The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity is October 15, 2023.

Readings for Year A can be found here, used for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity on October 11, 2020.

The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):

Matthew 22:1-14

22:1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying:

22:2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a Wedding banquet for his son.

22:3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.

22:4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’

22:5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business,

22:6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.

22:7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.

22:8 Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy.

22:9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’

22:10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

22:11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe,

22:12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless.

22:13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

22:14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

Last Sunday’s parable was that of the Vineyard, or the Wicked Tenants. The Sunday before that we heard the Parable of the Two Sons.

We are in the middle of Holy — Passion — Week, therefore, just days before Jesus died on the cross. He had been in the temple grounds addressing the Jewish hierarchy who began the exchange by asking Him whose authority he was under. That question led to the Parable of the Two Sons.

This is what happened at the end of the Parable of the Vineyard:

21:42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?

21:43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.

21:44 The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

21:45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them.

21:46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

The clergyman giving last week’s sermon at my church said, ‘Jesus probably knew what they were thinking’.

There’s no ‘probably’ about it. He knew exactly what they were thinking. He was — and is — omniscient.

To address their thoughts, He addressed them in another parable (verse 1).

Matthew Henry’s commentary says of the Parable of the Vineyard and today’s Parable of the Wedding Feast:

In this it is said (v. 1), Jesus answered, not to what his opposers said (for they were put to silence), but to what they thought, when they were wishing for an opportunity to lay hands on him, ch. 21 46. Note, Christ knows how to answer men’s thoughts, for he is a Discerner of them. Or, He answered, that is, he continued his discourse to the same purport; for this parable represents the gospel offer, and the entertainment it meets with, as the former, but under another similitude. The parable of the vineyard represents the sin of the rulers that persecuted the prophets; it shows also the sin of the people, who generally neglected the message, while their great ones were persecuting the messengers.

Jesus, again talking about the kingdom of heaven, said that it could be compared to a wedding banquet a king gave for his son (verse 2).

Henry explains the analogy:

I. Gospel preparations are here represented by a feast which a king made at the marriage of his son; such is the kingdom of heaven, such the provision made for precious souls, in and by the new covenant. The King is God, a great King, King of kings. Now,

1. Here is a marriage made for his son, Christ is the Bridegroom, the church is the bride; the gospel-day is the day of his espousals, Cant 3 11. Behold by faith the church of the first-born, that are written in heaven, and were given to Christ by him whose they were; and in them you see the bride, the Lamb’s wife, Rev 21 9. The gospel covenant is a marriage covenant betwixt Christ and believers, and it is a marriage of God’s making. This branch of the similitude is only mentioned, and not prosecuted [further explained] here.

John MacArthur says that, although the parable is meant for the Jewish hierarchy, people in the temple for Passover listened to it:

The people are listening. And as the masses of people milled around the great courtyard of the Herodian temple, Jesus is the center of attention. And the religious leaders are tremendously threatened by this because He speaks of an internal righteousness. He speaks of a true salvation that they know nothing about in their external, self-righteous religion. And He is a threat to their system …

And Jesus was the master of analogies, and the master of figures of speech, and the master of language, and the master of articulating truth. He understood everything that His hearers understood. He knew what they knew because He had grown up in their culture. So, He started with things they could understand and move to things they couldn’t understand, going from the known to the unknown. And Jesus used all the things of common life, all the things of culture, all the things of daily routine, and turned them into spiritual messengers which conveyed profound spiritual truth. And He does so in this case.

He draws for them a story which all of them would not only understand, but which would set them up for the great spiritual truth it conveyed.

Now, it is a story, verse 2 says, about the kingdom of heaven. Jesus always talked about the kingdom of heaven, didn’t He? He never really got trapped into talking about anything else. I mean they wanted Him to get involved in a lot of other things, but He never said anything except things about the kingdom of heaven.

… To simplify it even further, it is the dominion of redemption. It is the sphere of God’s gracious salvation. The kingdom is that place where God rules, where God’s subjects live. It is a spiritual kingdom. It is a community of people who are redeemed, who have come to salvation, who are under the rule and the guiding and the leading of God.

Some people, when they come to Scripture and see the kingdom of heaven, want to assign it to a certain period of time, but it can’t be that. Oh, there is a present aspect to the kingdom. There is a future millennial kingdom when Christ reigns on the earth. There is an eternal element to the kingdom. There is even a past element, where God ruled in the Old Testament through His patriarchs, and His kings, and His judges, and His priests, and prophets, and so forth.

It has different facets, but it is still the kingdom, the sphere of God’s rule by grace and salvation. And so, this is about God’s world, God’s dominion.

MacArthur discusses the lengthy, days-long wedding celebrations in our Lord’s era:

The wedding was really inseparable from the feast. A wedding, in those days, was a big, long, feast. How long? Normal was seven days. Seven days. You had the people come to your house for the wedding feast, and you fed them, and you cared for them for seven days. And if you were a king, it could go on way beyond that. And it wasn’t until the very end of the time period that you put the hand of the bride in the hand of the groom, and they went off to consummate the marriage. It was one great, grand, glorious celebration. It was the highlight of life, as any wedding is today the highlight of family life.

And a wedding made by a king for his son would be the wedding of all weddings. I mean now most of the world was tuned into the royal wedding some time ago [Charles and Diana’s], weren’t there? And we would have given anything if we could have been there. Even in our culture, we understand the grandeur, and the majesty, and the wonder, and the spectacle of that.

And so, this is a wedding fest. And not just a wedding feast, but a wedding feast thrown by the king. And what our Lord is identifying here is the greatest celebration those people could imagine in their culture. It isn’t important that it was a marriage, because nothing is said about a bride, and nothing is said about the actual marriage itself or the wedding.

What is important is the Lord wants to identify the greatest celebration that those people could ever comprehend in their culture. And He is saying the kingdom of heaven is like the greatest celebration imaginable, thrown by the wealthiest person imaginable, for the most honored person imaginable. He wants to capture all the best that life could ever imagine to give. And so, He says, “There was a king, who made a wedding feast for his son.” I mean this was the blowout of all blowouts in that culture.

MacArthur explains the Greek in the original transcript:

By the way, the word “wedding feast” appears through here many times. It could be wedding feast, marriage feast. It’s translated marriage very often or wedding. But sometimes – very interesting, sometimes it’s singular, and sometimes it’s plural. It’ll go singular – it starts out plural, goes singular, goes back to plural. It alternates through the singular and plural. And the reason is because you could look at it as one feast, or you could look at it as a whole sequence. It was one great feast in which there were many, many feasts. You were banqueting for days and days and days.

And so, we get a little insight into the culture just by the way the Greek language uses the singular and the plural. It was the event of all events.

As one would expect, people were invited in advance, but, as MacArthur says in his sermon, things could not always be tied to a certain day because of possible issues in obtaining victuals and other supplies:

Now, this introduces us to a Middle Eastern custom. In those days, people didn’t have watches, and they weren’t as rigidly tied to time schedules as we are today. And they didn’t have the ease that we have in procuring food and all that goes into a long festival for multitudes of people. And so, preparation was very difficult. Time was a little bit latitudinous …

Therefore, the king sent his slaves to call the guests to the wedding banquet on the day. However, none of them came (verse 3).

MacArthur explains:

… notice verse 3, “Sent forth servants to call them that were bidden.” Now, the phrase “them that were bidden” means the already invited ones. In other words, there was a preliminary invitation. Certain people had been given invitations to come to the king’s wedding feast. And as far as we can tell from the text, they had accepted those invitations …

So, they may have sort of gloated about that invitation. We would assume that. So, they are the already bidden ones. Now, when the moment is ready to begin, the servants are sent out to these people to say, “It’s now that we begin.” And the servants go out to collect the already bidden ones. And unbelievably, it says in verse 3, “They would not come.” I mean this is mindboggling. And you could imagine, when the Lord’s saying this, that there are certain gasps in the crowd. It’s unthinkable.

I mean if you had been given an invitation to a week or two-week festival connected with the royal wedding, you’d probably go. I mean you’d surely go. If you were invited, in our own society – we don’t have a monarchy, so we would identify with being invited to the White House for a couple of weeks. We’d probably be prone to go. They wouldn’t come; it’s inconceivable. And now we’re beginning to see the parable have an impact, because the people, including the religious leaders, are going to have to be saying, “That’s ridiculous. Nobody in their right mind would do that, not go.” For several reasons. One, you would spurn the honor the king was giving you. Two, free food isn’t a bad deal. And the kind of food the king serves is pretty good stuff compared to the commoners.

And thirdly, you don’t mess with Middle Eastern monarchs. You understand? You don’t show, you may lose your head. I mean everything said, “Go.” It was reasonable …

The king, persisting, sent other slaves, instructing them, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet’ (verse 4).

Henry offers a marvellous analysis, broken down into the spiritual blessings, the hungry appetites, a joyful occasion and ending with a return to the spiritual invitation:

2. Here is a dinner prepared for this marriage, v. 4. All the privileges of church-membership, and all the blessings of the new covenant, pardon of sin, the favour of God, peace of conscience, the promises of the gospel, and all the riches contained in them, access to the throne of grace, the comforts of the Spirit, and a well-grounded hope of eternal life. These are the preparations for this feast, a heaven upon earth now, and a heaven in heaven shortly. God has prepared it in his counsel, in his covenant. It is a dinner, denoting present privileges in the midst of our day, beside the supper at night in glory.

(1.) It is a feast. Gospel preparations were prophesied of as a feast (Isa 25 6), a feast of fat things, and were typified by the many festivals of the ceremonial law (1 Cor 5 8); Let us keep the feast. A feast is a good day (Esth 7 17); so is the gospel; it is a continual feast. Oxen and fatlings are killed for this feast; no niceties, but substantial food; enough, and enough of the best. The day of a feast is a day of slaughter, or sacrifice, Jam 5 5. Gospel preparations are all founded in the death of Christ, his sacrifice of himself. A feast was made for love, it is a reconciliation feast, a token of God’s goodwill toward men. It was made for laughter (Eccl 10 19), it is a rejoicing feast. It was made for fulness; the design of the gospel was to fill every hungry soul with good things. It was made for fellowship, to maintain an intercourse between heaven and earth. We are sent for to the banquet of wine, that we may tell what is our petition, and what is our request.

(2.) It is a wedding feast. Wedding feasts are usually rich, free, and joyful. The first miracle Christ wrought, was, to make plentiful provision for a wedding feast (John 2 7); and surely then he will not be wanting in provision for his own wedding feast, when the marriage of the Lamb is come, and the bride hath made herself ready, a victorious triumphant feast, Rev 19 7, 17, 18.

(3.) It is a royal wedding feast; it is the feast of a king (1 Sam 25 36), at the marriage, not of a servant, but of a son; and then, if ever, he will, like Ahasuerus, show the riches of his glorious kingdom, Esth 1 4. The provision made for believers in the covenant of grace, is not such as worthless worms, like us, had any reason to expect, but such as it becomes the King of glory to give. He gives like himself; for he gives himself to be to them El shaddai—a God that is enough, a feast indeed for a soul.

However, upon hearing the next group of slaves’ entreaties, those who were invited made their excuses, making light of the invitation and going away, one to his farm and another to his business (verse 5).

Henry repeats Christ’s message in His parables of Matthew 21:

The guests that were first invited were the Jews; wherever the gospel is preached, this invitation is given; ministers are the servants that are sent to invite, Prov 9 4, 5.

Yet, they refused the invitation.

Henry tells us of the indifference of materialism:

… (v. 5); they made light of it; they thought it not worth coming for; thought the messengers made more ado than needs; let them magnify the preparations ever so much, they could feast as well at home. Note, Making light of Christ, and of the great salvation wrought out by him, is the damning sin of the world. Amelesantes—They were careless. Note, Multitudes perish eternally through mere carelessness, who have not any direct aversion, but a prevailing indifference, to the matters of their souls, and an unconcernedness about them.

And the reason why they made light of the marriage feast was, because they had other things that they minded more, and had more mind to; they went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. Note, The business and profit of worldly employments prove to many a great hindrance in closing with Christ: none turn their back on the feast, but with some plausible excuse or other, Luke 14 18. The country people have their farms to look after, about which there is always something or other to do; the town’s people must tend their shops, and be constant upon the exchange; they must buy, and sell, and get gain. It is true, that both farmers and merchants must be diligent in their business but not so as to keep them from making religion their main business. Licitis perimus omnes—These lawful things undo us, when they are unlawfully managed, when we are so careful and troubled about many things as to neglect the one thing needful. Observe, Both the city and the country have their temptations, the merchandise in the one, and the farms in the other; so that, whatever we have of the world in our hands, our care must be to keep it out of our hearts, lest it come between us and Christ.

MacArthur also refers to indifference in verse 5:

Verse 5, “But they made light of it” – they made light of it. They treated it with indifference. The Greek word means to be unconcerned. They were utterly indifferent to that. How could you be indifferent to this? They were indifferent. “And went their ways” – they just walked away from it …

“And one went to his farm, and another to his” – and the Greek word is emporioon – to his emporium, to his place of merchandising, to his store, to his business. It’s inconceivable. “No, we’re not coming to the great, grand, glorious, royal wedding feast; we’re going to go to the farm and over to the store.” It doesn’t make sense. Such indifference. Such selfish preoccupation with our own enterprises. Such a forfeiture of joy; such a forfeiture of grandeur, and glory, and beauty, and celebration. And such an insult to the king. Such an affront to his graciousness, for such an invitation was the highest honor in the country.

MacArthur explains the two daily meals of the ancient era:

… ‘“my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready. Come unto the marriage. I mean I’ve gone to tremendous extent to collect all this. I have my beef and my calves”‘” – that’s oxen and fatlings – “‘“it’s all ready; it’s all prepared.”‘” … There were two meals in the Jewish culture … Deipnon was the evening meal which was after sunset. Ariston was the morning meal that was between dawn and noon. The Jews only ate two meals a day. Not a bad idea; we won’t get into that, but it’s not a bad idea. But they only ate two meals. They got up with the sun and they worked. And then about 9:00, they stopped for their ariston.

That’s why in John chapter 21, where you have the disciples fishing all night, they caught nothing. Jesus shows up in the morning, says try the right side of the boat. They dump their nets, and they get a whole lot of fish, and they spend, no doubt, a couple of hours trying to get those fish in. By the time they get to the shore, it’s time for that morning meal, and it says the Lord said to them, “Come and have ariston.” It’s breakfast. It’s their midmorning breakfast.

And so, the wedding festival began with a morning brunch, if you like, and then they would have a post sunset evening meal. And that’s the only two meals they had. So, it’s kind of like the old English wedding breakfast that he invites them to. It’s all ready. You have to come. Everything is prepared.

I think that Jesus knew this would have a great deal of resonance for those who believe in Him. However incredible it was to those who heard Him in the temple complex, it is even more unbelievable to us who are reading or listening to this text two millennia later.

Who could refuse such a wonderful invitation? Yet, this is the situation for those who refuse to accept a call — and not the effectual one, but just a basic one — to the Gospel story.

Yet, even worse happened in the parable.

Others who were invited seized the king’s slaves, mistreated them and killed them (verse 6).

Henry reminds us of what went before in biblical history, both Old and New, and says that ‘the rest’ — or ‘the remnant’ — of verse 6 were the theological leaders:

The remnant, or the rest of them, that is, those who did not go the farms, or merchandise, were neither husbandmen nor tradesmen, but ecclesiastics, the scribes, and Pharisees, and chief priests; these were the persecutors, these took the servants, and treated them spitefully, and slew them. This, in the parable, is unaccountable, never any could be so rude and barbarous as this, to servants that came to invite them to a feast; but, in the application of the parable, it was matter of fact; they whose feet should have been beautiful, because they brought the glad tidings of the solemn feasts (Nahum 1 15), were treated as the offscouring of all things, 1 Cor 4 13. The prophets and John the Baptist had been thus abused already, and the apostles and ministers of Christ must count upon the same. The Jews were, either directly or indirectly, agents in most of the persecutions of the first preachers of the gospel; witness the history of the Acts, that is, the sufferings of the apostles.

This does not mean that Jews will not come to follow Christ as a group. In Romans 11, St Paul tells us that there will be a great Jewish revival, about which I wrote in August 2020:

Romans 11:25-28 – God’s purpose, judgement, Israel, mystery of salvation

Paul writes that God will lift His the judgement against Israel’s unbelief. Gentiles should not necessarily feel proud or secure. Churches will fall into apostasy. The Church was intended for the Jews first, not Gentiles, who were grafted in only because of the Jews’ unbelief.

This is also a warning against anti-Semitism.

Returning to the refusals for the wedding feast, the king was enraged; he sent his troops, destroyed the murderers of the slaves and burned their city (verse 7).

Henry says that the chief sin here was murder of the messengers, not a refusal to the call to the Gospel feast, even though that is also a grave sin:

IV. The utter ruin that was coming upon the Jewish church and nation is here represented by the revenge which the king, in wrath, took on these insolent recusants (v. 7); He was wroth. The Jews, who had been the people of God’s love and blessing, by rejecting the gospel became the generation of his wrath and curse. Wrath came upon them to the uttermost, 1 Thess 2 16. Now observe here,

1. What was the crying sin that brought the ruin; it was their being murderers. He does not say, he destroyed those despisers of his call, but those murderers of his servants; as if God were more jealous for the lives of his ministers than for the honour of his gospel; he that toucheth them, toucheth the apple of his eye. Note, Persecution of Christ’s faithful ministers fills the measure of guilt more than any thing. Filling Jerusalem with innocent blood was that sin of Manasseh which the Lord would not pardon, 2 Kings 24 4.

Of course, Christ was the chief of those ministers.

MacArthur says that, at this point, the parable moves from those who are indifferent to the Gospel invitation — a free call of grace and salvation — to the hostile refusal of that generous invitation:

And so, here were the already having been called ones, the nation Israel. The kingdom is offered to them. The King says, “Here’s My Son; here’s My kingdom, come and honor My Son.” And He sends out His preachers. And what do they do? Some of the people treated them with – what? – indifference. And some of the people did what? Murdered them. They killed John the Baptist; cut his head off. They killed Jesus Christ. James was the first of the apostles to go – right? – and he was beheaded. And the rest of the apostles is a list of martyrs, isn’t it? They killed the preachers.

I mean there are some people who are indifferent, and there are some people who are hostile. And you want to know something? The indifferent people in the parable are the people who were preoccupied with the farm and the merchandise. Most people who are indifferent to the Gospel, may I suggest to you, are secular people. They’re preoccupation is with stuff. Stuff … So trapped by the farm and the shop that they couldn’t go to the celebration. Finding their satisfaction in the pursuit of gain. Finding their satisfaction in wealth. Seculars.

And I would like to suggest to you that secularism is usually indifferent. False religion is hostile. Secularism is usually indifferent. False religion is hostile. You look at the history of persecution around the world, and the persecutors of the truth are the purveyors of error inevitably. And that is why in revelation 17, when you see the final world system of religion that comes together in the end times, it says that final world religious system is drunk with the blood of the martyrs because it is false religion that stamps out the truth in hostility. Secularism is indifferent; it’s not interested.

And so, when Jesus came, and God called His people Israel – the already having been called people – to a glorious celebration, there were the secularists. They were indifferent. They were indifferent.

And there were the religionists, and they were hostile. It’s still so. It’s still so …

Henry reminds us of the destruction of the temple in AD 70:

The Roman armies were his armies, of his raising, of his sending against the people of his wrath; and he gave them a charge to tread them down, Isa 10 6. God is the Lord of men’s host, and makes what use he pleases of them, to serve his own purposes, though they mean not so, neither doth their heart think so, Isa 10 7. See Mic 4 11, 12. His armies destroyed those murderers, and burnt up their city. This points out very plainly the destruction of the Jews, and the burning of Jerusalem, by the Romans, forty years after this. No age ever saw a greater desolation than that, nor more of the direful effects of fire and sword. Though Jerusalem had been a holy city, the city that God had chosen, to put his name there, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth; yet that city being now become a harlot, righteousness being no longer lodged in it, but murderers, the worst of murderers (as the prophet speaks, Isa 1 21), judgment came upon it, and ruin without remedy; and it is set forth for an example to all that should oppose Christ and his gospel. It was the Lord’s doing, to avenge the quarrel of his covenant.

MacArthur explains exactly how it happened:

“He sent forth his armies” – the word in the Greek strateumata is really “troops;” it’s not like he had massive armies as we think of huge armies of nations, but troops, a smaller group than perhaps armies conveys – “and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city.”

Even in our society today, we understand that murderers pay with their life. For the most part we understand it, even though we struggle with that capital punishment issue. At least it’s enough of an issue to indicate that many people feel it’s right. And, of course, the Bible articulates that it is …

… that which makes a person worthy to enter the kingdom and commune with the Son and celebrate at the wedding feast is not some self-designed morality, but saying yes to an invitation. They weren’t worthy. And because they refused salvation in the Son, they couldn’t come. There’s a limit to God’s patience, to His endurance. And they had reached the limit.

Back in chapter 21, verse 43, in the prior parable, He said very similarly, “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of it. It’s going to be taken away from you” – and the word “nation” means people – “and given to a people who will appreciate it and demonstrate its fruits.”

In other words, here you have historically the casting off of Israel as a nation in the unique place a God’s called people, which they had enjoyed. Why? Because they rejected the Messiah. They rejected the Savior, and they were set apart. Set apart.

And He says, “You’re city’s going to be burned.” Boy, was that prophetic; 70 A.D. it happened. Titus Vespasian, the Roman general, came to Jerusalem, conquered the city, murdered 1,100,000 Jews, threw their bodies over the wall. Slaughtered beyond that, multiplied thousands all around Palestine.

And Josephus, who was an eyewitness to the whole thing, wrote in his history of Jewish war these words translated, “That building, the temple at Jerusalem, however, God long ago had sentenced to the flames. But now in the revolution of the time periods, the fateful day had arrived. The tenth of the month of Lous, (Av), the very day on which previously it had been burned by the king of Babylon. One of the soldiers, neither awaiting orders nor filled with horror of so dread an undertaking, but moved by some supernatural impulse, snatched a brand from the blazing timber and, hoisted up by one of his fellow soldiers, flung the fiery missile through a golden window.

“When the flame arose, a scream as poignant as the tragedy went up from the Jews now that the object which before they had guarded so closely was going to ruin. While the sanctuary was burning, neither pity for age nor respect for rank was shown. On the contrary, children and old people, laity and priests alike were massacred. The emperor had ordered the entire city and sanctuary to be razed to the ground, except only the highest towers and that part of the wall that enclosed the city on the west.”

And that’s why today remains the western wall. The rest of the things w[ere] burned. Jesus said He – the king burned up their city. It hadn’t happened, but it would. It was prophetic in a parabolic form. Objectors to the Son, rejecters of the Son are judged in a fiery judgment. So accurate is our Lord’s statement here. What was He saying? He was saying because Israel has rejected the Messiah, God rejects them. And those who hostilely kill the Son will be severely judged by God, and their city will be burned. It was.

This does not mean that Jews may not convert to Christianity. Many have done so. Their stories are in Acts and some of Paul’s letters. The converts have continued throughout history to the present day. Our Lord’s door is always open to those who believe in Him.

Tomorrow I will cover the second half of this reading, continuing from verse 8, with the new guests of the king’s wedding feast.