Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1338
“Son, go work today in My vineyard.” Matthew 21:28.
I AM not going to confine myself to the connection of these words, nor to use them strictly after the manner in which they were first spoken. I may, perhaps, explain the parable very briefly at the close, but I take leave to withdraw these words from their immediate context and use them as a voice which, I believe, sounds often in the ears of God’s people, and sometimes sounds in vain—“Son, go work today in My vineyard.” It is certain that God still speaks to us. He has spoken to us in His Word. There are His precepts and promises, His statutes and testimonies. He that has ears to hear let him hear these sacred oracles!
But beside this open Revelation there are counsels and rebukes more closely and personally addressed to the conscience. Voices—as soft, sometimes, as whispers—at other times loud as the thunders that pealed from Sinai. The Lord has a way of speaking to men when, “He opens the ears of men and seals their instruction,” as Elihu said. Thus He speaks when He calls them effectually by His Grace in conversion. So He once called, “Samuel, Samuel!” till the child answered. So He said, “Matthew, follow Me.” So He called out, “Zacchaeus, come down!” So He cried out, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” So He bid some of us till the Divine accents were clear and irresistible.
In like manner we have, many of us, heard Him say, “Son, give Me Your heart,” and we have given Him our hearts—we could not do otherwise. That voice exerted such a charming spell and swayed us with such a Divine power that we were subdued by it and we yielded our hearts to the God of Love. Since then, you who know the Lord, must often have heard a voice speaking to you and bidding you seek His face in prayer. Perhaps you have been busy with the world, but you found an impulse of a mysterious kind coming over you and you have been glad to withdraw yourself for a few minutes to the closet that you might speak with God.
You know how it has been when you have been meditating alone and yet not alone. One whose Presence you knew, whose face you could not see, was with you! You felt as if you must pray. It has not been any effort on your part. The exercise has been as easy as to breathe and as pleasant as to partake of your daily bread. You felt the Lord drawing you to the Mercy Seat and saying in your soul, “My Son, ask what you will and it shall be done unto you.” You must have been conscious of such a voice as that. And have you not, at times, in the silence of your mind, heard the Lord call you to a closer communion with Himself? Has not the sense, if not the words, of the spouse in the canticle been heard in your soul—“Come, My Beloved, let us see if the vines flourish. Come with Me from Lebanon, My Spouse, with Me from
Lebanon”?
You have been up and away! You have gone into the secret places where Christ has shown you His love till you sat under His shadow with great delight—and His fruit has been sweet to your taste. Our experience makes us know that there are heavenly voices that invite prayer and call us to communion. And probably some of you have also been conscious of another voice which I earnestly desire we may all hear tonight, namely, the more martial and stirring call to service for the Lord Jesus Christ! Some of you have been obedient to the call these many years, but it calls louder and louder and louder still! You have been reaping and bearing the heat and burden of the day, but you cannot throw down your sickle, your hands cleave to it. Yes, rather do you take more gigantic strides and sweep down more of the precious corn at every stroke you take! You feel that you can never cease from it till you do—
“Your body with your charge lay down, And cease at once to work and live.”
A voice Divine seems to be calling you and saying, “Follow Me, and I will make you a fisher of men. Behold I have made you a chosen vessel to bear My name unto the Gentiles.” You have heard that voice and you are striving to obey it more and more. Others either have never heard it, or hearing it, have forgotten it. There are none so deaf as those who
will not hear! And there are some who have a very deaf ear to any admonitions of this kind. They are like Issachar—a strong donkey crouching down between two burdens, but yet lifting neither. I fear lest upon them should come the curse of Meroz, because they come not, “to the help of the Lord—to the help of the Lord against the mighty.”
Now, perhaps this evening there are some Christian men or women here that shall feel as if the hand of the Crucified were laid upon them and they will hear Him say to them,” You are not your own. You are bought with a price. Why don’t you glorify God in your bodies and in your spirits, which are His? Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.” The text, I hope, may be blessed of God to be such a voice as that! Listening to it, we notice four things. First, the character under which it calls us, “Son.” Secondly, the service to which it calls us, “go work.” Thirdly, the time for which it calls us, “go work today.” And fourthly, the place to which it directs us, “go work today in My vineyard.”