Verse 28 of Matthew 21. But what think ye, our Lord asks,
a certain man had two sons, and he came to the first and said,
Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will
not. But afterward, he repented and
went. And he came to the second and
said, likewise. And he answered and said, I go,
sir. And went not. Whether of them
twain did the will of his father, they say unto him the first. Jesus saith unto them, verily
I say unto you, that the publicans and the 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 the harlots believed him. And ye, when ye had seen it,
repented not afterward, that ye might believe him." Now, As we've looked at several
different divisions of this chapter, and they're pretty clear divisions,
we see in the beginning how the Lord told His disciples to go
and find that donkey and its colt and bring them to Him. And the great multitude followed
Him as He rode into Jerusalem on that donkey. And they cried
and blessed his name. And then we have another division
where the Lord went into the temple and overthrew the tables of the
money changers and said, this is my house. We've seen several different
divisions here, but the important thing this morning is that we
see in all of this chapter the overall context. The Lord began this chapter displaying
his authority as the king. Even before he rode into Jerusalem,
he reveals his authority, even in the very preparation for that
event, for his what we call his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
He said to his disciples, go into that village. You'll find
that donkey and that young coat. Loose them and bring them to
me. And if anybody asks you about it, you tell them this, the master
needs them. And you won't have any trouble.
You see how it begins with him displaying his authority. And we have there just a reminder
As our king, who he's revealed to be in this chapter, everything
that we own is his. It's all his. He is the true
owner. That word master there A more
detailed definition, it says Lord in our translation here,
it means master. But it means this, he to whom
a person or thing belongs. You tell them the one that really
owns them, needs them. That's what he said. And then the text says that this
was done so that the scripture might be fulfilled, which says,
behold, your king is coming. So he reveals himself there as
the king in that. Let me ask you this. This was quite honestly, it was convicting
to me. Do you believe in the sovereignty
of God? Do you believe that Christ is
the king, your king? And I know that Almost everyone
in this room would say, oh yes, I believe in the doctrines of
grace. I believe in unconditional election. I believe in divine
predestination, et cetera. I do too. But here's the question
that came to me and I put to you this morning. What about
when the Lord requires something of you? What about when the King
clearly requires something of you? as he required this man's property
here. Do you believe in his sovereignty
then? Not just a doctrine on the page,
he's the king. He's the king. But do you see how the Lord's
authority is the theme throughout this chapter? When our Lord rode
into Jerusalem and all the people, they were throwing down those
palm branches in His path and cried, Hosanna to the Son of
David. Blessed is He that cometh in
the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. It says
all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the Lord had
already answered that question. the book of Isaiah as we saw.
This is your king that's coming into Jerusalem. And we're clearly
forced here to contemplate that very question as his authority
is imposed and put on display. Then we're told of how the Lord
came into his temple and he drove out those money changers. Do
you see his authority in that? He said, this house is my house
and my house shall be called a house of prayer. And you've
made it a den of thieves. which prompted them to ask him
later, by what authority did you do that? You displayed some
authority there. Where'd you get it from? And
the next scene is where our Lord comes to that fig tree. And he's
hungry. And we saw how that the Lord, what is the Lord? And we use
this word, understanding the context here. What is he hungry
for? What does the Lord need? He doesn't
need anything. From us, does he? But what does he require
from us? Glory. Glory. And we saw that and talked
about that. But that tree didn't have anything
for him. It was fruitless. It had big leaves and it was
healthy looking from a distance. But like the Pharisees in their
fruitless religion, who he's dealing with throughout this
chapter, The tree, though it presented
a promise of life, a promise of fruit, it did not, could not
deliver on that promise. And this is what hypocrisy is,
to present a false front. To present yourself one way and
be something else. To appear to be something on
the outside, but truly to be something else on the inside.
And how many times did our Lord pronounce a curse upon these
religious pretenders saying, you scribes and pharisees, you
hypocrites. That tree clearly pictures that. You saw it from a distance and
you'd say, well that's a healthy fig tree, let's go get some figs
off of it. There's not any figs on it. And so the Lord, by divine authority,
curses that tree. That may seem like a bizarre
thing for him to do. He made that tree and he required something from
it that it couldn't give. What's a fig tree good for? For
producing figs. It's not a big tree. It's not
a shade tree. It's not worth it. Birds can't
make a nest in it really. It'd be a poor choice for that.
It makes figs and that's all it does. But this tree didn't
make any figs. It's worthless. And he cursed
it. And it withered and died. And
they marveled at how soon it withered. You'd marvel at how soon I'd
wither, too, if the Lord took his blessing away from me. His
curse is upon us by nature. We're the children of wrath by
nature, even as others. But by His gracious new covenant
of love and mercy in Christ, we're blessed of the Lord. But that was His divine authority
displayed there also. And then the Pharisees blatantly
questioned His authority, saying, by what authority do you do these
things and who gave you that authority? And the Lord again
exerts and displays His authority by refusing to answer their question.
and making them, on the contrary, answerable to him. And he showed
there, and we didn't really talk about this, think about it, he
showed there, he revealed by asking them the simplest of questions,
the baptism of John. Was that a spiritual thing or
an earthly thing? Was that of man or of God? That's
just basic. That's simple and basic, and
they couldn't answer it. He showed there how useless,
because of their cowardice and their hypocrisy and their hatred
of Christ, how utterly useless their Christless religion was.
And these are the same ones who in our generation have a great
outward show of leaves, and as Paul said, a form of godliness,
but denying the authority thereof, and cannot answer the simplest
and most vital of all questions. How can God be God and save a
sinner? They can't answer that question. How can God be just and the justifier
of the ungodly? If you can't answer that question,
you got no business speaking for God. That's what God, that's the first
thing He reveals when we come to know Him. We see His answer to that question in
our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If He will, He can make me clean
because of the blood of His Son shed for sinners, because of
His spotless righteousness. And like their great, great,
great grandparents, the Pharisees of our day, the reason the reverends
of our day can't answer the question, or any question worth asking,
is that they refuse to give Christ what He's hungry for. And again, let me be careful
when I say that. When we hunger, it's because
we need, we have to have, God doesn't need anything. He doesn't
need anything. But he requires and desires to
be glorified and he will be glorified. He's going to eat one way or
the other. But these ones refuse to give
him the glory that's due under his name, though they saw his
power with their own eyes. That's what he said to them in
the text that I read there. You saw it and wouldn't repent. Though they heard the very voice
of God from heaven say, he's my son, you hear him. They glorified
him not as God. No figs. And so he gave them over to a
reprobate mind and said, let no fruit grow on thee henceforward
forever. To bear the fruit of the Spirit,
you must be born of the Spirit, and the Spirit goes where He
pleases. And clearly, these Pharisees were reprobate.
Not without exception. Our Lord looked on those same
Pharisees in John 8, 21. He said, I go my way and you
shall seek me and shall die in your sins. Where I go, You cannot
come. Is that clear? He said to his
disciples later, you can't go where I'm going now, but you'll
go later. You'll follow me. But to them,
he said, you're going to die in your sins and you're not coming
where I'm going. And our Lord spends the rest
of chapter 21 revealing his curse upon these Pharisees, upon mankind
by nature. And why he cursed them. This is not the Jesus of organized
religion. In our generation or any generation.
He said in John 521, I give life to whomsoever I will. And he
simply withheld it from these Pharisees. And in these verses,
we see why. He reveals why. And we need to
understand something. Let me tell you where we're going,
what we're gonna see before we see it in this parable here and
in the next one that we'll see, Lord willing, next Sunday. We're
gonna see that the reason that these Pharisees are cursed is
because they deserved it. They richly deserved it. Well, what about us, Chris? What
about us? Don't we deserve it? You better
believe we do. Well, then why aren't we cursed? Two words.
Free grace. Free grace. And to answer that question in
a way that gets right to the very heart of it, the answer
is this. And let me be clear on the question again. If these
religious hypocrites are cursed because they deserve it, then
why are God's sheep not cursed? And here's the answer. Because
of the electing love of God for his sheep. That's why. He loved
us. And saved us. And he hated them. That's the Word of God, just
as clear and plain as it gets. And our Lord is revealing in
this parable, in verses 28 through 32, the hypocrisy of religious
unregenerate man, man's disdain for the will of God. And the
picture here is just as clear as it can be. The Pharisees represented
this son who said, I will go. I will go. And they say that, I'll do the
will of God. I'll do whatever. Read my Bible. How many times a week do I have
to read it through in a year? No problem. I'll make out a little
schedule. I'll read it through in a year. I'll put the Ten Commandments
up and I'll be sure not to kill anybody today and be faithful
to my wife and not lie. And I'll call my mama. They say, I'll go. I'll do it.
Remember when the When the Lord gave His commandments to the
children of Israel, and they said, we'll do that, this we'll
do. And they talk about God's will. And
they teach on how to do the will of God. And have seminars on
how to be a good servant of God. And all the while, they deny
everything that God said. They hate the true God of the
Bible and refuse, absolutely refuse to give God the glory
in the very thing wherein his glory is most gloriously displayed,
the saving of sinners. Did he not say to Moses when
Moses said, Show me your glory, I will have mercy on sinners. God's glory is displayed nowhere
else like at Calvary. And they will not give him the
glory in the saving of sinners. As is shown in this whole chapter,
the problem is they will not submit to the authority of God. Paul called them on it when he
said, They deny the authority. They
have a form of godliness, but they deny the authority thereof. In the parable here, there's
a father. There's the theme of this whole chapter. Who's the
father? He's the authority in the home. He had two sons. The
very symbol and picture of authority and submission. Father and son.
God's command to children is obey your parents. Isn't that
right? Obey your parents. For this is
right. Children, obey your parents in
the Lord because it's right. He wrote on stone, honor your
father and mother. And so this parable teaches what
this whole chapter teaches, rebellion against the authority of God. Now don't be confused about something.
Let me explain this right off the bat here. This parable has
the Pharisee as a son of the father. Okay, there's no question
that the son who said I will go and then didn't, that's the
Pharisee. He applies it and tells him that's who it is. I'm talking
about you. The publicans and the harlots are the ones who
are rebels, clearly openly rebels against God and yet By God's
grace, they repent and submit and believe the key word. We'll
see that in a minute. Believe. But the Pharisee, they're called
a son here of the father. But let me be clear about something. The parable has the Pharisee
as a son because this teaches, this parable teaches one thing,
as all parables do, how that God is worthy and has all right
to submission and obedience. But those who do not the will
of God are not his children in the sense of being his true family. This is not a contradiction.
He said to those Pharisees in John 8, 37 through 44, you're
of your father the devil. If God were your father, you
would do his will. You would love me, and you would
submit. He said, when he was teaching,
and they told him, your mother and your brother are outside.
They want to talk to you. He said, who are my mother? Who
is my brother? These that do the will of God.
That's my family. So these Pharisees in that sense
are not family. You see what this parable is
teaching. It has to do with authority and obedience, submission. So never make a parable teach
something it does not. It has one clear teaching in
every case. And it's not ambiguous here what's
being taught. Rebellion to the authority of
God, disobedience to his will that springs from that rebellion
is man's problem. That was our problem in the garden.
It was the problem here in our text and it's our problem now
if we have it. It's our problem by nature. It's
who's going to be God. Who's going to be the father
and who's going to be the son. That's what it is. Always has been. It's always been about that. That's what sin is. It's rebellion
against the authority of God. And we can talk a good game and
we can look to men as though we were doing God's will, but
God's not mocked and fooled like other men are. He said to them, the publicans
and the harlots are going to enter into the kingdom before
you. Why? When the father said, go,
they said, I will not. That doesn't shock God when we
say that. All of his sheep start out saying
that. We all have said that. I will
not. We said it in the garden in our
Father Adam. I will not obey God. I'll do
what I want to do. But the Lord loved us anyway. Even when we were rebels. Even when we were saying, I will
not, we were still his child. Paul said in Romans 5.10, for
if when we were enemies, enemies. He said in Romans chapter 8,
the natural man, the carnal mind is enmity against God. Raging hatred against God. That's
all of us now. Somebody said this a long time
ago. I heard somebody say that, you know, they had heard someone
say, well, I've loved God all my life. And they said, that's
too long. That's too long. Nobody has. And if you say that,
you're in error concerning yourself and your sin. if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. That's what this is, this repenting
and then going and doing what He said to do. That's what that
is. It is that God has reconciled us to Himself by the death of
His Son. And that love, the dying love
of our Savior constrains us to do what he said. Not meritoriously,
not perfectly, not up to his perfect holy standard, no way. But he turned rebels into sons,
and he did it by the death of his son, Paul said. We were reconciled
to God by the death of His Son. Much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. In other words, if He loved you
when you were His enemy, now that you're reconciled unto Him,
He's not going to let you go. He's not going to let you go. As we crucified him, he prayed,
Father, forgive him. Forgive him. It was interesting that the ones
who the Lord said did his will. In the end, they never said,
I will do it. I will. I will go. I will do
your will. They never said they would. They
just did. That's the way it always is. We know that our obedience is
not worth talking about. Just like those in Matthew chapter
25, the ones who said, Lord, we never saw you hungry and fed
you. When did we do that? We never
saw you thirsty and gave you water. We never saw you naked
and gave you some clothes to wear. We never saw you in prison
and came and visited you or sick and came Those were the ones
who he said had done all those things. And the ones who said, when he
said, you never did those things, they said, what do you mean?
We've been doing those things all of our lives. They never
did. That's what we're talking about
here. And let me get right to the point
here. How do we do the will of God? How does a sinner do God's
will? Well, we, and this is taught
through the whole Word of God, I could quote you scripture off
the top of my head and we could look at it together and spend
a little time and see it all through in every book of the
Bible, that we don't ever personally do God's will in this life. We
don't do it. We just don't. Not going to. Never have done
His will. His will is perfect. His will
is expressed in His holy law. And we can't keep it. All have
sinned and come short. We haven't, we're not right now,
and we're not going to do His will. We just not. One of these
days we will. But we haven't yet, and we're
not going to in this life. But God's righteousness is fulfilled
in us by Christ's obedience and sacrifice. Let me show you that
in Romans 8. And this is something that I've
never really understood in this passage completely. And of course,
we don't know anything as we ought to know. But I think it's
a little clearer to me now. Romans 8, 1 through 4, listen
to what he said. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. for what the law could not do.
I'm not condemned. I'm free. God accepts me, receives
me, is pleased with me. How? Because what the law could
not do in that it was weak through the flesh. There was no flaw
in his law. Our flesh was the problem. The
law could not accomplish for us what we needed and what God
required because of our flesh. But what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in
the flesh. Christ did what we couldn't.
What did he do? What was the result of it? That
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. who
walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. The law is
fulfilled in us, for us, in us. Why? Because what we couldn't
do in order to fulfill that righteousness, Christ did it for us. He lived it for us and he died
for us not living it. He accomplished what we could
not do, and he paid for what we did do. And so the righteousness of the
law is fulfilled in me by what he did. You see that? That's pretty clear. That's pretty
clear. So we don't personally do the
will of God perfectly. But the love of Christ constraineth
us to obey him as imperfectly as we do. But our righteousness
before God is Christ and what he did. We can't, by the deeds of the
law, no flesh be justified. We justified freely by his grace. How? Through the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus. We are righteous in him and by
faith in him. We are made partakers of His
holiness. That's why the Lord said to that
woman, your faith has saved you. Not because her faith was meritorious,
but because by God's gift of faith to us, we are united to
Him who has saved us in every sense of the word. Look at John
chapter 6, and I think this teaches this as clearly as anywhere in
the Scripture it's taught. John 6, 28. Then said they unto
him, what shall we do that we might work the works of God? All right, they're asking our
question pretty much, aren't they? How do we do the will of
God? How do we serve God? That father said to his son,
here's what I want you to do. How do we do that? How do we
do that in a spiritual sense? How do we work the works of God?
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God,
that you believe on him whom he hath sent. Do we see that
in our text? He said the publicans and harlots
are going to enter in before you. Why? Because they believed
John. Who came preaching what? There's
the Lamb of God that takes away sin. Preaching repentance. Exactly what we see in our parable. They repented. That's what John
preached. And he said the publicans and
harlots, generally speaking, who had said all their lives,
they shook their fist and God said, I will not, I will not
bow. No God for me. But when they
heard the gospel, they repented and submitted and said, Lord,
what would you have me do? That's what Paul, that's what
happened to Saul of Tarsus. He was saying, I will not, everywhere
he went until God came where he was and caused him to change
his mind and say, Lord, what do you want me to do? Father,
I'm your son. You just say the word, I'll do
it. All right, that you believe that you believe that's how the
will of God is fulfilled in us by faith in him who fulfilled
the will of God. Your faith doesn't fulfill his
will. The work of God is fulfilled
in you by you believing on Christ. And look at what he said, keep
reading there, verse 29. This is the work that you believe.
And they said therefore to him, what sign showest thou then that
we may see and believe thee? What dost thou work? And they
said, Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written.
He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto
them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that
bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from
heaven. For the bread of God is he which
cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. And they
said unto him, Lord, we want some of that. Life, life forevermore. Give us some of that bread. And
Jesus said unto them, I am. I am the bread. You see, this
whole conversation started out because he had fed them physical
food. And then they followed him around,
but he said to them, don't labor for the meat that perisheth,
but labor for the meat that I'm able to give you so that you'll
never hunger again. And that's what he's still teaching
them here. I'm the bread of life. He that
cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. But I said unto you that ye also
have seen me and believe not. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. Now think about this. He said
to them, this is the work of God that you believe on me. And
listen to what he's saying here. He said, I came down to do God's
will. You want to know how God's will
is done? What is the work of God? I came down here to do it.
And this is the father's will. You see how this applies to our
parable? He said, the publicans in Harlot said, I will not do
your will, but they repented afterwards and said, I will,
I will. How did that happen? I came down from heaven, not
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me, and
this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which
he hath given me, I should lose nothing. but should raise it
up again at the last day. You see how he's, when they said,
what do we got to do to work the work of God? He didn't point
them to the law and say, like he did that one man who came
to him on a footing of law. He said, keep the commandments
to them. He said, believe on me. I came down here and did
the work. Believe on me. I did the will
of God. I came down here to do the work
of God. And that work is this, that of all that He's given me,
I'm going to save them. I'm going to save them. I'm going
to live for them. I'm going to die for them. I
give them life. I give life to whomsoever I will.
I'm going to give it to them. I'm not going to lose any of
them. I'm going to raise them up again at the last day. And
this is the will of Him that sent me, which is the same thing,
but from a different perspective. Who are these ones who are going
to work the work of God, who are going to please God, who
are going to satisfy God? who are going to repent and do
God's will, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on
him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the
last day." They said, how do we work the work of God? He didn't
give them something to do. He pointed me to himself. Believe. Believe. And that's what was
in our parable. In Matthew 21 there, he said,
here's the reason that the publicans and harlots are going to enter
in, not because they're better than the Pharisees, but because
they repented. John came unto you, verse 32,
in the way of righteousness, and you believed him not. There's the will of the Father
right there. Know what he's talking about
here? Talking about doing the Father's will. Some said, I will
and didn't. Others said, I will not. But
then afterward, what happened? Repentance. You believed him
not, but the publicans and the harlots believed him. And you, when you had seen when
you had seen with your very eyes and could not deny. He said,
the miracles testify of me. And he said, more important than
that, my father testifies of me, who I am. And you've seen
it. You've seen that. You've seen me. You've heard
my words, but you did not believe. But the publicans and the harlots believed him. believed John,
his message, the gospel. And he said to us, go and preach.
And what did he say after that? Everyone that believeth, everybody
that believes your word, your preaching, I'll save them. I'll
save them. And those that don't believe
you, I'll damn them. So why did he curse the fig tree? Why did he say to these Pharisees,
you're not coming where I'm going. You're going to die in your sins.
And you can't come. Because of unbelief. Isn't that
what Paul said when he quoted that prophecy of old, when he
said they entered in, not in. Why? Because of unbelief. These
are written that you might believe. The work of God is not you keeping
his law. The work of God is his son coming
down here to do what we couldn't. Believe, faith in Christ, who
did the will of the Father perfectly. He said, I do always those things
that please my Father. He said, I will, and then he
did. He's not like either one of these
ones in the parable. He said, I will do it, and he
did do it. And so us ones who have been saying all of our lives,
I will not, how are you going to do His will? Believe. Let's
pray together.