<p>14:23<i> And the master said to the servant: Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come, that my house may be filled</i>- See on 1 Cor. 9:13. This shows the blessing which will go behind the efforts to spread the Gospel to all the world in the last days. There is a fervent, <i>urgent</i> desire of the Lord for this, and so His blessing will surely be with all who catch the same spirit of urgency. According to the parable, the quality of converts is sacrificed (by the Lord, not us) for the sake of numbers- which connects with the idea that the coming of Christ is to some degree dependent upon the full number of the Gentiles being converted (Rom. 11:25). Likewise the drag net was brought to land once it was full of fish (Mt. 13:48). The Lord speaks of how &ldquo;few&quot; (the Greek implies physically weak, cp. the unwanted labourers in the market place) the labourers are (Mt. 9:37), and therefore more (numerically) are needed. Any lamentation about the weakness of the latter-day ecclesia must be seen in this context; the Lord is desperate for the places at the supper to be filled, although woe to those who come in without a wedding garment (Mt. 22:12). &nbsp;</p><p>The parable of the great supper chronicles the preaching of the Gospel over time. There were three stages of appeal: &quot;To them that were bidden&quot; (the Jews in Israel), to those in the streets and lanes of the city (the Jewish Diaspora), and finally, in a spirit of urgency, the preachers are commanded: &quot;Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled&quot; (Lk. 14:16-23; the same spirit of urgency in witness is to be found in the Lord&rsquo;s command to His preachers to cut the courtesy of prolonged greetings). Once the required number are in God's spiritual house, the feast will begin- and that feast represents eating bread in the Kingdom, at the second coming.</p><p>The language of 'going out' should be connected to the command to '<i>go </i>and teach all nations'. The parable concerns the master of the house (God) commanding His servant (Christ); yet the connection with the preaching commission indicates that the commission given to Christ He fulfils through us, as demonstrated earlier in this study. The ever-increasing sense of urgency in the appeal to 'come in' ought to be reflected in our preaching in these last days.</p><p>Noah's ark is a well-known type of the salvation which humanity can find in Christ; and yet close analysis of the Genesis record reveals that there were some animals whom Noah had to bring into the ark and take them with him (Gen. 6:19; 7:2); and others who came to Noah and entered into the ark of their own volition (Gen. 6:20; 7:9,15,16). The same Hebrew is found in Gen. 8:9, about how the dove came to Noah of its own volition, and Noah welcomed her and took her into the ark. Putting all this together, we are to compel men to come in; and yet we are also to be there to welcome in the seekers who seek of their own volition. It's easier to do the latter; to put up a website, waiting there for some eager seeker to come and find. But we are also to compel people in, and to also bear in mind that there are some who will be attracted to the Gospel from selfish reasons, as the man who buys the field thinking that he can exploit it for his own benefit. These too we are to take on board and not turn away. Whilst people, with all their wonderful uniqueness, should never be pigeon-holed nor over-categorized... all the same, we need to consider the type of person we're dealing with as we plan out our approach. For if we seek them, we will consider who they are, and how appropriately we can engage them.</p><p>&quot;Compel&quot; is the same word used in :18, where the man excuses his lack of response to the Gospel by saying that he &quot;must&quot; or is compelled to go and check out his new land. We are to help people see that the 'necessity' of secular things is to be replaced by the ultimate 'necessity' of responding to the call of the Kingdom.</p><p>The eagerness of the Lord to accept us, to find in us spiritual fruit, is perhaps reflected in the way that He begins inviting people of 'His' level to the feast of the Kingdom, but ends up lowering the bar as time goes on, to try by all means to get at least somebody in there. This theme of lowering the bar is perhaps continued in this same passage by the way the Lord says that His disciples must forsake / 'bid goodbye to' all that they had (Lk. 14:33). This is the same word found earlier in Lk. 9:61, where some time before, a potential disciple who first wished to go and &quot;bid goodbye to&quot; his family was judged as not suitably committed to the urgency of the task. But now, the Lord says that this is acceptable in His definition of discipleship. This Lord is our Lord.</p><p>&ldquo;How shall they hear without a preacher?&rdquo;&nbsp; It&rsquo;s impossible to hear without a preacher. Of course, God could beam the message into men some other way. But normally He chooses to work through human preachers. The preachers in the parable of the great supper are bidden &quot;Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled&quot;. The house of God's Kingdom is filled with people as a result of enthusiastic preaching.</p>