Last night, I preached from this passage to
the church in the Philippines, Matthew 19. And I was blessed in studying
this. I don't think there's any congregation
anywhere that this is not needful. and I wanna bring it to you as
I was preparing and I thought this is the message I'm gonna
have to preach tomorrow. I need to preach this for our
folks here, for you. It is commonly taught among many,
among many, that by good works, God's saints earn greater rewards
in heaven than others. God will reward his people greater
rewards than others. That's a very common teaching
among many, among many. And that's what this subject,
this passage is dealing with from the end of Matthew 19 all
the way through Matthew 20. And the way this began was after
the rich young ruler, he came to the Lord and thought he had
kept the law. And the Lord told him, one thing
you're lacking. The Lord's teaching him he hadn't
kept the law. And the Lord said, sell everything
you have, give it to the poor, and follow me and you shall have
treasure in heaven. And he went away sorrowful because
he had many riches. Well, after he walked away, hearing
that, the apostle Peter spoke, and he's speaking what all the
apostles were thinking, and he said this, verse 27, Matthew
19, 27. Then answered Peter and said
unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee. What shall we have therefore? That word therefore is very important. What shall we have since we've
done all this for you? And Jesus said unto them, see
he spoke to all of them, he said to them, verily I say unto you
that ye which have followed me in the regeneration when the
Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory Ye also shall sit
upon 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. That's not
only so of the apostles, that's so of all God's people. All those
he saves, the church shall judge the world. Our Lord said in Revelation
3.21, to him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me in
my throne even as I also overcame and am sent down with my father
in his throne. So this is what the Lord will
give to all his people. All his people. And then the
Lord speaks of this life. Mark said, now in this time. He added that now in this time.
And Luke said, in this present time. So they said that's what
the Lord said, and here's what he said, verse 29. And everyone,
this is all God's saints equally, everyone that hath forsaken houses,
or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children,
or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold.
Now in this time, at this present time. you receive a hundredfold,
far more than what you left. And then he speaks of after we
die. And this is so of all his saints.
He said, and you shall inherit everlasting life. He answered
Peter's question. But then he gives a warning,
very, very, very important warning. He says, but many, That word
is important, many, many. That means the majority. That
our first shall be last. And the last shall be first. You know, our Lord made that
same statement at the end of his sermon on the mount in Luke
13, or Luke, 18 I think it is Came and said Lord, you know
us We did we preached in your name. We did many wonderful works.
We cast out devils And he told him to part. I never knew you
and he made that statement many That are first shall be last
and a lash be first Many are called if you are chosen My subject
is the last first, the last first. Now here's what I want you to
see and what the Lord is declaring here. Many, many who profess
to believe on Christ think they are first. They esteem themselves
as first, as great, or as the greatest over others. And the way they do that and
express that is by thinking they will have greater rewards than
others. What have we left? We've forsaken
all and followed you. What will we have therefore?
We've preached in your name. We've done many wonderful works
for you. What shall we have therefore
sin in all everything we did for you? And then He said those that are
first should be last. That doesn't mean they're gonna
be last in the kingdom of heaven. It means they're gonna be condemned,
cast out, truly last. But there are a few, you notice
he didn't say many in the second part. He said the last should
be first. There are some who God saves
by grace, who he makes us to see ourselves as the greatest
of sinners, as the chief of sinners. He makes us see ourselves as
last. And they shall be first. They
shall be first. They shall receive Christ, our
reward. They'll receive Christ, our inheritance,
Christ, our everlasting life. Now, to illustrate this warning,
he gives a parable. And the whole next chapter is
him illustrating so that we understand exactly what he meant by that
statement. Verse 1, he says, for the kingdom
of heaven is likened to a man that's a householder which went
out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And
when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day He sent them
into his vineyard. And he went out about the third
hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And
he said to them, go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever
is right, I will give you. Now, that's key. Whatsoever is
right, I will give you. And I'll just go ahead and tell
you now, we're going to see here, that's what the penny represents. God giving what's right to all
men, whether they meet God in Christ or meet Him outside of
Christ. I'll give you what's right. And you notice these here,
they didn't, in the first group, he went out and he said he had
agreed with them for a penny a day. Seems like they sort of
discussed what the payment would be, but these, They just, he
just told them, whatsoever's right, I'll give you. And the
next word says, and they went their way. Again, he went out
about the sixth and ninth hour and did likewise. And about the
11th hour, he went out and found others standing idle and said
unto them, why stand ye here all the day idle? They say to
him, because no man hath hired us. And he said to them, go ye
also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right, that shall you receive. So when evening was come, the
lord of the vineyard saith unto the steward, call the laborers
and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
And when they came that were hired about the 11th hour, they
received every man a penny, every man a penny. I said to you, the
penny represents whatsoever's right. Every man received what
was right and what was just. Every one of them. And when the
first came, they supposed that they should have received more. And they likewise received every
man a penny. And when they had received it,
they murmured against the good men of the house, saying, these
last have wrought but one hour. and thou hast made them equal
unto us? They hadn't done nearly what
we've done, and you made them equal to us? We've borne the
burden and the heat of the day. But he answered one of them and
said, friend, I do thee no wrong. I've done to you what's right.
I've done you no wrong. Didst not thou agree with me
for a penny? Take that thine is and go thy
way, I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do
what I will with my own? You see there, the whole point
of this is, I will give to this last what's right, just like
I gave to you what's right. It's lawful, that's what we're
talking about here, what's lawful, what's righteous for God to do.
I'm gonna give, is it not lawful, righteous for me to do what I
will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am
good? So the last shall be first and
the first last. Now he adds to this, for many,
he didn't say many with the second group, the last, he said many
with those that are first. And here he says, for many be
called, but few chosen. The householder represents God
the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to, you could
say the householder is God the Father and the steward is the
Lord Jesus Christ. But they represent God the Father
and the Lord Jesus. The two kinds of laborers represent
two kinds of professing believers in the world. There's two kinds
of professing believers in the visible church. All right, the
vineyard represents the visible church, the visible church. And in the visible church, it
includes true churches, false churches, all under the umbrella
of Christianity. In the visible church, there's
two kinds of laborers. There's the many who think they're
first, they esteem themselves to be first. they're looking
for a greater reward than others and think they deserve it. And
then there are the few who see themselves at last and esteem
themselves as not worthy of any favor from God. Many are called,
everybody hears the gospel go forth. Everybody, and many make
a profession from hearing the gospel go forth. That's the general
call of the gospel. Many profess to believe on Christ,
and they see themselves as first. Working, working, working to
get a greater reward than others. Now don't forget how this began.
This began when the rich young ruler walked away, because he
had much riches, and Peter said, we've forsaken all, what shall
we have therefore? Look what we've done for you.
What shall we have? And the Lord gives this warning,
and he's teaching us here. But the few chosen, that's those
that are really chosen of God, really redeemed by Christ, really
called by His grace, who've been given a new heart to see we are
the chief of sinners and deserve nothing from God. And we are
so happy to have Christ. He's the only reward we want,
is Christ. Now, let's look at these. I'm
gonna show you the laborers that are first, then we're gonna look
at the laborers that are last, then we're gonna see the end.
the Lord's end of the two. First of all, the laborers called
first represent professing believers who see themselves as first,
who have the attitude that these ones called first did. We've
done more. We've labored more. We bore the
heat of the day. You can't make us equal with
them. We're better than them. These are the first. The fact
they work longer, it doesn't represent how long a person's
been in the faith, though it could. But it represents their
thought that they're first. That's what it represents. We've
done more. We've suffered more. We deserve
more. So at the end of the day, when they were given what's right,
the penny represents what's right, what's just. He gave them all
the penny because he gave them all what was right, what was
just. That's the whole point. The Lord shall do what's righteous. He'll do what's righteous. Well,
it says in verse 10, they suppose that they should have received
more. Is that not what people are saying when they say there
are gonna be greater rewards in heavens than others? Some
will have greater rewards than others. Are they not saying that
we will receive more? That's what they suppose. They
suppose they should receive more. Verse 12. They said, these last
have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to
us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. Now these
represent false believers, who in pride think they are first. These represent will worshipers,
who worshiping their will, look what we've done by our will.
Work mongers, look what all our wonderful works. Didn't we do
many wonderful works in your name? They think they buy their
works. They really say that. I've read
men of the past that said that the believer earns these rewards
from God. That's works. You don't earn
anything from God. Who has first given to God? It'll be recompense to him again.
For of him and through him and to him are all things. You didn't
give anything to God. but that's what the men think.
Now you think of the pride involved in that. Think of the pride involved
of thinking that God owes you anything for anything you've
done. Think of the pride. Is that not just carnal pride
to think God owes me anything? That's not grace, brethren. That's
the way it works. If it's a wage earned, that is
works. The gift is of grace. Think of the sinful lust of carnal
flesh to want more than Christ? You want more than Christ? Christ
is not enough? Brethren, God's true saints have
a sin nature. And you and me can have these
thoughts. Peter was a chosen, redeemed, sanctified child of
God who brought this up. He brought this up. Now, this
is Christ correcting his apostles. He's correcting them. Peter said,
we've forsaken all and followed you. What shall we have therefore?
And you know, before that, the Lord told them, with men it's
impossible. And yet here he's saying, we've
forsaken all and followed you, as if he did it on his own. That's
the spirit of Balaam. That's the spirit of the false
prophet. What did he do? He loved the wages of unrighteousness. That's a true child of God saying
that. That's a sanctified child of
God, a holy child of God saying that. You and me can, we have
a sin nature and we have a lot of this pride in us still. That's
all our nature, old nature is. But look at the grace and the
mercy of our Lord. Do you really want Him to give
you what you've earned? Look at the grace and mercy of
the Lord here to correct them and teach them and teach us in
the process. Now, that spirit's not the spirit
Christ had by which he saved his people. That's not the spirit
he had, and that's not the spirit he puts in his people. Our new
man is not that spirit, because we have the spirit of Christ,
and that's not the spirit of Christ to do that. After this,
After this happened, right here in our text, after this happened,
the mother of James and John comes to the Lord and says, grant
that one son will sit on one hand and one son will sit on
the other hand. Grant that my sons will be greater than these
others. That's what she's asking. And the others heard it, and
they were filled with indignation, and they broke out into an argument
over who's going to be the greatest. Who's going to get the greatest
rewards more than others? And listen to what our Lord said
down in verse 25, Matthew 20, 25. Jesus called them to him and
he said, you know that the princes of the Gentiles, these are the
greatest among the Gentiles, reprobate princes, they exercise
dominion over the Gentiles. And they that are great exercise
authority upon them. In another place he said, They
call themselves benefactors. They say, we're greater than
you lowly people. You should give us greater honor
because we do so much for you lowly folk. Verse 26, but it
should not be so among you. But whosoever will be great among
you, you want to be great. Here's what it is to be great
in Christ's kingdom. Let him be your minister, your
servant. Whosoever will be chief among
you, let him be your servant. That's what it is to be great.
Christ's kingdom is to be the least, to be last, and to serve. Serve your brethren. Verse 28,
even as the son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but
to minister, to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. Do you see who the greatest is? I know we looked at this last
week, It's just been on my heart. The greatest is Christ Jesus,
the Son of God. He's God of glory who came down
and took flesh like his brethren. And when he did that, he didn't
make himself of reputation. He wasn't going around trying
to say, well, I'm going to be greater than others. He didn't
do that. He humbled himself and he became
obedient to the Father. And he was obedient to the death
of the cross. He came to serve God, the Father,
to save his people, and he gave, he gave, and he was made lower,
lower, lower, lower to the point that he was made the very least,
and he gave his life a ransom to purchase us. We were held
captive by the devil, and he ransomed us from the fall. He
led captivity captive by what he did, by shedding his blood.
He made us the righteousness of God in him, and he highly
exalted God doing that. And God now has highly exalted
him, and he truly is the greatest in the kingdom of God, because
he made himself the very, very last. But brethren, that's what
all his people did in him. All his people were in him, and
all his people did what he did. In ourselves, we see ourselves
now by his grace, by him giving us hearts to understand. We say
we're nothing. We say we're sinners. We're so
full of this pride of wanting to be better than everybody else.
You know, a preacher gets, the Lord graciously calls a preacher
to preach. And he gets, the Lord adds to
the church. The Lord gives him a bigger building
like he did here. And we get so puffed up in pride.
want to be better than other preachers and be seen as having
done more and all that. I've had that thought. Other
preachers have had it too, whether they'll admit it or not. But
it's true. We're full of pride, you and
me. And if you're sitting in a congregation, did you not feel
more proud when you had a whole bunch of people sitting here
than when you got fewer sitting here? We have these thoughts,
just these stupid thoughts of wanting to be better than others.
And yet, if we were given what we deserve for that, we'd be
cast out, condemned forever, because it's just sinful pride.
But our Lord, we were in Him, and what He did, we did. When
He made Himself the least, we made ourselves the least. And
He does give you a heart to understand something of this. Did He do
what He did for price or reward? Was He doing what He did for
a reward with God? Isaiah 45, 13 says this. The Lord said, I've raised him
up in righteousness and I will direct all his ways. There's
his humility. He trusted the Father to direct
all his ways. I will direct all his ways. He
shall build my city and he shall let go my captives, not for price
nor reward. That wasn't in his heart. His
heart was not saying, God, you owe me for what I've done. That
wasn't the heart of our Savior. That's said by the Lord of Hosts.
The Lord of Hosts said He didn't do this for price or reward.
He did it constrained by love for His Father. He did it constrained
by love for His brethren. And God, His Father, and His
people were His reward. Seeing His Father glorified to
the highest, Him not, he wasn't trying to make himself a reputation.
He wanted to see his father glorified to the highest, and he wanted
to see his people saved. There was a total lack of selfishness
involved in what our Lord Jesus did. He did it all for the Father
and for his people. And that was the joy set before
him. It wasn't from a mercenary legal spirit of, I'm gonna try
to earn something. But brethren, that's what his
people, we did that in him. We did it perfectly in Him. And
the only way you can be accepted of God, because you and I know
by nature, that's just not our heart by nature. Our heart by
nature, we won't be the greatest. Now secondly, let's look at those
who are the last. They represent those God has
truly chosen and called. Where do you find the last? Where
do you find them? They were sitting idle. They
were sitting idle. Do you know that every, you know he talks about
If you're found outside of Christ, every idle word, you'll be judged
for every idle word. If you're in religion, say you
rose through the ranks and you did so many works and were recognized
and you became a preacher and you did all. You just did all
these things in the world, and they were legitimately good works
in themselves. And you did all these things
in the name of the Lord, and saying you're doing it for the
Lord. You did all this stuff. And the world recognized you
as great. But in your heart, you were doing it to indebt God.
You weren't trusting Christ. You didn't see yourself as His
last. You were doing it all to get something from God to try
to indebt God to you. every single thing you ever did
was idle. That's us, and that's where God
found us, and that's what God makes us know about ourselves.
Everything you ever did was idle. That's your sin, everything.
And the Spirit makes you see Christ and makes you believe
that it's by His person and His work that you've been saved,
and it's all freely of God's grace. It was not because of
something you did. And He makes you see you are
truly and legitimately the sinner. And He says to you, verse 4,
Go ye into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give
you, and you go your way. You know why? Because you see
now, God is so righteous that to save me, He sent His only
Son. And he made him sin for us who
knew no sin, that we might be made righteous of God in him.
And when sin was found in his son, he spared not his own son,
but delivered him up. He poured out justice on his
own son to save his people. And when you see that, you know
God only does what's right. And you go your way. Go, Christ
is your way. And you go trusting Christ, knowing
whatever he does, it'll be right. I don't even have to know what
he's going to do. I just trust him. It'll be right. It'll be
right. That's what faith does. That's
what faith does. And we do what we do constrained
now by Christ's love for us. We do what we do because Christ
did it for us. We see ourselves as the last
and we do what we do for his sake. He said, The love of Christ
constraineth us. That's the motive of the heart.
That's the moving power now of the new heart. The love of Christ
for us, for what he did for us. That constrains us because we
thus judge. We have this spiritual discernment
now, that if Christ died for all his people, then all his
people were dead. We were all dead. That's why
he died for us, to save us and give us life. But now that we
died in him, all our every All his people died in him. All our
old man, our old man was crucified in him. So that now we that live
should not henceforth live unto ourselves. Everything that a
man's doing trying to get a reward from God is living to himself.
And now we don't live to ourself. Now we live to him who died for
us and rose again. That's who we live to, constrained
by his love. Love serves the one it loves. That's right. And you take your
mothers, for example, if you have a child that's sick, you
stay up all night with that child, you minister, and you serve that
child, and you nurse that child back to health. Why? Because
you love the child. And you don't say to the child,
what you going to give me? You going to give me something
greater since I did this for you? No, you did it because you
love them. They are your reward. That child's your reward. You
want to see them, the best for them. Now you take, you reverse
that illustration. What if after you did everything
for the child, then the child turns to you and says, what are
you going to give me? I'm healthy now. I'm doing things
I should do. So what you going to give me?
You going to give me something greater than the rest of the kids? You
say, that's just foolish. Not as foolish as me and you
thinking God ought to give us something greater than the rest
of the children. When He did it all, Christ said His people won't
even recognize the good works they did. Remember that? In that
parable of the goats and the sheep? He said the goats will
say, when did we not see you hungry and thirsty and do all
these things for you and visit you in prison? And He said, but
my sheep, they'll say, Lord, when did we ever? When did we
ever? That's what it is to be the last.
It's to say, Lord, we didn't do anything. We just didn't. Christ said, our reward is this, you know
Christ right now in this life. He said, whatever you've forsaken,
at the end of chapter 19, whatever you've forsaken, you got a hundredfold
more right now. You got mothers, fathers, brothers,
sisters in the gospel that you didn't have before. You know
you got an eternal inheritance in glory with Christ. You've
got joy in the Holy Ghost. You know you have perfect wisdom
in Christ, perfect righteousness in Christ, perfect holiness and
redemption in Christ. You know you're complete in Christ.
You know that now. You got an earnest of the Spirit,
a foretaste of glory. And wherever you go now, you
got brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, far more than you
had before. And whatever you do, whatever
work you do, it was ordained before God. And whatever graces
you have, whatever talents you have, whatever gifts you have,
Ephesians 4, 7 says, unto every one of us is given grace according
to the measure of the gift of Christ. Whatever measure of gifts
you have, He gave it. You didn't, It's not of you,
he gave it. Every opportunity you have, you
ever wanted to do more but you just don't, you didn't see the
opportunity? I told the brethren in the Philippines last night,
I didn't open that door to preach to them in the Philippines. The
Lord did that. I didn't even know they existed.
And the Lord opened that door for me to preach to them. Do
you think I could go to God and say, I need a better reward than
other people because I preached to these folks in the Philippines.
He gave that opportunity, I didn't. Plus, Christ has given us freely
far more than we ever have. He gave us more than we've lost
in Adam. I restored you double for your
sins, He said. Everything we have, He gave it.
He said, who maketh you to differ from another? What do you have
that thou didst not receive? It wasn't freely given to you.
Now, if you received it, why glorious if you didn't receive
it? Oh, we know we don't glory. Now, we don't take glory, but
we think we'll get a greater reward than others. That is glorying.
That's saying, I didn't receive everything from God. Look what
I did, Lord, so I should be rewarded for it. If you did anything,
God gave it. Why would our Lord reward us
based on what we left behind when we would have never left
a thing behind if he hadn't irresistibly made us do it? Why would we want
a reward for anything that we did when we'd have never done
it if it wasn't for his effectual grace working in us? They said, look how long we served.
We served all our life. Who set the time? The Lord did. Somebody boasted their ability.
Who gave the ability? Somebody talked about how we
ministered. a preacher, you know, didn't we preach in your name?
God's preacher says, who's sufficient for these things? There are sufficiencies
of God, the powers of God, not of us. Why should we be rewarded
for that? He said, when you've done all
those things which are commanded you, say, we're unprofitable
servants. We just did what it was our duty
to do. Paul said, it's just reasonable service. When your employer shows
up to work, do you just put them on a pedestal and give them extra,
extra, extra because they showed up to do what they desire to
do? So in our text, this mercenary
wheel worker, he complained he'd served so long in the heat of
the day, and he thought he deserved more than those who served less
time. You know, do you not Do you not
consider it a privilege and a reward of God's grace that he's called
you and given you some time to serve him in this world? Whereas
that thief on the cross, he was saved just moments before he
died. He didn't have the privilege God's given you. God's given
you a great reward to be able to serve him in this life as
long as he has. He didn't give that to the thief
on the cross. Do you say, well, I need more because I Look how
long I've served and how hard I've worked. No, you somewhat
pity the poor thief on the cross. He didn't get this privilege
that the Lord's given you. And then on the other hand, when
the thief on the cross gets the exact same reward and glory that
you get, you don't say, well, I ought to get more because I
served a lot longer than he did. That attitude of thinking we
deserve more, that's fleshly. That's all that is, is fleshly.
Now lastly, what's gonna happen to everybody? What's gonna happen? What's God gonna do to everybody?
The first and the last, what's he gonna do? He gonna give us
exactly what's just, exactly what's right. He said, call the
last. He said, call them all, but he
said, begin with the last. and call them first. He said,
the last should be first. He said, call them first. You
know, every true believer, been taught by God, know in our new
man, we know we are last. Paul said, he started out, he
said, I'm less, I'm not worthy to be called an apostle. And
he said, I'm least of all the apostles. Then he ends up saying,
I'm chief sinner. That's growing in grace. But
the first will be the last. You that have been made to know
your last, chief of sinners, you're going to be called first.
All God's people are going to be called first. And we're going
to all be given the exact same reward. You can find it in 1
Thessalonians 4, verse 16. The Lord himself shall ascend
from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the archangel
and with the trump of God and the dead In Christ, that's his
people, who see ourselves as lads, the dead in Christ shall
rise first. And then we which are alive and
remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds. We're
gonna be called to him first. And who, what's our reward? We're
gonna meet the Lord in the air and so we shall ever be with
the Lord. That's our reward. And God will
give each person the same thing. He gonna give everybody the same
thing, exactly what is right. That's what the penny represent,
exactly what's right. The will worker, expecting he
earned a greater reward than others, shall receive what's
right. He was working for a wage, and he's gonna get a wage. The
wages of sin is death, and it'll be cast out forever. And those
who see themselves last, They're gonna be given what's right.
They're gonna be given the penny that's right. The gift of God
is eternal life. And Christ is that life. He's
that life. Matthew 19 there in verse 29,
he said, and you shall inherit everlasting life. In the parable, all who were
called last, from the third hour to the last hour, all received
the same reward. All did. So all God's saints
shall receive the same reward, Christ himself. What did he tell Abraham? Genesis
15, what? I am thy exceeding great reward. If you want something more than
Christ, brethren, that's flesh. and God's going to correct it
just like he did in Peter. I guarantee you when Peter and
those apostles, if they continued having any of these thoughts,
when they closed their eyes in death and opened them and beheld
Christ, they didn't want anything else. They didn't want anything
else. When you drop this flesh, you're
not going to want to live on the rich side of heaven and hope
there's some others living on the poor side of heaven. No,
they're not going to be rich on the poor side of heaven. It
would be such an absence of selfishness and pride and sin that Christ
the King said, I'm going to set you down at my table and I'm
going to come up and I'm going to serve you at my table. He's the exceeding great reward.
He told the priests in the old covenant, he's made you priests
under God by his blood. He told the priests in the old
covenant, you're not going to have any part with the rest of
these folks and with their land. He said, I'm your part and I'm
your inheritance. Paul said, I suffered a loss
of everything, and I don't count it any loss. I count it done.
I want to win Christ. I want to have him. That's all
I want is him. So those that would murmur at
this, those that would murmur at this and say, well, I don't
agree with that, here's what you're going to have to do. Now,
I'm not talking better than you believe the gospel and I trust
you. We're in full understanding of this by the Lord's grace.
But for those, anybody hears this and they're going to murmur
at this, I'm going to tell you what they're going to have to
do. They're going to have to take side with these folks right
here that the Lord paints in an awful light in this parable. They're going to have to put
themselves squarely in that camp and murmur against Christ Jesus,
the good man of the house, and say, I don't think that's right.
That's what they're gonna have to do. They're gonna have to
plead and defend the glory of man against his glory. That's
what they'll have to do if they murmur at it. And here's what
he says to them. Here's what he said to them,
verse 15. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine
own? It's all his, brethren. Everything
in this world's his. Everything in the world that
comes, his. Everything's his, and you're his, and I'm his,
and so's the reprobate. Can he not do what he will with
his own? Is your eye evil because I'm good? That's what he said
to him. So, the last shall be first, and the first last. For, many be called. There's a lot who hear the general
call, but few, few be chosen. Few really see themselves as
last. and has all of his grace, and I pray that Lord make us
see ourselves as last, and I pray he make you more and more grow
to see yourself less and less and less, and that he increase
and increase and increase and increase. That's true growth
in grace and the knowledge of him. That's what I pray for us.
All right, brethren. Brother Adam.