Excuses – Inspirational & motivational | Billy Graham
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“Special Strength is Coming” from Billy Graham
And when one of them sat at meet 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 he asked many people to come and sent his servant at supper time to tell them that they were bidden come for all things.
And already and they all, with one consent began to make excuses, the first said into him, I bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it.
I pray they have me excused.
And another said, I bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them, I pray they have me excused.
And another said, I’ve married a wife and therefore I cannot come.
So that servant came and showed his Lord these things.
Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servants, go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in hither the poor and the mame and the halt and the blind and the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou has commanded.
And yet there’s 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.
And there are three things that stand out.
Come immediately, and it’s personal no greater invitation has ever been given than this invitation that jesus illustrates.
It includes everyone the rich, the poor, the beggars, the lame, the halt the blind, everybody all colors all races are invited because he’s telling us the story that we’re invited to the cross for salvation.
The apostle paul wrote for when we were yet without strength in due time christ died for the ungodly.
But they all began to make excuse here.
They were invited by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords to a gospel feast to have their sins forgiven, to have eternal life, to have their name written on the Book of life.
And they began to make excuses.
And one of them said, well I bought a piece of ground and had to go see it.
This man was more interested in the things of the world.
He was interested in wealth and materialism and in his business. It’s not wrong to be a rich man.
It’s not wrong to have money.
The wrong is when you put your trust in it and make it first because you can be the richest man in the world and die and go to hell and you won’t have one penny to take with you, you leave it behind for people to fight over.
Then there was a second guy Who had been invited and he said, I bought five yoke of Oxen and I go to prove them, please excuse me.
He had been invited to eat bread in the Kingdom of God to eat with the Lord, jesus christ.
But Jesus had earlier said that if any man come to me and hate not his father and his mother and his wife and his Children, his brothers and sisters in his own life also he cannot be my follower.
He didn’t mean to use the word hate in the sense you and I do.
He said the priority is christ. The priority is God.
Everything else is second even your family and the scripture says they were without excuse.
Now what are some of the excuses that people make today?
One of them that I hear is I cannot understand the bible, jesus never said, only understand he said only believe Augustine was a great scholar before he became a christian and looking back he said always had to understand Socrates and plato and Aristotle before I could believe them with jesus christ, I believed in him first.
Then I began to understand you have to start with the A. B. C. S.
When you come to christ come in simple childlike faith, the bible does not say, you have to think your way.
The bible says by wisdom man knows not God that’s hard on a student sometimes because we want to understand everything.
But when you come to christ and you come to spiritual things, there’s some things you don’t understand you accept by faith.
I don’t understand how God never had a beginning.
God never has an end, that he’s the same yesterday today and I don’t understand that I quit trying to understand that a long time ago, I accepted by faith that God is and that God is the creator of the universe and he’s my creator and he’s my savior as well.
The wonderful things about the bible are the simple things.
The things that are peripheral, though important, are the most difficult things to understand. Mark Twain once said.
It’s not the things in the bible I don’t understand that bothers me.
It’s the things I do understand that give me trouble.
You see our problem many times are the things we do understand.
And second excuse that I hear sometimes is I want to make a commitment to christ but I’m too sinful, I’ll wait til I do better.
And then there are people that said well I’m afraid of being misunderstood.
And the bible teaches that the world isn’t admitted with God.
Yea and all that will live Godly in christ shall suffer persecution.
God can keep you now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
We are kept by the power of God.
God holds me once, I surrender to him, I can only hold out as christ holds me up and then there are other people to say, well I intend to make my decision for christ sometime, but not now, that’s dangerous.
The scripture says in proverbs 27 boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
The bible says, behold now is the accepted time. And behold now is the day of salvation.
Notice that the host here in this story gets angry, he said, none of these which are bidden shall taste of my supper.
God says you are without excuse, he said, cast them out and go out and get some others.
This is a story for us to take your own hearts in our own lives.
Because you see the bible teaches that there’s a dark line in God’s face and that dark line is the line of judgment.
God can become angry with you when you refuse christ, you refuse God’s offer of mercy and love, and he’s done everything he can for you.
And this is the next of the last day of this crusade.
And you may never have another moment like this when you’re as close to the kingdom of God, because you cannot count on tomorrow.
What is your excuse? What’s keeping you from making your commitment to christ?
I mean, your total commitment, there’s always a big if about tomorrow.
We don’t know whether tomorrow will come for us or not