Page 411 - Bible History

Wicked U ndmen
384 CHRIST'S TEACHINGS, MIRA ES AND CHURCH
thee, hold me excused.' Another said, 'I have bought ve yoke of oxen and I am going to try them. I pray thee, hold me excused.' Another said, 'I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.'
''The servant returned and told these things to his lord. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the crippled and the poor and the blind and the lame.' After a while, the servant returned and said, 'Lord1 it is done as thou hast commanded; yet there is room.' And the lord said to the servant, 'Go out into the highways and to the hedges, ·and tell them to come in, that my house may be lled. But I say unto thee that none of those men that were invited shall taste of my supper.' ''
Thus did our Lord try to make the Pharisees under­ stand that no one had a right to the Kingdom of Heaven simply because he belonged to a certain nation or a certain tribe. Only those would be allowed to enter who heeded the invitation of God to lead a holy life, and thus proved themselves worthy of His re­ ward.
God had been wondrously good to His Chosen Peo- ple. He had watched over them and protected them for many centuries. But they had been ungrateful. They had mistreated the prophets whom He sent to them, and had even put some of them to death. Yet God was patient with them. When they would not heed the prophets, He sent His only-begotten Son to call them to repentance. Him also they put to death. Because of this fact, they were nally rejected by God