But listen and you will understand better how worldly cares, riches and orgies prevent one from entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
Once a king celebrated the wedding of his son. You can imagine the feast at the palace. He was the only son and having reached the perfect age, he was getting married to his beloved bride. The father and king wanted the joy of his son to be surrounded with joy, as he was at last getting married to his dear fiancée. Among the many celebrations he gave a sumptuous dinner. And he prepared it in good time, looking after every detail, to ensure it was magnificent and worthy as the wedding of the king’s son.
He sent out his servants early to tell friends and allies, as well as the mighty ones of his kingdom, that the wedding was to take place on a certain evening and that they were invited, and that they should come to form a worthy picture to the king’s son. But friends, allies and mighty ones of the kingdom did not accept the invitation.
The king then, doubting that the first servants had not spoken clearly, sent out some more, who should insist saying: “Please, do come! Everything is now ready. The tables are laid in the hall, rare wines have been brought from everywhere, oxen and fattened cattle are already in the kitchen to be cooked, women slaves are kneading flour to make cakes and crushing almonds in mortars to make the finest delicacies flavoured with rare spices. The most clever dancers and musicians have been engaged for the feast. Come, therefore, or all the preparations will be useless!”
But friends, allies and great ones of the kingdom either refused or said: “We have other things to do”, or pretended to accept the invitation, but then they attended to their own matters, some to their fields, some to their business, some to even less noble affairs. And finally there were some who, bored with so much insistence, took the servant of the king and killed him to keep him quiet, as he insisted saying: “Do not refuse the king’s invitation or you may find yourself in trouble”. The servants went back to the king and reported the situations and the king flared up in a temper and sent his soldiers to punish the murderers of his servants and chastise those who had scorned his invitation, whilst he intended to reward those who had promised to come.
But at the fixed hour on the evening of the feast, no one came.
206.12 The king was very angry, he called his servants and said to them: “On no account my son will be left without people who will give him a hearty welcome on the evening of his wedding. The banquet is ready, but the guests we invited are not worthy of it. And yet the nuptial banquet of my son is to take place. Go therefore to the squares, along the streets, stand at the crossroads, stop the passers-by, gather together those who are standing there, and bring them all here. Let the hall be filled with joyful people”.
The servants went. They went out along the streets, they spread out on the squares, they stood at crossroads, they gathered as many people as they could find, both good and bad, rich and poor, and took them to the royal palace, and they gave each of them the means to be worthy to enter the hall of the nuptial banquet. Finally they led them into the hall, which was full of jubilant people, as the king desired.
But when the king went into the hall to see whether the feast could begin, he saw one man who, notwithstanding the assistance given to him by the servants, was not wearing a wedding garment. He asked him: “How did you get in here, without a wedding garment?”. And the man did not know what to say, because he had no excuse. The king then called his servants and said to them: “Take this man, bind him hand and foot and throw him out of my palace, into the dark and icy mud. He shall stay there weeping and grinding his teeth as he deserved through his ingratitude and because he offended me and my son more than me, by entering the banquet hall with a poor dirty garment, whereas nothing must enter it but what is worthy of it and of my son”.
206.13 As you can see, worldly cares, avarice, sensuality, cruelty bring down the king’s wrath on people and cause the children of such cares never to enter the King’s palace again. And you can also see how among those who were invited, for the sake of his son, some were punished.
How many there are nowadays in this land, to whom God has sent His Word! God has really invited the allies, the friends, the great ones of His people, through His servants, and He will invite them again, and more urgently, as the hour of My Wedding approaches.
But they will not accept the invitation, because they are false allies, false friends and they are great only by name, because they are shallow. Jesus’ voice is becoming louder and louder and His eyes are flashing like two gems, in the light of the fire lit between Him and His audience, to give light in the moonless night; the moon is in fact waning and will rise later.
Yes, they are shallow. And because of their shallowness, they do not understand that it is their duty and an honour for them to accept the King’s invitation. Pride, harshness, lust act like a wall in their hearts. And – wicked as they are! – they hate Me and so they do not want to come to My wedding. They refuse to come. They prefer to be connected with filthy policy, with even filthier money and with the most filthy sensuality, rather than come to My wedding. They prefer shrewd calculations, conspiracies, underhand conspiracies, snares, crimes.
I condemn all that in the name of God. Consequently the voice that speaks and the feasts to which they are invited, are hated by them. Those who kill the servants of God are to be looked for among this people: the Prophets who have been the servants till now; My disciples who are the servants from now onwards. The swindlers of God who say: “Yes, we will come”, whereas inwardly they think: “Never on your life!” are to be selected among this people. All that is in Israel.
And the King of Heaven will send to gather at the crossroads those who are not friends, not great ones, not allies, but only people passing by, so that His Son may have a worthy wedding celebration. And through Me, through Me the Son and the servant of God, the gathering has already begun. They will come, whoever they are… And they have already come. And I help them to be clean and properly dressed for the wedding feast. But there will be someone, who for his own misfortune, will also misuse the munificence of God, Who gives him scents and regal garments to make him appear what he is not, that is a rich and worthy person, and he will take abominable advantage of such bounty to seduce and make a profit… An individual with a wicked soul, embraced by the revolting octopus of all vices… and he will embezzle scents and garments to make an unlawful profit, as he will not use them for the wedding of the Son, but for his own wedding with Satan.
All that will happen. Because many are called but few are those, who knowing how to persevere in their vocation, are chosen. But it will also happen that those hyenas, who prefer putrid food to living nourishment, will be punished by being thrown out of the Banquet hall into the dark and mud of an eternal pond, in which Satan will grin horribly at each triumph over a soul and where there is an eternal sound of desperate weeping of the mad people who followed Crime instead of following Bounty Who had called them.