30, 31. (a) When did the second notification end? (b) In the illustration, after rejection of his second notification, what did the king do?

³⁰ Not otherwise, then, that second notification of the ones invited came to an end, had to come to an end according to prophecy. It did so in the year 36 C.E., three and a half years after the martyrdom of Jesus Christ at Jerusalem. How was this? Jesus’ illustration pictured how. Pointing to the punishment that was to come upon the nation of “those invited” for disloyally rejecting the invitation of their heavenly King, Jesus said:

³¹ “But the king grew wrathful, and sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The marriage feast indeed is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Therefore go to the roads leading out of the city, and anyone you find invite to the marriage feast.’ Accordingly those slaves went out to the roads and gathered together all they found, both wicked and good; and the room for the wedding ceremonies was filled with those reclining at the table.”​—Matt. 22:7-10.

32. Does the word order in Jesus’ illustration mean that the king delayed further marriage feast arrangements until after he had the city of those “invited” destroyed?

³² From the above word order of Jesus in setting out the details of the illustration, we are not to understand that, before the king paid any further attention to the marriage feast, he ordered out his armies for active service and sent them against the city where unappreciative “invited” ones lived and “destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” Otherwise, it would mean that the heavenly King, Jehovah God, did not send out his slaves to gather in people indiscriminately to the wedding feast until late in the year 70 of our Common Era, for it was in the summer of that year that Jerusalem was razed to the ground by the Romans under General Titus the son of Emperor Vespasian. Then, indeed, those “murderers” were killed. As reported by Flavius Josephus, 1,100,000 Jews perished in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and 97,000 were carried away captive to be disposed of as slaves.​—Luke 21:20-24; 19:41-44.

1. (a) How did “those invited” to the marriage feast show that they were “unworthy”? (b) What would it have meant for them to leave their selfish materialistic interests?

WHY did the killing of the antichristian “murderers” at the destruction of their holy city, Jerusalem, and the breaking up of their Jewish nationhood in the year 70 C.E. occur? It was because, as the king in Jesus’ illustration said, those invited to the marriage feast “were not worthy.” (Matt. 22:8) The Jews had proved this by their insulting, disrespectful, disloyal, often violent refusal to act on the heavenly King’s invitation after the second notification from Him. What would it have meant for them to leave their selfish materialistic concerns and come to the spiritual “marriage feast”? It would have meant to repent, not only of their falling short in keeping the Mosaic Law covenant, but also of their violent rejection of the Messiah from God and then to get baptized in water as disciples of Jesus as their Messiah. But they were too proud, too self-righteous, too occupied with their own plans, and so balked against meeting such requirements. This was the case with the nation of Israel in general.