No Pastor Penno video this week. "... I apologize for the lesson not being posted on YouTube. The video tech's computer had an optics crash on his computer which necessitated him having it serviced. So he's within the capacity to upload the video to the internet.
The best I can do for you is to attach the notes for lesson 11.
Blessings,
Paul Penno"
Here are the notes,
A friend of mine, a college professor, gave me a helpful illustration of how Jesus treats us all by virtue of His sacrifice on His cross. You remember, Jesus said in John 12:47, “I came not to judge [that is, condemn] the world, but to save the world.” And Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:19, “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” And you remember how Isaiah 53:6 says, “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” And Romans 5:16-18 reminds us that God has given “all men” not only a grace that abounds much more than sin abounds, but that grace has also given “all men” a gift, that is justification.
My college professor friend explained his illustration. I will quote his own words: “In my classes, I have good students and also some bad ones. But I pronounce no judgment on their performance until the final test is taken. Then some students pass while others fail. Up to that moment they are all treated as potential successes. I use this as an illustration of how God treats us ‘in Christ.’ HE TREATS US ALL AS RIGHTEOUS. The separation between the goats and the sheep will come [only] in the judgment. Then some will be found to be ‘tares,’ while others will have been ‘wheat.’”
I thank my college professor friend for a precious insight into the grace of Christ. One widely read author says that God has encircled the world with an atmosphere of grace as real as the air we breathe (Steps to Christ, p. 68). Are you a sinner? Have you carried a burden of guilt? Do you feel that God does not accept you? Remember the words of Jesus: “He that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (Jn. 6:37). Because of Christ’s sacrifice, He treats you today as though you were righteous; He accepts you “in Christ;” He has laid your iniquity on Him, imputing your sins to Him. When He said of Jesus at the Jordan, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17), He was putting His divine arms around you also! Now let your life today sing a song of praise for that great salvation.
22:1 “And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,”
22:2 “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son.” The marriage is the union of humanity with divinity.
The first call is given by the King. 22:3 “And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.” The king takes the initiative by extending the gospel invitation to the Jewish people. Jesus sent forth the twelve disciples and the seventy to call in His people to the kingdom of God, but the call went unheeded. There was no repentance and turning to God.
The king commissions the second call to the kingdom. 22:4 “Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.” “This was the message borne to the Jewish nation after the crucifixion of Christ; but the nation that claimed to be God’s peculiar people rejected the gospel brought to them in the power of the Holy Spirit” (COL 308).
The repudiation of the people of Israel is no arbitrary action by God, but the consequence of their own indifference and antipathy to his will. Repeatedly the Jewish people received the call of God communicated through his servants. yet they excluded themselves from the banquet through negligence and defiance, and thus revealed themselves to be unworthy of the divine invitation. The denouement of their willful action is catastrophic destruction for themselves and their city and the forfeiture of their specially invited status.
22:5 “But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:” By refusing to come, the guests insulted the dignity of the king who had counted on their attendance and graciously prepared food for them. For all the invited guests to refuse to come would shame the host; the absurd excuses given barely disguise what must have been a concerted plan deliberately to insult the host.
22:6 “And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.” To slaughter the king’s messengers was a revolutionary act. The fate of John the Baptist (Mt. 14:3) and what the authorities wish to do to Jesus (Mt. 21:46) is illustrative of what the Jews did to Gods messengers. A great persecution arose against God’s apostles so that they imprisoned and even killed them such as Stephen and James (Acts 8:1).
When the nation sealed its rejection of God’s merciful message, the Roman armies came and destroyed Jerusalem scattering the people. 22:7 “But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.”
This is the third invitation given to the Gentiles. 22:8 “Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.”
22:9 “Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.”
22:10 “So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.” Many who came to the feast were motivated by the temporal advantages of food and status associated with rubbing shoulders with royal society. But they did not come out of respect for the King. The call of God now embraces all. The image is of a hall filled with people of varied character, both bad and good.
This parable is present truth for today. There is a preparation necessary for participation in the wedding. The investigative judgment is represented by the king’s inspection of the guests. 22:11 “And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:” “This garment was a gift from the king. By wearing it the guests showed their respect for the giver of the feast” (COL 309). The garment represents the character that all must possess in order to be fit guests for the wedding. “The wedding garment, which the man did not possess, is evidently a symbol of the better righteousness and perfection which is demanded of all those who receive the call of God.” The Theme of Recompense in Matthew’s Gospel, p. 149.
22:12 “And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.” “He could answer nothing. He was self-condemned” (COL 309). “Men may now excuse their defects of character, but in that day they will offer no excuse” (COL 317). The man without the wedding garment was like the original guests who refuse to come at the king’s first invitation.
“When the Jews took the first step in the rejection of Christ, they took a dangerous step. When afterward evidence accumulated that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, they were too proud to acknowledge that they had erred. So with the people of our day who reject the truth. They do not take time to investigate candidly, with earnest prayer, the evidences of the truth, and they oppose that which they do not understand. Just like the Jews, they take it for granted they have all the truth, and feel a sort of contempt for anyone who should suppose they had more correct ideas than themselves of what is truth. All the evidence produced they decide shall not weigh a straw with them, and they tell others that the doctrine is not true, and afterward, when they see as light evidence they were so forward to condemn, they have too much pride to say ‘I was wrong’; they still cherish doubt and unbelief, and are too proud to acknowledge their convictions. Because of this, they take steps that lead to results of which they have never dreamed” (EGW 1888 Materials, pp. 169, 170).
He was referring to the time of judgment that comes just before He returns a second time. In the preceding chapter of Luke He spoke of the judgment which must precede the resurrection: “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world [eternal life], and the resurrection from the dead …” (Luke 20:35, emphasis supplied). Anybody can see that such a judgment must take place before the resurrection, in order to determine who shall be rewarded by what Jesus described as “the resurrection of life,” and who should be left to “the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:29). When Christ comes the second time, this work of judgment will be finished already, for He says, “Behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Rev. 22:12).
The Bible shows that this judgment will take place while we are still living on the earth. In Luke 20:35 Jesus spoke of the dead being judged as worthy or unworthy to have a part in “the resurrection of life” (John 5:29), while in Luke 21:36 He goes a step further and speaks of those who are living being judged worthy “to stand before the Son of man” when He comes. This pre-Advent judgment takes place at a pre-arranged time: “He hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained” (Acts 17:31).
That “appointed” day was yet future in Paul's day, but it is present in our day. The first angel of Revelation 14 declares that “the hour of his judgment is come” (verse 7). It is during the last days of earth’s history, that “the nations” are “angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto they servants ... and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth” (Rev. 11:15-18).
Should you and I be afraid of the judgment? Is it like a final exam that students face, the kind where they cram the night before and come to it trembling with fear? There is a judgment that comes before Christ returns—otherwise He could not bring His reward with Him to give every man according as his work has been (Rev. 22:12). And before there can be a resurrection, there must be an “accounting” which is a judgment to determine who is “accounted worthy” to come up in that most glorious of blessings—the first resurrection (Luke 20:35). But can we know anything about when that pre-Advent judgment is to take place? Does the 2300 days prophecy of Daniel 8:14 make any sense?
Well, I have only two minutes: (1) The Day of Atonement in the Hebrew sanctuary service was an object-lesson of that final pre-Advent judgment. (2) The Lord did not intend that its purpose should be to condemn Israel or the people, but “on that day shall the [high] priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord” (Lev. 16:30). (3) That precisely is the purpose of the investigative judgment—not to condemn God’s people, but to cleanse them so they can meet Jesus in person when He returns. (4) There is sin, conscious and unconscious, that must be discovered, repented of, “overcome” (Rev. 3:21), so that those who follow the great High Priest in His closing work of Atonement may not be consumed by the brightness of Jesus’ coming. That’s going to be a serious moment! (5) The High Priest doesn’t want to condemn you; He wants to vindicate you—that’s the only judgment He wants to make in your case. (6) Don’t stop Him, don’t hinder His on-going work! (7) The Septuagint translators of Daniel 8:14, 150 years B.C., clearly saw in the 2300 day prophecy a reference to the Day of Atonement; and long before there were any people known as Seventh-day Adventists, Christian scholars saw that 1844 was the terminus of that prophecy.
22:13 “Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The expression is found six times in Matthew (8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). “Weeping” in the sense of sorrow experienced by those who, following the judgment, realize what they have lost. “Gnashing of teeth” denotes a desperate remorse and self-reproach which causes the whole body to tremour. They are pitched into a frenzy of misery.
22:14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
In English (or any modern language] the two Bible words look to be the same—“righteousness.” But in the language Jesus and His apostles used, they are different words and different ideas. Buried inside those two words is the reason why the second coming of Jesus has been so long delayed:
Dikaiosune (dee-kai-o-soon-ay, but we’re not concerned with pronunciation here) is the word that means the “righteousness” of Christ, His perfect character, what He has done to save us, what He has accomplished apart from us. It’s His perfect obedience to the law of God. It’s righteousness imputed to the believer.
Dikaiomata (dee-kai-o-ma-ta) is “the righteousness of saints” (Rev. 19:8), “the righteousness of the law . . . fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:4), “the righteous acts of the saints” (Rev. 19:8, NKJV). It prepares the dilatory “bride” of Christ to “make herself ready for the marriage of the Lamb.” That’s dikaiomata—Christ’s righteousness lived out in the life of the corporate body of God’s people. Now it’s imparted to them. It’s Christlikeness of character, “144,000 following the Lamb whithersoever He goeth” so that “in their mouth [is] found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God,” for they have “learn[ed] “a new song” that no corporate body of God’s people have ever “sung” since time began (14:1-5).
Dikaiomata is “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height . . . of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:18, 19), but dikaiomata is when we “comprehend [that love] with all saints” (vs. 17) and come to “know” it (vs. 18). It’s “Christ dwelling in [our] hearts by faith.” We “overcome even as [He] overcame” (Rev. 3:21).
Revelation 19 says that when “the Lamb’s wife . . . makes herself ready,” Heaven will sing the grandest Hallelujah chorus ever. At last, after these long millennia, Christ will have a “bride” who is grown up by faith “unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13), prepared to stand by His side forever as His Bride.
But there’s one problem: the Bridegroom (as usual) cannot dress His bride for the wedding. She must “make herself ready.” She has something to do.
Someone raises a question: “If ‘the marriage of the Lamb’ has been delayed because ‘His wife has [not] made herself ready’ (Rev. 19:7), what can we do about that? If ‘the Lamb’s wife’ is the New Jerusalem, the Holy City in heaven [21:9, 10ff], how can we make it ‘ready’”? It’s beyond us; forget it, go back to sleep.
When the angel told John, “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” he gave him a panoramic view of the city. It had “a great and high wall with twelve gates, . . . twelve foundations, . . . the city was pure gold, . . . the twelve gates were twelve pearls, . . . the street of the city was pure gold” (21:6-21). Even for angel architects and heavenly construction workers, “making” such a “city” “ready” could be a big job. Paving Main Street with gold, for example, must take time. Is that what has delayed the coming of Christ? If so, go back to sleep.
The “city” is real, very real; and its material construction has probably been completed long, long ago. But what is the real “city”? Why is it called the “New Jerusalem”? The “Jerusalem” that crucified Jesus was the old one. When He addressed the old “city,” sobbing like His heart would break, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! . . . . Your house is left to you desolate” (Matt. 23:37), was He speaking to the cobble stones in the pavement, the timber in the gates, or was He addressing the people, inhabitants of the city?
The inhabitants of the New Jerusalem are described in Revelation 14:1-5 as “the ones who follow [not rebel against] the Lamb wherever He goes. . . . They are without fault before the throne of God.” These same “ones” have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (7:14). This is character-cleansing—accomplished by grace through the faith of Jesus.
When He died on His cross and cried out, “It is finished!” Satan was forever defeated, the great controversy won. But after 2000 years Jesus must also say that His seventh of the seven churches is “the one” of all history that doesn’t know it is “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (3:17, the Greek word “ho” is there). Yes, she has something to do to “make herself ready for the marriage of the Lamb.” We must wake up.
