“About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around.”
Matthew 20:6
We have come to the end of another year. The ending of a year is better than the beginning of that year. A year is begun with fear and trembling; it closes with joy and thankfulness. In the beginning of the year, we are like the sailor when he leaves port, hoists his sails, and goes out on the wide sea toward a distant land; at the end of the year, we are sometimes like that mariner when he throws his anchor overboard, and lies still in the haven. We have come into the harbor now, at the end of the year; and here we rest and gratefully review our voyage.
But, in coming to the end of another year, we have some solemn things to talk about, as well as some on which to congratulate ourselves. This is to be our subject, and may God make it both solemn and profitable for the wrapping-up of the old year: “At about the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around.” These words are taken from the parable of the workers in the vineyard. In this parable, the landowner went out early in the morning, and hired laborers to work in his vineyard; and later he went out again about 9 a.m., and also at around noontime, and then at 3 p.m., and finally he went out around 5 p.m., and did the same; and when the workers came to be paid, he gave to those who were hired at 5 p.m. the very same wages as to those whom he had hired at the beginning of the day.
We shall note, in our text, first, the sovereignty of divine grace; secondly, the mercy of God; and afterwards we will endeavor to make a solemn application of the passage to both old and young.
I. First, in our text, we see the SOVEREIGNTY OF DIVINE GRACE.
When we say divine sovereignty, we mean that God has the same rights which an absolute monarch has; that, just as a sovereign, under the old Jewish law, or under the Medes and Persians, had a right to do entirely as he willed with his subjects, and there was no one that could stop his hand, or say, “What are you doing?” So it is exactly the same with God, only in an infinitely higher and much more righteous sense. God is the absolute Monarch in this world, and has the unquestionable right to do with every one of us just whatever he pleases. The apostle Paul wisely asked, “Doesn’t the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?”
The doctrine of divine sovereignty is sadly often discarded, yet it must be proclaimed, even though men may bite their lips, and regardless of how angry they may be, to hear themselves humbled in the dust, and Jehovah God exalted as their Master.
This parable shows the sovereignty of God with regard to the calling of certain persons.
The landowner went out early in the morning, and called so many; he went out at 9 a.m., and called more; he went out at noon, at 3 p. m., and at 5 p. m., and still he found more persons unemployed. Did he find them expecting or seeking work? No; he found them “standing in the marketplace doing nothing.” They were not working, nor doing anything; he found them standing idle; and so, just as he pleased, he said to some of them, “Go and work in my vineyard.”
There is such a thing as divine sovereignty with regard to the choice of persons who are to be saved. If one man is saved, and not another, God has made the difference, and God has the right to make the difference. If my brother shall enter heaven, and I shall be sent to hell, God has a right to save my brother; and he would be righteous in my damnation, for I deserve it; and if my brother does not deserve to be saved-as he does not-yet God has a right to give salvation to him, and to withhold it from me, if it so pleases him. My soul falls down in abject submission at his feet; I have no rights when I come before the Almighty, I have no claims on him; I have sinned so much that, if he had sent my soul to hell, I should have richly deserved it. God has a right to do as he wills with his creatures; and he exhibits this right in his choice of those whom he calls to work in his vineyard.
But, again, divine sovereignty is exhibited in the time when the landowner called his people.
Some were called early in the morning; some at 9 a. m., some at noon, some at 3 p. m., and some at 5 p. m. The man who was called at 5 p. m. didn’t complain and say, “Why didn’t you call me in the morning?” The man who was called in the morning, though it is said that he afterwards murmured because he didn’t receive more pay than the last who were hired, yet, if he had been in his right mind, would have been thankful to the landowner that he had given him the honor of working in his vineyard, and had called him so early into it. It is a mercy to be effectually called by grace at any time; and we must not dictate to God when he will give us his grace.
God exercises his sovereignty in calling and converting sinners just when he pleases. We have some in our churches who have been Christians ever since they were four or five years of age; and others who were not converted until they were sixty or seventy. God calls his people out of the world, and from the service of sin and Satan, at all periods of life; and thus he exhibits his divine sovereignty in saving men and women just when he pleases. How often have I heard legalist preachers assert that, if a man is not saved before he is thirty, it is not likely that he will be saved at all; and that, if a man has attended church for thirty years, and is not saved, there is a possibility, but hardly a probability, that he will ever be saved. That is all nonsense, or something worse; because God is God, he saves whom he will, and he saves them when he will.
Our Lord said to Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” God is just as able to convert a man with gray hairs on his head as he is to convert a man of thirty; there is no difference. We all stand before him as sinners; and if he pleases to save a gray-headed man, he can do so. Men talk in the way I just mentioned in order to stir up the young to seek Christ; but little do they know that, while such language has little or no effect upon the young, on the other hand it often depresses the spirits of the old, and makes them think, “Surely, then, our hour of mercy is passed, and we cannot be saved.” And yet these same preachers quote Dr. Watts, and say-
“Life is the time to serve the Lord,
The time to insure the great reward;
And while the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return..”
“Life is the hour that God has given,
To escape from hell, and fly to heaven;
The day of grace, and mortals may,
Secure the blessings of the day.”
Yes, Beloved, as long as a man or woman is living in this world, and I am also living, I will preach the gospel to them; and if I could find “the wandering Jew”-if such a being ever existed-and he were nearly two thousand years of age, I would still preach the gospel even to him, and if he trusted Christ as his Savior, he would find mercy and salvation.
So divine sovereignty shows itself, first, in the calling of certain persons; and, next, in the time when those persons are called.
And, once again, there will be divine sovereignty in the ultimate reward of those who are called.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
