I don't think God is honored if we tell him that we are coming to him out of a sense of duty.

God is honored most when we say to him, you are irresistible.

I can't help but come to you.

You are the most glorious, most attractive, most beautiful, fulfilling relationship I could ever imagine.

I think it's easy to forget that God's great banquet isn't for those who have it all together.

It's for those who know their need.

I'm Dan Kruver.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper opens Luke 14 to show how God welcomes the desperate to his table.

This message was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on Sunday evening, August 21, 1983.

We got three stages of invitation. The first stage is to those who had been invited.

The second stage, when they turn him down, is to go to the poor, the maim, the blind, the lame,

and then the slave, the servant comes back and says,

well, we've done that and there's still lots of room.

And then he says, go out and beat the bushes for people and compel them to come in.

It doesn't qualify who they are, but says highways and hedges.

The problem I have with calling these Jews pure and simple is that I think the maim, the blind, the lame, the lame, and the poor are Jews too, probably.

What kinds of Jews do you think are in each group? They're the Pharisees, the leaders.

The leaders are the people who just basically said, no way. We're not interested. Who were the people who Jesus said enter in before the Pharisees? Remember that from

Luke 11 or somewhere? The so-and-so enter into the kingdom before you. Who were they? The harlots,

tax collector, sinners, and poor, main, blind, lame, evidently. The very disadvantage that in that day, it's hard

for us today to picture probably the situation for a maimed, a blind, and a lame person.

They were totally at the mercy of others. They could not, since most labor was manual labor,

...