Jesus gave a second picture to press the same point from a new angle. The builder counts his money; the king counts his soldiers and his enemy's. The tower showed the cost of finishing; the king shows the strength of what we face. Barnes says Christ "perhaps intends to denote that the enemies which we have to encounter in following him are many and strong, and that our strength is comparatively feeble." The question asks the crowd to be as clear-eyed about discipleship as a wise king is about war.

Jesus answers the question Himself. A king who sees he is outnumbered, "while the other is yet a great way off," "sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace" (Luke 14:32). Then He applies both pictures: "So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33).

An "ambassage" was, in Barnes' words, "Persons to treat with an enemy and propose terms of peace," a delegation sent to ask for terms before the battle began.

In Jesus' picture the enemy has twice as many soldiers, "ten thousand" against "twenty thousand" (Luke 14:31). The KJV's "consulteth" is rendered "deliberate" in the ESV: the king sits down and thinks it through before he marches.

The commentators apply the king's war in different ways, and the difference is worth noticing. Barnes suggests that Christ perhaps meant the many and strong enemies a follower faces, against our own feeble strength, though he cautions that these expressions are not to be pressed too far for a spiritual meaning. Gill reads it as a picture in which the believer is a king and "The king on the other side, is the devil"; he notes the mismatch: "the one is flesh and blood, the other a spirit."

Whichever way it is read, Jesus' conclusion is plain: to be His disciple means forsaking all (Luke 14:33). A king who sees he cannot win sends for terms of peace. Jesus' hearers are invited to see their own weakness honestly and to give up everything to Him rather than try to fight on their own terms.