Alright, Brethren, Luke chapter
13. Due to sin being in the world, sudden death is a common thing. It's a very common thing. It's a fact of life. He says here in Luke 13, 1, they
were present at that season, some that told the Lord of the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. We don't know in the scripture
what happened. This is all we're told about
this, whatever it was, but that's enough. We know Pilate killed
some Galileans. And the Lord, He said, He heard
them speak about this. And in verse 4, He spoke of those
18 upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew them. Now, these
things were shocking to these people. These were sudden events
that had happened and killed people they knew. And just like
when current events in our day happen and either somebody you
know dies or something happens to our nation or, you know, all
of a sudden and people lose their life or people suffer great losses. Like, for instance, this is tornado
season and you've seen the tornadoes that have come and they just
devastate a town and people lose all their possessions and sometimes
lose their lives. And we hear of some mass attack
that happened and children die or people, grown folks die. We hear believers suffering some
grievous event or some great loss. Often we don't know what
to think about things like that. We know nothing comes to pass,
but by the sovereign hand of God, we know that. He said, See
now that I, even I am he and there's no God with me. I kill
and I make alive. I wound and I heal. Neither is
there any that can deliver out of my hand. We just saw in Isaiah
45, I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create
evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.
So we know whatever comes to pass, it's of God's sovereign
hand. And we know that God's working all things together for
his glory. Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee, the remainder thereof shalt thou restrain. Everything
that comes to pass, even if it's evil that men do, God's working
it to bring glory to his name. And whatever else that could
come to pass, he restrains it. And we know he's working all
things together for the good of his people. those He'd love
from everlasting. We know all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are called according
to His purpose. But our Lord shows us here, He
shows us what we must not think. When sudden loss comes, whether
it's one of God's saints or just people in the world, or when
death comes, He shows us what we should not think. And he declares
here how those kinds of events ought to strike us personally,
what we personally ought to think when something like that happened.
Now let's just go a few verses at a time. First of all, let's
look at what we must not think when men suffer or when death
comes suddenly in these events. Verse 2. And Jesus answering
said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners
above all the Galileans because they suffered such things. Suppose
they were sinners. Is that what you're thinking
in your heart? He said that they thought that they were greater
sinners because they suffered this sudden death. He said in
verse 4, those 18 upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew
them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt
in Jerusalem? Now this is what we should not
think. If we look upon others suffering, that suffer great loss or they
die, and we think that they suffered that because they're greater
sinners than others. That is only self-righteous pride
in us, if we think that. We're really saying that happened
to them because they're greater sinners. It didn't happen to
me because I'm not as great a sinner. That's really what's involved
there. I'm not as great a sinner as
they. So we must never assume, our
Lord's teaching us this now, to never assume that when a man
suffers loss or death comes, to not think that they're greater
sinners than others. That's self-righteousness. That's
self-righteousness. The Lord says of both these examples,
He says, I tell you nay. I tell you nay. Now, this is
important to know. God does judge men and He judges
whole nations for sin. God does that. But the thing
to always remember is this. On Calvary's cross, God judged
His elect. On Calvary's cross, Christ Jesus
bore the sin of all God's elect, and God poured out justice on
Him in the room instead of His people and made Him a curse in
place of His people. That was the judgment of God,
and Christ satisfied that judgment for all the elect of God at Calvary. Your judgment was settled at
Calvary if you're His. That's what was taking place
there. And when it comes to individuals, who suffers some great loss or
suffers death, yes, it's the hand of God. Nothing comes to
pass except it's God's direct purpose and will carrying it
out, no matter what the secondary means is He uses. But it's impossible
for us to tell which it is. It's impossible for us to tell whether that's judgment that
God's pouring out on somebody, or whether it's God's chastening,
loving correction, or God's mercy toward one that he's taking out
of this world. It's impossible for us to know
that just by looking. Scripture shows that many, many
saints, God's saints, men that walked with God, believed God,
trusted God by His grace, many saints suffered horrific deaths,
horrible deaths. But we know God already judged
His people in Christ on the cross, so we know that was not God pouring
out judgment on His saints. Look over at Hebrews 11. Look
at this in Hebrews 11. This is that A great chapter
on faith. God's saints that walked by faith.
And look down at Hebrews 11.35. He said, the second part there,
he said, Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that
they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel
mockings and scourging, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn
asunder, were tempted, were slain with a sword, they wandered about
in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. But look what God says, "...of
whom the world was not worthy." That's what He says of these
saints, "...of whom the world was not worthy." What matters
is they died in the Lord. He says there, These all died in faith. I've
got it written down somewhere. One of these verses here in chapter
11, he said they all died in faith. And that's what matters,
dying, trusting the Lord, dying in the Lord. Look at Hebrews
12. Look there at Hebrews 12. For
God's saints, for God's children, yes, he does correct his children. And sometimes it causes great
suffering, it causes great loss. He does do that to his children.
But he's doing it in love to his children. Look here in Hebrews
12, 6. For whom the Lord loveth, he
chasteneth. and scourgeth every son whom
he receiveth." Every son. There's none that aren't chastened.
Every one of them. He says, if you endure chastening,
God dealeth with you as with sons. And look at the end of
verse 10. He does it for our profit that
we might be partakers of His holiness. That He might keep
you knowing Christ is your holiness and partaking of His holiness.
If sudden death comes to one of God's saints, that's an act
of God's mercy. Do you know that? If one of God's
saints now suddenly, God did it, no matter what the secondary
calls, God did it. He said, I kill and I make alive,
and it's an act of God's mercy to his child. Isaiah 57, 1 said, The righteous
perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart, and merciful men
are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away
from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace, they
shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.
That's talking about the death of one of God's saints. And you
know Psalm 116, 15 says, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the
death of his saints. And we looked at that psalm,
and in the context, he's talking about when the Lord sends chastening
to us, and causes us to suffer, and he causes our flesh to be
mortified, the death of our sinful flesh. Not that it's going to
be eternal, dead forever, but he mortifies it, and saves you,
and chastens you, and corrects you, and that death is precious
in the sight of the Lord, in God's saints when he makes us
see our flesh is dead and not to trust in our works and not
to trust in ourselves and our flesh is mortified by the Spirit
of God chastening us. That's a precious death in God's
sight. And it also applies to when God's saints die physically.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
God only works love and mercy to his people. And He only does
so for the sake of Christ our righteousness. But for His sake,
that's the only thing He works toward His people, mercy and
grace and love. So if we suffer and you see one
of God's saints suffer, you see him suddenly die, even if it's
like the Tower of Siloam fell on him suddenly. Or somebody
like Pilate mingled their blood with other people. That's mercy. God's taken them
from the evil to come. Taken them into his presence,
into his glorious presence with him. Look at Ecclesiastes 9. I read this the other night,
but this bears looking at repeatedly. Ecclesiastes 9. Look at this, verse 1. Solomon
says, for all this I considered in my heart, even to declare
all this, that the righteous and the wise and their works
are in the hand of God. No man knoweth either love or
hatred by all that is before them. All things come alike to
all. There's one event to the righteous
and to the wicked, to the good and to the clean. and to the
unclean, to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not.
As is the good, so is the sinner, and he that sweareth, as he that
feareth an oath. So when sudden loss comes to
somebody, or death comes to somebody, we can't judge whether or not
that's God's judgment upon men, or whether that's God's loving,
chastening hand upon one of his saints. If it's his saints, that's
what it is for sure. But you see, what he's saying
is, these acts happen to God's saints who are righteous in Christ,
the same as they happen to the wicked who are not. The same
kinds of tragedies come about, and they're not accidents, they're
by the sovereign hand of God, but they come upon all men alike.
And you can't tell love or hatred just by looking with the corner
of the eye at this thing. Here's what I was trying to say,
is the truth of it is, is it doesn't matter how we die. As
God's saints, as one Christ is called and given faith to trust,
it doesn't matter how we die. Whatever the cause is, what matters
is that we die trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, that we die in
faith, made righteous by Christ's obedience alone, given repentance
to not trust in ourselves, but to rest by faith in the Lord
Jesus alone. To have him as our holiness that
has made us new inwardly so that we see he's our sanctification.
having Him to be our wisdom, giving a new heart by the Spirit
of God, giving faith to believe on Him. He said in Hebrews 11.13,
He said, these all died in faith. That's what matters. Revelation
14.13, I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write, blessed
are the dead, blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord from
henceforth. You see, that's what matters.
But let us not imagine when you see somebody suffer, whether
it's one of God's saints or it's some man in this world or whoever,
or you see men die suddenly, don't think they're sinners above
all others because they suffered that. Such thinking is self-exalting,
it's self-righteous, it's pride. Our Lord said, nay, don't think
that. Now secondly, go back to our text in Luke 13, Not only should we not think
some suffer because they're greater sinners, when you see sudden
death come to anybody in this world, whatever brought it to
pass, whatever the secondary cause is, or you see one of God's
saints die suddenly, this is what we ought to think personally.
I'm the sinner. I'm the sinner. That's what each
of us should think. If you see a tornado strike a
city and a bunch of people died in it, Instead of saying, no,
they're just greater sinners than everybody else. No, we should
think, I'm the sinner. That's what I deserve. Listen,
verse three, Luke 13, three, he said, I tell you, no, don't
think they're greater sinners, but except you repent, you shall
all likewise perish. You know the scripture, by one
man's disobedience, by one man, by Adam's sin, sin entered in,
and death by sin, and death passed upon who? All men. For that, in Adam, all have sin. For all have sin, it comes short
of the glory of God. That's what we need to remember
continually. When some event brings about
great loss or when death comes to men, it ought to make each
of us remember that in this sinful flesh of mine dwells nothing
good. Dwells nothing good in me personally. In me personally, in my sinful
flesh, in your sinful flesh, were it not for Christ, were
it not for what He has done for us, And yet it's still true of
our sin nature, brethren. It's exactly what God saw in
Noah's day when he looked upon men. All our sin nature is, is
this. God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Only evil continually. Every imagination of the thoughts
of our sinful flesh is only evil continually. That's why Paul
said, when as a believer with these two natures, one of God
and one of Adam, he said, when I would do good, evil is present
with me. And so every time we hear of
some of these events and some tragic sudden loss where many
die suddenly, whether it's a flood or a storm or any act of violence,
in every case, let this be the first thought. Let this be the
preeminent thought, this one word of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He said, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Now, thirdly, let me ask the
question, what is repentance? What is repentance? Well, one,
we know this, repentance is the gift of our triune God. Repentance
and faith are given, they're two sides of the same coin, and
they're both the gift of God. God the Father said of His elect
who He chose in Christ, He said this over in Ezekiel 36, 24,
I will take you from among the heathen. How are we separated
from men? How are we sanctified? We don't
do it ourselves. He said, I'll take you from the
heathen. I will gather you out of all
countries. I will bring you into your own land. And then will
I sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean. You see
how we're sanctified, made holy, separated unto God, unto Christ? I'll bring you out from among
them. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and when I do it, you'll
be clean. Christ said, whoever I've washed, he told Peter when
he was washing their feet, he said, whoever I've washed is
everywhere clean. He said, I'll wash you clean
from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse
you. A new heart also will I give
you and a new spirit will I put in you and I'll take away the
stony heart out of your flesh and I'll give you a heart of
flesh and I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk
in my statutes and you'll keep my judgments and do them. You'll
start walking by faith rather than looking to the works of
your hands. You'll start walking trusting
Christ as your all in all. And whatever He says, you'll
have a heart to do it. Repentance is the gift of God
our Father. And repentance is the gift of
Christ Jesus our Lord. Him hath God exalted with His
right hand to be a Prince and a Savior for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sin. He justified everybody for
whom He died. He made us the righteousness
of God in Him and God has raised Him and given Him the glory as
the head of church to fill all in all His people. To give all
His people life and to give all His people faith and to give
all His people repentance. And He shall because justice
demands it. They are justified. They must
be granted repentance and faith. And thirdly, it is by the Holy
Spirit of God. It's only by Him that we experience
the new birth. Christ said you must be born
from above. You must be born of the Spirit of God. It's only
by Him. And He's the one that convinces
us and grants us repentance and faith. The Lord said in John
16, 8, when He's come, He will reprove the world. He is talking
about His elect scattered throughout the world is redeemed. He will
reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
These are the three things involved in the Lord granting us repentance
and faith. Of sin, because they believe not on Me. He will make
you know you have not believed Him and everything you have ever
done is sin because without faith all is sin. He makes you know
righteousness. I'll convince him, the spirit
will persuade him of righteousness because I go to my father and
you see me no more. Our righteousness is Christ Jesus
at God's right hand and he persuades you of that. That's how repentance
is given. That's how faith is given. And
he convinces us of judgment because the prince of this world is judged.
He makes us know that by Christ putting away all our sin, The
devil has nothing to accuse us with and he crushed the devil's
head when he did that. So first of all, repentance is
the gift of God. Secondly, repentance is personal
between God and each one of His elect. It's personal. It's called
repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
personal. between God and His child. It's
a change of mind. We thought others were sinners
above us. We would see troubles come into the world and see men
die and we'd think, oh, that happened to them because they're
greater sinners than I am. And we were so proud of ourselves.
Now we say with Paul, I know that in me that is in my flesh
dwelleth no good thing. I'm the chief of sinners. It's
a change of mind. We despised and we rejected the
Lord Jesus Christ. We wouldn't bow to him. We wouldn't
relinquish our grip on our works and say salvation is entirely
by his obedience alone. But now, Our Lord said, I will
pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem
the Spirit of grace and of supplication, and they shall look upon Me whom
they have pierced. He turns you to Christ and makes
you know, I pierced Him. He's on that cross for my sin. He makes each of His children
know that. And He said, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourned
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one
that's in bitterness for his firstborn. Repentance is to mourn
your sin, not just because you broke the law, or not just because
you got found out. It's because you see what Christ
bore to put it away, and you know it's against Him. And so
it makes you stop trusting anything and everything about yourself.
That's what a change of mind is. And you cast it all into
Christ's hand and trust Him alone to save you. Repentance is a change of masters. The whole time Paul was Saul
of Tarsus, all those works he was doing as a Pharisee of Pharisees,
he was only serving himself. He wasn't serving the Lord. You
can't serve the Lord as long as you're entertaining the thought
that what you're doing is gaining you salvation with God or is
gaining you a reward with God or something that's going to
indent God to do something for you. You can't serve God that
way. That's bondage. That's free will works religion.
He wasn't living to God, but when Christ granted him repentance,
when he arrested him on the road to Damascus, and he shined that
light into his heart and blinded him, he had to be blinded from
everything he thought was righteousness. And then God gave him sight to
see by faith, to see the Lord Jesus. And when he did that,
Paul said, what wilt thou have me to do? Change of masters. He quit serving himself and said,
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? The Spirit of the Lord
becomes the master within the new heart. He speaks into the
heart. He said in Isaiah 30, 21, Thine
ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way.
Walk ye in it. When you turn to the right hand
or to the left, you'll hear the Spirit of God say, This is the
way. He'll keep you following Christ. He'll keep Christ in
your heart and on your mind when you turn to the right or the
left. It doesn't mean you're not going to turn to the right
or the left, but when you do, The Spirit of our Lord will turn
you to Christ. That's repentance. Repentance
is a change of manners. The Spirit purges our conscience
by the blood of Christ from the dead works that we were doing
thinking we were earning salvation. He makes you see that all those
self-righteous works you were doing was the worst sin of all
even more than your sinful sins. And He makes you repent from
all of it, from any works of righteousness you've done and
from your sins, and He makes you turn to Christ in faith and
cast it all on Him. And He makes you start following
Him. He said, you shall defile also the covering of your graven
images of silver and the ornament of thy molten images of gold.
Thou shalt cast them away as a mistress' cloth. Thou shalt
say unto it, get thee hence. All the things that we had as
our idols and we thought this is our salvation, this is what
God's pleased with. When He shines the light and
makes you see He's only pleased with Christ Jesus the Lord, and
makes you see all of that is just a foul idol and it's sin
and rebellion against God, He makes you say, I don't want to
have anything to do with that. That's what He does concerning
our sins, brethren. Our righteousness, our self-righteousness,
and our sin. And it's a change of motives. Repentance is a change of motives.
We're made willing in the day of Christ's power. And He gives
you a new will. He gives you a new heart. You
want Him to have all the glory now, whereas before you wanted
some of the glory. You're not anymore going around
saying, oh, those are greater sinners than I am. Now you see,
to Him be the glory. To Him alone be the glory. And
it gives you a heart now, Lord, please keep me walking by faith. Keep me following You. Keep me
adorning the gospel in everything I do. Because if You don't keep
me, Lord, I know what I'll do. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto Thy name give glory, for Thy mercy and for Thy truth's
sake. That's the new will in God's people. We want Him to
have the glory. And we want to adorn the gospel in all things
showing thyself a pattern of good works, in doctrine showing
uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned,
that he that said the contrary part may be ashamed, having no
evil thing to say of you. He said that they may adorn the
doctrine of God our Savior in all things. That's the new world
in us. We want to adorn the doctrine. It's important to note here too,
brethren, in our text in Luke 13, the Lord speaks, He says,
except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. And there's
two different tenses of this word repent. It's two different
words. Same word, but different tenses
of the word. The first one is repentance that
God grants when He converts us, which is once for all time. You know He's the Lord and you're
not looking to yourself anymore for salvation. But the second
word's a tense that means we never cease repenting. We never
stop repenting. Repentance, just like faith,
it's not a one-time thing for God's people. Repentance and
faith is the daily life of God's people. It's what we do every
day. We're repenting every day. When we pray and you hear us
pray, Lord forgive us of our sins. We mean that. We repent
continually throughout the day. Each day the Lord is through
keeping you repenting and keeping you believing Him, He's making
you do what Paul said, He's making you forget the things that are
behind and press on looking to Christ and walking by faith following
Him. He said, Brethren, I count not
myself to apprehend it. But this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those
things which are before, I press toward the mark of the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And he said, and
whatever else needs to be revealed to my brethren, I trust Christ
to reveal it to them. Just like he's doing to me. And
this is the life of a believer. Repentance is continually putting
those things behind you. where you failed, learning from
them, learning not to make the same mistakes again, but pressing
on. And when you make a mistake again,
when you fall, when you sin, He keeps granting you repentance,
keep toward God and faith in Christ, and you keep running
the race, and you keep forgetting those things that are behind,
put them behind you. And you keep trusting the Lord
to work the same thing in your brethren. Now lastly, I'm not
going to preach this parable, but I want to give you the gist
of it because it goes with our text. It goes right along with
our text. Verse 6, he spake also this parable,
a certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. The
Lord's church is his vineyard. The fig tree here, he's speaking specifically of
the nation Israel. But it applies to you and me
too. Represents his church. He came
and he sought fruit thereon and found none. This is the Lord. He's the certain man. It's his
vineyard. He came and sought fruit and he found none. Then
said he to the dresser of his vineyard. This is his preacher. This is someone he uses to preach
the gospel. That's what you do to the gospel.
You're dressing the vineyard. He said, behold, this is what
he said to the dresser of the vineyard. Behold, these three
years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none.
Cut it down, why cometh it the ground? And the vine dresser
answered, said, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I
shall dig about it and dung it, and if it bear fruit well, and
if not, then after that thou shall cut it down. Now, this
applies to the nation of Israel. God gave that one nation That
one nation among all the nations of the world, He gave that one
nation His word, His law, the Psalms, the prophets. He gave
them privileges above all other nations. Christ came to them
first. And here's the point of this
parable. The point of this parable is
God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God was patient. He was long-suffering. The Lord
Jesus Christ for three years walked among them. They saw His
miracles. He preached the gospel of Christ
to them. But they despised Him and they
rejected Him. Now free will works religionists
will jump on that and say, see, it's up to us whether it all
comes down to our will whether we believe or not. That's not
what the Lord is teaching in this parable. You are responsible
to believe. All men everywhere are responsible
to repent. But the Lord is going to bring
forth repentance in His children, and He is going to bring forth
the fruit of faith in His children. God the Father chose whom He
would and gave them to Christ. Christ redeemed them, and justice
demands they must be given this fruit of repentance and faith,
and they shall be. Every one of them shall, by our
Lord Jesus. He will not fail. But what our Lord is showing
us here is, if a sinner dies in his sin, rejecting Christ,
it's not God's fault. The sinner is responsible, but
it's his own fault for rejecting Christ. But God is long-suffering. He's patient. Christ sends the
gospel. And the gospel is digging deep,
like the vine dredger said, let me dig it and dung it. When you
preach the gospel, it's reaching to the thoughts and intents of
the heart. It's telling us, it's laying open, when God blesses
it to the heart, it lays open your own heart and makes you
see when your thoughts and your motives and everything you were
doing was vanity, just trying to earn salvation by your own
works. And he makes you seek Christ.
And he strikes to the root of the matter, to the heart, he
digs deep. And the gospel is like the dung. It's naturally,
dung is repulsive, dung is stinks, dung is offensive to men. That's
what the gospel is naturally to men. But in that manure is
the nutrients that feeds the fig tree that makes it bear fruit.
And that's what it is with the gospel. The gospel has life. It's the living word by Christ
blessing it to the hearts of his people. And that's what grants
us repentance and faith and that fruit of repentance and faith. So if you see here, he's going
to bring forth repentance and faith in every one of his children.
That's not the point of this parable. The point of the parable
is, you and me sitting here being given the greatest privilege
any people can be given. We've been given the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ. That's a rare and precious thing.
And if people despise it and they depart from it, or they
just sit here and let it go in one ear and out the other, God's
long-suffering. The Gospel has been preached
here for over 16 years. God's long-suffering. He's patient.
But this is the day of grace. This is the day of salvation.
And He tells us, walk in the light God's given you. He's given
us a free country where we can pick the Bible up and read it.
So pick it up and read it. He's given us... I try to send
my notes to you. And I'm speaking to those that
don't believe this Gospel. And I hope some will hear that.
Take those notes and study them and look into the Scriptures
and walk in the light He's given you. If you can do that, it will
be only by His grace. He'll get the glory and you'll
give Him the glory. But if a man won't do these things,
it won't be God's fault. God's patient. Christ went three
years there amongst them, and He said at the end, He said,
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent to thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens
under her wings, and you would not. Behold, your house is left
to you desolate. You see, this goes right along
with what He was declaring there at first. Don't look at other
people's sudden death and say, oh, they're greater sinners.
I'm not as bad a sinner as they are. He said, no, except you
all repent, you shall likewise perish. God's long-suffering,
He's patient, but there will come a day when if men go on
rejecting the gospel, rejecting the preaching of the gospel,
rejecting Christ Jesus the Lord, God will turn them over to reprobation.
Seal it up so they can't, they wouldn't hear and He'll make
it so they cannot ever hear, will not ever. That's how this parable applies
to us, brethren. If thou shalt confess without
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. With the
heart man believeth unto righteousness." That's the fruit Christ is going
to produce. That's the fruit He's looking
for in His vineyard. Trusting Him. With the mouth
confession is made to salvation. The Scripture says, "...whosoever
believeth on Him shall not be ashamed." When men believe the
Gospel, they're not ashamed to confess Him publicly. There's
no difference between the Jew and the Greek. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, but the same Lord over all
is rich unto all that call on Him. For whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's what the Lord's
teaching by this parable. Don't take advantage of the privileges
God's given us and just take it lightly. He's saying, Except
you repent you shall all likewise perish when you see when you
see me and I just consider that to be That's not even the judgment
judgment is coming after that and men are cast into everlasting
darkness forever But just look at that physical judgment and
think to yourself I'm the one that needs to repent believer.
This is good for me and you because Repentance and faith is the daily
life of God's saints. Never depart from the preaching
of Christ. And when others suffer loss or
death, never imagine they're greater sinners than others,
especially not of yourself. You remember this when you see
sudden death come. You remember, I'm the sinner.
Except I repent, I shall not be saved. And so repent and believe
on Christ today. Trust Him and never stop doing
so. Believers never stop repenting
and believing in Christ. Run this race looking to none
but the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Trusting He shall save you and
He shall save you. Do you get that? I hope I'm clear
on that. I've heard that parable preached
and I could preach a whole message on just the parable, but I've
heard it preached before and it just puts it all in the sinner's
hand. That's not what the Lord was doing. He was declaring how
long-suffering and patient he is and the privileges he gives. But now, don't just take advantage
of him. He said, except you repent. Repent. Believe him. And trust
none but him. I pray the Lord bless that. Amen.