If you turn with me in your scriptures
to Matthew 21, the context of these parables is so delightful
and so poignant and special that I don't want you to miss out
on the glories of what's revealed in these words. So let's begin
in Matthew 21 and verse 1. And when they drew nigh unto
Jerusalem, they were come to Bethage. Unto the Mount of Olives
then said Jesus to disciples, saying unto them, Go into the
village over against you, and straightway you shall find an
ass tied, and a colt with her. Loose them, and bring them unto
me. And if any man say aught unto you, you shall say, The
Lord has need of them, and straightway he will send them. And all this
was done, isn't it wonderful when the Lord speaks, all this
was done, all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken by the prophet, you can read this in Zechariah 9,
tell the daughter of Zion, behold thy king cometh unto thee, meek, sitting upon an ass, and occult
the foal of an ass." What a remarkable description of our great God
and Saviour in this triumphal entry into Jerusalem, that He's
meek. Do you imagine that He's meek? I've tried to remind myself often
and try to remind you that the thing that we lost in the fall
was the sight of the character of God. The sight of the character
of God, the sight of the glory of His characteristics, His extraordinary
character. That's the name of God, isn't
it? He's meek. Meek and lowly, sitting upon
an ass, the colt, the foal of a dove. There he is. He's not
triumphant on a war horse and in a chariot, is he, our God? He comes, meek. And the disciples
went, and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass and
the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.
And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way. Others
cut down branches from the trees and strewed them in the way.
And the multitudes that went before and that followed, crying."
So there's a multitude before him, and there's a multitude
after him, and there he is sitting upon this donkey. And they shouted, they cried,
saying, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And when
he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who
is this? That's the most important question. That's the most important question
in all of time and all of creation. Who is this? Who is this? It's a question that's been asked,
was asked by the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. They asked
a similar question on that boat, isn't it? When those wind and
wave, no doubt, they've been bailing and bailing with their
little buckets to get all that water out of the boat, and the
Lord Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat. And they say
to him, don't you care? Don't you care about us? We're
going to drown, and you're asleep. They had forgotten in a heartbeat
that he'd made a promise to them before they went on that little
journey, and he said, let us cross over the other side. He performs his words. There's
no way in the world that boat was not going to get to the other
side. But they asked the question, who is this, who is this that
can speak to the wind and the waves and just command them and
they stand still? Who is this? See, when the answer
to the who is this determines everything that you believe about
him. He is the sovereign God of this
universe. Who is this that declares that
sins can be forgiven? The Pharisees asked. No one can forgive sins but God
alone. They had it right. He declares
himself to be God. I love saying that. I hope you
like hearing it. Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ
made this universe, rules this universe, controls this universe
and has the lives and the hearts and the minds of everything that
wriggles on this universe in his hands and they will do exactly
as he wishes. Nothing, nothing moves in this
universe apart from the hand of our God. Who is this? And the multitude said, this
is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. And Jesus went into the temple
of God and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple
and overthrew the tables of the money changers and the seats
of them that sold doves. Isn't it remarkable? He just
walks into that temple with all those hundreds of people around,
with all those scribes and those Pharisees and all of the little
army that they had. They gathered a little army in
a heartbeat to go down to the Garden of Gethsemane, at least
500 of them. And there he is just in this
temple. He says, this is mine. He says, this is my house. When
he says, this is my father's house, he's saying it's mine.
He says, my father is God, and I am God. And he overthrew the tables of
the money changers and the seats of them that sold dove, and he
said unto them, it is written, my house shall be called the
house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. And the blind and the lame came
to him in the temple and he healed them. Once again we have this
remarkable division amongst people, don't we? The blind and the lame
came to him. Anyone who comes to him They'll
be healed of him. And when the chief priests and
the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, they knew
that they were wonderful, didn't they? That he did. And the children
crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of God. They
were sore displeased. So this triumphal entry, brothers
and sisters, goes right down into the temple. And there they
are crying in the temple. Hosanna. They were sore displeased. The children were crying with
delight. and the chief priests and scribes
were sore displeased and said unto him, Hearest thou what these
say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea,
have you never read out of the mouths of babes and sucklings
thou hast perfected praise? The Lord will get praise. He'll
get praise from his children. He'll get praise from his babes.
He'll get praise from those that are suckling. He'll get praise
from those that are dependent on the pure milk of the word.
And he left them. What a shocking judgment. What
a shocking judgment. The Lord leaves people to themselves. It's the most appalling thing
that can happen to anyone in this creation. He left them and
went out of the city into Bethany and lodged there. Now in the
morning as he returned into the city he hungered and when he
saw a fig tree in the way he came to it and found nothing
thereon but leaves only and said unto it, let no fruit grow on
thee henceforth forever. And presently the fig tree withered
away. And when the disciples saw it,
they marveled, saying, how soon is the fig tree withered away?
This is a supernatural miracle of our God. That healthy, green,
vigorous fig tree all of a sudden became a shrivelled up wreck.
It is of course a picture of what Nation Israel was in terms
of their worship and praise of God at the time. Jesus answered
and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If you have faith,
it's the essence of all, isn't it? If you have faith, And doubt
not, you shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree,
but also you shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and
be thou cast into the sea, and it shall be done." That mountain
of sin, that mountain of rebellion, that mountain of everything that
seems against the children of God will be removed. and all
things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing ye shall
receive. And when he was come into the
temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came
unto him as he was teaching and said, by what authority dost
thou these things? And who gave thee this authority? We have our authority. We've
had it for years. We can trace our lineage back
to Moses. We can trace our right to rule
this temple from the decrees of Moses. Children of Aaron,
children of Levi, who gave you this authority? Where do you
get this authority? Jesus' answer is just remarkable,
isn't it? He answered and said unto them,
I also will ask you one thing, which if you tell me, I in likewise
will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism
of John, whence was it? From heaven or of man? And they reasoned with themselves,
saying, If we shall say from heaven, he will say unto us,
Why did ye not then believe him? But if we shall say of men, we
fear the people, for all hold John as a prophet. And they answered
Jesus and said, We cannot tell their lies. fear men and have no regard for
the glory and character of God, are lying hypocrites. And he
said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do
these things. And so the result of all that,
here we have this extraordinary picture, don't we, of the Lord
Jesus Christ in the temple. These people have had their money
tables turned over. He has gone into that temple
and said, this is mine, I am God, this temple is going to
be cleansed. The sacrifice that I am going
to be offered is going to be offered in a temple that's not
polluted by the hands of men, that's not going to be polluted
by the work of men. But I love how the Lord Jesus
Christ asks them, doesn't he? He wants them to actually think. And he wants them to be the judge
of their own actions and their own thoughts and their own activities. One of the things that I think
is very poignant in these parables. These parables are pictures of
all of the Lord's salvation, of his people, his picture of
him gathering his people, a picture of him being sovereign ruler
over all things. And one of the things that I
want to remind myself of again and again when I read the scriptures
is that I am there and so are you. It's a dangerous thing to read
this book at arm's length and not have yourself in it personally. Because there is, there are vital
personal things. That's what he's saying to these
chief priests and these Pharisees, isn't it? He's saying what Haggai
said. Now consider this or give careful
thought Haggai says. You think about it. Consider
your ways. Consider what you've just done.
Here you have Zechariah 9 being fulfilled before your very eyes.
Here you have, as you walk into the temple, here you have this
fig tree that would have been in a very prominent place. This
fig tree, and you know it was miraculously put into that shriven Upstate, just outside of Jerusalem
in Bethany, just outside of Jerusalem, you've got a man walking around
called Lazarus. He was dead for four days in
a tomb. The Lord Jesus Christ has again
and again come to these people, and you might have noticed as
we read through Matthew 21, what's he do in every situation? He
just says, this is what is promised. You have performed your words,
is what he's saying. You are faithful. You are faithful
to your word. In every situation all he does
is quote scripture to them. He quotes scripture to them.
As he did to the devil at the beginning of his ministry when
he was tempted, his way of dealing with Satan and all of those accusations
was just to quote scripture to him. There is There is a real sense
in which you and I are in the parables. We are very much really
there. A certain man had two sons. A certain man, our God has a
division amongst his people in this world. He had two sons. When he came to the first, son,
go to work today. in my vineyard. You go to work
today in my vineyard. What's the response of the heart
of all of Adam's children when you are commanded to do something? I don't care how old you are.
The very first response of all of Adam's children is rebellion,
isn't it? The very first response of all
of Adam's children. Don't you dare tell me what to
do. Don't you dare. Satan said to me in the garden,
you shall be his gods. Don't you dare tell me as God
what to do. Don't you dare tell me how to
rule my life and run my life. That's the first response. He said, I will not. He said,
I'm not going. It's a glorious picture of the
two natures of man, isn't it? It's one of the most comforting
doctrines in all of the scriptures, the doctrine that we have in
and beating in our flesh. We have Adam, and he never gets
any better, and he never ceases to be as rebellious as he was
in the garden, never. And in all of God's children,
in all of God's children, there is that new creation, created
in righteousness and true holiness. You see, salvation's a creation.
It's the implanting of a new creation. It's Christ in you,
the hope of glory. What caused this young man to
repent? What caused him? It's a work of the Spirit of
God. It's a grace gift of God, repenting, isn't it? He repented
and went. He repented and went. The vineyard is a glorious picture,
isn't it? Of the sovereign work of our
God. In Isaiah chapter six, he describes
the vineyard. It's a lovely, lovely picture
in Isaiah 4 and 5. Prior to Isaiah meeting the Lord
Jesus Christ in the temple, he speaks of this vineyard. He says, now will I sing to my
well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well
beloved has a vineyard. You can remember and think of
the glorious pictures in the Song of Solomon. And this is
the parable that he's referring to. in verse 33 and following. And he fenced it and gathered
out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choiceless vine,
and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress
therein. And he looked, and it should bring forth grapes, and
it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem
and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more
to my vineyard than I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I
looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild
grapes. So what's the work? What's the
work in the vineyard? What's the work? What's the work
of God? The work of God. This is the
work of God, isn't it? John 6, 29. This is the work
of God. that you believe on him whom
he has sent. The work of God is to look to
the sun. The work of God is to trust the
sun. The work of God is to honour
the sun. The work of the vineyard is to
glorify the God of the vineyard, the creator of the vineyard.
Verse 30 in our text, in Matthew 21, 30, we have a description
of the Jews, don't we? We have the two natures of the
believer in the first part of that verse. The man had two sons
and he came, he said, go work in my... I will not. But afterwards
he repented and went. Afterwards. You see, all of us
came forth from our mother's womb as rebels, don't we? I remember
hating God with the most vile, passionate hatred. I don't know
where it came from, I don't know why it sprang up. The Lord alone
knows. I couldn't stand the thought
of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord works repentance. The one that we despise, the
one that we despise by nature, becomes the one that we love
and adore. And service, service is not work,
not work in his vineyard. Service is delight in his vineyard. And what's the second? The second
is the picture of all the Jews. And he came to the second and
said, likewise, and he answered and said, I go, sir, and I went
not. See, these chief priests and
these Pharisees, like Saul, thought that they had heard the command
of God and they had obeyed it. They thought they were obeying
it when they put him to death. They went back to their gatherings
and preached messages about what a wonderful work they've done.
They've proved that this Lord Jesus Christ is an imposter.
And they can prove it because they managed to get him hung
on a tree outside Jerusalem. They proved, according to the
word of God, that he was cursed. They actually thought that they
could obey the law of God to God's pleasing. We've looked
at those verses often. In Galatians 6, anyone that wants
to put you under a bondage of works and a bondage of law-keeping
is a liar and a hypocrite. One of the exercises that I want
us to be mindful of when we're dealing with the Pharisees and
Jews, and we don't want to ever lose sight of the fact that these
verses speak personally and powerfully to us. But when it comes to our
scriptures, from Exodus 20, to John 19 verse 30, the people
that God is speaking to, that part of the Bible, the people
that God is speaking to are the people that stood before God,
before Mount Sinai, before the law was given, and they said,
you just tell us what to do and we can do it. It's a piece of
cake to serve God and to follow Him. All the people answered together,
this is when God spoke to them, Moses spoke to them, all that
the Lord has spoken, Exodus 19.8, all that the Lord has spoken,
we will do. They made a promise, didn't they?
They were under a covenant of works in Adam, and now that covenant
of works has been added to and extended by the Lord to the point
where the law of God covered We forget how comprehensive the
law was. To sleep well at night, you had
to make sure that you had the right sheets around you and the
right clothes on. You couldn't have any mixture.
When you got out of bed in the morning, you could be unclean
because of what happened at night. When you put your foot down on
the ground, you could have trodden on something that was unclean.
When you looked up at the sky, there were unclean birds. When
you went to the stream, there were unclean fish and unclean
crabs and prawns. You couldn't have them. Everywhere
you turned, when you went to your kitchen, your pots and pans
needed to be checked. The walls of the house needed
to be checked for mould. Everywhere you turned and everywhere
you looked, every part of your life, you're under a law. You're under a law. A law of
what you ate, a law of what you did. And the law wasn't given. to show people how they could
live before God. The law wasn't given for that.
The law wasn't given for a righteous man. The law exposes sin. The law is glorious. God's people
love the law of God. You'll have no other gods before
me. You won't take his name in vain. You won't murder, you won't
lie, you won't steal. God's people love the law of
God. And God's people are aware again
and again and again that they do nothing but break it. And
every time they say, I'm going. I'm going to do it. They have broken it yet again."
So these Jews made these extraordinary promises. And like the Pharisees
and the chief priests before the Lord Jesus Christ here, they
had the evidence all laid out before them of the wonders of
who God was, and the glory of his character, and the severity
of his judgment. and the holiness of his nature
and the extraordinary substitution that had brought them here by
a hand of God. And then they turn around and
say, well, we can do more. We can add something to what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done. What arrogance to say, just tell
us what we'll do and we'll do it. Just tell us, just give us
the rules and we'll live by it. You can read on in Exodus in
verse chapter 24 and verse 4 and verse 7 and in Deuteronomy 26
verses 17 and 9 and Nehemiah verse 10, 29, you'll see that
the Jews again and again said, we'll just do it. You just tell
us what to do and we'll do it. God's people love the Lord. don't ever try to keep it, because
God's people, by faith, have kept it in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I can look at all that law of God, and I can look at it and
just delight in that law, and delight in the fact that when
he kept it, because of my union with him, I have perfectly kept
the law of God, and the law of God looks me over. and says,
holy, righteous, unblameable, unapprovable. It's been perfectly,
perfectly honoured by my son. These men that stand before the
Lord Jesus Christ and mock the glory of what had happened in
their very midst in those days. He asks them, doesn't he? He
says in Matthew 21, 31, which of them, which of the two did
the will of his father? And they said unto him, the first. And Jesus saith unto them, verily,
verily, I say the first. Verily I say unto you, that the
publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before
you. Because, or for, John came unto
you in the way of righteousness. What a lovely description. What
a lovely description of the gospel. He came and declared the gospel
of righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ. You might recall
the wonder of what happened in Mark, Matthew chapter four, when
the Lord Jesus came, came and said, in Matthew chapter three. And
John, he came to John the Baptist to be baptized. And John forbade
him in saying, I have need to be baptized of you, and you come
to me. And Jesus answered, verse 15,
and saith unto him, suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh
us to fulfill all righteousness. How did John the Baptist fulfill
all righteousness? How do you fulfill all righteousness?
He fulfilled all righteousness because of his union with the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the baptism prefigures and
pictures the glory of what he does in redeeming his people
and causing his people to repent, even though they've been wicked
and rebellious, to a father who deserved Far, far better than
he got. John came to you, he says to
these Pharisees, he came to you in the way of righteousness and
you believed him not. But the publicans and harlots
did what? What is it to go and work in
the vineyards? Publicans and harlots are doing
it. They believed. They believed. They believed
the Gospel by a sovereign work of God in their hearts. They
believed it and you, when you had seen it, repented not afterwards
that you might believe in Him. You might believe Him. There are several lessons, aren't
there? in this. The first one I'll remind you
of is that you're in the parable. You're in the parable. You're
in the parable as a rebellious son, and if you're a child of
God, you're in the parable as a repentant son. The essence of all faith is in
that great question, who is this and what authority? It's the
end of all examination, who he is. Who he is. The other lesson
of course is that all who claim to do things for God and be rewarded
by it have no understanding of who they are and who God is and
they are exposed as deceitful hypocrites like these. They don't
know their own hearts and they don't know the holiness of God. And the other thing that's pictured
here is that the words that these men bring in response to God
will be held in judgment forever before them. There's a remarkable
verse in Matthew 12, 37, and it says, for by your words thou shalt be justified, and
by thy words thou shalt be condemned. We know from the scriptures that
justification is the free and sovereign gift of God, and justification
is in justifying one and in his work entirely. But out of the
mouths of God's people, as Romans 10 says, we confess with our
mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father,
and we confess we agree with God about what we are, that we
are sinners. and that if we have any righteousness
and any justification before God, it is entirely His work
and it comes as a free gift of God and it honors both God's
law and His character and the person of His dear and precious
Son. And we are united to Him and one with Him. The working
people, those that are under a bondage of works, what they
are looking for all the time, is a reward, a reward and a commendation
for their work. The Lord Jesus Christ is all
we have before God, brothers and sisters, and you need nothing
else. Christ is all. If you have Him, you have absolutely
everything. The other thing that's so evident
in this parable and so evident in the rest of this chapter of
the scriptures in Matthew 21 is that no amount of evidence,
no amount of evidence will ever, ever convince a religious, self-righteous
hypocrite. There's only one weapon we have. There's only one purpose for
us gathering together. There is one purpose of God's
people in this world. We just declare the gospel. The
gospel is the power of God. These people had the most ridiculous
amount of evidence, the most extraordinary amount of evidence,
the most particular amount of evidence, the most detailed amount
of evidence. And they had the evidence of
their own lives before them. They had the evidence of the
Scriptures that they knew there before them. They heard the parable and they
perceived that the Lord Jesus had spoken of them. They will,
like all legalistic works people, until they have fallen on the
stone and been broken. They'll remain as hard as ever. It's a new heart, it's a new
heart that repents. It's a new heart that causes
harlots to go into the kingdom of God. Isn't that remarkable?
That everyone goes into the kingdom of God on exactly the same basis. The harlots go into the kingdom
of God in exactly the same way that you go into the kingdom
of God. The publicans go into the kingdom of God exactly the
same way you go into the kingdom of God. All of God's people go
into the kingdom of God on the coattails of the Lord Jesus Christ
and wrapped up in Him. Got no other way in. God won't
accept anything else. What a glorious thing repentance
is. What a glorious grace gift it
is. What a glorious God we have. What extraordinary character
of our God. This is meekness, isn't it? He
comes to the outcasts and he comes to the lowest of the low.
And he comes and he says, you're mine. You've lived a harlot in
this world and you're mine. And I've loved you from all eternity. And I've borne your own sins
in my body on the tree and I've taken them away. and there's
coming a day very soon. John describes it, doesn't he?
The manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us. What manner of love? The Father
has bestowed on us that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore
the world knows this not. had no idea, did it? Had no idea
that those harlots and those publicans were far more righteous
than the Pharisees could ever imagine themselves to be. Beloved,
now we are, says our friend John, now we are the sons of God and
it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know, do you
know this? God's people know this. We know
that when he shall appear We shall be like Him, for we shall
see Him as He is. Do you know that? Repentant sinners
know that. We shall be like Him, for we
shall see Him as He is. As David said, I'm gonna awaken
His likeness. What a glorious, glorious Saviour
we have. What a glorious, glorious Father
we have that allows for us to be in His vineyard. to be workers in his vineyard
by simple faith, by simply trusting his dear and precious son. May
God write his words on our hearts and cause his son to be glorious.
Let's have a break for a minute.