A servant sent at supper time

Luke 14: 15 – 24: And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. 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 poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.

Jesus told a tremendous parable of a certain man who had prepared a great supper and invited many guests. This man sent out his servant to call the invitees to the supper, but they made all kinds of excuses and did not come. The parable is for the last days and speaks of how God has prepared a great supper for many. It was not a breakfast nor a lunch, but was a supper, an evening time meal that many had been invited to attend, and God sent out His servant, the prophet William Branham (Malachi 4: 5; Revelation 10: 7) to deliver a message to the world that the Marriage Supper of the Lamb was ready.

But almost all in this final age of Laodicea have made excuses as to why they cannot attend. They are so taken up with their own lives, their careers, their families, their ventures, and ambitions, that the message of the hour has been turned down and rejected. Jesus foretold of this in Matthew 24 and Luke 17, that the days of Noah and Lot would repeat, and a selfish generation would exist on the earth whose focus would be on themselves and not on the things of God.

The servant was sent out three times (verse 17, verse 21, verse 23) to call a people to the great supper, and the call became sterner each time that he went forth, until the people were compelled to come in (verse 23). This represented the three pulls of the prophet’s ministry and the tremendous healing revival that accompanied it wherein the maimed, the halt, and the blind (verse 21) witnessed the tremendous supernatural that accompanied the Son of Man ministry in the last days.

By the third and final call, it was those from the highways and the hedges that responded. The prophet who in the early days of his ministry had preached among great and rich denominations, who had associated with many big names in the world of Christendom, and been invited to preach in many grand places all over the world, was now shunned and cut off because of the Word he preached and the revelation that God had made known to him. In the eyes of the world the prophet had become all “washed up,” but in the eyes of God he was “washed in.” So the message went to the simple ones, to the honest in heart who would listen with ears of faith, and it would be they who would unite with the very Jesus that had sent forth His angel William Branham (Revelation 22: 16).

There were specific names in the Lamb’s Book of Life who had a seat at the supper table, so the prophet went forth with a message to call those names. And those who responded to the call, although they have mostly come from the highways and hedges of this world, from all kinds of messed-up backgrounds and dark pasts, yet they are actually sons and daughters of God who are going back to their origin in the presence of God.