Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2517
“And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said unto them; go you also into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you. And they went their way.” Matthew 20:3,4.
No parable teaches all sides of the Truth of God. It is wrong to attempt to make a parable run on all fours—it is intended to convey some one lesson—and if it teaches that, we must not attempt to draw everything else out of it. This parable sets forth the great God as a householder going forth to find men to work for Him, but let no man imagine that God needs any of us! He was perfect—perfectly happy and perfectly glorious—long before wings of angels moved in space, or before space and time even existed! God was always and still is self-contained and all-sufficient and if He chooses to make any creatures, or to preserve or use any of the creatures He has formed, that is not because He needs them, or is in the least degree dependent upon them. If God comes forth in wondrous Grace to call any of us to work in His vineyard, it is not because He needs us, but because we need Him. He does not set us to work because He needs workers, but because we need work. He calls us not because He requires us, but because we require to be called.
Let no man, therefore, attach great importance to himself, as though God’s cause or Kingdom depended upon him. It may be that we fancy, sometimes, in our little sphere, that if we were gone, there would be a great gap, but the Lord did very well without us before we were born and He will do just as well when we are dead and gone. His work never really suffers, after all. Workers die, but the work lives on. If any man, therefore, should be so boldly wicked as to suppose that God will be robbed of any of His Glory if he stands out against Him, or that God will suffer because he does not intend to serve Him, he is greatly mistaken! The loss of glory will be your loss, Sir, not God’s, and the loss of benefit will be your loss, not God’s. If He were hungry, He would not tell you, for the cattle upon a thousand hills are His and the world with the fullness thereof. He can effect His eternal purposes without our help and He can as easily effect them even if we choose to resist Him.
He is infinitely greater than we are, so that what I shall have to say to you at this time about our going to work for God in His vineyard is not to be understood as though we could do anything meritorious in the eyes of our Maker, or as if He had any need of us. He is great and glorious, whatever we may be, and it is for our joy, our safety, our everlasting happiness that we should become His servants. It is necessary for the right ordering of our lives, that our hearts may be in tune to yield the music of joy, that we should be tuned by obedience to His will and that we should learn to serve Him. My prayer is that, this very hour, some who have never known our Savior may find Him making Himself known to them and engaging them in His service.
I. I shall begin by asking, first, HOW MAY THE LORD BE SAID TO GO OUT?
Please notice what it says in the first verse of this chapter, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning.” Then it says in our text, “He went out about the third hour.” In the fifth verse, “Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hours.” And in the sixth verse, “And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle.” How may God be said to go out?
This language is used, first, to teach us that the impulse to serve God always comes from God to us. It never comes from within ourselves, first of all. If any man wills to serve God, there was another will which moved his will, or else his will would never have moved towards God. Out of the various men who are mentioned here, no one went to the vineyard, either early in the morning or later in the day, and requested to be employed. The householder came out into the marketplace and engaged his men. At the third hour, the sixth hour and the ninth hour, not one had come of his own free will, but in every case the first overture was from the householder—“He went out to hire laborers into his vineyard.” And at the eleventh hour, though the day was coming to its close, and the sun was almost down, yet even then, men were not wise enough to wish to conclude the day in the right service, but they still remained, as they had been all day, idling in the marketplace until the generous employer came out and expostulated with them and induced them to enter the vineyard. No man ever comes to God till God first comes to him, so it is my earnest desire that the impulses of Divine Grace may be, even now, felt in many hearts! God the Holy Spirit is able to work upon the judgment, the understanding, the affections, the fears, the hopes, the will of men—and as He works upon them, He makes men willing, in the day of God’s power, so that they turn to Him and enter into His service. That is, I think, the first meaning of God’s going out.