Today we are concluding our series on the parables of Christ by looking at the parable of the wedding feast. And I want to first consider the historical context in which this parable is given. This would have been Wednesday of the last week before Christ’s death. On Friday, He will be crucified. On Sunday, He will rise from the dead. For three years He has been preaching and teaching the Gospel of the kingdom. He has been presenting Himself as the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world. He has been offering an invitation into His kingdom to the people of Israel, the Jews. And now at the end of His ministry He has come into Jerusalem for the final act. He knows that the religious leadership have rejected Him as the Messiah. And in just two more days they will turn Him over to the Romans to be crucified.

On Monday, He had entered Jerusalem on a donkey to the sounds of crowds crying Hosanna! The common people expected Him to be king and to overthrow the Roman occupation and take the throne of David. But on Tuesday, instead of doing that, He went to the temple and overthrew the money changer’s tables and drove out the merchandisers from the temple. And in so doing, He sealed His fate with the High Priest, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They wanted Him dead.

So this is Wednesday, and He has come back to the temple, and this time He comes to preach. And in His message, He gives three parables, a trilogy of kingdom of heaven parables, which prophetically forecast the rejection by the Jews and the judgment that will befall them because they failed to accept Him as their Messiah and King.

The first parable He gives in this trilogy is the Parable of Two Sons. It is found in chapter 21 vs 28. “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. “The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I [will,] sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing [this,] did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.”

Jesus explains this simple parable to show that the religious Jews claimed to do the will of God, but actually did not, and thus would not enter into the kingdom of heaven, whereas the sinners who repented would enter the kingdom of heaven.

The second parable of the trilogy speaks of the judgment that will fall on those who rejected the gospel of the kingdom, which was again directed at the religious leadership of the Jews. Jesus said in vs 33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL AROUND IT AND DUG A WINE PRESS IN IT, AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?” They said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the [proper] seasons.” Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER [stone;] THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’? Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it.”

Now that parable is pretty self explanatory as well. But irregardless, in expounding it, Jesus makes it clear that He is speaking it about them, the religious Jews. That the kingdom of God will be taken away from them, and they will receive the judgment of God because of their rejection. Whereas the kingdom will be given to a people who will produce spiritual fruit.

And Matthew says that the Jews did recognize that He was speaking about them. I think it’s possible that they recognized Jesus was speaking of God as the Father, and He as the Son of God, and that they would kill Him. I think it’s possible that they even knew that He was the Messiah, but He was not the kind of Messiah that they wanted. He was going to destroy their livelihood, their financial rackets, and their position of power. Look at vs 45 “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. When they sought to seize Him, they feared the people, because they considered Him to be a prophet.” They had already planned on killing Him, but were just waiting for the right opportunity.

Now we come to the third parable in this trilogy, which we will look at in a little more detail, as Jesus gives more insight, and a different perspective on the same issue of rejection of the kingdom of God and the judgment due to those who do so. There are four parts to this parable, similar to four parts in a play. The first act we will call the invitation rejected.

The story is about the kingdom of heaven, which was the foremost topic of Jesus’s teaching. As we have repeatedly stressed, the kingdom of heaven is not speaking of what we often think of as heaven, per se, but is referring to the rule of heaven, the rule of God in the hearts of His people. It is a spiritual kingdom, where those who have been born of the Spirit have their life, their inheritance, in the realm of Christ.

Jesus says in vs 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. Again he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are [all] butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.”‘ But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them.”

So the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a wedding feast given by the King for His Son. A wedding was in those days the most important social event of a person’s life. And a royal wedding would have been the most important social event of a lifetime. Imagine being invited to attend Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding back in the early 80’s when that event occurred. It was perhaps the most prestigious, most desirable social event in England of the century.

Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven can be compared to that kind of wedding. He is taking the most important, significant event of person’s spiritual life and comparing it to a situation that can be more easily comprehended by mortal man -a wedding invitation by the royal family.

In those days, the wedding was not given a specific date. The exact timing of the bridegroom was something of a surprise. The general time frame would be known, and the invitation was given out to make the people aware that it could be very soon, on a moments notice.

We know from a previous parable we studied that the bridegroom is Christ, and the bride is HIs church. Jesus is saying in this parable that the invitations to the wedding feast had gone out. And as the moment arrived for the celebration, the slaves of the king were sent to those who had been invited to attend, but they were not interested in coming. It says in vs 3, “they were unwilling to come.” This was an unthinkable thing, that the people would not want to attend the king’s wedding celebration.

But the king responds to their rejection with graciousness. He sends out his slaves again, to ask them to come to the wedding feast. This time he adds that he has prepared this grand feast, the oxen and livestock have been butchered, and everything is ready. That indicates a tremendous expense on the part of the king, which was prepared for their enjoyment.

But they paid no attention to the second summons from the slaves. They went on about their business, one to his farm and one to his place of business. Such a callous display towards the king’s invitation would have been unthinkable. The listeners of Jesus would have been shocked to hear of such disregard for the king’s invitation. The first group of people in the parable were just too busy with their own agenda to be bothered with the king’s business. What they were doing seemed more important and more enjoyable.

As bad as that was, the second group of people Jesus describes are even worse. They take the king’s slaves and beat them, and murder them. In the context of the story, this is just outrageous behavior. Why would you beat up and murder the servants who invited you to the king’s celebration? It’s unthinkable.

Now what is Jesus describing here? I think it’s pretty clear. The king is a picture of God, the king’s son is the Christ, and the wedding celebration is an invitation to be part of the kingdom of His Son. The invitation had been given to the Jews. They were the ones first invited to enter the kingdom of heaven. They were the preferred guests, the priority list. The gospel was given to the Jews first. They were the called people of God.

And the kingdom was offered to them. They were invited as the special guests who were able to enter the kingdom. But they were not interested. They had their own agenda which they were more interested in. They were busy making money, doing deals. They were so callused that they refused the invitation again and again.

And even worse, they mistreated and killed the prophets that God sent to them. Jesus said in Luke 11:47 “Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and [it was] your fathers [who] killed them.” Vs 49 “For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and [some] of them they will kill and [some] they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation.”

That takes us to the second act, the rejecters punished. Verse 7, “But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire.” The king’s graciousness and mercy has an end. HIs patience has run out. His wrath is poured out on the rejecters, and it is justified. They have murdered His innocent servants, rather than submit to His rule and be a part of His administration. So the wrath of God is poured out on the Jews because they have rejected His invitation.

History tells us that just as Jesus depicts in this parable God burned the city of Jerusalem with fire in AD 70. Over a million Jews were killed when the Roman general Titus surrounded the city and in the process the temple was destroyed and burned. The remaining Jews were scattered all across Asia. God’s justice was served against a people that rejected His invitation, they rejected His grace, and they rejected His Son. Because Israel as a nation rejected the Messiah, God rejected them as nation. And so the invitation is given to others who will bear the fruit of it.

That brings us to the third act, the new guests are invited. We see that in vs 8 “Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find [there,] invite to the wedding feast.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.”

The instruction from the king is to go everywhere and get everyone that will come. That’s the mandate of the church’s mission, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” That’s the mission. Because of the rejection of Israel, we that were not a people have become the people of God. He has sent His message into every nation to everyone. “As many as you can find, invite them all to come.”

Vs 10 “Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.” The invitation to enter the kingdom of heaven is given to whomever will come. What Jesus is indicating here is that their acceptance of the invitation is the key to entering, not their morality, not either how good of a person they are, nor how bad of a person they are. It’s not dependent upon their nationality. But simply all who accept the invitation can enter. Accepting the invitation is the criteria, accepting the grace of God, not how good of a person you may be.

And that brings us to the last act, the intruder expelled. Vs 11 “But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few [are] chosen.”

So this great crowd of people who accepted the invitation were in the wedding hall. And there is one man who is not dressed in the wedding garment. Now we are not told exactly what this garment looked like, nor exactly how it is given, nor how this man does not have it. But what we can assume is that it correlates to the robe of righteousness which God provides to those who believe in Christ and have accepted Him as their Lord and Savior.

We find direct correlation to this robe of righteousness that all who enter must wear, in Isaiah 61:10 which says, “I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

The hymn we often sing, “The Solid Rock” has a line which speaks to this, which says, “Dressed in HIs righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.” The robe of righteousness is one that we receive by faith from Christ. It’s His righteousness. Our sins are transferred to Him, and His righteousness is transferred to us. That’s what 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God caused Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” It’s Christ’s righteousness which becomes our wedding garment, without which no one can enter the kingdom of heaven.

This man without the wedding garment is asked by the king, “Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?” And the man was speechless. He had no answer. When we stand before God in all His holiness, we will be ever so aware of our own sinfulness. We will have no excuse. In our natural state, many people think that they are a pretty good person. I can’t tell you how often I hear people say that. Somehow, in spite of all that they have done wrong and all the good that they have not done in this life, they somehow think deep down inside I’m really a good person. Well, when the day comes when they stand before God and they see themselves in the light of righteousness and perfect holiness, then they will throw themselves prostrate on the ground and say as Isaiah said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”

I want you to notice that the garment which the guests received was provided by the King. It was given to them. They did not already have it, they could not earn it, but when they accepted the invitation it was given to them. That gift is called grace. Eph.2:8,9 “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it’s a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”

So this man who rejected the garment is in effect no better than the Jews who rejected their Messiah. He is indifferent. He doesn’t value the garment which the King provided. He wants the benefits of the kingdom perhaps, but He doesn’t think that the means by which he is granted an invitation is important. He thinks he can do it his own way.

I think one of the most tragic songs I have ever heard is the song by Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way.” I remember after he passed away a few years ago, and hearing all these tributes about him on the radio, and they all seemed to want to play that song. And I just couldn’t help but wonder where he was at that moment, and if living life his way, according to his agenda and his set of standards, was good enough to enter the kingdom of heaven. I don’t know the state of his soul, but I know the standard for heaven, and it’s not doing it your way. It’s not entered according to how you think God should be, or based on your own merits. But entrance is only admitted through Jesus Christ.

I know that when I stand at the gate of Paradise, and perhaps some angel says to me, “Friend, what are you doing here?” My only plea will be, “I am with Him. Jesus Christ invited me to come, and He has provided the garment of righteousness required to enter.”

Well, this man had no answer. He was speechless. And so the king said “bind him up and throw him into outer darkness. in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Listen, the Bible says hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. Hell wasn’t made for you and me. Paradise was made for you and me. God has prepared a place beyond our imagination for those that love Him. But when we reject Jesus, we reject Paradise and choose to listen to the enemy, and as such they that do so will suffer the same fate as he who they chose to obey.

Jesus closes this parable with a very simple statement, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” The call has gone out to the world, but only a few are chosen. The gospel invitation is sent out everywhere to everyone. Some are indifferent. Some are hostile. Some try to crash the wedding party on their own terms. But few are chosen. And with the word “chosen,” we’re introduced to the sovereignty of God in salvation. I think we can parse this word from a lot of different perspectives, but the one perspective I want to focus on is the sovereign act of God in granting salvation, granting righteousness to those who believe. You believe, and God grants you the kingdom. He graciously bestows upon you an inheritance in the kingdom. He makes you His child and gives you all the benefits of an heir.

But the great emphasis that Jesus gives in this parable is not on the election of God, but the acceptance of the invitation by man. He has extended to you that invitation today, to join HIs kingdom, to receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ and become a child of God. The question is, will you come to Him and bow to Him and believe in Him, that you may be dressed in the robe of righteousness by which you may enter? Come to Him today. The invitation is given to you.

We are continuing in our series on the parables of Jesus, and today we have come to a trilogy of parables which I believe are teaching a similar principle, albeit from differing perspectives.  These parables are part of a greater sermon that Jesus taught which is called the Olivet Discourse.  

Last week we looked at another parable from this sermon, which comes directly before these three. It is the parable of the sower. If you will recall, in that parable Jesus spoke of four types of soil, representing four conditions of the heart, all of which received the seed which was the word of God, but two failed to produce any real spiritual growth, one produced growth which was choked by weeds and thorns and did not produce fruit, and then one soil, the good soil, which produced varying degrees of fruitfulness.

Now the first parable in this series of three sort of builds on the parable of the sower by using a similar illustration of sowing.  Some aspects are similar, and some are different. For instance, in the previous parable Jesus taught that there were four types of soil, indicating believers and non-believers.  In this next parable, He teaches that there are two types of seed. 

Let’s consider then the parable of the wheat and the tares.  Jesus said, ““The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away.”  

I have repeatedly explained in our study of the parables that when Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven, He is not speaking of the eternal abode of the righteous, or a place somewhere in outer space where God lives and the saints shall live with Him.  But Jesus is speaking of the sovereign reign of God.  The Bible says that heaven is My throne, and the earth is my footstool.  God is the creator of the world, and He rules over the world.  Not all the people in the world have submitted to Him as Sovereign, but one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.  Until that day, when He is revealed from heaven in power and glory, men are given the gospel, an invitation, that the way to gain citizenship in the kingdom has been offered through Jesus Christ.  That invitation was given when Jesus came to earth the first time. Men are given the opportunity to receive Him in this age and be spiritually reborn as sons and daughters of God.  And then when the King returns in His glory at the end of the age, those who are His people will join Him to live and reign with Him forever, but those who rejected Him during their life, will be cast out of the kingdom into eternal punishment. 

So when Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven, He is speaking of the intermediate age between the first coming and the second coming of the King.  It is the age in which we live on earth now.  God is on the throne in heaven, and He is over all the earth.  He has established His rule and law and proclaimed the good news of the kingdom and invited all who believe to enter.  And at the end of this age He will come again to judge the earth and consummate the final age of His kingdom on earth. 

The teaching of the kingdom of heaven was nothing new to the Jewish audience that listened to Jesus.  But they had a distorted view of what that would look like.  They were expecting the Messiah to be King, and to take up the throne of David in Jerusalem, to defeat the enemies of Israel, and establish Israel as the nation of God, which dominates the world, and to whom the world serves.  They expected a kingdom on earth, but with Israel as the people of God, and the rest of the world to be in subjection to them, or to be destroyed by the Messiah.  They expected that reign to begin immediately upon the inauguration of the Messiah and that it would never end.  They did not understand that it would be a spiritual kingdom for a long time, during which both righteousness and evil would be in effect on the earth for what has been 2000 years now, until the day when the Messiah returns to consummate that kingdom.

So when Jesus teaches concerning the kingdom of heaven, He is in effect correcting, if not  overturning the stereotypical views of the Jews.  And it must have been difficult for them to understand because like most people, they heard what they wanted to hear.  That’s why Jesus concluded the previous parable by saying, those that have ears to hear, let them hear.  Their hearing was hindered because they did not have spiritual insight.

The disciples,  on the other hand, did have spiritual insight, and so after Jesus had given the parable to the multitude, He went in the house, in vs 36, and the disciples asked Him then to explain the parable to them.

The interesting thing which Jesus taught,  is that during the present age, as the kingdom of heaven is in effect, there are those who are in subjection to the king, and those that are not. He says in vs 38, the field is analogous to the world. The entire world belongs to the king.  Those that have submitted to the King are those illustrated in the previous parable as the good soil.  They received the word of God, the seed, the gospel, and that seed sown in good ground has produced spiritual life.  And a similar analogy is given in this parable; Jesus says the good seed that was sown by the sower are the sons of the kingdom.

But in the parable Jesus says that there is an enemy of the king, who sowed tares among the wheat while the king’s men were sleeping.  In HIs interpretation of the parable Jesus identifies the enemy as the sons of the evil one.  These are those who have believed the lies of Satan. They are not concerned about the things of God because they have believed the lie rather than the truth. And so consequently they are doing the devil’s work in spreading lies and deceit amongst the world.

The idea of this happening while his men were sleeping is something that should be elaborated on.  There was a book that was written by John F. Kennedy while he was still a young man at Harvard.  And the book was titled, “Why England Slept.”  It was about how England and other western countries seemed to sleep while Hitler was ascending to power and preparing to take over Europe.  

A similar reference was made by many people regarding the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor.  While America was asleep, the warplanes of Japan were making their descent upon the unsuspecting forces in Pearl Harbor.  That same stealthy kind of approach by the enemy is what Jesus is referring to here in this parable.  It indicates the way in which the enemy works.  He is deceitful.  He works by lying, by subterfuge. He takes advantage of darkness, which is an idiom for ignorance.  And he works by counterfeiting.  The tares look like wheat.

It also indicates that Satan takes advantage of the lethargy and slumber of the church.  The job of the church is to be the watchman, to be wakeful, to be on the alert.  Peter says, be on the alert, because your adversary the devil goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  But the devil is working while we are sleeping.   There was an album that came out years ago by Neil Young, called Rust Never Sleeps.  That may be said about the devil.  He is working 24/7 knowing that his time is short.  But meanwhile, the church seems to be taking a perpetual nap, while the corruption that is in the world is spreading at a frightful pace.

Jesus said the enemy sowed tares among the wheat.  Tares look like wheat when they are young, but in fact produce a poisonous fungus which makes a person sick.  That sickness is a pretty apt illustration of the nature of the lie of Satan. He promises happiness and fulfillment but in the end it only produces death. And the field which is the world receives the lie of Satan and they become corrupted and poisoned by sin which produces death.

That illustrates an important principle which I mentioned a moment ago.  The work of Satan is often a work of counterfeiting the gospel with another gospel.  A gospel without power, without conviction, without repentance, without the cross, without  judgment. Someone has aptly said, “Where the good seed is sown, there the evil is scattered thickest. False christs and false apostles dog the true like their shadows. Every truth has its counterfeit.”  Satan masquerades as an angel of light, and his message is a lie construed to look like the truth.

We have counterfeit churches in which the true gospel is not proclaimed. We have counterfeit ministries in which the Word of God is not taught. We have counterfeit ministers who open up the Bible and who twist it into false doctrine.  In other words, the counterfeit is always there in the presence of the true, and it is very easy to be misled by them if we are not students of the Bible, and come to the Lord and ask him to explain His word for us.

In the parable, the servants of the landowner come and ask him “‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’  That would seem to be the logical conclusion.  But Jesus says the landowner replies, “No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

What that indicates is that there is a danger to uprooting the counterfeit.  In an actual field of wheat, the roots of the tares may be intertwined with the wheat.  Pulling up the bad would perhaps inadvertently uproot the good. Also, the similarity between the two may be cause for a mistake to be made by the reapers.  And so Jesus says let them both grow.

I think it’s a mistake to try to draw too many conclusions from some elements of the story, particularly this element of not uprooting the tares until harvest. I”m not sure that we can draw too many analogies from that and be certain of our deductions. We might be tempted to say that perhaps even a false teacher could lead someone to become a believer.  And that may be one way of looking at it.  However, what I think the salient  point that Jesus is teaching is that the angels of God will wait until the judgment to separate the wheat from the tares.  I don’t think that Jesus is saying that we should not identify false teaching or should not call out false teachers.  There is plenty of evidence in scripture that indicates that we should call out false teaching and we should warn others concerning it.

But that is not what Jesus is primarily teaching here.  I think the primary lesson that He is illustrating is that both wheat and tares will be allowed to grow until the harvest.  And at the harvest, it will be clear which are wheat and which are tares, because the fruit will be evident.  The point is that there will be a judgment which will determine the sons of the kingdom from the sons of the evil one. Jesus said, “Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Jesus expounds on that in vs 40 “So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.”

I want you to notice that in the parable, Jesus refers to the tares as being burned, and in the interpretation of the parable Jesus again says that that lawless and stumbling blocks will thrown into the furnace of fire.  The point being that in both the parable and the interpretation, fire is fire.  The fire doesn’t symbolize something that is not fire.  So we don’t see the terror of hell which is symbolized by fire,  diminished in any way by the interpretation, but actually the reality of hell is reinforced.  The fact of a burning, actual fiery hell that lasts forever is clearly illustrated in this message.

But while the judgment at the end of the age is given great emphasis, the main point of the parable is that both wheat and tares are sown in the kingdom, and will be allowed to continue to grow until the day when Christ returns, and at that time will come the judgment.

And another point that is illustrated in the interpretation of the parable is that the deeds of the unrighteous will be the evidence that they never were converted. Jesus calls them stumbling blocks and those that commit lawlessness.  And by inference, the deeds of the righteous will be the proof that they are sons of the kingdom, even as the fruitfulness was an indication in the previous parable.  Deeds are not the means of salvation, but deeds are the evidence of it, or the evidence that you are not of the kingdom.  That should be clear from the parables. 

Now there are two other parables that Jesus gives immediately after the wheat and the tares. These two are not interpreted by Jesus.  However, I believe the key to a proper interpretation is found in the fact that they come in the sermon before the interpretation of the wheat and the tares.  And so I think that positioning indicates that they are part of a trilogy of parables which are teaching a similar principle, only one of which will be interpreted, but the juxtaposition of the other two before the interpretation means that they share in that interpretation.

Notice then the parable of the mustard seed. Jesus said in vs31 “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field;  and this is smaller than all [other] seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that THE BIRDS OF THE AIR come and NEST IN ITS BRANCHES.”

In this parable we see that the birds of the air nest in the branches of the mustard tree when it is full grown.  If we use the principle of expositional constancy, then we can deduce that the birds are a picture of the devil and his angels as identified in the parable of the sower.  In that parable Jesus says the birds who snatch away the seed is the evil one.  

The sower would be Jesus, if we follow the exposition of the previous parable. In this case, the mustard tree would be the church, which springs up from the good seed, which when fully grown becomes a tree big enough to have birds nest in it’s branches.  

What Jesus is illustrating here is similar to that of the wheat and the tares.  Within the kingdom exists both wheat and tares, both good and evil.  And within the church, the offshoot of the seed, exists both good and evil.  The devil and his angels find safe haven in the church.  We saw that same principle in the previous parable with the idea of counterfeit churches, and a counterfeit gospel.  Satan has always found a suitable site for subterfuge in the branches of the church, counterfeiting the truth with a lie.

Another thing that is worth pointing out about this parable is that a mustard seed does not produce a tree that big, but is actually a bush. Jesus seems to lay stress on the fact that this plant grows bigger than the other plants in the garden to become a tree.   A mustard seed producing a tree is abnormal growth.  And so we can see that what Jesus is teaching is that the church grows abnormally large, and as a result it harbors false teachers and false churches within it.  But if we apply the same teaching about the end of the age which we have seen previously, then at the end of the age, the fruit of the church will be evident and will precipitate the judgment of the unrighteous who have counterfeited the gospel.

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t say that the interpretation I have presented of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven, is not the mainstream interpretation.  Most traditional commentators have taken the approach that the mustard seed is a picture of the church which will expand throughout the age and throughout the world. They say the same thing about the leaven, that it’s a picture of the church’s rise and prominence in the world.  That may be true, or not true, but either way I don’t think that is what Jesus is teaching.  Again, besides the principle of expositional constancy, I would point to another evidence for my view as the positioning of these two parables.  They are a continuation of the principle being taught in the wheat and tares, which is interpreted after they are all presented, signifying that they all share in that interpretation. 

Now that being said, let’s look at the last parable in this trilogy which I think will verify my position even further.  Vs 33 “He spoke another parable to them, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.”  All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable.  [This was] to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “I WILL OPEN MY MOUTH IN PARABLES; I WILL UTTER THINGS HIDDEN SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.””

This parable of the leaven is very short and simple.  And yet it too is often misinterpreted as a picture of the growth of the church.  But the problem with that is that leaven is always presented in the Bible as a picture of sin and corruption. Jesus on at least a couple of occasions preached, “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” They were the stumbling blocks which prohibited the Jews from coming to Christ.  He was speaking of the corrupt teaching which was being done by them which kept the Jews in bondage.  And in the Passover, leaven is a picture of sin, and they were to search out the house for leaven and throw it out, and eat unleavened bread.  It was a  picture of getting rid of the sinful, corrupting influences of the world.

So if you are consistent with that symbolism, then the woman taking flour and adding leaven to it until it was all leavened is not a picture of the church growing in a good way, but growing in a bad way.  The leaven is a corrupting influence which causes the dough to rise.  And so the corrupting influence of sin in the church spreads to all the church.

We also see a similarity in the woman hiding the leaven in the dough, and the enemy sowing the tares while they were sleeping.  Both indicate the stealthy, subversive nature of the tactics of the enemy to sow bad seed in the church.

The idea of hiding leaven in three measures of meal would have offended any observant Jew. This certainly isn’t a picture of the church gradually influencing the whole world for good. Rather, in the context of increasing opposition to His work, Jesus announced that His church would be influenced by corruption and false teaching and a tolerance for sin.

In the final analysis, we must examine ourselves in light of these parables as to whether or not we are truly sons and daughters of the kingdom, or whether we have been deceived by the lie of the devil and are actually children of rebellion.  Jesus said by their fruits you shall know them.  Those who have confessed Jesus as Lord have received the righteousness of Christ resulting in being born again spiritually as children of God.  And as such, they have a new nature, and their deeds are evidence of that.  Those that are in rebellion are still in their sins, and are  still carnal, and their lawless deeds are evidence of their nature.  

The difference might not be easily seen.  On the surface, the regenerate and the unregenerate may look the same.  But God sees the heart.  And on the day when we all are judged at Christ’s appearing, God will separate the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the unrighteous, and the wheat from the tares. 

If you are here today and you have realized in your heart that you have never been born again spiritually through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, then you still have the opportunity to surrender to Jesus Christ today.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  Today Jesus invites you to join His kingdom.  I pray that you will call upon Him today and be delivered from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of Jesus Christ.  Don’t put it off.  Call upon the Lord today and be saved.  

Today, of course, is the holiday we call Easter. The origins of this holiday are not completely clear. Some people think that the Emperor Constantine changed a pagan holiday on this date to become a day which the resurrection of Christ would be celebrated. That cannot be verified. But we do know that by the time of Martin Luther and the Reformation, the association by Christians with Easter as a celebration of the resurrection was pretty much established. So much so that the translators of the King James Version substituted the word Easter for the original word Passover in Acts 12:4. Most of our modern versions do not have that substitution. The NASB, for instance, reads the passover, not Easter.

So consequently, we do not actually find Easter mentioned in the scriptures. However, we do celebrate the Lord’s resurrection every Sunday. It being the day of His resurrection, the first day of the week, we come together to worship the Lord.

One aspect of the resurrection though that is rarely considered is how it applies to me. The Bible says in 1Cor. 15:20-22 “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man [came] death, by a man also [came] the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” So we learn from that there is a resurrection for us that believe, in the same way that Christ was resurrected.

But in a manner of speaking there are two resurrections for the believer. The first is when we are dead in our sins, and made alive in Christ. There is a resurrection from death to life which is our spiritual rebirth. It is when we become a Christian. Jesus said you must be born again by the Spirit. Salvation then, comes as a result of first dying to the old man, and then being born again as a new man by the Spirit of God. And then at Christ’s second coming, there will be a bodily resurrection, at the last trumpet, when the dead in Christ will rise first and meet the Lord in the air. At that point our bodies will be changed from corruption to that which is incorruptible. It will be changed from mortal to immortal. But first comes the spiritual regeneration, when we die to the old man and are born again in the Spirit.

In speaking of the bodily resurrection from the dead, Paul said in 1 Cor.15:36, “That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.” Now he is speaking of the resurrection from the dead there. But it also can apply to our regeneration, when we die to the flesh, and are raised up to live with Christ, to walk from that point on by the Spirit, and not by the flesh any longer.

Now I don’t intend on preaching a typical Easter message today. But I did want to make the point that the importance of Christ’s resurrection has greater implications than simply His body coming out of the tomb. But because He lives, we live. Because He was resurrected we shall be resurrected. However, I also think that this principle of resurrection to new life is illustrated to some degree by the parable we are studying today. As most of you should know, we have been studying the parables of Jesus for a number of weeks now, and today we come to what is known as the Parable of the Soils.

This chapter is a continuation of a long day of teaching that Jesus did beginning in chapter 12. That same day, according to vs 1 of chapter 13, Jesus sat by the seashore. Jesus teaching at the beach seems to be a common occurrence in the gospels, as most of the time His teaching was outdoors. And on this occasion such large crowds gathered to Him that he moved to a boat and the crowds came near the waterline to hear Him.

Jesus began to teach them, and He spoke to them in parables. Just as a reminder, a parable is not a morality tale, it’s not an allegory. It is a fictional illustration set in the physical world used to teach spiritual principles. The first story that He tells is one that would be readily appreciated by his audience, who were from an agrarian culture, people that would easily understand and relate to this illustration of sowing and reaping. Not only that, but surrounding the Sea of Galilee were farm fields on the hillsides which could have been in the process of being sown at that very moment. And so the people could have been hearing Jesus describe what their eyes were witnessing in the distance at that very moment.

Now we are also fortunate, because in this parable, which is not always the case, Jesus explains the parable later to the disciples. So we can be certain that we understand what He was teaching. So there are two parts to this passage, the first part is the telling of the parable which the crowd received, and then the explanation of the parable which the disciples received. And there is an interlude in between where Jesus explains why that is so.

So Jesus presents the parable to the crowd on the beach saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some [seeds] fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.”

Now that’s all that the crowd got to hear. They had to figure it out from there. And I have to say that even though the crowd was from an agrarian culture, and they probably had living examples on the hillsides doing the exact thing that Jesus was speaking of, they probably had no clue as to what He was really saying. Perhaps the best that they could extract from it would have been something along the lines of – most of your work will be unprofitable, but if you do a lot of it, some will be profitable. So perhaps they thought the moral of the story is to work hard and some of it will pay off eventually. After all, there was no real reason for the people to be see a spiritual application in that story. Everything that the gospels tell us makes it pretty clear that the multitudes who were drawn to Christ were really only looking for physical “blessings” in the way of food, or healing, or being able to have Israel reinstated as an independent monarchy under the reign of the Messiah who would be an actual king and would defeat their enemies.

There inability to discern the truth of the parable is why Jesus ends the story with the cryptic phrase; “he who has ears, let him hear.” This was not a call for all to listen. Rather, it was a call for those who were spiritually aware to understand the spiritual lesson being taught. It was said in recognition that they were not spiritually listening. They were only interested in physical things. But Jesus is saying that there is more than physical lessons here. There is a spiritual lesson which they needed to hear, but they first needed to gain spiritual awareness.

So Jesus has this great big crowd who have all come to see Him. And He gives them this cryptic sermon that they can’t possibly figure out on their own and He walks off the beach. And the disciples, I imagine, think that Jesus has blown a good opportunity. He failed to make the message clear, and bring it home with a suitable sentimental story and an invitation to walk the isle repeat this prayer after me.

So perhaps reproachfully, they say, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” There might have been a huge number of people who made a commitment to follow Christ that day, but instead, He left a lot of people on the beach scratching their heads, asking one another, “what did it mean to you?”

So the disciples question why Jesus taught in parabl, and He answers by saying in vs 11 “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him [more] shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’ But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see [it,] and to hear what you hear, and did not hear [it.]”

Now that answer deserves a message of it’s own to plumb all the depths of what Jesus said. But we aren’t going to take the time to parse it all this morning. However, the gist of what Jesus is saying is that it takes spiritual life, new eyes and new ears that are spiritually tuned, in order to understand the spiritual truth of the parable. The disciples had that new life. The multitudes did not.

In His answer Jesus revisits the principle we talked about last week in regards to the Parable of the Talents. That to him who has, more shall be given, and him who does not have, even what he has shall be taken away. And if you remember we said that which they had was spiritual life, and those that did not have spiritual life would even lose what they did have, which was natural life. Jesus says the same thing here in regards to why He speaks in parables. If they don’t have spiritual life, then they cannot understand spiritual truth.

It really goes back to what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3. You must be born again. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Without being born again, without new eyes and new ears, there can be no understanding of spiritual things.

Then Jesus explains the parable to the disciples. He says, hear then the parable of the sower. I originally called my message the Parable of the Soils. That seemed to make sense to me, and besides, that’s what most commentators called it. But Jesus calls it the parable of the sower. And so I changed my title. It’s Jesus’s story, and I suppose He knows best.

However, the tendency to call it the parable of the soils is due to the fact that Jesus describes four types of soil in the parable. He gives practically no description of the sower. We are not even told who he is. But we can deduce that the sower is Jesus Christ Himself. And we can find justification for that in another parable,

There is a parable which we will look at next week which begins in vs 24 of this chapter, called the parable of the wheat and the tares. And Jesus explains that parable in vs 37, saying, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man…”

I’ve mentioned before a principle of hermeneutics called expositional constancy, that means symbols in scripture seem to have the same meaning. And you might be able to make that case here. It’s safe to say that if the Lord is the sower in one place, He certainly could be the sower in another place. After all, the good seed comes from Him, doesn’t it? That’s not a stretch. So we could conclude then that the one who sows initially is the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who has the word of life.

And that assumption clues us in on what is the seed in the parable. The seed is the word of God. Jesus calls it in vs 19 “the word of the kingdom.” It could also mean the message of the kingdom. Luke records this same parable and in Luke 8:11 he adds “the seed is the Word of God.” So the message of the kingdom is contained in the Word of God. Jesus began His ministry preaching the kingdom of God is at hand. Over and over again He has given instructions concerning the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven. The message is that Jesus is the King of the kingdom of heaven, and His rule is over heaven and earth. The message is the good news, the gospel, that God has made a way for man to enter into His kingdom, and receive the blessings of the kingdom. The blessings of the kingdom are life, spiritual life, abundant life, eternal life. So the gospel, the word of God, is the seed which Jesus Christ is spreading abroad over the earth.

And I think the point should be emphasized that without the word of God a man cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus doesn’t give an example here of a patch of soil in which no seed was cast, because that should be obvious. Without seed, there can be no growth, no life. So it’s important that we recognize the essentiality of the word of God in salvation. I could say a lot about that, but we don’t have time. However, I do want to emphasize it, because I’m afraid that so often today the word of God is being de-emphasized. We substitute all kinds of things in the church for the preaching of the word, singing, skits, dramas, films, etc. And we wonder why people are not saved. Paul said in 1Cor. 1:18 “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Now that brings us to the soil. Jesus gives us four types of soil. And the soil symbolizes the heart of man. The heart, when spoken of spiritually, is really the soul. It is the seat of man’s intellect, emotions and will. Jesus references the aspect of the intellect especially in the first soil, the packed hard road beside the field. There were byways through the farmer’s fields that allowed people to traverse across their property without trampling on the crops. And these byways were not cultivated. They were hard packed. And some of the seed cast by the sower falls on the hard packed soil that is not broken up. It lays on top and Jesus says the birds of the air come and eat the seed.

He says when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. So we see in that statement several things. First, the necessity to understand the word. That incorporates the intellect. Secondly, the birds are interpreted as the evil one. That references the devil and his angels, and Jesus indicates that they can snatch away the word of God. The word of God is foolishness to these people who don’t understand it. So they disregard it, and the devil makes sure that it is dismissed as foolishness and not brought back to their mind. And the third thing Jesus teaches in that statement is that the soil is the heart. The word of God was sown in the heart.

Romans 10:10 says, “for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” The first soil illustrates a hard, unbelieving heart in which the word is not received.

Jesus next interprets the rocky soil. Vs20 “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.”

Rocky soil is soil that is a very thin layer of dirt over a bed of rock. And because the root can’t go down, the growth spurts up, but when the sun becomes hot, there is no moisture in the soil and the plant wilts and eventually dies. Jesus interprets this as a person who hears the word, but has not counted the cost of discipleship. This is what I spoke of earlier, in order for the seed to grow, it must first die. There is a cost to Christianity, a cost to following Christ. It requires a sacrifice of your will, for doing His will. Some people are happy to accept that Jesus died for their sins so that they can receive the blessings of God. But they don’t realize that they need to die to their flesh as well. Jesus said take up your cross and follow Me. That’s what it means to confess Jesus as Lord. These people were not saved and then lost it, they were never saved at all. They had a superficial salvation, but never a true conversion.

The third soil is the thorny soil. Charles Spurgeon gave a great sermon on just this soil alone. He hardly mentioned the other soils, just the thorny soil. And perhaps because if I had to guess this is the most pervasive one. Thorns are pervasive, aren’t they? I noticed again yesterday that the first things to get green in the field around my house is the thorns. They take over. You don’t need to plant thorns, they are naturally prolific.

Jesus said in vs22 “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” I’ve always had a question in my mind whether or not this person is saved or unsaved. The first two were clearly unsaved. This one I’m not so sure. I think the indication is that if he persists in that condition then he is unsaved. But perhaps there is a chance that this person is saved, he has new life, but he backslides. He turns back to the things of the world that he was supposed to have forsaken. He becomes so enamored with the world again and the pursuit of money, or his career, or something that is carnal, fleshly, that it chokes the spiritual life to the point that it doesn’t produce fruit.

But maybe I’m being overly generous in that assumption this person could be saved. Because Jesus says in Matt. 7:16-20 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn [bushes] nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.” So, the bottom line is that a life that does not bear fruit is not truly a Christian. Perhaps there is a time where God has to do some pruning, some cutting away, some cultivation in order to take away the thorns and weeds which are choking out the life, but the bottom line is that fruit is the evidence of spiritual life and the lack of fruit is evidence of no spiritual life.

Well that leads to the last type of soil, and that is the good soil. The seed which fell on the good soil *yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. Jesus said in vs 23 “And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.” The number of the fruit there is not of primary importance. But what is important about the good soil is that it is fruitful. How much may depend on other conditions. But the point is that believers bear fruit.

The question is, what is fruit? A common misconception is that fruit is leading other people to Christ. That may play a part in it, but that is not specifically what Jesus is talking about. Fruit is righteousness. It’s a life of righteousness. Not just being declared righteous by faith, resulting in justification. But living righteously, which is sanctification.

I’ll give you a couple of verses to support that. Phil. 1:9-11 says, “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which [comes] through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” The fruit of righteousness. It comes through Christ living in you. No longer you living for your desires, but Christ living in you.

Another is Heb. 12:10-11 talking about our earthly fathers, “For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He [disciplines us] for [our] good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” There it is again, the fruit of righteousness, sharing in God’s holiness.

Righteousness is the fruit of the new life. John said in 1John 3:7 “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” That’s the evidence of being truly saved. That’s the evidence of being a Christian. There is a new life of righteousness which is evident to the world.

That life of righteousness is what the scripture refers to as sanctification. Hebrews 12:14 says, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” Sanctification is holiness, righteousness. It is being holy because He is holy. And so let me close by saying this. Examine yourselves this morning in the light of this parable. Which soil do you think characterizes the state of your heart? Do you not understand this message and are going to forget about it as soon as it’s over? That’s the soil by the road. Or are you like the rocky soil? You had some sort of spiritual experience once and because of that you think you are saved. But in reality the word of God has never taken root in your heart. And so there has not been any spiritual life.

Or do you recognize yourself as the soil that is thorny? You believed the word, you have had some spiritual growth, but the the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth are choking the word, and your life is unfruitful. If that’s the case, you need to uproot those thorns, confess your sin to the Lord and ask Him to cleanse you, to renew a right spirit within you. Repentance is the plow that produces good soil, which results in the fruit of righteousness.

Psalm 51:10, 12, 17 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. … 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit. … 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

Today we are looking at another parable of Jesus which is called the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  That’s a title that was given by the translators and editors of the original manuscripts.  It’s not phrase that would have been understood by Jesus’s audience.  That phrase would have been considered by Jesus’s listeners as an oxymoron.  In the opinion of most Jews of that day, the only good Samaritan would have been a dead Samaritan.  Samaritans were considered people of the lowest, most despicable character.  They were half breeds who were the descendants of those Jews left in the land of Israel during the exile under the rule of the Assyrians and who had intermarried with their oppressors and produced an offspring called the Samaritans.  They not only were looked down upon, but the Samaritans themselves added insult to injury by building their own temple and adapting certain pagan rituals in their worship.

But before we delve too far into all the particulars of the Samaritan in Jesus’s story, we must consider the context in which Jesus gives this story.  It is given in response to a conversation with a lawyer, an expert in Jewish law.   And the lawyer asked Jesus how he could obtain eternal life. Notice how Luke describes it though.  “And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

It would seem that this man was not genuinely seeking the wisdom of Jesus concerning eternal life because he recognized that Jesus was the Son of God and was the way to life.  But his motive seems to be to put Jesus to the test.  He is trying to catch Jesus saying something that was contrary to the law. The religious rulers were constantly testing Jesus, trying to entrap Him in something that He might say.  

So this lawyer asks a good question, but with an ulterior motive.  In fact, it’s the most important question that any person could ask. You could say that it is mankind’s greatest question, which reveals man’s greatest need.  We looked a couple of weeks ago at the rich, young ruler who asked virtually the same question; “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Unlike this lawyer, the young ruler’s question was sincere.  But Jesus answered him much the same way that he answered this man.  In answer to his question, Jesus turned him to the law.  

Now this man was a lawyer – he was supposed to be an expert in interpreting Biblical law.  And so Jesus responds to his question with a question; Vs 26 Jesus said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 

I think it’s noteworthy that when this lawyer or the rich young ruler asked how to enter into eternal life, Jesus did not give them a gospel tract and tell him to repeat the sinner’s prayer after me. You know, 21st century evangelical Christianity wants their theology reduced down  to a simple formula.  Do these three things, or take these three steps and “presto” you are saved, you will avoid hell, and you will live forever in heaven.  But Jesus never seems to use a formula or a prescription for salvation.  He rarely gives a pat answer.  Jesus’s response should raise a caution flag for us when we try to teach people how to lead someone to salvation through some formulaic prayer.

In fact, seemingly contrary to all evangelical, grace dominated church doctrine, Jesus turns this man to the law.  That would seem to put the Romans Road plan of salvation on it’s ear.  Except, if you listen carefully to what Jesus taught, He isn’t teaching that keeping the law is the way to salvation.  He is teaching that righteousness is the means of salvation. Jesus points them to the law so that they might understand God’s standard of righteousness. But as Paul says in Galatians 3:24 that the law is our schoolteacher to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. The law reveals God’s standard of righteousness which we all fall short of, necessitating a righteousness which we receive from Christ by faith.

So Jesus refers this man to the law to show this man his need for salvation.  And the lawyer  responds by quoting the two great commandments, which as Jesus said in Matthew 22 all the law was summarized in these two commandments.  And the lawyer shows that he obviously knows that as well by his response, saying; “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”

The amazing thing though is how Jesus responds to this man’s answer.  Jesus says, “You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE.”  Jesus unconditionally says “if you do these two commandments you will have eternal life.” Now that would seem to fly in the face of evangelical, reformed doctrine.  But we have to accept it as Jesus said it, without caveat.

However, let me hasten to say that perfect obedience to the law is righteousness.  Jesus is not saying occasional righteousness gives eternal life.  He is not saying that if your righteousness outweighs your unrighteousness then you will be saved.  He is saying perfectly keeping the law is perfect righteousness and therefore you have no sin, and consequently, there is no punishment for sin which is death. So you will live. 

But keeping the foremost commandment is impossible if you do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. If you really love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, then you will have saving faith in Jesus Christ. To believe in Him, to trust Him, to follow Him, to have faith in Him are all ways in which you love Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

The problem is that this lawyer doesn’t believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So he may claim that he loves Jehovah, but he really doesn’t love Him, because He doesn’t believe in Him.  Jesus said in John 5:21-24 “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son,  so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” So Jesus would say that “I and the Father are One.”  If you reject Jesus, then you cannot love God.

However, from his next answer the lawyer makes it clear that he thinks he has the first commandment locked down, and if there is any concern he has it’s about the second commandment.  So he will narrow down the possibility of failing that commandment by asking Jesus another trick question. Luke says that wanting to justify himself he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Notice, he wanted to justify himself.  We saw a moment ago in Galatians that Paul said that the law was meant to be a schoolteacher to turn us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.  But this man thinks that he is justified by keeping the law.  But the law convicts him, and so he wants to find a way to justify himself. He wants to find a way to be able to believe he is keeping the requirements of the law.

So his question is really a means to try to escape the conviction of the law.  But he felt he was justified in that respect, because the religious Jews of that day narrowly defined who qualified as a neighbor by only including other Jews who lived righteously.  Never in a million years would the average Jew consider a Gentile as a neighbor, or a Samaritan a neighbor, or even a Jewish person whom they considered to be a sinner to be a neighbor.

So Jesus tells a parable in order to answer the man’s question, who is my neighbor.  It’s very important to recognize that Jesus does not tell this story to illustrate how to enter into eternal life.  A lot of people have erred into a social gospel through misunderstanding the purpose of this parable.  It is not to answer the question “how to enter eternal life,” but to answer “who is my neighbor?”

The parable begins with a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. These two cities were separated by seventeen miles of desolate countryside. This particular highway was notoriously dangerous and would have been well known at least by reputation among the Jews. Merchants would often travel this road in order to sell their wares in Jericho. The desolate and rocky terrain made this road a popular site for raids by bandits. 

It’s interesting to notice that Jesus does not describe this man with any ethnic or nationalistic or religious characteristics. He is just a man.  There are no defining marks to put him into a specific category of people.  Jesus just simply identifies him as a man traveling on this road, and he fell among robbers.  I’m sure that on that road robbery was a well known risk, and  in this case, the man fell victim to what was already a high probability.

Jesus said not only did they rob him, but they beat him and stripped him of his clothes and possessions and left him lying on the side of the road half dead.  This man suffered terrible consequences for his decision to take this road.  Obviously, not everyone faced the same consequences even though they made a similar decision.  But the point should be made that as Christians we do not rush to judgment about a person because they suffer the consequences of a bad decision. How and why they are in the predicament that they are in is not our concern as much as how we are to respond to their need.

And to make that point, Jesus introduces two other characters into the story.  He says in vs 31, “And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.”

Most of you know that I just got back from a trip to LA yesterday.  And I could not help but be reminded of this story as I walked down certain streets in LA and saw the many homeless people that live on the sidewalks in certain areas. Some of the homeless you see look like they are physically capable enough I guess to take care of themselves to some degree.  A lot of them though seem mentally challenged, perhaps through addiction to drugs or alcohol.  And every once in a while you see a person who is laying on the street, and you can’t really tell if they are ok or not.  And you are kind of afraid to find out.  The homeless situation out there is so dire, so out of control, that it seems overwhelming.  You really don’t know where to begin, and so you tend to just keep walking, to pass by and try to put it out of your mind.  It’s easier if you say to yourself that they are on drugs, that they brought it on themselves, that they could go in a shelter if they wanted to, but they want to live like that.  We make all kinds of rationales in order to justify ourselves.

But we are negligent in our comprehension of this law of loving our neighbor if we only relate it to homeless people we see on the street.  This parable teaches that anyone that we cross in our path is our neighbor, whether or not we identify with them culturally, financially, geographically, or by any other metric which we might use to make distinctions about people.

Now Jesus doesn’t elaborate on how the priest or the Levite justified passing the man by.  It’s noteworthy though that the distinction that He makes about them is they are of the religious order of the Jews.  They worked in the temple.  They were the religious leaders of Judaism. If anyone should have been attuned to the requirements that God expressed concerning how we are to treat one another then these guys should have been prime examples.  And yet Jesus shows that the religious leaders did nothing for this man.  They passed on the other side of the street.  That indicates that they wanted to distance themselves from the situation as much as possible.

You know, I used to hear a phrase in the church growing up, which was “There, but by the grace of God, go I.” It was used in conjunction with seeing someone who had fallen into sin, that had been overcome by some vice or calamity.  I hope it was used in the right way,  humbly recognizing that if it had not been for the grace of God which delivered them, then they could be where that person is.  That but for the saving grace of God they would be homeless,  they would be addicted, or they would be in financial or physical ruin.  As Christians, we should have a heightened view of our sinfulness and overflowing gratitude for the grace of God which delivered us.  And consequently, we should have compassion on those who are still captured by such circumstances.

Any number of possible excuses might have kept these two religious leaders from helping the beaten man. They might have said this man should have avoided this road at that time of day.  He brought it on himself. They might have said I am in a hurry, I can’t miss my appointment.  Or I can’t afford to touch this man lest I become unclean and won’t be able to perform my duties in the temple.  Or their excuse might have been that it could be a trap.  Or maybe the man is already too far gone, there is nothing I can do to help him.  But whatever the excuses, at the end of the day that was all that they were – excuses.

Then Jesus introduces a Samaritan who was traveling down the road.  The very use of that term Samaritan eliminated in the minds of the Jews any inherent good in this man.  He was someone who was avoided by God fearing Jews.  They would travel an extra day to avoid having to cross into Samaria. After all, when the inhabitants of Judah returned from exile in Babylon, they experienced opposition and antagonism from the Samaritans. And so perhaps they thought they were justified in treating them with contempt.  So for Jesus to cast this Samaritan in the light of someone who kept the law of God would have been shocking and disturbing to them.

Jesus introduces the Samaritan, saying in vs 33 “But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion,  and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on [them;] and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.”

You know, the Samaritan was probably in a hurry as well.  Jesus said he was on a journey, and later on the Samaritan said when he returned he would stop again and pay whatever was owed.  So he had someplace to be, and somewhere to go.  He wasn’t just out for a Sunday drive and had nothing better to do.  It was probably inconvenient for him.  But nevertheless, he saw a man in need, and put everything else aside in order to tend to this man’s needs.

I want to point out his motivation for doing what he did.  Jesus said he felt compassion. Compassion means sympathy or empathy, it can mean love, pity, concern.  I feel confident that Jesus used it in the sense of love. After all, the law said you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  Compassion is a form of love that indicates action.  It’s not just feeling sympathy or pity for someone and moving on and eventually not thinking about it any more.  But compassion means being moved into action.

Compassion in Strong’s Greek dictionary is defined literally as being moved in one’s bowel’s.  Now before you jump to conclusions, the bowels were considered at that time to be the seat of love and pity.  We might think that sounds odd, but yet we use similar expressions sometimes, such as “gut wrenching” to describe something that moves you in the pit of your stomach. Fear can cause that kind of response, and I suppose love could as well.  But it’s noteworthy to see how often the word compassion is used in the New Testament in relation to Jesus.  He was frequently moved with compassion when He saw the lost sheep of Israel, the Jews. And it always spurred Him to act on their behalf, whether it was to feed them or heal them or teach them.   To have compassion is not to remain unmoved, but to be moved to act in love towards someone.

And notice how the compassion of the Samaritan for this stranger, possibly even someone who would have considered him a natural enemy, resulted in such loving care for his needs.  He goes above and beyond to ensure that this man will have a full recovery.  Jesus said “he felt compassion,  and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on [them;] and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’”

So not only does he stop to help and tend to his wounds, but he actually spent the night there  with him.  That probably really upset his plans for his trip.  And then he not only did he use his provisions and his horse or donkey to carry the burden of this man, but he also used his own money, and promised to pay whatever was needed when he returned.  I think that idea of returning is sorely missed in a lot of our evangelism today.  I remember many years ago seeing a man who was supposedly a really great soul winner, who would just witness to anyone at the drop of a hat, I saw him supposedly lead a young man to the Lord one night.  And after he had led him in the sinner’s prayer, he said “Praise God, but I have somewhere to go” and he left right away.  I was the liaison between these two men, and I couldn’t help but notice over the next few years that the soul winner never asked once how the young man was doing, was he still living for the Lord. We are not told to make converts, but to make disciples.  That requires an investment in time, in revisiting that person, to stay in touch, to follow up.  Not to chalk one up for the kingdom and keep moving on like you’re in a basketball game.  This Samaritan shows his compassion is legitimate, because he comes back to check on him and to follow up.

So having given the illustration, Jesus returns to the lawyer’s question, once again by asking him a question.  Jesus said “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ [hands?]”  Even a child should have been able to answer that question after hearing this story.  The lawyer answered, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” And Jesus said, “you have answered correctly.  Go and do the same.”

Of the three passerby’s, the Samaritan was the only one who showed mercy to the injured man. The neighbor wasn’t the one who only felt sorry, or saw the plight, or passed by, but the one who acted in mercy towards someone who crossed their path. Love is showing mercy.

But Jesus’s parable does not simply encourage us to have compassion upon those
who we see are in need who we find some affinity with. But it also teaches us that our concept of neighbor is not limited by national or ethnic or geographical characteristics.  Every human being is our neighbor whom we are to love as much as we love ourselves.

I also think that there is another story that is being presented in this parable which is sort of like a story within a story.  I think it’s the story of salvation, and our need to be the means of bringing salvation to the world.  We are to be the supply of the greatest need humankind faces.  The need for eternal life.

Jesus said in John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have [it] abundantly.” He is talking about the devil and his angels; they are the thieves, the robbers on the road of life, that lay wait and prey upon unsuspecting men and women.  People that perhaps are naive, that are foolish, that are on the road of life and they think they are going to be ok.  And somehow or another they fall into the hands of robbers.  The devil attacks them, robs them. His intention is to destroy them, to kill them. 

And unfortunately, most of what is considered organized religion fails to help those who have fallen into sin.  As Paul said in Romans 3:23 all have sinned and fallen short of the kingdom of God.  We are all dead in our trespasses and sins.  Satan has deceived us. He has robbed us of the life that God had given us.  But God so loved the world, He had such great compassion on us, that He left the throne of heaven to come down to our level, to pick us up from the side of the road and bandage us up, to pay the price for our redemption, for our salvation.  And one day He is coming back for us.  

As the children of God, as people who have been born again of God, we are to be like Christ in the world, having compassion on the world. Going to a world that is sick, that is dying, that is wounded and bleeding because of the deceit and robbery of the evil one. And we are to bring the message of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of spiritual healing, and of eternal life. The greatest need of the world is Jesus Christ.  Not just to give some down and out guy a bowl of soup and a pat on the back and send him on his way, but give him the Bread of Life and the Water of Life, by which he will never hunger and thirst again, by which he might have life and have it more abundantly.  

We are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves.  To see their greatest need and be the supply of that need for the sake of Christ. The greatest problem in the world affecting mankind is not hunger, it’s not climate change, it’s not Covid 19, the greatest problem in the world is sin and the death that reigns because of sin.  So then if that’s the greatest problem in the world, then the greatest question in the world is “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  And we have the answer; Confess Jesus Christ as Lord and you shall be saved. 

Let us show mercy and compassion towards our neighbors, and share with them the saving knowledge of the gospel.  Let us not be like the religious people who passed by the man on the side of the road, but realize that God has commanded us to love our neighbor, and show compassion towards them by leading them to Christ.  

This parable teaches the universal need for forgiveness – both the need to be forgiven, and the need to forgive. Jesus illustrates in this parable how God’s forgiveness is to be a precursor to our forgiveness of others. If we have been forgiven, then we should forgive others. This principle is essential to our psychological well being, in dealing with two common causes of anxiety, depression, and all sorts of psychological problems; those two causes being on the one hand guilt, and on the other hand resentment. Jesus illustrates in this parable how we can be set free from the bondage of the soul that comes as a result of harboring these two psychosises.

Now before we consider this parable, we want to first understand the context in which it was given. In the preceding verses starting with vs 15, Jesus is teaching some principles regarding what is often called church discipline. What that really entails is interpersonal sins – one person sinning against another within the context of the church. In vs 15, Jesus says, “if your brother sins…” and many manuscripts include the phrase “against you.” That would seem to be the thought behind what Jesus is saying. One Christian in the church sins against another in some way. I think it could also include a sin which a person in the church commits which is outside of church relationships, but the general thrust is in the context of the church.

Jesus says concerning this kind of sin starting in vs 15, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen [to you,] take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”

Notice that those last verses are given in the context of church discipline, that Christ is in the midst of the church and that He has set the boundaries for life in the church. That verse which says where two or three are gathered together in my name is often quoted out of context. I don’t have time to go into that further this morning but it basically refers to Christ being the head of the church, and thus all things in the church are subject to Him.

So Jesus says, if one Christian sins against another, the one who has been wronged is to confront the offender privately. If the offender does not repent, the one who has been wronged is to confront him again but this time accompanied by one or two other believers. If the offender still refuses to listen, the matter is to be brought before the church. And if the offender remains unrepentant and does not listen to the church, he is to be regarded as a tax collector, which was another way of saying an unbeliever. The church is to break fellowship with such a person.

One of the most difficult experiences the church may face is having to confront a church member who refuses to repent of sin. I also happen to think that it should be a rare event. But when it’s necessary, it needs to be done to protect the sanctity of the church as well as for the good of the person who is unrepentant. But the goal of church discipline is not to punish such a person, but to bring him to repentance and restoration within the church. This ecumenical rebuke is not to be used for just anyone who sins, but only for those who sin and are unrepentant. They brazenly, openly defy any rebuke, any appeal to repent from their sin and continue in that sin.

Sin is a serious thing in the eyes of God, and it should be considered as such in our eyes as well. There is a view among some Christians today that there is no need of repentance once you are saved. But this section of scripture makes it very clear that repentance is a part of the life of the Christian, and one cannot be a part of Christ’s church unless they have been born again. So it should be obvious from this scripture as well as many more that I don’t want to take the time to show you today, that repentance is a necessary ingredient in the Christian life, and the lack of repentance is evidence that a person is backslidden at best, and quite possibly not saved at all.

Then after Jesus had spoken concerning the protocol for church discipline, Peter speaks up, and asks Him a question concerning forgiveness. It’s possible that perhaps Peter is speaking up in hope that his question will bring a commendation from the Lord because He seems to be so magnanimous on this subject of forgiveness.

Peter says, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Peter was in effect asking how many times he should be willing to confront in this way a brother who had wronged him. If a brother sins against Peter, and Peter confronts the brother, and the brother then repents, how many times should Peter confront the brother 
if the same offense happens again? Peter magnanimously suggests that he should forgive him seven times.

But Jesus responds, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” Now there seems to be some controversy there between various translations of the Bible. Some say seventy times seven, and some say seventy seven. The original language would seem to express the idea of seventy times seven times seven times seven. In other words there is no end to forgiveness.

But to the argument that Jesus may have said 77 times, He might have had in mind Genesis 4, which after Cain sinned and had received judgment from the Lord, Cain appealed to the Lord and said that everyone would be against him from now on, and they would take vengeance against him. And the Lord issued a statement to the effect that if anyone wrongs Cain, he shall be avenged seven times. Now later there was a great, great, great, great-grandson of Cain, and he is described in that 4th chapter of Genesis. His name was Lamech. And like his forefather Cain he was in rebellion against God and living in willful sin. And Lamech makes the statement, “If Cain is avenged seven times, I with my sword will be avenged seventy and seven times.” And so perhaps what we see in this number is the unlimited revenge of man giving way to the unlimited forgiveness of Christians in the statements of Christ.

Either way the numbers are interpreted, the principle is that forgiveness should be unlimited, even as God’s mercies are unlimited towards us. When Peter suggested that he keep count until it became seven sins, Jesus reminded him that true forgiveness does not keep score. That reminds me of a joke I heard once about a newlywed couple back in the old days when men on the prairie would order themselves a mail order bride. I don’t know if you will think it’s funny or not, I kind of doubt it. But I think it’s funny, though not exactly politically correct.

As the story goes, this man and his new mail order wife was driving their buggy back from the justice of the peace’s office to her new home. And as they are on their way, suddenly, the horse stops in his tracks. The man gets down out of the buggy and walks in front of the horse and says, “That’s one.” He then gets back in the buggy and cracks the whip and the horse starts trotting again. A mile or so further along, the horse stops again. Once again the man gets down from the buggy, stands in front of the horse and says,“that’s two.” Climbs back on the buggy, pops the whip and the horse starts off again. A couple of miles further the horse stops again in the middle of the road. The man gets down out of the buggy, walks in front of the horse and says, “that’s three” and pulls out a pistol and shoots the horse dead. Meanwhile, his new wife can’t believe what she just saw. She harshly exclaims to the man, “You must be crazy! How could you shoot the horse like that?” He turned around and looked her in the eyes and said, “that’s one.”

The point of the joke is that you don’t keep score. Peter wanted to keep score, even though he thought in his mind he was being generous by counting to seven. But true forgiveness forgets, it doesn’t remember how many previous times a person has done you wrong. Now Jesus told a much better story than I did. He told a parable about the unrighteous steward to illustrate the principle of forgiveness.

Notice at the beginning an important phrase; Jesus said, ““For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.” What I want to impress on you to begin with is what Jesus means when He says “the kingdom of heaven.” He is not talking about where you go when you die. He is not talking about what most people think of when they hear the word heaven. He is speaking of the rule of Christ in the hearts and minds of His people. That kingdom began with the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and it continues after His resurrection, when He ascended on high as took His seat on the throne of heaven. It is the kingdom of God, the rule of God on the earth in the lives of His citizens. We live now in the kingdom of heaven, and we are to submit to the Lord’s rule and reign in all aspects of our life.

If we have confessed Jesus as Lord, and believed in who He is and what He has accomplished, then we have become His stewards, His ministers of the kingdom of heaven. We are part of His family, we are a noble race. To quote Peter from 1Peter 2:9-10 “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR [God’s] OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.”
Now what Jesus says then in this parable is this is how we as ministers of the kingdom of heaven operate. We are to act like Christ.

Jesus begins this parable by telling of a king who is settling accounts with his servants. Someone has suggested that perhaps the man described here by Jesus had a significant post in the kingdom, perhaps one that he handled or took in a great sum of revenue for the kingdom, like a tax collector might. And when the time came for such servants for their accounts to be settled with the king, it was found that this man owed the king 10,000 talents. A single talent was an extraordinary sum of money, the highest unit of money in that day. A talent was equal to many years wages. So 10,000 talents would have been similar to millions of dollars that this man was short. Such a debt was far beyond any person’s ability to repay.

It’s interesting that Jesus correlates his disciples as being like this debtor, and by extension all of us who are citizens of the kingdom of heaven are debtors like this man. We have a debt that is beyond our comprehension, a debt that we can never repay. Our sins indebt us to God. Every time we sin, we add to that debt. And because we are sinners by nature, we have a debt to God that is virtually insurmountable. Paul describes that debt we have to God as falling short of the kingdom of God. Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” None of us can meet the standard of God’s law. It’s like trying to jump the Grand Canyon. Some of you might be better jumpers than others, some of you might be in better shape. But regardless of how fast and how far you might jump, we are all going to fall far short of the other side. The gap is too great. Our sins are too great.

A common problem though is we don’t really see ourselves that way. We may think we have messed up a couple of times in our lives, but overall, we aren’t all that bad. Your spouse, on the other hand, is a real scoundrel. He needs saving, but by comparison you are golden. Jesus loves us because we are lovable, and we are saved because He is happy to get such a good person on His side. We fail to realize the extent of our sinfulness and how our sin has corrupted everything in us so that there is nothing good in us. So Jesus presents this picture to show us the magnitude of our sin and our debt to God and how much He has forgiven us.

Since the servant he did not have the means to repay, the king commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, so that some repayment might be made.
The servant begged him for a chance to pay back the debt. Yet, even if the king had given him years to repay, it still would not have been long enough for the servant to repay the debt. So even though he could not comprehend the extent of his debt, he recognized that his only hope was to throw himself on the mercy of the king.

Jesus said in vs 23, “And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt.” Instead of giving the servant more time to repay his debt, the king forgave it completely. Not just a portion of it, but he forgave all of it. The magnitude of the king’s kindness and mercy exceeded the magnitude of the debt. The king spared him of what he justly deserved.

Now obviously, this king is a picture of our Lord, who had compassion on us, and showed us such great mercy, forgiving us of all our sin, and giving us new life in the kingdom of heaven.

Now the story could have ended there and been a great picture that illustrates our salvation. But there is another side to the parable. Jesus continued, saying, “But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed.”

Now the denarius was the standard day’s wages, and it took thousands of denarii to equal a single talent. This debt of a fellow servant, which could have been repaid in a matter of weeks, was a minor amount compared to the first servant’s debt, which never could have been repaid. But although the second servant begged for mercy in the same way that the first servant had, using almost identical language, the first servant refused to forgive him his small debt. Sadly, the servant who had been forgiven so much failed to pass along even a tiny portion of the mercy that he had been given to him.

Vs 31 “So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him.”

When the other servants told the king what had happened, he sent for the servant and delivered him to the jailers until he could pay his debt in full, because he had not shown mercy on his fellow servant, even as he had received mercy. Jesus was teaching that in the same way, when forgiven sinners refuse to show the same mercy towards others that we received in salvation, then we can expect the justice of God to fall upon us. 

What God wants to see from us is first of all, repentance. If we are truly repentant, then we are not only sorry for our sin, but we turn away from sin. What this man illustrates is that he really had not repented of his sin. He was sorry that he got caught, and sorry that he had to pay the consequences of his error, but the fact that he was unchanged in his heart was revealed in his attitude towards his fellow servant. If we are truly repentant, then there will be a consequent transformation in our heart that will be evidenced in the way we treat one another.

For someone who has become saved by God’s mercy and grace, forgiveness towards others is not a option, it’s an obligation. Jesus taught us that principle when He taught the disciples to pray. In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus said in Matthew 6:12, , “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Our forgiveness is contingent on our willingness to forgive others. And then at the conclusion of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus says this in Matthew 6:14 “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” That’s pretty heavy. I don’t know if we truly grasp the significance of that statement. But this parable illustrates the same principle.

Unless we are willing to forgive those who sin against us, we should not expect God to forgive us when we sin against Him. Since God’s extravagant mercy towards us is the basis of our conversion, we should be transformed into a Christ like people, forgiving others even as we have been forgiven. So part of our salvation is crying out to God for a change of heart, so that we might have the heart of Christ. We must be changed, which is the full measure of God’s grace in that He gives us a new nature, a new heart, and a new life. That’s complete repentance, changing direction, which has to be facilitated by God as we are transformed by faith in Jesus as Lord.

We saw last week in the account of  the rich young ruler that there are many people who feel some need to be religious, to be rich towards God, because they are not like the rich fool in the earlier parable who cares not for God nor man but only for his pleasure on earth, but these people believe in God and in the hereafter, and they think it prudent that they make an investment in heaven so that they will be rewarded after this life is over.  This desire for religion then a common aspiration throughout the entire world and I’m sure most of us would agree that it is commendable for men to seek to be right with God.  But as this parable illustrates, simply being religious, or even living a life which they believe to be righteous, does not equate with justification in God’s eyes.  Justification simply means the act of becoming righteous before God.

This very morning across this country, millions of people are practicing some sort of religion, in the hope that they are making progress with God and thus insuring eternal life.  Millions of people are seeking to appease God, or to be justified with God, or to achieve good standing with God, and they are doing so at least in some part by going to church, or to a temple. 

And if the truth be known, most people, perhaps even some here this morning, would think that the sincerity and the effort put forth by these people in trying to achieve spiritual standing with God should be counted for something – even if eternity should prove their diligence is misplaced or even if they are misinformed as to the correct way to God.  They should be given credit for their effort, for their sincerity in pursuing religion.  If God truly be a God of love, and only love, then isn’t He pleased that they seek Him, and how could He possibly reject their attempts to appease Him?

However, Jesus tells a story about the kingdom of heaven which illustrates that not all who practice religion are righteous, that not all who seek justification are in fact justified before God, even though in their minds they think that their religion is sufficient to accomplish a good standing before God.  Luke, the writer of this gospel, tells us that Jesus told this parable to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt. So by his statement, we see that self righteousness is actually not a form of righteousness at all, but is actually a sin of pride, and that pride is evidenced by another sin, which is to hold one’s neighbor in contempt.  Pride is not just a sin that hurts oneself, but it also hurts others, that the characteristic of pride.  And by that characteristic we see that pride is a terrible, damning sin in the eyes of God.

As we shall see, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector warns against the danger of self-righteousness and exhorts us to approach God with humility, placing our ultimate trust not in our merit but in His mercy and grace.  In this parable Jesus is  teaching how a man might be justified with God.  And to illustrate this doctrine, He gives us a study in contrasts, a tale of two men who come to God, or you might say, a tale of two religions.  These are two men who stand in sharp contrast to one another in their approach to God.  And perhaps this also serves as a picture of the kingdom of God, in  which are both wheat and tares, both seeking after God, but one life bearing the  fruit of righteousness and the other life evidenced by self righteousness which produces no spiritual fruit.

These two men are described as a Pharisee and a publican.  And initially we see that both are religious. Jesus begins the parable by saying that both the Pharisee and the publican come to the temple to pray.  Vs 10, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.”  On the surface, they both would seem to have the same desire to come to God, presumably to be right with God.  They both have an interest in spiritual things.  They both have a belief in God. They both believe that going to the temple to pray is a means to come to God.  So far, so good.  But that is where the similarities end.

Jesus begins this contrast in approaches to God by first focusing on the Pharisee.  He says in vs 11, “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.”

The Pharisees were a Jewish religious group that began in the period of time between the writing of the Old Testament and the New Testament, what is called the intertestamental period.  They were concerned about the decline in the standard of Jewish religion at that time, about the neglect of the people for the law of God, as the Jews were being corrupted by the culture that they lived in the midst of.  This religious group formed to urge the people back to godliness.  But eventually, the Pharisees themselves became corrupted by the sin of pride. They became more focused on their obedience to the law, rather than what the law was intended to teach. 

The law of God is supposed to reveal God’s standard of holiness, and how far short we fall short of keeping it. As Paul taught in Galatians, the law was intended to be a schoolmaster to cause us to turn to Christ. But rather than seeing their sin revealed in the law, the Pharisees saw their own achievement as something to be proud of.  And to compound their error, they sought to condemn others who did not match their zeal in regards to the law, but thought that they were above such people and tried to keep their distance from them.  Anything or anyone that they considered beneath their level of achievement they studiously avoided. When I was growing up we used to say about such people that they had their nose up in the air.  Self righteousness and pride bring about contempt for others.

Notice Jesus’s description of this man in vs 11.  “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself.”  Though he addressed God, Jesus indicates his prayer was not heard by anyone other than himself.  He was praying for his benefit, and perhaps the benefit of whoever might be watching him.  Some versions translate it as the Pharisee was standing by himself and praying.  In other words, he picked out a prominent spot, by himself, perhaps on some elevation, where he could easily be witnessed to be in prayer.  

Jesus said about the Pharisees in Matt. 6:5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.”  Many have taken that verse as an indication that the Pharisee in this parable was standing in a prominent place to be seen of men.  We can learn a lot about the spiritual status of a man by his prayers, or by his approach to prayer. Pride prohibits prayer.  Jesus said in Matthew 6, in contrast to the Pharisee,“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” 

Notice the prayer of the Pharisee tells a lot about this man’s issue with pride.  He says nothing about his own sinful condition, there is no spirit of repentance, but rather pride in that he has achieved in his mind at least, a higher standing with God than others, especially this publican nearby.  “I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” Paul said in 2 Cor. 10:12, “but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.”  The law of God is given to compare ourselves with God’s righteous standard, not so that we can compare ourselves with others and think we are doing better than they.  God does not grade on a curve, but He grades us on a scale of perfection. “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Unfortunately, the way this man approached God is the way many people use religion. They tend to have a misunderstanding of what is required to be justified before God.  They trust in what they think is their inherent goodness, their sincerity, their works, their participation in religious rituals and ceremonies to make them right with God. Notice, that the Pharisee claims his fasting and his tithing are merits that earn him justification with God.  Now the Old Testament law did not require fasting, but the Pharisees sought through their tradition to make fasting into a means of righteousness.  But their motivation was wrong.  They fasted to be seen of men.  They fasted more than the law required, so that it would appear to others that they were extremely devout.  

But Jesus gave the right attitude towards fasting in the Sermon on the Mount.  He said in Matt. 6:16-18 “Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites [do,] for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face  so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees [what is done] in secret will reward you.”  I can’t help but see the irony in that verse in light of the way most churches observe lent.  Lent is a very public fast, if you can even call it a fast in most cases, with the participants receiving an ash mark on their foreheads which they are supposed to wear to advertise that they are fasting.  I saw on the news, though I didn’t want to click on it, that AOC was giving up eating meat for lent, and it had a picture of her with her head bowed like she was praying or something. How did the news know?  Did she send out a press release or something?   I would like to suggest to her a few things I would like to see her give up for Lent.  Beware of doing your works to be seen of men.

The common misconception of most people’s idea of religion is that a person will go to heaven if their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds.  I have news for you, none of us could get in by that standard.  Not if we evaluated our deeds by God’s standard of what is good.  Our sin far outweighs any possible good we might do.  Psalm 130:3 says, “If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” None of us could stand before God on our merits.  As Paul said in Romans 3, quoting from the Old Testament, “as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;  THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;  ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”

The other claim to goodness on the part of the Pharisee is that he tithes of all that he gets. Now tithing was mandated under the law.  And I’m sure that this man was a fastidious tither.  Jesus said that the Pharisees tithed of mint, dill and cummin.  Those were the herbs that they grew in pots outside their kitchen window.  They carefully measured out the herbs to make sure they were tithing on every thing. But they did so to make an impression on people as to their devoutness.  They made sure that their giving was public. The big tithers actually had someone blow a trumpet ahead of them as they came to give in order to announce themselves and their generosity.  

Jesus said in response to that attitude in Matt. 6:2-4  “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,  so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees [what is done] in secret will reward you.”

So the very works of the law that the Pharisee claimed as righteousness, in fact he erred in doing them, because he did them to be seen of men, and they actually were a sin of pride in self achievement.

In sharp contrast to this prideful, contemptuous, overtly religious Pharisee, Jesus shows us the publican standing off in a corner of the temple perhaps trying to stay out of view from others. You get the feeling that in contrast to the Pharisee, the publican is trying not to attract attention. The publican was a term used for a tax collector.  These men were the most hated of all in Jewish society because they were considered traitors to their country.  They collected taxes for Caesar, but not only that, they made their money by adding on a surcharge, which was allowed by the government, but which usually was egregiously high. It was bad enough to work for the Romans, but to get rich from taking advantage of your countrymen was an unforgivable thing in the eyes of the Jews.  So it’s no wonder that the Pharisee felt it was right to be contemptuous towards the publican.

The publican had also come to pray to God, but Jesus said he would not even raise his eyes to heaven. He exhibited a heart that had been humbled, that was remorseful, a heart that was repentant. In Psalms 51:17 we read, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”  The publican came before God with the right attitude.

Jesus said in vs13 “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

What’s apparent in the attitude of the publican is that he understood the serious nature of his sin and expressed genuine mourning over it.  Beating one’s breast in the Jewish culture of that day was an expression of mourning. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 5, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Jesus was talking about mourning over your sin, mourning over the bankruptcy of your spiritual condition.

This tax collector knew that God was holy and that he was not.  He came before God empty handed.  As the hymn “Rock of Ages” so aptly puts it, “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. Naked, come to the for dress, helpless look to thee for grace. Foul I to the fountain fly, wash me Savior or I die.”  Rather than gloating about his achievements, the publican simply called out to God for mercy.

This word rendered “merciful” in the NASB has another meaning. It’s the word propitiation. The ancient Greek word translated be merciful is hilaskomai; it is actually the word for an atoning sacrifice. The fullest sense of what the tax collector said was, “God, be merciful to me through Your atoning sacrifice for sins, because I am a sinner.” The only other place this word is used in the New Testament is in Hebrews 2:17, where it is translated propitiation.  Propitiation refers to the act of atonement by Jesus Christ on behalf of sinners.  He was the penal sacrifice for our sins.

The tax collector may not have been recognized for his morality, or his good standing in society, but he has a good grasp of theology.  He understood that if he is to be accepted by God, then it will have to be on the basis of God’s mercy and grace. It will have to be on the basis of what God has done, and not on what he has done.  Mercy is by propitiation.  But grace indicates not something forgiven, but something given.  Grace is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to our account.  

The doctrine of imputation teaches that the justification that sinners receive before God is based on a righteousness that is not their own. By faith, sinners receive a righteousness that is not from their own works, but that comes from outside of us. And that righteousness comes from Jesus Christ.  In order to reconcile fallen humanity to God, Jesus Christ did not simply arrive on earth and then die upon the cross.  But He had to live completely righteous, perfectly sinless life as our representative.  That righteousness of Christ is then imputed to those who put their faith in Him.  

As 2 Cor. 5:21 says, “[God] made [Jesus] who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might receive the righteousness of God in Him.”  The only way to be rich towards God is to first recognize that we are spiritually bankrupt, and receive as a gift of God the righteousness of Christ imputed into our account.

To be considered rich towards God is the principle of justification, when God declares a person to be righteous who is not righteous in his own life. With this declaration of justification, God removes the person’s guilt and gives them the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  That’s the spiritual riches that have currency in heaven.

This tax collector, this sinner, this unjust man, called upon the mercy and grace of God, and he walked away that day justified before God.  Jesus said in vs 14, “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

James states this principle in James 4:6, saying, ““GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”  The key to humility before God is not to take refuge in your goodness, or your good works, but to recognize you are a sinner, and to call out like this tax collector, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!”  And to that prayer of repentance and faith, God promises to respond with mercy and grace that you might receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sin.  

I pray that no one hearing my voice today is taking refuge in their keeping of religious rituals and ceremonies, in their merit, in their good works, but that you have confessed that you are a sinner, and trusted in the atonement of Jesus Christ for your justification.  That you might claim the righteousness of Jesus Christ for your salvation.  That simple prayer of the publican is all that is required; God be merciful to me, the sinner.

As we learned previously in our study of the parables, it’s important to determine the primary principle that was being taught by Jesus in the parable.  We should avoid the temptation to allegorize every detail of the story, but try to discern the central thought that Jesus was teaching.

Having said that, however, it’s still possible to have more than one application.  And this parable lends itself to possibly more than one application.  But rather than focus on whatever those possible interpretations may be at this point, I want to go back to chapter 19, because I think that by considering the greater context in which this parable was given we will get a better understanding of what Jesus was teaching.

The context for this parable really starts back in chapter 19 vs 16, as Jesus is visited by a man described as a rich, young ruler.  So far in our studies of the parables, Jesus has had a lot to say about the perils of being rich.  And in both previous parables we’ve looked at concerning a rich man, one was characterized as a rich fool because he was rich in the world’s goods, but not rich towards God.  And the other rich man was foolish as well, being rich in the world’s goods, but not rich towards God, and at his death finding his soul consigned to the torment of Hades.

Now in this account from real life this rich, young ruler comes to Jesus and says, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” He shows that he is a little more prudent than the other rich men Jesus has talked about previously through parables.  He may be rich, but he also recognizes that there is life beyond this world and he needs to make preparation for that eventuality.

I’m sure you are familiar with the story, so I don’t have time to exegete every detail this morning, but the end result of his discourse with Jesus was that he went away from that meeting sorrowful, because he had great riches, and it seemed to him that Jesus said he must be willing to sell it all and give it to the poor, and leave everything to follow Him.  The eternal life this rich young ruler was seeking could only gained by a willingness to forsake everything for the riches of Christ.  And he was not willing to forsake his great riches for Christ.

After the man left, Jesus turned to the disciples and spoke the following; “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Now that’s a pretty heavy statement.  And while most of us would protest that we aren’t rich, yet I would argue that depends on how you define rich.  And I think if we broadened our understanding of what it means to be rich in the world’s goods, we might find that we qualify as being rich in the eyes of God.  I would support that by saying that if salvation actually depended upon you selling your house, your cars, your stocks, emptying your bank account and giving it all away, then I’m afraid many of us would more than likely remain unsaved.  I wonder how many people would be willing to go to that extreme if that was the requirement for salvation.

The question arises though, was Jesus serious when He said that?  Or was He just using hyperbole? I’ve never heard a preacher speak about the dangers of riches without prefacing it repeatedly by saying there is nothing wrong with being rich, it’s just your attitude about riches that is the problem.  I’m not sure we can be so cavalier about it, to be honest.  In my experience, I think salvation is most certain when one comes to the end of themselves.  They are willing to surrender everything completely if God will just help them.  Riches are just one of many things that you can put before God  that can prevent you from coming to that point of complete surrender.

Well, the disciples were just as troubled by that statement that Jesus made as you might be.  Maybe more so, because they were taught that the way to righteousness was by giving alms to the temple and by giving alms to the poor.  And so for the rich it was much easier to give large sums of money than for others to do that.  These disciples were by nature hard working fisherman, and they didn’t have a lot of money.  So they thought if it was difficult for rich people to be saved, then it was going to be next to impossible for them.

So when the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”  Now that statement gives us insight into the principle that salvation is not of men, not of merit, not of virtue, not of value, but salvation is of the Lord.  It is the gift of God. Salvation is by grace.

Now following on this statement Peter then said to Jesus, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?”  He claimed that they had done what Jesus told the rich young ruler he had to do to be saved.  Peter says, we have left everything and followed you, what will be our reward?

And Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last; and the last, first.”

Again, Jesus reiterates the principle that giving up everything to follow Him is the key to receiving eternal life.  And the disciples, insomuch as they had given up everything to follow Christ, were going to not only get eternal life, but in the regeneration, in the new heavens and new earth,  receive dominion over the 12 tribes of Israel. 

But then Jesus summarizes that with a principle; “many who are first will be last; and the last, first.” Now that principle is the thesis for the parable which we are looking at today.  And it’s important to understand that is the central thought which Jesus is teaching in that parable.  I’ve heard and read others commentate on this parable and in the process extrapolate from it the doctrine of election, the sovereignty of God and so forth.  And I am sure those doctrines are illustrated to some degree in this parable.  But I don’t think they are the main point.  

And I can show further evidence for that because of the fact that this parable is bookended with this statement.  We have to remember that the chapter divisions are not inspired.  They were added by the translators quite a long time after the original writings.  And in this case, I think the chapter break does the passage harm.  Because if you disregard the chapter division, then you will see that the last verse of chapter 19 and the 16th verse of chapter 20 are virtually the same, Jesus just reversed the order.  And so the statement is both the introduction and the conclusion of the parable.

Let me read both of them for you, Matt. 19:30 “But many [who are] first will be last; and [the] last, first.” And then Matt. 20:16 “So the last shall be first, and the first last.”  It’s obvious to me that Jesus deliberately presented it this way so that the parable is an illustration of that principle which is repeated twice, at the beginning and at the end.  So as I have said previously, the best interpretation of a parable is one that Jesus Himself gives, and here He gives us this interpretation twice.

So now we know what the central principle of the parable is, but what does it mean? Well, let’s consider the parable which He gave to illustrate it, so that we might understand it.  

In this parable, the owner of the vineyard went out to search for laborers to harvest the fruit. When the grapes had ripened to the optimal point, it was important that they be harvested as quickly as possible. And so he needed many people to work before the grapes were past their prime.  As was the custom in that day, the laborers would gather in the marketplace early in the morning to wait for employers to come and hire them for the day. 

Jesus said at the first hour of the morning, about 6 am, he hired workers who agreed to work for the day for the wage of a denarius.  A denarius was the standard wage for a day’s work. As the day went on, he went back to the marketplace and hired another group, this time about 9am. Obviously, the work was in danger of not being finished in time, so the vineyard owner came back at 12 and hired some more and again at three.  To those groups he offered them work and said he would pay them what was right.  

Finally, the vineyard owner came back at the 11th hour which would be 5 o’clock.  There was only an hour left to work, but nevertheless after speaking with some workers who had been waiting all day and no one had hired them, the vineyard owner hired them as well.  

At the end of the day, as was customary in those times, the workers came together to be paid for their day’s labor.  The vineyard owner instructed his foreman, “Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.”  As the last group of workers came forward to get their wages they each received a denarius.  The workers from the 9th hour and the 6th hour and the third hour received a denarius as well.  When the workers from the first group received their denarius, they were angry that they received the same as the others.  They said, “‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.” 

But the vineyard owner replied, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?”

Now this parable is particularly prone to over interpretation. I think the point that Jesus is teaching is very simple.  But if you parse each detail and dissect all the dialogue, you can easily come up with more questions than you have answers.  I think the simplest answer is best, and that comes from remembering the context in which Jesus gave it.  And the simplest answer is found in light of the rich man being unwilling to leave everything to follow Jesus, and consequently not entering into eternal life, and the disciples leaving everything to follow  Jesus and entering into eternal life and being given authority in heaven.  In light of that, Jesus is simply saying that those who seem to be first in this life in regards to earthly goods and riches, whether financial or physical or even relationships, will be last in eternity.  And those who seem to be last in regards to earthly riches but are rich towards God will be first in eternity.

Now that’s what He is teaching in this parable.  And that is born out by Jesus’s summary remark in vs 16, “So the last shall be first, and the first last.”  Jesus started the parable by saying, “the kingdom of heaven is like…”  It is an illustration of the nature of the kingdom of heaven.  One aspect of the kingdom of heaven is illustrated here.  There may be other applications that can be made from this parable, but I would discourage drawing too many conclusions from some of the details of the story.  Because not all of them have a direct correlation to the nature of the kingdom.  Some of the details just help to make the story more relatable. But they are not necessarily included to be allegorical.

So we know the primary central thought of the parable and what Jesus was teaching.  But there can also be secondary points that are illustrated as well.  For instance, the principle that salvation is of grace is indicated in this passage to a certain degree. Grace is illustrated by the fact that the vineyard owner generously gave a denarius to those who had not worked a full day.  But we really have to break the parable in order to make sure that we don’t include works as a means of grace.  Paul said in Romans 4:4 “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.”  The word translated gift there is from the Greek charis, which is the word normally translated as grace.  So it’s difficult to use this parable as an illustration of grace when they are working for their wages, even if some only worked a few hours and others worked more.  So as all the laborers worked in the parable, they all got wages, and therefore it is not really a true representation of grace.

Another possible secondary interpretation is that which might be called dispensational. It might be possible to say that those under the law of Moses were the first, and those under the dispensation of grace would be the last.  And thus those attempting to enter into the kingdom through their works would come in last, and those who come under grace are those in first.  But again, the context doesn’t really support that idea.  When Jesus addresses the rich young ruler He tells him to keep the commandments if he wants to receive eternal life.  And when Peter speaks up about the disciples’ sacrifices, Jesus says that they will be given thrones over the 12 tribes of Israel.  All of that is very much Old Testament theology.  Not much is said there about grace.

Of course, we are saved by grace, the unmerited favor of God.  But grace is a by product of our surrender to Jesus as Lord.  Romans 10:9 says, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”  Grace is the application of Christ’s righteousness to our account as a result of our confession of Jesus as Lord.  Paul says further in vs 13, “WHOSOEVER SHALL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.”

The emphasis is on calling on Jesus as LORD. The principle of surrendering to the Lordship of Christ is the means of our salvation.  We don’t have to understand all the doctrines of grace or the doctrine of election, or the doctrine of substitutionary atonement in order to be saved.  We simply have to come to the end of ourselves, come to the end of our independence, our self reliance, the end of our rebellion and recognize Jesus as Lord.  He is God, He is the King of the kingdom of heaven.  From Him is life, from Him is every blessing and every good gift.  He is the source of our righteousness which makes us accepted into the kingdom of God.  

The Lordship of Christ exposes the problem with riches.  They are a means of our self reliance.  They are what keeps us from trusting completely in Him as the source of life, as the source of blessing. Every good gift comes from above. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.  And when we forsake everything to follow Him, we find that He gives us everything that we need.  He is sufficient. He is the source of life in all it’s fullness and abundance. So we do not trust in riches or trust in the things of this world, even in the relationships of this world, even the love of this world, but we trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not unto our own understanding. In all our ways acknowledge Him and He will direct our path of life.

The problem is that we tend to put the world’s things first in our life and the Lord is given second place at best.  Jesus said that the first shall be last and the last first.  Jesus wants first place in our life and He will not accept second place.  The first and foremost commandment has not changed; “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.”  That is first place. If He has first place in your heart, then forsake everything and follow Him and you will receive eternal life.

In light of that, we really should do a spiritual inventory and ask oursevles, what do you value more than Christ? If you were told that you had to give up your riches, would you do so for the sake of Christ?  If you were told that you had to give up your career, would you do it for the sake of Christ?  How about giving up your family?  Would you give up your family for the sake of Christ? He must have the preeminence. He must have first place.

That’s why I think most people that are truly saved are people who have hit bottom. They have come to the end of themselves. They recognize the hopelessness of their situation.  They have nothing left to hold onto.  And so maybe it’s easier for them to give up everything for Christ.  But it’s hard for a man who is rich in the things of the world to enter into the kingdom of heaven. “It’s easier for a camel to  go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Those are heavy words, my friend, because we are told that the gate to the kingdom of heaven is narrow, and few there be that find it.  And for those who try to enter carrying all the things that they love from this world, they find that it is impossible to enter through the narrow gate while carrying those things.  A lot of people are pretty well satisfied with their life, but they want to add something to be certain that they will be received into heaven in the next life. So they come to God on the basis of adding to their riches.  I would ask you to consider what are you carrying this morning?  Perhaps you are like the rich young ruler, you are smart enough to know that there is an eternity, that there is a heaven, but are you willing to forsake everything in order to get in?  I pray that you are.

Paul said in Phil. 3:7-11 “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,  and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from [the] Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which [comes] from God on the basis of faith,  that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;  in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”  

And that is what we all must do if we would inherit eternal life.  

In the first message of our series on the Parables of Jesus, I gave the following definition of a parable; Parables as Jesus used them are fictional illustrations taken from real life situations, which teach a spiritual lesson. Now by that definition, I do not think that the story we have in front of us today strictly qualifies as a parable.  And the reason I say that is because I don’t believe that it is fictional.  I think it’s an actual story about two real people.  I think that is evident because this is the only so called parable in which Jesus uses personal names of the people involved.  The rich man is not named, but Lazarus is, and so is Abraham.  I think these are real people, in a real life situation.  Furthermore, though by a somewhat lesser evidence, there is no qualifying statement which is sometimes found in other parables to identify it as such.  But that is a lessor qualification.  I think the primary reason for it to be a true life story is the use of personal names.

It’s comparable to me giving an illustration today in my message and I mention Nick and tell you some story about him, and then afterwards one of you comes up to me to ask some more information about what I had said.  Imagine if my response was “Oh, that’s not really true about Nick.  I just made it all up.”  I think you would find it very disconcerting that I had made up a story about Nick and presented it as true, but in fact it was not true.  And I think that is a good analogy for this story. Jesus presented it as a story concerning real people.  We certainly know that Abraham was a real person, and so it would be very odd if Jesus was to say certain things about him that were not true.  So I don’t believe it to be a parable in the sense that it’s a fictional story.

However, the purpose of an illustration is very similar to that of a parable. It is meant to be used as a mechanism by which to teach a lesson or a central doctrine.  As you know, I frequently use illustrations from real life in my preaching.  And so though today’s story is not a parable per se, in that it is not fictional, yet it serves a similar purpose, and so we will include it in this series.  Furthermore, most Christian literature considers it to be one of the foremost parables, so  I would be remiss if I didn’t include it.

But it’s important that we understand that this is a actual story from real life. It’s important because a lot of theologians have dismissed some important doctrines which this story illustrates, because it does not fit with their doctrines concerning eschatology or their doctrine of eternal punishment and so forth.  And they dismiss it because they say that this is a parable which Jesus made up, and therefore certain elements are not necessarily as He represented them.  I find that interpretation to be entirely unacceptable. The parables that Jesus gave were always founded in reality.  He wasn’t telling fables about mythical talking creatures. When Jesus gave a parable about a sower going out to sow, it was based entirely upon real situations.  Chances are there were sowers working on the hillside even as He spoke. But in any event, in an agrarian society such as they lived in, the basic elements of the story would have been one that they could readily identify with and understand because they were true to life.

So because this is a real life illustration with real events, it provides us with an important insights into the afterlife, particularly that time period which precedes the resurrection.  Now those insights are incidental to the central point of the illustration, but nevertheless they are important for us to consider.  But the central point of this illustration is to teach the eternal consequences of a life that is not rich towards God.  If you recall in our last parable, the central thought was the rich fool was rich in the world’s goods, but was not rich towards God.  And God required of him his soul.  This illustration builds on that by showing the eternal consequences of a life that is not rich towards God.

Let’s look then at the story.  There are two primary characters, the rich man and Lazarus the beggar.  They lived in close proximity to one another, and died in a similar time period. Jesus describes the rich man first.

19.“Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day.”  I find it interesting that this man is not named.  In his life on earth, he probably had a name that everyone knew, that everyone associated with wealth.  Maybe his last name was Rothschild or Dupont. I doubt it, but whatever his name was, in heaven it was not recorded in the book of life, and so his name is unimportant. He has no eternal legacy.

Now this man was very rich. How rich? He habitually dressed in purple, the clothing of royalty. Purple die was very expensive in those days and reserved for the finest fabrics you could buy. “Joyously living in splendor everyday.”  The KJV says that he fared sumptuously everyday.  So he ate expensive foods, not just occasionally, but everyday.  He lived in luxury, enjoying all that the best of life had to offer.

I just returned from a trip to the Keys.  And while I was there I took my morning run through the multimillion dollar neighborhoods, and walked in the evenings around the marinas where the rich docked their million dollar yachts.  It was hard not to be impressed by the luxurious lifestyle that it seemed a lot of people are able to enjoy.  One neighborhood which we could not even enter without a pass had it’s own private airfield so the residents could fly in and out on their private planes.  I was told the houses started at 10 million.  It’s hard to imagine being that rich.  This man lived an opulent, luxurious lifestyle.

I notice something else Jesus described about this guy.  He said he lived joyously.  Eat, drink and be merry.  I think if you’re rich it’s possible to find a certain degree of  joy, happiness in the pleasures of this world.  And the pursuit of that pleasure can eclipse any concern you might have about the after life, because you’re so busy pursuing pleasure right now.

At the polar opposite end of the social spectrum, Lazarus was a  beggar who it would seem was lame, possibly paralyzed.  He had to be laid at the rich man’s gate.  That became his spot, his only hope of getting food or financial help.  There wasn’t government programs in those days to take care of people in his kind of condition.  Possibly as a result of his paralysis, he was covered with sores and the dogs in the street would come up to an lick them, showing more concern for him than anyone else did, particularly the rich man.  Lazarus was unable to fend for himself.  He was eager to eat from the crumbs, the garbage really, that came from the rich man’s table.

Jesus indicated that both men died, presumably at very near the same time.  He describes it in this way, vs.22, “Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried.”

Not only was there a great contrast in the lives of these two men, but there is also a great contrast in their deaths.  The poor man, Lazarus died, and Jesus said that he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.  According to Jewish tradition, Abraham’s Bosom was an rabbinical idiom which refers to the custom of reclining on couches at table, which was prevalent among the Jews, an arrangement which brought the head of one person almost into the bosom of the one who sat or reclined above him. To “be in Abraham’s bosom” thus meant to enjoy happiness and rest at the banquet in Paradise.  Abraham was considered the father of the faithful, and Lazarus then would be the son who has been gathered to his father’s, which is another common expression of the Old Testament saints concerning death.

I think a lot of commentators not only gloss over what Jesus said about this place, but also over the fact that Jesus said the angels carried Lazarus to Paradise.  I don’t  know if any of you remember the television show that used to be on about 20 years ago now, I think, called “Touched by an Angel.” I wasn’t particularly a big fan of the show.  I really am not a fan of any of Hollywood’s attempts at Christian themed movies or shows.  I’d rather not watch them, and would warn you  not allow your doctrine to be formed or influenced by Hollywood’s interpretation of the Bible.  But in that case, they may have gotten the idea correct that at the death of a saint, the angels of God are in attendance awaiting for the moment of their death. God knows the number of our days when as yet there were none of them, and He sends His messengers to attend us in those final moments, and they take our soul to Paradise. Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the LORD [is] the death of his saints.”  There may not have been a funeral on earth for Lazarus, no one cared when he died, but God cared, and He ushered Lazarus’s soul to Paradise by a procession of angels.

That same angelic accompaniment is not mentioned for the unsaved dead.  Perhaps Satan sends his fallen angels to claim the souls of the unsaved dead.  We don’t know.  But since they are held captive by Satan in life, it may be that he interns their soul in death.  The sting of death after all is Satan’s weapon against man.  But that is speculation on my part.  Jesus doesn’t tell us exactly how it happens, only that the rich man ends up in torment in Hades.

The rich man, Jesus said, was buried.  No burial was mentioned for Lazarus. It would have been customary for the poor man to be unceremoniously buried in an unmarked grave or perhaps even his body thrown on the trash heap outside of town.  The rich man though I’m sure had a great funeral.  He had five brothers who still lived, and I’m sure that half the town turned out to mourn the loss of this rich man.  But as the accolades are being said concerning him, and the priest was undoubtedly telling everyone how wonderful he had been, at that very moment his soul was in torment in the flames of Hades.

As the rich man was in Hades, he looked up and saw Lazarus at Abraham’s side. Vs23 “In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’”

Even in his death, even in torment, this rich man showed his true nature in the way that he wanted to use Lazarus to lessen his torment.  He had no regard for Lazarus in his life, and he obviously has no regard for Lazarus now.  And yet this poor man had been his neighbor, laying constantly at his gate, begging for food and for help.  It’s clear that the rich man knew Lazarus, even to the point of knowing his name. He must have despised him being outside of his fine home, of being a constant pest, a constant reminder of the frailty of the flesh.  And even after death, his contempt of Lazarus is evident in his asking Abraham to send him to serve himself.  It’s also a tragic irony that this man who was once rich and feasted lavishly everyday, is now begging for even a drop of water.

But Abraham denied his request.  Vs 25 “But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.’” During his life, the rich man enjoyed every comfort that Lazarus had lacked. Now in an ironic twist of fate, their situations were  reversed.

Not only did Abraham deny his request to send Lazarus, but Abraham explained why it was impossible.  And in this response we gain some insight into what Hades is like.  Abraham says in vs 26 “And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and [that] none may cross over from there to us.”

The traditional Jewish teaching was that Hades was the abode of the dead, where the souls of men await the resurrection.  In the Old Testament it’s called Sheol in Hebrew.  But in the Greek it’s called Hades.  As Jesus indicates in this story, Hades is comprised of two compartments, an upper and lower chamber.  The upper chamber is Paradise, or as Jesus calls it, Abraham’s bosom.  The lower part is the place of torment, which is generally referred to as Hades or hell.

The resurrection is not referenced here by Jesus, but in John 5:28 Jesus says this concerning the resurrection; “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice,  and will come forth; those who did the good [deeds] to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil [deeds] to a resurrection of judgment.”  

Those two resurrections are talked about in Revelation 20, the resurrection to life, which is the resurrection of the saved, and the resurrection of the dead who are judged according to their works and cast into the Lake of Fire. But Jesus does not give us any information about the resurrection here, but only speaks concerning the intermediate abode of the dead in the time before HIs second coming.  And of that place we find most of our insight in this passage.  

I want to emphasize some things that we can learn from this description. In Paradise or in Hades, there is consciousness.  It is not soul sleep, it is body sleep.  The body sleeps until the resurrection, but the soul is alive and conscious. In the case of those in Paradise, they are gathered to their relatives who were saved and have died before.  There is a reunion of the saved who have died.  David said concerning his baby son who died, “I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”  In Paradise we will know and be known.  We will be recognizable in a way that may not be understandable now.  The soul must bear the imprint of the body to be recognizable.  Samuel was recognized when he came up from Paradise to speak to Saul. Moses and Elijah were recognizable at the transfiguration.  And so as well Abraham and Lazarus are recognized here in this story.

Furthermore, we learn that Paradise is a place of rest.  It is a place of comfort.  It is a place of communication. Hades as the compartment of torment on the other hand is just that, a place of torment.  It is a place of flames.  It is a place of thirst. But it too is a place of cognizance.  It too is a place of communication at least to some degree.  It is a place of remorse. And it is a place of recompense.  From other scriptures we know that it is not the final judgment nor the final punishment, but it’s the temporary abode of those who are doomed to eternal punishment by their deeds on earth.

And finally, as Jesus revealed by Abraham’s words, there is a great chasm between the two, that no one can cross.  That separation is fixed, and what is done is done.  There are no second chances. There is no way to escape once you are dead.  The only escape from Hades will be at the resurrection, but that will be only to make eternal that which was already evident, either a resurrection to a new body and a new life for those in Paradise, or to a resurrection of the dead which is the second death and eternal damnation in the Lake of Fire.

It really is a tragic, horrible end for those who are without the Lord.  We do ourselves or our loved ones no favors by ignoring the consequences of rejecting Christ.  Not everyone goes to heaven when they die and it’s a terrible lie to tell people that they do.  To give them a false hope.  The rich man probably didn’t really believe in the realities of eternity when he was alive on the earth.  But he certainly believed now.  And because he realized the reality of hell, the awfulness of his predicament, he wanted to save his family from joining him there.  Notice what he asks of Abraham in vs 27 “And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house–  for I have five brothers–in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’”

I give him credit for his compassion for his family.  He shows a lot more compassion than what he showed Lazarus during his life.  But it’s too late to save him.  And his request shows that his heart is still selfish, wanting Lazarus to do his bidding. By the way, the sin of the rich man that Jesus highlights that disqualifies this man from Paradise is the sin of not loving his neighbor as himself.  It’s not being rich.  It’s not being a drunkard or adulterer or any other number of moral failings.  The condemning sin which Jesus highlights Is the sin of not loving your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus was asked on one occasion what was the foremost commandment, and He answered, “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” I think we all fail miserably in that.  We have all sinned against God by failing the foremost commandment and that alone is enough to condemn us to hell.  But then Jesus said the second greatest commandment is like it, and that is to love your neighbor as yourself.  And I am sure that we all have failed to keep that commandment.  That failure alone in God’s eyes is reason enough for eternal damnation. This rich man was guilty on both counts, but Jesus only highlights the second commandment, because it is evidence that he also failed in the first.

Jesus is not saying that we are saved by our works.  We are not saved by doing social work.  But what He is saying is that not loving your neighbor as yourself is evidence that you are not saved.  Our desire to keep God’s commandments are proof of our faith.  And the lack of evidence on this man’s part was proof that he was not a child of God.  

Well, Abraham’s answer to this man’s request to send Lazarus (once again you see the attitude of this man towards Lazarus even in Hades) to his brothers to tell them the gospel is denied. Vs 29 “But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”

The rich man recognized that his unsaved brothers needed a change of heart in order to be awakened to their state of spiritual peril.  And so the rich man asked for Lazarus to be sent to warn his five brothers so that they would not have to experience the same torment he was experiencing.

But Abraham said the  brothers already had the Old Testament writings, and it would accomplish nothing to send Lazarus to warn them. He said if their hearts were hardened against the warnings of Moses and the Prophets in the scriptures, then his brothers would not repent even if Lazarus were to rise from the dead and speak to them.

It’s ironic that there was another man named Lazarus who was a personal friend of Jesus.  And this Lazarus also died, but Jesus raised him from the dead.  The Bible records how many people would come to see Lazarus who had been raised from the dead, and though a few believed as a result of seeing him, for the most part the vast multitudes did not believe.  They looked upon it as a curiosity.  But they did not believe unto salvation.

In the same way, those among Jesus’ listeners whose hearts were hardened toward God’s Word would refuse to repent and believe even after Jesus was raised from the dead.  But the warning of this story should be  clear: now is the time to repent and to secure our eternal

security.  Because once we die, it’s too late.  Now is the day of salvation.  Now is the opportunity to believe in Jesus Christ for our righteousness so that we might be saved.

And for those of us who have believed unto salvation, if we really loved our neighbor as ourselves as we are commanded to do, then should we not do everything we can to introduce them to the gospel of Jesus Christ, that they might not go to eternal punishment, but that they might be received into life? If we truly believed what Jesus said concerning death, then certainly that must be our mission in life, to win our neighbors and loved ones to Christ.  Let us not be so preoccupied pursuing the pleasures of this world that we fail to prepare for the next.