Our father we bow in your name justice, pleading our works and
our merits, but to be able to come before you in the throne
of grace, pleading the person, the merits, the blood of your
son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And how thankful we are that
sinful men and women such as we are come before you in the
throne of acceptance, in the blood. Accepted because of who
Christ is and what he's accomplished for his people. Father, I would
thank you. Father, I beg of you this morning,
that you enable us to look into your word and to worship you
from the heart, that you enable us by your spirit to see and
hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak by faith and to believe and to
rest in you, seeing him, seeing his sufficiency, seeing his beauty,
seeing that he is everything that we need to bow before you
in humble worship. Father, by your grace, make us
willing to give up anything and everything about ourselves that
we would ever trust in that you caused us to turn to trust Christ
and Christ alone. Father, what we ask for ourselves
here, we ask for our children's classes, we ask for your people
who are meeting all around the world today. Father, bless your
word, to your glory, for the good of your people. Father,
for those who are sick and afflicted and so many who of our number
of friends who are on our hearts right now while we pray you heal. We pray you be with your people
in a special way. Heal and deliver your people,
we pray. All these things we ask, and that name which is above
everything, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. All right,
I've titled our lesson this morning Humility, Repentance, and Faith. Our lesson begins at verse 23,
Matthew 21, And when he was coming to the
temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came
unto him as he was teaching and said, by what authority doest
thou these things, and who gave thee this authority? Now the
Lord could have told them one more time how he had his authority. He had his authority from God
because he is God. He told them that before. He
told them plainly. They didn't believe him. And
they just keep coming back harping on this issue. And can't you
just see in your mind's eye this bunch? You know, they're coming
and you'll notice they come and interrupt the Lord. I mean, the
Lord of glory is teaching. What an opportunity. And they
come and they interrupt him. I mean, I could just see them,
the chief priests and all their outfit and all the elders, you
know, and they're so, they're so pious. But the Lord has made
them insecure. And that's why they're coming
this way. That's why they're attacking this way. Because by
contrast to the way he lives and to the doctrine that he teaches,
he's shown a contrast to their fleshly sham of religion. And
it's made them insecure. It's made them scared. They're
scared of losing their place in the religious society. They're
afraid of losing face, that they would be discredited by this
man. They're bitter. And they're insecure because
the Lord has showed the flaw in their fleshly, worse religion.
All this fleshly activity that they do, and that's what they
come to hope for their souls on. He's made them insecure by
showing a contrast to God's mercy and grace. And they hate this,
but they got a problem. They can't refute the Lord's
teaching. They knew Neverman's failure. They knew he's famous
for having authority, not like me. They knew that. They couldn't
refute the power of his teaching. They couldn't refute the truth
of his doctrine because everything that he said came straight from
the word of God. And he explained the Old Testament scriptures
like nobody had ever heard them before. They couldn't deny it,
could they? They couldn't deny his doctrine
because it came straight from the word of God. And they couldn't
refute his power. You understand? He did that. They couldn't review that. Remember
our lesson last week, he cursed the big tree and it withered
and died. I mean, right before their very eyes. They couldn't
deny the power of that. I mean, it's just so obvious.
And it made them scared, and they did what scared, insecure
religious people do, when they're presented with the error of their
doctrine. And boy, they love to talk about
how loving and accepting that they are. But boy, you just attacked
their foundation. you tack the foundation of their
works and show how that's insufficient, that Christ is all, that we must
have Christ, you'll see that love and that acceptance go out
the window. They're so insecure that the
error of their doctrine has been pointed out. What they're doing
is resorting to slander. When they come and ask, well,
by what power are you doing this? And they're applying that now,
but if you look back at Matthew chapter 12, this is exactly what
they said before. I mean, they said it at this
point in time, because they tried this before, saying its power
was of Satan. And they failed, but they keep
coming back to it, they keep trying. Matthew chapter 12, verse
22. Then was brought unto him what
was asked of the devil, blind and dumb, and he healed him,
insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. And all the
people were amazed and said, it's not just the son of David.
Remember when they used that term, I mean, it's not just the
Messiah. But when the Pharisees heard it, they weren't glad to
see the Messiah come, because he's gonna upset their apple
pie. He's gonna upset their, you know, their control over
their religious society. When the Pharisees heard it,
they said, this fellow does not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub,
the prince of the devil. And Jesus knew their thoughts
and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought
to desolation. And every city or house divided
against itself shall not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan,
he's divided against himself. How shall his kingdom stand?
Now the logic of that is so irrefutable, you'd think that they never would
have brought this up again. But that's what they're doing.
Because the only hope that they have slandering the Lord. They're trying to discredit him
by slandering him. And the only weapon that they
had, the only weapon that they had that they thought could break
through people's minds and get them to not follow the Lord Jesus
is saying that he's a Satan. It's the biggest weapon that
they have. They just, they hope by saying something so horrible
that people wouldn't look into it, that they wouldn't try to
find out if that's really true. They just hope by saying something
so horrible that this man's a Satan, that don't just quit following
and start following the Pharisees. And you know, people still do
the same thing today, and this is kind of a warning to us. When
someone resorts to slander, to try to discredit the Lord, it
may be in our day that they're not saying about the Lord directly,
but they're slandering the world, saying God's word doesn't say
that, God's word doesn't mean that. They try to slander the
Lord, discredit his word. Or they try to discredit one
of his preachers, discredited people. You know what they're
showing? Unfortunately, they're showing
they're following Satan's playbook. It's Satan's playbook. I'm not saying every time somebody
slanders someone else that they're one of God's preachers or one
of God's people that they're under the control or they're
following Satan. Maybe they are, maybe they're
not. I don't know. But I do know this. They are following Satan's
playbook, whether they need to or not. Slander is the first
thing Satan used when he met God's creatures. When he met
him, he said, thou shalt not surely die. God doesn't eat that. God's not gonna eat that. If
you eat this, God's trying to hold something back from you.
You'll be his God. He's slandering the word of God.
Trying to discredit God by slandering his word. And when people do
that today, just be mighty careful. Mighty, mighty careful. Maybe
they can't argue against the doctrine of God the Preacher.
As long as it comes straight from the Word of God, they can't
argue against the man's message, unless they're going to take
issue with the Word of God. So they can't do that, so what they
try to do is attack the man. And they hope that by attacking
the man, they'll discredit his message, discredit his ministry. And eventually, when people don't
listen to them, they're going to pull out the big guns and
they're just going to say, the man doesn't preach the gospel. You better
not listen to him. You better not go around him.
That man doesn't preach the gospel. Now they can't tell you any specifics
as to why he doesn't preach the gospel. They can't tell you how
he's not preaching the gospel. They just speak in vague terms
with exactly what the chief priest is. Trying to say something so
horrible that you just won't go back and listen to the man.
You're not going to investigate it. They hope to find out if
the accusation's true or not. Because the slander's always
untrue. So they hope you don't go, you know, try to research
this thing, see if it's the same soul or not. You know, when somebody
tells you, the man that preached the gospel, tell you what to
do. Listen to him and check him by the word of God. Check him
by the word of God. Make sure somebody's not slandering
him. And I'll tell you why they do this. It's because they're
so insecure. Because their error has been
made obvious by the word of God, and they refuse to back off of
it. They refuse to repent. and bow
to Christ and bow to the commandments of God's Word. So the only way
they can justify their bad behavior, their bad attitudes, is by lying
on somebody else. That's exactly what the chief
priests do here. People do the same thing. Now you see the pride
and the arrogance of this. It's just not that humility,
or they're not against the humility and contrite spirit that's supposed
to be the mark of a believer. is getting ready to expose this. He's gonna expose the chief priest,
the scribes, and the Pharisees, and he's gonna expose them for
our good, for our life. I don't know if it did the chief
priest, the Pharisee, I don't know if it did them any good
or not. Scripture doesn't say what it did or not. But could
be, you and I might learn something this morning. Because when the
Lord exposes them, exposes their stubborn refusal to give up their
self, righteous works, works of the flesh, the flesh of activity,
of religion, they wouldn't give it up. But hopefully, the Lord's
gonna do just something, so we will. So we will give it up. And after the Lord exposes his
chief priests, he's also gonna expose the kind of people that
the Lord saves, the kind of people that he shows mercy to. And I'd
like to know which of those two I am. I'd like to know, am I
this stubborn, self-righteous person that refuses to give up
my works and refuses to repent or refuses to bow to Christ?
Or am I one of these broken, humble people that the Lord shows
mercy to? I'd like to know which one of
the two I am. So first, here's those who just stubbornly refuse
to give up their works and trust Christ. Verse 24. And Jesus answered
and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, which if you
tell me, and likewise will I tell you by what authority I do the
baptism of John, which was it, from heaven or me? And they reasoned
with themselves, saying, if we shall say from heaven, he will
save us, why should we not believe him? But if we shall say of men,
we fear the people, for although John is a prophet. And they answered
Jesus and said, we cannot tell. And he said unto them, neither
do I tell you by what authority I do these things. Now, the Lord
asked him about the baptism of John because this was such a
point of controversy with the Pharisees and John. Now, the
baptism of John was not believers' baptism. It couldn't have been
believers' baptism. It couldn't. Believers' baptism
is a confession of Christ. It's a confession. He saved me
by His death, His burial, and His resurrection. But when John
was baptizing these folks down there at the River Jordan, Christ
hadn't died yet. He hadn't risen again yet. John
hadn't even identified him yet as the Messiah, as the Lamb of
God. So it's not believer's baptism,
where the believer is baptized, we're confessing. The only way
I can say it is through doing and dying the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's through union with him.
When he died, I died in him. When he was buried, I was buried
in him. He died because of my sin, and
I died in him. I was buried in him. And when
he arose, I rose in him. I rose to new spiritual life
in him. That's the only way that I could be saved. When someone
is baptized, a believer in baptism, this is what they're saying.
I am so sinful. I am so vile. The only way I
could be saved, the only way my sin could be cleansed is if
the Son of God would die in my place and shed his blood to cleanse
my sin. I am so vile. That's the only
way I could be saved. That's believer's baptism. That
wasn't the baptism of John. The baptism of John was the baptism
of repentance. The baptism of John, when someone
was baptized by John, that what they were admitting was, I'm
a sinner who needs a Savior. See, this is how John was the
forerunner of Christ, preparing the way of Christ, making straight
the way of Christ by Christ before he came. John baptized people
who were admitting, I need a Savior. Then John retells him, behold
the Lamb of God. David awaits the Lord. You're
a sinner, meet the Savior. Here's the Savior. Now you believe
Jesus. You follow him. That's how John
was the forerunner of Christ. The ministry of John the Baptist
was telling sinners, look to Christ. Trust Christ, be drawn
to him. All this religious junk that
you're doing, all that does is make you a sinner, meet the Savior.
Now the Lord asked, and the Pharisees understood. And Lord asked the
Pharisees, now, that baptism of John. Did John baptize those
people with authority from God? Was he God's servant? Was he
God's prophet sent to do that? Or did John just make that up? This thing, baptism, has never
happened before. But John baptized him. Did he just make that up,
just to separate himself, make him different from everybody
else who was in religion, and just make himself a religious
huckster, you know, so people would follow him because he's
doing something new? Or is that a God? And what the Lord's really
asking those Pharisees is this, why weren't you baptized at John?
Why weren't you baptized at John? Is it because you didn't believe
what John was saying? Do you not think he was a prophet
sent from God since you didn't believe what he was saying? Were
you not baptized confessing that you're a sinner because you really
don't think you are one? You don't think you really need
a savior because you think you're able to establish your own righteousness
by obeying the law and keeping all these religious ceremonies
that are so important to you? And the Pharisees understood
exactly what the Lord, I mean, they saw right quick how the
Lord, with just this one question, it put them in a corner. It put
their whole doctrine in a corner. And exposed it with one question.
They couldn't say, John had authority. They couldn't say that. Because
they refused it, they wanted to get rid of this guy, you know?
They couldn't say he had a message from God, because they didn't
believe it. They didn't bow to it. You know, if they admitted
John's a prophet from God, he had a message from God. You know
what they would have to do? They'd have to repent. They'd
have to admit all this stuff, that I've been trusting all this
religious works, all this works of the law, they'd have to admit
there's nothing there. There's no saving power there.
That all that did is just expose my sin, and they'd have to publicly
admit that and be baptized with John confessing that they're
sinners. These fellas weren't about to
do that. They were not about to humble themselves to admit
they're sinners. I mean, their whole persona was
built around, I'm more righteous than you. I'm holier than thou,
don't come near me. Don't, if you touch me or mess
up my holiness, cause I'm so much more holy than you. That's
their whole religion. That's their whole persona. And
they're not about to humble themselves. Following this man, John the
Baptist, who looked like a wild man, wearing his camel hair coat,
eating locusts from wildlife. I mean, you know, this looks
like a wild man. I'm not gonna follow that guy. I'd have to
give up being the refined religious leader that I am. And they're
just too stubborn and too stiff-necked to publicly admit I'm a sinner. Needless to say. They couldn't
say, on the other hand, they couldn't say, well, we weren't
baptized as John because we thought he was a false prophet. Because
all the people knew better than that. You listen to John, you
knew he had a message from God. You knew he's called the prophet.
They couldn't say that. And if they said John's a false
prophet, where am I going to see these men? They're liars.
They're blind to the most obvious truth that people wouldn't follow.
So their answer to the Lord was, we can't tell this. Their answer
wasn't based on truth. Their answer wasn't based upon
the scripture. Their answer, like there are, was based on
this, what puts me in the best light? Now, the truth got nothing
to do with it. What puts me in the best light
that'll get me the most followers? Their answer was politically
expedient. But truth had nothing to do with
it. Truth had nothing to do with it. It was just based upon what
promoted my pet doctrine. It had nothing to do with the
truth. So in response to that, now that just exposes this stubborn,
refusal to bow to Christ, to repent and turn away from everything
that we used to trust in and trust Him alone. There may be things we've held
on to very, very closely, very, very deeply. But when we see
that exposed as error in the Word of God, a believer can let
go of that and bow to Christ, believe the Word of God. So in
response to this refusal to give up everything that they held
so dear, The Lord gives this parable that exposes a haughty
stubbornness that will lead to damnation. Verse 28. And he says, But what thinking?
A certain man had two sons. And he came to the first and
said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. And he answered and
said, I will not. But afterwards he repented and
went. And he came to the second and said, Likewise. And he answered
and said, I go, sir. And went not. Now whether they
claimed it the will of his Father, they say unto him the first.
Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, that the publicans
and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came
unto you in the way of righteousness, and you believed him not. But
the publicans and harlots believed him. And ye, when ye had seen
it, repented God afterward, that ye might believe him. Now the
meaning of this parable is obvious. The two sons in this parable
are pictures of the two different kinds of people. There's the
self-righteous, who don't need a savior, and biosaviors, who
do. That's two classes of people. You can break human beings down
into one of those two classes. I mean, they're just all in one
of those two classes. Either I don't need a savior,
or I'm survived by Jesus. That's only one class of people.
Now, we'll start with the second son in the book. The father goes
to the second son and tells him, son, go work on my fingers today.
I need some work done. Go work on my fingers. And he
said, they're all done. Yes, they're all done. And he
didn't do it. Now, that's the rebellious son. He did not do the will of his
father. He said he'd do it, but he didn't
do it. And that son is a picture of
the Pharisees. The Pharisees back then, as the Lord is speaking,
do the Pharisees a large deal. They say they'll go. But they're
too stubbornly self-willed to do it. They're too stubbornly
self-willed to obey God's commandments of the gospel. Now they'll gladly
try to keep the commandments of the law all day long. Give them the 10 commandments,
they'll gladly try to keep them all day long. But they stubbornly
refuse, just utterly refuse to obey God's commandment of the
gospel to repeat it. They quit trusting Your works
of the law. Quit trusting how well you obey
God's commandments. Quit trusting what you do, what
you don't do. Quit trusting that you're more
moral than somebody else you know out there in the community.
What God commands us to do is not obey the law. What God commands
us to do in the gospel is believe in Christ. Believe Him. Rest
in Him. Quit doing your works of the
law. Quit doing works of the law trying
to make God happy with you. because Christ already did. Rest
in him. Rest in him to accomplish all
your salvation. Now the father tells his son,
go work in my vineyard. And this parable of vineyard
is a picture of God's kingdom. God tells his son, go work in
my vineyard. Well if you do the work of God's kingdom, God's
kingdom is a kingdom of grace. It's a kingdom of life. It's
a kingdom of peace. If you would do the work of God's
kingdom, here's how you do it. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Believe on Him to be all of your salvation. Believe on Him to
do everything that it takes to save your sorry soul and don't
do any of your works at all to contribute to it. Just don't
do anything at all to try to help Christ out because He's
able to do it all by Himself. Just believe and rest. Here's
how you can tell if you believe Christ. You rest. Y'all came in today in the sat
down in a chair. Pretty much the chair y'all were
sitting in. Pretty much. Everybody's got their spot, y'know,
they're always sitting in a chair. When you came in today, did you
turn that chair upside down and check the legs and check the
bottom of it and see, look, is there any rust? It might fall
apart. Did somebody start cutting the legs of this thing apart
tonight? It might fall down. No, you didn't, did you? You
just plopped down in your chair. You know why? You believe the
chair holds you up. Here's how you can tell if you
believe Christ. You quit your works of the law. Try to make
God happy with you. Because you know Christ is all
you need. You know He's all you need. You know He is. So you rest.
You rest from those works of the law because you're accepted
in Christ. That's faith in Christ. And the
Pharisees of that day, the stubbornly self-righteous of our day, God
just leaves them alone. And so they do what their nature
naturally does, they refuse to repent. They refuse to believe
on Christ. They think there's something
that they have to do in order to save themselves, because Christ
alone can't do that. They just think he can't do it.
They won't repent. Now repentance is not just being
sorry for your sins. Repentance is a radical change
of mind. It's a 180 degree turn to believe
the opposite of what you used to believe. is to turn away, just turn your
back, 180 degrees, turn your back on all those religious things
that you did that you think you had to do in order to be saved,
and turning to trust Christ alone. See, whatever it is we used to
trust in is a refuge that we built from our own works. And
repentance is turning our back on that refuge that we built
and turning to trust Christ alone. Now people are gonna start getting
mean. people who have, religious people who have built this refuge
of their own work. I'm telling you, they're gonna
start to get mean. They're gonna start to hate you. They're gonna,
they're gonna resort to slandering you. When you point out that
the refuge that they built is a refuge of work. It's just,
it's a, it's a refuge of, it's a straw house. It can't stand
up. It's a house built on sand. And
when you expose that, you know why it makes them so mad? Because
it scares them to live a day like that. If what you're saying
is true, unless something changes, they're going to hell. And it's
scary to death. And when they're exposed, they
refuse to bow, their only option is to resort to slandering, because
you've just shaken their very hope of salvation. And they're right, unless something
changes, they'll be damned. That's what the Lord tells me.
You'll not enter the kingdom of heaven that way. Not going
to happen. But now here's the second part. They need a savior. They need
a savior because there are five sinners. The Lord, to make sure
that the Pharisees understand this, the publicans and harlots,
he said. I mean the most hated people
in that society, the publicans and the harlots. And the Lord
said that those worst kind of sinners are gonna enter the kingdom
of heaven before you. Well, that made Pharisees mad,
but in order to tell you to make that move, for that sake, are
they glad? Publicans and artists. Publicans and artists. By God's
grace, publicans and artists, they don't mind having their
sin exposed. It's obvious, yeah. You're right, I'm a sinner. You're
right. And those people, those are the ones, by God's grace,
you will meet in heaven. They quit trusting whatever junk they
did. They might not have been religious
and had all these works on the wall like the chief priest did,
but I'm telling you this, they trust in something. They said,
yeah, I'm a harlot, but I'm a high-flight style harlot. I'm not like one
of these, you know, street walkers. They're publicans that say, well,
yeah, I'm a publican, but I don't skim as much off top as old Joe
does down here. You know, I'm better. They're
trusting in something. And they're gonna quit trusting
whatever junk it was they used to trust in. And I'm telling
you, they gladly, Trust Christ. I mean a real sinner, a publican
in the heart. When they hear the gospel, and they're telling,
and they listen, and they're telling, they say, you're telling
me that I can trade all my sins for the righteousness of Christ?
I can trade everything that I've been trusting? This is horrible. And I can trade that for the
perfection of Christ? I can trade that for hiding in
Christ? What a trade. I'll make that
trade every day." They gladly turned their back on what they
used to trust in, and trust Christ, because this is what a publican
in Harlem knows. I got no other hope. There can
be any hope in anything I've done, but if you're telling me
I can hope in Christ, I can have confidence and trust in Christ,
I will gladly have no confidence in the flesh. I mean, I see I
shouldn't have any confidence in my flesh. If I may have confidence
in Christ, I'll gladly have no confidence in my flesh. See,
those people, like the first son, the father told him, now
go work in my vineyard. And at first he said, no, dad,
I'm not gonna go. But then he got thinking about
it. Later on, he went, he worked in his father's vineyard. Well,
that's the obedience of it. He ended up, he didn't go first,
but he ended up going and doing what his father told him to do.
That son is a picture of those who have been broken. By God's
grace, they're broken. And they submissively bow to
Christ. And God's grace makes them feel
believed. Now, a guy here might as well
have made him not. Probably not. Almost certainly
not. The first time they hear the
gospel. Probably they don't repeat it. Probably they don't hear
it. Probably they don't find the Christ the first time that
they come to Him. Eventually. Because God will
make them. He's gonna make them. And that's
the Jews. The Jews, they had all the law.
They had all the ceremonies that pointed to Christ. They had those
things when the Gentiles didn't have them. They had the temple.
They had the priesthood. They had the sacrifices. They had
the scriptures. They had all these things. They had the ceremonies.
The Gentiles didn't have them. But they refused to obey. They
refused to obey and believe on Christ and the fulfilling of
all those things came to the flesh. They refused. They rejected. When they first heard the law,
Moses first came to the law, and they said, we'll obey. And
Moses said, no, you won't. They said, oh yeah, we'll obey.
Yes, father, yes, I'll go. But they didn't go back. They
didn't go. They would not bow to Christ. They would not believe on him.
They would not cast their soul on him. And the Lord said, that's
why you wouldn't do that. But the worst, the publicans
and harlots Now, nothing can illustrate salvation
by grace more clearly than that. Salvation is by grace. And God
is so gracious, He doesn't invite people to come to Him. He doesn't
invite people to believe. He commands it. He commands all
men everywhere to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He commands all men everywhere
who are spiritually dead, who can't do one blessed thing to
please God, He commands them, put trust in what you do, what
you can do. And trust Christ. What a gracious
commandment. Because you know the promise
that comes with that commandment? Whoever trusts Christ, shall
be saved. Publicans, all over the world,
if they trust Christ, shall be saved. Isn't it amazing? Aren't you thankful that salvation
does not depend on how good you've been? Aren't you thankful how bad you've
been? Does it make you where you can't be a candidate? Matter
of fact, how bad you've been, what makes you a candidate for
grace? And what makes you a candidate for repentance? You can't be
good enough to earn salvation, but aren't you glad you can't
be so bad that God's grace can't take you out? Those are the people
who need to be kings of heaven. My prayer is that God make us
one of those humble, broken ones who turn from the works of our
flesh