COMPEL THEM!

18But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ 19And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ 20Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21So that servant came and reported these things to his master. 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 here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ 22And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ 23Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and COMPEL them to come in, that my house may be filled. 24For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’”
I heard a famous pastor once say that the richest soil in the world is not found in the famous middle east where there is an abundance of oil, nor It’s not found in diamond rich soil of Africa, or in the gold infested mountains of all over the world? Rather, the richest soil on this planet is located in graveyards.  You see every graveyard is overwhelmed with lost dreams.  It’s here in this soil where the great dreams of men and women died with them.  Dreams that men had but made excuses as to why they could never pursue them or accomplish them. Unfortunately, it’s in this rich soil that we see the effect that our excuses had on us.  If we would have had the courage and the faith to chase our dreams then maybe our lives in some sort of way would still be speaking.
Jesus said repeatedly to “GO!” It wasn’t a suggestion, it wasn’t if you can find the time to fit it in your busy schedule, He didn’t say if you don’t have anything else to do, or if your bored, no Jesus emphatically and repeatedly said GO!  You don’t need to go through seminary (although it helps) and you don’t need wait until your life is completely in order before you go. There are people all around you that need to know that they are invited to eat at the King’s table and you and I are the one’s that the King wants to use to give the invitation.  I love how He says “Compel them”. That’s awesome! You get the sense that He is so desperate to have all those who have been rejected by the world to come in and not just eat but live with Him.  It’s one thing to reject an invitation to eat with an earthly king but to reject an invitation to eat with the King of all Kings is unfathomable! No matter where you are or how far you have to go, just GO and compel humanity to come in and eat with King of all Kings! Everyone’s name is on the invite list but it’s up to you and I to let everyone know that they are invited.

They all made excuses. One after another they made excuses as to why they couldn’t come to the Kings feast.  I wonder if we are much different. Every week we make excuses as to why we can’t go to church and partake in a Heavenly feast. Some say, I don’t belong to that religion, others may say I’ve worked really hard and really long this week and now I’m very tired, yet others may say we have tickets to the football game today, again there are some that say we will just go next week, I’m sure God understands.  God really doesn’t understand. From the days of Adam who gave God a good excuse as to why he partook in the eating of the apple until today we have learned that excuses have never gotten us anywhere. Someone once said that hell is full of people who had good excuses!
You know Jesus said in Matt 18:14 – Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.  The Father longs to have His children come into His house and eat at His table but first we must go to the highways and byways, to the utter most parts of the earth and compel all to come in and eat. So starting today, lets stop making excuses and lets chase our dreams and lets GO and COMPEL all to come in and eat with the KING of ALL KINGS!