaching campaign by the &quot;servants&quot;, seeing that&nbsp;&ldquo;they which were bidden were not worthy&quot; (Mt. 22:8) - the Greek perhaps implying not enough numerically.&nbsp;&nbsp; As a result of this preaching, &quot;the wedding was furnished ('filled' - numerically) with guests&quot; (Mt. 22:10).&nbsp;&nbsp; This indicates that in some ways, God does work to a number. Once the required number of converts is made, then the supper can begin. Their appeal being to &quot;the poor... maimed... halt and... blind&quot; suggests that the marginal and desperate within society will be those who respond- and this is happening right now in the triumphant progress of preaching in our day. The servants are sent &quot;into the highways&quot; (Mt. 22:9), one possible meaning of the Greek is 'a market square'.&nbsp;&nbsp; This must be designed to recall the parable of the labourers standing idle in the market place at the 11th hour (Mt. 20:6,7).&nbsp;&nbsp; The very short probation of those 11th hour workers will match that of the latter-day converts. And again, it was the old and weak who nobody wanted to hire. See on 28:20.</p>