Now if any of you are feeling cold, please feel free to get up and take your coat because I'd rather that you feel warm — warm outside and warm inside too. So I see some of you are still in shirt sleeves. So if you feel cold, do please feel free to get your coats. The radiators are boiling right now, but probably because it's so cold outside and the insulation may not be very good in these old buildings, so we are losing a great deal of heat. Just now I touched the radiator and nearly burnt my hand in the process. But still we don't seem to feel much heat over there. But I want to thank you again for this suit that you have given me for Christmas. I hope that you are feasting your eyes upon it as I am. And I want to truly express again my thanks for your love. It's keeping me nice and warm just now in spite of the temperature being somewhat low.
Now today we continue as we study the teaching of the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 20, verses 1 to 16. And you will see that this parable continues with an organic connection to chapter 19 that we have been looking at. And we see the immediate connection to the previous chapter by the word "for" — "for the kingdom of heaven." The "for" being an explanation of the connection with what has preceded. So verse 30 in chapter 19 reads, "But many that are first will be last, and the last first." And we have been expounding this, and so important is this in the Lord's teaching that we have not yet finished our examination or analysis of what the Lord is saying to us here. And you will see that in the last verse of the passage we are reading today, that is verse 16, the same words appear again. So that this parable is an explanation of the meaning of the words, "Many that are first will be last, and the last first." And although we have already expounded somewhat by way of preparation on the meaning of what this means, first and last, we shall have to look more deeply into it now.
So let us look at these verses, chapter 20 of Matthew, verses 1 to 16. And I hope that you have read it at home, but let us now read it together for the benefit of those who were not here before. "For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And to them he said, 'You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.' So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?' They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.' And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last up to the first.' And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it, they grumbled at the householder, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?' — more literally, as you have it in the margin, 'Or is your eye evil because I am good?' So the last will be first, and the first last."
So what do we see here in this parable? As you read this parable, what do you feel? What is your feeling? What is your reaction to this parable? So, when you read it, did you not feel somewhat indignant that those people who had worked the whole day, from morning to night, six o'clock in the morning to six o'clock at night, finally got also only one denarius? I mean, that's not fair, is it? That's not fair. And the other fellows who came in later, and those at the eleventh hour had worked actually only one hour. Only one hour. And they also got one denarius. How did you feel? What is your reaction as you read the parable? That's very important. I would like you clearly and consciously to note your reaction to the parable. How did you react? How did you feel?
Or did you feel very happy? "Oh, the master of this vineyard is so good. It's so good that this poor guy who came in at the end and worked only one hour, he also got one denarius. He got the same as the guy who worked 12 hours." And he said, "Oh yes, the Lord is so good." Was that your reaction? I doubt it. Now, I would like you to note carefully — it's very important that you note carefully — your reaction to the parable. And if you are among the majority, I think you will feel that the owner of the vineyard was not fair. Am I right? I think you are more likely to have your sympathy with the poor guys who worked 12 hours and got one denarius, rather than that your sympathy would be with those people who worked one hour and got the same pay. Not fair.
In other words, you have identified yourself, I think, in most cases, with the poor guys who were first, not with those who were last. They don't really need your pity or your compassion. It's those poor guys who were first. Am I right? Or is your reaction somewhere in between, a little mixed, a mixed reaction? Maybe you felt, "Okay, well, too bad for the poor blokes who came first, but nice for the guys who came last. Not too bad for them." And as for the poor fellows in between, well, they were neither here nor there, but it was not too bad for them, not too good, but either way, they still came off somewhere in between.
How do you react? With which group of people do you identify? This is very important for you to register right now in your mind. Get a clear picture of how you reacted — very honestly now. No fooling around with your feelings and your reactions. Just very honestly, how did you react? Or did you react in a somewhat puzzled way? And if you reacted in a puzzled way, then just note that reaction too. And the reason for all this will become clear as we go along.
What is this parable saying? What is this parable saying to us? All right, we know it has something to do with first, last, last, first — something to do with that in a rather vague sort of way. But what is the parable saying? In order to try to help you along, I'll tell you what some of the commentators say. And you see what you think of the commentators' explanation or commentary on the parable.
And of course, if we talk about commentators, we will go to the greatest authorities on the parable today. For example, Jeremias. Jeremias was professor at the German University of Göttingen in Germany, of course. And his standard work is the work on the parables of Jesus. So he attempts to make some sense of this parable, and finally he comes to the conclusion that it refers to God's goodness. "Is your eye evil because I am good?" So he sees the whole emphasis of the parable as speaking about the goodness of God — goodness to those who are in need, goodness to those who have the lowest places, the last who come. Now that in a nutshell is his view of the parable.
But is that what the parable says? Is that really what the parable says? Does it really tell us anything about the goodness of God? I very much doubt it. Let me put it to you like this. Let us analyze the question. As you read the parable, did really a powerful impression of God's goodness come across to you? Was the first thing that struck you as you read the parable, "Oh, God is so good"? No, not really. I don't think so. Because certainly, immediately you felt that He wasn't good at all, as far as the first group of workers were concerned, was He? I mean, goodness could not be purely a relative matter. Either God is good or He is not good. It cannot be something relative.
And where is God's goodness to be seen in relation to that first group of workers? Was it their crime or their guilt that they were the first people to work? Is there some fault of theirs that they were the first group of people to be hired? Is it a sin to be working all day? On this parable, it seems almost unfortunate that you had the misfortune of being the people who worked the longest hours. That doesn't sound like goodness to us, does it? And because they, for no guilt of their own, because they were eager to work — they were there, they needed the money, of course, to support their families. They were there in the marketplace eager to find a job and they did. And they worked the whole 12 hours and all they got is one denarius, and that is goodness? Where is the goodness to be seen?
Of course, those in the eleventh hour — yes, there you can say something of goodness. But then that goodness, you can say, is a goodness of a declining order. In other words, the goodness is progressively declining, since the first to be paid were those who came last, those at the eleventh hour. They got one denarius, but the goodness gets less and less as we proceed to those who work the longest hours. A very strange definition of goodness, if it is a definition of goodness at all.
So what is Jeremias' point? What point is he making? Where is the goodness? Or are we to understand that God's goodness is only to be understood relatively, relative only to those who, for reasons better known to themselves than to us, worked only one hour? Why did they not work? They said they couldn't get a job. Maybe, but maybe they also arrived late at the marketplace when most of the others had already been employed. The reasons for their being late is not given to us. But I find it difficult to see what it tells us about the goodness of God. There are other parables that truly expound God's goodness, are there not? We don't need a parable like this to say anything about God's goodness. Because here God's goodness is highly selective, and a highly selective goodness based on no sort of justice that we can understand here. It's very hard to understand.
Now if the first group of workers were bad, and therefore they got simply the pay that they deserved, or was agreed upon, we can understand — okay, they were not very good workers. Supposing the parable told us the first group of workers, they worked the whole day, but they were rather lazy. Therefore they got the same pay as the last. Now that makes sense to us. We can understand it. They maybe were there, like so many English workers who got their feet up on the desk, twiddling their fingers, and they said, "I've been here 12 hours." Well, they didn't do any more. The last group of fellows, they came in one hour, they rolled up their sleeves, they really got to it, and they did as much in one hour as these people who did 12 hours, and so they both got one denarius. Fair. Yes, that's fair. That I can understand.
But here are guys who worked 12 hours, and there was no complaint against their work. I'd like you to notice — no complaint against their work. No one has said that they were sipping tea for 12 hours. I mean, they were working there 12 hours. And then they get one denarius, and the guy who came in, maybe he worked just as hard as the other fellow who worked 12 hours, but he worked only one hour. And he gets the same. Goodness? That really is goodness. I don't understand what that is. Can you make head or tail of this? You call that a parable on goodness? Well, frankly, I don't know what Jeremias means. Do you? I think that he is so desperate in trying to find any kind of meaning in the parable that he couldn't come up with anything better than this. And that is the honest truth. He simply could not come up with a better definition. Because this parable, as we go along, you begin to realize, is giving the commentators a real headache. You just don't know what this parable is supposed to be telling us.
And so what do we find if we turn to another great commentator, Schweizer? Professor Eduard Schweizer of Zurich. In his commentary on Matthew, what has he got to say? Well, he comes to virtually the same conclusion as Jeremias. He can't think of a better explanation of this parable, but to say that it expresses God's goodness, God's grace — that He chooses to be good to whom He wants to be good. And if He happens to choose to want to be good to you, then He's going to be good to you. And it doesn't matter whether you deserve it or not. That's not the point. The point is, it's His grace, His unmerited favor.
Is that the point? I doubt it. No. It is His grace to those who have not worked. Well, what's the crime of working? I'd like to know. Is something wrong with working? What crime did these poor guys do that they worked 12 hours? This is a great misfortune. Maybe we should all be lazy, and God's goodness will be particularly kind to us because we are lazy, because then we can inherit God's grace. That's not the biblical definition of grace at all. That sounds to me like utter nonsense.
And what is more, as Manson, another great commentator who has died some time ago — Professor Manson of England, in his well-known work "The Sayings of Jesus" — shows that this explanation of grace against works is not correct at all. Because the truth of the matter is that they all worked. It is not that one worked and another didn't work. They all worked. Except the question is the question of the length of time of who worked. All these five groups of people, whether they were the first group or the third hour, sixth, ninth, or eleventh hour, they all worked. It's not a question that God's grace was to those who didn't work. They all worked. It's only the question of the quantity and extent of the work. That is all. And hence Manson rightly points out, there is no discussion here of whether it's grace or works, because they all worked.
So this really gets us precisely nowhere either. The parable would make sense if we are trying to speak of unmerited grace if none of them had done any work. If the last group of people — they were hired at the twelfth hour, they came straight to the marketplace, and they got one denarius. Ah, now that's grace, because they didn't do a stroke of work, they just walked in. No, no, that's not what the parable is saying at all. And Manson, of course, is right.
And what is Manson's own explanation? Well, Manson is equally confused as the others, because having denied that it is really an exposition of grace at all, since all have worked, then he is left with really no idea of what to say, except to say that it expresses equality. That God treats everyone equally — because all got the one denarius, right? So everyone is equal. No matter how much or how little work you did, God treats all people equally.
That's a very strange exposition too. Because the whole point is that He did not treat everyone equally. The whole point is that the last group of people actually got twelve times more proportionally than those who came in the first group. Where is the equality? That is precisely begging the question. There is no equality there at all. To say that because they all got one denarius, that's equality? That's not equality. Equality would have been there indeed if the last group got one denarius and the first group got twelve denarii. That is equality. Because they work one hour and those work twelve hours — that's equal pay for equal amounts of work, in proportion. What kind of a definition is equality? If the one guy gets one denarius for working one hour and the guy gets one denarius for twelve hours, what's the equality? That is precisely the complaint of the first group, that they are not being treated fairly, that those who are not really equal were being treated as equals for the amount of work they have done or did not do. Where is equality? I don't figure out where is equality.
What is more, what does this so-called equality mean? Do you make any head or tail of this equality? What does it teach us about God? That regardless of how much you sacrifice for Him or how little you sacrifice for Him, He is going to treat everyone equal? Then what's the incentive? We all come at the eleventh hour. You guys want to work twelve hours? Go ahead. Go and sleep. At the eleventh hour, I shall arrive, and then I work one hour because we all get treated equally, right?
It's like the Christians who say, "Oh yeah, yeah, I'm going to live in sin. And then just before I die — well, not too near before I die because I might miss the moment — let us say at the eleventh hour, just sometime before I die, when in my old age I'll become a Christian. And then in the meantime I can go to Las Vegas. I can go with all those dance girls. I can go and gamble. I can sin. I can cheat on income taxes. I can cheat everybody and make my pile. And then just before the end, I will rush in through the church, grab the pastor and say, 'I repent, I repent. I become a Christian now.'" Is this what the parable teaches us? If that's equality, I guess we must — if we are not fools — we must draw that conclusion, surely. I mean, surely, what are we doing here? You're all too young to be here. I mean, wait until the eleventh hour. Wait until you are, say, your hair is getting really, really white up here, you see. Wait until you are about 50 or 60. Hopefully you get there in good shape. And when you are 50 or 60, that's the time to be a Christian at the eleventh hour. Because if you are Christians now, you're going to live a Christian life — grinding, struggling, battling your way to be a Christian, sweating it out, bearing the burden and heat of the day. And in the end, you've got only one denarius. And that guy who enjoyed himself in all the sins of the world, he comes in at the last minute and lo and behold, he got the same thing as you. So what are you struggling for, huh? So you and I must be fools.
What am I doing here, spending my last 20 years preaching the gospel, when my friends are getting rich out there, and these are Christians too. And then they are going to enjoy this world in the meantime, while I slug it out over here serving the Lord in the gospel. And they are going to get the same denarius as I do. That is called equality, justice? This is what this great parable is teaching, right? You say, "Of course not." Surely, if we have any sense left, that's not what the Lord Jesus is teaching. Because the judgment says every man will be judged according to his works. But are we being told that they will not be judged according to our works after all? So where does that leave us?
Now I think you can appreciate the great problem of the commentators. They don't know what to say. So Manson comes to the conclusion that there is really no first and no last, you see. When we say the first shall be last and last first, it's really — first and last are all the same. It's all the same thing. So it's all equality. That's a very strange way to say that everything is the same, by saying the first will become last and last will become first means it's equal. That's a very strange way of talking about equality. And so after this meeting you will all decide that you will come back to church again when you reach 60 years old. It's the eleventh hour. And I will say bye-bye to you and that's it. You say, "Well, because we got the message of this parable now. Now we understand." Well, anyone who knows the Scripture must know — and I don't know how Manson comes to this kind of odd conclusion. But out of sheer desperation, he couldn't think of a better explanation to give.
So let's try the Chinese preachers. Let's try John Sung. Maybe John Sung will shed some great light on this passage for us and we will all begin to see the light of day. "葡萄园的比喻就是叫人做工不要工价，应当为爱主而工作" — "The parable of the vineyard means that you should work for no pay; you should work for the love of the Lord." So John Sung has now come to the conclusion that the parable means this: the parable means that you work for nothing. The idea is that you go to the marketplace and don't look for a job that pays you anything. Or else you go there and you don't think of the money. You just work. That's it. Work for the sake of working, because you do it out of love for God.
Now that really touches us. It touches us because it seems to be so right that we should serve the Lord for nothing. We should be willing to serve the Lord for no pay. We should be willing to do the Lord's work with no sort of reward. That strikes a chord. And that is a very true insight, of course. It is true. No one can deny that it is true that we should be prepared to serve the Lord for nothing. Because after all, He has already given us everything. He has given Himself to us.
Now although this thought and this insight is very genuine — that we should serve the Lord for nothing — we can hardly say that that is an exegesis of the parable. Now the thought itself is true. Just as true to say that God's grace is to us not because of what we have worked. But we saw that that really doesn't derive from this parable. But does the thought that we should be willing to serve the Lord for nothing really come out of this parable? It may come from some other part of Scripture. But I much doubt it comes from this parable. And I'll let you be the judge of that.
Think of the parable again. Do you think the Lord is saying that those guys who came at the first hour, their main guilt was that they came to work in the morning because they wanted to earn a denarius? That was their crime? Is that the point of the parable? Well, certainly not. I mean, who goes — would you go to the labor exchange and say, "Look here, I've come to work here, but I really don't — I didn't come for the pay. I came today to look for employment because I think it is very good for Christians to work. So don't worry about the pay. I mean, I'm willing to work for nothing." What is this? When I speak of the labor exchange, it's the same thing as the marketplace. The marketplace in those olden days was the labor exchange. People went there looking for a job. Have you ever heard of anyone going to look for a job because he doesn't want any pay?
Now maybe if you come from a very rich family and you are one of those, and then of course, I mean, who cares about the pay? I'm here just for the job. Maybe you can afford to, but the people who go to labor exchanges, who go to the unemployment bureau, who go to the marketplace, are people who are there because they have wife and children to feed. Maybe also a poor uncle, maybe also an aunt, they have relatives to feed. They have maybe a whole group of little mouths there waiting for some food to arrive. They can't go — they don't come to the labor market in order to find to work for nothing. I'm not even sure it's commendable that you want to work for nothing. It's a very strange notion to think of.
Now again, remember the thought that we should be ready to work for the Lord for nothing itself is fine. But that thought has nothing to do with the parable. The parable is not speaking about this at all. The parable is about people who are looking for employment, and the reason you go to look for employment is because you need the money to feed your family as well as yourself. And there is no crime in this. Because John Sung's suggestion would be almost that it was wrong for these people to come to look for a job with the intention of earning some money. Presumably they go to look for a job with the intention of just doing a service to the landlord. That's not the point of the parable at all, is it?
Well, if our dear brother John Sung is not helping us at understanding this particular parable, maybe we will try Watchman Nee. Now Watchman Nee, it seems to me, is much nearer the mark, but he states the matter in a somewhat unfortunate way. Watchman Nee — by the way, John Sung I am quoting from Jiang Jingjie, as you may know, his summary of the Old and New Testaments. I should not say exposition, but a summary — not really exposition at all — a summary of the Old and New Testaments. Watchman Nee in his commentary on Matthew says this: a person should always — and this is the point of the parable, he tells us — the point of the parable is that a person should always think of himself as having commenced working at about the eleventh hour, forgetting what he has left behind for the Lord's sake.
Now I should say he is much closer to the mark now. But the way he states it is unfortunate and unsatisfactory for this reason. A person — let me repeat again Watchman Nee's words — "a person should always think of himself as having commenced working at about the eleventh hour." What does this mean? So I arrive at the first hour and I shall spend the whole day trying to imagine that I arrived at the eleventh hour, because he says a person should think of himself as having commenced at the eleventh hour. So what does it mean? So you arrive at the first hour and immediately you start trying to think of yourself as — you work there through the heat and burden of the day — "Really, I only came at the eleventh hour." Is this — are we being taught a piece of self-deception? A kind of mental juggling act? What point is being made? Or you come at the third hour and then you try this same piece of mental trickery. "Yeah, it's true, I came at the — but I will try to think that I came at the eleventh hour." In other words, those eight hours in between is just to be forgotten, presumably. "Forgetting what he has left behind." You see, there is truth in the statement, but the way it's stated — it's an admixture of something false. There is something that doesn't work out properly. And again, I let you be the judge of the matter whether this makes any kind of sense to you. And so the earlier you came, the greater is the piece of mental trickery that you have to play on yourself, as it would seem. That you keep trying to imagine that although you came at an early hour, in fact you only came at the late hour.
Do you understand this statement of Watchman Nee's? But you say to me, "But you said he was nearer the point." It seems to me that he's an awful lot further from the point. No, I understand what he's trying to say, but as I said, the way he states it is most unsatisfactory. Because in the way he states it, it seems to be that being a Christian is a piece of self-deception, and this is very far from the truth. A Christian must, above all things, have the characteristic that he loves the truth. And if I came at the first hour, there is no use for me to pretend that I came at the eleventh hour, because I didn't come at the eleventh hour. That's the fact of the matter. And if I came at the third hour, it's no use for me to try to think that I came at the eleventh hour, because the fact is I did not come at the eleventh hour. All of this is unsatisfactory.
And after all this time you say, "Well, okay, so what does the parable tell us? Where are we?" And presumably all through the last week you have been chewing over this parable since I asked you to read it last Sunday, and you have been thinking, thinking about it, and of course maybe by now you have arrived at some conclusion. You see, this would have been another one of these wonderful assignments to give to the training team to work on. You see, this is the kind of thing that they have to work on. No wonder they spend many sleepless nights sometimes. How to understand this parable? What does it mean? What does it say? By now of course the commentators are utterly frustrated and they are in difficulty. What about us?
Let us look at the parable again. Let us look at this parable. I have already asked you to notice the connection to the previous chapter. And the message in this parable is integrally connected to the whole of chapter 19. But let's try to understand the parable itself in its details.
The working day in those days was not an 8-hour working day as we have today. The working day was 12 hours. A 12-hour working day. That should have done us all a lot of good. Today we work only 8 hours and we have a lot of time to waste. So that's not good for the mental health. No wonder the world in the so-called advanced countries have been swallowing pills and tablets to keep their nerves calm, because I mean, what do you do with the rest of the day? These people, they worked so hard that at night time they were so tired that they don't have to swallow any Valium or any other tablets because they are too tired to think about this. They just get to bed and sleep. And because at the crack of dawn they have to get up again. That's very good for the mental health as well as the physical health. Twelve-hour working day. Isn't that beautiful? So exactly as the Lord Jesus said in John chapter 11, verse 9, "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" Yes. Twelve working hours in the day. That was the day. And this you have to understand in order to understand what it means that people came at the eleventh hour. Because if you work an 8-hour day, of course there is no eleventh hour to come at.
The day in those days started at dawn, at sunrise, and went all the way and didn't finish until the stars came out, the rabbis tell us. In other words, it was more or less a 12-hour working day, from sunrise to sunset. You get up with the sun and you go to bed with the sun. The whole day is work.
And the harvest in this parable, of course, is concerned with a harvest of grapes. Vineyard is what produces grapes. Grapes were a very important staple food and drink for the Jews. Grapes, of course, are a very fine food — rich in protein, in grape sugar, and so forth, not to mention also the excellent taste as well as its energy-sustaining properties. Now because the harvest was very abundant — it is clear from the parable that it was a very abundant harvest — so as the day progressed, as the need increased to conclude the harvest before the winter rain set in, hence as the day progressed, the supervisor of the vineyard saw that he needed extra hands to try to finish the work before the deadline. And hence, after he had already hired the first group, he looked and he saw that they were not going to be able to cope with the amount of work, so he hired a second group to come and help. But as the day progressed, he saw that they still could not finish the harvest. So abundant was the harvest, they still could not finish it before the end of the day. So extra labor was brought in constantly throughout the day to try to finish the work on time. These kinds of occurrences were quite common and not at all difficult for the hearers of the parable to understand.
And so the first group was hired at about five or six in the morning. Then the second group was hired at about the third hour, which was a little before nine o'clock in the morning. And another group was hired at the sixth hour, which was about noontime. Another group was hired at about the ninth hour, which was three o'clock in the afternoon. And the last group was hired at the eleventh hour, about five o'clock in the afternoon. So through all these periods of time, more laborers were brought into the field to do the work.
Also, of course, the reason that some were hired earlier was perhaps that they were earlier at the marketplace. Clearly, not everybody lived the same distance from the marketplace in the village. Some had to come from much longer distances. They had to travel a much longer way. And of course, that means that they could not
# Laborers in the Vineyard — A Diagnostic Parable (Matthew 20:1-16)
Unless you were well-to-do and could afford a donkey or a mule or something to ride in. But most people had to walk. And if you lived, say, ten miles away from the marketplace, you had a very long walk, a lot of ground to cover before you could get to the marketplace. Hence it was clear that people would arrive at the marketplace at different hours.
Now the denarius that we speak about here was the usual wage for a worker in those days. It was quite a reasonable wage. It was not a minimum wage. A minimum wage could be paid — say, some people received only half a denarius. On the other hand, if you were a highly skilled worker, you might receive two of these coins. So the question simply was that you were paid basically according to your skill and your experience, which is the same as today. And that one denarius could be seen as the average working wage for this kind of work.
Now, how then — once we have got the picture of the parable — we see people arriving at different hours at the harvest to harvest the fruit. But what does it all tell us? What is the parable saying to us? We are told that at the end of the day — and in those days people were paid usually at the end of a day's work. This we can read in Leviticus chapter 19, verse 13, for example, or Deuteronomy chapter 24, verse 14, that people were often paid at the end of a day, because there might be no employment the next day. You might not be needed the next day, and you would have to find employment somewhere else. You are paid on a daily basis.
And we are told that at the end of the day, that is when the accounts were to be settled and payment was to be made, that the owner of the vineyard instructed his stewards to begin payment with those who arrived last. Now those who had arrived last had worked for only one hour, so they should have been paid one pondion. A pondion was one twelfth of a denarius. What was their surprise that they were actually paid a whole denarius, twelve times what they expected. So the next group was thinking, "Wow, these guys got one denarius, and they worked — well, we worked, what is it, from three in the afternoon until now, so we have worked about three hours, so maybe we'll receive three denarii." And they also got one. And the guys at noontime had worked six hours, they thought maybe they will get six denarii, and they got also one. And so it goes through.
Now what then is the parable telling us? Let us go back to the beginning. When I asked you to study your reaction to how you felt about this parable when you read it, that's very important. What was your reaction when you read it? How you react to this parable depends entirely on who you identify with. Who did you identify with? Did you identify with the first group of people? Did you identify with the second, the third, the fourth? Or did you identify with those who were last in the parable? Who did you identify with?
Now, if you had identified with the first group of people, you would have felt a sense of indignation, a sense of anger, a sense of injustice, because this is no way to treat the people who had worked the whole day. Now if you want to be kind, then at least be kind in a fair proportion. But don't be just kind in a selective sort of way that makes no kind of sense. Did you feel that way? Or did you feel moderately indignant? You would say to yourself, the owner of this vineyard is probably one of these nutcases, a nutty, eccentric guy, you know. I mean, he just says, "Well, can't I do what I want with my money?" Well, who can argue with that? Of course you can do what you want, but at least do it with some sort of justice. Do it with some sort of fairness. Who's arguing that you can do what you want with your money? No, no, that's not even the point of the discussion. The point of the discussion is, do what you want with your money, but do it fairly.
How did you feel? Did you feel somewhat indignant, but thought, "Well, we'll let it pass, because this steward is a bit of a nutcase." Or did you feel very joyful? "Oh, so nice. Oh, it's so nice. You know, the poor guy worked only one hour. He has a wife and children to feed at home. I mean, how can he feed his wife and children with one pondion, one-twelfth of a denarius? I mean, how can he survive from this kind of money? It is so good. It is so good that the owner of this vineyard gave him the full day's pay so that his children don't have to be hungry that night. It's so good." Is that the way you felt? Or was it some kind of confused reaction between all of these?
Or by now you are saying to me, "Why are you asking all this?" Because this parable is the most remarkable parable. It is the most remarkable parable. I've been expounding the teaching of the Lord Jesus systematically now for ten years. And the more I study — of course I preached a long time before that too, but I'm saying expounding the teaching of the Lord Jesus systematically for ten years — and the more I study the teaching of the Lord Jesus, the more I am amazed. As I said last week, what I find as I study the teaching of the Lord Jesus, that no man ever spoke like this man. It's incredible. He is able to use teaching in a way that no man has ever been able to use it. He's been able to achieve a certain result with His teaching that no man can even understand that method, let alone use it.
Well, you say, "Well, why are you waxing eloquent about this? Are we still in the dark?" You see, the point of this parable is that it is a diagnostic parable. What is a diagnostic parable? Well, you know what diagnosis is. Diagnosis is to diagnose what is the kind of disease. That is what a doctor does when he diagnoses you. You come in with a certain pain or a certain feeling and he asks you what is it you feel, and he diagnoses your condition from your description of your own feeling, of your own pains, of your own condition. He diagnoses you. A diagnostic parable is most remarkable. This parable is designed to reveal what you really are. To reveal what you really think. To reveal, in other words, your attitude, your character. It is specifically designed to expose your thinking. That's what it is there to do. And when we don't understand that, we never understand this parable at all. This parable is remarkable because it reveals your thinking. That's why I said right at the beginning, take careful note of how you feel as you read this parable.
Now in the parables of the Lord Jesus, there are many kinds of parables. There are descriptive parables that describe certain situations. There are prophetic parables that prophesy of things to come. There are all these different kinds of parables. But this is one parable which is remarkable in its character because it's diagnostic. You see, there is, in Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12 particularly, it tells us that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing into the depths of your heart, discerning your thoughts and your intentions. Now I know of no parable that does this so uniquely as does this parable. This parable pierces into your thoughts like the sharp two-edged sword, the Word of God, exposing your thinking, showing you like a mirror what you really are. Just look at yourself in the parable. There you will see it. You can diagnose your own condition. You can take your own spiritual temperature and see what your temperature is like. Unique. Unique parable. Nothing like it at all.
Now you felt indignant if you identified yourself with the first group. Let me ask you a question. Why did you identify with the first group? Why? Do you have the answer to that? I doubt it. Were you in the first group? Did you work the 12 hours? No? Then why did you identify with the first group? Can you find the answer to that? Or did you identify with the second or third group? Why did you identify with those groups? Were you in the vineyard? No. Then why did you identify with that group? Remarkable, isn't it? We don't really know the answer to that at this stage.
Why did you identify with the last group? If you felt happy about the last group, why did you identify with that group? You were not in the vineyard working there and yet you identified with that group. The few of you that did, and I think very few if I'm not mistaken. But why did you identify with that group? The answer lies deep down in your own heart. The answer is not in the parable. The answer is in you. This parable has just opened up your heart like a sharp two-edged sword, like a surgeon's knife, exposing your thoughts and asking you, why did you identify with this group or that group? Why? The reason is in your own heart. Or did you have a mixed reaction? If so, that tells you also your own condition. That you are somewhere on the fence. You are not in a good position at all. You are still a wishy-washy type of Christian that has not made up your mind where you are.
Now, please notice that this parable speaks in the first instance to Christians. It is not speaking to a non-Christian. There is nothing there to diagnose. To diagnose, you have to be spiritually alive. You do not diagnose a dead man; there is nothing to diagnose. If you have spiritual life, then you can diagnose the condition of that life, if there is life. Now, why do we say it has to do with Christians? Because we are talking about a vineyard. We are talking about the owner of the vineyard, who, as all commentators agree, is a picture of God Himself. He is the owner of the vineyard. And those who work in His vineyard are those who have been called by Him. He went to the marketplace and called us. We responded to that call. We are talking about people who have been called. And every Christian, as you know from the New Testament, has been called — called with a holy calling. Every Christian is therefore, under scriptural definition, a Christian worker. As Peter tells us, we are all servants of God, not just pastors and preachers. You are a servant of God if you are a Christian — that is, if you are a true Christian. You work in His vineyard or ought to be working in His vineyard.
And so, what does it reveal to you? It reveals that this parable is speaking to us as Christians, telling us what is our reaction to God's Word. What is our response to His Word? I wonder if you felt the response was one that you can be happy about. Are you among the few people who responded with joy because you identified with the eleventh hour? Perhaps not. Maybe you were among the many who identified with the first group and felt that they were being unfairly treated. Or, again, are you somewhere on the fence in between? There is no neutral ground in spiritual life. And if you were somewhere in between, your condition is not good.
Now, notice carefully, and we must conclude in a moment because we cannot finish our analysis today. And because of the depth of this parable I've had to proceed very slowly because I didn't want to lose you along the way and then you couldn't follow what it was all about. I wanted to take it slowly step by step so that you understood precisely what the Lord is teaching here.
Look carefully at those who are first and note their attitude. What is the key element of the attitude of those who are in the first group? Well, we see here particularly the key element is envy. Verse 15: "Is your eye evil because I am good?" You see, the term "evil eye" — the eye being evil — is simply an idiom in the Bible for envy, jealousy. "Are you jealous? Are you envious because I am good? Because I am generous?" They are all upset. Why are they upset? Verse 12 tells us, because the others who came later were made equal with them. They found this very unfair. "This is not equality at all. You are making those equal with us who are really unequal." And hence their bitterness, their jealousy, their envy. They are grumblers. They grumble. Verse 11 tells us they grumbled.
Remember when we studied in the previous sessions, we saw the Lord Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. And I expounded to you at that time the camels are the most bad-tempered animals they are around in this world. They are grumblers, murmurers, bad-tempered creatures. And here we see them again. You see the internal connection of all these passages? These are the camels who cannot get into the kingdom any more than a camel can get through the eye of a needle.
Now the attitudes are the most important things in life. There is nothing more important than attitudes in life. Because attitude is character. You have a certain attitude, therefore you react in a certain way, because your character is of a certain kind. If you belong to this first group of people, then you inevitably react in this particular way because that's your character — to react. Remember my question I asked you: why did you identify with this group or that group? There is no answer to that question because none of you actually were in the vineyard, yet you were able to identify with some group or other in the parable. Why? Because your character matches the reaction of those people. This is the depth of this parable. It reveals your character. Your reaction, your attitude tells us what kind of a person you are.
And the most important things in life are the things which have to do with attitudes, because it tells people and tells us ourselves what we are, what we think, and why we behave in the way we do. This is the reason why a change of attitude is the most profound kind of change that can take place in any person. A change of attitude — because it means a change of mind, and this results in a change of character.
It is the wrong attitudes that result in breakdowns of relationships. I mean, think, for example, of the relationship between a husband and wife that can't get on. It is not a question of who is right, who is wrong. The question is, what are the attitudes of these people? And that is where the evaluation becomes so difficult. It is somebody or both have wrong attitudes, and because of these wrong attitudes, the marriage can utterly break down. It just cannot go on, it cannot continue because the attitudes are fixed, and when these fixed attitudes are in conflict, you have big trouble. Or take your relationship to your parent, or your parent's relationship to you. How is it? Is it full of tension? It will be full of tension because their attitudes or your attitude or both your attitudes are wrong. Human relationships are entirely governed by attitudes. It either causes the breakdown of relationships or it causes these relationships to be sound. That is the point of it all.
And this is the whole point also of our relationship to God. What is your attitude to God? That is determined by your attitudes. And that is why becoming a Christian is a change of attitude. It is not just a question of believing this or believing that. Believing this and that is no use if it doesn't change your attitude. Becoming a Christian, as Paul says, is to become a new person. And what is a new person? A new person is a person whose mind is changed. As Paul says in Romans chapter 12, verse 2, "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind." Renewal of mind means all your way of thinking — your attitudes change completely.
Hence you can see that this parable reaches right down to the very basics of the Christian life. It tells us whether you have changed or you have not changed. Have you changed? The Lord Jesus is not interested whether you have made a profession of faith or not. The question is, have you changed or not? Because if you have changed, then you are a real Christian. If you have not changed, then you are not a Christian. Becoming a Christian means repentance. What does repentance mean? The very word metanoia means a change of mind. Repentance is a change of attitude. Before you didn't mind sinning; now you are grieved at sinning. That is a fundamental change of attitude. Before you didn't mind hurting somebody; but now you are grieved to hurt somebody. That is a change of attitude.
Becoming a Christian is nothing unless it means this profound inner change. The renewal of your mind, as Paul calls it. That is what becoming a new creature means. That is what being born again means. Born again means nothing if it just means I raised my hand and I professed faith. That is nothing, unless there is this change. And the most touching, the most profound experiences in human life have to do with changes of attitude. When a husband and wife, for example, have been at each other's throats for all their married life, because of a change in attitude towards one another, are able to love each other in a new and deeper way — this kind of reconciliation just brings tears to our eyes. When we can see two enemies embrace one another again, what a change of attitude. It just causes tears to run down our face. We are touched by these profound changes. When parents could not get on with the children, and children could not get on with the parents, but now they are reconciled — we are touched by this change of attitude.
And that's what conversion is. That is what becoming a Christian is. It means that whereas you were once self-centered and selfish, now you change completely. Your whole attitude undergoes a revolution. The first becomes last, the last becomes first. That is revolution. Everything changes. The attitudes change. And that is what becoming a Christian is about.
A diagnostic parable it is. I hope that you know yourself a lot better as a result of reading this parable. But we will have to continue into the meaning of this the next time as our time is gone. And so deep, so profound is the Lord's teaching that it takes a lot of time to expound it clearly. And it takes so many times to go through it in its riches. But for today we must close at this point.
Let us be quiet before God in prayer.