“Go out into the highways and compel them to come in” (Luke xiv. 23).
In the great parable in the fourteenth chapter of Luke, giving an account
of the great supper an ancient lord prepared for his friends and
neighbors, and to which, when they asked to be excused, he invited the
halt and the lame from the city slums and the lepers from outside the
gate, there is a significant picture and object lesson of the program of
Christianity in this age.
In the first place, it is obvious to every thoughtful mind that the Master
is beginning to excuse the Gospel-hardened people of Christian countries.
It is getting constantly more difficult to interest the unsaved of our own
land, especially those that have been accustomed to hear the Gospel and
the things of Christ. They have asked to be excused from the Gospel feast,
and the Lord is excusing them.
At the same time, two remarkable movements indicated in the parable are
becoming more and more manifest in our time. One is the Gospel for the
slums and the neglected classes at home; the other is the Gospel for the
heathen or the neglected classes abroad.